From our special envoy from the Death Star,
A good half-day to (re) read the best pleadings of Acquitator Dupont-Moretti in addition to those of Jacques Vergés to give yourself courage. That’s what it takes to defend the indefensible. The design even claims an even more noble ambition: to celebrate the indefensible in all its splendor. Five years that we sold the same salads on the little kid from Bondy brought up like a communicant by loving and balanced parents, ready to leave his imprint as an enlightened despot on world football, Zidane and Pelé at the same time, and even a little Martin Luther King for the societal model. Truce of quackery: We arrived at the end of the vein of the ideal son-in-law, which the crackito of 93 understood before everyone else.
Between Anakin Skywalker and Walter White
Kyky knows how it works: the world needs all-new beautiful villains, cartoonish divides, Sandrine Rousseaux against Gabriel Darmanaux. So, helped by an entourage more talkative than a one-eyed magpie, Mbappé offers us on a gold-plated platter the duel of the next ten years: The miner from Mölde, simple and discreet, only obsessed with the number of fathers of families in Stoke City to humiliate next weekend, versus the rattlesnake de Bondy, aka Anakylian Swywalker, specialist in rants and dirty tricks of all kinds.
The comparison is very appealing to Aurélien Vives, Jedi specialist and superhero at a famous publishing house, who plays the game thoroughly: “Anakin is in Attack of the Clones that he takes the boulard. There’s a bit of the appearance of that ‘stop judging me’, ‘let me do it’ side, and where it’s a bit similar to Mbappé is that both of them are hyper aware of their talent. The parallel works very well.
For the ignoramuses of the saga Star Wars : Anakin is the cute kid with his wick over his eyes who becomes a bit boring in adolescence before falling on Nathalie Portman, immaculate in her merengue outfit. There we say to ourselves: “It’s good, he’s going to sign for Real Madrid and become the new idol of kids all over the world”, and then finally no, the guy prefers to take the black ball, heading for darkness with the filthy Palpatine .
Anakin was the child of prophecy, Mbappé was the little genius invested in noble causes, in stuff like that, to reflect on his influence on young people. There was this desire to send back a good image which made us believe that he was going to rehabilitate the figure of the hyper star footballer. But seeing him laughing on the sand yacht, for example, as a person with a strong ecological sensibility, I felt like Obi Wan facing Anakin: ” You were the chosen one ”. I said to myself ” no, not you Kylian, you were the chosen one! ””.
“He became a much tougher adult”
The disappointment is harsh, but has the point of no return already been reached? You know, that moment when the early hero develops such a dark personality that all trace of empathy disappears forever. Like Walter White when he decides his associate’s girlfriend isn’t worth saving, fans of breaking Bad. All things considered – we see you coming.
We launch François Jost, author of the book The New Villains in the American series (Bayard, 2015). “I was fascinated by Mbappé when I discovered him, and I still am! He wasn’t the average footballer, he was a philosophy student who gave to a good cause. Afterwards, he became an adult, a much tougher adult. At the beginning of breaking Bad, Walter is also a good guy. He has an incurable cancer, he only kills to avoid being denounced. But it is a founding act. From a moment, he only thinks about the consequences on him. He will kill just to avoid competition, we switch to wickedness, the detestable”.
Applied to the Mbappé case? The founding act is easy to find: the LFP Oscars ceremony in 2019, when the boy demands without warning “more responsibility”, under penalty of going elsewhere. Since then, it has been the permanent escalation, up to the almost pleasurable headlong rush of the last few days, which leaves so many possibilities for exciting achievements to surpass all the greatest villains of cinema, literature, sport, what you want. Do not hesitate to choose our best proposal:
It is still necessary that our franchouillard ego assume the prospect that the little Mbappé that we all loved (yes, yes) will become the most hated star of the next decade. After all, Kylian is a bit like France, and if we like to pass for big pretentious people abroad, it’s to better reveal our little fragile artichoke hearts.
Regarding Mbappé, there is still time to come out on top, reassures Aurelien Vives: “Anakin like Kylian, it’s the end of youth. He goes from adolescence, where we can give him the benefit of the doubt, excuse certain slippages, to an age when the benefit of the doubt begins to disappear… The lesson of Star Wars is that the dark side is not a one-way street. Vader comes out of it reconnecting with his son. Perhaps by listening to the well-advised members of his entourage…”.
Redemption still possible?
“A villain is not a monolith,” adds François Just. He has several masks, his job, his private life, the values he defends. One can collide with the other. Mbappé may be a sensitive soul in his private life, a good man, but his professional logic makes him mean. How to get out? In breaking BadJesse [l’associé] gives all his money to the poor, he feels he has redeemed himself”. Returning the money from the new contract signed at PSG to get rid of it, that would have the scent of redemption.
It is unknown if the player’s clan is ready to go that far. We are just surprised, reading our colleagues from the Parisian, that Kylian Mbappé plans to snub the Ballon d’Or ceremony next Monday if he is not on the podium, even though he does not even have ten bounds to go to congratulate his friend and team-mate from France Karim Benzema. In the big villain category of French football who fought for the big pardon, the Real striker looks like a unique inspiration, however.