Heroine: Selene from Underworld
Villainess: Selene from Underworld
Heroine or Villainess?
Selene – Underworld (Wiseman, 2003)
Everyone knows I love the Underworld movies. The lead character, a female vampire named Selene has really captured my interest and my heart. Is she a heroine, or is she a villainess, or is she just an innocent bystander caught in the middle of centuries-old lies.
Selene is a Death Dealer, a heroine to her coven, a villainess to all lycans. For the past 600 years, her job has been to seek out and destroy all lycans, the immortal enemies of the vampires. Her only reason for hunting and killing is revenge for the destruction of her family 600 years earlier. Her centuries of training have taught her the lycans are responsible for the death of her entire family. Lycans are evil and must not be permitted to live. She never once questions this information. Selene is a soldier, she does her job very well, almost too well and after 600 years, she has finally begun to question herself and her devotion to this cause.
It all starts one evening while Selene and her fellow Death Dealers are following a group of lycans. She happens upon a human, Michael, and is immediately drawn into Michael’s human innocence. At that one moment she is oblivious to the war that is happening around her. She immediately catches herself and reminds herself what her purpose is…revenge…to hunt and kill all lycans, that is all, nothing else.
Selene easily dismisses this moment as some type of school girl infatuation and continues to investigate the whereabouts of the lycans. During her investigation she realizes Michael is more than just a mere human, he is the key to her salvation. He is also the key to the lycan’s salvation and they will do anything to get him, even turn him into a lycan.
While trying to keep Michael away from the lycans, Selene forms an unusual friendship with him. She has never known love. She has never let herself love. Unbeknownst to Selene, Michael has been bitten and is now a lycan, her immortal enemy, the enemy she has sworn to hunt and kill until the entire species is eradicated. Michael is completely oblivious to the lycan/vampire war and has no idea why a strange man would bite him or why a beautiful strange woman would help him. All he knows is he is in love with Selene. With the full moon approaching, Michael begins to notice signs of the change. He turns to Selene for answers.
Upon learning the truth about Michael, Selene sets out to find answers to all those questions that have been haunting her since meeting this mysterious man. She cannot bear the fact that duty implies she kill this man, this lycan, whom she has fallen in love. Digging into the past is forbidden, however, that does not stop Selene. She needs answers, now. Through research she soon realizes her entire vampire existence is a lie.
She is not the heroine her coven has made her out to be, she is a killer. The lycans did not destroy her family, it was the vampires, her own kind. They spared her life six centuries ago, giving her immortality and turning her into a warrior, a heroine to the vampires, a villainess to all lycans, including the man she now has fallen in love with.
Selene faces the biggest challenge of her life. Does she continue on her same path, live with the lies that she has been told and kill Michael, the only person she has ever loved? Does she defy her coven and leave with Michael, her sworn enemy, or does she save Michael and the rest of his species; thereby becoming a heroine to the lycans?
Selene’s love for Michael takes over and she ends up killing her mentor, her teacher, her vampire father. The man responsible for her immortal life, the man responsible for telling her lie after lie, the elder to her own coven. She, herself, is now the immortal enemy of her coven, a villainess to her own kind. Does this make her a heroine to the lycans?
