Both villains have become selfish and curdled, and both have developed the standard villain hubris that makes them overreach. Syndrome resents that he can’t fight crime, Evelyn that she couldn’t save her father. The villains’ power - the thing the Parrs fight to take away, twice - comes from the devices the villains develop to compensate for their failings, which all stem from not being able to do the same things supers can do. Intentionally or not, the story’s overall lessons - the way it defines right and wrong - are an active argument for a specific viewpoint or ideal.īut it’s not just the backdrop that makes the Incredibles films appear deeply critical of progress. But just as these characters’ motivations can be a place for the audience to parse tough moral quandaries, they serve the same purpose for the movie’s creators. (See: Black Panther, or any X-Men movie that features Charles Xavier and Magneto squaring off over the future of mutants.) For the audience, a villain’s perspective can be a way to work through philosophical questions or beliefs, in a manner that’s a bit easier (and more entertaining) to process then asking someone whether they would pull a switch to divert a trolley from hitting a loved one if it meant hitting multiple other people instead.

Heroes can only triumph by answering or overcoming that challenge. The “evil” of a villain lies in their actions - the means they pursue to achieve their ends - but their job is, ultimately, to challenge the hero’s worldview, their ideals and beliefs, with their own ideology.

The thing about villains, especially in superhero stories, is they’re meant as an antithesis of what the heroes represent.

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