Movie Tropes from Villains

Good morning RCL classmates and welcome back to my passion blog!

This blog is a guide to self-reflection, using simple everyday pop culture topics to discover one’s individuality. It is designed to help you think about what is important to you, what you value most in life, how you view yourself, and so much more!

Today I encourage you to look for these movie tropes in your everyday life and recognize how the lessons implemented by these movies as children have affected you today. 

As defined by The Art Direction Handbook for Film a trope is “a universally identified image imbued with several layers of contextual meaning creating a new visual metaphor.” In other words, a trope is a common theme in the film that is universally identified and has been used in many storylines. Villains are everybody’s favorite, they keep the story interesting and at times are even more relatable than the main characters. We have a lot to learn from villains in both their failure and their success. Here are the two most profound movie tropes from villains that everybody can learn from.

Never let other people’s expectations define you

This movie trope is relatable to me and is often why people romanticize the redemption villains. There are two many times in life where we feel we are subject to somebody else’s expectations of us. Whether that may be a parent, a group of friends, mentors, teachers, or younger siblings. Although it is important to have a moral code to live by, living up to an expectation set by somebody else is crippling. No matter who it is, even if this person is very close to you, only YOU know who you truly are.

I took the example of one of my favorite villains, Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren’s parents and mentors tried to turn him into the perfect Jedi, a soldier who follows orders, something he is not. Kylo had both light and dark in him, and instead of embracing it his mentors turned on him, and he became the villain of the latest Star Wars trilogy. Throughout the trilogy he had to learn that neither his light nor dark side mentors knew what was best for him, only he knew that. Ultimately, he chose to use his talents for good.

Villains big and small, whether it be Thanos from Avengers: Endgame or Dr. Doofenshmirtz from Phineas and Ferb, all have one thing in common. They aren’t afraid to be themselves. No matter how absurd their ideas maybe they choose to live the way that makes them happy, and that is something everybody can live by.

Love is more powerful than fear

This lesson may surprise you, love and fear and common themes that battle each other in pop culture. Although this lesson may seem obvious, as the protagonist always uses their love to defeat the antagonist’s fear, this lesson goes much deeper. In fact, this movie trope is a bit morbid and may serve as more of a warning than a lesson. Take for example Hans from the movie Frozen, who charms Princess Anna into marrying him. If Hans had tried to take the kingdom by force, he would have failed. The kingdom was strong and the people loved their leader, fear wouldn’t have been effective. Instead, Hans used love as a weapon to marry Anna and take the throne for himself.

Another example of using love for manipulation is Palpatine from the Star Wars prequel trilogy. Palpatine acquires his power by appearing as a well-intended senator of the government he is trying to destroy. In reality, he is Darth Sidious, the leader of an evil empire. Palpatine uses his false persona of goodness and love to deceive the people into trusting him. He creates a bond with the protagonist Anakin Skywalker and manipulates him into turning to the dark side.