The Psychology of Villains: Craig Robertson, Alex North, Prof Graham Pike & Prof Zoe Walkington at Bloody Scotland 2025

The Open University in Scotland is delighted to present The Psychology of Villains: Craig Robertson, Alex North, Prof Graham Pike & Prof Zoe Walkington at Bloody Scotland 2025.

We all love a good bad guy, right? The Open University has constructed a course on villains in crime fiction and this panel discusses how they are created, explores phycological theory as to why they're so appealing, and how they shape our real-world thinking.

Craig Robertson has taken a deep dive into the minds of several memorable villains in his novels, notably in Random, Murderabilia, and Watch Him Die. Alex North’s The Whisper Man has been made into a Netflix movie starring Robert De Niro and Michael Keaton. His new villain is the terrifying The Man Made of Smoke.

Tickets are £12 (£11 concession), available from the Bloody Scotland website.

You can find the course, Introducing the psychology of our relationships with fictional villains, and a wide range of free online resources available via OpenLearn.