Your Hero is only as good as your Villain

 

             
          “God of Mischief”, a marvelous blog dedicated to the villain of Thor, Loki, was flawlessly able to put into words the importance of the contradicting relations between a villain and a hero. In her post “why villains are important”, she further expounds on how critical a strong antagonist character is to a plot and provides valid examples of what could go wrong if comics lack these characters. Throughout her post, she supports her arguments by referring to two popular Marvel comics, one with a static antagonist and one with a dynamic antagonist in order to verify her idea that villains who significantly impact the plot result in a better story line all together.

We are first exposed to characters of Captain America, an American favorite during World War II due to his role as an American Super-soldier who fought axis powers. Unfortunately it was just that; the comic did a fantastic job portraying the Hero with a pitiful backstory however, their villain, Red Skull, came off as a bit flat. Confirming her argument, “God of Mischief” explains that “Because Red Skull came off as merely a bad guy for the hero to defeat, I was rather ambivalent about the whole story arc of the film. It wasn’t that I didn’t want Red Skull defeated, it was that I really just didn’t care”. She then goes on to say that due to Red Skull’s two dimensional character, Captain America’s character became less meaningful. The author of the blog post tells about a time that a writing mentor told her “that no matter how fantastically 3-dimensional your hero is, if your villain is just a 2-dimensional bad guy, it’s your hero who suffers.” If the “God of Mischief” is correct, which I think she is, we need to readdress the popular assumption that a villain does not need a back story. According to functionalist theory, institutions promote stability in society and many times dysfunctions are needed in order to make society or institutions aware of a bigger picture. With this in mind, think of a hero as an institution and a villain as a dysfunction in society (the plot), while solving the obvious problem and defeating the villain, the hero is often made aware of a hidden message (underlying theme of the plot). The hero can still remain the main character but the villain is needed in order shape the hero and ultimately keep that character from falling flat.

Finally, in order to tie her argument together, “God of Mischief” praises the film, Thor for its outstanding job in creating a rounded out antagonist who was capable of magnifying the protagonist. She argues that “[Villains] don’t solely exist as some foe for our heroes to vanquish. A villain is meant to challenge the hero, to push that protagonist beyond his limits and discover who he truly is.” I agree that a great villain should be capable of causing a positive change in a hero, a point that needs emphasizing since so many people overlook the value of a three-dimensional antagonist who helps develop a stronger protagonist. With Loki being such a dynamic character, she claims that you are actually able to see the exact moment that Loki changes Thor. “In fact, I’d say the pivotal moment for Thor’s change came when Loki visited him while he was being held by SHIELD. It was Loki’s lies, told under the guise of false sympathy, which broke Thor completely, that made the blond Norse god finally humble enough to understand what Odin had been trying to teach him… it was Loki who ultimately changed Thor–a change that continues to solidify by Thor’s various interactions with Loki throughout the rest of the film.”. In just a few well written paragraphs, the “God of Mischief” was able to propose and validate the theme of our blog giving readers a new perspective on villains and their back stories.