The Villain Protaginist: But why? · 12:33am Jun 14th, 2017
Everyone loves a good villain, so they say. What gets lost is, that isn't the whole thing. Everyone loves a good villain, who loses. Know what happens when they win? Probably can't get direct experience, because the ones who experienced it probably died screaming. Death and mayhem are how the villain is tallied, and we elevate them higher because of it. Weirdly, we're taught to forgive certain classes of villain. Robber barons? Job creators. Ignore the Pinkerton mercenaries, collapsed dams and the Triangle Shirtwaist fire. Slave masters? Job creators, and refined gentlemen of high breeding and unimpeachable quality. Religious zealots? Dedicated people sacrificing for their deeply held beliefs. Sacrificing other people.
Yahweh is a fictional character. He's also supposed to be a hero. He isn't, by any stretch of the imagination. Give his acts and qualities to a random other title and people proclaim him a monster. He has apologia out the wazoo to protect him. Yahweh is the ultimate villain protagonist. And he's not even that well-written. He's actually a terrible character, because there was a fanfiction thing going on where any canon elements were swapped around or changed as needed but he was supposed to be one character in one work. He used to be the son of a more supreme god, he also had a wife, and was weak against iron chariots and may or may not have been a volcano before becoming more or less an air/sky god with occasional thunder elements, a kind of Western Tengri.
If I look through the eyes of the villain, I certainly don't see him has the protagonist, I see him as a usurper. His place is oppositional. Call him the hero if he's the star. Cultural relativism and its proponents have conquered the world enough that might makes right if a villain says it does and we're obliged to give him our wallets.
I wrote a villain protagonist once. He was both at different times and in different contexts. He PLAYED a villain, and he was a protagonist (maybe a deuteroagonist depending on if you think he or Hephzibah is the true star). He played a villain strictly to be defeated. Lack of defeat would mean his culture was poisoned. He had to be defeated.
Let's defeat villains. We don't need them. And we really don't need to read about them. End the apologia. We don't need to read about Ysgramore, Sheeogorath (and we really don't need his strawman version of mental illness as a dangerous thing that is always homicidal schizophrenia), the Joker, or Yahweh.
(I would love if everyone to contemplated John Rawls' Veil of Ignorance, but when you construct the world on the other side, imagine if there is one certain thing: Darth Vader exists. And then try it again, but Sephiroth exists. And again, but Sheeogorath exists. Finally, repeat, but this time all of them are designated protagonists and the heroes fail because they're designated antagonists. Enjoy that. I'm going back to this new spate of writing energy.)
Well...
Only really works well where everyone else is a different level of villain.
Dark elves for instance or chaos space marines
It's all about perspective. Firstly, the idea of a 'villain' protagonist is almost like an oxymoron, because villains are inherently antagonists. Let's call them 'malicious' protagonists. I think that better defines the class of character. A protagonist that is not a good person. Personally, I enjoy a good malicious protagonist from time to time, though to be fair, there aren't a whole lot worth note, probably because it's rather atypical. But anyway, it comes down to perspective. When the focus of the story is on the feelings of the protagonist, and not so much on their actions, I think it is possible to work out quite well. After all, any good fiction is essentially a good human interest story (or pony interest). If you have a malicious protagonist and the story only focuses on how much of an asshole he is (or how badass a villain he is), the human element is lost, and story will probably be crap.
Take Clockwork Orange for example, malicious protagonist. He's a thief, rapist, and ultimately a murderer. But the story is told of his struggles, and you feel sorry for him. And then, like many protagonists, he changes, and becomes not-so-malicious.
First thing that poped into my head MINIONS KILLS SHIT AND PISS ON CARCUS
The villains you chose don't have any reason or motivation to be evil. They're really just bad for evil's sake. You don't really root for Sephiroth or Sheogorath. You root for a villain that has a goal that seems noble. Take, for instance, Lord Genome of Gurren Lagaan. Dude was oppressing human civilization and tormenting humans like nobody's business. What a dickhead, right? Well, turns out he had good reason to do so, since a universe-warping super-race would descend upon Earth should humanity's population grow too large. Fuck.
Yet another example I could think of would be the evil path for Cole McGrath in Infamous 2. You can use a machine to activate the abilities of all human Conduits around the world, but in the process it would kill all of the powerless humans. A devastating plague is killing humans, but Conduit humans are immune to its effects. You can push humanity into a new age and save it in one swoop. It makes you question the correct choice.
A good villain is one that has motive, a clear goal in mind that either only they can see or only they believe they can complete. Good villains have depth and feel real. The hero doesn't always have to have depth. He's the hero. What more needs to be said? Heroes generally right what is turned wrong, while villains turn what is right into wrong. As the active force and not the reactive force, villains have the burden to be interesting. When the hero looks up and asks "why", then the villain better have a solid fucking answer.
Legacy of Kane would like to remind you that 'good' villain protagonists exist.
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If I hold you at weapon point and tell you to pull a lever and send a train car onto a siding where three people will be crushed to death, while not pulling will crush one person, did you actually make a choice if you pulled? Also, did you explain to everyone what happened? Yahweh's great failing is inscruiability, explaining nothing and relying on childish faith. It would seem villains just don't explain things. "Maintain low populations, things are out there," then accept the choices made. Externally imposed conditions may muddy the waters a bit but not a lot.
Personally, I accept the idea that villains might be disposable. Necessarily so. If you can find it, I suggest the one-page comic "Divorcing Superman" by Kjartan Arnorsson. I also suggest the thought experiment of seeing a fictional world from inside itself, then seeing what kind of person you would be for choosing the things you do.
I highly enjoy the Cersei chapters in the A Song of Ice and Fire books. She's a sociopath and completely detached from reality, even from the reality of her own emotions. I find the idea to have one of the PoV characters be criminally insane and then show his insanity from the inside appealing. Of course, it needs contrast - but I think GRRM does that really well. Cersei also almost certainly won't be the one who wins in the end.
I have nothing against portraying a nitty-gritty world where the situation is dire and the antagonists have overall better cards in hand. I also don't oppose the idea of showing the villain's perspective as well. I think what's important is that you need to have contrast. If your villain PoV ends up being the actual protagonist or ultimate, undisputed victor of your series, you're probably doing something wrong. (Although it kind of works in comedy. Pinky & The Brain is a good example. But even there you have contrast.)
Incidentally, I also like to have at least some characters who are complex and conflicted. I have no problem with shining heroes or dastardly villains per say, but if that's all a writer can do, he might have a problem. In reality, there are a few saints and a few criminally insane people, but the majority of people are pragmatists - and that can lead to a lot of interesting conflicts as well.