V fights Norsefire, a fascist regime ruling a dystopian England through concentration camps, total surveillance and terror. His cause is indisputably just. His methods are not: he murders his enemies one by one, blows up iconic buildings, psychologically tortures even those he wants to save. For positive deviance, V is the case no theory can close: the smiling mask behind which we cannot tell whether there is a liberator or a terrorist.
// The theoryWhen the cause is just and the means are not
Positive deviance holds that breaking an unjust rule can be legitimate. With V, the rule being broken—the law of a dictatorship—is undoubtedly unjust; in that respect, he is a textbook positive deviant. The problem is the method. The theory does not bless any transgression that carries a noble cause: it demands we look at proportionality, respect for the innocent, and whether alternatives exist. And V walks right along that edge—against a regime that leaves no legitimate avenues for change, yet with a violence that grazes (or crosses) the line into terror. His file is not an answer; it is the question turned into a character.
Alan Moore designed V precisely to deny us the verdict. He makes him admirable—cultured, brave, a defender of freedom—and at the same time unsettling—vengeful, theatrical, capable of manipulating with cruelty. The work refuses to tell us whether to applaud or condemn, because its thesis is that this doubt is honest: against a real tyranny, the line between the hero and the fanatic truly blurs.
The test almost everyone fails
V subjects the theory to its hardest trial: almost every terrorist believes he is V. The jihadist, the "patriot" gunman, the one who plants a bomb "for the people" all share his certainty that they serve a higher good against an unjust power. What separates V from them? Positive deviance responds with demanding criteria: is the tyranny real or imagined? are peaceful avenues genuinely closed? is the violence proportionate and does it spare the innocent, or use them as a means? V passes some of those tests and fails others—and that mixture is what makes him so disturbing. The lesson: the sincerity of the cause is not enough; the one who has the answer too clear is the most dangerous.
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// The subjectPersonal revenge beneath the political cause
V complicates his own case even further with an ingredient the theory watches closely: part of his struggle is personal revenge. He was a victim of the regime's experiments, and many of his targets are his former torturers. Is he a revolutionary who also takes revenge, or an avenger who wraps himself in a cause? The work leaves the doubt open, and rightly so: it is the edge where "positive" deviance can degrade into score-settling with an ideological alibi. That the cause is just does not guarantee the motive is, nor that the harm is justified.
V
// The crackNeither uncritical icon nor terrorist without context
V's biggest crack lies outside the work: his mask has become a depoliticized icon, used by causes of every stripe, often without the ambiguity Moore built. Turning V into a hero without shadow betrays the theory—it celebrates transgression-with-a-cause while skipping the uncomfortable questions. But the opposite crack, dismissing him as "just a terrorist," ignores that he is fighting a real evil with no legal avenues. The faithful reading is the one the work imposes: holding on to the discomfort. V is not exonerated by his cause—his victims and his methods remain—but neither can he be condemned out of hand against the backdrop of a genocidal fascism. He is, on purpose, a case with no sentence.
That irresolution is his genius and his usefulness. V trains us for the hardest judgment in political life: recognizing a just cause without signing a blank check for its methods, and suspecting our own certainty when we applaud the violence of "our side."
Watching the alibi of the "greater good"
V matters because he embodies the real dilemma of all resistance: when violent disobedience against an unjust power is legitimate and when it becomes terror with a slogan. Positive deviance offers no mechanical rule, but it does offer a method: examining the reality of the oppression, the exhaustion of peaceful avenues, proportion and the treatment of the innocent—case by case, without being swept away by the nobility of the rhetoric. In a world where each side calls the others "terrorists" and its own "liberators," V's value is to force us to ask those questions instead of picking a team. The mask smiles precisely because it has no intention of answering us.
"Governments should be afraid of their people," says V, and he is right. What the work—and the theory—leaves unresolved is how far that people, or its masked avenger, can go without becoming the very thing it fights.
Three key takeaways
- V is positive deviance at its most uncomfortable: a just cause (against a real fascism) and terrorist methods (murder, explosives, terror). The work deliberately refuses to hand us a verdict.
- Almost every terrorist believes he is V: the sincerity of the cause is not enough. The theory demands hard criteria—real oppression, closed peaceful avenues, proportion, respect for the innocent—which V only half passes.
- His cause does not exonerate him (victims and methods remain), but neither can he be condemned without context. The lesson is to hold on to the discomfort and distrust our own certainty when applauding "just" violence.
Sources · further reading
- Moore, A. & Lloyd, D. (1988). V for Vendetta. DC/Vertigo.
- Durkheim, É. (1895). Las reglas del método sociológico. Alcan.
- Cohen, S. (2001). States of Denial: Knowing about Atrocities and Suffering. Polity.
Case-file questionsFrequently asked questions
¿Quién es V?
V («V») es un villano de V de Vendetta, analizado en KRIMINIS con la lente de la criminología. He kills judges, blows up Parliament, uses fear as a weapon.
¿Por qué V se convierte en villano?
V and positive deviance at its most uncomfortable: a man who blows up buildings, kills and terrorizes against a real tyranny, and a work that deliberately refuses to hand us a clean verdict.
¿Qué teoría criminológica explica a V?
El caso de V se analiza desde la Teoría de la desviación positiva. Positive deviance recognizes that breaking the law can be legitimate, but it offers no formula for telling the hero from the criminal. V, of V for Vendetta, is that dilemma made flesh: a revolutionary who fights a real dictatorship with terrorist methods—murder, explosives, terror. The work deliberately leaves unresolved whether he is a liberator or a fanatic, and that is where the whole lesson lies.
