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Ok, last week was the week of lists. Everyone on Cant cashed in on the
easy cheesy list o' thon -- and I missed out. Well, fine. Today's the
day I catch up; I present my list of absolute musts for bad guys.
Now if you've got a bad guy in a movie or a book (or a play, or a
puppet show, or maybe you just think you'd like to try it out as a
career opportunity) there are a few things you really have to nail.
Absolute musts:
They've got to talk like a masterclass villain. I don't care if
they're longwinded Shakespearian types, or your short brutal word of
death types -- they need to deliver that sentence of doom that makes
the innocent, the heroes, and even the audience just give up hope.
Raison d'etre. Being a world conqueror takes a lot of
effort. It's not just a hobby, it's a lifestyle. Sure, power is a
laudable goal, we understand that mentally, but make us feel it. Why
does this nutzbar want shape the world in his own image? Even if the
goal isn't world domination, show us the pain, show us why the means
justifies the ends. (1)
Give that villain a lair. It doesn't have to be an actual
cave. It can be anything; a home, an office, a burning field. This guy
(or gal) is impressive, and the best way to see that is to have the
audience see how he effects the environment he lives in. Vader had his
death star (huge, dominating, vaporizing things that annoyed him), Von
Doom has his Latveria (huge, mysterious, fear-locked), and Lector had
his cells (spartan yet epicurean). If he can't make an impact on the
place he lives, he isn't going to make an impact on the audience.
Common mistakes:
Gadgets. Unlike bases, a good villain doesn't need gadgets. Hell,
most characters don't need gadgets. The best use a gadget can be put
to is to extend a character's personality, and then left by the
roadside (2).
Minions. A bad guy without minions is like a tapioca without
raisins. It's still tasty and makes for a nice surprise at the end of
the day. Some authors throw in minions just because they like the
sound of the word (3), some of
them throw 'em in because they want something easy for the hero to
plow through. Gah. Even when a minion is used as Doctor's companion
(4), you're still just short
changing the audience. A good villain needs no verbal sounding
board... What's wrong with ranting at the hero, or the public? What's
wrong with muttering to himself?
A death toll doesn't bring respect. Any idiot can open fire on a
bunch of people with a semi-automatic weapon, and every third rate
villain or sidekick has offed the hero's old friend. A death alone
doesn't do it, you need to make sure that the audience must know that
the villain is committed to the end, and is willing to do horrible
things to get it done. We don't care jack or didly for the hero's old
friend, and the junior grade actor you're going to get to portray the
hero certainly isn't going to be up to the task of emoting the pathos
of the loss.
i,jasona
1) ... and damn it, if your not going to give us any
reason, at least be a master about it. Make it Hitchcockian -- torment
us with the fact that we'll never know. You don't have to be blatant
about it, but make a stand between the lines that it's something that
man (sane man) can never know. If you're going to leave it at "he
does it because he's evil" I'm going to box you up and mail you
back to your elementary school.
2) For some reason Predator has been mentioned by a couple of
Cant authors recently... I'll follow their lead. That chain gun that
Jesse Ventura hulks around -- does it ever come to good use?
Militarily? no. But it does a great job twice. First -- it gives us a
great look at Jesse's character; that he'd carry around this massively
overkill cannon just for the flagrant usage of it's power. Second --
that the Predator can't be touched by the best weapon that the humans
brought to the battle. The humans and the audience are just blow away
by the devastation that the weapon brought, and that it didn't make a
scratch on the beastie (ok, so it did scratch it, big deal, only a
flesh wound).
3) Ok, this is my big reason for using minions in my
writing. There are just some words that hit my buttons. Necromunda.
Isabella Rossellini. Minions. Say it with me... minions.
4) The "Doctor's companion" is a storytelling device made
popular by the Dr. Who series. If you have a brainiac
protagonist (or antagonist), who has just thought of something to save
the day, you need some bozo to ask him what the hell he's doing so that
the audience can overhear. If that's his whole shtick, well, damn,
give him a companion that's going to ask him annoying questions
non-stop so that the audience knows everything the hero's up to.
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