Born to Break
The Villain Era: Understanding the Dark Side
I’ll admit it—I’m that person who can’t help but try to understand the villain. It’s a toxic trait, I know. Why are they the way they are? What happened to them? How did they get so twisted? I find myself searching for the backstory, the emotional wounds, the catalysts that turned them from regular people into something dark, into something dangerous. Could it be a trauma response? Absolutely. But I can’t shake the feeling that every villain was once just like you and me, a person with hopes, dreams, and maybe even a good heart. What makes them different? What broke them? And maybe that’s why I get so drawn to iconic villains—because at their core, they’re relatable. They’re just people who snapped, or at least that’s how I see them.
Take The Joker, for example. Everyone knows he’s one of the most chilling, yet magnetic villains out there. But when you dig a little deeper, it’s impossible to ignore how much of him is a product of neglect, abuse, and, frankly, a lack of compassion from the world around him. The Joker didn’t just wake up one day and decide, “Hey, I think I’ll be a psychopath and ruin Gotham’s life.” No, he was shaped by a brutal world that stripped away his humanity piece by piece. Whether you watch Heath Ledger’s portrayal in The Dark Knight or Joaquin Phoenix’s in Joker, you can’t help but see the seeds of trauma planted long before he picked up that clown makeup and began wreaking havoc.
His infamous line, “You get what you fucking deserve,” really sums it up. He’s not just out for chaos; he’s seeking a twisted form of justice. For him, the world didn’t give him any chances, and in return, he gave the world a dose of its own medicine. But here’s the thing—I get it. I understand that drive to make the world feel what you’ve felt. The Joker’s entire life is a metaphor for the way society punishes the broken without ever trying to heal them. It’s hard to watch him, and not think, “What if I were pushed that far?” What if every bad day, every bad decision, had driven me into the same place?
And then there’s Carrie. The high school horror story that is almost too real to watch. Poor Carrie White—no one asked her to be the shy, awkward girl with telekinetic powers. And no one told those kids to pour pigs' blood all over her at her prom. Could anyone really blame her for losing it? I mean, when you’ve been bullied your whole life, told you’re nothing, made to feel invisible, and then that happens—the one night you finally get a taste of belonging—it’s no wonder she snapped. I can’t even imagine the kind of emotional devastation Carrie felt in that moment. The bullying, the rejection, the trauma that had been building up for years. She went from sweet, scared, and misunderstood to an unstoppable force of vengeance. I’m not saying it’s okay to take it that far, but I get why she did it. It’s a form of empowerment in a world that spent her whole life trying to crush her.
It’s not about making excuses for these characters, but more about recognizing that they didn’t start off as villains. They weren’t born bad people; they were just pushed beyond their breaking points. And I think that’s why these villains are so memorable. They’re human. And when you can see the humanity in them, it makes them more terrifying—because deep down, you know that could be you.
Let’s talk about Annie Wilkes from Misery—she’s a different kind of villain, isn’t she? She’s not driven by trauma in the traditional sense. She’s a fan, and yet, in her obsessive love for Paul Sheldon’s books, she becomes unhinged when things don’t go her way. I mean, the woman hobbles him! But what makes Annie stand out isn’t just her violence; it’s her unpredictability. She’s polite and nurturing one moment, and then in the blink of an eye, she’s a raging lunatic. It’s that mix of love and madness that makes her so unsettling. We see her as someone who’s not “evil” in the traditional sense, but she’s a fan gone too far. She represents the darker side of obsession and admiration—taking something that starts off as harmless devotion and twisting it into a dangerous fixation.
But here’s where it gets interesting. What’s the root of her behavior? Why is she so obsessed with Sheldon’s books in the first place? I mean, was there some lack in her own life? Was she the victim of her own set of unspeakable circumstances that drove her to this extreme? See, now I’m doing it again. Trying to understand the villain.
What makes these villains great isn’t just their actions; it’s their complexity. The best villains have layers—often more layers than the hero. They’re often not entirely evil; they’re more like tragic figures who’ve been bent out of shape by a harsh world. And maybe that’s why I get so fixated on them. They remind me of my own moments of weakness, when I’ve let pain or anger dictate my actions. Because every villain, in some twisted way, is just a reflection of what happens when someone’s pain isn’t addressed, when they’re left to deal with their trauma alone.
And maybe that’s my toxic trait—I’m always looking for that point of no return, that one moment that pushes them over the edge. But maybe, just maybe, it’s not such a bad thing to try to see things from their perspective. Not because I want to justify their actions, but because I want to understand how we all got here. How every small choice, every hardship, every bit of brokenness could lead someone to that point of villainy.
Villains don’t always wear capes. Sometimes, they wear the mask of someone we could’ve been, had things been just a little different.