SHERRIFF OF NOTTINGHAM ROBIN HOOD SERIES

Instead of an endless army of faceless guards, let’s take the helmets off and learn their names. But rather than accept this villainy at face value, let’s undo the dehumanization. Whereas a villain has a tiny circle of Us, which is why they’re cruel to anyone who doesn’t serve their personal needs.Īnything that shrinks your radius of Us moves you closer to being the bad guy.ĭoes this apply to the Sheriff of Nottingham? For centuries we’ve been told he’s greedy and evil, and that his hordes of minions are heartless killers. Heroes have a very large circle of Us, which is why they’re willing to make personal sacrifices to benefit their larger community. Look back at our defining characteristics of heroes and villains. If you’ve ever instinctively dismissed someone because of their political party, generational identity, or geography, then you (or more likely, somebody who is manipulating you) have indeed just become the bad guy. We see this every day, especially in partisan bickering that paints the opposing side with broad brushstrokes. Is this starting to sound like politics? It should. So are we really the bad guy, or have we just been unfairly dehumanized? In order to bolster your Us against your Them, you have to make Them a threat. Which means that, from their perspective, we’re the bad guy.

We like to think our enemies are selfish because it makes them easier to hate, when in reality we’re simply not inside their circle of Us. The Sheriff of Nottingham, on the other hand, was a real person. Seems pretty simple-so string up your bow, it’s time to do hero stuff!īut while impossibly cruel villains work great in sci-fi/fantasy genres (it’s how we get Negans, Voldemorts, and Saurons), they don’t usually ring as realistic. If you’re Robin Hood, you probably drew a circle around “the people.” And you probably think the Sheriff drew a circle just barely big enough to fit himself and his comically unwieldy bags of money. Especially if there’s a sword within reach.

And if something outside that circle threatens something inside the circle, you know what to do. Voila! With one simple scribble, you’ve created your own personally-tailored line between good guys and bad guys. Here’s a simple exercise: Take every person and thing you care about and draw a circle around them. Identity-stifling costumes is an easy trick for the movies, but in real life we have to dehumanize them emotionally. “Non-human”? “Zero value on their lives?” That’s right, the key to labeling people as evil is to dehumanize them, so we don’t have to fuss with those messy emotions we’d feel if we had to care about them. We don’t flinch when heroes have to dispatch them by the dozen. This generally works fine for baddies such as aliens, robots, zombies, Nazis, and orcs they’re so inarguably evil and non-human that we literally place zero value on their lives. Whether they’re medieval guards, post-apocalyptic scavengers, or Imperial Stormtroopers, there’s always an army of infinitely-killable minions battling our hero. It’s easy to pinpoint “bad guys” in movies: they’re usually dressed nearly identically, and you often can’t even see their faces. After all, does anyone really consider themselves “the bad guy”? WHAT EXACTLY IS A BAD GUY?

SHERRIFF OF NOTTINGHAM ROBIN HOOD SERIES

But how do you believably write from an evil mindset? Many stories have been told “from the villain’s perspective,” but these overwhelmingly rely upon a series of sympathetic events that drive a character to become the villain (think the Star Wars prequel trilogy) rather than truly seeing things from their point of view. In my historical epic Nottingham I’ve chosen to break those traditional black-and-white roles and follow perspectives on both sides. Is this because everyone else is wrong (yes, obviously), or is it possible we’re oblivious to our own villainy? Heroes like Robin Hood are self-sacrificing and fight for the greater good! Villains like the Sheriff of Nottingham are cruel and self-serving! We all universally revere and aspire towards heroism…but somehow we still end up at odds with each other. “Good versus Evil” is the classic hero’s conflict, and the traits that define both sides are clear.

Sherriff of nottingham robin hood