Bad guys that aren't

[Oddsocks]

Does anyone else here find themselves writing bad guys that aren't really bad guys?

My antagonists are antagonists because they are in opposition to the protagonist group and cause, but most of the time my antagonists are just as decent as my protags, their causes are often morally driven (although they seem wrong to the protags), and I have a number of instances in which the antagonists are at least as 'in the right' as the good guys. They still do horrible things sometimes, but when they do, it's usually necessary and they don't enjoy it.

Also, is this likely to become a problem for the stories? Is it necessary to have a really hateable character on the opposing side?

[maestrowork]

An antagonist is just someone opposite your protagonist. There's no rule to say it has to be "bad." I have no bad guys in my first novel -- it doesn't seem to hurt; in fact, one reviewer commented on it, saying it was rather a nice change.

[job]

>>> is this likely to become a problem for the stories? Is it necessary to have a really hateable character on the opposing side?>>>>

No.
No.

You do need something 'opposing' your hero. Something strong.
It need not be a person.

You need high stakes.

[Aprylwriter]

Yeah, my novel is kinda like that. There's this guy who is a scientist, and he has been trying to think of ways to communicate with the dead, but he went too far and there's an evil spirit inhabiting his body. The spirit is bad, but the scientist is not.

Apryl

[swvaughn]

Bad guys that aren't "bad" rock!

Erm, only my bad guys are bad. Okay, they're bastards. But they're likeable, sympathetic bastards!

They are. Really. Honest. I swear.

[sunna]

Au contraire, IMO it's more interesting when the bad guys aren't 100% bad. Internal conflict and shades of grey - especially in the not-very-nice crowd - always make for great reading, at least for me.

[Tachyon]

I prefer morally ambiguous characters. It makes things more fun when the antagonist isn't inherently despicable and can often present moral dilemmas for the protagonist. After all, the real world doesn't work on the idea of "good" versus "evil" (even if some people want to think that); it's relative.

[Oddsocks]

I'm glad people's responses are generally pro-not-really-bad-guys. I admit, I do really like the idea of these kind of characters myself, which is probably why I'm drawn to write them.

[Judg]

Wasn't it Uncle Jim who said that good vs. good is really a lot more interesting?

[blacbird]

It isn't a novel, but I've been fascinated for years by a truly excellent and largely unknown B&W movie from circa 1960, called "Posse", with Kirk Douglas and Bruce Dern. One of the best westerns ever made, as far as I'm concerned, I saw it on TV and have never seen in via tape or DVD, so it may not be available. But if you can find it, it's worth a watch or two. And it is exactly the kind of story that fits the theme of this thread, a story in which it becomes increasingly difficult to determine just who is the good guy and who is the bad one. I keep wanting to write a story that good, and failing.

caw

[maestrowork]

Spider-Man's villains (in the movies) are usually not really BAD people. They're usually written as good people turned to darkness (Dr. Octavia, for example).

[seun]

Look at the classic bad guys: Hannibal Lector, Darth Vadar, Sauron etc. They're all interesting/frightening/dangerous with the emphasis on interesting. We care about what they do and why they do it.

Bad guys don't have to be bad as long as they're interesting.

[Willowmound]

I'm incapable of writing all bad badguys. I don't don't believe in them, because they don't exist.

Reading about one, or watching one in a movie bores me to bits. Bloody annoyed bits at that.

[seun]

I was worried about one of my bad guys being purely bad so I put some of the focus on his self-image. He thinks he's doing what's right (as do the good guys) but because he's violent and dangerous, he seems like the immediate bad guy. I don't think he is; he just has different ideas to other people.

[JJ Cooper]

I like bad guys who are professional in their actions. They have an end state in mind and they carry out their actions to the best of their ability.

JJ

[Novelust]

I am so very fond of the capable antagonist; to me, that trumps everything. Good, bad, gray, funny, Shakespeare-quoting, made of cheese - it doesn't matter, so long as they don't leave the hero tied up with rope in the middle of the House O' Sharp Things or build a mighty fortress with an irreversable auto-destruct button right out in the open.

But your mileage may vary. :)

[Shadow_Ferret]

I'm kinda slow. If I can't tell the bad guys from the good guys I get all confused.

I think that's one of the reasons I didn't like The Prestige. I couldn't tell who I was supposed to be rooting for.

[IrishScribbler]

My WIP has a hate-able antagonist, as well as a well-intentioned mother who is an antagonist simply because my MC doesn't think she wants/needs her.

It's working for me because the hate-able antagonist (who never comes into direct contact with the protagonist during the story) makes the mother more likeable for those siding with the MC.

[ccarver30]

Bad guys that aren't "bad" rock!

Erm, only my bad guys are bad. Okay, they're bastards. But they're likeable, sympathetic bastards!

They are. Really. Honest. I swear.

My kind of men!! :)

[C.bronco]

I like it when the bad guys don't see themselves as the bad guys, even though they are. Stephen King is great at that.

[ChaosTitan]

The antagonist needs a compelling reason to side against the protagonist. Otherwise, the bad guy is simply a plot device. Some of my favorite stories are the ones where if you flip the roles of an/protagonist, you could root for both.

Bad guys who are bad for the sake of giving the hero an enemy aren't all that interesting to me. Guys who do bad things in order to preserve what's left of his dying race (or insert plot twist here) are more fun to read about.

[NTG]

Alright, how about this idea: Morally ambiguous heroes and villains help us confront our own weaknesses (and strengths) honestly. Up to a point, portraying shades of gray helps us avoid pride. We all fall short in many ways. None of us is totally pure.

However. . .carried too far, ambiguity simply excuses laziness. If there's no real right and wrong at all, then no matter what I do, I'm OK, you're OK, and nobody needs to struggle against the darkness to find redemption. Or even self-realization. So just chill out and pass the beer. What's on channel 4?

Remember, they say that Hitler liked dogs and children, Mussolini made the trains run on time, and you can safely park an unlocked Mercedes overnight in downtown Riyadh. But there are still moral/ethical choices to be made. It seems to me that people choose their "good guys" and thereafter consider them totally pure. Morally upright white knights. The "bad guys", meanwhile, are easy to spot because they wear the black hats. Kind of like Democrats vs. Republicans. (Or is that Republicans vs. Democrats? I forget.) But the reality of moral ambiguity is that the white hats are awfully muddy, too. Yet their wearers are still to be preferred to the "black hats" (only a metaphor. . .I think actual black hats are cool) because (a) there actually is such a thing as good and evil, and (b) good really is better than evil. The challenge is defining what they are, and why. Not whether they exist.

NG

[Stew21]

The guys that looked like bad guys at the beginning of my current book aren't really bad guys. But they want different things than the protag. those wants converge at some point in the last half of the book, but one antagonist remains, the girlfriend who just wants different things than the protag wants. the rest of it, the protagonist is his own worst enemy I think. My good guy isn't all good either, he's selfish, and self-destructive.

In my first book, the antagonist is clear and hate-able in the extreme. He's almost too much of a bad guy and needs to seem more human, or at least given more reasonable motives.

[benbradley]

This isn't a novel either, but the thread title reminded me of it:
http://ntl.matrix.com.br/pfilho/html/lyrics/b/big_bad_john.txt

[NeuroFizz]

There is a opposite to this question--can a protagonist be a bad person? If you want to see an excellent example of a "yes" see Dan J. Marlowe's old pulp classic, The Name of the Game is Death. The protag is a very bad man, but he is sympathetic to the reader because those who oppose him are even worse. It's an interesting tack, and one that is not pulled off easily.

[Higgins]

There is a opposite to this question--can a protagonist be a bad person? If you want to see an excellent example of a "yes" see Dan J. Marlowe's old pulp classic, The Name of the Game is Death. The protag is a very bad man, but he is sympathetic to the reader because those who oppose him are even worse. It's an interesting tack, and one that is not pulled off easily.

I like this angle. In my WIP, a bunch of bad guys working for some slightly bad guys hire a bad guy to get some other bad guys. The MC is tricked into helping them and has a hard time figuring that all out especially since the police figure the MC is a bad guy and they are not so good either.

[rwam]

I think I understand and appreciate the complexity with having morally and ethically decent characters be the 'bad guy'. However, I think it really raises the stakes (a key ingredient in a good story) when the reader hates the antagonist. I don't think we ever want our reader feeling like it's not such a bad thing if the protagonist doesn't prevail....do we?

[thethinker42]

Also, is this likely to become a problem for the stories? Is it necessary to have a really hateable character on the opposing side?


Not at all...in fact, I think it's better NOT to have 100% bad villains, just as it's not good to have 100% good protagonists. The reader's sympathy should be towards your protagonist, and they should not be rooting for the antagonist, but there's still plenty of room for different degrees of good and evil.

For what it's worth, my antagonist is trying to destroy the protagonists to avenge the death of her son, which she feels was the last straw after a series of perceived slights from the protagonists. Though her son was killed because of something heinous that he did, and she was not an innocent victim in the previous incidents, the reader still feels some level of sympathy towards her.

[Prawn]

My bad guys are evil, but so thoroughly, gleefully evil that you almost can't fault them for it. Almost.

[ClaudiaGray]

The truly evil villain can, as Prawn says, be tons of fun -- for instance, the robbery team in "Die Hard" are unrepentant throughout, taking gleeful delight in what they do, but they're so smart and so prepared that when the vault door swings open, the Ode to Joy starts playing and, for one second, you're as thrilled as they are. The enigmatic Zenia of The Robber Bride would be no fun whatsoever if you had the slightest sense she was sorry -- and Atwood does an astonishing job of creating a character with no sympathetic qualities, just pure malice, who nonetheless suggests real depth.

However, I agree with those who say that the more nuanced and three-dimensional your villain is, the better your book is likely to be. The one danger is that it's very easy to give the villain all the best lines, all the big moves, and turn your protagonist into a very reactive character. It's easy to make villains interesting; heroes take more work. Make sure that your protagonist has even more depth, contradiction and interest than the antagonist, and I'd say you're in good shape.

[MattDempsey]

I love rounded baddies. My two favourite in fiction are Long John Silver and Cardinal Richelieu.

Silver does the dirty on everyone in the book and is still likeable when he sails off in the end.

When Richelieu's motives are examined he is actually the man trying to hold France together in spite of a traitorous Queen and a fool King. In later books Dartagnian actual works for him.

I loathe the dark god trapped on the earth with venom in stead of blood pumping through his veins, yawn. Give me someone I can root for.

[Oddsocks]

The advice in this thread is excellent, and has given me a lot to think about. I can see some areas I hadn't thought of where I might fall into a trap (I think some of my bad guys might be too sympathisable-with). Thankyou for sharing, everyone!

[WildScribe]

I get so sick of cliche evil villains. Can I read your novel when it's published? :)