What Makes a Villain

So, I have a confession to make.

When I originally named A Villain's Hope, I was fresh off a draft of A King's Trust and fully in Beau's headspace, so the story took a very different shape in its outline form than its current draft. The villain was clear cut, our heroes stood in obvious opposition, and things were pretty black and white.

But writing from Elias's perspective does funny things to a person. Beau is all or nothing, but El lives in the shades of grey.

Are the remains of the Watchers the villain? They were an organization built for an important purpose, willing to do anything to achieve it. Elias understands their ideals, holds their purpose up as a critical one. Do the ends justify their terrible means?

Perhaps the enemy mages are the villain, then. Or are they just people doing the best they can with what they've been given, with the nature of their magic, with the circumstances of their birth?

Maybe Beau himself is the villain, since he [REDACTED] the man he [REDACTED]. But can someone be the bad guy, if they do something terrible without knowing?

Maybe Elias is a villain. I mean, he's not going to think so, but he's certainly the villain in someone's story. Maybe I'll write that book someday.

The point is, I rather like the fact that A Villain's Hope has ended up a little messy because all the villains are understandable, even if no one agrees with their methods. It's given me a bit of a break from the real world, where our global-scale villains seem driven entirely by greed. That I don't understand at all.