The Villain Paradox

Hey everyone, Van again for another exciting post!

Did you all see my brother's vlog the other day as he drove home? Not bad. I thought it was awfully suspicious that he did that after I started my blog. Might be some foul play at hand. He's trying to undermine my writing platform for that thing the Paul brother's do. I can sense a war breaking out between the Windsor's. Blog vs. Vlog. Battle of the Freedom of Speech. Two formats enter, one format leaves. This is the Thunderdome, and the dirt is soaked in the up-votes and comments of fans.

Just kidding, but I couldn't help myself.

Anyway, today I wanted to talk about heroes, and their place in stories. Anyone that knows me knows that I know A LOT about comics. Marvel, DC, Image, Dark Horse, even Archie comics; I've got a large collection. It's how I learned to love reading. Ever since I found that first Spider-man comic in my Uncle's childhood bedroom. Good guys, bad, guys, and the anti-heroes in-between. Heroes come in all shapes and sizes, philosophies and ideologies; but, there are only a few different villains for the hero to go toe-to-tie with, and I'm gonna try and break down the one's that I've noticed a lot.


  1. The Dr. Evil Bad Guy
    • I call this the Dr. Evil bad guy because this is the villain that wants to rule the world. The one that is in it purely for himself.
    • Dr. Evil, Lex Luthor, Red Skull
    • He wants all the money
    • He wants the world
    • Plainly, he wants to rule over everyone and everything
    • This villain hates the hero because the hero is the one thing standing in the way of his dream
    • To the reader, that's all the info we get on him. This is the classic 1940's villain. To the audience, this villain is inherently bad. Like he spits on puppies and makes babies cry. Just pure evil bad guy. Make sense?
  2. The Joker-esque Bad Guy
    • This is the villain that wants nothing but to cause chaos. They want to watch the world burn; to steal a phrase from Michael Cain. 
    • Think the Joker, Carnage, Green Goblin. 
    • They are only interested in causing chaos. Usually, for the hero, but it's all fun and games for them. 
    • They want nothing but a good time.
  3. The We're-Not-So-Different Bad Guy
    • These are the villains that can be seen a lot in today's hero stories
    • They more or less are similar to the hero. Same powers or background
    • This is Reverse-Flash, Yellowjacket, General Zod
    • It has a nice flow of yin-yang storytelling
    • The villain is what the hero could've been if he hadn't decided to do good
    • It gives the hero more depth and more of a responsibility mindset
    • Most of the time, these days, writers have been taking the classic evil villains, and morphing their backstories so they have more similarities to the hero. Usually, it's something like the villain is actually the hero's long lost brother or something
There are most likely more that I missed I'm positive there are, but these are the ones that stick out to me the most. I love villains. Anyone that loves to read knows that the thing that makes a good story is the villain. If there's no good villain to challenge the hero, then all you've got is a hero that gets everything done. That's no fun. People love an underdog. We love seeing someone strong get taken down, and forced to claw their way back up the ladder. It's inspirational, and that's what the villain represents. Inspiration for the hero to succeed.

I like that people have been going back through old villains and re-shaping them. It's better with old, and D-rated villains getting a makeover because it gives that villain a second chance to prove him/herself. Also inspirational to see a bad guy to succeed. Especially when they have their own motives. When they think they're doing good. That's the new diluted villain structure. And that's not a bad thing at all. People tend to flock toward what's new and exciting. The greatest villain is the one that is the hero of his own story. I love a great villain with good reasons to do what they do.

That's the We're-Not-So-Different Bad Guy. They have goals for the greater good, and they know what needs to get done to accomplish that good. When given the choice to kill one person to save a thousand they don't hesitate. That's where they differ from the hero. Because the hero will always look for another solution. Even if there is none. It builds a moral dilemma for the hero, and the audience. It makes them question what they would do if they were faced with that scenario.

I like that story structure, but nowadays, it's a little stale. A little too overplayed. There are so many movies and comics a year that use this villain now. It's time for somebody to find a new way to formulate a great villain. I don't know what it is. I don't even know if there is one, but I'm just a little bored with the way everything is written. It's about time for some change.

And, hey, if I have to tear up some rules on how to make a story in order to fix it for everyone; well, I won't hesitate to do it. What about you?

See you tomorrow everyone. Hope you enjoyed this. Buh-bye.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Y2K Bug / New Blog

Image
Y2K bug, also called Year 2000 bug or Millennium Bug, a problem in the coding of computerized systems that was projected to create havoc in computers and computer networks around the world at the beginning of the year 2000 (in metric measurements K stands for thousand). After more than a year of international alarm, feverish preparations, and programming corrections, few major failures occurred in the transition from December 31, 1999, to January 1, 2000. Until the 1990s, many computer programs (especially those written in the early days of computers) were designed to abbreviate four-digit years as two digits in order to save memory space. These computers could recognize “98” as “1998” but would be unable to recognize “00” as “2000,” perhaps interpreting it to mean 1900. Many feared that when the clocks struck midnight on January 1, 2000, many affected computers would be using an incorrect date and thus fail to operate properly unless the computers’ software was repaired or r...
Read more

Mental Illnesses Personified

Image
Alright, so this morning I was sent a link this morning to 15 illustrations of mental illnesses represented as houses. It was really cool and thought-provoking, so, thanks to Nyla Grigsby for sending me the link. I'll share it here . Check it out, but not before you read this post (obviously). After looking through those pictures, I was reminded of a series of drawings I found a couple years ago with the same idea (only much more frightening - which I like). If you're not aware, every October, artists from all around the world participate in a drawing challenge called "InkTober" where they make one ink drawing a day for the entire month. In October 2016, an amazing artist Shawn Coss  decided to make his own original prompt for the month. Shawn wanted to focus primarily on personifying mental illnesses and disorders. These illustrations are crazy awesome, scary, realistic . Shawn manages to capture the struggle and turmoil of those who suffer with these illnesses...
Read more

GOING AWAY PARTY!

Image
HELLO LOYAL READERS! All 7 or 8 of you if I'm not mistaken. Thank you for continuing to read my blog every day for the last 310 days! Or, if you've just clicked on the links without reading the articles, that's also okay because it still shows up as if you did read it, so thanks for even clicking the links at all. I'm sure they were getting annoying after around day 50. Good thing I went on for another 260! So, I've been thinking about this move for a while now, and I think today is the perfect day to do it. While, yes, this will be the last post on this specific platform, it will NOT be the last you hear of me chucking my random interests into your faces. In fact, I like to think of this as an upgrade. An upgrade that will benefit all of us! Now that I've finally figured out how Patreon works, THAT will be where any blog posts, interesting articles, short stories and general updates on what's going on in my life will be posted. This way I can...
Read more