An Anti-Villain: Being Evil for The Greater Good.

So I get the whole notion of good defiting evil. It’s a tale as old as time and most often good prevails over evil so many times. But there’s something that the world has tought me about this type of narrative and it’s the fact that things are never how they appear to be.

Let me explain. I realized that good and evil aren’t as black and white as everyone thinks it to be. I think it’s all grays and it depends on the perception of the other person. I’m pretty sure that Hitler was convinced that carrying out genocide and starting a world war was the best way to handle things, it was in his mind the greater good.

Something that I feel most passionate about is the how good and bad is portrayed in books. Now when I say I hate characters who are so sweet that they can make a rain bow look like a thunderstorm sweet I really do mean it. No one is always happy and everyone gets it rongs sometimes even without knowing it.

No one thinks that they are the villain in someone elses story but I assure you you are or you have been even if it’s just for a brief period of time. We have our ups and our downs and that’s what makes us human.

Anti villain is like a character who plays a villains games to achieve a noble cause. For example if you are a fan of game of thrones then you’d most certainly thing of the mother of dragons Daenerys as the hero right? That’s because if you followed it from the beginning you were exposed to her early years, when she got married, when she was expecting a child and had a loving family.

Now here’s a trick that would make you think twice really. What if the books and the directors showed her destructive years before her kind years. You’d be routing for the starks through and through and won’t be caught between loving the mother of dragons or Jon snow. The moment you understand the noble reason and history of a person they stop being a villain and they become the hero in your eyes.

This is a way of writing a character that I absolutely adore, not only is it the most easiest way to make a three dimensional character but you get to play with so many things and break so many boundaries. You can show conflict in a different light. Here’s another one. If you’ve watched game of thrones then chances are you’re currently watching the House of Dragons.

Daemon right now is my favorite character, and I know that sounds predictable but it’s the truth. Daemon is the kings brother and as law dictates if a king doesn’t have an heir then the heir becomes the closest living relative which was his brother. Now the king already has a child a girl Raenerys Targaryen but women can lead it’s just men don’t want them to.

Either way Daemon acts out most of the time and even goes as far to throw a party in a brothel the day his siter in law died and new nephew saying “A king for a day.” Because the child would have been the king and not him. This angers his brother and there is a point he tells he’s brother that he was week.

Now in this scene if you read between the lines he’s bitter about his brother not placing much faith in him and becoming his right hand man rather he throws him away and places him father away from him.You notice that he is ambitious, that’s true but he desperately wants to prove himself like in the latest episode where he literally risks his life to win a war by putting himself as bait because he received word that his brother would help him, and he wanted to prove himself that he can be a good leader.

In the end he wins the war but still has conflicting emotions because deep down what he wants isn’t power but acceptance and to prove himself worthy of everything.