Blog: How To Write a Romantic Villian: Mr. Willoughby vs. Mr. Wickham (Spoilers)

I first became aware of Jane Austen’s novel Sense and Sensibility when I watched the movie adaptation start Kate Winslet and only recently started reading the book (review coming soon). While I’ve been reading the book, one of the things that most stood out to me (and has ever since I read Pride and Prejudice) was how well Jane Austen could write a romantic villain that stood in contrast to the romantic hero. In Pride and Prejudice, the romantic villain was Mr. Wickham, who seduces and marries Lydia Bennet after trying to get Elizabeth to fall in love with him, but Mr. Willoughby in Sense and Sensibility is a similar character in that he acts upon much the same motives as Wickham does but is in some ways the worse villain due to his treatment of Marianne, one of the main characters. So let’s take a look at them and show how Mr. Willoughby is the worst villain.

First of all, Willoughby is charming as heck and perfectly matches Marianne in all of his interests. He comes in like a prince in a fairy tale, visits the house after Marianne twists her ankle to see how she’s doing, talks to her constantly about everything she loves, and shares the same passion that so marks her character. It absolutely seems like he loves her at first or is strongly infatuated with her. Either way, the two are incredibly shippable, which adds to the disappointment when Willoughby’s true intentions are revealed, which leads to the second reason why he’s a great antagonist.

Nearing the end of Volume 1, Willoughby disappears randomly, which hurts Marianne since she fully expected him to propose to her. She pines after him constantly and when she goes to London with Elinor (her sister), Mrs. Jennings, and some of the other characters and finally meets Willoughby again in Volume 2, he’s totally cold and distant from her and later returns all of her letters and the lock of hair that she gave him earlier in the story. This leaves the reader wondering what happened, which is soon answered by Colonel Brandon when it’s revealed that Willoughby had a child out of wedlock and is trying to distance himself as much as possible from it and marry into a rich family so he can get rid of the massive amounts of debt that he’s in. This not only serves to temporarily end Marianne’s romantic storyline so that the focus can once again be shifted to Elinor’s love life, but it also helps to show what a bullet Marianne dodged when Willoughby dumped her.

In Colonel Brandon’s monologue about Willoughby’s true character, it’s revealed that he has a reputation for being deeply in debt and trying to seduce young women, primarily Colonel Brandon’s daughter. It’s presumed that though Willoughby seemed to love Marianne at first, he probably would’ve proved an unfaithful husband. Furthermore, Willoughby’s leaving almost primarily to avoid a confrontation with Colonel Brandon when it’s become clear that he’s found out about his daughter’s pregnancy and then marrying a woman with a massive fortune while ghosting Marianne are two glaring red flags that Marianne tries to look over at first, but finally accepts.

Mr. Wickham from Pride and Prejudice is similar to Willoughby in that both characters are deeply in debt, are looking for women who have some sort of fortune or are dumb enough to follow them, are charming to the heroine, have a track record of seducing or attempting to seduce an important background or tertiary character, and have dramatic character reveals that shock the reader almost as much as they shock the protagonists. They are even involved in some sort of duel by the father in order to restore the honor of the woman whom they have tried to elope with, making their characters almost indistinguishable from each other.

However, the two key differences between Wickham and Willoughby are that 1). Willoughby plays an arguably larger role in the overall plot and 2). Willoughby inflicts more damage upon one of the heroines and everyone around him. Marianne’s entire character arc revolves around falling in love with Willoughby, pining after him when he leaves, getting jipped by him, then having to go through the grieving process in order to heal from his hurts and become a better person. In Pride and Prejudice, however, Mr. Wickham doesn’t inflict much hurt on Elizabeth when he goes since she already knows that a marriage to him wouldn’t be advantageous to her and from there only serves to make Darcy become a better person by introducing some additional conflict into the story. Willoughby also hurts more people in more severe ways than Wickham ever did by getting a woman pregnant and leaving her, thus shaming her for life while the only person Wickham ended up hurting in the long run was Georgiana (Darcy’s sister), who he attempted to elope with, but failed. On top of that, Willoughby was much more charming and shippable with the main character than Wickham, who seemed like a bit of a sleazebag from the start, which makes the big plot twist that he was actually the bad guy the entire time so much better.

And that’s why Mr. Willoughby is a better villain than Mr. Wickham.

Until next time,

M.J.