Villains: We love to hate them. We hate to love them. Despite their evil natures, they are sometimes the most compelling and complex character in stories. So often, however, these interesting characters are unquestionably male. What would happen if these typically male characters were reimagined as non-male? Let’s find out.
Note: We will refer to the character using appropriate pronoun based on how the gender is being bent (For example, if imagining the character as a woman, we will use she/her/hers).
Darth Vader (Star Wars)
“Luke, I am your father.” Or maybe not. If Darth Vader was a woman in the iconic Star Wars movies, she would have been the one to give birth to Luke and Leia. This bond, combined with the power of the Force, would make it impossible for Vader not to recognize her children upon sight. Since a pertinent plot detail of the original Star Wars trilogy is the fact that Vader does not immediately recognize Luke and Leia as his descendants, this would significantly change the initial interactions between these characters. Plus, the series needs more ladies involved in light saber fights.
Voldemort (Harry Potter)
Good ole Voldy. What a charmer. Well, not so much charming as cruel, deadly, and ruthlessly instituting fear in his Death Eaters. Lord Voldemort is one of the most iconic villains in recent fiction. His strengths lie in brute force and intimidation, which could be typically be defined as masculine. In contrast, he has a more slender, feminine physique when played by Ralph Fiennes in the Harry Potter film adaptations, clothed almost exclusively in billowing, black robes. What if young Tom Riddle was not only struggling with his identity as a wizard in a Muggle world, but feeling as though his gender identity fell beyond the binary? If they identified as non-binary, it could explain some of the fear held by the Death Eaters. Perhaps the Death Eaters feared Voldemort partially out of misunderstanding who they are. It might also explain the separation they built between them and the Death Eaters, which you see in a scene from the seventh movie (Deathly Hallows Pt. 1) at the meeting at Malfoy manor. There is this long table full of Death Eaters, loyal and eager to please and serve their Dark Lord. Voldemort sits at the head of the table, the cold, disdainful look they give shows the lack of mutual respect and the distance between the leader and their followers.
Khan (Star Trek)
Whether you’re more familiar with the recent Star Trek reboot movies or the original TV shows, there’s no doubt that Khan is the ultimate Star Trek villain. He is methodical, intelligent, self-confident, and ambitious. Though he plays the villain, he is not cruel or brutal, choosing instead to win through his individual strength. Sexuality also plays a large role in Khan’s characterization, for he is portrayed as a slightly promiscuous, alluring person. Taking all of this into consideration, Khan would make a compelling female villain. Since it is so rare that we see a woman who is smart, confident, ambitious, and sexually desirable on TV or in movies, it would be especially cool to see such a woman play an antagonistic role. She would be promiscuous without sacrificing her confidence or intelligence, showing that women can have looks and brains. Her ambitions wouldn’t be mocked, but rather taken seriously and even feared.
Loki (Thor)
Loki is an interesting villain to consider a gender bent version of, because he’s so clearly tied to the feminine. His favorite person is his (adoptive) mom, he fights with magic instead of brute force, and he does not physically match the stereotype of masculinity. He doesn’t have a beard, which provides a stark contrast with his hyper-masculine brother Thor, and his body has a more slender frame. Additionally, he doesn’t have a female love interest, which is expected for male characters, especially ones in action movies. Since Loki is already feminized in many ways, there are two ways to imagine a non-male version of him. One option is to imagine him as a masculinized female. Instead of being closely linked with Asgard’s Queen, she would be associated with the King. Her features would be rougher and her body more muscular to align with a stereotypically masculine appearance. Another option is to push Loki’s conflicting gender presentations further into a non-binary space. A non-binary Loki would be much like feminized male Loki in terms of characteristics. The interesting thing about this possibility is how Loki’s ambiguous gender identity would reinforce other parts of their character, such as their position as an outsider in Asgard.
Ozai (Avatar: The Last Airbender)
If you don’t know this baddie from Avatar: The Last Airbender, allow me to introduce you. The primary villain in the Nickelodeon series spent the majority of the show as the oft-mentioned Fire Lord, father to Zuko and Azula and as the bad guy twelve-year-old Avatar Aang would have to defeat. He is a harsh, strategic, and manipulative leader. In the earlier flashbacks to Zuko’s childhood that include Ozai, we see that Ozai is greedy for power and willing to use any means to achieve his desires. How might Ozai’s authority and thirst for domination be altered if Ozai was a woman? She was raised as royalty, her father and Zuko and Azula’s grandfather the then Fire Lord. She might view her older brother Iroh (who we see as Zuko’s wise and tea-loving uncle and mentor in the A:TLA series) as an even larger obstacle to her ambitions, because he is her older brother and has the primary claim to the throne for Fire Lord, but is also a famous military general to the Fire Nation. Ozai’s efforts to take the throne from Iroh, which we see in the show, would only be a larger betrayal if she were as manipulative, verging on psychotic, as her daughter Azula is. She would be similarly plotting and strategic, but perhaps she would work even more subtly, working even further behind the scenes to pull strings to play out her wants.
(The more I consider the possibilities, the more I think Ozai would resemble Kuvira from Legend of Korra, but I’ll save the discussion of her character for a bit later in this article.)
Joker (Batman)
The Joker is a very dramatic, eccentric character. He is not afraid to push boundaries to a provocative and even uncomfortable place. In The Dark Knight, he even cross-dresses as a slightly creepy female nurse. This is why he’s the perfect character to reimagine as a different gender. The Joker would maybe be gender fluid. One day, they might present as female as in the hospital scene in The Dark Night. The day after, they could present as male to take down a government facility. The day after that, they might present androgynously in order to add a level of mystery. The Joker’s gender fluidity makes sense with the character, for they’d be comfortable presenting as any gender given their feelings and/or diabolical goal for that day.
When compiling this list, we noticed that the majority of compelling villains in TV and movies are male. On the statistically unlikely occasion that there is a female villain, she is usually not as complex and treated as a lesser character.
Of course, there are exceptions. We have the everyday cruelty of Dolores Umbridge, who delights in punishing children who act out while wrapped up in pink tweed, surrounded by meowing kitten dishes. Her detentions consist of writing lines with a quill that slices the words into the skin of the user (such as Harry’s “I must not tell lies” in chapter 13 of OOTP). She admits she hates children despite being a professor at Hogwarts. Also, she abused her power as Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic to question, interfere with, and eventually force Dumbledore to (temporarily) leave Hogwarts as Headmaster. She is an opportunist to an extreme, a villain so terrifying because nearly all readers can recognize her as someone in their life.
The universe of Avatar: The Last Airbender is incredible on its own, and both the original A:TLA and the more recent series Legend of Korra provide an array of developed characters in its heroes as well as its villains. In A:TLA, we have Azula, the sister of Prince Zuko introduced in Book 2. Azula is a calculating strategist and a manipulative though controlling authority. She is also a powerful firebender, her strengths lying with precision, flexibility, and aggression throughout Books 2 and 3. As Book 3 and especially the series finally moves along, you see Azula’s put together facade begin to unravel. Her grasps for power begin to fall apart, and so does she.
In Book 4 of LOK, we see Kuvira, originally the head of the metal bending city Zaofu’s security force, rising as the “Great Uniter” in her desire for power in the Earth Kingdom. Kuvira is a calculating, authoritarian leader and a creative strategist. She is shown throughout Book 4 manipulation, bribes and intimidation to get what she wants. Her backstory reflects her desire for love and admiration: she was abandoned young and built herself and her career up with the support of Suyin in Zaofu. Still, she is not too hardened a tyrant to fall in love and get engaged to Suyin’s eldest son, Baatar, Jr.
In Orphan Black, Tatiana Maslany plays a multitude of characters in this sci-fi thriller exploring human cloning. Each clone is incredibly distinct in personality, mannerisms and appearance despite their core similarities in their DNA. I will admit I have only seen up through season 1 myself (why isn’t season 2 on Netflix yet?!), but the clones and the characters attached to each of their storylines noticeably flip between friend and foe from the beginning. As far as villains go, Helena is at first amongst them as a driven assassin. She believes she is the “original” clone created by God. She is played and described in the show as a fanatic, religious to an extreme. However, she holds strongly to her beliefs despite her childhood of neglect and abuse. She is harsh and deadly, but she refuses to harm children. Ultimately, she does whatever she must in order to survive.
With the slow rise of more and more well-developed female protagonists, we can only hope to see a rise in diversity of women’s roles in media. However, we believe that ladies should not only be leading heroines, but also terrifying, intimidating lady villains (or whatever way their characters stir up evil). It would be one of many steps towards a media in which the diversity of women is portrayed in all types of roles.
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