3/25/2019

Understanding Our Powerful Anti-Villain: Magneto of X-Men

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Saying a character has good or evil personalities, depends on which point of view we look at them from. In one point of view they might look evil because their actions might be harmful for others, but sometimes, if we look at them from different point of view, they usually have several reasons and good purposes or intentions. A villain in one certain movie might be the hero in another movie, vice versa. Talking about villain, one of the greatest and remarkable villain of superhero movie is the master of magnetism, Magneto, from X-Men movie series. Or at least, that might be what people assume him to be. In this essay, I would like to argue that Magneto is an anti-villain, based on X-Men: First Class as specific and the other movies of the series to support the arguments.
Anti-villain is considered as villain, but he/she is not a straight up villain who only wants destruction or perhaps chaos throughout the movie. These anti-villains might be sympathetic who takes innocent human life into consideration, or sometimes they do not have another choice than being the bad guy, the other times they might have reasons for fighting the hero and they might be called a hero if the story is told from their point of views, or perhaps these anti-villains might share the same goals as the hero but their actions are morally questionable.
In X-Men: First Class, there are quite lots of good sides of Magneto that are showed. In this movie, he was still called Erik and was friends with the hero of the movie, Charles Xavier. In the beginning, they both shared quite the same goal; place for mutants in this world where they can live without fear. However, as the story goes on, they realized they had very different ideas of how to achieve this goal. Charles believed that in order for humans to accept mutants, mutants have to act like human and hide their specialties because he assumed that humans are not ready yet to see mutants and their specialties. In the other hand, Erik believed that as mutants, they have to accept themselves that they are indeed different from humans and they have no reason to hide themselves. Mutants have to be proud of themselves because, as Erik believed, they are the next step of human evolution.
Of course, as the villain of the movie, Magneto caused destruction. He did terrorism and attempted genocide. He killed many innocent people whether it is intentionally or unintentionally. He constantly put humans in danger for mutants to be in higher positions. One of his goals are to make mutants reign supreme over mankind. For humans’ point of view, this goal is undoubtly evil and ruthless. Destroying these billions of mankind is diabolical. Charles shared this point of view because he believed that mutants are still human being. He believed that mutants and humans can live together. However, from Magneto’s and the other mutants who was in Magneto’s side’s point of view, it does not work like that. Let us look back at X-Men: First Class, the very beginning of everything.
Young Erik, in the beginning of the movie, was showed that he grew up in a concentration camp. He watched his parents killed before his eyes. It is also stated that later his wife left him in disgust after he showed her the powers he have. Erik experienced some oppression because he was considered as different from the others. His life was very different from Charles who did not have any dark times during his life. Charles was, in the other hand, son of rich parents and he lives a happy life. Therefore, because of their backgrounds and experiences, they had very different ways to act and react to something even though they shared the same goal. It is reasonable for Erik to act the way he is now as Magneto, as he experienced what he should not have. The way he look at human beings is different form Charles. Erik considers human beings as evil, cruel, and as threat for mutants. Humans fight mutants, so they have no reason to stay quiet. Erik wants mutants to fight them back. Humans create cure for mutants because they considers them as sickness, and it hurts Erik’s feelings because mutants are not sickness. From this, it can be concluded that Erik or Magneto fights humans back to protect mutants.
He only wants freedom and place for mutants so that they can freely live with no fear. He calls himself the protector of mutant race because that is what he is trying to do. But, why do we still consider Magneto as the villain of the movie? Why do we still see him as the bad guy even though we know he has well reasons and intentions? The answer is because the hero of this movie, Charles, is on the side of human beings. Even though Charles is mutant, he believes that mutants are still human beings and we, the audiences, are also human beings. We belong to the same side with the hero. What if the movie is presented from Magneto’s point of view? Humans might look as evil as how Magneto looks. Magneto killed many innocents people, but so did they. Humans only looked at mutants as threat so they killed them with no exception and it is just as cruel.
At the end of the day, point of view that we use to look at a certain problem is important. Nothing can be called as the truth if we only look at them from one side. Magneto really is an anti-villain, because no matter how harmful and dangerous he is, no matter how evil and diabolic his actions are, his true goal is only to protect mutant race. He wants a peaceful world for mutants to live freely with no fears.

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