Guest Post by Joseph Gulesserian, author of 'Newspaper Boys Always Deliver'

The Case for the Villain by Joseph Gulesserian

Much of my book considers the strange yet essential relationship between the virtuous and the villain. Since, it is victors who write history and ensure that the villain is removed from collective righteousness of prevalent thinking. The villain, in some ways, longs for acceptance that changing their way might bring, but it is the villain that writes the reason for the play. It is the villain that everyone comes to see, may it be in film, professional wrestling, sports, theatre and international politics.

The villain gives rise to the hero, as each examines the other, so they do not have to consider the possibilities of their own respectively flawed ways. Each has a secret admiration of the other, as they super impose their respective roles to better understand each other, and perhaps themselves!

Revisionism within the history is a form of self-flagellation to revisit our victories that masked perhaps our barbarity, so we can atone and realign with our current socially engineered flawed value systems.

As the audience anticipates with great expectations as to the outcome of the dual, they are unknowingly crafting a self-righteous, yet tenuous blueprint for their lives, as they come to point their finger at the barbarity of the event, so they can mask the savage within themselves.

Today, we see the public through Twitter and the rest of the social media conjure a digital recipe of finger wagging, in the hopes that their morality is aligned with current thought. Because, by pointing at the villain, we both deny and hide the savage in us all, as we play out the tragedy.

It is the villain that we come to see, not the virtuous, because the villain is who teaches us how to mask our barbarity and ease ourselves into accepted civility.

The reason we come to see the hero, is to experience the fear of the possibility of the hero's demise, and it is this adrenaline that we are prepared to pay for, but when all is said and done, without the villain, we are all actors without a script!