Chapter 3: Responsibility
Owning the Purpose
Richter Rancid said: A Villain must own the burden of consequence. Knowing the necessity of change, and embracing the agency to act.
Great successes as well as epic failures are accepted and forgiven more easily when the aim is declared openly rather than enacted silently.
True reform springs from unveiling a clearer vision of possibility.
The highest act of villainy is leading the masses toward genuine progress.
Next in merit is breaking the system’s suffocating control.
Then comes challenging the Hero’s defense of the status quo.
Worst of all is unleashing anarchic collapse.
Avoid collapse whenever possible. Building anew takes time, and there are many redeeming qualities of existing systems.
Shirking responsibility courts unintended harm instead of true improvement.
Monologues are used to persuade not to boast. Capturing hearts with visions of what may be.
Convincing the innocent of the possibility and opportunity. Limiting strife while enacting necessary chaos and upheaval.
Even forced change must be guided by clear purpose to endure.
The Villain embodies the vision of transformation: strong purpose begets strong change.
Three pitfalls doom the ill-prepared:
Implementing change without a roadmap, blind to its fallout.
Ignoring the system’s true conditions, attacking what cannot be moved.
Recruiting allies without shared vision, fracturing your own cause.
In restless times, collapse breeds opportunists; only measured leadership averts the slide into collapse.
Five victories secure progress:
Insight into human nature.
Skill in persuasion and the courage to confront power.
Unity of purpose among one’s allies.
Patience to locate and exploit the weak points.
Mastery of one’s own abilities.
If you know the system’s flaws and hold a plan, you need not fear change. If you know the flaws but lack a plan, progress will come with hardship. If you know neither, you will sow destruction instead of reform.
