Death Dealers

So one of my current bathroom reads is Talk of the Devil by Riccardo Orizio about his interviews with 7 dictators. My main motivation to read it is to help me breathe a bit more life into all of my antagonists, not just the ones in Tempest Makers.

Sometimes, when a story begins, the bad guy doesn't always start out as a bad guy.

I know you know this.

My interest in the evolution of a proper bad guy lie in the evolution of the character's psychology, whether it's the antagonist in question or the influenced society, environment, or universe the antagonist affects. Rumors and misinformation are huge catalysts to this evolution. This progression fascinates me because it's as subtle and varied as being born on a winter's day at sunrise in Buffalo, New York versus being born at sunset in the middle of a heatwave in Phoenix, Arizona. 

How many times has history sorted out and revealed just how "bad" or "not that bad" someone is. But it took time, and the distance of it to give us more of an unemotional look, when we're not hindered so much by what society thinks while the wound is still fresh and when, most, if not all, the "players" are either dead or politically impotent.

Sometimes you have to take a step back and take a deep breath.

On the other side of that same coin, I do so love a bad guy when you have no idea why he is So. Damn. Bad. An excellent example is Javier Bardem's character Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men. You don't have time to wonder what happened in his life as to why he's so bad. There's no room or time for sympathy. He's just, flat out, unapologetic, and perfect at being bad.