I am going to come out and say that I always find the villain in books or movies to be the most compelling and interesting characters. While I dont condone their actions because lets face it they are usually very evil and do horrible things. However, I just find their characters to be more interesting because most heroes are written or made to be extremely good which makes them not so interesting. Sometimes you may find yourself rooting for the villain, which is not good but it is how the character is portrayed.
I know I am not the only one that feels this way so why do we find the villain to be a more interesting character? I feel there may be a couple of reasons. One is we as a whole are not perfect. We look at the hero and see how great he or she is and know we are not perfect like that (Yes I know there are some grey heroes but I will get to that). We see the villain who has faults and we can relate because we might have those faults. A villain could have been abused as a child or had a traumatic life and some people relate to that. Some villains are just too smart for their own good and may had the perfect life but wants more as we all do in life. Another reason is we all have a dark side and looking at the villain on screen or reading in a book can give the dark part of psyche a release that it needs.
My favorite villain of all time is Iago from the Shakespeare play Othello. I bet you were surprised by that because you probably thought I would say Darth Vader or something like that (Yes he is cool also). I just find him a compelling villain. He manipulates everyone and has others do him dirty work for him all while he smiles and watch the tragedy unfold before him. That is until the end where he didnt figure in one variable. Now again I dont condone what he did but this is a truly interesting villain. What does that say about me? I guess you can say I like intelligence as a way to do things in life and when a villain is intelligent like that then I guess I am drawn to that. The smart villain who usually is in the public as a good guy but it planning things and manipulating things behind the scenes is in my opinion the best villain. He is loved while do his bad things that people dont know about. Read Othello to check out what I mean, or you people that dont like to read you can check out the movies or if you really dont want that old Shakespeare stuff then check out the movie O which is a modern retelling of it.
Now I mentioned I would talk about why some heroes are more interesting than others. An example of this is the differences between Batman and Superman. Most people I talk to are more interested in Batman than Superman. They say that Superman is too good and perfect. Batman is flawed and has issues and in a sense is a dark character. Again this shows people find a flawed hero to be more interesting and relates to them.
I dont know maybe society just likes flawed characters in todays world. Maybe we no longer strive for perfection and look for the character we can relate to. Maybe we are jealous of the good person. I know for the most part people are good but we all have a little dark side which maybes in todays society gravitates us to the flawed character or the villain.
Sorry this is a short blog and I havent been writing much lately but I have been so busy with work these past few weeks. I am trying to get on it more. So what is your favorite villain or type of villain? Do you find villains more interesting than heroes anymore? Why do you think people find villains more interesting? Maybe I am totally wrong and if I am then please tell me why I am wrong?
Look for some more blog posts coming soon including the Shining book review. Please comment.