Arachne: Writing a Villain Who Believes She’s the Hero

When I started writing Threadkeepers, I knew that I wanted a complex villain. I am slightly er…extremely bored with villains who are one dimensional. They want power, they want fame, they want money. They know they are evil and they embrace that. I am far more intrigued by a villain who thinks she’s the good guy…er…lady.

But, I also knew that I wanted Threadkeepers to ask some serious questions. I love the world that I created, if I could live in Aurelia, I would. Hands down. But I knew I didn’t want this fantasy world to be the crux of the book. I didn’t want Felicity’s magic to be the crux either. I wanted to center this book around one word: integrity. What does it mean to do the right thing, especially when you aren’t even sure what the right thing to do is? And, who are you when no one else is looking? To me, especially in our social-media driven age when everyone is looking (usually because we’ve invited them in via our phones), these questions were particularly intriguing.

So, is Arachne doing what she believes to be the right thing? I honestly think she is. At first glance, she may seem like a “for the greater good” type of villain, but I think it runs deeper than that. In many ways, she is the typical one-dimensional villain: she wants power, she wants dominance, she wants to use a gift that she has been given purely by chance (the ultimate definition of privilege) to rule over those who are less fortunate.

But I also think that Arachne truly believes that Aurelia will be better off with her in charge. She is cruel. She is vicious. But she does have some very valid points. She sees some very real wrongs in Aurelia and its history and she isn’t afraid to address them. Unlike the Threadkeepers, she is willing to engage with the evil that has been perpetrated on certain groups in Aurelia.

Now, I don’t think that she is the best person to right those wrongs. In fact, she might be the worst person for that job. But I do appreciate that she is at least engaging and trying to bring solutions to the table. Even if those solutions include total domination….