Villains are among the most popular characters in fictional stories. Take a look at Star Wars for instance, where everybody seems to love the villain Darth Vader. There are also plenty of romance novels where the villain is a romantic interest of the main character. How about The Lord of the Rings, where the villain Sauron is so iconic, you’ll recognize him instantly. I always say this, but even if the hero wins the story, the villain is unforgettable. That is, of course, if you wrote the villain the right way, which I’ve talked about on my blog before. However, there are different villain archetypes that can help you position what sort of villain you want to be writing about.
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WHAT IS A VILLAIN?
A villain, simply put, is described as a character in a story who does evil things. I know it sounds simple, but that’s really what it is. A villain often murders, steals, hurts, destroys, etc… and the villain’s actions in a story serve to propel the plot forward in some way.
The villain is not simply the thing opposing the main character, that is an antagonist. The protagonist, or main character, is not necessarily the good person in the story. If your villain is told from the villain’s perspective, then the villain is the protagonist and the hero is the antagonist.
THE EIGHT VILLAIN ARCHETYPES
THE MASTERMIND
The mastermind is a villain archetype that represents a character who plans, schemes, and comes up with ways to undermine the hero in the story. The villain focuses on things like manipulation and planning to stay one step ahead of the hero at all times.
The mastermind is often intelligent and clever and has a level of charisma to them as well, which is what makes so many of these villains very popular in media.
There’s lots of examples of the mastermind in media and books, but I always find this archetype A LOT in TV shows. For example, Gustavo Fring from Breaking Bad is a powerful schemer and very brilliant man. In movies, there’s Hannibal Lecter, who is also an extremely intelligent, calculating psychopath and serial killer. There’s honestly a lot of examples of this out there, but these villains are often very intelligent and very calculating.
THE BEAST
The beast villain archetype is typically about something that is not human. Basically, the beast is as is described: a beast. They are often motivated by animalistic instincts like hunger, protecting their territory, or being apex predators.
For example, the Jurassic Park movies feature dinosaurs that attack the main characters violently. This is a beast driven by instinct and hunger, as it’s a dinosaur at the end of the day. Godzilla and King Kong are great examples of this as well, and even the shark from Jaws. These are forces of nature that are not driven by hatred for the protagonists, which makes them interesting villains.
THE BULLY
Another archetype that you’ve probably seen a lot growing up is the bully. Many high school shows and movies (at least from what I remember) had this archetype quite a lot. In coming of age stories especially, the bully represents a force that blocks the main character from growing and achieving their full potential, or represents something that makes the main character stray off a good path.
Bullies are also often coming from households where they were bullied or tend to have some sort of tragic backstory.
A great example of the bully archetype is Regina George from Mean Girls or Draco Malfoy from Harry Potter.
EVIL INCARNATE
There are villains who are misunderstood or somehow have good intentions but commit evil actions thinking they’re doing good, and then there are villains who are essentially the personification of Satan.
Evil incarnate villains are an archetype of villains that are just pure evil. Their motivation is that they’re evil. They want power and they want as much of it as possible. Evil incarnate villains don’t care who is hurt in their path and who goes down for their own sake.
There are lots of villains like this especially in epic fantasy stories like The Lord of the Rings with Sauron. This is also a villain type that I use in my series, The Fallen Age Saga, with a character named Diabroka who is basically second to Satan in the lore. The idea is that these villains are just evil.
If you want to learn more about how to write purely evil villains, check out this post!
THE MACHINE
A lot of sci-fi stories tend to use the machine archetype for their villains. This is basically a villain that is a robot, a machine, an algorithm, an AI or something of that sort. Machines don’t have feelings, since they’re usually programmed by people to react the way they do. Some machines gain sentience or start processing and thinking, but they still lack the sort of empathetic feeling that humans have.
The neat thing about having a machine villain is that they will probably think of things in a logical sense, which may lead them to do a lot of evil things because they don’t perceive things the way we as humans do. A good example of this is Ultron from Marvel, who quite literally decided to commit genocide because he browsed on the internet.
THE FANATIC
A fanatic villain is one that is usually willing to go to extremes because of their belief in a cause, ideology, religion, etc… These types of villains are extremist in their conviction and they may lead cults due to their ability to lead people and their charisma.
Fanatics tend to believe that they have been chosen in a way to do what they do. A great example of this is Joseph Seed from Far Cry 5 who leads an insane doomsday cult. He genuinely believes that he is chosen to spread the message, but his cult kills people, tortures people, and drugs people. He’s a fanatic through and through.
Another example of this is from my series, The Fallen Age Saga, where the main characters have to contend with an insane cult that controls everything, has impacted planets in the universe, and wants to destroy everything so that they can ascend to godhood. They’re fanatics who believe they will achieve their insane goals.
THE SADIST
A lot of villains in crime thrillers tend to fall under this sort of disturbed type of person. I use the term sadist, but you really can call this sort of person twisted, messed up, disturbed, psychotic, etc…
These villains tend to be more than just a standard psychopath (I’ve talked about writing psychopaths before in another post). These villains are like serial killers. They often come from broken lives and have tons of trauma, but beyond that, they turn their trauma into a sort of insanity.
A lot of slasher movies like Scream, but even movies like Psycho have this sort of villain. These villains walk a fine line between insanity and sanity and they just want to harm the main character for their own twisted reasons.
THE FALLEN
Sometimes, villains started out their lives as heroes. They were good to people or they did things in the name of goodness. Then, something happens in their lives and it turns them into villains. These are sort of like fallen heroes, who go from being good to being evil.
A lot of grimdark stories tend to explore this sort of character type, such as Joe Abercrombie’s Age of Madness. Grimdarks do this a lot because the main character may start out as a good person or trying to do right, but they end up being swept into the darkness of the world around them and stop caring. If you want to learn how to write a great grimdark fantasy story, check out this post.
There’s even Darth Vader from Star Wars, who started out as Anakin Skywalker and was a member of the Jedi, but became twisted and joined the dark side thinking he was doing the right thing. He eventually gives in to the evil and becomes a Sith Lord.
THE TRICKSTER
Another great example of a villain archetype has to be the trickster. This is a cunning, charming, smart, and manipulative villain that trips the hero up at any turn. The trickster is a mischievous type of person that can harm the hero without necessarily doing evil things.
For example, the trickster may try to make a deal with the hero that has some fine print that basically ruins the hero’s life. A great example of this is the Joker from D.C., Loki from Marvel, and even Rumpelstiltskin from Shrek 4, as silly as that might sound.
This villain often tends to feel jealousy or just wants to one-up the hero because they can and they find it funny. They also can be driven by greed and can manipulate others in order to get their way.
THE TRAITOR
Heroes in stories often have companions that work with them or go on adventures with them, but sometimes, their companions aren’t going to stay that way. Which is precisely where the traitor archetype comes in. The traitor is a person that, well, betrays the hero and becomes the hero’s main force of opposition.
The traitor can come about for many reasons, namely out of jealousy, power, greed, or something of the sort. The traitor doesn’t have to be a companion either by the way, it can be a sibling, a parent, an apprentice, a spouse, etc… The traitor is basically someone who was close to the hero and turned on them.
The traitor can also be someone who was like a snake from the start. They could’ve been a spy working for the opposition. They gain the hero’s trust and then turn on them when they need to.
A great example of a traitor has to be a character like Griffith from Berserk, who basically just sacrificed everyone who cared about him for the allure of power.
THE VENGEFUL
Another type of villain archetype in literature is the vengeful villain. These villains are driven purely by revenge over something they found in their lives to be unfair, unjustified, or wrong. These villains may be driven against society, feeling mistreated by the world around them. Sometimes these villains are against the main character for personal reasons. An example of this would be the hero being a soldier and having the villain come after them as vengeance for the death of someone close to them.
The vengeful villain may not be “evil” necessarily, but they definitely are an opposing force to the hero for one reason or another.
Vengeful villains include characters like Syndrome from The Incredibles or Killmonger from Black Panther.
THE EQUAL
The last of the villain archetypes I want to talk about for today’s post is the equal. This is a villain that is basically matched up completely to the hero. They are almost like a sort of doppelganger, having the same skills, same powers, and same abilities as the hero. If not entirely the same, they are very similar in some things that allow them to almost mirror each other, but oppose each other.
The equal differs from the hero in their motivations and morals though, so this is the big point of differentiation between the two characters.
Saruman from The Lord of the Rings is a great example off this, being contrasted with Gandalf. Reverse-Flash from The Flash is also a great example of this, as he’s basically the evil version of The Flash.
There are lots of other subtypes and smaller types of villain archetypes out there, but I covered the ones that I feel are the most impactful, visible, and documented in fiction. Overall, for your story, you can combine archetypes, change them up or do whatever it is that you want to do. These are just great starter points for your villain to really come to life!
If you want more advice on writing villains, you can check out another post of mine about writing a compelling, engaging, and interesting villain. Combined with this list of archetypes, it should help you a lot! You should also consider reading about the 7 literary conflict types, as this will help you shape your story a lot more.
And before you go, don’t forget to check out my series, The Fallen Age Saga, and also sign up for my newsletter so that you can get updates on my latest works, posts and more!