HEROES v. VILLAINS
Faces v. Heels. Good Guy v. Bad Guy.
For any good story to work, you need a hero (protagonist) v. the villain (antagonist). Conflict is the core of every good story. But…to have conflict, you need to have a desire. To have a desire you need a stated goal/want/need. The Hero wants ___ while the Villain either also wants ___ or wants to stop the Hero from getting ___.
Frodo wants/needs/desires to bring the ring to Mount Doom while Sauron and Saruman want the ring themselves to rule all of Middle Earth. Gollum, though, both wants the ring but also serves the ring. Frodo is, obviously the Hero in the classic sense of the word. Sauron and Saruman are, obviously, villains in the classic sense of the word. Gollum, though, is a fully fleshed out three-dimensional character who is, also, insane. Plus he’s a constant reminder to Frodo of what happens if he lets the ring take control.
What the heroes are in the WWE? Or, more specifically, what kind of archetypes do we have as heroes?
Scrappy underdog (Danial Bryan).
Anti-Authority (Stone Cold Steve Austin).
The Badass – Good Guy version (Undertaker).
The wronged, trying to make it right (Seth Rollins).
The wildcard – Good Guy version (Dean Ambrose).
The Comedy Team (Enzo & Cass).
The “I’ve got Something to Prove” – Good Guy version (Goldberg).
All Around Good Guy (John Cena).
All heroes stem from those. Various shades of gray. Possibly including the “anti-hero” like CM Punk or the Hero who is thrust into the spotlight. I’m sure you could come up with more.
But looking at the villains, what do we have?
The Authority (HHH, Stephanie, Vince).
The Authority’s toady (Samoa Joe).
The Badass – Bad Guy version (Braun Strowman).
The Stuck-Up D-Bag aka the Cheater (The Miz).
The non-Comedy team (Gallows & Anderson).
The “I’ve got Something to Prove” – Bad Guy version (Kevin Owens).
The wildcard – Bad Guy version (Bray Wyatt).
All Around Bad Guy (Neville?).
What defines a hero in any film is what they seek and the measures they go through to accomplish that goal. Luke Skywalker wants to “learn the ways of the force and become a Jedi,” Dorothy wants to “go over the rainbow,” Shrek wants all these people out of his swamp so he can live in peace.
Where the WWE creative fails often is having wrestlers who don’t seem to have a defined want. Do they want a championship title? Do they want revenge? Do they want to just get in the way of another wrestler moving forward? What?
Every year every football team wants to go to the Super Bowl and win. There are teams that just won’t make it (sorry Cleveland) but if you’re fielding a team that is just going through the motions, picking up a paycheck and don’t have any desire to win – then you’re doing a disservice to the fans.
If I was a wrestler for the WWE, any time that there was a camera in my face I would be reminding everyone what my goal is. Even if I’m some one-off jobber at a house show who is just there to get beat to make so-and-so wrestler look good, I’d go all the way to the ring talking about how I’m going to kick some ass and start my path to greatness.
Most recently R-Truth and Goldust were begging Kurt Angle for a match to try and win the tag team championship. That added a lot more weight to their match than if they were just there to wrestle Gallows and Anderson.
What of the villain? Same thing. As a screenwriter, we’re reminded that the villain is a hero in his own mind. Even if the villain destroys everything, he’s doing it for a greater good, to teach everyone a less, to get his point across, to inflict pain and suffering.
Who have been the best heroes?
Who have been the best villains?
