- driven by revenge
- kill everyone around them
- have 'secret identities' - Hamlet makes everyone think he's crazy, and Iago makes everyone think he's a good guy
- had lovers whom they hurt and betrayed
- they both make someone murder someone else (accidentally or on purpose) - Claudius kills Gertrude, Othello kills Desdemona
- Rationalize personal motives - Iago seems to do whatever it takes to be self-serving, and Hamlet does whatever it takes to get revenge
- Both show a lack of remorse
Villainy
Villain: Someone whose views of right and wrong are considered abnormal, and who is therefore isolated from society.
Hamlet and Iago
are both Villains!
Hamlet
- desires revenge even before he sees the ghost: he calls it "MY revenge" (1.5.35)
- justifies it to himself through his projection of the ghost
- attempts, and fails, to justify it to the rest of society - his mother sees the ghost as "the very coinage of your brain" (3.4.152).
right: anything that serves his revenge
wrong: anything that doesn't.
Iago
- more obvious villain: he has already gone through this process
- he does whatever it takes to get his rank back, and to take down Othello
- right: anything that gets Iago what he wants
- wrong: anything that frustrates his plans