What internally drives/motivates a villain

Throughout the ages of storytelling, countless villains have come and gone—many ultimately dismantled and defeated. And surely, many more are yet to appear. They all share one defining trait: they are evil.

What they don’t share, however, is motivation. Villains vary greatly in why they do what they do. Some are driven by believable, even relatable motives. Others seem evil just for the sake of being evil—which in the eyes of the audience almost always falls flat.

Still, we understand why this happens. It’s difficult to write a convincing villain if you aren’t one yourself. In a way, that’s actually reassuring—it means most writers aren’t evil 🙂 But I digress.

Does that mean writers are angels? Not at all. They sin. Everyone sins. And just like every hero eventually does in a story, they too point fingers. They don’t get it yet. But sooner or later they will. Once they look themselves in the mirror.

Which is the hard part. To look yourself in the mirror and to realize that what you’re blaming others for is really unresolved within yourself. In a story, this is often the beginning of the end for the villain—who is nothing more than the hero’s shadow self.

So in short, “behind the scenes”, internally in spirit, something like this is happening:

• Villain has free will so he can choose sin.
• Sin is a judgment against God – or love.
• The villain’s soul is part of God/love, so sin becomes a judgment against himself.
• The villain feels the universe (doesn’t know that its just himself) is judging him and believes it is out to get him. He is pointing fingers, convinced evil is external to him.
• He must eliminate everyone who judges him or delay judgment by any means necessary. And this is the villains true motivation!
• He is too weak internally to atone for his sins, so he turns to aggression.

And that is exactly what the hero is througout the story—too weak to atone for his sins. If he seem too adorable to be able to sin, he might still be able to put the idea of free will (to choose sin) under some kind of a scrutiny.

But then later in the story, when the hero grows strong enough to atone, he inevitably in parallel defeats the external villain.