What makes a good 'heel'?

I am of the impression that there is a shortage of good 'heels' in the AFW.

I find it quite hard too to play 'heels'. So I would like to hear people's opinion about what makes a good 'heel' storywise.

so...

What makes a character a good 'heel'?

RP'ing a good heel I think you need to be able to sympathize with them on some level that makes sense, but that you know is wrong. Most importantly, they should possess pronounced undesirable character traits... they shouldn't feel likable when you're writing them. There are people that you figure are good people or cool people, people you'd like to hang out with. Those are not heels. Heels are the people you can't stand, the people you want to see get their asses kicked, maybe you're afraid of them but you want to see someone come around who can deal with them and put them in their place.

The different between a good guy and a bad guy is their heart. What makes a really good heel, though, is how well executed their combination of despicable and spectacular is. I think a lot of people in the fantasy realm tend to root for the bad guy. That doesn't make him a face, though. Maybe you're all about THE SITH, but they are bad guys. That makes you a bad guy. That means us good guys will come beat you up and put you in jail. That's how it works.

making a good heel is the same as making a good face. It's all about evoking emotions. You have to get the people who are watching to hate that heel. To want to root against them no matter who they are facing. To want to just kick their face in and go jump the barricade and tackle them and tell them they suck.

It's attitude, it's emotional, it's everything. you have to bring that emotion out of people.

Do you want to know "What makes a good heel?" or "What makes a good villain?".. Why "villain" rather then heel? Because a heel could refer to a wrestler who simply has a bad personality or bad morals (cheating in matches in order to gain a win), eg your Poison character.

There is quite a few heels in AFW so far as I know... however, there's not so many villains.

A villain (in my opinion) is usually more then the common heel: They tend to have an agenda, goal or some kind of purpose which involves other characters around them in a negative way. The eventual ends can be either good (or at least good in the eyes of the villain) or bad, but the means by which they try to reach the ends is always bad... The villain will always believe: "the ends justify the means"

In AFW, a villain could for example:
-interfere in several championship matches because they want a title shot
-create an group of wrestlers bent on changing AFW (by force) into something they imagine to be better
-single out a specific character (or groups of characters) and repeatedly attack and/or harass them for their own reasons
-or attack other wrestlers after matches have finished and/or try to cause injuries to their opponents, just cause they find it fun


If you want to make a good heel, then what Tatyina and Bluemouse said is important... If you want to make a good villain, what they said is also important, but it also becomes important that the character has a clear and understandable motive/goal while she is effecting other characters

I like the "fallen from grace hero" villain/heel type.

Hulk "Immortal" Hogan was nothing but a hero, waltzing over everyone and beating every obstacle before him until he left the WWF, including such guys as Sid Justice, Earthquake, Savage and a host of other legends(notable exception is the Warrior here). Kids loved him, and even adults followed his principles.

And then, bang! Hulk "Hollywood" Hogan appeared in WCW, and Hogan managed to make himself as hateable as he was loved before, even when he was a chicken heel (who I really hate as they instantly forget how to wrestle -.-). NwO was simply great(speaking of agenda) and could have probably killed the WWF if it wouldn't have been overbooked that much.

But to fall from grace, you need to have some grace from the start and have to build up the nice facade, and most impotantly, an opponent that can challenge and beat you with a chance of success. If NwO had beat on guys like Bagwell and Wright instead of Goldberg and Sting, the angle would have been dead in months as no one who has a clear mind would have believed that Buff Bagwell could have any chance against Scott Hall, and predictability is the most boring thing in wrestling(Super Cena says hello).

Feel I should way in, first off I don't have any good villains, I have well heels, cause in my opinion a heel is not necessarily a villain, all Villains are heels but not All Heels are Villains is what I am saying I guess, I have few Villains and I have few real heroes I guess, I am more prone to like the Anti Hero thing.

But as for Good Heels, I would say that they don't have to be evil, they have to be selfish and they shouldn't care much about others, they should kinda be out for them selves to 100% and kinda only want to have things go their ways, a Villain on the other hand, he can be evil as all hell, and well let's just look at history, there are hundreds of great villain's in both fiction and history.

Most of What Boss man said is true! and I would say that he got a great Idea on how to make a Villain and as for that, (Thanks K!) Good Villain is a pretty hard thing to make, I would say, make them despicable! make them easy to hate and you should want them to like be defeated or die or something, Gonna bring out something from my favorite book series, Joffery Baratheon Lannister from Song of ice and fire,( Game of thrones) he is an excellent Villain cause you want him to die, you want him to get whats coming for him, but he he isn't scary and threatening really, but the people he has around him that follow his words are, which makes him sort of scary.

A badguy needs to be hated and despised, and it should be easy to do so, as Tatty said! needs emotion, emotion is key for everything I would say, for good guys and for bad guys, Villains are difficult, and I think we have few that are good, Heels we have quite a good number of ones that range from decent to excellent ( consider mine decent " title="Razz" /> )

Hope that helps, I didn't describe much of the character cause I think that if you want to know you should read the books, cause A villain is easier to build up in a story rather than to just have one from the begging, the actions of said character should make him a villain, cause that has the most impact, just my opinion. though

Just about everything these guys have said is true.

-Heels need to be hated by audience/non heels.

-Heels need to be evil and use evil tactics

-I disagree with LunarWolf though, a "Good Heel" like he described is known as a "Tweener" or Chaotic Neutral you could say, not an actual heel.

-Heels need to show fear of/or weakness to a Face now and then. This is a big issue for me, as a lifelong wrestling fan, I was angered at how Triple H, while a heel, would always laugh at Faces and belittle them, never showing fear or worry about anything. The "Cool Heel" that He and others were may have made for great Faces when they turned, but they stopped being true Heels. It was fine for squash matches, but it looked horrible when someone like Booker T or Goldberg would challenge Triple H to a match or PPV Title shot, and the entire buildup is Triple H looking down on them like their nothing, which made the audience believe they were nothing. Same goes in AFW. Ive seen heels here that refuse to back down or run away or even acknowledge that a Face is on their level, and while it may make them look cool, it hurts the match because nobody actually believes the Face has a chance at winning. So if you make a heel, and she ends up with an enemy, have her run away, or show fear, or at least be forced into cheating to win. Otherwise its just another "cool heel" who is a heel in name only.

-Also, I dunno if this was brought up yet, but whatever it is your heel is doing, be it sneak attacking someone, forming a faction, upsetting the status que, doing something in a match, or just torturing Tai for the fun of it, They need to Fully, 100 percent, believe that what they are doing is right. Again, Ive seen several times in matches or threads where we got "After Supergirl won her match, Batgirl came out of nowhere and piledrove Supergirl, or raped Supergirl, or whatever....but felt bad about it afterwords." Or. "The heel put the face in a submission hold, but felt bad about hurting her as the girl cried in pain." Bullshit. If the heel cared enough to feel regret for her/his actions, then they arent real heels. A real Heel wouldnt care about the sneak attack, painful submission hold, or forced orgasim because a real Heel believes that whatever they are doing is the right thing. No matter how farfetched their reasoning has to be, they have to believe they are in the right and everyone else who boos them is wrong.


-In closing, study Chris Jericho's 2008-2010 Heel Turn. THAT ladies and gentlemen, is how a heel is supposed to act.

Good work, Tai!

Understanding the role of a face is key to understanding a heel. The face is the underdog, the heel is scary. The face is likable, people can relate to her, the heel is the kind of person you don't like or have negative feelings for, like obnoxious rich heels that people are jealous of, but hate because he's so much of a dick.

The heel and the face work together to make people root for the face. They have to really want the face to win, but be afraid that she won't. The heel has to look like he's going to brutalize the face, and the face has to look like he's in serious trouble. If anything's missing, then the face's eventual heroic, triumphant victory will be cheapened.

The "Heel" is sort of a role in the design of pro wrestling, but isn't a character archtype so much... As in your character should be a complete person who adds up to a heel in the ring, and/or out of it. Tai's point was great though about the apologetic heel. People often try to play both sides, and have the instant gratification of having their character do bad, nasty things, but to apologize for it because he's such a good guy, he just does bad things sometimes. That's a slippery slope. The character needs a heart that is revealed bit by bit by her actions, and the actions can't just be whatever the player thinks would be most fun to write at that moment.

Anyway. It's interesting food for thought.

I personally think the "heel" persona should be more of a stage thing than a perpetual personality. A lot of the heels in AFW take their personas out of the ring, and honestly I don't believe that's true in reality. Heels should be scary and willing to do anything in the ring, but they shouldn't be doing that outside at all, because that dilutes their "heelishness" to just plain old douchbaggery.

Thank you everybody, this has been illuminating. I will use this to try to make my heels.

^_^

So to make a list, a heel:

- has to be disliked by the crowd, at least most of it. The fans must want to see someone come in and shut her mouth.
- She must be feared or at least be considered a valid threat
- She must be remorseless, showing no regret for her actions no matter how low they are
- She must not ignore her opponents, treat them as valid threats to her plans