Why Are Villains "Relatable" Now?

Cruella is coming out soon and the entire premise of yet another villain backstory got me thinking on where we're taking villains these days at all. So let's talk about that!
[P.S. I am totally open to voicing a generally evil disney villain]
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[@YoshtTheAwesome]

You mentioned Zuko, I'll mention Azula. She's an evil villain but one whose backsotry and character are explored. They didn't try to make her sympathetic, they just explained where she's coming from so that the audience can understand her point of view. Doesn't make it any less satisfying to see her defeated in the end.

[@ProperBird]

I honestly love Azula's character. She's a terrible, awful person. We know why she is and that's ok, the show still allows her to be a terrible, awful person in peace.

[@Torlik11]

I agree, she's a great villain. The only problem I have with the character, and it's not really a big one, is that I have the feeling they weren't always coherent in the way they depict her. Most of the time, she's depicted as pure evil, having no empathy and seeing people as tools to be used and discarted. She threatens her "friends" into helping her and doesn't seem to care at all about their safety and possible death. But then, there is the "beach episode" where she's sudendly sad because she don't know how to talk to boy and feel rejected. It look like they wanted to use a shortcut to make her relatable on some level but it doesn't really fit with the character.

[@InquisitorThomas]

@@Torlik11 I disagree, the thing with Azula is that she was pretty much raised exclusively by her father, who worldview is pretty much the dominators (Him, Azula, and the Fire Nation) need to dominate everything around them (Ozen’s family, Azula’s friends, and the entire world) in order to ensure their own prosperity. Azula only really learned to view relationships in a sense where she must establish her own superiority and bring down anyone else in that relationship. That’s why Azula can basically talk down to the rulers of entire nations with ease, but can’t talking to a boy she likes, her entire worldview was constructed around superior and inferior, and thus struggles in relationships where the partners are equals.

[@101Mant]

@@InquisitorThomas she seems to have both nature and nurture reasons for how she is, in the various flashbacks we see whe was pretty awful even at a young age but if she had more influence from her mother and less her father she may have still turned out differently. The final season shows some self awareness about what she is and even some wish she had been accepted by her mother but it doesn't really change her actions. It does help us understand her more and make her a bit more three dimensional. I certainly find the Beach totally consistent with her character while adding some depth. She is ruthless but not pure evil or a complete psychopath or she wouldn't breakdown at the end. Its not she doesn't care at all about other people or what they think but that its less important than her ambition and success.

[@dkunk7517]

I love how she uses Joachim's goofy music when she does her silly skits.

[@Torlik11]

I'm more and more tired of those morally grey villains, especially since it's rarelly well done. It's as if it is impossible to create a villain who is trully bad or even worse, who enjoy being evil. It also make for weird moral since it often tend to put the hero on the same level as the villain. It's like "Hey, they both did some bad stuff, you shouldn't judge them for that" but like jinzee say in the video, should we forgive everything? Does having a tragic backstory make it ok to make yourself a coat with puppies skin? Can you just "go back to the light side" after destroying a whole star system, killing millions in the process? You can't excuse everything because someone had a bad childhood.

[@ColonelCorson]

It seems like an odd choice to try to make the audience sympathize with a character that goes on to try to skin a bunch of puppies.

[@ProperBird]

To say the least! :p

[@anotherrandomguy8871]

Honestly villains can do almost anything wrong or almost any crime, and writers can still try to make them you sympathize with them, just as long as it’s nothing too taboo. Just have the villain murder a bunch of people and then try to make the audience feel bad for them right at the end after they do all that crap.

[@charlieflight6124]

I can already that the writing team for cruella are a bunch of cat people.

[@oneofnone7947]

A true villain is the hero of there own story it's just a shame only jrpgs are getting this write

[@chrisrosenkreuz23]

I love it when the villain turns out to go about in his ways simply because he understands more about the world than you did and because of your ignorance you couldn't see that it was simply the lesser evil and also the choice you'd end up making if you had to choose. An EXCELLENT example of this is in Utopia (the UK version because it has more time to unfurl, but it's also portrayed a bit in the US version - albeit briefly).

[@ProperBird]

Sadly a villain archetype I honestly don't see a whole lot of these days.

[@ericsantucci6934]

It does seem like we've gotten to this weird place in terms of media and pop culture in which mainstream writers feel the need to try adding sympathy to their villains in an effort to make them more complex. It seems like this happened because the "evil villain who's evil just because they are" thing was the norm for so many years so now writers have pushed the envelope so far in the opposite direction to the point that we're starting to lose a lot of strictly evil villains. A lot of the time too, the writers end up bungling their attempts to make their villain sympathetic and "complex" or they do it retroactively using outside source material. I saw this recently with Marvel claiming that Loki was mind controlled during the events of the first Avengers film and thus wasn't truly responsible for his heinous actions. I feel like this is often an attempt to avoid the cognitive dissonance of making your villain likeable and charismatic while also having them do terrible things. As if the writers are desperately saying, "hey, our villain is actually not such a bad guy after all. Now you can swoon over this villain without feeling guilty." Which is weird, because I don't think people should feel guilty for swooning over even the most heinous fictional characters, but that's just me...

[@ProperBird]

The aim to create a fandom for villains definitely plays a role, I agree.

[@hazzar7784]

Retconing is very artistically dangerous. I've also observe almost every 'prequel' just really mucking everything up. Comics are pretty horrible for this. Marvel in particular is run by money, if people say they want to spend there money on something, Marvel does there utmost to give them that option. I commented on a different video of ProperBirds that comics are good with certain story arcs, I have to admit I was thinking of 1 or 2 very specific arcs, I just felt like no one would believe me. I realize it might connect here Joe Kelly's Deadpool.

[@cord113]

That was one of the things I actually appreciated about Mass Effect: Andromeda. Every now and then it feels good just to go up against a complete zealot so you can do the equivalent of putting a shotgun in their mouth and pulling the trigger guilt free :) You also reminded my of a game I still have for my Megadrive called "Gaiares". Here you're up against a group of space pirates lead by the evil Queen ZZ Badnusty. Still one of my favourite villain names :)

[@ProperBird]

That is an excellent name if ever I heard one. :p

[@cord113]

@@ProperBird I blame the parents personally. Seriously, if you give your daughter a name like that no good can come of it...

[@SaschKrassBass]

Philip Zimbardo said it like this: "Psychology is not excusiology" Understanding is not forgiving and shouldn't be. The issue that I take with "morally grey" is that normal people with normal lives are *more* capable to make intuitive moral judgements than the modern story teller. The modern story teller seems to be infected by the impression one could make a statement on what is moral and what is not. They mostly are not telling a story but using story to convey a message (sometimes even a boring "I am very creative which I prove to you by subversing your expectations". So, I think the issue is not the morally greyness. The issue is that (some) modern story tellers lost the ability to understand good and evil. (However, I lean towards optimism because this issue mostly arises in big cooperations like Disney. So, it might be just a side effect of being a cog in a big machine instead of being an independent story teller).

[@danirouge2045]

I really like it when there are villains who are clearly bad still have some motive of why they're doing it. This is especially enjoyable when it's not made to be sympathetic but instead just gives the viewer a deeper understanding of the character. Sometimes it's good for villains to be evil without any reason and leave open to interpretation other times it's good to have a reason and it can be simple as they're vain such as the case with the evil queen. I do enjoy a morally gray character but I think, especially with redemption arcs, that people don't understand it is not easy to write. With Zuko it's good because you see him struggle with trying to be a good person and he isn't forgiven right away because he had a sad backstory. He has to work for forgiveness and he didn't commit heinous acts which gave him an opening to it. I think this were the problem is that people with a sad backstory shouldn't necessarily be forgiven just for that. Honestly I'm tried of the stories of they were an awful person but they had a sad childhood so it's okay. I think people need to understand that with morally gray characters is that not everyone one is going to like them and/or forgive them and that's okay. It doesn't matter how sympathetic your morally gray character is because there will likely be someone who doesn't like them and/or won't forgive them and that's fine. Not everyone likes Zuko, for example. For morally gray characters I feel like they're a bit overdone partially due to poor writing and sometimes you just want to see the villain get their just desserts. Not everyone has to be forgiven and I think that has been kind of forgotten.

[@cord113]

Have you seen The Fifth Element? This is still one of my all time favourite movies, but if you look at the villains, you have: The Absolute Evil, AKA: Mr Shadow, who wants to wipe out all life in the Universe just because that what it does. Zorg, who wants to get the Stones for Mr Shadow because "money". The Mangalores, who want to get the Stones and ruin Zorg's plans because "money and revenge". Great movie. No complex villain needed :)

[@ericsantucci6934]

13:30: Funnily enough, I never felt sorry for Abby, lol. And it's not just because of my bias as a player in favor of Joel. Abby is a pretty terrible person for what she did given that she should be aware of just about all the context of why Joel did what he did to her father. I don't care if she also happens to like cute dogs and helpless seraphite boys. Maybe it's just me, but I wouldn't feel compelled to avenge my father's death for any reason. It would depend. If I found out that my dad wanted to perform nonconsensual surgery on a girl (killing her in the process), and then that girl's guardian/father figure murdered him for it, I would kind of understand. It's so easy too. All they had to do to make us sympathize with Abby and understand her motive behind killing Joel was to have her father instead be killed by Joel and Tommy back when Joel was a ruthless hunter in the early years of the apocalypse (which we know that he was from convos between him and Ellie in TLOU1). There, fixed.

[@cord113]

Yup. It was only Joel's actions that stopped her father from being a child murderer.

[@lucascoval828]

@@cord113 Based Joel. He did nothing wrong.

[@cord113]

@@lucascoval828 On the one side I can understand why they were doing it, "the greater good" and all that. But for me what made it so wrong was that they gave Ellie no choice. They simply kept her unconscious with the sole intent of cutting her head off and scooping out the contents for "reasearch" purposes.

[@deivymaybe7554]

If they give the options at the end to choose killing Abby or leave it... at least the weight of hate will be on the player's hands.

[@CommissarMoody1]

Yeah Abby was not a enjoyable character to play, and honestly not very sympathetic ether.

[@socialjihad5724]

Also, Abby's response to "Don't kill her! She's pregnant!" Was "Good!"(Raises weapon for killing blow)

[@hmmokay.4807]

compassion is vital, but forcefully inserting it into every story is taking stories down a problematic path. Real life has an assortment real villains which as you say don’t have a magical hero to defeat them. Watering down responsibilities and accountability of the bad guys because of backstory is not right.

[@TheAssirra]

I seriously miss evil villains. A good villain absolutely dominates every scene he/she is in. Sure i can do with a sympathetic villain once a while but i vastly prefer just a batshit insane monster like Kefka from FFVI.

[@nemtudom5074]

*Jack Horner!*

[@dunderjones]

Not to sound like a tinfoil hatter, but I always felt "There is not such thing as true evil, everything is shades of grey," is something the truly evil people of the world want us all to think.

[@ProperBird]

It's certainly a very convenient way to excuse one's own actions if necessary.

[@cord113]

But on the flipside those who claim to be truely good can commit acts of utter evil when they refuse to admit these shades of grey exist. Just look at the crusades and witch trials (or the far left).

[@gondor532]

@@cord113 absolute good doesnt exist, but absolute evil does

[@rnp497]

I'm surprised you didn't mention the greatest grey character Sev Snape and the pure evil of Moldyvort

[@ProperBird]

If I had to list every character ever I'd be here all day to be fair. :p

[@songweretson]

I really don't understand making Cruella sympathetic. Giving her a backstory of being beaten down doesn't make sense. She goes completely nuts because someone told her no.

[@oneofnone7947]

Because harlequin is popular

[@songweretson]

@@oneofnone7947 Harley Quinn was a brilliant character when she was first created. She was a psychologist who get in over her head. And she was tragic, but that didn't excuse what she did. Now they've made her a quirky, random murder girl. And she's everywhere. (Stjepan Šejic's Harleen mini-series was some of the best writing for her every. But that's not what people people know about.)

[@oneofnone7947]

@@songweretson sorry I ment new harlequin is popular I agree with you entirely but sadly thanks to squad and birds her cariter original self has sadly bin lost

[@songweretson]

@@oneofnone7947 Which is really sad, since she's such a fascinating character originally

[@oneofnone7947]

@@songweretson yes she is especially when she gains the strength to leave her abusive boyfriend to move on to a much healthier relationship with poison

[@doctorstrangepants6706]

Your statement about truly evil villains in real life with no hero to defeat them, and wanting to see them fall in fantasy really resonates with me.

[@Dracoofthevas]

I agree. I don't like when they tell me, a monster is less of a monster 'coz of a sad past. I don't believe those are redeeming qualitys. I mean, Cry me a river. We all suffered. But that doesn't mean that you have to become the evil that touched you. In fact, if anything, these "gray villain" say "It's ok to be evil. It's ok to hurt others. You have been hurt too. So why not?" I think that's a horrible lesson to teach. It started with Heroes becoming less hero like. They needed flaws, so that you can "identify" with them. It's the same level of stupid. A Hero need to stand tall! Be an example, and idea to strive for. But those heroes were deemed as "boring", coz strive is actually work. Work on yourself to be a better person. To be like that shining example. And now, with these new trends they say, "It's ok to be a bad person. It's ok to lash out if you have problems, not solve them. Mental illness is trendy and cool." I think this is a horrible path to go down.

[@ofthecaribbean]

Get ready for the long awaited sequel to WWII when Hitler redeems himself via hour long exposition of his tragic backstory.

[@andene4034]

Abby is a great example. Her reasons definitely don't justify or excuse her actions. They really created a difficult situation for themselves - it's hard to redeem the character that tortures and brutally murder the player's father figure.

[@Jaigarful]

6:30 Its interesting because the Sopranos does this. The characters are often written in a way which makes them likeable yet they do horrible things. For example, someone might laugh at Paulie's dumb jokes or comments, but they completely forget how nasty of a character he is until the show smacks you in the face with it again. Or Tony, there's times where you might find yourself rooting for him even though he's a horrible person.

[@icemotion6932]

I was so unimpressed with Malificent.. that was a character that did not need a sappy backstory. Give me deep villains who have reasons to do the things they do. Take a character like Illidan for instance. He has a pretty clear objective but makes plenty of questionable choices along the way. Choices that lead to him being labeled a villain. And then when he's usefull we buddy up with him again. (But he's still pretty arrogant and pursuing his own ends). He changes mainly due to whose perspective we're following which lets him be a raidboss / villain of TBC and the antihero of Legion. But give me a villain like Joffrey Baratheon anytime.

[@Lowshii]

Think about the children, morally ambiguous queen !!! Another wonderful video Jinze ! Totally agree on LoU2. Make great villains, not more morally grey heroes 🙄

[@cord113]

For me a great villain is one that absolutely needs to die no matter how much you may empathise with them. Sephiroth from FF7 is a good example for me. By the end of that game I could understand where he was coming from but that was irrelevant, I simply wanted him dead.

[@gtoyadhatagyab8013]

They fell into the category of what I'd like to call the "I sympathize, but you still gotta pay for what you did" characters. Zuko wasn't redeemed in the eyes of audience because of his tragic past, he was redeemed because of what he does after. He fucked up, but he owned up to his mistakes and he tried his best to fix his mistakes, that's why many people liked him. This aligned with Kamala Khan's quote that said "Good is not a thing you are, but a thing you do."

[@bluewings2]

I agree with you. Sadly, I have zero doubt that they will make Cruella sympathetic, and her evil side with be the fault of some guy of course. That's pretty lame and... just boring. Nowadays, people forget how to have fun.

[@AkosKovacs.Author.Musician]

What most modern hacks.... Khmmm.... I mean writers, forget is that sympathetic villains really only work if there is a logic to their motivation and actions. For e: Scorpius from Farscape, is def a Villain, for the most part of the show, but as the story progresses we realize that everything he does, he does in order to fight the Scarran threat, which is a much greater evil than him, (Even if its out of selfish reason). There is also Roy Batty from Blade Runner, who's motivation was only that he could live longer than the intended four years; and in the end, he basically redeems himself by showing mercy to the person who killed all of his friends. A tragic backstory is just paraphernalia, if you want your villains to have depth, then give depth to their persona.

[@crozraven]

We all know this whole thing basically all comes down to Disney being creatively bankrupt & trying to recycle their products, just like every other live action Disney movies that popping up lately.

[@lightyagami8645]

Disney's attempt at giving " depth " to their iconic villain using Moral Greyness despite obvious contridactions is pitful to watch , In the Sleeping Beauty There was no pointing towards her having character depth or complexity except being pure evil and malificent trying to convince me that there were " morally grey reasons " for her actions was simply not needed , At all . Yes , sometimes a prequel for a character does wonders for him/her , for example , lets take Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core for one , The Game does the exact same thing as Maleficent but in this case , Its Sephiroth who is getting a complex backstory about his fall into utter and complete insanity from a pretty nice person , It also tells us why Cloud Strife changed so much but the difference between Maleficent and Crisis core is that the Prior have a misconception of believing moral greyness > Character development in term of adding depth to a character while the later just wanna give Sephiroth and Cloud a past and character development . Make no Mistake , Unlike Some past Disney villains who were retconned from black to grey , Sephiroth is completely black in term of morals , he plans to bring the end of the world simply because his " mother " demands it . So using The False Premise the Disney writers are using , we can easily claim Maleficent > Sephiroth , Yagami light e.t.c. but that is just incorrect on more levels then the amount of Dollars Lion King 2019 made . Another Example is Johan Liebert's character from the 2004 Monster Anime , he is nowhere near being Morally Grey , he literally acts like a Husk possessed by the Devil Himself and yet he is one of the Greatest Villains in all fiction because there is no " MuH BoTH SiDeS JUsTIFiEd " . Bottom line - Character Development > " Muh This villain morally grey " and Moral Greyness =/= A Well Written Character .

[@umbranex9274]

XIV gets the best of both worlds. We get the sympathetic with Emet, and we get the pure evil with Zenos.

[@crustboi93]

I really want to know who sat down, went to Disney, and said "Cruella Deville? Ya know, the woman who really wants to wear puppies? Let's make her the star of a new movie" Like... of all the choices?

[@Frenchfraeis]

Provided they at least create an interesting story to a villain, I usually don't mind. The latest Joker take was interesting, though of course it was lessened by the amount of people that will end up suffering from his actions. Now like you said, the irredeemable villains that commit heinous crimes? Yeah, those ruin the story. I'm sad about the new Cruella de Vil movie even more because I adore Emma Stone, and I'll hate to see her talents carrying the whole (possible) shitshow of a story that they might try to force.

[@ericsantucci6934]

Joker is a good example, because his sympathetic backstory doesn't make actions by the end of the film any less evil. It's more of a tragic downfall; the audience laments the fact that this is what Arthur Fleck has turned into. But we aren't excusing him for it.

[@XFry333X]

Griffith from Berserk. Evil, believable, irredeemable.

[@reaverofjillsandwiches]

I don't know why, but you remind me of the chick who's the lead vocalist for the metal band Unleash the Archers. Could be the whisky talking. I personally don't mind evil for evil's sake villains though changing it up sometimes is cool too. I am ok with giving evil for evil's sake villains reason for being the way they are, but too many gray villains these days. hahaha I've seen critical drinker's video on Cruella. I experienced what you're talking about in this video recently playing the game Darksiders. The devs develop Mark Hammell into this villianous a-hole you just want to take down in a God of War style finnisher, only to be denied his fate being determined in a cutscene, whereas the major villains of the story I didn't feel anything for.

[@zionleach3001]

I like sympathetic villains like; Vergil (DMC) and Martin Hood of Monster Hunter Vendetta. But Pure evil doesn't mean they don't have motivations like a REAL person like; Frank Fontaine, Mundus, and Lord Joao Machado from Monster Hunter International. Some people may not like his work, but he was right sympathetic or not just give them a *REASON* why thier evil.

[@MrsSetsuna101]

I love a traditionally evil villain. Give me characters like disney's Hades or Ursula over unnecessarily sympathetic villains any day. However, there are ways to make villains 3-dimensional without giving them tragic backstories or a free pass for all the shit they do. Someone else mentioned Azula, and I wanted to point out Silver from Treasure Planet as well. He burned down the main characters' home and threatened the mc's friends to get his way, but the movie also showed them getting close, to the point where the mc helps him run away at the end instead of facing the authorities. While this might seem like a "get out of jail free" at first glance, Silver is essentially condemned to living on the run alone, his one constant companion opting instead to stay with the mc. In a way, he *isnt* free, since, even though the movie leaves his fate open-ended, there's no way the consequences of his actions aren't still impacting him. Instead of "sympathetic" and "relatable", we need more villains like Silver, imo.

[@cord113]

If you want to hear about one of the most evil villains in video game history you should check out my stepfather. My first computer was a 48k ZX Spectrum. I had that with a 128k+2 and a 128k+3 all boxed up with about 400 original games. He had them classed as rubbish and sent to the local rubbish dump. It was about 2 months after they were destroyed that I found out. Diabolical...

[@UnlistedAgain]

Look I enjoy the "character you love to hate" archetype too sometimes, but I don't see anything wrong with creators making more sympathetic villains. Look at the current state of the world, the public response to domestic issues and international events, and one thing you notice is our severe lack of empathy towards anyone that's not a part of our in-group. Media is a very powerful tool in conditioning behavior, and if this new trend of morally grey villains helps to make us more aware of perspective and encourages us to empathize with others, then that's a very good thing.

[@ProperBird]

It's not that I mind grey villains, as I mentioned there are quite a few I love, it's the overabundance of them and the need to change previously established "purely evil" characters into something they were never written as.

[@Theendman42]

1 month later…Her “mother” was killed by Dalmatians and she was responsible for Pongo and Perdita being shipped to their respective owners.

[@0rgaSMM]

I think a lot of it has to do with modern audiences sensibilities. If you make a villain truly act like a villain, people will have outrages nowadays. I am surprised Berserk never got attacked as hard as it did

[@hazzar7784]

Wonderfully well thought out video. I think you pretty much covered the argument. It's important to note the dangers of redemption arc. I recall a lot of people misunderstanding the concept of Karma, and only did little nice things to get it back. Like only donating to places when you get a rubber bracelet. I see a lot of people pay forward there negativity and fall into terrible, generations long, cycles out of victimization.

[@jonlevir]

There are plenty of examples of real life people who have done a great deal of evil because of things that happened to them in their past, or greed, or lust for power. And you can tell their stories with honesty about what they went through and their motivations without allowing it to excuse their evil actions. You can humanize villains without trying to force the audience to sympathize with them, which is a line I think a lot of media doesn't get right these days.

[@SirVyre]

I tend to dislike today's morally grey villains because most people assume that it automatically makes them more complex. In truth, it usually makes the whole narrative more complex by having to throw the whole thing through a blender of story beat upheavals... i.e. the story changes completely. Of course, we attribute it to the villain, but they're not even wholly responsible for the majority of the sympathy they garner. Let's look at Emet-selch, a morally grey character most people consider masterfully written. In order to write him the way he was written, the writers for FFXIV had to take a pre-established story that was left purposefully vague, and then upend anything that didn't fit with where they took the Ascians. Simultaneously, they had to do what you assert Maleficent does to Sleeping Beauty. They dragged the heroes' side into the mud. Hydaelyn is a dubious liar responsible for more death and sorrow than Zodiark ever could be. All cutscenes with her have been completely re-contextualized. Most of our enjoyment from Emet-selch comes from his personality and looks, rather than from his moral character. We are first emotionally manipulated into enjoying his sense of humor, depression, and other relatable qualities all while our sense of in universe morality is torn down. This leads to a whole shift in perception, "Like, oh, this new guy that's telling me things is right. This adorable devil on my shoulder is making sense. Maybe I'm the baddie." Like I've had my fill of that in life, being manipulated into thinking I'm at fault, even when I'm not. When it's done in a story, it's done to make us like a character. When it's done to us in life though... there's not very many things that are considered to be lower blows. I think we've overdosed on it in fiction over the past two decades. It came along with a big sweep of morality slider games where you could be an anti-hero, dark side, renegade, etc. A set of my favorite villains come from the PS1 game, Wild Arms. The main villains in this game are the, "Metal Demons." They're brought to the planet the game takes place on by the monstrous Mother. She is a metal demon who gives birth to other demons. She moves from planet to planet, conquering them with her children, and then consuming them along with her children. When she made it to Filgaia, she was stopped for the first time by the combined forces of the Elws, Humans, and Guardians. She gave birth to a few more demon children, before being sealed into a cocoon, her key functioning organs separated from her body and sealed within Guardian Statues. The Metal Demons you encounter labor under the pretense that they need to awaken her, so that they can conquer the planet and live with their mother as rulers. The Metal Demons actually win, only to learn the horrible truth. This is the first thing that comes into my head when I think of, "Well written villains." Villains that have a dynamic with other villains in the story, so that their personalities get to show without having to rely on interaction with the protagonist(s).

[@adekaiwamisou]

Biggest problem isn't that the sympathetic villains are a thing, it is the erasure of truly abhorent monsters you love to hate.

[@donovandelaney3171]

I liked Princess Freya. I hate what happened to her in the end. She had so much potential!!

[@oneofnone7947]

So glad you mentioned last of us the entire Abby thing came off as so very forced and just poorly handled but that the story they wanted to tell in my opinion it was not good

[@1vandread]

To be fair, Last of Us 2 was a half assed version of Red Dead Redemption 2 done worse. Everyone can thank Neil Druckmann’s pseudo intellectualism, for that mess.

[@lightyagami8645]

Saying Last of Us 2 is an half assed version of Red Dead Redemption II is a massive insult to the Latter , The Latter's Narrative is superior on every level .

[@kevoperalta6796]

Avatar had both villain, Zuko and Azula for the "grey" villain and Ozai for the old fashion villain

[@animeheadshot1016]

I think the type of villain used in a story depends a lot on the kind of story you want to tell. Sympathetic villains are very entertaining and it can be very satisfying to watch their story unfold. But traditional, one-dimensional villains can be just as entertaining. I'm sure this has been mentioned before but three masterful examples of villains that walk different paths are Zuko, Azula, and Ozai from ATLA. We do sympathize with Azula's struggles, but she's still a terrible, evil person, and we are glad when she's defeated, bittersweet as it was. Zuko is also a sympathetic villain, who has a redemption arc. We come to rejoice in his transformation into a hero. Ozai is just straight up, unapologetically evil. He has no redeeming qualities or sympathetic backstory and it was AWESOME to watch him fail. I do agree that the sympathetic villain story is getting a bit played out. If done well, a villain who is evil for evil's sake can be just as good, if not better.

[@bernardodovalefarias7400]

I never played The Last of Us 2, but i think if they wanted us to see the other side, they could highlight how ultmately selfish Joel was in saving Ellie. As much as it was understandable, thousands of people will die without the cure; for most of the universe the game takes place, Joel could very well be seen as a monster.

[@cowsaysmuuuu]

Yes! Stop rehabilitating female evil villains.

[@seihai-kun6726]

Disney: "Hmmmm. Today I will ruin my most beloved characters by unnecessarily humanizing them."

[@nemo5336]

Mmm... Which already established villain would you be truly repulsed by the mere idea of someone trying to make them "sympathetic"? Sorry, I felt like I should comment something, and then had thought of someone trying to make an entity like Molog Bal a sad backstory. Like here's the tragedy behind the being who sphere is domination and enslavement of mortals... there's also how he created vampires... and yes, I may have binged too much ESO over the last lockdown here in the UK.

[@ProperBird]

Honestly if they ever tried to give Frollo a sad backstory I'm just giving up entirely.

[@nemo5336]

I haven't watched it outside of a video talking about it; but I believe in the musical (which used the songs from the film) they turned him back into the Archdeacon. The video itself was how the song Hellfire fitted into the play in comparison to the film. I think the take away was that contextually made the song more creepy.

[@nlbite]

"I don't really see how you can redeem that in any obvious way" Ah see, they tried to redeem Cruella and make her insatiable urge to skin puppies understandable cuz... (SPOILERS below for Cruella 2021)... . . . . . . . ...dalmatians killed her mom. No joke. The dogs started the whole beef by pushing her mother off a cliff. God, I wish I could have been a fly on the wall of that writer's room when they came up with that stupid idea. I'm sure they debated whether or not they could somehow have the dogs maul her in a Disney film. Then some big brained writer decided pushing her off a cliff was the most PG way to do it. lol

[@MegaToonzNetwork]

WRONG! The Dalmatians shot her mother with a goddman 12-gauge during a gunfight! And now Cruella seeks revenge. She was trained by Batman and Deadpool and became....the Dog Slayer!

[@mortdigo]

Did DISNEY just cancel sleeping beauty because the prince kissed her (sleeping beauty) without her permission since she could not give it since she was asleep ?

[@101Mant]

Thats the cleaned up version, in some older versions he doesn't just kiss her, he rapes her and she gives birth and then wakes up. Then lives happily ever after with him. I can't remember if in the Disney movie does he know kissing her will wake her up?

[@jeremiahkrouse9827]

One William you forgot to bring up is Darth Vader. Vader starts off as a hero who steady becomes evil. In the clone wars TV series the show studly shows us some of the flaws in hypocrisy of the Jedi order. Anakin for one believed that his apprentice ahsoka was innocent of the crime she was accused, but the Jedi council was ready to sacrifice here to keep the Senate happy. In episode 3 Anakin was haunted by dreams of his wife dying in childbirth. Palpatine or Darth sidious promises Anakin power in exchange to save his wife from death. Even though Anakin's actions are very human and is motivations are are guided by his belief that the Jedi have become evil he still murdered 30 younglings in the Jedi council room. He then began to systematically kill the rest of the Jedi. He even wish to overthrow palpatine in order to become the emperor. Part of Anakin's motivation was having no control over his destiny and his fear of loss and his helplessness of being unable to save people from dying like his mother. That turned into anger and then to hate. And when a person is driven to a point where they feel helpless they were willing to do anything in order never to feel that again.

[@ProperBird]

I didn't forget to bring him up, he didn't fit in the script as did many others.

[@donovandelaney3171]

Your beautiful!!!😍❤️🥳

[@nemtudom5074]

Honestly i can like sympathetic villains but they *NEED* to be written well, someone like Zuko is excellent, Abby is trash. Blech

[@saturnscore3059]

@properbird….Lmaoooo @ when you said “I will bring up the Witcher now, I haven’t brung up the Witcher in awhile so I’m aloud to do that”….I literally laughed 😂..love your content keep it up

[@oscarpinillacastro5893]

This BS of justifying bad behavior, bad choices or plain evilness is part of the "new justice movement". "No body is really evil" so nobody is really guilty hence no one's really responsible and therefore we must tolerate every stupid choice people make. In reality choices have consequences and they always should have. The absence of punishment and reward is the root of anarchy, chaos and, sadly, unhappiness. Without choice and personal responsibility we can never be truly fulfilled and happy.

[@benjaminwollschlager825]

I thought House or Cards, both the US and UK versions did the Villain story quite well. I know they are completely different to the likes of a Disney movie however the main character of both, who is obviously completely evil, it not justified by some form of sad backstory, he is just evil because he wants power and will do anything to get it.

[@aureliusp1330]

The show Orphan Black does a good job with their villains. They are 3 dimensional characters with their own motivations yet are very clearly evil. When they do have a tragic backstory it's not framed in such a way that excuses their behavior. It explains their motivations but doesn't justify their actions.

[@marocat4749]

The fun thing is disney made frollo even more human and dimensional. Frollos motivations are fleshed out more or less. Which make it just darker, but still very human. Even relatable. And disney villains were always were that. But relatable isnt the same as they have to be redeemed. Alo jofrey is very human too. Seriously some of the best ciillains, are relatable, an human, but in their awfulness. Humans, can be very awful. And its refreshing st seevillain even justify themselves but still be clear awful even, and wrong, you caneven with irdeemable villains mess and qustion morals. Let villains be bad. .

[@CherylHeather]

It’s hard to hate anyone when you know their story. I mean, I did also cheer for Joffrey’s painful death lol But he was only a 13yr old who had been encouraged since birth to become either a butcher or meat. I think everything is somewhat grey, which is much more uncomfortable than black and white. But you seem like a sweet summer child, good video :)

[@ProperBird]

I mean I'll be 31 in a few days I think we're passed the summer by a landslide unfortunately.

[@CherylHeather]

@@ProperBird I’m sorry, that came off way more condescending than I meant it to. I was projecting some of my weird crap onto you, it’s time for me to go outside and get off the internet, guess I didn’t realize it till now, my bad.

[@eddieramirez8292]

I've been giving this some thought. I think that the trend goes hand in hand with how many flawed "gritty" heroes have been showing up in media. We cheer for Batman because he is the only one in the so called "Justice League" that acknowledges that he is, in fact a vigilante, and automatically on the opposite side of the law. There i no due process when Spiderman ties up a mugger and leaves him hanging from a light post for hours, forcing cops to spend a lot of time and resources to cut down some dude. The cops don't know and can't prove this is a mugger, they only see another victim of a weird prank. I think it's a good thing that we've started wanting some amount of accountability from our heroes instead of granting them paragon status because of their back stories, because, remember, they usually had it rough too. As heroes are being shown more and more frequently to be less virtuous by default, why shouldn't villains get the chance to be humanized. That said, it's hard to write a good mustache twirler that you just want to see fall because that can get boring quickly.

[@nemtudom5074]

2:28 Personal growth is a hell of a drug, and usually the people who go through the most of it are the people who are the most broken. They dont always succeed, and when they dont they end up being evil, but those who do will rise above those who havent experienced much hardship; in terms of personal growth, atleast.

[@gendor5199]

"Woman wants to murder a hundred creatures for a coat. This one needs a morally gray life!" The only reasons villains get such attention is because real life villains want to use them. Just look at the LGBT movement and the clown from IT.

[@yehuda8589]

Fun fact about Frollo, in the original book Frollo defining villainess trait is basically being a huge incel (since in the book he's in love with Esmerelda.)

[@Vale-fd4pk]

I kind of hate the fact that disney is "rediming" only the very evil characters ... like Crudelia and Maleficent were vile in they stories and movies....if you have to make a back stories why not making one on your less evil ones like Hook, I want to know the terrible abusive relationship that exist between Hook and the Crocodile, and also Peter, he must be the biggest little shit ever.

[@chatlanin4135]

After Malificent we should expect a next stage of villain backstories - Stefan.

[@jamestaylor7226]

I love villains that have a reason for being villains, embrace the cruelty & adopt a might makes right philosophy, it's a cool dynamic because you can respect them even as you try to destroy them & you can earn their respect as well, purely evil villains have to be mentally ill to be believable, but that can be fun too. Good writing fixes everything.

[@Wilipeidia]

Disney saw some people really liked the something different of a villian PoV and went "lets keep trying this!". Also, I was at work the other day and someones dog had left a smelly and squirty mess all over the floor in one area without reporting it. Cleaning that up made me feel like this is all the puppy killing origin story someone needs, not whatever they'll come up with. . .

[@zackward8725]

Some people just Lie too and therefore some are considered "evil" under the guise of what others Say and Those evil may Actually have cause for redemption under the Arc of Truth!

[@josephmacias9678]

I know this video is a year old but I would say the reason why some villains are relatable is because we get to understand where they come from. They are more realistic because they are imperfect like us and all have a dark side. And sometimes whatever motivation they have, is surprisingly justifiable.

[@shortbreadhead]

It generally depends on the character I'd say. For many of the disney villains that they have revisited it feels less that they are explaining what made them who they are and more like.. it's an attempt to JUSTIFY bad actions. I'm not sure if that makes sense. I do tend to think people can understand more characteristics of villain easier because people aren't spotless, we make mistakes rather than the golden boys of yore who can do no wrong.

[@BigBossMan538]

Imagine if the Pinocchio remake tried to make the villains sympathetic and redeemable...

[@TrueTrueBehemoth]

I enjoy morally grey heros than I do villains tbh. Kinda like Issac Clarke or Corvo. Let villains be evil with no justification!

[@HypocriteHunter666]

The Last Of Us 2 really was a spit in the face to all fans of the franchise and it's nothing more than a hollow virtue signaling "Revenge bad" line

[@Br0kenMask]

8:05 nonono more like Eddie The Ostrich Hahaa.

[@ProperBird]

Ok I can't unhear that now. 😂

[@laggrenade863]

I saw an ad on the sidewalk the first thought in my head was "her name is Cruel Villain give me a break Disney"

[@qew_Nemo]

I mean the more evil villains are, the more sympathetic they really are, am i right?

[@highlanderknight]

It depends more on the story but in general a more realistic grey villain does it for me. Of course not every tale needs to go into the villain's sad backstory. As you said, sometimes you want them to just be a villain.

[@katarinadreams6955]

And yet somehow we all still enjoy Wicked

[@Aerimaxe]

I feel this, all of it, but most of all the Abby stuff. I loved the last of us 2 dont get me wrong but i never liked abby, for the same reasons you stated for one (Spoilers ahead yo), she fucking beat a dude to death and make their adopted daughter watch while beaming with glee, she enabled her friend to cheat on his wife more than once (hes just as guilty here though), and yeah this led me to not liking her at all, in spite of the devs insistence. And then the character assassination they did to ellie the whole game left me feeling like Tommy and Dina and the pregnant girl who i cant remember her name cause her whole ass character was preg lady, were the only people worth caring about in the whole ass story and this isnt what i was hoping for

[@eklektos44]

The reason is obvious. Normalizing evil. That simple.

[@Marinanor]

I don't know about that. It's definitely what's happening but I don't think that's the intention.

[@laviniasnow4494]

I am curious about your take on Draco Malfoy and on the “Shadow and Bone” series and its antagonist.

[@ProperBird]

I've been meaning to get into Shadow and Bone actually, I've heard a lot of good things about it.

[@nemtudom5074]

8:45 lol, love the sass!

[@Maradiaga23]

A healthy mix of both, skewed towards the morally gray type of villains. They don't all need to be redeemed, but having a complex motivation makes them more interesting to me.

[@sayedistrending]

Another great video as usual. There are plenty of characters that straddle the line of good or evil in Game of Thrones. I remember the King Slayer, Jon Snow, the Imp, and Mother of Dragons had moments where I really wanted them to succeed. Other times, I would say to myself "did they just do something unethical?" Even Falcon and the Winter Soldier made a very unlikeable villain Zemo actually likeable when be became the dancing Zemo Meme 💃👯😆

[@Iorvethfox]

IORVETH

[@Cjorss]

As someone openly accused of serious misconduct at work and exonerated by the evidence, it was the neutrality, curiosity and compassion of my older superiors that treated me fairly as things got worse and worse. If my similar age accusers had grown up with these more complicated villains instead of the pure evil ones then they may have acted with more nuance and maturity. Instead, I was pure evil and so no amount of lying or twisting of the evidence was unjustified to be put against me. The investigation bore that out and while I was disciplined and the subject of gossip (Mostly sympathetic actually) for a short time, I still work there and they don't. This is to say that even if it might be absurd on the face of it for some of these villains to have depth, It might still lay the foundation of reasonable doubt in cases like mine. And I think that's a good thing considering a fairly popular nut allied with an aggressive opportunist and convinced a naive idealist to combine forces and ruin my life by any means necessary. They would still have a job if they had more integrity, compassion and curiosity and less vindictive certainty in their beliefs.

[@lunaticlooter4320]

I'm honestly on the completely opposite end of things, here. There's the argument that "just ebil" is uninteresting, and I fully agree with that, but there's a lot more to it than that. Take the whole Star Wars thing. Endor. We see the poor little fuzzy Ewoks being sad when their friends die, we see the same with the Rebel alliance troops. But we never see emotions like regret and loss in the Stormtrooper ranks, and that's an enormous problem. It teaches us that the "Us vs them" narrative is okay, and that killing the enemy is fine, because they bad. It desensitivises the fact that the enemy, in the real world, are actual people with families, friends and feelings.

[@ProperBird]

It's definitely on a case by case basis. As I said in the video as well, I enjoy grey stories too but disagree heavily with there either being only one way to write a villain or with changing established evil into something else entirely.

[@lunaticlooter4320]

@@ProperBird Yeah. I mean, some owe their existance and interest-level to other options being over-utilised. There is that :P

[@gondor532]

Enemy are enemy and that is just the way the world works. In war (or some kind of conflict where lives are at stake) you either fight or you die. Also there is even bigger problem with justifying evil with sad back story and "its society's fault". Most "evil" people are so simply because it's their nature do be such.

[@YumLemmingKebabs]

I feel like Malificent works a lot better in concept than De Ville. Just because ya know, there's a lot more wiggle room in fantasy curses than in slaughtering puppies for fashion. I don't think the simplistic irredeemable evil of children's stories actually exists in reality though.

[@101Mant]

People do really horrible stuff in real life but their motivations are more complex than simply they are evil. People don't always want to think about it though and its often simpler to just put it down doe them being evil. People can do evil without it being as simple as they are just evil.

[@10cody7]

do i hear ff9?

[@ProperBird]

More than once even. :p

[@Stebetto3]

!quote

[@kuroryudairyu4567]

🙏💕

[@ducky36F]

I love watching pure evil villains do pure evil things and loving it 😂

[@garethsalter3892]

Fair take on it, I'm still enjoying grey murky villains for now. enjoyed the sketches 😅😅👍 -Seig

[@joshuahensley9395]

So I like what they did with Maleficent it seemed like there was a vision and someone had a story to tell, no different then there are countless retellings of comic book characters I think there is room for that. But after that disney just said do that again until no more profit