History Main / VillainHasAPoint

* The way Wrestling/{{Batista}} was treated after ''Over the Limit'' was particularly JustForFun/{{egregious}}, not the least because it happened on [[DownerEnding his very last night with WWE]]. He and Wrestling/JohnCena competed for the WWE Championship in an "I Quit" match that culminated with Batista giving up after Cena threatened to give him the Attitude Adjustment off the top of a car. Cena smiled -- and then went through with it anyway, nearly killing him! The next night on ''Raw'', Batista showed up (in a wheelchair) to protest Cena's actions and to threaten to bring a lawsuit against WWE, claiming them responsible for nearly ending his career. ''Raw'' General Manager Wrestling/BretHart then appeared and told Batista that he would be granted another chance at the WWE Championship if he could win a qualifying match against Wrestling/RandyOrton to be held immediately. When Batista pointed out, twice no less, that he couldn't even ''walk'' and threatened to quit if he continued to have him take the match, Hart rather rudely stated that Batista therefore forfeited. [[VillainousBreakdown Batista went ballistic and screamed at everyone]], announcing that [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere he was quitting WWE for being treated so unfairly]] -- and ''every single person in the arena booed him'', like they would any other crybaby heel. {{Kayfabe}} aside, it was a really disrespectful send-off for a wrestler who, for the past five years, had been second only to Cena in popularity.

* ''Literature/TheRavenTower'': Mawat's uncle Hibal is entirely correct in saying that Mawat is TheWrongfulHeirToTheThrone due to his HairTriggerTemper and arrogance and needs more time to mature before he'll be fit to rule. It's not the reason why Hibal betrayed Mawat's father and [[TheUsurper usurped the throne]], but even Mawat's closest friend privately concedes that it's correct.

* Undertow from ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaidIIReturnToTheSea'' is surprisingly insightful as he tells Morgana that she cannot keep trying to blame Ursula for her own failures, and asking Melody what kind of friends Tip and Dash are if they would abandon her at the first sign of danger. Even Morgana herself is quite insightful as she cruelly yet rightfully pointed out that it was wrong for Ariel to hide her mermaid heritage away from Melody, otherwise the latter wouldn't run away and hand over the trident to Morgana; even Ariel sadly admits to this following Morgana's defeat.

* ''Literature/TheRavenTower'': Mawat's uncle Hibal is entirely correct in saying that Mawat is TheWrongfulHeirToTheThrone due to his HairTriggerTemper and arrogance and needs more time to mature before he'll be fit to rule. It's not the reason why Hibal betrayed Mawat's father and [[TheUsurper usurped the throne]], but it's true.

* ''Literature/TheScarletPimpernel'': While the author, the Baroness de Orczy, clearly has little sympathy for the government of the First Republic and pretty much outright calls the ReignOfTerror a genocide, she admits that the pre-Revolution government was arbitrary and cruel to commoners to the point where revolution was in fact justified. Several moderate republicans are treated sympathetically, as are people who fought back against abuse by noble rulers.

If you want to ''[[AudienceReactions argue]]'' that a character was justified when they weren't intended to be, see AlternativeCharacterInterpretation, InformedWrongness, StrawmanHasAPoint, and UnintentionallySympathetic among others.

!This trope is [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=16798131930.03564800 under discussion]] in the Administrivia/TropeRepairShop.

For this trope to apply, the work has to directly acknowledge in some way, often via the protagonists' reactions, that the antagonists raise some legitimate points about the situation they and the protagonists find themselves in, ''without'' portraying them as ultimately justified in behaving as they do. If you want to ''[[AudienceReactions argue]]'' that a character was justified when they weren't intended to be, see AlternativeCharacterInterpretation, InformedWrongness, StrawmanHasAPoint, and UnintentionallySympathetic among others.

!!Administrivia/InUniverseExamplesOnly

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': In "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS3E19Choices Choices]]", Mayor Wilkins discusses Buffy and Angel's [[StarCrossedLovers relationship]] at length with them, pointing out that Angel's [[MayflyDecemberRomance immortality]], [[ImmortalProcreationClause sterility]], and CurseEscapeClause all mean that they basically have no real future together and Angel is keeping her from that kind of life. Buffy's mother later makes those same points, and all of it contributes to Angel's decision to [[BreakHisHeartToSaveHim break up with Buffy]] and leave Sunnydale.

* ''WesternAnimation/ABugsLife'': An antagonistic variation. When several grasshoppers question Hopper's motivations to bully the ant colony, he points out (after punishing the blabbermouths by death) that the ants have to be kept in line because if one of them recognizes the numbers advantage they collectively have over the grasshoppers, they'll turn on them without hesitation. He was right to worry, because at the end, they do thanks to Flik.

* ''WesternAnimation/OverTheHedge'': Gladys, the president of the HOA, is a horrible person, but she is dead right on the animals being out of control and wrecking everything. She just goes too far in her vindictiveness in tackling the problem.
* ''WesternAnimation/PussInBootsTheLastWish'': [[spoiler: Death's entire reason for hating Puss in Boots is actually very understandable. Puss is someone who squandered 8 of his 9 lives (which is ''far'' more than most people ever get) in incredibly stupid ways, and made a reputation on the fact he "laughs in the face of death", thus treating death like a joke, and treating his own life with little if any value. As a result, Death has decided to claim Puss's ninth and final life ''personally'', because he wants to teach the "arrogant little legend" two valuable lessons: 1; life is ''not'' a game, it is a valuable gift that is not to be wasted, and if you don't appreciate that gift, then you don't deserve to have it. 2; as the natural force of death itself, Death is ''inevitable'' and can never truly be bested, only delayed.]]

* VillainHasAPoint/{{Literature}}
* VillainHasAPoint/LiveActionTV

* ''WesternAnimation/OverTheHedge: Gladys, the president of the HOA, is a horrible person, but she is dead right on the animals being out of control and wrecking everything. She just goes too far in her vindictiveness in tackling the problem.

* In ''WebAnimation/{{Underverse}}'', [[spoiler:In 0.3 Part 2, X!Tale Chara makes the assumption that Ink is secretly helping [=XGaster=] come back and is merely using the other Sanses to achieve that goal. 0.4 shows he was completely right.]]

* In Season 15 of ''WebAnimation/RedVsBlue'', there's [[spoiler: Temple, leader of the Blues and Reds. While his [[DisproportionateRetribution retribution is a little extreme]], as he he unhesitatingly kills people with [[MisplacedRetribution very little to do with his grievances]], he definitely has a point that the [=UNSC=] and Project Freelancer used them as CannonFodder for a war that didn't even ''exist'', which resulted in him losing his best friend to a petty grudge between Tex and Carolina.]] He ''definitely'' has a good reason to be upset. Later, he [[WhatTheHellHero chews out Tucker and Simmons]] for treating their teammate Caboose like a baby instead of adult. Although he does this while mocking Caboose over [[spoiler:Church's death and revealing he's never coming back]] he does [[BrutalHonesty make a few good points]] that because Caboose is treated like a baby just because of his lower intelligence he can't understand basic concepts like [[spoiler:death]].

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'':
** While Ilia Amitola may be with the [[AntiHumanAlliance White Fang]] and support [[KnightTemplar Adam's]] extremism, she makes a valid point when she insists to Blake that humans either hate Faunus or [[BystanderSyndrome stand back]] and let the hate happen. Her words serve as a CallBack to Volume 1 when Velvet was being harassed by [[TheBully Cardin Winchester]]; although both Teams RWBY and JNPR all expressed disgust with Team CRDL's behavior and sympathy for Velvet's plight, none of them intervened to help her -- not even Blake. While Blake still doesn't condone Ilia's actions, she cannot refute her claim either. She eventually uses Ilia's point to chastise Menagerie for their [[ApatheticCitizens lack of interest]] in saving Haven Academy, pointing out that they're standing by and letting the hate happen, just like the humans they condemn, by turning a blind eye to the atrocities carried out elsewhere in their name. Ilia's decision to support Blake at that point galvanizes the rest of Menagerie to throw in their support as well.
** Tyrian is an insane serial killer with an insatiable lust for chaos and bloodshed. However, he's also extremely perceptive. When Emerald and Mercury argue about whether it's right for them to be working with Salem without Cinder, Mercury declares that this is the place where he feels like he belongs. [[spoiler:Tyrian correctly states that Mercury is just an abuse victim who is staying with Salem's team because he's terrified of leaving the cycle of pain and violence he grew up with. He then points out to both of them that leaving Salem is no longer their choice, so they better find a place for themselves or he'll be the one ordered to kill them... and he'll enjoy that.]]
** While Jacques ''is'' an evil douche, the one thing he always brings up as a huge concern is Ironwood's abuse of power. At first, this might seem more as a selfish thing since most of what he was doing was inconveniencing the Schnee Dust Company, but come Volume 7 and the dictatorial things Ironwood pulls gives Jacques some legitimacy, especially when he tries to get the council to throw him out. [[spoiler:By the end of Volume 8, everyone has turned on Ironwood for his abuse of power, and Ironwood ends up in a jail cell next to Jacques, who can't resist needling him about the consequences of it.]]
** In Volume 9, Jaune doesn't trust the Curious Cat, and believes the Cat to be a villain in disguise. In response to Jaune's accusations, the Cat needles his mental health. Later on, Jaune is forced to admit that he knows just how fragile his mental health really is. [[spoiler:The Cat also spends the volume perceptively pointing out holes and flaws in Remnant's situation and the heroes' fight against Salem. Their {{Armor Piercing Question}}s appear to accidentally contribute to Ruby's spiral into depression and despair, but it's eventually revealed to be intentional. Jaune's gut instinct about the Cat being evil turns out to be right; they've been attempting to attack Ruby's mental health and sow discord between Ruby and her friends in order to force Ruby over the DespairEventHorizon. They have the ability to [[DemonicPossession possess]] people, but only if they're an EmptyShell; the Cat needs to possess a Remnant native in order to reach Remnant and hunt down the gods, whose abandonment of the Ever After has driven them to both insanity and evil, and they believe Ruby's already-fragile mental state makes her the perfect candidate. While its made clear that the Cat's greater point about the Brothers is valid, their motives and intention are never condoned and are regarded as a tragically unfixable problem.]]

* [[[Wrestling/FergalDevitt Finn Balor]] and Wrestling/SethRollins have no love lost between each other, but it really didn't start until after the latter won the newly-revealed WWE World Heavyweight Championship. Seth injuring Finn, which forced him to forfeit the WWE Universal Championship alone would justfy his grudge. But, as Finn mentioned himself, it wasn't that Seth injuring him that made him bitter, it was that [[KickingThemWhileTheyreDown he laughed in his face after he relinquished the belt]]. Showing that he had no remorse for what he did. While he's become obsessed with rage towards Seth, he's not wrong to hold a grudge against the man who ruined his life.

** Former Chief Prosecutor Blaise Debeste (Bansai Ichiyanagi) from the second ''VisualNovel/AceAttorneyInvestigations'' is head of the P.I.C., the organization that is trying to strip Edgeworth of his prosecutor's badge. It eventually turns out that he [[spoiler:runs a black market auction to illegally sell evidence, is personally responsible for at least one murder and many others, provided Manfred von Karma with the forged evidence that resulted in his penalty (thereby causing DL-6 and the entire plot of the original Phoenix Wright trilogy), and is part of a conspiracy to KillAndReplace the president of Zheng Fa]]. However, when Blaise's fellow P.I.C. member Judge Justine Courtney cals Blaise out on not only calling his son Sebastian(Yumihiko) an idiot, but [[spoiler:emotionally breaking Sebastian by revealing that all his achievements were things that were given to him, rather than earned]], Blaise points out that Justine used Sebastian [[spoiler:to get close to Blaise to investigate him or his crimes]]. Justine admits Blaise has a point, but contends that she sees Sebastian's good intentions in spite of his bumbling.

* In Yanagi's route in ''VisualNovel/CollarXMalice'', when confronting [[spoiler: Zero/Saeki after discovering his true identity]], to point their point about revenge and how even someone as kind as Ichika would kill someone to protect her loved ones, [[spoiler: Zero/Saeki]] taunts her and asks what she would do if they killed Yanagi and her little brother right now and says that she could kill them right now to stop them. [[spoiler: Zero/Saeki]]'s point is proven when Ichika understandably becomes furious and nearly loses her composure and one option is that she could take out her gun to shoot them.

** Cinder is a sadistic sociopath with an insatiable hunger for power, but she has a dim view of Raven and believes that Raven is a monster for how she treated the Spring Maiden. It clearly strikes a nerve with Raven and when Yang confronts Raven in the next episode, she reaches the same conclusion as Cinder; this time Raven lashes out, defensively trying to excuse herself, which Yang then dismantles as hypocrisy. [[spoiler:The accusation is that Raven murdered the previous Spring Maiden, who trusted her completely; because of that trust, when Raven took Spring's life, she was the last person in Spring's thoughts and thus became the new Spring Maiden. She argues to Yang that Spring was too fragile and gentle to cope with the harsh world they lived in, so she conducted a MercyKill. Yang retorts that Raven is a hypocrite who is just lying to herself and not thinking through the consequences of her actions. By the time Yang has finished dismantling Raven, her mother ends up fleeing in tears.]]

** In Volume 9, Jaune doesn't trust the Curious Cat, and believes the Cat to be a villain in disguise. In response to Jaune's accusations, the Cat needles his mental health. Later on, Jaune is forced to admit that he knows just how fragile his mental health really is. [[spoiler:The Cat also spends the volume perceptively pointing out holes and flaws in Remnant's situation and the heroes' fight against Salem. Their {{Armor Piercing Question}}s appear to accidentally contribute to Ruby's spiral into depression and despair, but it's eventually revealed to be intentional. Jaune's gut instinct about the Cat being evil turns out to be right; they've been attempting to attack Ruby's mental health and sow discord between Ruby and her friends in order to force Ruby over the DespairEventHorizon. They have the ability to [[DemonicPossession possess]] people, but only if they're an EmptyShell; the Cat needs to possess a Remnant native in order to reach Remnant and hunt down the gods, whose abandonment of the Ever After has driven them to both insanity and evil, and they believe Ruby's already-fragile mental state makes her the perfect candidate.]]

** Tyrian is an insane serial killer with an insatiable lust for chaos and bloodshed. However, he's also extremely perceptive. When Emerald and Mercury argue about whether it's right for them to be working with Salem without Cinder, Mercury declares that this is the place where he feels like he belongs. [[spoiler:Tyrian correctly states that Mercury is just an abuse victim who is staying with Salem's team because he's terrified of leaving the cycle of pain and violence he grew up with. He then points out to both of them that leaving Salem is no longer their choice, so they better find a place for themselves or he'll be the one ordered to kill them... and he'll enjoy that. In Volume 8, he comments that it's extremely obvious Salem plans to destroy the world, and mocks his fellows for deluding themselves into thinking she wanted anything less. ''He'''s perfectly fine with it, of course, because he's so crazy that he ''likes'' the idea of Salem destroying the world.]]
** Cinder is a sadistic sociopath with an insatiable hunger for power, but when she learns that [[spoiler:Raven is the real Spring Maiden, she remarks that the previous Maiden likely trusted Raven closely, which was most likely a mistake. It clearly strikes a nerve with Raven, and for good reason; in the very next episode, Yang deduces that Raven murdered the previous Spring Maiden and took her power for herself, which Raven does not deny]].
** Despite Adam's [[FantasticRacism anti-human extremism]], [[WellIntentionedExtremist well-intentioned]] or [[NotSoWellIntentionedExtremist not]], his overall [[HumansAreBastards views of humanity]] aren't entirely unfounded. For as long as the in-universe history shows, humans have been treating Faunus as nothing more but animals to either be enslaved or to make monsters out of them. In the current time of the setting where the kingdoms are experiencing an incredible time of peace (Pre-Volume 3), Faunus discrimination is still at large, ranging from shops that refused to serve them to exploiting them for unethical labor practices. Considering how his ''Amity Arena'' bio describes Adam's past of him being forced to work as a laborer for the SDC and gotten branded with their logo [[FacialHorror on his face]], it's not hard to see where he's coming from.
** Hazel is the TokenGoodTeammate for Salem's faction, disliking needless killing and trying to avoid battles if it can be helped. But he's also with the villains because he has a [[ItsPersonal very personal]] grudge against Ozpin, who is the Salem's main opposition, over the death of his sister. This leads him to outright refusing to see ''any'' good in Ozpin's actions and partake in a lot of blame shifting towards him, despite his willing alignment with an OmnicidalManiac. When he gets called out on this in Volume 8, he elaborates on his motives. While there is a lot of self-serving rhetoric (a mix of the fact he can't do anything to [[InvincibleVillain Salem]] so he sees Ozpin as an easier target and her straight up lying about her plans), he does have one very valid condemnation of the man; Ozpin has been recruiting others into an endless war against an enemy he knows [[CompleteImmortality cannot be killed]], all while hiding the truth from everyone. As selfish as Hazel's motives are, he's absolutely right about this point, as the heroes [[BrokenPedestal turned against Ozpin]] in Volume 6 for discovering the exact same thing; Opzin doesn't even try to dispute Hazel's point, only insisting that Salem ''has'' to be fought because she threatens the entire world.
** General Ironwood's plan to [[spoiler: get Atlas as far from Salem as possible is part of his slide from hero to villain]] as it requires [[spoiler: abandoning Mantle and the rest of Remnant to Salem. While parts of his argument were invalid, some parts have turned out to be valid; for instance, he was right about not having enough time before Salem arrived to finish evacuating Mantle. He was also right about Salem prioritizing Atlas to obtain the Relics and Winter Maiden; aside from sending a single subordinate to Mantle to capture Oscar, who she needed to help access the Relic of Knowledge, her priority was solely on Atlas, the Grimm attacking Mantle noted to largely be ''stragglers'' from the main invasion force.]]

Supertrope of FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse and FreudianExcuseDenial, where it is argued that a character's DarkAndTroubledPast doesn't excuse their current action. Compare and contrast with:

!!InUniverseExamplesOnly

!!Examples: