March 15, 2016 – Got Meghan's Blog

Howdy!

I am a big nerd! I may not be all about books, but there are films and TV shows that were inspired from novels and comic books that brought the characters to life. As you probably know I am a big fan of superheroes; mostly on the Marvel side than DC or any other comic books. I don’t know how it started exactly, I just remember being in the living room lying on the couch watching X2 with my dad and that’s how my obsessed with Wolverine and Rogue started!

I’ve wrote a couple of different X-Men posts over the years. Starting with Mutant and Proud after I watched X-Men: First Class and we were introduced to our favorite mutants a whole lot younger! I’ve always seen Erik/Magneto as this troubled mutant who basically hated the human race. When I watched this film though, I finally understood why he was like the way he was and what changed him. In all honesty, I understood both sides of the argument of Charles’s way of blending in and controlling their powers. Whereas Erik was more about embracing your true self, letting yourself have everything and don’t care about what everybody thinks. Somehow after watching First Class and then changing direction and watching Man Of Steel the story of Superman, I wrote Waiting For Superman explaining how I saw the stories of these characters in a different way. Trying to explain to the reader that people and young kids with disabilities feel the same way. We’re being pulled both ways of attempting to blend in and embracing yourselves. It’s a complicated process that never really ends.

I didn’t want this post being about my previous posts, I wanted to discuss the theory that we’re looking at villains all wrong. What we think is a bad guy may not be. Several weeks ago, the question was asked during a Twitter chat for nerdy bloggers, like myself, “is there a difference between an antagonist and a villain?” I first said Draco Malfoy was more like an antagonist than a villain because he mostly wanted to impress his father and the rest of Voldemort’s party. I never thought he was a bad guy, he just had a lot of bad influences around him. And then I started thinking about Magneto and how in ways, he’s not exactly a villain either. He genuinely had a good heart; he hid it very well, but it was still there. He showed it for other mutants that were being abused by others who wanted to use, and ultimately destroy them.

Everybody is born with good intentions, even our most prized super villains like Dark Phoenix, Mystique, and Magneto. We keep forgetting–I keep forgetting–that people have a breaking point and they just lose it. The good runs out and the evil overcomes them. The ego takes over and controls their power, but like Professor X, you have to dig deep to find the good in that person. Everything can harden, but you can’t harden your heart. No matter how you try, of course, you have to also understand that not everybody can be saved either.

Are there any characters in books, movies, and TV shows that you’ve found more like an antagonist rather than a villain? Why do you believe in them that they can change?