Part of making your antagonist a richer character is giving him or her a rich backstory. In this post, we’ll take a look at how the Daredevil and Agents of Shield writers showed their characters’ backstories.

Spoilers ahead! If you haven’t watched these two series, be aware there are spoilers below.

In Agents of Shield, there are two villains: Grant and Garrett, who is Grant’s mentor. Grant begins as one of the good guys and we’re all stunned when he turns out to be a double agent. Grant ends up being kind of a schizophrenic character and therefore hard to get attached to. Sometimes he seems pure evil, sometimes we see hints that he might still care for Skye and may not be such a bad guy. Unfortunately, none of it is done well and I find it difficult to get connect with the character after he turns traitor.

As explanation for Grant’s sickness, we’re given this scene where he confronts his grown brother.

I don’t find the scene very effective for a few reasons:

• It tells instead of shows. (There is a scene in another episode that does a better job by showing Grant and his brother in childhood.)
• Grant doesn’t seem particularly moved by his brother’s confession. The emotion is flat.
• We get no inkling of any complexity in his brother or mother: they are just nasty old child abusers.

Showing a richer backstory

Contrast that to the backstory for Wilson Fisk, the antagonist in Daredevil. His backstory is mostly revealed in the episode Shadows in the Glass. We’re introduced to Wilson as a kid, overweight and bullied outside his home and inside it. His mother is caring and loving. His father, not so much. Take a look.

This is just the first in a series of clips showing the backstory. But notice the following:

• It’s show, not tell.
• We see that Dad has a goal (winning the election) and is taking action, though his motivation is self-centered.
• Dad may not be a nice guy, but he’s trying to teach his son and help him be a man–even if it’s not the best way.
• There’s tension between the mother and father.
• Wilson seems intimidated by his father.
• And, if you’ve seen the series, you’ll note that Wilson’s goals (“Change the city and make it a better place”) appear to have been born here. So, there’s a rich tie-in to Wilson’s own motives.

In the next clip, the boy Wilson has been beaten up. His father takes him out to find the kid who hurt him.

Notice again that it’s show, not tell. And that the father is again trying to teach his son. He may be teaching him the wrong lessons, but he’s trying. There’s abuse going on here, but it’s a complex relationship rather than a simple, black and white one.

And lastly, we see the turning event for Wilson, after he and his father come back from beating up the boy.

Things to pay attention to: both here and in the previous clips, you can see that Mom is not the typical, beaten-down abused spouse. She argues and disagrees with her husband.

Also, if you read my last post about how Wilson is introduced as a sympathetic villain, you’ll notice that the wall the boy is looking at is very similar to the painting he purchased from his love interest upon first meeting her. We see why he might be drawn to the painting, and also must wonder how much of his attraction to her is wrapped up in the emotions the painting may have released. The scenes together work on multiple levels.

This particular trope, a villain being born by standing up to an abusive parent, isn’t particularly original. In Agents of Shield, Grant is also shaped into an evil man because of childhood abuse. But in Agents of Shield, it feels like a worn out trope.

Daredevil gives this familiar backstory a rich and complex treatment. And that makes all the difference. In Daredevil, the antagonist’s backstory is deep. It arouses sympathy. Even the antagonist’s antagonists (Wilson’s dad) is not one-sided. We understand the wife-beater and maybe even care about him a bit. All of the players are multi-layered people, which just makes Wilson an even more complex, sympathetic, and interesting villain.

(Image courtesy of Generation Bass.  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License.)