With Halloween not far away, it seems a fitting time to honor the bad guys of fiction, without whom there wouldn't be much of a story. Without a worthy foe, a hero is just another joe.
It's not hard to come up with a character whose wants are in direct opposition to those of our protagonist. The trick is creating a bad guy to whom the reader can relate, a connection which inherently increases the fear factor. To see ourselves reflected in a villain can be quite disquieting.
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| Hungry Hungry Hannibal |
We may think of the Wicked Witch of the West as
little more than the green face of evil. But I'd be a little miffed too
if someone dropped a house on my sister. And I don't even have one.
Captain Hook's beef with Peter Pan goes way
back, but wasn't helped by the fact that the very reason he has a hook is
because of Peter. Avenging an injustice, again, can be a powerful
motivator.
More recently, a pivotal character in The
Fault in Our Stars seems at first to have no redeeming qualities until
the cause of his unsociable behavior is revealed. A look at most of the classic movie monsters —
presumably the most heinous of the horde — reveals a deep-seated humanity,
often that of a misunderstood or tortured soul. From the Wolfman to the
Frankenstein creation that started it all, most were innocent recipients of
their lot in life. Quasimodo and The Phantom of the Opera are at their core
pathetic figures deformed by life and a lack of love. 
We do well whenever we can cast a villain who is more than a cardboard cutout of crime. The more relatable he is, the more we sympathize with him, and the more real he becomes.
Basically, we love a villain who has a
heart. As long as it's not someone else's.
