History CryForTheDevil / WesternAnimation

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'': After turning out to be EvilAllAlong, [[spoiler:[[Characters/AmphibiaKingAndrias King Andrias]]]] seems for the first half of Season 3 like a [[LoveToHate fun but irredeemably cruel and evil Chessmaster]] whose defeat when it comes will be ''extremely'' satisfying. But as the details of his background, his relationship with the Core and his true feelings about Marcy and the planned invasion are fleshed out, he becomes an increasingly tragic character -- [[spoiler:despite the terrible things he's done, when his downfall actually ''does'' come amid a HeelRealization in "All In", it's almost impossible to derive any joy from it]].

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Primal}}'': The infected ''Argentinosaurus'' from "Plague Of Madness". The poor thing wasn't even malicious to begin with; it was just a peaceful herbivore who got bitten by an infected dinosaur and turned into an AxCrazy monster as a result. Unlike the viewer, Spear doesn't get to see it living peacefully among its herd, but still comes to the same conclusion nonetheless and looks genuinely saddened by the monster's death. The somber music that plays as it the lava flames char it out of its misery only makes it more pitiable.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'' has a tendency to do this with a number of its villains. In particular, the flashbacks in the multi-parter ''City of Stone'' are basically this for [[BigBad Demona]] and [[WorthyOpponent Macbeth]] writ large (also their mutual StartOfDarkness), but even [[MagnificentBastard Xanatos]] can ilicit this reaction when trying desperately to save his newborn son from [[JerkassGods Oberon]].

** Done brilliantly in "[[Recap/BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesE14HeartOfIce Heart of Ice]]" which focuses on Mr. Freeze and turns him into a WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds. Mr. Freeze is almost completely unemotional, coldhearted and willing to kill anyone who stops him from getting revenge. But his backstory shows that he was trying to save his wife Nora when a heartless exec (who's lauded as a philanthropist) destroyed the lab for wasting money, permanently altering Freeze and nearly killing his wife. The show treats him with an enormous amount of sympathy (his famous "Never again" monologue) and the target of his vendetta, while not dying, gets his long overdue justice. The episode is always rated as being one of if not the best episodes of the series and benchmark for animated television -- there's a reason it won an Emmy.

* The Ice King from ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' at first just seems an ineffectual, lonely, and mildly creepy princess kidnapper. Then we learn his tragic backstory and find out he [[spoiler: WasOnceAMan and has been slowly driven to madness by an ArtifactOfDoom, and his fiance left him]], and Finn and Jake feel bad for him.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'': After turning out to be EvilAllAlong, [[spoiler:King Andrias]] seems for the first half of Season 3 like a [[LoveToHate fun but irredeemably cruel and evil Chessmaster]] whose defeat when it comes will be ''extremely'' satisfying. But as the details of his background, his relationship with the Core and his true feelings about Marcy and the planned invasion are fleshed out, he becomes an increasingly tragic character -- [[spoiler:despite the terrible things he's done, when his downfall actually ''does'' come amid a HeelRealization in "All In", it's almost impossible to derive any joy from it]].
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Arcane}}'': Despite his horrific actions, it's hard not to feel sympathy for Silco [[spoiler: during his trauma flashbacks in episode 3. Watching him desperately fend off a brutal murder attempt from the much stronger Vander, the man he trusted like a brother, is gut-wrenching.]] Its even more gut-wrenching when [[spoiler: he dies, as he says he's willing to throw away his dream for a nation of Zaun just so that Jinx doesn't pay for her crimes, stating his undying love for his adopted daughter before passing away.]]

** Azula. While she spends most of the series as a standard MagnificentBastard, her spectacular VillainousBreakdown in the finale drives home that she's just as much Ozai's victim as Zuko is, and even when Zuko and Katara defeat her, they can't feel happy about it. The sheer speed with which her life falls apart has left both the creators and the fandom feeling sorry for her.
** A little bit earlier, Katara discovers an old drawing of a smiling, happy, innocent-looking baby. Zuko then points out that it was a drawing of [[BigBad Fire Lord Ozai]] himself, which does more to put a face and a history on him than three seasons of characterization previously, as well as remind everyone that Ozai is human too.
** Early, early in Season 1, we were getting this for Zuko -- his back-story certainly seemed to explain many of his evil tendencies. But then he went through a long character arc, eventually ending in a HeelFaceTurn, so there was no devil to cry for.
** ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' has this for the BigBad Amon. [[spoiler: Turns out he was the eldest son of Yakone, a merciless mob boss from Republic City who used his [[BlackMagic bloodbending]] to control people. When Aang took Yakone's bending away, Yakone sought revenge by teaching his two sons bloodbending. [[UsedToBeASweetKid There was indeed a time when Amon was just a carefree kid]], before the training, which turned him into a [[YouAreWhatYouHate self-loathing]] revolutionary and brutal KnightTemplar.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': By the end, you really have to feel sorry for Cozy Glow. First, she's implied to be an orphan. Second, she is sentenced to spend eternity in Tartarus rather than being sent to a normal prison despite several adult characters having done as bad as her and been given full pardons for their crimes simply because they showed remorse, as if simple remorse should mean the difference between a full pardon and life imprisonment, instead of anything else in between. Finally, she is forcibly broken out of Tartarus only to be railroaded into an even harsher punishment by Discord, who convinces the princesses to turn her into stone, while he gets off with nothing more than a scolding, despite the fact that he enabled all her new actions, none of which were really any worse than her previous ones, and she would have still been in Tartarus if not for him. Making this worse is that she actually showed signs of reforming in the episode "Frenemies" before Chrysalis talked her out of it, and in the end, she and Tirek both stand down after they are defeated, and they may very well have been given one final chance to turn themselves around had Chrysalis not kept running her mouth.

* ''WesternAnimation/GeneratorRex'', episode 8. Poor, [[VillainousBreakdown poor]], [[CuteMonsterGirl Breach]].

* ''WesternAnimation/GeneratorRex'', episode 8. [[SuperOCD Poor]], [[VillainousBreakdown poor]], [[CuteMonsterGirl Breach]].

---> '''Baby Doll''': (''looking at a reflection of herself fully-grown'') Look! That's me in there. The real me! There I am! ...But it's not really real, is it? Just made up and pretend, like my family, and my life, and everything else. [[VillainousBreakdown Why couldn't you just let me make-believe!]] (''shoots at Franchise/{{Batman}}'s reflections before facing her adult-form mirror... and firing'') [[MeaningfulEcho I didn't mean to...]]

--->'''Bruce''': It seems it was more than wires and microchips after all. Could it be it had a soul, Alfred? A soul of silicon, but a soul nonetheless?
** About the only villains in this series that ''don't'' elicit sympathy are a [[Literature/TheIslandOfDoctorMoreau Dr. Moreau]] {{expy}} (though his creation ''did''), the Sewer King, Firefly, and The Joker.

* ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy'' have good ol' Eddy whose greed and arrogance is hard to surpass. More often than not, the viewer is shown he's a selfish jerk. [[spoiler: In the last five minutes of the movie, we see that Eddy is the way he is as a result of his older brother's abuse. Eddy was just trying to fit in and be cool, but he never figured out how to do it right because his brother constantly mistreated him while mentoring him to be cruel and self-serving.]]