Your favorite, personal "Draco In Leather Pants" Characters

Everyone loves Wheatley, and all are crushed every time he betrays. No matter how many times they play.

Of course, don't you know anything about ALCHEMY?!- Twin clones of Ivan the Great

The Joker. He's just so amusing I can't help rooting for him to some degree even when he's doing hideous stuff.

I suppose to a degree Lemongrab and Discord. Even though both pretty much reformed (Lemongrab was last seen attacking the Candy Kingdom and Discord has not fully reformed yet) they are extremely relatable for me.

my drawing blog ya'll UPDATES 10 TIMES A MONTH WOW, THIS IS STRAIGHT UP MUH SOGGY KNEE

Is it wrong that I actually rooted for Cartman in some South Park episodes?

They usually put enthasis on what a monster Cartman is, but they have this way of playing him as such an ineffectual Butt-Monkey at times his horrific acts come off as kinda cathartic. The other boys' occasional Not So Different streak helps at times (there are times they enjoy screwing with Cartman just for cruel fun as much as vice versa, just they often end up completely out of their league, eg. the whole of "Scott Tenorman Must Die" was more or less set up so his victory would look completely awesome, no matter how horrific it was).

edited 11th Feb '13 7:03:45 PM by Psi001

Plankton. After a lot of the rap he was put through in later seasons, I've realized why the movie being last was canon. Bro just wants to be successful, even if it's a little bit, it's constantly taken away by the same two people. It's no wonder his final plan involves killing the two who keep doing it.

I didn't think "awesome" so much as "Complete Monster who should be ground up into chili and fed to one of his own relatives".

I think it's the manipulation of it, they so greatly make Cartman seem pitiful throughout the episode and present Scott as an Eviler than Thou bully that could make even him look sympathetic, and by that climax even Stan and Kyle had conspired to humiliate Cartman for the hell of it. If Cartman hadn't have won, it would have been a rather cruel ending and likely as many would have moaned Cartman deserved to win. But he did, and so we get, well....

While he's usually in the "pitiable but still a jerk" category, I admit it seemed like they did everything in their power to make Krabs look like an unprovoked asshole for hounding him in "Plankton's Regular". Granted, by that point the show was in Sadist Show territory and Krabs doesn't really seem like a character we're supposed to be rooting for anyway. Having an episode he ups even the show's villain in spitefulness just seemed another part of the increasing Comedic Sociopathy, much like Bender leaving even the Robot Devil appalled by nonchalentally killing his son (only the latter more successfully Crosses the Line Twice).

edited 11th Feb '13 9:08:00 PM by Psi001

I think I hate Stan and Kyle too much to hate Cartman. He's funny. But I do love the times when he loses to a better person, like Wendy in the Smurfs Episode.

edited 11th Feb '13 9:52:06 PM by PrettyCoco

@ PSI post #22 That may be why silly villains are way more sympathetic to the audience. To me, it's pretty semi-justified when the hero is a Designated Hero.

I agree. An interesting example is Spongebob. Because Krabs was flanderized from a greed, albeit Jerk with a Heart of Gold to a Jerkass with no concern for others except for his money & him doing monstrous things, fans don't find him sympathetic anymore and they end up rooting for Plankton, despite him enjoying him being evil in the past. The episode "One Coarse Meal" is (well in my opinion) a good example for your point.

edited 12th Feb '13 9:29:58 AM by MsCC93

I'm gonna be the obvious fangirl and say Organization 13.

Their situation is pretty pitiful and some of them, heck most of them, get some pet the dog or pitiful moments.

And then dream drop distance happened and gave me the warm fuzzies.

All our wishes can come true

I'm writing a fanfiction that Dracos Discord, Ratigan, Lord Shen, Dr. Blowhole, Mr. Krabs, and Taurus Bulba into horrendously OOC Anti Heroes, while Ronning Jimmy Neutron ino a Complete Monster.

I'm a straight male who finds male anthro cartoon animals surprisingly sexy.

Magic people, voodoo people!

Lunarcat why are you citing citing VIDEO GAME CHARACTERS?

And derailing characters into complete monsters is HORRIBLE writing.

I'll admit, I don't hand out a whole lot of Leather Pants for cartoon characters. Certain game characters and a certain webcomic character, maybe, but not many cartoon characters.

That said, I'll pick Sela from the Animated Adaptation of Redwall. She already kind of got this status from me in the book for being a fairly cunning double agent who's chief evil deeds are healing the big bad (she's paid to do it...but given Cluny's usual methods, I doubt she could've refused anyway) and...stealing his battle plans to sell to the good guys.

The cartoon actually has that plan be successful, but she then grabs the Villain Ball and starts stealing silverware from Redwall abbey. Then her son ends up badly wounding a major character, and all hell breaks loose. The short version is, a Harmless Villain at worst is put to death by the heroes for a crime she didn't actually do.

edited 12th Feb '13 3:13:18 PM by TheGunheart

A lot of times it may not be as much as rooting for a sympathetic villain as disliking a jerkish Designated Hero, and actually wanting their foil to cut them down to size. There's always some high catharsis in a smug or overzealous hero getting caught off guard to me, usually because it humanizes them slightly and makes them the underdog. It also enphasizes a sense of karma, and that the hero is only on top so long as they play fair. Not to mention having the villain at least briefly get the upper hand shows their cruel potential and makes clear, no matter how much you pity them, they need to be stopped.

I guess sympathetic villains touch a nerve for me because I often feel very obligated to try and root for the hero, or at the very least the character that will eventually win, and usually giving them a fallible streak or seeing them get genuinely menaced by the villain when they get too arrogant humanizes them enough to allow that. I liked for instance Tom's Not So Harmless moments since it not only Thrown A Bone for Tom, but made it easier to sympathize with Jerry seeing Tom genuinely hold a threat over him and knowing he got the same punishment whenever he got too arrogant or sadistic as well. Same for the rare occasions Bugs or Speedy lost.

On another example of a villain however, I always kinda felt sorry for Daffy, if largely because, unlike the other Looney Tunes villains he didn't start off that way. While I'm not really on "Chuck Jones' Daffy sux" bandwagon, I always found something a bit tragic about the later Daffy, given how he started off a cheerful Crazy Awesome world warper, and then was decayed into a bitter Straw Loser that even fellow Butt Monkeys could run rings around (even if he usually brought it all on himself as much as Sam). It got worse when the fall guy element of his persona took over and he became little more than a curmudgeonly snob. It's sorta painful, like watching a pitiful Jaded Washout trying to get back to their former glory, but not even able to get past the first obstacle.

edited 17th Feb '13 8:34:42 PM by Psi001

Personally, I kind of DILP the Flim Flam Brothers. Wow, lots of pony villains in here. I wonder if anyone DIL Ps King Sombra.

Also, the Brotherhood of Mutants in X-Men Evolution, those poor guys live with no one to support them in an abandoned house. (This only applies to Avalanche, Toad, The Blob, Scarlet Witch, and Boom-Boom.)

And I don't know if this counts as DIL Ping, but I find Lots-O'-Huggin' Bear and Flippy both sympathetic and Complete Monsters.

edited 16th Feb '13 10:50:46 PM by Smasher

Something never quite hit me with the Pony villains, while some had pitiful qualities they were usually enphasized enough as one note jerks and provided enough menace that the cast never came off too invincible or as "bullying" them. Trixie bordered this due to other ponies acting kind of arrogant just for being a traditional show off performer, though she quickly disposed of them so they lost their pedestal and they made sure it was the one pony not heckling her that won the day. Even then, Rainbow Dash did actually lampshade the hypocrisy of it all anyway.

Usually my biggest players for Draco entries are those that are completely outclassed and usually don't challenge the heroes in the slightest (to the point of outright smugness on the latter's part) which often leaves danger of the heroes coming off unsympathetic or using Disproportionate Retribution. Ones that are Not So Harmless stand more of a chance of giving proper pathos to the heroes and making them look more like underdogs. Even later seasons Plankton I can stand a tad because he gets to dish some lumps back at Krabs at times.

The Urpneys are an overwhelming example of this since not only are they usually harmless and handily trounced by the heroes, the 'smug vengeance seeking trickster' dynamic seemed uncalled for against them and actually makes the heroes look much more vindictive than the villains are. They actually did have Not So Harmless moments, but they were almost always implemented in a manner that didn't make the heroes look any more sympathetic, usually because they beat them in contrived bouts of luck rather than actually needing to work against the odds for once, so were still the ones in their comfort zone and won with little hardship at all. It just seemed the writers were incapable of making the heroes look sympathable due to them needing to be 'winners' to the Urpneys' 'losers', they were either Knight Templars or Lucky Bastards.

In some sense the deaths of Captain Crigg or dozens of other Urpneys at the start of the series seems potentially reminiscent of Gunheart's example. Wonder how many Urpneys the heroes beat up and sent to be executed by Zordrak (and likely had a good laugh about) before he just settled for Blob.

edited 17th Feb '13 8:34:11 PM by Psi001

I agree with you PSI 001. That's why they are the villain...the good guy always wins, I mean even though some heroes are designated heroes, does not make all villains designated villains.

With Trixie, when she was first introduced, she was just boasting about her abilities as a magician (which is what the majority of them do), but unfortunately her Designated Villain status was diminished when we found out her true personality. Although she is my favorite, that won't make me attempt to justify some of her unprovoked behavior towards Twilight Sparkle (since Twilight didn't make even one single comment about her!)

@40 I think they wasted a good villain with King Sombra because he was arguably the most evil out of all villains without any redeeming qualities. Although he isn't my favorite, it would have been nice for him to return for another two-parter.

edited 17th Feb '13 12:59:23 PM by MsCC93

I'm starting to wonder if Sombra was just a retaliation to this trope, even their attempts to make truly horrible villains led to fans supporting them, so they just made as paper thin and irredeemably evil and demonic a villain as possible, to the point he's basically a growling prop.

Trixie was at least a good example of a villain that was sympathetic but still a deserving jerk, ie. you feel sorry for her, but not too sorry, you still want the heroes to win. This was continued for Magic Duel, though they implemented the plot well enough to allow a Heel–Face Turn.

I think it's just a case that a hero being a jerk is much more irritating than a villain being a jerk, since ultimately the jerkass villain will almost always get their punishment and end up the 'loser', the jerkass hero on the other hand, still usually comes out smiling.

edited 17th Feb '13 1:46:21 PM by Psi001

But if he seems paper-thin, then that just means there's a lot we don't know about him, and so he might not be so bad after all!

I suppose it's possible given the show we're talking about.

I just tend to find the Di LP treatment of the pony villains odd, since for the large part, they were clearly played as For the Evulz tools and the ponies were almost always struggling underdogs against them. Trixie was the nearest to an exception but even then she was a one note pompous ass and the heckling ponies did get some comeuppance for going too far. She was even noted as having a free pass to redeem herself if she just stopped being a jerk about it. I tend to see it less as the villains being clearly pitiable and more down to the fact the fanbase is just that varied now.

edited 17th Feb '13 8:33:13 PM by Psi001

I think it's more to do with the show's themes than the characters themselves. I mean, I don't really expect the Autobots and Decepticons to put aside their differences and talk it out; the endless war between them is what the whole franchise is about, after all. But for some, I can see it as rather jarring that something that's a more slice of life with a friendship theme and focusing on characters overcoming their faults tends to have seemingly irredeemable villains.

I think in the end they do at least often emphasize if there's a chance of redemption or just avoiding conflict, they'll try and take it, but when they don't, they genuinely have little other choice. I suppose it's a worthwhile moral to place, in the end there are people in reality who are just jerks and no negotiating will move them, and it's probably best to teach kids that they should try, but don't grow up too naive.

I guess this may be what led to "Keep Calm And Flutter On", as it put this ethic on display. Celestia really would like to avoid Discord's very grim punishment, but if proves past redemption, she'll take it (and Fluttershy endures a lot to save him from it). I think other episodes like "Griffon The Brush Off" and "A Friend In Deed" do at least point out not everyone can be conformed to the ethics of the show and made a friend.

In the end it at least up keeps the often basic rule for villains, pointing out they have the choice to just stop being a jerk and end their abuse. This is likely why so many heroes like Bugs have a very laid back "Just back off and I'll play nice" approach.

I believe The Transformers did play on this once however, when Optimus makes a speech to never give up hope on possible peace. Granted this was the infamous Heel–Face Brainwashing episode.

edited 17th Feb '13 8:32:33 PM by Psi001

I can understand this. While they're by no means good ponies, I do find them very charismatic, smooth, and a pleasure to watch. Their song is one of my favorites in the whole show, if not the very favorite.

Gilda, on the other hand, I actually did feel a certain amount of sympathy for. She really does seem like she wants to be Rainbow Dash's friend…just no one else's.

He's more a petty jerk than a villain, though I admit I rooted for Donald Duck in a lot of Classic Disney Shorts, particular the "Main characters vs mischevious wild animal" formula. While he was an asshole, and was at least able to dish it back a lot of the time, they seemed a bit too reliant on What Measure Is a Non-Cute?, and no matter who was the instigator, Donald always ended up the loser against the "cute" underdog animal, usually with them laughing like a hyena at his misery (Tom And Jerry was guilty of this at times as well, but at least they still often accepted Jerry didn't deserve the last laugh). Chip N Dale seem to get a lot of flak with fans in particular, though the bee character seemed much more sadistic, and usually won more handily.

Pluto seemed to start this formula before Donald, though I can see why they switched characters, since, similar to Elmer against Sam, Pluto came off as even more pitiful than Donald against them (there were admitedly only a handful of shorts Chip N Dale picked on Donald first, though they were almost always heckling Pluto).

edited 18th Feb '13 2:51:52 PM by Psi001

Psi001, How do you feel about people who DILP Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon?