Being a Villain Isn't Bad

Everyone loves to be a hero. It symbolizes purity and goodness, because of this, no one likes to be a villain. A villain is perceived as evil and bad, however, it is reasonable to sympathize for them. And the more you sympathize for them, the more you see that villain's are not evil but advocates for change.

Drastic events or traumas happen within our lives that shape our perceptions and develop our morals we live by. Every person deemed good or bad go through this phase in life. It is a loss of innocence that individuals go through.



Two-Face and Ra's Al Ghul

Take for example Ra's Al Ghul and Harvey Dent, Batman's villains. Ra's Al Ghul lost his wife by the hands of a political figure who was not brought to justice. The loss of his wife and the injustice brought upon her death shaped his perception of how corrupt the justice system really is. In the case of Harvey Dent, he received his coined token from his abusive father who would use it as a "night game" that would always end with his father giving him severe beatings. Because of the trauma he suffered as a child, Dent struggled with the idea of free will and could not make choices on his own. This left choices to be decided on the flip of a coin with one side representing death and the other life.



Magneto

Within the X-Men comics, Magneto grew up in the Nazi camps during the dreadful years of WWII due to his Jewish ethnicity. During that time, his family was executed by the soldiers leaving him scarred for life. After surviving the Nazi camps due to his mutant powers, he later witnessed the same kind of inequality being pressed upon mutants by the human society. In a 2008 interview, Stan Lee mentions that "He (Magneto) just wanted to strike back at the people who were so bigoted and racist... he was trying to defend the mutants, and because society was not treating them fairly he was going to teach society a lesson."







Hugo Drax



Being a popular figure among the classic James Bond villains, Hugo Drax had a disturbing history of being tortured as a youth for being German and losing his father who was a German General fighting against the English during WWI.  He grew a taste of vengeance and hatred towards the world for being tortured and losing his father. He perceived the world to be cruel and resulted in him becoming a Nazi bent on revenge within the classic action-thriller Moonraker.


These villains were once good people who were burdened with drastic events that changed their lives, a personal bildungsroman what you will. They are still people and like heroes, villains have sympathy.

Going back to Batman, Henri Ducard sympathizes with Bruce Wayne upon the loss of his parents. Due to this, he trains Bruce Wayne and nurtures him upon providing "true" justice. With Two-face/Harvey Dent, Dent struggles in doing what's right and wrong due to his multiple personality disorder. However, he sympathizes with Commissioner Gordon and Batman in helping to stop crime in Gotham City.

As for Magneto, he is depressed of losing his family as a child and is angered at the mistreatment of mutants. He therefore sympathizes with the mutants being treated unequal as he was during WWII. He vouches to be the protector of mutant-kind even if it requires deadly means. Within the movie Moonraker, Drax sympathizes with fellow Germans who lived in England and forms an alliance with them upon his quest for a new civilization in Space while taking revenge on the world who treated him and his country-men with disgust.

       

Sympathy is a positive characteristic and is shown in very different ways from these villains. As an end result, these villains are not evil but advocates of change.

Drax wanted to build a civilization in space within Moonraker and be superior to the world that treated him poorly. Ra's Al Ghul was an advocate for change in healing the world of corruption through any means necessary. Although Harvey Dent struggles with his alter ego, he attempts to change the system of justice by leaving it to fate. Magneto is determined to protect mutants as he believes them to be "Homo superior" and would set about creating a homeland on Earth where mutants could live peacefully.

From this analysis, all individuals can be seen as villains. All individuals aspire to some sort of change that is fueled by past events within ones life. Because of this, a villain is a subjective term to use. They are advocates of change who at times are brought down by an individual (hero) for the sake of sticking to the status quo. Sometimes, change can be a good thing.