Villains

 For anyone who wants to write a villain but needs some ideas, here's a chart I made up about a year ago. 

If you have an additions, I'd be happy to hear them.  In any case, this chart is hardly complete, and it certainly doesn't cover every villain ever. 

Some villains also fall into multiple categories. 

Anyway, this is food for thought.

 

 

	THE PERSISTENT/ UNSTOPPABLE ANTAGONIST	THE GAME-PLAYING ANTAGONIST	THE SEEMINGLY ALL-POWERFUL ANTAGONIST	THE ONE-TRICK/ HIDDEN ANTAGONIST	THE NEEDY/ DAMAGED ANTAGONIST	THE INTERNAL ANTAGONIST
THE HUMAN MONSTER	General Zaroff, Jumanji hunter, Anton	Gollum in the Hobbit,* the Master from Doctor Who, Hannibal Lecter, Moriarty	The Emperor from Star Wars, abusive parents	Voldemort, Visser Three	Syndrome, Jack Torrance, Gollum in TLOTR, Carrie	“Harvey” from Farscape, Timmy/Malcolm from Identity
THE INHUMAN MONSTER	Dracula, T-1000 from Terminator 2, Aliens	Other Mother, the Fairy Queen, the demon from the Exorcist**	IT from A Wrinkle in Time	Hexxus from FernGully	Some vampires	Antagonist from the Hollow City
THE ANIMALISTIC MONSTER	Zombies, Mummies, Velociraptors	Cat-like creatures		The Minotaur, orcs	Cujo
THE COLLECTIVE/ NON-HUMAN MONSTER	The Borg	It from Stephen King’s It	HAL, Big Brother, Sauron,* haunted houses, possessive force in Event Horizon	The Birds and other plague-swarms, etc., the Langoliers	Some aliens, Audrey II	Legion (Mark 5:9)***
THE NON-MONSTER	The principal from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off		Aliens that have Superior Alien Syndrome	Future Cute Animal Friends	Professor Snape,*	Antagonist from the Bird’s Nest

*=debatably

** I haven’t actually seen the film, so I can’t swear to this.

*** From the Bible.  There was a possessed man who had a legion of demons in his head.  He clearly wasn’t happy about it, because he asked Jesus to help.

 

Motivations: power, programmed instructions, instinct, survival, greed, insanity, desire, best intentions/wish for autonomy, revenge/punishment