Building the Bad Guy

[Lalwendë]

There's a useless article in today's Daily Hate Mail by Antony Horowitz who writes those spy stories for boys. In it he bemoans the supposed 'fact' that it is now harder than ever to create a villain due to the mythical monster of Political Correctness.

"Um!", I thought. "Didn't a certain JRR Tolkien manage to create a whole host of bad guys who did not cause offence?" And he was writing in the dim, distant past when it was still OK to thrash small children with sticks, call disabled people 'cripples' and shove them in a corner like a parcel, and not allow black and Irish people to rent a cockroach infested bedsit from you. Yes, yet Tolkien managed to create some of the greatest villains! On rare occasions some loon will pick up on the fact that some of the armies who fight for Sauron are from the 'east', but then of course cannot continue with the argument as it never holds water.

Fact is, Tolkien was a decent writer unlike a certain person bemoaning his own ineptitude in dreaming up baddies. I'm sure I'm not alone amongst those of us who've played in RPGs on here, when I reckon that dreaming up a bad guy is actually much, much easier than trying to create a credible good guy who is not a Mary-Sue! And surely having all this supposed 'political correctness' makes it even easier?! Just have your bad guy drive a bigger car, be a homophobe and be fond of pate de fois gras and you'll be bang on

What's up then? Are Tolkien's bad guys actually not that scary or something? And if they are scary, then how did he do it so effortlessly? And without causing offence? Even in the 'PC' age...

[Hookbill the Goomba]

Interesting idea.
When creating a villain, the main thing one must consider is the characters motives. To simple be the embodiment of evil is not really trying. Once you have a good motive, it is easy to go from there, I would say. It is also a good idea to avoid cliches (black cape, evil grin etce) unless it is supposed to be a parody, of course.
Sauron, for example, is very good as a villain. A disembodied spirit of malice who is represented though his servants rather than his own presence. Saruman, again an interesting character with great motives. There are many in Tolkien that are good. Even ambiguous figures like Old Man Willow have their reasons for being bad.

Besides which, setting it in a fictional world means you can explain away almost anything.

[Raynor]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

And if they are scary, then how did he do it so effortlessly?

Twelve volumes of HoME say otherwise .

A disembodied spirit of malice who is represented though his servants rather than his own presence.

"Hate" to nitpick, but in LotR and the letters Sauron is described embodied at the time of LotR.

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

and surely having all this supposed 'political correctness' makes it even easier?! Just have your bad guy drive a bigger car, be a homophobe and be fond of pate de fois gras and you'll be bang on

Right on point; I fail to see why a bad guy needs to conform to the norm. After all, the very position of "bad guy" demonises him and probably also what he stands for. On the other hand, censoring oneself due to whatever legislation is stupid, because you would have to avoid all possible groups that would be offended - right?

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Originally Posted by Raynor

On the other hand, censoring oneself due to whatever legislation is stupid, because you would have to avoid all possible groups that would be offended - right?

You know, I've been wanting to do a census of sorts to find out just what the most offensive thing in the US is and write a book about it?

I'd provide a hate mail address on the last page...

Here's what makes Tolkien's bad guys interesting [in my opinion]: even the truly evil ones didn't necessarily start out that way. His bad guys have stories, motives, really great dialog...

Now look at Shakespeare's villains. Just a sampling, I haven't got all day...

Iago: whimpering that Othello got promoted over him. Hints that Othello has been doing illicet things with Iago's wife. Oh snap. He's a manipulative creep. Somewhat inept on his own, but great at messing with other people. A bit of a Wormtongue character, really.

Richard III: says he's a villain in his opening soliloquy. That's a good way to judge bad guys, by the way. You want a good villain, give him good monologues. Melkor, Milton's Lucifer, Richard III, Saruman... Dick feels cheated by life, so he's going to be evil. Intense, no?

The Entire Cast of Macbeth: ooh, controversial. Lady Macbeth is NOT the bad guy! Well, sort of. You want a great story, make your characters totally screwed up. Who do you blame? The witches for giving Macbeth the idea? Macbeth for acting on it? Lady Macbeth for goading him? Fate for predetermined bad-guy-ness? Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, Frodo Baggins, and Eru meant for Melkor to be Morgoth and create snow.

Really good writers make their bad guys round. They have histories. They have reasons for their evilness. They have really expansive vocabularies.

Eff political correctness. Pick an idea and embody it in a character.

[Lalwendë]

Thing is, I reckon this Horowitz bloke is just having a rant because he's had writer's block

Tolkien managed to stack up the bad guys without resorting to anything that even today we might get offended at - if anything he was the very model of 'PC'! Possibly by, as Hookbill says, portraying his evil in a very third party way, through the minions, the results of Sauron's works. On the other hand, Philip Pullman (for one) doesn't appear to be bothered in the slightest who he upsets - having an evil woman (sexist!) and an evil priest (irreligious!) in his most famous work.

So there are just two examples which put paid to the ill-founded rant.

[davem]

I found the changes made for the movie version of his book interesting. Reminds me of something Rateliff mentions in Mr Baggins, about a reference to Charles Darwin (a reference to Darwin being 'a young biologist everyone is talking about') was removed from recent US editions of the Dr Dolittle books. Presumably it was felt that even to mention the dreaded name was enough to upset religious sensibilities.

I wonder whether the reason Tolkien's villains are accepted is that the seeting is a fantasy world, & has no obvious direct connection with our own world. Add to that the fact that Tolkien was a man of his time, & there is likely to be less for the loonies to grab onto as a source of offence. Whether Tolkien could get away with what he has done if he was offering LotR for publication today is another question. Of course, as we've been discussing over on the other thread about potential new Middle-earth stories, publishers have a tendency to lay down pretty strict rules for authors:

The whole process of producing mass-market books now works against quality. The paucity of stand-alone genre novels, especially but not only in fantasy, is a testament to their generally poor quality, and that can be blamed on the padding. If you write a good novella, you must pad it to a fare-thee-well to make it a salable novel; so when readers see a novel not part of a series, they almost expect to find an overstuffed novella. If you have a story that wants to be a single tight novel, plenty of unscrupulous operators will urge you to dilute it into a trilogy. Beyond that point there is not much commercial incentive for further adulteration, unless your first name is Robert and your last name Jordan.

Even the tools we write with are conducive to hack and bloat. The copyist-monks of the Middle Ages valued every stroke of the pen, and wasted no written words. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, for instance, is an extremely terse work; for all its immense scope and importance, it fits easily in 300 pages of print. We find, at the end of mediaeval manuscripts, reminders of the labour that produced them. One scribe finished a book with the couplet, Explicit hoc totum: pro Christo da mihi potum......

hat was a sign of things to come. Publishers began to discover the selling-power of big books and multi-volume novels, and after the disappearance of the dollar paperback, made them the mainstay of their business. The loose and sloppy prose of the word-processor generation was perfectly suited to their needs. They were publishing books in greater numbers and at greater length than ever before, with editorial staffs constantly shrinking; one hears of cases where a single editor is expected to acquire and publish a hundred books per year. Meanwhile print runs were shrinking, advances and royalties remaining static at best; so that a mid-list author, to survive, had to become a hack, churning out vast quantities of work and sending them to press only half revised. The result: countless acres of what in our especial field is called, with a perfectly justified sneer, ‘Extruded Fantasy Product’. (The more general term ‘Extruded Book Product’ is occasionally used as well. I Googled that phrase and found to my chagrin that my own LiveJournal profile topped the list.) http://superversive.livejournal.com/49083.html

Add to that the real fear among publishers of causing offence (controversy is ok, but don't offend!).

Of course, fantasy has certain rules - mainly based on what Tolkien did, ironically. You can have 'Dark Lords', Goblins, Trolls, Dragons, & wicked Wizards, because that's what's expected by those who read those novels. What I mean is, the people who read such books are unlikely to object to the portrayal of fantasy villains, & the kind of people who would object would not be the kind of people who would read that kind of thing.

That said, an 'Angmarian' villain is not going to cause apoplexy in the way a Muslim villain will.....

[Morwen]

I suppose so called "political correctness" might affect a lazy writer who wishes to rely on stereotypes and caricatures. If you are going to use a 'shortcut' of ethnicity, religion, nationality, whatever to explain the evilness of your villian then you should be criticised. A well constructed villain should have his/her own personal backstory, his own inherent flaws which explain why he/she became a menace to society. And if that's what is being presented then fair enough.

[Morthoron]

I think villainy has taken a turn for the...ummm...worse, or perhaps the world has. Tolkien drew his images of evil from another time, from his Catholic roots and from other ancient presentations of evil, whether Grendel in Beowulf or Lucifer the Fallen, himself.

When Tolkien stated his story was not allegorical to WWII, he meant it. There really isn't a hint of Hitler or Stalin in Sauron, is there? In both Sauron and Morgoth before him, evil was omnipresent and preternatural, the ancient demons made manifest on earth; hence Sauron is seen only as the Great Eye, wishing to rule the world, but not truly part of it. Tolkien did not foray far into the 4th Age, the Age of Man, and his one attempt he aborted rather quickly. Why? Perhaps because Man is far more horrific an evil than any demigod, and Tolkien's utter disdain for the modern, whether it be for automobiles or great machines of destruction (made by the Orcs, you know), is clearly delineated in his work.

Tolkien's conception of the world was clearly from another era -- Victorian morally and Anglo-Saxon linguistically. He could no more write a modern novel than William Faulkner could write sunny children's prose. Perhaps we too, in embracing Middle-earth, yearn for such simplicity, where evil is monolithic and horrible, yes, but it is identifiable as such. But the modern world is fragmented and perhaps going through the last throes of dementia. Evil has become synonymous with insanity, and a thousand times a thousand shards of evil prick us everyday. There is no rhyme or reason to evil, and though a battalion of experts prattle their platitudes on CNN and MSNBC, no one really can make sense of it. People rap themselves in bombs and blow themselves up in crowded buses, children go to school with automatic rifles and slaughter their schoolmates, and despite mounting evidence to the contrary, governments cynically allow the destruction of the environment so that the corporate coffers of their patrons swell even as the polar ice caps shrink.

It is as Charles Manson said when he opined perceptively, "You know, a long time ago being crazy meant something. Nowadays, everybody's crazy." Evil aint what it used to be.

[Boromir88]

I'm sure I'm not alone amongst those of us who've played in RPGs on here, when I reckon that dreaming up a bad guy is actually much, much easier than trying to create a credible good guy who is not a Mary-Sue!~Lalwende

Very true, and myself being a Sean Bean fanboy...Bean finds it much more enjoyable and fun to play the bad guy in movies (or the man with questionable 'morals') than the upright model good guy, as that gets a bit 'boring' for him. Where all it takes to make a really good 'bad guy' is have them commit a horrible act of evil and show they have no remorse for what they did, they actually take pleasure from committing evil. Which is interesting as Tolkien remarks this about his Orcs:

"They were indeed so corrupted that they were pitiless, and there was no cruelty or wickedness that they would not commit; but this was the corruption of independent wills, and they took pleasure in their deeds. They were capable of acting on their own, doing evil deeds unbidden for their own sport..."~HoME X: Morgoth's Ring; Myths Transformed

By showing your 'baddies' have no remorse and actually delight in committing evil, I think you really can make an effective bad guy for any story. This kind of ties into Hookbill's point about motives, and what motivates the character to do what he/she does? Money? Pure enjoyment? Fulfillment? Power?

Another thing that hasn't been talked about yet is the actual appearance of the bad guy. In old Hollywood movies, you see a guy dressed in black, and with some sort of physical injury (something simple like a scar or perhaps just an evil-looking hook) and immediately you should think 'there's the villain of the film.' But the thing that Tolkien did, that I personally thought was more effective than Hollywood, is direct statements that are intentionally vague about a person's appearance. Let's take Sauron for example:

Sauron should be thought of as very terrible. The form that he took was that of a man of more than human stature, but not gigantic. In his earlier incarnation he was able to veil his power (as Gandalf did) and could appear as a commanding figure of great strength of body and supremely royal demeanor and countenance.~Letter 246

I love this quote referring to Sauron's appearance (after he lost the ability to change forms). I mean we have 'terrible,' Tolkien is very direct in telling us that we should think Sauron is very terrible. However, it's also very vague. What is terrible? This is up to the fancy of the reader. Personally I don't like putrid, bloody and veiny demons, I think of 'terrible' as something dark, ominous and imposing. Point is, I think its up the reader to decide exactly how they interpret...'terrible.'

We also know that Sauron's form was that of a man, yet greater, but not gigantic. So someone who is bigger and taller than a Man, but not a hulking giant. As discussed in this great thread started by Thinlomien, the use of 'height,' not only as in someone appearing 'mighty' but also the use of height to create intimidation and fear: Heighty is Mighty.

In fact, I think Sauron does this for most of his villains (at least when talking strictly about LOTR). The Balrog, the Ringwraiths, the Watcher in the Water, the 'nameless creatures gnawing' are all 'villains' where there is a lot of mystery surrounding them. It could be mystery about their actual appearance, perhaps mystery surrounding who they are and what the heck they are doing? The Ringwraiths (especially in FOTR) are presented as villains that we don't know much about. As we follow the Hobbits' journey to Rivendell, and there are several encounters with the Ringwraiths, the Hobbits have no clue who these black riders are, they just know these guys are evil and need to be avoided at all costs. And as a reader I got the same feeling!

So I guess all this talk about 'appearance' and the 'mystery' surrounding villains can be defined nicely by subtelty. Subtetly can also be a great tool in creating a good villain that scares the crap out of you. Just little comments that unnerve the reader like Gandalf saying in The White Rider: 'where the world is gnawed by nameless creatures.' Just this one little passing comment by Gandalf really creates a lot of fear.

I'm reminded of another fascinating author that reminds me of Tolkien, and that is George Orwell. Who's villain in the book 1984, is much like Sauron. Only instead of one evil Dark Lord, it's the government called 'Big Brother.' We never meed Big Brother throughout the entire book, we don't even know who Big Brother is. Is it one person in charge controlling everything? Is is a bunch of politicians, is it an oligarchy? We have no clue, but we know Big Brother is evil because we see their work. And this is something Hookbill talked about. We see the oppression, the complete enslavement of an entire population, all because of Big Brother. But we don't know who Big Brother is. All we know is their symbol is a giant eye...And when people see this eye, they get a strange feeling someone is watching them...hmm sounds familiar.

Finally, another tactic for authors to use, is through their good characters. How do the author's 'good guys?' How do they react to and view the bad guys? Something like J.K. Rowling does in Harry Potter with Voldemort. Talk about a villain, we know that Voldemort was so evil and caused so much fear that Rowling's good characters refer to him as 'He who must not be named.' That must be a villain indeed...someone so evil people can't even say their name.

Or how about what Tolkien does with his Balrog? The fear he creates by using his good characters. Legolas screams like a girl and Gimli starts crying and can't even look. So, by an author using his/her other characters to also create an effective villain.

I guess, in general, I'm saying, I agree with Lal, what a useless article and that author needs to stop whining.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Boro

Legolas screams like a girl and Gimli starts crying and can't even look.

Classic!

That's the thing - Tolkien doesn't have to worry about offending anyone with his bad guys a lot of the time because they are unseen or even nameless terrors - not always, but I'll come back to that one later...

Tolkien makes use of classic horror/Gothic emblems to conjour up almost subconscious or primeval senses of terror within us. You do not need any knowledge of Satan to be scared of some horned beast rising out of the darkness in the way the Balrog does - he's the kind of creature every child imagines lurks somewhere in the cellar, under the stairs, in the castle dungeon, at the back of the clan's cave... Likewise with the 'dark' image of Sauron and Morgoth, the classic robed figure once seen in the symbol of the Grim Reaper or the plague doctor with his sinister beaked mask and nowadays seen in the image of Darth Vader.

That would be all too easy though, just to make your villains mysterious, thus avoiding describing their race and age. But Tolkien also has other villains who are very real and visible. Like Saruman, ostensibly a very clever and reclusive elderly man. Or Grima, a stereotypical nerd by all descriptions with his greasy hair and pale skin (hours spent playing Warcrack ). Or even Lobelia, a snobby old lady who may not turn out to be Mata Hari but she certainly gives Bilbo some unbearable grief.

The thing is, Tolkien was not scared of making us see how all people can easily slip into doing bad things, into being villains. He told us nobody was above censure, nobody immune from 'falling'. So he had no need to set up pantomime villains as everyone was a potential baddie. And yes, uncannily like Orwell's 1984, in that the ordinary people, the neighbours themselves, make it so that nobody can feel safe and secure!

Actually that's got me thinking again...just how symptomatic of the Cold War are both Lord of the Rings and 1984 in terms of baddies?! You have not only the faceless or impersonal threat in the form of Sauron/Big Brother but you also have the threat from and suspicion of your own neighbours - the Shire Quislings/Grima and the Thought Police being like the 'Reds Under The Bed'/Stasi threat. Hmmm...

[Boromir88]

The thing is, Tolkien was not scared of making us see how all people can easily slip into doing bad things, into being villains.~Lal

Very good point. Tolkien did not seem to offend any one particular group, because his villains can't only be seen as being representations of one particular group, but can be seen as being anyone. Unlike Horowitz who talks about the fact that he can't create a villain who is an environmentalist, a religious fanatic...etc, Tolkien's villains (nor as you cogently argue Orwell's) are not aimed at a group of individuals but every single individual person. Anyone can be 'the villain.'

And Tolkien doesn't do this just with his villains, but also with most of his characters (when we are talking about The Lord of the Rings). There are a few characters that seem super good and the ultimate heroes (Gandalf, the Elves, and Aragorn for instance). Sure they make their own errors in judgement from time to time, but they just seem too great and heroic for the everyday individual to be able to identify with. Or at least I've never been able to identify with them.

The Lord of the Rings focuses around Hobbits, and I think Tom Simon does an excellent job explaining why it was Hobbits that made The Lord of the Rings a success and why for millions of readers The Silmarillion was a failure.

Personally, I find Mr. Simon's comments to be dead on, but everyone is different with what they like and don't like. I found it much easier to connect with the ordinary and simple hobbits than with the 'high and noble' Elves. When it comes down to it, it is the ordinary and simple that 'save the world,' and it is the 'ordinary and simple' that dominate the Lord of the Rings.

So, not only are Tolkien's villains capable of being anybody, but also the heroes (or perhaps the unheroes is a better word ) can also be anybody.

[Lalwendë]

That's something I often wonder- if its the absence of Hobbits that alienates so many readers from The Sil - even for me, I love the book, but it's not half as satisfying as reading about the adventures of Bilbo and Frodo. There's something 'like us' about them.

And maybe that's why Tolkien does manage to create non-offensive villains, as they are rooted in reality, and are essentially like us - well, perhaps the Balrog is only like me first thing in the morning, but most of the villains in human form are just like us or like people we know. Saruman is like the clever guy who just thinks he knows too much. Grima like the office sneak, the brown-noser. Gollum like the guy on the street corrupted by bad influences and addictions. Lobelia like the interfering neighbour. Denethor like the politician making the wrong choices...

Odd that. Tolkien was writing fantasy, and yet his characters are also very everyday people. It's in the thrillers where we find the people who are not everyday folk maybe?

EDIT: and yes, you can good sir

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Originally Posted by Boromir88

Another thing that hasn't been talked about yet is the actual appearance of the bad guy.

It definately helps to make them dark and twisted. Who's the bad guy? Probably that guy over there, with blood dripping out of his mouth. It takes almost no talent to portray evil if you're going to slack off and make a character visually bad. Why not just give them nicknames to dehumanize them more?

When Aragorn is introduced, he is an ominous stranger, sitting in the dark. Strider. One o' them Rangers. Dangerous folk. A star good guy, basically uncorruptable, great lineage, handsome when he showers, poetic, trustworthy... And he's introduced as being scary looking.

All that is gold doesn't glitter. The diamond in the rough.

Your good guys don't always look good.

But your bad guys tend to look bad. It's a decent standby.

Sauron is terrible to behold. Wow. A giant disembodied eye. Yeah, it does tend to freak people out... Undead murderers riding emaciated horses. Christopher Lee's Saruman had sketchy fingernails. Very pointy. Orcs are twisted hideously, tortured into fearsome beasts. The balrog is a creature of shadow and flame. The Mouth of Sauron... I don't even need to describe him. Most bad guys are dark (typical) and a lot of them are physical malformed. A good set of eyes will pick them out of a crowd.

Hecks yes for appearances. Everybody judges based on them.

are all 'villains' where there is a lot of mystery surrounding them

Fear of the unknown.

When Tolkien didn't create the actual nightmare, he created the monster under the bed. It fits in with bad guy imagery: make a villain who is not like me or you.

It's easy to hate people who stand out in a crowd. Even if they stand out by standing there invisible but for a crown.

[Finduilas]

But Fea, there was a time when Sauron was beautiful. Morgoth too I believe. Of course, they never stayed that way

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Originally Posted by Finduilas

But Fea, there was a time when Sauron was beautiful. Morgoth too I believe. Of course, they never stayed that way

There were times they weren't evil.

[Finduilas]

Originally Posted by Feanor of the Peredhil

There were times they weren't evil.

Are you sure? Melkor maybe, but Sauron? And when Sauron stole the secret of the Rings, he was evil, but fair to look upon.

[Hookbill the Goomba]

Originally Posted by Finduilas

Are you sure? Melkor maybe, but Sauron? And when Sauron stole the secret of the Rings, he was evil, but fair to look upon.

I think they are probably referring to the Music of the Ainur when all of them were fair and good and all.

[Morwen]

When Sauron appears to the Jewel Smiths of Eregion as the Lord of Gifts he still had the power to appear beautiful. It appears that he could still take on a pleasing form when in Numenor and it was only after its destruction that he was "robbed now of that shape in which he had wrought so great an evil, so that he could never again appear fair to the eyes of Men" (Silm, Akallabeth)

Similarly Melkor, while in Aman spreading lies among the Noldor, had not yet taken on the form of "a dark Lord, tall and terrible" which he assumed when seeking out Ungoliant and which became his permanent form after the darkening of Valinor.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

This is a purely spontaneous idea, backed up by shoddy memory if anything. Maybe they carried the ability to look beautiful up until they had commited irrevocable evil, thereby damning themselves?

[Finduilas]

Precisely what I was going to say Fea! Maybe not irrevocable evil, but something evil enough to grab the Valar's attention... if there is any difference.

[Raynor]

Originally Posted by Feanor of the Peredhil

This is a purely spontaneous idea, backed up by shoddy memory if anything. Maybe they carried the ability to look beautiful up until they had commited irrevocable evil, thereby damning themselves?

I don't think it was a matter of magnitude of evil, but a matter of loss of power, although ultimately they are connected. For Melkor, some "power had gone out of him" when he stole the silmarils and destroyed the trees - plus, he already spent a good deal of it before he was imprisoned, by becoming incarnate and by corrupting Arda. For Sauron, rebuilding a new body took too much power also. Therefore, both decayed from their initial status, where they could choose their "raiments".

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Originally Posted by Raynor

Therefore, both decayed from their initial status, where they could choose their "raiments".

But it would still amount to beauty being a form of grace, yes? And lack thereof being self-determined, at least to a certain degree?

[Raynor]

Originally Posted by Feanor of the Peredhil

But it would still amount to beauty being a form of grace, yes?

Yes, it appears as one of the gifts of the ainur.

And lack thereof being self-determined, at least to a certain degree?

Yes, but mostly in a indirect/unwanted way. I am rather sure they thoroughly disliked losing it.

[Lindale]

Funny. I thought the Anthony Horowitz guy had a point.

Let me state my opinion: Tolkien's works is in the Art for Art's Sake side of the tug-of-war, Horowitz's more in the Social Art. And Tolkien wrote fantasy (there are fantasies and magic stories with Social context too, take Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but I don't think Tolkien). Makes a lot of difference for me.

In literature, especially in lit with intended social context, racism, sexism, and all those -isms must never be overlooked. Unless you want to be captured, especially in a country ruled by some ultra-sensitive ruler (take the Philippines during Marcos's era, where everything with Socialist agenda was banned), you have to be pretty careful. Horowitz's work is trying to play safe.

Not that I'm saying the latter is the better writer. I do think he's incompetent (sorry for the harsh word, we lit majors use this at times) because if he can't think of a way to create his villain, he's lost. But Tolkien had a relatively easier time, as you lot say, because it's fantasy, it's the tra-la-la stuff in his mind.

Oh God. Writer's block again for me. So let me go down to my point: it's not easy writing lit. Be not too harsh on him, and don't compare him to Tolkien, they're not on the same genre or ground.

[Lord Halsar]

In my opinion, a good villain should be physically different to Osama-Bin-Laden. He may be the most dangerous man in the world, but he looks ridiculous.
A good villain should not look like an old man in a turban with a humorous accent and a beard that makes him look... odd. In my opinion, Barney the purple dinosaur is more threatening than Osama.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Originally Posted by Lord Halsar

A good villain should not look like an old man in a turban with a humorous accent and a beard that makes him look... odd.

I'd normally pass this statement by, but it's definately worth a second thought. Besides my forthcoming point, you've just unwittingly described Disney's Aladdin's Jafar, and he was a fantastic villain.

Call me on it if you want, but the human brain, the human mind, is part of the human body. No matter how far you want to go with your personal separation of mind and body, you're still thinking with part of a living organism. You are your body, and villainy can (and dare I say it, should?) have much to do with physical matters.

Look at Shakespeare's Richard III for one of my favorite examples of a villain with an 'odd' body. Here's part of the play's intro, the first soliloquy, spoken by the title character.

Originally Posted by Richard of Shakespeare's Richard III

But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun
And descant on mine own deformity:
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.

Not all bad guys wear all black and look intimidating. Not every villain has a suave demeanor and a sleek ability to lure young virgins out of their qualification to be ritualistically sacrificed. An old man in a turban makes a fantastic villain if he's true to your story. If the writer doesn't have the guts to write him or can't pull it off well, that's his or her own problem.

[Lalwendë]

Now this has got me to thinking about Doctor Who again...there's a family show aired on Saturday at tea-time, on the BBC, and so obviously it must not offend at all costs. Yet it must also have the ability to scare the pants off the viewers and send them scurrying behind the settee. The creators of Doctor Who, specifically Terry Nation, pulled this off in great style by creating the Daleks and the Cybermen.

Both are sexless, ageless, classless, raceless (etc) enemies. In fact their very difference from everything we take as 'human' (emotion, warmth, etc) makes them even more frightening. I think it was in the second of the new series of Doctor Who when the Cybermen first rise again in the parallel world, they have a little speech about how they will 'upgrade' humanity and that if all humans become Cybermen they will forever be free of social divisions such as race, gender and poverty. It was quite chilling - like Political Correctness taken to an absolute and absurd extreme. Of course then there are also the Daleks who don't even have a humanoid form to make them that bit more alienating.

I think Tolkien pulls this off in his own way by portraying Orcs in the main as this mass of dehumanised beings - certainly in his battles. Yet he plays with our heads by then showing us Orcs chatting about retirement - and they do similar things in Doctor Who, trying to make us feel emotional about the remnants of humanity in a dying Cyberman or showing a lone Dalek's feelings. Is that 'messing with your head' bit an essential?

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

Is that 'messing with your head' bit an essential?

I actually discussed this subject not too long ago at a terrorism lecture. It amounts to being the difference between biological and 'traditional' physical warfare. If somebody bombs you, shoots you, stabs you, you die. If somebody slips a strain of something into a couple reservoirs... It's more of a paranoia thing. You never have to throw a punch as long as the world is enough intimidated by you that they aren't willing to pick a fight. People who risk being shot by 'the enemy' aren't nearly as defeated as people who are afraid to drink water or leave the house.

Think about Tolkien's evil forces catapulting the heads of the fallen soldiers over the walls of Gondor. It was unnecessary on a level of brute force. What, are you going to give your enemies concussions? But think of seeing your brother or your best friend or your father, staring at you through lifeless eyes that still hold the traces of terror that were burned into them in their last second of life. It's a far more effective weapon than a boulder. The hesitation alone caused by the psychological impact can turn the battle in favor of the bad guys.

Messing with heads isn't essential, exactly, but it's effective as hell.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

All of warfare is ultimately about morale. The natural human instinct for self-preservation is only held at bay by a complex (and artificial) structure of training, discipline, esprit de corps, confidence, patriotism and so on, collectively termed morale: but there can come a point for any soldier where it all collapses in the face of the biological desire to be somewhere else, as fast as possible. Napoleon understood this instinctively: he spoke of a battle as "two large groups of men trying to frighten each other," and of the "crucial moment" in a battle which, when seized properly, will cause the enemy to "break." Battles aren't decided by killing every last one of them, but by inflicting sufficient casualties and creating the prospect of inflicting a lot more, such that the rest run away or surrender.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Feanor of the Peredhil

I actually discussed this subject not too long ago at a terrorism lecture. It amounts to being the difference between biological and 'traditional' physical warfare. If somebody bombs you, shoots you, stabs you, you die. If somebody slips a strain of something into a couple reservoirs... It's more of a paranoia thing. You never have to throw a punch as long as the world is enough intimidated by you that they aren't willing to pick a fight. People who risk being shot by 'the enemy' aren't nearly as defeated as people who are afraid to drink water or leave the house.

This is why to me, the Witch King is such an effective enemy. It's not necessarily anything to do with his personal power or the forces he commands, but it has a lot to do with his reputation. There is the prophecy that he cannot be killed by 'Man' - and this works well for him until someone who is quite literally not a man (but without the capital ) comes along with a little Hobbit and disregards this. As in real life, the only way to defeat terror is not to allow yourself to be swayed by it!

Think about Tolkien's evil forces catapulting the heads of the fallen soldiers over the walls of Gondor. It was unnecessary on a level of brute force. What, are you going to give your enemies concussions? But think of seeing your brother or your best friend or your father, staring at you through lifeless eyes that still hold the traces of terror that were burned into them in their last second of life. It's a far more effective weapon than a boulder. The hesitation alone caused by the psychological impact can turn the battle in favor of the bad guys.

Messing with heads isn't essential, exactly, but it's effective as hell.

I think that the heads would have hurt if they'd hit you - but as you say that's not the point! There were better missiles to launch! However firing the head of an enemy over a wall does not only have a psychological effect it can also spread disease; in medieval warfare biological methods were widely used, such as dipping arrow heads in rotten diseased flesh and hurling carcasses of diseased beasts over the walls and dropping them in wells supplying water.

And going back to the psychological effects, the other is that using these heads as missiles shows immense disrespect. It shows that the enemy are somewhat dehumanised and will stop at nothing in order to beat you. It's not so common these days in warfare as we have the Geneva Convention, but it still goes on - forces on all sides still take great delight in humiliating prisoners when they can get away with it