User blog:AustinDR/Problem with Tragic Villains

So I had noticed that there seems to be a tidbit too many articles under the "Tragic" tragedy. Though it's not really much of a surprise as tragedy can be subjective to anyone. At most, I do feel that the work itself needs to show that the villain in question is tragic, and how it reflects on them (i.e. a Freudian excuse). Take villains like Koba or Lots-O' Huggin' Bear. While both antagonists have tragic backstories (being experimented on by humans for the former; being replaced by their owner for the latter), the films make it abundantly clear that whatever happened to them in the past by no means justifies what they have done in the present such as Koba killing other apes. If he were only interested in killing humans, that would be understandable given he was experimented on by human scientists. However, by killing and imprisoning other apes, he proves himself to be no better than the humans he despises.

But then there are times where even when the work depicts their characters in a sympathetic light, either it's the result of bad writing (such as Ahmanet allegedly supposed to be tragic but because of the poor execution, she is instead PE) or any other element, it makes it hard to sympathize with the villain. Some examples from me are Monika from Doki Doki Literature Club!, Mei Aihara of Citrus, and Pink Diamond. With Monika while I fully understand that she was driven insane from her self-awareness of being a fictional character in a "dating game," and that she becomes infatuated with the player because they are the only things that represent something she can never have: being real, this doesn't excuse abominating the other girls by accentuating their negative traits so that she can be more appealing, to deleting them outright when that fails, and ultimately destroying her world and reconstructing it to meet her fancy. Her stating that the other girls are just programs with no free will to me is just her way of trying to justify her actions, and she really only realizes that she was being awful if you delete her character file. Mei has daddy issues among other personal conflicts, but she still commits sexual assault on her older stepsister Yuzu, she emotionally manipulates her so that she could have some power over her as a crutch for her emotional distress, she treats Yuzu like dirt for a large portion of the manga and anime, etc. Lastly with Pink Diamond, I understand that she felt that she was being mistreated by her "sisters" and how she came to resent her position, it nevertheless paints PD as a bratty character largely responsible for many of the conflicts that happen in the show. Every action from the rebellion to the Corruption can be laid at her feet.

There are other examples of this from me such as Miyo Takano from Higurashi who commits the Great Hinamizawa Disaster by unleashing a contagious disease onto the population solely to satiate her desire to become a god as well as making her grandfather's research be acknowledged, and Thanos who lost his planet, but he crosses the moral event horizon repeatedly that it almost removes any sympathies you may have had for him despite his goal being well-intentioned (in his mind, at least), but you get the point. Sometimes with a tragic villain, it is made clear in their work that they are meant to be seen in a sympathetic light, but at the end of the day, it comes down to whether or not you feel that their personal tragedies are enough to excuse them in your eyes.