History Main / SympatheticPOV

* In ''[[Franchise/SpiderMan Amazing Spider-Man]]'' Annual Vol 4 #1 "Ties that Bind" we are put into the [[ComicBook/{{Venom}} Venom Symbiote]]'s shoes from the moment it first wakes up in ''ComicBook/SecretWars1984'' and bonds with Peter to when Peter rejects it upon learning its alive in ''[=ASM=]'' #258 and it's genuinely a TearJerker. We see that Symbiote comes to utterly love Peter rather than just seeing him as "meat" and morover it begins to admire his heroism and desire to protect people. Its action of taking Spidey's body over as his sleeps which was sinister at the time in the 80s is instead framed as it just trying please Peter by stopping crime as he sleeps, it even puts itself in danger from both fire and sonic attacks, simply because Peter wouldn't hesitate and it wants to make Peter proud. Seeing its anguished thought boxes as Peter rejects it and has Reed Richards blast it off with a sonic emitter is heartbreaking.

* ''Manga/TokyoGhoul'' uses dual protagonists to achieve this, creating a morally uncertain world where both sides equally have positive and negative points. Ken Kaneki is a human transformed into a HalfHumanHybrid and forced to live as a Ghoul, providing a sympathetic viewpoint into their world and the struggles they experience. Opposite him is his WorthyOpponent, Ghoul Investigator Koutarou Amon, who provides a sympathetic view into the [[HunterOfMonsters CCG]]. This results in several occasions when the group the audience is rooting for can change from chapter to chapter, entirely depending on which characters the audience is following at the moment. The inability of these two sides to come to terms and communicate is a major theme of the series, with the relationship between the two protagonists driven by their shared desire to talk to each other. Fate, however, prevents this from happening.

* In ''VideoGame/SuikodenIII'', getting all your army's possible recruits by a certain point in plot [[HundredPercentCompletion unlocks a second playthrough]] of many of the game's plot twists from the antagonists' perspectives. [[spoiler:Though Luc ''still'' comes off as a whiny git, and anyone that would willingly team with [[CardCarryingVillain Yuber]] for any reason probably isn't a nice person]].
** There is a much better earlier in the game. From Hugo's POV [[spoiler: He comes home to find his village in flames. Than his best friend is cut down right in front of him by a knight.]] From Chris' POV [[spoiler: Her men are attacked at what was supposed to be a peaceful truce meeting and are forced to set a fire and escape though a village. On the way out, someone attacks her and she kills him before she notices that he is just a kid.]]
* The game ''VideoGame/TIEFighter'' applies this trope to the ''Franchise/StarWars'' movies: TheEmpire are the guardians of peace and order, fighting terrorists and Imperial factions.

* ''VideoGame/{{Iji}}'' has the [[StoryBreadcrumbs logbooks]] of the Tasen [[spoiler:and the Komato]], including such things as one soldier gushing about her girlfriend and another wondering if he has his gun loaded, because he thought he saw something big right around that corner. They show that not all of the alien soldiers you're killing are heartless monsters, after all. Some of them are, though.

* Used to great effect in ''VideoGame/YggdraUnion'' starting in the middle of the seventh chapter, where the game's GreyAndGrayMorality becomes blatant. This is the first point in the game where the important scenes starting off each battlefield are shown from an Imperial perspective, [[spoiler:and happens to be just in time to make the remaining generals' HeroicSacrifice moments considerably more poignant]].
* ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireIV'' allows the player to control the GodEmperor Fou-Lu, who initially seems like the EvilCounterpart of the protagonist Ryu and the BigBad of the game. [[spoiler: As the game progresses, it becomes clear that Fou-lu is a very sympathetic individual. Subverted in that the real villains of the game are ''far'' from sympathetic, particularly the obstensible BigBad Yuna.]]
* In the jump from ''VideoGame/Persona2: Innocent Sin'' to ''Eternal Punishment'' has this with Tatsuya's older brother, Katsuya. He's rather dislikable in ''Innocent Sin'', shown as a distant big brother who puts work before family. However, in ''Eternal Punishment'', he's a kind older brother who constantly worries about his delinquent, rebellious younger brother. What caused this sudden shift? The change in perception of course: in Innocent Sin you're playing from the perspective of Tatsuya, whereas in Eternal Punishment you're playing from the perspective of Maya Amano, who has JUST met him.
* ''VideoGame/MortalKombatVsDCUniverse'': The characters of both respective franchises, whether they be good or evil, see the other side as alien invaders trying to enslave their world. They all come to their senses at the very last minute.
* ''VideoGame/Halo4'': At the end of Spartan Ops season 1, Dr. Halsey apparently [[spoiler:decides to aid Jul 'Mdama's anti-human Covenant remnant]], but many people do sympathize with her. She was scapegoated by her superiors, denied information that John was alive, and is imprisoned in the very ship that she helped build. To top it all off, when she is captured by Jul 'Mdama's forces, [[spoiler:ONI refuses to let Lasky rescue her and orders him to kill her instead.]]

* ''VideoGame/ArmoredCore Nexus'''s Revolution disc features several brand new missions set in the universe of the original ''Armored Core'' trilogy, including ones where the player work for the bad guys of ''Project Phantasma'', the Doomsday Organisation. The text epilogues after completing these missions depict the organisation's members as believing they are doing the right thing for the survival of the post-apocalyptic world, and as being genuinely tormented by the devastation the player character has brought on their project.
* [[PlayingWithATrope Interesting example]] in ''VideoGame/SenranKagura Shinovi Versus'': playing the Hebijo Elites' story gives sympathy and insight into their personalities and motivations. But since [[AnotherSideAnotherStory the player's on their side]], they end up succeeding at their utterly unsympathetic endgame. It's only after playing the other stories, where the Hebijo squad are seen a murderous psychos, that their story is resolved without them crossing any lines.
* ''VideoGame/BeyondTwoSouls'': Done rather cleverly in "The Dinner". For most of the game you can switch between Jodie and Aiden at will to accomplish several objectives, making them a perfect team. In this chapter this interactivity is dropped so you control either Jodie or Aiden in sequence. Subsequently from Jodie's POV Aiden looks an obsessive stalker trying to prevent her from having her own life, while from Aiden's POV Jodie looks like she's intentionally ignoring the soul who can't help being eternally tied to her.
* In ''VideoGame/WeHappyFew'', Arthur is a genuinely nice and caring individual... in his own story. In Sally's he's a much more selfish and motive-driven jerk. The implication is he's still under the lingering effects of Joy, a drug that makes everything look nice, happy, and colorful, is even seeing his ''own behavior'' as better than it actually is.

* ''VideoGame/TheLastOfUsPartII'': [[spoiler: You spend the first half of the game playing as Ellie, who's trying to avenge her surrogate father Joel by hunting down his killer, Abby. After three days of this grueling trek, you finally find Abby... [[HalfwayPlotSwitch and then the game abruptly shifts into her POV.]] It turns out that she was hunting down Joel not only to avenge her ''own'' father, but also because [[VideoGame/TheLastOfUs he prevented her father from developing a vaccine to the Cordyceps.]] And then you spend the entire second half of the game as Abby to see how she spent the past three days, before eventually switching back to Ellie at the end. Many critics of the game claimed it waited ''far'' too long to start making Abby sympathetic, especially after all our time with Ellie ''and'' seeing Abby murder Joel.]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Nier}}'': central to the game's premise. The first time you play through the game, it's a straightforward plot of a hero saving his sister/daughter from evil shadowy monsters. The second time through you get plenty of scenes from said shadowy monsters' point of view, showing that very few of them are evil at all, and most were only defending themselves or their loved ones from the murderous psychopath relentlessly hunting them down (you). And to top it all off, [[spoiler:the "hero's" actions have doomed humanity to extinction]].

* ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfLS4nt5aQw First Person Goomba]]'' tells the life story of one of the classic Mario baddies, from his childhood growing up under Bowser's regime, to his life with his family, eventual drafting into the Koopa Troop, and [[spoiler: getting effortlessly stomped by Mario in the end.]]

* A key point in the earlier episodes of ''WesternAnimation/AeonFlux'' is to repeatedly deconstruct this:
** In the multi-part first season, or "pilot", Aeon is an assassin who slaughters a huge number of mooks, while Trevor, her target, cures an epidemic possibly by putting his own life at risk to create a vaccine. However, she comes across as "hero" and he "villain" entirely thanks to shot design and background music. The second episode depicts the bloody pile of corpses Aeon left behind her and has a dying soldier hallucinating in tragic manner in the last moments of his life.
** In the second season, "War" ''constantly'' switches the sympathetic POV between individual fighters on the two sides, each character's section ending with their death and a switch of POV to the person who killed them. Thus demonstrating that anyone can look like the hero when the camera's fixed on them and there's epic background music, even if they were just another nameless mook literally 2 seconds before.
* After the pilot episode, most episodes of ''WesternAnimation/TheDreamstone'' focused on Zordrak's mooks, the Urpneys and conveyed them as {{Villainous Underdog}}s to the Land of Dreams. The fourth season however gives Rufus and Amberley more equal POV, and conveys the Urpneys as more obstructively incompetent, causing more collateral damage for the Noops and Deconstructing their InvincibleHero streak due to the villains' schemes always complicating their job, making for a rare case the story switches from the heroes, to the villains, and then back to the heroes through the revised lens.

* In ''WesternAnimation/ThePenguinsOfMadagascar'', Skipper and his team were the heroic ([[GoodIsNotNice if somewhat crazy and callous]]) protagonists, while King Julien was a [[ItsAllAboutMe self-absorbed]] [[TheLoad nuisance]] at best and an IncidentalVillain at worst. But in ''Fanfic/MaroonedInMadagascar'' and its follow-ups, we see the penguins from the lemurs' point of view, which doesn't show the birds in the most flattering light, sans [[TokenGoodTeammate Private]]. They have a very [[FantasticRacism dim view]] of the lemurs and are even willing to take their belongings (like King Julien's plane) without the king's permission. Of course, Skipper's [[ImproperlyParanoid rampant paranoia]] and [[NobleBigot patronizing attitude towards mammals]], Kowalski's [[InsufferableGenius self-aggrandizing narcissism]] and Rico... well, being an AxCrazy psychopath are all well-established canonical character traits, but once they are no longer the focal character, their nobler traits aren’t as evident, while Julien and friends come across like the more sympathetic party (despite being no saints).

** Alya comes off as a poor friend at first, ignoring Marinette's growing resistance to her attempts to [[ShipperOnDeck set her up with Adrien]] through {{Zany Scheme}}s. She also films Chat Noir's LoveConfession and [[ManipulativeEditing cuts up the footage]] to make it look like Ladybug returned his feelings, blowing off Ladybug's reaction as DisproportionateRetribution and acting as though [[NeverMyFault she's being unfairly blamed for everything]]. The side-story ''I Owe You Every Joy of Love'' follows her perspective and reveals that while she's still a HorribleJudgeOfCharacter regarding Lila and her priorities [[SkewedPriorities are severely skewed]], she's actually more cognizant of her mistakes than she's come off as, and is grappling with a Moral Dilemma, as publicly admitting what she did with that footage could tank her blog's reputation.
** {{Downplayed|Trope}} with Adrien in ''Hearing Only Yourself''. Though his reasons for not acting on his newfound knowledge about [[spoiler:Marinette previously having a crush on him]] are presented as understandable, it's paired with hammering home how he's being completely '''un'''reasonable when it comes to his crush on Ladybug. There's also no signs of him having any kind of epiphanies about his poor behavior, even with Plagg spelling out how awful he's been. His second interlude, ''My World is Wishing Me Asleep'', further highlights his ItsAllAboutMe attitude and refuse to acknowledge on ''any'' level that [[NeverMyFault his own actions have contributed to his problems]], complete with him {{blaming|TheVictim}} [[spoiler:''PLAGG'' for being misused by Hawkmoth after Adrien lost his ring]].

* In ''Literature/TheOtherBoleynGirl'' Jane Parker comes across as a [[ManipulativeBastard vicious and manipulative woman]], who is sexually possessive to the point of giving false evidence that will lead to her [[StraightGay husband's]] death [[IfICantHaveYou because he doesn't love her.]] [[spoiler:He's beheaded on her word.]] Jane becomes a POV character in the {{sequel}} ''The Boleyn Inheritance'', and [[DownplayedTrope while still unpleasant]] her motives become more understandable. Though Jane is never likeable, she's definitely a character the reader grows to pity; it helps that she is tormented by guilt over her actions all the way through the novel, and also that she suffers from a bad case of [[spoiler: LaserGuidedKarma at the end.]]

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[[quoteright:350:[[ComicStrip/ThePerryBibleFellowship https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/farmerben.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:One story's villain is another story's hero.]]

* ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'' after 90 chapters focusing on them being villains the manga then shows things from the perspective off [[spoiler:Reiner, the Armored Titan's]] POV that show how [[spoiler:he, Annie, Bertolt and Marcel were chosen to be shifters and how they reach the island of Paradis.]] It also depicts [[spoiler:Marley, from the perspective of the Eldian soldiers forced to fight for them, showing them to be sympathetic people trying to make the best out of being a marginalised race. Things get taken up a notch when Eren and the rest of the Survey Corps arrive and attack Liberio [[MookHorrorShow turning the place into a blood soaked battleground]] and framing the people who served as the protagonists pre TimeSkip into a villainous light.]]
** Grisha Yeager and [[spoiler:his eldest son Zeke]] are also subject to this trope. In the flashbacks [[spoiler:introducing Marley]], Grisha comes off as sympathetic, [[spoiler:with the traumatic events of his childhood fueling his outrage over Eldians being oppressed and his hatred for Marley, and he is blindsided when his son betrays the Eldian restorationist movement.]] However, in the flashbacks from [[spoiler:Zeke]]'s POV, Grisha comes across less sympathetically, [[spoiler:having used Zeke as a pawn, and forcing Zeke to report his parents lest he be sentenced along with them.]] Finally, when [[spoiler:Eren and Zeke view Eren's childhood in the Paths]], we see that Grisha [[spoiler:regrets how he treated Zeke and chose to raise Eren better, to the point of putting Eren's upbringing ahead of his goal of finding the Founder.]]

* In the ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'' manga:
** The near-genocidal Ishval Massacre is told from the point of view of the invading Amestrian soldiers, the Rockbells (heroic war-zone doctors), and an unnamed Ishvalan Warrior Priest (Scar). Nearly all the Amestrian soldiers are shown as disgusted by the orders of the higher-ups, who are mostly remorseless bastards, to the point where about 20% of the Amestrian officers are killed by subordinates tired of killing innocent people. By the end of the volume everyone except the actual villains are traumatized. In one scene Alex Louis Armstrong, mainly a source for comedy relief, is shown having a nervous breakdown right on the field while cradling a dead Ishvalan child. In another, Basque Grand, one of the Alchemists Scar had previously executed for being a State Alchemist and one of the "heroes" of Ishval, confronts and kills his commanding officer when he refuses to accept the Ishvalan leader's surrender, all other soldiers present, including Maes Hughes, creating the cover story that their commander died via a "stray bullet" due to agreeing with Grand and wanting the senseless slaughter to end.
** This gets {{lampshade|Hanging}}d when Riza Hawkeye and Dr. Tim Marcoh tell their perspectives on the war to Edward Elric and Scar respectively. Riza tells Ed that if Roy Mustang succeeds in his goal of becoming Fuhrer of Amestris, once the internal reforms are completed, then ''everyone'' involved in the Ishval Massacre will likely have to face charges of War Crimes, Roy and Riza included, something Ed is highly against since he personally knows them as nice people and is aware the Homunculi were the ones responsible for orchestrating the massacre, Riza telling him that even if the Homunculi were the ones who loaded the gun, soldiers like her were the ones responsible for pulling the trigger. Marcoh meanwhile, even though he was forced to do so by the Homunculi, tells Scar about his turning Ishvalan's into a Philosopher's Stone that was given to Scar's ArchEnemy, Solf J. Kimblee, in the hopes Scar would kill him for otherwise slaughtering his people so the Homunculi can't use him anymore, only failing because Scar had already begun his HeelFaceTurn and stopped killing State Alchemists at random, settling for disfiguring him instead and [[DeathFakedForYou faking his death]] so he can atone by working with Scar.

* [[spoiler: Takashi Suguruno]] in ''Manga/SevenSeeds'' is shown to be very much in love with his wife and a family man, caring for his daughter, when we do not focus on him being depicted through Mark's or Ango's [=POV=], where he's more depicted as a SinkOrSwimMentor to the latter and a cold-hearted bastard who kills people without hesitation in the former's eyes.
* ''Anime/SCryEd'' features Ryuho, who is at first supposedly the villain, but throughout the show, both the characters have their heroic and villainous moments. [[spoiler:After Ryuho loses his memory and Kazuma goes through a masochistic phase, neither character appears to be the villain. This also happens to Asuka Tachibana, who goes from being a villain talking about his [[HaveAGayOldTime balls]] to a heroic, lone ranger]]
* ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaAs'' does this for the Wolkenritter. While they at first appear to be evil when their motives haven't been revealed, the narrative POV later occasionally changes and focuses on them, their past and such. Turns out they are just trying to save an innocent ill girl that showed them what a real family is like.
* In ''Anime/CodeGeass'', all sides' characters are shown sympathetically. Even though the struggle is LaResistance vs. TheEmpire, the Britannian royals, knights, and other soldiers are shown as lovable characters just like the rebels. Take Gino, for instance -- a [[{{Keet}} charming, sweet guy]] who fits right in with Lelouch's ordinary high school friends when he transfers to the school -- episodes after he was eagerly looking forward to wiping out a million rebels. This serves to promote the series' theme of forgiveness, that all people are just trying to live their lives and find success and happiness the best that they can, and that, as Lelouch says in Stage 4, "Your enemy is not people, but Britannia itself." It's a system like TheEmpire, which leads people like Gino to want to become killers and rewards them for it, that needs to be destroyed, not the individual humans who are parts of it.
* On the flipside, it seems that part of the ''Franchise/YuGiOh'' fanbase feels that the show's token [[DracoInLeatherPants leather pants wearing]] AntiHero Seto Kaiba would be a case of this if he were the main protagonist, owing to his DarkAndTroubledPast, especially since many believe the Pharaoh isn't any better and consider him a case of this trope.

* Zig-zagged in ''Manga/DeathNote''. Light is the WellIntentionedExtremist protagonist, but he is capable of getting quite depraved and insane. His opponents, which include the ICPO, the police, L, [[spoiler:and subsequently Near and Mello]], also do their share of morally dubious and illegal things in their pursuit of him.
* A large factor of the Magic World arc as a whole in ''Manga/NegimaMagisterNegiMagi'' From Negi's point of view, Fate Averruncus is a dangerous terrorist who is trying to destroy the world. When we see the matter from Fate's point of view, he's trying to stop some brat from interfering with his plan [[spoiler:to save over a billion lives]] in the only way he knows how. [[spoiler:Both are right, so they manage to come to a compromise, unlike the previous generation.]]
* It could be argued that ''Literature/{{Katanagatari}}'' is a traditional HighFantasy Chambara sword fights in eighteenth century Japan, but the SympatheticPOV is from the villains: It’s about the story of the {{Mooks}} who look cool for just a moment and are killed immediately by the Antihero. Togame is the Dragon In Chief who is thankful she was killed before getting a true chance to become the BigBad. Shichika is TheDragon. The BigBad was Shikizaki Kiki, the guy who organized all the plot. Princess Hitei is the {{Antihero}} and Emonzaemon is TheLancer. The EvilPlan was stopped. Japan’s true history was restored, and YouCannotChangeTheFuture.
* The second and third seasons of ''Anime/HellGirl'' swap out the original BlackAndWhiteMorality of the series for a BlackAndGreyMorality where neither the victims nor the antagonists are completely in the right. The second season's stories are told through the perspective of the main character Ai, who is in charge of investigating and carrying out vengeance contracts; and the third season focuses on Yuzuki Mikage, who through interaction with the victims and Ai's associates gets to watch her hometown and her life go completely to Hell because of the Hell Correspondence.
* ''Manga/TokyoGhoul'' uses dual protagonists to achieve this, creating a morally uncertain world where both sides equally have positive and negative points. Ken Kaneki is a human transformed into a HalfHumanHybrid and forced to live as a Ghoul, providing a sympathetic viewpoint into their world and the struggles they experience. Opposite him is his WorthyOpponent, Ghoul Investigator Koutarou Amon, who provides a sympathetic view into the [[HunterOfMonsters CCG]]. This results in several occasions when the group the audience is rooting for can change from chapter to chapter, entirely depending on which characters the audience is following at the moment. The inability of these two sides to come to terms and communicate is a major theme of the series, with the relationship between the two protagonists driven by their shared desire to talk to each other. Fate, however, prevents this from happening.
** The sequel ''seems'' to have done away with this at first, following Ghoul Investigator Haise Sasaki [[spoiler: (an amnesiac Kaneki)]]. The Ghouls the team hunt are fairly monstrous, leaving very little sympathy for their side of things. However, things begin to become complicated again as the story progresses. Old characters return to offer sympathetic views for the Ghouls, while several fairly sinister human Investigators are introduced to restore the balanced approach.

* The ''WebComic/TowerOfGod'' anime seems to go out of its way to show the internal struggles and external coercion [[spoiler: Rachel]] goes through before her FaceHeelTurn; much of the last episode of the first season is spent showing what was really happening from her perspective. This was downplayed in the original webtoon -- merely shown rather than elaborated, and without showing internal conflict -- and she became a major [[TheScrappy Scrappy]], even though the author was apparently not that unsympathetic to her.

* In [[https://archiveofourown.org/works/7407922/chapters/16825606 Enigma Boy]], Teronusuke is fighting against people more morally upright than him in the form of Scheggia. However, his POV presents him as misguided and guilt-ridden enough to keep the reader on his side.
* ''Fanfic/TheBridge'': The stories often has several chapters focusing on the [[{{Mook}} DarkHunters]]. Despite being villains, they are shown to be pretty sympathetic characters when not being villains.
* In ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/8793565/chapters/20159878 How the Light Gets In]]'', the author is upfront about her disdain for [[Series/{{Arrow}} Oliver Queen]] and this is reflected any time the [=POV=] is from [[Series/{{Supernatural}} Dean]] who openly hates him. However, sections told from the [=POV=] of Sara or Laurel show a more complex look, as they both see him as a friend despite being aware of his many flaws. The [=POV=] from Oliver himself portrays him as a man haunted by his failures, full of regret, well aware he treated Laurel terribly, and genuinely wants to do good, even if he doesn't succeed, ultimately showing him as a flawed but still deeply human character.

** {{Downplayed}} with Adrien in ''Hearing Only Yourself''. Though his reasons for not acting on his newfound knowledge about [[spoiler:Marinette previously having a crush on him]] are presented as understandable, it's paired with hammering home how he's being completely '''un'''reasonable when it comes to his crush on Ladybug. There's also no signs of him having any kind of epiphanies about his poor behavior, even with Plagg spelling out how awful he's been. His second interlude, ''My World is Wishing Me Asleep'', further highlights his ItsAllAboutMe attitude and refuse to acknowledge on ''any'' level that [[NeverMyFault his own actions have contributed to his problems]], complete with him [[UsefulNotes/VictimBlaming blaming]] [[spoiler:''PLAGG'' for being misused by Hawkmoth after Adrien lost his ring]].
* In ''WesternAnimation/ThePenguinsOfMadagascar'', Skipper and his team were the heroic ([[GoodIsNotNice if somewhat crazy and callous]]) protagonists, while King Julien was a [[ItsAllAboutMe self-absorbed]] [[TheLoad nuisance]] at best and an IncidentalVillain at worst. But in ''Fanfic/MaroonedInMadagascar'' and its follow-ups, we see the penguins from the lemurs’ point of view, which doesn't show the birds in the most flattering light, sans [[TokenGoodTeammate Private]]. They have a very [[FantasticRacism dim view]] of the lemurs and are even willing to take their belongings (like King Julien’s plane) without the king’s permission. Of course, Skipper’s [[ImproperlyParanoid rampant paranoia]] and [[NobleBigot patronizing attitude towards mammals]], Kowalski’s [[InsufferableGenius self-aggrandizing narcissism]] and Rico…well, being an AxCrazy psychopath are all well-established canonical character traits, but once they are no longer the focal character, their nobler traits aren’t as evident, while Julien and friends come across like the more sympathetic party (despite being no saints).

* In ''Film/LandOfTheDead'', the gas station attendant zombie gets peeved at the humans [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman shooting his fellow zombies]]. Because HumansAreBastards, he [[spoiler:succeeds in "leading" an invasion of the nearby human settlement]] and even gets his share of the BittersweetEnding, leading the "survivors" to the proverbial sunset. This sympathetic portrayal carefully ignores that no matter the humans' own savagery, the zombies are still ravenous, undead monsters who will devour the innocent along with the corrupt.
* In the movie (well, at least the remake) ''Film/TheLongestYard'', most of the protagonist's football team are self-confessed scumbags and degenerates. The viewers end up rooting for them because the guards are even nastier.

* ''Literature/AlphaAndOmega:'' The author uses this to avoid strawmen or hypocrites in this story. With the exception of Brandon, all of the characters are portrayed sympathetically, even the [[spoiler:initially]] anti-Semitic Grand Mufti. Lester Stark, despite not only being a fundamentalist Christian but a televangelist into the bargain, is given perhaps one of the most sympathetic portrayals of such a figure outside of Christian fiction.

** Notable in the novel ''Literature/TheTruth,'' in which the protagonist is a journalist who causes some friction with the City Watch (effectively the city's police force). The Watch had been portrayed in previous novels as likable good guys, but here they appear sinister and obstructive, even though they're just the same as they always were.

* ''Anime/{{Scryed}}'' features Ryuho, who is at first supposedly the villain, but throughout the show, both the characters have their heroic and villainous moments. [[spoiler:After Ryuho loses his memory and Kazuma goes through a masochistic phase, neither character appears to be the villain. This also happens to Asuka Tachibana, who goes from being a villain talking about his [[HaveAGayOldTime balls]] to a heroic, lone ranger]]

* In ''[[Franchise/SpiderMan Amazing Spider-Man]]'' Annual Vol 4 #1 "Ties that Bind" we are put into the [[ComicBook/{{Venom}} Venom Symbiote]]'s shoes from the moment it first wakes up in ''ComicBook/SecretWars1984'' and bonds with Peter to when Peter rejects it upon learning its alive in ''[=ASM=] #258 and it's genuinely a TearJerker. We see that Symbiote comes to utterly love Peter rather than just seeing him as "meat" and morover it begins to admire his heroism and desire to protect people. Its action of taking Spidey's body over as his sleeps which was sinister at the time in the 80s is instead framed as it just trying please Peter by stopping crime as he sleeps, it even puts itself in danger from both fire and sonic attacks, simply because Peter wouldn't hesitate and it wants to make Peter proud. Seeing its anguished thought boxes as Peter rejects it and has Reed Richards blast it off with a sonic emitter is heartbreaking.

** There is a much better earlier in the game. From Hugo's POV [[spoiler: He comes home to find his village in flames. Than his best freind is cut down right in front of him by a knight.]] From Chris' POV [[spoiler: Her men are attacked at what was surpose to be a peaceful truce meeting and are forced to set a fire and escape though a village. On the way out someone attacks her and she kills him before she notices that he is just a kid.]]

* ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'' after 90 chapters focusing on them being villains the manga then shows things from the perspective off [[spoiler:Reiner, the Armored Titan's]] POV that show how [[spoiler:he, Annie, Bertolt and Marcel were chosen to be shifters and how they reach the island of Paradis.]] It also depicts [[spoiler:Marley, from the perspective of the Eldian soldiers forced to fight for them, showing them to be sympathetic people trying to make the best out of being a marginalised race. Things get taken up a notch when Eren and the rest of the Survey Corps arrive and attack Liberio [[MookHorrorShow turning the place into a blood soaked battleground]] and framing the people who served as the protagonists pre TimeSkip into a villainous light.]]
** Grisha Yeager and [[spoiler:his eldest son Zeke]] are also subject to this trope. In the flashbacks [[spoiler:introducing Marley]], Grisha comes off as sympathetic, [[spoiler:with the traumatic events of his childhood fueling his outrage over Eldians being oppressed and his hatred for Marley, and he is blindsided when his son betrays the Eldian restorationist movement.]] However, in the flashbacks from [[spoiler:Zeke]]'s POV, Grisha comes across less sympathetically, [[spoiler:having used Zeke as a pawn, and forcing Zeke to report his parents lest he be sentenced along with them.]] Finally, when [[spoiler:Eren and Zeke view Eren's childhood in the Paths]], we see that Grisha [[spoiler:regrets how he treated Zeke and chose to raise Eren better, to the point of putting Eren's upbringing ahead of his goal of finding the Founder.]]

* This is the entire reason Rorshach of ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'' is considered an AntiHero and not a SerialKiller.

* An interesting case happens in ''Manga/FailedPrincesses''. When Nanaki Fujishiro suffers a BreakTheHaughty moment when her boyfriend cheats on and dumps her, Kanade Kurokawa, the girl Fujishiro had made fun of and looked down upon, comforts her. While Kurokawa comes off as a NiceGirl from Fujishiro's POV, it's revealed in Kurokawa's first POV chapter that she still hates Fujishiro, and thus wasn't quite as magnanimous as Fujishiro thought.

** This gets {{lampshade|Hanging}}d when Riza Hawkeye and Dr. Tim Marcoh tell their perspectives on the war to Edward Elric and Scar respectively. Riza tells Ed that if Roy Mustang succeeds in his goal of becoming Fuhrer of Amestris, once the internal reforms are completed, then ''everyone'' involved in the Ishval Massacre will likely have to face charges of War Crimes, Roy and Riza included, something Ed is highly against since he personally knows them as nice people and is aware the Homunculi were the ones responsible for orchestrating the massacre, Riza telling him that even if the Homunculi were the ones who loaded the gun, soldiers like her were the ones responsible for pulling the trigger. Marcoh meanwhile, even though he was forced to do so by the Homunculi, tells Scar about his turning Ishvalan's into a Philosopher's Stone that was given to Scar's ArchEnemy, Solf J. Kimblee, in the hopes Scar would kill him for otherwise slaughtering his people so the Homunculi can't use him anymore, only failing because Scar had already begun his HeelFaceTurn and stopped killing without impunity, settling for disfiguring him instead and [[DeathFakedForYou faking his death]] so he can atone by working with Scar.