Is your Villain more interesting than your Hero?

There has been an interesting trend in literary media in the past few years. Villains are no longer allowed to have a simple motive like “I want to rule the world” or “I will revenge myself on everyone”. Villains are now shown to see themselves as the good guys; which only makes sense, when you think about it. A villain who is a human being should be a mixture of good and bad traits. It is the conflict this mixture creates that makes a villain interesting.

Think about the greatest villain to come out of the movies in the past fifty years: Darth Vader. When we first meet him, he is just tall, dark and menacing. As the series progressed, we learnt more about him. In fact, I would argue that the six Star Wars movies are more about Darth Vader than they are about anyone else, since he is a central character in all six. What makes Darth Vader/Anakin so interesting? We all know he has a kernel of good in him, and that in the end it is the good in him that wins out.

Disney is right on trend with Maleficent. With that movie, we are given a much deeper look at one of the greatest Villains in the Disney catalogue. This retcon of the original story has our wicked fairy as simply misunderstood, rather than evil to the core. The same thing happened to Frozen, with our Snow Queen no longer a villain but now an anti-hero. I actually like Frozen and Maleficent for presenting us with female hero/anti-hero duos at the centre of these stories, even though I was disappointed with the way the real story of Han Christian Anderson’s Snow Queen was completely obliterated in Frozen. (I would still love to see a Disney version of the Snow Queen.) Their complexity of characterization made the ‘villains’ more interesting than the heroes.

For some reason, storytellers feel they can give their villains some redeeming qualities (which makes their downfall also a tragedy), but won’t give their heroes a few flaws. This is why we all love Marvel’s Loki even though we want Thor to win (and save the world). Thor – as a character in the Marvel universe – isn’t as interesting as Loki. They’ve tried to make him more ‘human’ by giving him a human love interest, but he is still a much less complicated character than Loki. And even while we are cheering when the Hulk is waving Loki around like a flag, even after he has torn our hearts out by killing Agent Coulson, we still feel sympathy for this character. Thor is white bread; Loki is a fruit and nut loaf. I don’t know about you, but I prefer texture and flavour over blandness.

So, do you find that your villains are more interesting than your heroes? How can we fix that? Most Young Adult Fiction overcomes this by have an angst-ridden loner as the protagonist of the story. And another way is to give your protagonist a few realistic flaws. Something a bit more interesting than biting her biting her nails or having fly-away hair. You have to avoid giving the protagonist ‘flaws’ that are actually virtues-in-disguise, because a savvy reader will pick up on that. (And aren’t all your readers intelligent individuals with excellent taste? Of course they are.)

Look at Sherlock Holmes and his current popularity (not that he is ever really unpopular). Sherlock is seriously flawed. No one likes a smartass, and that is what Sherlock is. In fact, if you were to list his characteristics, you would find a lot of them make him an excellent candidate for being a villain … look to his willingness to bend the truth and break the law on behalf of a client, often lying to the police, concealing evidence, manipulating emotions of bystanders, or breaking into houses. He redeems himself by being completely committed to his clients, and by the warmth of his friendship with Doctor Watson.

So, don’t be afraid to give your protagonist some really serious personality flaws, so long as they aren’t repellent like cruelty to animals or setting fires in nursing homes. Not only will she have to battle the villain, but her own nature. By overcoming both, she will win not only the battle, but the hearts of your audience.

Iron in the Soul: Steampunk Protagonists

Go the good guys, even if they are girls.

A Protagonist is your heroine, the character who is going to save the world, often at expense of her or his own happiness. A protagonist need not be a human being, but this article is going to be about human protagonists, as analogues for the forces for good. Non-human protagonists and Anti-heroes will be covered in later posts.

in mainstream fiction, it can be harder to write a well-rounded protagonist than a villain. Villains can be fun to write, because they are often more quirky or eccentric than the protagonist. In Steampunk, this need not be the case. After all, the Victorian era was the Age of Eccentricity, and there is no reason why a mad – or sane – scientist can’t be the protagonist. In fact, I would encourage the use of the Scientist as Protagonist, as an analogy of the benefits of technology and innovation.

I would nominate Doc Savage as the epitome of the Scientist as the Protagonist, as he was both intelligent and heroic, even though he isn’t really a Steampunk character. His major flaw is the fact that he is too perfect, wa-a-a-a-ay too perfect, to the point he is a Marty-Stu. In fact, it could be argued that his ‘perfection’ should have worked against him, alienating the audience, except his redemption is in his team of friends. Every one of his team are scientists, but they are allowed to have the flaws that Doc doesn’t exhibit. And then there is the token female, Pat Savage, who is really just Doc Savage in woman form.

If I wrote a Steampunk version of Doc Savage, some of his team of scientists would be women, and Doc would have a few real flaws of his own, and not the kind of ‘actually virtues’ flaws. You know , those flaws that are like ‘I am too kind to kittens’, so aren’t really flaws at all. A too perfect protagonist doesn’t help the plot, because they don’t suffer from a lack of confidence, and the audience knows they will win out. Of course you want the protagonist to win (or do you?), but you won’t have much of a story if they win too easily.

In my own Steampunk Work-in-Progress, my protagonist is a scientist, a woman Biologist whose main interest is Botany. She has a female assistant and a female guardian (her parents are missing, presumed dead … but are they?), and the rest of her ‘team’ are her bisexual best friend – a young man based on Oscar Wilde; an Australian inventor who is her Romantic Interest and friend; and a young gentleman scientist who rivals the Romantic Interest for my protagonist’s affections. Her obvious flaws are her obsession with being right, her bitterness against the Patriarchal establishment that won’t recognise her research, and a confusion as to what her heart wants. She is a redhead, but she doesn’t have a temper!

She has iron in her soul. She has had to be strong after the loss of her parents, and she isn’t willing to subjugate her scientific genius because of her gender. Life is going to temper her iron into steel. She is my analogy about the benefits of science and innovation; ignorance and intolerance are her enemies.

A Steampunk protagonist need not be a scientist. They can be an airship pilot, a plucky girl, an explorer, but they still have to conform to the genre. They will have to interact with gadgets. I would prefer their interactions be positive, as a pro-science discourse is the aim of Science Fiction, unless you are writing a about an industrial dystopia. But don’t let my preference restrict you. You are the author of your protagonist and their fate.