Copyright Matthew Schembari 2012

1. The Villain’s Descent tm 2012
Matt Schembari

2. A Little About Me
Graduate Student at Argosy
University, San Francisco –
Masters in Forensic Psychology
BA in Psychology and
Behavioral Analysis from UC
Davis (English Minor)
Former Student of Mrs.
Loomis
Author of “The Villain’s
Descent”

3. The Antagonist
• Mostly Marginalized in Modern Literature
- Good almost always triumphs over evil
- Lessons conveyed through development
of hero, villain just an obstacle.
• Germanic/European Literature emphasizes
Tragedy
-Lessons learned through defeat
-Characters as warnings instead of good
examples.

4. Importance of the Antagonist
• Without Adversity there can be no development.
-Everything good you have in your life was won
through adversity. Everything!
• A strongly developed antagonist creates a more
compelling story.
-The harder the obstacle the more profound the
change.
• Antagonists need not be individuals:
-People, Organizations, Culture, Ideas

5. Examination: Evil & Villainy
What is “Evil”?

6. Examination: Evil & Villainy
What is “Evil”?
 Difficult to define
 Can be circumstantial or accidental. “The road
to hell is paved with good intentions.”
 In some circumstances, may even be
justifiable. (i.e. “necessary evil”. Ex: Capital
Punishment)
 Definitions vary by culture, over time.

7. Cultural Perspective
•Morality is socially transmitted •Ideas about morality are culturally
and changes over time. based, learned behaviors.
Swim wear 1900’s Swim wear 2012

8. Theological Perspective
• The angel Lucifer, corrupted by a
lust for power waged war on God
and was cast out, along with 1/3 of
the angels in heaven to become
demons.
• Sought revenge by corrupting
man, God’s most beloved creation.
• The Book of Enoch: Fallen angels
responsible for introducing vanity,
greed, and war to mankind.
• Conflict between Lucifer and God
illustrated in Milton’s Paradise Lost
• Struggle between good and evil is
both personal and ethereal.

9. Biological Perspective
• Argument that evil stems from primal
ancestral urges and instincts. (Dominance,
Territoriality, Self Preservation, etc.)
• Does evil occur in nature?
• No Such thing as Evil
Animals. (Except Him)
• Evil a uniquely human
trait.

10. Examination: Evil & Villainy:
Psychological Perspective
Philip Zimbardo

11. The Stanford Prison Experiment (1971)
• 24 Male students randomly assigned to be
either “prisoners” or “guards”.
• Make shift prison created in basement of
Stanford Psychology Lab
• Psychological torture, sadism, abuse
• Experiment had to be stopped after only 6
days
• Long lasting Psychological Trauma

12. The Stanford Prison Experiment (1971)
Implications: Questions about human nature, influence
of power, situational factors influencing behavior

13. The Milgram Experiment (1961)
Stanley Milgram

14. The Milgram Experiment (1961)
Implications: Obedience, Role of Authority, “Just
following orders” mentality.

15. The Milgram Experiment (1961)
• Obedience Study: Aimed to see if participant
would deliver lethal shock to learner just because
an influential figure told them to.
• Prediction: Less than 1% would administer lethal
shock.
• Result: More than 60% administered lethal shock.
• (No one was actually harmed in this study.
Participant only made to think they hurt
someone)

16. The Milgram Experiment (1961)

17. Kitty Genovese (1935)
The Bystander Effect
• New York City woman assaulted, raped, and killed
outside her apartment
• Despite numerous witnesses and numerous cries for
help, no one in the area responded
• Assailant assaulted her, left, returned 10 minutes later,
assaulted her again, raped her and killed her.
• Police were called several minutes after her death,
authorities responded within minutes.
• The bystander effect: the more people in the area, the
less likely any one individual is to respond to a
situation.

18. So what does it all mean?
• Stanford Prison Experiment: Evil is inborn.
In the right circumstances, “That Evil Do
that I do do…”
even normal people can be
compelled to evil do.
• Milgram Experiment: Evil is influential and
persuasive. People can be convinced to suppress
their morality with limited coercive force.
• Kitty Genovese: Evil thrives in indifference.
Ignoring it only makes it stronger.

19. Ok, get to the point, big nose…
Recap:
-The capacity for evil is inborn within all of us.
-Evil is motivated by uniquely human pursuits.
-Envy, Wrath, Greed, Sloth, Lust, Gluttony,
Pride
-Evil is perceived to occur when individual needs,
beliefs, aspirations, or ideals clash with social and
cultural norms.
Ergo: The struggle between good and
evil is a struggle between competing
ideologies.

20. Ex: The Joker vs. Batman
• Humans are intrinsically selfish. • Humans may wear masks but the
Morality & camaraderie is only a masks are who they should strive
mask they wear to cover their to be. People need a symbol of
true nature. Man should embrace righteousness to aspire to so they
chaos and chaos will produce can evolve into something better
actualization of mans true self. than what they are now.

21. So Who is Right?
• Answer entirely dependant on personal
perspective.
• The Joker is a compelling villain because his
ideology is both socially unsettling and
remarkably plausible.
• Formula for a good villain:
– Violation of social norms + feasible utility
• When the audience can see the utility in the villain’s
ideology it forces them to identify with the villain,
and thus confront the evil within themselves. So how
is this accomplished?

22. The Villain’s Descent
• Cataclysm
1. Tragedy - nearly all stories of villainy begin
with a tragedy.
-death of a loved one, personal injustice,
inner conflict, etc.
-Something must interrupt the normal
course of the antagonist’s life and force them
to re-evaluate their way of thinking.

23. 2. Denial - Tragedy often produces a duality of thought:
Cynicism vs. Optimism.
-must often reconcile bitter, pessimistic, often
hateful and destructive thoughts with forward thinking,
i.e. "Life goes on", "it will get better with time", "it
doesn't rain every day", etc.
-This is common and natural, but usually people
eventually accept the positive thoughts because they
are more adaptive. It’s easier and more favorable to try
to be happy, than to wallow in misery.
-The villain-to-be will find this unsatisfying. This
sets up the duality of thought that will ultimately
propel the antagonist down the road to villainy.

24. 3. The Demon on the Shoulder - Society doesn't just
encourage emotional healing in the face of tragedy, it
demands it, almost oppressively so.
-If one doesn’t move on after a mourning period
society deems acceptable they can be seen as
depressing or even clinically ill and suddenly sympathy
turns to disdain.
-The villain will try to move on, but there will
always be a demon on their shoulder, pointing out the
insincerity of their sympathizers, the oppressive push
of social pressure, and the overall emptiness of the
healing process. Inherent in this step is the cold reality
of the world: The anonymity of the individual, the
superficiality of morality, and the anti-personal,
hierarchical nature of human society.

25. 4. The First Offense - This is the step where the
antagonist commits their first real crime.
-This need not be a physical crime. Ideally
it should be on a smaller scale, a person to
person crime, particularly against the source
of the initial tragedy from step 1.
-Hasty and poorly thought out, and should
be successful, but end much more severely
than the antagonist intended.
-The antagonist may be caught and
penalized or may get away scott free,
depending on the writer’s preference.

26. 5. The Point of No Return - the antagonist has now
committed an unforgivable sin. This triggers an
irrevocable change within the antagonist. They
can no longer return to their old way of life.
-This could involve many processes, the
antagonist might be expecting to feel guilty but
instead feels justified and energized by their
actions, they may see some good come of their
actions and assume a false heir of righteousness.
-plenty of room for the author to play around
inside the antagonist’s head and involve their
personal motivations.

27. • Conquest
1. Moratorium - In this stage the antagonist
struggles to recognize their identity as a villain.
They develop a theme, or a gimmick, or a
character, something that identifies them to the
world, or gives them a sense of identity and
purpose.
-This is a process and involves some degree of
rejection and experimentation. Their identity
will continue to evolve throughout the
remaining steps but this is where the initial
framework for it is laid.

28. 2. In the Presence of the Demon - Here the
antagonist settles on their identity and
accepts their role as a villain.
-They realize the contrast between their
actions and the social norms but instead of
feeling ostracized they feel empowered.
-This is where their grand ambition should
be introduced, the plan for world domination,
the doomsday device; this is where it should
come into play (particularly in the form of a
malevolent rant).

29. 3. The Olive Branch and the Asp - As the grand
scheme of the antagonist begins to go into play
they should be confronted by the last vestiges of
good that are left in their life.
-represented in many ways: a former love
interest, a friend, the hero or protagonist (etc).
-This could also be represented by an inner
conflict with some lingering doubts, or remorse
over the life they left behind. Again this is more at
the discretion of the writer, and how they choose
to characterize their villain.

30. 4. Meeting with the Hero - This is the first time
that the protagonist and antagonist meet in
their roles as aspiring heroes and villains.
-This is a clash of ideologies as well as a
clash of physical strength. This is the test of
the villain's philosophy.
-In most stories this is where the hero
would conquer the villain, but if the author
wishes to craft a truly memorable and salient
villain, they must find a way for them to
survive this encounter.

31. 5. Redemption vs. Vilification - Here the conflict must be
resolved.
-It is possible for the antagonist to reject their life of
villainy and atone for the sins they've committed, usually
with death or by surrendering to the hero, but it is possible
for them to change their ways, and become a good guy, at
which point they'd switch over and begin the hero's
journey (this step would then become "the call to action" in
the hero's journey).
-But for the sake of continuing the villain’s journey, this
is the step where they would reject the olive branch,
destroy the last vestiges of their humanity, and fully realize
their potential as a villain. It's similar to the Point of No
Return in the previous stage but it involves more of a direct
personal choice rather than a forced acceptance.
-At this point they are fully actualized in their role, and
they have a clearly defined plan, and have set themselves
up in staunch opposition to the hero and their ideology.

32. 6. The Birth of an Empire - In this stage the
villain can now use their power to gain an
influence, gather resources and raise an army.
Here we would see things like the acquisition
of henchmen, the expansion of a criminal
network, and a much greater degree of public
awareness. The villain is now a household
name and an omnipresent threat, the scourge
of the free and peace loving masses.

33. • C. End Game
1. Beyond Metropolis - The personal journey of
the villain is now complete, but their grand
ambition has yet to be fully realized. Though
they may have a plan, and a great amount of
influence, they must now put those things to
use to fulfill their ultimate desire, whether
that be to take over the world, destroy the
hero, gain riches, etc.

34. 2. Weaving the Web - The villain will now
employ their resources on a series of missions
to acquire the necessary means to enact their
plan. Usually the hero will only see these
missions as random individual acts, some of
which he will be able the thwart, but others
he will not. The hero will not see the grand
spectacle behind these individual acts, or the
way in which they all tie together until it's too
late, and the grand plan of the villain has been
set into motion.

35. 3. The Looming Shadow - This step is optional.
The villain may receive assistance from an
outside entity: A collaborating villain with
similar ambitions, or a fearful government or
populace hoping to gain favor. The point of
this phase would be to accentuate the slipping
influence of the hero, and their increasing
impotence to the villain’s ever growing power.

36. 4. Doomsday - The villain’s ultimate plan is
realized. Depending on the plan this may well
be the end of the story, if the plan should be
something like the destruction of the world.
But for the sake of the other story lines, this
would be the point where the hero is killed, or
the world is overthrown and the villain
achieves ultimate power.

37. 5. Dominion - Evil has won the day, the moral of the
story is forfeit and all hope is lost. But remember
that the point of a good villain should not be evil
for its own sake. This is where the utility of the
villain’s evil plan must come into play. The villain
does not simply conquer the world then hang up
their cape. It is absolutely essential that the
reader see the physical manifestation of the
villain’s ambition and ideology.
-If the essential component of the villain’s
journey is the complete reorganization of a single
individual’s mental world, you absolutely must
show how that reorganization is reflected in the
world in the wake of their rise to power.

38. Study Break! Look at the Kittens!

39. Class Discussion
(aka time for me to finally shut up for a few minutes and listen to you)
• What kind of antagonist is portrayed in your
reading?
• What is the antagonist’s driving ideology and
how does it clash with the hero’s?
• What do you feel are the strengths and
weaknesses of the antagonists ideology?
• What steps from the Villain’s Descent can you
identify, if any, within the text? Give examples.

40. Thank you
for listening. You guys were awesome!