: Re: How to prevent seeming like a Marty Stu-ish villain is cheating? In a story I'm writing, there's a villain who is a genius strategist that can get anything he wants, whatever it is, by developing

@Jessie137

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Thrawn was this (minus the physical fighting abilities) in Timothy Zahn's Heir to the Empire Star Wars trilogy. His gimmick was he could read species' and individuals' intentions and thought patterns through their art. We see this in various scenes.

He dies when his loyal bodyguard betrays him.

I think you need to show your mastermind character plotting/deducing/gathering intelligence whether he does it in the Holmes fashion with small details or with psychological analysis or with spies/traitors or just having that many contingency plans. Explanations to advisers/minions could be helpful.

If you can't show his actions, maybe you could have your main characters get into a situation where they realize they can't do their own back up plan(s) because of a small detail earlier in the story that is definitely caused by your evil mastermind but that they didn't pay that much attention to or didn't make much sense at the time? Troops where they shouldn't be, a rescheduled event, something locked out for maintenance?

Whether or not I believe the author is 'cheating' often comes down to how much I believe in the intelligent character's logic and probably is a matter of individual taste for each reader. Reading Sherlock Holmes (as NomadMaker mentioned) and criminal profiling information might help with the details though.

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