Oh villainy. Oh alack. Etc.

[mrissa]

Dear fellow writers, but especially thriller and fantasy writers,

I am able to accept someone as The Bad Guy without knowing the least little thing about their sex life. Do you know why this is? It's because a) the world is full of evil that can be done without having the least thing to do directly with sex, and b) I am aware that many really good people are into things I am not into, sexually as well as nonsexually, and that is--within reasonable parameters including but not limited to consent--quite all right with me. Sure, some villains Really Must have their villainy interwoven with their sexuality. It does not have to be the default. I promise it does not. And frankly it gets boring. "I'm not really sure this is my business," may be the Minnesotan polite translation of, "I don't care what happens to these people!" It still serves the same purpose: not reading your book any more, okay, buh-bye.

See also: cruelty to animals. It is not strictly obligatory in a villain. What ever happened to the cat-stroking villains of yore? These days they would be forced to kick the cat just to demonstrate that's the kind of person they are. Memo: humans are animals. Being nasty to humans counts.

I'm going to go read W. H. Auden. W. H. Auden never does this to me.

Exasperated,
mrissa

Comments

[cesario.livejournal.com]

A really proper villain never gets the chance to be cruel to animals because they won't get anywhere near him/her. They know a predator when they see one.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I've kind of had it with sordid depictions of sex in general. They don't prove anything about the character or world or narrative tone to me anymore; they're just kind of grimy and foul.

[redbird]

I was thinking much the same thing about a book I read recently, with a side order, or entanglement, of "do the bad guys in this actually have a motivation other than to drive the plot?"

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

As a weather freak, I've been reading some fascinating translations from Pierre Magnan, _Death in the Truffle Wood_ and one even wetter whose title I can't find. They read better as parody, tropes ride again. The only thing that grounds them is the trope treatment of (believable) animals.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

Back around 1990 I read a mystery novel where the surprise twist was that the bad guy had not molested his daughter (as we had been set up to believe).

[caoilfhionn.livejournal.com]

One of the first things I noticed upon my first adult re-read of Dragonflight was that Fax kills a puppy for no reason other than to prove that he's truly evil. There's no possibility that he might just be misunderstood. My entire family reacts to such lack of subtlety with a deadpan "You know, I don't think we're supposed to like him."

[pameladean]

Your first point is actually one of the things that bother me about the Modesty Blaise novels, especially the later ones.

And your second is where I got off the Stephen King bandwagon. Not that I was ever very much on it, but still.

P.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

I have a theory based on those that this genre, in general, is kind of screwed up about sex. And that those scenes are where all our Terry-Brooksian, black-and-white, awkward junior high ideas about booty come pouring out.

[tanac.livejournal.com]

Oh very much yes, thank you *cough* Mercedes Lackey *cough* Terry Goodkind *cough*. Ad nauseum, indeed.

W H Auden

[gauroth.livejournal.com]

Please excuse me for a moment: Middle-Aged-Fangirl-Squee! 'The Shield of Achilles'! 'In Praise of Limestone'!

Ahem! Auden's language is deceptively simple, and very, very clever. A great, and greatly underrated poet.

I agree about villains, too. Goodkind's, particularly ('oo! let's kill kiddies!') but I think I detest him more because his supposed heroes do awful things - but that's ok, because they're Good. I think that Goodies-who-do-evil-but-are-still-goodies are even worse than villains-who-are-villains-because-they-do-nasty-things.

Blofeld was even more menacing simply because he petted a white cat.

[rmnilsson.livejournal.com]

Yes. Why I don't read Terry Goodkind. Eww ewww yuck.

[retrobabble.livejournal.com]

LOL! Thank you.

[lotusice.livejournal.com]

WORD.

Also your icon *rocks*.

Although my next book is entirely about sex and kinky sex and all the dark underbelly.

But there are no animals.

(I'm just saying.)

[lotusice.livejournal.com]

Actually, I should have used this icon.

[zalena.livejournal.com]

I dropped Michael Chabon because his consistent cruelty to dogs. But I think we may have had this discussion before.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

OH SFF NO. I think you may have nailed it. (Um.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

In society, we don't always let them act on that impulse. Domesticated animals are often not allowed to flee their tormentors. This is, in my opinion, too important a thing to be considered a throwaway piece of characterization on a routine and unconsidered basis; possibly I have too many friends who have formerly abused rescue dogs.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Most things authors do with an intent to be sordid work out that way for me. "Sordid" often does not work well as a goal for me.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Aaaaaaagh. I believe you. But aaaagh.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes, there can be no possibility that he might be misunderstood--and such possibility would totally exist if not for the puppy-killing! Sigh. Authors.

Re: W H Auden

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

This is actually his collected prose. I am finally feeling steady enough to wrangle it. (It's only the first volume of his collected prose. But still. Very large. Have been wanting to read it for almost a year now.)

But yes, I totally agree: "But it's all right because he's one of the good guys" is worse, much worse.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It's a good icon, I do agree.

But anyway: sex and kinky sex and the dark underbelly are by no means to be scorned. But unconsidered sex/kinky etc., used reflexively: meh. Meh, I say!

[timprov.livejournal.com]

Cross out "genre" and replace with "society"?

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

Nope. I think the SFF screwed-uppedness about sex is actually very unique and personal, like a snowflake.

[firecat]

Oooh. Thanks for the warning.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

*sigh* yeah. Plus it can get lazy. I heart Dick Francis, but he has several different mysteries in which the villains are sexual sadists and/or masochists while the heroes invariably have wordless, tool-less sex. Speaking as a BDSMer, it doesn't make me embezzle *or* kick puppies, I promise.

[firecat]

Also, I wouldn't mind if some of the villains were ordinary looking, rather than scarred, fat, and so forth.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

I'm about to write a letter to "Morgan Howell," myself, about his bad guys always calling women sluts and then being unable to resist having his good guys struggle with their base lusts so he can show us that really good Good Guys can control themselves. Bah.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

O dear yes. I think I recently posted about this in re Jonathan Kellerman. Okay, the latest one did have a plausible monetary reason for the villain's activities (which after the recent long string of psychopaths was quite refreshing) but they were still gratuitously into what Kellerman clearly believes to be icky sex stuff as well.

[thoughtdancer.livejournal.com]

Oh so true.

I've spent far more time with my villain's motives than my good guys, though my good guys are also pretty complex.

I *hate* the evil-because-I-need-a-plot villain. If there's not some sensible goals in conflict between the various sides, then there's not a real story there.

So far, all of my villains could very easily be read as just opposing good guys--the conflicts are over sincerely held beliefs and goals that most people could see as being beneficial.

Gah! How does some of some of this stuff get published?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yah. His dog thing is a bit much for me as well.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Batman Villain Syndrome. Yah.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

And I do feel that really good guys are generally in control of their sexual behavior. It's one of the things, y'know? But it sounds like this is rather more specific than that, and not in a good direction.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yah, I mostly prefer having antagonists to having villains.

But even in the rare cases where I have an actual villain--The Queen of Air and Darkness, say--she wants something comprehensible. Just not something the other characters can live happily with.

[thoughtdancer.livejournal.com]

I have a novel around here somewhere called "Excalibur," that presented Morgan Le Fey as an intelligent, reasonably motivated, and very frustrated antagonist. She was still the villain of the story, and there was far too little of her, but she was also the most interesting and engaging character in the story.

I have a soft spot for that Queen of Air and Darkness.

[redbird]

I'd settle for real-world-plausible motivations like the villain undercutting someone to get their job, or blackmailing someone purely for the money. Not ethical, but comprehensible.

[greatestofnates.livejournal.com]

The cat-stroking villains were getting on my nerves so I donated them to ARC when I moved out of my last apartment.
-
Yore

[akwilliams.livejournal.com]

I like some subtlety in my villains, but at the moment I'm reading Robin Hobb and I could really use some just plain bad guys. I know that her worlds are more morally complex and real, but they're emotionally exhausting.

Your good guys and your bad guys both are liable to get 50/50 chances at a happy ending. I'd rather read real world fiction if I have to deal with reality like that lol.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Well, here's my thing:

I like stories with no villains at all, just groups of people who want different things. That's interesting to me.

I like having some villains who are morally complex and fully realized. That's interesting, too.

And sometimes I like having villains who are Just Bad Dammit, because we did not actually need to hear about Sauron's issues with his mother, because it is not that kind of story.

What I really don't like is when these types of story are mixed incompetently. So you have a villain who is functioning really just as pure villain and all of a sudden there is a side bit about Why He/She Is Like That, and the Why is almost never enough because people almost never have a single Why like that, and it's far better to go with, "Unblinking eye, rahhhh!" than, "Unblinking eye...um...did not get into the college he wanted and resents people who did."

[akwilliams.livejournal.com]

Hmm. You are right. Although it occurred to me about twenty minutes after reading this that if 'Unblinking eye did not get into college and resents people who did' was actually Sauron's real motivation for conquering middle earth, it is a more rational and well-expressed reason than ever shows up in the Twilight books for why Edward and Bella like each other or would be a good couple. "Your blood smells like fresias".

(Now I'm wondering if those books are so damn popular *because* people sometimes like romance Just Because, Dammit. This is a bandwagon we should jump on, man *grins* Character motivation is so passe)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

"More rational and well-expressed than Twilight" is not, you will perhaps agree, a very high hurdle to clear? :)

But yes, I think romance is particularly susceptible to the Just Because Dammit syndrome, because it's a little daunting to try to think of one's own traits as lovable vs. not-lovable, whereas "the person you dream of just loves you, that's all" is somewhat less daunting for many people.