YoRei
"Once upon a time there was a man with the gift of imagination. The Darkness Queen wanted such a thing to rule her lands for an eternity of bloodshed without anyone questioning her---"
Stop right there. Let me ask you something.
What is wrong with this?
If you answered the antagonist, you're right.
What is wrong?
A) No real name, just a cheesy title that no one will respect anyway.
B) No real motivation to fuel her efforts.
C) You can't picture her as a person, just a statuette on the imperial throne throwing corpses around.
D) All of the unjustified bloodshed gives her people a reason to rebel.
Why is it that the protagonist character and even the secondary characters get so much detail, while the antagonist is left with a cardboard cutout persona? Such frustration has arrived from this question, from wondering what the hell people are thinking when they try to create an antagonist, that it fueled this.
By the way, the word 'villain' should NEVER be typed or thought about being typed in this thread-- villain is a classification and a stereotype that instantly associates itself with the word 'evil' in our brains. Believe me when I say that not even Vlad the Impaler is truly evil.
A Look Into The Antagonistic Mind.
Motivation
Motivation is key. Without motivation, we are a bunch of lethargic monkeys. You need motivation to hit those keys, to want to and actually get up and get yourself a drink, to look up at the stars and want to get up from the ground again, to reach goals. Guess what? Antagonists have goals and motivation, just like the rest of us.
The consequences of rash, violent, or other certain actions in response to another's actions vary from culture to culture on acceptability. Such as in Shakespearean times, it was acceptable to kill a man out of revenge if he had wronged you.
Your culture's values, opinions, religion, beliefs, government, ect. shape what is acceptable and what is wrong in your society, thus shaping whether or not a person is really considered as 'bad'.
Another example to explain, perhaps.
In medieval times, there were lepers. In society, rich lepers and poor lepers were treated in drastically different ways. While poor lepers were considered sinful and dirty, cursed with their disease because of the sins they had committed, rich lepers were regarded as heroes.
I think you get that picture.
Childhood
Another thing that needs to be taken into account is childhood. How they grew up, what they went through. There is going to be a vast difference between someone who grew up wealthily and someone who was beaten severely as a child. Not only will there be personality differences, there will be physical differences and mental differences(Phobias, retardedness, mental disorders, ect.)
Example: Morgan Le Fay. In the Arthurian tales, she is regarded as one mean chica. Morgan wants to wipe out Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, but for very good reason. You see, Morgan was the legitimate child of Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall and Lady Igraine. Arthur's father, Uther Pendragon, was lusting after Lady Igraine. He went to war with the Duke Gorlois and while the Duke was preoccupied with the fighting in a different place, Merlin made Uther look like Gorlois. When the disguised Uther came in Igraine's home, the only one who could see through the disguise was the very young Morgan Le Fay. She tried to tell who it was, but no one would listen to her. What Uther did that night was as good as rape, and the illegitimate child, Arthur, came from it. Now can you see why she is so spiteful, so hateful, so eager to overthrow Arthur, and yet cannot tell of her reasons or prove her case? She is the only one besides Merlin who knows of this injustice to her name, to her family. That is her reason-- her motivation.
Another Example: (My Appologies to those who read the previous version. I got that wrong, and I thank SimaYi for correcting me, and posting a correct sum of Vlad. Thank you, SimaYi!)
SimaYi
The only thing I have against this thread is that you got damn near everything wrong about Vlad Tepes, including his name (he's Vlad Dracula - son of Vlad Dracul, Vlad the Dragon).
He was given as a hostage to the Turkish sultan as a guarantee of his father's loyalty, along with his younger brother Radu the Handsome, but that only lasted for a few years. Vlad Dracul turned against the Turks, abandoning his sons; later, Dracul was killed in battle (if I remember correctly), and the principality of Wallachia, which Dracul had held, fell into the hands of a hated enemy of the family (my memory of the details is unclear, but at least it's more accurate than yours). The sultan gave Vlad an army to take the principality, and Vlad was briefly successful; however, he only held the throne for a few months. I forget what happened between then and his second reign, but around when he regained the throne he also broke with the Turks (there's a famous incident in which he nailed the Turkish envoys' turbans to their heads after they refused to remove them in his presence, to send a message to the Turks) - and that's when the atrocities he's best known for began.
One of Vlad's first acts as prince was to invite Wallachia's leading nobles to a banquet. He asked them how many princes had come and gone during their lifespans; even the youngest among them had seen no less than eight, and all of them expressed little respect for the office. Vlad had them all executed. In a similar incident, he had his troops raid an upperclass Easter festival, capturing those present and forcing them to march for miles, killing those who fell by the wayside, towards the site of his planned fortress.
You mentioned, with inaccurate details, a banquet he held for the underclass; actually, he only invited the homeless, vagabonds, and shiftless bums. He treated them to a feast, and had his officers board up the hall and set it on fire. Thus, he ridded the country of homelessness and extreme poverty. He ridded Wallachia of poverty similarly - by punishing even comparatively minor crimes, such as theft, by potentially painful death.
Vlad is remembered as a national hero today, because he is perhaps the sole reason that Romania is not today part of Turkey. He led an invasion of Turkey - though it failed, and the Romanian army was forced into retreat. As they retreated, though, Vlad ordered all citizens and livestock in the path of the Turks herded along with the army, all villages, trees, and crops burned to the ground, and all wells poisoned. He also encouraged those with diseases like plague and leprosy to go and mingle among the Turkish army; if they infected a Turk who then died, they brought back his turban, and if they survived their illness, they were richly rewarded. When what was left of the Turkish army reached the Wallachian capitol, they were greeted with a half-mile-long semicircle of over 20,000 impaled Turkish captives outside the city. They turned back after that.
So, yeah. Vlad may have been an evil b*****d by most standards, but under him Wallachia enjoyed civil order and security - and, just as importantly, independence from the Turks.
He was given as a hostage to the Turkish sultan as a guarantee of his father's loyalty, along with his younger brother Radu the Handsome, but that only lasted for a few years. Vlad Dracul turned against the Turks, abandoning his sons; later, Dracul was killed in battle (if I remember correctly), and the principality of Wallachia, which Dracul had held, fell into the hands of a hated enemy of the family (my memory of the details is unclear, but at least it's more accurate than yours). The sultan gave Vlad an army to take the principality, and Vlad was briefly successful; however, he only held the throne for a few months. I forget what happened between then and his second reign, but around when he regained the throne he also broke with the Turks (there's a famous incident in which he nailed the Turkish envoys' turbans to their heads after they refused to remove them in his presence, to send a message to the Turks) - and that's when the atrocities he's best known for began.
One of Vlad's first acts as prince was to invite Wallachia's leading nobles to a banquet. He asked them how many princes had come and gone during their lifespans; even the youngest among them had seen no less than eight, and all of them expressed little respect for the office. Vlad had them all executed. In a similar incident, he had his troops raid an upperclass Easter festival, capturing those present and forcing them to march for miles, killing those who fell by the wayside, towards the site of his planned fortress.
You mentioned, with inaccurate details, a banquet he held for the underclass; actually, he only invited the homeless, vagabonds, and shiftless bums. He treated them to a feast, and had his officers board up the hall and set it on fire. Thus, he ridded the country of homelessness and extreme poverty. He ridded Wallachia of poverty similarly - by punishing even comparatively minor crimes, such as theft, by potentially painful death.
Vlad is remembered as a national hero today, because he is perhaps the sole reason that Romania is not today part of Turkey. He led an invasion of Turkey - though it failed, and the Romanian army was forced into retreat. As they retreated, though, Vlad ordered all citizens and livestock in the path of the Turks herded along with the army, all villages, trees, and crops burned to the ground, and all wells poisoned. He also encouraged those with diseases like plague and leprosy to go and mingle among the Turkish army; if they infected a Turk who then died, they brought back his turban, and if they survived their illness, they were richly rewarded. When what was left of the Turkish army reached the Wallachian capitol, they were greeted with a half-mile-long semicircle of over 20,000 impaled Turkish captives outside the city. They turned back after that.
So, yeah. Vlad may have been an evil b*****d by most standards, but under him Wallachia enjoyed civil order and security - and, just as importantly, independence from the Turks.
Another lovely topic that needs to be touched on.
War.
Which does have to do with this topic, as it may not seem so to some at first.
Land, resources, religion, pride. These are a few of the things that we go to war for, and they all are fuels for BOTH of the opposing forces. Also, always remember that those who invest blind faith in something are a force to be reckoned with.
Now, let us put these into situations, study them further.
Land: This could be for either religious and/or tyrannic(in a word) purposes. Both are very possible and have happened multiple times in the past. Alexander the Great, anyone? The constant fighting that has been going on in the middle east for decades, perhaps centuries over sacred land? I say no more.
Resources: What if your country had no water, no food left and you had no one to turn to-- but you had plenty of ammunition and weapons over from a previous war? Suddenly, that wealthy, water and rice rich country with no defenses to your left looks pretty tempting.
On the flip side, this can also be the search and warring over land for rare natural resources(gold, diamonds, cinnamon, ect).
Religion: This reason is ever-resilient in society, where two religions or even denominations of the same religion have strong disagreements over even the tiniest of things. How to worship, how to conduct ceremonies, what to preach, how to sacrifice, holy land, ect. Even today, in this so-called modern society, we have prejudices against those of a different worship system. I guess things never change, do they?
Pride: This is based on the society and whether pride is held in high regards or not. If it is held in high regards, then the society will expect their country to take action against the opposing country that had offended them. Trust me when I say that many people still have pride.
Personal Reasons: Some of the rulers and such just enjoy the thrill of battle, they revel in it, and can't get enough of it. An addiction, almost.
On one final note.
One thing to remember at all times:
The opposing side is always made to look like the enemy.
