Villain

A villain is a bad person, especially in fiction. Villains are the fictional characters, or perhaps fictionalized characters, in drama and melodrama who do evil deliberately and work against the hero. As such, villains are an almost inevitable plot device, and more than the heroes, the villains are the crucial elements upon which plots turn. Female villains are sometimes called villainesses.

Word origin

The etymology of the word could be from Old French villein, in turn from Late Latin villanus, meaning serf or peasant, someone who is bound to the soil of a villa, which is to say, worked on the equivalent of a plantation in late Antiquity, in Italy or Gaul. Poverty was equated with moral turpitude; villains had to work their way up the social ladder. Thus usually the word villain suggests that the villain's schemes stem from their own moral indifference or perversity of character.

Related Topics:
Etymology - Old French - Villein - Latin - Serf - Peasant - Plantation - Moral - Character

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Another possible origin of this word is the Croatian legend of the three brothers ?eh, Meh, and Leh, who wanted to get rid of the Roman rule and establish unity in ancient Croatia, but their sister "Villana" was in love with a Roman prefect and betrayed her brothers plot. Villana was killed by her brothers.

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Supervillains are found in the melodramatic environs of superhero comic books, where an evil person with super powers is needed to be a challenging foil for the mighty heroes. These supervillains usually have recurring roles; some villains in more down to earth literature have become so popular that they have been reused in later works as well.

Related Topics:
Supervillain - Superhero - Comic book

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