#1 The unworthy villain always survives
Villains who are seemingly stupid have been around for ages.
Nero burning human stakes.
Storm troopers who stumble around.
James Bond super villains with poor taste in furniture.
For a long time I thought, it was lazy writing. A caricature villain is easier to deal with. The hero and the audience has less moral conundrums in getting rid of such a villain. Events of the past few weeks have definitely had an effect on changing this impression.
I’ve been listening to the Dune audiobook and what stands out the most is the contrast between Frank Herbert descriptions of the protagonist family Atreides and the super villains House Harkonnen. The Atriedes family always seems be thinking about immense moral problems without right answers and the Harkonens are mere savages, with a singular goal in mind.
Despite savage, immoral, non savvy villains being quite Lindy, we don’t seem to have learnt our lesson from them or be prepared for them. We mock them and consider them below us and below our intelligence but these are the kind of villains that seem to survive. May be because of our pride, may be because we can't comprehend them, may be we operate on more (perhaps too many) morals and illusions than they do.
They are kind of like that virus that’s been going around. Unworthy of being called an intelligent species but reducing us to heroes without a narrative.