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I have been in the online animation community for a couple of decades, and I remember in the 2000s it was a common belief that only sympathetic villains were realistic villains associated with mature storytelling, while evil villains were silly and childish.
I think that is not quite correct. The 2000s were not far off from the 80s, where you had villains like Skeletor, Shredder, or Cobra Commander brag about how evil they were. But they did not actually do anything truly evil, and they were not very menacing. That was the type of villain that was being mocked by the 2000s, with characters like Dr. Draken from Kim Possible. But by the 90s and 2000s, we started not only seeing sympathetic villains, but truly evil ones as well.
For every tragic villain like Mr. Freeze from Batman: The Animated Series and Magneto from X-Men: The Animated Series, you have darker rogues, like Joker, a psychopathic nihilist who hurts people for fun or Apocalypse, a monstrous mutant with a god complex who thinks himself superior to other people. With Mr. Freeze or Magneto, the heroes can talk them down, and the conflict can be gray, with the viewer rooting for both hero and villain. But with guys like Joker and Apocalypse? They will never back down, and the viewer is thrilled to see the hero overcome this monstrous threat. Mr. Freeze is sympathetic because his life was destroyed by a corporate tycoon. You are not supposed to sympathize with Ferris Boyle, the architect of Freeze’s misfortune. A sympathetic villain can come off as more sympathetic if contrasted with an evil villain. It was interesting to see Magneto and Apocalypse clash in X-Men: The Animated Series due to their conflicting attitudes and personalities.
So, what separates an “evil” 80s villain from their darker counterparts from the 90s and afterwards? Simply put, actions. A villain can say they are evil, but a truly evil villain does evil things; a villain who talks about how evil they are and does not back up their words comes off as a pompous windbag. However, a villain who does evil things and does not have to talk about how evil they are is a truly menacing villain. You can’t have a sympathetic villain cross certain lines and still be sympathetic; a sympathetic villain can’t be cruel or spiteful against people who have not wronged him or her. But an evil villain can cross any line the writer allows them. Joker tortured Robin, and Darkseid killed Superman’s friend Dan Turpin right in front of him. This level of cruelty cannot be done by a sympathetic villain.
80’s Shredder may say he is evil, but Utrom Shredder from the 2003 TMNT cartoon is evil; he kills millions of people onscreen, even though he met the Turtles, and he only gets worse as he goes along. Some people have said anime as been more complex than Western animation, but anime has plenty of vile scumbags, from Frieza from Dragon Ball Z to Shou Tucker from Full Metal Alchemist.
I have listened to enough true crime and history podcasts to know that there have been some pretty vile people across history. I think some of the best evil villains can reflect real-world evil. Horde Prime was a nothing character in the original She-Ra show; in the 2018 She-Ra show, he is based on a cult leader and has mannerisms similar to real-life cult leaders. The first season of Castlevania Nocturne featured a vampire who owned slaves, there is no way to sympathize with a vampire who is involved in real-world evil.
Mr. Sinister from X-Men: The Animated Series was a kind of unseemly villain in the original series. But when he returned in X-Men 97, the subtext became text. Sinister was obsessed with eugenics in the original X-Men Series, which is a pretty vile ideology that has real-world harms attached to it. Sinister is involved in the massacre in Genosha, one of the most horrific events I have seen in Western animation. Sinister’s vile beliefs lead to his vile actions, and when he is defeated and humiliated by the Phoenix, it is a great moment.
Villains like Frollo from the Hunchback of Notre Dame and Emperor Belos from the Owl House may think they are good people, but the writers do not portray them as good people. They are self-righteous, hypocritical, bigoted and lack any compassion or empathy towards others; their pretensions of goodness are clearly lies or just delusions.
One thing that is great about an evil villain is that they are usually so arrogant, and it’s so satisfying to see an arrogant villain get brought low and defeated or humiliated by the hero. With a sympathetic villain, the emotional payoff is having a conflict where you are rooting for both sides to win. With an evil villain, the emotional payoff is seeing the hero defeat his or her hated foe. With an evil villain, the stakes are often at their highest, and you want to see the hero succeed. Ultimately, variety is the spice of life, and you need both sympathetic and evil villains to tell a variety of stories. Sometimes the story calls for an evil villain.
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