Main Character Energy...

A friend of mine posted a funny meme this week. "It's fine that I'm the villain in your story, you're the clown in mine."

It made me snort laugh. 

You cannot dictate who you are in someone else's story. Sometimes it lines up, I imagine that who I think I am in Brent's story is pretty accurate. But I've had moments of complete confusion when other people talk about me. 

I've told the story about our 10 year high school reunion. Being in the bathroom and having a woman screw up all of her courage to tell me how miserable I had made her during high school. How awful I was to her. I was shocked. Because I had no idea who she was. None. Not a flicker of recognition at all. My friends that were there that night didn't recognize her name either. None of us had any idea who she was. But I was the high school villain in her story. I've sort of settled on it must have been a case of mistaken identity. She must have thought I was someone else. My name tag was low on my hip so not easy to find, I could have looked like someone else. That's where I landed because I cannot fathom being so awful to someone and having zero memory of it.

If I make you miserable I want to know I did it with intention.

I'm fine being the villain in your story. I just need to have done it with a plan. 

Villains get the best lines. They get the best clothes. It's hard to write a good hero story without a good villain. A good villain can take a story that you already know and make you think about it. Let's go to Marvel movies for a second, Killmonger was a great villain. Because he was the hero in his own story. And his motivations made sense. You could definitely think that if you met Killmonger before The Black Panther you would agree Killmonger was the hero and The Black Panther was the villain. That's a great villain.

The difference between a good and great villain is main character energy. If you met the villain first would you think they were the hero? Do you understand their motivation? Could you see yourself agreeing with them? Or if not agreeing at least understanding? 

How about the flip? Would your heros still be heroic if they had just one little tweak?

Again, I'll talk comic book characters. Imagine if Superman had landed in Russia, or if Wonder Woman had met a German Soldier first. I mean I'm sure there are alternate world comics with just that happening. Would they have fought for The Soviet Union? For the Nazis? Was it just a case of who they found first that made them our heroes instead of our villains?

I'll ground it a little. Years ago I was exposed to the idea that who you are is mainly determined by an accident of your birth. I am who I am because my parents were in the United States, specifically in New Mexico, when I was born. My language, my culture and my religious background are all influenced by that. You think of a lot of things that define you as these big great immovable things, but really they are accidents of your birth. You had no choice or decision in who you were born to or where you were when you were born. But it shapes everything about you. 

Americans (I think) suffer from this hero mentality around being American. We think, and are taught, that the United States is different than other places. That we are the world's hero. That we make it better. But once you start talking to people in other parts of the world that doesn't always hold true. We are often the villains in their story. And sometimes the clowns. 

But Americans (the fact that we call ourselves American and expect the rest of North America, and all of South and Central America to just cede it to us is point #1) hold on to this American Exceptionalism ideal. And it can take different people in to some really twisty spaces. The LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT crowd. The ones that attach a lot to the idea of being an American that really doesn't belong there. It becomes their whole character arc. 

But are they heroes? Or villains? Or clowns? 

Depends on who is telling the story. 

I'm fine being the villain in the story. I love a good villain. But I am a villain with strong main character energy. It depends on what point in your own story that you meet me on how you feel about it. 

(now imagine me whooshing out of the room with a sharp turn on my heel and flare of a jet black cloak)