Why Do We Monologue?
Because we CAN.
This is a difficult life. Take at least some of the pleasures available to you.
The Villainly Monologue gets a terrible rap. In stories told by Heroes.
Sure, to hear the Heroes tell it, the monologue is one part insanity, two parts clue, and one part pure scenery-chewing. The evil genius manages to be stupid enough to tell the Hero everything, certain the Hero won’t escape.
It’s not, and I repeat, NOT the Villain’s problem that the Hero has Plot Armor. He’s GOT to win in pretty much every story that isn’t out to shock, surprise, or (of course) be Villainpunk. He’s always got to have a way to free his hands, or some method of getting the Large Obvious Self-Destruct Button pressed, or somesuch.
Have you ever wondered why there are so few good adventure/suspense/thrillers out there?
It’s because 99.9% of the time, THE VILLAIN MONOLOGUE WORKS AND THE HERO DIES.
To quote Terry Carr, “Dead men don’t write books.”
And believe me, our Villainous friends have left QUITE a number of dead bodies behind.
And it IS a relief to be able to TALK to someone. You can’t really tell a psychiatrist about your evil plans; they’re mandated reporters. “Hm. Threaten to blow up Manhattan and you’ve got a foolproof plan? You wait right there, I just need to make a quick phone call…”
Their henchpersons? Depends on the henchperson. But we were saying “You can’t get good help these days” in the 1950s, when most corporations, including evil ones, tended to employ you for life, and offer health benefits, and one income in the family could buy a house and a car. Employing people who even REMEMBER those days means that, should the Hero burst into your hideout with intent to beat their way through your people to get to you, most of them will die of heart attacks before anyone has thrown a single punch.
We’ll admit that Ian Fleming stretched credibility in the number of times James Bond has been hired by the opposition (Goldfinger, Scaramanga, the Purple Gang from Diamonds Are Forever)…but they have reasonable points most of the time. Good help IS hard to find. Intellectual equals ARE hard to find. People who understand the massive scope of a criminal plan and understand what it’s like to kill…those ARE fairly rare.
Let’s be honest. It’s therapeutic and pleasurable to tell someone about your day. Much less your big, overall plans.
And let’s forget the plot armor for a moment. Are you suggesting that someone should NOT feel secure when their worst enemy is shackled hand-and-foot to the wall and about to be eaten by prehistoric crocodiles? REALLY? When in the world CAN you feel safe, then? You’re already doing something criminal and/or deeply immoral; you’re ALREADY being hunted. When are you SUPPOSED to feel secure, if it’s not when you have your chief opponent in your sight and utterly helpless?
We love James Bond (come on, he kills people, and at this point, the England for which he worked is considered quite evil by quite a lot of people; we have every right to enjoy Bond as much as his frie—er, the supervillains he battles) but he’s got plot armor. Brilliant, plausible, Ian-Fleming-Makes-It-Work plot armor, but it’s plot armor nonetheless. He’s not going to get permanently killed. Not even Fleming’s death killed Bond; he was just too valuable. Now THAT is a great plan for a certain kind of villainous immortality.
We’re villains. Most of us try to leave few traces. Have you ever tried getting a library card when your fixed address is “the secret Adamantium-encased laboratory under that weird decaying house on the edge of town which looks like it’s going to be condemned and torn down any day now”? No, we’re denied that pleasure. Drive? Machines of our own invention, yes. Ordinary cars? Only those villains who have very firm ‘real world’ covers. They won’t issue a driver’s license to “Dr. Death, God of Ill-Fated Futures”. And your name definitely won’t fit on a vanity plate.
Dating? Oh…for the love of Pete, and Pete’s evil twin brother Repete, let’s not go into dating right now.
So why not monologue? I mean, if we knew from the start that the Hero was going to spoil our plans and destroy all our works and possibly kill us, we’ d avoid doing anything, wouldn’t we? Of course we would.
The truth is, we LOVE to monologue and THEN watch the Heroes get eaten by massive crocodiles who predate the civilization of Sumer. And that’s what happens the vast majority of the time. But nobody talks about THAT. They’re traditionally not interested. Which is part of the appeal of Villainpunk.
So go right ahead. Monologue! It is NOT true that monologuing is the CAUSE of your troubles. The CAUSE of the troubles of those destroyed by monologuing is that they’re in stories where they have to lose no matter what.
Don’t be in those stories.
Be in our stories, instead.
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You can find Jeff Mach’s books here.
You might enjoy Thoughts On The Bright Future of 2025 – as written in 1975. — Jeff Mach Writes
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