Aggregator gang
- Joined
- Jan 25, 2018
- Messages
- 521
@Darklight99
You completely misunderstand what makes a villain cartoony. It's not what they're doing (at the surface level they're all doing the same things, more or less) and how it compares to what real people do; it's their motivation and background and how they are portrayed. The chain of events that leads a regular, perhaps even upstanding person to discard their morality adds gravitas to their actions. Their transformation and their eventual downfall is what makes their character an actual character worth caring about. The fine details in their behavior—the occasional self-doubt, or a moment of vulnerability—lets us see the human being beneath the surface of a villain.
It's important that readers have strong feelings about antagonists and connect with their humanity (and before you confuse this as well, commenters here aren't feeling strongly about the antagonists themselves—they hate the fact that they're so bland, which is a different layer of perception). It's great to have a hateable antagonist like Cersei Lannister or Griffith, but it's even better to have a likable one. Consider the examples of Tyler Durden who follows a cause we fundamentally believe to be righteous but chooses terrorism as his method, or Hannibal Lecter who embodies many admirable qualities but is also a ruthless killer, or even the Joker who encapsulates the freedom from the social shackles and contrivances that we so often abhor and fall victim to but brings only chaos and decay in its wake.
This contrast between what we like and dislike about them is what makes them concentrated, better-than-real versions of relatable people for the purpose of a narrative—just like the fact that no written work wants to show you every moment of a protagonist's life: it's always just the outtakes, the highs and lows that that make them interesting to follow.
You completely misunderstand what makes a villain cartoony. It's not what they're doing (at the surface level they're all doing the same things, more or less) and how it compares to what real people do; it's their motivation and background and how they are portrayed. The chain of events that leads a regular, perhaps even upstanding person to discard their morality adds gravitas to their actions. Their transformation and their eventual downfall is what makes their character an actual character worth caring about. The fine details in their behavior—the occasional self-doubt, or a moment of vulnerability—lets us see the human being beneath the surface of a villain.
It's important that readers have strong feelings about antagonists and connect with their humanity (and before you confuse this as well, commenters here aren't feeling strongly about the antagonists themselves—they hate the fact that they're so bland, which is a different layer of perception). It's great to have a hateable antagonist like Cersei Lannister or Griffith, but it's even better to have a likable one. Consider the examples of Tyler Durden who follows a cause we fundamentally believe to be righteous but chooses terrorism as his method, or Hannibal Lecter who embodies many admirable qualities but is also a ruthless killer, or even the Joker who encapsulates the freedom from the social shackles and contrivances that we so often abhor and fall victim to but brings only chaos and decay in its wake.
This contrast between what we like and dislike about them is what makes them concentrated, better-than-real versions of relatable people for the purpose of a narrative—just like the fact that no written work wants to show you every moment of a protagonist's life: it's always just the outtakes, the highs and lows that that make them interesting to follow.
