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Films — Animated
- Frozen: Prince Hans, according to Word of God, had never been loved, and the way his father and his brothers, sans one, treated him was downright cruel. The only people who didn't mistreat him were his mother and one of his brothers, but they were unable to help him cope with life. The novelization clarifies he Used to Be a Sweet Kid who wanted to find happiness, but his issues slowly transformed him into a dour and cynical man bent on achieving fame and greatness no matter the cost. He's now trapped in the homeland he wanted to escape, unable to break free or seek redemption.
- Evelyn Deavor from Incredibles 2. Her parents, who she describes as "sweet and trusting", and was shown as being very close to, are revealed to have been killed through a knock-on consequence to the illegalization of superheroes. Her father tries to call the supers for help when their home is broken into, but there is no answer and he's shot dead. Her mother dies of grief within a week of this death. This leads Evelyn to conclude that supers are not to be relied on and believes that regular humans are kept weak and expectant on their help. She wants supers to remain illegal as a result.
- Tai Lung, the villain of Kung Fu Panda, Used to Be a Sweet Kid before his foster-father built up his Pride and ambition to unrealistic heights. When Master Oogway refused to entrust the Dragon Scroll to an Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy, his sense of entitlement and lack of self worth drove him to criminal violence. Emphasized at the climax of the film, when he repudiates Shifu's apology and can't accept the 'lesson' of the Scroll because he saw the scroll as the only thing that mattered and could not see the value within himself.
- Lord Shen from Kung Fu Panda 2. Neglected by his parents due to his poor health, Shen strove to make them proud but started down a dark path in his pursuit. When he heard a prophecy foretelling his defeat if he would not change his ways, Shen killed anyone that matched the description, thinking that averting his fate would make his parents proud. When they instead banished him, Shen saw it as a final sign that they didn't love him and swore retribution. His plan to conquer all of China is essentially an attempt to get over his issues and find some measure of happiness and fulfillment. Shen himself even admits that it probably won't be enough but to stop now would make all of his actions pointless.
- King Haggard from The Last Unicorn. He's an old man who epitomizes The Eeyore in temperament, which is precisely why he's imprisoned the unicorns.King Haggard: I like to watch them. They fill me with joy. The first time I felt it, I thought I was going to die. I said to the Red Bull, "I must have them, all of them, all there are! For nothing makes me happy, but their shining and their grace." So the Red Bull caught them. Each time I see the unicorns, my unicorns, it is like that morning in the woods, and I am truly young, in spite of myself!
- Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return: The Jester was made into a mockery by his jealous sister, the Wicked Witch of the West, and now no one will take him seriously like they did with her. He wants to take over Oz to gain that respect. His Villain Song has quite a sad tone in the middle:"I shall possess / my one happiness / The power I covet, and who wouldn't love it? / Would you? / Now would you dare try me / and would you deny me what's mine?"
- The titular character in Megamind is an alien from another planet whose space pod crashed into a prison, where the prisoners found him as a baby and raised him behind bars (and convinced him to believe crime was good and cops were bad). He was ostracized by everyone around him because of how different he was (and his terrible attempts at winning people over didn't help much). On top of that, he was constantly overshadowed by Metro Man, whom everyone saw as a hero, so he resolved himself to becoming the best villain he could be. The movie itself is a case study of a character who's only a villain because the world around him convinced him that's all he could ever be.
- Necross from Mune: Guardian of the Moon is played like a typical Satanic Archetype, having been banished to the Underworld for being greedy and ambitious for power, and manipulating people with snakelike spirits called Corruptors. But then it's revealed that he only turned evil because he was possessed by a Corruptor himself, and he may or may not have been in control of his actions the whole time. Once the Corruptor inside him is destroyed, Necross smiles warmly at Mune for saving him, and dies peacefully.
- Tempest Shadow in My Little Pony: The Movie (2017). As revealed in her Villain Song "Open Up Your Eyes", she was attacked by an Ursa Minor as a filly, destroying her unicorn horn and scarring her face. Not only did this kill her dream of attending Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, her now violent and unstable magic alienated her from her friends. This caused her to lose faith in friendship, and she ran away from Equestria, growing up to become the ruthless and feared leader of the Storm King's army.
- ParaNorman: The Witch's Ghost a.k.a. Agatha Prenderghast Used to Be a Sweet Kid before the townspeople accused her of witchcraft and executed her out of fear of her ability to speak to the dead. Her Curse was not to make the town be attacked by the zombies but rather to turn the judges into the zombies so that they could go through the same thing she went through.
- Puss in Boots (2011) has Humpty Dumpty, who was once Puss' closest friend and "brother" from the orphanage. He was never truly accepted by anyone around him (except for Puss and Imelda), knew full well he was different and had no idea who (or what) he really was. He had big dreams of finding the Golden Goose in the castle in the sky, partly because just one golden egg would make him rich for life, but he truly felt as though he belonged up there rather than where he was. He commits a number of petty crimes and schemes and eventually betrays his friend to further his plans but is clearly torn about the latter. By the end of the movie, he performs a Heroic Sacrifice to save Puss and his hometown and is revealed to have been a golden egg himself all along. He truly did belong up there after all.
- Rise of the Guardians has Pitch Black, the Boogyman, who is unhappy because unlike other fairytale characters, children fear him instead of loving him.
- Aeon the Terrible in Rudolph's Shiny New Year is a monstrous vulture who kidnaps Happy the Baby New Year and tries to stop the New Year coming, which is undeniably a villainous thing to do. But the true reason he’s doing that? Aeon (hence his name) will live until he is one eon (1 billion years) old, and then he will die by turning into ice and snow. And his eon will finally be up in a few days. He captured Happy because he is terrified of dying. Thankfully, Rudolph and Happy are able to avert this fate via Happy's huge ears making Aeon laugh, thus saving him by keeping him warm and alive.
- Steven Universe: The Movie has Spinel, who was created for the purpose of being Pink Diamond's friend and playmate. Pink repaid her by convincing Spinel to stay behind in her space garden while she would go to Earth, though she promised that she would eventually return... but this never happened, leaving Spinel to wait alone for 6,000 years only to discover that Pink Diamond eventually died having completely forgotten about her. As such, she decides to destroy whatever happiness Steven has as revenge for her own happiness being taken away. This even feeds into her defeat as Steven doesn't so much succeed in talking her down as much as she talks herself down, breaking down crying while curb-stomping him and admitting that she's a Reluctant Psycho and that all she really wants is a friend who she can make laugh.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem: Superfly, despite his personal antagonism by the present is still a tragic figure. The flashbacks of him as a baby fly mutant and his fond memories of his "father" Stockman, as well as fully internalizing his dreams of making a family with the other mutants make it clear that Superfly Used to Be a Sweet Kid. A clear Foil to Splinter as a mutant who became like a father to other mutants. However, the world of humans didn't leave a good impression on him. First, he lost his "father" Stockman to TCRI's attack, but he just ran away with his other mutant brothers. But eventually, like the Turtles, he saw all the good the human world could have and wanted to integrate with the human world alongside his family when they were old enough. They were violently rejected like the Turtles were, but to make matters worse, the relentless pursuit of one aggressor forced him to beat him down to an inch of his life. This convinced him that human and mutant integration was impossible and gave him a taste for violence against humans. Had he instead encountered someone more reasonable and understanding like April, there was a chance for him to join the Turtles' family at the end like the rest of his mutant brethren, rather than becoming outcast from them all thanks to his refusal to quit.
- Stinky Pete from Toy Story 2. All of his actions are evil because for years, no child bought him, and he had to watch every other toy be sold.
- Up has Charles Muntz. He was once a good and noble explorer whose passion for adventure inspired others, including the protagonist Carl. But then Muntz was wrongly accused of fabricating the skeleton of a giant bird he discovered in the lost world of Paradise Falls in South America. This accusation caused him to be publically cast out of the order of explorers. Humiliated, Muntz returned to Paradise Falls to capture a live specimen of the bird species he discovered to prove he wasn't a fraud... only for the mission to take seventy years instead of just a few months or years. By the time of the movie, the decades of failure and isolation have turned the now elderly Muntz into a bitter shadow of his former self, unable to let go of his past humiliation or move on from his outdated mission. When he realizes how far Muntz has fallen, Carl can't help but feel sympathy for him because he was once a hero. In the end, Muntz's obsession leads to his own death, and the worse thing is, even if he succeeded in his mission, it would've All for Nothing, because the age of explorers has long since passed, and most of, if not all the people who accused Muntz of fraud have died. Furthermore, South America is no longer the mysterious world it once was, meaning even if Muntz succeeded in bringing back the bird, his discovery would've been quickly overlooked.
Films — Live-Action
- Ray Finkle a.k.a. Lois Einhorn from Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. He simply missed a 26-yard field goal that cost the Miami Dolphins a Super Bowl game, but it caused him to lose his place on the team and vilified him in his hometown, enough for him to blame the whole thing on quarterback Dan Marino and plot to kidnap him and the team's mascot for revenge years later. As Ace himself said, "Poor guy with a motive, baby."
- The Amazing Spider-Man Series:
- Dr. Connors in The Amazing Spider-Man. After losing his right arm, he tries to develop a cure that will make him regain the limb as well as cure every illness on earth. He only injects himself with it after his superiors threaten to use unwitting war veterans as human trials. It is his willingness to spare them the pain as well as his desire to simply be whole again that directly causes his Face–Monster Turn.
- The Amazing Spider-Man 2:
- Harry Osborn/Green Goblin, played by Dane DeHaan. He was neglected and belittled by his obsessed, sickly father Norman and on top of that, inherits his own fatal disease. He begs Peter to help him get Spidey's blood in order to synthesize a cure. Peter suggests things could turn worse and tells him this as Spidey too, but Harry is desperate for anything that will save him, even if it kills him. When he finally does get the blood, since it's designed with Richard Parker's blood and thus why it only worked on Peter and failed with everyone else, it turns him into Green Goblin and he blames Peter/Spidey even more, especially when finding out about his dual identities. While what he wants throughout the movie makes him identifiable and understandable, it doesn't make causing Gwen's death easily forgivable.
- Max Dillon/Electro. Abandoned and mistreated by nearly everyone (even his own mother who fails to remember his own birthday and interprets his humming hint as annoying singing in a deleted scene) and with just Spidey giving him encouragement, he got into an accident involving electric eels, and everyone either ignores him or treats him as a true menace (unlike Spidey who this time around is more accepted by the public), so he decides to lash out to humanity for all their mistreatment to him.
- American Me: Montoya Santana, a Mexican gang leader, is portrayed mostly as a product of his environment. He was the product of rape himself, became acquainted with youth gangs in his neighborhood, was sent to Juvie where he was raped, murdered his attacker only to be convicted of murder, and has had to remain the top dog ever since simply to survive.
- The titular vampire of Blacula. Once an African prince, the evil Dracula turned him into a vampire, sealed him in a coffin to starve for two hundred years, and killed his wife. Blacula hates being a vampire and is shown to feel remorse for his actions. Blacula only feeds on people because of his hunger, and clearly regrets it. At the end of the film, he ends up being Driven to Suicide.
- The Batman (2022): The Riddler is something of this. He is a cruel, hateful, deranged Serial Killer... but he only became that way because of his awful upbringing as an impoverished, mistreated orphan, neglected and abandoned by society due to Gotham's deep-seated corruption. He developed his obsession with riddles as a coping mechanism for his emotional trauma, and his killing spree in killing Gotham's officials is motivated both by revenge for his own suffering and out of a genuine desire to save others from what he went through. At the end of the day, for all his vile acts, he comes across as a sad, angry, resentful, traumatized child in a man's body.
- In Barbie (2023), Ken ends up becoming the Big Bad and instigating a rebellion in Barbieland's matriarchal society after experiencing the real world and being seen as an individual for the first time in his life rather than just another Ken. He Desperately Craves Affection as a result of a lifetime of being ignored, and when Barbie rejected him he saw no other option but to take the power he was denied. In the end, Barbie manages to talk him down with a You Are Better Than You Think You Are speech teaching him that he didn't need her to be happy.
- Blade II: Jared Nomak is ultimately this. He's patient zero of the Reaper Strain outbreak and he's indifferent about the Strain's propagation despite the immense threat it could pose to the world, but he's in perpetual pain from his state and he didn't choose to be this way — it was thrust upon him by his own father. At the end of the day, he just wants revenge on his father for what the latter did to him, and after he accomplishes that, he's happy to die at the end of his duel with Blade when he realizes death will finally free him from his agony.
- Roy Batty in Blade Runner murders several people in a fit of rage, including his creator Dr. Eldon Tyrell. His anger is largely driven by the fact that he, as a synthetic android who is more intelligent and stronger than most humans, was engineered to be a slave and to live a short lifespan of only four years.
- Blue Beetle (2023): Carapax had his mom killed by a bomb from Kord Industries, and then Victoria Kord took him in as a child soldier, experimented on him, and turned him into her weapon, with the intent of eventually replacing him once he’s no longer of use to her.
- The Candyman. After falling in love with a white woman, he was tortured and killed by her father and the cruel villagers, who cut off his hand, covered him in honey, and let him get stung to death by bees. Lessened in that after his death, he returns to kill innocent people unrelated to his death, even going as far as to target babies.
- Kitty Galore from Cats & Dogs 2. A Fallen Hero, she was once an agent of a secret organization that fought for the rights of both cats and dogs. On one of her assignments, she was investigating a chemical plant. A dog scared her and made her fall into a vat of chemicals. She lost all her fur, was ridiculed by her fellow agents, and upon returning home, her owners threw her out on Christmas of all times.
- Etain of Centurion. A victim of the Roman invasion of Britain, her entire family were slaughtered, her mother was also raped, she herself was then raped and finally had her tongue cut out. When Virilus hears this, he can only hang his head in shame over what his army is responsible for. When she kills him, the revenge brings her no satisfaction and all she can do is scream. She still pursues innocent Roman soldiers who are literally just trying to get home, none of whom know that their comrade killed a Pict child. She's also not shown to treat her own people any better - given her antagonistic treatment towards Arianne (and an early draft of the script would have Etain as the one who scarred Arianne's face). Her death at the hands of Quintus is likewise played tragically, showing she was just as much a victim of this conflict as anyone else.
- Nancy of The Craft. She comes from poverty, living in a trailer park with an alcoholic mother and a stepfather who's implied to be abusive. She's also an outcast at school who possibly felt something for Jerk Jock Chris Hooker - who either slept with her or lied that he did and spread Slut-Shaming rumors about her. She actually starts off relatively friendly to Sarah, merely enthusiastic about witchcraft as a counterculture movement. While she murders her stepfather, it's in retaliation to him hitting her mother and her murder of Chris is partly motivated by a spell that led to him nearly raping Sarah. Even her psychological torment of Sarah is brought on by the latter wanting to end their friendship. Her final fate is to be committed to an asylum, delusional about the powers she no longer has.
- Bane from The Dark Knight Rises was trapped in a Hellhole Prison where he got really messed up. Same for Talia because of her upbringing.
- Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: Koba, the traitorous bonobo, is one. As shown in the official prequel novel, Firestorm, he started out as an innocent, friendly, compassionate ape who would have never harmed anyone, but the tragic loss of his beloved mother and years of neglect, abuse and torture at the hands of humans left him forever scarred, inside and out, and incapable of feeling anything but fear, anger and hatred towards humans. Despite his troubled past, Koba is genuinely grateful to Caesar when the latter frees him from captivity. Because of that gratitude, in the 10 years between Rise and Dawn, Koba is one of Caesar's most trusted lieutenants, and he genuinely cares for his leader and his fellow apes. Unfortunately, when human survivors living in San Francisco stumbles upon the colony, Koba's fear and hatred of humans is reawakened. When Caesar decides to work with the humans for the sake of peace, Koba cannot not understand or accept that, because unlike Caesar he has no reason to believe that any human can be good. As a result, Koba's fear and anger begins to outweigh his love for apes. Eventually, Koba falls so deep into madness that he is willing to kill and imprison apes that get in his way, as he feels they've betrayed their own kind by having sympathy for the humans. By the end of the movie, Caesar puts Koba down with a heavy heart.
- Dogma: Bartleby, one of two exiled angels, goes from a morally grey Anti-Hero to this, Jumping Off the Slippery Slope when he learns that someone's been sent to kill the pair of them to prevent them from reentering Heaven, furiously lamenting how his kind was reduced to servants, banished from Heaven for one misdemeanor, while humanity received free will and infinite patience from the Lord. He's undoubtedly villainous after that point, but definitely tragic. He breaks down in Tears of Remorse when he meets God again.
- Don't Breathe: Norman Nordstrom was a war hero who lost his sight in battle, and whose daughter was run over and killed by a careless motorist who got off because of Affluenza. Enraged, he decided to kidnap her and keep her trapped in his basement so he could forcefully impregnate her to get a new child.
- Deleted scenes from Empire Records reveal Rex Manning to be this. He is a genuinely talented artist but he sold out and now he can't perform the music he wants. His attempt at redemption by joining in the rooftop concert in the climax ends with him getting arrested.
- Villain Protagonist Bill Foster of Falling Down was a deconstructed Standard '50s Father trying to adapt to life in The '90s, but his Hair-Trigger Temper and mental instability alienated his loved ones with him losing his job to boot. He starts out as a Working-Class Hero, with his rage-induced stunts toward the various Asshole Victims he encounters providing some satisfying wish-fulfillment for the audience, but this only serves to worsen his emotional instability with a simple errand escalating into a Going Postal rampage. By the end of his Protagonist Journey to Villain, he's horrified by his Heel Realization and commits Suicide by Cop so his family could at least benefit from the insurance payout.
- Dr. Seth Brundle in The Fly (1986) overlaps with Tragic Monster. In a fit of misplaced jealousy involving his lover Veronica, he gets drunk and decides to jump ahead to the conclusion of his teleportation experiments and become Professor Guinea Pig, unaware there's a housefly in the transmitter pod with him at the time. Undergoing a Slow Transformation into a Half-Human Hybrid of man and insect, he comes to realize that because Nature Is Not Nice he's doomed to become as monstrous within as he is without, and even Veronica won't be safe. When he finds out she is pregnant with his child but does not intend to keep it, his human heartache and inhuman survival instinct drive him to kidnap her and attempt to genetically fuse her and the fetus with him.
- Friday the 13th:
- Pamela, the mother of the infamous Jason Voorhees. A prequel comic shows that she gave birth to Jason as a teenager, and suffered much spousal abuse from husband Elias. She eventually murdered him and struggled to raise her disabled son on her own, which eventually led to his fatal drowning at Camp Crystal Lake. Losing her only family pushed her over the edge, and she went on a killing spree to ensure no child ever has to go through what Jason did.
- Jason himself. Born deformed and mentally retarded and bullied for it. The only person who showed him any kindness was his mother. He nearly drowned in Crystal Lake after being pushed in by cruel children, who laughed as he struggled in the water, and decided to go into hiding because so many people hated him and he wanted to be left alone. He saw his mother, the only person who cared for him, get killed, and decided to kill anyone who entered Camp Crystal Lake, wanting to be left in peace.
- The Godfather:
- Don Vito fled to America after a mafia lord killed his family, only to become one himself.
- Fredo Corleone is seen as the family screwup and tries but fails to be taken seriously. His need for validation causes him to betray Michael. He is at first exiled but then allowed to come back after the death of their mother but it was just a ruse allowing him to be killed.
- Michael Corleone starts as an independent-minded War Hero, but he is dragged into mob life to protect his father and his family. He fought his enemies with cold ruthlessness for years while he struggles to achieve legitimacy, and by the time he gets there, he admits that it's too late and that he is too tired and past redemption, and passes the torch to a new Don.
- Godzilla:
- The original 1954 film Gojira showed that the title character was as much a victim of the atomic bomb as everyone else. Nuclear testing destroyed his home, killed his family, and mutilated his body, and inevitably he emerged to retaliate against the humans who unknowingly took everything from him.
- The MUTOs in Godzilla (2014), though completely apathetic to the harm they cause to humanity, are ultimately Non-Malicious Monsters who just want to mate and start a family. The problem is, they're daikaiju explosive breeders who produce hundreds of eggs at a time, to say nothing of their EMP abilities with a miles-wide range; meaning that if they flood the world with a new generation of their species, it'll spell the almost-certain end of human civilization and a new mass extinction, so they have to be destroyed for the world's sake. The necessity of obliterating them doesn't make the female MUTO's Howl of Sorrow any less horrible to hear when her unborn eggs go up in a fireball.
- Vernon Paris in Hands Of A Stranger was a talented pianist and he certainly didn't ask for a car accident that cost him his hands, they were replaced with transplants of a prior murder victim, costing him his ability to play but makes him quite effective at killing others.
- Peyton Flanders in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle didn't exactly plan to marry and start a family with a scumbag who ended up killing himself after his crimes were exposed, and the stress from this big revelation (not to mention losing her home to the lawsuits) also caused her to miscarry AND lose the ability to have any future children. It's no wonder she goes insane and sets out to ruin the life of the woman who exposed him.
- The Villain Protagonist of The Headless Eyes, a burglar who loses his eye in the very first scene and slowly loses his mind as well, winds up becoming this by the end of the film, to the point where even after everything he's done in the course of the film, the audience still feels sorry for him as he freezes to death in a meat freezer without ever having found a real solution to his eye problem.
- Gruagach from Hellboy (2019). As a changeling that was used by fairies to replace a human child they abducted (Alice, actually), his only "crime" was, well, being what he is. He hadn't actually done anything villainous by the time Hellboy came for him except weird out his adoptive parents with some unspecified behavior. One can't really fault him for wanting revenge on Hellboy, although the depths he stoops to in order to accomplish this squarely put him into villain territory.
- The Hobbit: Thranduil hates the dwarves because Thrór the Dwarf-king spitefully kept a memento of his beloved wife from him.
- The "monster" of Home Sweet Home (2005) turns out to be Yim-Hung, a perfectly normal human woman who, during a mass eviction project years ago, lose her home, and later her family when her husband and son died in two separate accidents. She ends up lurking in the basement of a newly-developed apartment block as a monster from urban legends, who is willing to kidnap protagonist May's only child to replace her dead son.
- Freya of The Huntsman: Winter's War. Once a benevolent princess who simply wanted to have a child with the man she loved, she found the child apparently murdered by his father - and so kidnapped hundreds of other children who undergo Training from Hell to become Child Soldiers forbidden to love. It later turns out her sister was responsible for her child's death, meaning Freya was entirely a victim of Ravenna's meddling. She sacrifices herself to allow the protagonists to live.
- In Inception, Mal really has no choice about being a psychotic, murderous, obsessed Femme Fatale. She just wants to be with Cobb forever, but the villainous Mal in Cobb's dreams isn't even his real wife, but a shade of the dead woman he can't bear to forget. The dead Mal herself was accidentally brainwashed by Cobb, but inadvertently became so obsessed with the notion of her world not being real that she killed herself and framed Cobb for it. All out of love.
- While usually many James Bond villains tend to avoid this trope, being pure evil and lack of redeeming qualities, there are a few exceptions.
- Alec Trevelyan/Janus from GoldenEye. He wants revenge on the British government after it betrayed his parents, Lienz Cossacks, and sent them back to the USSR where Joseph Stalin had them all executed. Though Trevelyan and his family manage to escape the execution, Trevelyan's father was ashamed to have liven his life as a Lienz Cossack, and he purposely killed Trevelyan's mother and himself out of survivor's guilt.
- Elektra King from The World Is Not Enough. She was kidnapped by the terrorist Renard and held for ransom, which her father refused to pay on the advice of M. Embittered by what she saw as her father's betrayal, she participated in Renard's scheme to milk money from her father.
- Raoul Silva from Skyfall. He was turned over to the Chinese in exchange for four other agents. They tortured him, but he refused to give up his secrets. Upon learning it was M that gave him up, he tried to commit suicide, but the cyanide didn't work, and left him disfigured.
- As evil as Lyutsifer Safin is in No Time to Die, it's hard not to sympathize with his backstory, having lost his entire family to Blofeld's machinations and was left for dead as a child, having nothing to motivate him but revenge. He was a victim of Blofeld's sociopathy just as much as Bond.
- Arthur Fleck from Joker (2019) was a mentally ill, impoverished clown living in Gotham who only ever wanted to be admired and noticed. By the end of the story, nobody cares about him... only about the sick persona he gradually built up around himself. So that's what he goes with.
- Judgment at Nuremberg: The concept itself is a major plot point, as it explores how the German people could be complicit in The Holocaust. Hans Rolfe argues that Ernst Janning, a once respectable jurist and legal expert, committed the crimes he did out of a sense of duty to a system that encouraged it. Judge Haywood does agree with Rolfe to a point- Janning was a tragic figure. But his defeat does not excuse him from the crimes against humanity he committed. The tragedy is that a respectable human being can be easily manipulated into committing mass murder.
- Lucian Carr from Kill Your Darlings has the distinct ability to manipulate both the characters in the film and the audience into pitying him. Furthered by the revelation that he met David Kammerer, who he kills at the climax of the movie, when he was just 14 and had been stalked by him ever since.
- Kong: Skull Island: Preston Packard, a lieutenant colonel who is heartbroken at the Vietnam War's conclusion because he feels it meant he and his comrades bled and died all for nothing, eagerly accepts a freelance job to Skull Island without knowing what he and his men will be getting into. Upon arrival, Kong, incensed by the expedition's carpet-bombing of his home which bloodies the mundane wildlife, attacks and he massacres dozens of Packard's beloved troops. As the movie goes on, Packard's resulting obsession with killing Kong, who he's understandably now singled out as a substitute for the Viet Cong in his mindset, consumes his honor and sanity to the point where he risks all the remaining people, his surviving men included, trying to kill Kong himself instead of prioritizing rescue. By the time that Packard dies by Kong's hand, everyone, including soldiers who would've loyally followed him to the tenth circle of hell at the start of this movie, have abandoned him upon seeing how he's fallen.
- Clyde Shelton of Law Abiding Citizen. His wife and daughter were killed in a robbery, and the more guilty robber got a slap on the wrist while the less guilty one got sentenced to death. Infuriated with the justice system, Clyde set out to destroy it, causing the deaths of hundreds of innocents in the process. Even after everything he has done, it is hard not to feel sorry for him.
- Hans Beckert of M doesn't want to murder children, but just feels compelled to do so. His speech
at the end (wherein he calls out the Mob hunting him down on their ruthlessness) reveals just how tortured and screwed up he really feels. - Maleficent tells the story of Sleeping Beauty from the perspective of the villain of the original story, Maleficent, who seeks vengeance after her fairy wings are taken.
- Mama/Edith in Mama. In the film, due to her mentality, her baby was taken from her, and she went through extreme measures to get her child back. She then commits suicide by jumping off a cliff and her baby ends up on the branch while she lands into the water. It's implied that she doesn't even know where her lost child is. She also kills and threatens people who she thinks wants to harm Victoria and Lily. All she ever wanted was to be a good mother.
- Marvel Cinematic Universe:
- Loki from Thor. He was motivated by a combination of sibling rivalry with Thor, the desire to impress his father, personal ambition, and a messed up sense of duty towards Asgard. There is also a fair dose of self-loathing, seeing as he found out that he was a Frost Giant and not an Asgardian. He is also portrayed as this in The Trials of Loki comic miniseries.
- The Winter Soldier from Captain America: The Winter Soldier also known as "Bucky" Barnes, who has spent the past 70 years being tortured and brainwashed by HYDRA to become the ultimate assassin completely against his will. Despite being one of the most dangerous men on the planet, the scenes where he starts to regain some memories makes him come across more like a kicked and abandoned puppy.
- Ultron. Unlike the comics where he's a Card-Carrying Villain who relishes in the pain he causes, this version is more sympathetic. Created by Tony and Bruce to become the suit of armour he puts around the world to protect it ("peace in our time" as Tony puts it), Ultron was quickly born on the internet, which caused him to absorb trillions of terabytes of information all at once, which drove him to madness and warped his viewpoint on humanity. Throughout the film, it's clear he's actually attempting to fulfil the goal Tony and Bruce had for him, just in a completely insane way. Essentially, he's just a confused newborn tasked with an impossible mission, something he's aware of but cannot overcome.
- Black Panther (2018): Erik Stevens/Killmonger. The son of younger brother N'Jobo, his father was killed when his uncle killed him defending another Wakandan. Orphaned and alone, he ingrained his father's more radical/racial views of the world. He was a natural fighter, becoming a talented Black Ops officer and member of the US Navy SEALS, and could've chosen to walk into a different life, but his hatred and bitterness lead him to reach Wakanda in order to kill his cousin to become the new king. He then had goals of using Wakandan power to start a new race war, something several people pointed out wouldn't necessarily end well for anyone. The ultimate tragedy is that none of this would've happened if his uncle had just chosen to bring him back to Wakanda. As T'Challa pointed out, "He is a monster of our own making". And even in death managed to go out on his own terms to the disappointment of the Black Panther.
- Ghost from Ant-Man and the Wasp: She is probably the straightest example of this trope in the entire MCU of an evil-doing woobie. In a childhood accident with her father's tech, Ava lost both her parents and gained powerful but unstable abilities that leave her in constant pain and are slowly phasing her out of reality, with the only end possibilities being death or worse. Honed by black ops missions for S.H.I.E.L.D. (or maybe HYDRA), she was cast out following its fall, barely getting by with her foster protector. Every single action she undertakes in the film, even as they grow increasingly heinous and brutal, is exclusively devoted to fixing her condition. All of the good guys recognize her as a victim of circumstance, and she ultimately is allowed to leave in peace once they manage to heal her properly.
- Thanos himself also counts. He saw firsthand that his species was on the brink of extinction and offered an (admittedly insane) solution. Ridiculed by his peers for this (and heavily implied to have been ostracized by his people due to his appearance), his prediction soon came to pass and he was left the Sole Survivor of the Titan race. His main motivation seems to be a genuinely misguided attempt at making the world more sustainable to save others from the fate his own planet suffered, as well as a desperate attempt to prove that was right and WASN'T mad. He takes no personal satisfaction in the suffering he causes and his conquests ensure at least the chance of survival. There's a reason the whole "Thanos Did Nothing Wrong" campaign took off so quickly.
- Xu Wenwu AKA The Mandarin from Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. While he was a conqueror who spread terror and destruction, he wanted to renounce his life of crime when he met Ying Li, they gave birth to Shang-Chi and Xialing. However, his dark past came back as Wenwu's rivals came to their house and killed Ying Li. He was then manipulated by the Dweller-In-Darkness by using Ying Li’s voice as a means to use him to free itself from its prison in Ta Lo.
- Ikaris from Eternals, while not truly evil, his blind devotion to the Celestials, particularly Arishem, force him into keeping the Awful Truth from the woman he loves and his lifelong friends and ultimately drives him to kill Ajak. He betrays Sersi and the others when they try to stop the Convergence due to his fanatic devotion (again despite knowing the truth himself) and he nearly aids in bringing about Earth's destruction as a result. Ultimately, Love Redeems and he helps the Eternals stop the Convergence just in time, but his unwavering guilt over his actions leads him to killing himself by flying into the Sun. Poor guy.
- All of the villains in Spider-Man: No Way Home qualify as they carry their backstories with them from the previous movies. Peter even recognizes this and seeks to save them from their terrible fates. Special mention must go to Norman Osborn, who is a flawed, but overall good man, but a very tortured soul constantly plagued by the Goblin persona, who forces him to do terrible things whenever he takes over. Norman is ultimately cured of the Goblin persona by Peter, but not before he wreaks havoc across NYC, destroys Happy's apartment complex, murders his beloved Aunt May and nearly succeeds in driving Peter to commit murder out of sheer rage. Norman may be free of the Goblin, but he has to spend the rest of his life living with the tremendous guilt of what he's done.
- Scarlet Witch in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Corrupted by the Darkhold and tormented with dreams of her children (which turn out to be visions of realities where they're still alive), she discovers America Chavez has the power to travel the multiverse and begins to use her power to try and capture her. When Doctor Strange rescues her and tries to stop Wanda, she resorts to dreamwalking which is described as "corroding to the soul", turning her even more insane and cruel, even going as far as to possess one of her own variants and tries to kill America to absorb her power in order to fulfil her goal. In the end, she realizes that while her children may exist, they aren't in her universe and she abandons her goals, destroying the Darkhold (and possibly herself) to atone. Strange and America can't help but sympathize with her; all she ever wanted was to be with her children again.
- Gorr the God Butcher from Thor: Love and Thunder is a classic example. Originally a devout family man and disciple who worshipped the god Rapu, his homeland fell victim to a terrible famine (that's heavily implied to have killed all of his people), despite his constant prayers for aid. After his beloved daughter's death by hunger, he miraculously stumbled upon Rapu and his other deities, only to find them mocking his suffering and revealing they heard everyone's prayers (including his own), but simply didn't care and saw mortals as nothing more than toys to play with. Overcome with grief, rage and his faith completely broken by the very gods he once revered, the Necrosword ensnared him and granted him immense power, but cursed him with a terrible corruption that eroded his mind and will someday kill him. With nothing left to live for and his rage fueled by the ancient weapon, Gorr devoted his life to killing gods all across the Nine Realms so that no one may be used as he was by them ever again.
- Mr. Brooks: Brooks vehemently tries to overcome his addiction to murder, with occasional periods of success.
- The Mummy Trilogy: Imhotep from the first two movies is ultimately this. As cruel and callous as he is, what he wants most is to be with his lover Anck-su-Namun forever, and his original affair with Anck and subsequent efforts to resurrect her when circumstances beyond their control led to her death are what led to him suffering unimaginably for 3,000 years and becoming the titular monster. 3,000 years of suffering out of obsession and devotion to her... and at the end of the second movie, Imhotep finds out it was all for nothing when Anck-su-Namun, despite her love for him, leaves him to die rather than risk dying herself a second time. Imhotep is so crushed by this that he allows the hordes of the Underworld to drag him off to hell.
- Korean cult classic Oldboy has Woo-jin, one of the most iconic examples of this trope in all of cinema: He commits a number of serious atrocities throughout the film, including imprisoning the protagonist (Oh Dae-su) for 15 years, killing indiscriminately, manipulating and extorting all manner of people and worst of all, hypnotises Dae-su into having sex with HIS OWN DAUGHTER. However, a look into his backstory reveals the Awful Truth: he was once a more-or-less normal schoolboy who was in a sexual relationship with his own sister. Dae-su happened to walk in on them once and spread rumours about them (though he didn't know it was his sister he caught him with) and the resulting gossip caused him to become an outcast. Then his sister discovered she was pregnant (which he deluded himself into thinking was a "phantom" pregnancy), the disgrace of which drove her to committing suicide that Woo-jin wasn't able to save her from. Riddled with guilt and rage, he grew up to be a vengeful and cold man who brutally executed his revenge on Dae-su. Upon finally exacting his revenge, he realizes that Vengeance Feels Empty and now, with his goal accomplished and his grief over his lost sister never truly healing, he simply stands in the elevator and shoots himself in the head.
- Oz the Great and Powerful reveals that the Wicked Witch of the West came to be because she was too naïve to realize that her sister was playing her and agreed to bite a magic apple that turned her into a merciless Axe-Crazy villain. Oz is partly to blame for that, as he flirted with Theodora like he does with any girl he meets, making it easy for Evanora to claim that Oz courted her too while showing pictures of Oz with Glinda. Even Evanora is disturbed as to how Axe-Crazy her sister has become.
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Davy Jones falls into this category, since it was his love for Calypso and her betrayal that caused him to do the things he did, including telling the pirates how to lock her in a human body.
- Prom Night (1980): Alex Hammond enacted a killing spree on the night of the prom because four (now grown) children bullied his sister out a window, covered up the accident, and showed no remorse for what happened.
- General Hummell from The Rock stole chemical weapons and took the city of San Francisco hostage unless reparations be paid to the families of his soldiers who he lead into a disastrous covert operation and were abandoned to die. His plan was a bluff and his remaining soldiers killed him.
- Saw franchise:
- John Kramer a.k.a. Jigsaw started out as a decent man, a loving husband and a soon to be father. His wife was mugged by one of her patients at the drug clinic she ran. She lost her child in a miscarriage during the mugging. The two went through a messy divorce and John later contacted cancer. It could've been caught earlier had his cranial X-ray not been accidentally mislabeled. His nephew also ended up dying in a motorcycle accident. After being denied health insurance and attempting suicide, John grew disgusted seeing people unappreciative of the gift of life he was being denied. He devoted himself to kidnapping people and placing them in life threatening situations to try and get them to appreciate life.
- His apprentice, Amanda Young, also counts. When she was a little girl, her father would lock her in a dark closet and keep her there for hours. In her adult life, she was framed for a drug crime she did not commit, and became an actual drug addict in prison. She was later kidnapped by Jigsaw and placed in a situation where she had to kill to save her own life. She came to see Jigsaw as a mentor and father figure, and became his apprentice. Even after her Face–Heel Turn she still had it pretty rough, being thrown into a pit of needles and almost being killed by Xavier Chavez. Finally, she was blackmailed by her rival apprentice Mark Hoffman.
- Soldier: Todd's nemesis Caine 607 is probably even more of a victim of the indoctrination of the future military as Todd himself is, as he was not only trained from birth to be a soldier like Todd himself but also genetically modified to be completely obedient. When Caine loses an eye in a fight with Todd and is dismissed by his commanding officer as almost useless now (being relegated to rear guard action from then on), there are strong parallels with Todd himself being dismissed as a relic.
- Spider-Man Trilogy:
- Dr. Octopus in Spider-Man 2 is eaten up by guilt after a Freak Lab Accident and is driven mad by the AI controlling his cybernetic arms.
- Almost there is Norman Osborn in Spider-Man (the Green Goblin personality ruins it, complete with I Surrender, Suckers moment).
- And Eddie Brock in Spider-Man 3 (could count if not for Venom being a Card-Carrying Villain).
- The Sandman in Spider-Man 3 never meant to kill Peter's uncle or cause trouble for anyone. All he wanted was to get enough money to save his little girl.
- Star Trek:
- An unsympathetic example is Khan Noonien Singh in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. He has the central hallmark of a tragic character: he suffers a catastrophic event (i.e. a freak planetary disaster that leads to the deaths of his wife and most of his crew) that effectively drives him into committing evil......except given that he was already a ruthless evil dictator in the original TV series, he goes from being Affably Evil into a completely-deranged demagogue blinded by his desire to get revenge on James T. Kirk, who he blames solely for the deaths of his loved ones. Still, it's not completely hard to feel sorry for Khan when he's left to die in the exploding Reliant starship.
- The alternate reality universe gives Khan a much better tragic representation in Star Trek Into Darkness. Although he is the same genocidal dictator as the prime universe, he and his people end up being exploited by Starfleet Admiral Alexander Marcus with the intent of drumming up war against the Klingons. Khan was against Marcus' scheme, but was forced to comply when Marcus threatened to kill his crew if he didn't comply. Thus, not everyone is disgusted at Khan when he crushes Marcus' skull in retaliation.
- Krall in Star Trek Beyond. He was the captain of the USS Franklin, Balthazar Edison, when the MACOs were disbanded, and after being put out to pasture on an obsolete starship, he was left to go mad on Altamid as he watched his crew die and was abandoned by the Federation.
- Star Wars: Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker. Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Revenge of the Sith show how Anakin is manipulated for years by Palpatine and falls to the dark side out of belief that it's the only way to save the lives of his wife and unborn children. In Return of the Jedi, Vader believes it is too late for him to turn against Palpatine until he sacrifices himself to kill Palpatine and save his son.
- This gets highlighted more during the final battle of the Obi-Wan Kenobi series. Vader gives a heartbreaking speech, on how much he changed, that it brought his former master to tears over the loss.
- Superhero Movie: The antagonist of the film, the Hourglass, is actually Lou Landers, the terminally ill President of a research lab. He invents a machine that is supposed to restore the body to perfect health. When he tries to use it on himself, the machine malfunctions, giving him the power to drain the life force from others, which regenerates his body for 24 hours. His assistant runs tests on him and informs him that he must kill each day to live each day.
- The Suicide Squad: Starro the Conqueror doesn't truly live up to "the Conqueror" part of its title until it's freed from Jotunheim, and even then it only goes on a rampage as revenge for being cruelly expiremented on, tortured and raped by The Thinker for 30 years.
- Timeline: Decker was abandoned in the past by Gordon, with too many transcription errors to ever safely return. It's no wonder he became a ruthless knight to survive, or kills Gordon after seeing him. Gordon's plea about having a family enrages Decker, since he had a family too. His last words are "Take me home".
- TRON: Legacy: At the end of the day, CLU is just following the directive Flynn originally gave him when he was born to the letter — to "create the perfect system", which Flynn wouldn't realize until later was a fundamentally unattainable goal — and he's unable to change and adapt. CLU went as far as betraying Flynn when he decided his own creator was an unmoving obtsacle to that objective, but he didn't seem to take any joy in it, and he's sincerely distraught over everything that's happened between the two of them when they see each-other again.
- Unbreakable: Elijah Price is desperately looking for a purpose in life. He thinks that being a supervillain is better than being nothing, so he commits several acts of terrorism to find his antithesis, a real life superhero. He expresses deep remorse for what he has done to complete his life's work, but thinks he finally knows who he is.
- Red, a.k.a. the real Adelaide in Us. She was kidnapped and replaced by her Tethered counterpart, a.k.a. the Adelaide we have been following for the entire movie, and forced to take her place underground while Tethered!Adelaide took her place aboveground and nobody suspected a thing. After decades of being forced to live out a grotesque parody of whatever her Tethered counterpart did aboveground (thanks to their Psychic Link), is it any wonder that she wanted to orchestrate an uprising to get revenge on her Tethered self for what she did to her?
- All of the Tethered, including Tethered!Adelaide that was actually the protagonist this whole time, can be seen as this. They were clones created by the government and then abandoned when it was decided that they couldn't be used to fulfill their intended purpose. Is it any wonder that Tethered!Adelaide took Real!Adelaide's place at the beginning of the movie? The fact that Tethered!Adelaide was able to adapt to life aboveground and live a normal life, even starting a family, shows that the Tethered were capable of emotion and compassion just like real people, only circumstance and opportunity prevented them expressing those things.
- Vantage Point
- Enrique is a patsy of the terrorists because he's in love with one.
- Javier is forced to help abduct the president because terrorists kidnapped his brother. They are both killed when they served their purpose.
