Nobody Thinks They’re the Villain
In real life, villains aren’t cartoon characters. Every side in a conflict believes it is justified — until history decides otherwise. This post explores how Sundial simulates those competing logics, revealing why escalation often feels righteous from the inside, not evil.
If only life were as simple as cartoons, where villains know they’re villains and wear it proudly. In the real world, things are far more complicated — and it’s to our detriment if we forget that.
Those we call aggressors rarely see themselves that way. They act within a logic that makes sense to them: defensive, necessary, even righteous. Take the First World War. Germany struck first, which makes them look like the aggressor. But to many inside Germany, the story was one of encirclement, of being forced into conflict before it was too late. To them, it was a war of survival.
And history fixed that perception in place because Germany lost. Victory doesn’t just end wars — it writes the story of who was right and who was wrong.
That’s the problem: every side believes it is justified, and only outcomes decide who ends up remembered as the villain. Sundial is built to model those competing logics, to show how conflict escalates not from cartoon evil, but from people convinced they are right.
Because in the real world, nobody thinks they’re the villain.
