“I know that patience and loyalty are good, and virtuous traits. But sometimes I just think you need to grow a pair.”
— Lady Macbeth to Macbeth, Act I, Scene VII
And this, my dears, is the reason she’s the play’s villain. Yes, it takes two to tango, but he tangoes out of loyalty and love for his wife— his loyalty to her outweighs his loyalty to king and country. And she knows it. She preys on it, and in doing so, gets him to agree to do the dirty work. She doesn’t expect to ever have to get her own hands bloody. But she does, and the fact that she does ultimately drives her mad, as we all know full well.
But Macbeth? Everyone he kills after Duncan he kills because he truly believes it to be justifiable self defence — he’s saving his (and until the final act, he believes also, his wife’s) butts & lives both with the other murders. He can’t see another way out once he’s mired in them
