Breaking news! It’s absolutely normal to do so. Sounds like a big relief, right? Like you, there are many more people who find Joker more interesting than Batman, Lord Voldemort more fascinating than Harry Potter and so on…. One of the major reason for this is; Villians are flawed like we all are.
There is no such thing as perfect and as ideal as any movie, comics, books or series hero. Empathy is the strong emotion that we have and helps us understand a character. Psychiatrist Carl Jung once said, the real reason we find interest in evil characters is because these villians force us to ‘confront and understand our own hidden nature to grow as human beings’.
Nothing in the world is black and white or as simple as good and bad. Even good guys are susceptible to wrong doings or making a wrong decision. We, as human beings are all Heroes in some areas and Villians in other areas of our life. And it’s completely normal. No one is born evil and no one is destined to be good. We are full of emotions – love, hate, anger, fear, anxiety, guilt, resentment, jealousy. Whatever you feel, all are valid. That’s also another reason why we all like villians. They feel all the emotions that come natural to we humans.
Know that, just because you like villians, it doesn’t mean you believe in ripping people off or believe in carnage or crimes they do. It simply means you believe in all these emotions. Let me put it in another way, would you ever approve of terrorists killing the innocents? No, never. See point proved.
When it comes to movies, books, comics and series, its reverse. Not because villians are bad and heroes are good. But, because heroes just don’t sound realistic. Besides on a lighter side, villians have better clothes, they are cool, have better dialogues – especially the monologues at the climax, they have a background to be evil where you empathize, they are more creative than hero, they get to be cruel when they want to be, they have freedom of speech and the list is long.
Villians have free-will – not constrained by rules and regulations or morality. We are tied up with time-tables, hectic daily routines, exams, jobs, sleep on time, wake up early, we have scheduled time to play and do home-work, go to coaching classes, arts classes, sports classes, projects, and so on. Hardly any time left in a day to do what you love. At the end of the day, we are all exhausted. We feel villians are liberated soul. Villians get to go wild as a character, you and me have to be descent, smiling and good to everyone all the time. Villians can blow up in anger anytime they want, they can insult anyone they want. But as a hero, you are too good to do that or suppress those emotions to look good.
Psychologically, in some or the other areas of our life we find ourselves as victims. So better villain than a victim. Emotion of anger feels better to us than the emotion of anxiety or fear. A victimized person who cannot figure out ways to take responsibility, will become destructive for the need of self-assertion. A person with healthy mind would rather take accountability and deal with the consequences.
You like villians not because you like villians. You like villians because you don’t like those all perfect heroes or you just cannot like them – because they personify perfection and idealism, which is not realistic. We have to choose either this or that. We are trained to first figure out things we don’t like instead of what we really like. For example, from a buffet of ice-creams, you are asked which one you want, you would first check all the ice-creams laid in the buffet, make a mental note that there’s Sitafal ice-cream, Strawberry ice-cream and chocolate ice-cream and say ‘I want chocolate’ ice-cream. Majority of the people choose something because they don’t like the other in the given choices. You choose chocolate flavor because you don’t like Sitafal or strawberry flavor. If there’s another flavor that you like, say, butter-scotch, you would be confused which one to have because you like both. Complex emotions. You will choose what your senses relate most to or to put it in another way, you chose the one you like the most.
Now consider you are a hero and your problems and struggles as villain. What would you say about this? So now you like your problems? Will you feel heroic when you overcome them, just like a hero defeats villains in the end? A hero only appears as heroic as the challenge he or she has to overcome. Villians move in and out of a story to reveal how heroic a hero can be. Great heroes require great villians.
You are the hero and villian of your life. The problems and struggles you face today will help you grow and move on to another level of your life. On a new level, there will be new challenges and so on. You are a hero in whose life villians will keep moving in and out at different stages. Each one of us is a hero with villians in our life who he is there to help us grow. Villians are not bad and heroes are not good. Both are equally needed, both are good at something, both are bad at something and both are average in something too.
Keep affirming to yourself and believe that:
You are perfect the way you are and the way you are not. You are unique and special. You are loving, loved and lovable.
