I want villains who go against the stereotypical bullshit that “evil cannot love” or whatever.
I want villains who spend months in their creepy dark lab building the death ray with their best buddy and hug each other when the superweapon is finally complete.
I want villains who fall madly in love with the other evil prince or princess they married to consolidate their power.
I want villains who tell bedtime stories to the little clone they created to be the successor to their throne and order their minions to get the clone a cup of warm milk because she can’t sleep.
I want villains hanging out with their best friends and acting like dorks while they bowl with their enemies’ skulls.
I want villains who are both evil and real, and real people have friends and families and loved ones.
Do you mean heroes?
No.
How do you get heroes from this!? What hero goes bowling with the skulls of their enemies?
I want villains with families.
I want mad scientists helping their children with their science homework.
I want villains leaving halfway though a battle because it’s their anniversary and they are not going to leave their spouse waiting.
I want villains who don’t work on Wednesdays because that’s the day they visit their mum and take her out for tea.
I want villains who hypnotise teachers to give their children good grades.
Basically you want Dr. Doofenshmirtz
^^^^^^
Team Rocket
So you mean heroes.
42,000 notes later and the above reaction to this post still confuses me.
pretty sure it means “people who are cruel or selfish in any way can only be one-dimensional monsters. if they can love or show other positive emotions, then they can’t really be cruel or selfish, and they can’t really be villains.”
whether real or fictional, tumblr only knows angels and demons, nothing in between.
Yes, probably. But why would you do that on this post of all posts? :-P
Then again someone else just did this:
I also don’t get that reaction, because my default expectation is that villains are like this.
Like, irl, most people who are awful to strangers are good to their family/friends. Putting entire towns to the sword so you can hand their treasures over to your beloved children: Totally unsurprising human behaviour. The more surprising thing would be people doing evil who didn’t feel any connection to a small circle of loved ones.
Most of history’s greatest monsters had friends, loved ones, families. Plenty of serial killers were married. Plenty of murderous dictators adored their children. The vast majority of people who commit heinous acts are entirely capable of experiencing love and friendship and human connection. That doesn’t make what they do any less heinous.
I’m just going to sit over here making baffled flaily noises that some people think giving a character any redeeming features – ANY AT ALL – makes them a hero instead of a villain. OH TUMBLR NO.
I have definitely enjoyed some media with villains whose sole characterization is “evil”. You don’t have to make your antagonist nuanced, depending on the story you want to tell. In general, though, I think the most compelling and believable villains, not to mention the most terrifying human monsters, are the ones who love and are loved, and are driven by relatable impulses that are common to most of humanity. Because those are the ones who hold up a dark mirror to our worst impulses and show us how not to behave, just like heroes are the ones who show us how to be the best versions of ourselves through the choices they make (even if they are terribly flawed people themselves).
Okay sorry for mucking up this post with something only semi-related but.
I think the people who think like this (characters with any redeeming qualities must be heroes not villains) are very scary. It betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what evil is and who can do evil things.
Every human being is capable of unspeakable acts of evil. Even you. Even me. And nearly every human who has committed unspeakable acts of evil thought they were a hero. Humans are capable of justifying literally anything to ourselves because we believe we are the heroes of our own stories.
The second you forget that you are capable of being the villain is the second you’re in danger of becoming one.
