Every story has a villain. Stories need villains. Without a villain, there is nothing for the hero to fight. Then it's a story about people living their lives with nothing of particular note happening. However, people have this nasty habit of villainizing the villains.
Certainly the bad guy is bad, but how much should they be hated? For as much as you love a hero, you need to show a similar love to the villain, for the hero would not be a hero if they had no villain to fight.
Without Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker would be some bum on a desert planet. Without Judas, Christianity would be missing a massive chunk of its core beliefs. Without criminals, Superman is a freak of nature living on a farm.
Of course we shouldn't be proud of evil deeds in real life, nor should we support people doing them in order to elevate normal folks to the point of herodom. But we aren't talking about real life. We're talking about stories. And in stories, villains exist almost exclusively for the hero to have something to do.
Next time you want to talk about how awful some character is and how satisfying it was to see them get trashed by the hero, think about how wonderful it was that the character gave the hero such an opportunity to shine.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment