In Search of the Perfect Villian

Day 23: In Search of the Perfect Villain

As I was expanding the world of Tempest Crossing, I found myself stuck on creating a worthwhile conflict. My earlier dailies explored some themes I would like to implement into the world, but the lessons won’t really cement until there is an opposing force to challenge their true value. The better written the villain or opposing force, the more accomplished the heroes we root for become. Thus my quest to create a perfect villain began, and I drew on what inspires me: previously watched anime!

https://myanimelist.net/animelist/Ousikai?status=2

I drew on the 6 traditional literary conflicts on the top half of the page and some “creation” themes on what the origin story of a villain could be on the bottom half of the page. Just going through these old memories put a smile on my face as I faintly remember the kind of person I used to be while watching a series for the first time, and re-examining these series with a new lens brought a whole new level of enjoyment to some already great creations!

Some common occurrences I ran across was the intersection of the literary conflicts to form certain types of stories (hence the seemingly random arrows). Character vs Character crossing Character vs Supernatural resulted in… you guess it, superhero powers with the forces of good and evil colliding. Character vs Character crossing Character vs Society was also a really fascinating intersection, as the characters in question themselves may not be different ethics wise, but because of the respective societies they were raised in, are doomed to eventually do battle.

In the bottom half of the page, I crossed out evil and noted conflict instead because some of the more-stand out series in my memory made the viewers question what it means for something to be evil. Morality has always been this hypersensitive and subjective scale, and putting various characters in unique scenarios amplifies this theme immensely.

My happy takeaway is that I now have inspiration and memorable characters to drawn on in my ongoing quest to tell the story of Tempest Crossing, and hopefully spin some old tales with my own personal flair.

To my fellows at @homeroom11 @dragon, what are some of your favorite memorable antagonistic characters and why?