Everyday Canvas

That Antagonist…When Truly Evil

When it comes to fiction, I love characters. Without serious characterization, specifically where internal traits are concerned, a story is bland for me. Even though I normally prefer a character not to be thoroughly good or bad, I asked myself: What if we created a hundred-percent bad character, or better yet, an antagonist?

We all know the value of the antagonist. Without him there wouldn’t be a story. Or if we tried to write one, our story would have more of a chance of becoming an insipid one, as there would be no one to bring in and further a conflict.

We also learned not to make an antagonist totally evil. Among the true antagonists of the world history, I consider Hitler to be the worst, the most evil one. Still, even he liked his own dogs, and in the beginning, his ideas were on the moderate side when compared to other political ideas in his nation.

On the other hand, fiction is different. In fiction, sometimes, totally evil people can be created, although the story will resemble a cartoon magazine rather than emulate a relative reality. If that were to be done, what would be the components of such an evil character, then? Because I like lists, here is one on this thought.

• He (she) thinks he is the best, the greatest, as he has a huge ego

• He is usually motivated by negative intentions, such as hunger for power, narcissism, greed, avarice, jealousy, lust, vanity, etc.

• He may like doing illegal things as he may be an outlaw.

• He may have good luck at times, maybe more so than the other characters.

• He may be clever and resourceful.

• He may have a special talent, which he may use for evil.

• He may be a sex-addict or a pervert, yet charming to the opposite sex.

• He may also be wounded somewhere in his backstory.

• He never acts as an idealist for positive causes, as he believes they are for weaklings.

• Whining, groveling, or acting nice is not beneath him, if it serves his purpose or gets him out of a bind.

• He doesn’t like to put up with hardship. At the slightest hardship, his negative feelings will multiply.

• He doesn’t forgive anything or anyone, even if he may seem so or he thinks going after revenge won’t work…just yet. When the time and opportunity comes, he’ll take his revenge.

In short, the evil one is evil. After creating such an evil character, the worst thing to do is to force the reader to accept him as not evil but a hero in disguise, unless every single act he has committed or feeling he has expressed is well explained. Otherwise, it will be a letdown after the reader has invested so much emotion in this character.