Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-1705775-20170901162345

so let's put aside chaos and get productive again - by its very definition villainy is biased and some will disagree strongly on what characters are and are not villains but here are some articles I feel may not really be villains, feel free to agree or counter my choices and offer any articles you feel are not villains as well.. be civil and be ready to debate (which means accepting some will inevitably disagree with your views).

my two concerns are:

Cujo  = while dangerous Cujo is, let's not forget, portrayed as a normal (non-sapient) dog who is infected by a specific form of rabies that drives him insane - this means he is a sick and dying animal.. he has no moral agency and attacks because of a disease that is literally eating away at his sanity : does it make Cujo dangerous? yes.. does it makes Cujo evil? no.. the opposite.

Cujo can very much be seen as a victim and the true "villain" of the Cujo story can be viewed as the disease itself, which turned a loveable family pet into a killer (unlike human killer animals that go "rabid" can't be seen as criminally insane either, which is why I find Cujo hard to justify.. he lacks any moral agency and is basically a normal dog who has a horrible disease and tragic death).

Ringmaster (Dumbo) = ringmaster is a jerk but by the standards of Dumbo is not really a villain, Dumbo doesn't have any - the obnoxious kid is the closest and even he is just that.. a jerk.. the older elephants are antagonistic and cruel but don't go far enough : the Ringmaster seems to be a hate sink rather than a villain because think on it from his view : he runs a circus and this is before animal rights was really a big deal, he can't risk his animals harming members of the public and he didn't know the kid provoked her, even if he did know the damage had been done.. she was (to him) unpredictable and could cost him a lot of money, customers and even legal issues.. locking her up may be cruel but it was actually softer than what most ringmasters would of done had the cartoon been less "Disneyfied" (..if you didn't know most time if an elephant or other animal attacked a human they were destroyed..).

he doesn't harm Dumbo on purpose and he loses his temper because Dumbo endangered the audience and cost him money.. he's not doing it because he's hateful, he has a business to run and he clearly still feeds and cares for his animals and staff as Dumbo isn't starving or maltreated physically (by Ringmaster directly, at least).

was he a nice character? not really.. is he a wicked, cruel or criminal character? - I'd say not in context to the time-period and setting of the story. 