When Twist Villains Go Bad(ly Written)

When Twist Villains go Bad(ly written)

Sometimes I think a lot about “twist” villains. Villains that are first cast in the role of love interest and then revealed in a TWIST to be bad and afterward their entire personality changes. Ya know. Hans. The Darkling. Maven (I only ever read book one of the Red Queen, so I dunno if he became a less cartoony villain later on). Show Daenerys. 

What bugs me about these twist villains is that they are essentially two characters. The before character and the after character. The character that the author was writing back when they were trying to conceal the twist. And the character the author is writing now as an ‘AH HA!! GOTCHA!!”

The implication is that the character after the twist is their “TRUE SELF” and the character before the twist is a fiction. A performance. But the author is afraid that we’ll get their twist too early so they don’t actually build those villainous elements into the character and foreshadow it. Then they’d risk not being able to SURPRISE the reader. And they want to feel all superior about tricking us and laugh about how “sometimes you can’t trust a pretty face”.

But the result of this desperate “GOTCHA” is some cheating in the writing and a lot of retconning.

For instance, once in Frozen, Hans is shown smiling softly at Anna when no one is looking at him. It’s just him on screen. Why did he do that?? What was the reason if not just to lull the audience into a false sense of security?

And the Darkling is clearly driven by a desire to help the Grisha but post twist I guess he’s just okay with allying with Grisha-enemy #1 Fjerda (and they’re okay with allying with him somehow too???)

Everything about their demeanor changes. Everything about their dialogue. It doesn’t feel like a gradual transformation. It feels like a good/evil switch.

And some might say “its a warning because sometimes you can’t TELL who’s going to be evil because they’re liars :)”

But a character pre twist and post twist should still be recognizable as the same person and have a consistent character.

Take Petyr Baelish for instance. The moment we meet this man, we think he’s sketchy. Ned thinks he’s sketchy. This man is a liar and a politician. But…..lots of people in King’s Landing are liars and politicians and Baelish seems to be helping Ned. He even gives a reasonable motivation! It’s because he’s friends with Cat that he’s helping Ned. But he also flat out says: “you shouldn’t trust me”.

So when HIS twist comes, it IS surprising at first. We kinda thought we had his motives figured out. But it makes sense AND he’s still the same person afterward. Same vibe entirely. Nothing about him transforms when he stops lying.

And then there’s the twist villain that descends unexpectedly into villainy. Annakin was a good example of this (perhaps because we all knew it was coming). He was always brilliant but also impulsive and hot headed. He’s driven by his fear of losing those he loves, especially after the loss of his mother, and it’s those good intentions that lead him over the edge. But he’s still the same person after the switch. He’s just deeply changed. Certainly his arc was handled ten times better than that of Daenerys

On another level, I hate that usually the “twist villains” are there SPECIFICALLY to shame female characters for being stupid or gullible or naive. Like “oh you silly girl. Trusting this bad man who looks pretty but lies. You’re just like our young readers. They’re also stupid and need a LESSON to know DON’T TRUST ANYONE, especially someone who makes you FEEL LUST.”

But so rarely do these fictional twist villains act like real life abusers or men that they actually need to watch out for. Because the author is hiding the red flags because they want their twist. It’s just…it’s bad foreshadowing. It’s bad character writing. It’s annoying over all. No thank you.