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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/22213
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/22213
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Well, "good" is subjective. You can have a loathsome, hissable, completely irredeemable villain who roasts puppies, shoots women with crossbows, and writes comics where Captain America is revealed to be a lifelong HYDRA agent at the end, and your reader will likely despise that character.

However, even your wretched villain should be three-dimensional. Just because there's nothing good about this person doesn't mean the character doesn't have motivation, personality, or a backstory. The motivations can be horrible (he likes kicking sand in the faces of 90-pound weaklings and hates that one was turned into a supersoldier), the personality can be insane (she blows up hospitals just to watch first responders scurry around), and the backstory can be horrendous (he's a thoroughly spoiled and coddled royal brat who's the product of brother-sister incest and inherited the throne at age 13, with no one who can stop him or even discipline him), but do come up with something. Flat villains aren't interesting. We just want them to go away and stop being obstacles.

There's a place for a character we love to hate. Think of Joffrey Baratheon on _Game of Thrones_ and Red Skull from _Captain America._ They are horrific and we generally want them to die, but they aren't cardboard cutouts.

Compare with GOT's Ramsay Snow/Bolton and The Waif, or Jafar from _Aladdin_. They are villains, but beyond varying levels of anger, sadism, and hunger for power, we don't have backstory or motivation for them. They aren't as interesting or rounded.

Original score: 4