No one ever tells the villain’s side – not really.
When love leaves and pain stays, it can harden the heart. You may start telling yourself stories:
“They never loved me,”
“Im not as pretty.”
“I must not be enough.”
Think of Cinderella’s stepsisters – bitter, yes. But maybe beneath the jealousy was the quiet ache of always being compared. Always being told they weren’t enough – not beautiful enough, not kind enough, not lovable enough. Maybe they didn’t want to destroy Cinderella’s joy. Maybe they just wanted their own.
I don’t believe all villains are born cruel.
Sometimes, life hardens people.
Another example, Scar. Overshadowed, underestimated, cast as the extra in someone else’s lead role. Was he power-hungry or just tired of being invisible? Was it ambition or a desperate need to matter?
For some, the hurt runs so deep, it begins to rot from the inside out – slowly, quietly.
Others build armor, not out of malice, but out of self-preservation.
The softness they once wore so freely becomes guarded… then cold.
They stop letting people in.
They become detached, defensive, and unreachable – not because they don’t feel, but because they feel too much.
You start to villainize the past, not out of hate, but as a way to survive the present.
You turn the person who once made your soul light up into a ghost you blame for your emotional shutdown.
It’s easier that way.
Easier to be the villain than to admit you’re still in pain.
Easier to shut down than to stay soft in a world that keeps cutting too deep.
But that kind of survival comes at a cost.
It chips away at your authenticity.
It steals your peace.
And, little by little, it closes the door on your ability to love again – freely, fearlessly.
Still, sometimes what couldn’t be… simply wasn’t meant to be.
And learning to accept that – without bitterness, without blame- might be the most difficult thing of all. Because in the end, the real tragedy isn’t always who someone became…
But what was never healed in them before they got there.
SheKnowsNow 