How To: Create Your Fantasy Bad Guy

5. Good at Being Bad

Alright. You've got your character all planned out. You have their backstory and their tragic flaws identified. Congratulations, you're halfway to turning this character into a villain. The next step is to identify what they are good at.

You remember when we were building your nemesis, and I said that in order to create a nemesis, you need to take your protagonist and mirror their personality/traits? Well, we're going to be doing the exact same thing here, except we're going to be mirroring your protagonist's strengths and weaknesses. This means that, whatever your protagonist is good at, your villain is probably going to suck at, and vice versa. The villain needs to be good at attacking your hero's weaknesses, and your hero needs to be good at attacking theirs.

Thus, your villain should shadow your hero. Your villain should be a representation of the dark side of your hero, what would happen if they were to take all their experiences and mistakes and not learn from them. 

If you don't quite have your hero's strengths and weaknesses all figured out yet, don't worry. This part of the guide will help you do just that. By knowing what your villain is good and/or bad at, in turn, you will know the same about your hero. Not all their strengths and weaknesses will shadow each other, but a lot of them will. I know I normally give you guys a list for these sort of things, but it's just examples today. I'm feeling very... examply.

So, I'm going to go ahead and pick out one of Harry's weaknesses - neuroticism
Harry is extremely anxious, he constantly worries about his loved ones and doesn't think twice about throwing himself into danger for them.
Voldemort, in comparison, is pretty mentally stable and self-assured, which probably comes from his lack of significant relationships.

You constantly see how Voldemort uses this to this advantage, targetting the people Harry cares about to attack him mentally. An extreme case of this is in the Order of the Phoenix when Voldemort uses his abilities to make Harry believe Sirius is trapped in the Ministry, which successfully lures him into the trap.

Now, here's one of Harry's strengths - humanity/empathy
Harry is compassionate and kindhearted. He considers the feelings of others in his actions and if his friends are hurt, he hurts too.
Voldemort lacks this ability and only thinks about himself. Although it seems like he cares about his followers, they're simply there to serve him.

I want to take this opportunity to quote one of my favourite lines in the Harry Potter franchise; "You're the one who is weak. You will never know love or friendship. And I feel sorry for you."

Although the quote is true and proof of Harry's humanity, it is actually a strength for Voldemort as the villain. His lack of humanity/empathy allows him to terrorise without feeling any remorse for his actions, unlike Harry who will suffer from loss and grief.

Let's pick out another one of Voldemort's strengths - conscientiousness
Voldemort has truly mastered the craft of the dark arts and has an army of loyal followers, which he built from the ground up and managed to do so in secret sometime between the events in the Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix, while the Ministry were hellbent on believing he was not back.
He was thorough and knew exactly what to do to damage Harry psychologically. He was patient and careful, even when he was committing murders to create his Horcruxes before Harry and the prophecy came along - he was always successful in covering his tracks.

It wasn't until Harry came along that Voldemort became - obsessive
Voldemort obsessed over Harry after he failed to kill him the first time, and it became one of his weaknesses. His desire to kill Harry himself made his thoughts unclear and some of his plans were messy, despite his careful and thorough planning.

Voldemort also had a habit of - underestimating the enemy
Harry never underestimated Voldemort, he knew that he was one of the most powerful wizards in the world and was actually terrified of him. If anything, Harry only underestimated himself, a lack of self-confidence. However, he was sorted into Gryffindor for a reason, he showed courage and knew he had to stand up for himself and his friends.
Voldemort was so confident in himself that he believed Harry couldn't possibly defeat him. But I guess in a way, he was right...