Multiple villains: when one isn’t enough

As my fellow Once Upon A Time fans know, the more villains a story has, the better. It is a truth universally acknowledged that at least one hero running loose in a story must be in want of an antagonistic force to hinder them.

OUAT fans also know, it’s really fun for heroes to question their heroism and villains to question their villainy. The clash between the two is so much fun to watch. In my book, The King’s Starkeeper, the idea for one of the villains was inspired by OUAT’s town of Storybrooke, where fairytale characters live normal lives, unaware they are actually from another world.

In OUAT, the Evil Queen sends her enemies (the heroes) and herself to Storybrooke as an act of revenge. But this town she’s created quickly becomes her own personal hell. She can torture her enemies, but they have no idea who she is. She can finally have her happy ending, but she comes to realize the thing holding her back was never the heroes opposing her, it was herself. Internal hurts and flaws that kept her from healing and happiness. That the real enemy, in short, was never the people opposing her, it was herself.

What a cool concept, right? The best punishment for this woman was not death or physical torture, but being forever trapped with the people she hates as she’s forced to regret her actions and acknowledge her enemies’ humanity. That’s the sauce.

For me, it was important that only one of my villains (I think there’s five total last time I counted), act out of a mere desire for power and domination. What are the motivations of the rest, you may be asking? Well…if you’ll allow a tiny…little…shameless plug, you’ll have to read The King’s Starkeeper to find out.