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  • Writer's pictureTodd Blankenship

Why Won't You Just Die: An Open Letter from Movie Villains to Heroes

By Wrath Helsinki—Dear movie heroes and heroines,

We, your nemeses and sometimes-erstwhile childhood friends have a serious inquiry for you, and hope that you will give it the thought and reflection it deserves: Why won't you just die?

We are scarred and sometimes overzealous ideologues or psychopaths, but we take our work very seriously. It vexes us greatly when we concoct elaborate plans to take over the world, wipe out billions of innocent lives, or generally cause mass panic and catastrophe. It is enormously perturbing to come within sight of realizing our goals to find you have begun meddling in them. This would all be so much easier if you could just mind your own business for a few weeks, or look the other way. It is at least satisfying when we capture you, put you in an elaborate death trap, explain our entire plan from start to finish, and then leave you to die from our clever contraptions. However, somehow you always seem to find an escape. And so I ask you again, why won't you just die?

We do understand that you try to stop us. Look, if we thought that our deeds wouldn't upset people, we'd be live-streaming it all over the web. We accept certain risks in our work: lots of our henchpersons die in our service, but we simply move on. But somehow, you will not let death take you. You just refuse to let go. You are obsessed with thwarting our plans, and you should see yourselves. It's not healthy. We all have to go sometime, so perhaps you should embrace your end with some dignity rather than narrowly escaping your tragic end at the last possible second every time. There is such a thing as over-commitment.

And it's not like we don't try. I have chained some of you to explosives, strapped you to conveyor belts heading toward saws, thrown you out of planes without a parachute, and even tried to feed you to wild and hungry animals. Short of just shooting or stabbing you directly, it seems like we do everything we can to get you out of our hair. I'm sure you have no idea how frustrating it can be to think that world domination is within reach and then to have you come back at the last second and smash it all to pieces. So please, next time, just die.

Really, I mean, the human body is actually quite fragile. It shouldn't be that hard for you to get fatally injured. Even in just like, a normal traffic mishap, or eating some bad sushi. And you know what? It's okay. Everybody dies. You had some good times. You saved some people. You saved the world already on Tuesday. But now, it's time for you to die. Just close your eyes and head toward the light. It might even be really nice to rest from all of this chasing-us-around nonsense, too. Just try it, okay?

In closing, we truly respect you. We may stand for different things, and have differences in how we view the world and the solutions to its problems, but after all is said and done, you really should be dead by all accounts. So just do it. Die. Die right now. We'll take it from here.

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