This is one half of a dueling column. Read the argument for Grant Ward here.

Grant Ward is a villain, we say! And here’s why he must stay that way.

Murderous murder-y murder

Let’s not mince words here: Grant Ward is a cold-blooded killer. If you are skeptical as to the veracity of this fact, just ask Thomas Nash, Victoria Hand, or Eric Keonig.

Oh, wait, you can’t. Because they’re dead.

Because Ward killed them.

Ward’s many victims were not random men and women; they were not even villains. The people Ward has killed often trusted him with their lives, and Ward abused that trust in the worst possible way.

Ward was a snake in the proverbial grass, keeping himself safe in the shade of false trust while his victims – frequently unarmed and unguarded – had no chance at all to defend themselves against his treachery.

And what is almost worse is the fact that Ward exhibits no compunction or regret for the lives he has taken. Devotion to your mission is one thing; murdering people who trust you without a thought before or after is the mark of a seriously disturbed individual. Real men and women do not come back from that darkness, and neither should Agent Ward.

Also, the guy probably killed his dog with a sniper rifle. There ain’t no coming back from that one.

The blame game

Though we are loathe to credit the nasty, un-Clairvoyant Garrett with anything positive, we must confess that he hit on a crucial element of Ward’s psyche in last week’s episode.

“All these years, and you’re still playing the victim,” Garrett says, and his point strikes home. In spite of his myriad of dark deeds, Grant Ward is always looking for someone else to blame.

For proof, look no further than Ward’s post-HYDRA interactions with Team Coulson. Skye throws his betrayal in his face, confronting Ward with the consequences of his sedition, but he refuses to acknowledge his guilt. When he denies HYDRA’s intrinsic link to Nazism, when he insists that Skye will understand, when he is left with bewildered frustration when she refuses to expose S.H.I.E.L.D.’s secrets – these are not the behaviors of a person in touch with his misdeeds.

Ward’s language is similar when he chucks FitzSimmons out of the Bus on Garrett’s orders.


Once again, Ward refuses to own up to his actions. In his mind, tossing his friends out of an airplane is neither his decision, nor his fault; after all, he is under orders! “Have it your way,” he tells Fitz and Simmons, as though the blame lies with his uncooperative victims, rather than his own misjudgment.

On some dark, fundamental level, Ward cannot accept that he needs forgiveness for the things he has done. And unless he reaches that conclusion – which seems increasingly unlikely – it is impossible that he will ever truly earn it.

Cogs in a story

If you will forgive us a foray into the realm of meta, we must observe that the character of Grant Ward became a heck of a lot more interesting once we learned of his true loyalties. The character was frequently criticized as being rather dull, and though we were fond of him, it is fair to say Agent Ward lacked the spark present among the other agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

But all of that changed when Ward’s true identity was revealed. Through our shocked despair at his betrayal, we were forced to notice the enticing changes in the character.

Once unveiled as an agent of HYDRA, Ward shocked us with his decisiveness and cruelty. The latent rage buried beneath the veneer of S.H.I.E.L.D. bubbled to the character’s surface, sharpening his edges, and adding a despicably attractive glint to Brett Dalton’s eye.

We weren’t fond of what Ward was doing, sure. (See: Victoria Hand.) But it was painfully exciting to watch him do it. And that’s because Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. took a significant risk – and it paid off. The ultimate Good Guy was an ultimate Bad Guy, and the show’s commitment to that information injected amazing dramatic juice into the characters and story lines.

We posit, therefore, that Grant Ward is irredeemable from the perspective of the overall story. Ward’s function is that of a terrible person, but an excellent character. That excellence, we fear, would be invalidated by moves toward redemption.

After all, every story needs a good villain. And while Ward may not be the antagonist we wanted, he is most certainly the antagonist we – and the story of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – deserve.

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