Stuck on villain's motivation and backstory [closed]

Question

My villain is an animal-human chimera who was raised by a human. She will later hate humanity and want it extinct, but I'm unsure what would cause her to want to destroy the entire human race.

She lived with her brothers (also chimeras) and were kept hidden from the world.

What I have so far is that when she was 13 years old, she witnessed something that entirely skewed her worldview of people, but I don't know what exactly it should be.

Any suggestions on what would be so horrible? (and please don't just say "just write what you want to" because I legit don't know what to write) (also maybe not something too extreme) Constructive criticism would also be nice.

Answer 1

It's hard to give advice without context, but I'll do what I can.

When brainstorming like this, I like to ask the very simple question "What, in real life, has had a similar effect on people?" So, what, in real life, would make someone this cynical? Murder of a family member? Destruction of something very close to them? Their house, which they had spent years in, and held sentimental value? Maybe your villain heard stories of the most despicable humans to walk the earth, and simply assumed that they were all like that. Maybe someone with a grudge against their family kills your villain's mother. The possibilities are endless. I'd recommend a combination of many of these to realistically cement cynicism in your character. Here's one for you, but you don't have to follow it. In fact, it's a bit cliche, but it gives you the idea.

Your villain's mother escaped a war. She saw some horrifying things, and has developed a cynical personality herself, so she finds an isolated forest where no people would find them. She raises her children, builds a house with them, and warns them about the dangers of humans for years. She tells them stories of Hitler, Stalin, and such, to cement the idea that they should avoid humans. They grow up afraid, for their own safety. Then, a sadistic hunter inexplicably burns their house, and kills their mother, as our antagonist watches, safely hidden in a tree.

This is just one way that you can utilize this idea of tying to real-life catalysts. Do what you want, there are no rules to writing, but the simple question "What causes this in real life" can help avoid jarring, contradictory traits.

Answer 2

I have an idea maybe you like it or not. You can show various reasons for which your character started hating humankind, you can show one angle of humans being so greedy, irrelevant, lustful and envious (etc) of each other that no matter what happens they just want to fulfill their ambition, their ideas without having a second guess of what it's consequence might be. They just want to show their superiority complex showing dominance over everyone and just want to stand alone on the peak over everyone else. By this they're doing some meagre and pathetic things to other innocent or helpless people or animals like cutting trees or cleaning the forest so that they can have enough land to establish their empire, they're killing each other for profit or maybe just for fun, they're robbing each other for their money or for their goods and humans are making this very mother earth a living hell, and various other reasons that you can showcase. Maybe you can take help of the real world too for your ideas, take a look of what's happening around you, sense little things, perceive it, experience it like what is it?, why is it happening?, and you can also watch some news, see what's happening, frame it on your mind, make a story angle.

Also, I have a suggestion for your character if you like it, then I'm happy. How about you show character as a very highly sensitive person, because as you said she is a female, and she was 13 years old when she witnessed something, so make it like the moment she was born she was very highly sensitive of herself and people and environment around her and it is a scientific study that suggest that highly sensitive person tend to experience and sense the world around them more vividly and in more exponential manner then any other people. So, what will happen is that the story will sound more logical that she was 13, she was highly sensitive and she perceived the world more quickly then other people so she started taking actions.

Also, one more thing, how about if you make character like, at first she took this huge and abrupt steps to change the world once and for all but as she started progressing she came to the terms that not everything goes according to our plans and sometimes if we try to change it we end up making it more worse and this will be turning point of your story because your character went through a deep introspective extension where she started confessing about what's good and what's bad and this will make your story more appealing and beautiful to the readers because then every dots are connected, you have your whats now, you have your whys, you have your hows and you have your result also which for me are the main foundations of writing and storytelling.

So, that's it for me, see you along the journey

Till then good luck with your story.