Buddy Pine just wanted to be his hero's sidekick. As a boy he idolized Mr. Incredible, made himself a costume, called himself "IncrediBoy" and showed up to help; and his hero brushed him off with a contempt that marked him forever: "I work alone." That rejection soured his admiration until it turned into its opposite. Decades later, Buddy is Syndrome: a genius with no superpowers who hunts superheroes and dreams of a world where everyone can buy their own. His plan has a chilling logic: "when everyone's super… no one will be."
// The theoryThe lack measured upward
Syndrome's relative deprivation is peculiar and revealing: he has no shortage of talent —he is a brilliant inventor, perhaps the most capable being in his world—, what he lacks is the one thing he wanted and was denied: to be "special" by birth, one of their own. His genius does not close that gap, it underlines it; he can build any marvel, but he cannot build for himself the belonging that a childhood snub stripped from him. Like all relative deprivation, his is not measured by what he lacks in the abstract, but by the distance from a reference group —the superheroes— who looked down on him. Buddy has almost everything; what hurts is exactly what he does not have and they do.
What is disturbing is his response. Faced with the gap, one can try to rise; Syndrome chooses the opposite: to annihilate the category. If he cannot be special, he will make sure no one is —selling his inventions so that the gift stops being a gift—. "When everyone's super, no one will be" is the most perfect formulation of the dark face of envy that sociologist Helmut Schoeck described: not the desire to rise, but the desire to pull down, to destroy what one cannot have so that the comparison stops hurting. His false equality does not seek justice: it seeks to put out the light that reminds him of his shadow.
Rise, or level from below
Syndrome illustrates the two exits offered by the invidious comparison. Faced with the gap against someone who has more, one can try to close it upward —improve, demand opportunities, build— or close it downward, destroying what the other has until all are equal in nothing. Syndrome chooses the second, the resentful levelling that disguises itself as equality but is pure envy: he does not want the weak to rise, he wants the strong to fall. It is a decisive moral distinction, because the same language —"let no one be more than anyone"— can name a just demand for fairness or a destructive impulse. The difference lies in whether one seeks to raise the one below or to annihilate the one above. Syndrome always chose the latter.
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// The subjectThe scorned fan
At bottom, Syndrome is a humiliated child who never got over a "no." His wound is not powerlessness —he has immense power, that of ingenuity— but contempt: the moment his idol treated him as a nuisance. That is where everything soured, because spurned admiration is one of the most intense hatreds there is: no one hates like someone who loved and was rejected. And there is an irony that runs through half the gallery of this archive: Mr. Incredible manufactured his own nemesis. An arrogant snub, an "I work alone" said without thinking, created the man who decades later would kill superheroes one by one. Like Wakanda with N'Jadaka, the powerful one who scorns the one who admires him sows the enemy who will destroy him. Syndrome was not born a villain: he was made one by an idol who did not know how to look at a child.
Syndrome
// The crackEnvy or a legitimate question?
Relative deprivation explains Syndrome's resentment, but not his megalomania or his murders —there is an enormous leap from the grievance to the genocide of superheroes that the theory does not cover—. And an uncomfortable honesty is in order: beneath his plan beats a question that is not absurd. Why should power be an accident of birth? Is a world fair that is divided between a few "special" people by lineage and a majority who can only admire them? The film is cunningly ambivalent —some read it as a defense of innate talent against envious mediocrity, and some see in Syndrome a misguided democratic critique—. The honest reading separates the two things: the question about the justice of inherited privilege is legitimate; Syndrome's answer —to destroy instead of share, to kill instead of open up— is envy disguised as equality. Not everyone who questions privilege is Syndrome; but Syndrome uses that cause to cover his spite.
Telling fairness apart from envy
Syndrome leaves a political lesson in precision: relative deprivation can feed two things that look alike and are opposites —a just demand to close unfair gaps (open opportunities, share out what was being hoarded) and a resentful impulse to destroy what others have—. Confusing them is dangerous in both directions: branding every demand for fairness as "envy" silences real grievances; embracing as "justice" every desire to level from below blesses destruction. Good politics closes gaps by raising, not by razing. And there is a second moral, more personal: contempt manufactures enemies. A "no" said with cruelty to someone who admires you can come back, years later, with a plan. Looking carefully —even at the one who bothers you— is cheaper than fighting the villain he becomes.
Three key takeaways
- Syndrome embodies relative deprivation in its levelling face: rejected by his idol, it hurts him not to be "special" despite his genius. His answer —"when everyone's super, no one will be"— is the envy that destroys what it cannot have (Schoeck).
- He illustrates the two exits from the grievance: rise or drag others down. The same phrase can be just fairness or pure destruction; the difference lies in whether one raises the one below or annihilates the one above.
- The crack: the theory explains his spite, not his megalomania; and beneath his plan there is a legitimate question (is inherited privilege fair?) that must not be confused with his destructive answer. Besides, the idol who shows contempt manufactures his nemesis.
Sources · further reading
- Schoeck, H. (1969). Envy: A Theory of Social Behaviour. Harcourt.
- Runciman, W. G. (1966). Relative Deprivation and Social Justice. Routledge & Kegan Paul.
- Wilkinson, R. & Pickett, K. (2009). The Spirit Level. Allen Lane.
- Festinger, L. (1954). «A Theory of Social Comparison Processes». Human Relations, 7(2).
Case-file questionsFrequently asked questions
¿Quién es Syndrome?
Syndrome («Buddy Pine») es un villano de Los Increíbles, analizado en KRIMINIS con la lente de la criminología. Buddy Pine just wanted to be his hero's sidekick.
¿Por qué Syndrome (Buddy Pine) se convierte en villano?
The Incredibles and relative deprivation: Buddy just wanted to be his hero's sidekick. The contempt with which he was cast aside turned admiration into hatred, and the rejected child into Syndrome —the genius who wants to erase the category of "special" so that his lack stops hurting—.
¿Qué teoría criminológica explica a Syndrome?
El caso de Syndrome se analiza desde la Privación relativa. Relative deprivation explains the resentment of Syndrome, the villain of The Incredibles. As a boy, Buddy is rejected by his idol, Mr. Incredible; spurned admiration turns into hatred. His lack is relative —he has no shortage of talent, he has it to spare, but he was denied the one thing he craved: to be "special," one of them—. And his answer is the most toxic face of envy: unable to close the gap by rising, he decides to close it from below, annihilating the very category of the exceptional. "When everyone's super, no one will be" is destructive levelling made into a plan. Syndrome illustrates the two responses to the invidious comparison —rise, or drag the others down— and the warning that the idol who shows contempt manufactures his own nemesis.
