Sympathy for the villain

[GhostInTheMachine]

How often have you seen a piece of media (Movie, Show, Song, other art, etc) where you saw the villain, and even if they're morally repugnant, still kinda agree with them and wish they'd have won? Who's your favorite, or most impactful that had you questioning what "goodness" even means in this world? I'll give a few examples of my own after this thread gets going a bit, I'm currently passing out as I type this but I wanted to get it out before I forgot.

 

[getoutgirl]

As a kid I always liked the most slimiest, morally repugnant cowardly characters in media. Not the big bad guy, I'm talking the evil lil weak rat servant, the evil advisor, the scheming eunuch, all the backstabbing pieces of shit. Loved them and still do.
I'm talking Grima Wormtongue in lotr, peter pettigrew in harry potter, little finger in got, fking gollum. All the variations of that trope, almost always my favourite character of that media. why? I dunno.
But I always wanted them to survive. Not win, not even get away with their plans. I was content as long as they survived out of cowardice. Really rooting for them to be spared by the story (which rarely happened) above anything else that was going on in it.
Has idolizing those characters maybe influenced the fact I'm an absolute coward as an adult. maybe. yes. but god I still love them.

 

[Sprite_Geist]

For me it varies.

Sympathetic villains:
There are some antagonists and/or villains who I sympathies for, because I understand their pain, and reasons who doing whatever it is that they do. It could be argued that these characters represent what many people would become if they were in the same situation. These type of villains can also be a reflection of serious issues in a given society, and act as a cautionary tale for what happens when said issues are not addressed.

Unsympathetic villains:
These kind of villains are ones who I do not agree with at all - and who I think are genuinely awful, but still support them because the chaos they cause can feel cathartic. Sometimes I like to forget about motivations and justifications (to an extent), and follow the journey of these type of villains just for the thrill.

As an example: when I bought Fallout 3: GOTY Edition my first playthrough was evil, in fact I got my characters karma level to Very Evil. At first it was fun, but eventually I felt really bad and decided to do a Good karma playthrough.

 

[Agon321]

Honestly, I often root for the "evil" characters.
This is partly because I feel like antagonists are usually better designed than protagonists. Maybe it's just my imagination, but that's my impression.

I'm also a little tired of how easy it is to predict the ending because it's clear the bad guys can't win.
I wish the bad guys would win more often.
No, I don't like it when the power of friendship wins over an absolute badass who's trained their whole life and is smarter than everyone else.

 

[NumbItAll]

Joker and the sequel that everyone hated. I love Arthur even though he did horrible things. He was a victim and a perpetrator. The same could be said for numerous other characters in those movies. It's a fucked up mess and wild fever dream with no clean resolution.