Building a Better Bad Guy.

Today I was thinking about villains and bad guys. I suppose a big part of this was that I recently watched the movie public enemies. While watching the movie I was really disappointed with the character development. Especially the development of Christian Bale's character. I suppose for the purpose of the movie, it was important to under develop the authority figure in order to force the audiences attachment to Johnny Depp's character, either way I found it horribly frustrating.

This brings up the topic of bad guys and villains in video games. More often than not, I see that games put in a bad guy, and he's the bad guy because…. Well…. He's the bad guy! I think that in order to build a better bad guy, we need to really look at how we can develop a connection between the player and the bad guy.

What connections can we build? How can we build them? Let's look at one of the most important, long running, and incredible bad guys. Magneto. What makes Magneto such an amazing bad guy? First, we understand him. Looking at his motivation, and his ultimate goals, it's easy to understand him. He simply wants his people to be properly respected and represented. We can all relate to the desire to be accepted and heard, everyone wants to be treated fairly and represented equally.

Second is the blurred lines. There are times where Magneto isn't a bad guy. He's close friends with Xavier, the beacon of light in the series. He has the same ultimate goals, and wants mutant progress, same as Xavier. He's even stepped up and taken over the school in Xavier's absence. His goals are not what makes him evil, but his methods. He believes, whole heartedly, that he is righteous. This reminds me of the Firefly episode 'Heart of Gold' where Malcolm's instincts are to flee rather than fight, because the villain (Ranse Burgess) is "a believer", and that "there's nothing worse than a monster who thinks he's right with god." Whether or not you believe in faith, you can't deny the power it can have. If someone believes, whole heartedly, that they are right, the lengths they will go to protect those beliefs are endless. "He'll kill each and every one of ya and sleep well that night."

Magneto is cruel. The second someone no long serves a purpose to him he will cast them aside with no concern or care. Personal attachment means very little to him, remember the scene in X2 where mystique lost her powers? She no longer served a purpose, and she was abandoned. Despite their time together, and all the hard work she's done for him in the past, she is nothing more than a tool to him, no emotional attachment at all.

He's insane. Sure, he's not nearly as insane as many other villains, but he's insane enough that he cannot be reasoned with. The greatest fear of the human race is the fear of the unknown. Someone who's insane cannot be fully understood, our inability to understand them gives us no capability to reason with them. Our only option here is to stop them. I think the art of building a strong villain is an area that video games have been failing. The majority of video game villains are pretty hollow. Even the most famous ones. Often times we are pushed to kill an adversary for no reason, other than… well… they are there...

Video Game villains definitely have the cruel and insane aspects covered. But these only build villains that are easy to hate. If you are interested in a cheap bad guy where you just need an excuse for a conflict, this works great. But if you really want to build a truly evil and impactful enemy, you've got to do more. How many games can you recall that you really understand the villain? I mean really, you can relate with what they are going through, with their goals, with their motivation? Who was the last video game villain that honestly scared you?

In order to really grip a player, you've got to attach them to the villain. You're villain has to be a reflection of the player. The villain is the embodiment of everything dark and wrong inside of each and everyone one of us.

So, let's push the boundaries. Let's make better bad guys. We can do so much better.