The Villain Has to Die

One thing you should know about me is that I'm a sucker for a story. Honestly, it's one of my weaknesses. I love to put up a facade that I'm a huge book snob who snubs his nose at bad writing, but honestly, I can get hooked to any narrative, no matter how poorly written it may be. It doesn't matter how weird and out there the story is, if there's a good flow to what's going on, I'm involved in it.

The reason I love stories so much, I think, is because I love people. Characters always hook me and keep me coming back for more; especially villains! I love villains because they tend to have more depth than any of the other characters. Most of the time the villain is just a normal person with a skewed view on things. Like in real life, there's rarely such a thing as the evil scientist bent on world domination. Everyone tends to think that they're doing the right thing, even if the means aren't too great.

But once in a while, a story will give you a larger than life villain. This is the one who is more of a force of evil than a real person. The things that they do and the ends they long to produce just aren't redeemable. As soon as you meet this character you know that the only way for the hero to live is for that villain to die. The Wicked Witch has to melt in order for Oz to go back to normal. Agent Smith has to be deleted for there to be hope for humanity to be free of the Matrix. Voldemort has to die in order for Harry to live a normal life. The Emperor has to be thrown into the reactor for the galaxy to be free.

So imagine this: Christianity is born and is gaining a lot of momentum. Those in power are all speaking in whispers with one another, "We have to stop this." But none of them has to gall to go against the people to start the oppression. But one day, a mob gets angry and is incited against a man named Stephen. When asked to defend himself, Stephen instead decides to defend God, and in doing so, angers an already angry crowd to the point of where they actually do what had only been spoken of in secret before. Things get out of hand and they kill him. And in the shadows stands a man watching the whole thing. He looks like he could have orchestrated the entire spectacle himself. He doesn't throw one stone. He just stands there, approving of everything that happens. We just know that this guy is bad news. His brief mention is a hint that we'll hear more about him.

The next thing we know, this man, Saul, has made it his personal crusade to go from town to town and kill every Christian he can find. Reading this story for the first time, you just know that like the Egyptians, Canaanites, and Philistines before him, this is our new, larger than life villain. And the only way that we'll be able to solve the problem he creates is by killing him. If his goal is to kill all of the Christians, then in order for the heroes to succeed, he'll have to die.

But then there's a twist. This villain decides to go to Damascus to hunt more Christians. Everything changes here. You see, the hero does have to succeed. The villain does have to die for the things that he's done. The only problem is, when Saul goes to Damascus, we get the big twist that the Christians aren't the heroes of the story after all; Jesus is! And Saul is the villain, but he's not the only one. If Jesus is the hero, and the villain is whoever has wronged Him, then that makes the villain of the story everyone who has ever sinned against Him.

So what does Jesus do? He kills the villain of course. Saul doesn't survive his encounter with Jesus. The man who leaves for Damascus and and the man who arrives there are two different people. In the same way, the David who entered into a church one Wednesday night in seventh grade was not the same David who left. The old one was a villain; he had to die because the things he had done to the Hero were far too horrible for him to live.

Thankfully, in this story, the Hero has control over life and death. In this story, the Hero can bring dead things back to life. In this story, the Hero can make old dead villains new and good.