The Hero and The Villain

After many years of bitter struggle, two men, a great hero and a great villain, arch-nemeses, both advanced in age, sat down at the same table under the cover of darkness, the hero with his back to the East and the villain with his back to the West, in the hopes that they could find some closure after a lifetime of opposition.

The two remained silent for a time, each eyeing the other, their long, feuded history playing out in the backs of their minds. Finally, the silence was broken.

“Old foe,” said the hero, “I have extolled you many times during our confrontations. I have denounced you and your deeds in public and my words have echoed throughout civilization. In my zeal, however, I never stopped to wonder why you committed all those heinous acts. I don’t even think I cared. I just wanted to bring you to justice because that is what a hero does. So now, all these years later, I realize I never truly understood your motives. So I would like to hear from you, in your own words, your side of this story of eternal struggle. If you would do me this kindness, I would indeed be grateful.”

The villain reflected for a moment. “Well, after all these years I don’t think either of us has it in him to fight as we once did. In our old age, the roaring fire in our hearts has been reduced to a few smoldering embers,” said the villain. “Seeing as neither of us is long for this world, we may as well at last understand each other. Perhaps that is the victory we both desire.”

The hero nodded. “Then we are in agreement. What a rare occurrence. As I have held the ear of the world so tightly all these years, I think it appropriate to allow you the opportunity to begin our exchange, if you will.”

“Very well, your idealism always infuriated me,” said the villain, not hesitating. “You played your role well. You were never tempted by the forces of darkness. Always resolute, unyielding, and magnificent, you were as a beacon upon a hill. The world loved you, I suspect, not for your deeds, but for how easily you accomplished them. This way of righteousness was a well-trodden path for you and the world admired you for it. They loved you just as much as they hated me for my equally effortless display of character. That’s what drove me over the edge, not that you were beloved and that I was loathed, but that those sycophantic fools couldn’t see the truth, and neither could you. You just lapped up the fame and accolades laid at your feet as if you had done something to deserve it all.”

The great hero leaned forward cautiously. “What truth?” he asked.

“That neither one of us had done anything to become who we were. We were just two poles of the same spectrum, the trivial outcome of Fate’s whims. It was that glaring ignorance to the truth which you and your admirers seemed to share that incensed my heart and stoked the flames of my rage,” said the villain.

“You are correct in saying righteousness came easy for me,” said the hero. “It was no great sacrifice to embody the principles I championed. However, I never thought for a moment that this was the case for you as well! Our visions must then be fundamentally different. Tell me, how do you view this life, its nature, its ground of being? If what you say is true then we are both blind to each other’s perceptions. You must describe yours to me as one describes color and form to a blind man,” said the hero.

“I will tell you how I see the world, but first you must understand that I always possessed an inkling of darkness within the core of my being that yearned to cause trouble. I know not from where it came. Believing in the ethos of personal responsibility and righteousness championed by society, I buried that feeling deep within myself, ignoring its impulses and moving in opposition to its proclivities. I did this because I wanted to be of use to society. I had high hopes of becoming a valuable contributing member. All I wanted to do was help and it seemed this black spot on my conscience was merely an obstacle which needed to be overcome. It was my own personal test of character, perhaps, which I would inevitably and triumphantly pass. But the world had other plans. Despite my sincere efforts to contribute, the world branded me a troublemaker. It cast judgment upon me in a matter of moments and declared with unified voices that I was not wanted or appreciated. I was crushed but not defeated. I began observing others who were more successful than I. The world seemed to welcome these people with open arms. Doors were opened to them as if by magic. I copied everything I could about them and adopted their practices as my own. I dressed the same, I spoke the same, I held the same opinions, and I followed the same paths as best I could. But just when I thought I had unlocked the secret to societal acceptance, everything fell apart. Despite my efforts, those around me continued to be recognized. Their achievements outshined my own. They even possessed an uncanny ability to be in the right place at the right time whereas I was always elsewhere. As I walked among them each day, I saw in their eyes that they distrusted me. I was still somehow different despite my earnest attempts to participate in their games. There was no chance that they would ever accept me or allow me to enjoy the fruits of my labor as they were able.”

“All their saccharine mantras of success echoed in my mind. Their insistence that existence itself was an objective thing that rewarded the diligent and spurned the delinquent pushed me to double-down on all my efforts. I took on as much virtue and responsibility as I could so that there could be no doubt at all. I would account for all variables and finally have an answer to my question; was existence truly objective? Had I simply not been putting in the requisite effort which those around me seemed to do with ease? Or, as I suspected, was Fate real? Had they simply been the lucky ones who bought into the delusion, ignorant of their preordination? And did that make me a fool of a different brand, buying into the delusion, ignorant of my antithetical preordination? I stayed true to the values championed by society and upheld them with the utmost rigor. But my suspicions were right. Just as it seemed my hard work would yield a bounty, the floor itself fell out from under me. Nothing I had done, by any ‘logical’ analysis, should have wrought such abject failure, and yet it was as if some faraway and detached god had glanced down from his privileged position, eyed my sincere efforts, and, checking his celestial ledger, protested to my ambitions as if I were trying to rebuild the Tower of Babel.”

“On my knees in the midst of the devastation, the true nature of reality was revealed. It was objective, but on an individual basis, not a collective one as I and most others had presumed. The destruction which now surrounded me was my own doing, a punishment for defying the will of God. I had been fighting against the current of my own nature like a star resisting its course across the sky. I vowed on that day to always follow the darkness at the center of my being. It had been right all along. Since then, it has led me to greater success, power, and fulfillment than any of those self-satisfied cretins will ever know. So you will understand when I tell you that I took great pleasure in striking those blows against the world which so blindly and belligerently insisted on my conformity, then ostracized me for failing. The destruction I brought to its doorstep was its punishment for defying the true nature of reality, just as I had. I enacted my revenge with immense satisfaction upon a world that only sided with half of existence. Furthermore, I hated you with such passion because you embodied that ethos. You served as an undying reminder of the hypocrisy underlying the self-proclaimed righteousness of those consigned to the light. Your boasts of superiority were as lurid as they were benighted,” said the villain.

“The truth of your words is verified by my own experience,” said the hero. “Our society is one that champions righteousness and so those with a forthright disposition naturally prosper under its auspice. Yet I see now that it was by no act of my own will that I aligned myself with the forces of good. It was a simple thing, effortless, so much so that I often wondered why you rebelled against it. But now I understand. It was your nature to do what you did, as was mine to oppose you. You even tried with all your strength to side with the light and yet it rejected you. I never thought such a thing possible. You must have seen all my attempts to reason with you as nothing but a cheap taunt. I wonder, had I understood you then, would we perhaps not be mortal enemies even in our twilight years?”

The villain produced an ornate dagger from his robes, fashioned in the form of a snake, and placed it on the table in front of him. The hero’s eyes darted from the dagger to the villain.

“It would not have made a difference as far as our polar opposition was concerned. However, it has influenced the outcome of this meeting considerably,” said the villain. “I came here with the intent of killing you. After all these years I was going to claim absolute victory over you. Your death at my hands would have left a scar across this great civilization. I would force them all to remember my name as the one who overcame their champion. They would all have to live with the dissonance they subjected me to all those years ago. They would have to bear the contradiction that their unassailable ethos, embodied by their greatest champion, was not the ultimate answer, that darkness still held sway in the cosmos.”

“You would abandon your plan?” asked the hero. “Surely, you would have succeeded had you carried it out.”

The villain spun the dagger with a whimsicality that only proceeds from a realization of a much more desired outcome. “Indeed, but killing you was only a consolation. What I wanted was for you to see the truth. We were always going to oppose one another. Such were our natures. What I always wanted, however, from you and everyone else, was to see that our struggle was inevitable, necessary, and of very little consequence. I wanted you all to drop the smug assumption that you were better than me because of some choice you made and realize that this game of good versus evil is just how things go. It is as one passing underneath a dark cloud on a windy day. Though it’s about to storm, no one takes a self-righteous stance against the cloud. He accepts it as a matter of course. That was the just and enlightened society I envisioned. Not the cesspool of self-satisfaction by which I found myself perpetually surrounded.”

The two were silent in contemplation. Neither one had anticipated this outcome. The hero, breaking the silence, said, “I shall make sure that all who follow in my footsteps know of what you have said here today. They will carry with them an unspoken respect for the duality of this world and will no longer fall prey to self-righteousness.”

“And I will continue in my ways until my death, satisfied that ultimate victory is mine. Please, take this dagger as a gift to remind you of the time we spent in cosmic opposition.” The villain stood up from his seat and walked away, disappearing into the shadows. The hero took hold of the dagger and inspected its ornate design. Though a tool of evil, he held a newfound respect for it and its owner, which had given his own life direction and purpose. He shook his head, still overtaken by this new revelation.Alone at the table, the sun rising at his back, the hero reclined in his chair and said, “What then is the nature of this world, if not that good should always triumph over evil?” He pondered the question for some time, then stood up from his chair and, guided by the light, went on his way.