A Fitting End for a Villain?

[MystiqueRain]

Villain, antagonist, along the general sense of creating conflict against the protagonist and in this case, an extremely evil person...what kind of ending would be satisfactory to bad guys? The most villains I've seen usually end up dying at the end of the series though I've also seen a few "redeeming oneself" endings. Is there any kind of ending for a villain that you'd like to see? Or do you think that death is the best choice for the villains who can't possibly be forgiven?

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

I don't know that there's any other plausible ending for villains who can't be forgiven. Unless you consider permanent imprisonment to be an "ending," but then there's always a chance they'll escape.

 

[MystiqueRain]

True, though there could always be some creative way to avoid the "death" ending. Right now I'm just keeping my options open to one of my characters, since I've asked around and gotten varied answers as to how they'd want to see his ending--some people like him, some people don't.

 

[Mindfire]

Personally, I like writing villains so that the reader will cheer when they die. But that's just me.

 

[Ireth]

Personally, I like writing villains so that the reader will cheer when they die. But that's just me.

Same here. Though that can backfire if I go into said villain's pre-evil backstory and make him a good guy, whom my readers (and me) then grow to like. XDD Then it just upsets me to know that I've doomed such characters to their evil ends.

 

[Saigonnus]

I just wonder why few writers go for the somewhat anti-climactic endings. Perhaps the villain comes to the realization that even though he is right in what he believes and is pursuing, the methods he/she chooses is perhaps the only reason why there is opposition in the first place and by pursuing other avenues; he can quash that opposition and get what he wants anyway. A smart villain considers all the angles; unless they are written as single-minded intentionally.

 

[JBryden88]

I think a fitting end for a villain may be one of the hardest tasks ever. Look at all the stories - books, TV, and movies that end up having bad endings because handling the villain is such a challenge.

 

[Ireth]

I just wonder why few writers go for the somewhat anti-climactic endings. Perhaps the villain comes to the realization that even though he is right in what he believes and is pursuing, the methods he/she chooses is perhaps the only reason why there is opposition in the first place and by pursuing other avenues; he can quash that opposition and get what he wants anyway. A smart villain considers all the angles; unless they are written as single-minded intentionally.

This kind of rings true with the antagonist of my WIP Summer's Pawn. The villain, King Madoc of the Unseelie Court of Faerie, fully believes he is justified in sentencing his own daughter to a fate worse than death after she defies him in various ways, including breaking out of prison before she could be sentenced properly the first time. Princess Meabh's escape, with the aid of a disgraced former guard named Loegaire, directly kicks off the plot: Loegaire and Meabh are separated as they flee, and Loegaire ends up with the human protagonists, who harbor him as a fugitive. The four of them are arrested by Madoc's guards, and the humans are punished by being sent to find Meabh, with Loegaire leading them through Faerie, so Meabh's sentence can be carried out.

At the climax, Madoc has Meabh and the four searchers in his clutches. He knows what he wants, and has the authority and the ability to do it -- the problem is that if he does it, the story is a total downer (which I don't want), and if the heroes successfully stop him, that'll make even more trouble for them, because they're defying an amoral Fae King who had no qualms about ordering an innocent girl's death in the prequel because it was "convenient" for him to do so. And they can't count on the Seelie King Finvarra being much more merciful, since anything they do is on his turf, and he has every right to punish them for it. So my human heroes are in a bit of a fix regarding what exactly to do, as is their author. XD

 

[MystiqueRain]

Same here. Though that can backfire if I go into said villain's pre-evil backstory and make him a good guy, whom my readers (and me) then grow to like. XDD Then it just upsets me to know that I've doomed such characters to their evil ends.

I agree, sometimes it can be very happy to kill off a villain, though I don't particularly loath my villain that I want to kill him just so the good guys to rejoice. My villain's childhood hasn't been the greatest, and most of his actions now have actually been influenced by other people. Of course, that doesn't mean other characters can let him off the hook. Perhaps it would be easier to describe my villain to decide if he's earned himself a death. xD

Shortened Version

The antagonist in my story (one of the antagonists since my story actually has a two major plotlines with different antagonists running at the moment) is named Leith Resinine. In short terms to avoid any spoilers and confusion, he's a powerful elementalist and the head to an important noble family. He has a curse that doesn't allow him to feel emotions and heals up any blood wound in seconds, dubbed the "Heart of Ice". He also doesn't view what he's doing as wrong or that killing innocent people is immoral. Because of his elemental talents his father wanted to use him to conquer the other noble families and he was put through brutal training sessions and abuse. In even shorter terms, he's basically a megalomaniac, psychopath without emotions.

Keeping it succinct, he forces one of the protagonists to marry him to gain power, almost kills one of the other protagonists twice, and wants to become a god that is feared.

I'm just building up this seemingly impenetrable wall that will eventually crash.The question is, how? To kill or not to kill, that seems to be my dilemma here, though I've been leaning towards "kill" lately. I hope that helps to decide his fate.

 

[CupofJoe]

I just wonder why few writers go for the somewhat anti-climactic endings. Perhaps the villain comes to the realization that even though he is right in what he believes and is pursuing, the methods he/she chooses is perhaps the only reason why there is opposition in the first place and by pursuing other avenues; he can quash that opposition and get what he wants anyway. A smart villain considers all the angles; unless they are written as single-minded intentionally.

I like that...
ATM My "villain" sails away and abandons my "heroes". He thinks he's dooming them but they were just on the point of rebelling and were going to try killing him.
Okay, I now have to write their anti-climax but they all get to live [which I kind of need] and I get him out of the story [and I might want to bring him back later...]

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

I just wonder why few writers go for the somewhat anti-climactic endings. Perhaps the villain comes to the realization that even though he is right in what he believes and is pursuing, the methods he/she chooses is perhaps the only reason why there is opposition in the first place and by pursuing other avenues; he can quash that opposition and get what he wants anyway. A smart villain considers all the angles; unless they are written as single-minded intentionally.

Presumably because an exciting climax is what most people want from most stories. A story that ends with "And then the bad guy quietly wins" simply isn't going to feel very satisfying to most people.

 

[Penpilot]

It's not a matter of to kill or not. It's all in the how you kill or don't. It's all about giving the villain their just deserts. It has to be fitting. Fitting being defined by the details of your story.

For example a villainous rich man who makes beggars lick his shoes for pennies. A fitting end would be taking away all his money and have him have to do much worse than licking shoes for his pennies. Remember that Eddie Murphy movie Trading Places?

 

[Poppet]

Hello, MystiqueRain. I'mma call you Rainie because we're buddies so I can.
A shout out to all the other people: I'm coauthoring the story MystiqueRain is talking about, so I may throw in random, confusing elements. However, I'll do my best to avoid that. So. On topic!

How about considering the possibilities for each?

If he isn't killed, what plot-productive thing would he be doing? Because the story won't end for a while thanks to the other concurrent plots, unless he continues to have a purpose to serve, then I see no purpose for him to stay alive (imprisoned, in rehab, whatever). He's an excessively powerful character with his abilities, to the point of him being difficult to deal with by not just the other characters but also the writers (or at least to me, especially plot-wise in cases such as this).

On the other hand...

If he is killed... Well, a few things would undoubtedly happen. Spoiler: For one, his city dies with him. >.> I will ramble about some other possibilities.

The person who "cursed" him with his superhuman abilities kills him to set things straight again. Then, when all seems happy and worthy of celebration, an element from a different plot requires him for whatever necessity (knowledge, power, etc). This reinvolves his cursor, who believes the main team has the answer, so they get knocked into the mess. ^_^ In their mission they find the truths behind the reason for the curse in the first place. (You can prick and pull at these facts to make them important to the story overall as a whole, relate it to the main storyline and such)
This would tie multiple plotslines together and kindle his importance.

...and now it's late so I'll dig my brain for more ideas later. Take your picks.

 

[ThinkerX]

I'm not entirely certain Lovecraftian things can die - at least the more powerful ones.

Apart from that, well I have some characters that live, and some that die. In some cases, determining just whom the villian is can be a tad tricky: the human villian's in 'Labyrinth' are undeniably 'evil', but they've also expended considerable resources in something that many would deem 'good'. There are also some other characters in 'Labyrinth' who are 'good' but are also at direct odds with the protagonist.

 

[Lorna]

I think I'd feel quite sorry for that character, being unable to feel pain or emotion then being abused and taken advantage of. It seems much of what he does is due to the manipulations of others and his lack of understanding of human feelings. My intution would be to write him more sympathetically- wondering why he doesn't cry or laugh, or when he's wounded why he doesn't feel pain. When you say he forces a protagonist to marry him for power I guess he doesn't feel love or enjoy sex? I think you could go a long way with that story, make it about him coming to understand his deficiencies?

Could you give him a tragic kind of death, could he sacrifice himself to make up for his lack of humanity. Or perhaps he completely loses himself and gives in to the elements and dies that way.

One of my minor characters is a granite magician and has a heart, head and body of stone. He becomes a torturer because he wants to work out what it is that makes people feel. So these are issues I've considered.

 

[shangrila]

It depends on their motivation and whatever actions they've taken. If they were trying to be good but went overboard, then maybe they can find redemption while still living. But generally, people that do bad things have to die to make the reader feel satisfied.

 

[Chilari]

I think it depends on context. What the villain has done, what the protagonist is trying to achieve, what's expected in that society. I don't think there are enough stories where some sort of legal process decides the fate of a villain: they either die in some final battle, or as part of an accident as they flee, or are in some way hoisted by their own petard and killed by something they put there in the first place, or if they redeem themselves, that's it, they're welcomed and everything is okay again. There's rarely a trial with prosecution, defence, judge and jury. Perhaps often it would be anti-climactic, and I'm sure sometimes it's a post-ending thing that will happen but the story ends first. But all too often it doesn't happen at all. bad guy either dies or repents and justice is apparently done, except it's not, not really, especially if somehow it is decided that saving the princess and stopping the world-ending device he created out of love for the hero's sister or whatever makes up for all the killing he's done.

In the story I'm working on now my protagonist's main aim is to change the judicial system to make it fairer, so I plan for the ending to involve trials of some of the antagonists. Not sure how I'll handle it yet or exactly which antagonists will still be alive by this point, but when my protagonist has spent so much effort trying to bring about a peaceful, just conclusion it would feel cheap and inappropriate to not put certain characters on trial (possibly including the protagonist herself, since she was accused of treason early in the story and fell in with outlaws and revolutionaries). In that context, a trial is needed. In other contexts, perhaps not - if your culture's judicial system doesn't work in an appropriate way, or if a dictator is brought down by the people and killed trying to escape his palace, or a villain with some sort of nuke is arrogant and a control freak and ends up leaving somewhere too late and gets blown up by his own bomb/spell/summoned demon, then that works; there's balance in that, even if it's not quite the same as justice.

 

[MystiqueRain]

I think I'd feel quite sorry for that character, being unable to feel pain or emotion then being abused and taken advantage of. It seems much of what he does is due to the manipulations of others and his lack of understanding of human feelings. My intution would be to write him more sympathetically- wondering why he doesn't cry or laugh, or when he's wounded why he doesn't feel pain. When you say he forces a protagonist to marry him for power I guess he doesn't feel love or enjoy sex? I think you could go a long way with that story, make it about him coming to understand his deficiencies?

Could you give him a tragic kind of death, could he sacrifice himself to make up for his lack of humanity. Or perhaps he completely loses himself and gives in to the elements and dies that way.

One of my minor characters is a granite magician and has a heart, head and body of stone. He becomes a torturer because he wants to work out what it is that makes people feel. So these are issues I've considered.

You're quite correct in the aspect that his actions now have been a result of what happened before. However, I don't think I can explore the lack of understanding emotions because he's quite aware of that already. He's chosen to think that it's better off without emotions, that feelings make a person weak. It's something he was born with, in the end, and changing an opinion of that would be extremely difficult in the end.

Since the curse was originally supposed to kill him, it does weaken on the summer solstice--longest day, more sun business--so yes, I have been considering that he eventually loses control of his powers. Preventing this from happening is also one of his goals.

For this character's future I personally don't see much repenting or redeeming himself at the end of the story. It's always possible, but judging by what he's done so far and what's coming up in the next few books, that choice is highly unlikely. Of course I'll still keep my options open. In the end he's a character that you like or you don't, never quite in the middle.

 

[ALB2012]

Personally, I like writing villains so that the reader will cheer when they die. But that's just me.

Me too Something satisfying about the baddie going splat.

 

[ShortHair]

One of my favorite tropes is a third way--one of those things they encourage you to do. The good guy and the bad guy are all set to duke it out, battle to the death, and show who's right. Then a bigger badder threat shows up, and they have to join forces to defeat it. Maybe that only works in Doctor Who and Saturday morning cartoons.