The villain Magneto killed millions of people, Loki the great trickster god who managed to kill over 80 people in his first 2 days on earth and Khan opened fire on unarmed Captains of Starfleet during a meeting. All three are seen as classic super villains out for blood. Can their actions be justified though? Can we truly justify the actions of a great super villain by their past experiences, by their perspective or even by their personality traits twisting their morals into something more?
We will be travelling through these avenues and back alleyways to discover the truth of whether a Villain’s actions can truly be justified by their way of life and who they are as a person. Magneto, formerly known as Max Eisenhardt, is known as one of the most prominent villains in the Marvel universe. He is known as being very violent and changes sides to suit his goals. His goal being the empowerment of all mutants and the oppression of the humans. To further understand his views and goals we have to look back at his roots and the experiences he has been through.
According to the movie ‘X-Men First Class’ we find out that Magneto was Jewish and taken into a concentration camp during WW2 where to help the German scientist understand his abilities of control over metal, they killed his mother in front of him. This helped us learn that extreme anger triggers his mutant ability. He is then taken and used by the Germans throughout the concentration camp as a worker and sometimes used as an agent for the Nazi’s agenda. “My name is Max Eisenhardt. I’ve been a Sonderkommando at Auschwitz for almost two years.
I watched thousands of men, women, and children walk to their deaths. I pulled their bodies from the gas chambers. I dug out their teeth so the Germans could take their gold. And I carried them to the ovens, where I learned how to combine a child’s body with an old man’s to make them burn better. I saw my fellow workers buried alive under an avalanche of rotting corpses. I saw thousands of murdered people burning in giant outdoor pits. I have seen at least a quarter million dead human beings with my own eyes… and I couldn’t save a single one. Here we truly go through the depths of what Magneto felt and what he experienced during the Holocaust. He watched as a madman, a human caused the genocide of millions because of their religion. This shows just how deep the pain of the concentration camp did to him. He watched the genocide of his family and friends but now he is going to have to stand and watch the genocide of his new family, the mutants. Magneto was helpless to what the Germans did to him in the camp and he had no power to stop them, but now Magneto has the power to stop the humans from committing genocide on his new family.
He has found that the only way he can truly control his power is through rage and so Magneto uses his power to stop the humans from committing the genocide against the mutants, however how does it in a very violent manner due to his powers only being controlled by anger and so he lets his anger consume him and drive his actions into ones of violence and death, just like what the Germans did when genociding his family and friends, he will respond in kind to them.
Because of the Holocaust Magneto lost everyone he loved and knew, his parents, other family and friends all because of the actions of humans. Feeling different because of his powers Magneto hid himself away as best he could and enacting revenge on known leaders in the camps however all this changed when Magneto found out he wasn’t alone. He found a new family, the other mutants. But these Mutants were being taken from him as well by the humans and being used by the humans. “I’ve been at the mercy of men just following orders.
Never again! ” This shows Magnetos feelings once more on what is happening. At a young age he lost his family and was unable to stop it and now the same thing is happening again but this time he is going to do something to stop it. This will explain Magneto’s later actions with very anti human views and acts in the later movies and comics. So we have the reasons for his actions and the basic back story of his views but now we must connect this with the actual personality and persona of Magneto himself.
Magneto has the personality type ENTJ. Those with this personality type are very ambitious and driven in their motives and are known as born leaders. This is why Magneto found himself suddenly going from an apprentice to Professor Xavier in X-men First Class to leader of the mutants in a short time. Those with this personality type are also very dangerous when messed with and even though they might not show it openly they truly love those they call family and would do anything to help them in times of trouble.
Those with this personality type also tend to hold onto bad feelings for years which explains Magneto still seething hatred against humans for what they did to his family and friends during WW2 and the exact same genocide on his now mutant family in present day Marvel universe. Magneto’s bias against humans can be traced back to trauma when he was younger. A study found that children are more likely to commit bad decisions later on in life due to violent emotional trauma as a child.
Magneto witnessed the death of family and friends and the genocide of his people. That was the trauma and then only knowing hate and death for many more years afterwards twisted and trained his mind and way of thinking into a negative one. So I believe that Magneto’s actions can be justified through emotional trauma, a trained way of thinking and his personality type causing him to only think one sided and in tunnel vision and only in the point of view on having to save his family because Magneto has the power to save them.
He couldn’t save his Mother or his family or friends because he was weak and had no power, but now Magneto has the power and he can save them and so he does everything in his power to make sure they are safe. Loki, the norse God of Mischief and Lies and was known as the trickster God. He is portrayed by the actor Tom Hiddleston in the Marvel adaptations of the Thor comics. Tom Hiddleston was asked in an interview “His views and choices on his portrayal of the God of Mischief Loki” in which Tom Hiddleston replied “I would say it’s both.
There are certainly elements of Kenneth Branagh’s Loki (if we can call it that) in the sort of broken prince, the damaged, vulnerable, lost child is still there. But also Joss Whedon’s charming psychopath is still there, too. And I think the thing that Alan brought to the table for this particular version is the playfulness. He really wanted Loki to be a trickster, to inhabit his moniker as the God of Mischief. And make mischief, so that’s what I did. ” Loki is a cannoned frost giant and was given up at birth by his parents and left to die on the frozen wasteland of jotunheim.
Odin felt pity for Loki and so he took him to Asgard and raised him as one of his sons and princes of Asgard. We see Loki go from a harmless prince of Asgard to a psychopathic killer in the period of a couple of weeks. We see the subtle shift in Loki’s persona as more of his past is brought to light. Loki sees himself as a mere child standing in the shadow of the rest of his family’s greatness, shunned and abandoned Loki felt alone and wished only to be seen. The fact that those from Asgard are from the norse mythology they would follow those of the scandinavian tendencies.
A reason Loki was shunned is because of his stature, Thor being the epiphany of the Norse male, broad strong and tall whereas Loki equally tall but with smaller and more lean features. His methods in battle were also of opposite the the normal norse way. He went more for trickery and illusion rather than the blunt force and strength. Loki’s fighting style was more feminine which explains his close connection to his mother in Thor movies. Loki felt different and isolated from those he grew up with, this caused him to become more introverted in his ways and so he isolated himself from everyone.
The resentment of his family member and the abandonment of his father Odin causes him to lash out to be noticed and heard. This is something that Loki does only on a much bigger scale. The only thing that Loki was wanting was to be noticed and accepted, he quotes in Thor “So I’m just the monster parents tell their children about at night” gives light to why Loki felt different and unwanted as he was born of the Frost Giants, sworn enemies of the Asgardians. Loki became emotionally and psychologically scarred because of this.
He lost all he loved and didn’t know who to trust anymore. When he fell from the bifrost he ended up in the hands of a maniac who tore at the last bits of sanity he had and twisted his ways of thinking. He was also threatened and felt powerless to stop him as during ‘The Avengers’ the Chitauri was quoted saying ‘We will make you wish for something as sweet as pain’ and during that scene Loki because distraught and very scared of what will happen. So using this evidence in mind Loki’s actions can be justified as they were out of fear and sadness.
The next and final villain we will look at is Khan Noonien Singh. Khan Noonien Singh became an enemy of the starfleet enterprise when he blew up an archives building and then proceeded to shoot and kill many of the star fleet captains and first officers when they were called to a meeting later on that day. Khan then proceeded to escape using a transwarp beaming device that allowed him to travel from Earth to the planet Kronos, the homeworld of the Klingon Empire.
James T. Kirk and his crew was then set on a mission to bring Khan back to Earth for justice however with a mishap with the Warp Core resulted in them being stranded in Klingon territory. It is then that Khan dares Kirk to unload one of the torpedoes that they were quipped and see what’s inside. It is then that the mystery of Khans past begins to unravel and the controversy of the heads of starfleet begin to reveal themselves. We find out that inside the torpedos are instead of warheads and machinery. There is actually people inside of them. They are Khans crew and are