Sympathy for the Villain.

[Music] the ancient chinese believed in the philosophical concept of yin and yang two opposing forces which complement and complete each other yin and yang are most often depicted with this symbol the taijitu although the light and dark sides defy each other each contains a piece of the other fundamentally embedded within together the opposing forces exist in a state of balanced equilibrium numerous examples of yin and yang exist in nature such as the brightest light creating the harshest shadows but perhaps the most fascinating application of yin and yang exists in the realm of fiction in the

relationship between heroes and villains we all grow up listening to the same kind of story a valiant hero overcomes the odds to defeat a despicable villain we learn to view heroes and villains as part of a binary system we root for the good guys and root against the bad guys it's a principle that all but defines the essence of storytelling as children we view this as an unbreakable law but as we get older something very mysterious happens the line between heroes and villains starts to blur all of a sudden heroes start to look a lot

more lame while villains become all the more appealing if you look at the word villain in the dictionary nearly every definition you'll find will mention the word evil but what exactly is evil well in most cultures the concept of good and evil are tied to our premise of morality our morality is often determined by whatever religious or spiritual code we grew up with religions across the globe embody evil through the image of the devil as the face of evil for the world's most popular religion satan is likely the most infamous villain in human history most

religions portray me as the incarnate of evil meaning my actions literally define what it is to be immoral it's tough to get more evil than that in fact it's impossible each version of the devil shares similar traits but none are identical there is no definitive answer for what constitutes an evil action all right i can see that i will have to teach you how to be villains the notion of evil is an abstraction and can be altered depending on the society and place around us evil assumes the purpose of a blanket term attributed to people

who cause us negative outcomes morality is one of the most difficult concepts for the human mind to understand everyone has their own set of complex needs and motivations it's much easier to just look at the source of all your suffering and call it evil it's much easier to write a story and have the antagonists do bad things because they're evil unfortunately evil villains also tend to be forgettable villains i mean does anybody really remember maleficent her name is a literal synonym for evil the problem with evil characters is that we have a hard time relating

to them contrary to what the media will tell you the average person doesn't tend to enjoy doing malicious things to create a truly memorable villain you have to connect them with the audience in a meaningful way one of the most common and effective methods of achieving this is to establish a transformation from friend to fiend vader was seduced by the dark side of the force the most well-known example of this transformation is the character of darth vader in a new hope vader is more or less presented as a standard formidable bad guy without much character

depth we're told he was once good but we don't actually get to see this dimension of vader until the empire strikes back where for the first time we catch a glimpse of what he looks like beneath the mask it's a shot that only lasts a few seconds but it profoundly influences our perception of vader's character the film reveals that he was involved in some kind of horrific incident which left him permanently disfigured and scarred scars are a powerful visual and metaphorical tool to humanize a villain they represent significant trauma and vulnerability traits unlike anything we've

seen in vader before that point one of the most iconic scars in fiction belongs to prince zuko from avatar [Music] i've always had to struggle and fight that's made me strong the series begins with zuko as the sole antagonist to the heroes however as the story goes on it reveals the far more brutal framework around him we eventually learn about his tragic origin and figure out that it was not nature but nurture which made zuko into the villain he is he is driven not by an evil plan but by the desire to redeem himself in

the eyes of his father and his nation zuko is made relatable by being a very imperfect character symbolized by his most striking physical feature despite his immense dedication and willpower he leaves behind a legacy of failure there's no doubt that zuko suffers more than any other character in the series after a while you kind of forget he's the bad guy and just want to see him be happy ironically zuko's villainous path is only forged through his obsession with being a hero for the fire nation at the end of the day zuko is only seeking what

we all desire belonging and acceptance from his peers his scar is a physical token representing the insurmountable division between he and his ideal being he sacrifices so much trying to overcome it but the scar like the past can never be erased it is only when zuko learns to embrace his hardship that he truly becomes the person he was meant to be i used to think this scar marked me the mark of the banished prince cursed to chase the avatar forever but lately i've realized i'm free to determine my own destiny even if i'll never be

free of my mark in the end he fulfills his destiny as a hero just not in the same way he envisioned zuko is a memorable villain because he is one of the most human villains ever written but what about a villain that is the opposite of human [Music] i don't know what the hell's in there but it's weird and pissed off whatever it is science fiction is no stranger to featuring antagonists of a more cosmological origin this halloween i talked about john carpenter's 1982 horror film the thing a story that features a shape-shifting alien which

serves as an allegory for mistrust and paranoia the monster from the thing is akin to the works of h.p lovecraft and the premise of cosmic horror the idea that human beings are insignificant compared to the unfathomable vastness of the universe lovecraftian monsters defy comprehension they transcend our narrow purview of morality and evil these antagonists frighten us on a more primal level they represent a manifestation of mankind's most fundamental adversary nature there is no greater threat to human progress than the forces of nature and no greater threat to nature than human progress thanks to our technological

advancements man sits atop the animal kingdom uncontested fictional monsters like the thing remind us of a time when that wasn't the case a time when we were not predators but prey no one on earth can literally remember being hunted by a saber cat but the impression lingers as an integral phobia baked into our evolutionary programming now that no other animal can challenge us it's up to our imagination to create something that can perhaps our ultimate undoing won't come from nature but from the very technology we use to conquer it i know that you and frank

were planning to disconnect me and i'm afraid that's something i cannot allow to happen 2001 was the first prominent film to feature artificial intelligence as a major antagonist the premise of a rogue ai takes the relationship of man vs nature and inverts it just as human beings are a product of nature machines are a product of humanity characters like hal 9000 reverse our perspective of a creation overtaking its creator perhaps we like nature before us merely exist as the next stepping stone in the progression of intelligent life and we like nature are doomed to be

conquered by whatever comes next at least for now the technological takeover remains in the realm of fiction but rogue ai and other intelligent monsters do provide us with a unique conflict they don't operate within trivial human desire godzilla won't stop destroying the city out of any moralistic epiphany the most terrifying part of antagonists like these is not that we can't understand them but that they can't understand us to them all of our petty rules and emotions are utterly meaningless if the rule you followed budget of this of what use was the rule [Music] somewhere in

the middle of monster and man you'll find a character like anton shiger in 2014 a team of belgian psychiatrists analyzed more than 400 villains across cinema and found chagura the single most realistic representation of a psychopath his total emotional disconnect to murder was similar to many real-life hitmen the researchers interviewed chigurh is a profoundly strange character his origin background and overall motives are all unknown he is described as somewhat of a phantom many have analyzed the character as a rhetorical link between man and god more specifically as an agent of fate to chigurh human beings

are no different than cattle waiting for slaughter a perspective harshly illustrated through his means of execution to him human life is completely dispensable but despite savagely murdering a dozen people in the film it's difficult to describe chigurh's motivation as malicious is it malicious when a tornado demolishes a midwestern home the film portrays chigurh as an unstoppable force it is stated that no one who sees him lives but that's not entirely true the most intriguing insights into chigurh's character occur not when he kills but when he chooses not to kill of course if you asked him

he'd probably tell you that there was never really any choice in the matter shigeru's actions are dictated by a strict personal code of conduct that's never fully explained all of his kills have a consistent logic to them most of the victims were simply dispatched as a cut and dry means of completing his primary objective it's only through ambiguous situations when we capture a glimpse into chigger's philosophy in the iconic gas station scene he contemplates killing the clerk but offers him an out in the form of a coin toss pragmatically speaking the coin toss is a

meaningless gesture but within sugar's internal principles it allows him to act independently of a conscience the nature of chagar's character is deterministic by acting as the hand of fate he relinquishes his own agency over situations he operates automatically never deviating from the most efficient path towards his eventual outcome the idea of people feebly trying to exercise control over their destiny confuses and discuss him if mercy exists in sugar's universe it can only be found in something as brutally random as a coin toss it's been traveling 22 years to get here and now it's here and

it's either heads or tails it's for this reason why some people have defined chigurh as the embodiment of chaos the relative unpredictability of the character creates the striking tension for which the film is so celebrated however chagur is paradoxically the most calculated meticulous and orderly character in the story if we all knew what he knew all of his actions would make perfect sense such is the confounding nature of a psychopath they exist in the uncanny valley although they resemble us on a physical level we will never understand them on a mental level they represent a

different kind of human being those who cultivate order out of chaos do you have any idea how crazy you are madness is a truly terrifying concept one that is ultimately governed by the same principles of a coin toss the coin don't have no say it's just you i got here the same way the coin did at the end of the day it's not our feudal attempts at bravery reasoning or law enforcement which stop chigurh his justice can only be served by fate itself sometimes it's more than just fate which stands in the way of our

ultimate goal there are no two words in the english language more harmful than good job in the pursuit of perfection we may find ourselves in the essential conflict of student versus master this conflict is intimately explored in the 2014 film whiplash terence fletcher is the consummate stalwart of success andrew nieman is chasing success but his desire to impress fletcher transforms his passion into an obsession neiman is forced to endure a torturous gauntlet of emotional and physical trauma that have inspired many to label fletcher as one of cinema's cruelest villains he is an unrelenting critic honing

in on imperfections that are indistinguishable to the average listener he demolishes his students confidence by setting the bar of excellence insurmountably high fletcher's methods are borderline sadistic however the more abuse he hurls at neiman the more neiman refuses to concede despite their bitter adversarial relationship both characters are ultimately working towards the same goal overcoming the gap between proficiency and mastery what separates greatness from mediocrity perhaps it is practice dedication raw talent or dumb luck well according to the film greatness is embedded deep within us and it's up to antagonists like fletcher to extract our potential

throughout the film neiman is not just battling fletcher he is also battling himself fletcher's character is largely a manifestation of our ability to improve as an individual even though neiman wants more than anything to overcome fletcher he can't help but find himself forming a mutual respect for the man as fletcher hammers him with ruthless perfectionism neiman finds himself becoming more ruthless as he closes in on perfection in the end he gives up everything his friends family romance health and dignity all to chase the mastery of his craft fletcher broke neiman down into nothing and then

resurrected him in his own image most of us remember fletcher as a cruel master who demanded excellence no matter the cost an archetype not uncommon to many competitive professions however the character should also be renowned as a prime example of a villain converging with the hero to truly defeat fletcher neiman had to become fletcher [Music] see now you respect me because i'm a threat [Music] but what about a case where instead of transforming into the villain the hero creates the villain to find this you have to look no further than the relationship between syndrome and

mr incredible the story of a hero's biggest fan turning into his biggest nemesis unlike the case in whiplash syndrome's obsessive turn is spawned out of neglect from his former idol the incredibles is a film which dissects the anatomy of heroes and villains when you boil it down how do we really define a heroic action in his analysis of the film youtube reviewer the real gems made the intriguing point that in other pixar films buddy would be the protagonist the scrappy underdog who gets told by the world around him that he's not good enough where the

character deviates from the archetype is in his misplaced priorities and what it means to be a hero the incredibles subverts the ethos of the prototypical pixar formula by examining how the underdog story could actually corrupt someone who takes it too much to heart syndrome gets more caught up in the fanfare of heroics than the true moral significance his name may very well be a reference to hero syndrome the term used to describe the phenomenon of firefighters intentionally committing acts of arson since the release of the film this circumstance has become even more apropos through the

rise of social media we now live in a world where anybody can receive public adoration for sanctimonious theatrics and with everyone's super no one will be just like the case with syndrome fighting the omnidroid many of our most widely worshipped heroes may be entirely contrived the incredibles suggests that we choose our heroes carefully because the most sinister villains may be hiding in plain sight sometimes the people we end up hating the most are the ones we fooled ourselves into loving in spite of everything you've done for them eventually they will hate you you either die

a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain [Music] we tend to use the terms villain and antagonist interchangeably but are they really the same thing in a literary sense the antagonist is simply the character who impedes the goals of the protagonist and the protagonist is simply the main character of the story contrary to popular belief villains and protagonists are not mutually exclusive on rare occasions you will see a villain so renowned that they require their own story so what happens when a villain becomes the protagonist well you end up with

a character like the joker hi the joker is quite possibly the most iconic villain in all of popular culture as the nemesis to batman one of the most recognizable superheroes the joker exploded in popularity after his legendary portrayal in the 2008 film the dark knight the untimely death of heath ledger infused an era of mysticism to the performance and the character the dark knight joker has been described by many as one of the most likable villains of all time he is the consummate bad guy a glorious amalgamation of all the villains i listed so far

he is tragically scarred like zuko his motives transcend our comprehension like hal 9000 he is a measured psychopath like chigurh much like fletcher his actions corrupt and transform a hero into his own image and much like syndrome he was created out of a disillusionment with his former idol eleven years after the dark knight we gotta see the joker star in his own standalone movie but in the months leading up to the film's release something very odd started happening the mainstream media began pumping out article after article fearing that the new joker movie would inspire acts

of violence director todd phillips and lead actor joaquin phoenix were repeatedly grilled over their role in creating such an irresponsible glorification of murder this was a film that came out the same year as john wick 3 a 143-minute montage of keanu reeves gallantly executing more than 160 people and a film that received no such concerns over violence from the media so why was joker so heavily scrutinized well by the time it premiered it became immediately obvious why out of touch media elites weren't exactly thrilled with the film in an outcome that was precisely in line

with the themes of the movie joker was scorned by the establishment and beloved by the masses it's a film that highlights the most salient conflict of our time man versus society it's a film that for many of us speaks straight from the heart if it was me dying on the sidewalk you'd walk right over me some like to say that joaquin phoenix wasn't acting when he delivered this line it's a reference to the real-life passing of his brother river who died of a drug overdose on the sidewalk in front of a hollywood nightclub society is

a cruel and unforgiving place it spits out mentally ill loners like the joker every single day the media who chastise this movie for glorifying violence do the very same thing every time one of these people snaps we all like to fetishize the outcomes of these massacres while completely ignoring the journey joker shows us that journey it puts us inside the mind of the madman and suggests that all of us are accomplices to the bloodshed john wick could slaughter a million grunts in his wacky assassin world but nothing he does will ever have the same impact

as the joker firing a single bullet through the skull of murray franklin the joker terrifies us not because he kills people but because he makes us enjoy watching him kill people no other piece of media in recent memory has made more people question their idea of morality there's a little piece of the joker in all of us it's why many find the characters so sympathetic and relatable was the joker justified in killing murray everything we've been taught in our entire lives would tell us no but many of us would be lying if we said that

scene wasn't at least a little bit cathartic of course the movie never inspired any real-life violence but it did make a tremendous impact on popular culture for many it perfectly captured the zeitgeist of growing discontent in an increasingly chaotic world the spirit of the film has only grown in a year that featured mass political unrest and building frustration with social institutions the joker is one of the most memorable villains because he is so frighteningly close to reality and the newest installment of the character only added to the legacy of fiction's most popular villain joker is

profoundly uncomfortable and eternally controversial it forces us to confront the ugliest parts of the human condition at the end of the day isn't that the ultimate point of a villain i don't want to kill you what would i do without you no no you you complete me fiction helps us mentally process conflict in the real world when growing up we're taught about good and evil as a way to avoid discussing the true complexities of actual issues by the time we get older we begin to realize that the world is not as black and white as

we were led to believe as much as we hate them villains are a necessary evil they push us to our absolute limit they motivate us to aspire for something greater without any villains to defeat the role of a hero is meaningless everyone is the protagonist of their own story and we are free to choose our antagonists based on our own beliefs and attitudes towards the world from a certain point of view anybody can be either reveled or reviled so be careful who you call the bad guy because one day you might just end up feeling

sympathy for the villain but also aboard the ship is commander nefarious captain i'm a bad guy an admiral bone to pick but they don't mention them