I haven't been on here for a while, I guess eek . Well, anyway, here's a little parody I put together for a Creative Writing class. Enjoy!
Things I Learned as a Villain
My life has taught me one thing- we villains are the underappreciated element of every epic story.
Heroes always get the glory, but really, where would Romeo be without Tybalt, or Kirk without Khan? Alright, so maybe most people have a bit more of the hero in them than not, but it’s still just unfair how everyone seems to thinks the hero has to win. Think about it- in order for the hero to win, the villain must lose! Really, whose idea was that? It’s nothing short of rude!
So maybe a few of us have it coming. I know I did a few things that maybe…but I digress. As the greatest evil overlord to ever walk the earth, I have the wisdom to know this is a tale best told from the beginning.
The essential element of villain-hood is the presence of an arch-nemesis, a hero who is capable of threatening the sovereignty of the villain. I met my first such nemesis in daycare. The mere appearance of this young do-gooder was enough to make me ill. After all, since when do five-year-old boys have washboard abs and biceps the size of their heads? It’s got to be something in the water or in the genes, because every hero I’ve ever encountered has something of the same mold about him.
Regardless, this first enemy was a laughable excuse for a challenge. Being of such a vastly superior intellect, I outclassed this muscle-bound, brainless ‘hero’ by leaps and bounds. When he faced me for my mistreatment of the other children at the daycare- don’t give me that look, they had it coming for being so exasperatingly inferior- I did the smartest thing a young villain could ever do.
I ran.
I ran far and fast, and threw myself at the feet of a young Amazonian princess. When life is on the line, pride means nothing, especially when you haven’t yet built a reputation as a wonderfully bloodthirsty butcher. I convinced this worthy lady that I was an asset while the childish hero was a threat to her and her young entourage of Amazonian warriors. Anyone who has ever read classic mythology knows that heroes are dangerous to Amazons, because the heroes will either kill the Amazons or seduce them. Since this was, after all, daycare, when boys and girls still suffered from the phantom affliction of ‘cooties’, I had no trouble making the youthful princess see the dangers of letting a hero grow up in contact with her warriors. She mobilized her best fighters to take down the budding hero.
The ensuing fight was short, bloody, and thoroughly satisfying.
Though my following school years were devoid of any further threats from juvenile protagonists, I maintained my good relationship with the Amazonian princess, and while I was wildly popular with the ladies in high school, I never once tried to make a move on any woman of Amazonian heritage. Some resources are just too valuable to waste.
My first apprenticeship to an antagonist of experience did not go well. I was a young dewy-eyed villain, as-yet unwise in the ways of the world, and the first man I studied under found my seeming innocence a bit too enticing for his own good. Though I was to later use similar tactics to further my own goals- that particular problem was solved by a particularly sharp obsidian knife I pulled out of a kitchen drawer. I took a single picture of my old teacher splayed over the kitchen table, then disposed of the body with the care and precision of any true professional.
My second apprenticeship was a much greater success than the first. I was taken in by the rival of my first teacher. He taught me all I ever needed to know about villainy, for which I’ll always remember him fondly. I stood by him as he defeated one would-be hero after another, and learned an amazing array of tricks which I would never have discovered by myself. He was an excellent teacher, and a prime example of why a villain never trusts anyone- especially another villain.
After his tragic, untimely death, my greatest nemesis appeared in my life. Like my first opponent, he suffered from abnormally high levels of testosterone, but he was very much unlike that first protagonist in that this time, he was nearly as intelligent as me. Of course, my intellect was still on a completely different level, but this new enemy was a much greater challenge.
He was a detective of sorts, I suppose, or maybe a former cop. His daily career meant nothing to me at the time, so I never paid much attention to it. I suppose it was my callousness to his connections in the field of law that became the c***k in my otherwise impenetrable armor.
He approached me about the death of my first instructor. It seemed that someone wanted the old pervert’s death looked into, and I was the prime suspect for admittedly understandable reasons. At first, I greeted this new hero with openness and friendliness, thinking that I could perhaps win him over and escape him that way. However, he remained resistant to my efforts, even when I seduced his sister and then his boss. I suppose he lost patience with me when I used black magic to get his partner thrown in prison for a few minor crimes I committed. I don’t understand why, though- my arch-nemesis deserved a much better side-kick than that overly cheerful pipsqueak, so really I was doing this handsome protagonist a favor.
None of my old tricks, even those taught to me by my beloved second teacher, could avert this cunning hero’s suspicions. I even tried enlisting the aid of the Amazons, but those wonderful women warriors just couldn’t meet my needs this time. It certainly didn’t help that my beloved Amazonian princess had to go and fall in love with the man trying to ensure my demise.
I’m not jealous. Really, I’m not.
I am, however, rather heart-broken to admit that there is one lesson I didn’t learn from my estimable instructor as well as I thought I had. I trusted the Amazonian princess not only with the location of my secret lair, but also the details of my first instructor’s death. I had to share that triumph with someone who could understand, you see, and I never believed that my beautiful princess would ever fall in love with a hero, especially after that daycare incident. But, fall in love she did, and she betrayed me to my arch-nemesis in exchange for a wedding ceremony fit for any ordinary bride. I still say that, had she married me, I would have given her a wedding fit for a queen, but, alas, she chose another.
Anyway, my enemy arrived on the doorstep of my secret lair late one stormy night. He invaded my laboratory, my temple, but mostly he invaded my home. I tried running again, since that particular tactic seemed as if it had always been even more reliable than even my Amazons, but I’ve never been the best athlete. It is a tragic fact of an intellectual’s life that the physique often goes to waste while the mind becomes more and more powerful.
My intellect has never aided me in a sprint out of the back door of my now not-so-secret lair.
My arch-nemesis found it prudent to throw me into prison for my supposed ‘sins’. However, the self-righteous simpleton of a judge who presided over my case instead wished for me to receive counseling, which I still find an insulting notion. Genius such as mine is never fully understood by the mundane masses. I had no choice but to submit, however temporarily, to the whims of those weak-minded fools in the psyche ward I was assigned to. While there, I suffered injustice after injustice, insult after insult. I was labeled a sociopath and criminally insane, and then I was transferred to a second psyche ward when the moronic judge reviewed my case and decided I was an incurable homicidal psycho.
The memory still rankles.
It was deep in the bowels of this second psyche ward that I concocted my most evil plan yet. The idiots who keep me imprisoned here in this awful hellhole know nothing of my actions other than the ‘murder’ they so imperiously accused me off. My vengeance will be unprecedented in its simplicity and cruelty. I am, after all, nothing if not vindictive. It’s a common trait among the greatest villains. In retaliation for my unjust treatment at the hands of these uncouth savages, I shall inflict upon the world the most evil retribution possible.
I will write a memoir.
And I will make the hapless innocents of the world read it.
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