Villains who deserve empathy.

[CrazyGirl17]

Imotep from The Mummy/The Mummy Returns.

Poor bastard just wanted to be loved... and maybe some power too, but mostly loved.

The look on his face as Anck-su-namun runs away is gut-wrenching.

Hmm... never thought about it that way.

Other villains I think deserve some pity:
Mr. Freeze and Two-Face from the Batman Mythos
Doctor Octopus from The Spectacular Spider-man" cartoon
Darth Vader from Star Wars (C'mon, isn't it obvious?)
Count Bleck from Super Paper Mario
Organization XIII from Kingdom Hearts (Well, maybe excluding Xenahort...)
Kessler from inFAMOUS (Let's just say his motivation for his deeds are not what you'd expect...)

 

[Sakurazaki1023]

Pretty much every final boss in the Tales series...

I didn't think of Duke until I read this post, but it's definitely valid. He wanted the same thing you wanted, really, he just went about it in a completely different way.

Yeah, unfortunately...

Spoiler

Ridding the world of humans in order to save it

...Really isn't "protagonist" material.

 

[wildpeaks]

GlaDOS she was only doing her job till she went insane

I didn't really feel bad for GlaDOS because she's a robot, and was evil originally.

Spoiler

Aperture Science gave her a morality program or something after she flooded the enrichment center with a deadly neurotoxin, so she wouldn't flood the enrichment center with a deadly neurotoxin.

But to be fair, it's the humans of Aperture who

Spoiler

gave her access to deadly neurotoxin and placed it conveniently in a storage facility that communicates with the air vents, and created a test facily that either kills or sends to flames its test subjects.

I would have released it too

 

[SD-Fiend]

ganondorf all he wanted was to move out of the desert

 

[MultiColouredWonder]

Dr. Nefarious from the Ratchet and Clank series.
The guy has tried so hard every time for about 10 games to get shut down by the mouse with radio antennas instead of ears.

 

[Kyber]

Makarov and Shepherd. both have lost lots of men and want a new better world

 

[Ben Legend]

Everyone that was killed in Organization XIII.

They don't deserve empathy in my eyes, except Roxas, Axel and Xion, they just wanted to be friends. They just followed the Organisation for the sake of it.

 

[Ben Legend]

Everyone that was killed in Organization XIII.

They don't deserve empathy in my eyes, except Roxas, Axel and Xion, they just wanted to be friends. They just followed the Organisation for the sake of it.

EDIT: oh and Demyx... why did he have to die?

EDIT 2: Shit, double post. Sorry folks.

 

[Thrane]

Death Note spoilers:

Spoiler

I think the reason that fans wanted Kira to win (besides maybe wanting to drag out the series for a bit longer because of how good it was) was because of how unlikeable Near was (especially in comparison to L) so fans didn't want to see Near win. IMO the show started to go down hill after L died because how amazing of a character he was. During the final confrontation with the Japanese and American Task Force, when Light saw Near wearing an L mask his thoughts reflected how Near was forever inferior to L and I think a lot of fans could relate to these thoughts.

^This

Spoiler

If L had survived and had been the one to bring him down no one would've minded since L is just awesome. Although I still wouldn't have minded Kira winning, but then I like seeing the bad guy win sometimes. Too many good endings tbh.

The Predator. I mean think about it: it knows how we live, and it still kills us. It doesn't care. It's not cruel, it just uses methods it finds appropriate to hunt. Just like hunters who kill a deer, knowing they migrate and move in herds, and communicate, etc. It simply looks at us as we look at animals, but the human "we're better than everything" attitude makes it this horrible villain.

I never saw the Predators as villains though. The enemy, sure but just cause the protagonists are the "good guys" doesn't have to mean the antagonists are villains. I mean, you don't call Aliens villains cause they slaughter loads of humans, they just follow their instincts. Same with Predators, hunting is just part of their society and humans happen to be prey.

A lot of people consider Illidan from warcraft to be a villain, personally i find him a hero, atleast until they kinda ruined him a bit in TBC expasion, otherwise he was a very interesting charachter. He simply did things his way, and people persecuted him for it, and his love was taken by his twin bro.

That counts for most Warcraft villains though. Lich King got tricked and deceived and then when he found out and tried to fix it all he got torn apart for it and shoved in a cube forced to build an army for the very ones that did the tearing and deceiving. Deathwing just got turned batshit crazy by Old Gods, etc etc.

 

[Dr. wonderful]

Paragon Branka from Dragon age: origins:

Spoiler

The woman fed her entire House to the Darkspawn just to find a magical Anvil that could make super-soldiers. The sad part? When you convince her that she did wrong...she decided to destroyed the Anvil and killed herself. Now that I think about it...there are NO real bad guys in Dragon age save for a select few, hell The archdemon even have an excuse! Everyone has an Freudian Excuse!

 

[Latinidiot]

Watchmen spoiler:

Spoiler

Ozymandias - Saved the whole damn world by being a villain

I think the whole point of Watchmen is that none of these characters are villains...or heroes. They're just people. People who hold power over other people (great or small) and feel entitled to use that power to 'protect people from themselves'. But who's watching THEM!? (dun dun DUN)

Quis custodiet custodes?

a 2000 year old dilemma, yet still applicable to this modern day and age. interesting really, the obsession of man with power, and the growth of complexity in power, as our mind grew in complexity.

I'd have to add Azula from Avatar: The Last Airbender. She completely burns out and has an epic meltdown in the finale. That series is easily the best Western Animation ever made. Sad that it's probably about to be ruined by a sub standard movie. :/

I loved that, it was so..... human. She was a cold control freak throughout the series, to melt down when it all became too much for her to handle. Funnily enough, that scene was one of the best scenes ever voiced in the Dutch history of originally English programs translated to dutch.
As for the film, I try not to think of it.
as for the film

 

[Zorg Machine]

Ridley. he's been blown up so many times that he probably doesn't have a conscious mind anymore.
there is only that seething anger towards Samus for all she has taken from him and the ever constant companion, pain.

I Couldn't think of anyone so I just made a sob story for Ridley.

 

[Shapoolaman]

Magneto, if you can really call him a villain. He's just fed up with being persecuted for being who he his. Fed up of people attacking his people, fed up of feeling rejected and like dirt. So he retaliates with violence because of what's happening. When reading X-men I never really looked at Magneto as a traditional, or a villain at all, just a misunderstood leader.

I completely agree. He is one of my favorite villains of all time, I'm not even sure if I view him as one... he's my favorite next to Darth Vader of course.

 

[Zacharine]

Can't believe no one has said Gendo Ikari yet.

Gendo doomed the world to a state of no individuality, because he missed his wife. He deserves pity, because he missed his wife that much, but no empathy because he was ready, able and willing to doom the entire world to get his wife back. In a fashion.

And he succeeded, at least by original ending. And he did a shitload of bad stuff to do it, including but not limited to, completely and utterly mindf****g his own son quite willingly and knowingly, and using the girl made form his wife's genetic material as a disposable tool. Gendo doesn't deserve empathy, because he was a selfish bastard living in the past and dooming both the present and the future to regain it, along with his own son and sort-of daughter.

EDIT: Okay, one thing can be said for Gendo Ikari: he at least doomed the world to cling to a lost love that was looong gone in every traditional sense. The SEELE on the other hand... were ready to do it simply because they were powerful, rich people that were afraid of death on an fundamental level and saw the dissolution of all boundaries between 'Egos's or 'Souls's as a way to a form of immortality. Certainly, no individuals can die when there are no longer any individuals in any meaningful way and the entire world is regressed into a primordial soup in the physical sense, and sort-of nirvana in a spiritual sense.

I wonder, how many who remember the Evangelion, remember why the AT-field (mostly remembered as the night-impenetrable shield of the Angels) was called Absolute Terror Field when unabbreviated.

 

[Yopaz]

Dhaos from Tales of Phantasia

Spoiler

He was a a really bad ass villain, but he did what he did to save the future of his people and his planet.

Duke from Tales of Vesperia

Spoiler

He was never really a bad guy though he was the final boss in the game. He wanted to save the world, but he wanted to do it in his own way and didn't believe that the other ways would work. He had also been betrayed in the past and thus having a reason to swap sides. He was never killed, but there's still plenty of reasons to have sympathy with him.

 

[Sentient6]

The elf dude from Hellboy 2 (forgot his name). I was totally rooting for him. That scene with him, Hellboy and the giant plant god was priceless...

 

[LordGarbageMan]

Ugh whenever I think of villains that deserve empathy I just think of tragic heroes.

 

[the_maestro_sartori]

Bob the killer goldfish. If I was one of the smartest creatures ever but was stuck in a bowl I'd be pretty pissed at the world too

 

[The_Decoy]

I'd have to add Azula from Avatar: The Last Airbender. She completely burns out and has an epic meltdown in the finale. That series is easily the best Western Animation ever made. Sad that it's probably about to be ruined by a sub standard movie. :/

Seconded

On topic: Light Yagami (technically an anti-hero, but a villain all the same). You can empathise with his motives and what he's trying to do, he just happens to be a bit of a bastard.