The 3 ingredients of a successful villain origin story

"This is my villain origin story," we all scream-text our friends at the smallest inconvenience. My "thirteenth reason why." What brings us each to our breaking point, or as the kids say: "crashing out." We are all one Trader-Joes-being-out-of-eggs-for-the-9th-day-in-a-row away from Villain Era, and we'd be in good company. Compelling genre stories nearly always feature a compelling villain. And in the era of IP expansion at the film and TV levels, we are spoiled for choice in villain origin stories to inspire our own impending Crash Outs.

This episode of Lore of the Things argues there are three ingredients of a successful villain origin story (listen to find out!!!) Using Star Wars's Darth Vader, Lord of the Rings's Lord Sauron, and ASOIAF's Targaryen family, we'll debate which origin stories successfully cook using these ingredients, and if/when we need to know why mask-clad bad guys do bad things (g*noc*de).

Show notes and references:

• RogerEbert.com: How The Phantom Menace Predicted Hollywood’s Prequel Future
• Sunsets of High Renown: An Interview with George R. R. Martin by Nick Gevers
• The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Letter 183.

Lore of the Things is produced, hosted, and blood/sweat/tear'd over by Rebecka Green. Find her on Instagram @rebecka_green and email [e-mail] with compliments and complaints.

Opening and closing music is "Magical Journey" by Geoff Harvey, and podcast artwork is by Levi Åhlén, @oloflevi, featuring Terry O'Quinn's portrayal of John Locke in the pilot episode of LOST.