Increasingly, various forms of media have been drawn towards storytelling that is morally ambiguous. The good guys are not always good; they can be dark and edgy and do things that are immoral and unethical. Similarly, the bad guys are not always bad; the can be doing the wrong things for the right reasons.
I enjoy these kinds of stories when done right. But there’s something to be said about stories that pit absolute good against absolute evil. When I think back to my childhood classics, those are the conflicts that stood out to me. Harry vs Voldemort. Yoda vs Sidious. Batman vs Joker. Jotaro vs Dio. These kinds of stories are being written less and less.
So. Pure Evil villains. After looking at some of my favorites, I have determined that there are two ways to write these type of characters.
The ones you love to hate…
There is a well-known saying about writing villains. It goes like this:
Every good villain is the hero of his own story.
I disagree. The statement holds true for a certain type of villain, but that isn’t the type I’m talking about here. This type of villain knows that they’re the villain, and they very much enjoy being the villain. Think the Joker, Frieza from Dragon Ball, Dio from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, or most Disney villains.
If written poorly, these villains can come off as one-dimensional and uninteresting. How do you prevent this? I can think of a couple of different ways.
Give them a personality. We all remember Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker - jovial yet sinister, chaotic, unpredictable, and obviously enjoying every cruel act he performed. Dio’s flamboyant menace and Sukuna’s joyful bloodlust also stand out. Seeing a villain descend to these depths simply because he enjoys it is oddly interesting to watch.
Display their power. One of the most memorable moments in Bleach is when Aizen stopped Ichigo’s sword (and his soundtrack) with just one finger. This moment established how immensely powerful Aizen was, and how terrifyingly out of their depth the good guys were against him. The power doesn’t need to be physical. In Naoki Urasawa’s Monster, Johan Liebert manipulates the residents of his orphanage into killing each other.
Make their loss believable. It is incredibly unsatisfying when a villain loses simply due to the demands of the plot. While making the villain feel powerful is important, a balance must be struck lest they become too powerful for the heroes to believably defeat without plot armor. The Bleach manga fell into this trap with Yhwach, though hopefully the anime will rectify this mistake.
…and the ones you just despise.
You may enjoy watching the previous type of pure evil villain. Not so with this one. This is the type of villain that you hate with the kind of visceral passion that Kendrick has for Drake. Umbridge from Harry Potter, Joffrey from ASOIAF, Amaram from The Stormlight Archive and Mahito from JJK.
When poorly written, these characters seem like mere ragebait. And they are, but if they’re written well, the reader won’t recognize that.
Give them a connection to the characters. In JJK, Mahito quickly establishes himself as a foil for Yuji. After their first fight, he makes it almost a game to torture him. He forces Yuji to question his morality by making him kill transfigured humans, helps seal Gojo, and kills multiple of his friends in front of him. This makes it even more cathartic when Yuji finally kills him.
Get up close and personal. A villain who destroys an entire planet with a superweapon can be redeemed. This bis because we simply cannot comprehend destruction on that scale. We did not know the people on that planet. We may feel some vague sympathy for them, but relatively little emotion. If you really want to make your readers hate a villain, show them being cruel in close and personal settings. A teacher who tortures her student for speaking up, or a man who turns his daughter into a monster for money, will elicit much more emotion for the readers. The trick is to show the victims, and the effect that the villain has on them.
Conclusion
How many books or movies are there where the most famous or popular character is a villain? Bleach, Monster, The Dark Knight, and The Silence of the Lambs, all come to mind. There’s something that’s just fun about a good Pure Evil villain. The first kind is so unashamedly evil that they are entertaining, or so immensely powerful that they’re just cool. The second kind is so hateable that you cheer when they are finally defeated. These villains invest you into the story, make you feel awe and hatred. And any time a story makes its audience feel something, it’s a win for the writer.
I like the grey areas in people's personalities, the duality of good and evil. Or evil just as an absence of good. It reflects the true nature of humankind - just varying degrees of darkness. The stark evil character is often too one dimensional (as the post mentions). If we start to delayer evil, one will always find a backstory, a sliver of light hidden somewhere. That's true with characters in stories and life.
I like your point about how making their actions more personal makes them easier to hate and harder for readers to sympathize with them. It brings to mind how Moash is so widely hated despite his actions not being nearly as evil as the ones of other antagonists, but the fandom is biased against him because his deeds hurt our main characters. I'm not part of the anti-moash Hate club, but I think it's interesting how some people would have mentioned him as an example of a pure evil villain