Conceptualising the Weaver...

...a struggle of twenty-years

Creating (and designing) villains aren’t my forte. My brain loves all things light, whimsical, and glowy. Enchanting beauty is something that draws me to the fantasy genre. Something that Tolkien and Lewis’ worlds are full of.

But their worlds are also full of “darkness and danger”¹. Their villains aren’t laughable. They’re just as dangerous, horrifying, and dark as Middle Earth and Narnia are beautiful and pure.

“Every Fairytale Needs a Good, Old-Fashioned Villain”²

Look. I think we’re doing fantasy injustice if we don’t try with our villains—and not to glorify or make light of evil.

But the villain (and the evil) our heroes face amplify all that is beautiful about the fantasy world; the good and wholesome creatures; the themes of hope and truth threading through our bits of clumsy words.

We love the Shire because we know how terrible Mordor is. We ache for Aslan to come and make all things right in Narnia when evil creeps into it again and again.

So. This means our villains must be as soundly developed as our heroes.

And for me? That’s been a bit of a twenty-year problem. It’s easy coming up with all of the wonderfilled things. It’s less easy thinking about what sort of evil threatens Saoirse, the Forgotten Things, and her world, Lalinęth.

Meet the villain of my (work in progress series), The Moonbird & the Seedling, the Weaver.

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“I will come for you again, little bird. You will never be safe”—the Weaver, A Land Without Fairytales.

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Conceptualising this villain wasn’t easy. I tried… and tried. And for twenty-years I couldn’t tap into a soundly evil villain that wasn’t laughable³. Nothing stuck. Nothing was convincing me this villain was sufficient enough pitted against my main character, Saoirse Quinn Muldrow.

But realising she needed to specifically meet Saoirse’s literary needs, everything began to click. What were Saoirse’s stakes? Her insecurities? What was Saoirse fighting for?

What Would Hurt Saoirse the Most (in a villain)?

I understand that sounds a little sadistic, but it worked, by Jove.

These two (Saoirse and the Weaver) needed to be so completely opposed to each other’s goals, they have to fight each other. There can be no quarter; no letting each other off the hook.

And in the literary world, that works. If I’ve built up a hero that my readers care about and cheer for, then they’ll hate the Weaver for hurting Saoirse where it hurts the most.

Even the plot, genre, and secondary characters are formulated to suit the main character’s literary needs, and if that’s the case, then so should the villain. And maybe this is a bit of a no brainer for some. It’s probably that I’ve never read books where the villain was clearly designed to be opposed to everything the hero is. Voldemort is just evil for the sake of being evil, and Harry fights that. It’s not a bad method, but it wasn’t working for me⁴.

Beyond Saoirse’s Literary Needs

That only solved one aspect of my quest to build up a foe for Saoirse. I’d tapped into what made Grýla⁵ (i.e. the Weaver) a great character, but she’s also a million year old witch who needed to be unfathomably creepy and horrifying (without going too far… cuz, you know. I write YA (it needs to be suitably kid friendly), and I want my work to glorify God. Not evil⁶.)

The next step was creating a “dream portfolio villain”. And by this, I mean, I asked myself what was the worst of other villains that I’d come across in books or telly shows? The villains that really caught my attention and made me shudder and loath them?

I didn’t loath Voldemort, but I loathed Dolores Umbridge. Why? She was nasty, manipulative, and sadistic. She also had a personal relationship with Harry, whereas Voldemort was a “distant” evil⁷.

And… Voldemort felt a little forced.

So. I thought about the Borg Queen. The mind flayer. Vecna. Sauron. Claudia from The Dragon Prince. I thought about how they functioned as villains… not as characters.

I researched common monster tropes and types, and began cobbling together this and that: the elements from these figures that turned my stomach. I loved that the Borg Queen was a hive mind who controlled her drones, and how it was similar to the mind flayer and Vecna. But my story is also a pro-life one, so the subject of life and humanity is a big deal. And the way Claudia consumed lives of good creatures to power her magic was (is) harrowing.

(mild spoilers ahoy!)

And thus you have Grýla: an ancient, dark figure from another world who consumes entire dimensions—and has for millions of years, going from world to world consuming every last bit of those places; growing in her power and very much unchecked. She withers, destroys, and crushes whatever life she can (if she can’t use it first to further her agenda).

Saoirse is the girl who whispers life back into the stars and the grimfrosted Forgotten Things. Grýla is the witch who consumes all lives.

Did it take twenty years to get the Weaver to this stage of villainy? Yes. Yes, it did. But good things (ha) take time. It was worth it.

And I get Grýla won’t be everyone’s cuppa tea. She’s not morally grey, and I don’t mean for readers to sympathise with her. She’s meant to be completely depraved and soundly defeated. Not redeemable⁸.

I want readers to meet Grýla and think “wow, I hate you” not “aww, wee lamb.”

1. A quote by our good lad, Samwise Gamgee via The Two Towers.

2. And now, I’m quoting Jim Moriarty from BBC Sherlock.

3. Confession: I think Voldemort is very laughable. I adore Jo Rowling, but Voldemort isn’t a convincing villain (for me… it’s just personal taste).

4. I’m basing this methodology on what did/didn’t work for me in creating a villain with a hoard of monsters suitable enough for my stories.

5. Pronounced “gree-la”

6. I still believe you can write villains that pack a horrifying punch without glorifying evil; so, my villain definitely doesn’t hold back.

7. Technically, this aspect in Umbridge verses Voldemort is another example of character development, but it’s an example of a villain I loathed… and why.

8. I do have characters who are meant for redemption, just not my main villain.