[Perry] Villainy Redux

This is an issue we’ve looked at before, and you know what? I’m going to have to create a third category here.

Let me set the stage.

Preamble

Lately, something I keep running into is the effort to turn villains into heroes, or at the very worst, misunderstood and tragic figures.

Thoughts this time around was triggered by my recent watching of Dracula Untold, starring the commanding Luke Evans as Count Vlad.

In it, we’re essentially treated to a rewrite of the Dracula story. Vlad is a loving family man, loving father, bad guys are invading his country and the only way to stop them is to seek out a monster to gain his power and then demolish the invading army, all by his lonesome.

The movie was alright. Not great, not terrible, just alright.

But I walked away from the movie with a bad taste in my mouth and a thought resounding in my head.

Did that really need to be made?

Argument

Villains…well, three dimensional villains? Are great, if they’re done right. A villain you almost want to root for while he’s laying waste to the world can be a frightening literary force. Look at Loki at the recent Marvel movies. Sure, he’s the bad guy. Sure he’s batshit insane…but you can see the things that drove him to act the way he did.

And maybe? You can empathize with him.

This is an example of the sympathetic villain done well.

My issue isn’t with that, exactly.

It’s that…it’s the feeling that a lot of villains lately are sort of getting shoehorned with these tragic backstories to make us feel for them…even villains that really don’t need this sort of crap to work.

I guess my point is that not every villain needs to have this tragic backstory. Not every villain needs to be sympathetic to work properly.

And when you go to an established villain and try to make them sympathetic, it doesn’t work…as well.

Do you know what I think the problem is? It’s an issue with…misplaced rooting for the heroes, do you know what I mean?

In this specific case, look at the story of Dracula Untold. Then go back into any movie that features Dracula and try to root for the heroes.

How can you?

It’s like picking on a kid in the school yard, only to realize AFTER you’ve knocked him down and taken his lunch money that he’s like, mentally handicapped…from the time he dove into a burning house to save a box full of kittens.

Do you feel like crap now? Cause I sure would.

Supporting Proof

I recently finished a playthrough of a game called Wolfenstein: The New Order. That’s a story for another day, but really? I can’t remember the last time I had quite so much fun shooting and stabbing Nazis. I mean, they’ve been the villain of the piece for so long that I thought the whole Nazi killing thing was over but hey, play this game and it’ll revitalize your joy in that sort of thing (if that sort of thing is your bag to begin with).

Anyway, the villain of this game? General Deathshead.

Yeah, really.

He’s a twisted scientist and he’s just…just a villain. No complicated motivations. No hidden childhood trauma unveiled to make him how he is. He’s just a twisted monster of a human being and when you finally take him down? It feels SO damned good.

But anyway, in this game? You can root for the hero. REALLY root for the hero. TAKE DOWN THAT SCUMBAG MONSTER! sort of rooting.

Can’t really do that for the Avengers when they go after Loki. You can’t really do that with Dracula anymore either.

Bad guys…one of the best parts about a good villain is that you can root for them to lose. You can cheer when they meet an untimely end. You can WANT the heroes to win.

You can’t do that when the villain was a man doing anything he could to save his family and embraced the dark forces…only to lose his family anyway (Dracula).

You can’t do that when your villain is a retarded boy and the ‘heroes’ are revealed to be his tormentors (Jason Voorhees).

You REALLY can’t do that when the classic villain turns out to be a horribly mutilated fairy girl with GREAT reason for being pissy at the whole situation (Maleficent).

The End!

My point’s wandered a little as I explored a few new thoughts that occurred to me while writing this.

But you know what it boils down to?

If you want to make a sympathetic villain, MAKE a sympathetic villain. Do it well and it’ll be brilliant.

But for the love of god, can we please stop going back to properly established paragons of villainy and trying to give them a tragic, sob story for a past? It’s really harshing my vibe when I see another story of them being a proper villain and I can’t properly wish them ill because all I can think about are the crazy hardships they endured to become what they are now.

Related posts:

[Perry] More on Villainy
[Perry] Creating a Strong Villain
[Perry] Magic Systems: The Bait and Switch