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Unlike the [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds]], or the [[Anti-Villain]], this villain was already evil long before-- and will likely remain so, despite anyone's pity. May be an [[Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain]]. May also bring about [[Badass Decay]] or [[Villain Decay]] if not done well. This is not to be confused with a [[Villainous Breakdown]] containing a [[Motive Rant]], which usually occurs after the villain has suffered a setback or is almost defeated. Here, the sympathy is more triggered by the villain's goals or feelings rather than any pain the villain is going through himself. If the villain simply chokes out "[[Freudian Excuse|I had a]] [[Dark and Troubled Past|terrible childhood]]!" and then dies, it's [[Alas, Poor Villain]].
 
See also [[Sympathy for Thethe Devil]] (where the characters feel the monster's pain) and [[Cry for Thethe Devil]] (where the ''audience'' feels the monster's pain).
 
{{examples}}
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* Both Jesse and James of [[Team Rocket]] gets quite a few in ''[[Pokémon]]''.
* During the Eclipse in ''[[Berserk]]'', Griffith gets a childhood flashback scene as he's alone with the Godhand, which serves as one last moment of feeling sorry for him after [[Trauma Conga Line|everything he's been through up to this point]] -- and which serves to make his [[Face Heel Turn]] all the more hateworthy.
* In ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (Mangamanga)|Fullmetal Alchemist]]'', it's revealed that Envy hates humans because it's jealous of their ability to empathize with one another. He caused hatred and violence to fill their hearts so he could blot out that ability. When Ed expresses sympathy for it, Envy {{spoiler|commits suicide}}.
** Sloth doesn't want to be one of Father's evil minions, he just wants to sleep all the time.
** [[Fullmetal Alchemist (Animeanime)|The 2003 anime version's]] Lust gets an entire episode devoted to this. The anime Envy had one as well, but in the end it only reinforced what a truly vile being he had become.
* Yuca from [[Immortal Rain]] certainly does this, to the point of being a grade-A [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds]]. He's a horrible, misanthropic, nihilistic sociopath; but then, he's lived for [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old|centuries]] through [[Reincarnation]] and experienced inconceivable pain in those many lives. He hates the world, simply because he's so sick of living in it.
* [[Magnificent Bastard|Suitengu]] from [[Speed Grapher]].
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* Some versions of Scarecrow. He's a nasty piece of work, but geez, try to read about his childhood in Scarecrow: Year One without crying. He was [[Parental Abandonment|abandoned by his mother]], ruthlessly bullied at school, was dirt poor and his grandmother basically used him for child labor and locked him in an old church to be attacked by birds over and over again for "sins" such as reading books besides the Bible. She's been dead for years, but [[Mommy Issues|he's still freakin' terrified of her.]]
* [[Alan Moore]]'s take on the third Clayface takes this [[Up to Eleven]]. The character falls in love with a mannequin , has his home burned down, deals with insane paranoid jealousy (from his perspective it seems like his inanimate love is cheating on him), is attacked by Batman, put in an asylum, and finally grows to resent the one (imaginary) romance he has. In the end it's implied that he has come to hate his new life to the extent that he's just waiting for his wife to die...which she won't. Ever.
* In a classic [[Silver Surfer]] story, the Surfer goes to a planet after receiving a call for help. He finds a group of natives being attacked by a monstrous dragon. After a brief battle, the Surfer is surprised when the dragon proves capable of speech. The dragon explains that his race was actually a peaceful one, and after escaping their doomed planet, they arrived here in search of fuel. The natives, [[Fantastic Racism|for no reason other than the dragons' monstrous appearances]], gave them a chemical that [[Kill It Withwith Fire|destroyed them all]] - save [[Last of His Kind|him,]] who was on a scouting mission. The last dragon then stayed on the planet and vowed to punish the natives, being the monster they feared he was in the first place. The Surfer, indecisive over who to side with, decides to end the conflict by removing the dragon's powers - which is ultimately fatal to the dragon. The natives cheer the Surfer and thank him for defeating the "evil monster". The Surfer gives them all an [[What the Hell, Townspeople?|epic chewing-out]] and vows to never again to come to their aid, even if it means they all die.
* [[Norman Osborn]], after the failed Siege of Asgard that ended [[Dark Reign]], gets a [[Motive Rant]] (spoken to his alter-ego, the Green Goblin) about how he ''knows'' the Hulk, the X-Men, or some other superhuman is inches away from completely wrecking the world. (It would be more sympathetic if he weren't one of those same superhumans endangering the planet).
 
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== [[Literature]] ==
* In ''[[Abarat (Literature)|Abarat]]'', Christopher Carrion's backstory. His entire family, except for his grandmother and absent father, died in a massive fire, he was brought up to be a perfect villain by his abusive grandmother who had sewn up his lips for saying the word love, fell in love with a princess who used and then shunned him...and his life didn't get better since then.
* The Vord Queen, in the ''[[Codex Alera]]''. In the first five books she is not sympathetic in the slightest, but in the sixth {{spoiler|we discover that she is attacking the Alerans because the Queens she has produced in Canea are trying to kill her, so she fled.}} She's still quite clearly evil, but it's very sad, in a way.
** Even all-around [[Chronic Backstabbing Disorder|treacherous bitch]] Invidia Aquitaine gets treated with a little sympathy in the same book, as she's managed to screw everything up so badly that even Isana is feeling sorry for her. For reference, Invidia {{spoiler|arranged to have Isana's husband killed, repeatedly tried to kill her son, and is helping the Vord Queen hold her hostage}}.
* Gollum's [[Character Development]] in ''[[Lord of the Rings]]'', though there were traces of this in ''[[The Hobbit]]''.
* The creature from the original ''[[Frankenstein (Literaturenovel)|Frankenstein]]'' makes this [[Older Than Radio]].
* Kallor from ''[[The Malazan Book of the Fallen]]'' was a son of a bitch long before he was cursed to a) live forever and b) fail at everything he did. ''Toll the Hounds'' however, spends a great deal of time demonstrating that not only did the curse fail to fix him, but the constant misery he has suffered over the millennia has only succeeded in making him even worse, transforming him from a standard [[Evil Overlord]] and into a [[Misanthrope Supreme]] who hates himself and all humanity with equal passion. An example of a character who you can both pity, and wish a horrible death upon all at once.
* In ''Ghost Story'' of ''[[The Dresden Files]]'', Uriel says {{spoiler|he kind of pities the Skinwalkers, as their rampages and the pain they cause is some desperate attempt to prove to themselves that everyone can be as screwed up as they are. His sympathies are far more toward their victims though.}}
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** Done intentionally by Blaine in "Boom Town". In her previous appearance she was just one of many Slitheen who planned to initiate a nuclear holocaust simply so they could sell the radioactive remains of the Earth as starship fuel. When the heroes meet her again, her motives haven't improved much; she intends to nuke Cardiff (tearing apart the rift) in order to escape the planet. She certainly never pulls any sort of [[Heel Face Turn]], but attempts to forestall her own execution by explaining how horrible her life has been (she would have been killed if she'd refused to be a killer like the rest of her family) and how unnecessarily cruel her death will be (dissolved in boiling vinegar). In the end she does get a sort of second chance, as she is regressed to an egg and can start her life over.
* ''[[Veronica Mars]]'': the season two [[Big Bad]] is like this - we all pay attention to the [[Freudian Excuse]], and think about just how messed up someone like that would be, and if this villain ever really had a chance.
* Sylar, as of Volume 5 of [[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]. He hates what he is, he realises that no one will ever love him and he'll spend all of eternity alone and miserable and after spending all that time gaining new abilities he now wants to be rid of them because he knows that he'll never stop killing while he has them. He's still pure evil, but it's hard not to feel a pang of sympathy for him...like some takes on the vampire myth he's a wretched monster, controlled by his bloodlust and unable to change unless FORCED to.
* Total Monster Tate in ''[[American Horror Story (TV)|American Horror Story]]'' crying over Violet and making her puke because she's dying from too many pills.
* Kim Young of [[Dae Jang Geum]]. She did some unforgivable things to Jang Geum and Lady Han, but most of the time she was caught between a rock and a hard place and she was always miserable about her life and her situation.
* The ''[[Farscape (TV)|Farscape]]'' episode "Incubator" is the [[Monster Sob Story]] for series [[Big Bad]] and [[Magnificent Bastard]] Scorpius. [[Your Mileage May Vary|YMMV]] on its effectiveness and it didn't really work in persuading the [[It Makes Sense in Context|neural chip copy of Crichton]] in the episode. However, when Scorpius later reveals his backstory to the real John, he seems fairly affected by it, though not enough to actually help Scorpius.
* This is practically the entire point of ''[[The Sopranos]]''. Like it or not, we spend as much time watching these mobsters in moments of humanity and vulnerability as we do watching them violate nearly every moral code known to man. Most cross the [[Moral Event Horizon]] at some point (possibly even multiple times), but are still portrayed as human beings with relatable problems, which is what makes the show so fascinating and horrifying at the same time.
* Echidna, the otherwise utterly repulsive (and quite literal) "Mother of All Monsters" from ''[[Hercules: The Legendary Journeys]]'' got this treatment prior to her later [[Character Development]]. A loathsome she-beast with scaly green skin, snakelike fangs, a grotesque shriek of a voice, and tentacles that seemed to stretch out for miles, she nevertheless evoked sympathy: her hatred of Hercules was entirely justified, as he had slain all her children, even if it was in self-defense. She plotted Herc's demise on a number of occasions, but eventually underwent a [[Heel Face Turn]] and even enlisted the hero's help after her youngest child was kidnapped. Interestingly enough, she also married [[Big Fun|a fun-loving giant]] (who was of course very large but otherwise normal-looking), making their case a rare inversion of [[Ugly Guy, Hot Wife]].
* ''[[The X -Files]]'' episode "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man" made many a fan feel pity, if not sympathy, for the series' eponymous [[Big Bad]], who has been until then presented as an utterly irredeemable [[Jerkass]]. It probably helped that it was the first (and only) episode where he wasn't seen from Mulder and Scully's POV and, thus, got a chance to show the more human sides of himself.
* ''[[Being Human]]'' has Cutler, who is revealed to have {{spoiler|been tricked into drinking his murdered wife's blood by Hal.}}
 
 
== Tabletop RPG ==
* Both ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade (Tabletop Game)|Vampire: The Masquerade]]'' and ''[[Vampire: The Requiem]]'' can be played this way. In fact, the [[The End of the World Asas We Know It|Time of Judgement]] book "Gehenna" for VtM specifically invokes this trope, to the point of mentioning in the introduction that two of the game designers imagined it ending with the last vampire on earth [[Drowning My Sorrows|drinking himself to death in a random bar]], [[Super Loser|depowered]] and [[Jerkass Woobie|all alone]].
* The Yozis in ''[[Exalted]]'' manage to be somewhat sympathetic despite being insane god-monsters whose plan to break out of hell involves an obscene amount of death. As for ''how'' sympathetic they are...well...[[Base Breaker|the flamewars on that subject]] [[Your Mileage May Vary|are of epic proportions]].
 
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*** This is [[Mind Screw|Silent Hill]]. He might not be wrong.
* Capehornus from ''[[Knights in The Nightmare]]'' is what can be lightly called a douchebag obsessed with [[Disproportionate Retribution|taking revenge on everyone and everything for the slights he's suffered in life]], and many a player grows to dislike him intensely. Then Zolgonark, the demon he summoned to help him do so, {{spoiler|turns his granddaughter--the only person he loves--into a harpy. And all of his plans slowly but surely come undone as Yellma cheerfully ignores his plight to pursue her own agenda and the Wisp's army dispatches his subordinates.}} After his last stand and his bitter death speech, even Maria and Meria admit that he's [[Not So Different]] from them.
* The ''[[Portal (Video Gameseries)|Portal]]'': Aperture Science Sentry Guns, otherwise known as just 'Portal Turrets'. They don't ''want'' to kill you, but they've been heartlessly programmed to perforate anything that isn't another turret. They'll even apologize for their behavior... once you've [[Weak Turret Gun|knocked them over]] and rendered them permanently incapacitated.
{{quote| '''Turret''':{{smallcaps| I don't hate you}}.}}
* The [[Big Bad]] of [[Tsukihime]] in Hisui's route gets one of these when it's revealed {{spoiler|SHIKI has been experiencing the same psychic link Shiki has been coping with, and if anything has been feeling even worse than Shiki. He just wants to kill Shiki to sever the link and give his mind some peace.}}
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* [[Rule of Rose]]. It's such a [[Tear Jerker]] (still being survival horror) that it's hard to determine where to begin. Both villains have major sob stories, still being [[Complete Monster|Complete Monsters]]: a [[Psycho Lesbian]] with a [[Freudian Excuse]] and an [[Ax Crazy]] madman.
* Every single boss in the ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' series decides to have a [[Story to Gameplay Ratio|15-minute conversation]] before trying to kill you. Some try to justify their actions by telling you their motivations. Others just [[Smug Snake|gloat about how screwed you are]] and that you have [[Gambit Pileup|no idea what is really going on.]]
* In ''[[The Legend of Zelda: theThe Wind Waker (Video Game)|The Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker]]'', after you arrive at the final boss battle above {{spoiler|sunken Hyrule}}, Ganondorf tells Link that he sought the Triforce to {{spoiler|bring cooling winds to his people as they lived in the barren desert.}} Whether this is a [[Evil Plan]] or this trope is debateable, but damn did it invoke some pity for Ganon.
* In ''[[Amea]]'', {{spoiler|Mish, the title character's childhood friend}} is shown to have turned into a [[Humanoid Abomination]] that controls many monsters all because of his efforts to embrace the suffering that the others have tried to expunge by {{spoiler|becoming slaves of the Master}}.
* With the ''[[Golden Sun (Video Game)|Golden Sun]]'' franchise, {{spoiler|in the first game you managed to defeat and kill Saturos and Menardi trying to stop them from lighting the lighthouses and save the world. Then in the sequel you find out that the world is slowly eroding because the lighthouses aren't lit, and they were only trying to light them because their village was ''falling off the face of the world.''}}
* In ''[[Fire Emblem Tellius (Video Game)|Fire Emblem: Path Of Radiance]]'' {{spoiler|you kill Ashnard the king of the country of Daein, and all that remains is his vicious dragon mount. It turns out that he had Izuka, the mad scientist, warp and twist the mind and body of the missing dragon Laguz prince Rarajion. But its too late for him to survive.}}
 
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* Syphile, Ariel's abusive stepsister / governess in [[Drow TalesDrowtales]] (As seen [http://www.drowtales.com/mainarchive.php?order=chapters&id=68 here].)
* In ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]]''--Fructose Riboflavin, when his most recent evil scheme fails in a really silly way, [http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20070327.html collapses in tears,] and the strip's hero (still tied up!) [http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20070331.html tries to cheer him up a little.]
** This trope is played much more straight when we finally learn Fructose's origin story, starting [http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20100828.html here.]
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** It goes deeper than that, though. Zim's classified as a defective, meaning his erratic, crazy personality is due to, essentially, a programming error. He seems to be able to feel affection (the first words out of his mouth were "I love you, cold unfeeling robot arm!"), but hasn't been taught affection by the society in which he was raised. Because of many, many bad things happening due to him (most of which seemed to be complete accidents, though he wasn't at all remorseful about it), culminating in him accidentally killing off all the other Invaders in Operation Impending Doom, he was banished to Foodcourtia and made to work in what appears to have been a truly horrible job. When he escaped and arrived at the Great Assigning, the Tallest sent him on a fake mission into deep space in the hopes that he'd die along the way. Face it: Zim's had a tough life, and his method of coping seems to be deluding himself into thinking that he's the greatest Irken ever and beloved by the Tallest.
* Lucius from ''[[Jimmy Two-Shoes]]'' is normally a completely unsympathetic [[The Caligula|Caligula]]. But you'd be hard-pressed not to see his [[Flash Back]] in "Happy Birthday Lucius" and not feel just a little sorry for him.
* Mr. Freeze from ''[[Batman: The Animated Series (Animation)|Batman the Animated Series]]'' was splashed with cryogenic chemicals while fighting with his boss, from who he'd been stealing resources to find a way to cure his terminally ill wife Nora. He was even willing to kill innocent people to get revenge and/or find a cure. Things only get worse for him as the series continues.
** In ''[[Batman: The Animated Series (Animation)|The New Batman Adventures]]'', Freeze's condition had worsened, reducing him to an immortal head without a body. Nora was revived but left him for one of her doctors. A comic tie-in expands on this. Nora's new husband, jealous over her love for Victor, hid the letters that Victor wrote to her. When Nora found out, she tried to return to Victor but could not accept his criminal past.
** By the time of ''[[Batman Beyond (Animation)|Batman Beyond]]'', his wife's gone, a woman he was falling in love with betrayed him, he's been rejected by society for the last time, and he just wants to watch the Wayne-Powers Corporation go before he does. His [[Famous Last Words]] with Terry, the new Batman, are one of the best done [[Alas, Poor Villain]] moments ever.
{{quote| '''Terry''': Freeze, you've got to get out of here. The building's about to collapse.<br />
'''Freeze''': Believe me, you're the only one who cares. }}
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