Following yesterday's announcement that Osama Bin Laden, the nemesis of the West, has finally been run to ground, I've been thinking a bit about villains. Bin Laden's reviews haven't been that good, unsurprisingly, and as a writer it can be fun to write about someone who is unquestionably evil -- you can get down and dirty and really go for it, but without a little bit of light and shade you run the risk of creating the kind of two-dimensional bogeyman that the leader of Al Qaeda has sometimes been portrayed as.
So....today's task is to have a go at writing a likeable villain, an attractive baddie. He must still fulfil the normal function of counterbalancing the hero, challenging him so that he is obliged to grow and change, but see if you can create a character that your reader will be drawn to almost in spite of themselves, someone who has foibles or redeeming features that in some way compensate for his wickedness. In this way, when he finally meets his comeuppance, you will put your reader in the interesting double bind of being both pleased that the hero has triumphed, but regretful that the villain has been vanquished.
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