The Villains We Love - How To Write Sympathetic Villains In Anime, Manga, And Marvel Comics

not all villains are created equal some are meant to be hated some are meant to scare you and some are just straight up monsters but more often than not the villains that stick with you are going to be the ones that you care about the ones you can really understand and who have some depth to them so today we're diving into the topic of sympathetic villains [Music] foreign [Music] hey guys Axel here just before we get into the video I wanted to let you all know that I set up Channel memberships which is essentially the

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the fact that you're watching my content is more than I could even hope for but if you got five bucks you could throw my way and want to help me make more content for you this would be absolutely massive anyways I've taken up enough of your time thanks for hearing me out let's get back to the video sympathetic villains are some of the most powerful writing tools that creators can play with yes it is always exciting to see villains who are these big hulking monsters and villains who are just looking to cause chaos or spread

destruction each type of villain kinda has their own benefit that they give the story in some way or another but sympathetic villains are kind of special being able to understand the villain or relate to them and in some cases even root for them can change the entire Dynamic that a Series has to offer by default we are almost always going to be in the corner of the hero or the protagonist of a story which is why when someone comes into the picture and suddenly shakes our faith in that character or at least in their values

it can also shift how we see the world around them as well however this doesn't just apply to the protagonists themselves depending on the circumstance we can also be led to question the society or the powers that be within that series we'll talk about this when we get to the character of pain but the ability to warp our perception on these topics can produce some incredibly interesting plot points while also making the audience take time to consider everything that they believe about a series and the more time that an audience takes to think about a

story The more immersive an experience that story can become for them sympathetic villains can add elements of color or gray into stories which are otherwise presenting themselves as black and white something which inherently helps to develop the depth of this story overall as well as the characters within it on top of that the way that your protagonist confronts this new opposition to their belief or this villain with their own ideals which have a lot of validity and weight to them can be some of the most compelling and influential factors into shaping who that protagonist develops

into as well as acting as a method of presenting and testing your character's Integrity on a more meta level this can present the audience with the reality that people are often a product of their environment inherently evil characters like Frieza often feel like there could never have been another path for them to travel but when we see the backstories the events the struggles and the tragedies which led them to the path that they found themselves on it can help us understand and add some level of value to their opinions and their views it can even

turn these characters into something relatable despite taking drastic or seemingly unreasonable actions these characters also tend to believe that they are in the right which without the context and sympathy being developed can feel like genuinely insane Behavior it can be difficult to get behind a character committing murder but when that murder is acted out because of a heartfelt story that comes with their own tragedy then it can start to make for a very different experience So today we're going to be taking a look at eight of my favorite examples of sympathetic villains from anime manga

comics and film discussing their stories and how the writer develops and uses the compassion that we have for these characters obviously there's going to be spoilers in this video but we're going to be talking about Naruto Inuyasha Hunter Hunter Demon Slayer Fullmetal Alchemist X-Men superior Spider-Man and Black Panther and of course I'll have time stamps for each section so if you haven't seen these series you can choose to skip that part if you'd rather avoid those spoilers everyone feels the same pain when losing something dear you and I have both experienced that pain you strive

for your Justice and I strive for mine starting things off I think one of the most iconic sympathetic villains in all of anime is pain from Naruto pain is a pretty interesting character for plenty of reasons but what always struck me as the most compelling is just how confident he was in his actions he always comes across as kind of cold and self-assured regardless of the awful things that he's acting out but at the same time it never once felt like he was enjoying what he was doing it always seemed like he was acting out

of necessity there was always some kind of plan in motion and he was just moving it along for better or worse if I had to describe him I'd probably say he's both a dominating force of Nature and that he is completely empty inside there's just no sense of Hope in him ever and he just trudges forward regardless of what's around him and that's kind of in line with his overall mission this misguided goal towards peace and Justice pain the name he gives himself symbolically believes that everyone is hurting but because we don't understand the pain

that others are experiencing we can't truly empathize with each other and as a result we always seek to get revenge for the hurt that we feel not recognizing that will just hurt other people and cause an endless cycle so his solution is a shared tragedy a pain that everyone could connect over a common enemy and a common fear one thing that regardless of where you are from who you are or what you look like would still unify the people this idea is one that your brain kind of innately rejects we see him killing hundreds if

not thousands of people while also promoting this idea of bringing peace it's this contradiction that is very hard to see beyond but as we learn about his backstory and the life that he lived we are suddenly able to at least understand the anger that he feels and the perspective that he's approaching things through Haynes actual name is nagato and he grew up on the outskirts of the village hidden in the rain during one of the great Wars two Leaf Village ninja broke into his home and killed both of his parents and front of him when

the ninja realized that they'd just killed civilians and not soldiers they began to apologize to nagato but overcome by his emotions he used the Rinnegan to kill them this meaning that at a very young age he had experienced War loss and taking another person's life from here nagato was an orphan but with resources being so limited due to the ongoing war no one that he turned to was able to help or feed him many of them just didn't have enough to share and eventually he would be found by two other orphans Conan and yahiko together

the three of them would survive doing whatever was necessary if they needed to steal food they would nothing was off limits as long as they could stay alive all sharing in the ultimate dream of a future where they were strong enough to take charge and stop any War this end justifying any means so they decided to approach Jiraiya one of the Leaf's legendary ninja and begged him to train them during this period they were attacked by Foreign ninja and nagato was forced to use the renagon again to kill the attacker this at first fills him

with guilt but Jiraiya would reassure him that sometimes violence and personal sacrifice was a necessity to protect what you care about also expressing that he believed nagato to be The Reincarnation of the sage of six paths and that he would go on to lead to an Era of Peace unknowingly vindicating the idea of ends justifying means while also doubling down on the idea that nagato was meant for some greater purpose once their training was complete Draya leaves and the orphans form the anti-war group the Akatsuki this movement for peace was however disruptive to the powers

that be and the village leader Hanzo would Ambush them with the help of danzo from the leaf Village they took Conan hostage and demanded that nagato would kill yahiko but to avoid tainting his friend's conscience yahiko Dives on to nagato's kunai himself and tells him that he believes that nagato would be the one to change the world again nagato becomes enraged killing almost everyone around them but managing to save Conan in the process this all setting in place the character of pain that we are introduced to and yes pain would do straight up horrific things

but what other path was there for him realistically nagato only ever did the best that he could but despite that its parents were taken from him due to a conflict he had no pardon he became strong enough to make a difference and worked towards ushering in peace only to be attacked and to lose his friend working towards peace through peace had only brought him loss and yahiko's death taught him that the path they were taking up until now had been unrealistic the world would only be run by those with power and if he used the

renagon he could have that power now first and foremost this is a compelling story in its own right an orphan of War who tries to become a peacekeeper but who is crushed under the harsh reality of the world and decides to become an ultimate Evil as a unifying martyr it's easy to understand nagato's anger it's easy to feel sad for his losses and most importantly we now know and under stand how he became the villain that we see later in the story but what supplements this even further is how much this contrasts with our protagonist

Naruto another orphan another person trained by jariah each having insane power within themselves and each aiming to bring peace to the World by attaining a position of power however Naruto did not grow up during a war when he lost his friends there was always hope of getting them back Jiraiya did not leave he was taken from him these are overlapping stories and goals with different kinks in their path that make them seem like Polar Opposites but are they really pain of course attacks the leaf Village destroying it almost entirely in killing countless people and Naruto

arrives shortly after but eventually gets overwhelmed by pain and pinned into the ground and in this moment they are made equals Naruto has done everything right he has tried his best and still lost everything important to him but then we come to Payne's famous speech where he tells Naruto that he is aiming for peace and Justice and when Naruto retaliates by saying that pain has only brought destruction and loss he asks how that could lead to those goals but then pain responds by asking Naruto what his goals are and Naruto says well first I'm going

to kill you and then I'll bring peace to the Ninja World and to the viewers we're kind of like [ __ ] yeah this is a hero moment we're gonna take down the bad guy Naruto's just getting angry he's gonna turn things around any second and in the most condescending tone Possible Pain replies oh I see that is pain here sees the hypocrisy in what Naruto is saying pain has killed people in attempting to bring peace so Naruto's response to that is that he will kill someone to bring peace as well but you know in

a different way pain continues his monologue saying that would be Justice however what about my family my friends my Village going on to tell Naruto about the atrocities that the leaf had taken against his smaller Village all of which they had profited off of he talks about how all the great Nations had turned his village into a Battleground that was ravaged by War as everyone else stabilized and Grew From that conflict and suddenly both Naruto and the audience have a bit of a reality check the leaf up until now had always been painted fairly positively

as a whole but they just like everyone else had hurt others what Payne was doing to the leaf Naruto would do to pain and then someone would try and do the same to Naruto and so on and so on Payne explains that we are all the same we all know the pain of losing something and then we each choose to act in how we believe to be best you strive for your own Justice and others can only do the same continuing that if one comes to call Vengeance Justice such Justice will we bring further Vengeance

and trigger a cycle of hatred finally confronting Naruto saying if you have such a better option how would you confront this cycle of hatred and the thing is this isn't just lip service if Naruto had an option which was better and which wouldn't involve killing so many people pain would probably be very much up for it however this is the only path that he believes is left the reason pain is such a phenomenal villain comes from many elements but Chief among them is the audience's ability to understand him we see where he came from how

he changed and what his goals became but more importantly while our hearts want to say no that stupid you can't just hurt people and call it justice our brains recognize that this is the kind of thing that happens all the time in reality and even more so in this anime each nation and group constantly tries to enact Justice for the injustices acted upon them it creates this Schism between idealism and reality in our hearts and our minds and it all lands so hard because we get a full scope of each side of this conflict because

of this we can all recognize that pain is 100 a villain we know he did awful things but we can also say that's how the world works and he's just being part of that world and while I do wish that the consequences for his attack were a bit more tangible and long lasting in the end I think that pain is probably the best example that I can think of for how to write a villain who believes themselves to be the hero and who the audiences can completely sympathize with Payne's backstory is one that is used

to give a well-rounded view of the character and help the audience to justify and understand his actions however akaza from Demon Slayer uses his backstory for a very different reason is that right well I dislike weak human beings the mere side of it makes my skin crawl when it comes to akaza the goal is never to justify his actions we are meant to know that he is doing evil and flushing out his backstory does not change that fact at all and a lot of this can be attributed to the manner in which he carries himself

especially in contrast to pain while pain was solemn and almost lifeless in the way he acted out what he believed to be the only path to peace akasa is proud he takes pleasure in what he does and there's a sense of fun to his character something which is rarely conducive to sympathy in akus's case we aren't supposed to understand the demon that he is now but we are instead supposed to experience a loss of humanity that leaves us feeling more disappointed or sad for him hame could be seen as a hope for Humanity being corrupted

by the world that he found himself in while in Arkansas we instead see the humanity of someone being snuffed out as a child akaza's father was incredibly sick and because of this akasa felt forced to try try and steal money so he could pay for medicine and so he decided to become stronger if he was Stronger he could run away while he steals wallets if he was Stronger people couldn't get revenge on him and if he was Stronger he wouldn't get taken to the magistrate and beaten every time he got caught however he was still

weak he had been captured beaten bloodied and tattooed to be marked as a thief several times but regardless of what they did to him or how badly they hurt him he vowed he would do whatever it took to get the medicine his father needed to survive hearing that his son had been captured again akasa's father would take his own life leaving behind a note asking akazah to try and live an honest life and apologizing for being a nuisance to his son and so akaza in trying to save his father's life had driven him to ending

it he explained that it never hurt when he was beaten it never hurt when he was whipped or had his bones broken as long as he knew that he could see his dad survive however after his father last he became enraged at the Injustice of the world around him his dad had never hurt anyone and yet he felt the need to take his own life because they couldn't afford medicine not only that but in the end he even apologized for the life that was forced upon him and so akaza takes this out on the people

around him attacking the villagers who had scolded him for trying to save his father until a man named keso shows up stopping his Rampage and insisting that he joins his dojo but this Dojo wasn't exactly a traditional one Kaizo had no other students and needed to work most of the day so in exchange for letting akasa live there he would have to take care of his sick daughter koyuki I'm gonna stop real quick to talk about the way in which this backstory is presented to us because I think it's a very interesting perspective we get

this in glimpses as akaza progresses through a fight at first it comes in like a blur and he can barely remember the people or places that he's thinking of as to him this was a pass that he had thrown away and as it comes back he thinks about how worthless it all was until he remembers koyuki then suddenly his thoughts change he isn't tossing away that past he's telling himself that he wants to find a cure for her he wants to help her protect her and then finally lamenting that his life had been filled with

nothing but empty promises it is this vague memory of koyuki that ties him to his Humanity back to the past though akuza would start taking care of koyuki just as he had his father but she often cried or felt bad for being a burden on him and stopping him from enjoying his own life however akasa had already resigned himself to caring for someone else so nothing really had changed and on top of this he was already marked as a criminal so he believed no good life could be waiting for him even if he had the

opportunity all the same koyuki who was feeling guilty for taking up akasa's time would tell him that they could possibly go to a fireworks show to bring some excitement into his life but akaza refused he told her that they couldn't go now but next year or the year after once you had recovered he would definitely bring her to the fireworks even if he had to carry her the whole time akaza would spend three years at the dojo and when he turned 18 Kaizo would even offer to give him the dojo not only that but koyuki

was finally feeling better and they would be able to go see the fireworks together this time together with koyuki and Kaizo had completely healed akasa's heart he was beginning to see that life was worth living again as they watched the fireworks koyuki tells akiza about her mother who had taken her own life so she wouldn't have to watch her daughter die and how she believes her father had long given up any real hope that she would ever recover but akaza was different in that he was the first one to talk to her about a future

with her in it to suggest that there might even be a next year Beyond her illness and because of this she saw her future with him even asking him to become her husband akazat who again saw no real future for himself up until this moment of course says yes and vows to become strong enough to protect her for the rest of her life but he couldn't keep this promise one day when akasa was visiting his father's grave to tell him about his marriage a rival Dojo would sneak in and Poison the Well of akasa's dojo

and by the time akasa had made it back home both keizo and koyuki were already dead and akasa just snaps he goes to the Rival dojo and kills nearly 70 people for poisoning his loved ones and when he's done he simply walks off covered in blood and with a completely shocked and empty expression on his face and this is when he crosses paths with muzon at first it's his instinct to just attack moves on for being in his way but before he can do anything muzon sticks his arm through akasa's head and begins pumping him

full of his blood to transform him but akasa just doesn't care everything that he loved had been taken from him anytime he wanted to protect people that he cared for he was never there and now there was nothing left for him he was just an empty monster who couldn't keep his promises and so if muzon wanted to turn him into a real monster well that would be no change his painful memories were taken away and his desire for strength became the core of who he was he just didn't want to live in a world without

his loved ones so instead he chose to live blindly as a murderous demon akasa is a bit of a paradox on the one hand we're presented with this brutal killing machine who finds pleasure in fighting over anything else but on the other hand we have this young boy who was willing to be beaten and bruised for his sick father a boy who spent his whole life trying and failing to protect those he loved only for those people to feel like they had been a burden the whole time akaza while definitely being a pretty violent guy

was not a bad person this is an unironic case of someone who cares too much for other people but who finds the world around them to be brutal unforgiving and unjust and understandably so he was angry with that world and even when he gets a second chance at life with koyuki and Kaizo that too is taking taking away from him and he goes on a rampage and now he has nothing to show yes the people who killed his wife and Kazo are dead he acted on his revenge but now what nothing has changed his life

is no better for what he has done all he has done is prove that he was the monster that everyone around him thought him to be and nothing else had changed and now he truly had nothing left the Monstrous akasa does not have a story about violence or anger but instead he has one about intense love and intense loss we don't get this backstory to learn about the birth of a demon we're getting it to learn about the loss of humanity and I think Demon Slayer as a whole does a really impressive job of representing

humanity and the loss of it through the lens of the demons in the story it's an incredibly interesting choice to discuss a topic through the lens of its absence and we'll talk about this a bit later but it's very similar to what Togashi does with his major villains in his series as well this idea of demonstrating a concept except by showing it fading away and when the concept is something like love or Humanity it can be absolutely heartbreaking which is why so many people think of akasa as a phenomenal and relatable character even if our

first interactions with him made so many of us fear or hate him but while akasa is someone who lost their meaning to live and chose to become a demon out of apathy for life we're now going to shift to kagura from Inuyasha was a demon who strives to live a life but is unable to do so [Music] [Music] kagura is an incarnation of Naraku meant to embody the free wind when we're first introduced to her we see her slaughtering the wolf demon Clan and using their corpses as puppets to attack Inuyasha and his friends which

is not very cash money right off the bat though we see her as this very cold and ruthless person but soon after we do get the bigger picture she returns to Naraku after almost dying to Inuyasha and Naraku puts out his hand to show that he is holding her heart squeezing it and causing her pain he lets her know that at any time he can dispose of her and from this point on her character shifts from being this evil wind sorceress to someone trying to gain their own freedom and even so originally this acts as

a moment to show that Naraku is being evil and controlling more so than a tragic moment for kagura and I think a big part of that is the emotions associated with it kagura here seems angry and resentful more so than anything else and that rage feeling kind of still leans in to an evil villain Vibe but this topic gets Revisited shortly after as Naraku is reforming his body in this scene there are clumps of disconnected demon parts and it is a genuinely horrifying moment then we see these tendrils reach out and pull kagura towards naraku's

face and what we're seeing isn't anger anymore but it's actual fear she is unable to move unable to resist and unable to run away and inches away from this disconnected head surrounded by clumps of demon body parts Naraku warns her that if she ever disobeys him again he will reabsorb her into himself and she will just become one of these clumps of Flesh and suddenly she goes from feeling like a villain to a victim moments like these where we see the villain being vulnerable being trapped or being scared they aren't the things we associate with

evil and they kind of open the character up to feeling more human and relatable and that's not even getting into her final moments which brings in these feelings of loss sadness and even a bit of bitter sweetness because she finally finds freedom in death but giving a character these emotions which we don't usually classify or attribute with villains while putting them in a position which removes their sense of agency and then giving them a send-off that is genuinely beautiful makes for an unforgettable character that is impossible not to feel for and that is despite all

of the terrible things that she has done in the series kagura is a perfect example of the contrast between a backstory and a demonstrated experience when we look at someone like Peyton for example we learn where the mentality is coming from and this helps the audience sympathize with their actions but kagura is someone we see actively living through these experiences we feel them as she feels them we see how she reacts to them in person we see her fear and her sadness growing Episode by episode we feel the walls closing in around her as naraku's

grip tightens it is a very similar tool but it's being used for very different effects now in the last video I added a few western series like Gravity Falls Coraline and Arcane and many of you seem to enjoy that so this time I'm gonna play around with a few Marvel properties as they're pretty excellent examples of this as well and firstly we're going to talk about one of my favorite villains that Marvel has to offer I've been at the mercy of men just following orders ever again now we're gonna need a bit of backstory outside

of the actual Comics to appreciate this character to the fullest really picking up steam in the 1950s the Civil Rights Movement was in full swing by the time that X-Men issue number one was released in 1963 and within this story we meet two very prominent figures Charles Xavier being Professor X and Max eisenhart being Magneto something you tend to get a lot more of in Western Comics as opposed to manga is a reflection of social and political situations whereas manga tends to focus on more personal and philosophical stories obviously not a 100 rule but it

is a general rule of thumb and within Marvel Comics there are very few series that are innately more political than the X-Men this series discussed these struggles for mutants to be accepted by society and how Xavier and Magneto's ideological views were put against each other as they navigated how to deal with the Discrimination that they dealt with themselves each being not so subtly based on Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X respectively like King Xavier believe that the path forward ought to be paved with peace and good faith while Magneto felt that this wasn't a

reasonable approach and that in reality power only responds to power its position very similar to the one that we saw with pain in Naruto however while their discussion was more on an interpersonal level when he looked towards Vengeance for justice it just breeds more Vengeance this was more of a wide scale social message we should all treat each other equally regardless of who we are or what we look like and in this idea of equality it should be pointed out that while Magneto is often slaughtered as a villain The Core theme of X-Men is that

everyone has good within them everyone is doing what they think is best and it's our experiences that guide those choices that we make so yes Magneto is more violent he's more of an extremist and he's definitely more pessimistic about the future that humanity and mutants share and all of that can make him very off-putting to Outsiders which is why he's put in that villain role so often but at the same time this anger and negativity doesn't come from from nowhere in the series Magneto Testament we get a look at his childhood in which we see

Magneto growing up in Germany as the Third Reich Rose to power his father who had fought in the first world war believed that as long as their family acted in accordance with what the government wanted they would not be punished but that was not the case the Nazi party continued to grow in power and Jewish residents were treated worse and worse until their family felt the need to escape to Poland however they were captured and all but Macs were executed this instilling in him the idea that appeasing those in power is Never Enough especially if

they see you as less than he would be taken to Auschwitz and given the job of cremating other prisoners who had been executed in the gas Chambers placing him between these ideas of having to support and work for these evil people committing atrocities and ending up like the people he was cremating ultimately choosing to do what he must to survive as an adult he remembers his childhood and hearing the guards laughing and joking as his family and friends were put to death how those in power saw their lives as nothing and how he began to

see others in the same way he had experienced the worst of Humanity's evil and he had understandably been Jaded by it so now we have this young boy who was told to listen to those in power to guarantee his safety but who would still end up enduring hell on Earth despite following orders just because he was Jewish just because he was different and now he's an adult and it isn't Jews who are being persecuted it's mutants and he's being told to just appease those in power and being given promises that everything will work out if

he does and I don't think that we can blame him for not being willing to take that chance a second time again this does not justify his actions at all but once you understand his perspective it is difficult to imagine yourself in those situations and believing things will work out and Magneto being someone very powerful believes that it is his duty to take extreme actions to avoid repeating history and this too is a function of sympathetic villains or even characters in general they can act as a foothold for telling allegories at the height of the

civil rights movement or really any movement which is trying to lead towards positive social change there is always going to be those who push back or who have some kind of mental block towards what's being told to them some white people in the 50s and 60s just genuinely couldn't wrap their head around the idea of equality and discrimination as it was being told to them some white people now can't wrap their head around it and those same people aren't going to respond to being told that they're racist or being told the same message they've already

heard for a hundredth time by using allegories though we can present Concepts to People In a Different Light Joe Smith might not be able to understand the plight of black people or the message of Martin Luther King because in his head he just doesn't want to hear it and he doesn't want to be called racist but if he were to for example pick up a book where mutants were being presented as the same as everyone else just with a different feature they didn't have any control over or those mutants were being hunted and persecuted and

discriminated against then Joe Smith might say damn I can't believe society would go against these mutants they haven't done anything wrong and who knows maybe one day a light will click on in his head and connect those dots in real life sympathetic character writing is extremely effective on this front if you're trying to tell a message and you can get people to side with your message through writing it opens a bridge for discussion that they might not overtly be willing to have otherwise this could be broken down even further for people who do support the

cause obviously readers are supposed to be able to latch onto what Professor X is saying the entire time in the same way that people were more open to listening to King's message of Peace but within groups where people have been punched down at for so long people are going to be angry they're going to feel hurt and not everyone is going to feel like a peaceful resolution is possible or enough and that's where people like Malcolm X and Magneto come in you don't have to agree with their actions but these stories help you to understand

the feelings that they're having and that is at least somewhere that a conversation can start from and if that sounds familiar from a modern movie perspective it's one we saw very recently in the MCU in the conflict between t'challa and killmonger one who is striving for a peaceful resolution and another who has experienced the hardships of the world and believes a more drastic action needs to be taken must feel good it's about two billion people all over the world it looks like us but their lives are a lot harder wakanda has the tools to liberate

them all I won't spend too much time on this one as it largely discusses the same utility and function as we saw in the X-Men Comics however there is a pretty noticeable difference in these portrayals which I think speaks to the progress we've made and I do want to talk about that briefly X-Men in general is an allegory for accepting people who might be different than you but more specifically it's meant to mirror the division between black and white people in the era which it was released in however X-Men did something a little bit sneaky

in their character design remember this is a world where people can use telekinesis they could be made of ice for covered in fur they can even control the weather or just about have any other ability you could think of but what was too unbelievable even despite the intentions of the series was a black member the first actual black X-Men character that we'd see would be storm in 1975. 12 years after the comic began in fact she was one of the first black heroes in Marvel Comics and was the first black woman hero this is largely

based on on these social norms of the time but you'd think that the comic that was talking about civil rights would have presented this sooner I mean there were definitely other black Comic characters in the west of the time so why wouldn't they include black characters well it comes down to who needed to hear the message as I mentioned in Magneto section this series was kind of a foothold to help people self-insert themselves into social issues and sympathize with the messages being sent and Joe Smith who wasn't sympathizing with black people in his real life

sure as hell wasn't going to do so for fictional people so it stands to reason why storm wouldn't be introduced until the tail end of these civil rights and black power movements once the nation came together to say uh yeah obviously black people are people and they should be treated equally well most of the nation that's when the messaging structure began to shift I should point out that it isn't like a ton of characters were added to the roster in general as storm would be in the third wave of members that we would see appearing

in the X-Men but it is still something thing to bring up now flash forward to the modern era with black panther the discussion between t'challa and killmonger is essentially the same that Professor X and Magneto were having but just about the entire cast is able to be black without people feeling like these characters aren't relatable just because they don't look the same which is something I think is really cool to see retrospectively but it does bring up the idea of knowing your audience and tailoring your cast to allow them to be sympathetic which I think

is an important thing to take note of the discussion killmonger and t'challa have may mirror the original X-Men story however it has also been brought into the Modern Age we aren't talking about civil rights with these characters we're talking about the failure of those rights to bring equality and Equity these social structures in the modern world which are still acting as oppressors against people who are succeeding and who believe that going along with the system in place is correct how often people in positions of power and prosperity can become separated from the people who don't

share in those blessings and who have been become disillusioned it's taking the discussion of race which is held at the Forefront and supplementing that with the concept of class taking a deeper dive into the issue and making it a much more relevant look at the Modern social climate and how it affects people differently again no one is really being painted in the wrong here and everyone is given a microphone to speak their peace and present their perspective and that's the part that stays with the audience we are supposed to understand killmonger in the same way

we're supposed to understand Magneto and I think that the movie does an excellent job in balancing this perspective and painting him as a villain who fought for a valid message but who just become angry and disillusioned with the reality of his experiences why should I be punished for that what's wrong with craving knowledge what's wrong with seeking Perfection who the hell do you think you are back to anime and I want to talk about how a single moment can be used to completely change your perspective on a character however many of the examples so far

have looked at how experiences can build sympathetic characters in positive lights so I want to talk about one that puts them in a negative light the dwarf and the flask in Fullmetal Alchemist is the first homunculus it was created by the people of Xerxes but it was without a form and only existed inside of its flask interacting with the world around it by speaking with hohenheim and having him act in the dwarf's stead these two form a pretty interesting relationship as it's as close to any kind of emotional value that we see the dwarf showing

in the entire series trapped inside of the flask the dwarf could only look out at the world and dream of experiencing it meanwhile hohenheim was a slave capable of experiencing the world but without the wisdom or power to grasp it they were each incomplete but while hohenheim was content in his role the dwarf was not he convinces hohenheim that he could be something than greater teaching him to read and write telling him how the intricacies of the world function and even showing him how to perform Alchemy with the help of the dwarf hohenheim had become

someone of value but no matter how much his friend grew and changed for the better the homunculus was still just a dwarf in a flask the king of Xerxes was wishing for immortality and with the assistance of the dwarf and alchemic ritual could be performed to attain it however the dwarf had fooled the king the ritual would sacrifice all who live within the kingdom and the only ones who would truly become immortal were the dwarf and hohenheim in the process the dwarf would even Grant himself his own body throughout the entirety of the series we

are never once meant to empathize with the dwarf or father as he calls himself later in fact he even removes all of his desires from himself creating the seven homunculi children and leaving himself as just this blank emotionless being that is next to impossible to feel for his ultimate goal at this point in the story is to perform another ritual sacrifice and another nation and to become one with God yeah standard anime villain stuff however naturally he fails he's defeated at the last moment and he dies with the audience thinking damn he was super strong

and that was hella cool and that's about it but then we have a moment where he confronts truth the actual god of the world the dwarf had been stripped of his fake body and reduced to his true form we see him turning to truth and in this whiny voice totally contrasting the deep and Powerful one we associate him with he asks why God rejected him and how he disappointed him and Truth In This Moment tells the dwarf that he was disappointed because the dwarf never believed in himself he never accepted who he was he stole

power from others and always strived to become something greater saying that the dwarf never grew Beyond his days in the flask someone who yearned for more someone who did not accept his lot in life but who still saw themselves above others someone who felt incomplete and never valued the life that they were given them truth asked the dwarf if he believed that removing his desires and Imperfections would make him Superior to humanity and the dwarf responds what's wrong with that I only wanted to achieve Perfection I wanted this world's knowledge for my own why should

I be punished for that what's wrong with craving knowledge what's wrong with seeking Perfection but truth doesn't answer throughout the entirety of Fullmetal Alchemist we are presented with this stoic imposing almost Godly figure but suddenly the dwarf seems more like a child throwing a tantrum he isn't this be-all end-all of power and information he doesn't even have a grasp on who he is himself in a fit of rage the dwarf berates truth finally asking who he thinks he is and Truth responds who am I one name you might have for me is the world or

you might call me the universe or perhaps God or perhaps truth I am all and I am one so of course this means I am also you and this is something that has come up time and time again within full metal the idea that all is one and one is all we're introduced to it very early in the series and it's first described as a concept similar to the circle of life cows eat the grass we eat the cows we die we decompose and our bodies help the grass grow etc etc but this is only

part of it all things are one the universe The World God the truth and yourself if you do not experience the universe it has no value but if there is no Universe to experience your life is meaningless God supposedly created everything and everyone but without them what is he God of Truth is the value that we find in the answers to our questions that we ask but we both need to ask those questions and interpret those answers to make our own truth your life gives value to everything else and everything else gives value to your

life all is one and one is all the pursuit of knowledge the desire to be perfect these things on their own are gifts is great to want to learn and it's great to want to improve however the dwarf takes them to their extremes and tosses away his own being in the chase for these goals he is unable to see that he is part of a greater system and doesn't appreciate the life that he has and only wishes for more despite being all and that is what's wrong with his actions he rejects himself from the beginning

and thus rejects the one and the all and the truth and God and the universe and the world and thus they reject him as well the dwarf is a being who survived Millennia without ever living He is someone who innately had infinite knowledge but understood none of its value he had unlimited power but saw himself as weak he is both someone who is impossible to have empathy for but that you can't help but feel sympathy towards I love Fullmetal Alchemist in fact truth was the first tattoo I ever got but I don't love it for

its story to me the story of FMA is just kind of fine instead I find Value in what the series teaches us about what it means to be alive and what it means to be human but what I think is the most impressive thing that the series did was present us with a character that truly seemed like a God and then humble him to the point where you feel pity towards him in about two minutes all while ultimately supplementing the final moment with Edward and Truth at the same time it takes the flaw that Ed

had at the start of the series and demonstrates the growth that he had undergone on this adventure while also showing what could have been if he never experienced that growth and because we see the similarity to Ed in the dwarf's final moments we get this feeling of pity rather than just seeing him as another villain being brilliant's not enough young man you have to work hard intelligence is not a privilege it's a gift and you use it for the good of mankind going back to Marvel for a moment let's talk about my own personal favorite

hero Spider-Man specifically though we're going to be talking about superior Spider-Man this is a run of comics that is pretty love it or hate it but I always found it to be super interesting in this series Doc Ock takes over Peter's body to prove that he can be both a superior Peter Parker and a superior Spider-Man and I think by far one of the most compelling stories you can tell is a villain trying to be a hero off the bat we see that Otto has a very different philosophy when it comes to being Spider-Man believing

that if criminals are just going to keep escaping prison and causing more Havoc he might as well kill them to nip that problem in the bud but aside from that minor philosophical difference Otto is just kind of better at everything than Peter was he spreads spider bots around New York to monitor everything allowing him to not need to spend hours at a time searching the city for crime he streamlines the entire process so he can have some semblance of of balance and actually make time for the ones he cares about he makes plans and sets

traps for villains rather than swinging in and hoping for the best he gets Peter started on the track to earning his PhD he gets the ball rolling on Parker Industries he is like a Peter who is meeting his full potential in every aspect of life however the real Peter isn't entirely gone for the beginning of the story he is sitting in Otto's subconscious and guiding him towards the idea of being a real hero rather than a murderous vigilante Otto eventually manages to seal Peter away more completely but through living Peter's life Otto learns more about

him he eventually meets Anna Maria Marconi and this kind of becomes his love interest for the series she's someone who genuinely guides him towards being a better person as well as a more heroic hero for the most part though Otto will remain true to himself and acts altruistically always focusing on what's best for himself first and then what's good for the majority be for the minority basically if one person needs to die to save 50 then it's just collateral damage but if that one person is himself he will never make that sacrifice as the story

continues Otto needs to learn more about who Peter is in order to interact with the people in his life but in doing so he begins to awaken Peter within himself bit by bit eventually though the Green Goblin creates a situation where Otto will have to choose between saving Anna Maria or saving others and he just freezes Peter describes him as having an unlimited potential when it comes to the thinking portion of the job but also someone who is unable to act when placed in a corner and that's the difference that matters between he and Peter

while Otto is better at every other aspect of being Spider-Man and being Peter he cannot look at an impossible situation and dive in anyways to make that impossible possible he lacks the ability to put himself in true danger even if it is the only way to save others and because of that he knows he'll never be able to save Anna Maria so he does the only thing he can he gives the body back to Peter in doing this we see that while Otto was learning about Peter Peter was learning about Otto about how he grew

up in an abusive home how he was bullied looked down on and how no matter how hard he tried people would shut him down at every turn throughout his entire life we see that becoming Doc Ock was the first moment where he felt any semblance of power or autonomy and how Spider-Man appeared and represented every hardship that he had ever experienced and made him feel like that cowardly weak child he used to be but now he knows better he knows what it's like to be Peter and the burden of being Spider-Man he knows what it

truly takes to save others and recognizes that he just doesn't have that in him so he gives Peter his body back and Peter does what he's best at he makes a miracle because while The Superior Spider-Man will always save the most people The Amazing Spider-Man will save everyone we spend a lot of time with auto living as Peter over 30 issues and over that time we learned quite a lot about him which obviously is going to build some kind of relationship between the audience and himself not only that though but we see him learning growing

falling in love struggling putting real effort into his life and making Peter's life as good as he can and it's only after all of that that we see the abuse of life that he suffered through and how small he felt through all of it it's a perspective that we don't usually get to see with villains them trying to better themselves and putting real effort into being something good it's taking them out of their element and placing them in an entirely new environment which can make for a very unique story and yeah it can be hard

to call him a villain when he's saving people but like the dude is murdering people in a stolen body so even while he is doing good he is undoubtedly a villain but a villain who's becoming a better person and that's something that can't be understated the value of watching someone try of watching them grow and becoming better there is just something about watching someone put in real effort that makes you root for them it's the Shonen training Arc effect seeing them work so hard towards a goal makes it feel like you want them to succeed

and that can be a super powerful pull towards a character but it also makes it equally powerful when you see that person hit their limit and when you see that person banish to see that he has to give up this new life that he put so much into docok is one of my favorite Spider-Man villains but I think the time that we see with him trying to prove himself a superior Spider-Man and recognizing the something special that everyone else sees in Peter is one of the best experiences we've had with this character and it goes

a long way towards making him as sympathetic as I think he is there is no need for you to die say I am not the same as I was before so you should be prepared for innumerable losses and finally we're going to close things out back with anime in Hunter Hunters meruem if your go-to sympathetic anime villain isn't pain it probably is meruem and that's for good reason we're introduced to meadowam as a true monster the leader of the Chimera ants bred to be a perfect being with more power than anyone from the first moment

he's on screen he is brutality embodied clawing his way out of his mother prematurely and killing her in the process only to kill another Chimera ant shortly after for speaking out of turn we see the Chimera ants under medowam conquering East Gordo and meadowam begins training his tactical abilities by playing board games with champions of each craft starting with chess then shogi and so on always being able to defeat them shortly after learning the game and anyone who tries to run is killed on the spot as are anyone who loses but then komugi arrives a

blind girl who he plays gungi with that he is for some reason unable to defeat they would play countless times and no matter what he tried or how talented he became komugi would always beat him however over the hours that he played with komugi he would begin to soften the original idea that he was presented with was that he was the ultimate life form greater than all others at all things and because of that he had the right to rule over others but what does it mean when he suddenly can't beat komogi if she is

better than him then he can't truly be perfect and if that's the case then what else is true and it's from this moment that his mission changes from Conquest to finding his own meaning and understanding who he is this is where metal M starts to change when his worldview is challenged he slowly begins seeing others as people and not just a food source however outwardly he is still a conqueror and netero and the other Hunters would soon come for him now at the same time that we see meruem becoming more human we also see the

protagonist gone slowly descending into becoming a monster himself it's a very effective tool that makes the actions taken by each of them feel much more extreme we think that we know these characters and then suddenly nadom is insisting his guards protect komogi while gon is making these horrifying threats and transforming and it feels like you've blinked and suddenly these two have swapped personalities but that brings us to to meadowm's confrontation with netero nettero is the leader of the hunter Association he's our hero in this moment he's always been painted as this force of good this

ultimate wise man kind of character and he finally arrives to stop meruem but instead meruim seemingly has no interest in violence or fighting at all he's trying to avoid it and netero is the one pursuing it the only reason that meadowam even agrees to fight in the end is because nethuro promises to reveal his true name if he does but this entire discussion only goes to prove that humanity is the aggressors at this point when it comes to meadowam the fight begins and ultimately ends with netero blowing himself up and poisoning meruim something which would

kill him in the end however before he dies we see one of the softest and most heartbreaking scenes in anime with the last of his strength he brings himself to komugi and they begin playing goongi one more time all while talking as if nothing is wrong meruem finally tells komugi his name but she keeps using honorifics when referring to him so he makes a wager with her if he can manage to beat her at gungi she'll call him his name with no title that's it he no longer is looking to conquer others he's not looking

to satiate his pride by beating her he just wants her to see him as an equal in the end and on komugu's part all she wants to do if she wins is play another game with him as the game carries on komugi starts crying and genuinely worried for her meruim asks what's wrong and she responds that she's unsure if it's okay for someone like her to feel happiness and saying that she had had so many wonderful things happen to her this coming from the blind girl who was taken prisoner and kept moments away from Death

ever since she met him but this causes meruem to pause he stops and tells her that he has been poisoned and that he wants his last moments to be spent playing gunge with her but the poison is contagious so if she does stay then she'll die too however before he can even finish explaining komugi just continues on playing her next move move saying she's very happy and adding that she isn't good at anything but still asking if she can accompany him going forward and for the first time meruem finally understands what he had been missing

and says that this is the moment he had been born for and from here just darkness we hear them making moves and meruim says in the end he never managed to beat her even once as komugi responds don't worry we're just beginning the poison begins setting in and meruim says he's feeling tired asking if it's okay for him to take a short nap and then asking to see if komugi will hold his hand he says he's only going to sleep for a moment and wants her to stay with him until he wakes up she tells

him that she won't leave and that she'll be with him forever and finally asks her to call him by his name before he has to go so komogi tells him good night and says that she'll be with him very soon and with that the would-be Conqueror of the world passes away in darkness in the hands of the one who taught him how to be human not ending the world with a bang but leaving it in a whisper meruem is undoubtedly a monster but by watching his journey to discover himself and to find Value in those

around him it's extremely difficult not to sympathize for him but seeing him go from the embodiment of a Savage rage to these soft final moments almost make you forget all the evil that he had done and instead all you remember is the silence and tenderness that his journey ended with when I think back on meruem I don't think of him beheading his soldiers prying himself out of his mother I don't think of him killing all those people he played games with or even his battle with netero which is arguably one of the highlights of the

entire series but instead I think of this moment these few minutes of him playing goongi with komugi as the dark settled around them and as he truly found his purpose in the happiness that they brought each other and I don't know how else to say this but if you want a Surefire fire way to make a villain sympathetic by far the most effective way to do so is to give them a heart and place that heart in someone else because more so than an understandable philosophy more than a tragic backstory or watching someone struggle to

do their best the thing we all relate to more than anything is love and finding that love in someone else who makes you a better person there are several ways to write sympathetic villains but regardless of the method you choose they are almost always very powerful tools they can make you question the values that they place on the protagonists or the powers that be within a series or bring you an emotional impact to a story that just devastates you they are characters that add depth to the world around them and because of this they are

often made out to be some of the most memorable villains for the audience that said there is a balance that needs to be kept to keep them effective as well as a personality that needs to go along with these stories if a villain is only acting out of malicious hate and the justification to these actions is not powerful enough to make them understandable you will often end up with a character that just looks insane or like they're overreacting which can result in a totally different feeling being associated with them and because of that you'll miss

out on all of the depth being given to every other element that surrounds them they often give off a domino effect but whether that effect is positive or negative completely comes down to if the writer is able to strike this balance with the themes emotions and actions being taken in a way which resonates with the viewers but if they can do all of that just right they'll end up with a character almost guaranteed to be one of the best in their story but for now I think that's where we're going to end things if you

haven't seen my videos on how to write villain introductions or how to write manipulative villains then I think you'll definitely enjoy them so go check those out once you're done here but with all that being said thank you all so much for watching and until next time I hope you all stay excellent