Prepared for the Unseen
By Anthony Casperson
2-28-26

The video’s thumbnail showed a figure in Sauron-esque dark armor. Spikes and sharp angles jutting out every direction. But this villainous character sat on a plush chair with a box of tissues in one hand. The other reached a single tissue toward his helmet’s face, as if wiping away a tear. (Yes, that part of the thumbnail is shown above.)

Modern fantasy villains and their pathetic nature was the presenter’s main point. Throughout the video, he provided a case pointing to modern interpretations of complex villains that demanded tragic backstories. Since trauma is an aspect of the human existence, and stories should contain complex characters, many in the writing field default to the idea that a complex villain must have traumatic events as core to their characterization.

However, the presenter argued that this approach prioritizes past pain over present purpose. The narrative turns the audience’s head to the villain’s past, rather than their present reality or future plans.

It makes the interaction between protagonist and antagonist into a therapy session where the hero and the audience need to validate the villain’s pain, rather than confront or combat it.

Rather than this modern understanding of complex villains that requires tragic backstories, the presenter—and I agree with him—stated that storytellers should prioritize the villain’s coherent, but flawed, ideology. This worldview, which thematically opposes the hero’s growing understanding, should be the driving focus of the antagonist.

Basically, a complex villain shouldn’t be a backward focusing victim of past circumstances that just needs to be understood. Instead, storytellers should present these characters as proactive agents attempting to bend reality toward their skewed perspective.

This doesn’t mean that tragic backstories and traumatic pasts should be forgotten. Such events can be the origin for their worldview. They’re the explanation for why the villain has come to their ideological conclusion. But when it comes to the story, authors should prioritize the ideology over the trauma.

Forward motion makes a better story than backward navel-gazing.

By now, some of you reading might be wondering what any of this has to do with life as a follower of Jesus. We shouldn’t be trying to emulate villains, right? And absolutely we shouldn’t.

But maybe we should attempt to follow the example of authors who understand that proactive agents who act consistently with their worldview are more inviting than passive recipients of tragedy who wallow in their trauma.

It’s better to move forward in our worldview and ideology than to flop down in the past of our victimhood. Sure, our trauma might direct the angle of our motion, but forward is better than staring backward.

At least forward gets us somewhere.

The same morning I was going to write this blog, my daily bible reading led me to Genesis 45. In this chapter, Joseph finally reveals to his brothers that this “Egyptian” official they’ve been interacting with is actually the brother they’d sold off into slavery.

In Joseph’s past, he’d been treated like a piece of property. Bought and sold. And just when life looked like it might be going well, a woman—whose adulterous advances he’d denied—claimed he’d tried to sexually assault her. So, Joseph was sent to prison for a crime he didn’t commit. And he spent years in jail, even being forgotten for quite some time by a man he’d helped while they’d both been in prison.

If there were anyone who could wallow in his past’s tragedy, it was Joseph. Especially when the men responsible for setting this whole series of events into motion stood directly in front of him. At his mercy.

But Joseph didn’t let his tragedy turn him into a villain. Instead, he allowed a proper worldview to shape his focus and his priority. He looked forward, with an eye to the God he served, and proactively took a step in the direction that his ideology pointed him.

That forward motion led to a better story. One in which God proved his grace to the world.

In the New Testament, we see much the same perspective. In 2 Corinthians 4, Paul speaks of being “afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies” (vv. 8-10).

Our pasts and tragedies shouldn’t be our focus, but rather the grace of God that has led us through all of that, Grace that provided life to us.

And even more, Paul says in verse 15 that the suffering has a reason. A purpose. Forward motion that remains consistent with his worldview. It’s for the benefit of fellow brothers and sisters in Christ who can witness the faithfulness of God, and deepen their own faith because of it.

With Paul’s own example, he calls the followers of Jesus in Corinth—along with us—to not lose heart in this “slight momentary affliction” (v. 17). That affliction prepares us for an incomparable future glory. It points us in the direction of the ideology that leads us forward. And it calls us to proactively move toward the unseen.

We’re being prepared for the unseen when we choose to act consistently with the worldview of the cross, rather than letting our past consume our focus.

The forward motion leading us to a better story, with Jesus at our side, rather than the tragedy we should leave in the past.

So, when it comes to the priority of our personal story, let’s focus on the proactive steps that align with our faith in Jesus, rather than the tragedies of our past. That doesn’t mean to forget the trauma, as if it has nothing to do with God’s work in our lives. But it does mean that our focus points forward more often than backward. Toward the story he has for us, instead of the past that is impossible for us to change.

God has a complex story ahead for all of us. Why would we want to focus on the past pain instead?