In Defense Of Pure Evil Villains

Skeletor’s original origin, as forgotten as He-Man’s original origin.

What happened to villains, anyway? I’ve written a few articles in the past few weeks or posted videos by other commentators about how in the quest to be either open-minded or complex, the purpose of the villain seems to have been forgotten. While you can have a sympathetic villain, good goals but evil methods, or have a sympathetic backstory about how they turned evil, sometimes people do just want to watch the world burn.

I still blame Wicked, the play that thought it would be fun to have the Wicked Witch of the Oz franchise with a sympathetic story. I still haven’t seen it and don’t plan to but I’m aware of the fallout. While DC having their villains in the position of having to save the day at least offers a potential for fun, watching Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty or a character literally named Cruella De Ville for a reason actually being the victims rather than just evil misses the whole point of why a villain exists. I went over this a bit last week with the current state of Autobots and Decepticons, that in order to make kids show villains more mature they have to not necessarily be evil, the same affliction that hit Skeletor in the recent DC run of Masters Of The Universe comics. This usually flies in the face of why these villains exist.

In the following video, Henry of The Closer Look defends the idea of the villain who is evil for evil’s sake and why some narratives need that kind of villain.

It’s not that you can’t have a sympathetic villain, especially if you’re doing a redemption story. You need some basis on which to reforming them makes sense even when they do something horrible. The problem comes when you try to give a truly evil villain a sympathetic backstory as if that excuses their evilness, the idea that “they only became evil because they grew up in a terrible place”. Again, look at Megatron. Instead of just being a bot out for power or because he believes mechanical lifeforms are superior to the squishy organic creatures they had to make Autobot-run society terrible, with a caste system based on alternate modes. The franchise has shown that at least most Transformers can change their alt modes for disguise or preference (or to match the current toy being sold) so that doesn’t make sense.

DC tried to make Skeletor a victim of racism due to his blue skin when he was still a young Keldor. I prefer the Skeletor who thinks being evil is fun or his way to achieve absolute power not only because he’s more fascinating to watch but because of what he and every kids show villain represents: the type of person you shouldn’t grow up to be. In the case of both kids and adult stories the villain represents something in our lives that we must overcome to improve ourselves, even if that “villain” is a literal mountain that needs to be climbed. Look at Doctor Doom. He just has a huge ego and that ego causes him to make mistakes but it’s his actions alone that makes him evil. Sympathetic evil, one who has relatable and even approved goals but horrible methods, works because it shows us the dangers of extremism, something that seems increasingly lost in current discussion but that’s another topic outside of this site’s mission statement.

Not every villain needs a deep reason to do evil things. Some just want power, or revenge, or they’re just nasty and horrible. I remember a video about a kid being asked why he crashed a car and the boy’s only response was “it’s fun to do bad things”. There are people like that who don’t grow out of that (hopefully he did) and they represent the worst aspects of humanity, to be defeated by the good aspects of humanity. This is something you only really see if someone wants to attack an opposing opinion or one particular holder of that opinion. That’s a different form of dishonesty, where the character is only evil so you can attack the supposed far-right or far-left rather than present an actual villain. It’s more about the writer’s catharsis than the reader’s and that doesn’t work if you share an opposite view.

I’d rather have stories where I can agree with the writer who the villain is, even if they supposedly share my opinion. Batman: The Animated Series did a good job of that with Poison Ivy for the environmentalists and Lockdown for the “tough on crime”. They didn’t exist to condemn the other side in a real world discussion but to use an extreme view to show how anyone can be evil. Now you have Ivy turning good(ish) in recent stories because of social opinions rather than benefiting the character or the story if the writer is pro-environmentalist, which original Ivy could have been used to…actually, original comics Ivy was just a thief with a gimmick. The eco-villain bit was a DCAU addition. However, it wasn’t done to make fun of “tree huggers” but because the writers thought it added something to her as a villain. Story first, propaganda second is always the best answer.

I want to see both kinds of villains, the pure evil and the evil shaped by events. It’s always the need of the story and theme that the villain represents and both exist and have existed in the real world. Or do you want “Mr. H” as Henry called him to have a sympathetic backstory?

I have problems with this movie, but while it didn’t properly adapt the Joker it did understand what he represents…more than the Todd Philips movie anyway.