Young Writers Society

I have a main antagonist im writing named Chaos(planning on changing it once i think of a better name). He is the demongod(Half god half devil) of pandemonium.
Through most of the story he is and is shown as the absolute embodiment of all that is evil.
But near the end of the story he gets some character development where its shown that he was originally the kind god of emotions who wished for absolute happiness for everyone. He was created with the task of creating harnessing and spreading emotions to all living organisms. The story takes place through multiple different timelines and his consciousness and memories follow him into each new timeline.
When a person dies their thoughts and emotions are passed on to him to be stored and then distributed. But when they are stored they cause his mind to bend depending on which type of emotion is stored.
When he moves from one timeline to the next he maintains the memories of all the people he saw suffer and die including his friends and family. All of those negative emotions and memories cause his mind to become corrupted with hatred and disdain for the god who created him.
Despite this fact he still wishes for absolute happiness and he realizes that the only way to obtain that is to kill the king of all gods and become the king himself.
But in order to do that he has to steel his heart and cause lots of pain and suffering to to humans in order to harness their power for himself in order to become more powerful

I would appreciate any feedback or tips on how to improve him.

Hey draco!

First off, I do have to put a disclaimer. I'm not the best at creating fleshed out characters as I much prefer worldbuilding, but I'll try my hand at helping you out <3


When I create villains, I try to make it where there's not really a defined "good" or "bad". No one character is ever fully in the right or wrong at one time. I try to leave gray areas in each character's history or how their personality is for the ability to haver development.

Now, with Chaos (WIP name, right), if they are going to become the antagonist of your story, you first have to figure out the why. Why are they doing what they do? And you've done that first step above. The next step that I usually do is do they understand the morality of what they're doing? This is pretty crucial, as villains that understand that what they're doing is not great can easily end up being anti-heroes or at least become more relateable.

I think the biggest failings of villains is that they are considered villains. This puts your character in this narrow box that doesn't allow for any character development, because they're already labeled "the bad guy". I try to focus making the antagonists in my stories have their own story. So, my next step would probably be how far are they willing to go? An extension of that step is how far have they already gone? Every person (or half-person, in this case) has some sort of breaking point. Is Chaos close to that point? Is there still some sort of humanity left in them?

My last point will be to just use all the information you have and show Chaos' side of the story, from his perspective. Make it so that, if he isn't really good at all, that he at least can have something redeeming in him. No one is truly evil, and that's why villains don't work like they should.


Actually, I lied xD another point is actually to your protagonist(s). Make them with some sort of gray area, also. Heroes are just as boring as villains.

Hey Jhinx thanks for the info it really helps out with making my antagonist more defined. As far as morality goes I plan on using one of the most important characters to show off his weaknesses and how he handles his lapses in judgment.
I'm considering using multiple personalities one "good" and one "evil" as what allows his morality to show itself. For example in one chapter he goes to kill A man that knows one of his secrets. The man is a daycare worker and when he attacks him the children try to protect him.
With his "evil side being dominant he kills the children along with the man, but later in the story he along with his servants(henchman) are seen with several flowers heading towards the children's graves to grieve.
In another instance chaos attempts to kill the main protagonist as a child in fear of his potential growth but accidentally kills his best friend instead. Years later the main protagonist is In a battle with angels and when he is on his last legs, chaos jumps in and saves him and his family, with the intention of repentance.

Personally speaking I'd strongly recommend against going the multiple personalities way, if only because from what I know DID is never quite so simple as good vs bad and I would completely lose interest in a story if it went that way. I find it's the sort of device that kind of cheapens the contradictions and just flattens everything because you can so easily separate the aspects.

I think it would be a lot more poignant to simply depict him as a being who's deeply conflicted but still thinks his end justifies the means, even while hating said means. People are complicated and they don't need to be split in two to be able to do both terrible and good things.

If anything the description you give in the OP seems to me like it would be a good ground for some kind of idealist turned pragmatist over the course of long long years type of characterization - "causing suffering now is worth it because there won't be any when I'm done, and I have to keep convincing myself of this even though it keeps getting harder because stopping now would mean I suffered and did all these bad things for nothing". And maybe sometimes he slips, and maybe sometimes he gets caught up in the bad things because really, it's so much easier and less exhausting to just lash out, and sometimes it's the opposite, where he acts kind because he's clinging to the past or he's tired of feeling guilty and that helps just for a while.

Good villains think they're the heroes.