Letter 10 - in search of future bad people
sometimes villain origin stories hit too close to home...
Heey! How are you? I hope you’re having a great day.
Can you believe it? We’re already on the 10th letter! Yaay!
Let’s get into it.
I've been thinking about villains lately. It probably started when I saw the trailer for Wicked.
If you haven't seen it yet, it's here 👇🏽
It's coming out this November and features an formidable cast of extremely talented people.
Wicked tells the story of the Wicked Witch of the West (a major villain in Frank L. Baum's The Wizard of Oz. - If you haven't read the story yet, here's a really short recap 👇🏽
It seems like the movie industry has some fascination with villains and their backstories. I think it is a good thing. Heroes don’t appear overnight, although it seems that way. It has to be the same with villains. Every villain worth their salt has gone through a process to become as evil as they became.
Maybe they had a difficult childhood, or they suffered a broken heart to end all broken hearts. They might have lost something dear to them and vowed to inflict their pain on the entire world. Finally it clicks! The villain has been humanised. They aren’t just a bad guy in a mechanical suit creating a machine that would wipe out three-fourths of humanity. Perhaps now that the problem has been identified, they might even be saved from their destructive tendencies (and eventually reintegrated into society. Maybe they'll even join the heroes after that and everyone will live happily ever after).
It makes sense right?
Yet, in the real world, the lines between good and evil are often blurred. Most people are neither heroes nor villains. I’d say that the majority of us are antiheroes and exhibit traits of both.
So although we have something in common with the hero, we kindof understand the villain too. We also know that no one just wakes up and becomes evil. So it makes for very good entertainment, because people can relate.
Despite this relateability, few people would say that they look forward to becoming all-out villains though. But some of us will become the villains of the real world. First of all, someone has to do it. Every generation has their villains. But would it be you? Or me? I’m not sure how to answer.
I do know that there are certain traits a person could exhibit that could serve as pointers indicating that they could be on a journey to villainhood. I’ll share a few.
A lack of boundaries
Boundaries help us define how we would like to be treated by another person. They are especially helpful for helping us to function in relation to others without having to sacrifice ourselves, or worse - to disappear. Unfortunately, some people don’t know how to set boundaries, and thus, set themselves up for failure. If you do not place limits on others to protect yourself, you’d be left at the mercy of the worst of humanity.
And the experiences that follow would make you sad, and angry. It would only be a matter of time before you arrive at the conclusion that all people everywhere are horrible and deserve to be punished. And that would be your villain origin story.
If you’d like to learn more about Boundaries, I recommend the book Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life by Henry Cloud and John Townsend.
An inability to forgive
I personally still struggle with this (God is helping me), and I know how difficult it can be to forgive.
But unforgiveness actually affects us negatively. It causes health issues too.
The worst thing about not being able to forgive though, is that it causes people to change, sometimes into the very type of person that hurt them. It is true that hurt people hurt people.
All the same, no matter how we have been hurt, we have to take responsibility for our actions. We do not have control over what was done to us, but we have some control over how we interact with the world and others after the fact.
This is a very nuanced conversation though, and forgiveness is not a one-size-fits-all thing. Some things are more difficult to forgive than others, and the journey to forgiveness looks different for everyone.
An admiration of evil
Have you ever observed how some people admire evil things? It baffles me, truly! For some it’s a rather silent admiration, only showing up when someone does something really bad (like what we’re seeing in one of the biggest stories in hip hop right now - for context, check today’s date), and they want to defend the person under the guise of playing ‘devil’s advocate’. People will do all types of mental gymnastics to defend the proven despicable actions of others, actions that they swear they themselves would never do. But they would still like us to ‘Consider the perpetrator’s perspective,’ or see that ‘perhaps there were other factors at play’, while reminding us that ‘Besides, we only know one side of the story’. (eye-roll).
Then you have another set; the brazen ones. They make it unequivocally clear that they admire all the dark tetrad characteristics. For some of them it is only a matter of time before they unveil themselves in all their villainous inglory. And by their heroes you shall know them. Despite all the imperfections of humanity, there is still an abundance of role models and good examples in this world. But a potential future villain would search for established, successful villains to admire, because deep down, that is probably what they want to become.
I’m sure there are more traits to think about, but these are the ones I can remember for now (please tell me what I missed in the comments).
I’m a major Tolkien buff, and I recently read a thread on Twitter (aka X) about Sauron in the Amazon Prime series the Rings of Power, and why he was so scary.
The thread explained that the scary thing about villains is that they don’t show up the way we’ve been taught to expect them to show up. The villains we knew growing up - from Dr Octopus, to Megamind, to Thanos, to Darken Rahl, to the Joker, to Doofenschmirtz (honourable mention to this guy - his persistence is truly admirable) had certain defining characteristics. For one, they were all eccentric (either in appearance or mannerisms). It was kindof obvious they were villains.
Again, the reality is often very different. Like Sauron in the the Rings of Power, real-life villains can be difficult to identify at first. They look like you and I, and are fully-functioning members of society. Perhaps their defining characteristic is the chaos and destruction they leave in their wake (when it is unfortunately too late).
Everyone has an opportunity to become a villain though. Like we see in the movies, the experiences of life can twist us into unrecognisable shapes; devoid of love and empathy - the very things that make us aspire to our highest selves as God intended.
I hope we all make it to the other side unscathed though. I can only have faith that we’re able to journey through life becoming better and better instead of worse.
I can only hope and pray. May God help us.
Have a beautiful week!
Best,
Nana