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SEAMEN
Sakka Fenikkusu
The
great, powerful and egotistical phoenix who somehow manages to hold a
pencil without burning it.
Bullets Over Flowers
Conqueror
of small cities, men among men, cook of omelettes, writer, lunatic,
and someone who thinks he's Godzilla (So Run! Run from Godzilla!)
WyrdWolf
Guru
of Irrelevance and Irreverence
WyrdWolf is a talking Lupine
who occasionally brings back a nice dead rabbit or bird for his best
friends.
Solemn Coyote
Everyone’s
favorite no-nonsense Trickster God, Solemn Coyote is currently
preoccupied with chasing his tail. Around and around and around it
goes.
Locus
Information
will be released on a need-to-know basis.
Burnt Bread
Burnt, bedridden, and
stuck with a bunmy internet connection, Bread may just have to lay
low for a while.
Le Chiffre, the main villain of the new James Bond movie, Casino Royale, is the worst professional villain of all time, if not a damn close second. He’s weak, he’s in debt, he’s French, and his only oddity is that he cries tears of blood, which only happens three times throughout the 3-hour film.
Editor’s Note
says Locus, while
destroying all evidence of finals and related papers.
I’m back! Those of you astute enough to be, well labeled as astute will notice that I wasn’t present for last months issue. I apologize to my fans and detractors alike. I’m sure Bread has spread rumors of my whereabouts, and I assure you, I was none of those places. Well, maybe Rome. Anywho, happy holidays from all of us here at Stop the Press, we sincerely hoped you enjoyed your time with friends and loved ones, because no matter what you celebrate, that seems to be a defining aspect we can all agree on. This month, we bring to you a collection of work done on the topic of ‘Villains’. I have to say, this might have been my favorite one to contribute to yet, as I love a good villain. Those of you labeled as astute, please don’t point out I have yet to reveal a single villain in any of my own work. It is something I am working on. So sit back, put on some good music, and enjoy it! I hope to hear from you guys!
This fact may or may not be true. How’s that for ambiguity?
Villains: they’re the common spice to most stories; most books and novels have them. They exist to spread chaos to the world, create hardship upon the millions of generic and special people, and they are the obstacle (and paycheck) to would-be heroes and heroines. Think about it… will the people love the hero so much if there wasn’t a villain to hate?
But what makes a villain? What makes them the sadistic, evil, or misunderstood creature that they are? Answer: everything. Every speck of their body, every shred of their existence combine with one another to create the villain we love to hate.
Let’s start with their motives. Gone were the days where people love (or hate) the villain who antagonizes the main character or world just because they want to. People want details of their past, reasons for motivation in order for the reader to sympathize with them, or for more reasons to make voodoo puppets in their image due to increased hatred.
A sad childhood is the building blocks of evil upbringing. Abusive parents or guardians give them reason to bestow pain upon others, while the presence of a single caring individual (usually killed off before adolescence or some important event in life) would create conflict in belief later on in life. There are also cases of a good childhood, shattered by a natural disaster caused by anything inherently evil.
Appearance is important also for the misunderstood people of story. Males range from hideous old men seeking revenge for all the wrong done to him, or the long haired youth so beautiful that ignites fanboys/girls to write endless pairings with the male hero. A scar or two could be added, which adds more to the villain’s badassness.
Female villains are usually and unfortunately portrayed either as an old crone jealous of beautiful youth, or young ladies born to be bitchy and/or airheaded. The serious (but young) woman villain is usually supporting characters, and it is unfortunate, but I’ve read few stories with a solid female villain.
Also, the villain has to have followers. They range from the brute, the child, the madman, the schemer, the honorable, the annoying, the persistent, the incompetent, and the one you know who would side with the hero in the end. Villains are also equipped with a massive evil army, and is generally richer than the main character could ever be (how the hell could they fund those evil monsters and superweapons if they were poor anyway?)
This bit on villains is going a bit too long, and as much as I would like to rant more, I still have other stuff to write. But as parting words, here is a nearly true fact about villains.
--All villains, no matter how genocidal and evil they become, can be exempt from reader’s hating them if they are cool enough.—
Note: Yes, most facts of villains here are cliché, but everyone loves to laugh at clichés once in a while.
So happy New Year! May more clichés and funny facts reach your eyes and ears, and this is YJan-sama signing off!
Left handed people live slightly shorter lives than right handed people.
It wasn’t until she saw the charred marks on the coffee table that Lynn realized something was wrong. “I’m home” froze in her throat, and she took a quick step back towards the door. It swung shut behind her, and she heard the lock click. From somewhere out of sight came a voice like grinding gravel. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, dear. We have so much to talk about.”
Thunder rang through the corridors of Kra’nath Castle. It echoed off statues and tapestries, rebounding down the halls until it found the throne room. The thunder took one look inside and fled. High on his ivory throne, the Dark Lord Bedric chuckled. His laughter rose in volume until it threatened to bring the dark stones of his fortress down around his ears. “Even the elements fear me,” he boomed “And they are right to do so. All of Averna shall know my name, and know that I am evil.”
Believe me, I had as hard a time writing that last paragraph as you did reading it. Why is that? Well, the second villain was uninteresting. Lord Bedric comes from a long, evil tradition of big men in dark armor who sit in their castles and laugh a lot. Big deal. We’ve seen that before. We know what happens. Sooner or later a kid with a sword and some ambitions is going to come out of the mountains on dragon-back and…shiiiing, no more Dark Lord.
In almost any work of fantasy, there are two principal characters: the hero/heroine/gender-neutral-protagonist, and the villain. Unless the story spends a lot of time on the hero’s team (which, admittedly, a lot of works do), the villain is going to have to be pretty interesting to keep the reader hooked the rest of the time.
Now, there are a couple of ways to make your villain interesting.
The first is to write your villain-cliché well enough that people stop caring that they’ve met him before. If Bedric scares them badly enough, they won’t say “Hey, you’re pretty one-dimensional and boring. And who says ‘I am evil’, anyways? Did someone chuck your character motivation down a well?”
Nope.
They’ll say “Sir”, and they’ll mean it. Clichés can be potent things when they’re used properly.
“Pfft,” you spit, like some sort of llama, “That’s just not for me. I want my villains to be fresh and original. They’re the most interesting characters, anyway.” Sure. We can do that. In fact, one of the easiest ways to make a memorable villain is to take one of the existing clichés and add little bits of information onto it.
Suppose you have a giant spider. We’ll call her Shebob. Now, protocol dictates that that spider should spend most of her time rushing out of caves to snare passing hill-folk. You can keep that bit, but expand on it a little. Let’s say that the spider is intelligent. She’s been around for hundreds of years, and some of the hill-folk it ate had books in their packs. So, Shebob learned to read. More than that, she’s set up a library of sorts in her lair. In between cocooned corpses and scurrying young are stacks of books. Now, when she snares her prey, she tries to get them to write something for her before she drains them dry. Kinda creepy, right? Adding quirks to a cliché can have good consequences.
If you’ll look back at the first sample paragraph I wrote, you might notice that I did just that with its villain. The owner of the gravel-grinding voice is based off the ‘wicked witch’ archetype, but there are a few differences. First of all, she stays out of sight, but she does leave a mark on the scene all the same. The coffee table was burned by her fingers. Secondly, the witch uses ‘dear’ when she talks to Lynn. Assuming they aren’t related, this means she takes a very familiar tone with her prey. Her intentions might be hostile, but she acts like everyone’s grandma.
So, consider this for a moment: when you’re writing a villain, you’re writing the other main character in your story. You might not mention them in every chapter but, when you do, they should catch your readers’ interest. How you do that is up to you, but don’t just make them a speed-bump on the road to glory.
The ant, when intoxicated, will always fall over to its right side.
For me, there is one noise that has always
been synonymous with villainy,
and that is the slow and repetitive
mechanical breathing of Darth Vader.
Why? Because it stripped away
the very part of him that anyone could
possibly relate to- his
humanity. I’m sorry if you’ve never experienced the
original
Star Wars, but I feel that the basis of all I know and believe in
how
a ‘traditional’ villain should work is laid out there, under that
black
helmet.
There. Got you
hooked. Nobody can turn down Darth Vader. Now I get to
present my
theories and observations, and I know you’ll stick around,
because
I promise more about Vader at the end. Still with me? Good.
What
makes up a traditional villain, you ask? And why does one
need to define a
villain as so?
Well, you’ve come
to the right place. Open your copy of Joseph’s Campbell’s
“The
Hero with a Thousand Faces” to page fortyse- what? You don’t have
a
copy?
(If you do, play along anyway) Why not? It is easily the
most
important reference you can have for writing a story about
the development
of a hero. In fact, George Lucas himself consulted
it heavily when writing
the original screenplays. Now, I don’t
agree with everything Campbell says,
and neither should you- works
of original fiction must diverge from a source
material at some
point, and the best way to do that is through conflict with
the
work. But I digress.
Campbell talks a
lot with the conflict between the hero and the villain and
most
importantly, according to him, the journey of the hero. This is where
I
disagree- I feel that the journey isn’t what matters- it’s
the reasons the
journey is taken that matter the most-
specifically what Campbell calls the
‘final obstacle’. The
villain. Campbell uses what I call a traditional
villain- one who
is an obstacle in the Hero’s journey. Defeating the villain
isn’t
the goal- but he is a step on the journey. Darth Vader fits that
bill.
Sauron, from the Lord of the Rings fits the bill. The
Harkonnens in Dune as
well.
The second type of
villain, as defined by me, is the non-traditional
villain. The one
that is the end of the journey. The type that make the
journey
necessary, not the type that make the journey hard. Pick a
villain
from an action movie- Bond isn’t going out to further
himself- he is going
out to stop so and so from doing such and
such, for queen and country.
The third, and final, is the ongoing
villain. In my mind, this is the most
fun type, the least used,
and potentially, the most loved by readers or
viewers. This
villain might not even be considered a villain, but his or her
(or
its) actions spurn attempts by the hero to progress. It might be
the
disfavor of the gods, keeping Agamemnon from launching at
Aulis, or it might
be Newman stopping by on Seinfeld. This is a
villain in the very barest
sense of the word, but these are the
most common. Think of how many villains
we all face when you look
for them- bureaucracy, technology, neighbors,
family, pets… each
one of these isn’t world threatening, but they sure do
create
conflict, right?
Well, this grows long, and there is plenty else
to read, so until next
time….uhh, I can’t think of a witty way
to sign off. You win this time,
reader!
"The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success.”
“Intuitive improvisation is the secret of genius.”
“The key to a great story is not who, or what, or when, but why.”
“I like a girl in a bikini, no concealed weapons.”
Villains piss me off. For the most part, they’re supposed to be geniuses, so they devise elaborate plans that go something like this:
1. Tell the hero EXACTLY where your secret lair is.
2. Wait ten to twelve hours for the hero to show up (buy Subway if bored).
3. Forget to switch on the trap until the last moment.
4. Kill henchmen who forgot to switch on trap.
5. Rant angrily.
6. Watch as hero valiantly foils stage one of the trap.
7. Rant angrily.
8. Shoot random henchmen who has a family.
9. Send out some random creatures, preferably lions or raptors, to corner hero.
10. Watch as hero makes friends with the creatures and turns them to his side.
11. Rant angrily.
12. Dump a corrosive substance down a tunnel to kill hero.
13. Watch as hero is impervious/too smart/too fast/already gone.
14. Cut yourself.
15. Throw hundreds of henchmen at hero, who wet their pants and are flung across the room (not necessarily in that order).
16. Say something overly melodramatic as hero approaches you.
17. Make sure your insurance is paid up.
18. Get your face kicked in.
19. Be alive long enough to watch hero be chased down a hallway by a fiery explosion, which is part of the self-destruct sequence.
20. Curse his name, and watch no one care.
Okay, guys. I'm going to clue you in on the greatest evil that mankind has ever known.
Trix cereal.
Listen to the assorted gasps, shrugs, and "Huh?"s. You are so ignorant. Lex Luthor? The Living Dead? Huey Louis and the News? Mangoes? All of these evil (but not evil enough) things pale in comparison. For I have three points that will sway the opinions of all of those who have not already been brainwashed by its cruel Trix-y-ness.
Point One: They are teaching the children of our society stupidity. You have all seen Trix commercials. Do not deny it. The Trix Rabbit follows the kids around, they trick him (and he always falls for it) then make away with their Trix. What do they say? "Trix are for kids." Well, kids, here's a message: tell the Rabbit to freaking buy his own box. As you can see, this is step one to contaminating the minds of those who are too weak to fight the Trix: make them stupid.
Point Two: They are also teaching our children to be calloused, mean and cruel. Have the children in the darling commercial ever thought of sharing with the rabbit? No. They torment him. They laugh at him. They starve the poor rabbit. All he wants is CEREAL. This horrible act is an example of how terrifying Trix really is, for the next step of contaminating those weak minds is to make them racist to poor innocent bunnies.
Point Three: Have you seen how much sugar is in that stuff? And all of the other products... Frankly, if you can stand the "raspberry red, orangey orange, lemony yellow" taste of Trix it's already gotten to you and there is no hope for your poor, lost soul.
Take heed. You might think that it is not the true evil of the world, and I am sure many things come close, but this is something to truly be wary of. Beware, and give cereal to any bunnies you might see hopping by. Farewell.
Arch-demons are people too. Sure, they might have layers of scales, blackened spines, and a proclivity for devouring living flesh, but they have feelings. In fact, they’ve probably got a lot more angst than the usual sixteen-year-old swashbuckler. The cocky little kid’s had a fairly stable upbringing with his adoptive parents up until they were unexpectedly murdered. The demons, meanwhile, have been renting a flat in Tartarus. The air smells like brimstone all the time, they have to bathe three times a day to keep the ash from building up, the cockroaches have developed super-powers, and the rent is outrageous.
For those of you who want to humanize your monsters, this exercise is for you. Most writers will infuse a little bit of themselves in their characters. A trait here. A knack there. Usually, the hero will get most of these. He’s supposed to by sympathetic after all, and the best way to make him sympathetic to the audience is to make him sympathetic to yourself.
Well, let’s try something different. Instead of giving the hero your traits, write yourself as the villain. Make him or her as evil as you want, but make sure there are some of your mannerisms embedded in the character. Make him cool, too, if that’s to your fancy. Then turn him loose in a confrontation with a hero. A pitched fight. A political backstab. A guitar duel. Whatever. The goal here isn’t for your villain to win; it’s to make him organic.
That, in itself, should make for an interesting experiment. But, if you want to take things one step further, try this: take your you-villain and set him against your you-hero. Don’t worry about who wins, just focus on the conflict.
When you’re done, you might find that you’re in a bit of a moral grey area. Perfect. Now you can write human villains with ease. Oh, and you should probably go watch “Batman” until your sense of right and wrong comes back.
Turtles can breathe through their butts.
Though there has been a complete lack of movie review submissions through the history of this newsletter, I refuse to let this section die, muah!
“I do wish we could chat longer, but... I'm having an old friend for dinner. Bye.”
There’s only one thing scarier than a psychiatrist, and that’s a psychiatrist with a tendency to eat people. Certainly, a well rounded chat about villains can not be complete without Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins). As the father of the modern day smooth movie villains, the Hannibal movies are a definite recommendation for those who need an excuse to stop sleeping at night.
The story roughly follows the events relating to an incarcerated cannibal renown for his crimes of torture, murder and cannibalism coupled with a sense of twisted etiquette. It can be said that all villains are set out to be criminals, moving against societal values in some for or another, but not all criminals are villains. No. To be a villain, one must have a certain distinguishable characteristic about him that sets him apart from the day-to-day scum. It is clear from the very beginning that Hannibal the Cannibal is not your average low life, nor the typical psychopath off the street, but a learned professional of manipulation. Always the player, never played, Hannibal accepts offers only on his own terms and isn’t afraid to do what needs doing to get things done.
The Silence of the Lambs, Red Dragon, Hannibal (watched in that order, mind you) is more than enough villainy for the afternoon, or night, if you dared crack open the DVD case after sunset. Yes, there’s violence, but unlike the (unnamed) horror movies of more recent times, it’s not mindless blood and gore. The plots in all three moves are complex and interwoven, with a hint of mastermind genius shining through, especially in Silence of the Lambs.
But please don’t take my word for it, watch the movies and feel the chill of truly stunning villainy for yourself.
Submissions guides are availiable on the profile. There is also a forum, though the alerts are down I think. Next Issue: Wit
Bread says sorry for getting the issue out late again and not having a fancy layout option avalible this month. There is that problem of being in another country, having dodgy internet connection, and flying over to Cambodia next week. If anyone has time/energy to help out with editing and compolation, please PM.
