MY FAVOURITE VILLAIN
FAVOURITE VILLAIN is the prompt for #InstaWrimo today and this was a simple choice for me.
I though of some of the greatest villains out there, and Heath Ledger’s Joker, Bill Skarsgård’s Pennywise, Gollum and Darth Wader to mention but a few, are all great. Then we have the female villains who I often find more fascinating as there is this deeply held myth that women can’t be monsters. Which is complete nonsense, of course.
Look at the Wicked Witch of the West, Nurse Ratched, Annie Wilkes and the bunny boiling Alex Forrest, for example. Interestingly, female villains are typically a witch or a “normal” woman who’s lost her marbles for some reason.
Alex Forrest is a woman scorned, and as we all know, Hell hath no fury like that. Annie Wilkes is mentally ill, Nurse Ratched is a coldhearted sadist and that’s pretty much 90% of female villains right there. They are pissed of with a man, or given too much power, and given that they’re inferior beings to begin with that’s more than they can handle.
Meanwhile, male villains are often super-intelligent, larger than life beings that delight in the chaos they create. They are tortured souls who, deep down, are trying to right a fundamental wrong or set the world sraight somehow. Or they are some kind of cosmic force that’s not necessarily evil per see, but still chaotic evil in its presence.
I don’t know about you, but I can get really frustrated at the lack of multi-faceted female villains and monsters. Why can’t they be pissed of with a man and show some signs of depth or brilliant intelligence? Why can’t they have goals that surpass getting one of on the man or getting the bugger back?
Well, this little rant leads me to the scariest villain of them all. The one you have right in front of you but you can’t tell they’re a villain. My favourite villain, therefore, is Gordon Gekko. The greedy Wall Street guy who said:
Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures, the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.
See, Nurse Ratched could fit the same bill. She’s also a normal-looking person who walks among us. But from the descriptions of her, we know you can tell just by looking at her what she’s like. Gordon Gekko, on the other hand is charismatic. A real charmer. The kind of guy you want on your team. Until you realise that he’s yet another male genius with a master plan.
What truly makes Gekko my favourite (and I use that term loosely here) villain, is that he became a hero for a whole generation of investment bankers and other number crunchers. They gave us bank crisis after bank crisis and we kept bailing them out while they made some fat cats, and themselves, even fatter. And here we are…
Right, that’s enough talk about villains for one day. I have a female one in my #wip whose death I’m currently contemplating. Should I let her live? Is there any possible redemption for her? Difficult decisions, indeed. What I do know for sure, is that there’s a reason why she is the way she is. And she’s not single-mindedly evil or vindictive. She has her reasons, and she believes she’s doing the right thing.
So, how about you? Who’s your favourite villain?
Let’s talk!
Please share the links to your posts using today’s prompt in the comments below so I can pop in and read them.
Bye for now,
//Evalena 
© Evalena Styf, 2021
Writing prompt from #NaNoWriMo Preptober InstaWrimo Challenge: 7 October, 2021. “Favourite Villain”
The #InstaWrimo is a photo challenge for Instagram, but it works just as well as a daily writing prompt.
P.S.
Here are the daily writing prompts for NaNoWriMo’s preptober challenge. It’s never too late to start, so let’s get into it. Together.
