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#1 |
Lady of Legends
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Missing. Reward if found.
Posts: 1,083
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The absence of a villain
In most stories (at least most of the ones I have read) there is a character or creature that is always there trying to prevent the hero or heroine from accomplishing their task. Tolkien had his Dark Lords and treacherous wizards, what about everyone here? Do you like having villains in the books you read, or not? Do you always write a villain or two into your own? If so, what are they like? And must there always be an opposing force to the hero/heroine?
I have been writing a fantasy book for a while now. I am almost done, but yesterday I realized I never wrote in a villain, or any sort of enemy for my main characters. There are a lot of flashbacks where they battle with different enemys, but for the main part, in the present time the story is taking place, no one. I'm torn between two options: If I write in a villain or someone to fight my characters, It will change the story dramatically, and I don't know if I want that. But without one, I'm afraid the story is really just a long dragging on of events. Again, do you like villains in the books you read?
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The end justifies the means, thought Aziraphale. And the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.* *This is not actually true. The road to Hell is paved with frozen door to door salesmen. On weekends many of the younger demons go ice-skating down it. ~Good Omens |
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#2 |
Domesticated Swing Babe
Join Date: May 2002
Location: Reality
Posts: 5,340
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No, I need no villians!
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Happy Atheist Go Democrats! |
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#3 |
Dread Mothy Lord and Halfwitted Apprentice Loremaster
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Thomas Aquinas College, Santa Paula, CA
Posts: 10,820
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Hehehe....I can just imagine the villian in your gardening essays, Lizra...
![]() The Monster Cabbage! ![]()
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Crux fidelis, inter omnes arbor una nobilis. Nulla talem silva profert, fronde, flore, germine. Dulce lignum, dulce clavo, dulce pondus sustinens. 'With a melon?' - Eric Idle |
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#4 |
Fowl Administrator
Join Date: Dec 1999
Location: Calgary or Edmonton, Canada
Posts: 53,420
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Villainous characters are more appropriate for some genres than others. If it suits the story, go for it. If not, don't.
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All of IronParrot's posts are guaranteed to be 100% intelligent and/or sarcastic, comprising no genetically modified content and tested on no cute furry little animals unless the SPCA is looking elsewhere. If you observe a failure to uphold this warranty, please contact a forum administrator immediately to receive a full refund on your Entmoot registration. Blog: Nick's Café Canadien |
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#5 |
Elven Warrior
Join Date: Apr 2003
Posts: 215
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My story has an antagonist, but it's not important to every story. Like IronParrot said, it's appropriate in some genres, but not in others.
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Chickens at rest will stay at rest unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. Chickens in motion tend to cross the road. |
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#6 |
Elven Warrior
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: nowhere you would care to be
Posts: 420
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if you don't want to change the book then don't if you think it has value and is a decent story them I'm sure it is because many times we are our own toughest critic!
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"i could have alot of fun with that!!"-Allison "I don't know why it does this! maybe i'm allergic to bras?"-Dee |
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#7 |
Lady of Legends
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Missing. Reward if found.
Posts: 1,083
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True.
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The end justifies the means, thought Aziraphale. And the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.* *This is not actually true. The road to Hell is paved with frozen door to door salesmen. On weekends many of the younger demons go ice-skating down it. ~Good Omens |
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#8 |
Enting
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina
Posts: 73
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As long as there *is* a plot, the story won't be boring just because it doesn't have a villain. If it works as it is now, I wouldn't add a villain for a villain's sake.
I guess it depends on the story.
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"...So the essential Quest started at once. But I met a lot of things on the way that astonished me. Tom Bombadil I knew already; but I had never been to Bree. Strider sitting in the corner at the inn was a shock, and I had no more idea who he was than had Frodo. The Mines of Moria had been a mere name; and of Lothlórien no word had reached my mortal ears till I came there. Far away I knew there were the Horse-lords on the confines of an ancient Kingdom of Men, but Fangorn Forest was an unforeseen adventure." ~ J. R. R. Tolkien |
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#9 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: Fountain Valley, CA
Posts: 6,343
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The thing is, readers have to remain interested in the book. Suspense is a great way to do that. Suspense doesn't always require a villain, but it usually comes from readers' concern for the main characters, or for minor characters.
Having a villain is an easy way to make readers concerned for the characters they've grown to care about. Villains, like I said, aren't necessary. But they are a useful tool to easily create elements that are necessary for a good story. |
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#10 |
Alasailon
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: college
Posts: 861
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Obviously since you've written so much already a villian is not necessary. I think it takes greater talent than people realize for a writer to create conflict within a story without adding a "bad guy" or blatantly obvious antagonist.
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"and then this hobbit was walking, and then this elf jumped out of a bush and totally flipped out on him while wailing on his guitar." "Anglorfin was tall and straight; his hair was of shining gold, his face fair and young and fearless and full of anger; his eyes were bright and keen, and his voice like music; on his brow sat wisdom, and in his hand was great skill." |
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#11 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: Fountain Valley, CA
Posts: 6,343
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Just so long as the story keeps the reader interested, without one. Not having read the story myself, of course I can't make any sort of opinion yet on whether a villain would be good to have involved
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#12 |
Lady of Letters
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Either Oxford or Kent, England
Posts: 2,476
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It depends on genre, but it also depends what you mean by a villain. If it's a cardboard cut-out evil guy whose only entertainment is making things difficult for the hero, it's not very realistic (possibly the understatement of the century). But there's nothing wrong in having two conflicting characters, as long as they are both well-drawn, properly rounded and morally complex. However difficult that is to do
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And all the time the waves, the waves, the waves Chase, intersect and flatten on the sand As they have done for centuries, as they will For centuries to come, when not a soul Is left to picnic on the blazing rocks, When England is not England, when mankind Has blown himself to pieces. Still the sea, Consolingly disastrous, will return While the strange starfish, hugely magnified, Waits in the jewelled basin of a pool. |
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#13 |
Frodo's lil sis HP LotR fan
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: in a tree reading Harry P. and LotR
Posts: 585
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All my stories have vilans, be they people or circumstances, such as in one of my books, 4 years of a girls old life is stolen after a car accident on a rainy night on a narrow bridge and she gets amnesia. Villans can be anything, all stories even if the villan is time itself, have villans. That is my writing philosophy anyway.
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AB Adrian Baggins wizard, elf, mortal, hobbit Owner of the 3 unknown rings I LIKE HIEI!! LOOK AT MY AVITAR IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHO THAT IS!! H. Hysterically cold I. Insanely unhuman E. Effortlessly mocking I. Irresistabely hott "You're a team player, a save-the-day superhero *pause* I hate people like you." ~Hiei |
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#14 |
Elven Warrior
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Seattle, WA
Posts: 463
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You have to have conflict in order to have a plot.
The conflict can be between man and another human, man and nature, or man and himself, but there must be conflict of some kind or there's no plot. |
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#15 |
Alcoholic Villain-Fancying Elf Pirate
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Lyonesse
Posts: 4,547
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I'm having way too much fun not being clear on who's "evil" and who's on the side of "good" and what is good anyway and who gets to say what's right and wrong, and all of that.
My main story right now has the main character going from being on what she thought was the side of good and right to suddenly being thrown into a rather permanent situation in which she is on the side she had been fighting, because of one moment of lost faith. So the main conflict in that bit of story is her trying to figure out if there really ought to be sides, and who's right and who's wrong, and all that. Because she can either, at this point, turn herself in, kill herself, or deal with her situation and get used to it. Without much doubt or thinking she goes for the last option, because now she has the freedom to enjoy herself now. What she does spend time thinking about is why she was killing these people before, and if it is "right" that an organization exists, or if these people are by nature evil. Stuff like that. So there's no villain except her own thoughts, really. ![]()
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Eruviel Greenleaf in a past life. "Whoever has come to understand the world has found only a corpse, and whoever has found a corpse is superior to the world." -The Gospel of Thomas SQUAWK! |
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