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

Not to mention he planned to sell his inventions to the public after he'd milked the good publicity from being a hero dry. What Syndrome did is like someone deciding to kill every single Basketball player in the world because Michael Jordan told him he was too short for the game.

I mean, wouldn't you do that same?

Which one? The selling the weapons or killing supers?

Guess you just have a much broader definition of oppression than me.

Syndrome from The Incredibles is not a well-intentioned villain, IMO. He's just using his bad past as an excuse for his heinous, selfish, and dangerous acts. He was just pretending to be a hero and only wiped out other supers because of his implied jealousy of them. Notice how he got jealous of how the Incredibles took all the glory after stopping his robot from destroying the city? Syndrome's no well-intentioned villain.

Starlight Glimmer from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is a special case. I can understand the criticism she gets because she has no backstory, but I get where she is coming from. In real life as well, people get picked on for being "different" from others. The problem with Starlight is that she is very unreasonable. It doesn't help that she was exposed as a hypocrite and shes never seen punished for her actions.

What I like about Starlight is how she's different from the other arc villains. She's just an ordinary unicorn who looks normal in appearance, until her true colors show. Her intentions are at least good, while the other arc villains had selfish goals (Well, Nightmare Moon is debatable, because she was spawned from the jealousy and at least she got redeemed. Plus Nightmare Moon at least has a backstory, Starlight doesn't.).

A theory I have for Starlight is that nobody appreciated her talent, and you know what happens to ponies when nobody appreciates their cutiemarks/talent. They go completely insane (I will never justify it).

edited 4th Jun '15 9:59:36 AM by MsCC93

I've said it before, but more MLP villains need to get actual punishment/karma. The show's very big on forgiveness, I know, and that's not a bad message to spread, but only as long as people has earned that forgiveness first. Otherwise the implied message rather becomes 'it's okay to screw others around as long as you say you're sorry afterwards or escape fast enough'.

I mentioned that Starlight being a Karma Houdini didn't help her case. She should have at least served jail time, because while her intentions were good, she was still an evil dictator.

That's my problem with Discord. I felt that he didn't work hard enough for the forgiveness and he got off too easy for the things he did. He even back stabbed the Mane 6 and it only took Tirek backstabbing him for him to realize the errors of his ways. Discord needs to work extra hard to earn forgiveness from the Mane 6 (and some fans). Sure you may say Trixie was bad too, but she's done less damage than Discord (I do think that Trixie should have still been punished for at least possessing the Alicon amulet because she was told that it was dangerous, but she took it anyway). She's no saint either, but she isn't as bad as the major villains).

edited 4th Jun '15 10:34:34 AM by MsCC93

I've always been of the opinion that Discord's Heel–Face Turn was completely out of character after he had been so deeply established as an omnipotent bully. The Discord Lauren wrote would've taken advantage of the mercy extended to him to pull more heinous bullshit.

Upon retrospect, literally making him Q the way they did was a bad decision. Just left the door open to bring back de Lancie in the name of fanservice.

edited 4th Jun '15 11:24:32 AM by ElkhornTheDowntrodden

On the other hand, as bullshitty as the moment of her initial regret was, Sunset Shimmer came to become a much better heroine than she ever was as a villainess.

But with Discord, I know it wasn't intended that way, but it kinda ended up feeling more like 'I'm sorry my plan backfired on me' rather than 'I'm sorry I betrayed and hurt you', even if the dialogue and a couple token previous moments tried to give that vibe. This is a case where it'd actually have worked out better if Discord had betrayed Tirek first, after seeing what he had done and coming to regret it without needing to be screwed himself.

edited 4th Jun '15 1:20:19 PM by NapoleonDeCheese

Okay, I guess I forgot about Syndrome. So that leaves Hopper, Syndrome, and Lotso as the key exceptions, while any other exceptions aren't really evil.

I am only counting Big Bads so no Randall.

She was "I'm evil because!" and "I'm a bitch to the other students because!" in the first movie. As a a character, she literally had nowhere to go but up.

Well, it's not like she was forgiven, she outright escaped, and it was hinted that she had greater ambitions than just one small town. If that doesn't scream Sequel Hook, nothing does.

And if she doesn't show up again, you can always assume that she spent the rest of her (presumably short) life lost in freezing mountain caves.

edited 4th Jun '15 7:27:36 PM by KarkatTheDalek

It occurs to me, if they really wanted to track her down, they'd just have to resort to Fluttershy's network of animal friends (that includes birds, bears, insects and pretty much anything else under the sun).

What Pixar villains could we classify as Well-Intentioned Extremists?

Here's who I think could count:

• Stinky Pete
• Waternoose
• Chick Hicks (he wanted to simply win, and went to the extreme of causing The King to crash)
• Skinner
• AUTO
• Charles Muntz

Almost half the villains can be put in this category I think.

Hicks, Skinner and Muntz are entirely self-motivated, so I don't think they count. A Well-Intentioned Extremist usually aims higher than money and fame, and those aren't usually thought of as "good intentions" in and of themselves.

edited 4th Jun '15 8:15:59 PM by KarkatTheDalek

Waternoose it does depend on how much he knew about laughter's relative power worth to screams. If he knew making children laugh was much more efficient but just preferred scaring them then that loses him points. But if he didn't realise/understand that then he was just doing his job.

AUTO as well is another debatable example simply because it's hard to say whether he actually was villainous at all or simply doing exactly what he was programmed to do - how smart was he/it and how much autonomy did he have?

The whole monster society was a Well Intentioned Extremist. They knew humans were sapient beings with their own feelings, they understood enough about human psychology to know what would scare children the most. Yet they kept inflicting what, on human legal terms, repeated psychological child abuse (even if apparently never bad enough as to leave permanent damage) for, admittedly, what amounted to the survival of a whole society.

Still, if adult humans had come and started scaring monster children to obtain energy, I'm sure the monsters would have found that fiendish.

Where does the "extremism" come in though?

Um, in scaring innocent children night after night? That's quite extreme in my book.

I wasn't aware that people hated these type of characters unless they overstepped there bounds.

Karkat: Eh, I'm sure that Skinner, Hicks, and Muntz see those as well-intentioned. Though if you were Skinner, you wouldn't really want Rats in your kitchen.

Pixar's villains tend be more complex than most Disney villains (most complex ones I remember from Disney were Scar, Frollo, King Candy, and arguably Hans).

That isn't much of a point. Most villains, even a lot of the most perverse ones, see themselves as justified; I think a real well intentioned extremist must aim for the greater good of at least a large sector rather than only their own.

You yourself also admitted they were doing it to for the sake of their entire society. Once they found a better way to do things they did.

edited 5th Jun '15 8:37:57 PM by LSBK

Sure thing, but even a lot of actual villains with good intentions will also drop their act if a better solution is reached.

hmmm...I'm debating on whether Frollo is a Well-Intentioned Extremist or not. He's definitely a Knight Templar.