What Makes a Good Villain for a Fictional Book?

Not a Pushover. If the Hero or Heroes can easily defeat them in a short amount of time it's boring.

Lines that you still remember.

A villain that is feared or underestimated I believe

Goals They can be good or bad but their methods to accomplish good goals are harmful.

There are different kinds. For superhero type of stories, a terrible man, preferably psychotic, with some mystery to his character,who has stupid but horrendous ideas would be a good villain. Creates more interest in a story with already so much fantasy and nonsense. And sometimes a person with simple human emotions of jealousy and malice, who doesn't easily back down would do. 😈

I like the 'Bad guy who was once good but ended up being Corrupted. Can he be saved? Nope!' type of bad guy =D

A martyr, like Osama Bin Laden reason being, you can have hundreds of 'evil' people in the same vain as Joker, Sephiroth and Darth Vader who just kill for fun and have people respect them only out of fear.

But then you have the enemy who is a hero to others, how do you kill someone like that? And what are the repercussions? You've now singlehandedly made a whole cult of people want to kill you for even so much as damaging a hair on that villains head.

Taking on an army of people who are willing to throw away their lives for a single man is far more difficult a feat than taking down the individual themselves, no matter how powerful they may be. (Unless of course godly status)

Several years ago I came across these rules, so I wrote them down. Of course, they are not my doing, but I forgot to write down who came up with these rules, and because it has been so long ago, neither do I remember where I saw them, but here are "The 7 Rules for Female Villains."

1.) do fight inner demons.
2.) do shun human society.
3.) do exhibit mental disorders.
4.) do wear fetish clothing
5.) do cling to man hatred.
6.) do try to kill hapless males [especially male children]
7.) do look perpetually sullen.

Of course, that is for females, as I am a male myself, here is what I think makes an effective male villain.

a.) It must be someone for who one feels empathy.
b.) They can reform, but at the end, they must pay the ultimate penalty--death, for what they have done.
c.) It must be an adult. Most children do not make effective villains, because they have not been steeped in villainy long enough to be effective.

Unless you're 'Royal Pain'. Who was a Female Villian who got turned into a baby when her 'Baby Ray' backfired on her.

I liked the Thrawn type of villain that was consistently a challenge for the heroes and had an interesting character and motivations.

One that makes sense. Nothing is harder to stop then someone with an actual point.

I would say a seriously Phyco human with an out of ordinary power or some thing of that sort, Of course out for world and universal domination and odd have to start out on his side to make it exciting and hard give the hero motivation

Someone who is more then meets the eye. Say its an easy observation that they are really smart but they don't seem like much of a fighter but turns out to be impossibly good....or vise versa. Above all I prefer an intellectual villain to a bruiser. I like people that makes the reader feel like there is no way out of it for the hero. But thats just my preference in Villains in general

Originally posted by BlackZero30x
Someone who is more then meets the eye. Say its an easy observation that they are really smart but they don't seem like much of a fighter but turns out to be impossibly good....or vise versa. Above all I prefer an intellectual villain to a bruiser. I like people that makes the reader feel like there is no way out of it for the hero. But thats just my preference in Villains in general

I always like an intelligent villain who's always 10 steps ahead of the heroes. Kind of like Ozy from Watchmen. He was a bit too sympathetic though. You should make your hero a lot more ruthless and shocking in how far he's willing to go.