The people we love to hate.

By Kaileen Korsten

Villains make the story.  Without a villain, there’d be virtually no plot, point or lesson learned.  Some villains are loved, some are hated and some are misunderstood.

One of these misunderstood villains is Macbeth.  No before objections are made, let it be said that, yes, he was hated by most.  But if he truly was a hated villain, then why would people still flock to see his tragic demise hundreds of years later?  They wouldn’t.  There are many reasons why Macbeth is misunderstood.

For one, Macbeth begins as a hero.  He has defeated the Norwegian king and been a loyal servant to the king of Scotland.  The trouble for Macbeth comes when he takes to heart the words of the three weird sisters.

Many people will argue here that they would never fall prey to such temptations.  But were they in the situation Macbeth found himself in, it would be no surprise to watch them give in as well.  Who could not question the witches words when they promised good?  Macbeth fell for it and, with help from his ambitious wife, he saw the prophecies through to completion.

Macbeth is not an evil man at heart, but he is a deceived man.  And blinded by his lust for power he falls more and more, slipping into the ranks of villains.  Macbeth is misunderstood because of the assumptions mentioned before and because his tragic deeds are the only ones remembered.

Another villain, or rather a pair of villains, that are loved are the stepsisters in Cinderella.  They are just so funny and annoying that people love to hate them.  They don’t have a deep backstory that makes them misunderstood, and they are not malicious enough for pure hatred to be paired with their names.

However, there is one who’s name is pure hate.  And that is He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

Voldemort is the embodiment of evil in Harry Potter, much like Saruman is in The Lord Of The Rings.  Nothing he does is good.  Nothing he does has ever been good.  He is a deceiver and has no amount of human kindness in his veins.  There is no doubt that this man, if he can be called a man, is unadulterated evil.  Nothing in his past, present or future brings into question the condition of his heart.

He cannot be misunderstood, and the only people who love him are a danger to society.

These are merely three categories of villains, and there are many, many others.  But the point that should really be made here, is nothing is ever this clear cut in real life.

The only category of villain appropriate for human beings is misunderstood.  Everybody has a story.  Everyone was deceived in some way another by the Father of Lies, Satan.  (Who, consequently is the only living thing that can be classified as a hated villain.)  And in the end, only God can see the heart.  Villains and heroes in life are all just subject to perspectives.