The first season of Stargirl ended a couple months ago with villains that had good intentions. In the narrative of the story, we learned that the big bad who was called Icicle had a wife who died because of an illness brought on by a company dumping chemicals into the local water supply. Of course (capitalist dystopia), no one at the chemical company actually took responsibility for her death. This sent the villain on a quest to create a wonderful liberal utopia that could only happen if a lot of people died along the way.
Icicle was head of the Injustice Society of America, and they had a big bad evil plan. Members of the Injustice Society were Brainwave, Icicle, Tigress, Sportsmaster, and the Gambler. They killed people, even kids, with no regard...all to accomplish this: a progressive agenda that would shame even Bernie Sanders. You see, they wanted to combat global warming by forcing people to embrace solar and wind power. They were going to eliminate discrimination over race, religion, and sexual orientation. And they were going to provide universal healthcare. When I realized that this was what the Injustice Society stood for, I was like, what the hell? Those are good things, right? But the method by which they were going to accomplish these things was through brutality, violence, and mind control that would end up killing so many people...oh so many. It reminded me (a bit) of Thanos...
Which brings me to this point: we are getting some very interesting villains in our fictional stories these days. Villains that you can actually sympathize with because, as they say, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Where have we seen this before, other than with Thanos, who (as a reminder) killed off half the universe to restore the ecosystem of the universe? Here's the list I came up with.
1) Killmonger in Black Panther just wanted an end to racism and the effects of colonization.
2) Ozymandias in Watchmen wanted to prevent another World War from happening. He wanted to save billions by triggering genocide so that they would unite against a common enemy. You can't have world peace without breaking some eggs, right?
3) Magneto wanted a life of dignity free of discrimination for his kind. In order to accomplish this, he just needed to kill all the humans.
4) Darth Vader just wanted to save his family, starting with his wife. He was an incredibly powerful child shunned by the Jedi because they thought he might turn evil.
5) Syndrome from the Incredibles wanted an egalitarian society where no one is superior than another. That's not so bad, right?
Do you have any you would add to this list?
It's true that most villains think of themselves as heroes.
ReplyDeleteI like that what the villains want is something that's good. It's a reminder that method does matter, and good intentions do not make one the good guy.
ReplyDeleteIt’s not really the goals but...how they try to achieve them that’s, ah, that’s the problem. If I want to clean my apartment but...burn down the whole building to...ah, do so, it’s...it’s overkill. This has been a weird trend. It’s a little odd to fixate on, say, Killmonger “being right all along,” when in order to be right he has to in effect be wrong in order to get what he wants. It’s wrong to be wrong in order to be right. I can’t believe this needs explaining.
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