WHY I ABSOLUTELY LOVE VILLAINS!!!

Recently, despite my initial reluctance or rather after showing no marked enthusiasm for the event, I went to watch the movie “The Avengers”. By the time I came out of the theatre, I was completely changed. I began thinking exclusively about how the world and everyone in it seem to relish on heroes, especially those who display talents that markedly stand out in a crowd!

            For me, though I enjoy watching or reading about a good hero, it is the villains or the antagonists who intrigue me the most and thus I like them the best of all in my fiction! It is very exhilarating for me to watch or read about the bad guys. I pay attention to every scene they appear in or are talked about and at the end of it all, I try to decipher the motives of their actions. I find this extremely fun and often for hours or even days later, I escape inwardly to ponder this. So anyone who meets me at this phase, in the future, please don’t take offense, its nothing personal! As it always happens I’m left with the baddies as my most favorite characters to the chagrin of others. My movie buddies actually keep asking me how I could bring myself to even like such characters let alone fall in love with them!!

            The same thing happened to me when I was watching The Avengers too! Even before I could get to know Loki’s back-story from watching Thor (which incidentally I watched after I had seen The Avengers), I was already offering my warmest sympathies to him! At least this time, I’m not alone in my devotion if the internet can be considered a reliable source! (Oh and the actor who plays the character, Tom Hiddleston is way too handsome too!) Once I did hear the rest of his story, the only way I could go was to go to the very ends of the fall!

           

            Thinking about Loki’s motives actually surprised me because I found it to be universal in the very least- the need for power to help one raise one’s self esteem and a sense of belongingness. As any person who studies humans can tell us, these 2 are extremely powerful social motivators when it comes to our species. When we actually sit down and reflect on this, we can see how much of our behavior is to be credited to them. Every thing we do as social beings is to carve a niche for ourselves in our social world or stand out in it. We go to extreme lengths to try and belong somewhere, to have our identities associated with something- our nation, our state, our gender.

            Coming to one’s need for power, it can unwittingly thrust a person into doing things that he/she wouldn’t be doing if it didn’t undermine one’s sense of control. For me, the need for power is equivalent to one’s sense of control. We all love to be in control of ourselves and not be pushed around. We want to be the shepherd rather the sheep following behind, paying heed to every one of the former’s instructions. This need for power can be found in even the smallest of social setups- from domestic positions to the hierarchies seen in employment places to our politicians.

            Even the need for revenge, which has been accorded a prime position in violence, I think, is a by-product of loss of control and from being ostracized from a social group. One also associates their self-esteem by the amount of power they can wield. This is again decided by social norms and standards which is again the reason as to why we strive so hard to live up to these standards in the first place because the more we can positively correlate with the norms, the more the possibility of wielding power over others. Despite being a person who believes in scientific research, I don’t think we need any studies to prove that one’s self esteem can actually increase with each step taken upwards on the social scale.

            This brings me back to Loki’s motives again. Being a person who has been used to assuming a position of a prince and a god moreover, discovering his true lineage brought out all his insecurities in him. Failing to please his father, his self esteem takes a further plummeting. That is how we see him in the beginning of this movie- The Avengers. He feels that by assuming control of earth and its people, he can finally feel good about himself and forge himself a new identity at the same time- as the ruler of earth.

            But to thwart him are a gang of super humans! Though they initially cannot get along themselves due to the distribution of…what else (?)- power (of course!!), they do come together after seeing the bigger picture- the survival of earth and her inhabitants! And so poor Loki is destroyed and forcefully exiled with his brother (Thor)… to be seen in the forthcoming movie-Thor 2. Rest assured I’ll be one of the first few ones to be going to watch this movie as soon as it releases here! But to sign off, I would like to borrow a maxim made popular by another comic book series- With great power comes great responsibility!!! Ciao!