Non-Humans R Us Newsletters

It Feels so Good to be Bad

[singing] It feels so good to be bad! So delicious to be a despicable cad. It's just so thrilling and so fulfilling to give somebody the worst time they've ever had!
- Red, as voiced by George Hearn, in All Dogs go to Heaven 2

[singing] God have mercy on her / God have mercy on me / But she will be mine or she... will... BURN!
- Frollo, as voiced by Tony Jay, in The Hunchback of Notre Dame

[singing] In the dark of the night I was tossing and turning / And the nightmare I had was as dark as can be / It scared me out of my wits / A corpse falling to bits / Then I opened my eyes and the nightmare was me!
- Rasputin, as voiced by Christopher Lloyd/Jim Cummings (singing voice), in Anastasia (1998)

I am Slagar the Cruel, and you are my slaves. Now listen closely - when I say you walk, you walk. When I say you run, you run. If I decide that you live, you live.
[pulls out bolas and starts twirling]
If I take it into my hands that you may not live... then you will die.
[smashes bench]
Now, move!
- Slagar the Cruel, as voiced by Tim Curry, in Mattimeo: A Tale of Redwall

I recommend that you keep that hog leg skinned, unless you got a desire to be jumpin' over hot coals in Hell.
- Black Hand Kelly, as played by Billy Drago, in Tremors 4: The Legend Begins

As you can clearly see, based on these above quotes, this Newsletter is all about the Villains. These guys cause trouble - they gave me some when I was trying to figure out which ones to use quotes of. In fact, look up any of the actors mentioned, and you'll find a mile-long list on each of them, or part of one, where they played the Main Villain, or at least one of their Main Henchmen. The only exception to the list is Black Hand Kelly, but he's on the fence between being an anti-hero and an anti-villain - of course, the actor who plays him, Billy Drago, has a long list of playing a henchman, including parts in The Untouchables with Kevin Costner, and Pale Rider with Clint Eastwood, and even Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection with Chuck Norris - talk about the cast to be the enemy of, and dealt with by.

Now, there's a list of villains - here are the three basic Ranks; Thugs/Foot Soldiers, Lieutenants, and of course, Generals, or the Main Villain.

Your average foot soldier is just that, some goon with a gun who is either guarding a location or someone who is ordered to attack a hero - either way, they are easy to kill. In some cases, he's not exactly evil, but in a world where you have to choose having the gun pointed at you, or being able to point the gun at someone, most prefer to point guns at someone else. Then again, sometimes they get sick of working for the bad guy, and either side with the Hero when given the chance, or become the Hero themselves. For the most part though, they are just a nameless, no-face, character, who exists to be killed.

The next guy is the Lieutenant. This guy is given the orders, which are dished out to the foot soldiers. These guys are more important, and have a larger role in the story. Sometimes they will rebel against the Commander, and either become the Hero, or even become a Second Hostile force, that's after both the Hero and the Main Villain. Then again, he just might be using the 'Main Villain' as a frontman, and they are the person who is really in charge.

Finally, you've got the Main Villain. This is the person in charge of the whole thing. One of the big things with this guy is this ' is he the kind of person who leads through force, with his people being scared to disobey him, or is he a good speaker, with people listening to his every word, or does he use both, first trying to persuade people with his voice, and then, at being refused, or some such thing, resorting to violence. This can affect how he acts - a man who uses force is willing to attack his foes personally. A man who uses his voice will have his followers do the dirty work, and will likely run if he's losing. A man who uses both his voice and brute force will have his followers do that job first, and if they fail, do the job himself.

Then, there's the different types of bad guys - cults, gangs, enemy military, slasher-killer-types, evil wizards, and more.

Cults, let's face it, they twist the Holy Book for their own ends (it doesn't matter if it's the Bible, or the Torah, or the Koran, or any other Holy Book, they twist it.) For the most part, they are willing to die, if they think that it will advance their cause. The Leader is a mixed bag - sometimes he's really a Con Man, and other times he practices his own Preaching. In any case, they think that they are on the side of a higher power.

Gangs are a group of criminals. Basically, they try to terrorize people, mainly with the intentions of keeping them under control, or scared. Sometimes they try to expand their empires, either through conquest or controlling the drug trade.

Another stock Villain is Enemy Military. This is especially tacked onto those who invade a country, like the Nazis from WW2. But, then again, when you put in words like 'Invading military,' would the US military in Afghanistan and Iraq be villains? I guess, if the military just lets their soldiers go burn, loot, rape, and pillage those of the other nation, they would be the bad guys. If they don't allow this, and honestly try to help out the country they are invading, well, it's kind of iffy. Depends on the soldier I guess. For the most part, the average soldier isn't exactly evil, they just follow orders. Case in point, in the original 'Red Dawn', the average Russian and Cuban soldiers aren't exactly evil, but their superior officers tell them to do things, like killing a bunch of civilians after local guerillas attack their forces. However, the real separation is when the soldier follows an order that they know is Wrong and Illegal, which is known as the Superior Orders defense ' the Nuremburg Trials are a good example of this ' one tries to pin the blame on their commanding officer, in that case, Adolf Hitler. In some cases, this works, with the Accused getting a lighter punishment on the bases that the deed wasn't entirely their fault, and other times it doesn't, and the Accused could find themselves on the receiving end of a firing squad, or some such thing. In short, if the enemy soldiers go after noncombatants, they can be called evil, but if they just go after soldiers or other fighters, then their morality is considered ambiguous. Some might be honorable, and others are not.

Of course, the big thing about villains is just what makes them so bad. Let's start with one of the basic motives - Revenge, and Slagar the Cruel is a good example of that. Now, since you probably don't know the Redwall series, here's a little bit of background - Slagar, a fox, had once gone by the name Chickenhound, and when Redwall was at war with a group of rats lead by Cluny the Scourge, he and his mother worked for both sides. They were found out, and Chickenhound's mother was killed, with Chickenhound making his way to Redwall, where the mice tended to his wounds. However, he repaid them by stealing some small valuables, and by murdering one who tried to stop him. He fled and hid, only to be found by an adder, Asmodeus. The thing is, Chickenhound survived his encounter, and changed his name to Slagar, and furthermore, the adder and Cluny were both killed by Matthias, the hero of Redwall, thus, to get his revenge, Slagar took the warrior's son. However, this leads to his death, as Matthias and his friends pursued him, and caused him to die.

Another thing that can make that Villain scary would be, believing that they are above corruption. Let's take a look at Frodo in the Disney version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Heck, the intro song says that the guy saw corruption everywhere, except within. He blamed everything on everyone else - blaming his lust for Esmeralda on a 'Gypsy Curse', calling Phoebus a coward for refusing to murder a family that had sheltered Gypsies that were hiding from Frodo's search, and calling Quasimodo a monster because of his appearance. Of course, most of us know how that all turned out, with Frodo falling to his death at the end, when he tried to kill Esmeralda and Quasimodo.

Of course, other villains are just plain greedy, for money or for power. Let's take a look at Sykes from Disney's Oliver and Company, the modern-day version of Oliver Twist. In it, a poor, practically homeless, man, named Fagin, owes Sykes, a loan shark, a large sum of money, and Sykes has set up a deadline - three days, and if Fagin fails to pay up, he'd be Doberman chow. Now, I'm sure that you know the rest of the story - Fagin finds out that Oliver, seemingly, has a wealthy owner, and tries to 'ransom' the kitten, but when he finds out that the cat's owner is an almost 8 year old girl, our thief has a change of heart, of sorts - he wasn't the sort to intentionally harm a kid. Thing is, Sykes saw the kid and figured that the kid would be worth more than Fagin's debt, and thus took the kid. As it is, Disney did not tone down the guy ' at one point he talks to an underling, or some such person, on the phone about giving someone the cement shoes treatment.

Then there are those who lust for power. Disney's Frozen has a very good example. Now, if you haven't seen it, I won't spoil it too much, but I will say this ' there's a guy whom you'll think to be the good guy, only it turns out, he's not a good guy. As for the Obviously Bad Guy, Red Herring - you'll be watching him instead of the Big Bad Guy, until the Reveal of course. Even now, when I watch it, you think that the person is helping Anna, and the Kingdom, but then you'll end up with a, figuratively speaking, frozen heart, when the person announces their plans, not in a dramatic form mind you, but in a way that chills you, as they leave her to die, and then try to kill Elsa, by saying that she had killed her sister. Love the ending though, as the guy gets his just deserts.

Also, much like with the above example, some villains aren't obviously evil, at least not to their followers. Let's take a look at the Governor, the main villain in Season 3 and 4 of AMC's The Walking Dead. At first, he seems like a good guy, caring for this National Guardsman found injured in a helicopter crash, not to mention a sick woman, and trying to raise his daughter, not to mention being a benevolent leader to this community he helped to form. Then, when the wounded man tells him where his friends are, things turn really interesting, as he leads a group of men towards were these National Guardsmen are, and kills every last one of them, telling those in the community that biters had gotten to them, and that's when we (the Audience) know his true colors, even when no one else knows. Of course, this isn't much of a surprise, as he was a main villain in the Comic Book series.

Then, other villains are obviously evil, like Dr. Facilier in The Princess and the Frog. Let's face it - the skull and crossbones are an obvious 'Bad Guy' scream-out. He then tricks the prince, manipulates the butler, and plots to murder the richest man in New Orleans, not to mention give the peoples' souls to his 'Friends on the Other Side.' Too bad for him, those he cursed had other plans, in that they wanted to change back, or defeat him at the very least.

Overall, when it comes to Villains, they need to do something to the Heroes in order for a conflict to occur. One common method is to kill someone that the Hero cared for - child, spouse, family member, role model, or the one that wanted to be just like them. After all, in the Inheritance series, Eragon wasn't really interested in fighting the Empire, or anything like that, until his uncle was killed, and the Empire's agents came for his family. However, because of that incident, Eragon set out to hunt them down, although it did take a while, and then set out to kill the one responsible for the land's predicament. If not for that incident, Eragon and his dragon might have hid in the Wilds of the land to avoid the king's attentions.

Other similar incidents occur in other stories. In 'The Last Stand', about the most an aging ex-LAPD officer - turned - small town sheriff has to worry about is the occasional cat up a tree, a farmer threatening trespassers, and his deputies shooting guns with the local firearms enthusiast/museum owner. That all changes when the one young deputy, who wishes to join the LAPD, and whom the sheriff was going to help to do so, gets killed by the members of a Mexican cartel that's trying to free their boss. Big mistake, as the sheriff is determined to make them pay for what they did to the deputy.

In short, the Villain needs to do something to the Hero. After all, Heroes don't just go after the Villain for no reason. Trouble comes down that route. Whatever the Villain does, it sets off the Hero on their quest. As for what happens at the end of that quest - only the writer can decide. Don't forget the personality either - that can affect plenty of things. In any case, make sure that your Villains are good at being bad.