Wattpad brings you a guest post from Matthew Iden, known as CrimeRighter, author of mystery thriller “A Reason To Live”:
Great villains across the years—I’m talking about the really sinister ones, the I’m-squirming-in-my-chair-and-pulling-the blanket-over-my-head-right-now kind of bad guys—have all kinds of reasons for facing off with our favorite heroes and making their lives miserable. Greed, power, revenge, jealousy, rivalry…the list of motives goes on and on, and no movie or book is complete without eventually revealing to us, the readers, what they wanted from our hero (right before the bad guy goes tumbling out of the castle window to their demise or gets consumed by righteous hellfire. Hero kisses girl, fade to black).
But greed, power, revenge, yadda yadda, are their goals, the outward manifestations of their scheming. A better question might be: what is the motivation for their evil? What powers their villainy?
One word. Obsession.
No matter what they actually want in life, the best bad guys around have an insatiable hunger that drives them forward. Their obsession gives them almost a supernatural stubbornness to battle the Forces of Good, pursue world domination, and fight against what—in this economy—must be a rapidly-shrinking budget for doing Bad Things.
In honor of bad guys, everywhere, I present to you some of the most obsessed villains of our age:
Skyfall, the latest James Bond installment, has former MI6 agent-turned-super-villain Raoul Silva lusting for revenge against his former organization. But it’s his sense of betrayal by spymaster M that is so great that it fuels an obsession to become her nemesis. This inner fury drives him to create an elaborate assassination plot that takes years to plan and execute…and turns him from a run-of-the-mill bad guy to Bond Villain.
J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings fantasy trilogy probably give us one of the most pure forms of obsession in literature—in fact, an almost physical manifestation of the word—in Gollum, aka Sméagol. While many of Gollum’s actions in the trilogy are villainous (and I’m not just talking about his personal hygiene) it becomes obvious as the story moves along that it’s only Gollum’s seething desire for the One Ring, for his Precious, that moves him to do evil. This is raw obsession turned into action and, as Tolkien might have wanted us to understand, no good can come of it.
In both George R. R. Martin’s blockbuster HBO series and his best-selling fantasy novels, Game of Thrones, Queen Cersei is woman tortured by multiple obsessions. She craves power, seeks revenge, strives to protect her children. Attempting to follow each of these dangerous paths tugs her in deadly directions, leading her to commit both villainous and virtuous acts (though a lot more of the former than the latter). She is complex, scheming, flawed…and one of the most intriguing characters in the story.
In my own novel, A Reason to Live, the burning obsession of an insane killer intent on reinventing his past sets off a series of violent confrontations that bring him into direct conflict with my hero, Marty Singer…a cop who is just as driven to stop him. You’ll have to read the book, though, to find out which brand of obsession wins out.
Fade to black.
Read “A Reason To Live” on Wattpad:
“…a riveting and entertaining read. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.” - Karen Cantwell, author of the Barbara Marr mystery series (Take the Monkeys and Run)
“…several nights I read until I couldn’t keep my eyes open.” - Misha Crews, author of Still Waters and Homesong
“That was a hell of a ride! I loved it!” - Angie H., Goodreads
In the late nineties, a bad cop killed a good woman and DC Homicide detective Marty Singer got to watch as the murderer walked out of the courtroom a free man.
Twelve years later, the victim’s daughter comes to Marty begging for help: the killer is stalking her now.
There’s just one problem: Marty’s retired…and he’s retired because he’s battling cancer. But with a second shot at the killer—and a first chance at redemption—Marty’s just found A Reason to Live.