1. ANY AND ALL INTERPRETATIONS OF THE CHARACTER ARE VALID. This is just my thoughts/theories about canon Anti and the direction his character could go in. If you’re not a fan of that, that’s cool! I am not god, nor am I your mother, and my opinion only has the weight that you give it.
2. A lot of this was inspired and informed by Overly Sarcastic Production’s video on The Pure Evil Villain from their Trope Talk series. Go watch it, it’s great.
Cool? Cool.
ANYWAY-
Anti, right? We know next to nothing about his motivations, nor his backstory. What I’m arguing here is that, more or less, none of that matters.
The Pure Evil Villain is basically what it says on the tin. Throw out all of those corrupted paragons and complicated sad bois, pure evil villains are in it for the love of the game. Think basically any Disney villain, I’m gonna be using Bill Cipher as an example here. What is his backstory? Who knows! Why is he doing what he’s doing? Because it’s fun and because he can. He says it’s because his dimension is dying, but that’s barely an excuse and he knows it. Bill does what he does because he craves power and control over others. Sound familiar?
Back to this guy:
What we know for sure is that he craves two things: control and attention. Those are his ultimate goals. EVERYTHING he does is to accomplish one (or usually both) of those things. More or less all he’s done in the six or so years we’ve known him is take over people’s bodies and parade them in front of us, the audience. I argue that he pulled us out of the camera in Anomaly Found for the same purpose: to watch. He HAS to have an audience to adore and fear him.
Pure evil villains are defined by their very simple goals and motivations. Anti isn’t doing this for some ulterior motive, he’s doing this because it’s fun, because he’s a power hungry egomaniac. A lot of people seem to think that having a villain with simple goals and motivations is bad writing, but done well, it really isn’t! Tell me you aren’t entertained watching a Disney villain own the space, singing about how evil they are while cackling maniacally. These guys are FUN! They are pure charisma, pure confidence, and because of their very single minded goals, they are very dangerous.
These guys aren’t gonna have a change of heart. There is no redemption here. If the protagonists don’t get this villain out of the way, they’re fucked. However, due to their simple motivations/goals/worldview, the pure evil villain is rigid, meaning they’re liable to shatter like glass once their status quo is disrupted. Thus triggers the glorious
THIRD ACT BREAKDOWN!
Once that status quo is disrupted, all bets are off, and pure evil villain in question usually completely shatters. I think that Anti’s third act breakdown will come when someone, anyone, finally breaks through his control. So far, that hasn’t happened. Every single person he has possessed has lost that fight. As far as Anti is concerned, he is God. Thus, his breakdown would come when someone finally beats him, proves to him that he can lose.
I think Anti only has one fear: being puppeted like he does to everyone else. Being on the other end of those strings, entirely helpless, with no control over the situation. What happens when Anti truly and completely loses? For some villains, this is the end. For others, they pull themselves out of the ashes even worse and more dangerous than they were before. Which way will Anti swing here?
