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“But, Nicky, why are you doing this?”

“Why am I doing this? Because I’m a villain. It’s pure and simple.”

-The Great Muppet Caper
Being evil for the sake of being evil is not always the best approach for having characters be a villain. It’s usually better if the villain has some kind of story to go along what led them down the dark paths they choose to follow. One form their stories could take is in the shape of a tragedy, in which we can sympathize and feel sorry for them to a certain degree. So this here is a list of my top ten favorite villains I sympathize with.
#10. Megamind (...) The title character of his own movie, it’s easy to feel bad for Megamind’s lot in life. After being sent away from his doomed planet, he wound up Earth, where he was looked after…by a group of criminals. He was eventually sent to a school to be reformed, but that didn’t exactly worked out, since he was so different, and another alien boy who had also come to Earth had become the favorite, and Megamind was the subject of constant bullying. This led him to believe that the only thing he was good at was being bad, and so he became a super villain, who got his butt served again, and again…and again by his old tormenter Metroman. But then that all changed when Metroman secretly faked his own death in the hopes of finding his true calling. Left with a rather empty villain, Megamind sought to make a new hero with DNA of Metroman’s. As one can expect, that didn’t work out as well as he had hoped, especially when this new hero Titan went rogue and became a new villain. Fortunately, with a little motivation, Megamind was able to turn it all around, get his greatest act of all together, and defeat Titan, becoming a new hero of justice for Metro City. Not a bad deal, if I do say so myself.
#9. Emerald Sustrai (RWBY) I imagine not many people will be thrilled to know that this character made my list. But in spite of all the terrible things Emerald has had a hand in, I can’t help but feel sorry for her. We still know little about her past, only that she was living on the streets and had to steal in order to survive. And then we know what happened next. One of her exploits led her to meeting Cinder Fall, who recruited her to serve in the cause of assisting Salem in her quest to conquer the World of Remnant. All because Cinder promised Emerald that she would never be hungry again. I find this to be an utterly sad turn for someone’s life to take. This is made worse by the fact that much of Emerald’s past is still a mystery, as we currently don’t know how she came to live out on the streets in the first place. Not to mention there is also the fine job of conditioning Cinder put her through to made Emerald almost insatiably dependent of her. I sympathize with Emerald because I acknowledge how far she has fallen because of mixed up she in all the atrocities Cinder has committed in Salem’s name. I still can’t forget how she commented on how sad the destruction of Beacon seemed, nor can I forget how she told Ruby that she doesn’t care about Salem at all. Were she not so dependent on Cinder for guidance, Emerald could have been so much more. Instead, her Semblance reflects the life she chose to lead. She came to the conclusion that Cinder would always have the answers, that Cinder could never fail or do wrong. And now that she has been proven wrong, although I’m not as of yet convinced that Cinder is dead, Emerald has become more damaged than ever before. I once held out hope that she could possibly turn from the dark side and be free of Cinder and Salem, but as of the end of RWBY Volume 5, that hope has been killed.
#8. Kurome (Akame ga Kill!) Everything I hear about child soldiers, both in fiction and real life, fills me with anger and sorrow at the same time, thinking of how so many children are brainwashed and conditioned to fight for terrible causes guaranteed wrought their own deaths. Akame ga Kill! Is one series to delve into such an atrocity in the form of Akame and her sister Kurome. Both girls were very little when their parents sold them both to a corrupt Empire to be trained as assassins. Among the only survivors of their initiation exam, Kurome was then separated from her sister and later experimented on to turn her into the most deadly killer she could be. It’s clear to anyone that’s watched the anime or read the manga that only the thought of seeing Akame again kept Kurome from giving into despair. To her, as long as she was with her sister, she was fine. She would even get to have her wish and later join Akame on the same squad after some of its members tragically lost their lives. However, this ray of happiness didn’t last long, as Akame was already becoming disheartened with serving the Empire and eventually deserted and joined the Revolutionary Army as part of the assassination squad Night Raid. This all but broke Kurome’s heart, as she had not only lost her sister again, but she had also felt betrayed, giving birth to the desire to one day find and kill Akame. Coming into the possession of an Imperial Arms that could allow the user to control the corpses of those it killed also did nothing to repair her damaged psyche, as Kurome became colder and crueler, taking pleasure with every kill, as it gained her more “dolls” to control. This is just one example of how depraved the Empire in Akame ga Kill! Is, shattering a bond between two sisters who love each other dearly, only to prompt a desire to end one another in battle.
#7. Syndrome (The Incredibles) A lot of us have idols we look up when we’re young, but it can be disappointing when said idols are not everything we expect them to be. That’s how it was for a young boy named Buddy Pine, who obsessively idolized the big and strong Mr. Incredible, wishing nothing more than to one day become his idol’s sidekick. Unfortunately, when he finally sought Incredible out to become just that, young Buddy was instantly crushed by Incredible’s lack of interest, finally telling the boy, “Fly home, Buddy. I work alone.” This tore Buddy apart and led him to believe you couldn’t count on anyone, especially your heroes. The saddest part about this was that Incredible never actually meant to hurt Buddy the way he did. He was just under a lot of pressure because he was running late fighting crime while trying to make it to his wedding on time. Sadly, what happened still happened, and he wouldn’t experience the full repercussion of his mistake until fifteen years later, after Buddy had made a fortune for himself, gathered up his own private army, and took up the super villain Syndrome. His new mission: rid the world of superheroes with robots of his own design until it was powerful enough to endanger an entire city, then make himself out as a hero by defeating his own creation. The thing to remember here is that sometimes the greatest demons we have to face are the ones we make ourselves, which is what Mr. Incredible learned the hard way when facing off against Syndrome.
#6. Erik "Killmonger" Stevens (Black Panther) For this entry, I’ll be referring to Killmonger as portrayed in the movie Black Panther, which currently retains its spot as my personal Phase 3 MCU movie. Ah, it’s a nice feeling to see Disney villains taken into a new layer of depth. Now before I get too deep into my thoughts on this character, I’d like to say I personally never thought the MCU had a “villain problem” like most people say. Though I will agree that the villains of the third phase have proven to be the most engaging of them all. And to me, only Thanos surpasses the quality writing that made Killmonger such an enjoyable villain. Like pretty much everyone else on this list, life sucked for Erik. As the son of an exiled prince of Wakanda, Erik was left with a rather uncertain future. Things took a dark turn for him after his uncle, King T’Chalka (I think that’s how you spell his name), killed his father and left Erik behind, alone and broken. As he grew up, Erik sought the power to take revenge on the world for destroying his already fragile home. To do that, he became an American special ops agent, rallying kill counts on the field like it was a video game. But it was always his intention to return to true home of his father: Wakanda, the most advanced nation in the world, courtesy of the large vibranium mound on its land. Until this point in Wakanda’s history, the nation had concealed how powerful it truly was from the rest of the world by making themselves out as an impoverished third-world country. And yet all this time, they had the tools to change the world for the better, or for the worst. In Killmonger’s case, he wanted to burn the world of known oppressors and successfully instigate a revolution for black people and place them on top under his rule. In short, he was as T’Challa said, a monster of Wakanda’s own making. This is what made Black Panther such a personal favorite for me, because the hero personally connects with where the villain is coming from, acknowledges the faults of the past, and strives to make a change for the better. How Killmonger chose to enact his revolution would certainly have caused the deaths of countless lives had it succeeded, but I sympathize with him because Wakanda, a great and proud nation, had the biggest hand in his descent into madness. The biggest highlight to the movie’s ending is T’Challa accepting what his father did was wrong but not choosing to define himself based on the mistakes of the past, thus in a way, ensuring that his cousin did not die in vain.
#5. Poison Ivy (DC Comics) Out of all the villains in Batman’s rogue gallery, I sympathize with Poison Ivy the most, as her actions are for the best of intentions. Once an ordinary botanist named Pamela Lillian Isley, much of her life was full of pain and anguish, having contracted a rare skin disease and enduring the loss of her mother, who was murdered by her own father. Although things started to look up for her after she graduated college and became apprenticed to Jason Woodrue of Wayne Enterprises, only to be betrayed by him, exposing her to plant toxins and poisons before leaving her for dead. Instead, it turned Pamela into a plant-human hybrid with chlorophyll for blood and venom in her lips. But this wasn’t the worst damage Woodrue inflicted upon her. What he did to her also left her with a fractured mind, turning her into a sociopath hellbent on revenging herself on those who wronged her and create a new lush green Eden. And it’s hard not to feel sorry for her, as one of her major drives is actually trying to protect the environment. Every day, more and more of the environment is destroyed, and if this keeps up, what little remains of the wild will be lost forever. What remains has to be protected, and that is what Poison Ivy tries to do, except her actions also endanger the lives of everyone around her as well, putting her at constant odds with Batman. She gets so caught up in trying to do something good, she becomes blind to the fact that she’s hurting you. Heck, she became so tired of fighting in Gotham, she tried to settle down on a desert island she could call home, only for her retirement to be cut short when a corporation decided to test a new weapon on the island, destroying it in the process. In short, Ivy may be a villain, but she is not a monster, and no matter what she does, the rug is always pulled out from under her feet.
#4. Count Dooku (Star Wars) For over a thousand years, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Unfortunately, generations passed and the Republic Senate became more and more corrupt, and yet the Jedi continued to serve the bureaucrats. This caused a feeling unrest within the Jedi master Dooku, and it angered him knowing that his fellow Jedi were not lifting so much as a finger to combat the corruption. Instead, they allowed the corruption to flow while silently waiting for a clue that would allow them to solve the mystery of their ancient enemy, the Sith. One by one, the straws piled up on Dooku’s back; something was sure to give, sooner or later. And finally the straw that broke Dooku’s resolve to remain came when his former apprentice Qui-Gon Jinn was killed at the hands of the Sith Apprentice Darth Maul while on a mission in service to the Republic. Not long after this tragic loss, Dooku left the Jedi Order and was eventually scouted out by the Sith Lord Darth Sidious, who revealed to him that he was also the Republic’s new chancellor Palpatine. It was here that the Sith offered to make Dooku his apprentice in the hopes of ending the corruption that was plaguing the galaxy. Wanting nothing more than for the Force to truly be brought back into balance, Dooku accepted and helped formed the Separatist Alliance, which was soon followed by the outbreak of the Clone Wars. As the new apprentice to the Sith Lord, Dooku went on to orchestrate one tragedy after another and proceed to set the stage for more to occur long after the war ended. I sympathize with Dooku because his drive for joining the Sith wasn’t purely for the sake of power. In spite of all the terrible things he had done, his turn to the dark side stemmed from a desire to change the galaxy for the better. I find it quite sad, how he ended up using and manipulating countless individuals to reach his goals, unaware that his master’s promises for a better world were all lies to keep Dooku compliant. All Dooku was, in the end, was a simple stand-in until Palpatine was ready to turn Anakin Skywalker to the dark side and mold him into the apprentice he was truly after. Worst of all, Dooku was never the wiser to this until seconds before he was beheaded by young Skywalker. Just like the Jedi Order, Dooku was played for a fool.
#3. Amon (Legend of Korra) One thing that Legend of Korra did better than its predecessor was create better multidimensional villains. They certainly didn’t miss the mark when they introduced Korra’s first nemesis Amon born Noatak, the son of a notorious Bloodbender named Yakone. Noatak and his brother Tarrlok had it tough ever since they first discovered they were both Waterbenders. Eventually, their father sought to teach them how to Bloodbend, the most sinister, and arguably the most powerful, form of secondary bending in the Avatarverse in the hopes of taking revenge against the Avatar. Although Noatak possessed a great affinity with the dark ability, Tarrlok suffered terrible verbal abuse from his father, deepening rage within Noatak. Eventually, he turned on his father and ran away from home, consumed by the belief that bending was the cause of all the suffering in the world. This led him to form the Equalists, its members comprising of people who couldn’t bend, with Noatak taking up the identity of Amon, a man blessed by the spirits to take away bending from the world. In reality, Amon had simply taken Bloodbending a step forward, learning how to use it to strip bending from its benders. To incense people against benders, he concocted a story of how he had lost his family to a Firebender, wearing face paint to make it appear like his face had been burned. With the Equalists at his command, Amon went on to pull a great number of terror attacks against Republic City, during which he managed to strip countless benders of their bending, including Avatar Korra. I sympathize with Amon because the path he chose to follow was not one he wished to walk. The monster within him was an echo of the monster his father was when he tried to take over Republic City. Yakone saw a chance for revenge through his sons, and he tainted them both by forcing them both to learn Bloodbending as a means to his own ends. On top of that, Amon was once a kindhearted kid who only wished to look out for his brother, and the abuse they went through broke him. It just makes you wonder, what would have happened if Tarrlok hadn’t killed Amon and himself. Would history have repeated itself, or could they have had a chance to start over together? We’ll never know.
#2. Luke Castellan (Percy Jackson and the Olympians) Rick Riordan will always be remembered as one of my personal favorite writers ever. I’ve been a fan of his novels since The Lightning Thief, the start of a truly enjoyable take on mythology influencing the modern world. Among the awesome dynamic characters created was Luke Castellan, son of Hermes, the Olympian god of messages, thieves, travelers, etc. Like most human children of the gods, Luke grew up without his father never in close proximity to him. This made growing up even more unbearable because of the damage inflicted upon his mother when she tried to become the new Oracle of Delphi. Because of his rage of the upcoming Great Prophecy, Hades cursed the last Oracle to speak prophecy even after death, with the curse remaining unbroken for as long as his children remained outcasts to the world of the Olympians. Not knowing this, Luke’s mother was driven insane with visions of her son’s fate, scaring Luke and prompting him to run away. As he grew older, Luke became more and more bitter toward his father for not being there when he needed him. Alas, if only that could have been done, but because of Olympian law, Hermes was to only influence Luke’s path indirectly. Luke tried to rise above his anguish by proving himself as a true hero, but without success. Worst of all, young Luke began to have dreams where he spoke with the Titan king Kronos, who promised him the chance to create a new world of his own design. Everything Kronos said to Luke got through to him and caused him to abandon the friends and allies he had made by raising an army for Kronos, personally having his body serve as the vessel for Kronos to rise from the depths of Tartarus, the deepest and most evil section of the Underworld. In doing so, Luke nearly destroyed the world as we know it, only stopped by the bond he had established with Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena, who reminded him of the good person he used to be. In doing so, Luke was able to stop Kronos at the last minute by sacrificing his own life to defeat the Titan once and for all. The moral to the sad story of Luke Castellan: no matter what, always treasure family. Never push away the ones you love and always reach out to those who truly care for you. Luke may have lost sight of this lesson for a long time, committing countless atrocities in the name of a Titan, but this was because his family was consistently out of his reach, leading him to believe he had only Kronos to turn to. But in the end, he remembered the true virtue of family and proved he was still capable of doing the right thing.
#1. Magneto (Marvel Comics) Yeah, there was no way I could make this list without including Erik Lenshir, also known as Magneto. Out of everyone here, he easily had it the worst. To say he had rough in a Nazi concentration camp would undeniably be putting it mildly. However, he was definitely put through considerably worse strain than any one of his people after his mutant powers of magnetism were unlocked. He also endured the terrible hardship of losing his parents, as they were the people he was most attached to. When he was finally free of his Nazi captors, he was forever changed, believing every human was no better than those who had oppressed him in his youth and prompting him to fight for mutant supremacy upon the world. The only thing standing in his way were the X-Men, which was formed by Professor Charles Xavier, an exceptionally powerful telepath with whom Erik had formed a strong friendship with. So yeah, how can I not sympathize with Magneto? No one, man, woman or child, should ever have to go through what he did as a child. What the Nazis did broke many people, many beyond repair, and what Erik was put through broke him in more ways than one. How can anyone not sympathize with him after all the pain and anguish he endured? Also, kudos to Ian McKellen and Michael Fassbender for portraying that pain and anguish so well.

And now to help wrap things up, a song that I feel fits for these tragic villains: Fire by Mushmellow

Description

“But, Nicky, why are you doing this?”

“Why am I doing this? Because I’m a villain. It’s pure and simple.”

-The Great Muppet Caper
Being evil for the sake of being evil is not always the best approach for having characters be a villain. It’s usually better if the villain has some kind of story to go along what led them down the dark paths they choose to follow. One form their stories could take is in the shape of a tragedy, in which we can sympathize and feel sorry for them to a certain degree. So this here is a list of my top ten favorite villains I sympathize with.
#10. Megamind (...) The title character of his own movie, it’s easy to feel bad for Megamind’s lot in life. After being sent away from his doomed planet, he wound up Earth, where he was looked after…by a group of criminals. He was eventually sent to a school to be reformed, but that didn’t exactly worked out, since he was so different, and another alien boy who had also come to Earth had become the favorite, and Megamind was the subject of constant bullying. This led him to believe that the only thing he was good at was being bad, and so he became a super villain, who got his butt served again, and again…and again by his old tormenter Metroman. But then that all changed when Metroman secretly faked his own death in the hopes of finding his true calling. Left with a rather empty villain, Megamind sought to make a new hero with DNA of Metroman’s. As one can expect, that didn’t work out as well as he had hoped, especially when this new hero Titan went rogue and became a new villain. Fortunately, with a little motivation, Megamind was able to turn it all around, get his greatest act of all together, and defeat Titan, becoming a new hero of justice for Metro City. Not a bad deal, if I do say so myself.
#9. Emerald Sustrai (RWBY) I imagine not many people will be thrilled to know that this character made my list. But in spite of all the terrible things Emerald has had a hand in, I can’t help but feel sorry for her. We still know little about her past, only that she was living on the streets and had to steal in order to survive. And then we know what happened next. One of her exploits led her to meeting Cinder Fall, who recruited her to serve in the cause of assisting Salem in her quest to conquer the World of Remnant. All because Cinder promised Emerald that she would never be hungry again. I find this to be an utterly sad turn for someone’s life to take. This is made worse by the fact that much of Emerald’s past is still a mystery, as we currently don’t know how she came to live out on the streets in the first place. Not to mention there is also the fine job of conditioning Cinder put her through to made Emerald almost insatiably dependent of her. I sympathize with Emerald because I acknowledge how far she has fallen because of mixed up she in all the atrocities Cinder has committed in Salem’s name. I still can’t forget how she commented on how sad the destruction of Beacon seemed, nor can I forget how she told Ruby that she doesn’t care about Salem at all. Were she not so dependent on Cinder for guidance, Emerald could have been so much more. Instead, her Semblance reflects the life she chose to lead. She came to the conclusion that Cinder would always have the answers, that Cinder could never fail or do wrong. And now that she has been proven wrong, although I’m not as of yet convinced that Cinder is dead, Emerald has become more damaged than ever before. I once held out hope that she could possibly turn from the dark side and be free of Cinder and Salem, but as of the end of RWBY Volume 5, that hope has been killed.
#8. Kurome (Akame ga Kill!) Everything I hear about child soldiers, both in fiction and real life, fills me with anger and sorrow at the same time, thinking of how so many children are brainwashed and conditioned to fight for terrible causes guaranteed wrought their own deaths. Akame ga Kill! Is one series to delve into such an atrocity in the form of Akame and her sister Kurome. Both girls were very little when their parents sold them both to a corrupt Empire to be trained as assassins. Among the only survivors of their initiation exam, Kurome was then separated from her sister and later experimented on to turn her into the most deadly killer she could be. It’s clear to anyone that’s watched the anime or read the manga that only the thought of seeing Akame again kept Kurome from giving into despair. To her, as long as she was with her sister, she was fine. She would even get to have her wish and later join Akame on the same squad after some of its members tragically lost their lives. However, this ray of happiness didn’t last long, as Akame was already becoming disheartened with serving the Empire and eventually deserted and joined the Revolutionary Army as part of the assassination squad Night Raid. This all but broke Kurome’s heart, as she had not only lost her sister again, but she had also felt betrayed, giving birth to the desire to one day find and kill Akame. Coming into the possession of an Imperial Arms that could allow the user to control the corpses of those it killed also did nothing to repair her damaged psyche, as Kurome became colder and crueler, taking pleasure with every kill, as it gained her more “dolls” to control. This is just one example of how depraved the Empire in Akame ga Kill! Is, shattering a bond between two sisters who love each other dearly, only to prompt a desire to end one another in battle.
#7. Syndrome (The Incredibles) A lot of us have idols we look up when we’re young, but it can be disappointing when said idols are not everything we expect them to be. That’s how it was for a young boy named Buddy Pine, who obsessively idolized the big and strong Mr. Incredible, wishing nothing more than to one day become his idol’s sidekick. Unfortunately, when he finally sought Incredible out to become just that, young Buddy was instantly crushed by Incredible’s lack of interest, finally telling the boy, “Fly home, Buddy. I work alone.” This tore Buddy apart and led him to believe you couldn’t count on anyone, especially your heroes. The saddest part about this was that Incredible never actually meant to hurt Buddy the way he did. He was just under a lot of pressure because he was running late fighting crime while trying to make it to his wedding on time. Sadly, what happened still happened, and he wouldn’t experience the full repercussion of his mistake until fifteen years later, after Buddy had made a fortune for himself, gathered up his own private army, and took up the super villain Syndrome. His new mission: rid the world of superheroes with robots of his own design until it was powerful enough to endanger an entire city, then make himself out as a hero by defeating his own creation. The thing to remember here is that sometimes the greatest demons we have to face are the ones we make ourselves, which is what Mr. Incredible learned the hard way when facing off against Syndrome.
#6. Erik "Killmonger" Stevens (Black Panther) For this entry, I’ll be referring to Killmonger as portrayed in the movie Black Panther, which currently retains its spot as my personal Phase 3 MCU movie. Ah, it’s a nice feeling to see Disney villains taken into a new layer of depth. Now before I get too deep into my thoughts on this character, I’d like to say I personally never thought the MCU had a “villain problem” like most people say. Though I will agree that the villains of the third phase have proven to be the most engaging of them all. And to me, only Thanos surpasses the quality writing that made Killmonger such an enjoyable villain. Like pretty much everyone else on this list, life sucked for Erik. As the son of an exiled prince of Wakanda, Erik was left with a rather uncertain future. Things took a dark turn for him after his uncle, King T’Chalka (I think that’s how you spell his name), killed his father and left Erik behind, alone and broken. As he grew up, Erik sought the power to take revenge on the world for destroying his already fragile home. To do that, he became an American special ops agent, rallying kill counts on the field like it was a video game. But it was always his intention to return to true home of his father: Wakanda, the most advanced nation in the world, courtesy of the large vibranium mound on its land. Until this point in Wakanda’s history, the nation had concealed how powerful it truly was from the rest of the world by making themselves out as an impoverished third-world country. And yet all this time, they had the tools to change the world for the better, or for the worst. In Killmonger’s case, he wanted to burn the world of known oppressors and successfully instigate a revolution for black people and place them on top under his rule. In short, he was as T’Challa said, a monster of Wakanda’s own making. This is what made Black Panther such a personal favorite for me, because the hero personally connects with where the villain is coming from, acknowledges the faults of the past, and strives to make a change for the better. How Killmonger chose to enact his revolution would certainly have caused the deaths of countless lives had it succeeded, but I sympathize with him because Wakanda, a great and proud nation, had the biggest hand in his descent into madness. The biggest highlight to the movie’s ending is T’Challa accepting what his father did was wrong but not choosing to define himself based on the mistakes of the past, thus in a way, ensuring that his cousin did not die in vain.
#5. Poison Ivy (DC Comics) Out of all the villains in Batman’s rogue gallery, I sympathize with Poison Ivy the most, as her actions are for the best of intentions. Once an ordinary botanist named Pamela Lillian Isley, much of her life was full of pain and anguish, having contracted a rare skin disease and enduring the loss of her mother, who was murdered by her own father. Although things started to look up for her after she graduated college and became apprenticed to Jason Woodrue of Wayne Enterprises, only to be betrayed by him, exposing her to plant toxins and poisons before leaving her for dead. Instead, it turned Pamela into a plant-human hybrid with chlorophyll for blood and venom in her lips. But this wasn’t the worst damage Woodrue inflicted upon her. What he did to her also left her with a fractured mind, turning her into a sociopath hellbent on revenging herself on those who wronged her and create a new lush green Eden. And it’s hard not to feel sorry for her, as one of her major drives is actually trying to protect the environment. Every day, more and more of the environment is destroyed, and if this keeps up, what little remains of the wild will be lost forever. What remains has to be protected, and that is what Poison Ivy tries to do, except her actions also endanger the lives of everyone around her as well, putting her at constant odds with Batman. She gets so caught up in trying to do something good, she becomes blind to the fact that she’s hurting you. Heck, she became so tired of fighting in Gotham, she tried to settle down on a desert island she could call home, only for her retirement to be cut short when a corporation decided to test a new weapon on the island, destroying it in the process. In short, Ivy may be a villain, but she is not a monster, and no matter what she does, the rug is always pulled out from under her feet.
#4. Count Dooku (Star Wars) For over a thousand years, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Unfortunately, generations passed and the Republic Senate became more and more corrupt, and yet the Jedi continued to serve the bureaucrats. This caused a feeling unrest within the Jedi master Dooku, and it angered him knowing that his fellow Jedi were not lifting so much as a finger to combat the corruption. Instead, they allowed the corruption to flow while silently waiting for a clue that would allow them to solve the mystery of their ancient enemy, the Sith. One by one, the straws piled up on Dooku’s back; something was sure to give, sooner or later. And finally the straw that broke Dooku’s resolve to remain came when his former apprentice Qui-Gon Jinn was killed at the hands of the Sith Apprentice Darth Maul while on a mission in service to the Republic. Not long after this tragic loss, Dooku left the Jedi Order and was eventually scouted out by the Sith Lord Darth Sidious, who revealed to him that he was also the Republic’s new chancellor Palpatine. It was here that the Sith offered to make Dooku his apprentice in the hopes of ending the corruption that was plaguing the galaxy. Wanting nothing more than for the Force to truly be brought back into balance, Dooku accepted and helped formed the Separatist Alliance, which was soon followed by the outbreak of the Clone Wars. As the new apprentice to the Sith Lord, Dooku went on to orchestrate one tragedy after another and proceed to set the stage for more to occur long after the war ended. I sympathize with Dooku because his drive for joining the Sith wasn’t purely for the sake of power. In spite of all the terrible things he had done, his turn to the dark side stemmed from a desire to change the galaxy for the better. I find it quite sad, how he ended up using and manipulating countless individuals to reach his goals, unaware that his master’s promises for a better world were all lies to keep Dooku compliant. All Dooku was, in the end, was a simple stand-in until Palpatine was ready to turn Anakin Skywalker to the dark side and mold him into the apprentice he was truly after. Worst of all, Dooku was never the wiser to this until seconds before he was beheaded by young Skywalker. Just like the Jedi Order, Dooku was played for a fool.
#3. Amon (Legend of Korra) One thing that Legend of Korra did better than its predecessor was create better multidimensional villains. They certainly didn’t miss the mark when they introduced Korra’s first nemesis Amon born Noatak, the son of a notorious Bloodbender named Yakone. Noatak and his brother Tarrlok had it tough ever since they first discovered they were both Waterbenders. Eventually, their father sought to teach them how to Bloodbend, the most sinister, and arguably the most powerful, form of secondary bending in the Avatarverse in the hopes of taking revenge against the Avatar. Although Noatak possessed a great affinity with the dark ability, Tarrlok suffered terrible verbal abuse from his father, deepening rage within Noatak. Eventually, he turned on his father and ran away from home, consumed by the belief that bending was the cause of all the suffering in the world. This led him to form the Equalists, its members comprising of people who couldn’t bend, with Noatak taking up the identity of Amon, a man blessed by the spirits to take away bending from the world. In reality, Amon had simply taken Bloodbending a step forward, learning how to use it to strip bending from its benders. To incense people against benders, he concocted a story of how he had lost his family to a Firebender, wearing face paint to make it appear like his face had been burned. With the Equalists at his command, Amon went on to pull a great number of terror attacks against Republic City, during which he managed to strip countless benders of their bending, including Avatar Korra. I sympathize with Amon because the path he chose to follow was not one he wished to walk. The monster within him was an echo of the monster his father was when he tried to take over Republic City. Yakone saw a chance for revenge through his sons, and he tainted them both by forcing them both to learn Bloodbending as a means to his own ends. On top of that, Amon was once a kindhearted kid who only wished to look out for his brother, and the abuse they went through broke him. It just makes you wonder, what would have happened if Tarrlok hadn’t killed Amon and himself. Would history have repeated itself, or could they have had a chance to start over together? We’ll never know.
#2. Luke Castellan (Percy Jackson and the Olympians) Rick Riordan will always be remembered as one of my personal favorite writers ever. I’ve been a fan of his novels since The Lightning Thief, the start of a truly enjoyable take on mythology influencing the modern world. Among the awesome dynamic characters created was Luke Castellan, son of Hermes, the Olympian god of messages, thieves, travelers, etc. Like most human children of the gods, Luke grew up without his father never in close proximity to him. This made growing up even more unbearable because of the damage inflicted upon his mother when she tried to become the new Oracle of Delphi. Because of his rage of the upcoming Great Prophecy, Hades cursed the last Oracle to speak prophecy even after death, with the curse remaining unbroken for as long as his children remained outcasts to the world of the Olympians. Not knowing this, Luke’s mother was driven insane with visions of her son’s fate, scaring Luke and prompting him to run away. As he grew older, Luke became more and more bitter toward his father for not being there when he needed him. Alas, if only that could have been done, but because of Olympian law, Hermes was to only influence Luke’s path indirectly. Luke tried to rise above his anguish by proving himself as a true hero, but without success. Worst of all, young Luke began to have dreams where he spoke with the Titan king Kronos, who promised him the chance to create a new world of his own design. Everything Kronos said to Luke got through to him and caused him to abandon the friends and allies he had made by raising an army for Kronos, personally having his body serve as the vessel for Kronos to rise from the depths of Tartarus, the deepest and most evil section of the Underworld. In doing so, Luke nearly destroyed the world as we know it, only stopped by the bond he had established with Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena, who reminded him of the good person he used to be. In doing so, Luke was able to stop Kronos at the last minute by sacrificing his own life to defeat the Titan once and for all. The moral to the sad story of Luke Castellan: no matter what, always treasure family. Never push away the ones you love and always reach out to those who truly care for you. Luke may have lost sight of this lesson for a long time, committing countless atrocities in the name of a Titan, but this was because his family was consistently out of his reach, leading him to believe he had only Kronos to turn to. But in the end, he remembered the true virtue of family and proved he was still capable of doing the right thing.
#1. Magneto (Marvel Comics) Yeah, there was no way I could make this list without including Erik Lenshir, also known as Magneto. Out of everyone here, he easily had it the worst. To say he had rough in a Nazi concentration camp would undeniably be putting it mildly. However, he was definitely put through considerably worse strain than any one of his people after his mutant powers of magnetism were unlocked. He also endured the terrible hardship of losing his parents, as they were the people he was most attached to. When he was finally free of his Nazi captors, he was forever changed, believing every human was no better than those who had oppressed him in his youth and prompting him to fight for mutant supremacy upon the world. The only thing standing in his way were the X-Men, which was formed by Professor Charles Xavier, an exceptionally powerful telepath with whom Erik had formed a strong friendship with. So yeah, how can I not sympathize with Magneto? No one, man, woman or child, should ever have to go through what he did as a child. What the Nazis did broke many people, many beyond repair, and what Erik was put through broke him in more ways than one. How can anyone not sympathize with him after all the pain and anguish he endured? Also, kudos to Ian McKellen and Michael Fassbender for portraying that pain and anguish so well.

And now to help wrap things up, a song that I feel fits for these tragic villains: Fire by Mushmellow