Thread:Valkerone/@comment-36819595-20180909153416

a villain must be an evil-doer who commits heinous acts and (usually) enjoys committing these acts.. if not they must be so dangerous to a setting they can't be seen as acceptable anti-heroes / tragic protagonists etc etc..

the Peacock Family are tragic, they want to be left alone but the modern world is slowly making that impossible - they are twisted, of course, yet they are a symbolism of "small-time life" and "old ways" dieing off as the world gets more and more modernized.. the "simple country life" is slowly being erased.. the Peacock Family resist that change but are ultimately destroyed by it regardless.

they aren't saints, they aren't particularly pleasant but they are ultimately animals who are cornered and thus strike out, as animals do.. they know no better.

if anything the true antagonist of that story was society itself, the idea that their are parts of the world where modern man should stay away from etc.. it reminds me a lot of Deliverance and while you can't say "the mountain folk are good guys" you can't entirely say the protagonists aren't also at fault.. they are invading a world that is not their own and when they get attacked it is because they are going around places where they shouldn't and ultimately the "monsters" of these rural horror stories tend to want to be left alone. 