Good People Can Be Great Villains

If you've never read a graphic novel, you owe it to yourself to try one. You'd be surprised how deep and engaging a "comic book" can be; you'll thank me once you're hooked.

My favorite graphic novel series is Case Closed, by Gosho Aoyama. The main character, teenage detective Jimmy Kudo, frequently helps the police crack difficult cases--until the evil Black Organization catches him witnessing one of its crimes, feeds him an experimental poison, and leaves him for dead. But instead of killing him, the poison turns Jimmy into a little kid, and he takes on the pseudonym Conan Edogawa to keep the crime syndicate from finishing him off. While he seeks out the people who turned him small, Conan continues to help solve cases and finds creative ways to get adults to take his deductions seriously. Case Closed is a fun series with great characters, an engrossing plot, and challenging mysteries. If you're new to graphic novels, this is a good place to start.

Image credit: Wikipedia

Case Closed also exhibits some of the best-written villains I've seen. That's because they're actually human. Great writing acknowledges that human beings aren't simply black and white; I think it's hard to get the reader emotionally invested in a protagonist who is all good, or an antagonist who is all bad. Have you ever met anyone like that in real life?

Tolkien did Sauron a major disservice by not giving him a penchant for stamp collecting.
Image source: Science Fiction and Fantasy Stack Exchange

Gosho Aoyama has a way of making me sympathize with all the characters in his books--even the killers. For example, one case I read last night involved members of a musical family dying in the C-scale order of their names. When the evidence pointed to a young, talented, and kind composer and violinist, I didn't want to believe it could be him, so until the end I hoped the uptight butler did it. But--spoiler alert--the murderer was the gifted musician! And to make matters worse, he kept being kind and helpful even as the police were loading him into their car.

He was such a cool character.

He seemed like a great guy.

He killed four people.

And I was so sad he was the one who did it.

Murder is wrong, no matter who does it. As much as I loved this character, he got nothing more than he deserved when the law put him away. And yet I still feel so conflicted about him.

That's the magic of three-dimensional writing. And that's what keeps me going back for more.