I've wanted to do this post for a long time, as I find the concept of villain archetypes fascinating. When you spend half your life watching movies, bingeing TV shows and reading books like I do, you start to notice certain patterns emerging in the antagonistic characters - there are specific types of villains, and some are generally more compelling than others (although there are exceptions, and every archetype has its better and worse examples). Of course, the archetypes aren't clearly categorized or set in stone, and many villain characters fall into multiple categories. But, roughly speaking, I've specified ten distinctive archetypes that I find particularly interesting in movies, television and literature. Here are the ten most compelling types of villains!
10. The Criminal
By this archetype, I don't mean the occupation of criminal - not all bank robbers and drug kingpins necessarily fall into this category. As a subcategory of villains, I see 'The Criminal' as anyone whose primary function in the story is to be in the main character's way because of unlawful activities: these are the villains who don't have a personal connection or long-standing grudge with the heroes of the story, but who are a part of the story because they keep breaking the law and the heroes are traditionally protecting or upholding it.
Jabba the Hutt (Larry Ward) from the Star Wars franchise is a prime example: in the war between the rebels and the Empire, he isn't on any particular moral side, he's just a gangster looking out for himself. He becomes a part of the story due to his dealings-gone-wrong with Han Solo (Harrison Ford), and defeating him becomes an important subplot. The Penguin, who has been played by Burgess Meredith, Danny DeVito and Colin Farrell across various Batman movies, is also traditionally a criminal archetype: he doesn't come into Batman's crosshairs due to personal vendettas or grand schemes, but simply because Batman fights crime and the Penguin is a prominent Gotham criminal. This archetype is most prominent in police shows like Person of Interest (2011-2016) and crime films like Lethal Weapon (1987), and it rarely disappoints.
9. The Unhinged
While they often mix in with other archetypes, unhinged villains deserve a category of their own, as being unstable is often the primary motivator behind villains in many stories, most notably psychological dramas et cetera. The archetype does have a somewhat problematic history, as mental illness is far too often represented in Hollywood as extreme cases of over-the-top villains who just go around killing a bunch of people, which understandably isn't very nice for people with mental issues who want to feel represented and understood. But while the trope has been overused in media, it doesn't change the fact that its best instances do make for some of cinema's greatest villains.
Whether it's characters who slowly lose their grip on sanity leading to unhinged and dangerous actions, like Denethor (John Noble) in The Return of the King (2003) and Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) in The Shining (1980), or characters who have some sort of underlying motivations yet their primary villain-factor is their unhinged nature, like the Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) in Spider-Man (2002) and Bellatrix Lestrange in the Harry Potter movies, this archetype has made for its share of top tier villains. Ramsay Bolton (Iwan Rheon) from Game of Thrones (2011-2019) is probably the best individual example of a loose cannon sometimes being the most frightening sort of villain.
8. The Bully
As was the case with 'The Criminal', I want to make the distinction between the archetype and the general term, as these villains aren't always bullies in the literal sense. A bully-villain is anyone whose function in the story is to, on some level, bully the main character, whether it be verbal abuse, causing harm for one's own amusement, or just being a pain in the ass. The more literal and obvious examples include Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) from Harry Potter and Biff Tannen (Tom Wilson) from Back to the Future (1985), but likewise authority-abusing characters like Sgt. Hartman (R. Lee Ermey) from Full Metal Jacket (1987) and Warden Norton (Bob Gunton) from The Shawshank Redemption fall into this category.
7. The Evil
This one is a mixed bag - most of fiction's worst villains fall into this category, as a villain with no other motivation than just being evil can easily feel very boring and generic. But at its best, this archetype has made for some of fiction's greatest - Sauron from The Lord of the Rings, Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) from Harry Potter, Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars et cetera. In addition to those fantasy and sci-fi icons, I count characters who are absolutely heartless and morally irredeemable, such as the Trinity Killer (John Lithgow) from Dexter (2006-2013) and senator Mitch McConnell from real life, to be a part of this category.
One example I'd like to single out is Michael Myers from the horror franchise Halloween. The slasher films really go deep into his evil nature, making it a whole thing that he doesn't have any particular motivations to his actions, but that due to something mysterious that went wrong at an early age, he simply became, as Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasance) chillingly puts it, "pure evil personified".
6. The Machine
Much like the "Evil" archetype, "Machine" villains aren't interesting characters in the conventional, psychologically complex and motivation-driven fashion. But for certain types of stories, especially in the world of science fiction, it can be the very best sort of villain. In this world of increasing technology, artificial intelligence and robot workers, the idea of machines taking over humankind can make for some frighteningly real-feeling fiction when done well. And as a contrast to emotionally driven human villains, the cold and calculating nature of a computerized villain can feel dramatic on a whole new level.
The greatest-of-all-time example is undoubtedly the bleak and terrifying HAL-9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), which really condenses just how scary a machine villain can be. Other fantastic examples are Ultron (James Spader) from Marvel movies, the T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and other Terminators from the Terminator movies, and the well-written artificial intelligence Samaritan from the severely underrated sci-fi crime series Person of Interest (2011-2016).
5. The Beast
Much like the machines, beast villains are not intriguing as humane characters, but they work fantastically in their own category. Fiction exists so that things could happen that cannot happen in this boring reality of ours, so why not come up with some absolutely terrifying monsters from the deepest crevices of human imagination to give your fantasy / sci-fi / thriller story some gravitas? At their best, movie monsters are visually staggering and covered in intriguing lore, just like a monster in a book can be a frighteningly described larger-than-life being.
What would Japanese cinema be without the legacy of Godzilla? Or American cinema without King Kong? Who can forget the Alien from Alien, the Great White from Jaws or the Balrog of Morgoth from The Lord of the Rings? Sometimes no other villain can beat a truly imaginative and memorable old-school monster.
4. The Equal
This trope may have been used time and time again, but it still always manages to captivate: a villain who is, on some level or another, an evil version of the main hero. It can be a person with similar skills and characteristics but a different moral code, like the suave and cold-blooded Francisco Scaramanga (Christopher Lee) from James Bond flick The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), who very much feels like "James Bond, but evil". It can also be a 'brother from another mother', who was born similar to the main hero but was nurtured different and thus went down a dark path, like the Ice Truck Killer from Dexter (2006-2013).
And no other medium does the 'Equal' archetype as well as the world of superheroes. DC Comics and Marvel absolutely love to create these sorts of villains, as nearly every major superhero has that one nemesis who has roughly the same skillset and concept but with different morals. Superman has General Zod, The Flash has the Reverse Flash, the Green Arrow has the Dark Archer and Batman...well, we don't talk about the Man-Bat. But most times, this archetype is a thing of greatness.
3. The Fallen Hero
If the idea of villains who started out like the hero but turned out evil is compelling, then the idea of villains who are the hero but we follow them become morally corrupted is downright gripping. Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) in The Dark Knight (2008) said it best: "You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain". In his case, this turned out to be heartbreakingly true, as the district attorney known as Gotham's White Knight undergoes a haunting transformation into the violent and bitter Two-Face.
Darth Vader (James Earl Jones) always was a great villain on his own in the original Star Wars trilogy, but his story becomes intriguing on a whole new level when we get the context on what a heroic figure Anakin Skywalker was before he turned to the dark side. Tony Almeida (Carlos Bernard) was a downright lovable figure for multiple seasons of 24 (2001-2010), which makes it heart-wrenching when he eventually loses everything and turns against the good guys.
Sometimes, this arch happens to the main character of the story, and you only realize towards the end of the plot that the protagonist was built to be the main villain all along. This was most famously done with Shakespeare's Macbeth, and its modern equivalent, Walter White (Bryan Cranston) in Breaking Bad (2008-2013). Following a character you care about turn bad will always be a powerful storytelling trope when done properly.
2. The Mastermind
Another archetype that has seemingly been done to death, yet it still always manages to impress when done well. Who doesn't love a villain who is pulling the strings behind the scenes, always many steps ahead of the heroes, having a contingency for everything while pulling off some sort of grand-scale long-con? These villains are the hardest to defeat, which often makes for some dramatic storytelling.
The definitive 'Mastermind' villain for me personally will always be Andrew Scott's take on classic Sherlock Holmes villain James Moriarty in BBC's Sherlock (2010-2017), as this cunning genius sums up everything great about the archetype. Other classic examples are Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) from Saw (2004), Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) from Die Hard (1988), Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito) from Breaking Bad and Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) from Silence of the Lambs (1991). The best part of crime classic The Usual Suspects (1995) used to be the earth-shattering reveal concerning its mastermind villain Keyser Soze, until it was somewhat ruined by the even more earth-shattering reveal that the actor in question had been quite the real-life villain himself (though his archetype is less 'Mastermind' and more 'Douchebag creep').
1. The Vengeful
There is no archetype inherently better than another, as the question of which sort of villain is the best always depends on the nature of the individual story. But this ranking is based on averages, on which types of villains do I most often find interesting, and the #1 choice was actually easy: seven or eight times out of ten, the very best villain in a book series or movie franchise or TV show full of good villains is one who is working out of vengeance, as this motive so often makes for delicious character writing.
Of course, it's impossible to distinguish from the "Fallen hero" archetype, as there is a lot of overlap, but I still counted the two separately because there are fallen hero -villains who aren't vengeful (the Winter Soldier, for example, was just captured and brainwashed into his villainous role), and there are vengeful villains who were never heroes to begin with (Freddy Krueger was a bad guy already before his death, but it was the brutal way in which he was killed that made him so bitter that he haunts teenagers in their dreams).
The thing with vengeful villains is that you often see where they're coming from to a degree. They might have a very valid point behind their motivations, which makes the viewer/reader partially sympathize with them, but they simply go too far with their actions. When watching Magneto (Ian McKellen / Michael Fassbender) in the X-Men movies, you can see and feel his pain and care for him, yet you can't help but hate him for the violent way in which he tries to accomplish his goals. When watching Hamilton, you see and understand how and why Aaron Burr (Leslie Odom Jr.) grows bitter and resentful towards Alexander Hamilton (Lin-Manuel Miranda), which makes his story all the more gripping.
The other thing about vengeful villains is that they've always lost something, which often means that they have nothing left to lose, which makes them extremely dangerous. One of fiction's great villains, Iago from Shakespeare's Othello, might start out with a plan to get himself promoted to Othello's side instead of the less experienced Cassio, but by the end of the play, it's clear that he really just wants to hurt Othello in the same way that he was hurt, by any means necessary. Walder Frey (David Bradley) from Game of Thrones is another prime example of how the action of wronging the wrong character can lead to disastrous consequences for the story's heroes, as some people will go to insane lengths to get their vengeance. More often than not, these villains are the best of the bunch.
Thank you for reading! Tune in next week, as I celebrate the upcoming 4th of July by ranking the top 10 episodes of a series representing my second homeland at its best: Aaron Sorkin's The West Wing (1999-2006).
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