Creating a villain protagonist
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- Опубліковано 22 чер 2024
- No one worth listening to thinks that Light Yagami was the good guy.
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I'd say a villain protagonist needs a combination of human characteristics while not whitewashing the atrocities they commit.
I agree. I think the point is to highlight their flaws and their philosophy while still centering them as the villain of the story, we are just seeing it from their perspective more often than not.
@@shineyydesigns7696 Thank you!
'I set this orphanage, then this orphanage on fire.' Direct quote from the villan protagonist of 'I Burn Down Orphanages and Still Love my Mother.'
The sequal, 'I Kick Puppies Because I Had A Sad Childhood.'
The sequel features BoJack Horseman
I think the sequel and the original need to be swapped, since kicking dogs is far less extreme than burning children to death
@etienneleroi9515 OK, I just laughed for a whole min! I'm just imagining you being my editor, and I'm actually writing this ludicrous book.
Yeah your write. Kicking Puppies should be a prequel! The Sequal is actually 'Enslaving the world to save Mother Nature.' for my new series, 'How to Be Evil and Still Appreciate The Small Things'
On what way he loves his mother? Just asking.
@vringi3725 we both know it's Oedipus
A very good book with a Villain protagonist is Steve Job's biography
I like the term "competency porn" to describe Death Note. It's just fun seeing someone do something that they are really good at.
I'm remembering a video where someone basically said "Villain protagonist, or as people who aren't chronically on tvtropes call them, anti-heroes" and that always never sat with me. Aside from being condescending, I always had a feeling there was a difference but couldn't put it into words and finally I have closure on that now.
Wow, I had no idea that Hannibal Lecter was an anti-hero!
Yeah, Antihero used to mean someone who was a hero but uninspiring. Normal people were antiheroes. Then it turned into jerks or very flawed people who nevertheless are doing or being good.
Villain protags have to stay on the bad side of the line, or they *become* antiheroes.
Edit: As an example...
Vegeta on Namek - Villain Deuteragonist
Vegeta Post-Buu - Antihero
(Cell Saga Vegeta is difficult to categorise)
There are heroes, antiheroes, antivillains and villains. They are different
Antihero is used colloquially to refer to villainous protagonists, but in literary context it refers often to protagonists with little agency over the story (because hero meant someone who can do great things).
To an extent, a character can be a villain and a hero, an antivillain and a hero, a villain and an antihero, and an antivillain and an antihero.
That is because villain and hero refer to different non-exclusive concepts.
I also think that while w villain protagonist could turn into an antihero, there isn't overlap the same way. Pretty much majority of heroes in books today would be antiheroes, as the sort of pure and heroic hero of classic literature isn't interesting to people so much now - they are left in movies. Han Solo for example would be classic antihero, a rogue with heart of gold, etc. This archetype is very popular, and can be more or less heroic, as it's just a hero with some flaws. Think Mal from Firefly also. Also, unnwilling, weak and cowardly protagonists would be a type of antihero. These can be then shaded either very unheroic or almost like a standard clean brave strong heroic Hero, with many grades between. A villain cannot also be a hero, unless there is a drastic change, even if it is a change in perspective rather than a change in their own character. There is no earthly way the Anerican Psycho protagonist will be a hero, unless he's recruited to a completely different story, a la Suicide Squad.
My approach is making villains, who are competent. Sometimes it means plunder villages to feed his army and sometimes it means building infrastructure because it is both practical and popular.
Imagine a warlord not just plundering a village but quitw literally reck other warlords to be the only warlord who "collects" food from the village from time to time. It becomes (loosely) a business transaction with protection money and something medium to long term.
My suggestion: Give your villain protagonist at least one genuine friendship. Someone who FW them not out of fear or personal gain, but mutual trust. Someone who they'll stick their neck out for because they know they can depend on them, even if it's towards nefarious ends. Test that friendship whenever possible because that's going to determine where your villain protagonist's limits are, because whether or not that friendship is ultimately betrayed is going to be the difference between them passing a point of no return or stepping away from the edge.
Best Example off the top of my head would be Zuko and Uncle Iroh from Avatar the Last Airbender.
Ooh, I like that!
An issue that commonly arises from a villain protagonist is the balance between likability and actually showing them doing villainous acts. Overlord had this problem where a good chunk of the fanbase got memed on because they forgot ains was a villain
I think that's a problem only in the anime(maybe the manga too I didn't read it), in the novels it's as clear as it can be because there is a lot more of Ainz thinking and reasoning on why he is doing things, so even when he is doing good things it's clear it's for his own benefit.
@@fanieljairtonjairton4234 Its in both manga and anime which are the more popular version of it. It was hilarious to see so many people shocked whenever ainz did something bad
I am a huge fan of overlord BECAUSE he is a villain. I am extremely tired of every story being about an idiotic goody two shoes protagonist saving the day with the power of friendship simply cos the "villain" is a bigger idiot.
Granted Ainz isn't some mastermind but I like that he doesn't care about helping every f'king person he comes across and is only concerned about his own people.
I would love to read more stories where the "villain" protagonist shits all over the supposed good guys by simply being smarter and more capable than them and doesn't have a complex about being called out on it.
For Light Yagami, he wasn't murdering innocent people "just" to save his skin. In his own twisted logic, he was murdering them because they were getting in the way of justice and the better world he was trying to create. The end justifies the means. He was so full of himself and thought everybody were just idiots compared to him that he just followed his morale without trusting anyone else all the way into madness. The fact that he wasn't just afraid to get caught and had an ulterior reason made him way more interesting.
And in the end of manga, it kinda told us that he’s right.
Wolf of Wall Street, American psycho, Death note, Gone girl, Interview with the vampire, The hunger, a clockwork orange, are all villain protagonist stories and I wish there were more with more women.
Seconded, I would like to see more female villain protagonists. Bonus points if their main gimmick is not just being sexy.
@@Aurelian369_Gone girl is the only thing that comes to mind but even then I'm not sure if she's a 'villain'
Maleficent? Us? Bad teacher? Insatiable? Inside Out? Barbie 2023?
@@Hello-hello-hello456 I think Amy would qualify she straight up murdered a guy (even though he was a total creep in the movie I don't think he deserved to die)
@@TJHistories If youve read the book, Book Desi deserves it 3x as much as movie Desi imo
tldr: having a bad protagonist isn't bad unless you don't admit they're bad, which makes them bad
It's actually scary how many people don't understand that Light Yagami was the bad guy in Death Note... I watched it for the first time with my ex and he doesn't come off as explicitly unhinged in the early episodes as he does toward the end, but from the beginning when he was talking about how he's going to set the world right and use the notebook to get rid of all the bad people the vibes felt very off to me... Like, why is he the sole person who gets to decide which criminals should be spontaneously executed? Can anything good come from that? Why does anyone want him to become the self-appointed god king of the world? He's saying extremely unhinged stuff that makes it clear he's the villain from the start if you look at it critically, even when he's not drawn like a villain with glowing red eyes and laughing maniacally. It's crazy how so many people online still think he was a good guy and are upset that he finally got what was coming to him and got it explicitly spelled out that yeah no, he was never a hero, just a psychopathic murderer on a power trip.
Actually, I sort of disliked how quickly he turns, he has some bad vibes to start with but he's fairly ordinary teen, if emotionally cold and selfish, and almost as soon as he gets his hands on power he, well, breaks bad. I would have liked if they explored the road down a bit longer, like they do in Breaking Bad, for example. - A lot of people t seem to not get that a story can be about a villain, and side with him (rarely, her) like fans did with Walter White also.
@@TulilaSalomei get what you mean, but I’m pretty sure the point of it was that he /wasn’t/ an ordinary teen. he already had these thoughts about “how terrible and awful” the world is before he even began writing in the death note. I think the point was that no one else would have got this far. he was already a bad person, this just allowed him to explore it easily without getting caught. he thinks he’s the everyman, but he’s not. like James said at the end, the interesting part of the story wasn’t that he was just some guy who stumbled into evil randomly, it was that he was the perfect guy, hiding behind a facade of normalcy, waiting for something to push him over the edge to action
@@TulilaSalome I don’t think he turned fast at all. He was always like that, he just didn’t have power until the death note. Kind of like President Snow. Always with the undertone of sociopathy.
Light is probably either a psycho or socio, he’s villainous for sure, will manipulate and kill anyone who gets in his well or even those who help him. But I don’t think it can be denied that to end all wars and reduce crime by 70% is a major net positive for the world, but he probably could have still done that without being willing to kill anybody, so he took it too far.
@@TulilaSalomeEven before Light got the death note he was talking about how the world is rotten and would be better without certain people, so it’s pretty fitting with his character that he “broke bad” quickly.
Yeah, I like me a good villain protagonist. My favorite is Tanya from The Saga Of Tanya The Evil. Fundamentally, what makes her evil is her constant need to conform, meet expectations, and do what the society she is in considers good. In a military context, that means killing a lot of people, which in theory should shorten the war, but in practice just makes it longer and more brutal.
I like to think I’m not the female equivalent of a neckbeard until I see anime girls in military uniforms
Yeah she's an interesting character. She got hyper competent to achieve a stable career. But that gets her sent to the front so she gets even better and kills every enemy to try to end the war but it just solidifies her nations militarism and desire to have more wars
Dune's Paul Atreides definitely is a villain. Starting with a local rebellion he knowingly puts in motion a series of events that will kill billions all over the universe.
I knew Paul was gonna get a little evil, but genocidal evil???
I disagree. If you read up to the 4th book and after, it's clear that, brutal though they were, both Paul's and Leto II's actions were necessary to save humanity from stagnation and possibly extinction.
The Golden Path was meant to be the "lesser evil".
I'm really glad you brought up Darth Bane as an example. He (in my opinion) is the best example of a villain protagonist. He commits HORRIBLE acts of evil, yet they aren't done just for the sake of being bad.
Both anti heroes and villain protagonist also have excellent low light vision and, maybe, a little photo phobia.
'This will offend a lot of people but you don’t look cool wearing sunglasses indoors. You look a divvy.' - William Regal
You would LOVE “Vicious”, one of my favorite books of the past few years!
Really glad you brought up Sopranos. My favorite villain in that show is Richie Aprile, because his aggression and nastiness really makes Tony and the other mobsters seem rational when they're pitted against him. Of course Ralphie is good too; characters like them help sort of ground villain protagonists in a lighter moral perspective, at least in their story
Phil is arguably the best written antagonist on the show, but Richie and Ralph are very memorable too.
Thanks for explaining the anti hero vs villian protagonists in such a concise way! Definitely gonna use that in the future
Your take on romance protagonists is on point. A lot of them are just about wish fulfilment and the smut. However, when you find a romance protagonist that you click with they’re SUCH GOOD BOOKS.
Personally I’m more fond of anti heroes than villain protagonists but I think that’s mostly to do with the lack of well written villain protagonists and my inability to deal with characters being evil cause the author wants to be Edgy™️ As a formerly emo teen I’ve had enough Edgyness to last a lifetime
Big Boss (not a book but i still love this one) is an interesting villain protagonist because in the MGS games, you play from as two different sides at different time periods. Solid Snake and Boss. During MGS1, 2, and 4, as Snake, Big Boss is the overarching villain. But in 3, PW, and 5, you play from his perspective and see how he became so goddamn evil and even then you feel remorse and see it from a different perspective in the other games. Even then he does kill children but still, he's a great tragic evil protagonist that you hear legend of in the solid snake games.
My favorite villain protagonist is Alex from "A Clockwork Orange"
BoJack Horseman is a Villain protagonist. You understand him enough that you want him to succeed, but you also hate him for his awful, selfish, stupid, self destructive decisions that often hurt other people in the process.
I do like those - my favourites: Crime and Punishment, Butcher Boy and Talented mr Ripley. All protagonists are very much human, we see their pain and their reasons, but they arent antiheroes. What they do is evil, and doesn't bring anything good to the world - for the first 2, not even themselves really.
Needs more women i guess, but i don't now remember any good female villain protagonists.
So does Lolita count? I don't know if it's ever stated textually it's bad. Just not legal. He's definitely a villain and definitely a protag and the author as far as we know was not on his side.
As someone who read the book Humbert is definitely not portrayed as a good person. Sure the book doesn’t explicitly say “pedophilia bad” and I don’t know if the author ever commented on it but do they need to? I mean can’t we just infer it through the subtext itself !? You also have to keep in mind that the whole thing was written as Humbert’s testimony to a jury, he’s definitely not the most credible narrator.
Nabokov was sexually abused as a child, I’d say Humbert is 100% a villain protagonist
I'm currently reading Stalin: Court of the Red Tsar.
While not a work of fiction, it gives some very good insight on the life of a terrible person who was responsible for both great achivments and humanitarian disasters.
"History is filled with abnormal people" is a qoute from the book which I think is a good thing to keep in mind when writing villian protagonists
In the game "class of 09" nicole could be considered a villain protagonist. She is a sociopathic teenage girl that does awful things because she is bored.
They may not be straight Villains, but Taylor Hebert (WORM) and Catherine Foundling (Practical Guide to Evil) are at least great Anti-Villain protagonists. And more than just these story's protagonists, many of the other Villain characters that they associate and are even friends with are very interesting and likeable characters themselves.
Charisma is also really important. All the characters you've mentioned above have it. If the character can't draw is in with their personalities they will repulse us with their actions.
Fang yuan one of the best villain protagonists from the story reverend insanity. Is like this he's a terrible person but he doesn't kill unless it's the fastest way to his goal and he's a charismatic underdog you wanna see him succeed not because he's good but because he draws you in.
While Saul Goodman is debated on whether or not he is consider a villain or not. I truly believe he is evil and I believe he is one of the best Villain Protagonist and he's based enough on reality to be a real person, and that I believe is horrifying, but is the same thing that makes him work!
Saul Goodman is a villain, Jimmy McGill isn't.
Tony Montana
I found Yuri Orlov in Lord of War to be a very good villain protagonist
☝️This!
D-List Supervillain series. Genius guy gets screwed over by his former employer "Not IronMan" and ends up resorting to crime to make ends meet, eventually turns into attempted hero after former boss unleashes a bioplague on the world because his ex broke up with him and MC gets convinced by sed ex to grudgingly save the day, going toe to toe with world's Justice League in the process. Typical distrust of attempting-to-reform villain happens, fakes death, turns into vigilante, and snags ex-boss's ex, after killing sed ex-boss with dinosaur-magic enhanced power armor.
Series is currently on hiatus/ in limbo, with the last update from the author being in December 2021 saying the first 3 chapters were done.
A story I’m reading rn (Hero killer by Beolkkul and KkulBeol) has his weird gray line
The main protagonist is a villain, she is THE hero killer, but in all honestly all the heroes she kills are like corrupt as hell or abusing their powers to kill innocent civilians
She’s not a good person but it’s not like she is committing indiscriminate killings like other villains or some heroes
It’s more of a morally gray story of like yeah she doesn’t care about saving lives much but she’ll do it if she needs to
Obv I can’t sum up all my thoughts on it
I just want it to be more widespread bc I really like the series, its art, its music, and the world
That sounds like an anti-hero more than anything
Just started Prince of Thorns a few days ago on your recommendation and it's fire
One of the author’s subsequent series Book of the Ancestor makes for a very interesting conversation with Prince of Thorns. About a borderline feral child on a decidedly stranger world who is both redeemed and corrupted for being raised in a nunnery which produces military agents of the state.
Rule 0: Don't be a hypocrite. Don't rag on other characters when the protagonist has done equally bad or worse things (unless they get the same treatment). Nothing is more annoying than a series drifting away from having a villain protagonist because the story can't help but demonize everyone who opposes them.
I don't see that as a problem, if the story is told from the POV of the villain protagonist.
Obviously he sees himself as the hero of his own story (if he lacks self-awareness) and anyone who stands between him and his goals or wishes is a nuisance at best and a demon at worst.
The most important aspect of a villain protagonist to me is some degree of introspection. Otherwise it's just an aesthetic, a black hat for black hat's sake. It was my main issue with Ainz Ooal Gown from the series Overlord, an Isekai series where the protagonist is placed in the body of his Lich player character in the MMO-turned-Real and subsequently magically loses his morality. There's no Walter White-esque slide into villainy from circumstances, nor is he the kind of Isekai character who views his new reality as still being a game and thus freeing him from any moral consequences, he's just kind of made numb so he can do fantasy villain stuff. It's just kind of... boring? I guess.
I suggest reading reverend insanity it probably one of the best villain protagonist of any work of fiction.
I was thinking that from the jump. It’s cool to see other people reading webnovels.
I love the video am making a evil main character story right now thank you for this video
Oh! This shall be a fun watch indeed.
I need to study for a test. I clicked on this video anyway. I'll come back to this video, I promise.
nicolas cage, clearly is a vampire.
Tbh I say people always forget that Walt had a way out within the first 5 episodes but his ego was so ridiculously huge that he didn’t want to get the job at greymatter
A good way to make us relate to the villan protagonist is to make their most basic goal something good. For example, creating a world without criminals (Light) or earning enough money for his family before dying (Walter White). The way they go about achieving that goal will be dubious at best, and whenever they get any pushback they double down instead of reconsidering, which makes them villans. However, we also understand what they are trying to do and why.
I don't think that is what motivates Walter White in the latter half of the story though. He doesn't stop, even when his goal is fulfilled and his loved ones beg for him to stop.
@TulilaSalome yeah, I guess that's true for both Walter and Light. It might be more accurate to say that their original goal is good, but through the story they start doing worse and worse things and become more solidified as villains who only care about themselves and their own greatness.
Really well put video, most videos I see on the topic tend to largely conflate things like anti-heroes with villain protagonists and often muddy up the issue, which never made sense to me seeing as the defining characteristics are already in the name. They aren't the hero of the story in some twisted way, they're just the main character. People seem to struggle with the idea of a protagonist being anything less than good, which is a shame cause I always found villain protagonists to be an interesting concept.
Good call on the humanizing traits, I do feel like that's an important thing to include that many stories get wrong while trying to make morally bad or evil protagonists. If there's no connecting thread you can pull on to at least understand why the protagonist is the way they are, it makes for a rather shallow feeling protagonist. Having them do bad things for the sake of doing bad things without any way to understand how they ended up the way they did or why they do the things they do does not make them interesting or compelling characters to focus on throughout an entire story. The only reasons antagonists can sometimes get away with that is either because they're a cosmic horror thing you're not supposed to understand but rather fear, or because they aren't the focal lens of the story and you don't have to completely understand their motivations beyond the surface level.
People like Frank Cauldhame from _The Wasp Factory_ or James early on in _The End of the Fucking World_ have always been some of my favourite protagonists in general, let alone just villain protagonists. There's just something so fun about reading characters that are a bit fucked up, though I guess it is a slightly different archetype to a more general villain protagonist.
Why is James a villain lol
@@tedarcher9120 At the start of the show at least. He initially only goes with Alyssa because he wants to kill her.
@@FreyrDev well he fantacises to but he never does
I wish you would’ve talked about rage or Lolita. To me those are some of the craziest examples of evil protagonists and I find them so interesting.
I think one thing that deserves to be touched on is how a villain protagonist can contrast to a hero in a story. I suppose it's not an essential thing to have a hero, but when there is one it can really enhance a villain protagonist.
Just look at Hank! Much as I love Breaking Bad, I think Hank plays a massive role in both making the risk of Walter's crimes more personal and acting as an amazing foil. Obviously other media like Death Note has these types of character dynamics too, just goes to show the power of giving your villain protagonist a foil.
Gerald Terrant from 'Black Sun Rising' by C.S. Friedman is a great villain protagonist.
If you want a good series with villain protagonists/antiheroes, I recently read Market of Monsters by Rebecca Schaeffer. You can understand why the protagonists do what they do while not agreeing with it, and it’s interesting to see otherwise terrible people work together + defend each other.
Before watching the video I will say I think a great “Villain” protagonist that I like is Ash Crimson from The King of Fighters
An aspect with villain protagonist is trying to make them likable while also not justifying their bad behavior. Which is why I’m not fond of the ‘Im bad but he’s worse’ tool used in stories where a bad guy’s evil acts are seen as less severe after showing a ‘greater’ atrocity. As a result you can revert back to their badness being the main focus.
I'm watching the anime Mr. villain's day off. It's more of a parody, all characters are their tropes, and I'm enjoying it a lot for what it is. It has some potential though.
Trying to balance all my villain protagonists in a way potential readers won't hate reading the book isn't easy.
Something to note is that a story might highlight any atrocities a villain protagonist does, but in their preferred environment, home turf or HQ their actions are seen as positives.
In WW2 many allied pows were put through the wringer by the Japanese but their actions were seen by other Japanese as positive and not disgusting and heinous abuses over their prisoners.
Or maybe two sides fighting against each other could be in agreement but another side not directly in the conflict could hate all the violence and disruption the two armies are causing.
There’s a videogame where you play as a villain protagonist. It’s a major spoiler though. But then again the game is over a decade old.
What game is it?
Writing a villain protagonist myself, I'm glad to see that a lot of the points I see here are things I also worked out for my own writing process when it comes to that character. So, yeah. Can't really say I disagree with anything you brought up.
I think a key thing is that they should be interesting. Same for a good hero or traditional villain. I know this is basically saying the way to win a race is to run faster than everybody else. But like yeah you need to have some traits or perspectives or some sort if motivation or something that keeps us interested. It can just be the amount if charisma the character has or maybe the tragedy of watching their actions lead to their eventual downfall. Maybe give them some admiral traits mixed in with their villainous ones. Sometimes those admirable traits can be villainous in some lights.
Golden Kamuy the Manga/anime does a great job where the heroes fan be pretty grey and the villains who are really villainous and are generally calculating murderers are all interesting and fun to watch. Everybody's hunting for this massive treasure and most of the villains have grand dreams of creating new nations to right all the wrongs they've suffered in their lives and will lie cheat steal, manipulate, and brutally murder to get there. But they also show compassion and humor and have things they stand for and against to the point where they sometimes have to team up with the more good guy characters and alliances shift and no combination of characters will engage in a scene the same way even if they we4e trying to achieve the same goals
Yoooo I just noticed in the background; I didn’t know you were an Eagle Scout! Love to see it! (Definitely explains the knives lol)
Wait a sec is your pointing knife a kabar
Villain protagonists are very rare because most people confuse them as “anti heroes”.
Other examples of protagonist villains are:
1. Eren Yeager Final Season AOT
2. Anakin Skywalker Revenge of the sith.
3. Cameron Diaz’s character in Bad Teacher 2011.
4. Patty Bladell from Netflix show insatiable.
james what is your favourite insect?
The ones that stay away from me.
@@JamesTullos based
He seems like a weevil guy
Wow, you didn't go on a single side tanget that entire video. I'm proud of u kid
Don’t forget to like, comment, share and subscribe to appease the algorithm gods.
You should do a video on The Unwanteds. It's another YA dystopian novel, but I really like this one.
If you ever feel like becoming a villain protagonist yourself play the original Command and Conquer
That game allows you to be a real dick to the civilian population while playing as Nod or GDI
HAVE YOU SEEN SUCCESSION ! it would have been the perfect example for this
Ive been writting a story where the main character is the villain, and he starts pretty much already evil.
He is a raider, and altho he is attacking the "evil empire", and will crusade against the "evil empire", his tactics, goals and ethics arent selfless.
He attacks the empire due to his upbringing and desire for revenge (while raiding the empire, he gets his come-upance, and instead of recognizing it was his fault, he desires even more revenge).
Actual heroes recognize he isnt in it for a good cause and is actively getting worse with methods, until eventually he becomes the new villain.
I hate when people write anti heroes or "villain protagonists" who arent really evil, just mean spirited or have an aggressive atitude", so at most they can be fun, but not charismatic
This is my personal opinion but making a villain’s motivations rest entirely on dead parents, daddy issues, or childhood abuse can veer too much into edgelord territory, so be mindful of giving your villains more well-rounded origins
Also, this is more unethical advice, but making your villain hot can go a long way to making the audience like your character (ex: hot daddy President Snow)
Neat to learn of another character who is hell-bent on reaching power to have total freedom and control of their life. Harry McDowell in Gungrave is like that too. Not coming from as extremes of lows but like, his dream is freedom, and he’s gonna climb his way there from the bottom of the city to the top of Millenion and the world
Edit: also want to note he’s not the protagonist, though he is the deuteragonist I would say. Skip the first episode
I’ve been gradually developing a villain protagonist story, and this video is making me realize I’ve probably got some structural issues underlying it. Core premise is a disaffected young adult getting pulled into the orbit and eventual crimes of a conspiracy of “witch hunters”. Said group is basically a gang of violent, reactionary losers who have gotten so pumped on pseudointellectual ramblings they see themselves as something akin to dark fantasy heroes. I’ve been planning to have the protagonist as a Mersault-like straight man who gets pulled into their antics for the actions more than the principles, but I’m realizing now that I’ve just cast a protagonist who’s the least interesting character in their own story.
A viewpoint character who's the least interesting character in their own story can work fine as a method to frame the other characters. Like, the viewpoint character of the Sherlock Holmes stories is in fact *Watson*. They key is to make sure they cleave closely to the interesting happenings and are able to relate them effectively, rather than... as an afterthought, as it were.
Also, like 'a guy who is such a thrill seeker they join a group of witch hunters just to see what insanity will unfold next' is honestly interesting in its own right.
Wrt the "acknowledge they are bad" like in satire or when dealing with an unreliable narrator the badness of the protagonist going unspoken might be kinda necessary; like humanity in verhoven's Starship Troopers or the Narrator in Fight Club or Humbert in Lolita... Albeit people do like Not Get It. But people also fail to get the ethics involved even if things are clearly explained in text.
Heck making any of these guys likeable kinda goes against the making it clear.
(Artemis Fowl is an antihero; has good goals but no scrupules, the growth of the character is like quintessential antihero stuff)
Ditto with clear explanations. Like the example you give... No power hungry bastards don't need to be justified in having suffered, you can just have... Like Light Y is a privileged jerk that goes off on a power trip; nothing "made" him bad, he just was. That's the point!
These points and the contrasting against a worse person are just means of whitewashing a villain protagonist's reputation. These points like, counter your first recommendation of making it clear that they are *bad*
This honestly makes me realize how rare a female villain protag is
I think that the most important part of making a villain protagonist is in those first few points. You can follow just about anyone's story if you understand and sympathize with them, at least to an extent.
To take the most extreme example, Patrick Bateman (literally me), is a murderer, a cannibal, a sadist, completely insane, and a Wall Street businessman. From that alone we should not want to read or watch any stories with him as the main character. But what American Psycho does that makes him interesting and at least on some level sympathetic is how it portrays him as also being a victim of postmodern late stage capitalism, the system and condition which he represents and is trapped by.
Bateman is insane and homicidal, and he is able to get away with commiting his crimes because of his status as a rich businessman. But because his actions will never have consequences and don't affect his entirely superficial and empty public life nor create any long term impact on his secret life, nothing he does can ever really mean anything. Throughout the story, we see everyone confusing identities, places, and events because they're all empty and meaningless. Bateman describes himself as "simply not there", and this is correct. He is not a person, he's an animal, a monster, driven only by psychotic urges and the desire to fit in. He constructs his identity based off of what he perceives to be popular and acceptable, but this construct is just as fake as the things he's basing it off of.
As a result of all this, he has no certainty of what is real or what he's done, nor any sense of meaning or fulfillment. He's trying to satisfy his urges, but because everything he's done just disappears afterwards he's still left feeling empty and hungry.
While we might not be psycho's, many of us can understand the feeling of emptiness and meaninglessness in this capitalist world which pushes us to purse endless pleasure and consumption, never filling that hole and never ending the pursuit. We see so much of reality through a small, curated perspective and internalize what we've been told, then become confused and disoriented when a different perspective comes along. We never see what's real because everything is moving so quickly and has so little impact or meaning that we are unable to ground ourselves in certainty. We just create a persona based on our experiences and try our best to fit in. But it's not real, it's not authentic. We are trapped in this cycle just as Patrick Bateman is. Through this extreme representation of reality and humanity we can see our own struggles and fears. While Patrick is a monster, he's an empathetic one.
This is why he's a great villain protagonist, and why making us understand them is the most important part of this kind of storytelling.
I actually really love American Psycho, it's a shame that sigma males kind of ruined it for me
Yes
3 of Best Villain protagonists come from Shakespeare with the characters of Richard III, Macbeth, and Iago. Interesting to me is that 2 of the 3 are guys who have ambitions to be King of their respective countries. That speaks to something evil about monarchy to me personally because you have to be a nasty bastard to want to ever be King. Shakespeare gives up 3 flavors of Villain protagonist in Richard III we get the gleeful and funny villain protagonist a bit like the Joke Richard loves inflicting pain and chaos on his way to the throne. Macbeth is the conflicted Villain protagonist, he does have designs on the throne, but he has to be peer pressured by his wife Lady Macbeth to act on them. This makes him far more sympathetic and tragic than his two counterparts in this Villainous Shakespearean trio. Iago is the odd case because he technically isnt the protagonist of his play the title character Othello is but Iago has the most lines in the play, at damn near 1100 he has some of the most lines of any Shakespeare character, he is the only character in Othello to have asides, he is the cause and force behind almost every action in the play so I have to call he the nominal main character even though he is an unusual main character in that in though he speaks to audience often he is a figure wreathed in shadow. Iago is to my mind the most interesting archetype of the Villain protagonist as well as the most rare archetype, The Jealous Bastard. He sets his horrible scheme into motion to ruin the life of his superior and supposed friend Othello. He is an outlier from practically every villain protagonist in that his main spur is jealousy. I just wanted to write this to get this thought out. Great video
I read the whole prince of thorns (broken empire) series and holy heck Jorg was AWFUL, but the story was super interesting, and the twist blew me away. I was so bummed I didn't have anyone to gush about that part of the story with.
His other series, The Red Queen's War, also has a villian protag, but a different type of villian than Jorg, and he teams up with a good/honorable guy in the story. He has some character growth, but is still kinda awful at the end which suits the character. Mark Lawrence is really good at writing awful main characters in interesting stories.
bro you look like frenchy from the boys
The Wanted comics did this in the order you gave, and I think it did it well. In the end the MC was very evil, but also the lesser evil. Now, the Wanted movie was just bad, it had less consistence than a world of super villains and the MC was at most an anti-hero.
A good Villain protagonist should have Corrupted Virtues, and thus also have a valid but fundamentaly flawed point to their actions.
We as readers should go: "I can support the Idea, now i want to see the villain fail so that that idea can be purified After the book ends."
Interesting
Is "Overlord" a good villain protagonist? It bothers me that his actions are consequence free.
"Overlord", the anime? That's not a series with a villain protagonist. I mean, yeah, the protagonist is undoubtedly a villain, but nothing in this show can work until you ignore that fact. The worldbuilding's great, though. If the author's sense of morality ever evolved beyond "the people in power deserve their power and you should respect them", this could've been a masterpiece.
One day the tictok girlies are going to come for your neck. Until that day, I'll enjoy every video you do.
Oh god, Prince of Thorns... the story of a 6' tall 13 years old boy that took a nuke on the face and survived. I slugged through the first book and pretended that there are no sequels.
And defeated the main villain by being kicked in the back by a random horse, don't forget.
@@dustrose8101 True! My favorite part is when his dad stabbed him in the heart and he didn't die because he was "too angry to die" XD
@@VisiblyPinkUnicorn In a world without antibiotics and without access to most modern medicines too. Like okay, he pulls himself back from the brink of death via pure willpower/anger. He's just gonna go right back under with an infection he should've 100% gotten. Not to mention whatever blood disease he should've gotten from eating the necromancer heart.
@@dustrose8101 Yeah, and how out of the blue was that scene? Like, in the book it's never mentioned that the sub-saharian crossbowman believed in ritual cannibalism, Jorge never tried that thing before but he did it precisely when doing it would have garnered him some real benefit.
He then proceeded to forget about it and didn't eat the bad guy's heart even after realizing that what he did actually worked.
Anyway, what really pissed me off was the nuke part... like, how am I supposed to care about this character when not even being nuked is enough to kill him?
@@VisiblyPinkUnicorn It was extremely jarring for me too, especially since in addition to those reasons Jorg shouldn't have been able to conclude it was a beneficial move from the worldbuilding. nothing like "consuming necromancer flesh lets you see beyond the veil" or "necromancers channel their powers through their heart", fucking ANYTHING to lead him to the conclusion of eating the heart. I can't even say he did it as an intimidation tactic, bc not only would it be a stupid one (whoo blood disease) but also the only other people around are his own guys????
Also about the nuke. Here's the thing. Okay, so he survived the nuke. In the grand scheme of things he should still be dead. Radiation is still a thing in the Broken Empire. jorg and his bros should be SO FUCKING irradiated. He should've been literally shitting his guts out as they rode back to Ancrath.
My villain protagonist curses everything that lives and everyone thanks him because the more evil guy he told them about and he brought into the world was assumedly trying to kill everybody, first thing he does after being born is to walk down the hill and kill innocent farmer and his family and story ends on society victim blaming his daughter including her own daughter. I'm trying to make is so that no questions get answered through the story and at the last moment everything clicks into the place, and everything connect, so the whole thing hinges on one secret.
I often find the villain protagonists are set against "forces of good" that are actually evil hypocrites. Like the extremist cleric of the god of light who wants to eradicate all the stereotypical evil races like goblins. You end up with worlds where everyone's a villain.
This is sort of a cop out. It would turn the villain to an antihero, if they end up then fighting evil. Then again, every heist story (anyhow, almost every one) has villain protagonists but people don't usually think that, as when we follow bank robbers in a movie, we cheer for them, when we watch a movie about crime solving, we cheer the cops chasing the robbers. (:þ
@@TulilaSalome That's often called an 'anti-villain', someone with villainous trappings but who ends up fighting a worse evil.
Whether heist movies count as villain protagonists... varies, honestly, on a threshold of how much damage they actually cause. Like, the kind that cause lasting harm only to some casino's insurance rates, I would definitely say don't qualify as villains.
Just make them do evil stuff and don't hold back, but do show why they turned evil.
What would be an example of a romantasy?
ACOTAR and Fourth Wing are the two most popular nowadays
Not protagonists per se.
The Skaven from Warhammer fantasy are really funny, every book from their perspective is hilarious.
King Macbeth is a great villain protagonist
Who is the villain protagonist of real life
Vladimir Putin.
America. We're all living in its world after all.
@@JamesTullos Vlad the inhaler
Meanwhile some people completely miss the point. "if bad then why protagonist?" some people have zero media literacy
If you write for the lowest common denominator, you’ll never be able to make work you enjoy, so just assume that the audience has at least some intelligence
Evil comment 😈
I would argue that Ralph isn't actually that much worse than Tony. They're both hypocritical, racist and violent people who constantly mock people beneath them. The only difference is that Ralph isn't as good at lying as Tony, having a hard time covering any of his bad deeds up you see that during the Fat Joke Debacle, Tony would have easily gotten himself out of that situation while Ralph dug himself deeper and said all the wrong things even with Tony coaching him from the sidelines.
The only thing differentiating Tony from everyone else and everything he hates is his superficial charm and the fact we get to see his tragic backstory which gives the audience sympathy for him (though what little backstory we do get from Ralph seems quite similar to Tony's--Physically abused, emotionally unavailable mother.)
I sacrifice this comment to the dark gods of the sacred algorithm
Easy, make it an antivillain
Wouldn't Daenerys count as a villain protagonist or more of an antihero.
For me I hate unpleasant characters and sad endings. Why go to all the trouble if your main character dies? Why would i want spend time with a puppy killer? Or Christian Grey? I guess if you make everyone around them worse by comparison that could work. But id still be like dude why? So my take on it. I hated Game of Thrones because I'm not into torture porn. I tolerate horror movies because popcorn taste's good.
Sometimes villain protagonists are so intelligent, funny, charismatic, or otherwise entertaining that watching them be evil is fun even if they end up dying. It’s more about the journey that the outcome
@jopper1228 I hope you read many enjoyable books full of horrible people. I personally will be reading my werewolf porn instead 😆
Some of those stories have good morals and some of them turn good like the megamind movie
the most unpleasant ending i could possibly think of AND literal puppy killer vibes is the story from the book Old Yeller. A great example of a sad book but with really important coming of age themes that shape young readers
Antiheroes don't need to have "good motivation" that is BS made up by TVtropes. An antihero is a protagonist who isn't heroic. A villain protagonist is an antihero.
You are confusing hero/protagonist. An antihero still has to do heroic things, albeit for selfish reasons. A villain protagonist can be just straight up evil, all that matters is that we see the story from their perspective.
One scene that conveys the meaning of 'antihero' quite well is the one in Guardians of the Galaxy where Rocket Raccoon asks Peter Quill/Star Lord why he wants to save the Universe and he says "Because I'm one of the idiots who live in it". Peter does save the universe, which makes him a hero, but he doesn't do so for noble reasons(at least not consciously), but purely out of self-preservation.
Contrast that with someone like Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. He doesn't save the world, doesn't defeat the Big Bad Evil Guy, he just straight up murders people. Neither his actions nor his intentions are heroic, so he isn't an anti_hero_, but the story follows him, so he's the villain _protagonist_.
Hope this helps
@@husky0098I know that's what people think but it's not true. An antihero is a protagonist but isn't a hero.
Basically every source that isn't TVtropes agrees on this. That's why I say TVtropes made it up, idk if it was actually their fault.
@@ohno5559 you just repeated what they said lol