How To Make a Modern Bad Guy Without Offending Anyone

 

Here’s the honest truth most writers won’t say out loud.

Creating villains used to be easy.

If you go back far enough in popular fiction – adventure stories, thrillers, war novels, early spy fiction – “foreign” was often enough. Different accent, unfamiliar customs, strange food, odd manners, a name that didn’t sound local. That was all a reader needed. The shorthand worked because it aligned with a world that already divided itself neatly into us and them.

Writers didn’t have to think too hard about it. The villain arrived pre-loaded.

But that world is gone.

And in many ways, thank f**k for that – because it was lazy, reductive, and often cruel. But its disappearance has created a genuine craft problem for modern writers, one that doesn’t get discussed enough outside writing rooms and private conversations.

How do you create convincing bad guys now, without accidentally turning an entire nationality, culture, or identity into the problem?

Because readers have changed. And so has the moral ground beneath our stories.

Once upon a time, fiction reflected a belief that danger came from outside the borders. Invaders, spies, outsiders, foreigners. The threat was external. The solution was often force. The worldview was blunt, but it was culturally coherent. Readers knew where they stood.

Now we live in a world that understands – at least intellectually – that people are not their passports. That cruelty, corruption, and violence are not national traits. That history has been messy, colonial, and frequently dishonest. And that when stories paint entire groups as villains, the damage doesn’t stay on the page.

So the old shortcuts are off the table. No more Russian Mafia, no more Islamic Jihadist, no more Southeast Asian Assassin. Plus it would be far too easy to suggest all our fictional bad guys for the next fifty years or so are Zionists - surely that would not be fair or accurate.

And that means writers have to work harder.

The first challenge is fear. Many writers now hesitate at the point where villainy needs definition. They worry that giving a character an accent, a background, or a cultural marker will be read as commentary rather than characterization. Sometimes that fear leads to bland antagonists – vague corporations, shadowy “forces,” or faceless systems that never quite feel human enough to hate.

The irony is that sensitivity, when mishandled, can drain stories of their emotional power.

Readers still want conflict. They still want danger. They still want someone to oppose the protagonist with real intent and real consequences. What they no longer accept is lazy blame. Which means villainy has to become personal rather than tribal.

The modern antagonist isn’t bad because they’re foreign. They’re bad because of what they choose to do. Because of what they believe. Because of what they justify to themselves. That shift sounds simple, but it demands deeper character work.

Instead of nationality, the writer has to think in terms of motivation.

What does this character want that puts them in conflict with others? What fear or wound drives them? What ideology have they embraced that allows them to harm others while still seeing themselves as right?

That last point matters more than ever.

Today’s most convincing villains don’t pet cats or twirl mustaches. They explain. They rationalize. They believe they are protecting something – order, tradition, profit, safety, identity, progress. And those beliefs are often frightening precisely because they echo arguments we hear in the real world.

This is where the discomfort creeps in. Because when you stop using “foreign” as a moral marker, you’re forced to confront the idea that evil isn’t elsewhere. It’s here. It’s familiar. It sounds reasonable at first. It might even sound like us.

That’s a harder story to tell. It’s also a more honest one.

Another shift is that modern audiences are alert to power dynamics. Villains are now judged not just by their actions, but by who they act upon. Punching down reads differently than punching up. Stories that once framed dominance as strength are now interrogated for what they normalize.

That doesn’t mean writers are banned from creating dangerous antagonists. It means they have to be conscious of the narrative weight their choices carry.

A villain can belong to any culture. What they can’t do anymore is stand in for that culture. This distinction is crucial.

A corrupt official is not a country. A fanatic is not a faith. A criminal is not a people. When writers make that separation clear – through secondary characters, internal diversity, and moral contrast – readers are far more willing to engage without feeling targeted or dismissed.

The best modern villains tend to be ideologies wearing human skin.

They represent ideas taken too far. Certainty without empathy. Control without accountability. Fear disguised as virtue. They are not monsters from elsewhere – they are warnings about what happens when human impulses go unchecked.

And yes, that’s harder to write than “evil foreigner.” It requires nuance. It requires restraint. It requires trust in the reader. But it also produces richer stories.

There’s another uncomfortable truth here. Some writers miss the old simplicity because it felt safe. You knew who the enemy was. You knew who to root for. You didn’t have to question your own side too much.

Modern storytelling doesn’t offer that comfort as readily. It asks harder questions. It forces writers to sit in ambiguity longer. It demands that antagonists feel plausible rather than symbolic.

That’s not censorship. That’s evolution. The challenge now is not avoiding offense at all costs. The challenge is being precise. Targeting behavior rather than identity. Power rather than difference. Choices rather than origins.

Writers who embrace that shift tend to discover something surprising.

Villains become more frightening when they are recognizably human. When they could be neighbors. Colleagues. Leaders. When they don’t arrive speaking a different language, but speaking the same one – just using it to justify harm.

So yes, it’s harder now. But harder doesn’t mean worse.

It means the work demands more thought, more care, and more courage. And that, ultimately, is what good writing has always asked for.

Keep Writing!

Rob Parnell