A look at Disney heroes

In order to create a successful villain, I must look at all aspects of what makes a villain, including his adversary, is counterpart -- that is, the hero.

Who is the hero to the villain? What does he look like? Does he make the villain look scary in comparison to himself? These are the questions I want to address here. Each of the villains that I have touched upon so far all find an obstruction, or a hindrance, in the hero. The hero is someone they need to overcome through whatever means. Whether by scaring them, killing them, exiling them, however.

Mulan has a boyish look to her, which is something that many heroes possess. The thing to note here is that this effect has been achieved on a character that is originally a girl. So it's a female, posing against a male, who is up against Shan Yu. It doesn't look like the odds would tip in Mulan's favour. The audience would be enthralled with how someone like Mulan would defeat such a mountain of a man.

The character designers at Disney studios can be as creative as they want with the lead villains, but while a common trend amongst them is to have them disfigured in some way, one thing is always certain about the heroes: they are all moderately attractive, especially in comparison to the villain.

Mufasa is a lion, and it's difficult to tell what an attractive lion looks like, but he has an all-wise, all-heart face. He's also quite plump, unlike Scar, who is skinnier than he is. He is truly the alpha male.

Aladdin, the Prince from Sleeping Beauty, and Peter Pan are the human parallels of  Mufasa. Handsome, charming, boyish, not rough around the edges. All good opposites and contenders to challenge their respective villain counterparts.

Hercules is known as a demi-god with great strength, and his father Zeus is King of Olympus, so how does someone rival that? It is obvious that Hades will ever out-fight either of them, so he has to be resort to his primal villainous instinct and outsmart them by whatever means necessary. 

Even if a character isn't handsome and boyish, it is acceptable for him to have a plucky streak. Look at Flik from A Bug's Life.

He is the opposite of Hopper in that he is smaller and weaker, so just like Hades and Hercules, Flik will have to use his wits to defeat Hopper. I would like my villain to possess the smarts that Hades has, which may be challenging to achieve even with a context, as it would require some character interaction. It will be challenging to see if I can achieve that simply through visuals.