Are Villains Good Or Bad

How can you tell if a “bad guy”--the villain, the monster, the thief--is necessarily a bad guy? Is it by the images they choose to ink on their skin? Their crooked smile, or maybe perhaps the way they like to crack their knuckles? Maybe it’s just their attire: it’s too dark, too scary. And what of their eyes? There’s something there...something about the way they’re placed, something about how they flicker and gleam with every mention of what they desire. But what of their feelings? The ever-circling wheels of emotions from deep inside that manage to control the raging tides of life? Do they not care like we do?

Most stories, movies, and myths have the simple archetype of Good vs. Evil. This particular archetype can often be confusing, because in stories the reader is often lead to believe that something or someone represents good or evil, but it does not. More often than not the evil character is either crazy or was raised wrongly. Evil characters in Good vs. Evil stories are often not truly evil but either mental unstable or not taught right from wrong.

A villain is someone who performs evil actions that negatively affect another person. Carl Harmon in the novel Where Are the Children? by Mary Higgins Clark is indeed a villain. Carl Harmon is portrayed at first as an innocent but mysterious husband to his wife Nancy Harmon. As the book continues it is revealed that he is a manipulative and dangerous man. Carl Harmon is a villain and he has the greatest impact on the story because he creates conflict through his actions, and he provides suspense.

The definition of evil is profoundly immoral and malevolent and is harmful or tending to harm. The most evil character between General Zaroff and Montresor according to the definition of evil is Montresor. Montresor is the most evil character because he plays a cruel joke, he has a moral compass and chooses to ignore it, and kills one of his friends.

The antagonists of a story are usually not the ones critically acclaimed. Due to our human inclination it’s fairly relevant that, as readers, more of an emotional attachment is built with the protagonists. However, in spite of that, villains still deserve our attention. From taking a close look at a few villains and the methods in which they manipulate, parallels in strategy are prevalent. A few examples of antagonists that particularly stand out are: Iago from the tragedy Othello written by William Shakespeare, Roger Chillingworth from the novel The Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Abigail Williams from Arthur Miller’s novel The Crucible, these characters all use isolation to manipulate others throughout the stories.

Then, in To Build A Fire the unnamed character does not listen to the men in the Yukon that he should not go outside because it is too cold for him. This is not a real example of evil because the only problem he causes was endangering his life and his dog. Compared to other stories where someone is much more evil and does much worse things, he merely thought that he was smarter than the other men so he did not have to listen to them, which was wrong but it didn't

Why are people villains? Is it because of past mistakes, how they were raised or maybe it's in there blood to be a villain? The dictionary defines a villain as a character whose evil actions or motives are important to the plot, but others may define a villain as evil and monstrous simply by examples of the actions of the villain. Two characters are Odysseus, the most villainous in The Odyssey retold by Robin Lister, and Ursula from the film: The Little mermaid directed by Ron Clements and John Musker. When comparing these two villains, it is clear that Ursula is a much greater villain than Odysseus because of her trickery, she’s a liar, and a thief.

Villains seem to be the most intriguing characters of fairy tales, whether it’s their scary charm or their suspenseful motives. Villains inject many memorable events in tales and they have an interesting way of doing it. “Villains also have more fun than their angsty, conflict-ridden counterpart” Aja Romano writes in an article for The Daily Dot. It surely seems that way, doesn’t it? Villains are usually having fun in their evil ploys all the way until their evil plans are foiled and they get their consequences. Villains have admirable qualities; they awaken the inner wild child in the readers or viewers. They evoke a sense of almost rooting for them at times. Villains always have power as opposed to their counterpart’s kindness and lack of assertiveness and sense of power. Especially in princess fairy tales, the villain usually is the more powerful and assertive character while the heroine is a more sweet and nurturing character and usually lacks the power characteristic. Some may argue against this, what about

“The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe and “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O'Connor explore the depths of evil and what makes an individual truly evil. They both question are understanding of evil and the different forms it may present itself in. These stories do an equally good job at getting the reader to see true evil first hand, even though they present evil in much different ways. As humans we can differentiate evil from good most of the time there is usually a clean cut line from a morally just action from one that is not.

The villain who attracts and repels over the change of character is Macbeth. Macbeth does this through his appearance of being a wise and noble towards the king and always supporting him. He goes on to deceive his inner self from being a noble man to being a man who is deceiving to become king. This is shown in the theme appearance vs reality as due to the development of the character of Macbeth. This is due to him pretending as someone he isn’t and not represent what he is in reality. An example of a quote is, “I dare do all that may become a man: who dares do more, is none”. This quote means that he is appearing to forward or convey a message peacefully, but in reality his intentions are not good towards his

The Introduction will define evil and villainy as well as the purpose of both villains

In all cases considered, the villain usually reigns over the hero of the story, and as he may seem fearless, he is a coward hidden within himself. Never is a villain positioned lowly in a story, because the purpose is to have an imbalance between good and evil to show that even when evil is dominant, good still conquers.

of the story. Movie villains are not just plainly the main enemy in a movie as

It seems that in recent years movie villains have been reduced to bland, superficial scare-machines. The golden age of dynamic villains has come and gone, and action movies everywhere are all hype and no substance. In contrast to modern horror films, the 1990s brought us some of the greatest movie villains of all time. Villains who were uncomfortably relatable, undeniably cunning, and extremely frightening all at the same time dominated the box office. Dr. Hannibal Lecter (played by Anthony Hopkins) in the 1991 film directed by Jonathan Demme and adopted from a novel by Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs, is a perfect example of a sinister villain who is both compelling and complex, and his performance set the standard for villains to

What makes a villain a villain? Is it the senseless violence inflicted upon the innocent? Or is it the oh so tragic backstory that is dramatically revealed just when the audience was really starting to hate them? Or is it when they...you know...eat people? When is it too much? When does a villain become a villain? Is it not all just based on our society’s views on what is right and what is wrong? After binging Hannibal, this is pretty much all I could think for several days. One moment you’re hoping that whoever this cannibalistic serial killer is, gets caught and put away for a long, long time and then the next moment, you’ve fallen in love with him. It’s really quite a rollercoaster. This show raises a lot of questions about morality, it