The audience is meant to root for the underdog. The hero is presented as a form of underdog by being part of an unconventinal, outclassed, or misunderstood group. For example, Superman is an alien that doesn’t belong on Earth and Captain America is originally an embarrassingly weak soldier. The heroes’ disadvantages and assumed likelihood of failing makes them sympathetic. It makes viewers cheer and hope that they will overcome the odds and rise above all. However, the heroes’ underdog image is a façade, as protagonists are irrefutably destined for success. The true real underdog of any story is the villain, who is, no matter how clever their plan is, destined for failure.
In the traditional format of a superhero tale, everyone must love the hero, which limits their personality to a certain number of easily likable traits, such as a combination of brave, just and handsome. On the other hand, villains are meant to be hated. Since villains are meant to lose anyway, they have much more freedom to act and have bigger personalities. This alone, often makes them more interesting than heroes. The creators of these fictional characters can make them as twisted, cynic, sarcastic and absurd as they want. Hence, there’s an infinite variety of ways that a character can be evil, from making coats out of Dalmatians puppies, and blowing up Gotham city to stealing Christmas from Who Ville.
From a psychological point of view, Travis Langley, author of “Batman and Psychology: A Dark and Stormy Knight,” argues that villains are attractive to audiences because they satisfy some of our unspoken desires and needs. These include: freedom, enjoying power, facing fears, achieving justice through revenge, and exploring the unknown.
Indeed, villains enjoy a degree of freedom that we, ordinary people, just don’t. Not even heroes can delight in as much free will as their antagonists do. While the heroes must always act properly, villains get to run unconstrained from rules and regulations. In this sense, heroes represent what we are supposed to be, while villains are what we wish to be. Further, villains are free to desire power. As Langley points out, “stories like the Watchmen […] show how heroes become menaces when they try to take control.” In general, society looks down on those who openly and eagerly seek power. We must always be humble and content, like superheroes. But villains can desire riches, strive to have more power, and control other people’s fears. For those of us who hold ambition as valuable trait, villains give us the comfort of being able to relate with someone else that dreams of power without being judged.
I believe that admiring villains does not necessarily translate into one having a sick and dark personality. In the end, it is understandable to be drawn to characters that are boundless to any pre-established societal norms. There is something fearless about them. Maybe when people look at fictional villains, they might see a version of themselves gone wrong. Maybe these bad guys were once just ordinary people. Maybe they were turned by one regrettable choice, or were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Audiences know that this can happen, and so by cheering on to the so called villains in films, they are cheering for the real struggling underdog. No matter if you love them or hate them, villains are entertaining simply for the reason that they are completely unpredictable. Because of that, villains often end up stealing the scene.
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