And they’re not even from me!
Pretty good stuff, and not just because of all the Disney and Transformers references.
Basically, the pure evil villain is the id unchecked. They are us without our higher (human) minds holder our lower (reptile) minds in check. They subvert or ignore all of society’s checks and balances and give their ids a blank check to sate every selfish, greedy, sadistic, perverted, unwelcomed by society desire without pesky things like conscience or consideration for others holding them back.
Hence all the laughing. They are expressing the sheer joy of the lower mind finally given the run of the place. From Shere Khan’s deep throaty Mephistophelean chuckle to the Joker’s unhinged hyena cackling one thing is extremely clear :
The villain is having the time of their life. They’re having fun with evil, and this is why their evil requires no external motivation.
For them, evil is truly its own reward.
This obviously enhances their villainy because it’s bad enough to be victimized by someone without them obviously loving every minute of it.
Because of their id function, the typical “villain does a bunch of bad things then gets caught and goes to jail” plot structure is perfect. We, the audience, get to enjoy the liberating and cathartic actions of the villain as we live vicariously through them knowing full well that the hero will win in the end and therefore we don’t have to feel bad about the fun we had riding along with the villain, or even own that at all.
After all, it’s not like we ever approved of them, thought they were right, rooted against them, or aligned ourselves with them in any way.
We just passively enjoyed the liberated feelings they conveyed.
That is why the complex, motivated villain is much more rare. Complex motivation requires the high mind to understand.
And to the forces of Hollywood, that’s bad. Understandable, given what they think of us.
The lack of inhibition is also what makes them so charismatic. They have nothing stopping them from emitting pure unfiltered reptile appeal and our own reptile brains respond to that shit despite our more civilized instincts.
In fact, it’s our ego’s very rejection of our primitive emotions that give them so much power over us. What the Doctor Jekylls and Bruce Banners of the fictional worlds never seem to grasp is that the only way to defeat the devil inside is to embrace it.
As long as the two sides are trying to tear away from one another (which is impossible), the pain will grow and the more powerful the emotions will be.
Just imagine conjoined twins fighting each other and you begin to see the problem.
Finally, yes, this means that the classic battle of good versus evil is fundamentally a Freudian struggle of the id versus the ego.
That’s why by default, the good guys are always on the side of law, order, and restraint.
But it’s also why if the good guys are rebels. it’s always about freedom.
The id’s not always wrong.
More after the break.
Overcoming malignant shame
Not another super long video!
Don’t worry, like with Part 1, the video is included for reference purposes only and mostly just acts as the springboard for the discussion that follows.
Shames me to admit it, but you all know my shame.
I was an unwanted and unplanned child and from the day I was born, my family let me know it with how I was treated.
Even when I was still the precocious cutie with the ginger hair and killer smile (my puppy phase), I was often treated as a burden, an afterthought, or a chore.
But once the puppy phase was over, I was worse than worthless I was a liability. I made things worse just by being around and taking up space and having needs.
How DARE I think for one second that I deserved ANYTHING EVER. Well too bad. We’ve already divvied up everything : food, clothing, love, warmth, attention, validation, parental attention, and of course affection, and we are not willing to give up half an iota of absolutely anything in order to give you a share, so fuck off!
You will have to learn to be grateful anyone gives you anything and never ever ever ask for anything because you deserve absolutely nothing ever.
Just fucking disappear. Blend in with the woodwork. Pretend you don’t exist. Never remind us of your existence.
We prefer to pretend you were never born. It’s our favorite game. We call it “Before”.
And you better learn to love it to, or you might make it worth our while to abandon you.
As is, work hard and some day you might graduate to merely being worthless.
Well OK, that happened.
Got to let the bad stuff out sometimes.
So yeah, Lady in the Video. I know malignant shame. I feel a deep burning just for being alive. For taking up space, for using up air. For daring to use perfectly good atoms and molecules to make up something as worthless as me when they would be better used to make up literally anything else.
But I am fighting back. I know there’s nothing wrong with me. They were brutally and unforgivably wrong to treat an innocent child who never asked to be born in such a dismissive and disdainful fashion.
I was and am a bright shining wonderful being who deserves all the love and comfort and guidance he needs in order to thrive.
I never did anything to deserve to be emotionally abandoned. What child could? Anne, Catherine, David, and Mom (yeah you too), you did a terrible thing to me when I was a helpless toddler unable to fight back.
Larry did his damage too, I am sure.
But he was a raging arsehole. What’s your excuse?
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.