In my previous entry I talked about the discovery that brain abnormalities seen in PET scans as well as a mutation on the monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) gene can be linked to aggression and criminal behaviour.
The findings had one major flaw - researcher James Fallon, who is mostly responsible for these discoveries, has about as abnormal a brain as you can get, and his MAOA gene definitely isn't normal either. Yet, there he was, a psychologist, not a psychopath.
What does that tell us? There are two possibilities. First, there are other biological factors that must be present in a person in order to result in increased aggression, and Fallon doesn't have those. Or second - and a lot more likely - the biological explanation simply isn't all there is to it. Fallon himself talks about what a fantastic childhood he had - and without a major trauma, that usually doesn't connect to a strong predisposition to serial killing.
I could write you a hundred essays about the nature/nurture debate. Usually, the research questions will start with "To what extent..." and my conclusion will conclude that it is "to a certain extent." It definitely isn't all nature or all nurture.
What I want to look at, since this blog is about fiction, is how fictional villains fit into these ideas. And since I haven't yet managed to perform DNA testing or PET scans on my favourite antagonists, I will mainly investigate the nurture side. The only biological factor I could look at is if maybe the villain's parent was 'evil' too.
Okay, here we go. I will make a list of villains and then try and find as many environmental, nurture-related factors that may have led to them being villains as possible.
Lord Voldemort / Tom Riddle
Tom Riddle's father left his mother before he was born, and he was raised in a Muggle orphanage. The Harry Potter wiki describes the place as "run-down, but clean, and the orphans in residence were well cared for. They even enjoyed holidays at the seaside on occasion." Although Tom Riddle Senior left Voldemort's mother, he wasn't actually 'evil' - she was a witch and seduced him with love potions. Since Voldemort's parents weren't psychopathic killers and he doesn't seem to have suffered much trauma in the orphanage, my conclusion is that Lord Voldemort is evil by biology - it probably isn't the whole story, but with that amount of narcissism and cruelty, a PET scan would probably show decreased activity in the orbital cortex and temporal lobes, for example.
Loki (Marvel universe)
While the Loki I love, the original one from the Norse Edda was not related to any of the other gods, the Marvel universe has decided to make him Odin's son and, more importantly, Thor's brother. Loki has at least some justifications for his actions - in the movie Thor, he tries to destroy the ice giants of Jötunheim to make his father proud. His brother Thor was always favoured and was also chosen to become the next king of Asgard, while Loki was left out and always felt different. His actions became more violent when he discovered that he was in fact an ice giant and that Odin had only adopted him to use him as a tool to force peace between Asgard and Jötunheim. I think there were no biological factors necessary for Loki to become villain - for him it was purely nurture.
Criminal Minds: Ben Foster and Dr Theodore Bryar
I chose these two on purpose. Criminal Minds has a new villain every week, but these two are the only two suffering from paranoid schizophrenia so far. Both were driven to kill by auditory hallucinations. So here could say, probably nature. Schizophrenia is a genetic disease. However, that doesn't exclude the nurture factors. Ben Foster, for example, was left unsupervised and was completely rejected by his family, which contributed to his deterioration. In conclusion, nature triggered by nurture.
There are more examples, but I will leave it at that for now. So we have one villain that's evil by nature, one that's evil by nurture and two that aren't exactly evil but were driven to criminal behaviour by a mixture of both.
We see, fiction is actually just as smart as real psychology - at first glance, some fictional villains seem to be just evil, for no actual reason (and 'they want money and power' doesn't count). We can actually judge fictional woks by the quality of their antagonist - a good one will have a complex character and backstory, good and bad sides, and both biological and environmental influences that lead to his or her crimes. I'm not planning on writing a novel any time soon, but if you do, that may be something to bear in mind.
