Gillian Bronte Adams’ “Villainy 101: How to Trap a Hero” Is Creative Genius!

I have to give major props to two creative people:

·         Mia Zachary, who found the awesome picture below and sent it to me on Pinterest

·         Gillian Bronte Adams, who posted the awesome picture in the first place

I’m friends with Mia and know her creative tenacity, so it doesn’t surprise me she was able to find such a creativity-inducing image. But after following that image back to its original source at GillianBronteAdams.com, I also have to give props to Ms. Adams.

Anyone who’s struggling to trap their hero for climatic effect – or just because it’s fun to be a jerk – should check this blog post out. In fact, you should read it regardless. It’s that good!

The memo stands out in all the right ways. “From the Academy of Ultimate Villainy: Today’s Lesson: How To Trap A Hero.” Never mind that the colons are a little repetitive and the “to” should be lowercased considering the previous preposition. Who cares about grammar when there’s apparently a school for scoundrels.

Mind blown!

This revelation begs to be explored further. Do these educational institutes of evil learning have university-sized classrooms where trolls take notes and bullies search for victims to snatch them from? Does the insufferable blond girl lick her glossy lips in anticipation of how to ensnare her own nemesis, while the brunette vampire beside her tries to pay attention to the lecture instead of turning her teeth on her classmate?

Those thirteen words beg a story, if not an entire series. And Adams rises to that challenge with a breakdown of “Dr. Sinestra’s lecture” as recorded by some spy at the dastardly school.

Thanks to that correspondence, we learn that there are three main kinds of heroes:

·         The Romantic

·         The Idealistic

·         The Clever

And trapping them is as easy as one-two-three once it’s established which group they fall into.

As Dr. Sinestra says, “The number one rule of hero trapping is to offer the hero something he cannot resist. Every hero has a weak spot” to exploit. “Offer the thing he most desires, and then snatch it from his grasp at the last moment” to “leave him in utter despair.”

This Dr. Sinestra is one wise villain. No wonder he got the position at the Academy!

At the risk of encouraging such literary nastiness, I’m going to point out that writers could learn a thing or two from him.

Heroes vs. Antiheroes: Are Traditional Good Guys Old Hat?

Back in June, I read an aspiring novelist’s blog post about heroes vs. antiheroes.

Stereotypical heroes would be Steve Rogers (a.k.a. Captain America), the all-American good boy who stands up for justice time and time again, even when it hurts like crazy.

Stereotypical anti-heroes? How about we go with Roxie Hart from Chicago, the narcissist who cheats on her doting husband, murders her lover, and then successfully scams the legal system to go on to fame and fortune.

Personally, I’d watch Captain America over Chicago any day. Overall, I prefer my protagonists to fight on the good side.

Not so much with the AN (aspiring novelist) in question. His premise was that antiheroes are more realistic, intriguing and even desirable in a protagonist… that society is bored of the “Dudley Do-Rights,” hence the massive popularity of shows like House of Cards and Breaking Bad, and video games like Grand Theft Auto.

Now, I watched the entire first season of House of Cards and some of the second season. I thought it was well-written, well-acted and downright fascinating, an opinion shared by millions. And yes, protagonist Frank Underwood is anything but a hero.

However, that’s one show out of hundreds, most of which still have you rooting for the good guys. Consider the wildly popular Law & Order franchise or almost any other crime show out there (and there are A LOT!), or fantasy/sci-fi-based series like Grimm and Agents of Shield.

Audiences root for the good guys in those, not the bad guys. That’s the norm.

Yes, the good guys are flawed. They wouldn’t make good stories otherwise. (Sometimes I marvel – Marvel! Ha! Totally didn’t intend that pun, but I’m keeping it in now – at how Steve Rogers, who comes about as close to moral perfection as a hero can get, can make for such compelling plotlines. Yet he does, so clearly it’s possible.)

But in the end, they’re still good guys. They still stand up against evil, not propagate it. They defend the defenseless, not their own selfish advances. They make the world a better place, which is what audiences everywhere should be rooting for.

Otherwise, we’re cheering mediocrity at best and evil at worst.

So no offense to the aforementioned AN, but he’s wrong. The traditional concept of a hero isn’t dead.

And it’s going to be a sad day when it is.