I’ve always found it funny that the reason why science fiction and fantasy villains are almost always such lackluster characters is because science fiction and fantasy writers have to stick within the realm of plausibility whereas real life villains are not hampered by such trivialities.
Your sci-fi villain has to have a tragic backstory where he’s using the power of the universe killing machine to bring back his dead girlfriend or something.
In contrast, your real life villain is organizing a civil war militia to protect himself from enemies that he imagines existing somewhere even though he has no proof whatsoever, and all over the Western world people are proudly following these nut bags and even buying the merch.
In the real world the biggest villains actually believe that they are good, and they use that belief to justify that everything they do, even bad things, are done in the pursuit of good. They are convinced that they are doing good and that they are pure, good people, and they don’t ever feel bad.
Villains aren’t like some Joker, or Dr. Evil. They are culty and give themselves a license to control and harm other people.
It’s the same thing with the rich and powerful. Most rich and powerful people believe they got to that position because of their inherent worth, either their genius or their accomplishments or as being good stewards of their birthright if they were born wealthy.
These people have a reason to not hear what other people say when people tell them that what they are doing is amoral at best and immoral at worst. They take it as a personal attack on their self-esteem and their self worth rather than as an attempt to begin fixing the larger societal problems that their current position is capable of fixing.
Elon musk doesn’t have to be a nut job. He doesn’t have to destroy the conversational communal meeting place of a billion people to be someone of note. He’s doing it because he thinks he can do it better and that all of us idiot plebeians will just follow along once he sets the path.
The fact that this will have in the process destroyed the ability for people across the planet to coordinate against despotic government systems in the process is not important because that would mean that Elon did a bad thing, and that would make Elon feel bad so it’s just not even going to be considered.
Honestly, is risky, but that could make for a pretty interesting sci-fi or fantasy villian, if handled correctly - but it’d be a fine line between playing it deadly straight and melodrama overload.
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If it wasn’t actually problematic it would be fascinating. It’s like watching a documentary about a cult.
I’ve always found it funny that the reason why science fiction and fantasy villains are almost always such lackluster characters is because science fiction and fantasy writers have to stick within the realm of plausibility whereas real life villains are not hampered by such trivialities.
Your sci-fi villain has to have a tragic backstory where he’s using the power of the universe killing machine to bring back his dead girlfriend or something.
In contrast, your real life villain is organizing a civil war militia to protect himself from enemies that he imagines existing somewhere even though he has no proof whatsoever, and all over the Western world people are proudly following these nut bags and even buying the merch.
In the real world the biggest villains actually believe that they are good, and they use that belief to justify that everything they do, even bad things, are done in the pursuit of good. They are convinced that they are doing good and that they are pure, good people, and they don’t ever feel bad.
Villains aren’t like some Joker, or Dr. Evil. They are culty and give themselves a license to control and harm other people.
It’s the same thing with the rich and powerful. Most rich and powerful people believe they got to that position because of their inherent worth, either their genius or their accomplishments or as being good stewards of their birthright if they were born wealthy.
These people have a reason to not hear what other people say when people tell them that what they are doing is amoral at best and immoral at worst. They take it as a personal attack on their self-esteem and their self worth rather than as an attempt to begin fixing the larger societal problems that their current position is capable of fixing.
Elon musk doesn’t have to be a nut job. He doesn’t have to destroy the conversational communal meeting place of a billion people to be someone of note. He’s doing it because he thinks he can do it better and that all of us idiot plebeians will just follow along once he sets the path.
The fact that this will have in the process destroyed the ability for people across the planet to coordinate against despotic government systems in the process is not important because that would mean that Elon did a bad thing, and that would make Elon feel bad so it’s just not even going to be considered.
Honestly, is risky, but that could make for a pretty interesting sci-fi or fantasy villian, if handled correctly - but it’d be a fine line between playing it deadly straight and melodrama overload.