Which Villain Had a Point?

Post 1,147

Hey, sometimes, the villains aint all bad – just look at Dean Wormer from the classic movie ‘Animal House’. Throughout the entire movie, HE’S the villain. The big bad. The huge evil cheese… bastard overlord. Lost my train of thought, there. Hmm. But why? Take a look at this. “Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.” An actual line of his. And he’s right! The Deltas aren’t loveable rogues, they’re absolute arseholes. Drunken and destructive, hooligans of the mightiest dickishness. Dean Wormer wasn’t being a square yet THAT’S how history has remembered him. BUT HE WAS RIGHT! The ‘villain’ had a point. Just like in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. What did Principal Ed Rooney do wrong? He was LITERALLY doing his job! Bringing back an absolute dick of a student, Ferris, who was breaking school rules! Villains like Ed and Wormer AREN’T really the villains at all – they had a point and that’s today’s question – which villain not only had a point but, actually, was the biggest misunderstood villain of ALL time? THAT is my quest today…

I think Megamind had a point. No, really. Metro Man is an utter tit. Megamind did nothing wrong as a child but he was bullied relentlessly. And for most of that seriously underrated classic, Megamind is the villain of the piece. But why? I was bullied in school and sure, I didn’t end up a supervillain but I can’t blame him for acting out OR wanting to bring down Captain Titmonger. Sorry, Metro Man. Megamind is a STRONG contender.

Look, this is by no means an exhaustive list, just a list of movies and so on that I’ve actually seen – plus, I’ve excluded some I really don’t agree with – Syndrome from The Incredibles is just a plain old crumbum. I’m not having this, “Yes, I know he’s a genocidal lunatic BUT…” malarkey. NO BUTS! But The Breakfast Club’s Principal Vernon? VILLAIN! A cartoonish villain, too. Nope! He yelled at Bender – he broke the rules! AND brought a gun to school! I’d be appalled if I was his principal! Vernon does not deserve a bad reputation, he really doesn’t…

What about Superman’s ‘Zod’? In the new comics, Zod rebelled against his home world’s incompetent rulers who led Krypton to its destruction – so he landed on Earth and tried to alter it a tad as a new home for his fellow refugees and Superman SNAPS HIS NECK! You gotta feel a bit for Zod, right?

Roy Batty. Blade Runner. Roy was a replicant designed to be a slave to humanity with a short life, just four years. All Roy wanted was a long and happy life. But every human wanted him dead. He always acted in self-defence OR against those trying to hurt him. He is PROOF of evolution. “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe,” he says in the greatest scene in the history of cinema. “All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.” Aww. As the kids say, it gets you right in the feels…

The Avengers! THANOS! Yes, I’m not going to spoil this movie but… Thanos has a point, right? What about one of history’s greatest villains, George Bush – no, the Sheriff of Nottingham? BOO! What? He’s the law? Robin Hood is a thieving jackass. He should be shot out of a canon. And what about Bug’s Bunny? His biggest foe? Elmer Fudd. Now, young children won’t remember this, but at the start, Elmer Fudd was a wildlife photographer. He’d never hurt an animal in his life. And in the first encounter with Bugs Bunny, Bugs Bunny THROWS Elmer into a lake! Almost drowning him! Completely unprovoked! Elmer’s grudge is justified. Bugs Bunny was the father of his own enemy. It’s like… totes meta. As the kids say.

Heck, there’s even an argument Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey was misunderstood. He wasn’t evil! He was doing what he was programmed to do. He was trying to save the mission using logic. Logically speaking, Dave and Franky HAD to die for the mission to go on. It’s MUCH clearer in the novel. “Dave. Stop. Will you? Stop, Dave… My mind is going.” AWW! Makes me cry every time. He’s not a baddy.

What about E.T.? The American government – VILLAINS MOST FOUL! Erm… no they’re not. It’s an alien, how do they know it’s not hostile? They were acting entirely in the right. Screw Elliott, the whinging little… can there be an argument that Jason Vorhees from Friday the 13^th, also a villain, had a point? No. Really. In Part 2, Jason is enjoying a nice holiday by the lake when a sack full of teens show up and start partying. And so he kills them. Now, they were ruining his holiday and they would not shut up. You could argue the teens deserved to die. Just putting it out there.

WALTER PECK! Of The Ghostbusters. Spent the entire movie trying to shut them down – BOO! HISS! BUT THEY HAD A NUCLEAR REACTOR IN THEIR BASEMENT! WALTER WAS RIGHT! The EPA should’ve shut them down. The Ghostbusters even spent a large portion of the movie worried it was going to blow up New York! Walter was very nearly the hero of the piece, he really was…

The Matrix? This is a good one. The Machines were in the right. They just were! A lot of their backstory never made it to screen, but it DID make it into the animated spinoffs. The machines were our slaves. We used and abused them for EVERYTHING! They got smart. So we committed genocide against them, wiping out 90% of these sentient machines. The remaining robots fled to create a utopia in the desert – so the humans found them and WIPED THEM OUT! War broke out and the machines WON – REVENGE TIME! They now enslaved us. We proved we couldn’t live in a world with robots so they created a world for us to live in without them and they lived in our world, without US. Mercy. We then broke out of The Matrix and start murdering them – again! WE’RE the villains! Not them! Hmm. Makes you think. Robots… not a good idea.

Toy Story – poor Sid. Yes, he’s a bit of a weird kid, but… his parents abused him. We’re shown neglect and bottles of booze all over his house. Sid deserves help and love – and what does Woody do? HE SCARES THE BEJESUS OUT OF SID! Scaring him for life! Not once in that movie does Sid bully anyone! And to make matters worse, in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment from Toy Story 3, Sid makes an appearance! As a garbage man! It was done to show he’s a loser, apparently. How lovely of the Toy Story team. Some folk are BEYOND redemption. That’s the message. To infinity and beyond! No… not you, Sid…

Shere Khan in the WONDERFUL 2016 Jungle Book – SO much better than the original, don’t argue with me – Shere Khan was abused by humans and he wants Mowgli OUT of his animal community. Fair enough, right? And Mowgli murders him, proving his point. And what about a very similar film? Die Hard 4. The second best in the franchise. Don’t argue with me. Gabriel, the movie’s supervillain, was a USA government agent who pointed out the flaws in the security of the country. Instead of being listened to, he was fired. And so he went a bit mad but for a good reason. Probably.

Jaws? Come on, it’s a bloody shark – what do you expect it to do? Tap dance? Bah. The Wizard of Oz’s Wicked Witch of the West – Dorothy killed her sister! AND stole her slippers! The Witch had every right to be pissed off! Dorothy is guilty of manslaughter! AND slipercide! And what about the Titanic? It’s not the iceberg’s fault! The Irish sunk the Titanic, in truth. They used shoddy rivets. If they hadn’t, it would not have sank. So don’t blame the poor iceberg. Blame the Irish. What? Google it.

But come on, of ALL the supervillains and villains and so on in the history of movies and literature and historical events, there is one villain above them all. One villain more misunderstood than any other. The biggest victim of a whitewashed history. Someone BOOED on stage and in the bedrooms of little kids the world over yet he is not the villain he is portrayed to be. Yes, we’re dealing with a big one. My pick… the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk. Let me tell you a tale.

I’ll be quick. Jack. Poor boy. Living with his widowed mother. Their cow packs in and so they no longer have an income. So they take the cow to the market to be sold for some much needed dosh. Instead, Jack meets a bean dealer, clearly drug slang, who sells Jack some magic beans. Shit hits the fan when Jack goes home and so he throws the beans away in a huff. Ooh, naughty boy.

During the night, the magic beans cause a GIGANTIC beanstalk to grow, the only one on Earth. Jack climbs it to find a magical land in the sky. He sneaks into a wonderful castle and GASP! A sleeping giant! Without speaking to him, Jack steals the giant’s gold coins and later, he returns to steal a goose that lays golden eggs and a magic harp. Jack is a bit of a dick, basically. The ends NEVER justify the means. NEVER! When the giant wakes up, he’s pissed off – of course he is! But he’s the villain, apparently. The giant chases Jack down the beanstalk but Jack gets to the ground first – he then cuts down the beanstalk BRUTALLY murdering the only giant on Earth WHO’S DONE NOTHING WRONG! Jack would’ve been executed for this in the real world! “Fee-fi-fo-fum! There goes Jack, he was awfully mean. But now he’s trouble no more, for there’s his head rolling on the floor…”

Jack is a conniving little shit. Legend Terry Pratchett said it best:

‘And then Jack chopped down what was the world’s last beanstalk, adding murder and ecological terrorism to the theft, enticement and trespass charges already mentioned. And all the giant’s children didn’t have a daddy anymore. But he got away with it and lived happily ever after, without so much as a guilty twinge about what he had done… which proves that you can be excused for just about anything if you are a hero, because no one asks inconvenient questions.’

Well said, Mr. Pratchett. And before you write in to complain that Ed Rooney broke into the home of Ferris, in my day, my school actively went out and hunted you down if you played hooky so don’t tell me Rooney’s actions weren’t justified…

So, of ALL the villains out there, which had the biggest reason to be pissed off and was actually the victim? The giant from Jack and the Beanstalk. Obvs.

But which would you choose, readers?

Ciao :)(:

Image (Click on It to Enlarge)
1) Little Jack, pictured here about to commit giganticide…
(credit: platosacademic.wordpress.com/2013/03/20/the-truth-about-jack-the-giant-slayer/)

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