Villain

Random House Unabridged Dictionary defines villain as "a cruelly malicious person who is involved in or devoted to wickedness or crime; scoundrel; or a character in a play, novel, or the like, who constitutes an important evil agency in the plot" A villain or antagonist is generally the main opposition of the hero in a tale they may be a single person or an institution. Vladamir Propp, stated in his book Morphology of the Folk Tale (4) that a fairy tale had eight Dramatis Personae (or characters in story) one of which had to be the villain, this character was usually recognized by certain actions that were performed these were:

·      a story-initiating villainy, where the villain caused harm to the hero or his family

·      a conflict between the hero and the villain, either a fight or other competition

·      pursuing the hero after he has succeeded in winning the fight or obtaining something from the villain

Jafar from Disney’s Aladdin is a good example of a classic villain character he portrays many of the stereotyped visual cues of villains such as a thin moustache a cackling laugh and a thin figure exemplified by Tod Slaughter a famous actor on both stage and screen that portrayed many villainous characters and was one of the main influences on the stereotype villain character. Jafar also fits two of the factors set out by Propp, these are A conflict between the hero where both are trying to marry the princess, and the pursuit of the hero after he has won by the fact that he is the villain in the second Aladdin film after he lost in the first one.

 (3) Vladimir Propp p 79