The dreaded wall of explanation

[Helen]

I'm currently writing a scene in a fanfic where the villain invites the protagonist into her house and converses with her. After a bit of an argument, the protagonist agrees to sit down and listen to what the villain has to say. The villain outlines her beliefs and motivations, with occasional protests from the protagonist, and then offers to protect the protagonist if she renounces her ethnic identity.

In other words, it's a massive wall of explanation.

I'm not really sure how to spice it up, since there's not much for them to do right now besides talk. I'm trying to get some energy out of the protagonist's reactions--she's appalled by what the villain is saying--but I'm not sure what else to do with it. How do you break this sort of wall?

Reminds me of

HEAT where Pacino and De Niro sit down together.

RAIDERS where Indy and Belloq sit down together.

You could try examining those scenes.

 

[Feo Takahari]

Thanks, but the scene's written now.

I used Penpilot's idea. The villain's mother loved white prickly poppies, but the rest of the folks in her town thought they were just weeds, so she used magic and breeding to create a thornless variant and sold them in another town as "wedding daisies." In the same vein, the villain thinks ethnic minorities should remove everything "thorny" about their culture and way of life, and assimilate peacefully into the larger culture around them.