< Draco in Leather Pants

Draco in Leather Pants/Live Action TV

"Intelligent, sexy, and fights for what he wants".

    • Also manipulative, obsessive, completely untrustworthy, unrepentantly homicidal well except very recently in Season 6, utterly ruthless and possessor of a creepy (attractive?) unblinking bug-eyed stare.
  • Adelei Niska from Firefly. This elderly sadistic crime boss is known for torturing his nephew to death in one episode, and Mal and Wash nearly to death in another episode. But his wince-inducing torture techniques are contrasted by a unique personality and accent.
    • According to Livejournal user Allecto, Saffron is the only remotely feminist character in the show, and only for the one moment, when she kicks Wash in the head (while he is telling her how great he thinks Zoe is, no less). Allecto whines and insists that Whedon uses Saffron as an example of a "liberated" woman who is "enslaved" and "dominated" by Mal at the end of the episode as "punishment" for not being subservient... conveniently ignoring that Mal only went after her because she tried to kill him and his entire crew purely for money... and not to mention, she stole his shuttle.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
    • Spike. Inadvertently lampshaded in the episode "Crush" when Dawn lists "he wears cool leather coats and stuff" as a reason she likes him.
    • The vampire fan club in "Lie To Me" is a good in-universe example.
    • After two seasons the main cast had become Shell Shocked Veterans, and that's when Faith is introduced, which turned out to be a much needed breath of fresh air after the Angelus plot. She was sassy like Buffy, not afraid to have fun, looked like a million bucks, even when she was with the good guys had a dark streak that she wasn't afraid to show, and her fight scenes were among the best in the series. Even when she turns into a killer she still had a large fan base, to the point where some fans blame Buffy for Faith turning the way she did. Granted, Faith never had the support system Buffy did and had to sleep in a flea-bitten motel, but neither of these things are directly Buffy's fault.
      • Some fans split the difference and point out that while Buffy (and Giles) did not create Faith's crappy situation, they were a contributory negligence factor in never noticing it or offering Faith even the most basic of assistance in getting out of it. Giles in particular catches flak in that while Buffy is merely Faith's co-worker/friend, Giles is her Watcher (at least until Wesley arrives) and thus has an actual duty of care towards her.
      • In addition, Kendra establishes the precedent that a Watcher is normally responsible for his Slayer's room and board, and that she is not expected to support herself with a mundane job in addition to her Slaying duties. Buffy obviously gets an exemption from this as she has an outside source of support already available (although its a separate Headscratchers that Giles didn't change this after Joyce died), but Faith obviously does not. In addition, its implied that Faith's original Watcher actually was taking care of her until Kakistos killed her and Faith fled to Sunnydale, so.
      • Some fans also point out that Buffy committed a clear injustice towards Faith during the sequence that sets up Faith's original separation from the group. By both actual interpretation of the law and basic common decency, Buffy's guilt re: the manslaughter of Deputy Mayor Finch would be equal to Faith's. She was Faith's accessory before the fact during the scene, which is all that would be necessary to establish equal guilt as Faith's accomplice, and furthermore is the person who threw Finch to Faith to be staked. While Faith was clearly wrong in trying to falsely pin the entire blame on Buffy, Buffy was equally wrong in insisting that Faith turn herself in to the police/the Watchers' Council while Buffy did... nothing?
        • Even worse, at the time Buffy is insisting Faith turn herself in to the authorities, she already knows that the authorities are monstrously corrupt -- to the point of having suffered a completely undeserved attempt to frame Buffy for murder, just the season before. Faith's decision to betray the group is still ethically wrong, but its not hard to understand why Faith apparently perceived her actions as self-defense vs. attempted betrayal of her first.
  • Billy Mitchell was introduced to Eastenders as an abusive bastard who beat the living hell out of his nephew Jamie. For some unfathomable reason, fans liked him. He was slowly turned into a gentle, nice, and weak man who was given all the "touching" plot-lines about a nice man with a hard life, reducing the earlier child-abuse plotlines to being occasionally mentioned by his family and himself as a warning not to let his temper get the better of him, especially after he winds up with custody of a child, again. Still, that last bit means that he gets a little of this In-Universe, even if he's mostly reformed out of it in ours.
  • Sheriff Donald Lamb, whom some fans loved even though he was a petty, self-absorbed himbo slacker who ignored heroine Veronica Mars when she attempted to file a report on being drugged and raped. Series creator Rob Thomas and actor Michael Muhney acknowledged that they went overboard in the pilot in order to make Lamb an unlikeable jerk, and they even gave the character a sliver of sympathy by revealing that Lamb was abused as a child by his father; but Thomas refused to humanize Lamb or negate the events of the pilot (as many fans of the character had done via fanfictions). He had Lamb tell Veronica that he still didn't believe her claim of being raped and taunt her over the issue during season three. Thomas then had Lamb largely absent from season three's rape storyline and had his head bashed in during season three's second arc at the hands of a crystal meth addict (that last possibly because Lamb's fans wouldn't leave him alone).
  • Doctor Who:
    • The Master, particularly in his Anthony Ainley and John Simm incarnations. In fan fiction, he's usually not portrayed as the murderous psychopath he is, but as just a mischievous, quirky, sexy guy who just wants to have some Foe Yay with the Doctor. "The End Of Time" which revealed that the drums which apparently drove the Master insane were planted as part of The Plan by the Time Lords has only made it easier for those inclined to ignore or handwave his lengthy list of evil deeds with the "it wasn't his fault, they made him do it, he's really a sweetie!" card. The Ainley version is also walking around in the body of Nyssa's father. Thus, every time the Doctor battles him, he's facing the man who murdered the father of a close friend (along with her entire race) who is also in that same man's body, which gets creepier the more you think about it.
    • A weird example is with the Daleks. You'd think what are essentially tentacled flesh-lump space-Nazis in salt-shaker-shaped mechanical bodies wouldn't have fangirls, but there is an inordinate amount of fanart portraying said fangirls hugging, kissing, and/or stalking Daleks. Most are played for laughs, but some seem quite serious. Hybridized Dalek Sec having fangirls is a bit more understandable since he is at least humanoid and played somewhat sympathetically, but he isn't really what most would define as a hottie. You can hear the audience making a sort of 'awww' sound (at around 1:17) [dead link] , as the Dalek is sent to be exterminated. This phenomenon was occurring as early as the First Doctor.
  • As Gaius Baltar has his cult of rabid, beyond-reason believers in the new Battlestar Galactica Reimagined, so does he have his cult of rabid, beyond-reason believers in the real world. It helps that no one on that show is cut-and-dry good or evil; but as evil acts go, Gaius has performed many of the most shamelessly selfish ones.
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
    • Weyoun. More subtley evil than the overshadowing Dukat, but to squealing fangirls (and boys), Weyoun is the absolute shit. After all, he's not really evil. He was programmed that way. He can change (we even see a good Weyoun in one of the episodes). Also being played by Jeffrey Combs.
    • Gul Dukat of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was rather too well-liked by fans, given that he was essentially a Space Nazi. The writers kept trying desperately to give him Kick the Dog moments to cement his villainy once and for all, and even tried to send him past the Moral Event Horizon, but it never seemed to matter. It probably didn't help that the show was about Black and Gray Morality and deconstructing The Federation, which meant most of the protagonists were occasionally kicking puppies, too (we're looking at you, Sisko).
  • Alex Krycek from The X-Files. Krycek has betrayed (and tried to kill) Mulder and Scully on numerous occasions, but some fans think he and Mulder make a cute couple.
  • Kamen Rider:
  • Guy of Gisborne in the BBC's Robin Hood prior to his Character Development. It doesn't help that he actually wears leather on the show.
  • The character of Detective Ronnie Gardocki, on The Shield, developed a major cult following amongst fans of the show in spite of not receiving much screen time or character development during the first couple of seasons of the show outside the occasional nerd moment and Butt Monkey-style physical abuse moment. As such, many fans of the character began promoting the notion/belief that Ronnie was a nerdy and all all-around good guy who simply fell in with the wrong crowd at work and not a rotten to the core corrupt cop whose soul was as black as the rest of the team. Needless to say, even when Ronnie is hauled off kicking and screaming for his crimes committed as part of the Strike Team (which has to be spelled out to him by Dutch, when he reacts in a confused fashion when he's arrested) at the end of the series, fans of the character argue that Ronnie was the victim, having been screwed over by Vic Mackey, who ratted out Ronnie for immunity for all of his crimes (including murdering a fellow cop) and a cushy new job with the Feds. Ironically, even David Rees Snell is aware of the trope that his character suffers from, as seen in the following interview.
  • Heroes:
    • Gabriel Gray (a.k.a. Sylar) is a ruthless serial killer who murders many people (including fan-favorite Ted) so as to take their powers, by taking their brains. He feels no remorse for his actions (usually) and has a soul that is truly blacker than a moonless night, but look at that wet, delicious shirtless chest! And look how much fun he has with his powers - if all the characters whose powers don't require bloody murder had as much fun with their powers as Sylar does with his, this series would be much more fun.
    • Noah Bennet - legitimately loved as a Badass Normal and Magnificent Bastard - is nevertheless often happily excused of abducting and experimenting on people (including children) for about 17 years. And what convinced him to stop was essentially an extreme case of Protagonist-Centered Morality focused on his daughter Claire. Bennet's moral ambiguity is an unquestionable part of the character's appeal; the Draco in Leather Pants-ing comes in when fans use "but he's morally gray!" to handwave away any suggestion that Bennet might have crossed any ethical lines, or suggest that Bennet "didn't know any better" (this is especially odd coming from fans who love Bennet because he's one of the most smart, competent characters on the show).
  • Cole Turner/Belthazar in Charmed. Let's see. He's a demon, but "Cole" is his human half so, hey, he's not all that bad, right? He repeatedly plots against, deceives, considers killing, and attempts to kill the Charmed Ones, but he's really just misunderstood, see. Even when he becomes The Source, essentially Charmed's version of Satan, he's still just a big ol' softy to some viewers (and Phoebe, whose intelligence could be questioned to be perfectly fair she was being manipulated by the Seer who used her love against her then went through some fairly well scripted angst). Part of the dangers of casting Julian McMahon for your villain, I suppose.
  • Appears in-universe in Lie to Me, where a serial rapist locked up in jail has a bunch of fans who attend his trials and parole hearings and act like they're witnessing the second coming of Jesus.
  • Scorpius from Farscape, despite his numerous Kick the Dog moments. It doesn't help that wears a bloody full body leather suit and is the embodiment of Affably Evil (until you really annoy him). In fact, he became so popular, that by the end of the third season he'd gotten his own sympathetic background and eventually joined the main cast as a pseudo-protagonist.
  • Todd Manning from One Life to Live. Gang-rape, terrorizing a blind woman and beating his teenage daughter´s friends without any provocation (and still not being in jail for it!) haven't stopped him from becoming favorite among some aggressively protective "He´s so hot!" fans. It is very much a case of Perverse Sexual Lust and the show doesn't help as Todd is almost inarguably this show's main character and they tend to load him up with humor and charm.
  • In Stargate SG-1, Ba'al is perhaps a best example of this. He kidnaps and tortures Colonel O'Neill, kills thousands of people, enslaves the human race (or tries to, anyway) and is generally a Magnificent Bastard, yet he is still so loved by even the most loyal fans. Why? To put it quite simply, he's hot. He also has a huge amount of charm and is quite funny, so despite being evil at heart, is still able to woo the audience into loving him.
  • Stargate Atlantis:
    • Anyone who attempts to turn you from a person who eats sentient beings into a person who does not is interfering with your civil rights, right? Michael Kenmore thinks so, and it appears much of the fanbase agrees. Obviously, anti-Wraith genocide, Wraith worshiping, living like a cow herd, or Dying Like Dangerous!Defiant!Animals is the better way to go. Keep in mind that at this point, the replacement food research was going absolutely nowhere. Being brainwashed and lied to is reasonably enough to make a person cranky and get some sympathy, but a lot of fans act like the Atlanteans did this to prevent Michael from performing his favorite folk dance out of spite. Why, yes, Michael, we DO think being a Wraith is a disease-how many people have died from you being a Wraith so far? Could we get some sympathy and righteous indignation for them?
    • Also, Todd the wraith. Yes, we know he fed on Colonel Sheppard. Yes, he's a wraith and eats people. He's also funny, gave John back the life he took from him and does in fact help them out several times, even if he's generally a jerk about it and winds up only doing it to further his own goals.
  • Chuck Bass, attempted rapist, pretty cool guy.
  • Lore, Data's Evil Twin, has received this treatment in fanfics. Apparently, people think that the love of a good woman is all it takes to redeem Lore, when he wouldn't even be redeemed for his own brother.
    • One fanfic out there was, in its entirety, a "Lore For President" flier.
  • Eric Northman from True Blood. He kills people left and right,runs a Torture Cellar holds humans in contempt, magically forces a woman to be sexually attracted to him and outright states he's fed on children...but somehow he's just misunderstood. You should see the contortions fangirls go through to excuse the fact that he idly stood by and watched while someone tried to murder the woman they chiefly pair him with.
    • The fangirls also tend to view Bill as Ron the Death Eater. Though this is more justified in the novels on which True Blood is based, since Eric is the hero more often, while Bill does some very bad things.
    • It's a bit worse than one might think: he was a Viking, and not the kind that trades or explores. His fans try to brush that off with how different the times were back then. Yeah, try telling that one to all his victims.
    • Franklin from True Blood. On one hand he's a rapist and psychopath, but on the other he's handsome and has some funny one-liners. Compared to most of the other characters, he's surprisingly intelligent and capable of well thought out schemes, and was the only one of Tara's partners who called her out. Before his character wasderailed so horribly, he was fairly promising.
  • The Vampire Diaries has Damon Salvatore, who is a major example of this in in the fandom - an awful lot of fans completely ignore the horrible things he does and has done. He can be funny and whimsical... but many of his whims are murderous.
    • Within the show, the main characters Elena and Stefan also treat him as this, to the extent of Stefan objecting to the idea of Damon being "punished" for his actions. It usually turns badly for them, largely Elena, with him doing something horrible (such as gloating about how he killed a particular woman who was, unbeknown to him, Elena's birth mother, or killing her younger brother after attempting to force himself on her just after she's defended him as being motivated by love. The writers don't help, taking two episodes at most to push everything under the rug and using ham-handed plot devices such as an impending death fake out in order to have everyone forgive him while he remains largely unrepentant.
      • The writers are fully on board the train, calling him 'selfless' and a 'hero' while writing a redemptive arc that involves violent repeated rape and abuse of a woman who had the temerity to be interested in a one night stand, and literally mind controlling her to think she loved him while he abused her. (He pulled the exact same trick in season one, with him magically forcing a young woman to think poorly of herself and to want him around when she tried to get out of their abusive relationship.) Their excuse for this extended rape storyline is that Ian Somerhalder is so hot, no one in town would believe he didn't have a girlfriend. His victims habitually get no closure, and fandom writes a great deal of fanfiction where his rape victim - whom he still talks about murdering - turns to him for emotional support.
      • Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that Damon only compelled women to let him take blood from them on a regular basis, not to have sex with him.
      • And the huge Damon/Elena fanbase ignores the fact that she has repeatedly told him she is not interested and she wants him to stop flirting and being physically pushy with her, not to mention attempting to rape her twice. He ignores her every time, and because he wants her, the shipping is inevitable. To quote another troper on the Film page for this trope - the sexual tension in both season one and season two is less Will They or Won't They? and more fear that he's going to rape her.
    • Klaus is much worse because he has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Even worse that writers pair him with Caroline who is pretty much his complete opposite. Opposites Attract does not work that way.
  • Darken Rahl from Legend of the Seeker. He commits mass infanticide, horribly tortures people to death in order to gain magical power, (tortures them after death for information and for the heck of it) and even beside that is an oppressive tyrant in slightly less Kick the Dog methods. But fangirls insist he had the good of the land at heart because of his self-aggrandizing speeches to the woman he was torturing.
    • Note: His speeches are bullshit (at least in the books the series was adapted from, it's kind of hard to tell in the show) because he wants to release the being that is the antithesis of all life thus killing every single living thing.
  • Malcolm Tucker from The Thick of It, despite him being an utter, utter, utter bastard.
  • The villains of Smallville anyone? When Lex finally became evil around season 5/6, he definitely counts as this, as well as Davis in season 8 and possibly Zod in season 9. As well, many of the Monsters of the Week I'm sure were attractive to SOME of the fandom.
    • Lex Luthor also gets this treatment in fics (especially Clark/Lex fics) that take place before "The Rift", often shown as a wonderful, compassionate, caring boyfriend who's frequently abused by his father and unfairly maligned by Jonathan and Martha (yes, the people responsible for making Superman into the greatest hero on earth). Certainly Lex was sympathetic before he turned evil, but these fics often veer off into a happy implied-AU ending where it's obvious that Luthor is never going to go evil. It's rather odd in retrospect — the Clark/Lex relationship was one of a very few running TV friendships whose breakup was a completely Foregone Conclusion, and the doomed romance interpretation of it makes it unique from most other mainstream slash pairings.
  • Zero from Tin Man is a coward that gets his kicks torturing -- well, lots of people, but notably children. And yet fandom swoons. He's got a leather coat rather than pants, but the principle holds.
  • Sark from Alias was amoral, killing people left and right for his own benefit, caring only about himself, and still had a horde of fan-girls ready to throw themselves at his feet without a second thought. Don't even get me started on fanfiction that portrays him as the most lovable, huggable, adorable guy on the whole wide planet.
  • Lyle from The Pretender.
  • Furio in The Sopranos kind of falls into this, even canonically, as many fans (and Carmella Soprano) saw him as a cultured and sensitive Nice Guy. The issue is that while he kind of is in private life, on the job, he's a totally vicious and brutal thug.
  • Gene Hunt, the "overweight, over-the-hill, nicotine-stained, borderline alcoholic homophobe with a superiority complex and an unhealthy obsession with male bonding" DCI in Life On Mars and Ashes to Ashes has somehow become a huge sex symbol.
  • Sheldon Cooper. This is somewhat understandable in that he's a protagonist of the series and one of the most eccentric Man Child characters on the show, making him both entertaining and vulnerable in different scenarios. However, while he's not an entirely bad person, he is still an incredibly arrogant, condescending, rude, highly-strung, self-centred and over-sensitive man who selfishly requires other characters to walk on eggshells around him and tolerate his every whim while usually showing little consideration for them in return. However, there seem to be a lot of people who are willing to excuse and downplay his every single misdeed based on (his supposed) Asperger's Syndrome, even those which cannot be excused so simply, and view him as a sensitive, fragile and victimized innocent. This usually involves turning Leonard, who is in Canon remarkably tolerant and considerate of Sheldon's needs, into a cruel bully to compensate.
  • On Everybody Loves Raymond, whenever Debra would physically abuse her husband, or say something bitchy, or do something hypocritical, the people sitting in the studio audience would invariably react by......erupting into wild cheers.
  • Sam on iCarly another protagonist example, but whoo boy her fans tone down all her increasingly negative, damn near sociopath tendencies, often by washing them away with the Freudian Excuse that her Mom is mean, that she's just pissed off because her twin sister Melanie is the Good Twin, or that she's in love with Freddie, whilst he's in love with Carly, and she lashes out and acts aggressively to him to get his attention.
  • Andy in Weeds who goes onto his nephew's computer and talks dirty to his sixteen year old girlfriend while jerking off.
  • Alec in Dark Angel somewhat. While he is a good guy by the end, the fangirls are far too forgiving of/willing to overlook his beginning on the side of evil or his time as an egocentric lawbreaker in the middle of the season. Likewise, Jensen Ackles' other character Ben (Alec's twin brother, the Serial Killer) is a lost and vulnerable puppy.
    • Max is called a bitch and an idiot for not trusting Alec and believing murder of him - when he casually talked about assassinating people in his first entrance. Their snarky banter and her bouts of smacking him upside the head when he does something stupid is liberally interpreted as abuse.
  • I've seen this done with Power Rangers villains such as Scorpina, Divatox, Astronema (pre-Face Heel Turn into Karone), and occasionally even the monster of the week. And it's almost always a female. Arguably, they are much more affably evil than some truly evil villains, since once they're more developed they tend into anti-villain territory, but the DILP fans of these antagonists portray them as Broken Birds, Antiheroes, or even Woobies.
  • Degrassi has some low-key versions of this:
    • Craig gets excused for cheating on Ashley and stringing Manny along due to his Dark and Troubled Past. Not to mention, both of the girls get hated on more in the fandom than Craig is - either Ashley's too stuck up or Manny is a slut.
    • Jay pretty much ruins every life he touches by introducing drugs and alcohol into their lives, but he is still well liked by the fandom and it doesn't help the actor is a good-looking guy and good actor. He does get better though.
    • Peter has this invoked, twice he does something really bad to two girls (filming Emma's best friend's naked breasts while she's intoxicated and getting Darcy in a situation where a sexual predator comes to her house) and they both end up dating him. He too gets better.
    • Eli is the latest example, along with Fitz. They both had an Escalating War where the both of them did pretty terrible things to each other, but the fangirls still love them -- even more Egregious with Eli considering his Crazy Jealous Guy tendencies towards Clare.
  • Khal Drogo of Game of Thrones is shockingly popular and beloved. Despite being quite badass, people seem to love his speech where he brags about killing people, raping their women, selling their kids into slavery...he's not bluffing either. He also obliterated a peaceful people and didn't much care if the women were raped until his wife objected. He's an awesome character, but a lot of people seem to make him a saint rather than the brutal bastard he is who kind of deserves what he gets.
    • Not to mention his repeated rape of his wife, which goes on with no concern or compassion for her terror, sobbing and struggles until Dany turns to an enslaved woman and asks her to teach her how to make sex feel good, and how to "please him." Once she's actively pleasing him, Drogo is no longer brutal with her - but that doesn't change the fact that he did it in the first place.
      • This is strangely opposite in the book...Drogo and Dany's first time he was gentle, doing everything not to hurt her, and its presented she enjoyed it and she genuinely fell in love with him.
    • Part of Drogo's likability is probably because when you compare him to some of the other characters in the story, he's actually got more redeeming character traits than people who are guilty of lesser crimes. Drogo is cruel to his enemies, but he begins to truly care for Daenerys, with some of her sympathetic nature even rubbing off on him before his death. Compare to some of the other characters, such as Daenerys' Jerkass brother Viserys, the manipulative Cersei Lannister, and the insane child-king Joffrey Baratheon, and Drogo comes off as a saint by comparison.
      • This is Game of Thrones. By Westeros standard the fact that Khal Drogo isn't a hypocrite, doesn't indulge in cruelty for cruelty's sake, and doesn't betray and murder his friends still has him legitimately coming off better than any of the other antagonists and more than a few of the protagonists, even if he is a raping looting murdering barbarian warlord.
    • In his defense, Viserys was really, really pretty..
  • Dr. Gregory House does have a decent Freudian Excuse and is a genuinely skilled doctor, yeah. But people go to insane lengths to excuse the crap he's put his subordinates and friends through, and portray the others as horrible jerks to poor little saint House. In example, when Cuddy broke up with him for apparently good, House completely trashed her living room... and people blamed Cuddy for it!
    • More disgusting when you realize He trashed her living room with a car by driving it through the wall, which could easily have killed someone. Moral Event Horizon anyone?
  • Rather disturbingly Morgan from Camelot. There was even a post on IMDb claiming that Arthur deserved everything Morgan did to him. Well Arthur is a bit of a skirt chaser and slept with a woman on her wedding day (to another man) but Morgan has murdered innocent people, plotted against her brother, raped two men (including her own brother), manipulated her own citizens and imprisoned her stepmother while she walked around pretending to be her. Fan Dumb indeed.
  • The most famous of soap opera romances, Luke and Laura on General Hospital, began with Luke raping Laura. But the fans liked him, so...
  • An In-Universe example: On the How I Met Your Mother episode the Stinsons it's revealed that Barney apparently does this for every movie he watches. For example, he thinks Johnny Lawrence was the titular Karate Kid, thought Hans Gruber was the star of Die Hard (because he was "the only character in the movie in a suit" and "he died hard") and thought the Terminator was the protagonist of his film (although that one's an easy mistake to make) even going so far as to cry when he was crushed in the hydraulic press ("they didn't even try to help him!")
    • Barney himself is this: By no means is he a villain, or even a straight Comedic Sociopath, since he is genuinely very sweet sometimes, loves his friends and has gone to insane lengths for them, and has gotten lots of character development over the course of the show. But his fans treat him like a saint, with many males thinking that his "awesome" qualities, which in the show are treated in a ridiculous, ironic way that would be pathetic if they weren't so ballsy they Cross the Line Twice, are actually awesome, and many females thinking that he's actually just a sad, lonely, tormented soul who's mentally messed up from his horrible childhood. While the latter actually is true, it doesn't stop the fact that he's also a lying, misogynistic womanizer, an insensitive, selfish Jerkass, and an unapologetic Manipulative Bastard who almost never shows a conscience and is heavily dependent on Ted as a Morality Chain while at the same time being a Poisonous Friend with hints of Crazy Jealous Guy towards him. However, fanfics have gone so far as to portray his friends as being in the wrong for making disparaging remarks about his more assholish actions or daring to judge him for them.
      • Not to mention the fact that if the other characters say something actually legitimately unfair to Barney (and no, glaring at him in disgust because he decieved a woman into sex and then laughed about it does not count as "unfair," Neil Patrick Harris fangirls), the fans have no sympathy for them whatsoever despite the fact that Marshall, Lily, Ted, and Robin are astonishingly kind, tactful, and supportive for sitcom-friends. Yet these same fans seem to have unlimited quantities of sympathy for Barney because he has a spark of humanity buried deep within a mountain of utter assholery. If Barney does something non-evil and another character wrongly assumes that he is just being the same jerk he is 99% of the time — insulting his friends constantly, treating people with near-sociopathetic indifference, making everyone's problems all about himself, and showing no qualms about ruining people's days for a laugh? They're monsters, because they obviously should give Barney the benefit of the doubt all the time. But if Barney does something that approaches the bare minimum of human decency two or three times a month? He's the sweetest guy in the world and deserves a standing ovation. It's like a Double Standard, except for Barney/Not-Barney instead of male/female.
  • American Horror Story's Tate Langdon. He's an Ax Crazy school shooter, who also murdered the last inhabitants of the house and impregnated his girlfriend's mother, but he's also attractive, portrayed fairly sympathetically, and a passionately protective boyfriend to Violet. Fangirls tend to swoon over the latter qualities and forgive his crimes, portraying him as redeemed by love or as a misunderstood and troubled soul who did everything he did to try to help others.
  • Arnold Rimmer in Red Dwarf gets some of this treatment. While hardly a Complete Monster or anything, he is thoroughly unlikeable, slimy, cowardly, arrogant, self-pitying and weaselly -- and yet, if the show could be said to have a sex symbol, it's him. This is helped by his rather Woobie-ish backstory (even though the series often takes pains to point out that he is at least a Jerkass Woobie, with the 'Jerkass' part firmly emphasized) and some rather notable scenes in series 5 involving the actor with his shirt off, which makes it a bit easier for those inclined to downplay the fact that he spends 99% of the series acting like an insufferable dickhead. It also helps that in another timeline, he's The Ace, meaning that deep down he's got the potential to be a decent person and even a great one. However, this means it also tends to be forgotten that merely possessing the potential for greatness and decency does not automatically make one great or decent.
    • Also, Ace Rimmer is used by the show writers to prove that Arnold Rimmer is definitely the source of his own flaws. Ace Rimmer had Arnold's life mostly, but not being let off the hook for something at a time when Arnold was is what made Ace seek to better himself.
  • Regina Mills from Once Upon A Time. A fan favorite, who, ironically and in spite of her epithet "The Evil Queen" and knowledge of her actions (past and present), gains a multitude of sympathy and excuses galore for her acts from her VERY large fan army who is always ready to act on the defensive any time someone dares to bring up one of her many terrible acts. This is due to the character being played by the beautiful and talented Lana Parilla, the character being given a Freudian Excuse in addition to having a couple of Cry for the Devil moments, and the show consistently making a point that none of its characters are purely good or evil.
    • According to some fans, Regina's actually justified in cursing an entire kingdom for revenge against Snow White. Hell, even some of her more heinous acts towards people, such as crushing a man's heart (literally) and knowingly sending countless children to their deaths via a cannibalistic witch and killing her loving father are easily excused by one fan [dead link] as: "people who deserved it in one way or another."
    • Frequently, posts on different OUAT fansites and forums will pop up and bash/demonize Henry, Regina's adopted son and Emma's biological son, for being such a horrible brat to Regina and some even insist that Henry should be grateful to Regina [dead link] for raising him, and will swear up and down Regina never did any wrong to him and she's a very good mother. Sadly (or not), these arguments don't hold up and realization begins to set in that Henry can't be grateful and sweet to Regina when there are canon and clear examples that Regina neglects and emotionally abuses the kid and she's a woman who is not only a mass-murderer and rapist, but also is someone who also tried to kill his (Henry's) grandmother (Snow White) and separated his grandparents from each other and robbed them of their happiness, robbed him of his chance to be raised by Emma and cursed an entire kingdom. Blatant fandom denial or a fandom's failure to remember such facts? You decide.
      • Speaking of arguing of ideals of motherhood, Emma, in order to prop Regina up, gets bashed and labeled as being a horrible mother for not bothering to look for Henry (because how dare she follow the agreements of a closed adoption and believe he will be better off and is being raised by a loving family) and for letting him skip school, meanwhile Regina is hailed as being a good, strict and well-meaning parent who just can't express her love and affection. While letting a child skip school is not exactly a fine example of good parenting, but it surely can't be worse than making two people say to a ten-year old he's crazy, destroying his playground to get back at an adult, not wanting to attend to therapy sessions with him to repair your broken relationship, and using him to fulfill your emotional needs and as a pawn to manipulate your enemy to follow your orders, right?
      • While we're on Emma getting a raw deal of Ron the Death Eater treatment from Regina fans, Emma is also currently getting torn limb from limb by these same fans, based on sneak peeks of her tying Regina to a tree, choking her and is about to attack her with a sword. Half of this bashing is possibly Die for Our Ship backlash coming from Swan Queen shippers (who also form a majority of Regina's fanbase) who are pissed at Emma for not wanting to jump into bed with the woman who has been (physically and emotionally) attacking her ever since she came into town, hurt her son, and framed her friend/mother for murder. Another half of it is just hardcore Regina fans getting a tad bit too protective and defensive about their idol and completely ignoring/forgetting that Emma the Horrible Bitch has every reason to want to hurt/kill Regina. Her having a terrible childhood, having formed trust issues, being taken away her family all because of Regina and that same woman who also emotionally abused and neglected her son, framed her friend/mother for a crime she didn't commit, tried to have another (who just happened to be her only friend) murdered/disappeared and killed her (Emma's) almost-boyfriend is not fanfiction, people.
      • David and Mary aka Prince Charming and Snow White get called scumbags by some fans, who also say that they deserve everything bad that happens to them for committing adultery (understandable, somewhat). Meanwhile, ironically, these same fans say Regina (who did worse) deserves redemption.
      • Rumpelstiltskin/Mr. Gold is another fan favorite who also gets this treatment. It's pretty entertaining to sit back and watch his fans argue with Regina's which of the two deserve redemption and more forgiveness and paint their idols as being complete angels who are absolutely justified in everything they do, meanwhile point fingers at each other of being (bigger) apologists. Anyway, poster digress. Rumpelstiltskin/Mr. Gold is (literally) a baby-snatcher, a skilled manipulator, has killed people, and, according to Henry, is actually worse than Regina, but that doesn't stop him from gaining a huge fanbase, and certainly doesn't put a stop to him gaining a buttload of apologists who give him a break for his deeds, but crucify other characters for less.
        • Okay, to be fair, Henry's claim that Gold is "worse than Regina" should probably be taken with a grain of salt, considering that by Henry's own admission he doesn't know who Mr. Gold's FTW counterpart is. He's just going off his impression of Gold in the real world. Still, here are some examples of how far some Rumpelstiltskin/Mr. Gold fans are willing to go to paint him as a misunderstood angel in expensive and dapper clothing:
          • Cinderella, for wanting to reasonably lock up the man who wanted to steal her infant, doesn't deserve sympathy. [dead link]
          • they oppose Golden Swan (a ship that pairs him with Emma) on the basis that Emma isn't "good enough for him."
          • As mentioned previously, David, one of the characters unfortunate enough to not be a leather pants/suit-wearing imp gets chewed for less meanwhile Rumpelstiltskin/Mr. Gold is propped as a paragon of upstanding morality. One example of this was a case of couple of Rumpelstiltskin/Gold fangirls called him a dishonest douchebag who lied to his girlfriend and wife for no reason (David not wanting to hurt Kathryn and being conflicted about his feelings due to being under a curse that also affects his personality is fanfic David apologists came up with, apparently) who they would never date. Meanwhile, they argued that Rumpelstilskin is a model of honesty and goodness who they would have babies for in a heartbeat. Lying by omission, taking children from their parents, beating your true love's father to near death, killing someone's fairy godmother, killing a bunch of (albeit pedophilic and/or child-raping and child labor condoning) knights in front of your child, and manipulating people are examples of sainthood and desirable traits in a mate, it seems.
      • The fact that Jefferson kidnapped Mary Margaret, held her against her will, and then drugged and tied up Emma goes ignored by certain fans. Usually in favor of shipping him with Emma.
    • BONUS! Both Rumpelstiltskin and Regina REALLY DO WEAR LEATHER PANTS. Are we being teased?
  • Tony DiNozzo from NCIS. He's fiercely loyal to his teammates and loves every one of them as family, really is a good person underneath his Jerkass Facade and his dysfunctional childhood is a good Freudian Excuse for his behavior. But his large, zealous, and beyond-reason fangirl army think of these facts along with his good looks as more than enough to declare him as a faultless angel who the show and other characters mistreat, and sweep under the rug his moments of obnoxiousness, nosiness, political incorrectness, insensitivity, and rudeness. On top of that, these same fans dismiss many of his pranks and jabs, including some of his more vicious and mean-spirited ones and say they are completely harmless and good-natured (yeah, playing When Dogs Attack on your teammate's computer after your teammate nearly got mauled to death by a coked-up German Shepherd is definitely not in poor taste and cruel...) and think of his teammates (his usual targets) as being overly-sensitive and having no sense of humor for reasonably not finding his behavior and antics as adorable and funny and will call them a bunch of heartless assholes for being so unnecessarily and unjustly mean to "poor sweet Tony" when they do the same things Tony's always forgiven for and giving him a taste of his own medicine.
  • Sebastian Smythe from Glee. He stalked Blaine, bullied and teased Kurt and generally was a menace to everyone for weeks, yet people still love to ship him with Blaine, Kurt, or both. Fanfiction with Seb in them tend to portray him as a slightly arrogant Deadpan Snarker and leave it at that. Forget the fact that he almost blinded Blaine with a slushie full of rock salt or that he turned all of Kurt and Blaine's Dalton friends against them for no discernible reason.
  • From the BBC's Sherlock, Moriarty. Even if he hadn't blown up an old, blind woman, the fact that he's directly or indirectly responsible for all the worst of global crime should scare people off. At the beginning of the first episode of the second season, he threatens to make shoes out of freshly-removed human skin; most people believe he'd do it. Still, he's intelligent and attractive, and the fandom will ship him with anyone, including and especially the not-yet-existent-in-the-BBC-verse Sebastian Moran.
  • Supernatural fangirls give a number of badguys the leather pants treatment. Lucifer is probably the least deserving character who has earned this treatment, but Crowley, Balthazar, and Gabriel have done a lot of sociopathic things.
    • Gabriel at least face turns before his fanlove really gets going.
  1. ↑ Made more explicit in the Directors Cut, where he says he was never going to pay the reward money (presumably he would have killed whoever brought him the item) and just wanted a laugh
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