Re: On Topic Friday: Badges of Villainy

James Nicoll wrote:
Say that you have a bad guy and you want to show in not too many words that he or she is very very bad. How do
you do this?


[My personal idea to show that a particular administration
of the future is very bad would be to have them haul the contents
out of the Smithsonian and burn them. I think that would push buttons]



But it would take weeks, not to mention a ton of fuel. Have you been to the Smithsonian's Uvar-Hazy facility out near Dulles Airport? Many, many airplanes there, plus a space shuttle. It exhausts you to walk the entire space, never mind destroying it.




Strange sexual habits: This will vary by when you are
writing and who for but the entire set of human sexual behaviors
is large enough that there something the readers will be revolted
by. For some reason, the Horseclans novels just leap to mind, here.

Any others?



Killing small animals is always golden. Crush a few kittens or kick a puppy and you are loathed forever and ever. Smoking is always a goodie, and the fun part is that it used to be something that the good guys would do. (Consider Bogie and Bacall, or even Modesty Blaise.) Contempt for the environment is also very popular; just dumping only a little bit of nuclear waste into the local estuary and everybody bands together with the pitchforks and torches to burn you in effigy.

Brenda



--
---------
Brenda W. Clough
http://www.sff.net/people/Brenda/

Recent short fiction:
FUTURE WASHINGTON (WSFA Press, October '05)
http://www.futurewashington.com

FIRST HEROES (TOR, May '04)
http://members.aol.com/wenamun/firstheroes.html

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