Tragic Villain / Western Animation

Tragic Villains in Western Animation.

---

• Amphibia: King Andrias has committed a lot of unspeakable atrocities and shockingly violent actions against both the people he's meant to rule over and his enemies, but The Reveal of his past in "The Core & The King" makes it clear that he's the way he is because he was raised to be. The 'king' of Amphibia is merely a Puppet King for the Core's commands and orders, with each successive generation being raised to follow its commands and plans for their society without question before the previous king is merged into the true ruler upon their passing. Andrias was supposed to inherit the duty of invading other worlds to sustain their way of life, being ignorant of the fact he would be required to enslave or exterminate the native populations until the day before he left, but Leif received a vague prophecy that their actions would eventually destroy Amphibia after coming into contact with the music box. Unable to convince anybody of the truth of her words thanks to the Core's lack of care for anything beyond itself, Leif reluctantly stole the key to the music box from Andrias in a moment of emotional vulnerability and sent the Box to earth to stop their people's self-destructive way of life. Andrias was devastated by her betrayal and his father's condemnation of him for his 'mistake' in trusting others, making it clear that Andrias could never make up for such a colossal error. Andrias then spent 1,000 years mentally connected to the Core after becoming king, which actively encouraged his guilt and regrets to make him absolutely loyal to it despite his emotional misgivings about some of its actions. By the present day, it's greatly implied that whilst Andrias might take some amusement from the small-scale acts of evil he commits, he's not truly happy about betraying Marcy and using her as a vessel for the Core, and isn't really interested in becoming a Multiversal Conqueror, but he's so determined to live up to his ancestor's legacy that he refuses to allow any emotional misgivings to dissuade him from his path. This forms a dark parallel to Anne's own positive Character Development born from wanting to make her biological parents proud of her, showing how Andrias honestly could have been a good and noble ally to the heroes, but has become twisted over time into 'the worst version of himself' due to the type of family legacy he was born into. When he receives Leif's final letter through Sprig, he laments that he's come too far to stop, and in order to keep the Core from performing any more Villain Overrides on him, he lowers his defenses and lets Anne strike him down so he's no longer able to continue the invasion, because he sees no other option.
• Beware the Batman: Most of the villains on the show fall into this, especially if you exclude those affiliated with the League.
  • Magpie's probably the most heart-wrenching example, as she started off as a basically good person with kleptomania, but the treatment they gave her (which she volunteered for in hopes of being cured) ends up shattering her mind, and eventually erases her good persona entirely. Even after that, the Magpie persona is largely sympathetic, as beyond her compulsion to steal she mostly just wants to be loved; it's her complete lack of impulse control and her own emotions that makes her a villain. Even Batman feels sorry for her, and of course because it's that kind of show his attempt to help her only makes things worse.
  • Metamorpho's another one, as none of what happens to him is his fault and if any of the major players in his life would just treat him with a little kindness everything would be fine. They don't.
  • Humpty Dumpty is yet another one, and is equally heartbreaking. He tried to do the right thing by testifying against his Bad Boss Tobias Whale, but was horribly injured and driven insane by Tobias' vengeance. Humpty is left basically a super (tactically) intelligent child, who mostly just wants to play games. Unfortunately, his games involve (somewhat justifiably) getting even with the people who either attacked him or failed to protect him, so he ends up drawing the attention of Batman, who naturally tries to help him. It doesn't work.
  • And then there's Lunkhead. He used to be a basic (albeit strong) mook, but a fight with Batman left him comatose and damaged his brain. Nowadays he's basically a gigantic child who wants to be good, but is just a little too stupid and immature to control himself. At one point he's coerced into breaking out of jail (which he initially doesn't want to because he knows he's been bad and belongs there) with the promise of candy. And, once more with feeling, because it's that kind of show he doesn't even get the candy. Instead, he gets betrayed by his only friend and pushed off a ledge.
  • Adding to the list, there's Jason Burr, who starts off as a straight up good guy, and still wants to be one, but suffers from residual effects of Cipher's mind control that force him to betray his friends and try to kill his love interest.
  • In the most recent episode, we find out that Katana's father, a well-intentioned guy for the most part, was blackmailed into betraying his best friend Alfred, making him one of these. And, again, because it's this show he dies for it.
• Adventure Time:
  • The Ice King assumes this role when it is revealed in a Wham Episode that he used to be a normal human with a fiancé, whom he called his "princess". His Artifact of Doom ice crown made him go insane and made his fiancé leave him when he just tried it on for a laugh, turning him into a hermit who constantly kidnaps princesses, subconsciously trying to get Betty back. A later episode reveals that Betty actually didn't abandon him, as she was running from him in fear of his insanity. In the future, the Ice King temporarily turns back to normal and opens a portal through time to say one last goodbye. Though Betty basically says "Screw that" and jumps through the portal into the present day, Ooo determined to find a way to permanently cure him.
  • Marceline is more of a jerk than a villain in the earlier seasons, but her backstory is quite tragic, yet not being as evil as other examples. Her mother died when she was young after a nuclear war that wiped out most of humanity, while her father did not have much presence in her life and inadvertably ended up hurting her. Furthermore, Simon aka Ice King was her parental figure during the early years of Ooo and she had to watch his descent into madness due to the crown, hence her initial reasons for avoiding him.
  • Lemongrab. He is a creation with mental problems, it is impossible for him to have a social relationship for that condition (which it has led to suicidal thoughts), is uncontrollably impulsive, his mother locked him in his castle for a long time, bullied him and has long been in his own solitude. The Lemonjon's death probably contributed much to his Ax-Crazy behavior (note that he has in his mind thoughts like "rage" suffer "), as well as a revelation in the second videogame.
  • Magic Man is probably one as well. He seems to live deeply depressed by the death of his girlfriend, and that's the reason why torture other creatures.
• Mr. Burns from The Simpsons. He was a Cheerful Child, but his grandfather, a cruel and insensitive man, was the reason why he is the man we know today. He lured him away from his loving parents and forcibly adopted Burns. There's also the loss of his teddy bear, Bobo, but that may or may not have actually contributed to it.
• Roger Smith from American Dad!. It is revealed that he is so evil because his species releases a bile that kills them if they don't "let their bitchiness out". Made worse when it is revealed the reason he is trapped on Earth is that the others of his species wanted to get rid of him.
• Space Ranger Ty Parsec from Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. He was bitten by the Energy Vampire NOS-4-A2 (who normally preys on the energy of robots and machines), and now carries the Curse of the Wirewolf - in the light of the green, radioactive moon of Canis Lunis he takes the form of the monstrous Wirewolf, hungering for electrical energy and destruction. While the moon was destroyed, he still carries the Curse and can be affected by small chunks of the moon. He's a brave man and a good ranger and he loathes the idea that he could hurt other people as the Wirewolf.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • Prince Zuko. The snarling, angry, ruthless teenager turns out to be a "Well Done, Son" Guy who just wants to return home and be loved by his father. Who mutilated him and then exiled him from the kingdom on a lifelong Snipe Hunt over his speaking out against a plan to use a squad of raw recruits as cannon fodder to bait a trap for an enemy regiment.
  • Zuko and Azula's great grandfather Sozin as well. Despite leading a genocide and killing his best friend, Sozin reflects at the end of his life whether all of it was worth it. He somberly concludes that it wasn't and dies a sad and regretful man seeing his life as a waste, despite what the Fire Nation history books would write. Even more so as, until Zuko, his successors (particularly his grandson) turned out to be far worse, dropping any of of his more noble intentions in favor of power for power's sake.
  • Princess Azula falls hard into this trope. We start off knowing that Zuko's even more villainous sister Azula was their father's favorite, and that she remained in his good graces. What we learn later implies that she struggles every bit as hard as Zuko to keep his favor. Unfortunately, her teachings and beliefs are shattered when Zuko defects, as well as when Mai and Ty Lee betray her at the Boiling Rock. When she realizes that, in reality, her father cares no more about her than he did about Zuko, it ends up being the straw that broke the camel's back, and she breaks rather than bends. It turns the episode "The Beach" into a Cerebus Retcon for her; all of her cruelty and her inability to socialize normally becomes less funny and paints the image of a woman who literally cannot fathom any way to be loved or respected for who she is. Thus, she clings to her daddy, right down to his ideas and philosophies just for a chance at some affection.
  • From The Legend of Korra, both Tarrlok and Amon/Noatak. The sons of the very evil Yakone who trained them to bloodbend seeing them as nothing more than possible tools of vengeance against the Avatar and Republic City. Yakone's abuse of both him and his brother caused Noatak to run away and conclude that bending was the ultimate evil, becoming a self-loathing Knight Templar and taking on the identity of Amon. Tarrlok eventually becomes a ruthless politician in Republic City and only at the end does he realize that he's become the very tool of vengeance that his father wanted him to be, just as Amon also did, having torn Republic City apart socially and politically. With this realization he decides to end both his life and Amon's in a Murder-Suicide.
    Amon: Noatak. I'd almost forgotten the sound of my own name.
    Tarrlok: It'll be just like the good old days.
  • From Book 3 of Korra, P'Li. A combustionbender raised as human artillery by a war lord as a child, she was rescued by Zaheer who—despite falling deeply and genuinely in love with her—ultimately seems to have caused a gratitude complex and led her to become a terrorist, costing her 13 years in prison. She's—apparently by necessity—the last of the Red Lotus to be sprung from her cell. Then, when she's finally free once again, she's the first to die—and violently—when her own power is turned against her.
  • The final season gives us Kuvira and Bataar Jr. Kuvira was an honorable member of the Metal Clan until the destabilization of the Earth Kingdom, coupled with abandonment issues, drove her to become a cold, ruthless tyrant. As for Bataar, he joined Kuvira because he believed she cared about him, only to discover the hard way that she cared about her empire more.
• Demona from Gargoyles. She seems to be aware, on some level, of her evil, but can't stop doing it or even consciously admit it to herself because that would require her to admit that much of the suffering she's experienced over her millennium-long life was her own fault. So, instead, she's the ultimate Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds, lashing out at the world around her in the hope that, if she kills enough humans (and anyone else who gets in her way), it'll be enough to make the hurting stop. She's definitely a villain who needs to go down, but you can't help but feel sorry for her, all the same
• Several established Batman villains are portrayed this way in Batman: The Animated Series, as people whose lives have been consumed with a desire for revenge on the people who caused their problems. Mr. Freeze is probably the best example.
  Freeze: Tonight I mean to pay back the man who ruined my life... our lives.
  Batman: Even if you have to kill everyone in the building to do it?
  Freeze: [nods] Think of it, Batman: to never again walk on a summer's day with a hot wind in your face, and a warm hand to hold... Oh, yes. I'd kill for that.
  • Even sadder is that Nora is eventually revived but Mr. Freeze refuses to let her see what he has become, so she (possibly an amnesiac) runs off to get married with her doctor offscreen which in turn destroyed what little humanity Mr. Freeze had left.
  • Baby Doll is a former actress with a growth disease which prevents her body from developing past a toddler's size, so that she will always look like a small child. After a brief success in a sitcom that starred her as the troublemaking kid in a typical American family, society shuns her, and she loses everything. She finally resolves to kidnap the cast of her old sitcom in a desperate attempt to live her fantasy of a "normal" life. It's really driven home at the end of the episode when, during a climactic chase through a hall of mirrors, she ends up staring into one which (somehow) distorts her image into that of a full-grown adult. She drops her cutesy voice and persona, breaks down crying, and shoots out the mirror before surrendering to Batman.
    Mary Dahl: Look! That's me in there, the real me! There I am... [glances at her hand] but it's not really real, is it? Just made up and pretend like my family, and my life, and everything else! Why couldn't you just let me make-believe?!
  • One-shot villain Lock-Up may not be the best person on Earth (he's cruel to inmates under his charge as the warden of Arkham Asylum) but considering he's right that the legal system in Gotham encourages Batman's rogues gallery to keep coming back, putting everyday people at risk, he goes over the deep end into villainy himself because he's fired for being too tough. While cruelty isn't good by any standards, the fact that he was working with people like the Joker and Scarecrow means he was effectively canned for not being nice enough to serial killers and professional terrorists.
  • Calendar Girl's motive is revenge at the modelling industry for firing her for being too old (she's in her mid-twenties) and making her ugly. Under the mask, she's actually still quite pretty, but the unrealistic standards she's used to living up to have absolutely convinced her that she's become ugly, and she reacts in horror to seeing her face in a mirror. Best put by Batman.
    Batgirl: She's beautiful.
    Batman: She can't see that anymore. All she can see is the flaws.
  • Clayface starts out as a stressed actor named Matt Hagan, desperately looking for more Clay (which lets him hide that his face was horribly disfigured years ago) so he can continue his career. However, when a group of thugs overloaded him with it, he turned into a clayed-out monster, and he's not happy about it.
    Batman: You can play those roles again, Hagan. Let me help you find a cure.
    Clayface: No! Hagan's gone! MAKE HIM STOP HAUNTING ME!
  • The Riddler was initially an up-and-comer at a software company who designed a hit game... which his boss claimed was his idea and fired Nygma before the truth could get out. Edward then (initially) turned to crime as a form of retribution against his boss. While the Corrupt Corporate Executive was rescued, Batman himself points out that he wasn't exactly a Karma Houdini, as he's now Properly Paranoid that The Riddler might come back to finish the job.
  • Harvey Dent was an honorable, justice-driven man who is simply enslaved to a ball of repressed anger he's held back for years until the tragedy that malformed his face forced turned him into the villain Two-Face and allowed his dark side to come to the surface.
• The Batman gets in on this as well:
  • The first Clayface, Ethan Bennet, is not only a good friend of Bruce Wayne but also a good and honest cop who is secretly a Batman supporter. Then The Joker captures him and "clowns around with him", breaking him mentally and transforming him physically into Clayface. While Ethan's still in him, every time he uses his clay powers it messes up his mind more and more ultimately leaving him as a sadistic howling villain. He gets better, but not for a few seasons.
  • The Riddler is out for revenge on his boss, who betrayed him to get the credit for his invention and also cost him his love interest. To make matters worse, said boss is innocent; it's actually the love interest who dupes him into killing the boss so that she can take all the credit for the invention, and he falls for it. Poor guy.
  • While it's minor, even The Joker gets this. While torturing the aforementioned Ethan Bennet and describing that all it takes to turn a good man into a monster is "one bad day", he very briefly makes this face◊.
• Lord Garmadon from Lego's Ninjago. Bitten by the Great Devourer and infected with his evil, he cannot fight that side of him. He struggles to be a good father to his son Lloyd and lets him make his own choices and follow his own destiny, even if it means that the two are destined to battle in the future.
• Phineas and Ferb:
  • Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz had a Hilariously Abusive Childhood, from his parents not being there for him during his birth to being disowned by said parents with the ocelots raising him. Also his love life didn't go very well, which eventually led to him trying to gain dominion over the Tri-State Area. Ironically, despite the schemes he comes up with, he genuinely tries to be a great father to his daughter Vanessa. Despite their strained relationship due to his villainy, it shows that he wanted to be there as a parent, and Vanessa does like spending time with her dad (when he isn't trying to kill Perry or enact another scheme).
  • Parodied in the Across the 2nd Dimension movie when Doofenshmirtz-2 tells Doof that "true evil is born through pain and loss" before explaining that the only reason he became evil was the tragic event of losing his toy train as a child.
• Dr. Drakken of Kim Possible became a villain after his college friends laughed at him, one of which was the father of his Arch-Enemy.
• World from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. He destroyed his own world in rage when the gang tried to take Frankie back home, but he has a tragic backstory and the fact that all he really wanted was a friend who was willing to stay with him.
• Transformers: Prime:
  • Dreadwing and Predaking. The former is an honourable warrior who went berserk upon learning of the desecration of his brother's body and the later is a revived Predacon who, thanks to Megatron's manipulations, ended up all alone in the universe.
  • Megatron himself used to be an idealist freedom fighter who could see the injustice and corruption of the society he lived in. But his lack of understanding of things like kindness and tolerance made him walk down a dark path that eventually led to the death of his own planet.
• Danny Phantom:
  • Vlad Masters qualifies as this. When he was at college with his former best friend and crush, said friend accidentally mixed up the material needed to make a ghost portal work, which led to him becoming a ghost hybrid and him hating the culprit because of it. Years later, he discovers his creator's son who also suffers from his condition. He offers him the chance to help control his powers, but also to rule the world with him and abandon his father. He then pursues both the boy and his mother and hopes to destroy the one who started it all. However, he fails and tries making clones of the son to have as his own, but his hopes are dashed, which leads to his Villainous Breakdown.
  • Desiree was a harem girl who fell in love with a sultan who promised to make all of her dreams come true, even giving her her own kingdom. Unfortunately, she was driven away by his jealous wife and died from a combination of a broken heart and old age. As a ghost, she at first sympathized with those who wanted their dreams to come true and tried to make them happy by granting their wishes, but overtime, the selfish desires of others, coupled with her bitterness over not having her own wish granted, turned her evil.
• Nightmare Moon from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Once, she was Princess Luna, one of the two royal sisters who saved Equestria from Discord, freed the Crystal Empire from King Sombra and ruled over Equestria with her sister, Princess Celestia. She felt that no one appreciated her night because they slept through it, which led to her becoming resentful toward her sister and attempting to bring about eternal night. She is returned to the side of good early on from the main protagonists' intervention.
• The Brain, Pinky and the Brain, is doomed to failure every episode because of his Fatal Flaw of Genre Blindness. His plans have been shown at points to be purely power-hungry, but he's also shown to be wanting to rule the world because he thinks he can do a far better job (this appears to be Pinky's position, at least — and considering the intelligence level of the world as depicted in the show... he could be right). In the historically inaccurate episode of Freakazoid! (in which he travels back in time), it's shown as much in an Alternate Timeline in which he's president of the U.S.A. and things seem to have worked out pretty well. He is unable to anticipate the wacky hijinks which will inevitably result from the fact that this is a Warner Brothers cartoon, and so inevitably either Pinky's bumbling or his own carelessly chosen reactions end each plan in disappointment. In one episode, a prognosticative observation shows a future elderly Pinky and the Brain still locked in their labmouse cage, still plotting to Take Over the World.
• The Powerpuff Girls: In The Powerpuff Girls Movie, Mojo Jojo starts out as a Well-Intentioned Extremist who believes that his race is looked down upon by humans, which causes him to go against humans along with his race: "For too long, apes and monkeys have been living under the thumb of man! Well, the time has come, to oppose that thumb, and give back what was rightfully ours. The world!" In the comics, he regrets what he has done and wants to become Jojo again. When he does turn back to Jojo, he becomes Mojo Jojo again by mistake.
• Gravity Falls:
  • Blendin Blandin only tried to Ret-Gone Dipper and Mabel after the two unapologetically ruined his life. The twins realize this and manage to make amends.
  • The Summerween Trickster. Every year, kids throw away the "loser candy" he's made of, and all he ever wanted was someone to say he tasted good.
• Samurai Jack: The Daughters of Aku in Season 5 of were horribly abused by their mother all their lives and molded into merciless killing machines trained to kill Jack, raised to believe that Jack was a villain attempting to overthrow the "benevolent" Aku. Jack deeply regrets killing them in self-defense, and the only survivor, Ashi, makes a Heel–Face Turn.
• Nox, the Big Bad of Wakfu, is obsessed with building a time machine and going back to prevent the death of his family. To do this, he has been draining the life force of anything and everything in his path, without apology and maybe even some glee. He's perfectly okay with committing wanton atrocities because he thinks that if he stops the disaster that drove him to villainy, that will also undo all of the deaths he has caused. When he activates his machine and it only goes back twenty minutes, he has a Villainous Breakdown.
• Castlevania (2017): The Big Bad Dracula sets off to destroy humanity upon finding his, human, wife burnt at the stake because her interest in medicine was mistaken for witchcraft. Though he acted in anger, the sadness of the loss far outweighs that and his offensive becomes directionless. The raw hatred he had for humanity dulls considerably and he's only left a lonely and broken man going through the motions. Even his affection for other Vampires simply fades away and he tries to snuff out their food-source, uncaring if his own species dies along with the humans. In the Final Battle of season 2 he ultimately stops his fight with Alucard when the revelation that his anger and sadness have caused him to nearly kill his own son Alucard, one of the only other people he still loves. This ends up finally breaking him and ending his aggression. All that is left at that point is an empty shell silently submitting to Alucard staking him.
• Infinity Train has two passengers that should've never boarded the titular train.
  • The Perennial Child: The Conductor is revealed to be a passenger named Amelia who boarded the titular train after losing her husband Alrick. In her grief, she took control of the train from the previous Conductor and spent 33 years trying to build a car where she could relive her life with Alrick, with no success. To make matters worse, since this is actively going against the purpose of the train (which was designed to help people overcome their personal issues), the number indicative of her progress has stretched all the way up her neck, meaning she'll likely die before she ever gets to leave.
  • Cult of the Conductor: Simon Laurent was kidnapped by the train when he was ten-years old for his own personal problems. Receiving little guidance from his denizen companion, the Cat, she accidentally left him to die at the hands of a life sucking Ghom, only for him to be saved by a fellow passenger his age, Grace Monroe. Over the course of seven years, Grace's Toxic Friend Influence molded Simon into The Dragon of the titular book's cult, fueling his narcissistic hatred for every inhabitant of the train and ransacking the cars for amusement. Throughout this season, Simon's issues progressively get much worse as he murders Tuba out of misplaced fear, and when the above-mentioned Conductor reveals that everything the cult believed in was a lie they told themselves, Simon becomes more unhinged, trying to reject the fact that they wasted a majority of their lives over nothing. As he betrays Grace for playing a big part in his descent to villainy, his number covers his entire body and he eventually dies a horrible death by the same creature that majorly contributed to his tragedy.
• OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes: Professor Venomous, Card-Carrying Villain status aside, garners a fair bit of sympathy with his backstory. Despite being part of a top-class hero team and having a loving and supporting girlfriend, he struggled with his insecurities over whether or not he could measure up to the rest of his team. Eventually, he turned to genetics in an attempt to become stronger, only to accidentally De-power himself permanently, and shortly after the incident, he overheard his lover say something that made it seem like none of her emotional support was genuine, which made his insecurities even worse. He tried for years to regain his abilities but could never get it right and eventually turned to villainy in an attempt to find closure. And to top it all off, he gained a second personality along the way in his pursuit of power. At his core, Venomous is a man who obsessed over his perceived shortcomings, was unable to move past them and only ever found peace after he turned to the dark side.
• Codename: Kids Next Door has The Delightful Children from Down the Lane. While they are completely evil, they are also the Brainwashed and Crazy Sector Z, meaning that they're still essentially five children that have been all but abducted and brainwashed into a new life. To make things worst, any way of changing them back is only temporary. Even without taking the brainwashing into account, Father is shown to actively belittle and scream at them for failing him, even when said failure was out of their control or nothing they could have prevented.
• DuckTales (2017) makes the Phantom Blot of all characters into one. He once lived in a village that was ruled by Magica De Spell. One day, she destroyed the village out of boredom, costing the Blot his family and driving him to seek revenge in a He Who Fights Monsters way.
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power has quite a few:
  • The most prominent and iconic example in the entire series is Catra, whose bad deeds (from mistreating her subordinates and betraying others to even attempting to wipe out reality) are mostly the result of horrific childhood abuse and the meritocratic military society she was raised in. She's very codependent with her one and only childhood friend Adora and perceives her leaving as a betrayal, and she is also unwilling to join her due to various factors. In addition, Catra clearly wants validation and approval, but is often so self-destructive or impulsive that she ruins her opportunities for it, not helped by her self-focus blinding her to what she really wants or the fact that Shadow Weaver and to a lesser extent Hordak mistreat her even as the conflict goes on, driving her to only fear for her safety and become worse and worse in attempts to secure her position. With all the suffering she goes through, Catra is clearly a tragic figure no matter how bad she becomes.
  • Hordak is a lesser, but still notable example. He is a ruthless conqueror who has caused suffering on a great scale, but he's also a clone of the evil Horde Prime who was raised in a toxic cult-like environment, only to be cast out and lost on Etheria due to either his degenerative disorders or his free will, a rejection that led him to believe himself to be a failure. After finally finding a friend, Hordak is convinced she has betrayed him. By the time he achieves his goal of getting Horde Prime to Etheria so as to gain his approval, Hordak instead finds all his work gone to waste, losing everything. Being Evil Sucks indeed.
• Centaurworld: The Nowhere King is revealed to be this in the series finale that delves into his backstory. He was an Elktaur that fell in love with the Mysterious Woman, who was a human princess, and created a way to separate his human and animal halves so that he could be with her. Unfortunately, the Elk part of him had all the memories and intelligence of his human half, but now truly belonged in neither world. He watched as his human half married the Woman and when he tried to convince his human half to merge back together, his human half first tried to drown him, only relenting when he realized both of them would die if he succeeded, and instead imprisoned his Elk half within a dark dungeon without a window for ten years until the Woman freed him. Then, in an effort to belong, the Elk used the Key to combine humans and animals to create Minotaurs at first to be a "family" for himself. Eventually, his hatred and the radiation of the Key mutated him into the monster he became and he decided that if he couldn't be happy, he would make everyone else suffer too.
• Count Dooku from Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi gets revealed as one, after the loss of Qui-Gon Jinn. Prior to the Clone Wars, Dooku was a very conflicted individual. The pain of his dead apprentice, struck him harder than even Obi-Wan, resulting in a bitter, broken-hearted betrayal. Sidious used Dooku's resentment of the Jedi Order, to corrupt him and as a result turned Dooku, into the Sith he would become.
• The Dragon Prince:
  • Claudia was helping her dad Viren conquer the continent because they both believed at the time that it was best to protect humanity, but after Viren died and Claudia resurrected him, Viren came to reflect that he was wrong about everything he believed of the war between humans and xadians, he just wanted excuses to kill and exploit xadians and wildlife and deny is his fault things got worse, and he realized too late the damage he did to Claudia's psyche of not caring for morality and consequences of their actions, as she still wants to believe Viren is always right and she doesn't understand everyone turned against Viren because he is a greedy and selfish oportunist and traitor, she lost a foot fighting her former friends to release Aaravos whom she believes will help her revive Viren, but everyone else knows he likes to do death and destruction just for fun.
  • Kasef is this because Viren attacked the human kingdoms to convince humans to attack Xadia, but he doesn't know that Viren is the one who did it and that Viren doesn't care for collateral damage for his goals.
  • Karim wants to start a new war against humans to get revenge that Viren turned Lux aurea into a rotting wasteland and half of their people died in his dark magic radiation, including his sister Khessa and his best friend Osato, also he wants to overthrow his sister Janai for wanting to marry a human and he feels she wants to get rid of their culture by embracing humans.

---