Why Chris Colfer’s Evil Queen is My Favorite Villain

If you asked a writer about their favorite villain, you’d probably get a very long explanation, possibly highlighting their favorite traits and bits of backstory, with lots of evil quotes thrown in. And for good reason. Stores need villains –who else would challenge your protagonist? Threaten their loved ones? Make the story interesting? 

But as essential as they are, villains are also often criminally underdeveloped. A villain loses their nefarious power when their backstory and motivation is ignored. One of the most common motivations for an antagonist is greed –they want something. Usually it’s cosmic power over everyone and everything. But after you read dozens of books where all the villain wants is power, it gets monotonous. And honestly, there are so many better paths you could go down for the dark side of your story. Greed is overused. 

Back to asking authors about their favorite villains. Today we’re looking at two of mine.  First is the Evil Queen from Chris Colfer’s Land of Stories. I’m going to hazard a guess that most of us know about the Evil Queen and her magic mirror and loathing for the beautiful Snow White. Her motivation is jealousy, which in itself is good. But what if it went farther than vanity? (Warning: Spoilers ahead. Proceed with caution )

In the first book, The Wishing Spell, the Queen is competing with the twin protagonists to collect the ingredients for a spell that will grant a wish –any wish. There could be any number of reasons the Queen wants the spell. As the story goes on, we see that Colfer took his opportunity in both hands and delivered an absolutely breathtaking villain.

The Evil Queen was once a young girl named Evly. She was happily in love with a poet called Mira, and they were going to get married. But another villain (who has her own glorious motivation and backstory) interferes and captures Evly. Seeing the girl is useless and miserable without Mira, her captor traps Evly’s love in a magic mirror. With every passing day, Mira faded. He forgot who he was and spoke in rhymes. And as if that wasn’t enough, the older Evly got, the less he recognized her. She called in every beautician and anti-aging remedy she could find, but none of it worked. 

Just wait. It gets even better. Snow White, young and beautiful and looking remarkably like a younger Evly, stumbles upon the Queen’s mirror. Mira sees her and believes that she is the woman he loves. When the real Evly comes in later, he refuses to believe she is who she says she is. Every day from that moment on, Evly hears the man she loves more than anything else tell her that he no longer knows who she is. That he loves her step-daughter.

The Evil Queen is evil not simply because she is jealous of Snow White, but because she has someone to save. Her magic mirror is not just a talking chunk of glass. It’s a prison. 

Is that an epic backstory or what!? It’s an amazing example of a villain simply being a victim –something Colfer loves to write. g example of a villain simply being a victim –something Colfer loves to write. g example of a villain simply being a victim –something Colfer loves to write. 

My next favorite evil-doer is President Snow from The Hunger Games. Not the old, blood-spitting Snow. I’m talking about The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, teenage, barely hanging together Coriolanus Snow. Can I just take a moment of appreciation for that book, because it was incredible. The way the plot tied up the first book so perfectly and the characters —anyway. Why is Snow such a good villain? 

We first meet Snow in The Hunger Games. He’s more of a background threat and we don’t really see him much until the end. But especially as we head into book two, Snow’s influence becomes much more prominent. And it’s not as simple as him being out for Katniss or wanting her dead or any of that. No. He wants her to maintain order. He’s an example of a villain who is willing to do whatever needs to be done to maintain the status quo. 

But when you get into the prequel, things get a thousand times better. We open on Snow as a teenager right after the war, before the Hunger Games is the massive event it is in Katniss’s time. As a matter of fact, he’s part of a group of students meant to make the games more entertaining. To coach the tributes. But Snow has the misfortune to be given the girl from district twelve. The worst of them all. And he has the audacity to fall in love with her. 

His arc is truly incredible, because from the very beginning he carries himself with such pride. So much ambition. And that leads him to do terrible things. His first murder sticks with him forever. His kill list begins to grow and his future is torn away from him. But he has a chance to gain it back. To choose between his love or his ambition. 

Snow believes that inside of all people is a viciousness that makes the Hunger Games possible. That they need the Hunger Games to remind them what they are. He’s not crazed or greedy or angry. He’s completely and utterly convinced of the necessity of the games. It’s not a wildly passionate belief either. It’s collected. Cooler than ice. He will sacrifice anything to land on top. 

These are just two of the many spectacular antagonists in literature. There are so many amazing villains out there –but they are only good because their authors put in the work to make them that way. A protagonist is important, but the antagonist is equally essential. Trauma, anger, revenge, confusion —there are a plethora of routes you could take for your diabolical destroyer, but make sure that you give them the attention they deserve.