💀 Making Your Villain Make Sense (Without Making Them Right™)
("because if I see one more war criminal with a sad diary entry get a redemption arc, I’m gonna throw my laptop.")
Here’s the thing: your villain doesn’t need to be redeemable. But they do need to make sense.
And I mean sense beyond "they’re evil and they monologue about it." Or “they have a tragic past, so now they do murder <3.” Or “they were right all along, the hero just couldn’t see it 🥺.”
Let’s fix that.
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🧠 STEP ONE: BUILD A LOGIC SYSTEM THAT ISN’T OURS Your villain shouldn’t just be wrong, they should have their own internal system that works for them. Morally flawed? Absolutely. But coherent.
Ask yourself:
What do they value more than anything? (Power? Order? Loyalty? Vengeance?)
What do they believe about the world, and how did they get there?
What fear drives them? What future do they think they’re trying to prevent?
The villain doesn’t need to know they’re wrong. But you should.
Make their logic airtight. even if it’s awful. Give them cause and effect.
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👿 STEP TWO: STOP GIVING THEM THE BETTER IDEOLOGY Listen. I love a “morally gray” moment as much as anyone. But if your villain is making all the good points and the hero’s just like “no because that’s mean,” your arc is upside down.
If your villain is critiquing injustice, oppression, or inequality, make sure their methods are the problem, not their entire worldview.
✖︎ WRONG: Villain: “The ruling class is corrupt.” Hero: “That’s not nice.”
✔︎ RIGHT: Villain: “The ruling class is corrupt, so I’m burning the city and everyone in it.” Hero: “So you’re just… committing genocide now?”
Your villain can touch a real issue. Just don’t let them be the only one talking about it, or solving it with horror movie logic.
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🔪 STEP THREE: GIVE THEM POWER THAT COSTS THEM The best villains lose things too. They’re not just untouchable horror dolls in sexy coats. They make bad choices and pay for them. That’s where the drama lives.
Examples:
They isolate themselves.
They sacrifice people they love.
They get what they want, and it destroys them.
They know they’re the monster, and choose it anyway.
If your villain can kill a dozen people and feel nothing, that’s not scary. That’s boring. Let them bleed. Let them regret it. Let them double down anyway.
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🧱 STEP FOUR: MAKE THEM PART OF THE WORLD, NOT OUTSIDE IT Villains shouldn’t feel like they were patched in from another genre. They should be part of the world’s logic, culture, class system, history. They should reflect something about the setting.
Villains that slap:
The advisor who upheld the regime until they decided they deserved to rule.
The noble who’s using war to reclaim stolen legacy.
The ex-hero who thinks the system can’t be saved, only reset.
The priest who truly believes the gods demand blood.
They’re not just evil, they’re a product of the same world the hero is trying to save.
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👁 STEP FIVE: SHOW US THEIR SELF-JUSTIFICATION You don’t need a tragic backstory™. But you do need to show us why they think they’re right. Not just with exposition, through action.
Let us watch them:
Protect someone.
Choose their goal over safety.
Justify the unjustifiable to a character who loves them.
Refuse to change, even when given a chance.
A villain who looks into the mirror and goes “Yes. I’m correct.” is 1000x scarier than one who sobs into a journal and says “I’m so broken 🥺.”
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🧨 BONUS ROUND: DON’T MAKE THEM A HATRED MEGAPHONE Especially if you’re writing marginalized characters: don’t let your villain become a mouthpiece for slurs, abuse, or extremism just to make them “evil enough.” That’s lazy. And harmful.
You don’t need real-world hate speech to build a dark character. You need power, consequence, and intent.
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TL;DR: Good villains don’t need to be right. They need to be real. Not a vibe. Not a sad boy in a trench coat. Not a trauma monologue and then a sword fight. They need logic. They need cost. They need to scare you because you get them, and still want them to lose.
Make them dangerous. Not relatable. Make them whole. Not wholesome. Make them make sense.
—rin t. // thewriteadviceforwriters // villain critic. final boss consultant. licensed chaos goblin
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