Degrees of Diabolicalness - Part II

Second Degree of Diabolicalness: You understand a little too well what fatal flaw led them down the dark path and why they do what they do

In my opinion, this is always what makes the absolute best villains: you can relate to them even in the face of their ruthless and outright diabolical machinations. No matter how vile, no matter how sick or cold-blooded their actions, you can see the method behind the madness and most of the times, and here's where it goes from scary to scary brilliant, it makes perfect sense.

To me, Batman's villains are the best example of a hero whose greatest enemies are ones that the reader can sympathize with more than we might ever think we should. Why? Because we know that given their situation, it's entirely possible to envision a reality where we would have done the exact same thing. People can label comic book and fantasy superheroes as being unrealistic all they want, but the truth of the matter is that the reason these forms of literature work so well (when they do) is because they utilize the archetypes that readers identify with, putting themselves into the shoes of the villain and saying, "Yep, I can see how it came to this."

Using Batman's gallery of rogues as the example, let's see if we can sympathize with the plight of the fall from grace that his villains experienced...


Two-Face - Harvey Dent suffered from anger problems because of an abusive childhood and the resulting schizophrenia that sprang up because of his inability to cope with the trauma. Yet, Dent still tried to channel his seething rage into the orderly confines of the law, of justice, until the fateful day when a mob boss who continually escaped the corrupt justice system Dent devoted his life to, even his trust and ideology to, permanently scars his face and hands resulting in the final trauma that pushed Dent's mind to the brink of feeling powerlessness in an abusive world. This event forever left Dent incapable of personally differentiating between right and wrong because life is simply too unfair, to senseless for reason to determine justice. But chance, well, chance is pure and unadulterated. The flip of the coin has no bias, has no corruption. Fifty-Fifty. Fair.

Mr. Freeze - It wasn't enough that the love of Victor Fries' life contracted a rare and terminal disease, forcing him to experiment with cryogenics (while using Gothcorp's corporate resources for his personal means; though wouldn't you do whatever you had to do to save the person you love?) in the process to keep his wife in a state of suspended animation until the day she might be cured. The man who was forced to only gaze upon the beloved skin of his lost Nora, his heart longing to hold her as their separation went far beyond barriers of cold as his very soul slowly became more frozen than the ice walls encapsulating her, would have to suffer a tragic accident of his own making when he accidentally fell into the cryogenic solution he invented to save his wife. The resulting effect of having to survive in temperatures no other human could endure effectively cut him off from humanity, from Nora. Fries was cold and alone--forever. The fact that Gothcorp cut the funding necessary to keep Nora alive proved to be the tip of the iceberg, finally freezing any and all warmth for others from the icy heart of the now self-named Mr. Freeze.

The Penguin - After the death of his father due to pneumonia, Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot would never be allowed out of the house without an umbrella. After all, his mother had already lost a loved one that way and would not lose another. Now perhaps always carrying an umbrella even if it was 100 degrees and sunny might have been enough ammunition to be bullied itself, but toss on young Oswald's large, beak-like nose and rotund weight issues and well, poor little Cobblepot was an easy target for playground teasing and verbal abuse. Especially since he seemed to only be able to find friends with the birds of his mother's pet shop. After all, they never mocked him. They sang and chirped with him around. Eventually Oswald discovered what we all know to be true; the more money and power you have, the less and less people make fun of you as money and power breed respect and adulation, even if it's out of greed. And sometimes the only way to get the money you need to escape bullying and abuse--is illegally. But the ends justify the means, don't they?

And of course...

The Joker - It's almost a joke, right? Life makes no sense. A man can workout every day of his life, watch what he eats and be a good man to everyone around him, loving his wife and spoiling his children in the best way--and drop dead at 35. All the while a chain-smoking, abusive alcoholic wife-beater and fiend of a father will live to be 90. Well, that is until he's taught a lesson. Isn't that the joke? You can try harder than anyone for your entire life to be a great comic and yet, never make someone laugh. Or maybe you're just trying to swipe a chemical company's payroll so you can pay the rent and not starve to death and a deranged man in a rodent suit shows up, ultimately ending up with you taking a plunge into a vat of God-knows-what. There's no sense in any of it. There's no such thing as order or balance in this world, which is what the law and society is built upon. The only constant is chaos. And people need to see that. So all you can really do is laugh at it all because, well, it's all one big joke. The question really ends up being merely this: Are you in on it? Hahaha.


And we didn't even discuss the eco-centric Poison Ivy fighting against a world of ecological destruction, the conundrum loving Riddler who can't help but leave clues to his crimes, the wrongly convicted and venom befuddled Bane, who was forced to grow up in a prison because of the sins of his father despite doing nothing wrong himself...I could go on and on.

The reason a villain must be sympathetic to become truly legendary is because what terrifies and fascinates us about evil is when it's not black and white, not cut-and-dry, but a consistently changing shade of gray. And when we can understand, if not even empathize, with someone who has clearly taken a stroll down the dark side because of some event or decision that we ourselves can make sense of even if it is obviously wrong, well, that character no matter how evil becomes valuable to us as a reader because they hit close to home. We sympathize not because we ourselves would make the same choice, but because we can see how suffering from some horrible tragedy or illness could spark the questions and conclusions that these always tormented people came to.

Because we all know that the line between right and wrong, between good and evil, between just and unjust is spider-silk thin. Even a saint is a sinner, too.

Which is why the hero is so heroic. Typically, the hero experiences trials and tragedies just like the villains and even though it's entirely logical for the average person to give in and make evil choices because of what happens to them or the situation they find themselves in, the hero does not. The hero rises above the tragedy, the trials the tribulations and embodies defiance in the face of despair.

Back to the Batman analogy; Bruce Wayne went through a tragedy similar or even greater than all of his villains and yet, he did not succumb to the despair that the darkness he experienced demands. He rose above it, above himself and his own raging desire for vengeance at any cost, and decided not to make everyone else feel the pain that he did or destroy that world that precipitated the tragic deaths of his parents, but to do everything he could to prevent anyone else from feeling the grief and loss he endured as a boy by saving the world and city from the very darkness he personally knows exists within the heart of evil.

Again, the better the villain, the better the hero.