Just for fun, let's check Warner Brothers SSKTJL game and find out if the concept can be done, and how to be done right, the idea of creating a conflict between heroes and villains, having the villains as the center of the story, and how it can be done without ruining both the characters of the heroes or the villains or getting people very mad.
I will use in this scenario three main characters, a speedster, a villainess called Jeannie, and a villain from the future called Clyde.
First of all, let's talk about the relationship between villains and morality.
Let's say we have three timelines, one is the past, the second is the present and the third is the future. If we exist in the past, the morality of the present and the future is immoral to us. If we exist in the present the morality of the past and the future is immoral to us. If we exist in the future, the morality of the past and the present is immoral.
And if you are a religious person who believe in moral absolutism, then we have another dimension with god being the hero in the past, the present and the future, and Satan is the villain in the past, the present and the future, that's why when god existed in our earthy dimension, he faced incredible anguish and death, while Satan is considered the ruler of this world according to the bible and gained immortality.
So, basically, you can get a villain from the past, and by using time travel, they can turn a hero or a moral person, and get a moral person from the future to the present and turn them into a villain, which what we will do with Clyde.
Now let's set some basic futuristic morals, for example, prisons wouldn't exist and are seen in the future as the last form of slavery, so it makes sense for people see such practices and people who are involved in it as outrageous, so that's one of the futuristic morals that can contradict our present morals.
Second one is abolishment of planned starvation that is caused by the free market and practices of deliberately destroying resources to keep the prices up even if such resources can be used to save people's lives in other places in the world.
Before we make our villain Clyde travel in time, we need to be familiar with such morals and understand how the world in the future like, and understand its morality. I don't even want Clyde to have superpowers, he can be just a university professor and a scientist.
He meets a villainess, Jeannie, then felt in love with her, she turned to be evil and only getting closer to him to steal some component from the laboratory where he works to build some time machine to bring it to her boss, Clyde joins her instead of being against her and they are now running away together.
By doing so we apply the concept of individualism Vs. collectivization, the villain put himself first and chose the villainess.
During their journey, Jeannie gets sick, he takes her to the hospital, then the doctor come to him, telling him she passed away.
By doing so we apply the concept of the teacher-student relation, since Jeannie doesn't have anything to teach Clyde she now has to leave.
Now, let's talk about what made the conflict between the speedster and Clyde, Clyde found out there's a lab in the past found a substance to make humans immortal, he found out the speedster destroyed the lab, he search about the true identity of the speedster and there's little to be known about him before he got superpowers.
According to the records Clyde found, the speedster and his team have the values of saving people, they discovered that a lab in their time will produce a substance, which would result of millions of people don't exist, so, they prevented the lab from producing such substance, on the other hand, such substance is essential to save Jeannie, and destroying the lab shortened the lives of many people, basically if not for the moral actions of the speedster, people would've been immortal, which would result in no birth rate, and by destroying it, more people will exist, but with a limited lifetime, thus the contradiction of the morals between The speedster and Clyde, is contradiction between selflessness and selfishness, individualism and collectivization.
So, basically, what Clyde decide to do is to go back in time, to stop The speedster from destroying the lab and in order to do so, he have to form a group of villains to defeat him.
Clyde then free all the villains that were imprisoned by the speedster something is considered moral in his time as prisons are abolished in the future, then he distribute food and wealth as in the future the free economy is seen historically as planned famine, especially that tons of food were destroyed on purpose instead of given to the people that need it.
So, although his actions is evil in the present, in the future, the timeline he came from, it's completely moral.
Clyde manged to find the whereabouts and the true identity of some superhero, which make the speedster team destroy any record of them, not only that, they censor every personal message talk about them, so even if you mention the identity of the heroes in a personal message, it won't be sent.
But finding out the true identity of the speedster was the first thing Clyde did when he traveled back in time, and only due to the virtue of selfishness he used the team of villains he assembled to keep the speedster busy while he can go back in time when the speedster was still a baby.
Clyde take the baby speedster in the time machine and travel but while he's doing it he find the speedster trying to stop him and damages his time machine, which put him with baby speedster in a place where the parts he needs to fix the machine won't be available till decades later, so instead he decides to raise the baby speedster, by doing so, we establish the teacher-student relation between the villain and the hero, then the villain dies due to old age, as he teaches the hero everything and thus he has to go, then the hero grew up, to fix the time machine and it starts with him inside by accident so he ends up causing the accident that made him a speedster, and now the student became the teacher.
In such story we apply the concept of how villains represent free will Vs determination, and no matter what the villains do, they are constantly defeated like Sisyphus.
The story can also represent the struggle between the past and the future, progression and regression, with Clyde representing progression and the speedster representing regression, and the contradiction between morality in the past, the present and the future.
It also show us the importance of immorality, and without the immorality of the past, we wouldn't have the morality of the present or the future, as by Clyde going back in time, he established new moral code in the future by freeing the villains as it will be seen as the event that started a movement to abolish imprisonment.
Yet the story isn't perfect for me, as it kind of having a moralistic lesson, so I will add another fix so it teach us absolutely nothing, and to be a perfect anti-moralistic story, at least for me.
Let's go back when Clyde took the baby speedster, instead of having the speedster damaging the time machine, we have a speed battle between the villain and the hero, that end with the hero being lost into oblivion and destroyed, then the villain left with the baby speedster, then fixes the machine, he go back to when the lab was attacked to find that he's the one destroying it, and meet himself, and his future self tell him "It's the only way", so he go back in time, take the baby speedster back to where he took him from, go back to the future, take the substance that would give him immortality, then destroy the lab, frame The speedster with destroying it, go back to his timeline, find Jeannie before she met him in the future, he make her fall in love with him, basically start a student-teacher relation where she's good and he's evil, she also turn evil, then tell her how she can turn his other self evil, and the doctor that told him she died turns out to be also one of his men, and that he planned the whole thing to give himself the motive to go back in time, then at the end, Jeannie meets him and they take the time machine and live happily ever after.
Now, with such ending we have the villain representing free will win the battle against the hero representing determination, by tricking fate like Sisyphus tricked death.
As I said before, unlike heroes, villains aren't divisive, so in such story when it comes to the teacher and student relation between Jeannie and Clyde, saying any of them the first teacher of the other is meaningless, like saying what was before the big bang.
Also by the end of the story, Clyde now became a villain in the past, the present and the future, and by doing so, he's not just a villain, he's Satan, a villain in every timeline, and thus achieving immortality.
What is the meaning of the story?
According to Absurdism trying to find a meaning in an irrational universe is absurd and leads people into conflict with a seemingly meaningless universe. Villains represent as Albert Camus once said, "Revolt, Freedom and Passion." And by Freedom he meant the lack of imprisonment by religious devotion or others' moral codes. According to Albert Camus, in order to be happy, you must not be too concerned with others.
And by Clyde turning into a villain in the past, the present and the future, he becomes Satan achieving the absolute freedom and individuality and found happiness.
That's why when you play games like GTA, the character is immortal and no matter what happen to the character, the character still exists as the character is a villain in the past, the present and the future, an immortal Satan, and people find happiness playing it.. You might ask, what about when you play with a heroic good character in a game, they also still exist no matter what happens to them?
Told you, trying to find a meaning in an irrational and meaningless universe is absurd.
That's why when you play games like GTA, the character is immortal and no matter what happen to the character, the character still exists as the character is a villain in the past, the present and the future, an immortal Satan, and people find happiness playing it.. You might ask, what about when you play with a heroic good character in a game, they also still exist no matter what happens to them?
Told you, trying to find a meaning in an irrational and meaningless universe is absurd.
The concept of a villain, is one of the most complicated concepts in cinema, basically it represent a character with the world built against them, like the myth of Sisyphus, and his absurd struggle to push the rock up the mountain to be defeated at the end, which doesn't only represent villains in their struggle to defeat the heroes, but represent humanity itself in its struggle, that's why Albert Camus said "I feel more fellowship with the defeated than with saints. Heroism and sanctity don't really appeal to me."
So, my last message to Hollywood is this, if you can't comprehend a complicated concept like the concept of villains, and stuck with the moralistic concept of heroism and morality, all you have to do is to KISS..
Keep It SIMPLE, STUPID!!
Favorite Quotes
"Albert Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus: Thus I draw from the absurd three consequences, which are my revolt, my freedom, and my passion."
"Albert Camus: I feel more fellowship with the defeated than with saints. Heroism and sanctity don't really appeal to me"
“Albert Camus: The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”
