villainy and literature

[cacian]

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''?

[cacian]

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.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

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.

[stlukesguild]

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.

[cacian]

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.

what is a perfect villain? and why do you find villains attractive?
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.

[Delta40]

Cacian, do you equate normality with reality?

[Atomic]

'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'.

[Buh4Bee]

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.

Don't knock these books St. God... there is plenty of conflict suitable for young ladies. Someone might call you misogynistic.

:biggrin5::biggrin5::biggrin5: That's a joke by the way.

[Dark Muse]

It is easier to turn from being bad to good but not the other way around.

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.

[cacian]

Cacian, do you equate normality with reality?

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.:biggrin5: 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?

[cacian]

'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'.

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.

[MorpheusSandman]

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.It would also leave us with the films of Yasujiro Ozu... not such a bad thing. :)

[stlukesguild]

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.

[MorpheusSandman]

I can't imagine trading Shakespeare or Dante or Baudelaire or Kubrick or Hitchcock for Little Women and Yasujiro Ozu.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.

[Alexander III]

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.

[MorpheusSandman]

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.Let's face it, whenever man writes about anything it's not "beyond man" because whatever they're imagining is through an eternally human mind. Satan is a completely humanistic character, and that's what makes him so fascinating. Much more so than Milton's God who's full of flaccid absolutes. But Blake had a good reason for why that was.

[Mr Endon]

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.

True!

As for villains in films, for me the perfect villain is in the Coen brothers' 'No Country For Old Men'. A ruthless, inscrutable force of nature. A character as flat as they come, granted, but that's why it's the perfect villain.

I agree with the general trend of the thread, but I also think that in lesser authors the use of a villain can be a rather facile way to pin down all the negative feelings evoked in the novel in one circumscribed compartment - in other words, to have a scapegoat. For example, Anna Karenina, Wuthering Heights, or any Beckett novel, show that conflict without villainy is possible.
(There's no villain in Wuthering Heights, right? It's been a while since I've read it)

[MorpheusSandman]

Even Chigurh in No Country for Old Men is an interesting case. We think of him as the ultimate implacable villain, but he's really more of an indifferent force of nature. To me, his bit with the coin exists solely because as an unconscious force of nature he can't make decisions on his own. The minute he makes a decision in the end where his coin is taken away, he walks out of the film a bleeding human. I wrote a lengthy piece about that film for Cinelogue: http://www.cinelogue.com/reviews/no-country-for-old-men

[Heteronym]

could villainy be dipsuted as unimportant/dated in literature and could bravery and chivalry become the norms of literature history?

What novels have you been reading? Bravery and chivalry? Most great novels, contemporary and classic, are cesspools of depravity, moral cowardice and cynicism, where good sure as hell doesn't win, ever.

[Sfizz]

The definition of villainous is perceived differently by different people. As in current film/literature this is expanded on so the viewer/reader dig deeper into the story and determine their own opinion on the villain. Therfore it will never ge old as our mind subconsciously inserts a villain where there is a hero.

[cacian]

What novels have you been reading? Bravery and chivalry? Most great novels, contemporary and classic, are cesspools of depravity, moral cowardice and cynicism, where good sure as hell doesn't win, ever.

Indeed and that is the problem you see. It would take bravery and chivalry to change it. I believe in changes they are always for the better.

[cacian]

The definition of villainous is perceived differently by different people. As in current film/literature this is expanded on so the viewer/reader dig deeper into the story and determine their own opinion on the villain. Therfore it will never ge old as our mind subconsciously inserts a villain where there is a hero.

Inserting a villain is easily done when the person's mind is inclined to believe villany essential to the plot. I defy villany as something learned rather then inherent. Too much of it in books and films it simply becomes part of everyday thinking.

[Volya]

How can you write a book with no conflict?
Even if there is no physical, human villain, there must always be some concept that provides the conflict and drives the narrative of the story.

[Volya]

It is far easier to do bad deeds than good ones, similarly it is easier to be a 'evil' person than a good one. If it wasn't, then there would be no bad people. And a quick look around the world shows us that there are definitely bad people.
To quote Kick-***: 'In the world I lived in, heroes only existed in comic books. And I guess that'd be okay, if bad guys were make-believe too, but they're not.'

[cafolini]

It is far easier to do bad deeds than good ones, similarly it is easier to be a 'evil' person than a good one. If it wasn't, then there would be no bad people. And a quick look around the world shows us that there are definitely bad people.
To quote Kick-***: 'In the world I lived in, heroes only existed in comic books. And I guess that'd be okay, if bad guys were make-believe too, but they're not.'

There are many bad people in this world, but that does not make it easier to do bad deeds. One thing has nothing to do with the other.

[cacian]

How can you write a book with no conflict?
Even if there is no physical, human villain, there must always be some concept that provides the conflict and drives the narrative of the story.

I can. It is not all about conflict. There are so many others things one can write about. Characters can be one. How they think and intereact is another.

[byquist]

Here's an interesting point in watching dramas: a villain is more interesting to watch if you see some goodness in him or her. For instance, seeing a 100% mean and nasty Iago is rather dull. But, seeing him portrayed as having some good -- I mean he probably was a decent kid at one time, and probably his mother liked or loved him -- makes him even more scary when he acts heinously. Shakespeare has a quote somewhere that those who behave evil have tendencies of goodness. Or, that evilness (irrespective of persons) has some glints of goodness.

[cacian]

Here's an interesting point in watching dramas: a villain is more interesting to watch if you see some goodness in him or her. For instance, seeing a 100% mean and nasty Iago is rather dull. But, seeing him portrayed as having some good -- I mean he probably was a decent kid at one time, and probably his mother liked or loved him -- makes him even more scary when he acts heinously. Shakespeare has a quote somewhere that those who behave evil have tendencies of goodness. Or, that evilness (irrespective of persons) has some glints of goodness.

Ok. But have we not all got sides of goodness because not all are evil.

[cafolini]

Ok. But have we not all got sides of goodness because not all are evil.:nopity:

[cacian]

How can you write a book with no conflict?
Even if there is no physical, human villain, there must always be some concept that provides the conflict and drives the narrative of the story.

Ideologies can make good conflicts.
It is not all about the characters.