How to Create HATEABLE Villains (Writing Advice)

get ready to get nasty today we're going to discuss how to create villains that audiences will love to Hate by the way my name is Brandon McNulty I'm the author of bad parts also the author of Entry wounds and welcome to my writing channel one of my subscribers requested a video on how to make hateable villains and I thought that was a great topic because we don't see very many hateable disgusting villains anymore they've kind of fallen out of fashion and that's a shame because I believe they still hold a valuable place in storytelling so we're going to talk about that today I'll explain what a hateable villain is why they work in certain stories and I'm going to give you five tips for creating them I'm also going to give you some examples from Game of Thrones Rocky IV and Titanic so consider this your spoiler warning for those stories but let's start off by talking about what a hateable villain is and this is a villain who is the human embodiment of evil and evil is of course open to interpretation but these characters are typically very selfish people who represent human worst qualities like greed hatred Envy revenge and so on and they display horrendously immoral Behavior they create unnecessary harm they know exactly what they're doing they have no good reason for it and on top of it all they take smug satisfaction in making other people suffer and these types of villains they're generally unlikable they have no real redeeming qualities and this is important to keep in mind a lot of people would say well isn't the Joker from The Dark Knight wouldn't he be considered a hateable villain and I would say no because the Joker he's charismatic he's intelligent he's fascinating there are reasons why we like him we're excited when he's in a scene but when we're talking about hateable villains we're talking about villains that were disgusted by we hate them we want them gone another thing to keep in mind with these types of villains they often have an unfair advantage over the hero and it may be because these villains have powerful friends or maybe they have special weapons or they're willing to lie cheat or harm innocent people in order to gain an advantage and then one last thing to keep in mind with these villains they typically lack humanizing backstory very rarely will the writers devote time to justifying the villain's actions or explaining why the villains are the way they are typically you're just going to have a scenario where we see these villains doing horrible things and then the audience just hates them without feeling guilty about it and that brings us to the topic of why hateable villains work and the key reason why they work is because audiences love to root against them audiences want to see immoral Behavior get punished they want to see smug characters get kicked to the curb and the thing is when you really hate a villain you're going to root for the hero even more so it creates this powerful story Dynamic where the audience is right behind the hero they're root and hard for the hero and they're also rooting hard for the villain to fail another reason why these villains work is because unthinkably evil acts are exciting and the thing is audiences get gripped when the villain does something terrible because they want to see how is the conflict going to get resolved is it going to get worse is that villain going to push the envelope even further and these villains have a powerful impact on the story because they make the story World feel unsafe they make it feel unpredictable we don't know what they're capable of or how far they're willing to go and because of that we fear for the characters that we love and then the last thing to keep in mind here is that certain stories benefit from having these hateable villains sometimes audiences want the Simplicity of good versus evil sometimes they just want to see the hero Crush evil like in Rocky IV or Escape evil like in Titanic or sometimes in a morally Gray Story like Game of Thrones it helps to have a clear villain to hate and that gives us a breather from all the moral complexity that's going on all right now I'm going to give you five tips for creating hateable villains and I'm also going to give you some examples from popular stories we're going to take a look at Joffrey from Game of Thrones he is of course the spoiled child who becomes king and he rules Westeros in the early seasons of the show we're going to also look at Ivan Drago from Rocky IV he's the Russian super villain who kills Apollo Creed and compels Rocky to get in the ring in order to avenge Apollo's death and then finally we're going to take a look at Cal Hockley from Titanic he's Rose's fiancee he's the heir to a family fortune and he's also a massive scumbag who looks down on everyone now the first tip is to give your villain a kick the dog moment you want to have them kill maim or intimidate a likable character or an innocent character and the purpose of this is that you want to show that this villain is worth hating now for example Joffrey in the second episode of Game of Thrones he bullies the butcher's boy and he cuts the kid's face it's a completely unwarranted act there's no reason for it other than the fact that Joffrey wants to establish control he wants to mark his territory he wants to give us a reason to hate him Ivan Drago and Rocky IV his kick the dog moment is when he brutally kills Apollo Creed and shows no remorse after doing so and then Cal Hockley his kick the dog moment comes when he explodes at Rose after she challenges his authority second tip is to make your villain's Behavior unforgivable and this is where you want to dial up the selfishness to 11. you want your villain to have complete disregard for morals and politeness you want the villain to cross Unthinkable line lines break promises commit betrayals and so on and we see this with Joffrey he promises Sansa that he'll spare her father's life then Joffrey changes his mind and he has Ned executed and then on top of this Joffrey makes Sansa look at her father's severed head and Joffrey takes pleasure in the act and then after the Red Wedding in season three Joffrey gleefully celebrates Robb Stark's death he asks if they could get his head so that Joffrey can give it to Sansa as a wedding gift it just doesn't get much worse than that in Rocky 4 when Drago kills Apollo Creed that's bad enough but after the fight is over he gets interviewed they ask him how does he feel about Apollo Creed does he hope he's okay and then Drago says this the fact that Drago has no concern for Apollo's life or well-being gives us no choice but to hate the guy and then Cal Hockley he displays tons of horrendous Behavior some of the highlights include when he tries to shoot Rose and Jack once they've reunited on the ship and then later Cal abducts a child and pretends to be the kid's father in order to secure a spot on the Lifeboat third tip if you want to make a hateable villain don't make them charismatic Charming or funny and if you do that it'll be harder for the audience to hate the villain you're better off making a villain who's menacing disgusting or corrupt Joffrey for instance has no Charisma he's a spoiled brat he throws tantrums and he plays the victim when it suits him and he can't even crack a good joke they say status never smiles I'll give him a red smile Drago meanwhile he's robotic in speech and demeanor and then you have Cal Hockley who's this smug entitled insufferable control freak there's nothing to like here fourth tip give the villain power they didn't earn and this is important because typically we respect characters who work hard in order to achieve their goals or their position or their status or whatever it is but if you want to create a hateful villain make sure that they got lucky or they cheated in order to get where they are and Joffrey is a great example of a character who doesn't earn anything he's born a prince he becomes a king due to circumstances he never earns his kingship he doesn't rally people around him or anything like that he just happens to be alive when his so-called father dies and another thing to keep in mind with Joffrey usually when he wants something done he has henchmen do it for him very rarely do you see Joffrey ever get his hands dirty or actually carry out his sadistic intentions usually he just asks somebody else to do it for him now with Ivan Drago though he does train in order to become an athlete and train in order to get more powerful he also Cheats by using steroids and he also benefits from all the latest technology and this is something that is contrasted when we see Rocky training out in the wilderness training out in the Russian tundra in order to fight drag and then with Cal Hockley he's born into wealth he's the heir to a Pittsburgh steel fortune and even his marriage to Rose was arranged for him by Rose's mother and then the fifth and final tip is to give your villain a comeuppance and this is the satisfying punishment that the villain deserves after all the horrible things they've done they deserve payback and audiences love seeing a villain get defeated or punished I know I do when I watch Game of Thrones and Joffrey got poisoned at his own wedding I leaped off my couch and started clapping like a monkey I was so thrilled it was exactly what he deserved an agonizing unforeseen death after all the chaos and suffering he inflicted on the Stark family and then with Ivan Drago I get chills every time I see Rocky bust his face open in the second round you have that he's cut moment it's you fork and it works so well because the movie does such a great job of hyping up Drago as this menacing Invincible opponent and then with Cal Hockley he doesn't have an on-screen comeuppance but we do learn of his fate in one of the final scenes from Titanic he married of course and inherited his minions but the crash of 29 hit his interest hard and he put a pistol in his mouth that year or so I read and this is of course A fitting comeuppance for a character who's so fixated on wealth status and control once he has those things taken away from him he can't cope but the key thing to keep in mind with the comeuppance you want to give the audience a satisfying conclusion after all the pain and suffering the villain caused so I hope this helps question of the day what villain do you love to hate the most let us know in the comments section below thank you guys for watching if you want to support the Channel please pick up a copy of either one of my books and be sure to leave reviews on Amazon bad parts is great if you like small town horror it's about people trading away their sick and injured body parts in order to get healthy again and then entry wounds is great if you like Thrillers and it's about a guy who picks up a Haunted Gun and he cannot put it down until he kills six people with it also be sure to check out my other videos like share and subscribe and as always remember to keep on writing

Channel: Writer Brandon McNulty

Views: 164,605

Keywords: Writing, Writing advice, Writing Tips, Fiction, Creative Writing, How to write a book, How to write a novel, novel, book, joffrey, joffrey baratheon, joffrey death, game of thrones, rocky iv, rocky 4, ivan drago, drago, titanic, cal hockley, villains, villain, how to write a hateable character, unlikable characters, villains writing, villains we love to hate, love to hate, hate, worst villains, movie, movies, how to write evil characters, evil characters, hated, hateable, evil, characters

Id: TPdVeqaN8Rg

Length: 9min 45sec (585 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 08 2023