Why does every story have a villain?

It's hard to think of a tale without one. As children, we learned to fear the Big Bad Wolf and the Troll under the bridge. As we grew older, we discovered more serious villains in the Star Wars series—Darth Vader and Darth Maul and Darth Sidious. The Wicked Witch of the West hunted Dorothy. Wallace fought against Longshanks, and Maximus went hand to hand against Commodus. The trinity in The Last of the Mohicans had to eventually face Magua, the black-hearted Huron who betrayed them all.

In The Fellowship of the Ring, we come to dread the Dark Lord Sauron, the Orcs that do his bidding, and the Black Riders who hunt poor Frodo and the ring that will give the evil one power to enslave the world.

Every story has a villain because yours does.

Though most of you do not live like it.

Most people do not live as though the Story has a Villain, and that makes life very confusing. How have we missed this? All the stories we've been telling about the presence of an evil power in the world, all the dark characters that have sent chills down our spines and given us restless nights—they are spoken to us as warnings.

There is evil cast around us.

War. Famine. Betrayal. Murder. Surely we know there is an evil force in this world.



Want more? Subscribe to daily reading
Get a thought provoking excerpt from the Eldredge's writings delivered each morning

Popular Daily Readings