History Main / CryForTheDevil

* The Bond/Sondheim portrayal of ''Theatre/SweeneyToddTheDemonBarberOfFleetStreet'', to the extent where you're pretty much a cold, heartless jerk if you ''don't'' sympathize with him. Unlike his penny dreadful origins, here, Todd gets a very sad backstory that explains his hatred of humanity and bloodlust. He was HappilyMarried with a small daughter, before getting convicted of a crime he didn't commit and transported to Australia. Why? Because the HangingJudge wanted his wife all to himself. Even then, when Todd manages to get back to London sixteen years later, he just wants to reunite with his family... which isn't possible because the judge raped his wife, leading to her swallowing arsenic, and took custody of his daughter. And is planning [[WifeHusbandry to forcibly marry her]] so he can have her, too. ''Only then'' does Todd get on the murder train, and he gradually grows [[SanitySlippage more and more insane]] until he decides to [[PutThemAllOutOfMyMisery slaughter everyone he can]] until he finally gets to kill the judge, because the way he sees it, humanity is so terrible that ''everyone'' either deserves to die, or is so miserable that killing them [[MercyKill would be a mercy]].

---> It gets so lonely being evil, what I'd do to see a smile, even for a little while. And no one loves you when you're evil... (music picks back up) I'm lying through my teeth! Your tears are the only company I need!

* [[spoiler: Rika's]] DLC of ''VisualNovel/MysticMessenger'' serves as this, showing us [[spoiler: just how atrociously she was abused by [[AbusiveParents her family]] [[CorruptChurch and their church]] growing up (both emotionally [[PedophilePriest and sexually]]) the roots of her mental illness and self-loathing, and her [[ChronicHeroSyndrome burgeoning compulsion to help people she felt were "forsaken" like her,]] which would eventually lead to her SanitySlippage shown during the main routes.]]

* In Franchise/{{Hellblazer}}, the First of the Fallen a.k.a. Satan himself (NOT Lucifer, who is an entirely separate entity) was once the ''conscience'' itself of God, who was at first permanently split into a separate entity from God for "holding God back" from fulfilling his creative potential (indulging in the darker side of creation ex. initially preventing him from inventing the concept of 'free will', which caused ''The Fall'' when even the angels realized that it would only inevitably lead to suffering for sentient beings) and then later altogether banished forever from Heaven into Hell when he accidentally witnessed just how a by-now [[TheUnfettered unininhibitedly]] [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity insane]] God engaged in the act of creation [[spoiler: freely drooling while furiously masturbating in crazed trances in secluded corners of Paradise]], (when told to a devout priest, the man immediately became [[GoMadFromTheRevelation suicidally insane]]). By his own admission, he was at first a noble revolutionary who sincerely had everyone's best interest at heart and tried to save all of creation by overthrowing what he viewed as the totalitarian dictatorship of the original despotic tyrant, as God was the ultimate MadScientist \ MadArtist \ MadDoctor, but literally eons of failure and frustration eventually and gradually embittered and corrupted him until he inevitably and irredeemably [[MoralEventHorizon became]] just as bad and as most would argue, even much worse, than the divine establishment to which over time he had become irrevocably estranged.

* Invoked and subverted in the song ''When You're Evil'', where the CardCarryingVillain singer seems to reveal that deep down he's a lonely and miserable man, only to abruptly reveal that it was just BlatantLies:
Though another song by the same artist plays this straight with "almost human" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_OWfHOHq_U
--> It gets so lonely being evil, what I'd do to see a smile, even for a little while. And no one loves you when you're evil... (music picks back up) I'm lying through my teeth! Your tears are the only company I need!

* ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'' uses this for every villain except [[spoiler:[[{{Jerkass}} Gilgamesh]]]], who never gets any excuse at all in the original installment. Even Shinji and [[spoiler:Zouken]] get minor flashbacks, showing us how they ended up that way.
** Speaking of [[spoiler:Gilgamesh]], his sympathetic backstory is a mix of AllThereInTheManual and offhanded lines spoken in ''Literature/FateZero'', the prequel novels.

* [[spoiler: Rika's]] DLC of ''VisualNovel/MysticMessenger'' serves as this, showing us [[spoiler: just how atrociously she was abused by [[AbusiveParents her family]] [[CorruptChurch and their church]] growing up (both emotionally [[PedophilePriest and sexually]]) the roots of her mental illness, and her [[ChronicHeroSyndrome burgeoning compulsion to help people she felt were "forsaken" like her,]] which tied into her crippling self-loathing and would eventually lead to her SanitySlippage shown during the main routes.]]

* Rika's DLC of ''VisualNovel/MysticMessenger'' serves as this, showing us just how atrociously she was abused by [[AbusiveParents her family]] [[CorruptChurch and their church]] growing up (both emotionally [[PedophilePriest and sexually]]) the roots of her mental illness, and her [[ChronicHeroSyndrome burgeoning compulsion to help people she felt were "forsaken" like her,]] which tied into her crippling self-loathing and [[spoiler: would eventually lead to her SanitySlippage shown during the main routes.]]

* Tai Lung in ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda''. Driven to mass destruction and slaughter because his [[FreudianExcuse father's]] master deems him unworthy of the final piece of martial arts wisdom. Tai Lung is made sympathetic thanks to his detailed backstory, flashbacks to him as a [[RidiculouslyCuteCritter ridiculously adorable]] innocent youth, his motivating desire for [[WellDoneSonGuy respect from his adopted father]], and the fact that he apparently spent twenty years in a HellholePrison.

** It's also easier to sympathize with Richard if you have seen/read the prequel ''Theatre/HenryVI'' in which Richard, even in his StartOfDarkness state, often comes off as the OnlySaneMan in the middle of a bloody dynastic war.

* ''Theatre/RichardIII''. If you miss the first 15 minutes of the play, Richard is a {{Jerkass}}, unrepentant in what he's done, and deserving of all the hatred and scorn he receives. If you DO see the first bit, however, and pay close attention, something stays with you for the entirety of the play:

** And then, in the very next scene, Creator/WilliamShakespeare lets us see Richard successfully woo Anne, suggesting that Richard's deformity wasn't his ''reason'' for villainy, just his ''excuse.''
** Shakespeare was pretty good at these: the [[Theatre/{{Macbeth}} Thane of Cawdor]] is an utter bastard, but still a sympathetic character, and [[Theatre/{{Hamlet}} King Claudius]] has that one scene where you can almost feel bad for him.