A villain (also known in film and literature as the "antagonist," "baddie", "bad guy", "black hat", or "heavy") is an "evil" character in a story, whether a historical narrative or, especially, a work of fiction. The villain usually is the antagonist (though can be the protagonist), the character who tends to have a negative effect on other characters. A female villain is sometimes called a villainess (often to differentiate her from a male villain). Random House Unabridged Dictionary defines villain as "a cruelly malicious person who is involved in or devoted to wickedness or crime; scoundrel; or a character in a play, novel, or the like, who constitutes an important evil agency in the plot".
Read more about Villain: Etymology, Folk and Fairy Tales, Villainous Foil, Portraying and Employing Villains in Fiction
Famous quotes containing the word villain:
“The tragic hero prefers death to prudence. The comedian prefers playing tricks to winning. Only the villain really plays to win.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“A villain must be a thing of power, handled with delicacy and grace. He must be wicked enough to excite our aversion, strong enough to arouse our fear, human enough to awaken some transient gleam of sympathy. We must triumph in his downfall, yet not barbarously nor with contempt, and the close of his career must be in harmony with all its previous development.”
—Agnes Repplier (1858–1950)