Madness, Methods, and Moral Ambiguity

Madness... insanity...  confusion...

These are the typical creative points behind crafting a story's villain, it's easy really.  You take a man, and you add one of these by removing something else.  Remove a man's morals, and you find yourself with a man who is unbound by rule; then you simply add either Madness, or Confusion to this mix.  A confused man with no morals will do random things, and should one of them clash with society, you now have a man who doesn't believe in apologies angry with the world.

That's bad.

You take another man, and you remove his sense of worth, and you then add in Madness; resulting in a man who cares little for his own sake, but is unpredictable and devious. 

This is a functional way to create the base villain for a story... it's also exactly what I want to smash with a hammer for "#Villain".

You see, the problem with insanity is it's general function: insane people want the world to make sense to them.  Delusions start when someone who's got mixed up wiring forces the world to fit a viewpoint they need to exist.  The world does not make sense, so they force it to do so.  This driving need is what pushes them to extremes such as violence and expensive themed outfits.

... and this is the way to make a compelling villain.

A sane person knows the world doesn't make sense at all, and just accepts it, but what is sense?  Sense is when things are the way they should be, for good reasons.  Chocolate is good, as is peanut butter, so therefore them together must be awesome.  It's logical.  Mint is good, as it orange juice, but combine them and it's awful.  We hate that, but it's life, sometimes two good things don't make a great thing. 

To a madman, this cannot stand.

See, sane people want the world to make sense, but they lack the frothing desire to force it to when it fails.  It's where the tagline for the book "#Villain" comes from:

"The difference between sanity, and madness, is that sanity isn't infectious."

Fun quote, yes, but it goes deeper.

We all have voices inside our heads, they tell us to do things daily: "pick up the trash", "go to work", or "I really want good New York pizza..."  Mostly they're innocuous commands that make sense; trash is bad, work is needed, and pizza is fantastic.  We also have those... other ones: "She's hot, I should grab her", "my boss is a dick, can't report him and stay hired... I could hit him with a chair," or "if this person doesn't maintain the same speed on the highway, I'm running them off the road".

For the most part, normal people ignore these voices, or beat them with reason: "it's wrong to grab people", "killing my boss isn't an option", and "I can't kill stupid people."  We counter-justify why we do or don't do things, as to a moral standing and social contract.  Conversely, a madman does not adhere to either of those... but why?

To a madman, the world can't just not make sense, it has to.  They work tirelessly to make the world fit their view, whether it means they have to eat crayons and attempt to shit the rainbow, or burn down the IRS building so that they understand "extenuating circumstances", a madman's goal isn't to unbalance the world, but put it back into balance.

This is where madness becomes infectious, because it's easy to drown out the voices that tell you "my neighbor parks on my lawn... I'll burn his car", when it's just you.  When suddenly there's a man shouting that we shouldn't have to deal with crippling social issues because we can fix the world... well, that's harder.

There's so much in the world that happens, but doesn't make sense: student loans (as my topic of the day is), are in effect; the stupidest idea in the history of education.  The idea that you take a person who's dedicating years of their life to learning something important, and you monetize it to the point where it takes them longer than their total lifespan to repay you... you've just put a wall between society and progress.  As this grows, the wall gets taller, and the rift gets bigger.  You'd think that making it easy for people to better themselves would benefit all of mankind, instead of burning mankind to the ground so that one can be king of the ashes...

... then some crazy man comes around and says "I don't care about your 'rules', your rules only serve to keep you in place, it's not 'the rules' it's "your rule", as if over us.  I will tear down your wall, and you with it.  You're creating something you know will bite you, but your motive is that you'll outlive it, or out distance it when it tries.  Your rule doesn't make sense, therefore... fuck your rule."

Congrats!  We all are slightly agreeing with a madman... the world doesn't make sense, but this guy is saying that he can make it do so.  Not that he can "show you how it makes sense", but literally "force it into making sense".

He's telling you he can make mint and orange taste as good as chocolate and peanut butter... and if you're really invested in your enjoyment of oranges juice and mint, you'll listen.  I mean, what's it going to hurt to just listen...