About the (not so?) Bad Guy

Recently, my son has taken a liking to superhero characters, Thor in particular because of his muscles. Given that my son sometimes has a hard time following conversations and plots in fiction, I walked him through Thor, and we’ve started Ironman.

When I told my son that Ironman made and sold weapons, he asked, “Is Tony Stark a bad guy?”

His logic: Weapons are bad, so people who make them are bad. Hurting people is bad, so people who make money by hurting people are bad.

Simplistic, perhaps, but there’s a grain of truth in what he says.

Yet, in our history, we glorify victorious, and often violent people (or people who use violence to achieve their goal).

The grey areas of human behaviour are not easy to lay out to a 9 year old who doesn’t get why a good guy isn’t always good and a bad guy isn’t always bad.

The same is true when creating characters for stories.

Memorable characters are those who speak to our empathy. Sympathetic characters are familiar.

Who would you empathize with more, the person who steals bread to feed their starving family, or the person who permits starvation by not stealing? Are they both thieves? Would you be a thief it it was your family starving?

We love to hate wicked characters, to see the hero triumph over them. Some people identify with the antagonist because the Shadow character speaks to the social rules dare not break. We live vicariously through the villains actions, but do not suffer when they fall.

Antagonists have their own world view, of which they are the epicentre. However, they also share admirable characteristics with the protagonist. Determination, a desire to improve one’s station, even true love (though misplaced) have guided the worst villains in fiction.

Which brings me back to explaining “Bad Guys” to my son, whose world view is simple, and concrete. Things either are, or they are not.

Well-written characters don’t fit into that concrete world, even the “Bad Guys.” Sure, I play the “good” and “bad” game by the simple set of rules to help my son understand the basic premise of a story. Eventually I hope he’ll grasp the grey areas in-between.

Jack Skellington kidnapped Santa Claus and ruined his business – a horrible thing for someone to do. Yet here I am plonking my kid in front of the T.V. trying to get him to watch one of my favourite bi-holiday films (YES it is a Christmas *and* Halloween movie) and dressing him up like one of the Boogeyman’s terrible children.

What makes that distinction for you? What would you tell your child about good guys versus bad guys?