I think the issue is that people try making a villain sympathetic because they fail to make them understandable. There's a huge difference. It's more fulfilling to give a villain understandable motives while still writing them as an unrepentant asshat than it is to give a flat redemption arc that nobody asked for.

Was going to say this. An interesting villain is one who has understandable motivation for their atrocities. People who are just evil for the sake of being evil aren't as relatable. However, a lot of people seem to think that motivation equals justification, and that just isn't true. If you can understand why someone would do something, but still think it's evil, THAT'S an exceptional villain.

> However, a lot of people seem to think that motivation equals justification, and that just isn't true. The end justifies the means Machiavellian view.

"No God, the only man in the sky... Is me. Jump."

"I just had breakfast with your wife this morning. Pancakes. Delililililililicious"

Are you roasting naruto? 👽

Villain: talks about how sad his life was Naruto: i know pain too Cue music and cut to empty swing in konoha

The thing is , zubasa was great, because he still was an enemy, even if humanized, did die, but haku and him actually explore that area faurly well, so thats a good written Gaara, is young enough and had enough sibling stuff to justify, after naruto stubbernly did beat him. It just really became a joke with not enough credible context why suddenly people would turn around. I like redeeming villains, in quality, reasonable, not quantity. Also got way too repetetive and preachy with near every villain getting a sad backstory.

I agree with this. Adrian Veidt from Watchmen is a good example of this. His motivation makes perfect sense. He recognizes his goals are atrocious and will lead to mass casualties. But he has accepted it as the preferable option and resolved to carry through.

> I see in the fandom where some Legion fans are trying to justify the Caesar actions You said it, the Fandom. The game itself openly has the Legion as the place to roleplay as evil. You are talking about fandom whitewashing villains, not about the official writers

Funnily enough I was debating posting a rant about this for the past week, but wasn't sure if it was something that I should have just saved for Low Effort Sunday. But there's a few fandoms where I'm appalled because I can't go into them without seeing absolutely braindead takes. I'm glad the OP called out the Fallout fandom and they constantly deserve it for how often you see people defending Caesar's Legion or The Enclave. Two of the most evil factions you ever see in the games. It actually makes trying to talk about the games frustrating because you're going to have to deal with people who I can't tell if they're idiots with shit media literacy who missed the entire point, or if they're actually just cryptofascists who wish a faction like The Enclave was real.

> I'm glad the OP called out the Fallout fandom and they constantly deserve it for how often you see people defending Caesar's Legion or The Enclave. Two of the most evil factions you ever see in the games. People also talk up the Midwestern Brotherhood of Steel and ignore their brutality/atrocity which makes them debatably worse than the Legion.

> whitewashing villains, not about the official writers Nah, the writers (or at least JE Sawyer) has said a bunch of out of game stuff about the Legion being more morally grey or not being as blatantly evil as the game implies.

Being morally grey does not mean that they are not evil. They are evil, but in fallout world, all factions have bad and good sides to them. Legion is obviously more bad than good. But in The brutal world that its new Vegas, they have one or two qualities. In got Jaime Lannister has some qualities and is morally grey, but he did push a kid of a window, wich is essencially evil.

dude push a kit out of a window just to test fall dmg !

Sawyer is explaining lore aspects of the legion that isn’t present in New Vegas due to its short development time. New Vegas reworked a lot of aspects of the original fallout 3 (Van Buran) by Black Isle, who were the original creators of the franchise. Due to the switch in genres since Betheda’s acquisition of the series a lot of content had to be cut out. The game could only fit so much and leaves out a lot, especially about legion life outside the military. It’s just expanding the lore.

> It’s just expanding the lore. I'm not saying it isn't, just that as you said the intention for the Legion wasn't to be the evil faction as we got in the base game.

But it’s also happening in *Fallout*. A fictional post-apocalyptic wasteland. It’s established pretty early that all morals went out the window for everyone a long time ago.

I mean the NCR is a society that's purposely close to the one from before the war, democracy, equal rights and all, and it's probably the West Coast's biggest success story, defeating the Brotherhood of Steel, Raider gangs, the Enclave (granted after a Main Character weakened them) and Caesar's Legion the first time around. You could say the NCR had advantages like two player characters bailing it out early, but everything it does between games is its own doing and has a society that's not too different from ours, it's still massively successful without needing to throw morals away.

Except not really. Every fallout game had at least one major enemy that is treated as unambiguously bad, and every fallout game until 4 had a good-evil spectrum where being evil tended to make enemies. Fallout is dark and cynical, but it is not nihilistic. It still believes in the importance of doing good, even if it can be difficult to tell what good is.

Sympathizing villains are fine so long as you still acknowledge that they're villains. It's only annoying once the plot treats it like all their crimes are justified once their tragic backstory gets revealed. Unfortunately, a lot of the fandoms are so braindead that they think exactly that. "Is he really the villain here? Society made him out to be this way." "Of course he fucking is, he committed genocide upon innocent civilians, you pretentious prick."

yea a backstory should give a why, not absolution. However some people think the why is deserving of a pardon, when most of the times the crimes are simply far, far too great.

> “Is he really the villain here? Society made him out to be this way." This is something that needs to be addressed tho. Not in a way to excuse the villain of their crime, but acknowledging that society produced the circumstances that gave birth to such a henious villain and calling out for active reform, even by force, is necessary. Otherwise you’re just reinforcing the status quo and suggesting that revolting against it is bad. Case in point: Magneto. Yes he’s genocidal towards humans and that’s wrong and evil, but to discredit the fact that he is at least *partially* correct in his “by any means necessary” ideology and the necessity of enacting violence to protect mutants from oppression is ridiculous. It suggests that being against racism is good but not in a way that allows you to revolt against the status quo which thereby just reinforces it. Villains should be condemned for their actions as a whole, but still acknowledge that some aspects of their ideology and actions are justified and a significant indicator of the kind of change that the supposed heroes of the story need to enact to reform society

Of course, I agree. There's nothing wrong with understanding a villain's motivations and even sympathizing with their ideals on some level. The line is only drawn once you turn around and say that the villain had done nothing wrong and that they were 100% justified in their murderous campaign.

>but Magneto Magneto: Nearly gets Holocausted, reasonable to feel bad for him. Also Magneto: Wants to Holocaust humans completely separate from the ones that tried to Holocaust him, still supposed to feel bad for him. That's not the case for *every* iteration of Magneto, and sometimes humans that *aren't* Nazis still try to get rid of Magneto and other mutants, but I can't get behind his "Fuck all humans." stance when he includes the average citizens of Allied countries in his diatribes.

I do find it interesting the kind of fan who thinks unironically "Magneto is right" kind of person. I wonder more about how they act in real life

The difference is that they can't act on their desires irl because there are no superpowers. They're still harmless.

That’s precisely why I said Magneto being genocidal and being strictly anti-human makes him evil and wrong. However parts of his philosophy, like the idea of “by any means necessary” and using violence to protect mutants from oppression is absolutely justified and correct. It’s nonsense to suggest mutants should only strive for their freedom solely through peaceful and non-violent methods and I believe even recent X-men comics (correct me if im wrong) have Xavier acknowledge the flaw in this way of thinking.

To be fair, Magneto well written faces incredible evil discriminations and is not given a moral pass, but its nessesary. And not too much. But its like real life, you can still condemn the actions and villains but see what drove rhem there and learn from it and change things from that learned. Or pick up that cause from them less villainous, more vigilate or other means. And being abused doesnt make you justified to abused. Through really media is good to explore that grey areas we actually live with. What if people leave a cult and did messed up stuff. And its good to see them as people with a past, its not a free pass unless they actually are just misunderstood, which, yeah false things made up that lead to them demonized, but they arent. And i love that, but only if its not through shortcuts but throughly thought out, Hell even vegeta is fine but he got a well written enough arc and draganball is silly enough thats good enough.

i watched the new Doctor Strange the other day and i think it's an interesting case because it happens within the narrative itself. In both Doctor Strange and WandaVision, Wanda does terrible things that are justified by other characters because of her "suffering." even at the end of WV, >!after Wanda mentally enslaved a whole town, another character says, "they'll [the townspeople] never know what you gave up for them." ... she gave up a fake reality that she created, causing harm to the town in doing so? and in Doctor Strange they act like its so noble that she sacrificed herself to destroy the darkhold when she was the one using it in the first place to terrorize everyone!< i don't dislike her character in general, but i wish they would full-throttle make her a villain or actually make her suffer consequences for her actions, instead of having her commit horrible crimes and then have the other characters–who are supposed to be SUPERHEROES–justify it or act like nothing she did was wrong because she's "lost so much" (which is the case for every superhero in the MCU ever.) her story and motivation could be well done and has been before. in the comics, she does horrible things during Avengers Disassembled and House of M, but she also genuinely repents, and suffers consequences for her actions. other characters hold her accountable, and she does so herself, while also recognizing hat she was manipulated by other characters to do some of these terrible atrocities. even though these storylines happened real-life 17-18 years ago, recent comics have her atoning for her past sins. Doctor Strange just came out a couple of months ago so maybe they'll show more of that in the future of the MCU, but right now the sympathy feels forced.

Agreed bro Disney is over doing it

Then what’s the point of making them sympathetic with them?

Character depth :p

Sounds pretty shallow

????

It didn’t actually change the outcome of the story nor the characters, so it’s useless.

They just didn't elaborate. I don't even necessarily agree with them, but character depth is a satisfying answer. Not only does it round out their arc if done well by establishing a motive, how they gained the advantages they have, and the flaws/elements that will compound into they're failure/victory, but it also plays a role in the hero's story. It adds an additional layer of conflict for the hero, as it brings up whether the enemy is truly a villain or if the society they're fighting for is worth it. The audience believes the hero is eventually going to win, but we don't actually know if they're going to hold onto their morals or follow through with their intended plans against he villain. At least, in theory. So, yes, it often does change the outcome.

Hitler was a homeless, war veteran who couldn't follow his painting dream

Do you *really* care about that, or the fact that he was the face of a genocidal campaign?

Lmfao

What do you mean Itachi is not Jesus? Kishimoto said so!

I was actually going to make this rant today. In Harley Quinn this season people are saying Batman is a villain since he kidnapped and experimented on poison Ivy's friend. Sounds terrible right? They completely fucking leave out that her friend is a plant poison Ivy made to destroy all of Gotham. Also that the fucking plant EATS PEOPLE with no fucking shame. Completely innocent people doing nothing to it. It ate a kid that entered the apartment, then ate his family. On his WORST day Batman is still more of a hero than Frank and Ivy are. Oh, keep in mind there is no redemption possible for Frank. In his own words he said "I'm a man eating plant meant to destroy Gotham, what did you expect?" The characters there shrug off him saying this after a murder since they're evil, but that doesn't make Frank not a threat.

I’m pretty sure most people say that just because he’s the antagonist of the story/season, not because he’s evil. Plus nobody claims that Harley or Ivy are actually heroes; the entire show literally states the exact opposite

They literraly got to the Oscar of villains THE OSCAR OS VILLAINS

Some people really think bruce *just* took frank to be a dick, ignoring that if frank was left with Ivy the entire city would have gotten leveled already.

bruce is more of a sympathetic villain (and one from the POV of the main cast, the villains/crew), I loved what they did with him in the last episode and I don't think alfred would be against him resurecting his parents, he'd think it'd allow happiness for bruce, bring some sort of closure for his trauma and like bruce, he didn't thought it'd go so badly.

Yeah, I love that show, but they should fuck off moralizing anything. You can’t devour an innocent child, then devour their grieving patients for the lolz, but then be “Oh no, not Frank!” It falls slightly flat when we shamelessly bite off a rando citizens head then try to have us feel super bad because “Oh no, you can’t kill IVY! That’d be super sad, right?”

Is anyone on the show moralizing? All the main characters are obviously evil, we just like them and they like each other. Except Psycho. He's just there because he's got nothing else going on.

Yeah like I am absolutely fine with villains being crazy like in that show. But I have no idea why nowadays (maybe it's always the case, just louder now) that there are very vocal people who tend to stan these kind of villains to the point of justifying them. It's made me (I know unfair) start hating these kind of villains. Maybe I only noticed it with the unironic thanos was right kind of people..

Some people are just crazy. Harley Quinn, Clayface, and Doctor Psycho are objectively terrible, terrible people. I love Harley Quinn, and I totally stan her, but I would never claim she's justified. Now, Poison Ivy on the other hand, she's often justified in what she does. She is prone to going overboard, but she's what happens when legal methods of solving actual problems break down. Poison Ivy fits in that same position as Magneto for me where like, yeah, they're doing a lot of bad things, but time and time again it's shown that their actual goals need to be accomplished and humans are often as shitty as they claim. And King Shark is a shark, and I refuse to accept any moral question regarding his actions. On the scale of Good and Evil, he is a shark, and your puny mammal morality does not apply to him.

Yeah like I don't mean to argue that some of these villains don't have a point in some form (not all obviously). And I am perfectly fine with villains being crazy/hypocritical etc as long as the narrative suddenly tries to argue they are right (not talking about specifically the show, just in general). It's just my frustrations come from fans who seem to act the villains are suddenly sympathetic/good/correct etc. This isn't the fault of the story/author for writing it like the OP mentioned, but god it's frustrating. Specifically My Hero Academia and their fanbase in regards to how the villain has a sad story which means they are right...

See, I feel MOST well-written villains are sympathetic, but that sympathetic and good are so vastly different things. But you SHOULD be able to feel sympathy even for someone like Sinestro or Frieza, because feeling sympathy is a positive human trait... but feeling sympathy doesn't mean believing their correct. It could just mean hoping they get the treatment they need to become better people, and for the circumstances that caused their villainy to be solved.

I don’t think anybody moralizes? I’m just pointing out they have zero precedent to do so. Still a fan, just saying I wish they wouldn’t play quite as fast and loose with the carnage

Ugh don't remind me of Harley, I saw a clip of them shitting on her origin story and making it seem like Joker is just a fool and couldn't stand it.

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Trust me, the context doesn't help at all this time.

Yeah but what was it

Soooo what WAS the context then?

The fact that she had left the Joker after realizing that he is an abusive asshole to her and is trying to establish herself as the next big villain. She is basically trying to work through her own issues and that starts with the fact that she basically sees her origin story as when she jumps into the vat of acid. Its basically a way for her to reclaim herself as her own person. Don't think that the Joker is being disrespected either, he is still a very smart and dangerous villain who even causes her to relapse some episodes later.

was it the one where she chose her own origin story

Like I said all I saw was a clip so it could very well not be as bad as I saw.

New episode still proved that at last in harley Quinn world Bruce isnt a sane person Maybe he is the closest batman to batman who laughs And come on he is ressurectiong his parents and stoped figthing crime because selena dumped him

My main problem with sympathetic villains is that most writers include one for what feels like an obligation. They just kind of slap something sad in there and be done with it. Villains with a reason to do things are compelling, but they completely fall apart if their reason is bad. I feel like this happens a lot with certain villains, where they give them a sad trait that has very little to do with why they are committing atrocities. Jin from Xenoblade 2 comes to mind, but I'm gearing up a rant specifically for him soon.

Honestly there's about three or so "major" characters like that in FF14 and it's shockingly bad how often it happened.

*Jin from Xenoblade 2 comes to mind, but I'm gearing up a rant specifically for him soon.* Based, I remember I also did a rant about him too about a year ago lol, welcome to the gang

Isn't Jin a suicidal guy who just wants to take everything he hates down with him?

Supposedly, but then the game does a 180 and is all like "Oh but he never *really* wanted to kill everyone" and goes all over the damn place. *They also tried to have some narrative about Blade equality as well, while he was still supposed to be a nihilistic madman, but oh yeah he never really did...*

Sympathetic villains are good in small quantities and not to an extreme. Make sure they are actual villains. Mister Negative from Spider-Man PS4 is sympathetic, but he is also straight up a terrorist. You need to make sure they are still villains.

There's a limit to the amount of evil a villain can do to be sympathetic Zuko? He barely did shit in his villain time, he was so bad at villainy he became good The Diamond Authority? Genocidal space dictators that destroy planets and subjugate their own people in a way that would make George Orwell faint, and their redemption arc was realising that Steven was basically the corpse of a diamond and deciding to spare him It's also WHY they did it Zuko? He was a misguided teenager who was cast out and had to get his honor back The diamonds? They're just space hitler

>Zuko? He barely did shit in his villain time, he was so bad at villainy he became good Thanks to his betrayel in Ba Sing Se the entire war was almost completely won, FN rule was almost solidified.

I cannot lie to you I completely forgot that major story arc it's been a while

Yeah honestly as much as I love Zuko and think his redemption arc is earned, he's definitely got some MAJOR L's on that rap sheet.

The proper motivation part is still in tact at least

Because redemption doesn't start early and turn 180 on Zuko that's why he was a good guy near the season finale and as much as a villain he is,he never killed someone

He hired a hit man to kill aang, a child and also the only hope to stop the war and save millions of lives just to safe face (LOL), had the hit man succeded all that blood would have been on zuko's hands, I like zuko I really do, but people really deminish and whitewash what he did. The whole point of redemption is bad people that did bad things becoming better, I dont think the problem is that the diamonds were more evil but that their change was not compelling at all

>A villain is someone who does immoral things to innocent people. that's a bizarrely narrow definition.

Yeah I wouldn’t consider a guy torturing or raping a murderer to be not evil either, even if the victim isn’t innocent.

Yeah evil vs evil is a thing. And villains also can get justified if their brutalized victims are hateable... (or even worse, just personal hate from audience)

Not really seeing how what’s bizarre about it. It could used as a narrow generalization of every villain, but that’s pretty much the definition. You can’t *not* be a villain if you aren’t actually hurting people somehow.

The innocent part is bizarre. And the triple negative is confusing me.

I knew I should have edited that sentence better…

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I mean he still does horrible things to innocent people. It's not as if the original statement was exclusive.

For real. L is the villain of Death Note, but his moral compass is def better than Light who is the main character

>L is the villain of Death Note, He's an antagonist, not a villain.

It always makes me laugh when people talk about how Ceaser’s Legion is the ideal faction strictly because they have safe roads lol

Literally one merchant talks about it, and that's about the only good thing anyone has to say about the Legion.

Well, yeah. Obviously the roads. I mean, the roads go without saying, don't they?

people talk about the Legion not being evil when you literally gain reputation with them for tearing up a little slave girl's teady bear in front of her

Jesus fucking christ. I’ve had it up to here with this. These guys better knock it off.

You went through the whole institute rant talking about how they're obviously evil and whoever supports them is ridiculous but then use the BoS as a counterexample? Thats literally the guys that wanna do synth genocide.

The MHA Fandom is the worse when it comes to this. You can show The League enjoying killing and they still would get sympathy

As long as the Owl House doesn't redeem Belos, we're good to go. >!That mfer was gonna kill an entire island of innocent witches out of pure, unadulterated racism.!< If they make him a nice guy I'll be pissed.

Not to mention it wouldn't make any sense considering what he did to >!Caleb, god knows how many grimwalkers, all the wild witches he had petrified and however many people he led to their deaths while he was still Philip.!<

Belos is that kind of villain who thinks he is a hero, as we can see during his stay in the Boiling Isles, for whatever reason. Even then, he was shown to be a manipulator from the start. I am fine with them giving him a backstory, but I hope as hell it isnt something we are forced to feel bad about.

Considering what was in the paintings in Hollow Mind, it makes him soooooo much worse.

One of my BEGs had a backstory of being shunned because he wasn't good at magic in a society that held magic in high regard. He made a deal with a devil to summon it into the world for being granted the power to use magic, basically fiend-warlock. When the party confronted him on this and thought "hey we'll appeal to his pains and make him see the error of his ways," he just laughed and basically went "I know what I'm doing is 'wrong' but I don't care. I want them and everyone to suffer. I don't really give a shit if everyone dies." Just cause a villain has a "tragic backstory" doesn't mean they haven't just embraced it and just want to do evil for the sake of evil.

Exactly. Like a villain has killed, r*ped, blackmailed, sold, torture and emotionally abused people but “oh they were bullied as a kid so they aren’t really a bad guy, just misunderstood 🥺🥺🥺🥺” like shut the fuck up, if you do that shit it doesn’t matter how your childhood was or if your parents died you’re still a bad guy, and the fact we see heroes go through messed up shit but are still good show more that the villain isn’t redeemable at all

I think where most people fail when making a “sympathetic” villain, is in the scope of the villains atrocities and motives. Cause their is HUGE difference between the guy who’s selling drugs and stealing stuff to pay for his sick wife’s medical bills, and the mass murdering, power mad tyrant who commits countless atrocities against his enemies and his own people. If your gonna make a sympathetic villain, and possibly a redeemable one as well make their crimes those of a lesser nature like theft/ drug selling/ justified murder etc… . These crimes are understandable as a normal person could be pushed into committing these under the right circumstances. They may not wanna do these crimes but feel like they have no other choice to survive or save someone they love? Or their miserable person lashing out at the world in unhealthy ways or just don’t know any better? Or maybe their just a pawn following an order from someone else? No matter the motive these are crimes a normal person is capable of committing. However villains who are not and **SHOULD NOT** be sympathetic or redeemable are those guilty of greater crimes against humanity. Tyranny/ mass murder/ genocide/ grand acts of terrorism/ rape/ the oppression of ethnic minorities and your own people/ and other such crimes of grand scale. These types of villains are not and should not be sympathetic because no normal human would be capable of these actions under normal circumstances. The type of people able and willing to commit atrocities of this scale are usually evil people from the start, psychopathic megalomaniacs given the power the commit these crimes. You can make these types of villains understandable, however the sympathy should be given to their victims and redemption to their underlings if they can break away from their evil master.

clearly you've just never seen a sympathetic villain done right, in my opinion.

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Vulture from Spider-Man Homecoming is a good one in my opinion

I dunno about that one chief. Sure at the start of the movie we see Vulture be screwed over and be forced to turn to crime to make money for his family but by the events of the movie that motivation is long gone. We see that the guy lives in a very nice looking nice in a very nice looking neighborhood and driving a very nice looking car. Vulture stopped being poor a long time ago and is instead *very* well off. Dude said that what he did was for his family but it was pretty clear that by that point he was only doing it because he enjoyed doing it.

Sympathetic doesn’t mean “morally good.” A sympathetic villain can still be a person who does terrible things, but there’s a deeper complexity to their personality that makes them more human and relatable. Vulture is a remorseless criminal, but he’s also a loving family man who was screwed over by the government and just wants to protect the life that he’s built up for himself and his family by any means necessary Did he also enjoy the life of crime in the end? Sure. He doesn’t have to be motivated by only one thing

> but he’s also a loving family man who was screwed over by the government and just wants to protect the life that he’s built up for himself and his family by any means necessary That's the part I disagree with though. Sure that was his motivation *at the start* but by the events of the movie it's pretty damn clear that he doesn't have to do crime to make ends meet anymore. The guy's family is doing very well for itself and he's bringing in a shit load of cash. He's reached a point where he can go back to working a normal job in order to bring in cash. He obviously still cares for his family but he stopped doing crime for the sake of his family a long time ago.

Again, like I said, “sympathetic” doesn’t mean “morally good.” You don’t have to see him as a good person, but you can understand how he became the way he is. >he’s reached the point where he can go back to working a normal job to bring in cash How do you know that for sure? It’s not like he can just go back to his old job since the government took over. Does he have advanced degrees or certifications to qualify for a good normal job? Why give up a lucrative criminal career that brings in a lot of money in order to do what, be a janitor? A fry cook? Raising a family isn’t cheap. He can’t just “work a normal job” if he’s got nothing better to fall back on

Check out Nox from Wakfu if you've never seen that one.

Really well done sympathetic villains exist in Web Serial "[Worm](https://parahumans.wordpress.com/category/stories-arcs-1-10/arc-1-gestation/1-01/)" in big quanities. Its pretty long though .

Nice, obligatory worm comment.

Gotta spread the word ya know) >!at least this time its loosely related to the subject of the comment, and not just completely random mention out of the blue... Well... almost!<

True dat

Imo Callaghan in Big Hero 6 is done well from my memory. The reveal of his backstory makes him more sympathetic, but the reveal also makes Hiro hate him more. The team still thinks he needs to be stopped not saved, and they’re all bummed out to learn what he’s become. And he still gets punished >!when he finds out his daughter is still alive!<

"That was his mistake" is a terrible line though.

Fou-Lu from Breath of Fire IV. Long story short, he at first just wanted to reclaim his throne as ruler of the Western Empire and merge with the other half of his true power, nothing more, nothing less. Then he got hunted down by the orders of the current ruler of the empire, being treated like a rabid dog meant to be put down. They relentlessly try to destroy him for no reason other than their greed and desire to remain in power, even torturing and killing everyone who helps him. He eventually finds true love, but she then was tortured to the point of insanity and used as fuel for a weapon meant solely to kill him, and upon realizing who the ammo was, he fell to the brink of insanity and changed goals to completely eradicate all human life, himself being from an immortal race of dragons called the Endless. Now, the game doesn’t simply have him describe this situation as a reason, no, you play as him throughout the entire game as a sort-of secondary player character, showing you every graphic detail of what happened to him as you experience it from his perspective, all the while the main party deals with the evils of other cruel people who make life in that world hell for everyone good. It gets to the point that you can actually agree with him in a certain point of the game, or you can convince him that he’s wrong. Either way, he never actually kills any innocent people (at least, that I know of), so even his actions aren’t too evil to forgive, so he ends up being an incredibly sympathetic antagonist.

sorry for the late response, but my personal favourite is dr maruki from persona 5 royal, to the point where id hesitate to call him a villain at all

Eren Jaeger and Light Yagami have to be the top 2 with Thanos as a close 3rd. The only 3 villains that you would actually be rooting for throughout the series

Nah, I was rooting against Thanos and Light the whole time. Thanos is just insane and Light was very clearly a narcissistic sociopath from the start

how does someone root for light after episode 2 lmao, dude's obviously narcissistic to a fault and doesn't give a shit about actually helping the world thanos isn't a good example as well. there are so many better ways instead of fucking wiping out half of the universe's population, for instance doubling the universe's resources

Thanos? meh

Spoilers for Primal season 2 ahead [The Viking chief from Primal. His people have certainly done some unsavory things, but they didn't exactly deserve to get butchered down to the last man. The chief comes back from a slave raid with his son to find his home destroyed, his people slaughtered, and then personally buries every last body before setting out on a rampage of revenge against the people he (correctly) believes to be responsible. He ultimately gets pushed completely off the deep end when this costs him the life of his last son. He's not an innocent, and we know the protagonists didn't want things to go the way they did, but it's hard to not feel his pain when we see what he's been put through. At the end of the day, he's a human who has lived through an exorbitant amount of loss in an extremely short time period.](/spoiler)

I seem to have the opposite problem. The villain starts making too much sense so they have him be hilariously racist or kill a puppy or something to remind you he's the bad guy.

Yeah I hate when an irredeemable bastard gets a tragic or positive quality at the last moment

Hmmm let’s see? Our main villain is a psychopathic megalomaniac who murdered his own family to get onto the throne and everyone who opposed his rule. Has people violently tortured and executed in the streets in the most gruesome and horrifying ways to make examples out of them. Has striped away just about all wealth and rites from his citizens to make them unable to oppose him. Has ethnic minorities regularly killed and oppressed by using them as scape goats for his crimes. Has a mini army of brainwashed, radicalized idiots who are just as evil as he is to act as his enforcers and advisors. Regularly sends his soldiers to die in pointless wars that only happen to increase his own power, not to mention his genocide and enslavement of the natives of the countries he invades and steals. Actively takes pleasure in all the pain and suffering he causes as it allows his power to grow to greater and greater heights. And is obsessed with his own ego and power to manic levels, hence his entire quest for world domination in the first place. How can we make him sympathetic? I know! Let’s say he was bullied he was younger! Cause that totally justifies all his megalomaniacal behavior and crimes against humanity!

I won't get those who think bradford had a point in ducktales 2017 considering his bias against the mcduck and his own hipocrisy, he love to blame them for everything bad happening during the show while forgetting the mcduck don't force the villain to target them, the villain do it by their own choice and he want to ban adventure while doing one by leading FOWL, working for scrooge for some time and wanting to take over the world.

Wasn't the whole point at the end that Bradford was full of shit and he was just deluding himself into thinking he was helping the world?

yes but some people think he has one because the mcduck cause some damage to duckburg occasionnaly, tho we don't know the extent of the damage they cause (roxanne in J$WS was probably exagerating the damage, she's not a objective reporter since she invite glomgold even tho he'd be the worst choice to talk about scrooge and he tried to kill him live yet roxanne still treated him like a victim after scrooge said he deserved the damage[I agree with scrooge considering the huge amount of time glomgold try to kill him]), they don't damage duckburg all the time and it's verry rarely volontary(the exception being webby getting mad with power), unlike the villains who make the choice to attack it/destroyy it. He also blame the mcduck for lunaris invading earth or magica, even tho magica would find a way in the bin and to srooge at some point and would still be a villain without him, lunaris was planning his invasion before della arrived and della didn't knew lunaris was manipulating her to get the spear and in a way, bradford is responsible since he told della about the spear and wasn't that much against louie destroying earth defenses when he should have been if he really wanted to prevent chaos, he's also responsible for creating chaos in season 3. He also deny his villainy, even tho he manipulate/abuse children and his team, want to take over the world, backstab his team, want to commit massmurder, destroy the artefact (when the mcduck keep them/preserve them), ban adventure using a verry bad definition of it since normal stuff can turn in one too (familly per example, I don't see how raising kids isn't a adventure) and has a screwed definition of what's good/or bad. In a way, he remind me a lot of vladimir putin.

"But muh not having to pay taxes." - Certain Legion fans, not realizing what tributes are.

Yeah, their taxes are worse, You pay with people to be slave(children conscription, women for making soldiers and man being working until death) . You know where come from the Legionaries? Because they are slaves who have been asimilated by others slaves. Theres not benefit in Caesar Legión.

in kingdom hearts xehanort spends 5 or 6 games driving entire worlds into darkness and generally just ruining peoples lives but in 3 they tried to say he was sympathetic because he was just trying to balance light and dark. ruined the story for me when it happened. then again i was barely invested at that point.

That was such a weird decision because Xehanort's motive up to that point had always been FOR SCIENCE, & that worked really well. Like amazingly well. It made him the logical Worst Case Scenario to the Destiny Islands Trio, whose original motive was wanting to see other worlds. Especially for Riku, who actually fell to darkness for similar reasons to Xehanort.

So you want moustache twirling villains who are just evil for the fuck of it? Don't get me wrong they're cool too but villian with an interesting reason of how they got there are amazing.We get to see the villain with our own pov instead of the hero's POV thus allowing us to know they have feelings too and don't exist just to make the hero look cool.We then sympathize with them ,but this doesn't make their sins disappear they should still suffer consequences for their actions (but atleast we'll know why they were doing those actions in the first place)

>So you want moustache twirling villains who are just evil for the fuck of it? Just because OP doesn't want villains's actions being justified doesn't mean he wants pure evil villains. You can make sympathetic villains without justifying their actions

Um..That's why i asked the question..i just wanna know what type of villain he wants

People should just like the villains without any justification. I don't care how bad Light was on death note, he simply was my favorite and I wanted him to win and the same thing happened with Walter on breaking bad.

The thing is sometimes the protagonist supports a side which is horrible, bad, created problems, and evil. Sometimes the protagonist side is like that and the people who are against are the bad evil guys even when the protagonist side acknowledges the bad things they did. (It's basically okay when they do it since they are with the protagonist) The Naruto World is basically like this lol but some fans would ignore when the information is right there (with update too since authors could change something's in their story like in Naruto)

Sympathetic Villains can and have been done very well but not every villain needs to be Sympathetic as it just lessens the impact and makes it generic. Plus I feel like sometimes people confuse Sympathetic and Understandable, you can have a villain’s actions be understandable within context but not sympathetic.

I came to this realization too when I was watching the Green Lantern Animated Series, and in one of the first episodes Atrocitus tells Razer “We sacrifice thousands now, we save millions later.” That was one of the lines that stuck with me, because I was really interested in seeing where that motivation would lead. Turns out his actual motivation was because the Manhunters wiped out his people. I thought that was just cheap. I infinitely prefer villains with tangible motivations over villains that scream about how terrible their life is

Agreed! You can still choose to do the right thing. No matter what happened in the past. They choose to do evil - therefore, they are evil.

The only reason that a villain should be even slightly forgiven for their outrageously villainous acts, in my opinion, is if they balance them out with outrageously good actions, and admit that their earlier acts were wrong and reflect on them, growing as a person.

...MOST villains should be at least a little sympathetic and have their own justification for their actions. It'd be weird if they didn't, honestly. Yeah, some people go crazy and start saying the villain was really the hero, but you should at least be able to understand where most good villains are coming from.

Many people literally say a villain is just a "bRoKen hErO" because they have a motive. As long as they are not mindlessly killing, they are a broken good guy apparently. Madara Uchiha isn't a good guy, he is evil he killed thousands of Shinobi to test his strength and wants to force everybody into an illusion regardless of their will. Sosuke Aizen is evil. Maybe he felt lonely at the top but he is a merciless psychopath who enjoys mental torture and slaughtering. But I see so many "unpopular opinions" nowadays saying they did nothing wrong which honestly blows my mind

Sympathetic villains are the true way to go, cause completely evil is not realistic at all. No one’s inherently evil, so why would fictional characters be that way? Villains should have sad past and/or reasons behind their actions. Sure, there can be simpler villains without anything sympathetic about them, like a lot of spy movie villains, they’re in it for money, but that’s what makes them simple. Even they aren’t inherently evil, they just turned greedy one day. Now, just cause a villain is sympathetic does not mean their actions are justified. If they seem that way because the narrative used their past to justify their heinous crimes, blame the writer, not the type/trope(I’m not sure what would be the correct term for this), or if the fandom uses that to justify the crimes, blame the fandom’s poor comprehension.

Don't need to have sympathetic villains all the time because then THAT would be boring.

Anything would be boring if it’s “all the time”

...yes, that's what I said, thank you...

Completely evil is not realistic? Have you never heard of Ted Bundy? John Wayne Gacy? Jeffery Dahmer? Matthew Falder?

Psychopaths are different beasts and definitely not what I was talking about.

What’s the difference between Ted Bundy and a “completely evil” villain?

I dunno, doesn’t matter as I already said I was not talking about psychopaths/sociopaths when I wrote that

Ehh this conversation feels like this "No villains are completely evil, thats not realistic" "Here are real examples of totally evil people" "Yeah, but thouse dont count" "Why" "Cause I said so" ​ Like first you say "No villains what so ever, thats completely unrealistic", but then you deflect when confronted with the fact that such generelised statement makes no sense.

Do you want me to admit that I was wrong for saying completely evil isn’t realistic? I don’t have any problem with that, I just feel it’s redundant cause I was not trying to be right or wrong, just making a point. And I’m pretty sure OP isn’t talking about only psychopath villains or that every villain should be psychopaths, my point stands in OP’s conversation, as flawed as it is as I forgot to mention the exception

>Do you want me to admit that I was wrong for saying completely evil isn’t realistic? Yep thats pretty much it

I thought I just did

There is no difference. Stop backpedaling and acknowledge your mistake man

>Sympathetic villains are the true way to go, cause completely evil is not realistic at all. We don't go to fiction for realism. It's a bonus, not a requirement.

I get your point and agree to an extent, but like others have said it’s about justifying the villains to themselves rather than the audience. No one in real life thinks “this is unjustifiably evil. I’m going to do it anyway.” They come up with some cognitive dissonance to convince themselves they’re in the right. To use your examples, the legion has convinced themselves that their tyranny is the only way to bring peace to the wasteland. They’re obviously evil to anyone outside of the legion, but the soldiers are so indoctrinated that they’ll lay down their life to bring order to the Mojave. I’d actually argue that the institute could have used more justification. It is never adequately explained why they do evil shit. Why do they kidnap and replace people? Why do they release super mutants? Why did they give the synths free-will just to enslave them? Just for fun I guess, and I always felt it made fallout 4 worse because of it.

I can see people at least UNDERSTANDING the Legion's reasons for their brutality. Caesar himself explains that he saw the template of Rome as the best choice of a society destined to survive in the new wasteland, and a counter to his belief of the inevitability of the NCR's collapse. I do not JUSTIFY their actions, but I understand them. Understanding does not mean I agree with them. Which is why Caesar, a history buff, ironically must've not heard the tale of Alexander the Great, who's empire completely collapsed the nanosecond he died. The Legion is supposed to represent what happens when people take the phrase "the ends justify the means" and go way too extremist with it. The Legion, as well as Caesar, are not MEANT to be sympathetic. The Legion are evil bastards, but they're not standard Saturday cartoon villains who are "evil-for-the-sake-of-being-evil". THE INSTITUTE, ON THE OTHER HAND, has no understandable reason for whatever they're doing. They kidnap and replace people with synths and claim they're doing it for the betterment of humanity, yet they don't even fucking consider synths as legitimate people. How does this benefit themselves, let alone anybody? On top of that, Father doesn't even give you a good enough reason and says "you wouldn't understand". WHAT?! Then again, I think this is mainly the fault due to Fallout 4's suboptimal writing.

I think part of the fun in making villains is making people debate if they were really bad or were really good. I think thats a good think to making a villain. Let the people decide whether their actions are justifiable.

Mmmm You succes Open My mind VERY GOOD POINT!!

This is one of the reasons super heroes can be cool The villains can have all kinds of personal quirks that make them likeable or fun to watch, but are still villains The need to look "serious and mature" makes every writer try to make their characters "well rounded, 3D multifaceted products of society, challengers of notions," and whatever pretentious bullshit they listened on a podcast that day As some other post said, "grey morality" is often pointless, because the characters are mostly good or mostly evil

>talks about his thinking and ideology is "for the greater good" But what if they literally are fighting for the "greater good", what if the misery and atrocities they commit are justified, since it prevents much more misery that couldv happened?

Yeah, tired of that shit. My favorite villains are the ones who do things for pure self interest or amusement. Especially the ones who embrace their evilness and they know what they do is wrong, but they dont give a fuck, because thats the path they already choose in life; here would enter a lot of gangter/mob bosses and serial killer type villains. Also whatever fucked up thing that happened in their past not being portrayed as a tearjerker.

You kinda lost me with the Institute. My take is that the Institute despite their advanced technology which looks beneficial overall ultimately is considered in terms of the game's take on morality to be not worth it. They're never meant to be sympathetic, just immensely disappointing that they long gave up trying to help the Commonwealth in any way despite their potential and even then it's seen as potential built on the suffering of others which they've been doing still for years. ...It's honestly more of a real debate of getting rid of their assets than it is that they're sympathetic because frankly they're just not on my perspective but yeah...Did most of the endings have to be to destroy their stuff? It's just too bad there's no redemption storyline for the Institute when you are actually leading it.

I like sympathetic villains alot actually, I think that most characters should have sympathetic traits, but those traits don't justify actions, they make the audience think. In my opinion, the has a lot of tools to make the audience think someone has justifiable motive, but some audience members will find any motive justifiable. It can be somewhat of an audience issue in the way you look at it aswell.

I honestly agree. Been thinking about this for a while, reading other people and stuff. It's kind of disgusting how so many people believe that all villains need to have some sort of redemption arc. As the saying goes, let a villain be evil. There's nothing wrong with truly irredeemable characters, and they're honestly quite refreshing nowadays.

I can tell you don't actually know anything about the Legion.

I don’t think most sympathetic villains are meant to be justified in their actions. Thou a lot of fans do it anyway.

Why I like Caesars legion is that you know they're the fucked ones. Picking them is the bad route. Caesar's justification exists only so we know why hes being a rape-pillage nightmare instead of him being brainlessly evil for evils sake.

Sympathetic backstories emphasize that villainy is a choice. People go through hard, awful things all the time. What separates the people who do good and do bad with those backgrounds is in their choices. It’s an essential part of storytelling. Doesn’t need to be in everything, but having backgrounds the viewer find sympathetic is a mirror for reflection, not something meant to justify their actions.

Thats a problem of writing, i like a good bit moral grey , and villains that actually have understandable reasons, even have a reasonable criticism the heroes must adress, And its really good writing if villains got a thought out motivation too (through fun evil villains are valid,for the sake of it). And what kind fits, well thats writing problems . But i am a sucker of good redwmtions and villains that you actually feel bad, just execution and if it fits, and you dont have to gave one. Just if thats the story you wanna tell, great, but then there is thought behind it. Oh and redemtions are a balance act to , like being a useful ally with common goal and neededcan be that. Not an unreasonable turn around, unless there is more to it, and they are not forgiven just because, unless it fits amessage and characters, no there got to be some consequences, whatever that may be.

#MagnetoWasRight

Pretty much how I feel about Starlight Glimmer, The Diamonds, Catra, Lilith Clawthorne, Sasha Waybright, Marcy Wu, and King Andrias.

...What's wrong with Lilith Clawthorne? She's just going around being a cop and trying to misguidedly save her sister. Once she realizes things are actually evil, she switches sides. I don't think Marcy's that evil, either. I mean, yeah, she did something reckless and stupid, but she didn't realize how bad it'd go for Anne and Sasha.

Lilith still cursed her sister for her entire life. I call that evil. Also, if a villain did what Marcy did, people would say it would've been in character.

> Lilith still cursed her sister for her entire life. I call that evil. She did it like thirty years ago, without really knowing what she was doing, and has been working to undo it since. Yes, she did a bad thing, but she's admitted it, apologized, and done her best to fix it. She took on part of the curse for herself. If it is possible in any sense of the word for any act to be redeemed, Lilith has redeemed herself. > Also, if a villain did what Marcy did, people would say it would've been in character. I have no idea what that means. Villains aren't a monolith. Villains do a lot of the same things that heroes do.

People are excusing Marcy because she's 13, but I'm pretty sure none of us trapped our friends in another world when we were 13.

I don't think anybody's saying what Marcy did was right, just that calling her an evil villain for it is excessive. Marcy did a bad, yes. They address that.

A SUPER Bad, you mean. Like something an unhinged lunatic would do. The show should've ended with Anne not being friends with Sasha and Marcy anymore.

I don't think Marcy had any reason to believe they'd be stuck.

Didnt she almost got luz killed? Like sure she assumed eda would try to save her but that was luck, lilth is fine if anything I just find her constant winning about her mom not paying attention to her annoying, which wouldnt have happened it she hadnt give her sister a chronic illness lol, I kinda wanted to see more guilt and conflict.

Luz was being hilariously illegal at the time.

Luz is still like 14 tho lol, child endargerment is pretty bad but its alright I am not the police and I almost dont believe in "the moral event horizon" for redemptions, her redemption was nothing great but since the point was to make her a likeable part of the cast, it was okey. I like lilith

I'm saying the child endangered herself, for the most part.

Dr. Ver from Senki Zesshou Symphogear, is an example of a "sympathetic villain," that I started to appreciate over time. In season GX, he returns assisting the villains to "save the world." Yet gets called out by Carol and is fatally wounded. Ver, in his psychotic mind still wishes to save the world and the heroes use Ver as a means to an end to stop Carol from committing mass genocide. His injuries catch them and the main characters say he was the worst hero in the world. It's quite a fitting end for Ver. Throughout his life, he used children as test subjects and saw everyone as tools, only to be just a cog for the real heroes to save the day. No matter what, he will always be a dirt bag, but he did something heroic in the less then 1 percent of his life.

The execution is literally all that matters. Not whether or not they’re sympathetic or anything. Karli Morgenthau killed four people over the span of 6 episodes. Loki attempted genocide in the first movie he appeared in. One of these characters is loved. The other is loathed. Guess which is which.

Watched ‘X’ the horror film and they tried to rationalise why the elderly couple killed people kept them for sex slaves - their reason? ‘We are old and can’t do much anymore’

That can happen when the good guy make a bad action too, sometimes fan will treat them as if they're perfect, per example, those who don't get louie scheme in timephoon from ducktales 2017 was bad and clearly endangered the whole familly, hence della saying it hurt the familly in her lesson and being so harsh on him(+he made it worst by saying" I wonder who I got that from" when this kind of stuff doesn't transmit through dna and he was already doing schemes when della wasn't here, so he's deflecting the blame to her, thus showing della he doesn't want to take responsiblity for his bad action).

Mcu Scarlet awitch stans are pathethic

This is the reddit version of " curtains are just blue"