Villain Has a Point

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    Time and time again a story is told with the classic hero vs. villain setup with the villain committing acts deemed evil by good, neutral, and the normally apathetic. The villain usually commits said acts for their own personal reasons. But wait, they have a justified reason for their actions? They may not be so much evil as they are anti. He may end up sending the hero into a depression after his motives come to light? Here my friends is a villain who actually has a justified reason for being what he is. Due to the nature of their villainy if they become too excessive in their methods it may fall under Straw Man Has a Point and they can easily fall under as a Well-Intentioned Extremist. In-universe they can also easily fall under Designated Villain. Compare Anti-Villain.

    Examples of Villain Has a Point include:

    Anime and Manga

    • Yu-Gi-Oh Ze Xal has this with Kaito Tenjo. He believes the Numbers' cards are evil and from what has been seen the Numbers can easily make the good bad, (Ukyo, Fuya to a lesser extent) and the bad worse, (Jin, Rikuo, Kaio). Also, his claim that the Numbers want to destroy the world seems plausible seeing the evil from Black Mist who was able to capture Astral and control Yuma's body against his will. In fact, the only issue with him capturing Numbers is that he takes the soul of the person who possessed it.
    • Stain, from My Hero Academia, a violent vigilante who hunts down and murders super-heroes. Much like Marshal Law, he feels the term “hero” has lost its meaning, and most heroes have become little more than greedy, selfish Attention Whores and worse, those who are Only In It For The Money and take from society far less than they contribute to it; the only person he considers a true hero is All-Might himself. Stain knows his methods are wrong, but considers himself a Necessary Evil. Thing is, he's not exactly wrong in his views. Many pro-heroes in this series are indeed selfish narcissists caring little for anything but their own glory, folks like Endeavor being good examples.

    Fan Works

    Eris: These wicked humans charge a fortune for permission to travel on a cramped, disgusting tube that shoots through the sky! They fondle you to search for weapons, which somehow includes soap, then send you into this “plane” where you are crammed in like grapes waiting to be juiced. Then they spend roughly an hour on the “tarmac” just sitting there before finally beginning the journey, whereupon you are treated to hours of recycled air while left to near starvation, given only tiny snacks on rare occasions. Entertainment is provided, but it is of low quality and costs extra.
    When the flight is finally over, after a long descent during which your eardrums nearly explode, you are then forced to wait again on the "tarmac" before disembarking, and I am told, must wait even longer to retrieve your possessions, which may have been placed aboard the wrong vessel.
    "Hundreds of thousands of humans, if not more, inflict this horror upon themselves every day, for there are no other high-speed methods of travel. And I have heard that the employees are treated no better than clients. Truly, humans should be utterly ashamed at this, and yet they simply aren't! They have just accepted this as unacceptable reality.

      • To make this worse, Themis offers the heroes a chance to offer a counter-argument, but they cannot. While Eris is actually speaking from personal experience (having complained about it in an earlier chapter) anyone reader who has flown economy class can not help but see where she is coming from here.

    Film

    • General Hummel from The Rock. Even the protagonist of this movie can't comprehend, at first, why a war hero as decorated and respected as Hummel would steal a stockpile of deadly VX gas-armed M55 rockets and try to extort money from the government by threatening to use them on San Francisco like some common terrorist. He gets his answer later: Hummel wanted the ransom to be paid from a military slush fund, and intended to use it to pay the families of soldiers who died under his command, families who had not been properly compensated to begin with. And then you discover Hummel was bluffing and never intended to make good the thread. Can this guy even be considered a "villain"?

    Literature

    • In Isaac Asimov's story "The Dead Past", the government agents trying to prevent the protagonists from learning the secret of viewing the past seem like a classic heavy-handed Government Conspiracy... until it turns out that they're simply trying to prevent privacy from being utterly destroyed by the dissemination of devices that can view any place at any past time from a century ago to a microsecond ago.


    Video Games

    Web Original

    • In the Maple Story-inspired video seen here, Hilla (the only character of the three that can be called a villain) clearly knows far more about the subject matter than the other two, despite Mayor Slimm being an actual elected official. Pragmatic Villainy, of course, as she claims she's simply studying a nation she plans to conquer.

    Western Animation

    • In The Jungle Book, Shere Khan's distrust and dislike of Mogli hinges on Fantastic Racism at times, until you realize he's a Bengal tiger, an species that has nearly been hunted to extinction by humans. One might even see Khan as the Only Sane Beast among the cast, realizing that trusting a human is playing with fire.
    • Justice League Unlimited: Project Cadmus created several threats to the world, but they do have considerable ground to stand on for their actions: the League didn't tell anyone about their big Kill Sat, they themselves have made questionable decisions in the past, and the Justice Lords were able to take over their world with only six of the founding members.
    • One from Batman: Under the Red Hood. Under the Red Hood gives us one from the titular character himself. No matter how many times Joker may get slammed into Arkham, being the Cardboard Prison it is, he always returns at some point wreak more havoc. While Batman does think about killing Joker, he fears about never coming back. However among Batman's rogues gallery, Joker DOES have a higher kill count alone than most and will most likely never stop killing as long as he is able, so putting him behind bars or a padded room does no good. Yet because he's Batman he won't take that step. Some people find it easy to side with Red Hood here even though he is a bit demented.
    • The Equalists in The Legend of Korra claims that benders are forcing non-benders to live as second class citizens. Although it is not entirely true but they do show that there are bending gangs who abuse their powers to intimidate non-bending people and the city's council is solely consist of benders.
      • They get quite a bit of ammunition in the eigth episode when the City Council starts to oppress non-benders, arresting them simply out of suspicision or ANY association with members of the Equalists (this includes being a family member as Asami found out). And it gets worse after we think a little bit. Later on in that episode we see what appears to be a whole neighborhood of non-benders.
      • Of course, the primary occupation of benders seems to be 'low-class factory worker', while the richest man in the city (if not the kingdom) is a non-bender, so, its hardly one sided.
    • In the original Thundercats, Mum-Ra is both a Card-Carrying Villain and seemingly a Generic Doomsday Villain, who seems to be evil for evil's sake and have no goal other than ruling Third Earth unopposed. That is, until some of Third Earth's history is revealed. First of all, this world is Earth All Along, it's name being "Third Age of Earth". Humans are either extinct or have left in some mass-migration (possibly settling wherever Mandora the Evil-Chaser is from, as she seems pretty human) with Third Earth itself populated mostly by alien settlers. Now, Mum-Ra is not just a mummy, he's obviously an Ancient Egyptian mummy; his fortress is a pyramid, he serves four "Ancient Spirits of Evil" that resemble Egyptian gods, and many other characters associated with him have Egyptian themes. The obvious conclusion is, Mum-Ra Was Once Human, and his grudge against the heroes started because, in his eyes, they're trespassers on his rightful property, not an unjustified outlook.
    • in the 2020 Harley Quinn cartoon, the Joker mocks Harley by claiming she has a "third-rate dye job". While Harley takes offense at this, Poison Ivy can confirm this is true, as Harley buys the cheap stuff from the drug store.
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