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A villain (masculine) and villainess (feminine) (also known as “bad guy” or “black hat”) is an evil fictional character, whether based on a historical narrative or one of literary fiction. Random House Unabridged Dictionary defines villain as "a cruelly malicious person who is involved in or devoted to wickedness or crime; scoundrel; or a character in a play, novel, or the like, who constitutes an important evil agency in the plot". The purpose of the villain is to be the opposition of the ‘’’hero’’’ character and their motives or evil actions drive the plot along. In contrast to the hero, who is defined by their feats of ingenuity and bravery and their pursuit of justice and the greater good, a villain is often defined by their acts of cruelty, cunning and displays immoral behaviour that can oppose or perverse justice. The Antonym of a Villain is a Hero.

Examples of villains range from mythological figures, such as Kronos, Hades and Ares, to historic figures such as Nero, Vlad the Impaler and Adolf Hitler and fictional supervillains, such as Doctor Doom, The Joker and Lex Luthor.

Gender Differences

The term "villain" is the universal phrase for characters who pose as catalysts for certain ideals that readers or observers find immoral, but the term "villainess" is often used to highlight specific traits that come with their female identity--separating them, in some aspects, from their male counterparts. The use of the female villain (or villainess) is often to highlight the traits that come specifically with the character and the abilities that possess that are exclusive to them. For example, one of the female villain's greatest weapons is her alluring beauty. The perversion of inherently female traits in storytelling also alludes to the demonic display of the succubusand their affinity for utilising their beauty as a weapon--a trait utilised by many female villains throughout modern fiction and mythology, such as Catwoman, Poison Ivy and the sirens of Greek mythos.

Classical Literature

In classical literature, the character of the villain is not always akin to those that appear in more modern and post-modern incarnations, as the lines of morality are often blurred to imply a sense of ambiguity. Often the identity of the heroes and villains in literature is left unclear. William Shakespeare modelled the villain archetype into something that became three-dimensional in nature and gave way to the complicated nature that villains showcase in modern literature. However, Shakespeare’s incarnations of historical figures were influenced by the propaganda like pieces coming from the Tudor sources, and his works often showed this bias and discredited their reputation. For example, Shakespeare famously portrayed Richard III as a hideous monster who destroyed his family out of spite.

Modern & Post-Modern Villains

The sympathetic villain (or tragic villain) is a character who coincides with the typical traits of a villainous character but differ in their motivations. Their intentions to cause chaos or commit evil actions is driven by an ambiguous motivation or is not driven by an intent to cause evil. Their intentions may coincide with the ideals of a greater good for everyone, or even a desire to make the world and better place, but their actions are inherently evil in nature. Characters who fall in to this category are often created with the intention of humanising them or making them more relatable to the reader/viewer, posing the ‘How’ and ‘Why’ behind their motivations rather than simply having them as the thing to be defeated or overcome. Notable villains who fall under the category of being a tragic or sympathetic villain are characters such as Mr. Freeze and Manbat (DC Comics), Severus Snape (Harry Potter) and, famously, Darth Vader (Star Wars).

In the post-modern ideals of the larger-than-life heroes , there were villains created to match them with their own larger-than-life ideals.