villainy and literature
could villainy be dipsuted as unimportant/dated in literature and could bravery and chivalry become the norms of literature history?
in other words could a story outplay villainy by challenging chivalry to become its rival?
here is a thought I wish to share a rhetorical one perhaps
''is there villainy in each of us or is there a villain amongst us''?
it may never try
but when it does it sigh
it is just that
good
it fly
One example I was discussing somewhere else is the character in Star Wars, Darth Vader.
I am not convinced that this character in particular is credible because the way he started.
He was your normal 'sage' guy with aspirations and dreams and the next the evil baddy.
I am more likely to believe however that one baddy can turn into a normal 'gooddy'.
It is easier to turn from being bad to good but not the other way around.
it may never try
but when it does it sigh
it is just that
good
it fly
Well, for all the prequels failings, they do portray the evolution of Darth Vader quite well, showing how he did turn from a loving kid to the evil being he later becomes. Add up a short temper, brashness, manipulation by a Sith lord, romantic troubles, and a whole plethora of mommy issues, and it's not hard to see why he lost his way. In essence, his change wasn't sudden at all.
Screw the prequels... Darth Vader as portrayed in the original Star Wars film was a perfect villain. As for the notion that villains and villainy are dated... what a load of hooey. I know you prefer your narratives sans any conflict, treachery, evil, or perversion... but that leaves us with little more than Little Women or Little House on the Prairie.
Beware of the man with just one book. -Ovid
The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.- Mark Twain
My Blog: Of Delicious Recoil
http://stlukesguild.tumblr.com/
what is a perfect villain? and why do you find villains attractive?Originally Posted by stlukesguild
I find villains/villany most predictable because the only thing that keeps these characters/concept going is confrotation and conflict. Take the conflict out of the context and they are history, not even that.
The reason I like sheer normality it because it does not have to rely on anything and least not destruction. I find villains pointless because they are also defeatest so they are already out before they are.
Normality is more interesting because it does not need a reas on to be, it just is. That is the power of normality.
it may never try
but when it does it sigh
it is just that
good
it fly
Cacian, do you equate normality with reality?
Before sunlight can shine through a window, the blinds must be raised - American Proverb
'Villianiny' will never die in literature. It's not something that encourages cardboard characters...a well written villain goes a long way, often revealing the failings of the so called 'good' characters. One great example is Madame De Winter from the Three Musketeers who, while a savage woman through and through, manages to illuminate the chauvinisistic hypocrisy of the titular characters.
Then we have plain evil characters, commonly seen in fanatasy, who don't seem to think, do or even feel much at all. I would not term such things 'characters'.
Don't knock these books St. God... there is plenty of conflict suitable for young ladies. Someone might call you misogynistic.
That's a joke by the way.
I have to disagree with this. I think there are far more examples of those with good intentions, becoming corrupt than those with bad intentions becoming uncorrupt. Being bad is more fun than being good and I think the lure to badness is stronger than the lure to goodness. It is far easier to fall than to climb back up.
I hope Villainy does not become outdated. I don't relate to heroes and find them boring more often than not. Villains make books interesting, and for those dark souls like me that are the more relatable characters. As one of my Professors once said in the class I took studying Paradise Lost. "Hell is sexy" and I think this can be applied to "evil" as well. It speaks to the dark psyche which exists in all of us though some are more willing to admit it and acknowledge it than others.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. ~ Edgar Allan Poe
no because reality is not normality if is the exact image of what we read in books and watch on TV.
Normality which means no villains, no violence and no tricheries and deceptions can be achieved only when we start to reject anything that is negative which may influence our behaviour. Normaltiy means nice and easy without boring because nice is nice.
I don't have to have conflict to enjoy a story in the same that I do not enjoy conflict in real life so would I enjoy it in a plot?
it may never try
but when it does it sigh
it is just that
good
it fly
well I wish I shared your enthusiasm for villainy because I have not feeling for it and I would like to see the back of it.
I think there is more to literature then confrotations and bad guys.
It seems to me that to write with villainy as the main provocation to a story is the easy scape goat of its time and ultimately has not bearing on the human intellect.
There is two sides to any story and villainy's other side is that it carries a montonious samy/stale feling of dejavu is I feel a rea weakness to the literary work.
That is my opinion and how I feel about. Readers are different and to assume that we all like the same is the real cliche.
I feel there is more to language and literature then the battering of humans against humans in order to captivate the imagination.
Human analogy has more to it and it is up to the writer to ensure it is discovered.
The other side to villainy is that I like my reality to be from villains because it is a very negative distructive force and so if I do not wish it one me or others then I do not wish to read it either.
Last edited by cacian; 05-01-2012 at 04:28 AM.
it may never try
but when it does it sigh
it is just that
good
it fly
It would also leave us with the films of Yasujiro Ozu... not such a bad thing.
"As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being." --Carl Gustav Jung
"To absent friends, lost loves, old gods, and the season of mists; and may each and every one of us always give the devil his due." --Neil Gaiman; The Sandman Vol. 4: Season of Mists
"I'm on my way, from misery to happiness today. Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh" --The Proclaimers
reality is not normality if is the exact image of what we read in books and watch on TV.
Normality which means no villains, no violence and no tricheries and deceptions can be achieved only when we start to reject anything that is negative which may influence our behaviour. Normaltiy means nice and easy without boring because nice is nice. why not?
I don't have to have conflict to enjoy a story in the same that I do not enjoy conflict in real life so would I enjoy it in a plot?
It seems as if you are inventing your own definition for the term "normal" or "normality". Real life is laden with conflict. Some conflict is internal. Some is external... the result of outside influences... including "villains". Most art is laden with conflict. Even the visual arts and music employ conflict or a struggle between contrasting elements that are eventually resolved. What you seem to be calling for is an art that is the equivalent of "smooth jazz": Modern Jazz Quartet or worse yet, Chuck Mangione as opposed to Miles Davis or Thelonius Monk. Now the Modern Jazz Quartet in fine from time to time. Lovely music to play as background music to a romantic dinner... but I certainly can't imagine listening to it all the time. I can't imagine trading Shakespeare or Dante or Baudelaire or Kubrick or Hitchcock for Little Women and Yasujiro Ozu.
Beware of the man with just one book. -Ovid
The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.- Mark Twain
My Blog: Of Delicious Recoil
http://stlukesguild.tumblr.com/
Better be careful about including Kubrick and Hitchcock in that list because they hardly presented anything approaching traditional villains (though there is plenty of conflict in their films). Both had a way of making the villains the most sympathetic and humanistic characters of their films.
"As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being." --Carl Gustav Jung
"To absent friends, lost loves, old gods, and the season of mists; and may each and every one of us always give the devil his due." --Neil Gaiman; The Sandman Vol. 4: Season of Mists
"I'm on my way, from misery to happiness today. Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh" --The Proclaimers
Maybe you just have read books where the Villans are all steryotypes and not fully fleshed and realistic. Might I suggest you read Lermontov's A Hero Of Our Times, amongst literary works for me it is the apex of the Byronic Hero, the anti-hero.
I would not suggest Paradise Lost because while Satan is very human, the entire poem relates to the heavens, to the supernatural and all that is beyond man. While Lemontov is the opposite he explores the very being of man.
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