Creating a Villain. Or Two. Or Three.

In Faerietales Books 1 and 2, I have three main villains… Which, come to think of it, is rather mean of me. Pitting Sabrina against any one of them is bad enough, but all three? That’s definitely an unfair fight, even with her superior faerie strength and sense of snark (i.e. sarcasm).

Oh well. The stories are already written, and I ain’t changin’ them. So she’ll just have to deal.

And yes, if I was Sabrina (which I’m not, since I have short brown curly hair and brown eyes, not straight yellowish hair and green eyes. Such a big difference), I’d hate me.

But moving on to how I created Mr. Smiley, Dr. Morrison and Dr. Stewart.

Believe it or not, I didn’t base them on anyone in particular. Not at first anyway. Stewart did take on a few characteristics of a former creepy coworker of mine, but that was in much later drafts.

The truth is that all three characters are fairly “typical” villains, when you think about it. There’s nothing redeeming about any of them, and unless you’re way too kindhearted for your own good (*cough* *cough* *Mom*), readers are supposed to want them dead. That’s how I intended it.

I could have gone into depth about their good qualities, since I do believe everyone has at least one. I can’t think of a single person who is wholly evil, though some individuals certainly come close.

Simply put though, I didn’t want to. I wanted to show how ugly bigotry (Mr. Smiley), egotism (Dr. Stewart) and unscrupulous pursuits of science (Dr. Morrison) can get.

Warning: Here’s where I might get a bit preachy.

Most of us know that judging people by generalized category is unfair and hurtful. The same goes for being an arrogant little prat, placing our inclinations above everyone else all the time.

But idolizing intellectual studies can be just as dangerous. How so? Try talking to a pretentious English major and you’ll understand pretty darn quickly.

Ok, that’d be more like chit-chatting with Stewart, not Morrison. So check out the Nazis instead.

It’s a documented fact that the Nazis were inspired by Darwinian science. They used it to justify the designation of “sub-humans” suitable for lab rat-status. And the experiments they consequently ran on twins, dwarfs and other individuals with genetic anomalies were revolting.

(If you ever want nightmares, do a study on Nazi doc Josef Mengele. Ugh!)

That kind of intellectual superiority, which doesn’t always show itself so vividly, bugs the heck out of me. Hence the reason why I probably portrayed certain villains as harshly as I did.

Then again, come to think of it, maybe Morrison, et al were inspired by some of my college profs... Hmm.