Frank Underwood does something almost no villain dares to do: he speaks to you. In the middle of a betrayal or a murder, he turns to the camera, looks you in the eye, and explains, in a Southern drawl and with a shark's smile, exactly what he is doing and why. He does not justify himself through trauma or defect: he chooses evil in broad daylight and makes you a witness — almost a partner — to every step toward power. That gesture, as old as Richard III (of whom House of Cards is a direct descendant), puts the oldest theory in criminology on the table — that of free will — and adds a disturbing twist: by making you his confidant, Underwood forces you to ask yourself why his choice of evil fascinates you rather than repels you.
// The theoryHe who chooses, answers
As we saw with Richard III and Satan, the classical school — Beccaria, Kant — built criminal law on a premise: the human being is free and responsible, and that is why what he does can be held against him. We do not punish the falling stone nor the sleepwalker who strikes; we punish the one who chose when he could have done otherwise. Underwood is that premise carried to its most shameless form. Everything in him is agency: he calculates, decides, executes, and claims authorship of each crime with pride. «Democracy is so overrated», he tells you, and in that phrase is a man who sees himself as the victim of nothing, but as the only one with the courage to do what others merely wish for. He is, in its pure state, the criminal that classical theory imagines: not a sick man nor a product, but a will.
What sets Underwood apart from other villains who choose is the fourth-wall device. By speaking to you directly, he does two things at once. First, he underscores his freedom: he is not trapped in the story, he controls it, comments on it, laughs at those who do not see his moves coming — choice as a form of power. Second, and more unsettling, he implicates you: he turns you from spectator into confidant, into a silent accomplice who knows his crimes and stays quiet, who admires his cunning, who almost wants him to win. That is the device's discovery: the theory of free will speaks not only of the criminal who chooses, but of us — of our fascination with the villain who owns his destiny, and of how easy it is, when he looks us in the eye and makes us feel clever, to slide from judging evil to enjoying it.
The freedom that power presupposes
The key that Underwood embodies is that responsibility depends on freedom — and that he claims it in full precisely because it gives him power. In his world, admitting that one is the product of circumstances would be a weakness; presenting oneself as the absolute master of one's own decisions is the essence of his strength. «The road to power is paved with hypocrisy and casualties», he says, and not as a lament but as a manual. Underwood turns free will into an ideology of triumph: those who fail make excuses about the system, bad luck, or morality; those who win, like him, choose without remorse. And there the theory bites its own tail: the very freedom that grounds responsibility — and that lets us condemn him — is the one Underwood displays as his greatest virtue. It forces us to distinguish between recognizing someone's agency (necessary to judge him) and admiring it (the trap his look at the camera wants us to fall into).
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// The subjectDoes he choose, or does the system choose him?
Here Underwood strains the theory in a way that Richard or Satan could not, because his stage is neither a medieval court nor heaven, but Washington — a real and recognizable machine of power. And that reopens the great debate of free will: does Underwood choose, or does the system choose him? On the one hand, his agency is undeniable: no one forces him to murder; each crime is a decision of his. On the other, the series shows with brutal clarity that the politics he inhabits rewards precisely his worst traits — unscrupulous ambition, effective betrayal, convincing lies — and punishes decency. Underwood does not offend against the system: he offends with it, using its unwritten rules, climbing a ladder that rewards vileness. The question is not rhetorical: if a structure systematically selects and elevates the Underwoods, how much of his «free» choice is his, and how much is the mold the machine rewards? The honest answer is neither «none» nor «all», but the uncomfortable one in between — he is responsible for his acts and he is the predictable product of a system that manufactures monsters like him.
Frank Underwood
// The crackAgency within the structure
The crack in free will, as we have already seen, is that the absolutely free agent barely exists: every choice occurs within conditioning factors — biological, social, structural — that tilt it. Underwood illustrates the structural conditioning with a sharpness that Richard did not have: his ambition does not spring from a void, it is cultivated and rewarded by an ecosystem of power. But beware the opposite extreme — using «the system did it» as an alibi that dissolves all responsibility. The sensible way out is the same as ever: the compatibilism that the law practices. No absolute metaphysical freedom is needed to hold Underwood responsible; it is enough that he had, as H. L. A. Hart argued, the capacity and the opportunity to act otherwise — and he had them in abundance: intelligent, informed, without coercion or disorder. The philosopher Harry Frankfurt refined it: we are free when we act according to our desires and approve of them, when we want to want what we want. Underwood does not merely kill: he wants to be the man who kills for power, he embraces it as his project. That full identification with his own acts — not a force that drags him — is what makes him, system or not, fully responsible.
And there is a second crack, the one his look at the camera exploits: the seduction of the villain who chooses. Like Satan in Milton's mouth, Underwood is so lucid, so ingenious, so self-possessed, that a part of us admires him — and there is the trap. To confuse agency (which exists and makes him responsible) with greatness (which we attribute to him because it flatters us to be his confidants) is exactly the error his device seeks to provoke. The theory of free will gives us the tool not to fall for it: to recognize that Underwood chooses — and therefore answers — without buying his story that choosing evil is a superior form of freedom. He is free, yes. And he uses that freedom to pave his path with corpses, while he looks us in the eye so that we applaud the work.
Neither structural excuse, nor the myth of the self-made villain
Underwood leaves two lessons that balance each other. The first: responsibility is real — he chooses, and no «the system did it» erases the corpses he leaves behind — and denying all agency so as to condemn no one would end up holding no one responsible for anything. The second, complementary: structures matter. If a political system (or economic, or institutional) systematically rewards vileness and punishes decency, it will produce Underwoods with the regularity of a factory — and fighting them one by one, without touching the rules that elevate them, is useless. Mature criminal policy holds both things: demanding individual responsibility and reforming the systems that select the worst. And there is a third, the most personal, which Underwood whispers in our ear: beware of falling in love with the one who chooses evil with style. His look at the camera is not an innocent wink — it is a test — it measures how much we are willing to forgive a monster so long as he makes us feel like his clever accomplices.
That is why Frank Underwood became, for better and for worse, the television villain of his decade: he embodied a cynical era that suspects power is always like this — and he invited us, with a smile, to enjoy the spectacle. The theory of free will lets us look at him with clarity: he is responsible for everything he does, because he chooses to do it; and he is, at the same time, the recognizable product of a system that rewards precisely his vices. Both things are true, and neither excuses the other. Underwood wanted us to be his accomplices. The best answer to his look at the camera is not to look away, but to hold his gaze without applauding — remembering that a man who chooses evil is no freer for doing it with talent, only more responsible.
Three key takeaways
- Free will (Beccaria, Kant) grounds responsibility: we punish the one who chose when he could have done otherwise. Frank Underwood claims it shamelessly, breaking the fourth wall to make us accomplices — the modern heir of Richard III.
- His novelty: he operates within a system (Washington) that rewards his vileness. He reopens the debate — does he choose, or does the machine choose him? A compatibilist answer (Hart, Frankfurt): he is responsible because he had the capacity and the opportunity to act otherwise, and he fully identifies with his acts.
- Two lessons that balance each other: responsibility is real (no «the system did it» erases the corpses) and structures matter (a system that rewards vileness manufactures Underwoods). And a trap: do not confuse his agency (which makes him responsible) with greatness (which his look at the camera wants us to attribute to him).
Sources · further reading
- Beccaria, C. (1764). De los delitos y de las penas.
- Hart, H. L. A. (1968). Punishment and Responsibility. Oxford University Press.
- Frankfurt, H. G. (1971). «Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person». The Journal of Philosophy, 68(1).
- Kant, I. (1785). Fundamentación de la metafísica de las costumbres.
Case-file questionsFrequently asked questions
¿Quién es Frank Underwood?
Frank Underwood («Frank») es un villano de House of Cards, analizado en KRIMINIS con la lente de la criminología. Frank Underwood, congressman and later president, murders, blackmails, and betrays his way to the summit of power — and he narrates it to you directly, breaking the fourth wall, with a conspiratorial smile.
¿Por qué Frank Underwood se convierte en villano?
House of Cards and the theory of free will: Frank Underwood turns to the camera, looks you in the eye, and tells you what he is about to do before he does it. He neither apologizes nor makes excuses — he claims his choice of evil. And by making you his confidant, he forces the most uncomfortable question of all: why do you feel complicit in a man who merely chose?
¿Qué teoría criminológica explica a Frank Underwood?
El caso de Frank Underwood se analiza desde la Libre albedrío. Free will is the foundation of criminal law: we punish because we presume the offender could have chosen not to offend. Frank Underwood carries it to its most shameless form — a villain who breaks the fourth wall to claim every one of his choices and make us his accomplices. But his case adds a nuance: he operates within a corrupt system that rewards his vileness, and that reopens the old debate — is his agency entirely his own, or the product of a machine that manufactures and rewards Underwoods?
