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Sympathetic Villain, Despicable Villain

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Most stories benefit from a good villain, but sometimes, writers struggle to decide whether the villain should be sympathetic, perhaps capable of reform, or a completely irredeemable, pure evil villain. This trope occurs when the writer decides "hey, why not both?".

When defining the sympathetic and pure evil villain, there must be a clear contrast between them. They may be Foils of one another, with either one's traits serving to highlight the other's traits. At first, the two villains may be working together, but as the story continues, one villain may be more hesitant to annihilate the heroes and destroy the world than the other. The sympathetic may be given a tragic backstory that depicts them as Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds to appeal to the audience. In contrast, the other will never sway from their position once, and will likely become the main, if not the only, threat. The sympathetic will be unlikely to help them in this destruction towards the end, usually either joining the heroes to fight them, fight the other villain without explicitly joining the heroes' side, or bowing out half-way through, leaving their position ambiguous.

The above is just one example of how a story may portray a sympathetic villain against a pure evil villain. Villains do not have to be working together. However, it is not enough that one villain act as a comic relief or be a Harmless Villain; they must clearly be designed to have a quality that audiences will like about them, making them worthy for at least a partial redemption. The vital constants of the trope are:

  • A villain clearly designed with more likeable qualities, usually achieved through a deeper exploration of their motivations that depict them as an Anti-Villain with human qualities and a capacity for goodness. This character evokes audience sympathy.
  • Contrasted with: A despicable villain clearly designed with little to no redeeming qualities whatsoever, which in itself can serve to increase audience sympathy for the sympathetic villain, as contrasted against this greater evil. This character evokes audience hatred. They do not have to be a Complete Monster, but they must lack redeeming qualities, especially when contrasted with the sympathetic party.

If you are still unsure whether your example qualifies, here is a list of common tropes that can apply to either party that help to render them 'sympathetic' or 'despicable':

    The Sympathetic Villain 

    The Despicable Villain 

If a Villain Protagonist is involved in this duo, they are almost always the sympathetic party. These types of stories may portray the sympathetic as not being as evil as they are made out to be, due to situational factors or whatnot.

And when a Magnificent Bastard gets paired with a Complete Monster, the former will always be the sympathetic one and the latter the despicable one.

A Super-Trope to More Despicable Minion, if such ends up being the pure evil party, and Vile Villain, Laughable Lackey, where the subordinate isn't inherently sympathetic, but are a far less dangerous threat nonetheless.

An important note of distinction from A Lighter Shade of Black: The sympathetic party of this trope must be likeable; it can't be that a Greater-Scope Villain appears and then renders the other party weak. This can make one villain appear slightly more sympathetic than the other, but they will still be unambiguously on the side of "evil". The sympathetic party must be designed to be sympathetic, and not just come off as such by chance.

Compare The Good, the Bad, and the Evil for when the two evil sides come to oppose the other. Compare Black-and-Gray Morality in a similar vein. Can overlap with Noble Top Enforcer, where the villain's top agent is comparatively noble, and The Starscream, where a potentially worse lackey of the sympathetic villain betrays them to become the pure evil. Can overlap with More Hateable Minor Villain. Compare and contrast Contrasting Sequel Antagonist, when the sympathetic villain and the despicable villain appear in a separate installment from one another. This trope can be achieved through the introduction of a Viler New Villain. Sub-Trope of Foil.

Not to be confused with Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain, where the villain is so bad at being evil that the heroes feel sorry for them.

Since a sympathetic villain's development and the potential reveal of a greater threat from the pure evil villain, examples almost certainly contain major spoiler grounds. Because of this, all spoilers are unmarked. Please proceed with caution.

Please only include examples where there is a clear and deliberate contrast between the two (or more) villains, essentially one treated as potentially redeemable and the other completely irredeemable. Do NOT include your own personal opinion if this is not supported by canon.

Examples

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    Anime & Manga 
  • Castle in the Sky: Dola at first appears as the sole villain in the story, as she and her crew attempt to steal Sheeta's necklace and she and Pazu must escape from her. However, their success in this impresses Dola, and she allows them onto her ship. She shows a kinder side and has a moment with Sheeta that shows they aren't so different. She is also shown to care deeply about her crew, who also doubles as her family. It is even pointed out by Pazu that she isn't as mean as she pretends to be. Muska is later revealed to be the true Big Bad, who wants to use Laputa's power as a weapon of war to conquer the world. His role as the despicable villain is further solidified when he murders the soldiers who accompanied him, as well as threatening to shoot Sheeta and Pazu. He is one of the only Miyazaki villains who is a complete Hate Sink with no redeeming qualities.
  • My Hero Academia: Done with the series two main antagonists: Tomura Shigaraki and All For One. Shigaraki, as a child, was born into an abusive home with a father who despised pro heroes and eventually beat Tomura (then known as Tenko) for his desire to be a hero. Eventually, Tenko reached a Rage Breaking Point and killed his father along with the rest of his family, leaving him homeless. Then he wandered the streets hoping someone would help him, but the people turned away from him telling him a hero would save him. And eventually, when someone did find him it was All For One, who groomed him to become a nihilistic murderer. Shigaraki now wants to tear down society for its neglect of him. Meanwhile, All For One is a narcissistic sociopath who was noted at birth to see the world as his to take. Growing up when Quirks first started manifesting, All For One lived only for himself and his brother that he saw as his possession. Eventually, he decided to become the world's greatest Demon Lord in order for the world to never forget his existence, believing that people remember bad times far stronger than the good. This is even reflected in how they treat their minions: Shigaraki sees the League as his True Companions, desiring for his fellow members to be able to live how they choose to, and is a Benevolent Boss despite their eccentricities. All For One meanwhile has no problem abandoning even his most loyal minions once they're of no further use to him. Even the heroes can see the contrast between the two, as while Midoriya wants to save Shigaraki from himself, even All For One's own brother believes that he is Beyond Redemption and should be killed for the sake of the world.
  • Moriarty the Patriot: Villain Protagonist William James Moriarty is on the sympathetic side, with all his Serial-Killer Killer My God, What Have I Done? guilt complexes, but he comes up against Charles Augustus Milverton, who causes people to slide into evil... for the fun of it. This contrast is sealed when Sherlock, the nominal "hero" of the series, doesn't hesitate to murder Milverton, but begs William to atone alongside him and risks his own life to save William's.
  • Pokémon: The Series: This is a recurring gag whenever Team Rocket, the series resident Goldfish Poop Gang, ends up coming to a new region and meets their local villain group. The Team Rocket Trio, at best, are incompetent thieves who wallow in misery trying to steal one measly Pikachu and never get anywhere in life, but the series has demonstrated time and again that things would be better for them if they gave up the criminal life and went straight — they do love and care for their Pokémon, and would draw the line at doing certain abhorrent deeds. However, Team Aqua, Team Magma, Team Galactic, Team Plasma, and Team Flare consist entirely of sociopaths and psychopaths (especially their leaders, notably Cyrus, Ghetsis, and Lysandre) who are out to reshape or destroy the world no matter who pays the price and will happily eliminate anyone who gets in their way. Even worse, they will use Pokémon (typically the Legendaries of each region) and force them to carry out their dastardly schemes, no matter how harmful it is. Consequently, the Team Rocket Trio will happily throw their lot in with Ash and company and team up with them to bring the Eviler than Thou villains down.
  • SSSS.GRIDMAN: Anti, Akane Shinjo, and Alexis Kerib play a rare 3-part variant on this trope, with the villains ranging from most sympathetic to most despicable in that order. Anti starts out as a Kaiju created by Akane to ruthlessly destroy the protagonists, only to end up pull a Heel–Face Turn after the latter's string of physical and verbal abuses wore him down in contrast to the heroes' acceptance of him despite his backstory. Akane herself starts out as a colossal misanthrope with little remorse for unleashing monsters on those who've wronged her in the slightest, but deep down, is just a lonely, manipulated girl who needs Gridman's help to escape the virtual world she's created. Finally, Alexis Kerib starts out as an Affably Evil father figure to Akane but is really just a horrible person who is manipulating Akane's emotions for his own sadistic ends.

    Fan Works 
Crossovers
  • The Mountain and the Wolf: For most of the story, the Big Bad is the Wolf, a Laughably Evil Large Ham who is genuinely friendly with some of the Westeros characters (even if they find his friendship obnoxious and overbearing) and whose dislikes tend to overlap with the audience's (most of those he kills are Game of Thrones villains). Then Sigvald the Magnificent comes along and takes charge of the Chaos forces, who is portrayed as a whiny Psychopathic Manchild with no real ability to lead but able to cut down any challenge to his authority.

Harry Potter

  • The Rigel Black Chronicles: Lord Riddle is bigoted, vengeful, personally and politically powerful, and altogether a dangerous man. However, after speaking with him several times, Harry is startled to realise that he actually has some laudable goals (rescuing society from a looming total population collapse caused by inbreeding) mixed in with his disgust of all things Muggle, and he cares about stability and public opinion. Meanwhile, the copy of his sixteen-year-old self that he magically preserved in a diary has all of the bigotry, none of the maturity, the arrogant self-assurance of a teenager, and fifty years of being stuck in a drawer while the magic that constituted its mind slowly deteriorated. Where Lord Riddle would like to steer and control society, the construct would be happy to just burn it all down to "cleanse" the world.

Miraculous Ladybug

  • Volpimania presents Hawkmoth as far more sympathetic than Volpina; while he's the one who empowered her in the first place, even he is horrified by the lengths she's willing to go in order to satisfy her vendetta against Ladybug and the other heroes. Unfortunately, he's also unable to reverse the results of her rampage.

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

RWBY

  • Null: Jaune Arc, in his quest to save all of his missing family members, overall faces off against two very powerful conspiracy leaders who have a lot of sway and influence across Remnant: Matthew Fields (who kidnapped Jaune and his family to be experimented on, and still ruthlessly uses his influence to hunt Jaune in the hopes of recapturing him), and Ozpin (who re-kidnaps Jaune's youngest sister Amber Arc for his own ends, seeks Jaune's death so that the latter can't reclaim her, and turns his back on his allies and his own student when the latter is in nightmarish peril).
    • Fields (Despicable) is a Corrupt Corporate Executive without any real empathy, running a Government Conspiracy that kidnaps hundreds of people, mercilessly uses them like livestock and lab rats while experimenting on them to replicate their Semblances or Silver Eyes, and then kills them or uses them as breeding stock for child experiments. Furthermore, Fields is planning to "solve" the socio-political problems of Faunus racism and the White Fang by covertly committing total genocide against the Faunus via Remnant-wide forced sterilization.
    • Ozpin (Sympathetic), though he's easily one of the most callous and despicable incarnations of the character that author Coeur Al'Aran has ever written; is ultimately acting because he's desperate beyond human comprehension to bring his Forever War against Salem, which he's fought for millennia in the defence of all humanity, to a permanent end, and he's discovered that Amber has a unique Semblance which he believes can accomplish that by nullifying Salem's Complete Immortality. Ozpin also knows that Jaune will never join him nor allow Ozpin to groom Amber into a weapon, so he figures that Jaune has to die.

Undertale

  • Dusttale: Chara is the despicable villain who has killed every monster in the Underground multiple times and wants to do so forever and ever for sick, tiwsted amusement. Sans is the sympathetic villain driven mad by having remembered the countless Genocide Runs in which everyone he cared about was killed, and decides to stop Chara by killing everyone himself and taking their power, hoping to get powerful enough to stop Chara.

    Films — Animation 
  • Aladdin and the King of Thieves: Cassim is the initial King of the Forty Thieves, but he is Trapped in Villainy and is redeemed by his son Aladdin, eventually choosing to give up the Midas Hand when put into a Friend-or-Idol Decision. However, his Starscream Sa'luk lacks these humanizing traits and is nothing more than a violent thug who happily betrays his fellow thieves to take over the remains of the gang.
  • The Bad Guys (2022): The titular gang of criminals are Noble Demons who only steal high-value items and never try to actively harm anyone. They also are only evil because they were stereotyped into being so. This is why it's easy for all of them to pull a Heel–Face Turn. Professor Marmalade, on the other hand, is the real villain, as he is a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who uses the negative stereotypes associated with the gang to manipulate the public into making himself look heroic, and is willing to stoop to lows that horrify The Bad Guys, which ultimately makes them the ones to put an end to Marmalade's plans.
  • Chicken Run: Mr. and Mrs. Tweedy are the two main villains of the movie. Mrs. Tweedy is mostly evil because she kills chickens when they don't lay eggs anymore and attempts to turn them into chicken pies. Mr. Tweedy is more sympathetic because he gets abused by his wife and she never believes him about the chickens being organized. He eventually stands his ground against her and crushes her with the barn wall.
  • The Magic Roundabout (2005): The two antagonists are the evil ice wizard Zeebad, and his Noble Top Enforcer Soldier Sam. Sam isn't inherently malicious, balks when ordered to do some particularly reprehensible things, and he's been manipulated by Zeebad into believing the MacGuffins which he's helping Zeebad claim are the latter's property. Zeebad on the other hand is a Card-Carrying Villain who revels in hurting others at every opportunity, he wants to engulf the Earth in eternal winter by freezing the sun and cares for absolutely no one but himself at the day's end. Ultimately, Zeebad cruelly leaves an injured Sam to die alone in a frozen waste (rubbing the fact in Sam's face just before he departs), and when Sam later attempts to amend his previous misguided deeds by challenging Zeebad, Zeebad strikes him down and temporarily "kills" him in cold blood.
  • Meet the Robinsons: The Bowler Hat Guy, or Goob, is an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain who would not let go of his past and is just Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life. When Lewis finds out who he really is, he instantly pities him, and once everything is said and done, Lewis even offers The Bowler Hat Guy a fresh new start and become a Robinson. He declines and runs off, with an unknown, but certainly happier, future. DOR-15, or simply Doris, is The Starscream who instantly betrays the The Bowler Hat Guy the minute it becomes convenient, and in an Alternate Timeline where Doris gets power, she uses it to kill The Bowler Hat Guy and enslave the human race for her own selfish gain.
  • Megamind: The film is in the point of view of the titular Villain Protagonist, and, as such, paints him in a very sympathetic light. He's actually not that bad of a guy, and only acts evil simply because it's how society sees him. When Metro Man gets tired of the old routine and Megamind actually wins, he's at a complete loss at what to do. He then tries to create a new hero to try to stop him, which backfires horribly since said new hero, Hal Stewart/Tighten, is a Psychopathic Manchild who is way worse than Megamind ever was. He uses his power to force Roxanne into loving him, and when she rejects him, he rampages all across the city, making Megamind to be the unlikely hero who ends up stopping Tighten.
  • Monsters, Inc. has Waternoose and Randall. While both villains plot to kidnap and torture human children, the former only wants to save his company from going out of business, while the latter does this to get revenge on Sulley.
  • My Little Pony: The Movie (2017) has the Storm King as the Big Bad, but his second in command, Tempest, appears more often. Though Tempest is more outwardly menacing than the goofy Storm King, she is the redeemable one with the tragic backstory. After the Storm King decides that Tempest has outlived her usefulness and tries to kill her, Twilight saves her. She returns the favor and saves the Mane 6 from the Storm King's final attack by jumping in front of them, turning herself and the Storm King to stone. Tempest is saved while the Storm King falls to his death.
  • Puss in Boots: The Last Wish:
    • Of the three main antagonists in the film, Goldilocks and the Three Bears qualify as the most sympathetic of the villains with their motives and personalities, as well as having a subplot dedicated to them which highlights their inherent goodness. Meanwhile, Big Jack Horner is evil and loving it, motivated purely by selfish desires, to the point where he flagrantly takes being called an irredeemable monster in stride and literally throws off his Conscience. Their respective motivations for the wish also illustrate this. Goldilocks wants, what she considers, a real, human family. She only reveals this in a moment of anger to her bear family, and although they are hurt, they love Goldie so much they will get what she wants. Jack Horner, on the other hand, just wants all the magic in the world for himself.
    • Meanwhile, The Big Bad Wolf (a.k.a. Death) fits somewhere in between, disguising himself as a bounty hunter while trying to get Puss to appreciate the lives that he had wasted. He is the Evil Is Cool villain, an unstoppable force of nature.
  • Robin Hood (1973): Sir Hiss goes along with much of Prince John's evil scheming, but even he seems mortified that John would consider hanging Friar Tuck. Though not reformed by the end, Hiss is shown having a light-hearted laugh at the film's end when John and the former Sheriff of Nottingham are nearly skewered by Nutley's stray arrow (which, in fairness, Hiss himself barely dodged).
  • Treasure Planet: John Silver is the leader of the pirates, but he also becomes a Parental Substitute to Jim Hawkins and ultimately gives up his quest for the treasure to save Jim's life and parts ways with him on good terms. Meanwhile, his second-in-command Mr. Scroop is an aggressive, scorpion-esque pirate who never stops being a villain. He kills Mr. Arrow in a way that makes Jim look responsible and later tries to kill Jim as well, who sends Mr. Scroop hurtling and screaming into deep space.
  • Wreck-It Ralph is a Punch-Clock Villain who only wrecks the building because, as a video game character, it is literally his job to do so. Sadly, since he is associated with the villainous role, the Nicelanders unjustly treat him poorly. This is why Ralph game-jumps so that he can get a medal to hopefully earn some respect. King Candy/Turbo is not too different, since he also game-jumped to try to get some respect from others. However, unlike Ralph, who is a genuinely nice guy who just wants respect simply so that people will treat him better and nothing more, Turbo wants respect simply because he's egotistical, and is more than willing to make others suffer to make it happen.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Circle: The Rich Man and the Bearded Man are both part of the Pragmatist group with the common goal of killing the Little Girl and the Pregnant Woman to give everyone else an equal chance at survival. However, the Bearded Man is far more personable (which also makes him a better manipulator) and ultimately seems to think of it as a Cold Equation; while he does not like having to kill either of them, he simply values his own survival more. Meanwhile, the Rich Man is a Hate Sink who presents several incredibly odious views and becomes increasingly unhinged and less sympathetic over the course of the film.
  • In The Dark Knight, the Big Bad Ensemble falls into this. The Joker is a sadistic terrorist of unknown origin dedicated to destroying any sense of order and government to prove his nihilistic view of humanity correct. Two-Face, on the other hand, is a Tragic Villain and a Fallen Hero who turned evil after being disfigured and watching the love of his life die. He's also a Fair-Play Villain with an admittedly twisted sense of fairness, always giving his victims an equal chance of living or dying with his coin tosses. By contrast, the Joker kills indiscriminately and never even bothers playing fair with his victims, regardless of what he claims.
  • Law Abiding Citizen: Clarence Darby breaks into the home of Clyde Shelton, raping and murdering his wife and daughter, and escapes justice through inadmissible evidence and bureaucratic prosecutor Nick Rice offering a plea bargain. This leads Shelton to murder Darby in revenge before embarking on a Rage Against the Legal System murder spree aimed at everyone he holds responsible for getting Off on a Technicality.
  • Mission: Impossible Film Series:
  • MonsterVerse:
    • Godzilla: King of the Monsters: The movie attempts to portray the Big Bad Duumvirate amongst the humans in such a light. Amongst the two eco-terrorists whom are conspiring to unleash the Titans and kill millions, Emma Russell is made out to be a tragic Well-Intentioned Extremist who loves her daughter and is horrified by King Ghidorah's Omnicidal Mania when the dragon takes things out of their control, whereas Alan Jonah is a Misanthrope Supreme so consumed by hatred for mankind that he's willing to watch Ghidorah win and destroy everything.
    • Godzilla vs. Kong:
      • Godzilla is the more antagonistic and aggressive of the two titular Titans in this movie, but he's still the Kaiju equivalent of a justifiable Well-Intentioned Extremist, trying to stop the rise of Mechagodzilla which has Ghidorah's reanimated consciousness inside it. The true Big Bad Mechagodzilla, on the other hand, is an omnicidal monster just like in its three-headed, draconic past life and immediately goes on a murderous rampage once it breaks free of Apex Industries' control.
      • This slightly applies to the human villains who are constructing Mechagodzilla in the novelization: Ren Serizawa, though still inexcusably evil, has a Freudian Excuse and wants revenge on Godzilla for taking his father's attention away from him, whereas Walter Simmons is a heartless narcissist who really just wants to feed his own ego and he's more irredeemable than any other human villain in the franchise.
    • Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire: The two antagonistic Titans in the film are portrayed this way. Shimo is being tortured and Forced into Evil by the Skar King using a crystal that's psionically linked to her, and when she's freed from his control, she's all too happy to switch to the heroes' side and start a life of peace. The Skar King, on the other hand, is an excessively cruel, murderous and psychopathic bully whose sadism matches that of Ghidorah and the Kraken, and his only ambition is to conquer and mercilessly enslave all other life on Earth.
  • The Rock: Brigadier General Francis Hummel may very well be THE most sympathetic villain in film; his plot to extort millions from the government by threatening to release a deadly nerve gas is motivated by him being A Father to His Men, aggrieved that too many of his soldiers died for their country without their families being compensated. His plan involves using non-lethal force to steal the bioweapon, he ensures no children are among the civilian hostages he takes, and he ultimately admits that the entire operation is a bluff and refuses to go through with it. By contrast, his underling Capt. Darrow (and his partner Capt Frye) is cruel and cold-hearted, his only motivation being money, and will kill anyone who stands in his way of it, including other soldiers.
  • Saw: The sympathetic/despicable dynamic often comes into play between the Jigsaw killers as the Sympathetic and certain antagonistic victims of theirs as despicable. While the killers tend to be the main threat, said victims are usually tested for doing acts the killers find despicable, and some actively seek to cross more lines in the games they find themselves in. Furthermore, even the killers themselves vary in sympathy and loathesomeness:
    • Series Wide: Among the killers themselves, Hoffman is the despicable counterpart to John's sympathetic, being the only Jigsaw who doesn't follow a specific moral code (regardless of it being John's philosophy or a code of his own), has no good intentions (aside from once avenging his sister's demise), and will do anything to keep his identity secure (and escape prosecution once he's exposed) or get what he wants. Thus, Hoffman is portrayed as even worse than even some of the less sympathetic victims.
    • Saw IV: Among the victims present in Rigg's trial, which were once again wanted by John, are Brenda (a ruthless pimp who sold out many women into prostitution), Ivan (a serial rapist) and Rex (a domestic abuser), all of whom were able to get out of their own crimes thanks to Art defending them (although he isn't drawn as unsympathetic too for doing so). Rigg in particular shows No Sympathy to Ivan when he finds material of the women he raped and forces him into the Bedroom Trap (as he was otherwise instructed) without any remorse.
    • Jigsaw: The purpose of Logan's entire scheme is to get revenge on Halloran, a Dirty Cop who, as well as having a long list of other cases of corruption, has bribed several criminals out of jail in exchange of becoming his informants, one of whom ended up murdering Logan's wife.
  • SHAZAM! Fury of the Gods: Atlas' three daughters all start the film with similar goals, but their underlying principles are wildly different. Though Anthea becomes sympathetic to the heroes early enough where she barely counts as a hero, her sisters aren't swayed so easily. However, of the two, Hespera is a pragmatist who wanted to revive Atlas with little trouble, while Kalypso is driven by Revenge Before Reason. The end result is Kalypso killing her sister over a perceived betrayal, with Hespera, in turn, saving countless lives endangered by Kalypso.
  • Spider-Man 3: The two villains that Spider-Man faces in the movie are Venom and the Sandman. While Sandman has a young daughter whom he cares for very much and feels remorse for shooting Uncle Ben years ago, Venom on the other hand wants revenge on Spider-Man for getting him fired from his job as a reporter for the Daily Bugle and threatens the life of Sandman's daughter in order to ensure his cooperation.
  • Star Wars: The franchise Big Bad is Emperor Palpatine, but his dragon, Darth Vader, appears more. The prequel trilogy reveals Vader has a tragic backstory due to Palpatine's manipulations. In the end, Vader reforms through his love for his son Luke and, to save his life, turns on his master and kills him, sacrificing himself in the process. In contrast to Vader's internal regrets, compelling backstory and redeeming qualities; Palpatine is a pure evil monster motivated solely by power and galaxy-wide domination — his actor even described him as morally pitch-black and called him "more evil than the Devil".

    Literature 
  • Barnaby Rudge: Whilst neither character is the Big Bad — that honour goes to Lord George Gordon — Mr. Geoffrey Haredale and Sir John Chester serve as antagonists to their niece Emma and son Edward, respectively, by keeping them separated, purely because Haredale and Sir John are enemies due to their different religions. However, Mr. Haredale, despite his Hair-Trigger Temper and bluntness, genuinely cares for his niece as though she were his own daughter, comes to regret separating her from Edward, along with putting his life in danger to save several innocents from the brutal Gordon riots. Additionally, he goes through a Trauma Conga Line that makes the viewer sympathize with him — the murder of his brother twenty years ago, the heartbreak and kidnapping of Emma, and his house being burnt to the ground. Sir John, on the other hand, is a Faux Affably Evil sociopath, who cares only for his own pleasures, takes pride in having kept Haredale a lifelong bachelor by stealing his fiancee, and tries to coerce Edward into marrying a rich heiress just so he can use her money to maintain his lifestyle and pay off his debts. Further proof of his moral vileness lies in the fact that he is implied to have given the rioters the idea of burning down Haredale's house and that in the past, he seduced, impregnated, and then abandoned a Hot Gypsy Woman, who was then hanged for theft, but not before giving birth to his Bastard Bastard son, Hugh the ostler. Despite happily recruiting Hugh as an agent in his mission to ruin the Haredales' lives, Sir John ultimately treats him no better than he treated his legitimate son once he discovers their relation. If anything, he treats him even worse, refusing to try rescuing him from the gallows near the climax, or even come to see him. Needless to say, Sir John is a far fouler man than Mr. Haredale, which makes it all the more appropriate that Haredale kills him in a duel by the end of the story.
  • The Beginning After the End: Following The Reveal that the Asuras as a whole are Jerkass Gods with their ruler Kezess being a genocidal tyrant whose past atrocities led to Agrona's Start of Darkness, his Co-Dragons Windsom and Aldir exhibit this dynamic. From the moment he was introduced, Aldir had a sense of morality and valued the lives of the lessers to a much greater degree compared to most of his kind. While he ultimately ended up destroying Elenoir with the World Eater technique, he was extremely hesitant to use it and only reluctantly acquiesced due to the implicit threat of Kezess punishing his clan if he had refused. After his usage of said technique ends up being All for Nothing, Aldir's loyalty to Kezess reaches its breaking point and he deserts his master's service entirely. In stark contrast, Windsom is little more than Kezess's Mouth of Sauron and as such much of his personality echoes that of his master. Not only is he a loyal sycophant to his master's worst atrocities, but his internal monologues make it blatantly clear about how little he cares about the lessers he claims to protect.
  • Chronicles of Ancient Darkness: When the remaining Soul Eaters band together in Soul Eater, Nef the Bat Mage is depicted to have a sympathetic background and a disdain for unnecessary cruelty as shown in her treatment of Torak and the animals they plan to sacrifice. She's also a more genuine Well-Intentioned Extremist than Seshru the Viper Mage, Thiazzi the Oak Mage and Eostra the Eagle Owl Mage who're all more sadistic and/or plainly power-hungry. Nef even commits a Heroic Sacrifice at the end to repay a debt to Torak's late father, while the other three flee to cause more trouble in the following books.
  • Dune: The Padishah Emperor Shammam Corrino IV betrays House Atreides and intends to destroy them, but only reluctantly and because he feels it's absolutely necessary. He admits he views Duke Leto as a son, but can't allow him to become more powerful than him. Baron Harkonnen is a sadistic, ruthless megalomaniac and Serial Rapist who intends to wipe out House Atreides for a minor slight from generations ago, and to rape the Duke's teenage son Paul.
  • The Folk of the Air: The series features a Big Bad Duumvirate between The Evil Prince Balekin Greenbriar and Colonel Kilgore General Madoc. Balekin is a slimy, smug piece of crap who slaughters his own family with glee and would gladly sacrifice his own people if it meant he could get the crown. In contrast, while Madoc enjoys war and conflict, he sincerely cares about the land of Elfhame, loves his children, and even takes his defeat very well.
  • In Death: Origin in Death features two main antagonists in Dr. Jonah D. Wilson and Deena Flavia. Dr. Jonah is a vile Evilutionary Biologist who wants to mold humanity into his egomaniacal vision and has for centuries been cloning young men or women to make them into spies or sex slaves for the highest bidder. In contrast, Deena Flavia is a clone and Professional Killer created by Dr. Jonah who now wants to save the rest of her clone sisters and put a stop to his operation once and for all by killing off the members of his conspiracy.
  • A Song of Ice and Fire: A majority of the characters written to oppose the main characters in the Stark family are given nuanced characterization and sympathetic traits, some of whom later become POV characters themselves (the Lannisters, Stannis and Renly Baratheon, Theon Greyjoy, etc). The only exception to this is Ramsay Snow (later legitimized as Ramsay Bolton), who kicks the dog in every single chapter he appeared in.

    Live-Action TV 
  • The Brothers Sun: The Big Bad Ensemble is composed of Grace, Bruce's Love-Interest Traitor and high-ranking member of the Boxers, a tragic, if fanatical, Well-Intentioned Extremist who wants revenge on the Triads who ruined the life of so many people ; and Big Sun, the father of the titular brothers who turns out to be an abusive Hate Sink who preaches "family must be protected" while actually being ready to manipulate and even kill them if it suits his ambitions of expanding his criminal empire.
  • Doctor Who:
    • In the second part of "The End of Time", the Master (of all people) is the Sympathetic Villain to Rassilon's Despicable Villain. As much of a genocidal, mass-murdering psychopath as the Doctor's long-running Evil Counterpart is, the Master's Freudian Excuse of having been driven to insanity his entire life from when he was eight years old is played for all the pathos it's worth with his current incarnation — a tragedy which, it turns out, Rassilon himself has engineered via a Stable Time Loop, purely so that he could escape his own death and sacrifice the rest of the universe. When Rassilon's victory is foiled, the latter tries to take the Doctor with him in a last act of spite, while the Master instead saves the Doctor at the last second, telling his Arch-Enemy to get out of the way before he spends what seem to be his final moments furiously avenging himself on Rassilon for the latter ruining his entire life.
    • A rare case where the irredeemable and sympathetic villains are technically the same character. In "World Enough And Time", Missy, the latest incarnation of The Master whom the Doctor has been trying to teach to be good, is convinced by her previous "Harold Saxon" incarnation to make companion Bill undergo Unwilling Roboticization right before the Doctor can rescue her, just to stick it to him. But since Missy has shown remorse before and was not privy to Saxon's plan the whole time, the story frames it that there is still hope for her in "The Doctor Falls", proven true when Missy decides to stand with the Doctor after all, stabbing her previous incarnation. The Saxon Master kills Missy (and supposedly all future Masters) permanently for her Heel–Face Turn, hating the idea that he ever turns good in the future.
  • Kamen Rider:
    • Kamen Rider Wizard: Wiseman does a lot of bad things, but is at least sympathetic in that his whole goal was to revive his daughter. By contrast, Sora Takigawa/the Gremlin Phantom is a Serial Killer who was already a monster even before becoming a Phantom, delights in sadism, and stays unrepentant of his actions to the bitter end.
    • Kamen Rider Gaim: The two leading members of Yggdrasill are Takatora Kureshima, an Anti-Villain committing what he believes are necessary evils to save the human race, and Ryoma Sengoku, a Mad Scientist manipulating Takatora and the rest of Yggdrasill for his own self-serving, godhood-seeking desires.
  • The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Adar and Sauron. Much of Adar's past is very obscure, but from what is shown, he is a tragic Anti-Villain. Adar was once an Elf from Beleriand who was tortured and corrupted by Morgoth into becoming an Orc, than forced to serve under Sauron and watch him torturing his new kin for his own selfish desire for more power. He went as far as turning on Sauron to save the Orcs from his experiments and became their new leader. Unlike Morgoth and Sauron, Adar does care for the Orcs and sees them as his children and is searching to create a home for them where they not treated like slaves anymore. As for Sauron himself, after Morgoth's demise, he forced the Orcs to multiply in secret, hold all kind of creepy experiments in Forodwaith involving Black Magic, than after getting temporary killed by Adar, he became a Retired Monster. He took the form of human named Halbrand and deceived everyone he met that he is this roguish Aragorn-like Reluctant Ruler. He tries to get Galadriel on his side claiming they could heal Middle-earth together when in reality he wants to become its tyrant God-Emperor, and when she refuses his offer, he returns to his former evil ways be the end of the first season.
  • The Night Agent: The series features a Big Bad Duumvirate between Corrupt Corporate Executive Gordon Wick and Corrupt Politician Vice President Ashley Redfield. Both act as the masterminds behind the Metro bombing which nearly kills thousands but differ in how the work depicts them. Wick is a slimy Only in It for the Money mercenary just wanting to advance his profits but Redfield is a genuine Well-Intentioned Extremist who planned the bombing in order to kill a suspected terrorist who he believes would pose a danger and gets Pet the Dog moments which show he's more nuanced than initially thought to be.
  • Power Rangers:
  • Psych: Shawn Spencer's arch-nemesis is the father-daughter duo of Mr. Yin and Mr. Yang, the latter first appearing in the Season 3 finale and the former debuting in the Season 4 finale. Despite her insanity, Mr. Yang is Affably Evil and likes Shawn, saving his life twice (the second time at the cost of her own life). Mr. Yin, on the other hand, is a remorseless psychopath who tries to kill Abigail, Jules, and Gus just to hurt Shawn, and views his daughter as nothing more than a tool.
  • Supernatural:
    • In the long haul, the archangels Michael and Lucifer, whose conflict was key to the overarching story of the show's first five seasons, become Sympathetic and Despicable Villains respectively: although Michael was only fractionally, if at all, better than Lucifer in the duo's original characterizations, in later seasons where both their characters (particularly Lucifer's) have become more exaggerated, Michael's moral high-ground over Lucifer has increased by default. By the show's final season, Michael is an Evil Redeemed in a Can who has formed a genuine friendship with the human host that he once derided as a mere tool, he retains in full force his original Freudian Excuse of having severe daddy issues on account of God's shoddy parenting which drive all of Michael's worst actions in desperate efforts to be a good son, and he would much rather keep his head low and stay out of trouble. Lucifer on the other hand has shed every sympathetic quality that he once possessed by this point in the show, showing himself to be a cruel, sociopathic monster who now wants to kill everything in existence out of nothing but spite and rage.
    • For Season 13, the above roles are reversed between Lucifer, and Michael's Evil Doppelgänger from the Alternate Universe called Apocalypse World. For most of the season, Lucifer is somewhat humanized by his efforts to reach out to and bond with his half-human son Jack, and by how lost and pitiful he spends a good chunk of the season being; whereas the alternate Michael is a barbaric, monstrous, genocidal warlord who turned his native world into a horrific hellhole, gleefully tortured and slaughtered his own archangel brothers, and aspires to be a Multiversal Conqueror, with the extent of his evil and barbarism appearing to shock even Lucifer. Somewhat subverted in the Season Finale, when Lucifer reacts to Jack rejecting him by attempting to force Jack and the latter's adoptive family to kill each other and intending to dismantle the entire universe, all as a massive and morbid hissy-fit, which forces Dean to strike up an Enemy Mine with the alternate Michael.
  • Super Sentai:
    • Hikari Sentai Maskman: Prince Igam seems like a ruthless fanatic at first, but it becomes apparent throughout the show that she is really just troubled by her insecurity from having to hide her gender and the pressure of restoring her family to the throne of Tube. By contrast, Emperor Zeba is an Evil Overlord who seized control of Tube from the rightful rulers and only has self-serving motives for his actions.
    • Choujuu Sentai Liveman: Of Great Professor Bias's three students, Mazenda and Obular are both given their fair share of sympathetic moments throughout while Kemp spends most of it pompous and repugnant. While Mazenda repeatedly shows reluctance to forsake her own humanity in line with Volt's creed, and Obular is revealed to have been raised by a strict Education Mama and developed a cold personality from never being allowed to play, Kemp is a fanatic only motivated by egotism and a desire to assert his superiority over others. Although by the end of the show, the the executives of Volt including Kemp become the sympathetic villains to Bias, who manipulates and sacrifices them one-by-one for his own purely selfish desires. It really says something when even Bias's Killer Robot bodyguard manages to be more sympathetic than him.
    • Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger has this relationship between Witch Bandora and Dai Satan. Bandora is a Likeable Villain who treats her henchmen like family, while Dai Satan is a Generic Doomsday Villain who took advantage of Bandora's grief to use her to devastate the world.

    Theatre 

    Video Games 
  • In Batman: Arkham Knight, the two most important villains are Scarecrow, the Big Bad of the game who has the intention of submitting Gotham City to fear, and the Arkham Knight, his Dragon-in-Chief that is primary interested in killing Batman at all costs. It's eventually revealed that the Knight is none other than Jason Todd, the former Robin who was horribly tortured by the Joker and presumed dead back then. When Batman discovers the truth, he only feels remorse for Jason and what happened to him. Scarecrow, on the other hand, is nothing more of a vicious Sadist with no redeeming qualities, that wants to destroy the myth of Batman and every hope left in Gotham. In the end, Jason saves Batman from Scarecrow, and the latter is reduced to an eternally scared, shadow of himself. With nothing more than his own fear toxin.
  • Boxxy Quest:
    • In BoxxyQuest: The Shifted Spires, though not revealed until the sequel, Boxxyfan is the sympathetic villain who unleashes his bot army on the Third Internet and commits horrible atrocities, but his goal is to bring back the First Internet and his beloved family back to life, and (begrudlingly) does a Heel–Face Turn by the end of the sequel. Meanwhile, Rcoastee wants to destroy the Internet and bring back the Second Internet solely so he can rule it again, and his "love" for Catie is pure possessive lust.
    • In BoxxyQuest: The Gathering Storm, Arianna/ARPANET is the one controlling the storms threatening to destroy the Internet, but is doing this to get rid of all the bad things on the Internet and is ultimately just a lonely girl who is following her faulty programming, as well as an Unwitting Pawn of Boxxyfan who also does a Heel–Face Turn by the end. On the other hand, Mother Zoe and Legion are similarly destructive villains, but Zoe is just a power-hungry bigot who wants to kill all men and turn women into her mindless worshippers, while Legion is the evil half of Catie's past self Virtua who wants to Kill All Humans outright and revels in his sadism.
  • Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening has the Big Bad Ensemble formed by Vergil, Dante's Evil Twin and Arkham, Lady's Archnemesis Dad. They are both selfish men obsessed with obtaining power, but while Vergil has a strong sense of honor, and primary wants power to make sure that he never gets hurt again, like it happened in the past, Arkham is a Manipulative Bastard devoid of honor and standards, even willing to kill his own wife and hurt his own daughter to achieve his goals, and wants to become a god for the sake of it. At the end of the game, even Vergil is willing to team up with Dante to stop Arkham.
  • Dragalia Lost: After Morsayati is defeated, Nedrick and Xenos act as the two main villains of the main campaign. Nedrick is sympathetic, as due to his abnormal birth conditions, he never felt like he had a normal life. He died shortly after his birth but was resurrected by Bahamut. However, this came at a price, and Bahamut wanted to use Nedrick to further his own ambitions. This made Nedrick feel like he never had a choice in his life, and he secretly wants to forge his own path. Xenos, on the other hand, is literally a heartless being who views any and all humans as tools for him to use and wishes to create a world in which he gets to decide everything that happens, whether the humans like it or not.
  • Dragon Quest:
    • Dragon Quest IV has Psaro the Manslayer and his Evil Chancellor Aamon. Both are (and in Psaro's case, Master of Monsterkind) the leaders of the monsters, though Psaro loves Rose and wants to protect her from greedy humans wanting her ruby tears, even if his methods are flawed, such as leaving her in a tower. Aamon, on the other hand, is a schemer who wants to become the new Master of Monsterkind and plots behind Psaro's back by brainwashing human thugs to murder Rose while the Master of Monsterkind tried to subjugate Estark at Mamon Mines, only for Solo and the Chosen to defeat him, causing him to use the Secret of Evolution on himself in an attempt to destroy humanity, while Aamon becomes the new Master of Monsterkind despite the Chosen defeating him at one of the Four Barriers near Castle Nadiria. Thankfully, the Chosen get a Yggdrasil Flower to revive Rose and save Psaro from himself, before taking the fight to Aamon at Diabolic Hall.
    • Dragon Quest IX has Corvus, the best of the Celestrains and King Godwyn, ruler of the Gittish Empire. Godwyn murdered Godfrey out of impatience of not being granted the House of Gitt, even though his father was going to give it to him anyway and created the Gittish Empire to take over the Protectorate, even having his army capture Corvus at Wormwood Creak to torture him and empower his army with celestial power out of fear Corvus could surpass him. Corvus, by contrast, became evil after all the torture and being betrayed by Serena, albeit unwillingly for the latter, since her father sold him out in exchange for the Gittish Empire leaving Wormwood Creak alone, and would try to eliminate mortalkind upon Godwyn's defeat and being freed from the Oubliette, though the Hero stops him by becoming mortal, since Celestrains cannot act above their superiors.
  • Fallout: The Master, for all the trouble he caused by creating the Super Mutants, genuinely wants to rebuild a society unhampered by the radiation and toxins spread by the bombs, and will destroy himself and the Super Mutant production labs if you prove to him that his plan won't work. His Co-Dragons, the Lieutenant and Morpheus, lack his good intentions and only serve the Unity for power.
  • Fire Emblem: Three Houses: Whether you oppose Edelgard or Rhea, both women genuinely want what they believe is best for the people of Fódlan, though their views are skewed by the horrible tragedies they've experienced. Those Who Slither In The Dark, also known as the Agarthans, are simply fascistic would-be conquerors who are entirely responsible for the tragedies that drove both women to make the questionable decisions that end up setting them against each other.
  • Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach has Montgomery Gator and Roxanne Wolf. While both are Brainwashed and Crazy, it's strongly implied that Monty murdered Glamrock Bonnie in order to replace him before getting brainwashed, and that he was plotting to kill Glamrock Freddy in order to become the lead star. In contrast, Roxy is a Tragic Monster who has an Inferiority Superiority Complex and gets a Humanizing Tears scene. In the sequel DLC Ruin, while Monty and Roxy are no longer brainwashed, Roxy starts out as a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds as she pursues Gregory for stealing her eyes, but stops when she almost kills Cassie, and eventually pulls a Heel–Face Turn to save the latter from danger. Monty, on the other hand, remains homicidal and is eventually electrocuted to death.
  • Fossil Fighters Champions has two major antagonists. Don Boneyard, while villainous, is ultimately revealed to be a Well-Intentioned Extremist trying to stop a larger threat. Said threat, Zongazonga, is an Evil Sorcerer with a lust for power and Immortality Immorality.
  • God of War Ragnarök has the antagonistic father-son duo of Odin and Thor. The latter is infamous for being an insatiable Blood Knight who's brought chaos to the Nine Realms, but it's eventually revealed that he has a severe drinking problem as a result of the stress of having to do the part of a destroyer, all the while having to work under a brutal father like Odin. The former, meanwhile, is an utterly ruthless sociopath who drove Thor down his current path, stuck Mimir on a tree and tortured him for days on an end, cursed Freya, his wife, into being unable to hurt a living thing because she didn't make him invincible, and willingly manipulates Atreus/Loki into opening a tear in reality so that he can learn what he saw on the other end, all while being willing to throw the Nine Realms into chaos so long as he obtains the omniscience he seeks.
  • The King of Fighters:
  • The Legend of Zelda:
    • The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask: The Skull Kid is a mischievous imp, but the flashes of his story make him a pitiable figure. His actions that cross the line from "mischievous" to "evil" are done under the influence of the Majora's Mask, which is wholly malevolent and continues trying to destroy Termina once separated from the Skull Kid, becoming the final boss of the game. Once the Mask is defeated, the Skull Kid reconciles with his friends, including Link, with whom he parts on good terms.
    • The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds: Princess Hilda of Lorule wants Hyrule's Triforce to replace Lorule's destroyed Triforce to prevent Lorule from crumbling into nothingness. Her partner, Yuga, doesn't care about Lorule and betrays her, intending to use the Triforce for his own ends. While Yuga dies trying to take the last piece of the Triforce from Link, Hilda ulitmately agrees that the destruction taking Hyrule's Triforce would cause isn't an acceptable price for Lorule's salvation. She allows Link and Zelda to return the Triforce to its rightful home; in turn, Link and Zelda sympathize with Hilda's ultimate goal and use the Triforce to restore Lorule's Triforce, giving Hilda what she wanted all along.
  • Master Detective Archives: Rain Code: Makoto Kagutsuchi and Yomi Hellsmile serve as the main antagonists of the game, both seeking to take control of Kanai Ward for their own reasons. While Yomi just wants to be in power and doesn't care who gets hurt or killed so long as he gets what he wants, Makoto just wants to provide a safe place for the homunculi but crosses some ruthless lines in order to do so. They're both equally at odds with each other, but it's Makoto who ends up outwitting Yomi and becomes the sole antagonist. While Yomi undergoes a Villainous Breakdown after he's exposed as a criminal and vows revenge on those who opposed him, Makoto is able to come to an agreement with Yuma and reveal the truth to the populace, allowing them to come up with the solution to their problem as he works to atone for his actions.
  • Persona 5: Masayoshi Shido and his illegitimate son Goro Akechi/Black Mask are the ones behind the murders plaguing Tokyo, with the former ordering the hits and the latter carrying them out. However, though Akechi's crimes are deemed unforgivable, he is revealed to have been manipulated by Shido and the Phantom Thieves ultimately see him as a fellow victim of society. In contrast, Shido is a corrupt politician responsible for much of the suffering the Thieves endure, for no deeper motive than a lust for power.
  • Pokémon Black and White has N and Ghetsis; both of them are leaders of Team Plasma, an Animal Wrongs Group who want to liberate Pokemon from humans. The former is a Well-Intentioned Extremist who genuinely believes in the cause and makes a Heel–Face Turn when he realizes just how corrupt his organization is. Meanwhile, Ghetsis is a Straw Hypocrite who created Team Plasma out of a desire for power and becomes even worse in the sequel. In addition, N sees his Pokemon as friends and only owns them temporarily out of a misguided belief that owning Pokemon is a form of abuse; Ghetsis views Pokemon as mere tools and is heavily implied to abuse them.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog tends to do this a lot when introducing new villains alongside series Big Bad, Dr. Eggman, particularly in the 3D games.For reference, while Eggman is a Psychopathic Manchild who is capable of untold amounts of destruction, he adheres to Pragmatic Villainy and merely wants to Take Over the World to (in his eyes at least) improve it for the better. When a bigger threat emerges that threatens safety of the planet, Eggman is more than willing to perform an Enemy Mine with the heroes to save the world.
  • Suikoden II: You have Luca Blight, prince and later king of Highland, who quickly cements himself as a monster in all senses of the word and who would gladly see the world burn, and you have Jowy, Riou's childhood friend who betrays him and Nanami but ultimately wants to make the world a better place, even if he has to sully his hands to do so. Jowy realizes that no side in the conflict can claim the high ground, and plans to change things from within Highland. Both Luca and Jowy work against the rebel army, until Jowy and Riou dispose of Luca, leading Riou to have to continue the war because Jowy is now the king of Highland, and the latter considers he is in too deep to stop.
  • Super Paper Mario: Count Bleck is the initial main antagonist who created The Void to destroy all worlds. But he has the tragic backstory thinking his lover was killed, and realizing she is still alive, wants Mario's party to kill him to end the prophecy. Only, his former minion, Dimentio, takes the position of the true Dark One, and he is a psychopath lacking any of Bleck's tragic or sympathetic qualities. In the end, Dimentio is killed, but Bleck has to sacrifice himself to stop Dimentio's final attempt at destroying all worlds.
  • Xenoblade Chronicles:
    • Xenoblade Chronicles 1: The initial antagonist is Egil, who commands the Mechon and their attacks on the Homs. We later learn that this is part of a revenge plan against the evil god Zanza, who slaughtered many of his people. Egil eventually realizes the error of his ways and sacrifices himself, while Zanza is one of the two most evil characters in the game (the other being Egil's minion Mumkhar/Metal Face), an arrogant god intending to slaughter all Homs (and turns the sentient High Entia into mindless beasts called Telethia to carry this out) to perpetuate his existence (rather than be friends with them as Meyneth did), and Shulk destroys him during the final battle.
    • Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Although Z is the game's true Big Bad, N is the most antagonistic of the Moebius, and acts as The Heavy for most of the game. N is genuinely sympathetic since he is an alternate version of Noah, which means that N was once just as kind as his heroic counterpart. However, N grew tired of his lifestyle of constantly fighting war and living incredibly short lives, which meant that he could never be with the love of his life, Mio/M. N eventually decided to become Moebius purely so that he could be with M. On the other hand, Z is a being that is Made of Evil and is the one who is forcing everyone to live these terrible lives, and as such, is mainly just treated as a force that needs to be stopped.

    Visual Novels 
  • Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc: While the game's Big Bad is an Ax-Crazy Nightmare Fetishist who does things to satiate her despair fetish, Junko's assistant and twin sister, Mukuro, is her devoted servant who ultimately does things for Junko out of love for her, and as a result, Mukuro entrusts her life to Junko. Unfortunately, Junko herself is a narcissist and sees everyone as expendable as long as it's to satiate this fetish, including her sister, whom she executes in her Monokuma form during Chapter 1. When the students find this out in the final chapter, they are understandably shocked, and though they don't show it clearly, they sympathize with Mukuro having to become the victim of someone who never actually loved her for who she was.
  • Super Danganronpa Another 2: Chapter 3's culprits, Kanade and Hibiki Otonokoji. Kanade is the Despicable Villain, revealed to be a Serial Killer with a body count of 60 whose sole goal in life is to break her sister's psyche and made her completetely depend on her by killing everyone Hibiki ever loved, including this chapter's victim, Setsuka. Hibiki is the Sympathetic Villain, being brainwashed by Kanade into killing Setsuka and not even being aware that she committed a murder.

    Web Animation 
  • Red vs. Blue features Locus and Felix, two mercenaries supposedly on opposing sides of a civil war introduced during the Chorus Trilogy. Initially, Locus is portrayed as what he considers a true soldier — emotionless, ruthless, and solely dedicated to his orders — while Felix is sarcastic and wise-cracking, yet friendly. While their initial appearances do not exactly cement this, it's made clear who's who in their dynamic later on:
    • Seasons 12 and 13 reveal that Felix is the Despicable Villain between them. After he reveals himself to the Reds and Blues to be a traitor and has also been involved in escalating the war for his and Locus' employer, he gradually brings out the person he truly is: A sadistic, narcissistic, and overall remorseless megalomaniac who does what he does purely to make a profit for himself. He shows he has zero qualms with manipulating and using deceit against his former allies for shits and giggles, lacking anything remotely resembling compassion or humanity. Additionally, his former UNSC background presented him as stern and merciless, which is only exacerbated in the present day as he lets free his true self.
    • Meanwhile, Season 13 reveals Locus as the Sympathetic Villain. In Locus of Control, he was revealed to have been a compassionate and empathetic person during his time with the UNSC with Felix, an experience which had greatly hardened the former. His "true soldier" ideology is also revealed to be a coping mechanism to hide what he went through with them, justifying his past and present actions as his "orders". In the present day, his past traits are slowly brought back into the fold, which gradually breaks down his stoic persona. As he is forced to come to terms that his ideology has made him no different than a slave, he decides to own up to his actions, realizing he has become a monster rather than the soldier he wanted to be. This Heel Realization he goes through wounds up with him betraying Felix and leaving him to die at the hands of the Reds and Blues, while also vowing to make up for his past atrocities. In Season 15, Locus shows he's truly made good on that vow, swearing off killing note  and using his skills to help people instead, including accompanying Grif to rescue the Reds and Blues from Temple, as well as transporting Washington to a hospital after being shot in the throat.
  • Wolf Song: The Movie has a downplayed example in its main villains. The Death Alpha is the main antagonist and although his primary motive is to take his brother’s spot as guardian, his methodology ends up removing whatever sympathy points he gets from the motive, including the use of blackmail and torture not to mention killing or at the very least severely maiming or traumatising anyone who stands in his way, and he has the body count to prove it. His dragon Cobalt, while hotheaded and similarly (if not more) violent, is albeit barely more sympathetic than his master as he does have a Dark and Troubled Past of being manipulated into committing murder at an early age, although he shows limited remorse for his actions, but it is clear that the main reason he hasn’t betrayed his master is because he is too scared to do so, which does give him some minor sympathy points.

    Webcomics 

    Web Videos 

    Western Animation 
  • Adventure Time: the two main antagonists of the early seasons function as this. The Ice King is an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain whose worst crimes are blindly attempting to freeze people and admittedly creepy capture of Princesses that is eventually revealed to have a horrifically tragic backstory and not be really culpable for his actions, whereas The Lich is a dead-serious, sadistic, sociopathic force of chaos and destruction that seeks nothing but to annihilate all life itself.
  • Amphibia: King Andrias is a conqueror seeking to destroy other planets to gain their resources. However, at heart, he's a friendly goofball manipulated by the Core, including his father, to close off his heart for the Core's selfish desires.
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender:
    • The first season has two major antagonists. Prince Zuko was exiled for refusing to fight his father after he spoke up against a plan that would sacrifice loyal soldiers. He seeks the Avatar in an attempt to regain his father's favor, all the while showing a sense of honor. Zhao, on the other hand, is a conquerer who is willing to throw the world out of balance, all to be remembered as the man who slays the moon.
    • The series finale is complete with two showdowns. Fire Lord Ozai is a ruthless leader who seeks to commit genocide on the Earth Kingdom. Zuko only further pales in comparison to his father because of how far he's willing to go to win, and everything Zuko did to earn his place had culminated in this very moment. While his daughter and Zuko's sister, Princess Azula, was the one to suggest the idea (albeit not to the literal extreme Ozai then took it to) and might seem worse than the latter, it's made clear that her upbringing stunted her ability to do the right thing, and she's devastated upon failing to stand up to her father's pressure.
  • Batman: The Animated Series:
    • Of the two main villains in "Heart of Ice", Mr. Freeze is a ruthless but poignant Tragic Villain, who was trying to save his terminally-ill wife by putting her in cryogenic stasis while he worked on curing her, and a lab accident caused when he was defending his frozen wife from being effectively sentenced to death anyway rendered him unable to survive outside of sub-zero temperatures. The perpetrator who caused Freeze's accident and who Freeze is now motivated to take revenge on is Ferris Boyle, a sociopathic Corrupt Corporate Executive who callously ordered that Freeze's wife be taken off life support in front of Freeze while the latter was pleading, who attacked Freeze as the latter was standing down at the onset of the accident, and who left both Freeze and his wife to die. Tellingly, Batman sympathizes with Freeze even if he firmly opposes the latter's willingness to endanger innocent people, but Batman leaves Boyle to writhe in agony in a half-frozen state (a fate that Batman wouldn't leave Freeze's own unfortunate mook to earlier) while spitting at Boyle in disgust, "Goodnight, 'humanitarian'."
    • Harley Quinn is an adorable, bubbly henchwoman that is motivated to help the heroes and tries to reform, is depicted tragically for being the Trope Namer of Mad Love and eventually comes to regret her villainous actions as an elderly woman. The Joker on the other hand, is nothing but a Psychopathic Manchild enraptured by his own ego and seeking mass chaos and destruction, and tortures the third Robin, Tim Drake, so violently that he is nearly driven insane before performing a Grand Theft Me on him 40 years later.
  • Castlevania (2017): The two main antagonists in the first season are Dracula himself, and the corrupt Bishop. Dracula is a Tragic Villain and a broken man, who's been driven to genocidal and suicidal madness against all of humanity and even his own son because of the unjust execution of his beloved human Morality Chain by her own species' Corrupt Church. The Bishop, who ordered and oversaw said Morality Chain's execution, is a vile, Ax-Crazy, cowardly hypocrite and fanatic without a single redeeming quality to him; throwing legions of the people he's supposed to protect under the bus while throwing his weight around, anointing corrupt street-thugs as priests, and rejecting fault for instigating Dracula's rampage which now threatens entire countries of people whilst fleeing to save himself — in the words of a literal demon from Hell who knows a thing or two about God, "[The Bishop's] work makes [God] puke".
  • Hazbin Hotel: Sera is the chief authority in Heaven, who backs the yearly exterminations of Hell, and Episode 6 reveals she has been keeping the majority of Heaven's host in the dark; Adam is the leader of the exorcist angels who do all the dirty work, and the exterminations were his idea to begin with. Sera only backs the exterminations because she sees no better way to keep Hell's growing population from threatening Heaven's, whereas Adam (and most of his cronies) are just using the exterminations as an excuse to slaughter the once-human souls in Hell without consequences.
  • Nexo Knights: The two main villains are the royal jester Jestro, who turned evil after getting tired of being laughed at, and the Book of Monsters, who told him this was the best solution to his problem. While Jestro, despite embracing his villainy, is still treated with some degree of sympathy and eventually makes a Heel–Face Turn, it's made clear that the Book is an irredeemable bastard who is just using him, and true enough, turns out he's planning to possess the jester to become the necromancer Monstrox that he used to be. This continues in the following seasons, where Jestro only follows Monstrox's plan to destroy the kingdom due to having been brainwashed by him.
  • The Owl House: The second half of the series sets up two big threats in Emperor Belos and The Collector. Belos is a racist, genocidal sociopath, who only cares about being "the hero of his own delusion." While The Collector caused a lot of damage, both alongside and separate from Belos, they're ultimately a child yet to gain a full grasp on death and morality, and they quickly make a Heel–Face Turn after being taught morality when given the opportunity.
  • She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: Horde Prime is a genocidal galactic conqueror who only cares about himself and leads an army of clones of himself that he regularly brainwashes and abuses. He repeats the same process on the inhabitants of the places he conquers. His defective clone Lord Hordak, despite being the Big Bad of most of the show, is shown to be reasonable and somewhat fair from very early on, has a Freudian Excuse, and is redeemed at the end of the show.
  • Skull Island: The mercenaries who are hunting down Annie and Dog aren't evil so much as antagonistic, and they're just trying to reunite a long-lost feral child with her grieving mother, and they're even happy to help and shelter the heroes so long as they aren't in their way. The Kraken which functions as the first season's Big Bad is a vicious monster which clearly understands what it's doing and enjoys it; killing Mike's father and the heroes' crewmates, and also killing Kong's friend (which causes Kong's depression in the present day), and wiping out a whole village in the Whole Episode Flashback.
  • Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Many of the villains on the CIS side of the war have less sympathetic qualities; General Grievous is a Card-Carrying Villain who only seeks the extermination of all the Jedi (his more sympathetic Legends backstory having been discarded from canon), the entire Separatist Council and military leaders like Nute Gunray and Riff Tamson only exist to serve Count Dooku's whim and fulfill their own desires, and the traitorous Jedi Pong Krell is a Hate Sink who seeks only to gain standing in the new order. By contrast, Count Dooku (as elaborated upon in Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi) was a genuinely good man who turned to villainy because his efforts to fight the corruption within the Republic and the Jedi Order failed and allowed himself to be swayed by Darth Sidous, Asajj Ventress had a Dark and Troubled Past where she was taken from her family, enslaved, and taken in by the Jedi until her master was killed and turned to the Dark Side as a result, and former Senator Lux Bonteri was once a staunch supporter until Dooku killed his mother for daring to try and bring about a peace treaty and had a Heel–Face Turn after a brief alliance with Death Watch fell through. This also holds true for the independent villain, Darth Maul, the former apprentice to Darth Sidious, who apparently died on Naboo over a decade ago and miraculously survived his bisection to seek revenge on Obi-Wan Kenobi. Despite going to such lengths as killing Obi-Wan's old lover, Duchess Satine of Mandalore, and enslaving her entire planet to his whim, he still had sympathetic motives due to the horrors he suffered in the years between his apparent death and his discovery at the hands of his brother Savage Oppress. Even as he builds a crime empire, he genuinely desires to stop his former master's plans to reshape the galaxy into an Empire, even if it's for revenge for his abandonment and the death of Savage.
  • Tangled: The Series has Varian and later Cassandra compared with Zhan Tiri. While both Varian and Cassandra turn into villains as a result of them both being betrayed by Rapunzel, both of them are portrayed in a sympathetic light and eventually perform a Heel–Face Turn, while Zhan Tiri is portrayed as a completely irredeemable monster who will betray anyone she comes across and is permanently destroyed in the Grand Finale.
  • Winx Club: The fourth season has two groups of antagonists at odds with each other. The Wizards of the Black Circle, a foursome of men devoted to hunting fairies to absorb their magic, which involves cruelly ripping their wings off. The Earth's fairies are victims of the aforementioned villains, so they are hellbent on getting revenge against both the wizards and humanity as a whole. While the Winx, the heroines, show compassion to both sides at some point, the Wizards take advantage of that and stab them in the back while Earth's fairies get redeemed after learning to let go of their grievances.

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