The heroism of villainy

(I meant to post this this morning but I overslept. Sorry! I hope 9 hours is enough time for everyone to post...)

I'd like to argue that Doctor Impossible is the book's real hero, and not just in the sense of being its main protagonist. (Fatale's character never really comes together.) No, Doctor Impossible is, whether intentionally or not, a heroic figure. Time and again he sacrifices everything and winds up behind bars (albeit briefly). Why does he do this? He's the world's smartest man and fourth most notorious supervillain. Of course he sees the holes in his plans--he freely admits that he's doomed to fail just by virtue of being a supervillain. He's part of a system, a script, and he has a fixed part to play. He's the bad guy, and the bad guy can't ever win. Those are the rules and he accepted them at the start of his career. He doesn't take over the world or even kill anyone (not even CoreFire!). So what makes him a villain? The petty thefts? The delusions of grandeur? Not quite; he's a villain because he's not a hero. Much as Europeans can only really unite around the fact that they aren't Americans, the only common thread in villainy is the conviction that one isn't a hero.

So what's a hero? A hero, it seems, is someone who helps people without hope of reward, someone who puts her life on the line for others' wellbeing. But it's simpler than that, and more complex. Heroes can only define themselves as such if there are villains as well. Accepting the conceit that there is no absolute measure of good and evil, good must necessarily be defined in terms of evil, and vice-versa. So villains endanger innocents with their schemes and thereby create endless opportunities for heroism. Heroes foil said schemes and beget further villainy. Villains don't save people from calamity, but by producing calamity allow people to be saved. If not for such scenarios, no one would praise heroes and hate villains. (And heroes almost never fail; supervillains seem to actually kill fewer people than bees do.) So villains fall into a role, but that role is absolutely essential to the continued existence of heroism. Every great superhero survives not in spite of but because of his foes; without them, he's just a kook in mask. Therefore Doctor Impossible is far more selfless than any hero because he exists only to maintain the heroes' legitimacy; when they foil him and send him to jail, they're left with little to do but hold benefit auctions and endorse herbal teas. There is no Doctor Impossible lunchbox because he has resigned himself to a life of being a bad example. Surely the smartest man in the world realizes all this. If so, then his continued acceptance of his role is heroic indeed.