Recently, I was told that you can tell a lot about an author by the villains they write into their stories. Maybe it does say something about you if your villains are always certain archetypes. It might say something about your past, or what your fears are, or the way your twisted little mind works.
When I heard that, though, what I thought about was, as much as I like the bad guy to win, I don’t really like “bad guys” all that much in my stories. That is to say, “bad guys” and “villains” tend to bore me a bit. I prefer a bit more complexity. At the very least, I’d like my antagonist to have some sort of logical basis for what he’s doing. I’d like him or her to be a sympathetic figure in at least some way. I think I crave moral ambiguity in my stories; I like for it to be totally defensible to root for the antagonist to win.
Maybe that’s part of my enjoying when the bad guys win — if there are no actual “bad guys,” anyone can win. Right? I mean, there’s something to be said for drawing clear lines and letting your clear villain twirl his handlebar mustache between his fingers and cackle maniacally. It’s certainly a popular trope in the movies, and smarter people than me have made a hell of a lot more money than I have by taking advantage of the general public’s desire to see the cowboy get the girl and ride into the sunset after gunning down the scruffy guy in the black hat.
Even so, I think it’s lazy writing much of the time. It’s not hard to write to stereotypes and lead your reader to whatever conclusion you want him to draw. It’s a lot harder and takes more discipline to write real, three-dimensional characters, and let the reader come to his own conclusions. I think it’s worth the effort when it makes sense for the story.
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