How Simple Can a Villain Be?

The antagonist of a story is arguably the most important character. Few characters help define the theme as well as the antagonist, and an antagonist that doesn't challenge the protagonist is just weak; there is little wonder why so much care goes into defining the antagonist. However, sometimes you want to use a simple antagonist; sometimes using a well-developed villain just doesn't work; sometimes you want to have a villain that's just an elemental force of nature rather than something that has been fully developed. There are some issues that you need to consider.

Nature as The Bad Guy

You need to get away from the idea that the antagonist needs to be evil; sometimes the best possible antagonist for your story has no emotion one way or another. The antagonist is there merely to challenge the protagonist; the antagonist needs to show that the hero can survive regardless of the challenge provided, and sometimes the challenge is merely surviving. Sometimes this means that it's beyond good and evil; sometimes it merely is.

This allows you to bring in Nature itself as the Big Bad of your story, getting away from combat as a way to settle disputes between hero and villain. This shows the hero's intelligence and willpower rather than reflexes and strength, making for some interesting conflicts; it means that you can set simple goals and then complicate them. If a hurricane is headed for the hero's home, you can define the goal as simply as "prepare for the storm"; this means you need to set up a reason why he can't leave and then complications that make preparing difficult, such as limited supplies, animals that need to be secured, or even family members that need urgent medical attention.

While this obviously applies to tornadoes, blizzards, and even solar storms, Nature can rear her head in other situations, such as when the hero is stuck on a raft at sea, on a sled in the snow, or in a cave; how the character brings his skills and any equipment he has to bear on the situation becomes the challenge, and there are inherent complications that need to be dealt with, such food, water, shelter, even injuries. This also provides the possibility of having to make some hard choices; sometimes someone needs to die or be sacrificed or something of immense value needs to be left behind and the hero needs to make that call.

Nature can thus either be the problem or set one up, making for some really great stories that don't involve sentient villains.

Playing The Most Dangerous Game

The other type of simple villain that works rather well is the hunter. Someone or something is actively hunting the character and the character needs to deal with the hunter or escape from it. While this does mean that you need to supply a reason for the hunter to be hunting, sometimes this is pretty simple: The hunter needs to eat and the character is a potential food source or the hunter has been ordered to kill the character and will follow that order to its death. Provided that the hunter is more powerful than the character, either demonstrably (bear, robots, or well-trained genetic soldiers) or by implication (army ants, exploding drones, or generic troops), the challenge has been set.

The hunter works best with its own Hunter's Rule of Three: failure, empowerment, and win. The first encounter will lead to the character realizing he is out of his league and that he is in trouble, possibly that he's in danger of losing his life or something precious. The second encounter needs to give the character hope; this can either be gleaning the weakness of the hunter or something that gives him the skill or weapons needed to deal with the hunter. This second encounter does not need to be with the hunter itself but can be with a possible mentor or armory (i.e., something that provides the needed empowerment). The third needs to end in the death of one of the two characters or the character escaping.

Hunters are great for when you need a simple antagonist that you don't need to give a complicated backstory (although you can) that can help your theme along. Once they are wound up and let loose on your hero, they can be all sorts of fun. However, one word of caution: Don't add too much to their capabilities as the story progresses. Some enhancements are fine, but if you add too much then you ruin their suspense value. So show almost all of the abilities of the hunter from the beginning, but only add one or two things as the story progresses, but only relatively slightly more powerful enhancements, and you should be fine.

Pure Evil Doesn't Exist

It's important to remember in this that antagonists who do what they do just to be: Pure evil don't really exist. While it's possible to have a villain serve evil, they never do so just for the sake of evil, even a literal God of Evil. Those who do it for power usually do it for some other reason (power is security or it allows them to do what they want); most evil is just a means to an end. Some forces for evil see themselves as a necessary counter for good; they are doing the cosmos a favor by acting as the other side of the equation. Others see evil as a chance to be who they really are, without the constraints of "normal society."

Even an insane antagonist who just wants to see the world burn has some reason for doing so. While revenge is the usual reason, sometimes they feel forced into the role; if they are going to be judged as evil, then they may as well play the part. Of special note here is DC's Joker; he is at his best when he is being used to attack conformity and the status quo while ironically showing why it works. "The Killing Joke" shows this best as he attempts to convert Commissioner Gordon to the side of Chaos; the best storylines with him involve his attacking Batman or someone else to show them the cosmic joke or how reality just doesn't care about them.

So while you can try to portray an antagonist as "pure evil," those characters are bound to come off as flat and boring.

In Other Words

You don't always need a complicated antagonist. Sometimes one with simple goals works pretty well; sometimes one that doesn't even know of the hero works great. The best antagonist is the one that works well with your story and gets the theme across while challenging the hero; that antagonist is not always going to be an overly developed one with a history and multiple dimensions. Sometimes you just want an antagonist that can be who it is without added complications.