How To Make A Villain Part 1: Types of Villains

Now, you don't always need a villain in a musical. The Producers doesn't have a villain. Still, most people enjoy either playing or watching villains and they are the most concrete form of conflict for your protagonist. I mean, face it, look at any movie where weather was the enemy. How seriously boring and unmotivated was it to you? Self-conflict is cool in movies, but have you ever watched someone on stage do it? It seriously sucks. In my opinion at least. There are three types of villains.

Type I Villains:

You don't want a Type I Villain. Type I's are the people who are only villains because our main characters are deviates from society. Look at Benjamin from Rent. He's the villain, because he wants to make the people who live in his building pay rent like normal members of society. We're supposed to feel bad that he's kicking the main characters out, but if this situation ever happened in real life, who would we really side with? I don't care that they weren't supposed to be paying rent out of Benny's kindness, but get over it. Actually, it isn't even the Rent. It's just that he isn't as poor as they are. Whenever I think of Type I Villains, I also think of this comic: . Basically, the reason you don't want a TI is because reasonable people sometimes side with them over the protagonists. And if you're going to have a villain, you want people to side with the protagonist.

Type II Villains:
These are the middle ground. These are the villains who aren't necessarily malicious, but misguided or just wrong. Anything based around a war, the enemy general will fall into this category (minus battles with Hitler). Or anyone who is doing something for the greater good, science, or anything like that, and you as the audience can legitimately feel like they're not too far off. This isn't always the case, as you see with about anyone who does things for the sake of nature. These villains are usually well received by audiences and actors alike, since they can sort of empathize, while still being a strong character.

Type III Villains:
This is where all of the villains from the musicals I've written fall into place. Any character who is either completely insane or is so immoral and self serving that they will do anything despite the social acceptability. Rutherford Wilson? A bully who tries to get revenge on one of his former victims after the victim retaliates. In doing so, he attempts to pit two crime lords against each other in order to oversee their downfall as well as Theylus's death. And don't even get me started on Triptuk and Barnesly from Jamoddysey. Anyone seen the Dark Knight? The Joker well falls into this category. These are the funnest characters to act, due to their melodramatic attitudes. The audience loves to hate them. No one will ever remember them as remarkably deep characters, but that doesn't matter.

Before you really get into making your villain, you need to decide what category of villain you want. In the next part of the series, I'll tell you how to build the necessary backstory and personality of your villain.