Exploring Anti-Villains

By Luke Chapman | Competitions, Teachers

The concept of an anti-villain is an interesting one, posing new moral dilemmas and provoking deeper thought

The anti-villain, a weird conundrum of a character that makes us second guess morality and see things from another perspective. With Twisted Tales inviting students to view a story through the villain's eye, we thought we'd introduce the concept of an anti-villain and give some examples to ready your students for amazing Twisted Tales fun!

The anti-villain

An anti-villain is defined as a character (or person) who may have noble intentions or goals but goes about achieving these goals in an evil or morally corrupt manner. These characters set out with the right ultimatum and theoretically want to improve a scenario, situation, or the world, however, to achieve this they want to cause damage, harm, or large-scale destruction. The difference between an anti-villain and a villain can simply be defined by their final intentions, oftentimes villains set out to wreak havoc and with bad end-goals.

Example of the anti-villain

There are copious examples of anti-villains with their questionable intentions in tow, some are well-known, some you may not know about and some you may think are just darn-right evil!

• Thanos - Yes, that Thanos. One of the most notorious anti-villains and the man who successfully culled half the population of the planet-killing 3.5 billion people, but... He did have good intentions. Although he did cause genocide, his intentions were to support the Earth for the next generation and provide a more sustainable life for the universe... 
• Magneto - Magneto's back story is dark and definitely intricate. Known as one of the main antagonists in the DC comics, Magneto is the nemesis of the well-loved X-Men. By following his history we also find that he used to lead the X-Men at one point. After surviving a concentration camp during the Holocaust, Magneto witnessed first-hand the extreme evil human-kind has the potential to unleash, when he found out the X-Men were advocates for mutants and humans to live alongside each other, he turned evil. His predominant goal was to protect mutants from the evils and atrocities of humans, but in doing so wanted to wipe out all humankind. Anti-Villain 101, murdering one kind of people to protect another.
• Erik Kilmonger - Touching upon lessons from the past and today, this antagonist from Black Panther holds direct parallels between the imagined world and the one we live in. Erik's goal is to carry out the work of his Father, he wants to take the advanced weaponry of Wakanda and arm oppressed black people across the globe, by doing this however he wants to incite global violence and create an all-out war. The reason behind the 'anti' in this scenario is at first a little hard to find, but it's not difficult to imagine a world where minorities are systematically oppressed for decades or centuries, and Erik's main idea is to arm and empower disadvantaged people around the globe.
• Draco Malfoy - Draco from Harry Potter can be sub-categorised as a 'noble anti-villain', he is evil, but not just for the sake of it. Having been brought up evil, he's a product of his upbringing, he also knows that to disobey Voldermort is to result in his death as well as his family's. Draco's mission is to kill the innocent and loved Dumbledore, but the reason he can be defined as an anti-villain is his obviously flawed and unwilling attempts to complete his mission. When Draco is finally presented with the opportunity to achieve his task, he fails to take the life of an innocent man... Food for thought?

Twisted Tales focuses on encouraging students to look at stories from a fresh perspective. With the notion of anti-villains in their minds, this can help to provoke some thought and inspire some deeper thinking to get into the mind of a dastardly villain!