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: Sting of the Baggins'

Today I’m going to talk about the famous Sting. I don’t mean that singer that starred in Dune and got his nickname in high school by wearing a black and yellow stripped shirt. No, the Sting I’m going to discuss will sing a different tune. A song filled with a history of blood, monsters, and hobbits. For those of you who saw the Lord of the Rings, or even better, read the books, you are already aware of this blade. You already know some of its magical nature, but do you know its origin?

Some Tolkien historians have discussed the origins of this mysterious sword. Yes Middle-Earth is deep and rich enough to have expert historians studying the thousands of documents and notes that JRR Tolkien wrote up over the years it took him to create his world. Some of these historians have thought that it was not a blade that was forged alone. It was a companion blade made alongside two other swords that were found with it in the Hobbit. The largest blade starred in the Lord of the Rings as Gandalf’s sword, Glamdring. There was another shorter version of Glamdring which is called Orcrist. I can’t tell you too much about Ocrist because that would create spoilers for The Hobbit movies still in the editing room. Glamdring and Orcrist are believed to have been made as sister blades. Orcrist was shorter than Glamdring and they were probably intended to be wielded in a similar fashion to the Samurai Daisho.

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.