Because You Love To Hate Me
Ameriie
INTRODUCTION
“You don’t have the guts to be what you wanna be. You need people like me. You need people like me so you can point your f@*$!n’ fingers and say ‘That’s the bad guy.’”
—“TONY MONTANA” IN SCARFACE
Villains. Stories are nothing without them. Heroes cannot rise to greatness without them. In the absence of an enemy, our beloved protagonists are left kicking rocks in the Shire or taking tea and biscuits in a mind-numbingly cheery Spare Oom. We love villains because they turn their aches into action, their bruises into battering rams. They push through niceties and against societal restraints to propel the story forward. Unlike our lovable protagonists, villains—for better or worse—stop at literally nothing to achieve their goals. It’s why we secretly root for them, why we find ourselves hoping they make their grand escape, and it’s why our shoulders sag with equal parts relief and disappointment when they are caught. After all, how can you not give it up to someone who works that damned hard for what they want?
For as long as I can remember, I’ve empathized with the underdog, the misunderstood, the so-called wicked. Perhaps it has much to do with my worldview, which questions the very existence of “good” and “evil” in the first place. Maybe what is considered good today is foolish tomorrow; perhaps the terrible deeds done now will prove themselves necessary evils in a year’s time, a hundred years’ time. I’ve always found the concept of good and evil to be wholly complicated, ever since learning as a kid about that conversation God had with Satan regarding Job. It was like seeing your best friend commiserating with your sworn nemesis: Hold up, you guys are on speaking terms?
Villains aren’t created in a vacuum; they’ve likely suffered devastations and made the best choices available, never mind that their decisions might differ from our own. They’ve also had their share of oft-forgotten moments of truth and honor (Jaime Lannister, anyone?). Villains take the risks our heroes can’t afford to take and make the choices our heroes are too afraid to make. They live in the Grey, and I, for one, love that sliver of space between light and dark, where things tend to be more interesting, people are more complex, and it’s harder to draw clean lines. Look into a villain’s eyes long enough and we might find our shadow selves, our uncut what-ifs and unchecked ambitions, a blurry line if ever there was one.
Because You Love to Hate Me isn’t just about badass villains, it’s also about ourselves, in all our horror and glory. Within these pages, you will find thirteen stories of villainy written by some of today’s greatest writers and paired with commentary by thirteen of the most influential booktubers and bloggers on YouTube and in the blogosphere. (Unlucky #13, reppin’ baddies since 1307.) You’ll see nefarious old favorites and new faces, some reimagined, some twisted out of context, but not in the ways you might expect. The perspectives explored in these stories force us to reexamine our most fiercely held notions of good and evil, right and wrong, and what it is to be human. To be alive. Life, death, hate, love, vengeance, heartbreak—it’s all here.
Villains, the deliciously wicked. We love to hate them and they hate to be loved, if only because being hated frees them from having to be good.
And we’d have it no other way.
THE BLOOD OF IMURIV
BY RENéE AHDIEH
Everywhere Rhone walked, the nightmares followed.
Colorless creatures slunk at his sides, unseen from all save him. They whispered. Near and around him, their cold breaths pressed against his ear. Sometimes he could understand their mutterings: Who are you? Nobody. What have you achieved? Nothing. Other times they were the lost language of a faraway galaxy. A language—a world—Rhone only knew of in history lessons. A world his parents spoke of, in hushed tones of their own.
The nightmares often appeared in the shadows. In corners steeped in inky darkness. But he supposed that was to be expected.
After all, nightmares were creatures of the dark.
What Rhone did not expect was to feel them—to sense them—creeping silently after him even in broad daylight. Even in fleeting moments of happiness, they writhed through the holes around his heart, wriggling their way into anything and everything.
Until they were all he could see anymore.
His sister’s smile was not a smile, but a leer. His father’s look was not one of fondness, but of judgment.
And his mother? To his mother, Rhone would never be anything but a reminder.
Of all that had once been.
Of the woman she had once called Mother. The woman Rhone so resembled, in carriage and in character.
Of a monster who had all but destroyed everything she touched.
Without a glance back, Rhone left the warmth and merriment of his family’s dinner gathering, as he tended to do of late. It was not meant to be a slight to anyone in particular. It was just his way. The parties hosted under the illustrious banner of the Imuriv family were different from many of the celebrations given by other highborn nobles of Oranith; his family’s parties were never the garish kind. Instead, they were ones filled with friends and food and laughter, often culminating in tales of his mother’s youthful exploits.
As Rhone made his way down the curved corridor, he caught his reflection sneering back at him in the rounded surface of the white wall to his right.
Despite his mother’s best efforts, her parties did not deceive him. Though she strove to make them seem inclusive, Rhone knew his presence was—and always would be—unnecessary. Extraneous. The celebrations were tasteful, clearly gatherings meant to reflect their family’s status. On the ice planet of Isqandia, in its shining capital of Oranith, there was not a single child who did not know of the Imuriv family.
Most knew of the name fondly. After all, Rhone’s mother was quite beloved, despite the whispers of her past. As the sovereign of Oranith, she had brought an era of unprecedented peace to the planet ruled by women.
Others remembered the Imuriv name . . . much less fondly.
A name infamous for murder. Painted by the brush of darkest warcraft.
Colored by ancient, unknowable thaumaturgy.
As Rhone continued walking down the cool, darkened corridors of his family’s ice fortress, the familiar hum of droning machines took on a presence of its own. A lulling, hypnotic sort of presence. Lost in its gentle purr, Rhone stopped to wonder what kind of woman his grandmother had been to those she loved.
What kind of woman. What kind of sovereign. What kind of mother she had been before her own daughter executed her for committing war crimes.
Odd how his grandmother seemed to rule Rhone’s most recent dreams. Dreams of searing reckoning. Of blood and glory. Dreams of all that could never be.