what makes a villian memorable?

[Oddball]

obviously, anyone can make a villain do villinaous things. but what makes them truley memorable?

I know well roundedness is part of it. Like if some big burly villian with a deep gravley voice goes "buttercups... my favorite!" but what else?

 

[Jiggy]

Well, take the joker for instance. He's cunning, intimidating, etc.

What makes him memorable is his ways of doing things. They are very unusual to what normal villains do. He is a sociopath who murders people just becasue he wants to, he's somewhat funny (lol). Well, you get my point.

Here are some other points you might want to remember:

1. A good backstory.

         -Anything from the past that makes him motivated to do bad stuff.

2. A dashing personality

         -Well, not exactly dashing, but an unusual personality which makes him memorable

3. Unsualness (idk if that is even a word)

        - Everyone wants to see something new, amirite? So, something which is uncommon, like how he does stuff, how he deals with things, will pretty much get the attention of your targeted audience.

Well, there's probably more but that's all what I can say for now xD

 

[literarygoth]

First of, good writing comes into play here fr a truly memorable villain. You must sit down and thoroughly think out the character, even if certain things will never be mentioned in the game. Otherwise, it's easy to stray "off-topic" on what that villain would truly do. Some people make the mistake of making their villains flat and 2 dimensional; these are the type of villains that do the 'evil' thing simply because they're the villain and are supposed to be evil.

This is bad writing.

A good villain has a fully developed personality, likes, dislikes, and their own reasoning for doing what they're doing and are able to explain it. A really memorable villain has conflicts and a clear series of reasoning for how they ended up where they did. You may not entirely agree with them, but at least understand why they've come to the decisions they have.

 

[The Mighty Palm]

I've always known it to be that a good villain is someone you love to hate. Like Joffrey in GoT, or Umbridge in Harry Potter. These two specifically are because they are two villains we have to face in reality: Whining spoiled brats, and Hateful cruel teachers. Thats why we remember them, because we see them all the time.

Think to yourself "what kind of person do I despise more than anything"? and channel that into your villain. 

Side note: Going for the "lets make him crazy because everyone loves a sociopath" route is so overdone at this point it's not even fun anymore when you see a crazy villain. It's just "another Kefka". I personally avoid it.

EDIT: I almost forgot. The villain has to play off the hero. They don't have to be polar opposites, what I mean is that the hero and villain absolutely MUST compliment one another in some way. EI: Harry and Voldemort, Luke and Vader, Batman and Joker.

 

[mlogan]

A fancy cape. And the laugh, it's always about the laugh.

 

[Sieginder Niederlage]

First off, you need to define "What is a villain?" (other than a miserable little pile of lies) 
Then telling what makes a villain memorable is simple.
Cause Laharl, Mao and Gig are all memorable villains!...From a certain point of view, that is...

 

[LostFonDrive]

First of, good writing comes into play here fr a truly memorable villain. You must sit down and thoroughly think out the character, even if certain things will never be mentioned in the game. Otherwise, it's easy to stray "off-topic" on what that villain would truly do. Some people make the mistake of making their villains flat and 2 dimensional; these are the type of villains that do the 'evil' thing simply because they're the villain and are supposed to be evil.

This is bad writing.

A good villain has a fully developed personality, likes, dislikes, and their own reasoning for doing what they're doing and are able to explain it. A really memorable villain has conflicts and a clear series of reasoning for how they ended up where they did. You may not entirely agree with them, but at least understand why they've come to the decisions they have.

Precisely this. It's why I love Tales of The Abyss so much - every single "villain" in the game had genuinely believable and understandable motives, and none were truly "evil" for the sake of being evil or anything like that.

 

[Blank]

First off, you need to define "What is a villain?" (other than a miserable little pile of lies) 

Then telling what makes a villain memorable is simple.

Cause Laharl, Mao and Gig are all memorable villains!...From a certain point of view, that is...

It's entirely Ironic that you quote a villain know for the bad writing, but I think it was intended. 

I can't post again until tomorrow because I just made my account so I have to make this a good post to really show what I have to contribute to these boards.  Here is to hoping the restriction is lifted in swift detail.

Empathy -  The villain needs some fracture of empathy; When a villain shows remorse, but chooses to ignore it they exemplify being human.  It allows everyone to really see things from a true devil's advocate point of view.   There is always a reason the villain chooses to ignore this very core human concept, and often it is because they find the emotion illogical, and emotional which leads to very impetuous actions.  This is a common trope for this, but showing the level of the villains empathy is vital for a three dimensional personality.

Versatility -  The villain must always be flexible in his morals, and his plans.  The flaw in every plan is that you think you know more than your enemy.  A true villain must always be able to achieve their goals, and often do not see what they are doing as bad.   It is the protagonists job to evoke judgments like justice, and virtue.   They will always have qualms over achieving certain goals because of what sometimes needs done that conflicts with moral decisions. The villain needs these attributes, but different.  Villains achieve their goals; always.

Identity - Backstory is a key element as to why a villain functions the way he does.  Very often things that are in the past cause the worldview of the villain to shift.  Sometimes these are grim things.  Sometimes these are completely normal things.   Any combination of such creates the villain's core sense of self.

Linguistics -  Every villain that has ever been able to ever be remembered has a line that can be quoted.  I mean all of them.  Quotability is a fundamental form of transferring the acceptance of a villain to other people.  This is because we communicate with language to begin with, so we use this as a basis for remember these highly developed characters.  From Tyler Durden to Sephiroth, you have to be able to quote something so everyone can think of them.  Closing with this I quoted the above post to make this very point.   CastleVania: Symphony of the Night is terrible writing.  TERRIBLE.  Though we still learn this fundamental lesson in the first villain we fight in the first three minutes of the game we have, "What is a man? A miserable pile of secrets!!!"

....It's only a point of view, and understanding this is absolutely paramount....

 

[Warpmind]

A good villain, as it was pointed out, must be an obvious challenge for the hero - and often, the hero seen in a mirror darkly, as it were.

The Batman Rogues Gallery is an excellent example of this; most of the greatest Batman villains are dark reflections of the Caped Crusader.
Joker represents Batman's madness; the part of his mind that broke when his parents were killed.
The Penguin is a businessman - a criminal counterpart to Bruce Wayne more than Batman, but with all the gadgets.
The Riddler is the flip side of the World's Greatest Detective - a purely intellectual opposite, trying to come up with a great scheme that the "Worlds Greatest Detective" cannot solve.
Harvey Dent, or Two-Face reflects Bruce Wayne/Batman's split life - a respectable citizen on one side, and a scofflaw on the other. Note that Bruce Wayne is the carefree/careless playboy to Two-Face's monster, while Batman is the ruthless crimefighter to mirror Harvey Dent, the Prosecuting Attorney.
Catwoman is, well, she complements Batman's thrillseeker more than anything else.

I could go on, but these are some of the most obvious "other side of the coin" villains for ol' Bats, used as examples for the point.

A good villain NEEDS a bit of backstory; not necessarily a parallel to the hero's story, but usually with some interaction or reference before the hero's rise to greatness. A villain who's merely "being evil for evil's sake" without any interesting facets is just, well, a jerk who needs to be dealt with. A powerful jerk, perhaps, but if there's little emotional investment in the villain, the final boss battle becomes less... cathartic.
The Ruthless Knight who killed your parents because he thought they were blocking his path, and who's clearly a sociopath in terms of how he considers the peasantry of the land is a lot more satisfying to kill than a big, dumb ogre who ate your parents just because he was hungry and they were the closest thing to a meal at the time.

 

[Miss Nile]

A good villian to me is someone I could sympathize with if it weren't for his evil actions, or at least someone who has a plausible motivation for why he is a villain. A villain isn't just someone who turns up in a dark cave monitoring the hero with an evil laugh and planning to take over the world or find the sacred item.

Like everyone has already said, he needs a good backstory, a reason for doing what he is and preferably a good one. Like, I'd really hate it if the villain just "went through a lot in his past life" and so decided to take over the world to avenge himself. Rather, something more specific would be more plausible. For example, the villain used to live a good, normal life in one of those kingdoms and some tyranny befell him from the royal family, so he decides to take revenge on the king. Or any other story, of course, that gives a motivation for the villain.

One thing I really like to put in my villains as well is to make them recognize themselves as the heroes. Or in other words, they just don't see what they do as evil. No, they totally defend it and stand for it, excuse it and explain it by whatever tyranny or hardships they went through. For example, one of my villains was a chancellor who overthrew his queen, the heroine. This chancellor isn't doing this because he wants power, but because he sees that his queen isn't a fair one and a lot of people are suffering under her rule, so he only wishes to make things better using the wrong ways. In this case, some might even argue that he isn't a villain at all or at least an anti-villain.

So yup, that's my two cents. In short, always have the villain with a good backstory, preferably one the player would sympathize with.

 

[Simon D. Aelsi]

Don't forget a smexy bod !

 

[Warpmind]

Don't forget a smexy bod !

...Because that worked so well for Vladimir Harkonnen.

 

[Simon D. Aelsi]

Well, it's not a MUST, but it certainly does spice things up a bit.

 

[Dragnfly]

I'll admit I've had a touch of drink (celebrating some great news) so sorry if this gets incomprehensible. I'll fix it later if it needs fixing.

The first thing I do is decide if I want a villain or an antagonist. Some of my absolute favourite stories feature an enemy who isn't even evil. It's just that the hero and the antagonist can't both achieve their dreams. To me this is very down-to-earth because our goals often conflict with those around us.

Or maybe your villain just outright doesn't have a human mindset. A certain red-eyed white furball comes to mind. Maybe what the villain is doing is actually for the greater good but makes them a serious jerk to everyone they have to stomp over. Does the hero stand aside for the good of the majority or do they fight to protect what's dear to them?

This leads us to the next issue: Know what you believe in. If your own views on what's morally just and what isn't aren't solid you can't hope to write a good villain (or a great hero, for that matter). Realize that people will have different views and that your villain might be seen as "in the right" to some. That's not a bad thing at all. Congrats, you reflected a portion of real-life morality.

Be careful with their power level. I fell prey to this myself when I created a villain that I was so overpowered I couldn't come up with a logical way to overthrow them and had to rewrite huge chunks of the plot.

The villain doesn't need to be directly related to the hero but there does need to be some sort of parallel. I don't even like superhero stuff but but I will say, as Warpmind did, that Batman really excels at that.

The look, the walk, the talk. A good design, a few deeds to remember and a few good lines. I hardly remember the movie Willow at all but I sure as heck remember the soldiers being turned into pigs. Some of Brevon's lines from Freedom Planet will likely stay with me for a long time. And can you deny the villainy look of Darth Vader? That's right, you can't. Nobody can.

Also consider their not-evil time. What are their hobbies other than hatching evil plots? Of my current project's many villains their hobbies range from strategy games to music to da ladies.

Their relation with their "four generals", if applicable. Henchmen, generals, whatever. I just always say 4 generals because that's what it tends to be in the games I play. This is ultra important because you need to remember that they're spending just as much time, maybe more, with their party than you're spending with yours. I use long segments where you're playing as the villain's side to show this. Unless your villain does everything solo (which usually means some shallow sociopath type) he's going to have daily out-of-work interactions with his subordinates? Are they even really subordinates or is he just the defacto leader of his party just like you're the defacto leader of yours? And why do they follow the villain?

On the topic of the generals the Tales series usually makes good use of this, though I find they often "counterpart" too hard. Sometimes you can tell at a glance "character B will have interactions with general B" so I try to avoid that. One or two characters is ok though.

With regards to their backstory I always liked it when their reaction was proportionate to the trigger event. Does the unjust murder of your girlfriend REALLY make you seek to revive the demon lord and destroy the world? Geez, what would've you done if we'd killed your girlfriend and your dog? And lots of people lose their loved ones so why is this guy the only villain? What brought them to this state? Witnessing the failure of others? Being oppressed in some way and then gaining power by chance? I sometimes run a one-shot tabletop RPG and one of the recurring villains, the Archmage, seeks to destroy The Everything simply because nobody has done it yet. He sees it as the most absolute achievement anyone can do. What drove him to that? A life of excellence. He never failed at anything he tried to do. While maybe not awesome, it's a solid mindset where his goal is understandable considering his backstory. If you've never fallen down, the constant climb up gets higher and higher.

Though just abuse of power is always an option. "There is no difference in the level of evil and cruelty. There is only a difference in the level of power that they wield. If you took a man who beats his wife and children each night and gave him Hitler's army, he too would commit atrocities on a global scale." and all that.

Another thing to try is "who's the real villain?" Shadow Hearts 2, Wild Arms 3 and Wild Arms XF were great for this. Up until the home stretch of those games the end boss could be one of many. It keeps the player's encounters with the villain side dynamic.

And for the love of all that is holy, make your intended villain be the final boss. This whole "final boss from nowhere" thing HAS GOT TO STOP! I didn't just play through 50 hours of awesome hero/villain interaction to have the final boss be somebody with less than 2 cutscenes of development.

 

[JAD94]

There's so many factors!

-Epic name

-Extreme Godly power

-Some sort of memorable perk such as a symbol, voice, hairstyle, quotes etc.

-Relationship with other characters, most notably with the main character

So to summarize...Sephiroth

 

[Sieginder Niederlage]

There's so many factors!

-Epic name

-Extreme Godly power

-Some sort of memorable perk such as a symbol, voice, hairstyle, quotes etc.

-Relationship with other characters, most notably with the main character

So to summarize...Sephiroth

You forgot the most important thing JAD. AN EPIC THEME WITH LOTS OF OMINOUS LATIN-ISH CHANTING!

HAM-BUH-GAH! HAM-BUH-GAH! HAM-BUH-GAH!

 

[JAD94]

Ah how can I forget the ominous latin chanting!!!! xD

Of course, for shame JAD for shame

 

[Dragnfly]

Any beefs I have with Sephiroth as a villain aside, yeah, the music really does give him extra presence. Like Golbez before him, you hear that music and you just know a bad guy is coming to hit you with a meteor. Though if I'm not mistaken One Winged Angel was only for the last battle. His usual theme music (whatever it's called) was decent too, although it gives me memories of his character model walking much slower than believable just to sync up with it.

I like it a lot when a boss' theme music works into many of their scenes. One of my villains is a king and I've made a few versions of his kingdom's anthem for him, a darker version for his usual theme music and a faster remix for the actual battle. I remember some other game that did villain theme music like that (Xenogears maybe?) but I can't remember right now.

 

[Matseb2611]

Things I consider in a good/memorable/well-written villain:

- Well-developed reasons and motivations for why they are a villain. Nobody does things just because they're evil.

- Frequent dialogue exchanges with the hero. Altercation between them is a good way to develop both the hero and the villain, because it shows us the clash of morals and reinforces what each of them really stands for and why.

- Posing a true and believable danger. A true villain must make the audience think that things are indeed grim for the hero and that the hero might even lose. As mentioned by someone before me, a villain must be able to achieve at least some of his goals. A villain that constantly fails is a joke (of course a joke villain can be pulled off well too).

- A sense of charisma and/or authority. A good villain is able to convince the others to submit to them with minimum effort.

- High intelligence. To me, a good villain always has a backup plan and is two steps ahead of the hero. A hero foiled one of their plans, but they have a dozen others and they are confident that they still have a chance at winning.

- Plenty of screen time. This might be obvious, but a lot of the time potentially good villains do not get enough screen time and end up becoming forgettable.

 

[HumanNinjaToo]

I think a villain should be designed the same way the hero is. I prefer the terms protagonist and antagonist though because hero and villain denote good and evil. The only real difference between the protagonist and the antagonist is whose point of view the player is introduced to first.

The antagonist should have their own struggles to overcome and their goals to achieve within the story. The really good ones aren't completely evil. They do what they do because they believe it's the only way to get what they want, the same as the protagonist. Not all great antagonists are sociopathic murderers, however, it is easier to get people to dislike someone when they have low moral standards.

I really think a great antagonist is one the player can identify with just as easily as they can identify with the protagonist. An example would be Gerard Butler's character in the movie Law Abiding Citizen. Terrible things happen to him and his family in the beginning. When justice is not served, he broods and lashes out. The viewer is compelled to sympathize with Gerard Butler's character, even toward the end when he nearly becomes what he set out to stop. Those type of antagonist's, or anti-heroes, are some of the best ones.

I think that at the end of the game you, as the player, should want the hero to triumph but at the same time feel bad that the villain has to lose.

All of my rambling is only about one type of antagonist though, albeit the type I prefer. There are also those that are purely insane and run around being evil for the fun of it. Those kinds of antagonists can be great also but, I believe they are a lot harder to pull off properly. Just because someone runs around murdering doesn't mean the player is going to take them seriously. They should still have a fully fleshed-out biography.