Heroes and Villains in Art, my Favorites M.

Dylan Burbey From the time humans had the ability to communicate, mankind has created and shared stories. One of the first was the tale of Gilgamesh, a selfish king who travelled the land collecting treasures and grew as a person through friendship and hardship. This set the tone for almost every story to follow in terms of the tales of heroes, namely a powerful or brave individual who stands tall in the face of adversity. Over time it evolved, bringing about far more interesting interpretations of the normal hero and even villain: the martyr, the simpleton, the schemer, the miser, and far more. Everyone whos interacted with some sort of art that tells a story has a favorite hero and villain, and I wish to elaborate on a few of my choices. In high school I had the immense pleasure of reading a book by the name of Atlas Shrugged. A novel by Ayn Rand, it is often considered her magnum opus. She was a woman of conviction who heralded her beliefs and fought to have them known until the day she died. Its just unfortunate that her beliefs are sort of crazy. To sum them up, reverse every ideal in a book about Communism. She was an evangelical, pure capitalist in every respect: its your fault if youre poor, the rich deserve to be rich almost always, and that your self worth is more important than anything else, period. To be honest, I just dont agree with her philosophy, but GOD shes a Hell of a writer In Atlas Shrugged she creates a world that allows her philosophy to shine (and is ironically very similar to the modern day). So, of course, she needed a main character that encompassed almost every one of her ideals. Enter Dagny Taggart, my absolute favorite heroine. A woman of conviction, Dagny

is someone who seems cold but deeply respects the strength of will an individual has. Unlike every other main protagonist Ayn Rand has created, she isnt the perfect version of her ideals. In her other novels the main characters were rigid and always right in regard to that worlds logic, but Dagnys different. She makes mistakes; instead of partaking in the novels big strike in the beginning she desperately fights society to be able to get anything done with her company. Shes almost a Grecian heroine, a superwoman who stands up against the incredible beast that is her societys ignorance and stupidity. I very literally wish to name my daughter (if I ever have one) after this character. As for villain, I really have a strange one. Hes sort of a mysterious, yet relatable person, and, unlike Dagny, he comes from a video game. James Sunderland, the protagonist of Silent Hill 2, is by far the best-presented villain I know. Hes introduced in a bathroom in the games titular town through a voiceover in which he explains his reasons for coming back to town. Just the other day, he received a letter from his wife who told him that shed be waiting in their special place in Silent Hill. The only problem is shes dead. Shes been dead for the past few years because of an illness. You control this character as you explore this town: solving puzzles, finding objects, and even interacting with a few other people who have ended up in town because of equally strange circumstances. Again, theres a problem. Nightmarish creatures roam the town. Pure nightmare fuel, they chase down James with wild abandon through the town. Eventually he meets one creature that resembles a man wearing a dirty robe with a massive pyramid-like helmet who wields a massive knife. This creature is shown to be hyper aggressive towards not

only James but many of the more feminine-looking creatures throughout the world as well. James even encounters a woman who looks almost exactly like his wife, but instead of being a sweet, sickly woman, shes seductive and kind of an ass. James ends up travelling with her throughout the game, turning it into a weird escort mission that you dont really care about. That is, until shes impaled by the Pyramid creature in the towns hospital. So, a character dies. Big whoo- wait Whys she back? Later on you find her again, and for a few seconds she genuinely acts like Jamess wife, until he asks her about it. Throughout the game youll find her, and then shell promptly be slaughtered. Now wait, I imagine youre asking because Im sort of lazy, why is he just explaining the games plot? I dont want to know that, I want to know why this character is his favorite villain. Also, why does he consider him a villain if hes the main character? I needed to give context in order to explain WHY hes one of the greatest villains. After you pass through most of the game, James finds a video that he shot the day his wife died. In it you see a similar, sweet scene that mirrors the opening video, but at the very end of the tape you watch a sequence in which James smothers his wife to death with a pillow. As an added bonus, if you examine his wifes letter in your inventory throughout the game, pieces of it will disappear until its nothing more than a page of blank paper. You find out everything that brought him to the town was in his head. James is a complicated character, and Silent Hill 2 conveys this through a heaping of symbolism. Every creature in the game mirrors various aspects of Jamess psychology: the disfigured yet sexualized nurses in the hospital represent not only his wifes sickness but his sexual frustration after years of not being able to

be with his wife (or anyone for that matter), the straightjacket creatures represent his frustration at being tied down by his useless marriage, and even these weird mannequins with two sets of legs (one for walking then another on the top of its torso where its arms and head should be) represent his declining perception on what women are and what he feels when he looks at them (LUST, a whole lot of lust). The woman you meet in the town represents what he wished his wife was like, and the Pyramid creature embodies Jamess self-loathing and desire for punishment for what he did to his wife. Everything, absolutely everything in the game ties back into his personality, and it turns out hes a complete jackass.