Unintentionally Sympathetic: Difference between revisions

** The high-tier villains also get this. Some people actually manage to sympathize with [[Mad God|Discord]]'s goals. It helps that he's a silly, goofy [[Trickster Archetype]] who spent [[And I Must Scream|1000 years]] [[Fate Worse Than Death|sealed in]] [[Taken for Granite|stone]]. (Even though he was sealed precisely for being evil in the first place, and his idea of fun involves copious amounts of [[Mind Rape]] and [[World Gone Mad|chaos]].)

** Nightmare Moon: even before she got better and turned into Luna, [[Ensemble Darkhorse|possibly the most beloved pony in the fandom,]] she came over as more of a [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds]] than villain because at the very start of the pilot we are told that the reason she's been taken over by her evil alter-ego is because no-one appreciated all the hard work she was doing controlling night time. Sure, her [[The Night That Never Ends|Night That Never Ends]] would have killed everypony in Equestria when the food ran out, but all she wanted was a hug from her big sister.

** Basically, the franchise does this with virtually every antagonist it has -- later on you will find out something that makes you go "OK, what you did was wrong, but I understand why you did it and I can't really hate you." The only exceptions so far are Lord Tirek<ref>Who is grandfathered in as the original villain of the original MLP franchise and the Satanic Archetype of the show, and so is vanishingly unlikely to ever get a nuanced portrayal.</ref> and Queen Chrysalis<ref>Who hasn't shown back up yet except in tie-in comics, where she's still awful.</ref>. Everypony else -- Discord, Gilda, the Flim-Flam brothers, Starlight Glimmer, even ''Diamond Tiara''<ref>Noteworthy in that while she hardly compares in villainy to any of the rest -- she's a schoolyard bully -- she was still so hated that fans have actually praised the CUPCAKES fanfic because Diamond Tiara died in it.</ref> of all ponies, have all face-turned or at least been given sympathetic backstories. The theme of the series seems to be that while genuine irredeemable evil can exist it is far rarer than we think and often the 'evil' person is just another schmuck acting in ignorance or with misplaced priorities, but is hardly beyond reaching.

*** Over in the Equestria Girls franchise we have Sunset Shimmer, who went from being the villain of the first movie to the heroine of the next two. Likewise we have Human!Twilight, the antagonist of the third movie, who was a sympathetic pawn of evil the entire time and didn't even need a face turn, just a way out of her predicament. The only exceptions so far have been the Dazzlings.