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Villains!
I have been thinking a lot about villains. It is entertaining to think about fictional villains. I could do without the real ones!
But think about the villains in literature that you know: how were they defeated? Some villains are totally protected by their total lack of empathy for other humans. Some people consider the shark in Jaws as a villain. It certainly didn't have empathy for humans, but it was just doing what it was created to do.
But when you get to human villains, authors have to provide them with some element of feeling for a person or a thing in order to provide them with a chink in their armor so they can be defeated.
Cathy Ames in East of Eden was a nasty murderer but in the end she becomes aware of her son which flips her switch so that she can commit suicide. Ebenezer Scrooge certainly has an epiphany which required Dickens to call in the supernatural to accomplish. Sherlock Holmes's nemesis, Professor Moriarity had to fall off a cliff, and was that a satisfactory ending for the reader? And what about Mondego in The Count of Monte Cristo? Even Edmond Dantes wasn't satisfied by the ending of that story. And then there was Mr. Potter at the end of "It's a Wonderful Life". I don't think he was truly defeated by the protagonist in that story either.
It's not like St. George and the dragon or Brody killing the shark in Jaws. Getting the protagonist to defeat the villain and, at the same time, satisfy readers is a serious challenge. We're going to need a bigger boat!
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