Its been a hot minute since I've
written anything for the blog, but that's because of two things: new
schedule changes with a new job and I've been steadily working on a
novel project I want to get out the gate this year. It also means
diving head first into the land of giant robots, which is the best
kind of research.
As for this post's topic, it hit me as
I was commuting today. There's a well established complaint among
fandom circles that “villains are always more interesting than
heroes.” I've noticed this way back when in cape comic circles, but
its everywhere in Fandom, and a quick internet search brings up a
bunch of discussions about the subject; some useful, some not. Much
of it turns into clickbait because that's the hellish landscape of
the modern internet. Here's a Reddit thread from a few years ago
that's less cringey than a bunch of other articles I've found:
https://www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/2njl1b/is_it_normal_to_find_villainsantagonists_more/
A lot of the standard arguments for
this position tend toward: Heroes are boring because they have to be
Good, and Good is Bland. Villains get to be more fun. Villains get to
be pro-active and heroes have to be re-active. Villains have more
complex motivations than Heroes.
Et Cetera Et Cetera Et Cetera
This leads to a few scattered thoughts:
1) If the Bad Guy is so much more
interesting than the Good Guy, why not...simply make that your
Protagonist? Evil protagonists work, especially in the context
of Tragedy. Just ask Macbeth. Or, if the villain isn't actually all
that evil, what's to stop him from being the actual hero of the story
in conflict with a much more powerful and morally rigid authoritarian
who would otherwise be the designated protagonist.
2) The most interesting character to
follow around should be the protagonist. They're the one with the
most meat to their story, and have the most potential destinations
for their character arcs.
3) There's a reason why this
conversation happens a lot in comics circles, because characters like
Batman and Spider-Man are Brands now, instead of Characters. Batman
is: Bruce Wayne. Rich Guy. Dead Parents. Never Kills. Punches Clowns.
Any deviation from that, like when he was occasionally replaced,
never lasts, because the status quo has to reassert itself. Not for
narrative reasons, but because of Brand Recognition. That's
ultimately why Spider-Man's marriage was undone, because everybody
knows Peter Parker is a young, down-on-his-luck kid who can't catch a
break in his personal life, and why Wally West was ditched as the
Flash after a critically and commercially acclaimed run that lasted
over two decades because Barry Allen was the version on The Super
Friends. Villains, by comparison, have more wiggle room for creative
teams to do things with. I suspect this has a connection to the
cynicism you find in a lot of long-term comic book fans.
4) “Boring Block Of Wood Protagonist”
was not how it used to be. It was the exact opposite in most serial
fiction stories. There is no one more interesting in The Shadow than
The Shadow. There is no one more interesting in Conan the Barbarian
than Conan. There is no one more interesting in Tarzan than Tarzan
himself. If a protagonist is upstaged by a cat, there's a very serious storytelling problem going on.
5) But Muh Joker! Muh Lex Luthor! Stop
it. Those are good, sometimes amazing (depending on who's writing)
villains, but consider this: Lex Luthor NEEDS Superman to exist as an
interesting character. Superman did just fine for himself for two
years before ol' Lexie showed up in 1940. You don't have a Great Lex
Luthor story without even the faintest shadow of Superman hovering
over him, because you don't have ANY Lex Luthor stories without
Superman existing first. This is true for just about every other
great villain in serial fiction except maybe Fu Manchu.
6) “Villains are more interesting
than heroes” feels more like a way to excuse bad writing. Respect
yourself as an audience member and a customer of storytelling. Your
time is precious, demand better from the storytellers you choose to
occupy it with.
