villain – Living Outside The Box

Why do I think supervillains are cool? It’s not because they’re evil. It’s not because they’re rich (although that doesn’t hurt). It’s not even because they’re people I necessarily want to emulate. I’m not a psychopath, and I don’t really like hurting people.

The hero never really comes into their stride until they have a worthy nemesis. I always enjoy watching a good supervillain, because I know the battle they bring is going to be epic. After a while, I started to notice that the really good villains have a lot in common, and I got to thinking about why they’re so cool, even if they’re bad. Why then am I so obsessed with supervillains? Because you can learn a few things from them, even if you don’t subscribe to their philosophy of World Domination^©.

So without further ado, here’s my list of 7 things I think are cool about Supervillains that most heroes don’t have. Continue reading “7 Reasons Why I Think Supervillains Are Cool”

I recently ran across an article on John C. Wright’s blog (written by his wife) called “Redeeming Villains: How Not To Do It.” It excellently makes the connection between the current trend of “victimizing” traditional villains, and “demonizing” traditional heroes. At first, I wasn’t quite sure what to think, but the more I looked at it, the more I think she’s on to something.

The gist of Wright’s point is not that the villains can’t be redeemed. It’s that to do so, the writers have resorted to demonizing something else that would traditionally be wholesome, or was wholesome in the original story. Of course, nobody is really evil, because they’re just victims, too! Poor villain. Nobody understands their struggle, when all they want is to be loved. And destroy all that is good.

The danger underlying this thinking is that it insinuates everybody who does something wrong has good motives, deep down… if you dig deep enough or spin a back story long enough, that “there is good in all of us.” The problem is, that’s just not the case. This is the “not-my-fault” mentality, the rationalization of evil. The lie of “with enough love, anything can be justified.” Wright even goes so far as to say it’s a case of blaming the victim.

Let’s look at some examples: Continue reading “Villain Is The New Hero”