Luke Romano

The True Villain of Oedipus

Today in class, I posed in interesting question that sparked a very interesting conversation. "Who was the true villain in Oedipus the King"? Now, the obvious answer would be Oedipus, I mean, he killed his dad then took his mom from his father. There can't much worse than that, really. My idea that it was fate, but how can fate be considered as a "bad guy" when it isn't even human? So as my last option I resorted to the gods, the people who have the power to change what will happen, but choose not. So, I chose to think that the gods were the villain, the ones who made everything in the world happen and chose to make Oedipus kill his dad and marry and bed with his mother. All sounding pretty malevolent. So today in class, I came up with an answer, a true answer, something I actually put some thought into. I don't think there was any true villain in Oedipus the King. Yes, people did nasty things. But it was nothing that they could control. A probable refute to that statement would be, "But can't the gods control everything and even fate?" This got me thinking even more and gave me the idea of what fate really is. And I came to this conclusion. I believe that fate is out of the hands of everyone, even the gods. No one escapes fate. The gods and Tiresias were able to see fate, but they were not able to change it. No one has that power, and no one will ever deserve to have such a power. So the gods are like people that see our world through a TV and we are the rerun of an episode that they have already seen. They know what happens and they cant change it because it is predestined for the characters. Oedipus is meant to get discarded, he is meant to be saved, he is meant to kill his own father, and he is meant to bed with his mom. And he couldn't have saved it. Even if Oedipus wasn't discarded, just like Final Destination, fate will find it's way. So when a villain needs to be chosen there can be no one to blame for the unfortunate circumstances that fate put them in. It was going to always be that way no matter what. Just like Romeo explained it they are, "Fortune's fools".