The most heroic thing for a person to do is let it be known that they are the villain.

The most villainous thing a person can do is to convince everyone they’re the hero.

With this in mind it becomes very difficult to pinpoint exactly who is villainous and who is heroic as such a paradox would present them as both one in the same. The hero’s admission to being a villain creates awareness for the general populace and lets them know that their idol was a false one. Steering the general populace in the correct moral direction is most assuredly an ethical action–a heroic action. However, when this happens, the hero deprives the populace of a righteous moral figure, of direction and of an idol. The populace from this point on decadently falls into madness and discord. The hero doesn’t want his fellow population to live in a barbaric society, devoid of decency and direction. The fact that the once ‘hero’ has allowed his society to decay via his heroic honesty would quickly make it clear that he is, indeed, the villain he claimed to be.

Another possible circumstance of the hero admitting his evil nature would be denial. The populace would hail him for his righteous honesty, his good intentions of not wanting his people to idolize a villain. What happens upon their acknowledgement of his righteous honesty? Well, they idolize him of course! This man has admitted his faults, his dark nature—he is a hero!

So now, society proclaims the villain as a hero because he told them he was the villain. How devious, no?

Of course the opposite could be said and the villain could convince everyone that he is a hero. What would be the easiest way to do this? By telling them he’s the villain, of course!

Wait, no, that can’t be right.

It eventually becomes clear that heroes and villains don’t really exist outside the worlds of Unicorns and Middle Earth and Jesus Christ. When you disregard fiction, you’re not left with a sense of heroism or villainy. On this tender planet of self-proclaimed Non-Fiction, the only people we’re left with are the victims. And those are everybody.