Most Sympathetic Villain and/or One You Agreed With? (Spoilers Likely)
- Thread starter Back-In-Black
- Start date
thomasmahler
Moon Studios
Wanda from Shadow of the Colossus.
If a huge Colossus attacks me as soon as I get close to them, I'd also stab them where it hurts.
If a huge Colossus attacks me as soon as I get close to them, I'd also stab them where it hurts.
The Infamous series has its own Magneto
John White aka The Beast
in Infamous 2's red ending, Cole absorbs him and becomes the leader of the Conduit species
Talking about Infamous, Kessler had a hard life
Back-In-Black
Banned
I didn't choose her because I don't think she classifies as a villain, she's an antagonist, but the ending twist reveals she was working for the U.S. all along. Thus, she can't really be a villain the twist is that she was always the "good guy."
Sumio Mondo
Member
Most villains in Nier like Shadowlord, Roc, P-33 & Kalil, Number 6 etc etc. The Shades in general really. They all had it really rough.
Also, Metal Gear is full of them - Gray Fox, Big Boss, Solidus Snake, The Boss, Psycho Mantis etc.
Also felt that most of the antagonists in Tactics Ogre were doing horrible things for the right reasons sometimes like Lancelot (
).
Also, Metal Gear is full of them - Gray Fox, Big Boss, Solidus Snake, The Boss, Psycho Mantis etc.
Also felt that most of the antagonists in Tactics Ogre were doing horrible things for the right reasons sometimes like Lancelot (
I played Knight of Lodis prior to this game
Kessler also inadvertently helped cause part of the problem he was trying to avoid.
TheSpoiler
Member
Kidding.
There are people who seriously believe this though.
There are people who seriously believe this though.
Spoilers for Ace Attorney Investigations 2.
My personal favorite sympathetic villain was Simon Keyes from AAI2. For most of the game he seems like one of those relatively unimportant side characters that Ace Attorney has every once in a while until you find out he was actually the mastermind of the whole game.
What makes him work as a sympathetic villain is that before you even know who he is you're learning bits and pieces of his backstory, whether you realize it or not starting from case 3. You learn that the sons' of Gustavia and Dover disappeared on the same day of Dover's murder and later find out Dover had his son kidnap Gustavia's son. Later on in case 5 you learn the son witnessed the presidential assassination from 12 years ago and saved the assassin who saved him and Dover's son from dying in a blizzard, but that gained him the heat of Patricia and Blaise and they heavily interrogated him for days. It also helps that Simon's reasons for not going to the police at anytime and resorting to revenge are completely legitimized as you got to know Blaise and Patricia, they'd have destroyed any and all evidence and either decredit Simon or make him "disappear". Made even worse that a Body Double swapped places with the president of Zheng Fa so from a young age he was against an entire countries president. Now that's scary at 12 years old.
I also love him as a villain because he's intrinsically tied to the main character, Edgeworth, and his backstory. What makes it work is that when it's all said and done Edgeworth realizes that Simon could have been helped if a trusted prosecutor could have been on Simon's side, which helps him make his final choice at the end of the game. I like it when villains are the other end of the coin to the hero and help them grow and realize something which makes Simon important to the overall story of the series. Anyway that's my choice
CrispyBoar
Banned
Princess Hilda from The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds.
Are you kidding me? He did some bad shit such as kidnapping most girls just to find out who Zelda's descendant was. Not only that, let the children that he kidnapped to be fed to the birds/vultures.
Are you kidding me? He did some bad shit such as kidnapping most girls just to find out who Zelda's descendant was. Not only that, let the children that he kidnapped to be fed to the birds/vultures.
poodaddy
Member
We can be friends. I want my wife to play this game so badly just so she can stop thinking Magus is a pointlessly grimdark edgelord character with no depth or characterization. He is literally the hero of the game in my eyes; he was willing to do whatever it took for the person he loved and as such I can empathize with him so much more than most JRPG villians. Such a bummer that they didn't end up using him as a character in Chrono Chross like they intended to at first. He would of been a wonderful link between the two games. Chross was still a great game though, just felt a bit too disconnected from Trigger to me I suppose.
Square what in the fuck man, why aren't you utilizing this IP more?!?
What's great about that game (terrible gameplay aside!) is that all the principal characters were pretty sympathetic. Iorveth is fighting against anti-human bigotry and you can create a city where all kinds are accepted
until that gets nuked in the third game, oh well.
XxSlasherMcGirkxX
Member
If you ignore that he started a war that has killed many people and used the mystic race for his own personal goals and desires and betrays his loyal followers only to lead to their destruction I guess.
Weltall Zero
Member
That's precisely how indoctrination works, as described by the in-game encyclopedia, and why it's so powerful. It's not your garden variety, straight mind control where the victim is a puppet or vessel for the Reapers' will. Rather, like the name suggests, their own system of beliefs and ideals are slowly but permanently replaced to align with the Reapers', while leaving everything else intact. It's frankly horrifying if you think about it; you are still you, anyone you know and love won't be able to tell the difference: you simply now work for the people-liquefying, galaxy-eating monsters.
You just contradicted yourself. If "you can't blame all the shit he does on indoctrination", as you say, you are implying he was willfully going along with the Reapers out of his own will. How does that mesh with the fact that the second he manages to wrestle control back, he sacrifices himself immediately to prevent further damage?
If you're going with a Xenogears character, Kahran Ramsus seems like a more apt pick, even if it may be arguable that he qualifies as a villain at all (but then, so does Krellian). Artificially created for a role, one he becomes obsolete for at age 10 when Fei turns up, played like a puppet or treated like shit (and frequently both) by virtually every character in the game, suffers from PTSD after watching an entire village slaughtered, and so on and so forth. The guy is just a punching bag and it's hardly any surprise he becomes obsessed with defeating Fei; hell, it's surprising he doesn't crack up more. Uncharacteristically, he manages to be redeemed without dying by the end, making his role as villain even more dubious.
Septimus Prime
Member
Only had had the Guts to follow through on his vision.
Kidding.
There are people who seriously believe this though.
TC McQueen
Member
Jacob Hargreave from Crysis 2 was pretty sympathetic because he spent over a century preparing for the arrival of the Ceph and had a plan to stop them, but it involved killing the guy in the Nanosuit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AjKnWhC3CQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AjKnWhC3CQ
Yabberwocky
Member
I think Dragon Age as a franchise is extremely good at this, with Loghain in particular. He's definitely one of my favorite antagonists in gaming, and made a lot of depressingly sensible decisions to try to save Ferelden. (He also made one or two stupid decisions, too, bless.) DA2's antagonist is a YMMV situation with
, and DA:I's ultimate big bad in
. I can justify Loghain's decisions where I can't really the spoiler characters, but the three of them are all fantastically compelling characters with sympathetic motivations.
Wind Waker's Ganondorf is another huge favorite. That speech-!
Nier's Shadowlord is just, ow, my heart.
Anders
Solas
Wind Waker's Ganondorf is another huge favorite. That speech-!
Nier's Shadowlord is just, ow, my heart.
Suburban Thug
Member
Can we please get answers that aren't just character names? Not everybody knows what you are referring to and that is lazy posting. Good thread OP, having a lot of fun in here.
CertifiedFP
Member
Uh... Hate to break it to you but...
For all intents and matters, Putin, Russia, and whatever the fuck the gang of deplorables known as the KGB is called now are on the The Patriots side of the scrimmage line as far as recent events go. If you've not figured it out yet, they've been doing a fuckton of "Creating Context" in the past few years.
Back-In-Black
Banned
Except the Patriots were looking out for humanity's best interests, so they said, not Russia's.
royox
Member
But he was indoctrinated to believe what he said. The second Shepard managed to reach the real him he
killed himself because he could see how wrong he was
Iva Demilcol
Member
You're ignoring that the current state of both worlds are directly the result of Lord Gwyn and King Allant's actions.
Boletería wouldn't be in that decaying state if King Allant hadn't awoken the Old One, and in the case of Lordran, Gwyn wanted his family to remain in power so bad that he sacrificed himself so the status quo of the world didn't change, in fact, the world didn't move forward for thousands of years because of him.
Genso Suikoden I
Emperor Barbarossa turned a blind eye for the love of a witch that was destroying Toran Republic.
Genso Suikoden II
Jowy wanted freedom from Highland army the different way.
Genso Suikoden III
Luc and Sara. Already mentioned.
Genso Suikoden V
Sialeeds and Marscal Godwin. It's the usual politics but both factions loved Falena. They just had different opinions on how to actually make the country stronger, and prosper.
Final Fantasy XV
Ardyn Izunia. First of his name. Taken away from his game. Rejected by the light, he now shuns the bright.
Persona 4
Tohry Adachi.
"There's only one thing that's going to set you apart and let you succeed in life: it's the magic ticket they call 'talent'. And if you don't have it, then you're left to rot in despair. Game over. So wouldn't we better off without this reality crap? Someday, you'll all understand what I'm saying. No matter what you try and do, reality sucks. And I, for one, am sick of it."
Persona 5
But the game is not yet in the west. So, I'll mention nothing.
The King of Fighters
Ash Crimson.
Tales of Phantasia
Dhaos. The poor guy just wanted to keep his friends alive.
Tales of Berseria
Velvet Crowe
Tales of Zestiria
Heldalf.
Emperor Barbarossa turned a blind eye for the love of a witch that was destroying Toran Republic.
Genso Suikoden II
Jowy wanted freedom from Highland army the different way.
Genso Suikoden III
Luc and Sara. Already mentioned.
Genso Suikoden V
Sialeeds and Marscal Godwin. It's the usual politics but both factions loved Falena. They just had different opinions on how to actually make the country stronger, and prosper.
Final Fantasy XV
Ardyn Izunia. First of his name. Taken away from his game. Rejected by the light, he now shuns the bright.
Persona 4
Tohry Adachi.
"There's only one thing that's going to set you apart and let you succeed in life: it's the magic ticket they call 'talent'. And if you don't have it, then you're left to rot in despair. Game over. So wouldn't we better off without this reality crap? Someday, you'll all understand what I'm saying. No matter what you try and do, reality sucks. And I, for one, am sick of it."
Persona 5
Goro Akechi and Sae Nijima
The King of Fighters
Ash Crimson.
Tales of Phantasia
Dhaos. The poor guy just wanted to keep his friends alive.
Tales of Berseria
Velvet Crowe
Yes, you're the villain here not Artorius. Well, sort of. Haha
Tales of Zestiria
Heldalf.
Poor guy was cursed by the then shepherd to be immortal.
CertifiedFP
Member
*Looks at MGS4's war economy*
You're right. 110% acting in humanity's best interests.
The Silver
Member
Zeus was completely in the right, Kratos was a murderous maniac that had to be stopped, he was worse than Ares.
Death Penalty
Member
Vayne Solidor had a much nobler cause than Ashe in FFXII.
I disagree about Ardyn on Final Fantasy XV
He has good reasons to fight against
, but he end up
This one is a good one
And in the DS remake
He has good reasons to fight against
the gods
fucking all the planet
This one is a good one
And in the DS remake
he even isn't the true main vilain, Aamon is
DirgeExtinction
Member
This is my answer.
Yes. After that shitshow in 2016, power has to be seized by yourself.
To be fair, Zeus probably should have just obliterated Kratos at the end of the first game at Kratos' own request.
Astral Dog
Member
King Bowser wanted to find a girlfriend
His ultimate intentions were noble, even if his actions were horribly unjustified.
Eh, I disagree. He was just a jerk that did what he felt like. From what little we see of him during the game, it appears his philosophy of freedom and self-determination is simply justification for what he should be able to do whatever he wants,
such as murdering innocent children because they're of no use to him.
Yes, it starts to take over, but Saren was a character of extreme views and methods way before his indoctrination. We know that from others
I didn't contradict myself. I'm not "implying" he was willfully going along with, I'm outright saying it. To some degree he also saw it as a way to gain power for himself, and his actions around the Krogan and Rachni are a bit unforgivable. That along with several conversations where he even tries to entice Shepard to join him as an enforcer, a chosen puppet at the expense of billions, to help with the destruction of those who would stand againsy it, with the selfish belief that he particularly could be spared in exchange for obedience. He's very similar to Saruman in that regard, not by accident I imagine.
And he didn't sacrifice himself immediately after shaking the effects off, you've had many conversations with him under similar circumstances. It actually took a good amount of convincing from Shepard and a total realization of what he had become (he was physically altered by Sovereign) and that there was no going back for him. That's why I said that maybe in the end there's an element of pity towards him. I would only consider him a sympathetic figure if, for example, you had learned throughout the game of him making attempts to stop, warn, or build failsafes against the invaders during some of his moments of doubt, but he faltered when he realized instead destruction was inevitable and decided to take advantage instead. You would say pragmatic and opportunistic perhaps, but not something I would ever sympayhize with when his motivation and actions were so selfish. Wanting to "save everyone from extinction" is an aftetrthought at best, and I'm not really convinced it was a true motive to begin with.
The Hermit
Member
His ultimate intentions were noble, even if his actions were horribly unjustified.
make america great again, mirite
Wolfgang Jr
Banned
Mr. Runch from M&M's Break'Em - "Mr. Runch, a rotten and dangerous peanut, fiercely determined on being one of the M&Ms. He escaped the reject bin where he was discarded and he's on the loose in the Galaxy, where he is trying to kidnap and trap all of the M&M's into crystals until he can get what he wants: the chance to become a real M&M's candy."
Back-In-Black
Banned
Well, in this hypothetical I would assume that we would be intentionally ignoring MGS4 since the game itself tries to ignore MGS2. Plus, who knows how our virus in MGS2 screwed over the Patriot AI leading to the "war economy."