As for your article: Great work! I do approve. It does put the Evil Villain down and makes them more interesting. Personal favourite though are the villains that are not actually bad and stopping them would be morally ambiguous. (Like 2 kingdoms fighting over farm lands because both are starving.)

Keep up the good articles!

I would like to comment on the tired idea of entire races being evil. This has led to quite a few characters in fantasy and sci-fi literature that “go against the grain” and turn to good even though their people are wholly evil. Does the name Driztt (spelling?) ring a bell? Hugh the Borg is another example although that was more the result of outside influence on the part of LaForge than any actual inner reflection on Hugh’s part. There seems to have been a trend of such outside-the-box thinking characters, so much so that this type of character has become cliched as well.

Babylon 5 is a great example of what was essentially a cast of 2D characters in the early seasons with so little depth it’s a wonder the series lasted as long as it did. However, as the series progressed, all the characters, particularly those originally cast as less than wholesome if not outright evil had developed into virtual living, breathing people. They had grown and changed as a result of the events surrounding and directly impacting their lives.

Star Trek mostly failed in this area, however, as the main characters hardly changed or developed at all. Events could drastically alter the physical appearance of characters to such an extent that there should have at the very least been some psychological impacts. But mostly at the end of each episode, the miracles of Star Trek medical science made things all better with nary a trace of the traumatic alterations that had recently changed certain characters.

Now on the flip side of things, I much prefer the pre-prequals Darth Vader of Star Wars than the result of all the “character development” of Anakin Skywalker that George Lucas attempted in Episodes I-III. Now I cannot look at that black helmet without seeing the sniveling, whining, angst-driven teenager that was portrayed by Hayden Christiansen. That’s character development I could have lived without.