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by Pranavi Menon
We all love a bad boy – in fact, there is an entire side of Instagram dedicated to them. Sometimes, these bad boys don't necessarily mean a motorcycle-riding-leather-jacket-wearing, dark, broody, brunette character; instead, it could also be the guy willing to do anything to make sure he gets his way, even if that means getting rid of the protagonist and anything the latter holds dear – alternatively and collectively known as a ‘villain’.
But who exactly is a villain? And why are they almost always essentially the same - just a different face and name? And then what’s an anti-hero? And how is that different from the villain?
So let’s answer them one by one.
Who is a villain? To be simply put, a villain is a stock character, an archetype who is evil or corrupt or has actions and motives that go against the hero’s plot, therefore, essential to the story. Their entire existence is based on what the hero is not or would ever do – thus creating that difference to let the audience root for the hero (I will circle back to the villain apologists in a while).
If you look at the stories you heard as a child, you’d often notice the characters’ personalities would be such: the hero was kind, gentle, helpful, selfless, (insert more good and kind-hearted adjacent adjectives) while the villain was evil, manipulative, narcissistic, selfish, (insert more evil adjacent adjectives).
This disparity simply existed to show people that the hero was something you should aim to be and to never stray towards the path of the villain – because good always wins over evil. And as kids, we used to always accept the stories as is – after all, the morals made sense – and who would ever want to die those drastic deaths we’d been casually narrated?
But as we grew up, the lines of morality between good and bad slowly started to blur. We started questioning these quintessentially evil villains about their actions because of course, we had come to terms with the fact that no one was born evil. Every action was a consequence of some prior experience – and the search for that experience would be crowned as the ‘villain origin story’.
In consequence, some received their reasoning (e.g.: Voldemort from the Harry Potter series), while others just turned into inherently evil characters (e.g.: Dolores Umbridge from the same)
While all this may exist and happen as time evolved, so did stories; and so did the birth of a whole new array of villains. I’d like to describe a few of them as: the one with ‘jealousy jealousy’, the one who was ‘down bad in love with someone who didn’t love them back so they burnt the world down’, the ‘misguided’ one and of course 'Satan's spawn’.
The new set of villains have more to their existence than simply appearing to oppose the protagonist. They have a story, a purpose, a reason to follow through with their plans but their Achilles heel turns out to be none other than their pride and ego.
In films, there is a rarity in finding villains who achieve their plan without having an entire 10-minute scene of them explaining their backstory and motive to the hero while the latter is cornered and about to lose. I mean I get it; you need the villain to rattle out his idea and origins as a plot device, but that time spent is just working in the hero’s favour.
Case in point, ‘Main Hoon Na’. The entire fight scene between SRK and Suniel Shetty’s Raghavan was a realistic waste of time. All you needed was one gunshot straight to the heart – both the characters had guns on them at some point of the fight with perfect opportunities to kill each other but no, the dramatic fight sequence needed to be an integral part to show off both their skills and wit and thinking.
Fine, let’s put the need for drama aside and talk about the climax scene where Ram and Raghavan are atop the roof, with Raghavan’s gun pointing at Ram ready to take his shot – but – he just has to coax Ram to look him in the eye as he kills him. The time he spent coaxing Ram, our protagonist changed his fate and escaped the situation relatively unharmed and most importantly, alive.
Thus, validating my point: Raghavan’s pride and ego to watch Ram’s downfall killed him. That is the pivotal difference between every hero (not anti-hero) and villain that you see on paper and screen.
However, as I mentioned prior, finding straight-to-the-point villains is a rarity but they do exist. Case in point, ‘Kingsman: The Secret Service’ had the very engaging and entertaining antagonist Richmond Valentine portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson. The scene in the movie I’m referring to in fact even mocks the formulaic plot device of the villain revealing his plans to the hero right before Valentine says ‘but this is not that kind of movie’ and cuts straight to the point, with him fatally shooting our hero’s mentor. It was so refreshing to see that scene because never in my 18 years of little cinema viewing had I encountered such a plot-device, cliché-aware moment of the villain finally doing his stuff without wasting any time. This scene also rewards Richmond Valentine up a few notches in my ‘favourite and well-written villains of all time’ list.
However, with literature, it works differently. You have more time to flesh out the villains and their characters with your writing so you don't need to resort to the horrible plot devices of the entire monologue revealing the villain's plans. Hence, you will find it harder to find villain apologists for ‘book villains’ as compared to ‘cinema villains’.
Let’s take the example of one of my favourite book series’ villains - Lord Voldermort. Although, as a character, Voldermort predominantly exists as a fearful name in the series for most of its part, his character and story still get their time to shine. We learn about his origins, his desires and his twisted ways of acquiring them and most of all, we get the answer as to what differentiates him from our hero- Harry Potter: love. Tom Marvalo Riddle was a product of manipulation. He was born of a relationship that never existed - his mother had dozed his father with love potion, making the process of his birth (I’m trying to phrase it as delicately as possible) not one of love, but of lies. Therefore, Voldemort or Tom (if I may dare to say so), can never truly understand, feel or experience love, thus introducing the lack of morality and understanding of compassion in his character. And now, after retaining this information, the audience and I can truly understand why Voldemort is a villain; because now I have concrete proof as to why he deserves no apology.
Thus, with books being able to flesh the characters out, Voldemort ‘villain origins’ are not a topic of contention that can get theories and hypotheses that could make the apologists find reasons to believe the character isn't ‘entirely bad and evil and just makes bad choices cause he doesn't know any better’ [Draco Malfoy apologists, I’m looking at you]. And you can use this analysis and study on other popular villains as well like Valentine Morgenstern from The Mortal Instruments, Dr. John Dee from The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel or even Lady Macbeth from Macbeth.
An antagonist needs to be well-crafted to give even the protagonist a reason to go against them. And part of that craftsmanship includes adding that little bit of that extra ego, selfishness and borderline narcissistic pride into their persona. Because if your antagonist does not have a fatal flaw – then that is an anti-hero that got swayed from their path.
Once again, using cinema as an example (cause they mess up ‘who a villain is’ the most, thus so many case studies) let’s take into consideration Loki’s character growth from the MCU perspective. We were introduced to the character in the ‘Avengers’ movie as a greedy, power-hungry, conceited, ‘burned with glorious purpose’ tyrant of an antagonist but by the end of his titular series, he turned into the true embodiment of an anti-hero. He grows into a complex individual with chaotic neutrality which makes him the fan favourite that he is.
When that pride or ego is stronger than your moral compass and can easily influence your judgement and decisions, that is when you know who the antagonist or villain is and who is the anti-hero. And that distinction is what differentiates a villain from an anti-hero.
No story can exist without a villain – no wait, some stories can exist without villains. Let me rephrase my statement.
No story can exist without a problem. Villains are the human embodiment of the problem. How that problem is presented makes all the difference in the world. It changes how the problem is perceived and its reception by both the protagonist and the audience. It decides who we are really rooting for and if the idea at its core is really right or not. So next time you critically or casually analyse or apologise for your villain, have a close look at their fatal flaw and decide if it's really worth it.
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