The Unholy Trinity of Villainy
Who are Shakespeare’s Richard of Gloucester, Macbeth, and Iago
“And thus I clothe my naked villany With odd old ends stol’n out of holy writ, And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.”- King Richard III (I, iii, 336–338)
With characters like Edmund from King Lear, Aaron the Moor from Titus Andronicus, and Don Jon from Much Ado About Nothing, William Shakespeare’s villains are some of his most memorable characters. Arguably the likes of Hamlet, Shylock, and Richard II could also fall in the rank of villain, depending on how you read the play, however, when the Bard needed a big bad he knew how to deliver.
The Machiavellian miscreants serve as warnings for the various forms that evil takes and are a true spark from the artists of the time.
The Mediaval mind kept God in his Kingdom and the Devil below. If good was done it was by the will of the Lord, and if evil occurred it was the workings of the Devil. Even the ancient Greeks who gave us the likes of Freud’s favorite play Oedipus Rex, relied on a good ole deus ex machina to resolve issues of right and wrong, good and evil.
With the Renaissance a humanistic approach occurred, and now man was responsible for his actions. Thus, choice became the driving force of men’s lives and there is no better place this is highlighted than the theatre.
This change gave Shakespeare the right to move the English theatre, and thus the English language, towards choice. What makes Shakespeare’s villians so delightful is that even when they bask in their wrongdoing, they are still active participants in the play. They choose their actions.
Below are three of Shakespeare’s best characters who set the stage for players like the Mad Titan Thanos in the Marvel Universe.
Richard III
“Was ever woman in this humour woo’d? Was ever woman in this humour won? I’ll have her; — but I will not keep her long.” — Richard III
In one of his earliest attempts at drama Shakespeare lays the foundation for all his villians to come with Richard III. From the opening line we are alerted to the hunchback’s intent and are forced to witness how his deceits play out. He delights in his deciets and is unabashed in his quest for power.
As his machinations spiral out of control and he descends into madness drunk on power, Richard delivers line after spiteful line in one of the greatest depictions of evil ever on stage.
An early prototype for Macbeth, Richard is both the protagonist and the villain, making him a prime example for an early anti-hero. A mixture of story, imagination, and perhaps a satirization of one Robert Cecil, this hunchback speaks directly to our darkest fears of power and ambition.
“I am determined to prove a villain and hate the idle pleasures of these days.” — Richard III
Like Iago, Richard is likeable despite all his flaws. He is endearing, charming, eloquent, logical, and sympathetic at times, thus making him all the more enraging. Through it all, we watch as he locks his brother in the Tower, seduces the widow of a man he murdered, and beheads his nephews in order to sustain his reign. By the end of the play, a long one at that coming in just behind Hamlet, everyone, including the audience, has turned on Richard and we long to see his death.
Before we do, however, the ghosts of Richard’s wake come back to haunt him. Amazingly, in a Dostoevsky-like manner, Richard retracts and is filled with soulcrushing guilt announcing, “O no, alas, I rather hate myself/ For hateful deeds committed by myself/ I am a villain.”
“A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!” — Richard III
Macbeth
“Stars, hide your fires! Let not light see my black and deep desires.” — Macbeth
We all read Macbeth in high school. Odds are an English teacher tried to connect it’s darker themes of witchcraft and the occult to your youthful, black heart. When it comes to modern themes of horror this play has it all: war, violence, blood, magic, witches, a Satan and Seyton, good and evil, innocence, sleep walking, ghosts, madness, and the worst case of OCD ever seen on stage.
After defending the virtuous Duncan, Macbeth is tempted by three Weird Sisters when his fate is revealed that he will be king. With the aid of his wife, the infamous Lady Macbeth, he quickly murders his way to the crown. But, in this wayward world between Christendom and Paganism the rules vengeance are at best blurred, and Macbeth there’s no sleep till Burnamwood.
Macbeth begins the play a great man, a war hero honored by his King. Yet, his fall from grace is both tragic and villainous.
Spurred on by his spouse, Macbeth, in a literal sense, falls more into the category of a tragic hero, or, perhaps, an anti-hero. He is a Homeric lead in Christian world, and the same rules no longer apply.
Duncan’s choice to name his son Malcolm as his successor altered the course of Scottish tradition. This act, while in line with an English style of rule, was not the Scottish way, and therefore justified Macbeth’s war. While in reality Macbeth was justified for his act and fought Duncan on a battlefield, and for all intents and purposes reigned as a good king, Shakespeare’s story trumps truth.
Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a man riddled with guilt, until there is nothing left but a hull of a human. What seperates Macbeth from his colleagues is his concious. We know Richard is rotten from the beginning. Likewise, Iago makes us coconspirators in our complicity. Macbeth, like Hamlet, is riddled with doubt. Were it not for his counterpart, Lady Macbeth, this play could, perhaps, end differently. Yet, in an Eve-like manner their couple is fated to damnation.
Iago
“I am not what I am.” — Iago
Were the play not about the Moor of Venice, it would be called Iago. Othello’’s lieutenant orchestrates the most horrendous act of treachery in the English language. A master manipulator, Iago twists the entire cast around his finger and turns the audience into his cohorts.
We hate Iago because we like him. He’s charming and likable and addresses the audience like old friends. Even his friends address him as “Honest Iago.” There is nothing more vile than being betrayed by a friend. By the end of the play we long for him to be punished, he is one of the few villains who survives his play, opting to cut out his tongue rather than own up to his crimes.
The beauty of Iago is chaos. We never know what drives him. He hints at it from time to time, yet, like the Joker in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight we never know how he got his scars.
Filled with contempt for everyone around him, this shining example of villainy is a psychopath. The story is driven by Iago’s scheming and the audience waits to see what he will do next.
He is quintessentially evil. The actor playing the villian may seek to justify the role with subtext, however, the text only provides us with suggestion and leaves us with nothing but questions.
How Now Am I the Villain?
Often, the thing that Shakespeare gives us that was so different from the likes of Marlowe or any of his other contemporaries was sympathy. Macbeth suffers. He feels guilty and battles his conscious, and while Richard and Iago seemingly lack empathy, they do make us complicit in their villainy.
We find ourselves rooting for Richard, and Iago seduces us with his wit. We find something to like about each of them.
According to the documentary How the Devil Got His Horns, the image of Lucifer drastically changed from the early Medieval period to the Renaissance as he moved from an almost non-existent character to a combination of fairie creatures to the grandmaster of Hell.
Shakespeare took this notion of transformation that emerged for the Mystery Plays and created humanistic, horrifying characters that have become archetypes.