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<blockquote data-quote="haakon1" data-source="post: 6102764" data-attributes="member: 25619">Great post.&nbsp; My &quot;most successful villains&quot;, at least in my mind, involved those . . . except perhaps the transparency.Another thing I like to do is what I think of as &quot;British style police stories&quot; as opposed to &quot;American style police stories&quot;.&nbsp; I got this from watching &quot;Law &amp; Order UK&quot; or &quot;Foyle's War&quot; compared to &quot;Law &amp; Order&quot; the original.&nbsp; The UK version sometimes recycled US plots, but it had a different POV on the villains.In British cop shows, the villain is often sort of pathetic -- they do bad things, but it's because they are damaged in some way, and many will have motives that aren't completely evil/depraved/insane.&nbsp;&nbsp; They might even have mixed motives or a change of heart at the end.Like in one &quot;Foyle's War&quot;, the murder was a woman fell down the stairs drunk, during a fight with her boyfriend.&nbsp; But the boyfriend was actually gay, and the fight was about her finding out about it, and it wasn't entirely clear if he pushed her, it was accident, or she fell of her own accord from being drunk (1940's wartime forsenics can't tell).&nbsp; He also happened to be an ace fighter pilot, during the Battle of Britain.&nbsp; So Foyle let him fly one more mission, in which of course (as was the tacit bargain with Foyle) he went kamikaze brave and bagged a few more ME-109's before getting killed in action, so no one had to know about his sexual orientation or the woman's death wasn't necessarily just an accident.Whereas in US cop shows, it's often like a bad D&amp;D module -- The villain is villainous because see, their alignment says CE.&nbsp; Or they are crazy.&nbsp; So boring.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="haakon1, post: 6102764, member: 25619"] Great post. My "most successful villains", at least in my mind, involved those . . . except perhaps the transparency. Another thing I like to do is what I think of as "British style police stories" as opposed to "American style police stories". I got this from watching "Law & Order UK" or "Foyle's War" compared to "Law & Order" the original. The UK version sometimes recycled US plots, but it had a different POV on the villains. In British cop shows, the villain is often sort of pathetic -- they do bad things, but it's because they are damaged in some way, and many will have motives that aren't completely evil/depraved/insane. They might even have mixed motives or a change of heart at the end. Like in one "Foyle's War", the murder was a woman fell down the stairs drunk, during a fight with her boyfriend. But the boyfriend was actually gay, and the fight was about her finding out about it, and it wasn't entirely clear if he pushed her, it was accident, or she fell of her own accord from being drunk (1940's wartime forsenics can't tell). He also happened to be an ace fighter pilot, during the Battle of Britain. So Foyle let him fly one more mission, in which of course (as was the tacit bargain with Foyle) he went kamikaze brave and bagged a few more ME-109's before getting killed in action, so no one had to know about his sexual orientation or the woman's death wasn't necessarily just an accident. Whereas in US cop shows, it's often like a bad D&D module -- The villain is villainous because see, their alignment says CE. Or they are crazy. So boring. [/QUOTE]

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