“Breaking Bad’s” Walter White first dons the infamous black hat in season one, episode seven, masking his identity in an effort to disguise and create a hardened persona. And so begins his transition to Heisenberg. Each time Walt slips the pork pie over his bald head, his morality turns ambiguous with each villainous act seeming more justifiable (to us and to him) as his confidence intensifies. We see this as a strength. Like bravery, honesty and compassion, a hardened soul has now been added to the list of traits we look for in a modern hero.
Villains make our stomachs turn, our moral compass go into overdrive and our mustaches mysteriously grow shapelier, and yet, we root for them.
Why? Jealousy. We envy them, in all their malevolent glory. They have the guts to do what we don’t. And we admire this.
They are still the heroes of their own story and as a society we’ve grown to respect this concept. We understand heroic acts can still exist in a villainous world, and thus this concept of the elasticity of villainy, that the protagonist need not be the one on the white horse, has led to the increasing charm of being evil.
As Chuck Klosterman puts it in his collection of essays "I Wear the Black Hat," which grapples with the idea of what it means to be bad, wearing the black hat and still maintaining a protagonist's role confuses our brain. Trained from infancy to cheer for the handsome man in the muscle-suit with golden motives, our brains are thrown for a loop when shows like "Breaking Bad" and "Dexter" introduce us to their leading men.
But it’s not a lack of good looks nor is it a need for a wardrobe change that makes us question our trust in these new characters, according to Klosterman. It’s a lack of motives. Sure, you can argue that Walter White has a motive in the beginning, when he’s truly an anti-hero attempting to save his family from financial ruin in the wake of his untimely death. But how do you argue his transition to Heisenberg when Walt just stops caring? A villain without a motive is the villain you need to worry about.
So if there isn’t a motive then why do we care? How is it that we resonate so deeply with these immoral creatures if they don’t have a reason behind their wicked deeds?
This is where it gets tricky.
Villains are allowed to live in alternate universe. A universe where when they kill someone, we want them to get away with it. We want the good guy to lose Klosterman explains.
A villain with a guilty conscience doesn’t entertain; therefore remorse is considered a weakness. In a hero, this would be the opposite. We always find ourselves rooting for the villain even when we don’t support the action. We can follow the thought process and understand in our own individual way, because sometimes, we don’t even have motives ourselves. ‘Aha!’ You say. ‘So now we have to place ourselves as the villain in our own story since we don’t have motives either?’
You could. But I’d read the next paragraph.
In modern villainous scenarios, the bad guy isn’t tying women to railroad tracks, which Klosterman cites as the most heinous act in history. The difference between the good guy and the bad guy has nothing to do with how many people they’ve killed. It isn’t really even about the motive behind the act. It’s knowledge. Walking the line between a hero and a villain is dependent on two variables: knowledge and caring. As Klosterman cites in his book, “a villain is the person who knows the most and cares the least.”
Villains by definition never fail because they just don’t care. Heroes by definition never fail. Therein lies our fascination with evil.
It overlaps with good.
Reach the writer at Lily.lieberman@asu.edu
