The Case for Villains.

I have always been drawn to a good villain.

Not the flat, mustache-twirling caricature, but the kind who pulls you in with charm, intrique, and humor. The kind of villain you fall for before you even realize you're in trouble. I want to know what shaped them, what they’ve lost, what they want — and why.

Good villains carry a distinctive, magnetic presence — and many of them are, frankly, unfairly beautiful. I am drawn to the complexity of villains, how someone can balance effortless charm with savage ruthlessness. Dracula embodies that tension: beauty and monstrosity, romance and horror — and that's why I gravitated to him for my debut novel. He is the ultimate villain, the perfect case study to pull apart, layer after layer, to discover what's hidden beneath.

My fascination with Dracula began with a lifelong attraction to horror — to monsters, to vampires, to the beauty inside the grotesque. Dark stories have always felt more honest to me than ordinary life. The atmosphere. The architecture. A fog-drenched forest. A ruined castle. A swamp heavy with murky waters and gnarled roots covered in moss. These places feel alive to me, they become characters in their own right.

What draws me in, every time, are characters who are layered, contradictory, and unmistakably human — even when they are anything but human. I’m drawn to sympathetic villains because most villains don’t see themselves as villains. Their motives make sense to them. Their choices follow a logic — sometimes a ruthless one — but a logic nonetheless. When you take the time to understand these characters, your perspectives shift, sometimes dramatically.

The devils we dare to love

Lalo Salamanca (Better Call Saul)
That smile. That goddamned smile. You do not want to cross paths with this charming villain (or maybe you do, we don't judge), but if you're gonna die, there are worse ways to go.
Ben Linus (Lost)
If you’ve seen the show, you understand. He’s easy to hate at first, but something changes by the end and you feel for him. I won’t say more to avoid spoilers.
The Phantom of the Opera
This one is possibly the most obvious. Phantom’s life was a tragedy and he became what the world made him—but in spite of that, he loved ardently. How many of us wanted Christine to choose him over Raoul, despite everything that had happened?
Dr. Frankenstein
Not to be confused with his creation, who is also labeled a monster for no reason other than what he is. Dr. Frankenstein himself is the villain, but his motives are understandable, if misguided.
The Sanderson Sisters
They’re awful but they’re also popular for a reason.
Sarah Fier (Fear Street)
I won’t say much to avoid spoilers, but I’ll say this: Sarah’s story is about burning witches, which is already a known blemish in our history.
Sweeney Todd
He’s a serial killer, but you can’t help but root for him.
Severus Snape
Love to hate him, hate to love him. Despite his actions, heroic or villainous, he was at his core a bully. Severus Snape is the embodiment of “hurt people hurt people,” but he was also capable of profound love and great acts of valor.
Hannibal Lecter
He’s cruel, manipulative, and more than a little terrifying—but he’s also elegant, intelligent, and capable of a kind of twisted devotion that makes him hard to look away from.
Negan (The Walking Dead)
Negan is awful in ways that are impossible to defend, and yet he’s so damn entertaining you can’t help but enjoy him anyway. He’s funny, magnetic, and knows exactly what he’s doing. What starts as pure outrage slowly turns into something more complicated, and against your better judgment, you find yourself liking him.
Raoul Silva (Skyfall)
Pure theatrical menace, and that is a large part of the appeal. He is intelligent, flamboyant, vindictive, and clearly having a marvelous time making himself unforgettable. But beneath all that performance is real damage, real betrayal, and just enough woundedness to make him more than a spectacle.
Killmonger (Black Panther)
He’s angry, ruthless, and completely serious about it—but it all comes from something real. You may not agree with him, but you get how he got there, and that makes him hit a lot harder than most villains.
Magneto
Magneto’s story is so tied to his pain that it’s hard not to understand him, even when he goes too far. He can be brutal, but his worldview didn’t come out of nowhere. At the end of the day, he’s someone who’s seen the worst of humanity—and refuses to believe it’ll ever be better.
Lestat de Lioncourt
Depending on whose story you’re hearing, Lestat is very often cast as the villain—and to be fair, he can be vain, selfish, reckless, and cruel. But that version of him is rarely the whole truth. Lestat is not a good man, exactly, but neither is he the monster others sometimes make him out to be; he is passionate, extravagant, deeply feeling, and far more human than his worst moments suggest.
Joker
Chaos with a grin, and there is something perversely delightful about a villain who seems to enjoy himself that much. He’s unpredictable, theatrical, and completely unhinged in the best way. You should never root for him, but somehow he’s always the most fun person on screen.
Dracula
Dracula is the blueprint for a reason. He’s charming, elegant, and just dangerous enough to make you question your life choices. He doesn’t chase—he invites, and somehow that’s worse. You know exactly what he is, and yet… you get why people don’t run.

Of all the bad boys, Dracula was my first. He set me on this path. He was the beginning.

He’s sharp. Wry. Unapologetic. Handsome and disarming. Capable of menace — unquestionably dangerous — yet his greatest crime is survival. If vampires existed and you were turned into one, you’d be labeled a monster instantly. Of course you would. People don’t tend to sympathize with something that wants to eat them.

But aside from the fangs and the hunger, what if you hadn’t changed? Would it be fair to be condemned for what you are? For surviving the only way you can?

Dracula is almost always viewed through the eyes of his victims. I’ve always wanted to see him from the inside.

Part of his staying power lies in ubiquity. The Universal Monsters. Film after film. Even Sesame Street. When you grow up with a character like The Count, he stops feeling like a creature and more like someone whose story has never been told properly. So that's what I did.