Hero or Villain?
How well do you know your FR Authors? Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, you can expect an update to the author roundtable, featuring many of our best Forgotten Realms authors’ answers to the world’s most important questions, right here on this blog. Submissions for new questions welcome through private message.
Elaine Cunningham(co-author of The City of Splendors): A hero who knows that heroics and villainy are often a matter of perspective and degree.
Ed Greenwood (author of The Sword Never Sleeps): You mean, which do I prefer to be? The hero. Villains get the spoils and the good lines and to sleep with racy-looking companions, but they also tend to end up sleeping with the fishes . . . and in the meantime, I have to sleep with myself.
Erin Evans (author of The God Catcher): That always depends on the story. I like characters who know what they want/need and take active steps to get that, and all too often that’s the villains, while the heroes are reacting and trying to clean things up. But I like the characters better if they’re considerate, too.
Mark Sehestedt (author of The Fall of Highwatch): Me or you?
Richard Lee Byers (author of Unholy): This is a tough one, but I’ll go with villain. Because they’re always fun to write, and most of the time, they drive the story.
Philip Athans (author of A Reader’s Guide to R.A. Salvatore’s Legend of Drizzt): Like a well-conceived villain, I’m a villain who thinks he’s a hero. No one wakes up in the morning with the intent to be villainous. I don’t, but by the time I go to bed at night I’ve offended, hurt, torpedoed, chastised, or belittled most of the people I’ve met that day, all for personal gain. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Erik Scott de Bie (author of Downshadow): Both. 
Jaleigh Johnson (author of Mistshore): (Mischievous) Hero
Richard Baker (author of Avenger): Hero. I guess I’m secretly insecure and want to be liked and admired.
Jenna Helland (author of The Fanged Crown): A villain. I discovered my black heart at a young age and decided to fight my true nature. My resolve to play by the rules is entirely voluntary. And not entirely successful.
Rosemary Jones (author of City of the Dead): I’d like to be the hero of my own life: solve my problems and not rely on other people to solve them for me. But I’d love to be a cool dresser like many villains: have you noticed that they always get the best accessories?
Bruce R. Cordell (author of City of Torment): I’ll be a hero if I come up with a vaccine that stops the Zeta-prion in its tracks... But I have a sneaking hunch my vaccine is what is going to touch off the zombie apocalypse, which means . . . Villain. Damn it!
Jak Koke (author of The Edge of Chaos): Both in the same character. Shades of gray are what make interesting and ‘realistic’ heroes and villains.
James P. Davis (author of Circle of Skulls): Depends on the day I’m having, I suppose…In writing and reading however, I prefer villains and I like it even more when the hero and villain roles blur. Bad people can do good things for the wrong reasons and good people can do bad things for the right reasons. Getting into the heads of such characters is quite fun. You hate them one minute and love them the next. I particularly like the dark, borderline villainous, hero as opposed to the Lawful Good types. Villain and hero all in one package, so I can have my bloody, violent, brooding cake and hack it to bits too.
Lisa Smedman (author of Ascendancy of the Last): Hero. I’ve rescued many, many animals, as has my spouse. Our vetinary bills are atrocious, but it’s worth it.
Christopher Rowe (author of a story in Realms of the Dead): Is it not Hero? Who can blot that name/With any just reproach?
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