The Thrill of Villainy

Recently, I’ve found myself being repeatedly intrigued by the villains I encounter in modern media. Naturally, my immediate reaction was that this peculiar new interest of mine is somewhat concerning.  But then I remembered back to AP Literature in high school. At some point in that class, I wrote a paper entitled the Thrill of Villainy, discussing the mesmerizing qualities that make the villains of classic literature so successful. Thinking back to what I wrote, I began to dissect my favorite villains and try to justify my fascination with them. Here's a general summary of what I deduced (all of which seems extremely obvious now that I've typed it out):

1) Villains drive the plot. Let's face it- most of the time, the absence of a villain would mean the absence of a story. Villains complicate things by creating obstacles for others. Life is never simple. There is good and bad, and while those two categories waver depending on your personal ethics, conflict between different types of people is inevitable.

2) Villains add pizazz. Be it a foreign accent, an eccentric lifestyle or a snazzy mustache- the villain is often very charismatic and exciting in one way or another.

3) Villains are Mysterious. Unless you're a terrible person, (in which case, I'm not sure why you're spending your time reading this blog instead of taking over the world, or whatever it is you bad guys do these days) you can never fully understand a villain. Or perhaps, such as in a murder mystery, you don't even know who the villain really is! Regardless, there is always an element of mystery surrounding the villain, which can easily seduce the audience.

4) Villains are unpredictable. I remember writing about this in my essay. Essentially, there are an infinite number of ways to be evil, while doing "the right thing" is extremely limiting. Therefore, you can often predict how the opposing force will act and react, but you can never be sure what to expect from the villain.

5) The best villains have comprehensive motivation. A villain who wants to take over the world just for the fun of it, isn't very exciting or relatable... The development of a complex villain however, is nothing short of fascinating. The evil genius types are particularly good. Perhaps they were influenced or mistreated by a parent or someone they cared about, or driven by their intellect and crossed some lines in the pursuit of knowledge/money/power (things that normal people seek, but on a miniscule level in comparison). It makes sense to be able to connect with a villain (assuming they're human) on a loose, but somewhat personal level. Just a smidgen of understanding goes a long way.

6) Villains are capable of the unimaginable. Most people struggle with the thought of intentionally inflicting pain on a fellow human being. There's that classic scenario of a bad guy breaking into your home and taking your family hostage followed by the haunting question of "Would you be able to kill said bad guy, if you and your family's lives depended on it?" A lot of people can't answer that query because it's something we can't and don't want to imagine. Yet, it's something we encounter in modern media all the time. One of the reasons villains are so intriguing is because they are capable of what most of us would consider to be unfathomable feats.

7) Villains have it easy. Contrary to what I just said above about the difficulty of evil, at the same time, villains sort of take drive through life via Easy Street. It's a whole lot simpler to play dirty and eliminate your enemy than it is to be tolerant, understanding, compromising and loving. And with that being said- it is my personal (realistic, not pessimistic) opinion that humans are born innately neutral- with a significantly higher tendency towards bad than good, meaning simply that being good, like anything else, requires a whole lot o' work!

 This is the point where I could start listing examples of some of the villains I find so intriguing, but most of you would have no clue who or what I was talking about. Instead, I will just quickly mention that one of my all time favorite villains is Lex Luthor (Smallville) because his back story is so incredibly complex! Even though he is ridden with evil in the end, I can't help but find myself connecting with his character on the most basic levels of humanity and sometimes even wishing I could justify his actions along the way, but knowing when lines are being crossed unforgivably. Those internal fluctuations between right and wrong, knowing that we can never fully understand other people's actions, are like a science within themselves. And that, my friends, is what I like to call the thrill of villainy.

Sidenote: If you haven't seen Dreamwork's Megamind, I highly recommend it! While it seems like a silly animated comedy on the surface, it's actually extremely witty and quite insightful as far as the art of villainy goes. Watch it! And I dare you not to love the main character (who just so happens to be the villain). MUAHAHAHAHA