"That one can smile and smile and be a villain..."

[flyingskull]

Allow me to introduce to you my favourite kind of villain of all times: the Smiling Villain so called because that Shakespearean quote has been in my mind for years and years, don't ask me why.

The Smiling Villain is, basically, a sociopath. Sometimes s/he's a grunt sociopath limiting her/his activities to serial killing or raping: scary, but rather flat. You can find her/him in crime stories of all ilks and - though scary enough when written well - s/he's generally only a step up the Universal Unseen Villain in the ladder of good gripping storytelling.

The True Smiling Villain (the facial rictus denoting affability, joy and affection is actually optional) is a functioning sociopath who may, perhaps, engage in a spot of serial killing out of necessity or on a whim, but who'd never let her/his pleasure in the multiple taking of life interfere with her/his plans. Because the True Smiling Villain has a... - wait for it... - vision. S/he knows what the world or people should be and sets about changing said world or people until it or they conform to her/his vision.

S/he may appear benevolent - and s/he is, for a given value of 'benevolence' - s/he may appear happy and carefree - and, ohboy is s/he! - s/he may appear to overflow with the milk of human kindness, to be a protector, a wise counselor, a friend or, in some cases, a stern authority figure exuding efficiency and concern for the common good, in which case s/he won't smile a lot, if at all. The Hero/ine may well be as taken in as the reader for a goodly portion of the story ignoring, or willfully blind to, all the subtle hints to the character real character... heh... sorry about that, I meant the character real personality. Depends on the writer, really.

The biggest hint is generally the fact that a True Smiling (or not, as the case may be) Villain is obsessed by one thing or person. It's all about the power, but it doesn't necessarily have to be the Power Over All Universes, sometimes it's just the Power Over One Poor Wretch. Because if you happen to be the object of desire of a True Smiling Villain, a wretch you are, or shall soon become.

Thus our old friend, the Queen of the Elves in Lord and Ladies is, IMO, a True Smiling Villain. She appears to be the thing that she is not and schemes incessantly to Queen it over the land; she also holds an obsessive grudge against Granny. BTW, the manner of her double downfall is rather typical of the downfall of all True Smiling Villains: they forget that all those expendable cardboard cutouts are in fact three dimensional people and thus are surprised by unforeseen reactions, not to mention by the capacity of said cutouts to work together for a common goal.

A True Smiling Villain is often taken for a Protector or Wise Counselor exactly how the True Bastard Hero (with its sub-species the Byronic Hero) is taken quite easily for a villain at the start. What makes both those types delightful is the way the author messes with the preconceived notions about how a Friend or a Villain talk (it all boils down to manipulation of semantics, doesn't it? The most horrifying actions are explained in terms of the most syrupy benevolence and the noblest actions are kind of annihilated by the agent's foul mouth) and what makes them scary is how very efficient they are in the pursuit of their aims.

No, I mean, no, truly, look at Small Gods' Vorbis! Granted, he doesn't smile, but he certainly changes people and not for the better. He makes people be like him. He manufactures sociopath-like behaviour in others. He's certainly obsessed by his worldview and the only thing that is not quite typical is that he's beaten by Divine Action. But then it's Small Gods and internal logic must be preserved. Night Watch's Carcer too is a Master of Changing People for the Worse. He almost manages to change Vimes, for fucksake! Like Borgs they could crackle RESISTANCE IS FUTILE. YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED! Teatime is, IMO, a Smiling Villain Simplex or grunt sociopath.

AND Mr Cheney. DW Jones is not one for Smiling Villains, generally. Her bad people are generally as confused and human as her good people, but Mr Chenney is one chillingly terrifying dude. Of course he embodies a Financial Entity more than a person, but all the same he's the person that makes Financial entities possible and functional.

AND what is possibly TEH True Smiling Villain of all times - well, no, I tell a lie. Of modern times. Hmm. Of a fairly long portion of time casually coincident with the last ten years. Maybe. Or not. Oh fuck who cares, he's perfect - is Gravitation's Seguchi Thoma. He smiles, he's obsessed both with power over the musical business and one person, he appears a friend, a wise counselor a protector... you name a good solid virtue necessary to qualify as 'important secondary character who helps hero/ines' and he seems to be the embodiment of it. His plans are both byzantine and ruthlessly efficient, his knowledge so vast he appears omniscient, his coldblooded disposal of inconvenient or irritating people is akin to swatting flies, his sadism is sweet and cloying like molasses and - which makes him both scary and delightful - he can be thwarted, but never beaten. He can move in and manipulate both the Farce World and the Tragedy World and he corrupts people.

Yoshiki is another True Smiling Villain - she's so grey she's still apparently open to interpretation, though really! Not after Vol 10, people! But, apparently, there are many who view her as one of the Good Guys. *sigh* - but her sadism is more overt, her scope much more narrow and she's a bit over the top, frankly.

AND Loveless' Seimei. The sociopath one loves to loathe, the one who manages to change/corrupt one of the Heroes. Paladin in the Game World, Loving Protector and Brother in Ritsuka's Inner World, Defenseless But Plucky Boy in the Apparent World, Outstanding Strategist in the Magic World and Incestuous Abuser and Murderer in the Real World.

What's nice about Seimei - well, alright, about all of the True Smiling Villains - is that they have some endearing weaknesses (Seimei is seventeen, is a bit OCD about being touched and tires easily after gouging out people's eyes. Seguchi is vain, is a great musician and acts like a loving child with his wife. Mr Cheney likes his son and is refreshingly afraid of his demon. Carcer is stupid. Vorbis... well, Vorbis is an idealist, after all. He truly believes that the world would be a better place if everyone did as they were told, which makes him stupid too, I suppose. ;) And I am sure the Queen of Elfland is still mourning her unicorn.).

Vetinari is a borderline case, in a sense, though not in another. I mean, he's a useful villain and he loves his dog, but he certainly couldn't care less about people as such except perhaps a little for those he finds amusing like Leonard or Vimes. BUT, yeh, borderline. He doesn't mind if people is his city live a better life, provided this won't break the equilibrium that makes Ankh-Morpork work or that they aren't mimes.

I would like to end this ramble - thank you for not pelting me with rotten tomatoes - with a tribute to the subtlest of the True Smiling Villains: Dumbledore. He smiles! He speaks of love! He actually pontificates (BTW the pope is a good example of the TSV in Real Life) on love! His eyes twinkle! He dresses like a clown! He dances! And he coldly sends a boy to be abused time and time again so to be sure said boy won't balk when he's supposed to die for the common good. Not having enjoyed life, y'know, well, except when he was hurting other people, but most of the time certainly not enjoyed life at all and so leaving a world of pain and misery would be easy... easier... whatever. Do you think La Rowling is a very clever author after all? ^_^

Comments

[kestrelsparhawk.livejournal.com]

It's hard for me to tell. (Fascinating discourse, btw. The fact I've read both L&L and Small Gods quite recently makes it esepecially clear.) In the end, Dumbledore concedes that Harry is a far better man, which I hope is true and not D's last Smiling from beyond the Grave. OTOH, naming your child after two people who did not seem to have your best interests at heart, and when they were doing things like saving your life were doing it for reasons having nothing to do with you personally.... Well, Harry needs a good therapist.

I used to work for Dolores Umbridge, so I think JKR got her exactly right -- definitely the "smile and smile and be a villain" sort. Unfortunately, the rl Umbridge did more damage and escaped than Umbridge ever did.

[baeraad.livejournal.com]

Great post!

I think I suspect anyone who smiles too much of being a potential villain. Or at least anyone who smiles in a certain way. People who are just good at enjoying themselves are probably all right. People who get all starry-eyed about how wonderful life and the world are, though - you need to keep an eye on those, because they're the ones who might start a freaky shaved-head cult. Or at least become conservative crusaders.

Funnily enough, I never find myself writing TSVs. My villains tend to be either idealists out to purge the world of everyone who doesn't fit into their idea of a perfect society, or else angry and bitter people out on some personal quest of revenge or survival. None of them smiles much - except for the Father Figure, and he's really more of an Ancient Evil sort of thing.

AND Mr Cheney.

I wondered when you were going to mention him. :D I love Mr Chesney. And I love how DWJ used him as a contrast to the cheesy Dark Lord stereotype - "see, kids, this is what real villains are like. They're much, much worse than the Sauron clones." Chesney doesn't take anything by force, because he really doesn't have to. He's got contracts. There are laws. The actual order of society works to make sure that Chesney gets everything he wants, and that anyone who so much as inconveniences him suffers for it.

And I am sure the Queen of Elfland is still mourning her unicorn.

And even after all these years, the King leaving her is still a major sore point for her. I'd say that whole thing counts as an endearing weakness - these little hints we keep getting that once, she was less of a monster than she is now, and was loved by an equal instead of just worshiped by slaves.

Vetinari is a borderline case, in a sense, though not in another.

Vetinari is really pretty interesting when viewed from this perspective. I mean, most of the time a sociopath is someone who thinks that he's the only real thing in the world, right? I get the feeling that Vetinari doesn't see himself as real, either. It's like everything is just a big intellectual challenge to him - just one big game of Thud, yes?

Okay, that might be an exaggeration, because he does show some very limited signs of emotion at times, but still. I think Vetinari is really just a version of Vorbis who is into society-building instead of religion. And who understands (an important difference, that) that you can't change human nature, you can only change the world people live in.

Do you think La Rowling is a very clever author after all? ^_^

Only accidentally. If you make your characters contradict themselves for long enough, sooner or later readers will, in a Rorschach-test sort of way, believe themselves to see a complex, believable personality in at least one of them. ;)

[ingriam.livejournal.com]

The only example of a true Smiling Villain I can think of would be Souske Aizen from Bleach. Gin Ichimaru would most likely qualify under the Sociopath subset, but Aizen - who smiled like a saint even as he was stabbing his former, and utterly devoted, liutenant in the gut - is first and formost a Smiling Villain.

Behold: Exibit A.

[xicarus-complex.livejournal.com]

I rarely comment because I'm not very good at it, but I love the smiling villain archetype :3. Other than Dumbledore =D and Umbridge, I haven't read the smiling villains listed here, but, my must-reads have expanded exponentially since I friended you xD. I'm inclined to think of Dumbledore as a seriously flawed, but ultimately decent person. Of course, I have to ignore large portions of the novel—namely, the entire Riddle flashback and much of his treatment of Harry—to maintain that perspective >____>. Mostly, I commented because I love to see a well-aimed jibe at JKR. Few people agree with me—and most of those who do gave up on Harry Potter long before HPDH—but the black-and-white, fairytale moral disturbed me. Snape, Pettigrew, Slughorn, and Dumbledore are ostensibly grey characters, but the Slytherins are morally repugnant (Snape is a bully and Slughorn is an opportunistic jerk), even if they aren’t evil. There is a clear implication throughout the narrative that Pettigrew either doesn’t belong in Gryffindor or that he was corrupted over time, but fandom is more open-minded than the author, so I’d favour the latter =/. More on point: I think Voldemort could’ve been a smiling villain (and Lucius Malfoy, too), in another writer’s hands, but alas, Umbridge (and Dumbledore)!

[anglerfish07.livejournal.com]

Hi! I'm here from deathtocapslock. At deathtocapslock, you mentioned to me that you had a post on True Smiling Villains - so I decided to check it out. I thought this was an interesting post on True Smiling Villains.

What's nice about Seimei - well, alright, about all of the True Smiling Villains - is that they have some endearing weaknesses (Seimei is seventeen, is a bit OCD about being touched and tires easily after gouging out people's eyes. Seguchi is vain, is a great musician and acts like a loving child with his wife. Mr Cheney likes his son and is refreshingly afraid of his demon. Carcer is stupid. Vorbis... well, Vorbis is an idealist, after all.

I do like it when villains (including TSVs) have some sort of weakness. It makes them more interesting and more human somehow. I also like how you mentioned that Seguchi loves his wife. I find villains who aren't completely evil more interesting than completely evil villains in general.

Re: Vorbis being a villain...I find that idealists not only make moving heroes/heroines, they also can make the scariest villains in stories. I find them scary because they seem more realistic.

I would like to end this ramble...with a tribute to the subtlest of the True Smiling Villains: Dumbledore. He smiles! He speaks of love! He actually pontificates (BTW the pope is a good example of the TSV in Real Life) on love! His eyes twinkle!

My word, yes. Dumbledore is the epitome of a TSV. I just don't think Rowling realises this, which is quite sad.

Have you heard of the manga Deathnote by Tsugumi Ohba? It has a fascinating and scarily competent and charming TSV. The TSV protagonist Light Yagami has some TSV traits (he kills people because wants to make the world a better place, he thinks he knows what the world or people should be and tries to make people fit his vision, he appears as a benevolent protector to people, and he is incredibly intelligent.)

[oryx_leucoryx]

Thanks for reminding me that Vetinari is after all a villain. Of sorts. Of course if the alternatives are Homicidal Lord Winder, Mad Lord Snapcase or contenders such as Reacher Gilt then Vetinari is a shining example of good, but let's not forget the means he uses. Yes, the Thieves' Guild keeps crime at a tolerable level - tolerable to all those who aren't their victims (and especially those who can afford making arrangements to be robbed at their convenience). And so forth. We see how in The Last Hero his first reaction to the unexpected presence of the Librarian on the spacecraft was to throw him out to his death (understandable when the future of the Disc was at stake), and it took a gentler man like Ponder to find a solution that allowed the Librarian's survival.

Though if you read Unseen Academicals Vetinari's regime is now also being contrasted with Pseudopolis' experiment with democracy (the citizens have voted to not pay any taxes).

I wonder why I love Vetinari and absolutely despise Dumbledore. Perhaps it is because Vetinari admits to being a tyrant (does he need a badge?), to not being nice, to be a user of people, to care almost only about the collective of Ankh Morpork rather than the individuals it is made of, while Dumbledore looks like he would have been terribly offended had such accusations been leveled at him openly.