Villain

Villain
A villain (also known as a "black hat" or "bad guy"; the feminine form is villainess) is a stock character, whether based on a historical narrative or one of literary fiction. Random House Unabridged Dictionary defines such a character as "a cruelly malicious person who is involved in or devoted to wickedness or crime; scoundrel; or a character in a play, novel, or the like, who constitutes an important evil agency in the plot". The antonym of a villain is a hero.
The villain's structural purpose is to serve as the opposition of the hero character and their motives or evil actions drive a plot along. In contrast to the hero, who is defined by feats of ingenuity and bravery and the pursuit of justice and the greater good, a villain is often defined by their acts of selfishness, evilness, arrogance, cruelty, and cunning, displaying immoral behavior that can oppose or pervert justice.
Etymology
The term villain first came into English from the Anglo-French and Old French vilain, which is further derived from the Late Latin word villanus, which referred to those bound to the soil of the villa and worked on an equivalent of a plantation in Late Antiquity, in Italy or Gaul.
Vilain later shifted to villein, which referred to a person of a less than knightly status, implying a lack of chivalry and politeness. All actions that were unchivalrous or evil (such as treachery or rape) eventually fell under the identity of belonging to a villain in the modern sense of the word. Additionally, villein became used as a term of abuse and eventually took on its modern meaning.
The landed aristocracy of Middle Age Europe used politically and linguistically the Middle English descendant of villanus meaning "villager" (styled as vilain or vilein) with the meaning "a person of uncouth mind and manners". As the common equating of manners with morals gained in strength and currency, the connotations worsened, so that the modern word villain is no unpolished villager, but is instead (among other things) a deliberate scoundrel or criminal.
At the very same time the medieval expression "vilein" or "vilain" is closely influenced by the word "vile", referring to something wicked or worthless.
From the late 13th-century vile meant "morally repugnant; morally flawed, corrupt, wicked; of no value; of inferior quality; disgusting, foul, ugly; degrading, humiliating; of low estate, without worldly honor or esteem", from Anglo-French ville, Old French vil, from Latin vilis "cheap, worthless, of low value".
Although the relation of these terms became intertwined at some later in time, it is unknown when this happened.
Classical literature
In classical literature, the villain character is not always the same as those that appear in modern and postmodern incarnations, as the lines of morality are often blurred to imply a sense of ambiguity or affected by historical context and cultural ideas. Often the delineation of heroes and villains in this literature is left unclear.
William Shakespeare modelled the villain archetype to be three-dimensional in characteristics and gave way to the complex nature that villains showcase in modern literature. However, Shakespeare's incarnations of historical figures were influenced by the propaganda pieces coming from Tudor sources, and his works often showed this bias and discredited their reputation. For example, Shakespeare famously portrayed Richard III as a hideous monster who destroyed his family out of spite.
Folk and fairy tales
Russian fairy tales
In an analysis of Russian fairy tales, Vladimir Propp concluded that the majority of stories had only eight "dramatis personae", one being the villain. This analysis has been widely applied to non-Russian tales. The actions that fell into a villain's sphere were:
a story-initiating villainy, where the villain caused harm to the hero or his family
a conflict between the hero and the villain, either a fight or other competition
pursuing the hero after he has succeeded in winning the fight or obtaining something from the villain
When a character displays these traits, it is not necessarily tropes specific to the fairy tale genre, but it does imply that the one who performs certain acts to be the villain. The villain, therefore, can appear twice in a story to fulfill certain roles: once in the opening of the story, and a second time as the person sought out by the hero.
When a character has only performed actions or displayed traits that coincide with Vladimir Propp's analysis, that character can be identified as a pure villain. Folklore and fairy tale villains can also play a myriad of roles that can influence or drive a story forward. In fairy tales villains can perform an influential role; for example, a witch who fought the hero and ran away, and who lets the hero follow her, is also performing the task of "guidance" and thus acting as a helper.
Propp also proposed another two archetypes of the villain's role within the narrative, in which they can portray themselves as villainous in a more general sense. The first is the false hero: This character is always villainous, presenting a false claim to be the hero that must be rebutted for the happy ending. Examples of characters who display this trait, and interfere with the success of a tale's hero, are the Ugly Stepsisters in Cinderella who chopped off parts of their feet to fit in the shoe.
Another role for the villain would be the dispatcher, who sends the hero on their quest. At the beginning of the story, their request may appear benevolent or innocent, but the dispatcher's real intentions might be to send the hero on a journey in the hopes of being rid of them.
The roles and influences that villains can have over a narrative can also be transferred over to other characters – to continue their role in the narrative through another character. The legacy of the villain is often transferred through that of bloodlines (family) or a devoted follower. For example, if a dragon played the role of a villain but was killed by the hero, another character (such as the dragon's sister) might take on the legacy of the previous villain and pursue the hero out of revenge.
Villain archetypes
The fairy tale genre utilises villains as key components to push the narrative forward and influence the hero's journey. These, while not as rounded as those that appear in other forms of literature, are what is known as archetypes. The archetypal villain is a common occurrence within the genre and come under different categories that have different influences on the protagonist and the narrative.
False donor
The false donor is a villain who utilises trickery to achieve their ends. Often the false donor will pose as a benevolent figure or influence on the protagonist (or those associated with them) to present them with a deal. The deal will present a short-term solution or benefit for whoever accepts it and, in return, benefit the villain in the long term. During the story's climax, the hero often has to find a way to rectify the agreement in order to defeat the villain or achieve the happy ending.
Similarly, the devil archetype is one that also makes an offer to the protagonist (or someone associated with them) and appeals to their needs and desires. However, the devil archetype does not hide their intentions from the protagonist. The subsequent story often follows the protagonist's journey to try and annul the agreement before any damage can be done.
Beast
The beast is a character who relies on their instincts and ability to cause destruction to achieve their ends. The evil intentions of their actions are often easily identified, as they act without concern for others (or their wellbeing) or subtlety. The rampaging villain can take the form of a very powerful individual or a rampaging beast but is still one of the more dangerous villain archetypes due to their affinity for destruction.
Authority figure
The authority figure is one that has already attained a level of command and power but always craves more. They are often driven by their desire for material wealth, distinguished stature or great power and appear as a monarch, corporate climber or other powerful individual. Their end goal is often the total domination of their corporation, nation, or world through mystical means or political manipulation. Often this villain is defeated by their own greed, pride, or arrogance.
Traitor
The traitor is a villain who emphasizes the traits of trickery, manipulation and deception to achieve their goals, which is often to offer or supply information to the protagonist's opposition to halt them on their journey; often in exchange for their own freedom or safety. The traitor's goals are not always evil but the actions they commit to reach their goal can be considered inherently evil.
Animated villains
Animated villains appear most commonly in children's shows. Disney movies provide some of the most iconic examples. Here, the villains are normally more simplistic, as the story is typically not as deep.
In modern animation, animated villains that are more significant and fleshed out have become increasingly common as cartoons have begun to be favored by adults. Shows such as Adventure Time, Gravity Falls, and Rick and Morty range from child to adult cartoons, but are all watched by a largely older audience.
Villains in animated works, such as Disney movies, often embody stereotypes in a more direct and harmful way than live-action villains, according to scholars on the subject. Their character design is commonly based on caricatures of racist, antisemitic, and/or homophobic stereotypes with over-exaggerated features. In addition, female animated villains are often portrayed in ways that feed into misogynistic ideas and traditional gender roles. Subject matter experts often discuss how involving these stereotypes in the creation of villains can be detrimental to marginalized communities, as it creates a link between minority groups and evil, in turn dehumanizing them. With children and adolescents as the target group for animated films, this media can damage the development of perception of gender and sexuality, as it depicts stereotypes that embrace skewed social concepts.
Misogynistic stereotypes
In animated works, it has been observed that the villains frequently fall into two categories: women who exhibit societally undesirable traits, or men displaying feminine traits. In the case of men with feminine traits, this stems from both a homophobic and misogynistic point of view which is further discussed below.
As for female villains who are portrayed with "displeasing" characteristics, not only are they crafted to look unattractive, but their motivations for becoming evil are rooted in very trivial matters. Debra Bradley's survey on Disney films discovered that 28% of female villains, such as the evil queen and Lady Tremaine, are influenced by jealousy/vanity whereas only 4% of male villains are driven by these same factors. Rather the men, such as Hades and Captain Hook, have motives grounded in wealth and power, giving in to masculine stereotypes and signifying an attachment to the patriarchy.
Additionally, in animation there is a history of mothers and grandmothers being posed as the villains of many stories. Neil Gaiman's Coraline presents this phenomenon through the idea of the other-mother. In Coraline, the Other Mother is a loving, caring parent who welcomes Coraline to a new life, helping in the face of troubles back home. By glorifying this other mother, the story paints Coraline's real mother as negligent, in turn causing her to be the villain of the story. Disney films also take on the motherly stereotypes in their villains. Mother Gothel from Disney's Tangled is an example of this. She is motivated by greed and a desire for power and youth that she steals from Rapunzel's magic hair. Both these examples place evil in motherhood and create villains out of motherly figures which negatively targets female parents.
Other female villains are portrayed as hyper-sexual and powerful beings that are used to juxtapose the beauty or physical characteristics of the heroine; for example, the Lady Tremaine and stepsisters in Cinderella. The underrepresentation of realistic women in animated media perpetuate toxic masculinity due to the lack of accurate media portrayals. Male villains also hold several traits that are characteristically feminine. Characters like Jafar (Aladdin) and Hades (Hercules) have features such as shaded eyelids and accentuated facial features, similar to those typically associated with femininity.
Homophobic stereotypes
There are a few ways animated villains showcase homophobic stereotypes. One such way is the stereotype of effeminate men, sometimes referred to by subject experts as "sissy villains," where their mannerisms represent stereotypes relating to gay men. Another example is the depiction of masculine women, which emulates drag queens or butch lesbians. This homophobia in animated villains can be seen clearly through Ursula of The Little Mermaid. Ursula is closely modeled after the famous drag queen "Divine" with her heavy makeup, hair styled in a mohawk, and her nails painted bright red. Her goal throughout the film is to become queen and disrupt the coupling of Ariel and Prince Eric, both of which connect villainy to drag queens, suggesting that there is inherent evil in those who do drag.
Disney films also showcase heterosexual couples as the happily ever after love story in nearly all movies. There is a lack of examples of homosexual relationships, which furthers queer-coding within the animated film industry and continually provides a very limited perspective on sexuality and gender to impressionable young kids who consume this media.
Villainous foil
Villains in fiction commonly function in the dual role of adversary and foil to a story's heroes. In their role as an adversary, the villain serves as an obstacle the hero must struggle to overcome. In their role as a foil, they exemplify characteristics that are diametrically opposed to those of the hero, creating a contrast distinguishing heroic traits from villainous ones.
Other have pointed out that many acts of villains have a hint of wish-fulfillment, which makes some readers or viewers identify with them as characters more strongly than with the heroes. Because of this, a convincing villain must be given a characterization that provides a motive for doing wrong, as well as being a worthy adversary to the hero. As put by film critic Roger Ebert: "Each film is only as good as its villain. Since the heroes and the gimmicks tend to repeat from film to film, only a great villain can transform a good try into a triumph."
Portraying and employing villains in fiction
The actor Tod Slaughter typically portrayed villainous characters on both stage and screen in a melodramatic manner, with mustache-twirling, eye-rolling, leering, cackling, and hand-rubbing.
Female villain
The term villain is the universal term for characters who pose as catalysts for certain ideals that readers or observers find immoral, but the term "villainess" is often used to highlight specific traits that come with their female identity—separating them, in some aspects, from their male counterparts. The use of the female villain (or villainess) is often to highlight the traits that come specifically with the character and the abilities they possess that are exclusive to them. For example, one of the female villain's greatest weapons is her alluring beauty. The perversion of inherently female traits in storytelling also alludes to the demonic display of the succubus and their affinity for utilizing their beauty as a weapon—a trait utilized by many female villains throughout modern fiction and mythology. However, this is not always the case. As seen often in animated films, female villains are portrayed with "ugly" appearances to contrast the beauty of the protagonist, in turn associating unattractiveness with evil. This paints female villains in a negative light compared to their heroine counterparts, and showcases the duality of the female villain character.
Use of the term "villain" to describe historical figures and real-life people
The ethical dimension of history poses the problem of judging those who acted in the past, and at times, tempts scholars and historians to construct a world of black and white in which the terms "hero" and "villain" are used arbitrary and with the pass of time become interchangeable. These binaries of course are reflected to varying degrees in endless movies, novels, and other fictional and non-fictional narratives.
As processes of globalization connect the world, cultures with different historical trajectories and political traditions will need to find ways to work together not only economically, but also politically. In this evolving framework of globalization, tradition, according to political theorists like Edmund Burke, historical figures perceived and evaluated as either positive or negative become the embodiment of national political cultures that may collude or collide against one another.
The usage of villain to describe a historical figure dates back to Tudor propaganda, pieces of which ended up influencing William Shakespeare's portrayal of Richard III as a spiteful and hunchback tyrant.
Sympathetic villain
The sympathetic villain or anti-villain is one with the typical traits of a villainous character but differs in their motivations. Their intention to cause chaos or commit evil actions is driven by an ambiguous motivation or is not driven by an intent to cause evil. Their intentions may coincide with the ideals of a greater good, or even a desire to make the world a better place, but their actions are inherently evil in nature. An anti-villain is the opposite of an anti-hero. While the anti-hero often fights on the side of good, but with questionable or selfish motives, the anti-villain plays a villain's game, but for a noble cause in a way that the audience or other characters can sympathize with. They may be more noble or heroic than an anti-hero, but the means to achieve their ends are often considered exploitative, immoral, unjust, or simply evil. Characters who fall into this category are often created with the intention of humanizing them, making them more relatable to the reader/viewer by posing the "how" and "why" behind their motivations rather than simply creating a one-dimensional character. Because of their motives, many of these types of villains are commonly nicknamed as "anti-villains".
American writer Brad Warner has argued that "only cartoon villains cackle with glee while rubbing their hands together and dream of ruling the world in the name of all that is wicked and bad". American writer Ben Bova recommends to writers that their works not contain villains. He states, in his Tips for writers:In the real world there are no villains. No one actually sets out to do evil ... Fiction mirrors life. Or, more accurately, fiction serves as a lens to focus on what they know in life and bring its realities into sharper, clearer understanding for us. There are no villains cackling and rubbing their hands in glee as they contemplate their evil deeds. There are only people with problems, struggling to solve them.
Following up on Bova's point, American writer David Lubar adds that the villain "may be driven by greed, neuroses, or the conviction that his cause is just, but he's driven by something, not unlike the things that drive a hero."
See also
Adversary
Antagonist
Antihero
Archnemesis
Archenemy
Criminal
Enemy
Evil laughter
Filmfare Award for Best Performance in a Negative Role Since 1991, Bollywood has recognized the best actors portraying a villain.
List of soap opera villains
Lovable rogue
Nemesis (mythology)
Rival (disambiguation)
Supervillain
Tyrant
References
External links
Good and evil
Fantasy tropes
Literary archetypes
Antagonists by role
Mythological archetypes
Mythological characters
Stock characters