Lets know the true behind your favorite villain!

Some things that definitely define what we know as a good story on a movie or book are: an attracting plot  in a exciting place,  a hero/ main character which identifies us with his/her story and personality, and...the villain. The role portrayed by the villain is not just to be an obstacle for the hero's plans and dreams; it is more likely being a complement of what the protagonist and his world represents.

Many times the evil character, villain or criminal in a story is so well drawn that overshadows the hero, becoming loved by the readers and spectators, as in the case of Professor Moriarty (Sherlock Holmes books, movies and tv serie), Gollum (The lord of the rings) and Voldemort (Harry Potter).

It may seem to be a completely new phenomena, but is something that started with the mass publications of books that became available worldwide the last century, and the spreading of movies and cinemas that made easier and cheaper to watch them. We could say is a result of the globalization process; however, this situation cannot be justified only that way. The globalization has only made easier to have access to those stories and follow them; people have chosen in a relatively free way to admire and even love those evil characters for many different reasons. They are fictional, but is possible for people to feel identified with them because those characters are rooted in our reality. For many people this origin based on the real it is just a myth, but something no one doubts is that every character is a kind of special mixture, sometimes carefully prepared in the author´s mind, using things they have seen in other person. A character may also be a mix of characteristics belonging to many people, as we will see later. In the case of the heroes, we find most of the time characteristics the author admires in a leader or person from the real world. And villains are not an exception: they are created following the same rule.

Most of those villains are presented like ordinary people at the beginning, but suddenly an unexpected event in their lives changes everything and they turn into dangerous villains: killers, terrorists and public enemies. Chief among them,we find whose attracts the audience more:  assassins  . But, is it a certain kind of people who have more chances to succumb under the dark forces, as it happens in real life? What  are their reasons? Do they need  to achieve some values, as we see many famous criminals do? We will try to clear up this matters, using two examples of the most famous  villains in fiction.

Hannibal Lecter

To begin with, we will  talk about Hannibal Lecter. This character (created by author Thomas Harris) is known for being a cannibal,as his name suggests.  In the story of the books he was a respected psychiatrist and patron of the arts in Baltimore, Maryland.  He was born in eastern Europe in an aristocratic family but suffered a traumatic event as a boy during World War II, when deserters killed his sister Mischa, and eat her. Since that moment, fourteen homicides are attributed to him. Even though his murderer's modus operandi (MO) -or the usual way that a particular criminal performs a crime-  is cannibalism, Lecter is not satisfied with simply eating his victims; he prepares sofisticated dishes with them.  The elaborate preparation of those meals is the way Hannibal express his hate and desire to get a revenge but in a “civilized” manner.

In the case of Hannibal, the traumatic event happened at the age of six, when he was a child, and changed him forever; if we investigate the most important events on a psychopath or murderer´life, we would see the same pattern.

They are a wide variety of theories concerned with the origin of the character. Many people think it is inspired by real serial killers all over the world, but in 2013 Harris revealed that the character was inspired by Dr. Alfredo Ballí Treviño, a real-life Mexican doctor and murderer he met while visiting a prison in Monterrey city.

The Joker

Without any doubt the Joker is the most hilarious, mysterious and famous villain in Batman’s saga, However,he didn’t have a backstory at the beginning, and he was portrayed as a completely “sane” and common villain, only accused for robbery. In the 1970’s . From those years, his madness and sociopathic behaviour started to increase and to develop with the past of the time, turning him into a real killer and making him more creative in his attempts  of defeating Batman.  

This character has a really interesting evolution, that made it beloved by the spectators: he started as a clownish burglar, and evolved into a anarchistic terrorist, who likes to do things just because they seem to be funny.

There are many famous quotes attributed to the last style of Joker, played by Heath Ledger. There is one part of a script from the last Batman movies (Christopher Nolan´s Batman) where we can see this dynamic hero-villain clearly, and the reasons behind The Joker´s behaviour:

“Joker:  

I don’t want to kill you! What would I do without you? Go back to ripping off mob dealers? No, no, NO! No. You… you… complete me.

Batman:

You’re garbage who kills for money.

Joker:

Don’t talk like one of them. You’re not! Even if you’d like to be. To them, you’re just a freak, like me! (...) You see, their morals, their code, it’s a bad joke. (...)They’re only as good as the world allows them to be. I’ll show you. When the chips are down, these… these civilized people, they’ll eat each other. See, I’m not a monster. I’m just ahead of the curve.”

Even when the Joker was not based on any famous criminal, he has been a powerful inspiration for many copycat crimes(a crime inspired by a previous and well-known crime) performed by people who has serious psychological disorders or criminal background. From arson to mass murders, we can find many examples of criminalistic behaviour which has the purpose of imitate this character, as happened with James Holmes, which shoot 71 people at the cinema during the midnight premiere of The Dark Knight Rises.

After all this explanation we should conclude that serial killers and fantasy villains have many things in common: for example, they are not born that way, they are really formed by a combination of factors. First, they suffered a traumatic event that changed their life and for this reason they gain a cause, or purpose for living. Many people thinks that those complex and interesting characters are something that started with fictional works, but it is completely the other way round in most of the cases.

Which is your favorite villain? and why do you admire him/her? We look forward to your comments.