Villains that would surprise the audience

[srebak]

After giving the matter more thought, i think i have a problem with the villain of one of my fanfictions.

I'm fairly sure that i don't want it to be too obvious that this character was the villain, but the way i designed him makes that fact pretty clear. I've considered using the old "false pretense" idea; where the main villain pretends to be someone nice, but i'm worried that that too will make it too obvious.

The only way i'll be able to break new ground here, and make so that the reveal would genuinely be a surprise, is make it so that the two characters are so different that the audience couldn't possibly assume that they were one and the same.

 

[Feo Takahari]

@Srebak: that can turn out to be a waste of a good characterization. I mean, if your original characterization was an interesting and likable character, and then suddenly it turns out all that was a lie, you've built up audience investment and then suddenly ripped it away. It also gives you less time and space to develop the villain's actual characterization--in the worst case, you may only have a very short time to establish how the villain acts and thinks. (This particularly hurts when rereading, since readers will now know that all the time spent on the villain's initial characterization is just wasted time.)

As betrayals go, I'm more a fan of "sudden but inevitable." Readers know how the character acts and thinks, and they know that current circumstances make the character an ally. Then circumstances change, and the alliance breaks. (I'll reference Madoka Magica again--Homura has a very specific motive that essentially makes her a good guy in the original series, but keeping to that motive regardless of who she hurts makes her a more questionable figure, and eventually even a villain.)

 

[Jabrosky]

If you look at the real world, it's actually common for villainous people to veil their ulterior motivations with rhetoric that paints them in a positive light. You see it all the time in contemporary politics. For this reason, I say villains who present themselves as respectable and disguise their true colors could inflict a lot more damage than your stereotypical dark lord who dresses in spiky black armor.