The Poetic Lift

Have you ever liked a villain more than the hero? Who and why?

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Author: Kamika Manning 

Have You Ever Liked a Villain More Than a Hero?

Yes.

And sometimes, it isn’t because the villain is right.

It’s because the villain is interesting.

There are villains who walk into a story and immediately command your attention. They don’t necessarily make good choices, but they have something the hero sometimes lacks: complexity.

Take Maleficent.

She was originally presented as the villain. Powerful. Intimidating. Cold. But when her story was revisited, we were shown something different. Betrayal. Hurt. Loss. And a woman who didn’t simply become bitter for no reason.

That doesn’t make everything she did right.

But it makes you understand where some of her anger came from.

And I think that’s what makes certain villains so compelling. They’re not always completely evil, just as the hero isn’t always completely perfect.

Sometimes the villain is the character who makes us ask uncomfortable questions.

Was the villain always a villain?

Did something happen that changed them?

Would we see them differently if we knew their whole story?

Real life isn’t always divided neatly between heroes and villains either.

People can hurt us and still have good qualities.
People can love us and still get things wrong.
And sometimes, the person we thought was the villain was simply someone whose story we never understood.

So yes, I’ve liked a villain more than a hero.

Not because I wanted them to win.

But because sometimes, their story had more layers.

And perhaps that’s the real lesson:

Don’t judge a character by the role they were given. Look at the story that made them.

From the podcast to the page, we rise.

Listen to The Poetic Lift podcast for reflections and empowerment.