It seems that with every generation, women find men that display reckless behavior intriguing. These “bad boys” tend to be an entire medley of behaviors, all of which are described in Ariane Marder’s He’s Got Potential as “he goes against the grain”(102). With Joss Whedon’s cinematic adaptation of Marvel’s The Avengers, this appeal is found within the primary villain, Loki Laufeyson. Given Loki’s reputation of being abusive and selfish, many of his actions seem to parallel Satan’s in John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Despite this, there are thousands of young women fawning over the thought of being with a man like him. This essay will clarify these similarities and pursue an explanation for why these traits are deemed attractive and alluring to many women.
Many have written on the subject of what a bad boy is. A term often used while describing bad boys is the Byronic hero. The American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy defines a Byronic hero as “a melancholy and rebellious young man, distressed by a terrible wrong he committed in the past.” Bad boys and Byronic heroes both display a mix of typically unfavorable traits all of which are the opposite of what an ideal mate is according to Richard…show more content… Overall, hiding behind others and only throwing an occasional punch gives reason to believe that he is far from achieving a “manly” appearance. This can also be said of Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost. While we are never given a physical description of anything more than Satan’s magnitude, it can be said that things have not gone in his favor (being cast into Hell) and he does not do anything that is particularly “manly”. He flies around the cosmos and uses deception to enter the Garden of Eden only to manipulate God’s creation (Milton, Book II). Even in the midst of defeat, he seeks ways to ruin others purely for his own