The discussion of the numerous villains in the MCU has gone one way or another for years now, and the fact is that some of them have been great and others have been lacking in any real development that’s needed to keep them around. And yet, some of the most powerful and popular among them have been taken out quickly and without as much fanfare as they might deserve. But at the same time, glorifying them and stating that they ‘deserve better’ sometimes goes awry since taking each story from a different point of view tends to give people a different perspective that’s not entirely wrong, but does skew things onto a seriously biased track, much as people claim already happens when the story is told from the hero’s point of view. It’s true, there are many sides to every story and it’s important to realize why it’s necessary to see things from more than one vantage point. But when defending a villain’s right to be who and what they are, some folks appear to have lost focus on why they ARE the villain and why it’s necessary to defeat, or possibly end them.
There are several great examples of this, starting with Killmonger from Black Panther. The truth is that his father was killed for doing something that the nation of Wakanda felt was wrong and could have ultimately compromised their standing in the world. But to the young boy Erik started out as, his father had been taken from him and little to no reason had been given for this, which fueled a hatred of Wakanda that was quite natural. Had anyone reached out to him and made amends it might have helped, but the fierce need to keep Wakanda away from the rest of the world made Killmonger an even stronger villain whose idea to share Wakanda with the rest of the world sounded legit, but ended up being very self-serving at the end. Plus, the fact that he could just come in and challenge for the throne wasn’t hard to buy into, but claiming that he was doing this for the right reasons becomes a blanket of excuses that allowed his villainy a reason to blossom and overtake a nation for a short time.
Hela is another villain that a lot of people are ready to defend since the truth is that in the MCU, she and Odin were one of the most powerful father/daughter duos in the cosmos, and some folks are thinking that she was denied her true place as the firstborn, not to mention the chance to rule Asgard as the rightful ruler. While Thor and Loki were given a great deal of attention and made to appear far more virtuous than Hela, there’s the need to recognize that while she was the rightful ruler, she wasn’t locked away simply because Odin feared her. Her ambition was great, that was for certain, and if given the chance she might have been able to be a decent ruler after being a tyrannical conqueror. But the reason for being locked away was that she didn’t want to stop, and she didn’t want to keep her ambition from expanding across the realms. In other words, she didn’t want to set them in line and rule as Odin did, which was wisely and judiciously after a long and bloody campaign; she wanted to be a despot that demanded her people bow before her. There is a difference between a reformed ruler and one that wants to subjugate their people.
There are a lot of villains in the MCU that have an ax to grind with the heroes, and they all have their own reasons for breaking bad, and for remaining true to their own course. Some of their causes are easy to understand and even sympathize with for a while, but defending them to the point of reasoning every evil deed away and placing fault on the shoulders of others is, well, kind of ridiculous. Talking about how the heroes and how the collateral damage they cause is a way to keep them from being idolized, but explaining away the things that villains do by stating that their actions aren’t all their fault by virtue of their past is just as silly.
It’s true, villains are made in a number of ways that make it easy to understand why they feel a certain way about the people they target. Villains don’t need to be too complicated, but they do need to develop to be truly efficient. People are allowed to root for the villain, but trying to state that the bad guys are completely justified in the things they do is a bit tough to get behind. They’re a necessary part of the MCU, but at times, even if it’s fiction, it’s fair to state that until they’re seen to turn the corner, they’re not as worth defending given the actions they tend to commit.
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