Personal Narrative- The Admirable Villain :: Personal Narrative Writing

Personal Narrative- The Admirable Villain Days of Our Lives isn’t the same without Stefano DiMera. He was the puppet master, the vile wire that tied the colorful characters of Salem together. He was the one who erased John Black’s memories, hypnotized Dr. Marlena Evans into being his love slave (leaving her vulnerable for possession by the Devil), convinced Hope that she was Princess Gina, swapped Hope’s baby with a fetal-alcoholic crack baby, and convinced John that he was the father. For the past few months, Stefano has been â€Å"out of town,† and Days has degenerated into every other soap opera: a dreary, never-ending cycle of sex, secrets, and heartbreaks. Norman Osborn disappeared on me in a similar fashion. His hatred was focused on one man, Peter Parker, also known as the Amazing Spider-Man. He murdered Peter’s first girlfriend, convinced Peter that he was a clone, and replaced his Aunt May with a dying actress. I loved Osborn so much that I bought a year’s subscription to Spidey comics, but in typical Marvel bait-and-switch fashion, Osborn was driven insane by a mystical ceremony and abducted by the Scriers in the next two issues. He resurfaced two years later, but I had lost interest in Spider-Man by then. For each of these villains there was a hero who tried to take him down. Days had Abe Carver and Spider-Man had, well, Spider-Man. The hero couldn’t simply break in the into the bad guy’s penthouse apartment and smack him around until he agreed to be good. The master manipulator would have wiped the blood from his nose and said, â€Å"I always knew you were a savage. Just like me.† Instead, the hero had to bite his lip and wiggle a solution through the criminal justice system. Elsewhere, deep in the shadows, the villain laughed, taunting the hero for his impotence. Although I sympathized with the hero, it was the villain I truly admired. He never questioned his own actions. He never got lonely or despaired. He didn’t care if he broke anyone’s heart or stomped on anyone’s feelings. All he cared about was his master plan and would stop at nothing until that plan was carried out. He didn’t have to avoid the hero’s moral pitfalls because, in his own mind, everything he did was right. He got everything he wanted. He was gratified by everything he got. He was satisfied with his lot in life and never sought to change.