V for Vendetta sets the stage for a great question within the first chapter of the book: Can a villain ever be good? The book starts off with showing the readers the world that the characters live in. It's a strict dictatorship with leaders monitoring every moment. The police--or fingermen-- have total control and can punish criminals however they please. In the midst of punishment by a fingerman V shows up and it seems like a typical superhero story until you listen to him talk a little bit more. V identifies as a villain, not a hero.
Once V introduces himself (note: we don't actually know if he's a man at this point, but the mask he wears is a man's face, so for the sake of simplicity I'm going to call him a him) as a villain I couldn't help, but notice everything he does lines up with what stereotypical villains do. He kidnapped a state official, blew up a building, killed guards and did many more things. Yet he was doing all of this to fight an oppressive government, so wasn't it justified?
He also did help people, for example the prostitute he saved from the fingerman, and believed that he was indirectly helping many by taking down the government. But even with all these reasons I couldn't get past how many people he was killing in order to just prove his point and push his agenda.
The other part of this that was bugging me was that we don't even know if the government was truly as bad as V claims they are. We know that they aren't great people, as the run concentration camps, but V could also be looked at as equally terrible, so what gives him the justification to kill people to support his idea when the government is being judged for doing the exact same thing.
I think that so far in the book V for Vendetta brings up a great point that maybe there isn't truly a hero ever. There are only villains of different levels and motivations and it's up to the people to decide which one they will label as their hero.
Oh, this is interesting stuff! I've only skimmed the graphic novel, though I've seen the movie several times. Let me as you a few comparison questions, okay?
ReplyDelete-Is Evie a prostitute in this novel? Or is this someone else?
-The movie makes it abundantly clear that the government is awful. Concentration camps seem pretty damning--though again, the movie has several more points on this topic. Is it possible, within the graphic novel, that the government is not all that bad?
-What's a Gillian?
Haha oops Gillian is autocorrect for villain
DeleteHaha oops Gillian is autocorrect for villain
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