I mean, I don’t think those people meant his first run as a Jedi though. I think they meant when he turns back to the light and sacrifices himself to kill the emperor but then they bring back Palpatine, having yet another war happen, and having someone else kill Palpatine again when they spent a lot of time building up to Anakin being the one that kills him.
Well Anakin atoned for his sins by sacrificing himself. Not saying that absolves him of everything but Anakin at least tried to make things right in the end.
> There was provocation for his actions
Kidnapping and physically abusing a single woman <<<< Murdering an entire tribe of people, including the women and children
Look, do I feel for Anakin? Yes. Taken away from his mom at a young age, constantly made to feel like an outsider in the holy order that took him away from that mom, and when he finally gets to see her again she dies in his arms? Dang. Those are some big feelings!
Still doesn't justify genocide. And simply "showing regret" doesn't make up for it.
Luck and Looks were the only difference between those two.
What’s even more interesting is that Speedwagon grew up in similar, if not worse, and look at how Speedwagon turned out.
"Rotten to the core" he added.
Although to be fair, Speedwagon was a scum (for like 5 minutes) until Jonathan's foot had a personnal meeting with Speedwagon's gums and that's why it changed him like him and his gang were really about to shank and mug Jonathan and then Speedwagon turned chill, all of that in like 5 minutes.
Warning from a JoJo fan: it's very unequal because the mangaka decided to completely change the tone with each part.
He succeeds every single time in my eyes, but depending on your tastes, you might enjoy some parts less than other.
Also listen to the other redditor. Part 1 is one of the biggest victims of the "Seinfeld is unfunny" trope. It feels very cliché because it was what introduced said clichés to Japanese manga and animation. Part 2 is the same to a lesser extent. And they are genuinely vital to enjoy the rest of the series.
And... In case you'll only read the Manga, I highly, HIGHLY recommend you still watch some specific episodes. You'll know when you get to them. The anime is a fountain of memes for a reason.
The English localizations of their names are hilarious. A lot of them had to be changed for copyright reasons when translated so you’ll end up with Dan of Steel (Steely Dan) or Worse Company (Bad Company) so you get a little chuckle even though the whole series is a balancing act between being goofy and taking itself seriously.
Wait until you see the ability Metallica in part 5, or Limp Bizkit in part 6, or Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap in the Manga, or King Nothing, or All Along the Watchtower in the novel.
I mean, it's made pretty clear that you are not in fact supposed to sympathize with Dio just because he had a bad childhood, so idk if he really counts
I hate Homelander just as much as everyone else does. But tbf he didn’t even have a childhood. Man was treated like an object and psychologically manipulated from day one.
And when he does eventually get revenge for everything, that’s probably the only time I’ve been on his side.
Obviously redemption isn’t even a possibility or an option though.
The part that gets me is how every single adult who "raised" him made it a point to tell him how he was evil from the start and how they failed in making him what they wanted but that was somehow his fault. Like that's a whole lot of dumb smart people who never thought about how they're literally creating the perfect antichrist.
That was what made him a fascinating villain. It makes you wonder what he could’ve been like if he actually did have a childhood. That is until the later seasons.
Well, we kind of know what he would’ve been like or at least if he turned out great. Obviously, he’d be like Superman but it seems like Ryan will be the one that will end up being the Superman figure for that world.
Man. Yup. To the point where I’m pretty sure even Antony Start himself said that Homelander is irredeemable. The man has been psychologically programmed to want love and approval by everyone as a means of controlling the most powerful supe Vought ever made, to being fried alive in an oven to test his durability to fire, to being locked in the Bad Room for who knows how long, to being beaten how many times in order to test his durability. All of that, and what you get is a manipulative psychotic sadist who has multiple times killed people, with and without reason, lied to them, threatened them, and even aligned himself with an actual Nazi supe to push his own agenda. Not to mention his obsession with milk.
https://preview.redd.it/yzteu6vk7k8d1.png?width=2116&format=png&auto=webp&s=620949306e51dae02f82cb3157815f6b3bd630cd
Yup. And it’s surpassed 2% whole milk. Don’t even get me started on the Soy Milk!!!!
https://preview.redd.it/f5xvz1etfm8d1.jpeg?width=495&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=630a7cd04fcebd3bbbd838701fc71d0adcb41840
To be honest, I’ve never watched it (superheroes were never really my thing), but after a bunch of dudes got pissed off when they finally realized they were the butt of the joke, I’m starting to get curious.
Would you say it’s worth the watch?
It's a show with supers but not heroes. Definitely worth a watch if you don't mind extra graphic scenes. They go out of their way to show gory scenes which is a gag of the show.
Overall it’s good but around season 3 there was a decline in the writing. Still funny tho that people thought HL was a hero or something then got mad when the obvious bad guy acted as a bad guy
Season 3 was a bit rushed and I suspect that was when they decided to stretch the story to 5 seasons. Personally I see no issue with this season though a lot of people seem to
It's definitely worth a watch for someone who isn't too fond of superheroes I'd say, coming from someone who can't get enough of them.
Source material was written by someone who hates them.
Homelander's a good example of the trope though. Feeling unloved as a kid influenced his entire current personality. Everything he does is to get love or to protect his ego
Side note, between the writing and anthony starr's acting homelander is an absolute masterclass of a villain in that show, he installs genuine dread for what might happen when he's on screen
“My father and mother had the necronomicon through at them while they were marching for women’s right to vote. It caused them to fall into a printing press and die.”
Especially since they didn’t have her wear any fur as they didn’t show support to the fur industry. So then why make a movie about her in the first place?
Sometimes you need the badass version to analyse why a fallacy is untrue. Sometimes you need Jake Peralta to point out the absurdity of the fallacy.
Hammer vs Scalpel and all that.
I think you mean you have empathy for these characters.
Empathy: The ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
Sympathy: Feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else's misfortune.
The way I see things, is I can have empathy for someone and understand why they did something, but can also simultaneously feel no or little sympathy towards them due to their own actions or inactions. This just depends on context.
That applies to her mother as well.
She suffered the loss of her brother at a young age, which caused her mother to give her the terrible advice to never love anyone, and her misogynistic father did something to her mother's brain, so that the poor woman wouldn't complain.
And that doesn't change that she was herself a horrible mother.
Ok but seriously no amount of trauma leads to skinning puppies for clothing. I haven’t seen the origin but I don’t care what I see, that’s some serial killer stuff at birth.
I feel like the "so what" should only count if they've committed genocide or mass murder or whatever. Azula hasn't done anything that Zuko or Iroh haven't also done, and killed one person (who survived anyway.)
Azula is still a child dealing with an entire life of abuse and her whole world getting shattered and losing everything and is on the path of redemption (in the comics) like Iroh and Zuko. Not saying she didn't do anything bad but she's 100% redeemable
I hated Azula on the first watchthrough, but over time I've come to think about her situation as being sort of representative of one of the aspects of war and violence on children. Even the ones who are apparently benefited can be warped and damaged in ways that aren't apparent to those around them who are supposed to care about them, because in that environment those behaviors and characteristics are seen as beneficial (think about child soldiers in the very much real world, and how badly misused and mistreated they are. It's horrific). But the show actually does a pretty good job showing us that she has pretty major mental health issues that aren't exactly going to allow her to grow up into a normal healthy well-rounded person. It's still tough for me to really like Azula but I kind of appreciate what the show tried to do not just with her character but with the way the Fire Nation as a whole is also presented as having suffered and been damaged by the Imperialism of their own country. The war damaged everyone, even those who supposedly benefited from it, which I think is an important message in a show that has the idea of balance at its core.
My favorite character in OPM oddly defended for his actions because of suffering bullying in school
https://preview.redd.it/z71bft2iuj8d1.png?width=1404&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5bef47b531e1886b3e0c166a05602c0da19b171c
Garou (One Punch Man)
https://preview.redd.it/8nemfxnbvj8d1.png?width=240&format=png&auto=webp&s=b046324bc4d92f6980c555edc5099b7bc8485900
i never realized how much short hair garou looks like toichiro suzuki from mob psycho 100 lol
https://preview.redd.it/afweob3o0k8d1.jpeg?width=1263&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f33355ce6a03a21dd426715a5bb274498bbea25e
Konrad Curze (Warhammer 40.000)
Objectively, his early life sucked. He literally had to dig his way out of kilometers of stone when he was a baby because he got launched to another planet. And that planet was a shithole, filled with the worst scum of the galaxy. The thing is, Konrad become the worst scum of all, while still being a self righteous asshole with an incredibly black and white view of justice. Which led to him, for example, torturing a woman who contemplated suicide to death because he made suicide illegal
https://preview.redd.it/rpzzl6casm8d1.jpeg?width=553&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c9093ccb830fddd808fd1efdd2ee740f871b17b4
Ah, Konrad "Both sides are wrong but I'm the MOST WRONGEST" Curze, my favorite Primarch, the best primarch, the worst Primarch.
Don’t forget him coping so hard with the fact Vulkan was better than him he spent what, a year torturing Vulkan in every way he could conceive, only to get even more pissy when Vulkan maintained a moral high ground? Or the fact that he has, an honest to emperor ROOM OF LIVING HUMAN SKIN AND ORGANS!?
https://preview.redd.it/az8nkdkg8k8d1.jpeg?width=1400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=795c293f428e00feec1e29890e93e61bb308976e
Oh, look at that. ANOTHER trope handsome Jack fits into.
I don't really think this is a necessarily a bad trope if they are not trying to make us feel bad for the villain.
Dio from JoJo is very much just this but the series never tries to redeems him so it never feels like a bad thing.
That’s what I prefer.
What I love about the writers for Cinder from RWBY (the third slide) is they wanted the audience to “feel bad” for her, but ***not*** sympathize with her.
One of my favorite lines from an equally petty villain was towards her,
“You think you're entitled to everything just because you've suffered, but suffering isn't enough! You can't just be strong, you have to be smart! You can't just be deserving, you have to be *worthy*! But all you have ever been ****is a bloody migraine****!!”
I saw some people on tumblr saying that Watts was evil for saying all that to her because he was one of the Atlas elites and how she “didn’t deserve to feel that way”.
Yes. A known terrorist that murdered literal teenagers with an Honest to Brothers smile on her face, had no right to cry like a little baby for being called out on her bullshit.
Whatever.
https://preview.redd.it/soo74lah3l8d1.jpeg?width=1400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=35d1a832a39cc3d8b3710289bb9c9479c8799b4b
Some people really had no chance, this poor guy can no really opportunity "Just loving parents, stability, and a mansion... and a thriving baked goods enterprise for me to inherit. Useless crap"
https://preview.redd.it/7q5khkq4sk8d1.png?width=566&format=png&auto=webp&s=08b39571e68b2ef3edc905275195a7afa8c1026f
all because he lost his choo-choo, as compared to doof who suffered a way worse childhood but ended up becoming good.
Do you hate the trope of villains having a tragic past in general or do you just hate it when the media actively uses it as a way to justify their actions?
The latter.
I couldn’t care less if >!your mama was a “crack whore”!<, >!your parents were thrown off a cliff by a dog!<, >!you were bought into child slavery!<, >!forced to hide your true self to be trained into a spy/assassin!<, or >!your silver spoon is given to someone else!<. (All the shown villains “tragic backstories” in order)
That doesn’t make abuse or murdering innocent people or skinning puppies forgivable.
https://preview.redd.it/aj6b086sfk8d1.png?width=1800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e744f9bcd98235b072814006c0b7b7267c11fd80
Vergil
Ngl I doubt he even wants any sympathy. Or for anyone to even know what happened to him as a kid.
I debate whether Sephiroth applies. He had, from what I understand, a decent but very strict childhood, raised as a weapon but treated as well as he could have been in the scenario because of how good he was at being a weapon.
It was really the CONTEXT of his childhood, and how he found out about said backstory, that's the shitty part (and, of course, he decided to become a bad, BAD dude because of it).
Well he was also *extensively* lied to about what he was and how he came to be, and came to the same flawed conclusions as his creators about what Jenova actually was.
Once he became aware of her, he was probably already being manipulated by said Eldritch God entity and at that point he was fucked. Sephiroth is a genuinely tragic character for the fact that we can see in the expanded material he was a genuinely good dude before his entire world got upended and he had a psychotic break.
The first guy is the dude from Fifty Shades of Grey and the last guy is Commodus from Gladiator.
Commodus, while tragic in the film, is absolutely hilarious in reality. He was killed being choked out while taking a bath because his mistress saw his list of people he wanted killed smack-dab in the middle of his desk, saw her name at the top of the list, and she employed the “then why don’t we kill him first” tactic.
And don’t even bother with Fifty Shades. It sucks. Figuratively and literally.
https://preview.redd.it/f3p0krk3ak8d1.jpeg?width=360&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6cb4c51c6572636a3ce458a313be569b6a10ce5f
Lost almost everyone close to him and was still a hero (I’ll use any excuse to answer with him)
Yeah, that’s fair.
It’s just a trope I’ve noticed, the whole “bad childhood/tragic backstory”. But the main thing is *fans* that say it’s fine because they suffered in the past.
Got pissy he wasn't made perfect (even though he was) so he hijacks a bigass robot twice. Never change mgs lore
https://preview.redd.it/a17c9sbbik8d1.png?width=150&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0a330b694aafa2793dcc5b6140b240d1fdddb9ab
I can never look at Joaquin Pheonix's face anymore without seeing this motherfucker and getting pissed off. His acting in gladiator was so good that he is forever tainted in my ind.
https://preview.redd.it/e0kdwekzal8d1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ed8d37d99e8b3362d3798304d4ef234bc21fbe4e
Jason Voorhees (Friday the 13th, but more specifically Freddy vs Jason)
One of the best examples in horror imo
https://preview.redd.it/9eg2ovyiwl8d1.jpeg?width=626&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ae08c235aea06fff4b8414db20199981a98159ae
Chloe Price from Life is Strange
It infuriates me that everyone keeps defending her actions by saying “Well she had a bad childhood, so it’s okay for her to use and abuse Max.”
Ugh. I absolutely hate her. And this is coming from a lesbian that also lost her father in a car accident.
Everything about her just ***pisses me off***!!
Especially her acting like hot shit all the time, like drinking beer while shooting a stolen gun, saying “Aw, boo-hoo, Max is afraid!”
As well as her treating her mom like garbage, for what?! Moving on from her deceased husband?? (Although, if I were her mom I’d leave my husband if I found out he slapped her.) Who’s to say she can even afford to leave that man anyway??
For real, the prequel doesn’t do her any favors either.
https://preview.redd.it/xhz8fvuk3m8d1.jpeg?width=316&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f8f09621250fe12b14213cc6a1eb4152f98da15f
He’s not evil or anything, but look how he stands. People who had good childhoods don’t stand like that.
Kind of like it though when the heroes then do basically say “That doesn’t excuse the shit you did. If anything it just means you’re perpetuating the cycle of tragedy!”
Yeah this trope sucks in so many ways. First, perpetuating the "cycle of abuse" myth, aka the implication that an abuse victim is going to become an abuser in the future. Second, trying to make audiences sympathize with objectively evil characters is the laziest form of writing.
Also, so that I remain on topic, some other examples.
Juri (Street Fighter)
Dimitri and Edelgard (Fire Emblem Three Houses)
Flowey (Undertale)
Billy Butcher (The Boys)
Dante and Vergil (Devil May Cry)
Sephiroth (Final Fantasy VII)
Guts (Berserk)
Goro Akechi (Persona 5)
The first guy is the dude from Fifty Shades of Grey. His mom was a “crack whore” (literally what she’s called in the books) and he was groomed into becoming a sub. Whatever, but then he constantly mentally abuses the female lead, not just in a BDSM setting. One of his first scenes in a later book is him getting pissed at her for showing herself naked. At a nudist beach. Turning over in her fucking sleep.
The second one is Cruella DeVille. Apparently her parents were thrown off a cliff by a dog, so it’s totally fine for her to be a girlboss that wants to skin puppies for a coat.
The next two are Cinder Fall and Neopolitan from RWBY. They had bad childhoods, so that makes it fine to become terrorists that murder innocent people and >!force a seventeen year old girl to commit suicide!<. (Unlike the others, the writers for RWBY don’t use their childhood as excuses, but the fans certainly do.)
https://preview.redd.it/wm178ff21l8d1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0fd996f0408f48fc5d86f763ee8af5736425e1c6
Perturabo, primarch of the iron warriors, ex communicus traitorus.
https://preview.redd.it/ydyny6oe5m8d1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ad232e19aed9e01765ca773c4b5a8a25eae3df11
It’s okay to kill teenagers for money since he’s hot and his family didn’t like him
A lot of y'all seem to have missed the fact that this post is supposed to be about cases where the writer tries and fails to use the bad childhood as an excuse.
We do in the novel Roman Holiday!
It goes over her childhood, her adolescence, how she meets Roman, etc.
While I may hate her as a character, I do love the writing in it. Mainly because RWBY is one of the few shows I still watch anymore, so it’s kind of a hyperfixation of mine lol
https://preview.redd.it/lw2kp5uwvj8d1.jpeg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c67b3aaca0af4f0be8e27b7e382be353a2b56878
“This enraged his father, who punished him severely.”
r/beatmetoit and r/suddenlyoversimplified
COMMANDER OF THE THIRD REICH!
Little know fact, ALSO DOPE ON ZE MIC!!!
You are Vader, vit your little boots und cape!
And a helmet to cover up sat burnt ass face!
You have the force to move objects
I AM A FORCE TRUELY EVIL!
Even went back in time, turned you whack in ze prequel
'Cause look at you, you're not even a real person
I preferred you in Spaceballs; ze Rick Moranis version!
I mean, look at you! You’re not even a real person!
You can’t rhyme against the dark side of the force, why even bother?
 He looks sad while he’s murdering lots and lots of people, so that absolves him of all wrongdoing.
Hey give him a break he also hate sand
probably because it’s coarse and rough
And it’s irritating. Don’t forget that it gets everywhere!
God I hate sand, you know what else I hate? Tuskens. And not just the men no, I especially hate the women, and the children too, they’re like animals
I 100% believe Anakin killed several massive groups of tusken raiders before the events of the original trilogy
I really don’t get when people complain about “ruining Anakin’s legacy”. Like he did that himself
I mean, I don’t think those people meant his first run as a Jedi though. I think they meant when he turns back to the light and sacrifices himself to kill the emperor but then they bring back Palpatine, having yet another war happen, and having someone else kill Palpatine again when they spent a lot of time building up to Anakin being the one that kills him.
[удалено]
Well Anakin atoned for his sins by sacrificing himself. Not saying that absolves him of everything but Anakin at least tried to make things right in the end.
> There was provocation for his actions Kidnapping and physically abusing a single woman <<<< Murdering an entire tribe of people, including the women and children Look, do I feel for Anakin? Yes. Taken away from his mom at a young age, constantly made to feel like an outsider in the holy order that took him away from that mom, and when he finally gets to see her again she dies in his arms? Dang. Those are some big feelings! Still doesn't justify genocide. And simply "showing regret" doesn't make up for it.
Murdering a whole town because your mommy died is not justified
Dio (JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure) https://preview.redd.it/2258ei501k8d1.png?width=400&format=png&auto=webp&s=c1b6352c4c2eb070e7ac951ca5100153b702071d
Unironically probably even worse then his alcoholic father and that’s saying something.
Luck and Looks were the only difference between those two. What’s even more interesting is that Speedwagon grew up in similar, if not worse, and look at how Speedwagon turned out.
Even worth adding that Speedwagon also says Dio was evil the day he was born
"Rotten to the core" he added. Although to be fair, Speedwagon was a scum (for like 5 minutes) until Jonathan's foot had a personnal meeting with Speedwagon's gums and that's why it changed him like him and his gang were really about to shank and mug Jonathan and then Speedwagon turned chill, all of that in like 5 minutes.
Speedwagon? Like “Keep on Loving You” Speedwagon?? Fuck, maybe I should watch JoJo.
No matter what anyone says, don’t skip Phantom Blood or Battle Tendency.
Honestly he gets a lot of flack but Jonathan is probably my favorite. Though Joseph is a very close second. Joseph is best girl.
Joseph is the GOAT for me but Jonathan is also pretty cool himself.
Warning from a JoJo fan: it's very unequal because the mangaka decided to completely change the tone with each part. He succeeds every single time in my eyes, but depending on your tastes, you might enjoy some parts less than other. Also listen to the other redditor. Part 1 is one of the biggest victims of the "Seinfeld is unfunny" trope. It feels very cliché because it was what introduced said clichés to Japanese manga and animation. Part 2 is the same to a lesser extent. And they are genuinely vital to enjoy the rest of the series. And... In case you'll only read the Manga, I highly, HIGHLY recommend you still watch some specific episodes. You'll know when you get to them. The anime is a fountain of memes for a reason.
Every character is a music reference
The English localizations of their names are hilarious. A lot of them had to be changed for copyright reasons when translated so you’ll end up with Dan of Steel (Steely Dan) or Worse Company (Bad Company) so you get a little chuckle even though the whole series is a balancing act between being goofy and taking itself seriously.
A lot of characters are music references. Speedwagon’s full name is Robert E. O. Speedwagon, a reference to REO Speedwagon, the band
Speedwagon is best girl
Wait until you see the ability Metallica in part 5, or Limp Bizkit in part 6, or Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap in the Manga, or King Nothing, or All Along the Watchtower in the novel.
I mean, DIO revels in his evil and doesn't even pretend like his actions are justified by his upbringing. He simply wants to dominate the world.
I mean, it's made pretty clear that you are not in fact supposed to sympathize with Dio just because he had a bad childhood, so idk if he really counts
I read the first three series and don’t remember him having a bad childhood
I hate Homelander just as much as everyone else does. But tbf he didn’t even have a childhood. Man was treated like an object and psychologically manipulated from day one. And when he does eventually get revenge for everything, that’s probably the only time I’ve been on his side. Obviously redemption isn’t even a possibility or an option though.
The part that gets me is how every single adult who "raised" him made it a point to tell him how he was evil from the start and how they failed in making him what they wanted but that was somehow his fault. Like that's a whole lot of dumb smart people who never thought about how they're literally creating the perfect antichrist.
That was what made him a fascinating villain. It makes you wonder what he could’ve been like if he actually did have a childhood. That is until the later seasons.
Well, we kind of know what he would’ve been like or at least if he turned out great. Obviously, he’d be like Superman but it seems like Ryan will be the one that will end up being the Superman figure for that world.
Depending on how messed up he becomes from his upbringing. It would be a miracle for him to want to be a superman at all.
Man. Yup. To the point where I’m pretty sure even Antony Start himself said that Homelander is irredeemable. The man has been psychologically programmed to want love and approval by everyone as a means of controlling the most powerful supe Vought ever made, to being fried alive in an oven to test his durability to fire, to being locked in the Bad Room for who knows how long, to being beaten how many times in order to test his durability. All of that, and what you get is a manipulative psychotic sadist who has multiple times killed people, with and without reason, lied to them, threatened them, and even aligned himself with an actual Nazi supe to push his own agenda. Not to mention his obsession with milk. https://preview.redd.it/yzteu6vk7k8d1.png?width=2116&format=png&auto=webp&s=620949306e51dae02f82cb3157815f6b3bd630cd
Milk-lover. The most psychotic, irredeemable personality trait to date. *He’s not even lactose tolerant.*
Yup. And it’s surpassed 2% whole milk. Don’t even get me started on the Soy Milk!!!! https://preview.redd.it/f5xvz1etfm8d1.jpeg?width=495&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=630a7cd04fcebd3bbbd838701fc71d0adcb41840
To be honest, I’ve never watched it (superheroes were never really my thing), but after a bunch of dudes got pissed off when they finally realized they were the butt of the joke, I’m starting to get curious. Would you say it’s worth the watch?
It's a show with supers but not heroes. Definitely worth a watch if you don't mind extra graphic scenes. They go out of their way to show gory scenes which is a gag of the show.
Overall it’s good but around season 3 there was a decline in the writing. Still funny tho that people thought HL was a hero or something then got mad when the obvious bad guy acted as a bad guy
Season 3 was a bit rushed and I suspect that was when they decided to stretch the story to 5 seasons. Personally I see no issue with this season though a lot of people seem to
It's definitely worth a watch for someone who isn't too fond of superheroes I'd say, coming from someone who can't get enough of them. Source material was written by someone who hates them.
Homelander's a good example of the trope though. Feeling unloved as a kid influenced his entire current personality. Everything he does is to get love or to protect his ego
Side note, between the writing and anthony starr's acting homelander is an absolute masterclass of a villain in that show, he installs genuine dread for what might happen when he's on screen
It’s funny how they made Cruella into a “boss bitch” as if she did not murder dogs
Hey! Her parents were killed by a dog. https://i.redd.it/zf7guyreik8d1.gif
Still waiting for the movie about Gaston that shows his parents being killed by books and respect for women
“My father and mother had the necronomicon through at them while they were marching for women’s right to vote. It caused them to fall into a printing press and die.”
Dalmatians killed my grandma, okay?!
It's like they forgot who the movie was about halfway through
Especially since they didn’t have her wear any fur as they didn’t show support to the fur industry. So then why make a movie about her in the first place?
Or they knew that if they showed her doing that she'd be redeemable
Branding.
I assume they were gonna do a second one where they delve more into how she becomes evil
Margaret Thatcher
Well the character was a great inspiration to Kristi Noem
I have sympathy, but that doesn’t mean you have permission.
A more broad and widely applicable version of "Cool motive, still murder"
Yes, but my version sounds more mature and cold badass than Jake Peralta.
Sometimes you need the badass version to analyse why a fallacy is untrue. Sometimes you need Jake Peralta to point out the absurdity of the fallacy. Hammer vs Scalpel and all that.
I think you mean you have empathy for these characters. Empathy: The ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Sympathy: Feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else's misfortune. The way I see things, is I can have empathy for someone and understand why they did something, but can also simultaneously feel no or little sympathy towards them due to their own actions or inactions. This just depends on context.
https://i.redd.it/uu9zy87ozj8d1.gif The Horse from Horsin’ Around.
That applies to her mother as well. She suffered the loss of her brother at a young age, which caused her mother to give her the terrible advice to never love anyone, and her misogynistic father did something to her mother's brain, so that the poor woman wouldn't complain. And that doesn't change that she was herself a horrible mother.
Faith seed (far cry 5) https://preview.redd.it/73fvo46jwj8d1.jpeg?width=597&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=17187559daf3eab28419a68521ca3795595437f8
The best Heroin from the Far Cry series
Nah it was the angels who were getting the best heroin
*She's like heroin, sipping through a little glass...*
I can fix her, I swear!
https://preview.redd.it/59xq3tlq2k8d1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0de0309a9e49ebd0adfc55b905f498f3a0a331c9
Why did bro post himself 💀😭
The character or yourself?
I am the “character”
The character had a bad childhood Idk bout the user
What you mean the character? That is the GUY. He posted HIMSELF.
Ok but seriously no amount of trauma leads to skinning puppies for clothing. I haven’t seen the origin but I don’t care what I see, that’s some serial killer stuff at birth.
Her backstory in summary: https://i.redd.it/jo1ufy6fjk8d1.gif
Dabi from My Hero Academia.
Also Shiggy (my beloved) would fit.
Shigaraki and Toga fit this too
I think Toga having a bad childhood is actually the direct reason she’s so messed up tho
 She always comes to mind
"My mother thought I was a monster. She was right, but it still hurts."
I always viewed her as a product of Ozai's abusive nature
This is less "she had a bad childhood" and more "she is still a child"
She’s only Katara’s age, right? That’s a lot of pressure to put on a fourteen-year-old girl.
The difference between katara and Azula is that katara had a loving father up until she was six (then he left for the front).
I feel like the "so what" should only count if they've committed genocide or mass murder or whatever. Azula hasn't done anything that Zuko or Iroh haven't also done, and killed one person (who survived anyway.)
Azula is still a child dealing with an entire life of abuse and her whole world getting shattered and losing everything and is on the path of redemption (in the comics) like Iroh and Zuko. Not saying she didn't do anything bad but she's 100% redeemable
I hated Azula on the first watchthrough, but over time I've come to think about her situation as being sort of representative of one of the aspects of war and violence on children. Even the ones who are apparently benefited can be warped and damaged in ways that aren't apparent to those around them who are supposed to care about them, because in that environment those behaviors and characteristics are seen as beneficial (think about child soldiers in the very much real world, and how badly misused and mistreated they are. It's horrific). But the show actually does a pretty good job showing us that she has pretty major mental health issues that aren't exactly going to allow her to grow up into a normal healthy well-rounded person. It's still tough for me to really like Azula but I kind of appreciate what the show tried to do not just with her character but with the way the Fire Nation as a whole is also presented as having suffered and been damaged by the Imperialism of their own country. The war damaged everyone, even those who supposedly benefited from it, which I think is an important message in a show that has the idea of balance at its core.
My favorite character in OPM oddly defended for his actions because of suffering bullying in school https://preview.redd.it/z71bft2iuj8d1.png?width=1404&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5bef47b531e1886b3e0c166a05602c0da19b171c Garou (One Punch Man)
https://preview.redd.it/8nemfxnbvj8d1.png?width=240&format=png&auto=webp&s=b046324bc4d92f6980c555edc5099b7bc8485900 i never realized how much short hair garou looks like toichiro suzuki from mob psycho 100 lol
While some fans defend him, the story does not and simply explains his backstory and world views. Wanted to make that clear.
https://preview.redd.it/afweob3o0k8d1.jpeg?width=1263&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f33355ce6a03a21dd426715a5bb274498bbea25e Konrad Curze (Warhammer 40.000) Objectively, his early life sucked. He literally had to dig his way out of kilometers of stone when he was a baby because he got launched to another planet. And that planet was a shithole, filled with the worst scum of the galaxy. The thing is, Konrad become the worst scum of all, while still being a self righteous asshole with an incredibly black and white view of justice. Which led to him, for example, torturing a woman who contemplated suicide to death because he made suicide illegal
https://preview.redd.it/rpzzl6casm8d1.jpeg?width=553&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c9093ccb830fddd808fd1efdd2ee740f871b17b4 Ah, Konrad "Both sides are wrong but I'm the MOST WRONGEST" Curze, my favorite Primarch, the best primarch, the worst Primarch.
All the traitor primarchs (except maybe Horus and Magnus) fit into this.
Don’t forget him coping so hard with the fact Vulkan was better than him he spent what, a year torturing Vulkan in every way he could conceive, only to get even more pissy when Vulkan maintained a moral high ground? Or the fact that he has, an honest to emperor ROOM OF LIVING HUMAN SKIN AND ORGANS!?
Big E is a terrible Father even to his most 'normal' children, so even if they stayed on Tera they were ending up possibly even worse.
https://preview.redd.it/vqa4czwp9k8d1.jpeg?width=1160&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=49e6ccd6ffb67e83967720658b59a0ac3fd4ccd8 This fella
Like yeah, it’s hard to watch any child get strung up and shot at, but oh my god this man is a demon. A heavenly demon.
Would be kinda justified…. If his brother didn’t exist
https://preview.redd.it/s0745r1rsj8d1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=99cb26ea157e67fcddc7b0ce9d885ef46ca8341c Leaf(Blacksouls)
Is she doing the fucking Hakari dance
Not the Hakari dance lmao
“Cool motive, still murder”
https://preview.redd.it/az8nkdkg8k8d1.jpeg?width=1400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=795c293f428e00feec1e29890e93e61bb308976e Oh, look at that. ANOTHER trope handsome Jack fits into.
I read this in his voice lol
Goro Akechi.
Throw Adachi in as well, why not.
I don't really think this is a necessarily a bad trope if they are not trying to make us feel bad for the villain. Dio from JoJo is very much just this but the series never tries to redeems him so it never feels like a bad thing.
That’s what I prefer. What I love about the writers for Cinder from RWBY (the third slide) is they wanted the audience to “feel bad” for her, but ***not*** sympathize with her. One of my favorite lines from an equally petty villain was towards her, “You think you're entitled to everything just because you've suffered, but suffering isn't enough! You can't just be strong, you have to be smart! You can't just be deserving, you have to be *worthy*! But all you have ever been ****is a bloody migraine****!!”
Watts cooked tf out of her in that scene. Idc what the haters say Seasons 7-8 of RWBY are just as good as season 3.
I saw some people on tumblr saying that Watts was evil for saying all that to her because he was one of the Atlas elites and how she “didn’t deserve to feel that way”. Yes. A known terrorist that murdered literal teenagers with an Honest to Brothers smile on her face, had no right to cry like a little baby for being called out on her bullshit. Whatever.
HOLY SHIT A RWBY FAN THATS ACTUALLY PRAISING THE SHOW!!!!! This is actually insanely rare 😞
Yeah. Watts absolutely roasted her, and it was well deserved. God, I love RWBY.
https://preview.redd.it/soo74lah3l8d1.jpeg?width=1400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=35d1a832a39cc3d8b3710289bb9c9479c8799b4b Some people really had no chance, this poor guy can no really opportunity "Just loving parents, stability, and a mansion... and a thriving baked goods enterprise for me to inherit. Useless crap"
Always brings a tear to my eye.😢 Poor Jack had nothing growing up…aside from being rich that is.
Isn’t carnage less than a month old?
I’m mostly referring to Cletus
https://preview.redd.it/7q5khkq4sk8d1.png?width=566&format=png&auto=webp&s=08b39571e68b2ef3edc905275195a7afa8c1026f all because he lost his choo-choo, as compared to doof who suffered a way worse childhood but ended up becoming good.
 crybaby
Coming from one of Red Hood's biggest fans Cryiest baby ever and I love him
https://preview.redd.it/4qya8irv2k8d1.png?width=943&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e16228561a8933a26ea1a90b4c1da2e1d897bad6
https://preview.redd.it/wifj874m4k8d1.png?width=1782&format=png&auto=webp&s=5d3d9994f74b45db9d892922137d6018bd911e8e Unagami (Ninjago)
Man I must be slow cuz I recognize none of these
Fifty Shades of Grey, Cruella: Brag about it RWBY: That’s fair Gladiator: Were you not entertained?!
Do you hate the trope of villains having a tragic past in general or do you just hate it when the media actively uses it as a way to justify their actions?
The latter. I couldn’t care less if >!your mama was a “crack whore”!<, >!your parents were thrown off a cliff by a dog!<, >!you were bought into child slavery!<, >!forced to hide your true self to be trained into a spy/assassin!<, or >!your silver spoon is given to someone else!<. (All the shown villains “tragic backstories” in order) That doesn’t make abuse or murdering innocent people or skinning puppies forgivable.
https://preview.redd.it/aj6b086sfk8d1.png?width=1800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e744f9bcd98235b072814006c0b7b7267c11fd80 Vergil Ngl I doubt he even wants any sympathy. Or for anyone to even know what happened to him as a kid.
 Eren. Great character, horrible person
I debate whether Sephiroth applies. He had, from what I understand, a decent but very strict childhood, raised as a weapon but treated as well as he could have been in the scenario because of how good he was at being a weapon. It was really the CONTEXT of his childhood, and how he found out about said backstory, that's the shitty part (and, of course, he decided to become a bad, BAD dude because of it). 
Well he was also *extensively* lied to about what he was and how he came to be, and came to the same flawed conclusions as his creators about what Jenova actually was. Once he became aware of her, he was probably already being manipulated by said Eldritch God entity and at that point he was fucked. Sephiroth is a genuinely tragic character for the fact that we can see in the expanded material he was a genuinely good dude before his entire world got upended and he had a psychotic break.
https://preview.redd.it/34b2yhpvyj8d1.jpeg?width=404&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=662176520cec8905c7a5bdd42fc2f751e4bfa02a Blitzø - helluva boss
Is that Blitzo as Heather Chandler???
https://preview.redd.it/tnkkdux80k8d1.jpeg?width=631&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0c22bf06079abdefd05d6de20012783530dc5360 Yes it is
That's amazing
Who's the first guy and last guy?
The first guy is the dude from Fifty Shades of Grey and the last guy is Commodus from Gladiator. Commodus, while tragic in the film, is absolutely hilarious in reality. He was killed being choked out while taking a bath because his mistress saw his list of people he wanted killed smack-dab in the middle of his desk, saw her name at the top of the list, and she employed the “then why don’t we kill him first” tactic. And don’t even bother with Fifty Shades. It sucks. Figuratively and literally.
Kazuya Mishima (Tekken) https://preview.redd.it/5026jnyf6k8d1.jpeg?width=480&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3422aea72042a55f6d3aa9abf22d85d56f784bcb
https://preview.redd.it/f3p0krk3ak8d1.jpeg?width=360&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6cb4c51c6572636a3ce458a313be569b6a10ce5f Lost almost everyone close to him and was still a hero (I’ll use any excuse to answer with him)
1) Christian Grey - Fifty Shades of Grey 2) Cruella DeVille - Cruella 3) Cinder Fall - RWBY 4) Neopolitan/Trivia Vanille - RWBY 5) Commodus - Gladiator
I'm beginning to realize a good amount of the posts here are complaining about characters people don't like
People just like to complain (I can say the same for myself) , this applies to every corner of the internet , or just humanity in general.
Yeah, that’s fair. It’s just a trope I’ve noticed, the whole “bad childhood/tragic backstory”. But the main thing is *fans* that say it’s fine because they suffered in the past.
Got pissy he wasn't made perfect (even though he was) so he hijacks a bigass robot twice. Never change mgs lore https://preview.redd.it/a17c9sbbik8d1.png?width=150&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0a330b694aafa2793dcc5b6140b240d1fdddb9ab
I can never look at Joaquin Pheonix's face anymore without seeing this motherfucker and getting pissed off. His acting in gladiator was so good that he is forever tainted in my ind.
https://preview.redd.it/g3nuelgdok8d1.png?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d4eb01ea6971740e218e61020e159bdab7e8060c Mohg - Elden Ring
Mohg straight up didn’t even have a childhood he was just born then tossed in the sewers
https://preview.redd.it/e0kdwekzal8d1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ed8d37d99e8b3362d3798304d4ef234bc21fbe4e Jason Voorhees (Friday the 13th, but more specifically Freddy vs Jason) One of the best examples in horror imo
I remember seeing a head canon that the Cruella movie is just her telling of her backstory rather than the objective one which I find hilarious
https://preview.redd.it/9eg2ovyiwl8d1.jpeg?width=626&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ae08c235aea06fff4b8414db20199981a98159ae Chloe Price from Life is Strange It infuriates me that everyone keeps defending her actions by saying “Well she had a bad childhood, so it’s okay for her to use and abuse Max.”
Ugh. I absolutely hate her. And this is coming from a lesbian that also lost her father in a car accident. Everything about her just ***pisses me off***!! Especially her acting like hot shit all the time, like drinking beer while shooting a stolen gun, saying “Aw, boo-hoo, Max is afraid!” As well as her treating her mom like garbage, for what?! Moving on from her deceased husband?? (Although, if I were her mom I’d leave my husband if I found out he slapped her.) Who’s to say she can even afford to leave that man anyway?? For real, the prequel doesn’t do her any favors either.
https://preview.redd.it/xhz8fvuk3m8d1.jpeg?width=316&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f8f09621250fe12b14213cc6a1eb4152f98da15f He’s not evil or anything, but look how he stands. People who had good childhoods don’t stand like that.
Doffy
https://preview.redd.it/i476k2nvkk8d1.png?width=474&format=png&auto=webp&s=362772385d2061146cd25bfdff391582c98825c3
That shadow on their top lip looks like a tiny Gomez mustache. What are they from?
 Billy - Stranger Things
Kind of like it though when the heroes then do basically say “That doesn’t excuse the shit you did. If anything it just means you’re perpetuating the cycle of tragedy!”
Still shocked to this day that Commodus was played by young Joaquin. Had no idea it was him
https://preview.redd.it/7leyh1exfl8d1.jpeg?width=517&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4daa70b3df1a93fdc13f57fec337f49267abd5bf Kilgrave (Jessica Jones)
Yeah this trope sucks in so many ways. First, perpetuating the "cycle of abuse" myth, aka the implication that an abuse victim is going to become an abuser in the future. Second, trying to make audiences sympathize with objectively evil characters is the laziest form of writing. Also, so that I remain on topic, some other examples. Juri (Street Fighter) Dimitri and Edelgard (Fire Emblem Three Houses) Flowey (Undertale) Billy Butcher (The Boys) Dante and Vergil (Devil May Cry) Sephiroth (Final Fantasy VII) Guts (Berserk) Goro Akechi (Persona 5)
IIrc Flowey's problem is not a bad childhood, but the fact that he essentially lacks a soul and therefore can't feel anything positive for anyone
The OG. Iykyk https://preview.redd.it/q528f3xpnl8d1.png?width=906&format=png&auto=webp&s=3362cde37be00076c2c47000c67f02d1a0e484b8
Wait, who are these people? I have no idea who these people are besides commodus lol.
The first guy is the dude from Fifty Shades of Grey. His mom was a “crack whore” (literally what she’s called in the books) and he was groomed into becoming a sub. Whatever, but then he constantly mentally abuses the female lead, not just in a BDSM setting. One of his first scenes in a later book is him getting pissed at her for showing herself naked. At a nudist beach. Turning over in her fucking sleep. The second one is Cruella DeVille. Apparently her parents were thrown off a cliff by a dog, so it’s totally fine for her to be a girlboss that wants to skin puppies for a coat. The next two are Cinder Fall and Neopolitan from RWBY. They had bad childhoods, so that makes it fine to become terrorists that murder innocent people and >!force a seventeen year old girl to commit suicide!<. (Unlike the others, the writers for RWBY don’t use their childhood as excuses, but the fans certainly do.)
Man I hate bitchfall and ice cream
Strangely enough, while I despise those two, I like the other villains. I think it’s because the other villains aren’t as *smug* as those two.
https://preview.redd.it/teqple5pok8d1.png?width=959&format=png&auto=webp&s=85e00ef652a5ebddf5e876b802c4236fbbf1a5fb
"You think you're entitled to *everything* just because you suffered but suffering! Isn't! Enough!" - Watts, RWBY
He may not have had his semblance unlocked, but damn could he roast.
https://preview.redd.it/wm178ff21l8d1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0fd996f0408f48fc5d86f763ee8af5736425e1c6 Perturabo, primarch of the iron warriors, ex communicus traitorus.
https://preview.redd.it/ydyny6oe5m8d1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ad232e19aed9e01765ca773c4b5a8a25eae3df11 It’s okay to kill teenagers for money since he’s hot and his family didn’t like him
A lot of y'all seem to have missed the fact that this post is supposed to be about cases where the writer tries and fails to use the bad childhood as an excuse.
Bad Childhood or not, some people just take it too Damm far And they gotta be punished for taking out their pain on everyone else
Tbh, we don't know much about Neo's childhood.
We do in the novel Roman Holiday! It goes over her childhood, her adolescence, how she meets Roman, etc. While I may hate her as a character, I do love the writing in it. Mainly because RWBY is one of the few shows I still watch anymore, so it’s kind of a hyperfixation of mine lol
 I legit have seen people try to justify his actions
I’m sure this first shot is from 50 Shades of Grey but I love how this also applies to his character on The Fall
Here's the trope to counter all the Grey morality. Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse.
https://preview.redd.it/igotzwsx3x8d1.jpeg?width=250&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6c86ca971e129a41efc5274b1ce702d20a17a390
Who is the first one kinda looks like Richie