[UA] The Villain Archetype (was: various topics)

[Stuart Anderson]

Eric Brennan wrote:

>     I've been thinking about this--nobody really thinks that they're the bad
> guy.

I don't know about that. Some people fail at being the good guy. They develop
this rotton self-perception and decide that if fate has made them a
son-of-a-bitch, then they're gonna be the best damn son-of-a-bitch they can be.
That's a fairly common rationale among bastards.

> However, a lot of people, when faced with a person counter to their
> own beliefs (or in possession of genuinely abhorrent beliefs from most sane
> perspectives) believe that the "bad" person has actually "chosen" to be a
> bad guy--put conscious effort into being a villain.
>     Wouldn't that set of beliefs--that the opposition is a bad guy--create
> an Avatar?  The Avatar of the Villain, or the Bad Man (too bad that moniker
> is already in use, I suppose.)

That avatar would be distinctly different from the "Bastard" avatars above. I
like the idea, but it seems an enforced avatar would face the same problems we
seem to have discussed for unwilling avatars. They have to be aware and
participating. I like it as an avatar and a storyline well enough that I could
find a way to use it. A PC scould be identified by a huge population as
evil--I'm thinking about some Salmon Rushdie-type situation here--and
inadvertently discovers that he is really good all of a sudden at filling that
role. As if SR discovered that any bizarre, improbable, superhero thing he
wanted to do could be accomplished, as long as he was breaking Islam. How big a
bastard would you be willing to be (and to whom) for that kind of power?

> You can see the villain tap into it during
> "Unbreakable."  Could there be a high level "Villain" out there, setting out
> to do the wrong thing because he's on the road to power, the left hand road?
>     I mean, there's got to be enough belief in the villain to create an
> Avatar for it.

I think it's a neat idea.
--Stu


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