I once polled my friends on Facebook about their favorite films that end with the death of the villain. There were so many good answers: The wicked witch falls off a cliff in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Emperor Palpatine falls to his death in Return of the Jedi. While fighting Frodo for the ring, Smeagol falls into lava in Return of the King. The Joker falls from a gargoyle in Batman. Air Force One ends with the president throwing the bad guy out of an airplane. Die Hard ends with Hans Gruber falling from Nakatomi Tower. Beauty and the Beast ends with Gaston falling from the roof of the castle. The Lion King ends with Scar falling from Pride Rock and being attacked by hyenas. Even Les Miserables includes Javert’s satisfying leap from the bridge[1].
We love to see the bad guy get it in the end, don’t we? We want him to suffer enough that the punishment fits the crime.
Do we want our villains to be arrested and put on trial? No! Audiences want heroes to take the law into their own hands—and putting a fictional villain in handcuffs is almost never an option, not even for fictional police officers. Most writers of police dramas are experts at creating situations in which the hero neatly kills off the villain in a gun battle rather than arresting him and leaving the plot to creep along on the slow wheels of justice.
The courtroom may be the bedrock on which civilization is built, but no one finds the process entirely satisfying, not even King Solomon, Ecclesiastes 8:11.
Thus, we root for heroes who take the law into their own hands. We want vengeance. We want blood. We want the villain to die a horrible death, preferably one in which he sees the end coming and discovers too late that it is all his fault.
God sees things differently. People love to talk about the wrath of God, as though it were his defining characteristic. It is not. God defines himself when he says “God is love” 1 John 4:8. Does God understand anger? Yes. Does God feel anger? Yes. But God does not root for anger.
Some writers speak of God’s wrath as having two parts: God’s Passive Wrath and God’s Active Wrath. God’s passive wrath is built into our world. Yes, you reap what you sow. Your sin leads to its own natural consequences, like a poisonous weed in the middle of a nutritious farm:
“Judgment springeth up like a hemlock in the furrows” Hosea 10:4.
But when it comes to his active wrath, God does not indulge his wrath lightly. Though humans love to see the bad guy suffer, God is different. He restrains himself. Why? First, because he is not one of us, a mere man. Second, because he is holy.
“I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger. I will not return to destroy Ephraim. For I am God and not man, the Holy One in the midst of thee” Hosea 11:9.
I imagine myself asking God about this: I whine, “Why don’t you smite that bad guy?”
And God looks down his nose at me, his face a mixture of pity and scorn, like a slightly irritated older brother. “What? You think I am like YOU? I am most certainly NOT like you. I am not a man! Ha. I am holy. I control my anger.”
Those who read the Old Testament (or a few parts of it, let’s be honest) and describe the so-called “Old Testament God” as vengeful, understand neither the Old Testament nor God. God describes himself as merciful and “his lovingkindness is everlasting” Psalm 136.
More importantly, God describes his wrath as unusual, even strange:
“For the Lord shall rise up as in Mount Perazim, he shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon, that he may do his work, his strange work; and bring to pass his act, his strange act” Isaiah 28:21.
God will execute wrath. But God considers wrath to be a strange work, an unusual thing. Wrath is not the norm for God. What is the norm? Love, mercy, and lovingkindness. Just look at the cross.
What does God do for villains and sinners? He dies on the cross to make atonement for their sins.
Something tells me God might respond differently to the endings of our favorite movies. Even knowing most of them are fictional tales about characters that do not exist and have no soul, I’m not sure God’s first response would be to root for the death of the villain. After all, he is God and not a man, the Holy One in the midst of thee.
God, make us more like you. Help us understand a bit more about your holiness, your mercy, and your lovingkindness that is everlasting. May we root for truth and justice, but may we root for the gospel even more. Remind us to pray for our enemies, Matthew 5:44. Remind us to pray for their salvation.
AΩ
[1] While making this list, I was surprised by this common trope: so many falls! Apparently, as much as we enjoy the supposed “justice” of a dead villain, we don’t like our hero to get his hands dirty. Oh, we like it sometimes—for especially sinister villains in darker situations. But for family films like Beauty and the Beast, we may cheer while the Beast fights Gaston, but we don’t want the Beast to hurl the man off the roof. Instead, we want Gaston to slip in the rain so our hero has no blood on his hands. Contrast this kinder, gentler sensibility with the blood sports so common in the gladiatorial contests of ancient Rome. You know what I think? I think Christianity has taught our civilization mercy. Countless people with no interest in the faith have nevertheless adopted the compassion it teaches. Men are not the brute beasts we once were.
- For more on that, consider this entertaining discussion: https://tropedia.fandom.com/wiki/Disney_Villain_Death
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