I’m
going to start this off with two quotes from Frank Herbert, who was one of the
greats.
“The person who
experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must
reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the
sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The
sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality,
even occasional greatness will destroy a man.”
“Absolute power
does not corrupt absolutely, absolute power attracts the corruptible.”
So
I can’t guarantee that I’m the one that came up with the subject, but it
certainly is one of my favorites. Believe me, on this one I know of what I
speak.
As
I have said before (And very possibly here) one of my personal favorites
anecdotes involves the editor who got annoyed with me because he asked me to
write the story of the bad guy in an anthology based on a role playing game
(Mage: The Ascension if you must know) and it really irked him that he wound up
not only liking the heavy of the book but also understanding why he had done
the things he’d done.
To
me that’s just plain flattering.
Here’s
the thing. I know that we often deal with the stuff of legends. I mean mythic
tales and fantastic creatures. That does not to me at least, mean that we
should be writing in black and white. I tend to believe that part of what makes
dealing with the stories of legendary creatures more palatable to the average
is the fact that the world they are found in is believable. Dudley Do-Right and
Snidely Whiplash work just fine in five minute cartoons, but if you try to go
that black and white in most stories, I genuinely think you miss out on a lot
of the fun. For me it’s vibrant Technicolor for the special effects, and it is
definitely shades of gray for motivations.
Again
and with feeling: Darth Vader’s a bad dude. According to George Lucas STAR WARS
was never about Luke Skywalker. It’s about his father, Anakin, who eventually
becomes Darth Vader. He’s got the chops, he’s got the attitude and he’s capable
of mayhem on a very large scale. But even he has his reasons for acting like he
does. Same is true of the guy who was his inspiration (George Lucas even
admitted that much) my pal, my favorite comic book villain, Doctor Doom. I’m
not saying either of these guys should be invited over for dinner or allowed
access to your cache of passwords, but they have motives for all that they do.
All
of the best villains do.
Frank
Herbert’s THE WHITE PLAGUE starts off with John Roe O’Neill, a scientist
specializing in microbiology and vacationing in Ireland when his wife and
children are killed in a random bombing by the IRA. The randomness of the
violence and the scientist’s sense of loss and moral outrage break him in that
moment. His actions lead to him creating and releasing the plague that is the
source of the novel’s title. A plague that leaves men alone but kills women and
threatens to kill ALL of the women on the planet. His revenge is definitely a
case of overkill, but my, he’s an interesting villain.
Harry
Harrison’s THE STAINLESS STEEL RAT is the story of a bank robber and grifter in
an era when crime has basically been eliminated. James Bolivar “Slippery Jim”
DiGriz, is a criminal who always justifies his actions and abhors killing. As
the story progresses he becomes a proper anti-hero when he tries to stop
another criminal in the future, one who kills without hesitation and who,
again, has good reasons for her actions.
Once
upon a time a young writer named Anne Rice decided to do a story from the
vampire’s perspective. You might have heard of the tale, a little ditty called
INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE. The tale of Louis is intriguing and well told. And
by the time it’s done if you haven’t figured out how to have a little sympathy
for that particular neck biter you might have to question your own empathy. His is a tale of tragedy and hubris and
suffering and even the most jaded can feel a few pangs for his losses through
the centuries. Another writer who did that with a different vampire, by the
way, is Fred Saberhagen whose THE DRACULA TAPES did a great job of showing the
story of Bram Stoker’s Dracula from a decidedly different perspective. They
might sound like similar stories, but they are not. Saberhagen most decidedly
did not make Vlad Tepes (Dracula) a sensitive man. Instead he went to the
source materials and considered the rather violent and tragic history of the
real life man. He was dark, he was brutal and he, too, had his reasons. I
recommend both books, by the way.
So
what is the appeal of the anti-hero? What makes the villain so damned much fun?
That’s simple. They do what we WANT to do. They do what we THINK about doing and would never let
ourselves get away with. They give in to their Id and sometimes (not always)
tell their consciences to sit in the corner and wait this dance out.
One
of the most popular characters I’ve personally created is a guy named Jonathan
Crowley. (Yes, I know there’s a writer by that name. It’s just a coincidence.)
Jonathan Crowley is NOT a hero. He’ll be the very first to tell you that.
Instead he’s judge, jury and executioner for anything supernatural that he
decides has to go away. He’s also, to be kind, not a very nice man. He can be,
but that’s the exception and not the rule. He doesn’t like people: he doesn’t
like dealing with them, talking to them or treating them with the least bit of
common decency. He is exactly and precisely the sort of mean bastard most
people would do well to stay away from. He will threaten all kinds of bodily
injury on his enemies and he will, by God, follow through on it.
It’s
always interesting to examine the ideas of what we would do if our moral
compasses were just a little off kilter. In the novella LITTLE BOY BLUE, I have
Jonathan Crowley hunt down and torment a man who offended him on the road. The
man nearly caused not one but two accidents involving Crowley because he could
not wait long enough to get off the road before making a call on his cell
phone. Crowley stalks the man to a public restroom and steals his phone. He
throws the battery in one trashcan and the phone in another after terrorizing
the man and then plays a complete innocent when the police pull him over in an
effort to find the phone he has been accused of stealing. Trust me on this:
I’ve been tempted a few times. I’ve never actually done it, but I’ve come
close. Crowley is willing to do the things I only dream about.
And
you want to know the part that still makes me scratch my head? Damned if I
haven’t had a substantial number of female readers tell me he’s sexy as hell.
I’ve described him a dozen times as plain as the day is long and meaner than he
should be and the ladies seem to think that’s just delicious.
Now
he’s technically a good guy. He actually does save people, however begrudgingly.
But he does what he has to do whether he wants to or not. On the other end of
the spectrum is Rufo the Clown. Rufo has hunted down and killed a lot of
people. Sometimes he has his reasons. To be fair he’s also a raving lunatic so
the very thinnest possible excuse will do for him. He doesn’t mind flaying a
person; beheadings are just a good way to pass the time. He has been soaked
head to toe in other people’s blood. He has killed children, infants and lots
and lots of innocent bystanders in several books. He has also, because it’s in
his character, gone out of his way to help a few people at random. In all
cases, however, there actually is a motivation behind his actions.
And
it delights me to know that several readers found themselves cheering him on
and then felt bad about it. Because even dead, psychotic clowns should have
reasons for what they do. They need motivations and reasons for what they have
become and the lengths they are willing to go to in order to get what they
want. And my job as the writer is to make the reader understand those
motivations.
(Side note: Crowley and Rufo met in a book of mine. There just might be a rematch coming.)
There
are a lot of heavies in SUBJECT SEVEN, but one of the worst of the lot is the
main character himself, Joe Bronx, AKA Subject Seven. For the first ten years
of his life he is considered nothing but a lab rat. He is tortured daily and
then examined as his body heals itself and his mind begins to scheme. And then
one day he escapes from the lab where he is regularly vivisectionized. Being of
relatively sound mind and being superhumanly strong, he makes his way in the
criminal underworld, learning skills that will eventually be useful to him and
slowly, methodically learning all he can about the people who held him and used
him as research. He works out careful plans for how to help out the others like
him that were left behind. His reasons are not altruistic. He wants others like himself, yes, but
he has every intention of using them to his advantage. He has his reasons for
being a sociopath, but he is still not a nice guy. That said, he is still the
hero of his own story. No one ever came along to help him when he was being
tortured regularly and in fact a few of his early victims were people he had a
grudge against.
I’m
not saying that every villain should be sympathetic. They are, after all,
villains, but I am saying that they should have reasons for what they do and if
those reasons are intriguing enough, they can justify their actions, at least
in their own twisted minds. Seriously as I have said before and I very likely
will many more times, no one gets up in the morning, chortles to him or herself
and says “Today I will be the bad guy!” or if they do, they should immediately
seek professional help. There should be a method to the madness. There should
be a driving force that spurs on the devil. The reasons may not always make
sense to rational people, but they should be there because without them the
villains (or anti-heroes) in your works are shallow and ring false. That’s my
take on it at least.
Just
as heroes who don’t have a reason for fighting against the villains come across
as two-dimensional, villains who don’t have a reason for either opposing the
hero, wanting to rule the world or wanting to destroy it hardly seem
interesting.
So
I’m out of town for a couple of weeks. First I’m off to the World Fantasty
Convention and then I’m on my way to London, England for a little rest and
research. But rather than leave
you with a Monday that lacks a new essay about the subject of the week, the
lovely and talented Lucy Snyder has graciously agreed to step in and keep you
company.
Play
nicely until I get back, okay? Or if you must be a bad person, save it for your
stories. There’s less risk of jail time that way.
Nice. I hope all you said to that agent was "Exactly.".
ReplyDelete