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How to make good Villains

So! You want to make a good villain huh? Well, follow this guide and you will be on your way to creating a villain that will scare the ever living god out of your audience... quite literally!

First, you need to pick a Seven deadly sin which would be the main driving force behind their evil deeds: Lust, Wrath, Pride, Sloth, Gluttony, Greed and envy.

I'm, for example sake, am going to pick the easiest, Pride. Now, you could go down the gravity falls route and pick none. Bill cypher does not have any deadly sin but is still a terrifying villain in his own right and a good psychologically to boot, however this is a guide for a villain who has a sin and I do not have such a great ability to help create another character as insanely good as Bill Cypher.

I will update with another villain creation chapter once I've figured it out though.

Now, with your chosen sin, how do you envision someone who has way too much of this sin and does everything in their lives to metaphorically "feed" this sin?

Being unbeatable and all powerful would be a great way to feed the sin I have chosen. Also this doesn't always imply fighting power either. This can have many, many different meanings, like unbeatable wit, or all powerful basketball dunks.

The character must always have some truth to their words as well. They must have this sin because everything is true they just went around it an morally wrong way. They must make both the protagonist and the audience question their own moral compass.

If your villain that you're making is the main antagonist of the story, they're personality is already decided the moment the protagonist's personality is decided. Because what makes them the antagonist isn't the evil they have done but how they can mirror the protagonist.

The conflict between a good antagonist and protagonist is how they mirror each other and hold two different views on the world. This is where the sin comes in. Throughout the entire story, the sin must be what keeps the antagonist one step ahead of the protagonist at all times. 

It keeps the antagonist motivated to keep on going down their path dispite the protagonist, either talk no jutsu-ing the the antagonist multiple times or showing through demonstration that they hold a higher moral compass.

Though this sin will also be the key to defeating this villain. Your protagonist will have to beat the villain through overwhelming their sin. My villain's pride for example, the protagonist would have to cut down that pride by being better at what the antagonist is prideful about.

To defeat a Lustful villain, your protagonist would need to show them that love is more important.

To defeat a wrathful villain, your protagonist would have to show them that anger isn't the key to solving their, most likely, sad emotions?

A slothful villain would need to be motivated by the protagonist to actually get up and do something, most commonly fight the final battle against the protagonist for their own morals only to be defeated and shown that the protagonist has stronger morals because they got up and done something about it without thinking about their own comfort first.

A gluttonous villain would be defeated by removing what either literally over feeds them or metaphorically feeds them.

Greed is a villain who needs to lose just about everything to appreciate what they have now.

And envy is most likely stems from the antagonist's insecurities so reassuring them genuinely is the key to defeating this villain.

Also, when the antagonist is doing bad deeds, you need to pick the deeds being either justifyable or morally corrects.

An example of a villain who only holds one is Stain from My Hero Academia. He murdered people in cold blood which isn't justifyable but it's up to debate if it's morally correct.

A good villain could have zero morals but still do stuff that would be justifyable or do stuff that can not be justifiable under any circumstances but only do these stuff because of an undoubtable moral reasoning.

This bordering insane uncertainty within the villains is what makes them terrifying yet loved characters.

Well, it started as a guide and ended a rant... oh well! Tune in next time we'll have something about literature, I haven't thought about it yet.