Dear Villains....

Dear Villains,

I'm inclined to hate you. I really am. But some of you I like.

Some of you are so awful and cruel that it makes me want to crawl in a hole and stay there for a while with a teddy bear until a hero comes and banishes you.

I am fearful of those villains.

Others of you just use that cruelty as a facade, and underneath there's a broken, hurting person who has simply let grief ruin them.

I pity those villains.

There are some of you yet that are not truly evil. You have a grain of good inside your blackened heart that begins to worm its way out when exposed to the true good that you've never known.

I root for those villains.

Some of you seem bad, but suddenly we learn that every bad thing you did was for a deeper purpose, and that deeper purpose was for good.

I am confused by these villains.

Other villains are simply just normal folk attempting to do what the real villains do, but fail miserably with resulting hilarity.

I am amused by these villains.

There are a few villains that leave us confused over their true nature when they die a heroic death for our protagonist or one of the protagonist's friends.

I have cried over those villains.

Dear villains, you scare me, you confuse me, you amuse me, you make me cry, but you are essential for every story. Never change.