Date of Award
Spring 2026
Degree Type
Honors College Thesis
Academic Program
English BA
Department
English
First Advisor
Dr. Kate Cochran
Advisor Department
English
Abstract
When looking back on the most beloved, yet infamous, villains of popular culture, one can note an abundant rise of prequels and backstory-driven media exploring the paths that villain characters take that lead them to their tragic fall. Some of those stories include John M. Chu’s Wicked, George Lucas’s Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, and Chen Jialin and Zheng Weiwin’s The Untamed, each of which explores protagonists who are labeled as “wicked” and depicted as fallen to the “dark side.” While these characters are often studied in existing literary research, there have yet to be explicit ties made to one of the most long-lived and well-known “fall” stories of all time: the Greek myth of Icarus. Within this mythological framework, characters Elphaba Thropp, Anakin Skywalker, and Wei Wuxian’s descent into shadow and argues that the villains’ Icarian downfalls are as social as they are literal. Through the process of villainization, they become more concentrated, silhouette-versions of themselves. I analyze how these characters’ nonconformist and emotional dispositions complicate our understanding of strict binaries of good and evil. By drawing comparisons between these characters and the Icarus figure, as well as utilizing Carl Jung’s concept of the shadow self, we can begin to understand how villainy is defined in literary worlds, as well as within our current society.
Copyright
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Recommended Citation
Renfroe, Laura, "Icarus’s Fall: Villainization in Wicked, Star Wars, and The Untamed" (2026). Honors Theses. 1118.
https://aquila.usm.edu/honors_theses/1118
Included in
Ancient History, Greek and Roman through Late Antiquity Commons, Chinese Studies Commons, Comparative Literature Commons, English Language and Literature Commons, Television Commons