Once Upon a Time: What Creates a Villian?
Tonight I finished watching the latest episode of Once Upon a Time, "Sympathy for the De Vil". The episode focused on the backstory of Cruella De Vil and her turn toward darkness and villainy. Now if you are a follower of the show, you will know that the producers make a point that there is no such thing as pure good or pure evil. As Regina says "Evil is not born, it's made, and so is good". Yet in Cruella's case, we end up with a villain who was already evil from birth: the classic bad seed. It seems this classic villain broke the mold the producers created in the first place: good and evil not born but made.
Let's take a look at how the villains were created. Regina is a perfect example: a young aristocrat happily in love with a stable boy, enjoys riding horses and enjoying a more simple life. Yet thanks to overbearing mother Cora, Regina is thrown into the path of regality by saving the life of Snow White and marrying her father, King Leopold. And to throw into the twist, her fiancé is killed by her mother and finds out innocent Snow is responsible for giving her away to Cora. Of course, who wouldn't be driven by revenge when the man she loves is killed due to a little girl's actions?
But the fault is not completely Snow's fault, but also Cora's. Cora, who came from the humble beginnings as a miller's daughter. Her struggle to become better than she is led her to make bad choices: falling for a gardener pretending to be a prince only to leave her pregnant and penniless; deceiving another prince by hiding her pregnancy; giving up that poor baby because she wants to become royalty after having a taste of it; flaunting her ability to make straw into gold so she can marry another prince; and finally, taking advantage of poor Rumplestilskin into teaching her magic for free so she can be powerful. And then using that power to bring up own status using Regina to marry into royalty, against Regina's wishes. After all, mother knows best, right?
However, Cora's wicked actions fed into the evil of Zelena, the baby given up at birth and the future Wicked Witch of the West. Because she was abandoned for royalty, Zelena ended up with a drunken father who had no love for her. In her retreat to find her family, she learns the truth and ends up with a hatred and jealousy towards Regina. This leads her for desire to kill her little sister and change the past, no matter what the cost. Even though she is breaking the laws of magic, Zelena's determined to get the life she feels she deserves even if it means hurting others, from Regina to Rumple to even Snow and Charming. What kind of person takes a newborn baby from his mother's arms for a time reversal spell? That was even too evil for even Rumplestiltskin.
The king of all villainy, Rumplestiltskin, has about an interesting story as these women but with more out of protection than self-service. Rumple, the humble spinner in a little village, takes the power of the Dark One, and becomes the new Dark One, to save his only child, Baelfire, from death and war. But that sacrifice has a price and "all magic come with a price" as Rumple says time and time again. His price is the need for more power, at the price of more suffering. It even clouds his judgment and his love for Baelfire and Belle, his love interest turned wife. And who can blame him? He wanted to be a good father to his son and a good man for the woman he loves, but has lived with no one to teach him how to be those things because of his own bad father, Malcolm, aka Peter Pan. What kind of father abandons their own son for youth and leaving him to fend for himself and vow to be a better person, despite the cost.
There are more examples we could go into: Captain Hook, who is driven by vengeance of his late brother's death and his beloved's; or Ingrid, who was just an innocent woman with ice powers and driven to be evil due to the world's lack of acceptance; or Ursula, who wanted to use her singing voice to make other's happy only to have it taken away by her tyrannical father. So many example of how villains are made and not born that make us realize that we are not purely good or evil. It is the choices that we make that make us good or evil.
Yet I can't help but wonder if there is more to Cruella's story than meet the eye. Perhaps she could have been made good or just better had there been another way than just locking her up in an attic with no human contact. Or if Madeline used other tactics other than her dogs to keep Cruella at bay. It is hard to say without any further information about Cruella's life and why she killed her father and stepfathers, so the classic bad seed persona is the only one that fits. Yet could Cruella been good? Was she truly evil? No one will ever know.
Let's take a look at how the villains were created. Regina is a perfect example: a young aristocrat happily in love with a stable boy, enjoys riding horses and enjoying a more simple life. Yet thanks to overbearing mother Cora, Regina is thrown into the path of regality by saving the life of Snow White and marrying her father, King Leopold. And to throw into the twist, her fiancé is killed by her mother and finds out innocent Snow is responsible for giving her away to Cora. Of course, who wouldn't be driven by revenge when the man she loves is killed due to a little girl's actions?
But the fault is not completely Snow's fault, but also Cora's. Cora, who came from the humble beginnings as a miller's daughter. Her struggle to become better than she is led her to make bad choices: falling for a gardener pretending to be a prince only to leave her pregnant and penniless; deceiving another prince by hiding her pregnancy; giving up that poor baby because she wants to become royalty after having a taste of it; flaunting her ability to make straw into gold so she can marry another prince; and finally, taking advantage of poor Rumplestilskin into teaching her magic for free so she can be powerful. And then using that power to bring up own status using Regina to marry into royalty, against Regina's wishes. After all, mother knows best, right?
However, Cora's wicked actions fed into the evil of Zelena, the baby given up at birth and the future Wicked Witch of the West. Because she was abandoned for royalty, Zelena ended up with a drunken father who had no love for her. In her retreat to find her family, she learns the truth and ends up with a hatred and jealousy towards Regina. This leads her for desire to kill her little sister and change the past, no matter what the cost. Even though she is breaking the laws of magic, Zelena's determined to get the life she feels she deserves even if it means hurting others, from Regina to Rumple to even Snow and Charming. What kind of person takes a newborn baby from his mother's arms for a time reversal spell? That was even too evil for even Rumplestiltskin.
The king of all villainy, Rumplestiltskin, has about an interesting story as these women but with more out of protection than self-service. Rumple, the humble spinner in a little village, takes the power of the Dark One, and becomes the new Dark One, to save his only child, Baelfire, from death and war. But that sacrifice has a price and "all magic come with a price" as Rumple says time and time again. His price is the need for more power, at the price of more suffering. It even clouds his judgment and his love for Baelfire and Belle, his love interest turned wife. And who can blame him? He wanted to be a good father to his son and a good man for the woman he loves, but has lived with no one to teach him how to be those things because of his own bad father, Malcolm, aka Peter Pan. What kind of father abandons their own son for youth and leaving him to fend for himself and vow to be a better person, despite the cost.
There are more examples we could go into: Captain Hook, who is driven by vengeance of his late brother's death and his beloved's; or Ingrid, who was just an innocent woman with ice powers and driven to be evil due to the world's lack of acceptance; or Ursula, who wanted to use her singing voice to make other's happy only to have it taken away by her tyrannical father. So many example of how villains are made and not born that make us realize that we are not purely good or evil. It is the choices that we make that make us good or evil.
Yet I can't help but wonder if there is more to Cruella's story than meet the eye. Perhaps she could have been made good or just better had there been another way than just locking her up in an attic with no human contact. Or if Madeline used other tactics other than her dogs to keep Cruella at bay. It is hard to say without any further information about Cruella's life and why she killed her father and stepfathers, so the classic bad seed persona is the only one that fits. Yet could Cruella been good? Was she truly evil? No one will ever know.
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