A Tribute To Our Villains

 

Dear reader,

    When I say the word villain, who comes to your mind? Brutus? Iago? Moriarty? Queen of Hearts? Voldemort? Blofeld? Thanos? Joker? The list is quite endless. As much as we despise their very existence, there is always a little evil fairy within us that makes us celebrate their will and dedication. In this episode I aim to revere our beloved villains.

    Not so recently I watched the Tamil film Jailer, I was not having too much expectations but it was just depressing to get through the whole film. The hero, Rajini, seemed more of a bully who constantly outwits the desperate petulant villain, who had zero control over the plot. This gave me a question; what makes a true villain? With my experiences with literature and films, let’s go through them.

   There is a spectrum of villains who play their own roles within the plot. Take for example ‘Severus Snape’ from the Harry Potter series. When we are introduced to him for the first time, we would recognize him as a dark looming presence whose only wish is to antagonize ‘Harry’ and watch him suffer. Several books later, after well sorted out revelations and twists, we end up crying for his death. Some villains have the sole purpose of moving the plot forward, putting in an obstacle here and an obstacle there for the hero to overcome, say for instance any Indiana Jones or The Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Or in best cases we have the antagonist who create an actual challenge for our hero who is forced to evolve and rise up to the situation even if he was not prepared for it, like Wendy from Stephen King’s The Shining.

    As much as we do wish nobleness and glory with our heroes, we do expect the same for our villains too, even if it comes to evil. Darth Vader from Star Wars and Lord Voldemort from Harry Potter were no slackers. They commanded authority and enforced it in such a way that even the reader would get nightmares by the end of their experience. We love our villains for their freedom from any moral obligation, a privilege our heroes do not possess. Villains can be as shrewd, corrupt and extravagant as possible since, well that is what they are meant to be. Although we live in a world of the misunderstood villain and the flawed hero, it is necessary to understand both of their importance in the narrative.

        Villains need not even have a physical body itself too. Take the film Jaws (1975), the shark, who is the reason for the whole plot can be barely seen for five minutes throughout the film. The Predator, from Predator (1987) only shows its face for 5 seconds before promptly blowing itself up. Same goes for our Gothic novels; Dr. Hyde, Bertha Mason, The Hound from Sherlock Holmes all become great antagonists merely by their overwhelming invincible presence that evoke fear and dread.

     What makes a ‘bad villain’? By bad here I mean not evil, since evil is the quintessential part of the villain. An unsuccessful villain is a boring villain; one who we would laugh at and one who would be looked upon with disgust rather than fear. For instance, we have Steppenwolf in the film Justice League. He goes on with a world dominating plan successfully overthrowing all of the heroes, until Superman sweeps in and kills him in under a minute at the end with no prior preparation. Or we have the modern ‘Darth Vader’ aka ‘Kylo Ren’ who poses no threat at all compared to the actual Darth Vader. He has no composure or command authority of a true leader. What I am saying here is, although the hero has to ruin the plans of the villain, it should not undermine the villain or use him as the butt end of every joke, since it only reduces his gravitas as the anti-hero.

      At the end of the day our villains represent the binary sides of our hero. Without our villains, the hero cannot stand by himself. It is basically the duality of nature itself. No good exists without evil. No problems are created for our hero to overcome if villains ceased to exist. Be it man or beast, we will forever love them.

Who is your favorite villain dear reader?

Let me know in the comments…

Until next time! 

Lan