Crazy as I am, I like my villains deliciously evil. I personally like them; insanely crazy,
driven, sexy, a beauty or a beast, overly intelligent, powerful, and deeply wounded. It’s a villain I loooove to hate and never
want to meet personally, but one I want the hero to take down and blow away.
I was thinking about which villains stood out in mind for
the sole purpose of how to model them for the villain in my story.
Here are the ones that I came up with:
Mattie Walker in Body
Heat
Delores Umbridge in Harry
Potter
Annie Wilkes in Misery
Alex Forrest in Fatal
Attraction
Hannibal Lecter in Silence
of the Lambs
Norman Bates in Psycho
Lord Voldermort in Harry
Potter
Palpatine in Star Wars
The Evil Queen in Snow
White and the Huntsman
I thought the character of Mattie Walker in Body Heat was such a great villain
because I didn’t expect her to be. But,
right from the start she knew what she wanted and would do anything to get
it. Anything. She manipulated the hero using her strength against
his weakness spinning a web he couldn’t resist or get out of. Yummy
We all know the story of Snow White, but never was there an
evil queen as portrayed by Charlize Theron in the new Snow White movie.
What I come away with in this brief study is the best
villains are not just dark and scary, but intrinsically layered with deep
desires, a complete disregard for others, creating an attraction and loathing towards
them from the viewer/reader. Oh, and by the way, my villain is a woman.
What are your all-time favorite villains?
Till next time,
Elizabeth
