What is the difference between a hero and a villain? I used to think that the heroes were better people. You know like they had less flawed characters and at their core, they were good people. You know what, they aren’t. Every super hero has inherent character flaws.
Dead Pool is the most obviously flawed hero. He is sarcastic, rude, jealous, arrogant, and the list does go on. He is also a beloved hero. People really love him and identify with his humanity and flaws. He does do good things. He is a hero after all. In the process, he is also a jerk, and we love him.
Even Superman is painfully shy and insecure, especially around women. Batman is brooding and depressed. He feels almost suicidal in nature. Thor is truly handsome and strong, but arrogant and judgmental. Ironman is obviously reckless and arrogant. Hulk is dangerous and Banner is a shy frightened recluse.
What about the villains though? Are they worse people than the heroes? We might use words like reckless, arrogant, dangerous, a jerk etc. to describe people like Lex Luthor, Dr. Evil, the Joker, etc. Why do we hate the villains and we do not hate the heroes? What is the difference between the two characters?
It is all about the story writers. The stories are designed to push you to like and root for the heroes. Despite their character flaws, they are designed to be loved. Like Dead Pool. He is an asshole by nature, and a hero, and we love him. For one thing, the heroes are usually better looking than the villains. The villains are usually physically disfigured in some way. They are not handsome studs like Thor, or beautifully stunning women like Wonder Woman. Villains are somehow physically less attractive, even if they are strong and attractive in other ways.
In movies, the music played for villains is different, the back drop is different, their cohorts are different. They surround themselves with unintelligent minions, whereas, heroes are surrounded by smart people who follow their leadership vs. follow out of fear.
That is the key difference. Most heroes end up in some sort of trouble and are seen as the bad guy and people become afraid of them, then they defeat the villains people are more afraid of and become the hero again. The difference is fear. People might fear the hero, and heroes might be afraid, but their fear inspires them to greatness. People fear the heroes less than the villains. And in a villain, their fear inspires them to evil and people are way terrified of them, even if they are on their side. They rule through fear, whereas, heroes inspire through courage.
It is interesting that humans have done this in our characters and how we love the battle of good and evil so much. Religions are basically the battle of good over evil in a spiritual sense. Mythology is similar. Humans have constantly been battling good or battling evil depending on if they see themselves as heroes or villains. Most villains, by the way, don’t see themselves as the villain. They see the hero as the villain. Humans are exactly the same.
Most of us see ourselves as the hero, the victim or the villain. We then peg others into those categories making sure to solidly fit them into those boxes. Like if we peg someone a victim, we have a hard time seeing their hero qualities. If we peg someone a villain, we can’t see their victim or hero qualities. Likewise if we peg ourselves or someone else as a hero, we struggle to see our villainous flaws. In truth, the villains are only as bad as they are because they are motivated by fear. That fear causes them to act out in violent ways that seek to destroy things instead of saving or building them up. Heroes are also afraid sometimes, but that fear pushes them to save people, build things up, create more strength. They are also violent, and things do get destroyed, but they are never trying to break things. We blame the villains for things getting broken as the hero fights them off.
Alright, enough about fictional characters. Humans are all heroes. Humans are also all villains. While I haven’t talked about the victims characters much, humans are also all victims. We are not always any one of these all of the time. We fluctuate from minute to minute, day to day from one persona to the other and it can turn on a dime. Any sort of triggering event can turn us from hero to villain, to victim, and back to hero. Movies and characters in them reflect our own images of ourselves. We see ourselves as all of the types of characters we see portrayed. We can identify with the heroes and with the villains, and the victims too.
The movies and comic books make it easy to identify who we should like and root for. They make the heroes, victims and villains clear. Real life is much less clear, as we are all, all of those characters. How do we know who to root for, who to trust, who to stay away from, etc.? We don’t. Since we all have the potential to be all of those character types, any person could be a victim, hero or villain in our lives. ANY person could be any of those in any other person’s life, and probably has been. I know that I have been all of those things to multiple people in my life. In some cases all of those with the same person repeatedly. How others see me, whether it is as hero, villain or victim, is based on their life perspectives in the moment. It is also based on how I am seeing myself in that moment, and so which persona I am acting out. This is true for all humans.
If you paint a victim into a corner, you will often see a villain emerge. If you challenge a hero or cut them down, you might see a victim emerge. If you encourage and support a villain to embrace their better nature, you might see a hero emerge. While fiction sees these scenarios play out over and over again, fiction mimics real life. Humans respond to their environment and can do so in any of the three ways.
I used to think that I was required to always choose hero. That my response to the world had to be hero, and if it was not, I was a bad person. These sort of thoughts led me to become suicidal, because I am not always the hero. At that point in my life, I was rarely a hero. I was mostly victim and often villain. Now in my life, I am often hero, sometimes a victim and occasionally villain. That is on a day to day basis mind you. I am all of those most days at some point or another. AND I am not the only one who is like that.
My heroes these days are people like Dr. Joe, Mark Manson, Eckhart Tolle, Pema Chodron, Byron Katie, etc. Spiritual leaders and teachers. I know they are also human and have been and are still from time to time, victims, and villains, though I choose to see them as heroes. Read any feedback on your personal heroes’ web pages. You will see that just as many people see them as heroes as villains, and some will see them as victims too. That is because they are. They are, like we are, all of those things from time to time. Sometimes we gravitate in our lives to one or the other more often, but we can and are all of them. This is the nature of being human.
So, what now? My goal for 2021 is to learn to accept myself in all aspects of my persona. I choose to see and embrace my hero, my villain, and my victim. All villains have a fear and a vulnerability, which when embraced, and loved, turns them to hero. If we try to hide the villain, lock them away in prison, etc., they become more villainous! Victims who are ignored and not loved become villains too. If I am a hero, and I am, I must be a hero to myself. Heroes do not simply kill the villain. They try to love them, care for them, see them as having potential to grow and be better. They try to reason with them, love them. Quite often, that care does turn the villain to a hero. So in my life, I first need to be a hero to myself, to my victim self and my villain self. I need to learn to be a hero myself, and then I can learn to hero others. That will be the trick though. What is it that a hero does to turn a victim and a villain into a hero? While I watch out for the victim and villain who is trying to turn my hero into them. It will be interesting to discovery. Though, the point is not to eradicate the villain and the victim. They will always exist. It is to elevate them from time to time to status of hero, and allow the hero to fall to villain or victim from time to time, just to keep him humble.
-Namaste