Writer Ramblings: What I Look For in a Villain

Gollum art by TL Jeffcoat

When I write an antagonist I like to dig deep into their inner workings. I want the reader to sympathize and loathe them all at the same time. Some villains I’ve created are just people in bad situations, doing bad things. Some look for the bad things to do out of boredom or compensation for an inferiority complex. And then there comes the truly evil villain. Whether he’s a pathetic envious creature that wants to reach some higher plane of existence, or bring the world down to his level. For me, every antagonist must have a human element to him. There must be some purpose to his questionable behavior that I could understand why he does what he does, even if I feel it’s the wrong approach. The worst written villains are the ones that are evil because they just are. They were born that way or created that way. Sometimes we just don’t know what drives the villain in the story, but the writer must have had a reason for the bad guy to be the bad guy.

Fantasy Weapons Lore: Grond of Morgoth

Some of you have heard the name Grond. For those three people left in the world that hasn’t seen the Return of the King, then you have now met one version of the weapons known as Grond. This is the massive flaming wolf headed battering ram that Sauron’s army of orcs used to smash the magic gates once built by an ancient race of men with elven blood and long lives. That’s a mouthful. Throughout the thousands of years of history in Middle-Earth, Grond has taken a few forms that are suspected to be designs of Sauron’s masterful engineering and magic.

During the time of the Return of the King, Grond was a one hundred foot battering ram that stood sixty feet tall. The head was forged from black iron. In the movie, the mouth was filled with fire, but I don’t believe Tolkien envisioned it that way. About the only use fire would have coming from the mouth is intimidation. Tolkien was an experienced military man who served during World War 1, and although the orcs are a flashy raging mass of unthinking hate, they weren’t unorganized when directed by Sauron’s generals like Gothmog. I would assume that just the sheer size would be enough to scare the Gondorians. Hauling fuel for the fire would be an unnecessary additional resource to be carried across rivers and mountains all the way from Mordor. That said, it did add some nice cinematography for the film so it got two thumbs up from me, no matter how impractical it was.