Villain

Villain, usually refer to the bad guy who appeared in films, movies, books, games, and other fiction works, is a character who usually commits bad things or harms the other characters in the story. Usually, villains are the antagonist character, but sometimes, the protagonist can be a villain too. A villain is the one who often moves the plot in a story.

According to thewritepractice.com, villain can be categorized into two types, the old-fashioned villain and the anti-villain. An old-fashioned villain is usually portrayed negatively since the beginning of the story without any clear reasons and cause, such as the evil witch in a fairy tale, the mad scientist, or the other similar character who have no good quality and get no sympathies from the readers / viewers.  On the other hands, an anti-villain, can be called “heroic bad guys” is a protagonist that has a heroic goals, but using evil ways to achieve that goals. Different from old-fashioned villain, anti-villain usually has a clear reason for doing what they did, and sometimes can get sympathy from the reader / viewer.

               For example, Yagami Light from an anime (Japanese cartoon) titled Death Note can be categorized as an anti-villain. Light is a protagonist in the story and an extraordinary high school students-later a college student-who has a very outstanding achievement, placing first in national university exam, has good athletic skills, is also attractive. He also has a good personality and can understand the pain of others even though he has somewhat twisted face. One day, he found a “Death Note”, a book that could kill anyone whose name written in it. Since he got the book, his personality become twisted, he could kill people mercilessly without any sense of regret. Because he think that the world now is full of criminals and evil doers, those who commit crimes but cannot be justified by the law. Also he planned to create a new utopia where he himself is the god of that world.

              A character from another anime that similar to Light is Lelouch from the anime Code Geass. Same as Light, Lelouch has outstanding ability, a high school genius. Good looking, great at predicting things, however he has standard athletic capability. In the story, he lives in Area 11 (formerly known as Japan) that is under control of Brittanian. Lelouch is actually the son of Brittanian king, but he despise his father and wanted to destroy brittanian. In both stories, Light and Lelouch got a special power. While Light got “Death Note”, a book that can kill people whose name written in it, Lelouch got a power called “Geass”, which can control other people if they sees Lelouch’s eyes. Both Light and Lelouch use their power for their own purpose, but there is a significant difference between the two of them. Lelouch still has some sense, he still can feel remorse from killing people and manipulating them; on the other hand, Light became ‘emotionless’ after he got the Death Note, thought that he could manage alone without any help from anyone.

               Going back to Light’s case, the anime narrates what could happen to a person if they suddenly got a power to decide the moment a person will die. In Light’s case, it is the “Death Note”. Light is tempted by the book’s power and started using the book to kill criminals whom, according to him, are not worth living anymore, which escalates him to kill innocent people too. All in order to keep his identity a secret.

After doing what he did for about six years, the criminal rate of the people did decrease, but, it all happened because of the fear of death in people mind. Light’s identity as the killer or known as “Kira” (taken from Japanese pronunciation of the word ‘Killer’) in the anime still hidden until almost the last episode while he keep on killing people who are not worth living according to him. He even managed to enter the police Special Force and to try to discover Kira’s identity when he himself is “Kira”, thus securing his identity and can get police database for criminal who goes free unpunished, and kill them if he think they are not worth living in this world anymore

               From Light’s case above, almost everyone agree, though the goal seems somewhat great, the method of achieving it is clearly wrong. In spite of that, most of the viewers of the anime said that they “root for light”. Because deep in our hearts, we tend to agree with Light’s opinion, that this world now is becoming worse. But maybe because we lack the method to express our opinion we cannot do anything but complaining about what happened. So what will we do if we have some kind of power to realize our ideal? Will we ever be like him?

"No Matter How Gifted You Are, You Alone Cannot Change The World" - L, from Death Note