Villains you sympathize with or at least understand.

Normally, I never find myself excusing actions of a villain because that's Draco in Leather Pants. However, as fucked up as their motives are, some villains may actually have a point.

Does anyone have any villain they feel bad for or at least understand why they did what they did.?

You mean in cartoons or in general?

Mr. Freeze is an obvious one.

In general.

Anyway, the only villain I have ever understood is Starlight Glimmer from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.

I will NEVER excuse or defend the actions that she did, but I do understand her mentality behind it.

While Starlight has no backstory, I do believe that she was shunned for her cutie mark and being different, so she believes that being the same is the way to go.

I also completely understand why she snapped at Twilight when Twilight made her speech about friendship and being different. When people tell me that I need to be myself, I want to snap because I was always shunned by my peers for being different when I was younger and still today.

This is why I hate being different with a passion and wish I was like everyone else, but I won't do the things that Starlight did, of course. She's insane and hypocritical, but I see where she's coming from.

edited 22nd Apr '15 7:13:17 AM by MsCC93

Harley Quinn

Ice King.

Heinz Doofenshmirtz. His path to, eh, "darkness" started with parental abandonment. Now, while I don't know how that feels, I can at least understand that's not a great way to start your life. I mean, being raised by ocelots, having neither of your parents show up at your birthday, being substituted by a dog called Only Son, having to stand in for a garden gnome, your brother always being the favorite of your mother, having an embarrassing video of you on the Internet, that guy had a lot of crap to endure, and even then he isn't really that evil. I'm glad he was given the opportunity to turn his life around. As a school teacher.

Loki. Not that any of what he does is right, but I understand his deep-seated self-hatred. The way he keeps destroying the people closest to him is kind of tragic. I want to sent him into therapy, along with a certain other character in the MCU who is totally messed up, which causes in me a combination of being creped out by him and feeling sorry for him.

I don't think that there was ever a case in which I truly though that the designated villain was actually in the right.

Most of the Looney Tunes villains other than Yosemite Sam were not particularly mean, and their goals were essentially all "I need to eat something". Had they not had the misfortune of being cast as (natural) predators, they'd be perfectly good. Tom is similar, though he and Jerry generally had more of a mutual rivalry.

The magician in Frosty the Snowman was a jerk, but really all he did at first was change his mind about wanting to keep the hat after finding out it was magic after all. Plus Santa's punishment for him in the end seems like Disproportionate Retribution, considering that Santa says that Frosty can't actually die.

Plankton from Spongebob Square Pants used to be more unsympathetic, but after episodes like "Plankton's Regular" and "New Leaf" (and I guess "One Coarse Meal" though I haven't seen that one first-hand), it seems like Mr. Krabs is just as bad if not worse than he is, making me want to see him on top.

edited 22nd Apr '15 8:56:43 AM by PPPSSC

The Urpneys from The Dreamstone, especially Frizz and Nug. They're essentially slaves of Zordrak who get Press-Ganged into stealing the title stone every episode (usually with threat of torture or death if they don't). This stone is all part of some Serious Business war over sending dreams or nightmares. Several hundred Urpneys have been killed over ruining a night's sleep!

The Urpneys are Harmless Villains even at that. Sgt. Blob and Urpgor are traditional arrogant jerk types, but Frizz and Nug are meek, unwilling and completely aware they are outmatched by the heroes, who show them No Sympathy and spend most episodes smugly beating them up or exacerbating Zordrak's wrath onto them for having the nerve to be forced into ruining their precious dreams. It's even worse if you consider the backstory implies it was started when they pretty much just dumped Zordrak into space to be the Urpneys' problem instead.

I always felt bad for these guys, there didn't seem a lot of karma in what they went through, even through the whole 'death before dishonour' theory, what they put the heroes through was absurdly petty compared to the hell they got from them and their Bad Boss. Not to mention Zordrak was rarely ever punished himself and the heroes ALWAYS got away with a double standard for using dirtier tactics. The closing points at least altered things so the heroes looked genuinely threatened (or at least weren't nearly as dickish about it) but the Urpneys characterisation wise hadn't changed at all. They were more patsies than villains.

edited 22nd Apr '15 12:42:33 PM by Psi001

Tolietnator. Guy is so pathetic that the one time he beat the kid's next door it was just a bunch of other bad guy adults dressed as the KND.

I always felt kind of bad for that guy. I didn't want Frosty to die, but the hat did originally belong to him. He also gets chewed out by Santa Clause, and I don't think that's something I would wish on any villain.

I used to feel bad for characters like Scratch and Grounder or Bebop and Rocksteady. I think a problem with a lot of older cartoons is that the villains are so ineffective that the heroes almost come off like bullies.

I always felt super bad for Jack Spicer from Xiaolin Showdown. He was flanderized into being so pathetic that I couldn't take any joy in his defeats. A few episodes show that he has a better side, and could possibly join the good guys, but he never makes it. He's a guy whose not good enough for the good guys or the bad guys, and it makes his Butt-Monkey status depressing.

Agreed about Toilenator, which reminds me: the Box Ghost. He's just such an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain. I'm sure the fact that his voice is essentially identical to the most pitiable character Rob Paulsen ever played (who as we all know is very important to me, yadayada) doesn't help, though at least the Box Ghost has some (unfortunately misguided) self-confidence.

Denzel Crocker from Fairly Oddparents. I mean, the character itself is very unsympathetic, but I couldn't help feel sorry for him when it was revealed that his obsession with faeries comes from his life being ruined by a time-travelling Timmy. One of the meaner FO episodes.

edited 22nd Apr '15 4:33:21 PM by Sijo

I'm pretty sure that explains why Crocker hates Timmy so much.

@Austin: This was allegedly some of WB's problem with Elmer Fudd. Friz Freleng in particular created Yosemite Sam specifically because he thought Elmer was no challenge, and it was difficult not to write Bugs as a jerk for thrashing him. To quote:

“Elmer was just too dumb. He was naïve and childish and Bugs outwitted him. It didn’t take much brains to outwit Elmer. Sometimes you felt sorry for Elmer. He’d break down and cry. But that’s why I didn’t quite feel that Elmer filled the bill. He wasn’t really a villain. He was a pitiful character. He had a duty to perform as a hunter. He had to go shoot a rabbit. But there wasn’t a mean streak. He didn’t really like to shoot the rabbit. You wondered why you didn’t hate Bugs for doing what he did to him. It took a little more sharpness to outsmart Yosemite Sam than a chicken-brained Elmer Fudd.”

edited 22nd Apr '15 5:06:24 PM by Psi001

Demona, hates mankind because if she didn't she'd have to admit she is twice responsible for the destruction of her clan, and that she hates herself.

Tom frequently tormented Jerry, over and above wanting to eat him or chase him out of the house. He was cruel about it (as cats often appear to be, when "playing with mice," most mice caught by cats die of heart failure, literally scared to death). Jerry is just as demonic in his treatment of Tom, but still, there's always the fact that Tom is trying to kill him.

As far as Bugs Bunny villains, I don't know...Elmer is a child-like idiot, but he's an armed child-like idiot, who at least in one cartoon claimed that he was a vegetarian who just hunted "for the sport of it" (which does contradict others where he said he wanted to make rabbit stew, but then one can't expect consistency from Looney Tunes). Most of his one-shot villains are pure bullies who need karmic comeuppance.

Now Woody Woodpecker, though...he frequently just heckled folks for no good reason. There was a whole issue of Ben Edlund's the Tick built around that concept..."The poor walrus only wanted to have a barbecue..."

Allegedly that's why Buzz Buzzard was invented. There was little doubt Woody looked like the good guy in "Wet Blanket Policy".

While I don't think the Elmer cartoons got too insufferable about it most of the time, I can see their point. Elmer had a gun, but didn't seem to fully understand the repercussions of it. Whenever he thought he'd shot Bugs and saw him dead on the ground he burst into tears from remorse. He didn't seem truly intent on threatening Bugs' life, hence Bugs didn't quite look like he was defending himself. There was also this early stint where Bugs picked on him just for the fun of it. There was something about Arthur Q Bryan's take that just made him sound endearing. I always felt sorry for him when he started bawling, even if it's meant to sound pathetic.

Most of the later cartoons weren't too bad about it however. I think what saved Bugs was that he was a Friendly Enemy. He was laid back and playful, he had that whole "back off and I'll play nice" attitude. He rarely came off as more contemptuous than his foes, it was just a bit of fun to him. Beaky Buzzard was ten times the meek imbecile Elmer was, but Bugs never really came off as bullying him in "Bugs Bunny Gets The Boid", he just toys with him a little, and even cuts the act when it looks like it's gone too far. He seems aware he's just dealing with a dumb child.

edited 22nd Apr '15 6:07:51 PM by Psi001

Concerning Woody Woodpecker, remember he was a full-on Screwy Squirrel. If it wasn't clear after his performance of "Largo al factotum" I don't see why it wouldn't be otherwise.

I did read elsewhere on this site that Yosemite was created because they felt that Fudd didn't make a very effective villain, but I hadn't read the original quote about it.

Most of the Looney Tunes villains other than Yosemite Sam were not particularly mean, and their goals were essentially all "I need to eat something". Had they not had the misfortune of being cast as (natural) predators, they'd be perfectly good

Marvin is pretty much a complete callous dick, however.

"I'm going to blow this planet full of sentient, sapient beings up because it blocks my view of Venus". You know, you have instant-henchman tech and interplanetary flying saucers, high powered explosives and disintegration rays. I'm pretty sure you could get yourself something that either allows you to look through Earth or set yourself a better watching point. Ass.

edited 22nd Apr '15 7:07:28 PM by NapoleonDeCheese

Marvin was a humorous twist, because while he was doing horrific and petty things, he had a totally meek and matter-of-fact manner of doing so. He was the opposite of an ineffectual Devil in Plain Sight like Yosemite Sam.

edited 22nd Apr '15 7:07:40 PM by Psi001

Now, for a villain whom I really feel sorry for... the Sandman in the Powerpuff Girls. The fact the Girls just end up damning the guy who only wanted a nap of his own to eternally work nonstop for others without ever getting anything in return but the threat of more violence just seals the deal.