A beautiful, vulnerable woman, whom I had married over two decades earlier, found her world destroyed at my hands. Her marriage, her family, her very ability to trust lay bleeding at my feet. She had not asked for this. Nor had my children.

I had leveraged a trifecta of destruction: financial betrayal, sexual infidelity, and abuse. With each revelation of my behavior, she was sent reeling. 

After a series of my brutal confessions I did not recognize her. At times her eyes were wide and unfocused, like a prey animal cornered by a vicious predator. Other times she was crazed, running through the house, screaming and throwing things. It was brutal. It felt hopeless.

Yet, she also had moments of unbelievable strength. At times she was brave, clear-eyed, and even forgiving. 

One morning I awoke on the old couch in our basement where I slept. The couch was the first one we had bought as a married couple. The memories of our life together had all fallen between its cushions like lint and coins. I was now rediscovering them, working back through history. These memories were not kind to me. 

I was not the hero in my life’s journey. I was the bad guy.

It was my wife who was the hero. I had dropped her into a world she could scarcely imagine and changed the future of our family. She had stepped across the threshold and had begun trying to make her way, dealing daily with the tests and trials, revelations of my behaviors. It was a bleak world I had created for her to navigate.

I sobbed at the revelation. I began to dig for more of the lost memories in that couch. I realized that I had played this role many times. I had used people to give myself what I needed, and then unceremoniously abandoned them, emotionally and physically.

Did this realization change my behavior? Would I begin my own hero’s journey? Surprisingly it did not. Not yet. While I would continue to follow the rules of our marriage’s recovery – the therapy sessions, the recovery groups, the twelve-step meetings – I kept pushing the realization of my villainy down. 

It would not be ignored.

As the betrayer in a relationship, there is a question that constantly knocks at the door of your consciousness: “How could I have done this?” 

This question is echoed by the victims: “How could you have done this?”

The question we should be asking is, “No, really, aren’t you curious about how you could have done this?”

Amidst the guilt and shame I continued to function, as did she somehow. But I was the one who left the house and cut off communication, leaving her alone with our bewildered children. I was the one who unceremoniously filed for divorce, letting her know in a voice message. My ex-wife and I spent tens of thousands of dollars on lawyers. In the divorce settlement, I told myself that I was being fair, but I fought for my share of the assets. She had always been the breadwinner in the family, yet I still felt that I was entitled.

“No, really. How could I have done this?”

Over the years after our divorce, I continued to struggle with this idea of being the bad guy. Something kept me cold and distant from her, at times cruel. What was inside me that didn’t feel safe unless I was hiding, stonewalling, and lying? Where was the valve that released my rage before I became this man I despised? 

What you resist will destroy you.

I began to wonder what would happen if I leaned into my darkness? After all, it was a consistent, reliable force in my life. It made me feel safe, right up until the moment I found myself standing over the body of another relationship, chalk on my shoes. 

I began to understand that there were dark rooms in a hidden part of my psyche. The psychoanalyst C. G. Jung had already named it: the Shadow. 

I came to long for a path forward for those of us who needed to understand our darkness. Joseph Campbell had defined what he called The Hero’s Journey. He found common themes in the stories and myths of cultures across time and distance. He marveled that the same themes could arise in cultures who had no contact with each other.

Jung believed that these stories bubbled up from a deep knowing shared by all humans. He called it the collective unconscious.

It was clear that I was not on the Hero’s Journey. I had not been cast into some strange world, but had created that world. I had not been faced with tests and trials. I was putting others to the test.

No, I was not on the Hero’s Journey, but I was unwilling to concede that this made me inherently evil.

I wondered what the collective unconscious had to say about those of us who needed to explore our darkness. It is very clear that stories, myths, literature, and movies are full of monsters, demons, and men in black hats. I was interested in these characters. How could Hades, the god of the underworld inform my life? 

“No, really. How could I have done this?”

I discovered that exploring our shadow was already a therapeutic practice. It’s called shadow work. Jung told us that we cannot be psychologically healthy until we have traveled through the dark places in our psyche. Therapists were already helping people explore these dark places. The common belief was that, if we did not dive into our darkness, our dark energies would burst out into the world in the most toxic ways. Once we become well-acquainted with the repressed feelings inside of us we can harness this power to live our lives more fully.

The villains found in the books and movies I love began to come to life. Perhaps Darth Vader wasn’t kidding when he said the dark side of the force was more powerful than the light. 

With time, my perspective on my marriage began to shift. I recognized that I had wanted out of my marriage, that for me the relationship had run its course. I remember a specific moment when I knew I would be able to break my marriage vows. Yet, ending the marriage was just not on the table for me. It’s not what a “good boy” does, which is what my self image told me I was. So I pushed the thought back down, even as my actions led me directly toward dissolving the marriage in the most painful way imaginable. 

“Blame her!” a voice had said. And I did. I became resentful of my wife until, over time, I had nothing but contempt for her. I no longer saw her as a person – as a human being – but as an object. At that point, I was capable of anything. 

How could I have done this? I began to see just how I could do something so vile.

What if I had realized consciously that the marriage needed to end and that I should initiate that process? Could I have done it more artfully? Yes, I could have done it so much more artfully. Would there be heartbreak and tears? Yes, but not the utter destruction of another person’s world.

Who would I have had to become to dissolve my marriage in a more calm, cool, calculated way? I concluded that I would have had to be the villain, consciously.

Over the next ten years, I would explore what I came to believe was an archetype of the villain. Joseph Campbell never documented a villain’s journey, but our stories, our movies, and our video games are rich with villainy. I just needed someone like Joseph Campbell to identify the weigh stations that make up this journey. 

What is the path into and through the darkness documented by the villains in our literature, art, movies, and video games? I seek to answer this question.

How do we know when we are on the villain’s journey?

What can we do to wield our dark powers artfully?

Can the villain’s journey have a positive impact on the world, like the hero’s journey?

Do we need a hero to dance with while on our journey?

Is this something anyone can tap into? Should they?

I am sharing the fruits of my search so that we can support each other in artful villainy. I call it The Villain’s Journey. I hope you will join our community, not only to light your way, but to light the way for others.

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And he was joyless.

By every measure, he should be deeply satisfied with his situation, but he felt he lacked a purpose. His dissatisfaction grew into anguish. Every night he would pray to God to please tell him his purpose. Certainly there was more to be done in the world! He was willing to give up all that he had in exchange for a reason for his existence. He was distraught that night after night no answer came.

Seeing his malaise, his wife recommended that he place a lily under his bed after saying his prayer for revelation. The lily would invite the angels to his aid. In desperation, he did so.

“Please,” he prayed, “reveal to me my purpose in this life. I am just a raindrop on the window of the universe.” He placed a freshly cut lily under his bed and fell asleep.

He was started from slumber by a bright light. There at the foot of the bed stood a beautiful angel, or he assumed it was an angel. The light was too bright to look directly into.

“You have done well, faithful servant. To reward you I will reveal your purpose to you.”

The man was in awe.

“Please, please tell me that I may live in my purpose!”

“Your purpose,” began the angel, “is to change the life of one person, one person in need, finding strength by your actions in this world.”

“Oh generous angel, please tell me who this person is that I may seek them out!” he begged.

“That is not to be. You will never know the person nor hear their story, nor share in their happiness,” the angel replied.

The man felt desperation well in his heart, but knew that his purpose may not be for his own aggrandizement. Yet, he could not help but ask another desperate question.

“Can you tell me when will this person pass through my life?”

“I can tell you, but you may also choose to not know. If you ask me again, I will tell you.”

“Yes, yes, please tell me!” the man replied.

“Be sure that your heart wants to know and not your head,” warned the angel.

“My heart is the one asking the question, dear angel” he replied.

“I will tell you,” said the angel. “It was two years ago in the summer that this person came through your life, passing on changed but anonymous to you.”

The man stared.

“Then what am I to do with the remainder of my life?”

The angel began to fade.

“I have told you all that I was sent to tell you. Live the life of a man who has fulfilled his purpose.”

The angel was gone and darkness returned to the room.

What does the man do with this information? How you answer that question will tell you something about your relationship with the world you inhabit.

How do you live the life of a man who has already fulfilled his purpose?

Do you think the man committed suicide?

Did he retire?

Did he give away all of his belongings?

If this was you, what would be the thing you did two years ago that changed someone’s life?

For me, the thought experiment allows me to revel in the common things of life. Sometimes the weight of having a purpose interferes with the day-to-day beauty of the world.

Having a purpose is a very western idea.

–Dorian

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The Hero’s Journey, a concept developed by Joseph Campbell, is a storytelling framework that outlines the transformative path of a hero. The most important aspects of the Hero’s Journey are:

1. The Ordinary World: The hero’s initial state, where they are introduced in their everyday environment, which is often mundane and comfortable.
2. The Call to Adventure: An event or circumstance that disrupts the hero’s ordinary world, introducing a challenge or opportunity that sets the journey in motion.
3. Refusal of the Call: Initial hesitation or resistance to embark on the journey, often due to fear, insecurity, or a sense of inadequacy.
4. Meeting the Mentor: A guide or wise figure who provides guidance, wisdom, and encouragement, helping the hero prepare for the journey ahead.
5. Crossing the Threshold: The hero leaves the ordinary world and crosses into the special world of the journey, marking a point of no return.
6. Tests, Allies, and Enemies: The hero encounters various challenges, makes new friends and allies, and confronts formidable enemies that test their courage and resolve.
7. Approach to the Inmost Cave: The hero approaches a critical, often symbolic, moment of reckoning, where they must face their greatest fear or challenge.
8. The Ordeal: The climax of the journey, where the hero confronts their greatest fear, faces a severe test, or undergoes a transformative experience.
9. The Reward (Seizing the Sword): The hero achieves a triumph or gain, often symbolic or literal, as a result of their ordeal.
10. The Road Back: The hero begins their journey back to the ordinary world, but with a newfound perspective and wisdom.
11. The Resurrection: The hero faces a final test or confrontation, often with their greatest fear or enemy, to emerge reborn and transformed.
12. Return with the Elixir: The hero returns to the ordinary world, bringing with them the wisdom, power, or knowledge gained on their journey, which they can now share with others.

These stages can be adapted and modified to fit various storytelling forms and genres, but they provide a foundational framework for understanding the Hero’s Journey.

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To: Members of MOVE (Mastermind of Villainous Enterprise)

From: Management

Subject: Dealing with Victim Mentality

In recent years, there has been a growing concern among the villain community about the quality and quantity of heroes to grapple with. This problem doesn’t appear to be abating.

Let me provide a some context for those new to our ranks.

One of the primary jobs of a Villain is to unearth heroes. While we would prefer that heroes mind their own business and let us get on with our plots and plans, we cannot deny that we are made better by the heroes that try to thwart us. Heroes give us energy. They make us better. But only if they play by the rules.

As “conscious” villains, we require a certain structure to our relationship with these heroes. We’ll do our part if they do theirs.

Our first job as villains is to entice the potential hero cross a “threshold” to begin their hero’s journey. This means that they have chosen to accept their journey. This is never easy because heroes inevitably resist the call. They require us to constantly up the stakes until they finally capitulate. I mean, how often have we had to raise taxes on the poor in order for a hero to arise?

This is why villains get a bad name. We have to really push to get quality heroes to start pushing back.

When we are able to get a hero to step up, it is our job to oblige them with tests and trials. Coming up with problems for our heroes often one of the best parts of the job. Some of our tests they will pass. Some they will fail. The best heroes keep us at the top of our game. Without their constant pressure, world domination is just a pipe dream.

But let me be clear about this. Villains seek heroes, not victims.

A hero is not someone who gets triggered and complains. This is victim mentality. Our research indicates that victimhood has risen significantly over the past 10 years. As a result, fewer and fewer heroes are engaging with us.

The data suggests that quality hero candidates are using victimhood to keep themselves from crossing the threshold and starting their journey. Instead of grappling with us as we seek to impact the world, they are attending protests and posting on social media. This is rarely helpful.

Unlike heroes, victims step away from their calling, settling for complaining, posting signs in their yard, or just muttering under their breath.

DON’T BE PULLED INTO THEIR GAMES.

Asking a victim to act like a hero is like asking a couch to dance.

We, as villains, have to take responsibility for curtailing this behavior. After all, the first rule of a villain is, “If I don’t do it, no one will.”

Perhaps we’re not giving these victims enough incentive to start their hero’s journey. Have we, the Villains, gotten soft? Has this lack of heroes made us sloppy?

When times get tough, I think it’s important to go back to basics. Here’s a checklist for all of our members to review before the new year gets to far along.

1. Revisit and refresh your monologue. Can you make it more impactful? More biting?
   
2. Practice, practice, practice. How often are you giving your monologue? Are you practicing in the mirror to ensure you have the proper balance of emotion and rationality?
   
3. Are you doing your minion one-on-ones regularly? Are you challenging them? We don’t need them shooting up schools because they are bored.
   
4. Set stretch goals. If you are finding it relatively easy to implement your plans due to a lack of hero push-back, should you be shooting higher?

Always remember: we are Villains, not minions. If our goals are soft, our heroes will be soft.

The world is not going to change itself. If we don’t do it, no one will.

References:

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When you are three years old, you will have developed a model for how you earn love, safety, and praise.

When you are seven, something unique to you will happen.

When you are fourteen, your body will transform into something society calls “adult”.

When you are twenty-one, something unique to you will happen.

When you are thirty, women will become aware of a choice you must make. Men will become aware of the choice a woman must make.

The “biological clock” is both biological and cultural.

When you are forty, you’ve made most of the choices that society requires of you. You have done this unartfully.

Between forty and fifty, your unartful choices will bear fruit. You will knuckle down or rebel. Your heart will break open, or break closed. Both directions result in neurosis and awakening.

When you are sixty, you will see yourself as an individual. You will understand that your impact on the world is small, but see a world inside yourself as infinite.

When you are eighty you are in a unique position to summarize the collection of a unique set of experiences. For a few of us, we will have the skills to communicate this to the rest of the world. For most of us, we will internalize our journey. We will smile or rail against the dying of the light.

When you die, no matter the age, the people that notice will continue with their lives.

Why am I so sure of all of this?

Culture has known about these passages because culture is designed by patterns.

Sciences has identified the biological underpinnings of human development that drive these passages.

Astrology has mapped these passages to the orbits of celestial bodies.

Religion has documented these passages as gifts from god or temptations of the devil.

And if you could look down below the surface of your consciousness and ask, “Is this true?” The answer would be “Of course. Now what will you do with all of this?”

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However, many of us believe we are unlovable unless we are serving others. We are the givers, the doers, the planners, the ones who put everyone else first.

And we lose ourselves in the process.

This inevitably generates feelings of resentment, anger, rage. Yet, we believe that if we put ourselves first, love will be taken from us and this fear is always there, walking with us. So we push the rage down.

Until it won’t stay buried.

The rage rises at the most inconvenient and inappropriate times. Eyes peek above the surface of our consciousness as depression. And then the creature strikes, jaws biting at whoever is in front of us. We create a crisis.

Crises are when we realize that something is wrong, that we need to change something, that we cannot stay on the path we are on. Recovering alcoholics are grateful for their “bottoms”, when their drinking finally destroyed all that they thought they held dear. This is when they seek help. This is where they start on the road to redemption.

It’s the same with suppressed rage.

Our depression, fueled by suppressed rage becomes untenable.

The solution is rather simple. Put ourselves first. Resist the urge to serve others when we can sense that we don’t really want to.

Unfortunately, when we put our serving persona aside, what is left feels selfish, narcissistic, evil. We are staring at our definition of a Villain, and we don’t like it.

To heal, we must not turn away from this vile character in our psyche. We must lean in. Our villain has the key to our health.

If we get comfortable with our villain, we get closer to our authentic self. This is the “us” that will set boundaries, serve ourselves, and — from this place of authenticity — truly serve others from a place of health and strength.

This is the essence of shadow work. C.G. Jung believe that we must look into the part of our psyche he called the “Shadow”, where we put the parts of ourself we don’t want to look at. He found that we must move through our Shadow to integrate it and become our authentic, individuated self.

There is no archetype of the Villain, as there is of the Hero. Yet the villain lives in our stories, our movies, our myths.

I believe we must create a villain archetype and a journey through the shadow. It is path we must take.

We must finally play the Villain to be healthy.

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As her life unraveled around her, my wife did something so incredibly brave, so unimaginably vulnerable, so unbelievably forgiving, that I could no longer hang onto my belief that I was the victim. So, fuck her for that.

There is a tried and true method for handling a thought like, “Oh, maybe I’m the bad buy here.” Push. It. Down. Double down on blaming others. Distract yourself with anything that you can find laying around. Text your friends who have bought into your story. These all work — have worked — over and over. So, it’s not like I didn’t have some recourse after having this rather distasteful thought.

I chose them all. Did you think I was going to choose something different? Over the next few years my wife — now ex-wife — would continue to be brave, to be heroic. And I would continue to blow shit up. But the thought never left. You may be shocked to learn that I behaved in other relationships the way I have behaved in my marriage. Pick your jaw up off of the floor. But, redemption is not something you seek. Redemption comes for you.

There are only so many broken relationships you can have before you begin to realize the common thread in all of them. You. The old strategies stop working. The friends who once came to your defense grow tired of fighting your battles with you. You strain all of your codependencies. Eventually, you find yourself with no more back doors to sneak out of. You must turn and look at the steaming piles of shit that you’ve left scattered across your life.

“The only way to get to the other side is through the darkness.” I thought this was a fine aphorism for people recovering from trauma, like my ex-wife. But I began to realize that the darkness I had to go through wasn’t out there. It was in me. And there was no avoiding the wreckage I would have to work my way through to get to the other side. Any other side but this.

I leaned into the darkness. I was clearly playing a role in my life and in the life of my wife, my kids, my friends, my neighbors, and of other drivers on the road. How can I understand this role psychologically, philosophically, theologically?

There’s really not a lot of help out there for the shitty people. The heroes get all of the glory. People who are shitty to other people are seen as potential good people who just need a lot of work. Your therapist isn’t so interested in nurturing the amazing skills you’ve developed for turning lives upside down. Once the appropriate childhood traumas have been uncovered, you begin to work on getting rid of them, even though we all know that they never go away.

Heroes, on the other hand, have a storied journey to greatness and a promised land. Joseph Campbell wrote the seminal book on the hero’s journey. The Hero with a Thousand Faces documents the phases of a hero’s path to greatness. Campbell saw the same themes in heroic stories, across cultures and across time. It’s a somewhat academic read. I recommend watching a few YouTube videos on the subject, because this is the way I do research. Then watch your favorite movie. It’ll mess with your mind.

I was introduced to Joseph Cambell and his hero’s journey — what Campbell called the “mono myth” — through the PBS series The Power of Myth. Whatever you may think about Masterpiece Theater, I thank god for PBS. We couldn’t find something like “The Power of Myth” on network television*. And PBS also brought us Monty Python. Thank you for existing, PBS.

I believed I was on this path, that it defined my journey through life toward a larger goal — what Campbell called the “boon”. It also elucidated many of the smaller journeys I embarked upon. For me, accepting a job was what Campbell called the “Call to Adventure.” Getting fired was a call to adventure, too. Starting ill-conceived businesses was a call to adventure — mostly because I couldn’t stop getting fired. I wanted to pick my own call to adventure, something a little more glamorous than being unemployable. I will learn later that choosing your own call to adventure is a very villainous thing to do.

Everything for me was a call to adventure. I was the hero struggling on the path of trials. Then, suddenly, I wasn’t. My wife made that very clear by demonstrating what a heroic deed really looked like.

I went back to Campbell to help me understand what had gone wrong. The problem with Campbell is that he didn’t say dick about the villains. They were bit players in the hero’s journey. They had a role in the myths, of course, as the devil, as weird monsters, and as fathers. There were always “bad guys” in the stories Campbell used as examples. Yet, they stepped in, read their lines, did their things, and then sat backstage while the camera followed the hero’s next trial. Villains are bit players in the Hero’s grab for glory despite the fact that they seem to be so pivotal.

For example, it is the “ogre father” that grants power to his sons to continue their journey in many myths. Admittedly, he does try to kill them first. But the hero’s path of trials isn’t very interesting unless there’s some real peril. Mythical stories don’t get retold as much if the hero is challenged with getting the newspaper on a cold morning. So, what does this tell us? Does this mean we should thank the Ogre Father character for keeping things real?

This was one of the first questions that came up for me. As both a father, and — apparently — an ogre, I wondered what happens to the Ogre Father after he’s done anointing the hero with new powers— or killing him. Does he continue to punch in at work and then stop for a beer at the pub on his way home? Does he feel any regret later about trying to murder his children? Should he feel regret? Is he just put out to pasture or should he have more children and try to kill them so that they can be heroes?

As a father, I don’t want to shirk my responsibilities. As a newly minted villain, I want to bring the same conscientiousness to the role. Where do I turn for guidance on this journey?

I was brought up Christian. So, the natural response to this realization of my villainy is to admit that I’ve lost my way and that I need to turn back to the path of righteousness. All I needed to do was to get back on my hero’s journey, to follow the example of my heroic wife and try to be more like her. And more like Jesus, of course. There is a great deal of precedence for this kind of transformation.

It was St. Augustine who had lived life as a raconteur and drunkard. He had fathered a child with his mistress and abandoned them. Yet, he came to a moment of realization so profound that he went from tenth century party boy to a celibate aesthete, denying himself any pleasure. This was his path to God. He became a Jesuit/Franciscan (?) monk and wrote the treatise Confessions that defined the role of the Catholic church for centuries after — right through what would be called “The Dark Ages.” Maybe that’s not the right example.

In the Bible, there was Saul who was traveling on a road to Damascus excited to go and kill some upstart Christians. However, he had a blazing vision of Christ so powerful that knocked him to the ground. After that, he changed his name to “Paul” and began spreading the Christian faith all over the land, redefining it in the process. I might point out that Saul never actually met Jesus, never discussed with him his views of God and heaven and hell. So his knowledge of Christianity must have been divinely inspired. Apparently, God works that way. He might have inspired this very paragraph. That last sentence is what we call blasphemy, so my Christian upbringing may not be the right place to look.

In addition to Christianity, I was brought up with TV and movies. In fact, I spent a WHOLE LOT more time watching TV than I did in church. God never have a chance — or did he? Was God using TV to get through to me? Could he have spoken to me through TV and movies so that, when the time came, I would have the tools I needed to return to my path to heaven? Or at least to mass? Did his divine revelations come to me through after-school reruns of Gilligan’s Island and Hogan’s Heroes? Were these thirty-minute sermons interspersed with worldly consumerist commercials? There was a subtle mysticism found in TV series such as Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie. Magic, really.

So, this may not be such a crazy idea. There are lots of examples in movies and TV shows of crappy people turning back to good. In fact, Joseph Campbell’s mono myth had inspired George Lucas when he created Star Wars. I loved Star Wars. The first movie had an awesome villain in Darth Vader. But at the end of that movie, Vader simply tumbled off into space in his TIE fighter. Another bit part for the ogre father.

It was in the two subsequent movies, The Empire Strikes Back and The Return of the Jedi, Darth Vader had a character arc that resembled the hero’s journey. At the climax of the last movie, he suddenly gave up his villainous path and killed the evil emperor to save his son, Luke Skywalker.

SPOILERS!

Then Vader died. Yet, throughout the three movies, Darth Vader was there at every turn of Luke’s journey. It was his order to send Stormtroopers down to the desert planet Tatooine that resulted in the death of Luke’s aunt and uncle. This freed him to follow Ben Kenobi on an adventure into space. Darth Vader had pushed Luke across what Joseph Campbell called “The Threshold”. Vader had left Luke with no options.

According to Campbell, the threshold works like this. There is a call to adventure, but the hero inevitably chickens out. He resists this call. You see this very thing in the scene where Luke tells Kenobi that he can’t go with him to learn about the Force and help the princess. Heroes must accept the call, crossing over into a new strange world. It’s scary.

The call to adventure had come from the bun-headed Princess Leia. “Help us Obiwan. You’re our only hope.” Sure, she was talking with her mouth to Kenobi, but she was talking with her youthful femininity directly to post-pubescent, small-town-boy, never-seen-a-real-woman-before Luke Skywalker. Did he want to go into Tashi Station to pick up some power converters, or porn?

Vader engineered many of the tests and trials that Luke endured throughout the three movies. Vader spoke the words that caused Luke’s metaphorical death and rebirth. “I am your father.” In this sense, only Vader could play the villain for Luke. Sure the Galactic Empire was littered with shitty people that would have done the Emperor’s bidding if Vader hadn’t been there, but only Vader could utter those words. Only Vader could be the ogre father.

Vader was important to the hero’s journey. And could redeem himself in the end, despite doing some really fucked up shit.

You might say, “Well you can say that about any movie that has a hero.” I say that you should watch the new Star Wars trilogy and tell me if you get any lessons about villainy from it. The original Star Wars was a cultural event. It touched on something that is universal to us as a nation and as a world — as humans. Joseph Campbell documented the components of the hero’s journey that draw from this universal human knowing, common across all cultures, religions, languages, traditions, and merchandising campaigns. But life had not conspired to make me the hero on the stage of my life. I was learning a different lesson than that of the hero. I was the villain.

So what was the universe teaching me by putting me on the villain’s path? It is the goal of this book to find out, to define another universally human journey, steeped in symbolism and emanating from the depths of our collective subconscious. There are some big questions to answer here.

Is the villain’s journey just a hero’s journey in disguise?

Is there a purpose to playing the villain, other than just having fun being shitty to self-righteous people?

Why isn’t there more literature about villains if almost every hero story has a villain?

Is the villain just a part we play, or is there — like the hero — a human calling to villainy that lives in every one of us?

How do we embrace the villain’s journey without becoming a total dick?

Were we born this way, or is it Maybelline?

In the years since my revelation that I am no hero, I have studied theology, psychology, philosophy, neurology, and several other ologies and osophies in my pursuit of answers these questions about the villain. More importantly, I’ve watched a lot of movies and TV shows, because that is how God speaks to me I’ve decided. I believe I have defined a model for the villain’s journey and it is tightly entwined with that of the hero. The hero cannot find his reward without the villain, and the villain cannot see herself without the hero.

So, we dance.

If you don’t like to read, I’ll summarize the answers to the questions. No, Yes, it’s hidden, it’s in us all, you can’t, it’s Maybelline. Now go watch some tube.

For the rest of you, dear readers, join me on my journey of discovery as I seek to uncover a path through darkness and into light on the villain’s journey.

*For those of you who may never have seen “network television”, it was what we watched before we had cable TV and way before we had streaming video. It’s still around. It can be summed up in three chunks: Daytime: talk shows and soap operas, Prime Time: sitcoms and 1-hour dramas, Late Night: talk shows, skit comedy, and reruns.

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