icarusfall comments on Have no heroes, and no villains - Less Wrong

88 Post author: PhilGoetz 07 November 2010 09:15PM

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Comment author: icarusfall 10 November 2010 10:03:51AM *  0 points [-]

A fictional example of someone wanting to be a villain might be Shakespeare's Richard III. In the opening soliloquy in the play:

I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,

Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,

Deformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time

Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,

And that so lamely and unfashionable

That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;

Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,

Have no delight to pass away the time,

Unless to spy my shadow in the sun

And descant on mine own deformity:

And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,

To entertain these fair well-spoken days,

I am determined to prove a villain

And hate the idle pleasures of these days.

http://shakespeare.mit.edu/richardiii/full.html

Of course, the real Richard III probably wasn't that bad a chap, just poorly treated by Tudor propaganda (arguably)...

Comment author: TobyBartels 11 November 2010 06:46:17AM *  1 point [-]

Of course, the real Richard III probably wasn't that bad a chap, just poorly treated by Tudor propaganda (arguably)...

And it is so argued.