Villain Motivation Ideas Taken From History

Not all villains are works of the imagination. And not all villains are as completely inhuman as we might prefer to think. Some people that we consider to be very, very bad had what could almost be seen as good reasoning behind their actions. Their deeds may have been bad, but maybe the thoughts from their heads can be used to tell some incredible stories.

So here's four villain motivations taken straight from history.


Changing the wording. (Hitler)

Let's just get this guy out of the way first, shall we? Hitler and his Nazis are known across history to be some of the evilest people ever to exist. If someone's trying to think of a really evil person to use as an example, the name they settle on is normally Hitler's. And don't get me wrong. Hitler was a very, very bad man. But the thousands of people who followed him did not start off thinking the same way he did. They were carefully primed before they were commanded to help him in his dirty work.

Hitler had an incredible mind twisted into all the wrong patterns, and he used it to come up with a plan to change the minds of the German people. This plan started by changing words that sounded bad into words that sounded at least okay. Using this method makes the things themselves slowly seem less bad and more humane. Call the death camps work camps and it doesn't sound so bad, does it?

"It's purging." (The Crusades)
Whether or not the Crusades were bad is a controversial topic. But the fact remains that God did not directly ask all those medieval guys to go and kill all the Arabian people. That's why they failed. And that's what makes the crusades wrong.

Sure, there are a lot of villains in literature who claim that they're only 'purging', removing all the impurities and the things they themselves see as evil. But how many of them actually believe they're doing the right thing? They're always doing because they decided this was what they wanted to do, not because they think it's in the law or that it's their calling in life. This is an interesting twist I haven't seen much.

Pressure to follow through on bad rules. (King Darius)

Remember the story of Daniel and the Lion's Den? King Darius's advisers stroked his ego and had him set up a law that said people were only allowed to pray to him and no one else. He didn't think that a few days later they would come back telling him that his Jewish friend, Daniel, was praying to the God of Israel rather than Darius. Of course, his councilors knew this would happen, and now, since the king had to follow through on the law, their plan to remove Daniel from the picture was complete.

Your villain doesn't even have to feel compelled to follow through on rules they've made themselves. They could be inclined to follow ancient rules, well-known to be bad but unchanged over many centuries. Or they might be pressured to keep unwise promises they made ages ago. This particular motivation could go a hundred different ways depending on what kind of character they are and what sort of world they live in.

Raised in a hateful society. (Various)
Many of the people we know as villains today were raised in an environment where hate of other human beings was endorsed and no one bothered to think if the system was wrong. Now, like the Purging method, this has been used on many villains before, but let's add a twist, shall we? How many villains are doing what they're doing because they consider it their honor, or better yet, their sole purpose in life, the only thing that gives them value? I think that would be a truly fascinating villain.


That's it for today. What do you think? Does your villain need to brainwash society, or dso they need to follow through on a poorly-timed promise? I think I need to write a villain for that last one, myself. A villain whose bad motives are his only worth in life. . . it just sounds WAY too good to pass up.


Who's your favorite villain? What's the best character motivation you've seen lately? Let me know in the comments!