Henchmen, Villains and Uber Villains: What Videogames Can Teach Us about Drama

SIDEBAR - Greetings to the folks visiting from justeffing today!  It was very cool of Julie to send you on over to check out my humble beginnings.  I’m pretty new at this whole blogging endeavor so things may be moving around and resettling some, but feel free to stick around and to add your two cents. 

Evil Overlord List # 75 I will instruct my Legions of Terror to attack the hero en masse, instead of standing around waiting while members break off and attack one or two at a time.

Poor Mario, it’s a good thing he’s so super, because he has the worst luck.  If it’s not his girl getting kidnapped, it’s his castle being overrun or his brother disappearing.  And as any child given any variation of a Nintendo gaming system in the last thirty years knows, he’s going to have to fight through Goombas, Koopas and Chomps before taking on Kammy Koopa and then finally, his arch-nemesis Bowser.

A good action film is set up very much like a good videogame.  The larger and more varied the force of villains arrayed against your hero, the more he has to overcome, the stronger both your hero and your story will grow.   

In videogames villainy is broken down into three categories: henchmen, villains and uber villains.  Henchmen are on the lowest level they generally don’t have names, are terrible shots and rack up body counts like no other.  These are the stormtroopers in Star Wars, the orcs in The Lord of the Rings and the Nazis in… well most any movie involving Nazis. 

Villains are usually the hired muscle of the big bad; they do have names and can get personal with the hero, but are not the main event.  Think Count Rugen (aka the six-fingered man) in The Princess Bride, Frederick Sykes (aka the one-armed man) in The Fugitive and Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi.  They are usually defeated in a prolonged physical struggle that weakens the hero before his battle with his ultimate nemesis: the uber villain. 

The uber villain is an entirely different kettle of fish.  He is the puppet master, the perpetrator of some great evil against the world at large and (hopefully) the hero in particular.  He is smart and cunning and usually his confrontation with the hero involves some sort of chicanery.  Theirs can be a physical fight, but it can also be a battle of wits and not infrequently the hero is, at the last minute, saved by some kind of outside help or piece of hidden knowledge.  Entering at stage right we have Commodus from Gladiator, Agent Smith from The Matrix and The Joker in The Dark Knight.  One film that utilizes all three categories with verve and panache is Die Hard. 

Die Hard is the story of our hero, John McClane, who is in the wrong place, at the wrong time, who faces one of the great villains in action film history.  The stage is set, Christmas Eve, an unhappy couple, a mostly empty skyscraper and a truckload of villains intent on robbery and mayhem. 

Our henchmen are the nameless and numerous bank robbers, these are the ones toting machine guns and looking tough, but not doing much else.  Karl moves from nameless tough to the role of villain when McClane kills his brother, Tony making the conflict quite personal.  Their fight rages throughout the film, Karl becoming further and further enraged by McClane’s antics.  The final conflict between Karl and McClane is an epic, bare-knuckled brawl from which, McClane barely escapes; whereupon he goes after Hans Gruber, who is of course, the uber villain. 

The relationship between McClane and Gruber in this film is truly marvelous for they are in constant contact through the use of a pilfered two-way radio.  Midway through the story they have their meet-epic cementing their mutual wish for the other’s destruction.  Their final clash comes at the climax of the film when Gruber has finally figured out that one of his hostages is McClane’s wife.  Broken, bloody and very near the end of his rope, McClane confronts Gruber in the building’s vault.  McClane is forced to throw down his machine gun, but distracts Gruber and pulls a handgun from where he’d taped it to his back.  Gruber’s not dead yet though and drags McClane’s wife with him as he goes out a window.  Fortunately, McClane manages to grab his wife and cheerfully drops Gruber ten stories; thereby, assuring all the Die Hard sequels are that much more lame.

When building your story, look at the world, who are the henchmen?  Where is the villain?  And what are the personal motivations of your uber villain to kill your hero.  Figure those things out and you’re well on your way to a decent action franchise.