Are villains misunderstood? Our recent library work experience student Ethan thinks so. Read on to discover why he thinks villains are actually the master planners of us all.

I’m a highly efficient organiser of the universe.

Whenever a conflict arises in the world of make believe it seems that the hero of the tale will always emerge victorious over their vanquished foe. With prize in hand and glory draped around them the story comes to a close; but what of the vanquished?

As far as villains go most have been defeated in their quests. Whether it’s ruling middle earth with a certain ring, or terrorising the civilians of Gotham villains seem to always fall just short. But have you ever considered the planning that they go through to begin their reign? Sauron had to amass an army of multiple species, gather them all to one tower, arm them all and then coordinate a massive offensive. Now that in itself is impressive, and he didn’t even have a physical body, he had to manage all this from a single tower with one fiery eye.

That’s right – I did it all with one single fiery eye.

But all this goes right down the drain when a pesky hero, or a merry band of do-gooders decide that maybe, they don’t want to live in a world different from their current safe and sound one. We all cheer when a hero slays a servant of the apparent darkness or evil, but we never take into account how the master of said servant feels about the scenario. Sure it’s easy for the self-proclaimed good guys, all they have to do is take up in arms and move forward, responsive but never considered, there’s no real long term plan for them.

Taking the argument to a galaxy far, far away. Let us consider the possibilities of the Sith winning. A galaxy where Darth Vader chose the dark side of the force over the light. The Sith had an actual plan or the galaxy, not just favoured sections but the entire galaxy. They were hard working, determined and prepared for everything they did. The Jedi, however just sent in a couple of lightsaber wielding knights and some battalions of laser fodder, and that’s all.

The Matrix is working tirelessly for you…

What about a benevolent overlord, overlords as the case may be. Within the workings of the Matrix, nameless machines work tirelessly to keep humans asleep and docile, so that they may feed off our brain activity and bio kinetic energy. Yes, this does sound inhumane, evil almost, but did you stop to think why they’re doing it? The world we had control over was, to put it nicely, an absolute wreck. Humans then made machines to fix that problem, and then we made ones that could think. So they thought, and we rejected them. They made their own country and we invaded it, when they won they subdued us. Instead of torturing us like they had every right to do, they put us into a permanent sleep and kept us alive and healthy. The absolute worst thing they did to us was feed off us after we cut off their power source. In short, we brought this on ourselves and they were merciful. How did the one man to wake from his docile state react to this? By trying to destroy them.

So next time you’re on the edge of your seat, egging the hero on. Think about the about the antagonist who, at every turn, is having their plans foiled time and again.