Why do people hate the "Well-Intentioned Extremist" villains?

I noticed that a lot of them garner a lot of bile on websites such as Deviantart, TV Tropes, forums, etc. There are villains who I will list that are well intentioned that get hate, but the worse villains are loved in fandoms, but the list is too long.

I'm not trying to complain, because I actually like the well-intentioned villains because they have goals that are actually good. It's just that their methods are extreme.

I also want this thread to be about these extremists.

edited 30th May '15 8:28:07 AM by MsCC93

Maybe folks just don't really get villains that aren't the black of black and white conflict.

And if worse villains get more love, it's probably cause their hot/cute/funny.

I guess they confuse most people who are used to Black-and-White Morality because they aren't the black part? (basically, what Scott said.)

Or I guess people are confused because they have good intentions and are going to extremes.

I could use some examples.

But basically, they can be terrible because they do horrible things and still think they're the good guys. They're "real" type of villains. Remove actual super villainy from normal villain and you get quirky egomaniac. Remove villainy from these people and you get these horrible extremists from every movement ever that you argue with on Internet, until they insult you, block you and declare moral victory.

...I am not speaking from experience.

The "black and white" morality is part of it, I think, but I think it's mostly the clarity. A dyed in the wool villain is comfortable in him/herself, and isn't going to balk or agonize over what they're doing.

Because they're hardly ever written well.

There are people who don't like these villains? I tend to see most people enjoy them because they're not Card-Carrying Villains. They do tend to be more despised, but that's more of a Love to Hate type of thing.

edited 30th May '15 2:28:50 PM by chasemaddigan

I think it may be also that Well-Intentioned Extremist villains can hit closer to home for a lot of people. The Card-Carrying Villain who cackles and sing about how they're going to take over the world isn't someone people are likely to meet in real life, so there's a comfortable amount of distance for escapism with that character. With Well-Intentioned Extremist villains, however, most people would say they've met someone who has good intentions (or at least think they do) but takes it too far and possibly screwing over the original good intentions.

Most well intentioned extremists will take themselves and their goals too seriously, so they rarely will joke or intentionally display any humor to lighten the weight of their actions. If they joked, however, the seriousness of their objectives would be compromised, so it's a bit of a Catch-22.

Also, a card carrying villain, anyone can agree on what they are, but an extremist will most often be a Base Breaker because people will dissent on how justified they (and by opposition, the heroes) are.

Also, in Western Animation, writers rarely are free to explore ethic and moral debates in proper lenght, so that kind of villains most often don't get enough of the development a multifaceted character needs. A simpler, out-and-out villain is quicker and easier to feature, along with their motivations.

Often the problem is the supposed Well-Intentioned Extremist is either too well-intentioned or too extremist. You make him too well-intentioned and you leave the audience wondering why he is the villain, you make him too extremist and you leave the audience thinking of him as a annoying hypocrite who the show treats as an Anti-Villain when he's really just a dick.

Sometimes it's also because it's an old trick. Villains with noble goals and harsh methods are getting old for some people, who want different sorts of villains. It's a cyclic thing, for some time people were tired of the Card-Carrying Villain type of bad guy and wanted more complex villains (thus the Well-Intentioned Extremist) now the tables turned and we live in an age where villains who delight in their wickedness are more popular than ever (see: the Jokermania).

The fun factor is another aspect. There's been a resurgence in the concept of consuming fiction just for fun instead of more cerebral pursuits (movies like Guardians of the Galaxy prove this), so in that mindset a villain with complex goals and motivations may not be as fun as a Large Ham, threatical madman who gleefuly admits his evil acts.

Mostly that. He's usually either bad at being a villain or bad at sympathy. It's very difficult to write a villain who pulls off both believably.

edited 30th May '15 9:32:23 PM by Pykrete

The only time I think the hate justified is when they try to do something like murder/genocide and they still think they are good.

For instance, Sheila from South Park didn't need to cause world war 3 over a movie or the guy from the Simpsons movie didn't need to commit genocide over pollution.

edited 30th May '15 10:29:01 PM by MsCC93

It depends on three factors: -What does the villain want to achieve? -How does the villain go about achieving it? -How does the show treat the villain's actions?

Let's say the villain is out to conquer the world. Is he trying to bring peace to the world, and feels he needs to conquer it to make it happen, or is he just power-hungry, and the peace is a nice bonus? Does he avoid unnecessary conflict, or does he revel in it? And finally, how is this treated by the writers? Do they expect us to forgive the villain when we learn he had good reason for flaying those helpless villagers alive?

I would say the above example could be Kuvira from the last season of Legend Of Korra. She could be a Well-Intentioned Extremist because the Earth Kingdom has been mismanaged for years because of the idiocy of the Queen, but when she starts becoming totalitarian with reeducation and labor camps, a super weapon, and trying to conquer a sovereign country that was freely given by the old Earth King, you become disenchanted with her very quick.

I wasn't aware they were hated any more than any other character type. You can find someone who dislikes anything if you look hard enough.

Kuvira worked pretty well for me, actually. A lot of people's problems with her seemed to be that a lot of people seemed to want to her here reasons for doing things and outright didn't understand but given the context I completely understood her actions. I didn't think they were right, obviously she went tyrannical and extremist on everyone, but I understood how she got to where she was. I also feel that people try to reduce her character to having abandonment issues or just wanting control were completely oversimplifying her. Yes those things were a part of her motivation but that wasn't the only thing to her.

edited 31st May '15 5:02:44 PM by LSBK

I think people moreso hate the whole Draco in Leather Pants phenomena.

That and, sometimes attempts to flesh out a villain go really south like with Darth Vader or Hannibal Lector.

I can answer this one easily - it's NOT done well enough to be truly accepted, at least not anymore. Too bad, as I'll take this type of villain over the one dimensional type we see too much of to begin with.

Seriously, the best villain is one we can relate to, as hard as it is to accept relating to the antagonist. But hey, a good protagonist is always challenged by a just as good antagonist, one key of many to a good narrative.

Since when do people hate Well-Intentioned Extremist villains?

That was my thought as well.

"I think people moreso hate the whole Draco in Leather Pants phenomena. That and, sometimes attempts to flesh out a villain go really south like with Darth Vader or Hannibal Lector."

Yeah, I actually respected Vader more when I thought he was a Jedi who started caring too much about power and too little about what was right. Finding out that he killed all those people because he had a vision about Padme suffering made him seem more pathetic.

Because they don't buy the attempts to make the villain sympathetic. The Equalists? Fuck them. They're terrorists who're butthurt that, through absolutely no one's fault, other people can use magic and they can't, and want those people depowered at gunpoint because if they can't have magic then no one can. Zeon? Fuck them. They're literal Space Nazis who think space colonists are a Superior Species and that this justifies megadeath-scale atrocities.

And all this would be more tolerable if they weren't as common/overexposed as they are, by writers/fans who think they're 3deep5u.

edited 1st Jun '15 4:32:12 PM by ElkhornTheDowntrodden

The Equalists did have a sort-of-point in that almost every single figure of power in the avatar universe is a bender. In the original series: Firelord? Fire bender. Chiefs of the water tribes? Water benders. Air monks? Air benders. Earth Kingdoms? One Earth bender and one non-bender. That's literally just one figure of power who's not a bender.

Sadly the show skips through that issue like it doesn't even give a fuck, so it's a moot point.

I don't hate them, but I take issue when the villain does morally reprehensible things the entire way through, but at the last second are revealed to have good intentions and try to score sympathy with the audience. If they are to have good intentions, they should be present from the start and not forced after everything is said and done.

edited 1st Jun '15 6:16:29 PM by LordVatek

Uh...but from what I've seen, most of the fans seemed to love the Equalists, campaigning even harder for them than Amon was.

Yeah, it would seem that it is tricky to write a semi-sympathetic villain. It doesn't help that the tropes involved can look like cliches if handled badly.