Heros and villains

A villain is often different from a hero only in that they have a fallacious world view.

I turn now to the great movie Serenity...

When Book urges Mal to 'believe in something... I don't care what, just believe!', it feels like the rallying cry of the movie. You can do great things if you believe! If you believe in people, in God, you can get through, you can get it done!

Problem: the Operative is the True Believer here, not Mal or Book. He believes in the justice and rightness of his cause, and it enables him to do great things. Awesome things. He can pull together a fleet, he can track down threats to this world, he can force Mal's hand. He can do almost anything. He can slaughter people.

He has awesome power.

But... (big word, eh?) his belief is in something fallacious. His belief undermines itself. His belief is almost completely wrong. His belief is in something that we know is in fact monstrous. The Alliance, although it is great in the sense that it does BIG things, is terrible. It does great ill. His ideas are flawed.

Belief enables us, but a belief in something wrong puts us in a position to do terrible things.

The Operative is the worst kind of bad guy. A man who has thought, a man who is reasoned. A complete character capable of the worst brutality because he knows it's for a greater good. He is Mal, if Mal believed in the Alliance. He is Book. He is the greatest character, with a flaw in his reasoning making him more monster than man.

All villains should be like him. Full of powerful emotions. Full of power and ability. With one little flaw in their reasoning, a poison pill that destroys them.