#8: Vengeance: The villain has a legitimate grievance. He has been wronged and there is no justification possible for the wrongs that have been committed to him. In response, the villain has decided that justice will only be served when the wronged party is destroyed, preferably after experiencing all the horrors he himself has been made to suffer. The villain may sympathetically try to confine his vengeance to only the original guilty parties, or the villain may abandon such course having decided that the guilt for his injuries is collective. (If the villain is convinced that only by destroying all his possible enemies will his safety be secured, this may overlap #9 or #11 below).
#9: “We all have to do what we need to to survive”: The villain has been reduced to such a desperate situation that the only way to survive was to adopt the most ruthless and distasteful habits. The degeneration may have begun slowly or even reluctantly, and it may be even in progress, but there is no end in sight. As grievous as the villains deeds may be to him, they are all justified by his desire to live which he considers reasonable no matter what he does.
#10: “The needs of the many…”: The villain has decided that for the sake of society, some small group will have to be sacrificed. The villain may not be happy about it, but believes he is doing the right thing amongst several hard choices. The group may have some resource everyone needs, or the group may be doing something innocuous that the victim believes is unintentionally injurious. Or the group may be some critical weakness or drain on resources that the villain believes cannot be sustained through some coming trial. Or the villain may believe that the group is socially corrosive either deliberately or through no fault of its own. This small group can be almost anything, from children, to the wealthy, to the poor, the handicapped, to a racial minority, or even criminals – any group that can be marginalized.
#11: “The needs of the few…”: The villain has decided that some small and oppressed group must be protected at all costs. The villain isn’t necessarily interested in vengeance, but feels that larger, wealthier, and more successful groups must bear the cost of protecting this small group whether they like it or not. Any threat to the group likewise must be dealt with ruthlessly. The group may initially be sympathetic and may even have legitimate and sympathetic grievances. Likewise, the observer may not realize just how far the villain is willing to take things, so the villain may be able to easily manipulate compassionate observers into helping in small ways or against certain foes of the group.
#12 Code of Honor: The villain was originally motivated by a sense of justice or honor that required him to act. Importantly, the crime he was trying to redress was not against himself. His motives may have been entirely pure. This however brought him into conflict with some figure, and the conflict has only escalated or grown since then. The original crime that motivated the villain to act may be legitimate or imagined injustice. The villain may even have misinterpreted what he saw, but remains convinced of his righteousness to this day. The more legitimate the grievance that the villain was trying to redress, and the more sympathetic the code of honor, the more tragic the villain will seem. However, truly brutal villains may also have this motive, as a moment’s thought about the outcome of a code of honor like “When you are insulted, you must strike back twice as hard.” The villain may have long since abandoned his code of honor in despair, or the villain may be trying to cling to his code even as his list of foes, evil doers, and those he counts as complicit in the original crime continues to grow longer and longer.
#13: Grief: The villain motivated by the pain of what was lost. The thing that was lost is something sympathetic and valuable, and the villain’s grief is therefore understandable. He may even be the victim of injustice. Despite all he has been through, he doesn’t necessarily want vengeance, but rather he just wants to restore whatever it was he lost and he is willing to do anything to do it – where break laws, make pacts with devils, or sacrifice the innocent. No cost is too high to pay. The villain may be fair spoken and normally honorable in all his dealings, and neither the observer nor even the villain may initially realize just how far he’ll take his quest to get back what he lost. The initial attempts to get back what he wants may seem reasonable, but make no mistake as to what happens if anything gets in his way or hinders his plans. This may cause a formerly sympathetic figure to be rather suddenly disclosed as a villain.
#14: Progress: The villain just wants to make the world a better place. The problem the villain observes may in fact be legitimate and sympathetic. The villain believes he has a magic bullet that will cure the problem, if only he is allowed to implement it or develop it. Unfortunately – and unreasonably in the mind of the villain – the larger society or authority figures have prevented the villain from acting on his plans, resulting in a continuation or even worsening of the problem. Regardless of the reasons that society mistrusts his cure - whether high costs, significant risks, disagreement about significance of the proposed solution, superstition, or ignorance - the villain has come into conflict with society and now finds himself (reluctantly or not) doing less than savory things to advance his dream of a better tomorrow.
