Draco in Leather Pants/Western Animation

When characters in Western Animation receive the Draco in Leather Pants treatment.

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• Some Captain Planet and the Planeteers fans find the show so Anvilicious that they like the Eco-villains better. Draco in Leather Pants may ensue, but it's mostly either tongue-in-cheek or a conscious Take That to how pointlessly nasty they are in canon.
  • Some of the characters did have genuinely sympathetic reasons for their actions, insane or not—Verminus Scum is a mutant rat-man who, basically, wants to make more of his own kind and his method of doing so is, for obvious reasons, not deadly just devastating to the environment; Duke Nukem was, according to some throwaway dialogue, a scientist whose experiments turned him into a monster and has to pollute his environment just to live.
    • But the problem is, did the show ever explore these ideas? "Throwaway lines" seem to be the most development they ever got, with the show then going out of its way to paint their actions as totally For the Evulz. This just intensifies the issue, when fans sense that these characters could be more developed but the show refuses to let them be.
• Mozenrath from the Disney's Aladdin TV series. For many fangirls, his hotness outweighs the fact that he's a sadistic psycho, turned his father-figure into a zombie, devoted his life to ruining Aladdin's, and wants to take over Agrabah just "because it's there". Oh, yeah - and the fact that, as Iago put it, he's married to his work. (Mozenrath: "It's so true! I love it!")
  • Also, the belief that Mozenrath was intended to be Aladdin's brother seems to be an unfortunate (and persistent) side-effect of this trope.
  • There have been some very well written fanfic's that do put Mozenrath in a more sympathetic light. Since we don't know much about his "father figure" many fans have basically flanderized him into being this evil, abusive bastard. At worst it comes off as being horribly narmy but there is the rare gem where Mozenrath's youth is explored in detail where we see how it shaped him into what he is during the series. Many fans also use the plot line that Mozenrath was really Aladdin's brother to help redeem him. It isn't all ways instantaneous, most of the time, but it gives us some good reading.
• Not old enough to make it you know what, though it is Older Than the NES: in the old Voltron cartoon, many girls adored the self-proclaimed evil Prince Lotor, despite his attempts not only to kidnap Princess Allura, kill the Voltron Force and raze her planet to a smoldering pile of ash, but also (and repeatedly) to force her into marriage, brainwash her, or commit various other despicable acts; he has never shown an ounce of remorse for any of this. Many fans will attempt to argue that he was forced to do this by his father, even though he hatched and enjoyed half these plans, and even though he continued making them after he usurped his father. Others will say it's all out of love for Allura, even though he was willing to throw her away for another princess that looked just like her. But he's just so pretty...
  • Sincline's mother was a kidnap victim from Altea (over a century ago, since Sincline has his 106th Birthday in-series) who bored Daibazaal/Zarkon when she begged for better treatment for the other slaves and then was killed. Sincline once shoved Fala/Allura's face into his crotch, and while the abuse is never shown on screen, one gets the serious impression he did something to her lookalike, Princess Amue/Romelle. Even in Lotor's case, in the final Voltron season, the one made new for WEP by Toei, he uses a woman's love for him and openly mocks ideas of his redemption in the final ep. A Take That at this trope?
• Transformers fans have quite a few of these; Starscream (who they feel is correct in becoming the leader of the Decepticons), Ravage (especially after his upgrade in Beast Wars), BW Rampage, Animated Lockdown and Megatron...
  • Starscream's fanbase is somewhat justified in his Transformers Armada incarnation which portrayed him in a more sympathetic manner with inner conflicts, a quasi-romantic relationship with Alexis and even a Heroic Sacrifice.
  • Decepticons as a whole can be called Robots in Leather Pants. A lot of fans like them(some like them even more than the Autobots) and tend to downplay their villainy.
    • Transformers Animated does play with this a bit. The Decepticons in that series are scrappy resistance fighters trying to overthrow a corrupt regime, but they're less "Rebel Alliance" and more "Al Qaeda". Fans tend to miss this, because Megatron is awesome, Blitzwing is funny, and Starscream is, well, Starscream.
    • Same with Beast Wars; technically, the Predacons are an oppressed minority on a "peaceful" Cybertron kept in the paranoid grip of the just-as-atrocious Maximal Elders, but their role is more akin to between-World Wars Germany, with Megatron and his troupe attempting to get them to put on the Reich. Like the Animated Decepticons, this goes unnoticed by fans, blinded by Beast!Megatron's Magnificent Bastardry, Tarantula's delightful craziness, Waspinator's Butt Monkey-ness...
  • Part of the Decepticons' popularity for this in Transformers Generation 1 may be due to the fact that they are officially a species created to be sold as living weapons—the purpose of their species literally is to fight. Thusly, some might argue that they don't really have a function outside of conquest and war.
    • G1 Autobots, on the other hand, tend to get Ron the Death Eater treatment much less than the Decepticons get the Draco in Leather Pants treatment. Probably because they are also stated to have been created as consumer goods—they're literally a race of artists, builders, designers, workers—and so even if one can excuse the Decepticons for going on a rampage because that was what they were made for, one is still harder pressed to ignore the fact that their primary target is basically picking on an entire race of natural civilians.
  • Transformers Prime has Knock Out, who even has some men in the audience wishing they could drive a car like that. On YouTube, he's pretty much also been turned into a Memetic Sex God.
    • Starscream's usual Draco in Leather Pants treatment is taken Up to Eleven in Prime. Because of his skinny physique and how badly he tends to get punished, fangirls are quick to paint him as a Jerkass Woobie and some even write Hurt/Comfort Fics that ship him with his Arch Enemy Arcee, glossing over the many dogs he's kicked; said dog-kicking includes killing Cliffjumper and throwing his death in the other Autobots' faces whenever he can, threatening Miko in front of an immobile Bulkhead, and taunting a (then) T-cog-less Bumblebee about his inability to transform while holding said T-cog at gunpoint right in front of Bumblebee.
• Vlad Masters/Plasmius from Danny Phantom based his life around revenge for an accident (in an almost certainly deliberate parallel to Doctor Doom) and the title character's father "stealing" his One True Love Maddie. He uses deception and mind control to amass his fortune and uses it and his ghost powers to attempt murder and cause mayhem, which he somehow thinks is a good way to get Maddie to fall in love with him and Danny to consider him as a better father than Jack, which ultimately suffers extensive Motive Decay. Yet because all he wants, essentially, is to be loved (and is admittedly very stylish) numerous fans ignore that he's a selfish, maniacal narcissist.
  • Dark Danny (AKA: Dan Phantom) receives this trope less than Vlad, but is all the more notable when it appears. Apparently, a buff body and hypnotic voice are enough to forget that he's one of the worst villains in the series, a mass murderer who destroys everything in his path purely for fun.
• Scarab from the morning cartoon series Mummies Alive. Never mind that he was something like a cross between Mr. Burns and Mumm-Ra; Fanfic still has him suavely boinking Mary Sues and the heroes of the show alike. Considering that relatively few people even remember the show, the sheer amount of Slash Fic it generates around an aging Corrupt Corporate Executive who powers up into an insectile monstrosity is rather disturbing.
• The Brotherhood of Mutants in X-Men: Evolution. Though they were portrayed somewhat sympathetically, and shown at times to be manipulated, they still were jerks that often caused lots of trouble. Their numerous fangirls usually defend anything Lance, Pietro, and Toad do and consider the X-Men to be the real villains. The most egregious example is Pietro. While Lance and Toad showed they have some good in them, Pietro was a borderline sociopath who had little concern for anyone but himself.
  • A possibly more rational alternative is the sentiment of fans who would rather be in the Brotherhood (assuming they were mutants, of course). A standard element to the plot of most X-Men adaptations is that any mutant who wants to use his powers for good is going to face an uphill battle, because much of humanity will hate him regardless. The Brotherhood thus can be seen as the way for people to abide by Caligula's philosophy—if you're going to be hated no matter what you do; the least you can do is become feared. The Brotherhood at least stick up for each other, and would almost certainly help a member get revenge on anyone who persecuted him.
    • There's also the general sentiment in much of Marvel fandom that the Jerkassness of the general population has reached such a height that its honestly hard to remember why Magneto is supposed to be the villain, seeing as how humanity seems bound and determined to prove him right on every substantial point.
  • Avalanche himself is an enigma, similar to Terra from Teen Titans, in that while the comics version of the character was indeed an asshole, the show version was an Anti-Villain, and ends up getting both Leather Pantsed and Deatheatered. It's virtually impossible to find a fanfiction these days where he isn't either a saint or a Complete Monster, and anyone who dares to even try to take middle ground will be torn apart for 'bashing' or 'purifying' them. Some people refuse to see any good in him, and others refuse to see any flaws in him, and trying to do both is dangerous to your sanity. It doesn't help that some of the show's writers fall to this as well, as some episodes make it hard to believe he destroyed a school, and others make it hard to believe he stopped that explosion.
• Sideshow Bob from The Simpsons. While his intelligence, menacing aura, and highbrow/Deadpan Snarker attitude, combined with the perpetual clown-like mishaps to which he's subjected, make him a cool and funny villain, there is a considerable fanbase determined to overlook the fact that his life pretty much revolves around murdering Bart and those who stand in the way of his murdering Bart, instead making him into an angster hiding his suffering under an antisocial exterior. Extra annoying in that they overlook the canonical explanation for any angst (his being Krusty the Klown's Butt Monkey for years), instead giving him a depressingly cliched tragic backstory.
  • Bob's leather-pantsing is even more suspect as being fueled by fangirl attraction due to his being voiced by Kelsey Grammer.
  • Some fanfics go so far as to explain that Bob actually tries to kill Bart because he loves him, and that since Brother From Another Series, he's been on a crusade to protect Bart from his brother Cecil.
  • It helps that the show has displayed Bob's occasional genuine attempts at a Heel Face Turn, usually always destroyed by the exploitation or bumbling of his enemies. Even in universe, people were unable to admit not having the desire to kill most of the people Bob targets.
• Lahwhinie from the Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers episode "Gadget Goes Hawaiian" is Gadget's Evil Twin. Period. At least in Canon. But for some fans she is Gadget minus her quirks and geek attitude and lack of social skills, but plus a dress and make-up and actual passion, and sometimes have her do a more or less spectacular Heel Face Turn.
• Demona from Gargoyles is often a victim of this. While the character is definitely a three-dimensional villain, and you understand where she is coming from, a lot of fanfic authors spin this off into either being an apologist or completely re-writing the character to the point where she is Demona in name only. Add in the fact that she's already somewhat sympathetic by design and there you go. Usually, her daughter Angela will either wave a finger in Demona's face, and Demona magically gives up her hatred to have a relationship with her, or Demona magically falls in love with a human (often a human female) and sees that humans are not all bad. A lot of the time, Goliath is portrayed as an evil misogynist. Generally, most of these fanfics are just an excuse to get Demona naked, and some authors have admitted that canon Demona is too difficult to write. Of course, Word of God states that Demona will still be plotting against humanity long after Angela and most of the cast are dead.
  • While Xanatos (yes, that Xanatos Gambit) does get a whole slew of Pet the Dog moments and arguably evolves into an Anti-Villain by the end, he still commits a lot of ruthless or downright evil acts (especially early on) and never seriously regrets any of them (except maybe Thailog). There are nonetheless a disturbing amount of fans who portray Xanatos as little worse than a brilliant trickster, with more than one declaration that he isn't really evil or villainous. This probably wouldn't happen half as often if he didn't look like a physically-idealized Jonathan Frakes.
  • The only recurring villains who aren't in some way sympathetic are Tony Dracon and Sevarius, and even they sometimes gets the DILP effect simply because of the former's looks, and the latter because he reminds us of a certain... familiar mad scientist with a suspiciously similar voice.
• Fanfics about Batman: The Animated Series often depict the Rogues Gallery as a fun-loving bunch of lovable misfits who are unfairly and brutally harassed by the humourless Caped Crusader. Never mind that even in the kids' show's context, most of the Rogues were originally apprehended for attempting ruthless murders on hapless civilians for imagined or exaggerated slights, and that when Batman was put on trial for supposedly creating his foes, the jury of villains found him not guilty in the end and decided that they were responsible for their own messed-up behavior. Then they try to kill Batman anyway.
  • Likewise, and perhaps even worse off about this trope, is the more recent The Batman series, where many villain origins are reimagined yet again and many characters are portrayed as younger, and therefore somehow less corrupt and more tragic (especially the Riddler and Poison Ivy).
  • It may be worth noting that in the late New Batman Adventures (a continuation of the first one) episode "Mad Love", Dr. Quinzel goes through exactly this process and falls in a twisted "love" with the Joker. A disturbing amount of fans see no problem with this. Meanwhile, on The Batman's side, Riddler's third appearance did give him a sympathetic backstory... but he also has a thin physique, a goth look, and the voice of Robert Englund, so that might have something to do with it.
  • Disturbingly, there are clips from the show on Youtube that show Joker being verbally and physically abusive to Harley with comments sections filled with glowing adoration of Joker and jealousy of Harley.
  • However there are several genuinely sympathetic villains in Batman like Baby Doll (who suffers from hypopituitarism which makes her physiologically incapable of reaching maturity, thus giving a 30 year old a body that looks like it's 8 or 9), Clayface (involuntarily made into an inhuman blob), Mister Freeze (looking for a cure for his wife's disease), etc...
• Zim from Invader Zim. It turns out all those ridiculous failed plans? They mean nothing; Zim is really a totally badass genius. But don't worry, he's not really evil; he would seriously regret destroying humanity, and would probably give it up if a kind-hearted human or Irken girl would just show him some love. Oh, and also, isn't Dib just such a bastard for trying to defeat him so much?
  • There's a bit of this for other Irkens too, particularly the Tallests. Apparently galactic conquest and repeated genocide and enslavement of the survivors is a-okay.
• Norm from The Fairly OddParents gets this bad. He's often portrayed as The Woobie, locked up in his lamp and was forced to serve several masters like Timmy. This is ignoring the fact that he is a Card-Carrying Villain Jerkass and such a Jackass Genie that he was that page's picture. Also, he had to sell Timmy (who was originally apathetic toward Norm) on the prospect of having a genie, and the fact that he plans to destroy Canada, Eh? once he's free should erode his sympathy.
• The South Park fandom does this a fuckton, especially with characters like Cartman, Damien (who set Pip on fire and turned Kenny into a duck-billed platypus^[1]) and Craig (who's probably a borderline example).
• There's a subset of Teen Titans fans who think Terra should have been welcomed back with open arms and accepted as a permanent member of the team even after her stint as The Mole and The Dragon to Slade, probably the nastiest of the show's human scale villains. They argue that none of it was her fault since Slade manipulated her (Terra herself makes this argument, but Beast Boy points out that she could have gotten out at any time but chose not too). She's a sympathetic Anti-Hero/Anti-Villain to be sure, but hardly the blameless martyr some like to paint her (nor is she the irredeemable fiend others make out).
• Duck Dodgers deconstructs this trope in one episode. There's a villain called the Magnificent Rogue who basically terrorizes people, yet is worshipped because he's so attractive. Even when he flat out admits that he is indeed Insane. Porky snaps out of it and ultimately thwarts his plot. IQ also states that being beautiful doesn't give you the right to terrorize people. It could easily be trying to mock this trope.
• Many of the Fire Nation in Avatar: The Last Airbender, usually Zuko, Azula, Zhao, and Ozai. Sure, Zuko is an Anti-Villain and Azula gets a sympathetic portrayal towards the end, but that doesn't excuse their evil actions. Zhao and Ozai have no redeeming qualities whatsoever, with the latter being a flat-out dyed-in-the-wool Complete Monster, but they ARE good-looking...
  • Some might consider Mai and Ty Lee this, as they are (at least in Ty Lee's case) likable Punch Clock Villains. To an extent, Iroh could be one as well, as he led many military campaigns for the Fire Nation before he reformed himself. This is even lampshaded by Zuko:

Aang: I thought your uncle was good...
Zuko: He had a complicated past. Family tradition I guess.

• • Recurring character and Well-Intentioned Extremist Jet had a lot of fans rationalising his act of flooding a village that was filled with civilians to kill a few Fire Nation soldiers (to the point where only a handful seem to remember that it was an Earth Kingdom village, not a Fire Nation one), which is missing the point. Even Jet himself later seems to realize he went too far there and that his psychological desire for revenge really overcame his heroic desire to be a freedom fighter, and works to atone for it.
  • Long Feng and his Dai Li are sometimes given this treatment, with their Orwellian methods and repression of Ba Sing Se as the act of true patriots who were compelled to do whatever it took to keep their city safe. Sometimes Long Feng is portrayed as mastermind who suckered Azula into thinking she'd won the Dai Li over to her when they were really still working for him.
  • Sozin gets this treatment quite a bit, another case of his fans focusing on the "well-intentioned" and ignoring the "extremist" aspects of Well-Intentioned Extremist . They see nothing wrong with him wanting to spread the fire nation's glory, power, and advanced civilization with the rest of the world. Apparently, that more than justifies 100 years of war, the first act of which after disposing of the only man who could stop him was a complete genocide, and many other genocidal actions to follow...
• Happy Tree Friends fandom does this to hell and back with Evil Flippy, insisting that he's really just misunderstood and needs the TRU WUV of Flaky, some terrible OC, or his good side in order to become an upstanding member of society. Never mind that they've already got Good Flippy to toy with.
• Dag from Barnyard could be justified by the fact that coyotes have to eat, but did he really have to antagonize that one farm in particular, kill Ben, make Otis feel small and attack during the day when no one was expecting them? I'm sure the fangirls wouldn't hold it against him.
• Mojo Jojo from The Powerpuff Girls is often given a Freudian Excuse for his villainy. He then gets paired with Blossom or turned into a cool big brother. Either way, he makes a Heel Face Turn and everyone just ignores his hundreds of onscreen - much less offscreen - rampages.
• Duncan from Total Drama Island, oh so very much. It's invariably difficult to keep him in character seeing as his softer side overrules his bad-boy charm in the eyes of most fans. If you find a fanfic involving Duncan/Courtney, Duncan/Gwen, Duncan/ANYBODY, expect Draco in Leather Pants to come into play. (Although, those that ship him with Gwen do have some justified argument, she is the only one he is rather nice to.)
  • Gwen and Courtney also have this problem. Some fans on different sides of the CxDxG conflict believe the girl they support is entirely blameless while demonizing the opposing character as a Complete Monster.
  • Sierra. She is often toned down when paired up with Cody, losing almost all stalker traits and just becoming a normal girl who happens to like him. Never mind that her stalking habits were her entire purpose for the majority of the third season.
• Marceline the Vampire Queen from Adventure Time does whatever she feels like, whenever she feels like it. Unfortunately, while she sometimes feels like doing good things, what she feels like also tends to be things like stealing and attempting to vampirize people's beloved dogs without any provocation. Despite this, she has a massive fanbase who are busy justifying her actions. That she herself claims she's not evil, just so old that she's lost track of her ethical code, the fact that vampires in the land of Ooo drink the color red rather than blood specifically, and her father is... that... don't exactly help this treatment.
  • And finally, there's the fact that Jake and Finn, heroes by trade, now consider her one of their closest friends (Finn even sang a song about it), so pretty much that means "Finn and Jake approve of all she does, which makes it objectively okay".
• Van Kleiss of Generator Rex, largely because of his Well-Intentioned Extremist claims and the fact that his opposing number White Knight is an asshole.
  • The rate of Van Kliess being given leather pants has died down, mostly becuase he's gotten more Kick the Dog moments while white Knight has been more sympathtic and gotten character development. More people are fans of him becuase he's a good villain than becuase of sympathy now. His new powers, disregard for his subordinates, massive use of the Mind Screw / Hannibal Lecture and intent to have EVOs rule the world while he rules the EVOs becoming clear have made him more the type of villain you love to hate.
  • Breach too. She isn't without sympathetic qualities, but sometimes people forget that she's completely insane and has happily kidnapped people to use them as toys in her "playhouse," throwing them away when she gets bored of them.
• Tom of Tom and Jerry. While something of an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain, fans have taken to downplaying his flaws completely and treat Jerry as if he's the bad guy in all their altercations. The truth is that neither one is by any means innocent, being victim and provocator in almost equal measure, but Tom just gets the DILP pass because the writers worked so hard to depict that Jerry (who, at the time at least, automatically got audience sympathy by not being Tom) wasn't.
• Many Waul/Tanya shippers in the An American Tail fandom tend to get this way, and seem to gloss over the fact Waul tried to kill and eat Tanya's family.
• Murdoc of the Gorillaz is often seen this way, despite being a canonically alcoholic, exhibitionist, verbally and physically abusive megalomaniac.
  • The trope is even employed in-universe, since despite many of these traits being publicly known, Murdoc does not lack for bedmates.
• Plankton in SpongeBob SquarePants. It has been established that he's evil as he continued to try to take Krabs' secret formula in myriad ways. One episode even had him as a Jerk with a Heart of Jerk with him saying "Being evil is just too much fun." He's also been shown to be a big Jerkass with all his screaming and being angry. In The Movie, he had definitely crossed the Moral Event Horizon. But due to Flanderization and Took a Level in Jerkass on the parts of the main characters in the later seasons (especially Mr. Krabs, who has become worse than Plankton now!), some fans sided with Plankton, forgetting all the evil and nasty stuff he did in the earlier seasons.
  • It sometimes seems that the writers forgot all the evil and nasty stuff he did in earlier seasons. Plankton's evil schemes once involved him trying to Take Over the World, but in later episodes all he wants to do is compete with the Krusty Krab. Not even destroy them or run them out of business; just compete. As in, do something that would economically benefit all of Bikini Bottom. Meanwhile, Mr. Krabs is the one trying to monopolize business, and has gone as low as charging money from applicants who want to work with him for the fist couple of sessions, and charging money for (presumably fresh, otherwise nobody would pay for it) water. Who's really evil, here?
  • A lot of his sympathy arises from the episode "Plankton's Regular" which established Plankton's ambitions as being so low he'd gladly call a truce with Krabs if he could have just one regular customer, something Krab's rebuffs, either out of spite or obsession with his product's popularity (the supposed regular Plankton gains despises Krabby Patties). Adding to that this episode largely establishing his computer wife Karen's Flanderization from a frustrated but caring assistant to a apathetic verbally abusive snarker, it's easy to see where some of the fan sympathy comes from. Thankfully most episodes tone things back down at least a little, though this story comes really close to a canonical use of the trope.
  • Squidward gets some, too, although he's a neutral Butt Monkey rather than a villain. Though obviously he's a short-tempered and rather unpleasant person, he's the only one on his block who doesn't go out of his way to be unpleasant in people's faces.
• My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic has a few examples, though since The Power of Friendship and Easily Forgiven are common tropes in the My Little Pony franchise, it's a bit more understandable:
  • Gilda the Griffon from "Griffon the Brush-Off" is an obnoxious bully who thinks all the ponies of Ponyville (except her old friend Rainbow Dash) are "lame-o", and who literally scares Fluttershy to tears at one point. When her true colors are exposed at a party thrown by Pinkie Pie in an effort to get her to lighten up, screaming her head off at her so-called best friend and refusing to take her own medicine, she's quick to turn against Dash for being a "flip-flop" by sticking up for the other ponies, and leaves town in a huff. Fans were quick to portray her as a Jerkass Woobie wracked with guilt and self-hatred over alienating her oldest and best friend, despite there being little to even hint at such a thing.
    • Now Hilarious in Hindsight, given that season 5 revisited Gilda and made that canon.
  • The Great and Powerful Trixie from "Boast Busters" had fans protesting she was just a travelling entertainer (true) whose audience was being unneccessarily mocking and hostile (arguably true), and that she was justified in humiliating Applejack, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash in front of their friends and neighbors, largely ignoring that she's a boastful, lying egomaniac both on- and off-stage. She did seem guilty about her one of her lies indirectly leading to an Ursa Minor attacking Ponyville, but after the threat is dealt with she's right back to being all bluff and bravado.
  • Princess Luna resented that Celestia's day received more attention from the ponies than her night, and, literally consumed with jealousy, becomes Nightmare Moon and threatened to enact The Night That Never Ends. Celestia was forced to trap her in the moon in order to stop her, and when Luna was finally cleansed of The Corruption she and Celestia reconciled. Despite the fact that Luna herself resents what she did, numerous fans seem to think that she's a delicate flower who could do no wrong and was turned evil against her will, if not directly because of evil tyrant Celestia.
    • And then, even amongst the fans that consider Nightmare Moon to be a separate entity (thus absolving Luna of the former's cruel and evil deeds), there's at least one very notable example where the Nightmare Moon entity itself gets the Leather Pants treatment, and is actually just a misunderstood woobie that needs a hug despite being the source of everything evil that Luna did while under its possession.
  • On a more subtle level, the few times Bon Bon has ever actually done anything on-screen, she was, to be blunt, a bitch. The fandom tends to ignore that and make her a generally cheerier Straight Mare to Lyra.
    • She's gotten better—although amusingly, Lyra is the Straight Mare to Bon-Bon's wacky.
  • Discord was the single worst villain in the series, plunging Equestria into a World Gone Mad/World of Chaos and brainwashing the Mane Six to turn them against each other, ensuring they won't be able to use the Elements of Harmony again him (and for his own entertainment). Regardless, being a Faux Affably Evil Trickster led many fans to depict him as a cheerful prankster who just wants a bit of fun in an overly-managed world, forgetting that he's actually a nasty piece of work.
    • This even happened on a meta level: Deviant ART user CrappyUnicorn made a series of webcomics detailed their thoughts on Discord's "origin", beginning with Celestia rejecting him as a young mare as part of a Freudian Excuse... and fans went wild with it. In spite of CrappyUnicorn's insistence that Celestia didn't "make" Discord a chaotic bastard, he already was, and the story being told from Discord's own point of view (which leaves it open to Unreliable Narrator), many take Discord's claims at face value.
    • He also manages to get this during his actual appearances. Despite Celestia's warnings and the seriousness with which she and the other ponies treat his return, Pinkie Pie was ecstatic about eternal chaos coming with things like chocolate rain and cotton candy clouds, and until she was Mind Raped herself, she seemed to think that this God of Evil was just a big party animal.
    • Characterization marches on. As of the end of season 4 Discord has face turned, fallen to evil again, face turned again, and this time it seems very likely to stick (among other things, the entire plot point with the Tree of Harmony in the s4 finale would not have worked had Discord not meant what he said about friendship with utter sincerity). Meanwhile, the franchise has introduced villains who actually were worse, such as Tirek—who is incidentally not only the villain that lures a conflicted Discord back to the Dark Side temporarily, but then plays him like a fiddle, uses him up, and throws him away. (In an aversion of this trope, nobody's making any leather pants for Tirek. Of course, being the Gen 4 version of the very original MLP villain and the original Satanic Archetype of the franchise, as well as a guy who makes Darkseid look positively fluffy, doing so would be quite an undertaking.)
  • Fans latch onto the Flim-Flam Brothers' stylishness, catchy song, and the fact that their Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000 can actually produce quality cider. The fact that they are also a pair of aggressively capitalistic jerks who tried to completely and utterly drive the Apples out of business and gloated about it when they seemingly succeeded, and who are perfectly willing to sacrifice any semblance of quality in the name of quantity, tends to escape the minds of some fans.
  • The Season 2 Finale gives us the new Big Bad, Queen Chrysalis. "She just wanted to feed her children!" say the fans. And she wanted to do that by destroying Canterlot, enslaving the populace, keeping Shining Armor Mind Controlled for who knows how long to the detriment of his health, imprisoning the real Princess Cadence in the caves underneath the castle, and imprisoning Princess Celestia; And that was just the start of her Evil Plan. She doesn't display the slightest shred of remorse for any of her actions and seems entirely incapable of empathy.
  • Meanwhile, over in Equestria Girls, the second movie (Rainbow Rocks) brings us the Dazzlings. In canon, they rival Tirek for remorseless, horrifying, and intelligently planned and effective evil.^[2] In fanfic? They're getting as many excuses made for them as Chrysalis is.
• The Urpneys from The Dreamstone often maintain a higher popularity than the heroes, due to an excessive Sympathetic POV, their half hearted villainous streak and just being Ineffectually Sympathetic of the highest order (in comparison to the almost one dimentionally good natured Land Of Dreams), even if still displaying an indifferent obedience to Zordrak's schemes (as well as some of his crueler acts like turning a young girl into stone). Even the far more genuinely malicious Zordrak and Urpgor gain a lot more sympathy from fans due to their ineffectual qualities.
• RS-Protoman is arguably not as bad as most of the examples on this page, but some fans seem to think that his switching alliances would instantly rid him of his less pleasant traits. (Possibly so they can offload them to their idealized version of RS-Bass)
• Hexxus, the Spirit of Destruction and pollution embodied in Ferngully the Last Rainforest gets this (similarly to the Captain Planet examples above), even though he's trying to level a rainforest full of plant and animal life as well as sentient fairies that depend on its existance to survive. It doesn't help that the movie is Anvilicious, the protagonists (save maybe for Batty Koda) are bland and rather uninteresting, and Hexxus himself is voiced by Tim Curry, with all the implications this entails. And he gets one of the best Villain Songs of all times.
• Father from Codename: Kids Next Door gets some of this, despite being a psychotic child-hating supervillain who mind raped five kids into thinking they were his own and planned to bake a whole bunch of innocent kids into a cake. It helps that he has a Freudian Excuse and some pity moments through Villain Decay, plus the fact that there are far, far more unsympathetic villains on the show.
  • Especially baffling is that the same people who give him this treatment tend to Ron the Death Eater the KND.
• Kevin 11 from Ben 10, despite being an Axe Crazy Sociopathic Enfant Terrible, was often this among fangirls, even though the show flat-out presented his Freudian Excuse as not being valid enough for his unreptentant villainy. Amusingly enough, some Running the Asylum seems to have taken place when Ben 10: Alien Force was made and had him actually committing a Heel Face Turn, having his history retconned, becoming part of the main cast, and developing a sudden relationship with the protagonist's cousin Gwen (an already popular Crack Pairing.)
  • After Alien Force made Kevin a good guy, this trope went to his new Evil Counterpart Darkstar instead. Darkstar is a pure creepy Jerkass stalker who had no scrupple manipulating innocent schoolgirls and turning into zombies to increase his powers and is never portrayed as sympathetic in any way, even during his Enemy Mine with the heroes. Other villains like Vilgax, Charmcaster, Albedo, and the Forever Knights at least have varying shades of nobility and moral ambiguity to them. Darkstar has none.
• Mad Scientist Dr. Viper Swat Kats has a few female fans (and a few male ones) despite being arguably the series' most sick, twisted and sadistic villain, bordering on Complete Monster in his very first episode alone, not to mention not being what would generally be considered attractive (even before he got mutated). Many early fanfics by one "Kikki Viper" revolved around the evil biochemist converting to Christianity, gaining a magical sword and saving the day, and the SWAT Kats themselves were frequently cast in an unflattering light. The fanfics have been given the MST3k treatment by many a SWAT Kats fan. Artist Ignigeno sexifies Viper while at least retaining his evil, sadistic personality.

1. ↑ he was doing his father's bidding, he didn't have a choice
2. ↑ Well, OK, its mostly Adagio that's the "intelligently planned and effective" part. Celestia knows it ain't Sonata.