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Hey, I have a good vampire in my world who is heroic (I've not come up with every deed he's done, but he's somewhat of a nice guy). If you want any examples of his traits, let me know.

Good point SK.

I think it's because we humans are so easily influenced in both good and bad fields which makes the idea of a truly evil human villain seem somewhat awkward to many.

In most stories, a human villain's motives can be boiled down to jealousy, selfishness and power hunger.

This is why I find most "regular" fiction boring. The bad guys in that aren't villains at all really. It's like you said with your example Berz. Most regular fiction is like that and it's happening with fantasy as well.

In my own writing, of course there are bad guys who do fall into that "evil but not quite 100%" category, but there are also those whose agendas and motives are truly evil.

From what I gather from Lord of the Rings, Sauron is truly evil. What happens in the book, Berz? Put the spoiler in white text so others can choose to read it if they want to. From what we see in the movies, Sauron barely makes an appearance. He comes close to being resurrected, but Frodo throws the ring into the fire before he gets the chance. Other than what's in those movies, I don't know a damn thing about who or what Sauron is. All I know is that he's just an evil b*****d, whereas most villains you get to know a bit about during the course of the book. I only ask because I haven't managed to read the book because I found it too long-winded for my liking at this moment in time.

More than happy to oblige, Mel! ^_^

In the trilogy itself, Sauron is the source of all evil for all intents and purposes. But if you delve into the rest of the world, including The Silmarillion, we find out that he is actually not the original source of all evil. That particular distinction belongs to Melkor Morgoth Bauglir, the evil Vala who was the principle baddie of the First Age (LoTR is the Third Age). Sauron was his right-hand-man and successor. Without Morgoth, Sauron wouldn't actually be a baddie at all.

Spoilerish stuff follows.

The whole reason that Sauron wanted the One Ring back was to regain his physical form he had lost when Isildur cut it from his finger. The movies toyed with the idea of having Sauron have gained enough strength back to have a physical form and fight Aragorn. They actually filmed Viggo Mortensen's side of the fight and that footage became his fight with the Troll during the last battle when they thought better of it (thank God!).

What happened in the books with that battle was essentially what happened in the final movie. Sauron never manifested a physical form again. The only real changes involved Merry and Pippin. Merry was stuck with Éowyn and Faramir convalescing in Minas Tirith. Pippin, while he was at that battle, was the one who actually fought the troll... and got a little squished when he killed it and it fell on him.

The whole point of Sauron was that he was supposed to be a faceless miasma of evil more than an actual physical evil. Tolkien looked upon Sauron as the last great evil of Middle-earth. As such, he was both vulnerable to a physical attack (by way of destroying the One Ring) and a presence more than a person. Tolkien actually started a sequel to LoTR, but didn't get more than a few pages into it since it was a pointless story, by comparison. So pointless that, though those pages have been published by the Tolkien estate, I have yet to see a fanfiction that took them and ran with it!

Any other LoTR questions? I could honestly blather all day! ^_^

Berz.

LOTR did confuse me a little bit - heck, i couldn't get through the first few pages of the book. But I did like the last two movies, and what Gollum did confused me. I know he wanted the ring, and the ring consumed him right until the very end, but how could Frodo lose it like that? It didn't make sense. I suppose you have to read the book for that question to be answered, or is it something you're supposed to figure out on your own?

As for villains, I like the not so evil ones. Sure, they're evil in the heroes eyes, but in his eyes he's doing the right thing to get what he wants. One of my MC's in a book I'm writing will usually be considered "evil" in any other book. After all, he's questing for immortality. It may just be that that gives him the edge, especially when he meets evil in the flesh... and now I'm gaining ideas left, right, and centre! If only I could build my MC, I'd be happy.

Got it in one, Mel. The movie made it clearer than the book did, since it actually spent time in Gollum/Smeagol's point of view; not something that Tolkien did. In the books, we only had Frodo and Sam's observations of him to draw upon. You have to really think about it, but it's the same thing that's going on.

Basically, Gollum had had the Ring for something like seven hundred years. The way the Ring works is that it causes you to worry about it constantly and make sure you have it and that it isn't getting lost. When you worry about a single thing that is liable to betray you for that long, you really can't help but go stark-raving mad. Smeagol's coping mechanism was to manifest a second, evil personality with what he perceived was the voice of the Ring, telling him to do all these awful things or else he would lose the Ring; kill Deagol, steal the Ring, hide in the Lonely Mountain, kill Bilbo, kill Frodo, kill Sam. Smeagol just couldn't cope with the idea that he was actually evil enough to do all that.

Berz.