Animation Source Forums

I love how people with 5 stars make such thorough and philosophical statements on the forums.

However, Cat, you did make a valid point. When I was young and dumb, I would always say, "Steele is evil, he is the definition of evil, I hope he dies!" I even put him as number 1 on my top 3 most evil movie chars list (you don't even want to know who I put as number 3!)

I mean, he does cheat in races, he lies, he steals and frames others, he picked on Balto, he kept stalking Jenna, he made the team get lost, attacked Balto mercilessly, is mean to his teammates, and nearly got the kids killed, but that last thing, maybe he just wasn't thinking. Egomaniacs can get pretty thoughtless sometimes. And none of the other stuff (except attacking Balto) is really valid to make him evil. As for attacking Balto, he did seem to be trying to kill him, but again, maybe he wasn't thinking.

Oh, man, now I'm even being philosophical about it! And I don't even have five stars yet!

Anyway, in my opinion, Steele isn't evil, he's just an egomaniac, thoughtless, a glory hound, a control freak, and a bully. But none of that is the same thing as evil.

I love how people with 5 stars make such thorough and philosophical statements on the forums. :lol:

As for questions of the term "villain" as applied to Steele, I'm not sure I agree; I find the idea of drawing a dichotomy between "villain" and "bad guy" somewhat hazy. It's probably not a point I would get into a long dispute over, but forums are for speaking one's mind, so that's that I'm doing.

So like I said. He can be evil by definition. But he's not evil. And he is not the definition of evil. He picked on Balto, and hit on Jenna, and was generally angry and frustrated. To be considered evil, he could have been out to get the residents of Nome, Rosie specifically to "get back" at Jenna. Hurting people was not his intention. (if you recall, he was trying very hard to get back) He wanted to be the one to deliver the medicine and get fame for it. And he didn't kill a bunch of people to make sure it happened. Would that have happened due to carelessness? Probably. But again, not his goal.

In my opinion, he's not necessarily evil. He's just an egotistical bully, and then he got his comeuppance in the end. x3

I don't tend to think too much about it. The movie needed an antagonist, and that's what his role was. xD

Personally, I find the term "villain" to imply the idea of evil much more strongly than "bad guy", which I think simply refers to the antagonistic group/character in a scenario. Aha! There's a word that just might work! "Antagonist". It doesn't necessarily imply much evil at all; it's simply the character working against the protagonist--in this case, Balto--in some way, shape, or form.

He's more of a bully used to getting his way I think, I doubt he's every really harmed any other dog (beside's Balto) but he does seem to have a temper when it comes to his ego.

It depends on who you're comparing him to. If you compare him to Johann from Monster, then Steele is a fricken innocent kitten eating a cupcake. If you compare him to Balto, he's just a bully and a bigot. If you compare him to Fluttershy from My Little Pony, then he's the devil (but oddly enough, he wouldn't even be the worst villain in the series either LMAO).

You can't be so narrow-minded to say "evil is evil, there's no grey area for evil". There is. Someone can do something bad and have good intentions (for themselves or otherwise). Those are some of the best villains. Someone who firmly believes they're doing good when they aren't. They mean well, but they will do whatever it takes to make their goals possible. Steele /could/ fall in this category. But does he? Well, lets do some analysis.

Let's look at "evil" as an adjective.

e⋅vil

1.) morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked.
2.) harmful; injurious: evil laws.
3.) characterized or accompanied by misfortune or suffering; unfortunate; disastrous: to be fallen on evil days.
4.) due to actual or imputed bad conduct or character: an evil reputation.

1.) Morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked. What did Steele do to constitute to be evil? When it comes down to it, peoples' ultimate argument (other than the ever-so-stupid "he picked on Balto" argument) was that he endangered the lives of children. Yes, he did. But was that his goal? No. His goal was to keep his fame an glory.

2.) Harmful; injurious. He did perform physical and mental harm. But only to Balto xD This doesn't count as anything to me. Mainly because Balto was equal to Steele. He was physically capable, he was mentally capable, he could stand up for himself. Bottom line, Balto wasn't helpless. Bullying someone who is capable of protecting themselves is not evil.

3.) Characterized or accompanied by misfortune or suffering; unfortunate; disastrous. Well, we don't know Steele's past. So could he be tragic? I don't know. The only evidence we get on the possibility is that his musher is losing faith in his own abilities. And he hates wolves. Hate (or anger) is derived from fear or hurt, or in other cases just pure disgust xD But we won't discuss that one. Many villains aren't simply villainous for the sake of being villainous. They have reason (whether logical or otherwise) to do what they do. The only reason we see Steele picking on Balto is because of his being part wolf. So perhaps a wolf did some harm to him or someone he knew in the past. We don't know. Just an observation.

4.) Due to actual or imputed bad conduct or character. This is mainly based on reputation of having done bad things again and again in the past. I'm not talking about the reputation at the end of the movie, because we don't KNOW what his reputation was at the end of the movie. We see the dogs getting peeved at him. Then he's left alone in the boiler room. Symbolism? Sure. But what I've said time and time again, what we SEE is what IS CANON for these characters. So as far as reputation is concerned, I'll talk about his reputation from what we see in the beginning of the movie. Steele had a positive reputation for the most part. He was loved by the ladies, he had fans, human and dog alike, and was seen as a hero. As far as we saw, the only person who was displeased with Steele from the beginning was Jenna. (Even Balto wanted to see the race, regardless of who was winning.) But thanks to the movie's wonderful writing, we never see why Jenna dislikes Steele (in the beginning). She could just not like him because he's egotistical (having an ego doesn't make someone evil). We don't know. You can guess all you want, but if you try to counter my arguments with stupid "well this could be this because of this" nonsense, stop. Stop. STOP. I don't want to hear your theories. What we SEE is what we KNOW.

So like I said. He can be evil by definition. But he's not evil. And he is not the definition of evil. He picked on Balto, and hit on Jenna, and was generally angry and frustrated. To be considered evil, he could have been out to get the residents of Nome, Rosie specifically to "get back" at Jenna. Hurting people was not his intention. (if you recall, he was trying very hard to get back) He wanted to be the one to deliver the medicine and get fame for it. And he didn't kill a bunch of people to make sure it happened. Would that have happened due to carelessness? Probably. But again, not his goal.

Theres a difference between pure evil and arrogance.