The viability of villain protagonists in YA?

Anyway....I thank you for all the input. It seems that I'm getting a lot of different opinions and it really comes down to the individual reader. However, the main issue I'm having is this. I want to write from the perspective of a character who is of "the 1%" and who is, at least to some degree, spoiled and/or corrupt. With some villain protagonists, it is easier to get sympathy for them because you can just turn up the sympathy bar by making their life hell. It's easy to make somebody root for the terrorist mastermind who lived in 3rd world squalor and saw his parents gunned down by western soldiers, for example. Yeah, he targets civilians. Yeah, he murders innocents, but he lived a terrible, crappy life and a lot of his evil actions stem from the deep pain that came with his nightmarish hell of a childhood.

However, with a "1%r" type, it's a bit harder to pull that kind of thing off because there really is little you can do to give the same kind of pain that other types of villain MCs can have present in their lives. With terrorists and criminals, it's easy....they likely came from very crappy lives...but for the person born into wealth life was probably fairly easy....at least in terms of materal needs....so how in the world do you give them the same kind of "pain" that makes other kinds of villain MCs work? That, is the question I am faced with, and having issues working out. I mean...there is always the option that their parent happens to be a cruel, cold, aloof corrupt corporate executive who is abusive and the whole nine-yards, but the "evil parent" troupe seems just so overused and...well...cliche'....to the point I just don't think it can work in this day and age. It's just so trope-y that it will come off as cheesy...."Oh...look..ANOTHER evil father...where have we seen that?" Even more so in YA, when neglectful and/or outright villainous parents are the norm.

I suppose you could have had their parent(s), and/or family and/or friends killed either by a ruthless business rival or rebel/criminal/terrorist types....but the question becomes, realistically, is that "enough" pain to make readers sympathize with them as they do terrible things in the name of revenge and start grabbing power to take down their enemies? I mean, it was enough for batman, but that was because despite having the whole "dark" aesthetic he wasn't really using "villainous" means nor was his motive sheer revenge. Sure, the pain was certainly a factor, but after a while his whole crusade became about more then just avenging his parent's death. For a character who starts already flawed(But not really evil...think less of a villain and more of just a brat, at least at that point.) and grows more and more corrupt rather then less so over the course of the story....is a murdered family(and possibly friends + LI) enough "pain" to get readers to sympathize with them a bit? Or would you need to crank down the severity of their flaws at the start to make it work? Or would having the person who killed their family/friends/LI/other loved ones being a complete monster(and likely another 1%er who would be motivated by either selfish greed and/or some kind of twisted megalomanical ideal/goal.) who makes the protagonist look a lot less nasty by comparison be enough when combined with the pain to make readers root for the protagonist despite their flawed personality that only gets more flawed as time goes on? If you went that route, would you need to make their actions at least somewhat heroic later on while their personality became more selfish I.E. after they do the bad deeds needed to gain power, when they actually have said power they start using it for the "good" means of taking down the complete monster they where after? I mean, such an instance would still have them as a selfish SOB, but they'd at the least be a selfish SOB who's desire for revenge(and power, since after disposing of this complete monster they'd presumably take his stuff) was actually leaving the world a bit better off then it was before. Maybe they could even be the kind to "give back" but more out of a desire to maintain a good public image then any kind of genuine concern for the less fortunate? Perhaps a person who is selfishly motivated, but who's selfishness ends up helping more people then it hurts in the grand scheme of things?

Any thoughts/opinions would be appreciated!

@Kolta: What your talking about isn't making a sympathetic character. What your talking about is making a relatable character. There actually is a difference, even if it's a tad subtle. A relatable character is one you can understand. A sympathetic character is one you like and want to root for. All sympathetic characters by definition must be relatable, but you can have a character who is very relatable yet unsympathetic to the point some readers will still throw down the book in disgust over their actions. I mean, we all can -relate- to characters that have darker, more selfish motives. I mean, who hasn't just wanted to punch somebody they hated, or had fantasies of "If I was the boss/teacher/authority figure instead of that jerk.." We all know the tempations of vice, wealth and power. However, just because we can UNDERSTAND those temptations and feelings doesn't mean we're going to like characters who act on them any better.

I mean, take for example the World Nobles from the manga one peice...we can understand why they do what they do. We all know from our own world that people just act differently when they are given that much wealth and power. Heck, we may have even experenced such feelings ourselves; we may hate to admit it, but I'm sure most of us here has had at least one time when we saw a seemingly able-bodied homeless person and could not help but scoff in our minds, thinking something like "That guy chose his lifestyle/is there because of his/her own mistakes, and should really get a job instead of begging out on the street" There's all been times when we've been arrogant or had feelings of "I'm better then that person.." However, just because we UNDERSTAND those feelings doesn't make us like them, or people that are unafraid to be vocal with them and act on them. The World Nobles are people we can understand, but we still hate them and want to see them fall all the same. No amount of relatability will make them any more likable; they will always be complete monsters, and you'd be hard pressed to find any one peice reader who would actively root for the world government over the pirates and resistance. Relatability may be a needed attribute for sympathy, but it should not be confused for sympathy; they are two different things, and you can have relatability without any sympathy. Simply put; readers will not root for the character you described. They will, at beast, follow them either because they want to see them go down in flames or because they have a morbid fascination with them in the same vein as a "serial killer groupie" or historian who devotes the bulk of their research to Adolf Hitler and/or the Nazis, and the latter would be a very small minority.


@Samsonet: I suppose, but then won't that make them even more unsympathetic then if they had some kind of self-righteous justification? At least somebody, like say, Light Yagami had a "good reason" for what he did, even if it ended up becoming delusional and megalomanical by the end of things. I mean...yeah, you could argue that it's harder to empathize with somebody who has a deluded, self-righteous ideal that they do evil things in the name of because no "sane" and thus relatable person would consider such actions "just/right".... but at the same time, wouldn't such a character be more sympathetic then the kind you mention in the long run because they really do mean well even if their means are pretty awful? I mean, the character you describe is basically just a selfish **** who does bad things because they can(or at least believe they can) get away with them. They don't have any kind of good, or even relateable reason. The character you described seems even less sympathetic then the guy who has deluded himself into thinking what he's doing is right because there is nothing redeeming about him. The deluded megalomanic who believes the ends justifies the means is at least somewhat redeemable in that his ends are something we can understand and appreciate. The character you mentioned may not think that bad things are right, but at the same time the fact they do them anyway makes them even more unsympathetic and unrelatable then the guy who sees what their doing as right...they are irredeemably bad..Essentially they are that cartoon supervillain who makes his minions call him "your evilness" and delights in kicking puppies...they literally have no reason beyond "because I can/for the lulz"....which makes them a caricature, not a character.

However, I may have totally misconstrued what you where describing. If I did, please politely let me know and maybe explain what you where getting at a bit better...


However, all of this discussion leads me to believe it is pretty much impossible to make this kind of protagonist sympathetic in any shape or form to all but a small minority of people. So, I guess the question now becomes whether or not sympathy is needed for a character to be successful? As discussed here, it is possible to have a 3-dimensional, and even relatable character who is totally unsympathetic. So, the million dollar question is how do you craft a protagonist that readers will still want to follow that is also unsympathetic as all heck? What qualities do such characters have that make readers want to follow their stories despite the fact they likely dislike them as people? What qualites would be needed for people to not only put up with, but enjoy and possibly even root for a main character who is unsympathetic?

Just thought I'd give you an update on how things are going with this issue. First of all, I've decided to take a few writing classes offered by a local writer's center for no other reason then to force myself to actually start writing this thing in spite of my immense fear. The classes don't start until the new year, but in the interm I've been exploring all my stories and characters more and I think twick's statement couln't be more true.

I've been thinking that perhaps this character, while still a villain through and through, is not as totally unsympathetic as I thought when viewed through the eyes of somebody that isn't me. You see, after re-reading this thread and some others I posted again and looking at this character more I realized the reason I am having trouble seeing how I can make them "sympathetic" is because I am looking at them with my own bias and views.

I have very anti-elite, anti-big business political sentiments IRL. As a result of this, in MY EYES the type of character I am discussing is inherently unlikable, unsympathetic and irredeemable. However, I also realized from Twick's comment and other posts on here that I am not the average YA reader. The vast bulk of YA readers probably don't care nearly as much about politics as me or have nearly as dismal a view of big business and "the 1%." While I remember my teenage years being filled with radical politics and other teens who where political radicals, that doesn't necessarily mean that the majority of teens where like me and my staunchly liberal friends back in our HS years. While being a super-rich spoiled brat may make a character immediately unsympathetic and thus fit only for the role of "villain" when viewed with my own political biases, that doesn't necessarily mean those qualities will make such a character totally unsympathetic to the average YA reader.....and this is something I should have realized a long time ago.

Part of writing, IMO, is being able to see the world from perspectives that are distinctly not your own, and as a result I've realized I've had so much trouble getting a grasp on what can make this character "likable" or "sympathetic" because I've been viewing and judging them from my own perspective, colored by my own biases and beliefs.

So, now, as I go through my story ideas and decide what I want to write, I've decided to try looking at this character again but not through my own eyes. I think trying to see them through the viewpoint of somebody not nearly as politically radical as me may help me see parts of them that my own biases blind me to otherwise. Who knows, maybe after looking at them through less bias eyes I may find out they weren't nearly as evil as I thought and then can end up actually being something of a hero despite their selfish, hedonistic, arrogant, spoiled brat side. Or at the least I'll find that while still a villain, they aren't all bad and are more then just the cartoon sterotype or political strawman of the "evil 1%er."

So that's where I am now. As I engage in this process I'll let you all know what I find out about this character as I, for once, actually get to know them as a person instead of a sterotype.

It's funny you should mention that because that's the whole reason I started this thread. That same situation didn't happen to me once, but repeatedly, with every idea I ever come up with. The difference between you and I is that you had the courage to write the story from the antagonist's view despite the fact you know it will be a hard sell while I let that fear take over and stop me from writing anything.

However, let it be known that I now find I have a particularly long and difficult road ahead because the character I've been talking about in this thread was created specifically to be a 2-dimensional complete monster in the original story they where from. In the original plan I had for them, where they where the villain instead of the protagonist they where created to be more of a symbol then a full character; they where purposely made to be absolutely disgusting in every way possible so they could function as a powerful image of the decadence, selfishness and corruption present among our world's elite. They where meant to be a picture of out of control privilege and nothing deeper then that.

However, despite the fact they where created to be a 2-dimensional symbol in the same vein as, say, Saruon, I was for some reason drawn to them. I have no idea why, mind you, but something just made them far, far more interesting to me then any of the other characters, including the MAIN villain who was a much more fleshed out power-seeker who was going to eventually usurp this character and become the big bad in the second half of the plot. I think, at least initially, the draw to this character was that while they where totally disgusting they had style. They where vile to the core yes, but they always acted with a lot of humor and eccentricity and at times could even be somewhat adorable. Compared to many of the other characters in the plot who had much more serious demeanors, this character was just was fun. Deep? No. 3-dimensional? Nope....but out of all the cast, they where just the most entertaining for me.

Admittedly, to make them a protagonist would require not just re-writing the old plot, but scrapping it entirely. Mainly because in the old narrative this character's role in the plot and special powers made it pretty much impossible to have them as a protagonist. In the old plot, she happened to be the owner of a sinister artificial plane/research facility and spent the entire story sadistically watching all of the horrors she put her numerous victims through, sometimes even speaking to them directly via video feed to torment them further. Of course, at the same time she was plotting to seize control of every reality that existed. She also was, for all intents and purposes, a sort of reality warper, so needless to say it would be impossible to tell THAT story with her as the protagonist, considering that she was designed to be this irredeemably evil, 2-dimensional symbol of corruption and her role in the plot was built accordingly.

To do any story centered around her would require not only a brand new plot, but also an expanding, or rather deepening of her character. She can of course keep that "style" that drew me to her, but if I'm going to make her protagonist material I'm going to have to deepen her character beyond being simply a selfish spoiled brat who's gone out of control with money and power. I mean, yes, she can still be all those things...but that can't be her entire character....and that's the job I have now: making this girl of mine into a character rather then a symbol.....I have to find out who she really is rather then end her character at being a symbol of upper class corruption and out-of-control privilege that does the job with style.

...and that, I suppose, is one of the most important and enjoyable parts of writing....getting to know these people your going to write about at a very deep level and see things through there eyes. Seeing the world from a perspective alien to your own is hard work, but can be quite rewarding...and who knows, maybe all of this will help me hate the rich less in real life.

Also...yes, for all those wondering, I'm going to actually try and write this thing, now. As I stated I'm taking writing classes starting with the new year in an effort to force myself to actually write. Once I get something I'm not totally ashamed to share outside of class I may actually post it here. Or I may quietly try and go get it published and surprise you all. You will not know...at least for now.

Teen villains in YA... Your personal thoughts/experiences?

As the title says. I've recently begun slowly writing a new story with dual protagonists about a death game played between one teen who develops into an anti-hero and another who becomes an outright villain protagonist. I'm having a blast with both of them, but especially enjoy the totally villainous one. While I know most people will relate to and probably favor the other protagonist (which is one of many reasons his pov is present) I absolutely love the style, silliness, trollish behavior and fun voice my teen villain has. I enjoy spending time with them precisely because they mix teenage immaturity, silliness, boldness and snark with competent and intelligent villainy.

I don't know why, but for some reason I find the immature nature of teen villains to be entertaining and compelling, and I'd love to see more of them in YA. However, sadly, I know of few YA stories that feature a teen as the big bad. While there may be plenty of teen baddies, they usually are nothing more then simple bullies or minions of an adult villain. While I understand the parallel to the clashes with adult authority that teens experience and how it can sell well to the market, I am curious to know if any if you have the same love for younger baddies that I do?

If so, do you have any teen villains from YA that your particularly fond of? Any good titles where the big bad is a teen? Do you like the idea of a teenage big bad, or is it too inherently unrealistic for your tastes? Do you prefer your teen villains as protagonists with antagonists always being adults or do you, like me, want to see more evil teens as both protagonists and main antagonists?

Posy all your general thoughts/ideas/praise/criticism of YA's evil teens here!