(05-27-2015, 03:40 AM)K Wrote: Someone mentioned it earlier, that a good villain needs to believe that they're doing right, and I agree. In their minds, the heroes are foolishly resisting a plainly obvious truth.
That seems like a misconception to me. Not every villain has to think they're doing the right thing to be a complex and likable character. I'm not talking one-dimensional psycho villains either. Those are the worst.
Here's an example: Magneto
Magneto, when written by certain writers, knows he's being a bad person. He knows he has the power to do great things, and he really would like to, but he accepts what he does as a necessity of the world he lives in. It doesn't change the fact that he is conscious of his own wrong-doing.
You could argue "He still thinks he's doing right" but that's not necessarily true. He thinks he's doing what is required of him, as a man with the power he has. It doesn't make it right, and he knows that. He was a Holocaust survivor and he is fully aware of the horror of killing innocents. But he has done it.
The entire argument of "your villain has to believe he or she is doing right" is an over-simplification that has been around for far too long. Your villain can absolutely be conscious of his or her own evil, and still be human. Not all villains are delusional.
Another example: Captain Nemo
Nemo is tricky as he is both a hero and villain in his own story. He sinks ships of sailors he doesn't know, and who physically can not harm him, because they wave the British flag. He feels awful about it. He knows it isn't right. But he's too far down the rabbit hole to turn back. He's both a man of science and a creature of emotion and it stirs deep conflict within him.
Making a believable character is a complicated matter, and filling them with tropes harms their RP potential and the potential for RP around you.
Edit: Ozymandias, another villain who knows they're doing great evil. There's a big difference, that people seem to ignore, between a character who believes they're doing the right thing and a character who believes they're doing the wrong thing but are somehow validated. The subtlety lies in how they handle it. And I don't mean screaming "What have I done?!"
Don't follow simple steps that sound "deep" to create an idea. Use your imagination. It's how good stories are told.
