The purpose of villains

All commendable stories contain a villain that the story whirls around. Villains serve various specific purposes depending on the story, but nearly all villains share a broad purpose: to ruin or disrupt the protagonists goal or plan.

Without a villain, the protagonists job would be too simple. Without a villain, the story would represent an "ideal world," which clearly no one lives in. By incorporating villains into text, readers have a chance to connect with one of the characters, whether it be the protagonist or antagonist. From a scientific view point, the earth has no true center that it revolves around, and therefore, the earth literally revolves around every individual. From a logical standpoint, humans are selfish and self-centered, and keep their own best interest in mind at all times. This concept ties in to the rational of one reading a story where the villain has robbed the story of its perfection and purity. As humans, we have only grown to know an imperfect world, therefore can only relate to such fiction. Without relation and similarity amongst the text and the reader, the focus and interest of the reader is lost, and thus the story is useless.