It doesn't matter what tale it is - No story is every complete without an antagonist.
It's a beautiful scene in an extraordinarily well written movie (that I may have watched eighteen or so times. by now #ButWhosCounting? ). Once again, everybody's favorite trickster has a chance to redeem himself by serving his brother rather than himself. But per the norm, Loki just can't help himself. It's how the Thor movies are.
But Marvel uses this chance in a magical, all-so "Marvel" way to break the fourth wall, and just come out and tell us the bare, unhindered truth to villains:
"You see Loki, life is about growth. It's about change. But you seem to just wanna stay the same. I guess what I'm trying to say is that you'll always be the god of mischief, but you could be more." - Thor
That's it. That's the magic, secret sauce to villains! I swear this to be the truth! Villains become, and remain villains because they are resisting the inevitability of life, death, and change.
Think about all your favorite villains!
Voldemort from the Harry Potter universe refuses to accept death, and spends his entire life trying to cheat it, while Harry Potter "accepts Death as an old friend". (It's the same in Doctor Strange, by the way).
The humans of the X-Men universe (the real villains) refuse to accept the reality of mutants being a natural evolution of their own kind. And so, in waging their war against the mutants, it takes other mutants having to save them.
President Snow of The Hunger Games refuses to relinquish even an iota of hope, and thus control, to the people of Panem. But the harder he clutches; the more the people hang on to Katniss instead.
And in Thor: Ragnarok, Loki is in the same boat of refusing to grow and be more, because afterall- Growth and change is frightening and usually brings us well beyond our limits and control.
If you look closely at this list, you might also notice something else - That the heroes are the ones who embrace the changes the villains refuse to accept, thus growing strong enough to defeat the villains!
So what, you ask, happens if a villain does yield to change? Easy. This is what we call the anti-hero, or redeemable hero. It's one of the things audiences seem to find most alluring about Loki, in fact - That at any time he could choose to do good, but he often seems to need a heroic sponsor to inspire him to do good (*cough*Thor*cough*).
Too bad this redemption arc doesn't happen for all villains. But some do get dangerously close to said redemption. Which is precisely why many writers in the business call these types "dangerous villains". A great example of one is Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear from Toy Story 3.
Sure, we can feel sorry for Lots-o', afterall being abandoned and then replaced by our beloved would certainly make us just as bitter. But what really slays the audience about Lots-o' is that he's brought so incredibly close to the brink of doing the right thing, time and again, and with him we were at the edge of our own seats just hoping he'd choose to step up!
Sadly, Lots-o' does what all villains do; he refuses to move on with his life. Which is why he remains a villain in the end.
Commenti