"When a TV show makes you feel sorry for potential child rapists, you know it's doing something wrong."
A case of Misaimed Fandom. When a character is Unintentionally Sympathetic, it means they get a lot more sympathy from the audience than the writers were expecting. But unlike Draco in Leather Pants, this isn't a case of audience members downplaying their flaws because they think the character is sexy, cool, or funny. Rather, something about the narrative itself — the character's motivations, their actions, the others' response to said actions, the framing of the scenario, etc. — does the job for them. On the low end, you have characters the audience still acknowledges is in the wrong, but think the punishment they received outweighs whatever the wrongdoing was. On the high end, not only is the audience wholeheartedly on the side of the wrongdoer, but they've now started hating the "heroes" instead for punishing or opposing the character when said character is either harmless, not at fault for the actual problem, or completely justified in their actions. Plus they donate to charities and help out the community, so where's the part we're supposed to hate?
Possible reasons for unintentional sympathy include:
- Cry for the Devil or Alas, Poor Villain is in play, but the author succeeds too well.
- The supposed hero is a dick or/and a Jerkass.
- The character may not seem that villainous if you think about it, and the author may not have.
- Alternatively, they are villainous, but they're so bad at it that you can't help but feel sorry for them.
- Or, whatever villainy they are supposedly guilty of is either an Informed Flaw or part of a Noodle Incident / Riddle for the Ages that is never really explained to the audience. So the audience might end up giving the villain the benefit of the doubt because they aren't given a real reason to hate and/or root against them.
- The character is The Resenter, and his reasons for his resentment seem perfectly justified. Ditto for situations where The Complainer Is Always Wrong, but they're actually not if you think about it.
- The character wasn't fully in control of their heinous actions, be it through brainwashing, The Corruption, or whatever. Or, alternatively, the character might have been Trapped in Villainy by a more evil character who is either blackmailing/extorting them and/or threatening to kill their loved ones.
- The character gets their Laser-Guided Karma, but their actions weren't as bad as the story makes them out to be, so the "karma" feels a bit extreme. Thus, the story's attempts to paint them as an Asshole Victim fall short, especially if Blaming the Victim is in play somehow.
- The reasons you must hate the character carry Unfortunate Implications.
- The character may be a villain in their own right, but they've killed off and/or punished a character who is even more despicable or that the audience hates even more (i.e. a Hate Sink, The Scrappy, a Jerkass, a Complete Monster, or a Creator's Pet, to name a few). Bonus sympathy points if they actually have a moral compass or some principles compared to their victim.
- Values Dissonance: Ideals that are unacceptable at one time or place are more acceptable at another.
- The character has some objectively good points (for which their "crimes" may seem minor compared), but neither the story nor the heroes really seem to consider them.
- A villain/jerk character who at least admits that they've done bad things and shows some genuine remorse over them might be sympathetic to the audience (depending on how bad they were). Especially if they try to change for the better and try to make amends for their actions. And this is also especially true if the so-called "heroes" and/or "victims" are worse by comparison and don't show such morality.
- The character is an Anti-Villain but for one reason or another the work treats them as a straight villain (this is more common in adaptations and Fan-Fics, but not exclusive to them).
- The protagonist is a Villain Protagonist and thus the "antagonists" are actually the kind of people you want to "win".
- A character is vilified for not believing a Cassandra Truth, but The Cassandra did not make a good case as to why they should be believed or even provide any proof to back up a claim that sounds outrageous.
- While many a Propaganda Piece will try to make the villain as unlikable and flawed as possible, others curiously make the villain an otherwise good person who doesn't conform to the author's beliefs. This is probably intended to show "Xism alone can make somebody evil" but often backfires spectacularly, especially if the character in question doesn't actually do anything with these beliefs.
- The Non-Malicious Monster was just about to get the hug they needed to stop their rampage or even turn face, but then some idiot pressed shoot.
- The character is finally having their big moment after being put through so much abuse.
- More screentime is spent showing the character suffering the consequences of their actions than what they did to deserve their consequences, making it feel more like a Sadist Show.
- The story went through a rewrite (possibly with a different author at the helm this time) and was originally going to be more nuanced if not straight Grey-and-Grey Morality. This can result in a lot of the above situations if the villain's original redeeming points don't get removed, reworked, or acknowledged.
- A fantastic element that makes a viewpoint that's widely considered reprehensible in real life far more valid in-universe. A common example is a character who is meant to come off as bigoted for not trusting a race with supernatural powers, or even a verifiable natural inclination to harm people.
- Inversely, a viewpoint presented as wrong can be seen as far more valid without the fantastic elements. Doubly so if there is a masquerade going on and the character isn't fully aware of the implications of their actions.
- The characters in question are Mooks or Bit-Part Bad Guys, but they're not particularly evil or are just simply doing their jobs. But then the so-called "hero" kills them in a particularly gruesome and horrifying manner. This is especially true for Slave Mooks who are forced to serve a villain against their will but get brutally slaughtered anyway.
- A Freudian Excuse portrayed as insufficient has more ground to stand on than the story or characters claim.
- In a story with An Aesop about how greed is wrong, the character who's meant to be greedy isn't seen behaving in a particularly greedy way, and so they come across more as being vilified simply for trying to make money at all. This is especially if the character is trying to make money just to cover their basic needs for survival but they are portrayed as greedy instead.
- Can be the result of a Fleeting Demographic and Character Perception Evolution. An adult character who might have been unsympathetic to a child audience might be sympathetic to an audience that grows up and now actually relates to the same hardships and responsibilities as the adult character in question.
- The character in question is a child who does not know better. While there are rare exceptions where a child character can cross the Moral Event Horizon, subjecting them to punishments, and/or painting them as the villain, for relatively mild or even typical childhood misbehaviors can come across as needlessly harsh and cruel to the audience.
- The character has a mental illness that needs treatment rather than punishment. Alternatively, they weren't written as having a mental illness, but their behaviour lines up with one, so the viewers read them as having one. This can overlap with some of the other reasons, if the character is both mentally ill (or could be interpreted as such) and a villain's underling, a child, etc.
- The character behaves that way because it's intrinsic to their species, such as when the antagonist of a Road Runner vs. Coyote cartoon is meant to be a case of Predators Are Mean. Usually, the audiences don't want the antagonist to eat the protagonist (though they might if the protagonist is a Designated Hero) but it's common for them to want the antagonist to simply find something else to eat instead of going hungry.
- The author themself is morally reprehensible and holds viewpoints that most people would consider to be closer to a villain than a hero, so the work is presented through their deeply skewed perspective.
Remember that different people have different standards, and the author can't necessarily account for every audience member's reaction: some people are going to sympathize with the villain no matter how unspeakably vile you try to make them. In adaptations, especially ones made long after the source material, it's not uncommon to see these characters re-interpreted as outright Tragic Villains. It is also worth noting that the un part of the title is important here. Characters only belong on these lists if they were intended for the audience not to like them. If it is intended for the villain to be sympathetic, you have Cry for the Devil.
Compare with Strawman Has a Point, where a character who is intended to be unsympathetic makes a point that's better than the author's own, and who doesn't necessarily become more sympathetic in the process (although the two may overlap); Karmic Overkill, when audiences feel they deserved punishment but what the narrative treated as fair was excessive; Jerkass Woobie, for characters who were supposed to be seen primarily as Jerkasses but are instead more seen as Woobies by many fans; and Unpopular Popular Character, where a character isn't liked in-universe, but has plenty of fans in the real world. Contrast with its inversion, Unintentionally Unsympathetic, although both are very likely to occur together. For example, if a character is written to be cheered by the viewers but fails to do so, the character who's meant to be unfavored for opposing them tends to be Unintentionally Sympathetic. Both tropes, particularly together, often result in an Allegedly Optimistic Ending.
On the Sliding Scale of Character Appreciation, these guys fall under "Villains we sympathize with"
Not to be confused with Rooting for the Empire, which is about liking characters in spite of the fact that they're explicitly bad guys, although they can overlap. Contrast Right for the Wrong Reasons, for when someone is intended to be in the right for different reasons than argued.
A No Recent Examples rule applies to this trope. Examples shouldn't be added until 2 weeks have passed since a standalone work's release, or 2 weeks after a new episode was released for episodic works. This is to prevent kneejerk reactions and allow for opinions to stabilize.
Examples:
- Advertising
- Anime & Manga
- Comic Books
- Fan Works
- Films — Animation
- Films — Live-Action
- Literature
- Live-Action TV
- Professional Wrestling
- Video Games
- Web Animation
- Webcomics
- Web Original
- Western Animation
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Manhwa
- The Remarried Empress: In a story of an adulterer betraying his wife, Rashta gets a lot of hate from fans for being his mistress. But others are quick to point out her circumstances that lead to this situation. Being a slave since childhood solely because of her father’s actions, a system our wonderful lead characters will support with no issue, Rashta worked for an abusive family. At one point she falls in “love” with one of her employers and becomes pregnant, only for her lover to abandon her and then his father tricked her into thinking her baby was dead and she was forced to hold onto a baby’s corpse! These fans are also quick to point out that she has no power to deny Sovieshu’s advances. She either becomes his concubine or goes back to her traumatizing life as a slave. And what happens to her in the end? Rashta gets one of the worst fates of the antagonists.
Music
- "På låven sitter nissen" is a Norwegian Christmas Song about a nisse who angrily refuses to share his porridge with the rats in the barn, and sics the cat on them when they keep trying to get some. It's not uncommon that people feel sorry for the rats, who just wanted to enjoy a little porridge. It helps that the song presumably takes place near Christmas, so you'd most likely expect to see some generosity.
- There have in fact been several parodies and "unofficial" sequels where the nisse either gets his comeuppance for his selfishness (he ends up getting a stomachache because he ate too much) or feels bad about his behavior and makes sure to give the rats some food. The most popular one is probably the Danish song "Søren Banjomus" (sung to the tune of the song "Skidamarink"), in which the rats (in this song presented as mice) wait until the nisse and the cat have fallen asleep and then raid the pantry.
- "Sk8er Boi" by Avril Lavigne: The ballet dancer is portrated as snobby for rejecting the titular skater boy and her ending as a single mother of a baby while he's thriving as a pop star and in a relationship with the narrator is supposed to be her comeuppance. However the lyrics earlier stated that she liked him back "But all of her friends Stuck up their nose They had a problem with his baggy clothes". It's not difficult to interpret her being pressured into rejecting him and not wanting to lose her friends over a boy.
- "Before He Cheats" by Carrie Underwood tells the story about her or her self-insert taking revenge by destroying her boyfriend's truck after he cheats on her...yet, when you look at the lyrics, its clear she has no hard evidence ("Right now, he's probably..." Is a common line starter) and comes off like she's acting violently on her own fear and paranoia while destroying a truck her boyfriend clearly has a fondness for.
- Chante Moore's friend in her song "Chante's Got A Man." While Chante was correct to call out her friend for generalizing all men, it seems like Chante is punching down on her friend and invalidating her bad experiences with men just because she (Chante) has a good man. The friend isn't in the wrong for her feelings and it would feel condescending if a friend talked down on you like this.
- "Jolene" by Dolly Parton. It's implied that Jolene is this man-stealing Jezebel with her eyes on the narrator's husband, yet there's no indication that Jolene even wants him or that she's done anything except exist while being beautiful. Even the husband merely finds her attractive with no indication that he plans on actually making a move on her (and even if he did, he should be the one held accountable).
Mythology & Religion
- Plenty in The Bible, due to Values Dissonance.
- Ishmael and his mother Hagar are treated badly by Sarah because Ishmael is Abraham's bastard son, despite his conception having been Sarah's idea in the first place, and because Hagar rubbed her pregnancy in Sarah's face. Because their presence caused tension in the community, they are forced to leave. Fortunately, they are not forsaken by everyone, and God helps them both survive in the wilderness.
- Leah, Rachel's older sister, is forced to marry a man she knows does not love her (her father tricked Jacob into marrying her instead of Rachel, who Jacob really loved, because of a custom that the oldest daughter must be married first) and is forever The Un-Favourite, despite giving Jacob six sons and one daughter as opposed to Rachel's two (the other four sons were the children of Leah and Rachel's handmaids). None of this is her fault, and she can come across very sympathetically to modern audiences. Though, to be fair, God also sympathized with her and made sure she had kids while Rachel was barren to try to get Jacob to treat her better. Not only that, but two of her sons were Judah and Levi—the fathers of the Royal and Priestly tribes, respectively.
- Famously, Judas Iscariot given how he almost immediately regretted his betrayal of Jesus to the point of hanging himself which the narrative plays as a shameful end rather than an Alas, Poor Villain. It doesn't help that his betrayal was part of God's plan of salvation, that the Gospel of John has Jesus telling him "What you are about to do, do quickly" or that the Gospel of Luke implies that he was possessed by the Devil yet verses like Mark 14:21 still imply that he went to Hell after his death.
- For that matter, in modern religions, there are people with genuine (and sometimes literal) Sympathy for the Devil. This may actually have some roots in earlier mythologies. In Classical Mythology, Prometheus was a hero who challenged the gods and stole fire (forbidden knowledge) for humanity and in effect allowed humanity to progress beyond what the gods would have us do. As a result, Prometheus was punished by the gods for all eternity. Many parallels exist in the story of the devil, but with the obvious exception that he's not supposed to be viewed as the hero.
- Hell, there's an entire sub set of Christianity that operates on this belief referred to as Gnosticism, that believes that there are in fact two gods, the evil Demiurge that created the world and the true god Aeon that blessed man with knowledge of right and wrong with the serpent as his avatar.
- Doesn't really help that, depending on which of the Abrahamic Religions you believe in, The Devil's role can change entirely and the context for why he's doing things changes along with it. For example, Muslims seem to lean towards him being DELIBERATELY placed in his position and is actually a loyal servant (in that his job is to tempt humans and punish the wicked, and he obeys this, and thus is obeying the laws set down by God), and the Bible is full of parts where the Jews themselves had BAD short-term attention spans when it came down to worshipping God - despite everything - and would often go off and worship some other pagan deity instead, the most infamous case of this being Moses (he was only gone for A SINGLE DAY on the mountain before the rampant paganism over the golden bull started spreading).
- Regardless of the form of Satanism, in Satanism Satan is seen as the original free thinker, and thus respected and sometimes revered by Satanists as the conceptual idea of rebellion, disobedience and free-thinking. Some forms of Satanism believe in a literal Satan, and take the viewpoint that Satan is a Hero with Bad Publicity fighting against the demands of a cruel, selfish and egotistical God thanks to Yahweh's control of the narrative and the fact that The Bible really doesn't refute these views of Yahweh. Alternatively, atheistic Satanists don't believe in a literal Satan (because that inherently would require a God), but take on the moniker and honor the conceptual Satan as the metaphorical spirit of rebellion and free-thinking and take the term Satanist either out of this honor, because they subscribe to the philosophies of a Satanic "faith" or just to troll those they see as enemies of these ideals. This philosophy's most public appearance can be seen in the activism of the Satanic Temple, who promote liberty, tolerance and rationalism above all else (which has led to everything from demanding Baphomet statues when courts erect the Ten Commandments under freedom of religion laws, fundraising for scientific activism, a Toys for Tots type program, to helping out in free speech lawsuits and doing a "Pink Mass" over the then-leader of the Westboro Baptist Church Fred Phelps's mother's grave to turn her gay in the afterlife because Phelps made it clear that he subscribed to a Clap Your Hands If You Believe mindset). The now all but defunct Church of Satan (the classic Satanism from the 1960s founded by Anton LaVey and originally espoused in The Satanic Bible) promoted an ideology very similar to Libertarianism, with self-interest being the number one ideal, but generally had more restrictions on the behavior that was acceptable in the name of this.
- Arthurian Legends
- Later Greek writers had a similar reaction to Prometheus, seeing him as much more heroic than the original tellers intended. Thus in later versions of the tale he's eventually rescued from his torment by Heracles, and Athens even had a shrine to him.
- Modern audiences usually view most of the gods of Classical Mythology as Jerkass Gods. Both of the gods often viewed as sympathetic by modern audiences, namely Hades and Hephaestus, were The Scrappy to the Ancient Greeks. Hades was so hated and feared that there were no temples officially named for him, Greeks would avoid speaking his name, and they'd turn away if they ever had to make offerings towards him. Why? Because he's the ruler of the underworld, the place where the dead go, and the Greeks didn't like dying. Hephaestus was hated simply because... he was an ugly cripple (the Greeks were big believers in Beauty Equals Goodness). Poor guy.
- Not limited to modern times: Ares was originally one of three gods of war, the others being his sisters Enyo (who rarely got a big role) and Athena (who was the goddess of war strategy in particular). Of the two more well-known gods, Athena was the skilled general and protector, and Ares was a slavering bloodthirsty madman that just wanted to see the world burn... and he usually lost when the two came into conflict.* In fact, he usually lost in basically any interaction with any other god, and occasionally with mortals. However, the Romans later came to identify Ares with their own god Mars who had both aspects in his portfolio, along with being the protector of soldiers, farmers, and Rome itself (among many other things). This caused them to see the character in a much more positive light.
- The part where Zhu Bajie is recruited to join the pilgrims in the Journey to the West can be uncomfortable to modern and/or Western audiences, because the crux of the incident is Sun Wukong being hired by Zhu Bajie's father-in-law to drive him away or kill him because "it's undignified to have a monster for a son-in-law". Even though, as the man admits, Zhu Bajie's superhuman strength and stamina has only made the farm prosper, as the disgraced spirit can do the work of dozens of men at a time. The worst that can be said of Zhu Bajie's behavior is that he will not let his wife speak to her parents, and even that could be cast as him punishing them for their Fantastic Racism. Because Xuanzang agrees with the man, Son Wukong promptly beats Zhu Bajie to a pulp and would have killed him had Zhu Bajie not revealed he was one of the redeemed monsters that Xuanzang was supposed to take with him on the pilgrimage for protection. It's telling that many adaptations try to make Zhu Bajie less sympathetic; Monkey portrays him as becoming a drunken wastrel after his marriage and this is why his in-laws want him gone, whilst his counterpart in the early arcs of Dragon Ball Oolong is a pervert and thief who was introduced abusing his shapechanging powers to bully innocent villagers.
- Native American Mythology: Herešgúnina, the sun god in Ho-Chunk mythology is supposed to be an evil being who creates awful beings like dangerous animals and his fate of being decapitated and turned into the sun is deserved. However, the main reason he's like this is his creator gave him malformed legs that the creator never bothered to fix, which makes his resentfulness seem pretty reasonable. There's also some Values Dissonance at play: all of the bad things he made, like grizzly bears, venomous snakes, and weeds and poisonous plants are considered bad is because they don't benefit humanity, when all of them are important coponents of the greater ecosystem, making his creations anthropocentric at best.
- Timun Mas: Buto Ijo is supposed to be an evil giant, but he never pressures nor blackmails Mbok Srini into accepting his deal about having a child. He already lays down the condition well enough without any ambiguity: grow the magical cucumber and then raise the child (Timun Mas) whom was born from the cucumber, then give that child to him to be eaten when they grew into a teenager. The story also never mentions if Buto Ijo has any nefarious reasons besides following his own nature to eat people. Mbok Srini intentionally broke the promise she made in her own impulsiveness ends up accidentally giving sympathy points for Buto Ijo.
Newspaper Comics
- Big Nate:
- Mrs. Godfrey is depicted as an often Sadist Teacher who often targets and is harsh with Nate, but Nate often does things that would seem just as bad to her when looked at from her perspective, such as drawing mean cartoons and blatantly disrespecting her in front of class.
- Big Nate himself as the strips are meant to show him as a jerk who deserves everything bad that comes to him, but the comics end up presenting it as a Kafka Komedy with Nate continuously being manhandled by Kim with her suffering no consequences, his friends being toxic and no better than his enemies, and even random background characters beating on Nate for petty reasons.
- Calvin and Hobbes: Calvin can fall into this.
- Calvin is meant to be a Bratty Half-Pint, but the things that his Unintentionally Unsympathetic parents, Hobbes, and Susie can sometimes do in retaliation tend to be rather nasty as well, and sometimes he doesn't even do anything wrong but still gets screwed over. For example, one storyline has him asking Hobbes to tie him to a chair so that he can escape, dubbing himself "the Great Calvini". And then his mom calls him down for dinner. Calvin finds himself unable to escape, and Hobbes is no help at all, then proceeds to just stand there reading Calvin's cub scout manual and taking his sweet time while Calvin begs him to find the part about knots and untie him. As if that wasn't enough, Hobbes acts as though he's not at fault in the slightest. Eventually, Calvin's dad walks in and sees Calvin tied up, and berates him for somehow getting himself tied to a chair (granted, Hobbes' Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane nature means Calvin's dad has no reason to think that the stuffed animal did it, but still). The storyline ends with Hobbes mocking Calvin as the boy angrily rubs his sore rear end, the implication apparently being that his father spanked him. It's really hard to blame Calvin for being ticked off.
- Ms. Wormwood's curriculum for her first grade class has been shown to include subjects such as high school level algebra and Russian history, which makes Calvin's poor grades and classroom behavior more understandable.
- His general distaste of school is understandable when one considers that he's repeatedly bullied by students and even the faculty (and only once is anything done about it by an adult). A few pieces of commentary even say, "If he thinks school sucks, imagine what his first job will be like." - yet Calvin's six.
- Most strips where Calvin makes snowmen center around how embarrassed and disturbed his parents are about how horrifying the snowmen look. Save for the snow goons (which his parents never see in action) and the odd instances of snowmen blocking the driveway when his dad has to go to work, Calvin's snowmen aren't actually hurting anyone and represent a lot of creativity, planning and hard work on his part, e.g. building a huge snow head just beyond a hilltop so it looks like a giant is peeking over it.
- Therese, Anthony's ex-wife in For Better or for Worse, is portrayed as being a needlessly vindictive harpy toward Liz, openly expressing discomfort whenever Anthony even tries to speak to her for a few minutes. Her rudeness seems bad, except... well, it's obvious to anyone reading between the lines that there's still latent attraction between the two, which is confirmed when Anthony asks Liz to "wait for him" when the marriage seems to be going south. Unusual among examples in that Lynn Johnston later devotes a few weeks to strips explicitly making her sympathetic — it's in these that we find out that Anthony and her parents pressured her into having a child when she really didn't want one, and that she had suffered from post-partum depression after the birth.
- Note that the above was revealed by Anthony while begging Liz to wait for him — he even explains that he made false promises to Therese so she'd have his child, assuming having a baby would make her fall into line. He thinks this makes him more sympathetic.
- As The Un-Favourite, April also falls into this. Supposedly a rebellious teen, she constantly gets the short end of the stick and is supposed to be grateful for it. One week-long arc involves April not immediately going downstairs when Elly announces that dinner is ready. Is she playing video games or chatting with her friends? Looking at Internet porn? Shooting heroin? Nope - she's finishing her homework. Elly reacts like this is the end of the world and sends John to loom threateningly over April until she comes down and apologizes.
- After her grandfather was committed to a nursing home, April was the only member of her immediate family to make any effort to visit him on a regular basis. Her parents and older siblings were regularly shown griping about these visits, as she was the only one without a driver's license and they disliked having to drop her off and pick her up. As far as the rest of the Pattersons were concerned, he effectively didn't exist... right up until they found his late wife's wedding dress in a crawlspace and became obsessed with the notion of Elizabeth wearing it to her wedding.
- April's friend, Becky. While Becky is far from perfect, it's hard to deny that this poor girl went through a lot. Her father is a Stage Dad who emotionally abuses her. Her parents had a pretty bitter divorce and said to her face that they only stayed together for her. She dates an older boy and is slut-shamed for it. On top of that, April and many others are also rather fair-weather towards her.
- Cobra in Rip Haywire. It's highly likely the only reason she's evil is because people hate her and mistreat her. It's possible that she wouldn't be so bad if she was treated with more respect.
Radio
- In The Men from the Ministry, the General Assistance Department's boss Sir Gregory is a Bad Boss to the core, being a mean and unnecessarily cruel as well as occasionally violent towards his underlings. However the General Assistance Department is also the most incompetent office in the whole of Whitehall, so his anger is often more than justified.
Tabletop Games
- A recurring problem for orcs, goblins, kobolds, and other evil races in Dungeons & Dragons is that they can end up being this. Many of these races live in caves and wastelands and swamps, with limited technology and magic and no stable society, making their habits of raiding and conquering seem less like brutality and more like survival. They hate Good races, sure, but the Good races hate them right back. It's hard not to look at them and see an oppressed minority driven to extremes by circumstance, even in the cases where the "good guys" aren't wiping them out for the sake of XP. Add in decades of players mining "good member of an evil race" for drama with their Monster Adventurers, and feats and prestige classes and abilities dedicated to murdering those races start to look pretty suspect. Because of the Values Dissonance, material released after the 80s has begun rolling with the sympathy, showing these races with detailed cultures and personal values on their own terms - even if the average member isn't someone you'd want to have a drink with, it doesn't excuse genocide.
- That said, it's not always rolled with; it heavily depends on the setting being used as a base and the group in question as well as the sourcebook in question. The Forgotten Realms based "Volo's Guide to Monsters" portrays kobolds in a very sympathetic light and fleshes out orcs a fair bit, but has the least sympathetic portrayal of gnolls of virtually any edition to date.
- Warhammer 40,000:
- Though basically the Gestapo 5.0, The Inquisition is often seen as this. Despite their motto, "Innocence Proves Nothing", downright batshit crazy inquisitors of note and seemingly liberal use of Exterminatus. in a galaxy that's cranking out a new horror almost every week and the insidious corrupting nature of Chaos, such actions and cast are much easier to justify. Not to mention, the Inquisition has a recruitment policy that makes the "Greater Good" look downright intolerant by comparison; literally ANYONE, including mutants, psykers, nameless factory workers or planetary governors can be recruited as "acolytes" and (provided they survive around 10 years of getting shot at on a daily basis) become an Inquisitor and drag even High Lords of Terra to court. It also helps that consistently throughout Warhammer 40K lore, it's the Inquisition that's often the only ones actually doing their freaking job and actually getting results. They're also the only faction in Warhammer 40K who are consistently shown to not only realize what the consequences of their actions will cost the Imperium, in spite of their necessity but actually be subject to the backlash of their own actions, such as when the Space Wolves space marine chapter declared a short war on them for purging an entire planet to hide the existence of the Grey Knights or when the Inquisitor who first reported the existence of the planet-devouring Tyranids to the Imperium was kicked out for simply planning to let 100 worlds be eaten to stop the Tyranids.
- This also applies to the Imperium as whole; while it's intentionally composed of every dystopian idea cranked up to 11 ("cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable"), the genuine heroism and faith of the soldiers the story usually focuses on makes it easy to forget they're bad guys. It doesn't help that so much of what we see is in-universe Imperial propaganda (usually heavily based on Nazi and Soviet examples); it's easy to forget how ludicrous the justifications are and get swept up in the theatricality. Much of this owes to the fact that it's easy to get on board with xenophobia and military-worship when most of the aliens really do want to murder everyone and the army includes actual Super Soldiers, and it's easy to get on board with thoughtcrime and persecution when thinking bad thoughts or following different beliefs literally summons demons.
- In Witch Girls Adventures, the organization Malleus Maleficarum are supposed to be a Fantastic Racism murder-cult who have dedicated their lives to the complete extermination of all Witches, even small children — the power can awaken in 6 year olds at the youngest. The problem is that, thanks to the source material's extremely Unintentionally Unsympathetic portrayal of witches, killing them all actually comes off as the most rational thing to do.
Theatre
- In Les Misérables Javert is presented as being, well, an Inspector Javert when he refuses to let our hero go look after Cosette, instead insisting that Valjean has to come with him now. Of course, Valjean has already tried to escape prison (multiple times) and did violate the terms of his parole, so it's hardly surprising that Javert refuses the request.
- Shylock from The Merchant of Venice to modern readers, who are much more prone to sympathize with an oppressed Jew getting some payback on an antisemitic society and see his final fate—losing most of his wealth as a result of the court's judgment against him and his daughter stealing from him, and being forced to convert to Christianity—as quite tragic. While Shakespeare gave Shylock some sympathetic motivation, he very possibly did not intend the audience to root for him. Shylock is, after all, a heathen who wants to murder a Christian over injured pride.
- In modern productions, he is often intentionally portrayed as sympathetic and sometimes even as the victim.
- There are those who believe that Shakespeare may have intended exactly this interpretation, having written the play as a veiled attack on anti-Jewish bigotry.
- One possible source of inspiration theorized is Rodrigo Lopez, Portuguese physician to Queen Elizabeth who had Jewish ancestry (he left Portugal after the Inquisition had accused him of secretly practicing Judaism). He was then accused of treason (with confessions by his supposed accomplices, plus Lopez himself, gained by torture or the threat), convicted and executed. Anti-semitism, unsurprisingly, played a large role in this. Even so, Lopez declared his love for Christ before dying, only to be mocked by the onlookers. Queen Elizabeth herself appears to have had doubts about his guilt, because she delayed signing his death warrant for three months, and returned for his family nearly all of his estate (the crown kept it all usually in treason cases). Since The Merchant Of Venice was written only a couple years later, the inspiration is plausible, and even that Shakespeare intended for some sympathy towards Shylock (he had villains similar to this in other plays after all). He's allowed to deliver a long speech denouncing anti-semitism and basically says it's this treatment which induced his desire for vengeance, supporting the idea of intended sympathy.
- In the original run of Miss Saigon, Kim's fiancee Thuy is portrayed as a violent Jerkass who, among other things, attempts to murder Kim's part-American infant boy who she had with the soldier Chris. On the other hand, Thuy REALLY gets the short end of the stick. He's a Vietnamese guerrilla fighter who hasn't seen his fiancee in a long time because of said war, and since he and Kim are also related. NEITHER of them have any family left. Combined with how Kim is one of many young women who had mixed-race children with departed soldiers, and the revival's portrayal of Thuy as much more sympathetic than the original run made him, it's easy to wonder if Thuy's actions are actually a result of untreated PTSD.
- My Fair Lady: When it was first made, Eliza Doolittle came across as much more unacceptably uncouth to theater-goers, and therefore just as bad as Henry Higgins. But nowadays, it's getting more and more common to see Eliza as being put down by Henry the misogynistic, snobbish villain. Basically, they're both meant to be a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, but current values don't look favorably on characters like Higgins.
- The Phantom of the Opera: Carlotta is hated by lot of fandom, just like intended, but some fans have pointed out that she is harassed and physically attacked by the Phantom, then lashes verbally Christine - falsely but genuinely thinking that Christine is in cahoots with her tormentor - and is then "punished" for this crime.
- In Richard III the Villain Protagonist is by far the most interesting character, having been reviled for his whole life for his disability and, especially if you have read/seen the prequel Henry VI - he's arguably the Only Sane Man in the Yorkist court. Yes, he murders his nephews, his wife and arranges his brother's execution, but even if you don't know that the real Richard III was a pretty good king, the play's version is remarkably competent compared to every other character in the play and probably would rule better than any of them
- In Take Me Out, a play about Major League Baseball player Darren coming out as gay, the main antagonist is Shane, a racist, homophobic teammate who's an expy of John Rocker
, a player who came under fire for making blatantly bigoted comments in a Sports Illustrated interview in 1998. However, the play exaggerates Shane's "dumb hick" personality to such an extent that he instead comes off as autistic: withdrawn and asocial even when directly approached, excelling at one specific skill and nothing else, having certain rituals that he must perform on game days, and a complete lack of social grace. When Shane leads the team to victory, he's interviewed by the press and he makes a comment about being on a team with "coloreds, spics, and showering with a faggot." This is based on John Rocker's comments about New York City, but whereas Rocker knew exactly what he was saying, Shane's odd behaviors make him sound less like a bigot and more like someone on the spectrum who genuinely didn't realize the impact of his words due to his upbringing, especially since he never directly harasses Darren or the other teammates. When Shane returns to the team after getting suspended, it's hard not to feel sorry for him when he finally reaches out and begs someone to talk to him (which no one does because they all hate him). And when Darren angrily confronts Shane in the shower and plants a kiss on him, the intention was to "freak out the redneck," but instead it seemed more like sexually assaulting a mentally-challenged person. Shane had every reason to hate him after that.
- Many fans of the musical Wicked think of the Wizard as sympathetic and think that Madame Morrible is the real villain. It's not entirely without reason; his songs are entirely about how he wants to make people, including Elphaba, happy, and he's genuinely heartbroken when it's revealed that he was Elphaba's father. Plus, his Fantastic Racism towards the animals is actually a Genghis Gambit. Therefore, it's hard to determine if he even qualifies here and was actually meant to be sympathetic despite his antagonist status.
Web Animation
- Battle for Dream Island:
- Needle slapping other contestants for calling her "Needy" is treated as an annoying trait, but given the negative connotations of the word, her not wanting to be referred to by that nickname is perfectly understandable.
- While Leafy stole Dream Island and became villainous in BFDIA-IDFB, the reason Firey didn't let her onto Dream Island was because she wanted to get off his ferris wheel, one that would kill her with fire and actually did. Firey ignored the fact that fire can kill people and built the ferris wheel with no consideration of the fact. Even though they make up in BFDI 25, Firey purposely starts to ignore Leafy just to look good in front of the others. It's not hard to side with Leafy after she learns about Firey's actions.
- Bell. The fanbase should hate her after telling Taco that she'd never trust her after BFB 6, but here's something. If someone used you for their own gain, wouldn't you be mad?
- Announcer qualifies as this after BFB 29 and BFB 30. He didn't want his show to end and thus tried to do it again on his smaller budget, but failed and went home; he was caught off guard by Four and X stealing his show and offering his most valuable possession, the BFDI, the only archive of the original show. If someone stole your life's work, wouldn't you be mad?
- Two at the end of TPOT 1. Their No-Holds-Barred Beatdown at the hands of the contestants is meant to be a Take That, Scrappy! moment as an attempt to acknowledge their Replacement Scrappy status within the fandom. However, In-Universe, Two hadn't done anything to warrant such a mauling outside of being at an elevation where nobody could hear them announce the contest rules. In fact, Four never received such a beating in spite of his sociopathic nature, whereas Two, even though they're not necessarily evil, borders on Affably Evil territories.
- GoAnimate:
- The troublemakers in the infamous "X Gets Grounded (or otherwise punished)" videos made with the program. While one can't deny that many of these troublemakers have it coming, in other cases the punishment is too disproportionate. A character getting grounded for an absurdly long time over doing something like hitting their schoolteacher, breaking a car, or turning their peers into Kirby characters could still be funny. A character being executed for saying something stupid or causing a mess on accident? Not so much.
- Some fairly more specific examples would be anyone who is a "baby show" character such as Caillou or Dora the Explorer. Yes, they have taken levels in Jerkass, and yes, oftentimes they truly have their groundings coming. But in some videos, the Disproportionate Retribution that the "Grounded" videos are famous for gets too disproportionate, if it isn't just extremely mean-spirited towards Caillou and others of his ilk. In still other videos, everyone in the world, including their own families, hate their guts just for existing and will be all to happy to punish or even kill them for the pettiest of slights. Add the fact that some users' interpretations of their parents, family, and friends are just as jerkish as them, if not worse, and it makes sense why Caillou and Dora are considered Jerkass Woobies to some facets of the fandom (both ironic and non-ironic).
- Macusoper, while he does have a bit of a temper problem, he frequently suffers back luck, nobody listens to him, and he has an abusive dad, so it's easy to see why he has a temper problem in the first place.
- Happy Tree Friends:
- While Sniffles is going out of his way to devour the Ants, he ends up becoming the lesser of two evils compared to them since they often retaliate by torturing him in such painful and horrific ways that go far beyond self-defense. Two occasions has Sniffles just minding his own business until they provoke him, either by stealing his cookies or causing him to trip and have his tongue stuck on ice.
- While Sniffles did eventually get episodes outside of his ants-conflict and has moments of intentional sympathy, Lifty and Shifty don't catch a break. While the audience is presumably supposed to view them as villainous thieves, the twin raccoons are shown to be poor and are usually stealing food more than money. This doesn't stop them from dying in nearly every appearance they make.
- Helluva Boss: In "Unhappy Campers", While Moxxie can be viewed as a Woobie in this episode, his constant attention-seeking, narcissism, and jealousy make it clear he's mostly meant to be viewed in the wrong. However, some fans actually ended up sympathizing with Moxxie a lot more than Millie's pleas of finally feeling appreciated beyond being an assassin. This likely stemmed from how Moxxie's insecurities, backstory, and Butt-Monkey status have been shown and explored fully in previous episodes, while Millie's own insecurities were only really hinted at with minuscule foreshadowing, making some viewers think that it came out of nowhere and in turn not be as sympathetic for her. Furthermore, it did not help in the slightest that Moxxie was put through the wringer moreso than usual, coming off more mean-spirited rather it being karma for his behavior.
- RWBY:
- Ozpin in Volumes 6-7. He didn't tell the group that the Relics attract Grimm or that Salem is immortal and apparently can't be killed. However, the group only learns the latter by watching his greatest regrets and mistakes play out in front of them, including having to watch the love of his life become a monster and his children die. Being forced to relive the trauma drives him to tears; in spite of knowing this though, Yang and Qrow (and later Jaune) tear into him while the others just watch in disapproval. Although he tried to explain why he kept secrets, they don't let him speak, resulting in them denouncing him just as he feared. A lot of fans, therefore, think the group is too hard on Ozpin, and that he was justified in his behavior, which is reinforced during Volume 7. Namely after Ruby repeats Ozpin's lie to Ironwood, and Oscar later admits that Ozpin's true fear was that the truth would destroy people's hope, which has been the case for almost every character who found out: Raven, Leo, Qrow, and Ironwood himself.
- General Ironwood in Volume 7-8. After a long stint of extreme actions to take down Salem, He succumbs to his fear, paranoia, and desire for control and turns into the enemy of Team RWBY and Ozpin. Despite Ironwood's long history of flaws, such as his short-sightedness and hypocritical desire for trust and loyalty that he himself lacked, many fans felt that he was unfairly demonized by the narrative for taking initiative in those Volumes against Salem in order to protect the Relics from her by raising his Kingdom away from her while the heroes had no plan other than to protect everyone against a futile battle.
- Terrible Writing Advice: The "Grimdark" episode has a rare In-Universe example of this. The villain is supposed to come across as worse than the hero, but he ends up coming across as more sympathetic than him, as the villain was actually given some depth and redeeming qualities. Naturally, the author should respond by making the villain a Hate Sink who randomly does actions that make everyone in-universe see him as Beyond Redemption.
Web Video
- Dragonbored: while you'll be hard-pressed to find anyone who actually likes the main character Carl, because he is a rather unpleasant person, many viewers nevertheless believe that, even if he was kind of a douche, he really didn't deserve the Humiliation Conga and eventual And I Must Scream Fate Worse than Death that he ended up getting. The reasons for this are threefold: first, while other characters repeatedly pay lip service to how lazy, selfish, and irresponsible Carl supposedly is, the audience doesn't get to see very much evidence of that aside from Carl's addiction to video games. Even then, he's only ever shown playing a very specific video game that we are explicitly shown was designed to make people addicted. Second, while Carl is a jerk, the other characters are hardly any better: Jessica is a stereotypical Straw Feminist who drops Carl like a sack of hammers once the new guy comes along, LeBron is a Mean Boss, Carl's friends (with the sole exception of Taylin) don't really seem to care about his wellbeing at all, and Jimbroth, aside from stealing Carl's life and callously abandoning him to his fate, is shown to be emotionally manipulative, destructive, painfully old-fashioned, and commits quite a few serious crimes for which he is never punished, and everyone forgives him because of his charisma and Fish Out of Water status. Third, Carl is meant to be a caricature of obsessed nerds, but he's too handsome, sociable, well-groomed, and gainfully employed to be convincingly sold as the pathetic waste-of-space the writers want us to think he is.