Why is a villain important in literature

We use cookies to give you the best experience possible. Do you know how many characters types are there in literature? If you love to read literature, especially fiction stories and novels of if you are an aspiring fiction writer, you would be knowing about some basic character types, i. But these are not all types you should be knowing. There are more types than these basic ones and they have their unique characteristics.

Apart from the basic types, there are confidante character, foil character, round character, stock character, and a Villain. There are also some archetypal characters. Having an in-depth knowledge of the types mentioned above is crucial to writing an interesting fiction story. To help you with this, we have discussed all these characters in detail.

Keep reading. There are 9 types of characters in the literature and all of them are important. Regardless of the intensity or the length of their role, they have a place in the story. They help the flow of a story go logically and smoothly towards the end. Every story has this type of character and evolves around it. It is the main character or the hero and is also called the protagonist. It appears in the story from the start to end. It is the one who fights with the situations and antagonist characters we will be discussing this type next and takes the story to the happy or unhappy ending.

A hero is at the center of the story and keeps the readers interested by showing his heroism and courage to stand by the truth and fighting against the evil and antagonist character. The protagonist often raises from nothing or comes out as a strong person after being a victim of a destructive event. Many stories have more than one protagonist or hero who help each other and plays equal roles until the end. A good example of this type of character is Harry Potter by J.

If writing an assignment seems to you like a ball and chain, you can choose any of these writing services to make it easier and faster! It can also be a difficult situation or accidental event that works against the main and positive character. This type of character is the life of a plot along with the main character and keeps readers interested by posing the questions and making them curious about what will happen next. We can also say that an antagonist, i. Thus, this type of character is very important while you are writing a fiction.

He also tries to kill Harry Potter in all parts of the series. Flat characters are not an eye-catching part of the story, but still play an important role in the flow and help the main character in his or her intention. It also stays static throughout the story and feels the gap in the storyline. Such characters often have a very short role in the story, but sometimes the writer can make such character very interesting and memorable by giving it a special style and manner.

One of the static character examples is Mr. Filch in the Harry Potter Series. He is a caretaker of the Hogwarts school of magic. He is a flat character because of his role of finding the students who break the rules of the school.

Opposite to the flat character, a dynamic character plays a role that develops and changes during the events in the story. This character may change positively or negatively depending on the need of the story.

It can be anything from a supporter of the main character to a partner of the antagonist and may change its direction from positive to negative or negative to positive. This type of character often rises from a normal non-important person to an important one and makes a significant effect on the story. While the antagonist stands in opposition to the protagonist, you want to create similarities.

Similarities can be in philosophy or actions. A great example of the former is Sherlock and Moriarty: both are geniuses who work with puzzles, but with differing beliefs and morals. In X-Men , Xavier and Eric Magneto share similar goals and ideals, but their actions and methods to reach those goals puts them in opposition to each other.

The contrast between hero and opponent is powerful only when both characters have strong similarities. Villains who are—or who, at one point, were—human have the greatest chance of being relatable, and therefore more believable. So, what if you really want to go with the traditional, totally-evil villain despite everything? The best villain identities to start looking at are non-human ones.

Try a computer, an alien, or a supernatural being that has never been human—such as a fairy, or a demon. An authentic non-human character requires a fair amount of work. You need to be familiar with their way of thinking, their emotions, their culture. How do they view death and pain? These are all viable elements and catalysts in a story, but lack the ability to intentionally act against the protagonist.

If one of these are what your protagonist fights against, try to personify the core of the struggle in a character. Instead of the destruction of war, try a battle-driven general with a few lax morals. While facing a situation or external antagonist, they may struggle with a decision: emotional, intellectual or moral.

What can hinder a protagonist from taking action or making a decision is different for every character. Generally, the protagonist is the first character you develop, so go back to your notes to look for their weaknesses and flaws.

Overconfidence in their abilities could lead to a lot of trouble, and good qualities can lead to challenges if they go too far. Taken to an extreme, that strength can become a weakness. Is loyalty always the best path to follow? Is it really okay to sacrifice one life to save many? Self-doubt is another prevalent internal antagonist in fiction and real life.

Having an external villain while the hero deals with an internal one really keeps a story moving forward. The external villain may not have anything in common with the inner one, or they may draw attention to it. Readers relate to characters who have internal conflicts as well as external conflicts. Internal villains can be symbolised in an external one to great effect.

By defining your villain, you have to be careful of not implying generalisations about others within the same gender, environment, race, and so on. A current prickly but progressive choice is a queer villain—but it can be done well!

The first way to avoid generalisations is for the villain to clearly separate themselves as an individual, acting without the support of others. This can be done through dialogue or actions of either the villain or others from the same people group. We stand apart. This is a successful technique, but may not work in all occasions such as historical novels.

Sometimes the key is going to be counterbalance… note that most police procedural shows on television have multi-ethnic casts both in and out of the squad room. Harry Potter does this well; there are both good and bad pure blood witches, muggles and half-bloods. Try to avoid minorities or disadvantaged groups in general. First, think carefully about whether such an antagonist is necessary for your story.

If it is, make sure to use one of the methods to avoid generalisation. In The Lord of the Rings the orcs are seen to be horrible and evil, as a whole. Made iconic by Anthony Hopkins, of course, but made brilliant and terrifying—a serial killing psychiatrist cannibal, come on—by Thomas Harris.

Still, it puts him in rare company. Did you think the villain was the whale? Lady Macbeth, Macbeth , William Shakespeare. The villainess of choice for every man who has ever claimed his wife made him do it. Even this makes me shiver:.

Out, damned spot! What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account? It may be the devious villagers who trick the poor etymologist into the sand pit, but it is the sand itself that is the main antagonist in this slim and wonderful novel.

The sand that keeps coming, and must be shoveled back. The sand that constantly threatens to swallow everything: first the man, then the woman, then the village—though one assumes the villagers would replace him before that happened.

The Wheelers may have thought the suburbs were to blame for all their problems, but I meant it to be implicit in the text that that was their delusion, their problem, not mine. I meant it more as an indictment of American life in the s. Because during the fifties there was a general lust for conformity all over this country, by no means only in the suburbs—a kind of blind, desperate clinging to safety and security at any price, as exemplified politically in the Eisenhower administration and the Joe McCarthy witch-hunts.

Anyway, a great many Americans were deeply disturbed by all that—felt it to be an outright betrayal of our best and bravest revolutionary spirit—and that was the spirit I tried to embody in the character of April Wheeler. I meant the title to suggest that the revolutionary road of had come to something very much like a dead end in the fifties. You could also argue that the British Aristocracy is the villain in the Patrick Melrose books, but.

David is definitely worse if slightly less all-encompassing. Tom Ripley, The Talented Mr. Ripley , Patricia Highsmith. You feel his pain as he tries to insinuate himself into the life of the man he so admires and perhaps loves , and as he is first welcomed and then pushed away.

Less so when he murders his beloved and assumes his identity—but somehow, as you read, you find yourself holding your breath around every corner, hoping he will escape yet again. Rufus Weylin, Kindred , Octavia Butler. That said, the real antagonist in this novel might actually be the unknown and unexplained force that keeps transporting Dana from her good life in California to a Maryland slave plantation in Big Nurse rules the patients of the asylum ward with an iron fist.

She is addicted to order and power, and can be quite cruel in commanding it. In comes McMurphy, our hero, who wants to undercut her.

He does undercut her, in fact, a number of times—but when he goes too far, she has him lobotomized. The end! Nor is this a book with no villain, because the pulsing sense of injustice is too great. It is the whole thing, every aspect, of the American prison system—meant to catch you and bleed you and keep you and bring you back—that is the true villain in this novel and often, in real life. Big Brother, , George Orwell.

He is desperately unhappy; he considers himself a god. Luckily, we get to spend almost the entire novel within his twisting brain. Humbert Humbert, Lolita , Vladimir Nabokov. The genius of old Hum is how compelling he is—that is, despite the horrible thing he spends the entire novel doing kidnapping a young girl whose mother he has murdered, driving her around the country and coaxing her into sexual acts, self-flagellating and self-congratulating in equal measure , you are charmed by him, half-convinced, even, by his grand old speeches about Eros and the power of language.

He maintained a serene comportment at all times but generated a threatening atmosphere, like a thunderhead that seems far away but then is suddenly overhead with a loud violence. Tom Hardy is a shoo-in for the adaptation.

Annie Wilkes, Misery , Stephen King. Listen: Annie Wilkes is a fan. Things do not then go well for Paul, because as it turns out, Annie is already a seasoned serial killer who is very handy read: murderous with household objects.