Times when you sympathized more with the antagonist of a a story?

When have you sympathized with a story’s antagonist more than its protagonist?

(I made a thread like this earlier today but accidentally put it in Trope Talk).

Tai Lung. Kung Fu Panda. You know the drill.

Hmm. There have been plenty of times where I've been way more entertained by the antagonists, especially if the protagonists are quite bland and boring. I'd say that I have had enough pity for the occasional Tragic Monster, that I've sometimes wished that they might be able to get away with it. Even though antagonists like Godzilla, King Kong and Frankenstein's monster caused much destruction, they tend to be pitiable victims of circumstance.

Some monsters in Ultraman have been pretty much Designated Villains. The worst case is that of the Alien Baltans in the original, while one of their kind descends to Earth to try and conquer it (and even then they were willing to try diplomacy) apparently that's enough to condemn 2 billion of their kind to be killed once the attacker is killed.

Like, jeez, Moral Myopia does not even begin to describe how fucked up that whole thing is.

At least Ultraman Cosmos: The First Contact managed to make a better and more morally sensible version of the story

EDIT: Whoops, didn’t see the date this posted and realize this thread had died out. Ignore.

Edited by Stardust5099 on Aug 19th 2021 at 3:07:21 PM

I have this a lot with kiddie books:

• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: Those kids were punished way too gravely. And I'd be grumpy too if I had a name like Veruca.
• There's a Lion in the Library: Lucy tells lies, then gets eaten by a lion, and it's treated like karma! Are you serious!? For reference, Lucy seems about six.
• Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose: I get that the animals were freeloaders, but none of them deserved death!

The Inhumans show. Yes, let's try and make the audience root for the people upholding this horrific caste system rather than the guy who's not great either but is at least trying to change it all up for the better, totally not one of the most tone-deaf things ever conceived for comic book TV!

Edited by AyyItsMidnight on Aug 19th 2021 at 6:36:37 AM

In general I tend to sympathize a lot with revolutionary and revolutionary-lite antagonists, 'specially if they're fighting an oppressive system but then are written as unseasonably violent so the protagonist can contrast them by being moderate instead (think Karli in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, more sympathetic portrayals of Magneto, Amon and Zaheer in The Legend of Korra).

Regime: Superman:

True, he's gone fucking insane by the time of the game, but it's hard not to sympathize with him. The DC universe has so many bad guys that get away with everything, that you'd be forgiven for wanting some kind of justice, even if it's bloody one.

Edited by CyberController on Aug 23rd 2021 at 11:00:41 AM

In Dragon Ball Super I was on Chi-Chi's side regarding Goku needing to provide for his family. Please do something other than train, Goku!

Hama from Avatar: The Last Airbender.

I'd honestly do the same thing if I were in her position.

And if I saw someone else in the same position, I'd turn a blind eye to their actions.

The Status Quo Is God will do that to you.

On said note, Lex Luthor; the desire and dream to be so much more. His envy of those higher than him resonates with me when I look at what's wrong in the world and think of the small pedestal I stand on.

Edited by ChicoTheParakeet on Aug 30th 2021 at 8:09:44 AM

Chloe Bourgeois from Miraculous Ladybug. She's is an Alpha Bitch through and through but for a couple seasons it felt like the show was heading toward some redemption arc with her, only for that to get chucked in the trash, double down on her bitchiness and the show creator basically tell fans that there are no plans for her to become a better person.

Flowey from Undertale. Being stuck as a soulless flower really makes me feel for him.

Jack Spicer from Xiaolin Showdown is a weird example. He's still a bastard at the end of the day ^note In one episode he ditches the monks and Chase as they're about to be eaten by giant spiders so that he can save his own skin., so he still obviously deserves punishment, but the monks kicking the snot out of him still feels undeserved because it's mainly for their amusement. Jack's insecurities, the other characters treating him as The Friend Nobody Likes, and the fact that he's far from the vilest villain in the series only makes it worse. Also, he's more fun than the other characters, dammit.

I had this in early episodes of Sailor Moon. The villains were dumb, but at least put some effort in, while Usagi had everything handed to her and did nothing to deserve her victories. And the fact that the villains died before doing any harm made them hard to hate.

Then there was Wicker Man... This is an odd one, but while the islanders were deranged, I had little sympathy for the policeman. Mostly because his conduct is incredibly unprofessional, and he seems to think the police should enforce Christian customs rather than any secular code of law. It felt like an asshole versus assholes situation.

I kinda feel bad for Scrappy in Scooby-Doo (2002). He was a brat, sure, but he didn't deserve to be abandoned in the desert (and even his own uncle was fine with this!).

I feel bad for Magica, the Beagle Boys and John Rockerduck in the Italian Disney Duck comics, because Scrooge is often really unlikable in those stories. He straight up gets away with horrible things because he's rich. His enemies are often a lot more likable in those stories and they usually just want to steal his money and not doom the universe or something, and I don't think that version of Scrooge even deserves to be rich.

Edited by Hqami on Jul 6th 2023 at 11:01:03 AM

i would say mary from ib (who’s also my avatar) mainly because she’s more of an anti-villain who just wants to be human

I felt bad for Montana Max from Tiny Toon Adventures in the episode "Prom-Ise Her Anything". In the latter episode, he's meant to be seen as a jerk for rejecting Elmyra, even though she'd been annoying him with her unwanted advances. It doesn't help that Elmyra wins in the end when Monty goes out with her out of pity.

Edited by Segal991 on Jul 7th 2023 at 1:54:00 AM

Sylvester. I don't want him to eat Tweety Bird, but I don't want him to go hungry either; I want him to eat fish or cat food or something. This is probably because he's a cat and I've always loved cats.

Edited by Unicorndance on Sep 8th 2023 at 8:12:16 PM

Killmonger was right. Like I'm sorry, I'm supposed to cheer for a monarch who grew up in a literal bubble and working with a CIA agent, over a revolutionary who grew up surrounded by poverty and injustice? Doesn't help that the supposed hypocracy gotchas people cite as reasons why Killmonger is bad are just nothing. Oh, he took a mask from a museum?