The Chords of Villainy

The way I write my stories, I want my villains to be more than just a foil for the main character.

My debut novel, Auminous, had an ensemble cast that was mostly the titular Auminous Sect, who desired to turn men into gold by culling the masses of those who are not enlightened in the secret mysteries of tuning.

Konner was an “everyman” protagonist, and not a “chosen one” in a grand sense of the word. Later chapters make his arrival in Silva Isle important to the plot, but he was an ordinary photographer forced into the underworld of clandestine operations.

He had been a believer in the religious ideology of the Hidden Assembly in the past, but became jaded with faith due to seeing criminal activity and the worst in humanity. Having an almost atheist character slowly come to belief was a delicate balance.

But my biggest villains in my fiction repertoire are those of The Orchestrylus Odyssey.

Diminished Seventh is touched on in the first novel as a man who walked the spheres over 4,000 repeats in the distant past, and while the modern world has their sense about him, he was a benevolent dictator in the best of ways.

This character only wants to improve the lives of those who call the spheres of Orchestrylus home. Which makes the main heroine’s goals not too different from his own goals.

She wants to solve the mysteries of the First Legacy, the prophetic poem written so long ago by the pianistic seer, Sonateena Vibratos.

He was a man who walked contemporaneously with her, so while solving that mystery is not his goal, the party’s goals clash with his.

Stanzielle Quintette wants to restore the music of the spheres and to understand the Conductor’s ultimate aims, choosing to side with him in her philosophy of how the world should ultimately be shaped. By the individual freedom that comes with choosing to serve the world selflessly, versus Diminished Seventh’s goals of a world without want, minus the interference of the being who made everything that exists, but also having selfless aims in the end.

I can’t go into further detail on how their opposing goals flesh out over the course of the story, but I will say the characters that seem like villains called the Nine Golden Masks will play a prominent role in the narrative, exploring different avenues of the human psyche and what the meaning of free will is in a world that is governed by the First Legacy poem.

These characters are based on real-world psychology and the fascinating facets framing the soul of a man or woman, and they are highly interested in learning the depths of the inner man or woman.

They are the only characters in this world that have instruments mixed with a real-world weapon, but the rest of the spheres (including the main heroine) do not have such weapons. When Stanzielle sees Strumestia Harpscythe’s instrument, the narrative describes it as something foreign and strange, since Stanzielle doesn’t know what a scythe is.

I seeded these characters as mysterious and knowing more than they let on in some ways. Some of their antiphonal poetic attacks will cross into meta-narrative territory, but I want the readers to come to their own conclusions as the mysteries of the world and story are revealed in further novels.

The last poem of The Symphonist’s ending battle shows what readers can expect in further books where these characters appear.

I want their villainy to be ambiguous, or for the reader to ask if they are truly evil.

The reason Diminished Seventh’s acoustic guitar, Terrest Dothan, is an acoustic instrument played in fingerstyle is for thematic purposes of grace and refinement. You’d think the principal antagonist would have something more threatening, but it is an alucinized acoustic guitar.

It is also not mixed with a real-world weapon.

Stanzielle, in contrast, wields Stellatina, the alucinized violin that Maestraumus used to play in the distant past.

Stellatina is a graceful instrument as well, and these noble instruments will clash many times during the story.

Graceful versus graceful, instead of having the main villain have some sort of orc army that only destroys things.

The Bone Flautists are a race loyal to Diminished Seventh, but even they have a necrotizing grace to them as they have a form of literal Danse Macabre using their flutes.

These beings will have a certain gothic aesthetic to their poetry when they attack in combat, which is not featured in the first book, since the antiphonal metaphor combat system only activates when Stellatina and Lindeque (Stellatina’s sister violin) cross paths as the last half of the book starts.

Speaking of Lindeque, Strophe is another villain that mirrors Stanzielle in some ways. He wields Stellatina’s sister, but he drowns the strings in blood after cutting his arm with the bow.

Whereas Stanzielle listens to the Eterna Cancion to find her strength from the music of the spheres, Strophe believes in his own power.

He introduces the mysterious Exterius, a word that is only heard of in whispers.

I want my villains to be entire people as much as the main heroes, so this story will unfold in ways that make them seem like people you might know in your own life, only with magical instruments.

There are moments throughout the narrative where leitmotif songs will play when certain characters have powerful moments, or recurring poems that will add stanzas as the revelation of the characters grows.

Some of these poems will be attached to villains, mirroring the character development of the heroes.

I believe strong villains are those who are trying to make the world better in some way. Who have similar goals to the protagonist, but go about them in ways that could be monstrous or based on something in their psyche—but sometimes it might just be genuinely opposing philosophies.

That’s all I have about the upcoming books for now, but I want the world to know this story in particular more than anything else I’ve written.

Happy writing!