IS THERE REALLY A DISTINCTION BETWEEN HEROES AND VILLAINS? By Aj

Is there really a distinction between heroes and villains? This is a question I pondered over a couple of weeks ago. I decided to put the question on my status and the response I got from people alongside the little research I did helped me write this article. I really hope you enjoy it.

Who are villains?

From the start of many stories, it is pretty easy to determine who the villain is (usually the guy who lives in some dark cave in the middle of nowhere near the North pole, with an ugly scar across his purple or green face). In complex stories, it is not quite the same. The villain might have a fancy house in the middle of the city, the press loves him, the people love him, he does a lot of charity work in Africa and blah blah blah. With this type of villain, you never can tell until the story reaches its peak, then you start connecting the dots and guess what, prince charming has been the one orchestrating catastrophe since day one. How could you not have seen this coming?

The long and short of it is that in every story, the villain is “the bad guy” in quote. Who are heroes? The hero in every story is undoubtedly the easiest character to figure out. Why? Because the story revolves around him. He is usually the one out of the 7.7 billion people in the world saddled with the burden of saving the entire human race. It is his fate and no matter how long he tends to ignore it, he would eventually yield to destiny and defeat the “the bad guy”. What is the common goal of all villains and Heroes? Here lies the irony of it all. The fallacy of this distinction made between heroes and villain is that both parties want to ‘save the world’ and are very determined in fulfilling this objective. While the hero is noble, the villain is vicious. Both act on the notion that the world is a terrible place. Both parties think they are the only ones capable of saving the world. Sometimes, the villain thinks the only way he can save the world is by creating a ‘perfect world’; making the entire world subject to his control or erasing half or the entire human race. Also, the hero strives to create a “perfect world” by eliminating the supposed “villain”. Using the movie “The Avengers” as a case study, while the entire story in Infinity war and End game portrays the Avengers as the heroes, some viewers are of the opinion that in fact, “Thanos” was the real hero. “Thanos” intended and succeeded in wiping half of the human race because he had a strong conviction that it would make the world a better place. He saw this as his life mission and even sacrificed the only person he truly loved in a bid to attain this objective. And you call him a villain? I beg to differ. The reality is, there is actually no true hero or villain in any story. In fact, the entire purpose of super hero stories is to convince us into believing that the protagonist is the hero and empathize with his cause. Using “The Joker” (2019) movie as an example, you’d agree with me. For as long as I can remember, the character “The Joker” is always viewed from Batman’s perspective as the ‘bad guy’. Whereas Batman in his own story is “The Hero”; the poor kid whose parents are snatched away from him at a very young age and who literally goes through hell to become the hero that Gotham city so desperately needs…stopping bad guys from ruining the city any further…stopping “The joker” …one of his life’s missions. However, after watching the movie “The Joker” told from The Joker’s perspective, we in fact empathize with him. We feel sorry for what the society has made of him and begin to think, “maybe the joker isn’t the real villain” or “the joker isn’t even the villain at all”. This, is the power of narrative. The ability to convince others into seeing your point. The ability to make a Hero appear as a Villain and a Villain, a Hero. It is safe to conclude on this premise that there is no real hero or villain, it just depends on the perspective from which the story is told. At this point, you may be wondering how any of these stories have a thing to do with Alternative Dispute Resolution (here after referred to as ADR). Well, I’m just getting to that. Like every superhero movie where the “bad guys” try to stop “the good guys” or “the good guys” try to stop the “bad guys” and things get ugly: people die and properties get destroyed. In the same vein, that’s how escalated our disputes can get when we try to resolve them ourselves or settle it in court. Resolving it ourselves, it ends up being a shouting contest. We tend to say terrible things to each other just to make the other party feel bad. This in itself can create an irreparable damage to friendship, family and business relationships. It is popularly believed that to experience peace, there must be war. What if there was a way to prevent things from getting ugly? What if there was a way to make “the bad guys” and “good guys” sit down on a round table and have a civilized conversation over a cup of coffee? I know with this picture I painted, you can only see both parties ripping out each other’s throat but what if there was some sort of moderator to prevent this from happening? Maybe Negotiation might not work but Mediation or Conciliation might just do the trick. I’m pretty sure you’re wondering what the terms “Negotiation”, “Mediation” and “Conciliation” mean… well, you’d have to find out in the follow up of this post or you could just google it right now and satisfy that curiosity. With a neutral third party (who should definitely have super powers or would be caught in between when the Avengers start getting irritated by Thanos’s idiosyncrasy) who knows the right things to say when to say it, who can easily point out the similarities in the ideologies of both parties; ‘saving the world’, spot the downsides of each parties plan and help both parties reach an agreement they can live by, so many lives would be saved and this would be achieved without extreme violence. This might sound like a fairy tale to you but it could happen with ADR. With ADR, parties could always establish a mutual ground. A bad guy could see the sense in a good guy’s plan and join in. A good example is when those twins with super powers in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) who were initially bad guys became good guys towards the end of the story when they saw the “evil” Ultron had planned. I’m pretty sure none of you reading this post want to pay N2500 to watch a really hyped marvel movie at the cinema only to see all characters sit down and discuss how to reach a compromise at the end of which ‘Thanos’ is giving every member of the Avengers a hug and a kiss on the cheek…lol, yeah…I mean where is all that action we paid for???? But on a serious note, there is no right side or wrong side to any story. And to every dispute, there is no harm in trying to settle without violence or without recourse to the court of law. Try ADR today!