OH, PSSHAW: "What is wrong with you?": Further notes on the appeal of villainy

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

OH, PSSHAW: "What is wrong with you?": Further notes on the appeal of villainy

I was thinking today. Growing up, I was inundated with great (and, as any “90’S KID!!” will tell you, legendary) films aimed at my age group. I always understood who I was meant to sympathize with, and I often did. Though sometimes just because that was better than fighting against the current…

Villains are the best. I almost never sympathize with the hero. I mean, that hero? He’s a fucking pansy. You can tell because his Gleaming Sword of Righteousness glows ~powder blue~. (I despise the convention that character functions and personalities need to be color coded, but that’s going off topic.)

Personally, I like bad guys because they can be ridiculously driven, creative, and clever. What makes them dangerous (or not) is the level of competence they have at achieving their goals, whether it’s as cliche as blocking out the sun with a solar powered death ray, or as subtle as eating one item of their room mate’s food each day to see if they notice, or as cut-and-…bloody as showing your victim first hand how to “tie” a Colombian Necktie.

But aside from geeking out on one of my favorite things, and being “Yes, I agree”, I was thinking about the part where you said “[villains] don’t apologize for their personalities”. With respect to your opinion, I would argue that perhaps some of the most dangerous villains are the ones who appear otherwise harmless, normal, and even insecure, if for nothing else than for the idea that their inner demons have likely been so repressed that they could be capable of things Mr. Unapologetic, so locked up in his hubris, couldn’t begin to dream of.

As an example, (I went with a movie example, because that seemed to be where the topic was coming from) take Ichi, from Ichi the Killer, who breaks down and cries, even clams up when he is about to kill someone, but his work is so violent that even Yakuza balk at it. The things that make him a strong antagonist are products of his flaws and weaknesses. Kakihara is my favorite character in that movie, but I think Ichi is a brilliant and solid antagonist that tackles the idea of what a villain is from a different angle than what most people are used to seeing.

Of course, we all have our favorites! Who doesn’t love a well-written arrogant jackass? : >