VILLAIN Fest- March 2016

[dialecticdreamer]

Stories are built of many elements, but one of the most recognizable is the villain. Instead of focusing our attention on the hero, or the central obstacle, let's work on creating new and distinctive villains. What kind of story do you prefer to tell? If it's a comedy, you need a different villain than in a drama, and in the newest age of sequels (serialization with bigger budgets!) the best villains are sturdy enough to return for another round.

This month's bingo fest is about the people who oppose the heroes, or the established culture they live in. We measure a villain by their deeds relative to a standard, after all. But what makes a good villain? Motivation? Dedication? Focus and drive? So far… they sound like a mirror image of a well-written hero. Is that a story you want to explore?

Here are some ideas to bring your villains to life, while the words in capitals are meant to spark more unusual ideas within that category. What does your villain focus upon? Magneto wants equal rights for mutants, then a separate, independent nation for them. What is your villain's motivation? A punch-clock villain is usually a low-level party in a larger organization, rather than a one-person crime wave. Is your villain working from a position of authority, or against it? How much power they have and how they use that power can be crucial to balancing the threat they represent in your story.


MOTIVATION, greed, revenge, anarchy, nihilism, proving the impossible, conquest, hatred, love, fear,

INTEGRITY, lying, deceitful, honest, manipulative, ethical, ruthless, principled, unbending, selfish,

POWER, underdog, tyrant, sycophant, abusive, slave, invisible, leader, ruler, privilege,

AUTHORITY, rebel, legal, justice, guerrilla, terrorist, imposter, official, government, police,

FOCUS, local, city-wide, nation, worldwide, theme, sphere of influence, need, cultural, spiritual,

The free space on the public card is one of the most common motivations for villains today: MONEY.

If you want to generate your own card, go to the Owomoyela Bingo Generator and paste in the words from “motivation” through “spiritual,” then remove the returns which made different paragraphs, and edit out any words you don't want to come up on your card at all. Set your size and the central square contents, then click “Make sample card.” I find it helpful to save both the presented table and the html code for an individual card.

For anyone who posts a bingo fill, I'll generate a banner for this month, customized with the winner's name (and favorite color, so please make note of it when you post your bingo). My “usual” form of bingo is any five squares, rather than a row or column, so let's take some more pressure off and make this the default for this month's bingo card.

The sample card for March 2016:

anarchy	unbending	tyrant	justice	leader
selfish	police	slave	greed	guerrilla
INTEGRITY	deceitful	MONEY	sphere of influence	POWER
nihilism	conquest	legal	nation	sycophant
theme	impostor	invisible	cultural	revenge

Comments

*laugh*

[ysabetwordsmith]

I can't resist commenting on this ...

>>in the newest age of sequels (serialization with bigger budgets!) the best villains are sturdy enough to return for another round.<<

My first thought was, you'll have to make them out of something other than cardboard! :D And then I imagined a disgruntled-looking hero dragging around one of those Halloween cutouts, all beat up and waterlogged. Then there's, you know, Professor X laughing his ass off with one arm draped around an uncomfortable, 90-year-old Magneto.

>>But what makes a good villain? Motivation? <<

I'm gonna go with motivation. Sure, I have lots of different origin stories and descriptions and fascinating traits. But look at TV Guide's rote recital of a lame half-dozen recycled motivations, then look at this list.

The one supervillain I have explicitly motivated by rape? Is a woman, and it wasn't hers.

>>How much power they have and how they use that power can be crucial to balancing the threat they represent in your story. <<

My stance is that there are no overpowered protagonists, only underpowered opposition. You want godlike powers? Here, this sun is about to go nova, fix it. Dr. Infanta is trying to keep a lid on an entire planet worth of mayhem. She needs every scrap of resource she can get, poor kid.

Now I am off to make a card! :D

Re: *laugh*

[dialecticdreamer]

That was kind of my point about the cardboard villains. Only a few series have even had the SAME villain for more than one segment recently, which is just plain SAD.

I wanted to spark questions, rather than narrow the players' thinking, so imagine what can be done with all of the ideas I left out!

Re: *laugh*

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> Only a few series have even had the SAME villain for more than one segment recently, which is just plain SAD. <<

It used to be that a great rogues gallery was the sign of a great hero. Now villains are treated like kleenex, take one and pass the box. >_<

Of course, I have a different problem with villain decay, especially in Terramagne. So many of mine wind up sliding toward good! And the real whackjobs tend to get themselves killed.

Re: *laugh*

[dialecticdreamer]

One of the things I had hoped for in "The Flash" television series was the great rogue's gallery he had. "You're off your meds again?"

The only two halfway decent villains are now the BEST thing about "Legends of Tomorrow."

Re: *laugh*

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>One of the things I had hoped for in "The Flash" television series was the great rogue's gallery he had. "You're off your meds again?"<<

Yeah, regrettably they haven't done much doubling back, it's been almost all one-show-and-go. :( Except for Captain Cold.

>>The only two halfway decent villains are now the BEST thing about "Legends of Tomorrow."<<

Point. I have to admit that I liked how they handled Peekaboo during the big breakout. As soon as the fight starting to go pear-shaped, she said, "Screw this, I'm outta here!" and poofed away -- which is exactly how most teleporters handle conflict. They scram.

Re: *laugh*

[dialecticdreamer]

Sometimes I wonder if super powers SHOULD focus according to someone's personality. Then what that could MEAN just scares me silly!

Re: *laugh*

[ysabetwordsmith]

I write them that way, but not only that way. It depends a great deal on how the power manifests in the first place.

* Natal powers almost always match personality, because the two develop together. To a lesser extent this is true of powers emerging at puberty or young adulthood.

* Powers that grow in slowly almost always match personality, because the trigger is something the person just keeps pushing as hard as they can, for years. It's how Olympic athletes or quantum physicists power up, for example.

* Hereditary powers may or may not match personality -- you get what your family has to give -- but like ordinary talents, the support and familiarity are all around, so most of the time it's a match, barring the occasional black sheep.

* Whereas hereditary powers tend to be specific at least to a cluster of related abilities, there are a lot of different genetic predispositions that can add up to what's called "latent potential." Terramagne is not like Marvelverse with a single X-gene. This creates a very malleable core that can manifest in different ways, depending on the activating factor(s).

* Traumatic manifestation almost always matches the problem. That is, you get what will help you survive. This is often, but not always, well suited to your personality.

* Abilities bestowed by a higher power always match the entity's own sphere of influence, and they strongly tend to choose recipients with similar interests. But not ... quite ... always.

* The lowest rate of compatibility is with abilities bestowed by an object or substance which creates a specific imprint.

Some of these are limited and can only activate people with a compatible potential, as with Miradoir's artifact: it can unlock a variety of superpowers, but if you don't have the potential for any of those, it can't help you. If you have the latent potential for Super-Immunity, then the Aegis vaccine base will activate that on first contact; most people don't even notice it happening.

Others can staple their powers onto anyone, which is very rare -- like the glop Derrick and Blitz crawled through which gave everyone Telepathy. More often the effect is erratic: a lot of people get sick, a handful die, a few gain superpowers. What happened with the berettaflies is a good example. Within that range, however, the powers often refract along the lines of personality: Ashley the goth with deadly venom, Tsubasa with soul powers, and the more gregarious Adalina as the queen with Hive Mind.