History Main / CryForTheDevil

* The song [[https://youtu.be/LR_gcRp5v-k "A Demon's Fate"]] by Music/WithinTemptation.
* ANYTHING by Music/{{Mothy}}. [[AllOfTheOtherReindeer No]] [[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds really]], [[DiagnosedByTheAudience we]] [[TheCallKnowsWhereYouLive mean]] [[AbusiveParents anything]]! Particularly prominent in the ''Music/EvilliousChronicles''.

** Speaking of [[spoiler:Gilgamesh]], his sympathetic backstory is a mix of AllThereInTheManual and offhanded lines spoken in ''LightNovel/FateZero'', the prequel novels.

* Wrestling/EddieGuerrero, who was actually a face for the majority of his wrestling career, albeit [[AntiHero a sinister one]]. There was probably no one who didn't sympathize with him when he was first challenging for the WWE Championship, prompting then-world champion Wrestling/KurtAngle (who himself had been a face up to that point) to [[KnightTemplar handcuff him and have him beaten by thugs dressed as policemen, explaining that a former convicted criminal didn't deserve a shot at the championship]]. But Eddie's [[HotBlooded "Latino temper"]], his [[InferioritySuperiorityComplex pathological ego complex]], and his penchant for violence and sadistic cruelty all eventually combined to turn him into a monster during the summer of 2005; he stalked, tormented, and outright terrorized Wrestling/ReyMysterio for months, all because he couldn't beat Mysterio in singles competition. When Mysterio defeated Guerrero in a Ladder Match, and Guerrero's wife Vickie left him (for the second time) and he lost custody forever of his ({{kayfabe}}) biological son, Dominic, a borderline-deranged Eddie appeared shortly afterward in a promo delivered in English and partly in Spanish, warning Mysterio that, now that he had "lost everything" and had no more reason to live and thus no motivation for preserving his dignity, he was now [[TheUnfettered more dangerous than ever]] and Rey and Dominic were not safe from him anywhere. This angle was dropped very quickly when Guerrero abruptly turned face after ''finally'' defeating Rey in a Steel Cage match, issuing a blanket apology for everything he'd done and challenging for Wrestling/{{Batista}}'s World Heavyweight Championship -- and although, if not for his death in November of that year, he was to have [[HeelFaceRevolvingDoor successfully betrayed Batista for the title]], Eddie Guerrero did at least manage to [[DyingAsYourself Die As Himself]]. [[EarnYourHappyEnding Rey Mysterio dedicated his Royal Rumble Match victory to him, and within months he was posthumously inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.]]

* ANYTHING by Music/{{Mothy}}. [[AllOfTheOtherReindeer No]] [[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds really]], [[AmbiguousDisorder we]] [[TheCallKnowsWhereYouLive mean]] [[AbusiveParents anything]]! Particularly prominent in the ''Music/EvilliousChronicles''.

-->-- '''Creator/MarkTwain'''

* ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'':

* Definitely Wrestling/{{Edge}}, even though he [[HeelFaceTurn turned face]] for the final year of his career. His JerkassWoobie backstory helped: he was a lifelong fan of WWE hero Wrestling/HulkHogan and perhaps the ultimate AscendedFanboy, and did spend some time as a fan favorite before the disappointment of not being able to win a WWE title after being in the company for over half a decade finally got to him. Also, especially compared to the more detestable heels, he was [[TooFunnyToBeEvil funny and charming even when behaving his worst]], and almost always smiling (even if it was often a SlasherSmile), so you felt you could forgive just about anything he did. There's also the fact that he rarely actually ''cheated'' to win his matches, tending to rely instead on CombatPragmatist and LoopholeAbuse. Edge was perhaps seen at his most sympathetic-as-a-heel in 2008, when he was engaged to marry then-''[=SmackDown=]'' General Manager Vickie Guerrero (whom he truly loved, albeit [[SickeningSweethearts a little ickily so]]); when Edge was caught kissing the wedding planner on the day of their wedding, he was truly sorry, tearfully begging forgiveness of an unmerciful Vickie, who punished him by putting him in a literally life-threatening Hell in a Cell Match with Wrestling/TheUndertaker, whom she had reinstated after having fired him (a wee hypocritical, since Edge ''and'' Vickie had conspired to antagonize Undertaker, and in fact [[LaserGuidedKarma 'Taker turned his wrath on Vickie once he was done with Edge]]). It was easy to think of Edge as a desperate-to-reform MrViceGuy, and Undertaker's act of ''literally sending him to Hell'' at the end of their match (though Edge of course [[JokerImmunity managed to escape a few months later]]) [[DisproportionateRetribution certainly seemed extreme]].

* ''WesternAnimation/ABugsLife'': Even though Hopper was a cruel villain who had it coming, it’s hard not to feel bad for him during his death scene considering how [[FamilyUnfriendlyDeath utterly horrifying]] it is. [[spoiler:Not helped by him begging for his life while in complete panic]].
* ''Anime/JackAndTheBeanstalk1974'': Tulip is abused by his mother who plans on disposing of him and Margaret after they wed so she can rule the land. It's made clear that while he is a murderous cannibal, he does genuinely love Margaret and is unaware that his mother plans to dispose of her in the end. While he is ordered by his mother to killJack and Margaret after their plan fails, he soon turns on her and kills her, freeing the land of her evil. After that, he no longer seems interested in hurting people. The characters either don't notice his change in attitude or don't by it, and decide to get rid of him anyway, which leads to Jack deliberately provoking him into trying to kill him again so that he can lure Tulip down the beanstalk and kill him by chopping it down. By the end, you really have to feel sorry for Tulip.

* The hyenas of ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing1994'' get a lot of sympathy from viewers since their only real motivation is hunger and jealousy that they are forbidden from entering the Pride Lands to hunt where animal life is plentiful. Of course, they also gained a ''lot'' of fans thanks to [[Creator/WhoopiGoldberg their]] [[Creator/CheechAndChong voice]] [[Creator/JimCummings1952 actors]]. [[spoiler: They do get a happy ending though, as they devour Scar for the latter's betrayal, and the film's [[WesternAnimation/TheLionKingIISimbasPride sequel]] even reveals they left the Pride Lands afterwards, implying that maybe they're living better lives at this point]].

* Lotso in ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory3'' gets this reaction from the audience when they learn his backstory. [[RedemptionRejection He ends up squandering it completely.]]

Compare SympatheticMurderer, WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds and JerkassWoobie. Not quite the same as SympathyForTheDevil--that's when ''characters'' in story sympathize with a villain, not just the audience. See also the SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism. Can overlap with MyGodWhatHaveIDone. See also UnintentionallySympathetic, when a character wasn't ''intended'' to be sympathetic, but is, in the eyes of the audience, anyways. Not to be confused with ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry'', though it provides an example of this trope.

* The Bond/Sondheim portrayal of Sweeney Todd, to the extent where you're pretty much a cold, heartless jerk if you ''don't'' sympathise with him. Several songs in the musical are this trope.

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* From ''Series/{{Arrow}}'' , Malcolm Merlyn recalling [[spoiler:the night his wife died, and how he could do nothing but listen to her die on his voicemail, over and over]].
* ''Series/BabylonFive'' has WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds Londo Mollari, the Centauri ambassador; collaborator with the [[EldritchAbomination Shadows]], and personally responsible for millions of deaths all because he wanted the Centauri Republic to stand tall and proud again. He loses so much along the way including anyone he could have called friend and the love of his life, that it's impossible not to feel sorry for him.
* Glory from ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' got a moment like this, when she described what being in human form and going crazy was like for her (okay, technically, she wasn't talking about ''her'', but the tone and body language made it kind of impossible not to figure out).
-->"It's like you're in a crowded little dark room, all naked and ashamed... And there are things in the dark that want to hurt you because you're ''bad''... Little pinching things, that go in your ears, and crawl on the inside of your skull... And you ''know'' that if the noise and the crawling would stop, then, you could remember the way out... But you never, ever will."
** "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS3E20TheProm The Prom]]" features someone who has summoned a bunch of demons to attack the high school senior prom. Buffy, determined to allow her friends ''one'' unspoiled moment in high school, corners the culprit and angrily demands to know why someone would want to destroy "the happiest night of the year". The culprit sneers that he has his reasons -- and we're treated to a brief flashback of him shyly and politely asking a girl to go to the prom with him, only for the girl to cruelly reject him. This is played entirely for laughs.
*** The above scene can easily be read as a parody of many scenes earlier in the series that were legitimately this trope (like the poor kid in "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS2E7LieToMe Lie to Me]]") - we're set up to expect some deeply scarring, tragic scene, and what we get is fifteen seconds of, "Hey, want to go to the prom with me?" "Nope."
* ''Series/CobraKai'': Season 3 shows several flashbacks to John Kreese's experiences in Vietnam. While it is nowhere near enough to justify the callous, manipulative psychopath he became, watching a kind, upstanding young man go through trauma after trauma with no relief whatsoever will make you shed at least one tear, and maybe walk away with a bit more understanding.
* In the first season of ''Series/DesperateHousewives'', Miss Huber was nothing short of a blackmailing antagonist who everyone seemed to dislike. But as she is dying, her final thoughts were revealed to the audience as her life flashes before her eyes. A life of hoping for excitement, and romance, and adventure, and realizing she is about to die after having done nothing with her life.
** The sixth season episode "Epiphany" does this for the Fairview Strangler, effectively turning them into a TragicVillain by the end.
* ''Series/GameOfThrones'':
** Cersei gets several of these moments and it's a credit to Lena Headey's acting abilities that she can make Cersei both despicable and pitiable.
*** In Season 1 she actually has a civil conversation with Robert, confessing that she loved him once and hoped their marriage would work out. When she asks if there was ever a chance for them, he bluntly replies "No". Robert asks how that makes her feel, prompting Cersei to smile sadly and say [[BlatantLies "It doesn't make me feel anything."]]
*** In Season 2, Cersei breaks down crying in front of Tyrion and confesses that [[EvenEvilHasStandards even she is appalled]] by Joffrey's heinous actions, but she doesn't know how to rein him in. She says she thinks this is a punishment from the gods for her incestuous relationship with Jaime (one of the few things that makes her genuinely happy). Even Tyrion feels bad for Cersei and tries to comfort her, assuring her that her other children are both good people.
*** In Season 5, it becomes increasingly difficult to take much pleasure in Cersei's fall from grace, as she is so utterly [[BreakTheHaughty broken]] by her imprisonment and torment. She is alone and terrified, begging to be allowed to see her son and resorting to drinking water off the dirty floor. Cersei also [[VillainHasAPoint rightly points out]] to the High Sparrow that while she may be an adulteress, her own husband frequently cheated on her, emotionally neglected her and hit her. Her walk of atonement is horribly humiliating and despite her efforts to remain composed, by the end she's sobbing helplessly and can [[AgonyOfTheFeet barely walk]].
*** Cersei finding out [[spoiler: Myrcella is dead. For all her flaws, she does genuinely love her daughter and never got to see her alive again after Season 2. In a monotone, she tells Jaime she doesn't know how Myrcella got to be [[TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth so good and kind]]. She mentions that she used to think about how their dead mother's corpse looked, before finally bursting into tears and saying she now thinks about their daughter decomposing. It's also hard not to feel for her when she's barred from attending the funeral and has to get details from Tommen; she asks him if they put her body in a gold dress and comments that always looked pretty in that one]].
*** During her torture of Ellaria and Tyene, Cersei's smugness slips a bit when she's talking about [[spoiler: Myrcella. She describes how she ''tried'' to be a good mother to her because she herself lost her mother young. She then furiously demands to know why Ellaria took her daughter away from her]], before quietly saying it [[DespairEventHorizon doesn't matter anymore]].
** Viserys when he attempts to steal Daenerys' dragon eggs. He rants to Jorah about how since he was five years old, he's had the weight of the Targaryen dynasty on his shoulders and has never received true [[NoRespectGuy respect or devotion from anyone]]. The viewer is reminded that while Viserys is indeed an entitled asshole who brings a lot of his problems on himself, he's also a troubled young man who lost his home and nearly his entire family as a child, was forced to go on the run and care for his little sister alone. He isn't loved or wanted by anyone save for Dany, but his cruel treatment of her has even pushed her away, leaving him with no one.
** Jaime gets a ''huge'' moment of this in Season 3, when he tells Brienne exactly ''why'' he [[SympatheticMurderer became the Kingslayer]]. For nearly two decades, he's been ridiculed and looked upon with disdain by almost everyone for killing the Mad King, even though he was a murderous tyrant and it turns out Jaime did it to save thousands of people from being burned alive, sacrificing his reputation and dreams of being a KnightInShiningArmor in the process. It paints a very different perspective of him, marking the point where Brienne and many audience members came to view him in much more sympathetic light.
** The Lannister army, since [[VillainousUnderdog several soldiers are seen shaking in fear]] of a massive Dothraki horde and Daenerys riding Drogon. It's more poignant in the scene where Tyrion watches from a distance in horror as panicked Lannisters are being butchered like animals and slowly burning to death.
** Despite the horrible things he's done, the way Petyr [[AintTooProudToBeg starts collapsing and crying as he begs for his life]] recalls that he was [[UsedToBeASweetKid once just an innocent little boy]] who wanted to win the hand of the girl he loved, only to be [[HumiliationConga humiliated, nearly killed]], [[TraumaCongaLine and then made a mockery of for years later]]. It's hard not to feel sympathy for the child he was, if not the man he became.
* Benjamin Linus from ''Series/{{Lost}}''. It starts with "The Man Behind the Curtain", but it isn't until "The Shape of Things to Come" that it really starts to look like he may not be as much of a villain as everybody thought.
* Literally, in the case of Lucifer Morningstar from ''Series/Lucifer2016''. While he is confident, snarky and well-off economically, it is implied that his carefree, hedonistic lifestyle is a cover for his [[spoiler:history of crippling, existential loneliness over the thousands of years of his existence]]. This can even be blamed on [[spoiler:the scorn he receives from his angel kin]], [[spoiler:silence and abandonment from his omnipotent father]] and [[spoiler:humanity's tendency to blame and demonize him for their own shortcomings]].
* Marvel's Netflix universe:
** ''Series/Daredevil2015'': Wilson Fisk is depicted with a sympathetic backstory - having had an abusive alcoholic father that he killed to defend his mother. He also has a number of people he cares about, in the form of his NumberTwo James Wesley, and girlfriend Vanessa Marianna, with both of them causing him to have some positive character development. He's portrayed less as a ruthless gang boss and more as a curiously vulnerable and damaged man with a misguided vision and one hell of an anger management issue.
** ''Series/JessicaJones2015'': Kilgrave is a complete creep and psychopath. But both Jessica and the audience feel just a ''little'' sympathy for him as it's revealed that his powers are the result of his parents subjecting him to extremely painful experiments as a kid to save his life (as he was born with a terminal brain disease). Not only that, but they at one point abandoned him while he was still a child after he started using his newly-manifested powers to punish them when he was upset. From then on he used his powers to compel strangers to feed, clothe, and protect him since his parents were not there to do it for him. Despite it likely being a manipulative bid for sympathy, Kilgrave defends his actions in an argument with Jessica of her having been held captive by him by claiming that the nature of his powers makes it impossible for him to determine if people do things for him because they want to, or because they are compelled to. Jessica herself even dresses down Kilgrave’s parents, telling them that he may have been a little monster child with a terrifying ability, but he was their son and they failed him by abandoning their responsibilities to teach him to be better.
** ''Series/LukeCage2016'': In the episode where Cornell "Cottonmouth" Stokes is KilledOffForReal, we're treated to a series of flashbacks showing his childhood. It turns out that Cornell was once a gifted pianist who had dreams of going to Juilliard, and only ended up turning to crime because of his family's influence. The real kicker was when he was forced to shoot his uncle "Pistol" Pete Stokes, who cared the most for him out of anyone, and [[TearJerker his hand were shaking the entire time he held the pistol]].
* ''Series/OnceUponATime'':
** Rumpelstiltskin became the evil imp he is today because he wanted to protect his young son from being forced to fight in a war. It's later revealed that his wife ran off with another man and he'd even been abandoned by his own father.
** Regina was previously a good-hearted young girl unfortunately raised by a cruel and ambitious mother. When the latter learned of her daughter's relationship with the stable boy, she killed him in front of her. What's worse is that Regina turned to dark magic in attempts to resurrect her lover.
** The Snow Queen was born as Princess Ingrid and, although given powers over ice she feared, she had two sisters that vowed to stick by her. Until one day [[spoiler: she accidentally killed one sister, and the other sealed her in an urn as a result]]. When she's set free, she's now an omnicidal maniac.
** Ursula the sea witch was once a mermaid with a beautiful singing voice. Her mother had been killed by pirates and her father forced her to use her voice to wreck ships in revenge. After being betrayed one too many times by him - and [[spoiler: Hook stealing her singing voice]], she opted to transform herself into the tentacled monster she's better known as.
** Regina's mother Cora got this treatment too, but to a lesser extent. She began as the poor daughter of a miller and gained a powerful marriage through luck. But she got the marriage at the cost of true love - and even [[ItMakesSenseInContext removed her own heart]] to put the feelings to rest. What's more is that it's later revealed [[spoiler: she had an illegitimate daughter that she abandoned to serve her own desires]]. WordOfGod says that if Cora had kept her heart within her, love for Regina could have redeemed her.
* By the end of ''Series/RobinHood'', the Gisborne siblings, Guy and Isabella, are all but embracing death as an escape from their miserable lives. Before destroying each other, they share a moment in a jail cell in which Isabella sadly tells her brother: "You loved me once..." and he gives her a vial of poison to quicken her passing. Though she uses it to kill ''him'' instead, there is a moment toward the end of the episode in which she looks over his dead body with what looks like regret, and one recalls that, at the end of everything, they were still siblings and ''did'', in fact, love each other long ago.
* ''Series/RuyisRoyalLoveInThePalace'':
** Xiyue is a despicable person, but it's hard not to feel sorry for her when she's poisoned by the person she supported and trusted.
** Ruiji attempts to kill a pregnant woman, but she did it to avenge her own dead baby and is horrified to discover she targeted an innocent woman. It's hard not to feel sorry for her as well when she's happy to die so she can finally see her baby.
* Two similar examples from two TV Sci-Fi shows take a lone member of the BigBad guys, capture him, and make you feel sorry for him. "I, Borg", from ''Franchise/StarTrek'', and "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E6Dalek Dalek]]", from ''Series/DoctorWho''.
** "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E23IBorg I, Borg]]" and the later character [[Series/StarTrekVoyager 7 of 9]] highlight the fact that every one of those unstoppable terrifying Borg drones is really another victim of the Collective with their freewill ripped away from them.
** And speaking of ''Series/DoctorWho'', who can forget the Master? Tortured for centuries by an incessant drumbeat that no one else could hear, until "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E17E18TheEndOfTime The End of Time]]", when it's revealed it was put there by the Time Lords when he was eight so they had a chance to [[FateWorseThanDeath escape the Time War.]]
** In ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', even Sisko - who knows what the casualty figures of the Cardassian occupation were, and has repeatedly seen the man at his worst - feels sorry for Dukat when [[spoiler:his daughter Ziyal is killed, causing his sanity to snap like a guitar string and reduce him to a traumatised wreck]].
** Then from ''Series/DoctorWho'' we have "Rusty", from the episode "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E2IntoTheDalek Into the Dalek]]". We learn that the Dalek transport is more than just a way of getting around. It has circuitry built into it to actively suppress any thought or memory that would stray from the Dalek "ideal" instilled by Davros. "Rusty"'s transport was damaged, allowing him to view the birth of a star with the natural wonder it would ordinarily convey, prompting a HeelFaceTurn against his fellow Daleks. Then [[NiceJobBreakingItHero the Doctor repairs the transport]], causing Rusty to [[HeelFaceRevolvingDoor revert to his old ways until companion Clara can reactivate the memory of the star's birth.]] Daleks don't have to be evil. Locked in their transports, they have little choice.
* ''Series/TheSpanishPrincess'': In the last episode, Margaret, Lady Mother of the King, [[spoiler: discovers her son is dead, is humiliated at every turn, and finally disowned by Henry when he discovers her subterfuge]].
* [[MonsterOfTheWeek A shape-shifter]] from the ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' episode "Monster Movie" gets this when he reveals how he was abused by his father and villagers, but he found refuge from the violence in old monster flicks that he re-enacted to a very serious degree (which involved killing people and kidnapping women).
** A BIG one when Sam puts Crowley through a trial meant to change Crowley back into a human. It slowly begins to work as Crowley's human heart is being restored which is best shown in a outburst from Crowley:
---> '''Crowley''': I DESERVE TO BE LOVED! (quietly) I just want to be loved.
** Followed by...
---> '''Crowley''': I just want to know what you confessed because, [[HeelRealization given my history]], I want to know where I would even begin to find for forgiveness.
* Go back and watch the flashbacks of [[spoiler:Bill's last moments as a human and first weeks as a vampire]] in seasons 1 and 3 of ''Series/TrueBlood''. This trope doesn't come into full effect till the characters FaceHeelTurn is completed in season 5, but going back after this reveals [[spoiler:Lorena's]] true role as TheCorrupter, as well as the character's sort of-dreary mindset/nature from the start.
** Debbie Pelt is shown as a young, sweet impressionable teenager during some flashbacks in season 5. [[spoiler:Really makes Alcide's grief over her violent death harder to swallow.]]
* [[BigBad Belial]] from ''Series/UltramanGeed'' is a spiteful and destructive conqueror... [[spoiler:who is, deep down, just a bitter old man filled with sorrow and misplaced anger over being banished from his home and losing his family. He's trapped in an endless cycle of being resurrected and defeated over and over again, and he hates every minute of it. Geed comes to understand his feelings and pleads with Belial to just let it all go, but to no avail; Belial is too lost in his hate and resentment to admit his mistakes, and Geed is forced to destroy him permanently.]]
* The second episode of the first series of Series/TheWalkingDead ("Guts") has a brief scene where the characters stop to acknowledge the previous humanity of an otherwise random walker. Rick even finds out his name, Wayne Dunlap, from the contents of his wallet and vows to tell his family about what happened to him if he ever comes across them. This is markedly different to how zombies are treated from then on.
* ''Series/TheXFiles'' episode "[[Recap/TheXFilesS04E07MusingsOfACigaretteSmokingMan Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man]]".
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* The Ice King from ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' at first just seems an ineffectual, lonely, and mildly creepy princess kidnapper. Then we learn his tragic backstory and find out he [[spoiler: WasOnceAMan and has been slowly driven to madness by an ArtifactOfDoom, and his fiance left him]], and Finn and Jake feel bad for him.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'': After turning out to be EvilAllAlong, [[spoiler:King Andrias]] seems for the first half of Season 3 like a [[LoveToHate fun but irredeemably cruel and evil Chessmaster]] whose defeat when it comes will be ''extremely'' satisfying. But as the details of his background, his relationship with the Core and his true feelings about Marcy and the planned invasion are fleshed out, he becomes an increasingly tragic character -- [[spoiler:despite the terrible things he's done, when his downfall actually ''does'' come amid a HeelRealization in "All In", it's almost impossible to derive any joy from it]].
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Arcane}}'': Despite his horrific actions, it's hard not to feel sympathy for Silco [[spoiler: during his trauma flashbacks in episode 3. Watching him desperately fend off a brutal murder attempt from the much stronger Vander, the man he trusted like a brother, is gut-wrenching.]] Its even more gut-wrenching when [[spoiler: he dies, as he says he's willing to throw away his dream for a nation of Zaun just so that Jinx doesn't pay for her crimes, stating his undying love for his adopted daughter before passing away.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'':
** Azula. While she spends most of the series as a standard MagnificentBastard, her spectacular VillainousBreakdown in the finale drives home that she's just as much Ozai's victim as Zuko is, and even when Zuko and Katara defeat her, they can't feel happy about it. The sheer speed with which her life falls apart has left both the creators and the fandom feeling sorry for her.
** A little bit earlier, Katara discovers an old drawing of a smiling, happy, innocent-looking baby. Zuko then points out that it was a drawing of [[BigBad Fire Lord Ozai]] himself, which does more to put a face and a history on him than three seasons of characterization previously, as well as remind everyone that Ozai is human too.
** Early, early in Season 1, we were getting this for Zuko -- his back-story certainly seemed to explain many of his evil tendencies. But then he went through a long character arc, eventually ending in a HeelFaceTurn, so there was no devil to cry for.
** ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' has this for the BigBad Amon. [[spoiler: Turns out he was the eldest son of Yakone, a merciless mob boss from Republic City who used his [[BlackMagic bloodbending]] to control people. When Aang took Yakone's bending away, Yakone sought revenge by teaching his two sons bloodbending. [[UsedToBeASweetKid There was indeed a time when Amon was just a carefree kid]], before the training, which turned him into a [[YouAreWhatYouHate self-loathing]] revolutionary and brutal KnightTemplar.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'':
** Done brilliantly in "[[Recap/BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesE14HeartOfIce Heart of Ice]]" which focuses on Mr. Freeze and turns him into a WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds. Mr. Freeze is almost completely unemotional, coldhearted and willing to kill anyone who stops him from getting revenge. But his backstory shows that he was trying to save his wife Nora when a heartless exec (who's lauded as a philanthropist) destroyed the lab for wasting money, permanently altering Freeze and nearly killing his wife. The show treats him with an enormous amount of sympathy (his famous "Never again" monologue) and the target of his vendetta, while not dying, gets his long overdue justice. The episode is always rated as being one of if not the best episodes of the series and benchmark for animated television -- there's a reason it won an Emmy.
** [[Recap/TheAdventuresOfBatmanAndRobinE11BabyDoll Baby-Doll]] is another example, a woman who has a deformity where she would never grow physically beyond a child, and goes to desperate lengths to try and bring some of the time she was happy back.
---> '''Baby Doll''': (''looking at a reflection of herself fully-grown'') Look! That's me in there. The real me! There I am! ...But it's not really real, is it? Just made up and pretend, like my family, and my life, and everything else. [[VillainousBreakdown Why couldn't you just let me make-believe!]] (''shoots at Franchise/{{Batman}}'s reflections before facing her adult-form mirror... and firing'') [[MeaningfulEcho I didn't mean to...]]
** "[[Recap/BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesE62HisSiliconSoul His Silicon Soul]]" introduces the Duplicant Batman, an IronWoobie who you can't help but feel sorry for after his TomatoInTheMirror moment. Especially when [[spoiler:he thinks he's killed Bruce. Realizing what Hardac built him to do will kill more innocent people, he sacrifices himself to foil it]]. Bruce wonders if this meant the duplicate had a soul of his own.
--->'''Bruce''': It seems it was more than wires and microchips after all. Could it be it had a soul, Alfred? A soul of silicon, but a soul nonetheless?
** About the only villains in this series that ''don't'' elicit sympathy are a [[Literature/TheIslandOfDoctorMoreau Dr. Moreau]] {{expy}} (though his creation ''did''), the Sewer King, Firefly, and The Joker.
* ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy'' have good ol' Eddy whose greed and arrogance is hard to surpass. More often than not, the viewer is shown he's a selfish jerk. [[spoiler: In the last five minutes of the movie, we see that Eddy is the way he is as a result of his older brother's abuse. Eddy was just trying to fit in and be cool, but he never figured out how to do it right because his brother constantly mistreated him while mentoring him to be cruel and self-serving.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'' has a tendency to do this with a number of its villains. In particular, the flashbacks in the multi-parter ''City of Stone'' are basically this for [[BigBad Demona]] and [[WorthyOpponent Macbeth]] writ large (also their mutual StartOfDarkness), but even [[MagnificentBastard Xanatos]] can ilicit this reaction when trying desperately to save his newborn son from [[JerkassGods Oberon]].
* ''WesternAnimation/GeneratorRex'', episode 8. [[SuperOCD Poor]], [[VillainousBreakdown poor]], [[CuteMonsterGirl Breach]].
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': By the end, you really have to feel sorry for Cozy Glow. First, she's implied to be an orphan. Second, she is sentenced to spend eternity in Tartarus rather than being sent to a normal prison despite several adult characters having done as bad as her and been given full pardons for their crimes simply because they showed remorse, as if simple remorse should mean the difference between a full pardon and life imprisonment, instead of anything else in between. Finally, she is forcibly broken out of Tartarus only to be railroaded into an even harsher punishment by Discord, who convinces the princesses to turn her into stone, while he gets off with nothing more than a scolding, despite the fact that he enabled all her new actions, none of which were really any worse than her previous ones, and she would have still been in Tartarus if not for him. Making this worse is that she actually showed signs of reforming in the episode "Frenemies" before Chrysalis talked her out of it, and in the end, she and Tirek both stand down after they are defeated, and they may very well have been given one final chance to turn themselves around had Chrysalis not kept running her mouth.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Primal}}'': The infected ''Argentinosaurus'' from "Plague Of Madness". The poor thing wasn't even malicious to begin with; it was just a peaceful herbivore who got bitten by an infected dinosaur and turned into an AxCrazy monster as a result. Unlike the viewer, Spear doesn't get to see it living peacefully among its herd, but still comes to the same conclusion nonetheless and looks genuinely saddened by the monster's death. The somber music that plays as it the lava flames char it out of its misery only makes it more pitiable.
* In-story example in ''WesternAnimation/SheRaPrincessOfPower'': EvilOverlord Hordak has been poisoned, and the magic poison will kill him within a certain time period if he cannot find anyone willing to cry for him. Since She-Ra doesn't want ''anyone'' to die, even Hordak, she helps him by taking him to see almost everyone he's ever known, learning about his history along the way. With time almost up, it turns out that there is nobody at all who won't be glad to see Hordak dead. She-Ra herself cries over the realization of just how thoroughly Hordak has wasted his life.
* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/StormHawks'' has [[BigBad Master Cyclonis]] attack the titular characters to steal a crystal from them which she needs to repair a broken crystal of her own. [[TheBadGuyWins She actually pulls it off]], returns to her SupervillainLair and repairs the crystal... [[EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas which projects a holographic image of her as a young child with her grandmother]]. Cyclonis almost [[TearJerker starts crying]].
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Wakfu}}'': This trope is practically a standard for every BigBad in the series.
** Every slight hint of Nox's history. The first glimpse of his history is a dream of a loving wife and children on a beautiful summer day. Given that he's now a cackling maniacal villain looking to turn back time or break the very fabric of reality in the attempt because ''nothing'' else matters to him anymore, it's safe to say things didn't go well for his family. The bonus episode "Noximilien" is entirely made of this and StartOfDarkness. [[spoiler:In the end, he finally achieves his goal and rewinds time, hoping to save his family and undo all the horrible things he's done over the last two hundred years... [[ShaggyDogStory and it only goes back twenty minutes]]. All the atrocities he's forced himself to commit, all the struggle he's caused, all the pain everyone's suffered, rendered completely pointless. He's so broken by this he goes to the graves of his family and [[DrivenToSuicide kills himself]]. And because the world never knew about his motives, he'll go down in history as a GenericDoomsdayVillain. WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds doesn't even ''begin'' to cover it.]]
** Although he's widely considered far less sympathetic than Nox, [[spoiler:Qilby]] still does this. He's a remorseless, treacherous, planet-destroying StrawNihilist who cares entirely about his own benefit and refuses to show regret for his many crimes, but he's become the way he is due to thousands (possibly even ''billions'') of years of [[WhoWantsToLiveForever being cursed with true immortality and forced to retain his memory of it all]], and knowing that it will never end, and furthermore having no-one but [[spoiler:his dragon twin Shinonome]] who understood his burden. It doesn't help that it's implied that the rest of his siblings did in fact neglect [[spoiler:Qilby]] and undervalue the vast intellect his immortality afforded him, regulating him to being a glorified librarian. [[spoiler:Qilby]] arouse pity when his [[spoiler:own sister]] turns against him in order to stop his madness and he's left crippled, crawling and desperately begging for her help. [[spoiler:Him being locked again in the BlankWhiteVoid where he spent thousands of years in catatonia, all alone and suffering the fate he feared most, is very much an AlasPoorVillain moment that has a strong impression on the audience]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fan Works]]
!!General
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'':
** There's a slew of fics that give one-shot villains [[JerkJock Gilda]] (from "Griffon the Brush-Off") and [[MilesGloriosus the Great and Powerful Trixie]] (from "Boast Busters") some sympathy, CharacterDevelopment, and a shot at redemption, sometimes with [[FreudianExcuse a tragic backstory]] thrown in for good measure. There's also a bit of fanart and fanfic out there that depicts [[AlphaBitch Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon]] in a sympathetic light, either giving them some CharacterDevelopment, showing them as {{Lonely Rich Kid}}s who only have each other as friends, or even having one or both as victims of [[AbusiveParents emotional neglect or abuse]]. There's even one or two such fics for [[PrinceCharmless Prince Blueblood]] (from "The Best Night Ever"), who most fans regard as completely unsympathetic.
** The major villains of the series aren't immune to this. In fact they might even get this more than the aforementioned characters. [[SuperpoweredEvilSide Nightmare Moon]] is often written as a tragic figure, since many writers believe that she's an aspect of [[EnsembleDarkhorse Princess Luna's]] negative emotions. [[ManipulativeBastard Discord]] is hit with this by writers who create a [[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds tragic motive behind his actions]] or by those fanfictions that [[HeelFaceTurn make him see the light]]. Even [[TheVamp Queen Chrysalis]], the most evil villain on the show to date, is sometimes painted by writers as a being who [[WellIntentionedExtremist only wants what's best for her race and genuinely believes that conquering Equestria and enslaving its inhabitants will benefit her race]].
* Used so often by ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' fanfics that it's become something of a DeadHorseTrope in that field. A large number of fanfics try to make the Kyuubi into a likable character using this strategy. Apparently, the savagely murderous and vile Kyuubi was just angry because somebody was picking on it or its family; the resulting murderous rampage that killed hundreds and orphaned just as many was a mistake it's very sorry for. Oh, and it's a girl. This backstory has been in use for several years now and has changed little since then, even ignoring key revelations in the manga that would negate it. The funny thing is, [[spoiler:Kyuubi really isn't all that bad when you get to know him!]]

!!Specific
* ''Fanfic/AbraxasHrodvitnon'': As evil as San's brothers (Ghidorah's right and middle heads, Ichi and Ni) are, Ghidorah's {{Backstory}} can create this reaction -- pun intended, with Ghidorah being a SatanicArchetype and the implied source of humans' lore about {{Satan}}. Ghidorah is already presented by the story as a WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds by origin as of Chapter 10, but the further details that the author revealed on her Tumblr about Ghidorah's backstory which were only vaguely relayed to characters in the story, are definitely enough to induce this effect. What's that the TragicVillain trope page says about the villain being as sympathetic as their victims? It's easy to pity the confused, broken and tortured creatures that Ichi and Ni were in the beginning of Ghidorah's life if not the utterly-malevolent OmnicidalManiac that they became.
%%* There is an ''WesternAnimation/IronManArmoredAdventures'' fanfic that does this for Gene Khan. In the order they occurred, he's [[spoiler:seen his father shot in front of him, had his house burned down, his now dirt-poor and homeless mother married a man who later killed her, spent the majority of his childhood being beaten and verbally abused by said man, and then his stepfather casually admitted to raping and killing Gene's mother just to hurt Gene even more.]] To quote the author, 'he never had a chance at being normal'.
* ''[[http://archiveofourown.org/works/3189956 Aftershocks]]'', a fanfic for ''Film/{{Heathers}}'', doesn't gloss over J.D.'s [[SerialKiller violent past]] or taste for violence, but by the end, he's [[ShellShockedVeteran so haunted by the war]] and it's put such a strain on his family, even as he attempts to have a normal life, that you have to feel sorry for him.
* In ''Fanfic/AlexandraQuick'', this is how Alexandra ultimately views [[spoiler:Darla]].
* In ''Fanfic/BadFutureCrusaders'' we have the WildCard Silver Spoon. She's cruel, has a nasty sense of humor, is fully willing to kill, and probably one of the evilest characters in the storyline (even outdoing a lot of the ''actual'' villains), yet what little details you get about her past and the fact that she is CoveredInScars make it ''very'' clear she has suffered greatly. Her interactions with Trixie and Clear Rivers imply there still is goodness in her, but even ''she'' has given up on ever changing her ways.
* In ''Fanfic/CodexEquus'', the villainous residents of [[VideoGame/StoryOfTheBlanks Sunnytown]] have received this treatment. In the original game, the Sunnytowners had little personality as individuals beyond being fanatical zombies who killed a young filly for gaining a Cutie Mark and nearly did the same to Apple Bloom. Their introduction into the Codexverse ''massively'' [[AdaptationExpansion expanded on the Sunnytowners' backstories and personalities]], humanizing them and turning them into otherwise sympathetic individuals who were influenced into doing bad things by an insane stallion. Each of their Codex entries also show how damaging fanaticism can be, depicting those who followed Grey Hoof as traumatized individuals who took a long time to recover from their experiences once they are freed from Sunnytown. Because of this, many readers have expressed sympathy for the Sunnytowners - up to the main author of ''Codex Equus'' himself - while at the same time expressing fear and disgust towards Grey Hoof's actions.
* In ''Fanfic/EquestriaAHistoryRevealed'', this occurs many times throughout the fic. In the case of King Sombra, it is hinted that some evil discovery, or just [[spoiler:the constant annoyance from the crystal ponies drove him mad.]] In the case of Luna, it was [[spoiler:the national trial and Luna Bill]] that caused her to believe her sister didn't love her anymore. And it even happens a bit for the LemonyNarrator, who throughout the fic was shown to be clearly insane and hate-filled, and later it is revealed [[spoiler:that her tough life and rejection from the Canterlot School for Gifted Unicorns was partly responsible for her turning out this way.]]
* Emmeraude, from the latter end of [[https://www.fanfiction.net/u/4588507/marcus00721 marcus00721]]'s ''Fairy Tail'' series, was the illegitimate child of the Pergrande King and lived in poverty with her mother. After becoming a top soldier in the Pergrande's army she was exiled after a failed experiment on the King. All she wanted was to [[WellIntentionedExtremist create a better world]] so people like her mother wouldn't have to suffer. Her plans were delayed when [[spoiler: Lucy]] unknowingly took a key part of Emmeraude's plans while investigation disappearances. When she captured [[spoiler: Lucy]] Fairy Tail took on everything Emmeraude threw at them to get their friend back. Eventually they succeed in bringing her down. In the process Emmeraude losses almost everything she cared about. Her [[AMotherToHerMen subordinates]] either died during the battle or were taken back to Pergrande to be executed as they were soldiers from said kingdom. The daughter she created [[HeroicSacrifice sacrificed]] herself to save everyone. Her dreams are now in ruin. The only good thing she still has going for her is that her mother is alive and well.
** [[SubvertedTrope However]], you may loose some of that sympathy with how [[EvilIsPetty petty]] she is. When she captured [[spoiler:Lucy]] she abused the poor girl who was already suffering. When she is defeated she blames [[spoiler: Lucy]] for all of her misfortune. And abandons her dreams and joins [[spoiler: Zeref]] if it means Fairy Tail's destruction and that she can get her hands on [[spoiler: Lucy]]. Emmeraude has already came close destroying [[spoiler: Lucy's keys]] and threatened to kill [[spoiler: Natsu]] in front of her just to hurt the girl.
* Used InUniverse in the ''LightNovel/MyNextLifeAsAVillainessAllRoutesLeadToDoom'' fanfic ''Fanfic/FortuneLoverTGSBetaSaruRipTPlusEng0Point75SincereDotZip''. Because Katarina in the titular GameMod of ''[[FictionalVideoGame Fortune Lover]]'' is modified to act more like the Katarina in the source material, yet the rest of the cast continues with their script, or in other words, treating an AllLovingHero as if she was an AlphaBitch (as in the ''Fortune Lover'' canon). This makes [[CharacterNarrator Parasite_Ib]] find Katarina rather lovely and start to ''hate'' the rest of the cast, [[PlayerCharacter Maria]] included.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/RiseOfTheGuardians'' fic ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8751000/1/Guardian-of-Light Guardian of Light]]'', Pitch finds out that [[spoiler:the main character, Helen, is his daughter whom he lost at the end of the Golden Age. He tries to get her back, but when he gets her and tells her, she refuses to believe him. Then the Guardians storm in, and take her back. And then when he gets her back again, she fights against him. While her reactions towards him are understandable, it's really hard not to feel sorry for the guy, since he's only trying to get his daughter back.]]
* In ''Fanfic/HarmonyTheory'' there is Charisma, [[TheDreaded a dreaded]] PsychoForHire and TheDragon to one of the {{Big Bad}}s who ruthlessly and sadistically kills anypony or any other creature in her way. But as the story goes on we find out that Charisma [[UsedToBeASweetKid used to be an innocent and happy filly that loved to dance]], until the day she got glyph/cutie mark which turned out to be ''literally'' the mark of a killer which came with a little voice inside her head that constantly tells her to kill everypony around her and the best ways to do it, which drove her to [[spoiler: '''murder her own brother''', which got her disowned from her family as a child]], before being taken under the wing of ponies that saw her potential as a living weapon and molded her into the monster she would become.
* The ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'' fanfic ''Fanfic/AHistoryOfMagic'' did this for the girl who would become [[spoiler:Walpurgisnacht]]. At a young age she had been brainwashed by the Nazi party to be loyal only to them and use her wish for their benefit, and then the witch[[spoiler:/Angel]] Pandora showed her images of other Puella Magi who suffered, causing her to snap even more, [[CallingTheOldManOut calling Hitler out]], and becoming a witch almost immediately after making her wish.
* There's one called ''[[http://www.fimfiction.net/story/87434/mirrors-in-shadows Mirrors in Shadows]]'' which does this for changelings, but with a twist. Rather than the usual DracoInLeatherPants or NotEvilJustMisunderstood treatment the fandom usually gives changelings, this one full on acknowledges that they are evil and heartless predators. Somehow, it ''still'' manages to [[TearJerker drown you in feels]].
* ''Fanfic/MortalKombatDesperation'' uses this trope on the BigBad, [[MadGod Raiden]]. On the surface, he may seem to be a KnightTemplar with a bit of the AxCrazy, HeWhoFightsMonsters and WellIntentionedExtremist tropes, but many of his former allies lament and feel sorry at [[VideoGame/MortalKombatX how the Jinsei's corruption changed him into a self-centered, taunting and rage-fueled madman.]]
* ''Fanfic/MyImmortal'': Satan was rather calm and nice (in fact, much more sane and likable than the protagonist herself) and never did anything directly bad. Dumbledore even demonizes the goths and punks at the school, but Satan seems to ride this off. And he becomes Voldemort, who harasses the main characters constantly.
* ''Fanfic/APeriodOfSilence'' does this for its main villain, Allucinere. Once an orphan known only as Maya Tromper, she [[spoiler: watched her family burn to death when she was very young.]] Despite spending her youth in an orphanage, she managed to find joy in the form of Esme, a kind, outgoing, somewhat impulsive brunette who formed a perfect contrast to her more reserved nature. They eventually fell in love, but on the night of their high school graduation, [[spoiler:Maya and Esme run into a man named Lazario, who arranged for the death of Maya's parents. He shoots Esme right in front of her, which causes her to snap.]] It wasn't what drove her over the edge, but it does give a certain context to her actions that inspires more of a tragic "what could have been" reaction from the audience rather than simple hatred.
* ''Fanfic/SonicXDarkChaos'' uses this trope pretty clearly with Tsali. He seems like an utterly AxCrazy monster at first glance, until the story begins to become more clear - not only did he have a BreakTheCutie backstory that could put [[Manga/{{Berserk}} Guts]] to shame, he's basically ruined the entire galaxy [[spoiler: and his own family]] through his lust for revenge. Episode 74 basically milks this trope for all its worth when [[spoiler:Tsali finds out that Maledict had betrayed him from the very beginning]] - his resulting VillainousBreakdown is hard to take.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* ''Film/AClockworkOrange'', both the Kubrick movie and the original book. Alex, a murderer and rapist becomes sympathetic when he is laid low, repeatedly humiliated, and [[BlackAndGreyMorality manipulated for political reasons by a corrupt system.]] It's an ode to bad people everywhere, because if people aren't free to choose evil, they cease to be people in any meaningful sense.\\\
It's taken UpToEleven in the novel, especially in the scene where Alex has just been released and goes to see [[AbusiveParents his parents]], only to find that [[ReplacementGoldfish they've got a new lodger who has become like a son to them.]] [[KickTheDog For added dog-kickery, the guy has actually moved into Alex's room.]] [[FreudianExcuse It's hard not to pity the poor bastard.]]
* ''Film/AlienResurrection'': The Newborn was a murderous abomination, but unlike the aliens, shows some emotion, and acts as a naive and childlike creature. And its death was long and agonizing. Ripley 8 showed remorse for it - then again, besides the fact it had imprinted on her as its mother she's kind of its grandmother - and even Call had to look away in dismay during the Newborn's brutal death.
* ''Film/BladeRunner2049'': Many audience members found themselves feeling unexpectedly sorry for [[TheDragon Luv]], the ruthless and at times sadistic Replicant enforcer of [[BigBad Wallace]], given that she has no actual choice in the matter of her job and is forced to watch her boss murder other Replicants just for kicks and lead his crusade that, if successful, will lead only to her eventually [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness being rendered obsolete]].
* ''Film/BramStokersDracula'': Despite his wanton rape and murder, you can't help but feel bad for Dracula, largely due to his tragic backstory and Gary Oldman's empathetic performance.
* The film of ''Literature/BridgeToTerabithia'' has a lot of this. The bully girl has a drunken abusive father, the cold emotionless teacher hasn't gotten over her husband's death, etc.
* The end of ''Film/CruelIntentions''. RichBitch Kathryn Merteuil has spent the entire movie plotting to ruin the lives of people she considers social inferiors, using her stepbrother Sebastian Valmont as the tool for said ruination. She almost gets away with it...but she didn't reckon on [[TheDogBitesBack two of her former victims deciding to get the goods on her and her schemes]]. While she's delivering a eulogy for her dead stepbrother in a church, the mourners begin to file out and her SmugSnake facade yields quickly to [[VillainousBreakdown a "how dare you filthy peasants" sort of rant]]. She storms out angrily - and finds everyone reading copies of Sebastian's recently published diary, distributed by the two aforementioned victims. Kathryn's entire social circle now knows that she is a mean-spirited schemer and a cocaine addict, and to top it off, she finally gets to read the diary herself and see just how strongly Sebastian felt toward her. And she just stands there and silently cries, humiliated and shamed. Even WordOfGod in the DVD commentary finds it hard not to feel bad for her now, even considering all the villainy she's committed prior to this.
** The [[Literature/DangerousLiaisons story this film was based on]] has the character of Merteuil get it even ''worse''. At least Kathryn will now likely be subjected to psychological help and rehab for her cocaine problem and get better from this phase of her life ([[WebVideo/TheNostalgiaChick IT'S HIGH SCHOOL!]]). The original Merteuil, on the other hand, loses ''everything'' when her reputation crumbles, and to add injury to insult, she contracts smallpox and her face ends up permanently disfigured. She was a manipulative bitch, but ''damn''.
* Franchise/DCExtendedUniverse:
** ''Film/ManOfSteel'': The brief moment when Zod laments that now he has "no people" (after his crew was sent into the PhantomZone and the Scout Ship with the genesis chamber got wrecked, leaving no possibility of reviving the Kryptonian race). It's cut short by his RoaringRampageOfRevenge, but still poignant.
** ''Film/ZackSnydersJusticeLeague'': Despite being an unrepentant conqueror, Steppenwolf does have moments where the audience can sympathize with him. It's mentioned that he had some kind of clash with Darkseid when the latter took the throne, which is left open to interpretation. He decimates worlds because it's the only way Darkseid will forgive him and he has to deal with [=DeSaad=] kicking him while he's down, [[PuppyDogEyes his look of sadness seems shockingly genuine]]. After being beaten and killed by the Justice League, Darkseid dismisses him as a failure in spite of his near-success, with Desaad getting in one more snipe at Steppenwolf's expense.
* Invoked on Jason's behalf in ''Film/{{Freddy Vs Jason}}''. Though both titular characters are serial killers who murder a ton of innocent (if bland and slightly annoying) teenagers, Jason is clearly the more sympathetic of the two, and the one the audience is meant to root for. His traumatic childhood, fraught with relentless bullying and neglect, is emphasized, and Freddy uses the dark memories to cruelly torture him. On the other hand, Freddy is just a sadistic psychopath, child murderer (and it's all but outright stated, molester), and monster without a single redeeming quality to boast of. Unless you count his [[EvilHasABadSenseOfHumor infamously awful jokes]] and [[StartOfDarkness bad chldhood]]. It's a case of [[EvilVersusEvil black and blacker than black morality, really]].
* The two MUTO from ''Film/Godzilla2014'' for their nature as [[TragicMonster Tragic Monsters]]. While they indeed do pose a threat to mankind, especially moreso if they ended up reproducing, ultimately the MUTO were not evil, malicious creatures, but merely very big animals who wanted to raise their family in peace. Indeed, they get several endearing PetTheDog moments, such as when the male and female have an affectionate courtship ritual, to the point when it's genuinely tearjerking to see the female MUTO shrieking in anguish over her destroyed offspring.
* The beginning of Rob Zombie's ''Film/{{Halloween 2007}}'' is this trope; the viewers are expected to know that the cute little boy is a serial-killer-to-be.
** Long before the remake, both the first film's novelization and several sequels imply that Michael is the superhuman killing machine he is because of an AncientEvil that latched onto him when he was a child. ''Halloween 5'' even has a fleeting moment where he sheds a SingleTear as the human inside him breaks through. It doesn't make him any ''less'' terrifying, but it does cast his murderous actions and robotic demeanour in a slightly different way.
* ''[[Film/HowTheGrinchStoleChristmas Dr. Seuss' The Grinch]]''. We all know the story of Literature/HowTheGrinchStoleChristmas; we know how the cold-hearted, hate-filled Grinch tried to ruin the merriment of the good, honest Whos of Whoville, the wretch. But then, we're given a completely different look at things: we're still given the HOW, but now we're shown the WHY as well -- and frankly, who could blame him? In the scene where the mayor is giving an annual prize about holiday cheer or somesuch, Cindy Lou Who refers to the page quote and nominates the Grinch, saying that he's the one who needs it most. The fact that the Grinch is played hilariously by Jim Carrey helps.
* [[BigBad Rico]] from ''Film/JudgeDredd'', despite being a murderous psychopath, seems to sincerely love Judge Dredd like a brother and tries several times to sway Dredd to his side. At one point, he is ''this close'' to crying while yelling at Dredd for judging him.
--> '''Rico''': (On the brink of tears) I'm the only family you ever had!
* A notorious example exists in the Korean version of ''Film/{{Oldboy 2003}}''. The BigBad of the movie, Woo-jin, goes to unbelievable lengths in a deacades-long plan to ruin Dae-su's life as revenge for Dae-su [[spoiler:spreading rumors about Woo-jin's sister that later drove her to commit suicide, though it doesn't justify Woo-jin's appalling acts of revenge. After Woo-jin has finally achieved his revenge, he goes into an elevator and has a flashback to the day his sister killed herself where he managed to grab her arm as she tried to jump off a building but she made him let go of her, falling to her death. After reliving it, he promptly ''blows his brains out.'']]
* ''Franchise/StarWars'':
** Darth Vader killed younglings, caused the destruction of the Republic by foolishly believing in a Sith Lord, and later participated in several massacres, but when he sees what he's become and how his son's been hurt, there is plenty of crying for him once he sacrifices himself.
** Ditto for his [[spoiler:grandson]], Kylo Ren/[[spoiler:Ben Solo]], who killed [[spoiler: his father, Han Solo]], ordered the massacre of civilians and is indirectly responsible for the deaths of [[spoiler: his mother, Leia Organa, and uncle, Luke Skywalker]], but is also shown to be deeply conflicted and in emotional agony throughout the trilogy, which made [[spoiler: his death by way of sacrificing his life for Rey]] extremely sad for many viewers.
* Khan from ''Series/{{Star Trek|The Original Series}}'' is one mean, manipulative, arrogant bastard, but the movie ''[[Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan Wrath of Khan]]'' shows that maybe had his planet not turned into a CrapsackWorld, and a bunch of worms not killed off a third of his people including his wife, he may have been at least "a little" nicer.\\\
Especially if you take into account the book ''To Reign in Hell: The Exile of Khan Noonien Singh'', where he really tries to become better and live a peaceful life with his people. He only becomes a villain again because that plan is destroyed by an ecological disaster. (All of which is hinted at in the movie.) That makes it really sad when he says in the film:
-->"This is Ceti Alpha V!"
* In ''Film/StarTrekIntoDarkness'' Harrison is unquestionably evil, but the impassioned speech he gives in the ''Enterprise's'' brig about how he failed to protect his crew and believed they were dead, complete with teary eyes and comparing them to his family, makes it hard not to feel a bit bad for him. That, and that his people's supposed murder was his motivation to [[spoiler: strafe Starfleet's top officers]].
* Loki in ''Film/{{Thor}}''. On the one hand, he's a conniving, power-hungry liar, willing to betray his brother and doom him to permanent banishment while he usurped the throne. On the other hand, he's a deeply damaged young man who's ''convinced'' he's TheUnfavorite, especially after finding out he was not only adopted, but from an enemy race, and is ''desperate'' for his father's approval and affection.
** Made even sadder because he already ''had'' his father's approval and affection but convinced himself otherwise. And also because he's obviously going down a darker path, being the BigBad in ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'' movie.
* ''Film/Tremors5Bloodlines'': Some audience members found themselves feeling sorry for the Graboids when the heroes destroy their nest and use their last egg as bait to kill the final Queen, who was just trying to [[MonsterIsAMommy protect her offspring]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* ''Literature/AFrozenHeart'': Hans is depicted in a more sympathetic light despite his actions.
* ''Literature/ParadiseLost'' is probably the Ur-Example...for the first few books, anyway.
* Similarly, everything Blake or Byron ever wrote.
* Chapter 9: Storm Clouds, from Literature/HellsChildren, by Andrew Boland.
* ''Literature/WutheringHeights'' begins by showing the audience Heathcliff as an adult, nasty and abusive to everyone he's around (even sending his hunting dogs after his guest) and then quickly shows his childhood, when he had potential to be a better person. One line that stands out is when, at one point in the story, Nelly, the main narrator, consoles a crying Heathcliff by telling him that he may be a [[MosesInTheBulrushes lost Asian prince]] out of a fairy tale, leading him to imagine regaining such status and taking revenge on everyone who has wronged him in a way that foreshadows his later FaceHeelTurn.
* Although it is actually written more to show a character as villainous who, up to this point, seemed more of a LovableRogue, Gogol's novel ''Literature/DeadSouls'' ends this way. Up to this point, the reader knows that the protagonist Chichikov is some kind of HonestJohn or con artist who has a mysterious plan to buy the records of recently deceased serfs, and he is presented as more sinned against than sinning. Then, the LemonyNarrator discusses how he came from an upwardly mobile family and, at a young age, had all of his creativity beaten out of him by his father and schoolmasters, leading him to become a StepfordSmiler and SmugSnake and manipulate and betray people in order to rise through the bureaucracy. Periodically, he is caught engaged in corrupt action and has to bribe his even more corrupt colleagues to escape complete disgrace. Thus, by the start of the novel, Chichikov has become something of an IneffectualSympatheticVillain.
* The ''Literature/HarryPotter'' series really loves to play around with this one. [[spoiler:Snape is a complete bastard, but is hinted to be a good guy throughout the series. In the end, the reader can't be certain of what side he's on until Harry gets to see his memories and Snape is explained to be a good guy.]] Voldemort is explained to have had a bad childhood throughout the series, but Rowling says he's the only really bad person in the books [[note]]A bold [[Characters/HarryPotter claim.]][[/note]]. Thus, he was bad from the start and his experiences in life are no excuse for who he is. On the completely opposite side of that is Harry, who had a bad childhood too, and yet is a very surprisingly selfless person.
** When Harry does feel a twinge of pity for Voldemort after hearing his backstory, Dumbledore tells him to ignore it and to save that pity for Voldemort's many victims. Even after that, in their final confrontation, [[spoiler: Harry tries to convince Voldemort to feel some remorse for his deeds to help him restore his soul. Harry knows that Voldemort is doomed to suffer a horrific afterlife otherwise, and it is not a fate he would wish on anyone, not even Voldemort.]]
* The last section of ''Literature/{{Frankenstein}}'' shows very sharply that the creature was formed by his surroundings, not created evil.
* All of Nick Cave's ''Literature/AndTheAssSawTheAngel'' - if the viewpoint character was anyone else, it'd be a lurid psycho-killer story, and Cave has the skill to make that obvious without breaking first person. There's one utterly heartbreaking scene where [[spoiler: Euchrid, isolated and spiraling into paranoid schizophrenia, stumbles into a group of migrant workers and sidesteps a bottle of beer thrown to him with a cry of "catch it!", assuming from experience he's being called catshit and the men mean to beat and rape him.]]
* Several characters in ''Literature/AmericanGods'', including the serial child murderer of a small god who is revealed to have started life as a child raised in darkness and isolation for five years, then was sacrificed...
* In Creator/JRRTolkien's ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'', Sméagol/Gollum is a slimy little git--but he wasn't always that bad...the Ring drove him to insanity. Frodo hates Gollum at first, but eventually pities and tries to help him--in fact, we can see some of Gollum in Frodo himself.
-->'''Frodo''': But do you remember Gandalf's words: '''Even Gollum may have something yet to do?''' But for him, Sam, I could not have destroyed the Ring. The Quest would have been in vain, even at the bitter end. '''So let us forgive him!''' For the Quest is achieved, and now all is over.
** ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'' shows this may have been intended for Orcs. It is revealed Middle-Earth's equivalent of {{Satan}}, [[GodOfEvil Morgoth]], captured many of the Elves after they awoke, and with [[BeingTorturedMakesYouEvil torture]] used them to create Orcs. Tolkien even writes the Orcs really hate Morgoth and serve him out of fear.
** This happens with a lot of the supposed evil characters. When Sam sees one of the Haradrim, men from the South who are fighting for Sauron, die, he wonders whether he was really evil, what made him leave home and whether he would have preferred to stay there.
* Thomas Harris' ''Literature/RedDragon'' provides a horrendous backstory for the "Tooth Fairy" Francis Dolarhyde, from his mother rejecting him at birth (illegitimate and with facial deformations), to a rough life in an orphanage, to adoption by his EvilMatriarch [[NeverMessWithGranny grandmother]], to eventual adoption by his reluctant mother, whose other children reject and abuse him. After that, the StartOfDarkness kicks in, and AxCrazy as he ends up, he still, at one point, tries, albeit unsuccessfully, to fight his evil SplitPersonality, even in the middle of being played for an UnwittingPawn by [[Literature/TheSilenceOfTheLambs Hannibal Lecter]].
* In [[Creator/CharlesDickens Dickens]]' ''Literature/AChristmasCarol'', the point of the Christmas Past sections is to show how Scrooge became an old meanie. It shows how he came to believe that 'if you like anybody or let yourself feel any emotion, you'll get hurt'.
* In ''Literature/ILucifer'', the reader may feel a little swell of tears depending on how sympathetically they see old Luce's story, but an in story example has [[spoiler: Raphael shed tears over Lucifer himself, when fighting a losing battle to convince him to redeem himself rather than face eternity in the void]].
* Creator/StephenKing does this so much that the trope could almost be named after him. Try to name one villain he's written that hasn't had a flashback to their shitty childhoods (cosmic horrors don't count). King definitely believes that evil people are made, not born.
** In the novels, yes. In the Different Seasons novellas, Ace, the Sisters and Dussander have no bad-childhood-made-me-do-it backstories, and Todd freely chooses to follow in their footsteps.
* David of ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' in his last appearance. After realizing he's been betrayed by Crayak, he accepts his death with dignity and begs Rachel to end his misery.
--> '''David''': It's a beautiful world. I'll miss it.
* Jaime Lannister in ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire''. He was a young, dashing knight, proud member of the Kingsguard. Then he [[TheOathbreaker stabbed]] [[TheCaligula Aerys II]] [[TheOathbreaker in the back]]. [[spoiler:In a SympatheticPOV, we find out that he didn't do it to help his family win the war - he did it because Aerys ordered the city to be burned with [[GreekFire wildfire]]. And that was after Jaime had spent about two years being traumatized by having to watch Aerys' increasingly depraved behavior and being duty-bound not to intervene.]] Almost everyone in the Seven Kingdoms now hates his guts and calls him Kingslayer. 14 years later, after all of the treatment and hatred he has received over the years, he has [[BecomingTheMask become the mask]] and [[ThenLetMeBeEvil embraced that image]]. When Brienne of Tarth finds out his secret and [[ArmorPiercingQuestion asks if he is so cowardly as to let it define him]], he starts to shift into one of the more noble characters in the books.
* This is the point of ''Literature/{{Wicked}}''; it ''does'' have Elphaba do morally ambiguous things (unlike [[Theatre/{{Wicked}} the musical]], where usually she tried to do good but it blew up in her face, book-Elphaba does some things that can't even be argued to have good ''intentions''), but it explains where her opposition to the Wizard and her distaste for Ozian society in general come from.
* Michael Henchard from Hardy's ''Literature/TheMayorOfCasterbridge'' does some very reprehensible things, including selling his wife and child for the price of a pint (more or less), manipulating his 'daughter' and telling her real father (it's complicated) that she has died because he wants to keep her to himself, and also ruining the life and reputation of another young woman. Yet by the end of the novel, when he dies alone and unloved it is possible to feel immense sympathy for him.
* In the ''Literature/CodexAlera'' series, we see the [[spoiler:Vord Queen]] in this light in the last book, as the individual tries to understand such things as love and family. Being the BigBad, the individual gets it very, very wrong.
* How exactly did [[Literature/TheGuardiansOfChildhood Kozmotis Pitchiner]], esteemed war hero of the Golden Age, end up as the [[WasOnceAMan Pitch Black Nightmare King]] we now know? If you have to [[spoiler:guard Pandora's Prison Cell of {{Eldritch Abomination}}s and listen to their incessant wailing to be freed for years ''in your daughter's voice'', you'd be compelled to throw the gates open and get violently possessed and corrupted, too]]. It doesn't get better when it becomes apparent that [[spoiler:his memory and love for his daughter still has the potential to [[IKnowYoureInThereSomewhereFight turn him back into a human]], proven when Katherine showed him the locket with a picture of his daughter and it ended up de-monsterfying his right arm]].
* In the ''Literature/HorusHeresy'' all of the Traitor Primarchs, except [[WellIntentionedExtremist Alpharius Omegon]], have this to one degree or another.
** Horus Lupecal. The Warmaster. The Arch-Traitor. And in ''Horus Rising'' we see the man before he was corrupted by Chaos; a Primarch who truly loved his sons and enjoyed spending time with them [[spoiler: in the Warrior Lodge of which he wasn't even in charge, he just liked to attend and be around his sons in a place where rank was unimportant]], and a warrior who was willing to negotiate with other civilisations rather than conquer them outright and in his dealings with the Interex actually seemed desperate to, for once, make peace with someone rather than just crush them. And then on Davin [[spoiler: he is wounded by the Athame and tricked by the Chaos Gods into accepting darkness into his heart. And by Erebus who takes the form of Hastur Sejanus, who was essentially Horus' best friend and was murdered prior to the start of the book, and uses Horus' love of Sejanus to nudge him into accepting the Gods offer.]] Horus became a monster, but before that it's easy to see why he was among the greatest of the Primarchs.
** Angron. The Red Angel. One of the most insane of the Primarchs and one damaged from the start, obsessed with killing and slaughter and barely even functional at the best of times. But he was once a little boy whose first contact with humanity was to be enslaved and forced to be a slave-gladiator for arrogant and cruel nobles. They cracked open his head and gave him the Butcher's Nails, an antique technology that causes him constant cripping agony and puts him into uncontrollable rages. And after years of degradation Angron finally leads a rebellion that is doomed to fail, and at the moment of his final battle the Emperor arrives and offers to take him to birthright. Angron says no, wishing to die with his brothers and sisters. So does the Emperor help him or respect his wishes? He abducts him and Angron watches everyone he knew and cared about be slaughtered.
** Mortarion. The Death Lord. Raised on a poisonous world ruled by {{Eldritch Abomination}}s known only as the Warlords, taken in by the most powerful of them and raised as a weapon rather than a son, he eventually escapes and leads his people to freedom. But his final moment of triumph is stolen by the Emperor who cuts down his foster father in front of him, and it's implied that Mortarion had conflicted feelings about him, and he must bend his knee in servitude. He joins Horus for selfish reasons but comes to the attention of Nurgle, and when his Legion is decimated by plague and he must make a choice between horrific deaths and pain or serving Nurgle, he chooses to serve Nurgle from fear of dying. And why did he have to make that choice? [[spoiler: Because his treacherous First Captain Calas Typhon put them in that situation so that it would happen.]]
** Fulgrim. The Phoenician. Fulgrim's very first contact with his Legion was learning that they had been decimated by gene-seed problems and that only 200 lived, whereas most Legions had 100,000 marines and more. Not daunted he gave such a RousingSpeech that the Emperor himself was impressed and gave them the right to bear his personal symbol, the Aquila. But that was clearly the start of Fulgrim's obsession with perfection, living up to his father's pride and proving that there was nothing wrong with his Legion. Eventually he finds the Blade of Laer and it slowly begins corrupting him, twisting his love of art and culture into something depraved, turning him against the sons who truly love him and his closest brother Ferrus Manus, and eventually [[spoiler: pushes him into murdering Manus. Fulgrim immediately sees the horror of what he has become and begs for oblivion, which the Daemon inside the blade grants him by possessing him. Fulgrim does eventually break free but had to sell his soul to achieve it.]] Like Horus Fulgrim became a monster, perhaps the worst of them all, but he was one of the friendliest and nicest Primarchs before that.
** Magnus the Red. The Cyclops. The most knowledgeable about the Primarchs, who made a faustian bargain with the Warp to save his sons from mutation. He builds a great civilisation of psykers and then is forced to watch as his brothers call him an unclean warlock and madman for dabbling with what he does not understand, and the Emperor demands that his Legion cease their psyker practices and pursuits into sorcery. Magnus is truly hurt but still tries to warn the Emperor of Horus' treachery, but picked the worst way and time to do it. Cue the Burning of Prospero [[spoiler: where the Space Wolves raze Prospero, butcher its people and cut down the Thousand Sons as they fight to defend their home. Magnus is so despondent over everything that he can't even muster the will to fight, until he sees Leman Russ murdering his sons, whereupon he joins the fight and is forced to pledge his soul to Tzeentch to save what remains of his Legion.]] If the Emperor had just levelled with Magnus about Chaos, perhaps Magnus could have had a much different future...
** Lorgar Aurelian. The Golden. Lorgar was the most corrupt of all the Primarchs and the most tragic. Before becoming the Arch-Priest of Chaos he was perhaps the Primarch most interested in improving humanity's lot and genuinely cared about people; he wanted to please the Emperor and his brother Primarchs, and preached a religion based on love of your fellow man and standing together in unity. The Emperor is not pleased and after destroying a city on one of Lorgar's worlds to make his point, point-blank tells Lorgar and the Word Bearers that they are the only ones that have truly disappointed and failed him, that Lorgar's childhood conquering his homeworld in the Emperor's name was a waste of time and life, and that everything they have achieved is worthless. Even Guilliman and Malcador, who were there at the time, feel bad for Lorgar and Malcador [[spoiler: even claims that if he could have saved any of the Traitor Primarchs it would have been Lorgar, even though Lorgar nearly crippled him at said incident.]] Lorgar just wanted to give humanity faith, he really believed that it would make humanity happier and better for it. And when he finally does find the Gods he always believed in, they aren't quite what he expected...
** Konrad Curze. The Night Haunter. One of the most pitiable of the Primarchs. Raised on a world where the most common cause of death was suicide, he was not taken in by a family or a mentor, he raised himself and brought his world to compliance through fear. Cursed all his life with seeing the future he knew from an early age how he would die, and when the Emperor did come for him Curze took the Emperor's compliments on Nostramo as proof that his methods were correct. Eventually he could not be tolerated any more and the Emperor chastised him, and then Curze saw what was to come. [[spoiler: A vision of the Heresy, and as the only Primarch who he considered a friend Fulgrim was the first person he told, and Fulgrim's first act was to tell the others. Rogal Dorn called Curze out for his slander and in a fit of madness Curze nearly beat him to death, and was condemned for it. Escaping he returns home and finds that Nostramo has reverted to what it once was, and he decides that only destruction will end the cycle of sin.]] Eventually he allows himself to be assassinated to end his miserable life and to prove that the Emperor is little different from him.
** Perturabo. The Iron Lord. Perturabo is one of the most tragic of the Primarchs, for his treachery was entirely preventable if only somebody had taken an interest in him as a human being. Raised by a cold and tyrannical ruler who thought of Perturabo more as an heir than a son, eventually Perturabo met the Emperor and had a chance to really come into his own. It was not to be. He legion was saddled with garrison and siege duties all across the galaxy in small numbers guarding massive populations in hellhole conditions once the Emperor realised how talented he and the Iron Warriors were at such styles of warfare, and his only dream [[spoiler: of creating wondrous and beautiful buildings, cities and works of architecture solely for the joy of it, and not for glory or rulership]], was never realised as nobody ever cared enough to ask him what his dreams were. His dedication was put to the test when he had to reign in his own rebelling homeworld. He and his legion massacred the rebeling population and realized there was no possibility of atonement. He sided with Horus for that, and for one reason, [[spoiler: Horus was the only one who had never lied to him or betrayed him.]]
* Artemis Entreri is a ruthless assassin that has done his fair share of atrocities over the series progression, but seeing his upbringing in ''Literature/TheSellswords'' does a great deal in explaining how he came to be how he is. His mother was a prostitute, his supposed father abused him and his uncle molested him as a boy, before his mother sold him to a pedohile merchant. No wonder he grew up to be a cynic.
* Captain Bligh in Literature/TheBountyTrilogy. He is shown to be a complete bastard, cruel and vindictive towards his underlings. After the mutiny, he is shown in the lifeboat, taking care of the men who joined him. He prays for their safety and gives the bird they killed to the weakest man in the boat. He proves himself a masterful sailor. He and most of the crew survive and reach shore where Bligh regains command of another ship. He then becomes cruel and vindictive again, but the scenes showing him in the lifeboat gave another side that added the slightest respectability to the character.
** TruthInTelevision. Bligh was no worse or better than most captains of his day, and he did, in fact, manage to sail that small open boat thousands of miles to safety, saving the lives of his crew who went with him. Meanwhile, back on Pitcairn, things were... less than rosy between Fletcher Christian, his fellow mutineers, and their Tahitian companions.
* ''Literature/{{Worm}}'' tends to have this effect, partly because of the regular "interlude" chapters that show another character's perspective, often that of one of the antagonists. With a few notable exceptions, the comment sections are much more sympathetic towards characters after their interludes. Particular credit is due to Wildbow for turning [[spoiler:Bonesaw/Riley, a CreepyChild MadDoctor who's one of the most important members of the [[TheDreaded Slaughterhouse Nine]] and whose [[BodyHorror "artwork"]] on one of the main characters was terrible enough to cause a [[TraumaticSuperpowerAwakening second trigger]],]] into a WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds.
* Ineluki the Storm King from ''Literature/{{MemorySorrowand Thorn}}''is like this. To quote: [[spoiler:"He loved his people so much he gave his soul for them". And even our hero says that "No creature in all the cosmos deserved what had happened to the Storm King".]]
* ''Literature/{{Perfume}}'': Grenouille ends numerous innocent lives to sate his quest for the ultimate scent, but his whole existence is portrayed as completely miserable and pointless: almost murdered as an infant by his mother, walking around humans like an alien, living in total isolation for years, and when he finally achieves his goal and could basically become a living god, [[spoiler:he decides he doesn't want that anyway and kills himself by being EatenAlive by a mob of peasants.]]
* ''Literature/ThePrioryOfTheOrangeTree''
** Niclays Roos, who is almost a VillainProtagonist. He is selfish and resentful, his lies result in the death of Tané's childhood friend, he attempts to blackmail her into injuring her dragon so he can have a new ingredient for his alchemical experiments, he deceives his two honest doctor friends, and he persuades himself into doing all these things because it will spite the queen who exiled him for using her research grant to fund his addictions. But it's hard not to pity him a little over all the awful things he gets put through (even though a lot of them are his own fault) and he dove into his addictions because the love of his life, whom he couldn't marry for status reasons, died unexpectedly at the same time as Niclays was commisioned to make an elixir of life, and being barred from ''anywhere in Virtudom'' was an excessive punishment.
** Saint Galian Berethnet, founder of Virtudom. His virtues are brought into question early on with Ead's version of the dragon-slaying story and his myth is pulled further and further apart, including an extended diatribe by a non-believer that portrays Galian as a lust-driven thug who opportunistically used the dragon situation to found a new religion with himself as its godhead and lied about having killed the dragon to justify crowning himself king of all Inys. But the protagonists finally learn the truth of the two impossible-to-reconcile versions of his relationship with Cleolind--Galian truly believed he was married to Cleolind, but it was really his ''adopted mother'', Kalyba, who kept him under a spell of hynosis until she nearly died in childbirth and the enchantment broke. He hanged himself in shame, and it's hard not to feel bad for him over that.
[[/folder]]

* Used InUniverse in the ''LightNovel/MyNextLifeAsAVillainessAllRoutesLeadToDoom'' fanfic ''Fanfic/FortuneLoverTGSBetaSaruRipTPlusEng0Point75SincereDotZip''. Because Katarina in the titular GameMod of ''[[FictionalVideoGame Fortune Lover]]'' is modified to act more like the Katarina in the source material, yet the rest of the cast continues with their script, or in other words, treating an AllLovingHero as if she was an AlphaBitch (as in the ''Fortune Lover'' canon). This makes [[CharacterNarrator Parasite_Ib]] find Katarina rather lovely and start to ''hate'' the rest of the cast, [[PlayerCharacter Maria]] included.

!!Examples

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* Diva's backstory in ''Anime/BloodPlus'' is definitely worth the viewer's pity. [[spoiler: As a baby, she was separated from her twin sister, Saya, as soon as she was born and locked in a tower without a name and with nothing but the basic necessities to live. Her only companion was a man who was completely obsessed with her and only viewed her as a very interesting, study worthy creature. She spends the first sixty something years of her life like this, after which she escapes with her caretaker. As a result of her seclusion and her ruthless upbringing, she developed an unstable, immature personality and severe attachment issues, being unable to respond to her Chevaliers' undying devotion and affection (which messed up quite a few of them). Despite her deep, desperate craving for a family of her own, she never obtains it, as she dies before her babies emerge from their cocoons.]]
** This also extends in-universe: After [[spoiler: she finally succeeds at killing Diva]], Saya starts bawling her eyes out.
* This is true for almost all Awakened Beings in ''Manga/{{Claymore}}''. They are [[ToServeMan man-eating monsters]], and many of them are also very vicious and sadistic. But each of them was once a young girl (or a boy, in the first generation, [[GenderRestrictedAbility most of the warriors were male]]), who watched her family being killed and eaten by youma, and then was taken away by a malevolent organization to be transformed into a half-human fighting machine that is [[HalfBreedDiscrimination hated and despised by the other humans]] and had to fight against youma until one day she lost control of her powers and turned into an [[FaceMonsterTurn Awakened Being]].
** The anime even shows Priscilla crying when she eats human guts. And Isley explains that she is an Awakened Being, and her body can digest nothing other than human guts.
** Of course, some Awakened Beings were evil even before they were transformed, such as Roxanne.
* ''Manga/DeathNote'':
** In the original manga, the anime, and the live-action film, shows [[spoiler:Light Yagami]]’s last moments in three different ways which may or may not invoke this, depending on the viewer:
*** In the manga he, [[spoiler:minutes after pointing out that he managed to reduce global crime by 70% and bring an end to warfare, begs for his life in terror, and rather pathetically screams for someone, ''anyone'', to help him, before begging Ryuk to save him. When Ryuk fulfills his promise from the beginning of the series and writes down Light's name, the former MagnificentBastard says the not-very-classy last words of: "I don't want to die! I DON'T WANT TO DIE! Oh, shit!", and dies with a demented look on his face.]]
*** In the anime, [[spoiler:he escapes with his life, if only for a moment; this is followed by a flashback of him as a high school student, and he is seen passing him on the street as he runs away, and he finally takes refuge in an abandoned shack, seeing L’s image in his mind’s eye before Ryuk finally kills him off.]]
*** In the live-action adaptation, [[spoiler:he argues with his father, whom he tried to kill with the Death Note, about his actions, and finally dies when he tries to convince Ryuk to kill everyone but him in the room. Ryuk does the opposite, and Light finally dies begging his father to understand him.]]
** The anime and the manga feature a WholeEpisodeFlashback to the childhood of AxCrazy Kira-substitute Teru Mikami, who started off as a highly moral and kind student who protected others from bullies, and ultimately became the target of their horrifying torments.
* Lucy from ''Manga/ElfenLied''. As the series begins, Lucy is seen escaping a laboratory, and mercilessly slaughtering anyone, and we mean ''anyone'', who stands in her way. It's a complete and utter mystery as to why she seems to be unwilling to kill [[UnluckyEverydude the]] [[AccidentalPervert male]] [[NonActionGuy protagonist]], Kouta. Cut to a few chapters/episodes later and we are shown the girl's hellish childhood. Turns out that Lucy, whose real name is Kaede, was abandoned by her father at an OrphanageOfFear, where she was mercilessly tormented by the other children and neglected by the staff, who only pretended to be nice to her and spoke ill of her when they thought she wasn't listening. It all culminated with some of the children, led by [[TheBully Tomoo]], [[MoralEventHorizon slowly killing her puppy (the only living being she's ever cared for) in front of her, revealed to them by a supposed friend that backstabbed her, and laughing at her misery]]. Cue the girl going AxCrazy and slaughtering them all in a textbook example of both BewareTheNiceOnes and BloodBathVillainOrigin. And thus, [[ThatManIsDead Kaede ceased to be]], and Lucy, the [[KillAllHumans destroyer of mankind]], was born...
** This was merely the beginning: after meeting Kouta, befriending him, and almost turning their relationship into something more, she discovered that he lied to her...about the gender of the cousin he was going to a festival with. Broken and betrayed, the girl flew once more into an UnstoppableRage and crossed the MoralEventHorizon by [[spoiler:brutally killing everyone around her, including Kouta's family right in front of him]]. Ultimately, this cemented her decision that [[KillAllHumans all humanity had to simply die]].
*** And that's without mentioning [[spoiler:that most of her murders were dictated by the manipulations of an OmnicidalManiac [[EnemyWithin inner voice]]]].
* ''LightNovel/EndoAndKobayashiLiveTheLatestOnTsundereVillainessLieselotte'' has an in-universe example. Lieselotte plays the role of the AlphaBitch in the {{Fictional|VideoGame}} RomanceGame ''[=MagiKoi=]'', but [[AllThereInTheManual Lieselotte's route of the fan disc]] reveals she is just a {{Tsundere}} who is NotEvilJustMisunderstood... Kobayashi becomes highly sympathetic with Lieselotte's plights after playing that line, and eventually {{invoke|dTrope}}s this on Endo by having him play the same fan disc first before playing ''[=MagiKoi=]'' proper, which does cause Endo to ''literally'' cry for the "devil." This is the motivation of the commentators when they noticed [[NoInnerFourthWall the inner Fourth Wall suddenly disappears]]--they want to give Lieselotte a happier ending.
* ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventure'':
** Wamuu the Pillar Man from ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureBattleTendency'' has had this reaction from fans, as while initially he was a sort of {{Mayincatec}} vampire demi-god in the service of [[BigBad Kars]], who [[HeroKiller is responsible for the death]] of Joseph's partner Caesar, ultimately in his final fight with Joseph Joestar he retains his sense of honor upon his defeat. In his dying moments, reduced to a severed head, he acknowledges Joseph as a WorthyOpponent, uses the last of his strength to save him from Kars' vampire minions, and thanks Joseph, saying that he's glad to have met him after having lived for millenia, before fading away into dust.
** Fans also despaired at the demise of [[{{Gayngster}} Squalo and Tiziano]] from ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureGoldenWind''. A pair of assassins serving as the PraetorianGuard of the BigBad, the two have complementary [[FightingSpirit Stand]] abilities that work with great synergy to take out their foes. But what really makes them stand out is their [[HoYay loving and affectionate devotion to one another]], and despite them trying to kill the series' main heroes, it's still tragic seeing Tiziano sacrifice himself to protect Squalo and dying in his partner's arms. As he lies bleeding to death, he continues to encourage Squalo, saying that "victory is still ours" as he succumbs to his wounds. Squalo [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge doesn't take this well:]] unfortunately for him, he ends up suffering Tiziano's fate as well.
* ''Manga/InuYasha'' has the half-demon Gyu-oh. He is the son of a temple monk father and a bull-demon mother. For some unknown reason, unlike the other half-demons, [[InvoluntaryShapeshifting he is a pure human during the day and a pure demon at night]]. These transformations eventually drove him crazy, and he becomes a tragic villain.
* Happens to a handful of the Arrancar in ''Anime/{{Bleach}}''. Particular Coyote Starrk, who was shown to be so lonely due to his immense power isolating him, that he split a piece of his soul off into [[spoiler:Lilynette Gingerbuck]] just to have someone to talk to, and only joined with Aizen to have friends. He didn't even care to fight the Soul Reapers seriously until Lilynette pointed out to him that fighting at full strength was the only way to protect his friends. When [[spoiler:Shunsui kills Lilynette, Starrk just gives up and doesn't attempt to defend himself from Shunsui's next attack.]]
* ''Anime/MazingerZ'': Neither the original manga penned by Creator/GoNagai nor the anime series delved in the past and motivations of the villains. It was the manga penned by Creator/GosakuOta (and published simultaneously with the TV show) which finally revealed them. In one of the last chapters, as Dr. Hell is making preparations for the FinalBattle, Dr. Hell begins to narrate what his early life was like. We learn during the flashback that [[spoiler:he was born to a very poor family. His mother never wanted to have a child, constantly stated his existence was a bother for her and beat him constantly while his father did nothing. No child wanted to play with him because he looked ugly and weird.]] Looking for a way out of it he turned to the books. He became very intelligent, began to get excellent grades in school... and then [[spoiler:his teachers accused him of cheating and several of his classmates bullied him. He grew up without friends until he got in college, when he befriended someone who appreciated his intelligence and fell in love with an exchange student. Shortly after he found out they were a couple and his frayed mind was already so paranoid he thought they were plotting against him to backstab him.]] After another unpleasant incident where he got beaten for making a good deed ([[spoiler:a little girl slipped in front of him and he caught her to keep her from falling and being hurt. It was a well-meaning, innocent act-- however, her parents thought he was molesting her, and her father pummeled him]]) his mind finally snapped and he decided HumansAreBastards and one day he would wipe the world of idiots and make everyone else kneel before him.
* Gaara in ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' seems like an uncontrollable sociopathic monster during the Chuunin Exams, until we learn his backstory and discover he is the [[ForWantOfANail For Want Of A Nakama]] counterpart of Naruto. He mellows out afterwards.
** Even Orochimaru got one of these. He has a flashback of when he was a sad but normal child visiting his parents grave with the third Hokage and finding a snakeskin, which he was told symbolized rebirth. My, now what are all his abilities based around?
** Pain was driven by these lengths by three main incidents in his youth which shattered his early idealism and dreams of peace.
** Kabuto gets one of these too. Forced to kill the woman who raised and loved him as a son in self defense who didn't even recognized him as she had been brainwashed to not recongnize him by Danzo.
** To say nothing of [[spoiler:Obito Uchiha, aka Tobi. Found by the deranged madman known as Madara and forced to watch as the love of his life killed herself by stepping in front of his best friend's jutsu, all to save their village, and then there's the Uchiha Clan's Curse of Hatred... you really can't blame the guy for going insane.]]
** This trope is a major theme in ''Naruto''; except for Hidan (who's a [[PsychoForHire Satanist]]) and Kakuzu (who's [[OnlyInItForTheMoney in it for]] [[HiredGuns the money]]), pretty much every antagonist - even minor ones like Zaku Abumi - has had some kind of [[StartOfDarkness trauma]] happen in his past that makes him somewhat sympathetic.
* [[BigBad Mantid]] from ''Anime/SpiderRiders'' has a moment in the final episodes. [[spoiler: He reveals that he was once a spider rider and, over time, lost everything that he loved. In fact, it's so sad, even the [[BigGood Oracle]] cries in sympathy, preventing [[TheHero Hunter]] from finishing him off and causing him to re-evalute his own views on how to save people.]]
* ''Manga/YuYuHakusho'' has Sensui, the BigBad of the penultimate arc. He used to be the Earth's Spirit Detective, which is now Yusuke's job, before his FaceHeelTurn. [[spoiler: Unlike the jaded Yusuke, Sensui had a [[BlackAndWhiteInsanity black-and-white view of morality]] [[KnightTemplar and justice]]. He fought hard to protect the human world from what he saw as absolute evil, the demons. And then, in one moment traumatizing enough for him to qualify as ''MindRape'', he discovers that not only are demons not all that bad, but there are humans far worse than most demons.]]
* In ''Manga/{{Monster}}'', the main story line is about finding out what turned Johan into an unrepentant ManipulativeBastard. We get to see all the horrible places he was sent to as a child. However, there's a Spoileriffic detail...: [[spoiler: half of it didn't happen to him and the other half didn't change him in the slightest.]]
** Played straight in the finale [[spoiler: (Or is it?)]] when Johan reveals [[spoiler: that his mother was forced to make a horrible SadisticChoice in regards to him and his twin sister, Anna, causing Johan to question his own sense of worth.]]
** The straightest example is Johan's suicidal tendencies and his attitude to other evil people. Throughout the story, the impression is that he is tired with his own evil nature, something everyone else makes a big deal of, but which, for him, is so plain, ordinary, and banal. He remarks that he is searching for the darkest place or person in the world, but fails to find it, presumably in a search for somewhere he can belong, which won't happen as his thought process is simply so alien from ordinary people that he can never fit in. Hence, he encourages people to try and kill him, and doesn't particularly care for all the grand plans his "followers" expect from him and he presumably fulfills them only because he's bored and he views it as a way to pass the time. Or he may just be TheAntichrist, but that's probably just RuleOfSymbolism. [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane Probably.]]
** Other evil characters such as Roberto, Christof Sievernich, and Peter Čapek are also shown to have [[UsedToBeASweetKid once been relatively kind, sympathetic characters]], before the effects of living in a totalitarian OrphanageOfFear, being subjected to nihilistic indoctrination sessions, and/or manipulation by the likes of [[MadScientist Franz Bonaparta]] and Johan himself took their toll on their previously compassionate, caring personalities.
* Ginias Sahalin of ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamThe08thMSTeam 08th MS Team]]'' can qualify for this. [[spoiler: What can be seen as uncontrollable rage and hatred in the last episode can also be seen as psychological agony, considering that he REALLY starts going off after Aina brings up [[MissingMom their mother]] and his past. And realizing that Aina essentially did the same thing to him as she did, his fanatical dedication to his WaveMotionGun and the carnage he inflicts goes from mere selfish jerk-assery to an [[FreudianExcuse act of psychological desperation]] by a man with some [[TheWoobie pretty deep-rooted trauma and pain]].]]
* [[TheDragon Angelo Sauper]] from ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamUnicorn'' spends most of his screentime acting like a massive {{Jerkass}} compared to his AffablyEvil boss [[BigBad Full Frontal]]. Then Banagher uses his awakened Newtype powers to peer into Sauper's memories, and we learn that [[spoiler:as a child he witnessed the death of his father and rape of his mother at the hands of Federation soldiers, was repeatedly sexually abused by his step-father, and as an teen was forced to prostitute himself to survive before joining the Sleeves.]] Ouch.
* In ''Manga/HajimeNoIppo'', Mashiba Ryo is a quiet and sociopathic boxer who's nicknamed "The Executioner" for his horribly violent boxing style. Then, we see his backstory [[spoiler: as an orphan who had to raise himself and his little sister, after losing his parents in an accident. By the time we learn what happened to him, Mashiba had lost faith in others and come to hate everyone but his current boss and Kumi]]...
* In ''Manga/FushigiYuugi'', the BigBad Nakago gets this treatment via a flashback presented in the final episode, [[spoiler: while Tamahome has his fist through him and gets to watch.]]
* ''Franchise/DragonBall'':
** Vegeta's own backstory in the Namek Saga of ''Anime/DragonBallZ''. It's not just the story, but the fact that he tells it with his dying breath and sheds tears over it.
** Paragus and Broly from the movie ''[[Anime/DragonBallZBrolyTheLegendarySuperSaiyan Broly - The Legendary Super Saiyan]]''. About 35 minutes in, when Paragus is explaining his motivations to the near-catatonic Vegeta. [[spoiler:Paragus begs for his new son's life to an unrelenting King Vegeta, then the shadows cast on the wall from baby Broly being ''lifted out of his cradle and stabbed'']]. It ends up being a subversion in [[spoiler: Broly's case...he ends up being such an irredeemably evil psychopath that makes the viewer wish he HAD been killed in his infancy.]]
** The rebooted canon Broly of ''Anime/DragonBallSuperBroly'' plays this more straight. First up his backstory was changed into being banished to [[DeathWorld planet Vampa]] and being stranded along with his father for 40 '''years'''. After this he was used as a tool of revenge by him and later on Frieza. This made it rather hard for the audience to root for [[spoiler:Gogeta]] during their battle since in the end it is clear that Broly is just another victim. [[spoiler:Thankfully he was saved by Cheelai in the end.]]
* An in-story example happens in ''Anime/CodeGeass'', with [[spoiler:Nunnally crying for a dying Lelouch during [[SilentScapegoat Zero Requiem]]. Sort of a subversion, since Nunnally is crying after Lelouch has actually done what he planned to do all along.]]
** It also does it ''[[{{Pun}} insanely]]'' well with Mao in episode 15. He's introduced as a completely diabolical SmugSnake who tries to kill our [[AntiHero hero]], Lelouch, and chase down C.C. and seems unstoppable with his mind-reading skills. Then C.C. confronts him and invokes...[[spoiler:pictures of Mao together with her as a ([[ImTakingHerHomeWithMe cute, huggable]]) little boy as she promises to stay with him forever...!]] And once he's taken care of for the episode, C.C. relates that [[spoiler: she found him as a ''six-year-old orphan'' and gave him {{telepathy}} that he lost the ability to control and which ultimately caused him to go insane...]] By the time [[spoiler: he finally dies, [[MercyKill it isn't]] a KarmicDeath [[LetThemDieHappy at all...]]]] and shouldn't very well be, since it wasn't even his fault he was insane!
* Scar in ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'' at first just seems a ruthless KnightTemplar SerialKiller who fanatically hates alchemy, fashioning himself the wrath of God personified. But he turns out to be an Ishvalan, whose people had been massacred by State Alchemists he targets. His flashbacks show him to be once a good (albeit very strict) person who genuinely cares for his family and people.
** Even Envy gets one InUniverse. [[spoiler:They are DrivenToSuicide when Edward points out that they are [[DrivenByEnvy jealous of humans' inner strength and ability to make friends]].]]
** The manga does this for Wrath[[spoiler:/King Bradley. He was part of an experiment to create the leader of Amestris which involved a TrainingFromHell beginning in childhood, and then being put through a painful transformation into a homunculus. What makes the character somewhat sympathetic is that, because he had no real identity prior to the transformation, any human that did exist was killed, and you can see Bradley's PetTheDog moments as the vestige of humanity in him. Nevertheless, he's still an extremely cruel FantasyCounterpartCulture UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler]].
* ''Manga/BlackLagoon'':
** When Gretel tells Rock about her and her brother Hansel's lives as orphans, [[spoiler: snuff film "stars"]], and hit-children, making Rock break down in tears [[spoiler: before Karma catches up with her, just like it did with her brother]].
** Anime only, showing Balalaika before, during, and after the Soviet War in Afghanistan.
* Midway though ''Anime/RahXephon'', the series throws us a flashback episode about the childhoods of Itsuki, Makoto, and Helena. Seeing Makoto treated as a defective piece of equipment by the closest thing he has to a family, [[spoiler: Bahbem and his other clones]], and seeing the one thing he loved in life fall apart is pretty heart-wrenching. It doesn't excuse his {{Jerkass}} SmugSnake behavior, but it does explain it and cast it in a new light.
* [[spoiler:Miyoko Tanishi, aka Miyo Takano]], from ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry''. [[spoiler: She never knew her mother, her father got in a car crash, and immediately after her father told her, with his last words, that she should go to live with a Mr. Hifumi, she's told that that's "not how it works" and shipped off to an OrphanageOfFear, where she was brutally abused and saw most of her friends die horrifically. After she was rescued by Hifumi about a year (?) later, she saw his (mostly correct) theories scoffed at and the man himself laughed out of the scientific community.]] After that, it's almost impossible not to feel a little sorry for her.
* We're told how crappy the life Lucia, from ''Manga/RaveMaster'', lived before we even get to see any of the horrible things he does as a result. But for good measure, when he's entering the final phase of his plan to destroy the world, we get to see a page or so from back when he was six. If the horrified look on his face after having his mother shot down in cold blood ''by the government'' isn't enough for you, then seeing his reaction to being locked up had better be.
* [[CreepyChild Alois]] [[AxCrazy Trancy]] from ''Manga/BlackButler'' season 2. Spent the first episodes abusing his maid and generally acting like a complete {{Jerkass}}. Then episode eight reveals in a flashback that Alois lost his brother, the only person he cared about, and was later sold as a sex slave to the earl. After telling his BattleButler Claude, [[spoiler: while bleeding to death from a stab wound he got in the previous episode]], that he is the only one he's got left in the world, [[spoiler:Claude simply kills Alois and takes his soul]]. Even Alois' greatest detractors found the scene [[TearJerker quite]] [[AlasPoorVillain heartbreaking]]. Having [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L54prIVsB3s this song]] playing in the background did not help matters.
* The Millenium World arc of ''Anime/YuGiOh'' has a flashback to the Thief King Bakura watching the massacre of his village, Kul Elna, from a hiding place.
** Marik may count as well. He had an abusive father, and was forced to carry a tradition that he did not want or care for that required an isolated and lonely existence. This not only turned him bad, but spawned his SuperPoweredEvilSide, the embodiment of his resentment and rage.
* Yomi from ''Anime/GaReiZero'' fits this trope to a T. The whole descriptive passage above aptly describes her without modification whatsoever.
* Precia Testarossa in ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha TheMovie First''. Unlike the TV version, the viewers ''are'' shown her StartOfDarkness and get to know exactly why she is the BigBad. It's quite hard to fully hate someone [[spoiler:who tried her best to be [[ParentsAsPeople a good single working mother]] for her daughter, Alicia, whose life was shattered because the corporate executives she worked under [[IgnoredExpert didn't listen to her warnings]], who worked hard [[IllGirl despite declining health]] to return what she had lost, and who never forgave herself for failing to fulfill ThePromise of spending more time with her now dead daughter]]. It certainly helped that this version of Precia was less of a [[EvilLaugh maniacal-laughing]] psycho than the TV version, [[spoiler:and more of a grieving mother with a FatalFlaw]].
* In ''Manga/SoulEater'', Crona is introduced as a servant to the witch, [[BigBad Medusa]], and is portrayed as someone who will kill anyone and anything all for the sake of becoming a Kishin. Then it's revealed that Medusa is actually [[AmbiguousGender his/her]] mother, and he/she is the way the are due to the way he/she was raised. For example, Medusa would lock him/her in a dark room (and s/he was terrified of the dark) with Ragnarok, who repeatedly beat him/her, as punishment for his/her refusal to kill another living creature. And Medusa would leave Crona in that room for ''days'', not caring if he/she was starving to death as a result. She kept doing it again and again until s/he would finally give in. It's also implied that s/he never had any friends or received any compassion until Maka reached out to him/her.
* Chouji Suitengu of ''Anime/SpeedGrapher'', [[spoiler:the true BigBad]], receives this near the end of the series. He is cruel, manipulative, and merciless to those who owe him money or stand in his way, and uses a helpless teenage girl to further his plans. Then, in a flashback episode, the audience sees that Suitengu and his little sister were sold off to pay some of the debt his parents incurred. He was forced into the military to fight for whoever bought him, while his prepubescent sister was sold into prostitution. [[spoiler: Years later, he finally tracks her down, only to find that she's [[BreakTheCutie so broken]] that she doesn't recognize him, and he euthanizes her before weeping, distraught, over her body.]] Everything that he did since was a part of an elaborate plan for revenge against the people directly responsible for his ruined life and the society that allowed it to happen.
* ''Manga/{{Trigun}}'' loves this trope. Just about every major bad guy is given a sympathetic reason for his behavior, at least in the manga.
* In ''Anime/PokemonTheFirstMovie'', Mewtwo [[WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids outright murders]] the scientists who created it and attempts to wipe out the rest of humanity for "enslaving" its brethren. In the ''[[Radio/PokemonTheBirthOfMewtwo The Birth of Mewtwo]]'' radio drama, though, [[spoiler: we learn that the infant Mewtwo formed a friendship with a human clone who perishes. The scientists inject Mewtwo with serum to subdue its traumatized mind and erase its memories of her, implying that this act contributes to Mewtwo becoming unhinged and left with so many existential questions.]]
* ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'' plays with this trope, when we discover that [[spoiler:Homura Akemi has very valid reasons for wanting Kyubey dead. I mean, after watching your best friend die time after time by the mind games of that little furball, you'd be out for blood too. But to top it all off, killing Kyubey is just a means to an end.]]
** The ''[[Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagicaTheMovieRebellion Rebellion]]'' movie cranks it up with [[spoiler: Homura becoming the Devil herself by hijacking Madokami's powers and becoming a GodOfEvil. This was, however, after the Incubators attempted to forcibly prevent Homura from meeting Madoka again by trapping her in her own Soul Gem, turning her into a Witch that wasn't supposed to exist in the Madokami world. Also, Demon Homura is just trying to make a world where Madoka is happy.]]
* ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'' plays with this, without actually revealing more than a few precious glimpses of their history. Instead, the focus shifts to our villains so the audience can see that they really aren't so different from the heroes. Turns out that [[spoiler: The Colossal Titan, Armored Titan, and the Female Titan]] aren't at all what was expected. [[spoiler: All three are simply ChildSoldiers, serving on the opposite side of a conflict linked to an AncientConspiracy]].
** [[spoiler: Annie]] has an entire chapter devoted to this, showing how [[spoiler: much she admires "special" people like Eren that have the courage to follow their ideals]]. We also get glimpses of [[spoiler: her childhood, and the complex nature of her relationship with her father. He put her through TrainingFromHell, but finally broke down and begged for her forgiveness while admitting to being ''wrong''. Even so, he told her to consider the entire world her enemy and made her promise to come home someday. Her father crying is the last thing she recalls, prior to encasing herself in a CrystalPrison]].
** Several chapters are devoted to showing just how deeply traumatized and remorseful [[spoiler: Reiner and Bertolt]] are about their actions. [[spoiler: Reiner's guilt caused him to suffer from bouts of TraumaInducedAmnesia, while the formerly stoic Bertolt breaks down and admits their time with the 104th was the [[GoodFeelsGood only time]] they were happy]]. Even so, both acknowledge their actions are impossible to forgive and resolve that they've [[IveComeTooFar come too far]], with no choice left but to finish their mission or die trying. Their LastSecondChance is rejected with a tearful reply that they [[TrappedInVillainy can't]]. [[spoiler: They even get a bonus epilogue in Volume 12, filled with PetTheDog moments. Ymir, one of the few characters with knowledge of the AncientConspiracy, views them sympathetically and resolves to sacrifice herself to save them]].
** [[spoiler:Zeke Yeager]] also gets this treatment, which shows that [[spoiler:he was essentially a WellDoneSonGuy who just wanted his father Grisha to stop endangering himself and his family by being part of LaResistance]]. Whether or not he's actually sympathetic is highly subjective, however.
* Helbram from ''Manga/TheSevenDeadlySins'' is presented as a villain who without so much as a shred of empathy, casually and often deliberately hurts humans regardless if they are his subordinates or innocent civilians caught in the fray. His backstory however shows what he was before he was like this. [[spoiler: He was once an innocent fairy who was deeply and genuinely fascinated with human culture and trinkets, something fairies don't have. However his curiosity allowed him and a few of his friends to get tricked and captured by greedy humans who wanted to rip their wings off for medicine.]] The experience drove him mad and made him into the AxCrazy FauxAffablyEvil that he is in the story.
** On top of that, later he turned out to be [[spoiler:[[DeadAllAlong dead]] - he was he was resurrected [[BrainwashedAndCrazy and controled]] by the current big bad. It feels especially gut-wrenching as Helldram resurrected again, at this point completely insane, [[TearJerker begging King to kill him]] ]]
* In ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'', [[ArtifactOfDoom behelits]] are only activated when their holder crosses the DespairEventHorizon, which means the series does this quite a bit. The Count, who eats people alive? [[spoiler:He was a noble crusader, warring against pagan cults... and then he came home one day to find his wife holding a pagan ''orgy'' in his ''house''. When she mocked him for not realizing sooner, his world collapsed and the behelit triggered.]] Rosine, abductor of children? [[spoiler:Grew up in an abusive home, and when she ran away, she found that even leaving it wouldn't save her. The beating she got when her father found her set off the behelit.]] Emperor freaking Ganesha? [[spoiler:The behelit was the only thing that saved him when his own ''mother'' poisoned him in favor of his brother taking the throne.]] ''No'' Apostle comes to that state without suffering.
* In ''Manga/FairyTail'' Zeref is pretty much this trope incarnate whenever he isn't living up to his [[TheDreaded reputation]]. To the world he's known as the most powerful and evil mage in history, and is responsible for creating demons and dark magics that still continue to wreak havoc today. Yet when one looks at his history, and at how miserable he is in the present, it's ''very'' easy to feel for his suffering. [[spoiler: For starters he UsedToBeASweetKid who spent his childhood trying to bring his little brother back to life (who died as an infant by the way), while constantly being chided by his teachers for what they perceived as blasphemy. When he didn't take a hint and got a little too close to figuring out how to resurrect the dead, he ended up being cursed by a {{Jerkass God|s}} which killed everyone around him, and also gave him a horrifying case of CompleteImmortality, leading to the guilt complex he would have to live with for ''centuries''. During this time he started creating said demons in a desperate bid to kill himself because of the sheer amount of pain he's feeling and causing the rest of the world, culminating in his magnum opus, E.N.D., a.k.a. his dead little brother Natsu. A while later, he meets Mavis, the first and only person to ever show him genuine kindness, causing him to teach her magic that inadvertently makes her immortal. He eventually falls in love with her, and just when it looks like he's got a chance at EternalLove and a tiny glimmer of hope at being happy, his curse kills her body causing her to be placed in suspended animation. Now, his only hope at ending his suffering is to die, and it has to be E.N.D., the same brother he dedicated his entire childhood to resurrecting, to be the one to do it.]]
* As hard as it is to believe, there are some that do feel sympathy for ''Anime/KillLaKill'''s Nui Harime. Yes, she [[spoiler: killed Ryuuko's father, Soichiro Kiryuuin (otherwise known as Isshin Matoi)]], [[spoiler: helped brainwash and sew a kamui into the main character]] and is one of the the most hated people in the series, but, considering some of her backstory, the implications thereof, and how she's apparently wanted someone with whom to relate (the [[Fridge/KillLaKill fridge page]] has some more info on the horror that might entail), one cannot help but to wonder if how she would have turned out of she didn't have someone like Ragyou in her life. In the same hand, full-on DracoInLeatherPants treatment is rare, though, since even her fans know and love that Nui is [[SuccessThroughInsanity a gleefully psychopathic bitch]].
* In-universe example in ''LightNovel/MyNextLifeAsAVillainessAllRoutesLeadToDoom'', where the unnamed protagonist finds herself sympathizing with Katarina, a SpoiledBrat rival from an otome game she had been playing (as Katarina is the only character in the game who never gets a happy ending or a chance for redemption). Of course, part of this is because [[NextLifeAsAFictionalCharacter she reincarnated as Katarina after she died]].
* In ''Anime/SevenMortalSins'', the Mark Twain quote at the top of this page is essentially the basis for Lucifer's latent obsession/interest in the human Maria, as Maria's AllLovingHero tendency had her praying to Lucifer purely out of kindness and sympathy since she was a little girl.
* In ''Gundam Breaker Battlogue'', we have Kentaro Mahara, who goes off the deep end after he loses to Takuma Nagitsuji, the protagonist from ''Gundam Breaker 3'', in a championship match, hijacking a Gunpla Battle event and threatening to erase everyone's Gunpla data if Takuma doesn't challenge him again. Even [[VideoGame/GunplaBattleGundamWarfare Sana Miyama]] [[DisappointedByTheMotive finds his reasoning lame]]. When Takuma shows up and defeats Kentaro again, using a unique system that the Gunpla Battle system gave him, many fans understood his frustration - oh, sure, his actions and rantings make [[Anime/GundamBuildDivers Tsukasa Shiba]] look deep, but losing to someone who basically has a "I Win" button is not fair at all.
* A recurring pattern in ''Manga/DemonSlayerKimetsuNoYaiba'' is that most of its demons still have some trace of humanity in them, no matter depraved a pack of blood-soaked killers they've become. Part of Tanjiro's power as a hero is that he never loses sight of the remaining humanity in the demons he fights, and tries to show them some compassion even as he takes them down, as shown as early as the Final Selection arc, when he kills a demon who's been eating all of his mentor's students for nearly half a century...and then holds its hand as it dies, giving it some last recognition of its human life.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* In ''VideoGame/{{Aquaria}}'', you spend the entire game witnessing the effects of the Creator's mad fury, and putting the remains of his creations out of their misery. Once you defeat him, you find out that [[spoiler:he was a little boy whose entire family was killed, and "[[SurvivorGuilt I should have died with them]]". He's spent hundreds of years trying to create someone who would love him like his mother did.]] Yeah, you're gonna cry.
* The Archdemons in ''Franchise/DragonAge''. While we don't know much about the Old Gods and what their alignment was, since the Darkspawn are drawn to uncover them and infect them with the Taint, it's possible they're not so much evil as merely Brainwashed and Crazy. Furthermore it's a telling sign of the physical toll that the corruption takes, when you learn that Urthemiel, the Archdemon of the Fifth Blight, was once known as "The Dragon of Beauty".
* In ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'', you spend most of the game chasing after Loghain to make him pay for his crimes. When you beat him, you get the chance to execute him. Not only is he suddenly very honourable about it, but [[spoiler:picking this choice will make his daughter, Queen Anora, object. Then Loghain kindly hushes her and tells her it's over. When she tells him she's not a child anymore, Loghain says: "Daughters never grow up, Anora. They remain six year olds with pigtails and skinned knees forever." Suddenly, he's transformed from Big Bad to loving father. If you use him for the DLC content after the main quest he has tons of these, especially in Return to Ostagar where he can present a decent argument for why he retreated.]]
* Killing Jamie in ''[[VideoGame/SplinterCell Splinter Cell: Double Agent]]'', due to his loyalty and genuine friendship with Sam. After your cover is blown, while you're sneaking up on him you'll hear him insisting that Sam isn't a traitor and pleading to B.J. to give him another chance. If you grab him and interrogate him, he'll insist that he knows Sam too well for him to be a traitor, and Sam coldly replies that he didn't know him at all. Sam kills him without a second thought, but to the audience it's a ''serious TearJerker''. However, it is also an arguable question, knowing that Jamie is a terrorist, responsible for many bad things just like the rest of the organization.
--> '''Jamie''' ''(Before being fatally stabbed)'': See? I knew you wouldn't do it... I knew you were on our side.
* The ending to ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'' plays peaceful music and shows slides of the residents of Pueblo living happy lives, working the fields, and playing guitar, reminding you that the [[OurZombiesAreDifferent ganados]] were once normal people who fell victim to [[PuppeteerParasite Los Plagas]]. Then the music abruptly turns ominous and cuts to scenes of the cult arriving, the villagers being experimented on and becoming ganados, and even a woman carelessly standing next to her child or maybe even body of it (it may be even possible that she killed a child). It's remembered as the most terrifying part of the game, and that's saying a lot.
* In ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphoniaDawnOfTheNewWorld'', Richter wants to kill Marta, yet Emil still sympathizes with him. It turns out that [[spoiler: Richter wasn't always a "bad guy", but is against Ratatosk because of the murder of his friend Aster.]]
* In ''VideoGame/FableII'', we meet completely unrepentant bastard Reaver, whose unthinking and casually selfish evil surpasses Lord Lucian's WellIntentionedExtremist. After the game, you have the option of finding out his backstory: [[spoiler:his MoralEventHorizon of sacrificing the entire village of Oakvale was an accident, the unknown cost of a bargain to protect his life and youth. All of his {{Jerkass}} behavior and rampant human sacrifice afterward takes on a new light with the knowledge that his despair collapsed in on itself hundreds of years ago.]]
* The climax of the final episode of ''VideoGame/TheWalkingDeadSeasonOne'' reveals that the man who [[spoiler: kidnapped Clementine, only known as The Stranger, is a soft-spoken father who only went off the deep end because your group (including you, if you chose to be complicit) stole his family's supplies out of their car back in episode two; his wife took their daughter and left him when they came back to find everything gone, and he found them both dead "a day later...in the road." He quickly becomes all too human, and after telling you his story, [[ArmorPiercingQuestion looks you dead in the eye and asks if he looks like a monster to you.]]]]
* ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'':
** [[WhiteHairBlackHeart Sephiroth]] in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' is not terribly sympathetic in the original game, even after learning a bit of his backstory. In the prequel, ''Crisis Core,'' however, the character's origins as a heroic member of SOLDIER are explored. He still comes off as aloof, but has a more human side, and maintains real friendships with Genesis and Angeal. The [[GoMadFromTheRevelation revelations]] about his [[TomatoInTheMirror true nature]] are detailed in more depth than in the original game, and though it doesn't excuse his later actions, it's hard not to feel sorry for him in those moments.
** [[WickedWitch Ultimecia]] in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'' is another one, though most english-speaking fans only know it if they played the original Dissidia. In that game, she has numerous lines that heavily imply she longs for the innocent and happy days of her childhood, and moreso, that this longing is the actual driving force behind everything she does (this is even the point of her final speech to Squall, and the final text speech you get if you don't beat her as Squall in Shade Impulse). This motivation was apparently present originally in FFVIII, but was removed in the english port. For some reason, the writers for Dissidia Duodecim thought this was an excellent idea, as the rewrites for the 13th cycle in that game remove [[{{Flanderization}} absolutely every trace of this aspect of her character]], leaving a single line to Terra as the only hint of this part of her personality.
** [[KnightTemplar Yunalesca]] of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX''. She was the first summoner to defeat Sin - with her beloved husband sacrificing himself to facilitate it. Unfortunately the process killed her and she is forced to remain in Zanarkand as an unsent - where she greets other summoners looking to do the same. Although she helps continue this tradition of lies, she does so because she wishes to bring (false!) hope to the world. [[spoiler: Her final words]] are lamenting that the people now have no hope. What makes this worse? Sin was controlled by her ''father''.
** [[EvilChancellor Yotsuyu]] in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'', the acting viceroy of Doma, who was put in place by the Garlean empire. Though clearly Doman herself, she is sadistic and hateful and her only goal in life seems to be making every Doman as miserable as possible. Over the course of the story though, we learn that she had an almost comically horrible life. [[spoiler:Her mother, the only one who ever treated her with kindness, died. Then her aunt and uncle took her in, but were abusive towards her day in and day out. They deliberately sabotaged any chance she had of joining the Garlean military while actively making sure their son was chosen. Then they married her off to a physically abusive drunk for money. When he died, they sold her into prostitution. The owner of the whorehouse could see that she didn't deserve to be there, but since her beauty attracted a lot of customers, he pimped her out anyway.]] At the end of the campaign in Doma, [[spoiler:she loses her memory after Doma Castle collapses on her and Gosetsu, and because of this, Gosetsu starts treating her like a daughter, with actual kindness. However, her memories return and after a suicide attempt out of shame and manipulation by her foster brother, her hatred for Doma is reignited. But in the final battle with her, she really just feels that she has gone too far and caused too much suffering to be redeemed, so she throws herself into a battle with the Warrior of Light she knows she will lose. She is at least able to kill her foster brother as her last act before dying, having now killed all of the agents of her suffering.]]
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXV'': [[spoiler:Ardyn]], the total psycho who literally darkens the entire world with a horde of demons, was driven insane ''two thousand years'' before the game begins for trying to do the right thing, and only got worse. He used to be a travelling healer, given a divine power by the gods to purge a demonic plague during an epidemic. When it turned out that the plague was infesting him through his powers, his own brother tried to murder him, accidentally killed his wife, and erased him from history after he disappeared. He was woken up after centuries, only to be hounded by assassins from Lucis, the country founded by the brother who stole everything from him. A mad scientist tried to be his friend, but mainly by egging on his worst traits and indulging in unethical sciences. Then he looked into the mind of a god he once worshipped and discovered how little they care about humanity in general, pushing him over the edge into becoming a supervillain. And after that, he devours the minds of his enemies - the narration states that the minds of other humans were what eroded what remained of his sanity, not the minds of the millions of demons he merged with. And the kicker? The reason why he succeeded in destroying the world [[spoiler:was because Bahamut intentionally granted him healing powers to make him a supervillain in the first place, all to ensure continued worship of the gods through a scripted war between light and dark. His only two options are to accept his destiny and cease to exist or defy the gods one last time and wander in the void for all eternity.]]
* In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates: Revelations'' [[spoiler: Anankos the true BigBad]] counts, as [[spoiler:killing him is a MercyKill. While he's responsible for the war between Hoshido and Nohr, and the one responsible for the death of Corrin's mother (between other things)... He's an empty shell of his former self. He used to be a benevolent First dragon that helped humans until he began to be DrivenToMadness due to the dragon degeneration, which led to him burning a forest and rejected by humans and in response he isolated himself... which only worsened his sanity and he ended up killing his only friend, the King of Valla. This broke him and caused his soul to split from his dragon body. His soul went on to father the Avatar and to try to limit his ever-growing power, but he failed and his soul was reabsorbed into the original body. When you find him, he's a crazed Sadist OmnicidalManiac that wants to destroy the world, but he is still lamenting: “Why am I left to suffer? Why am I the one left to die? Why do humans flourish while I am buried here...ignored...forgotten? TELL ME WHY!”]]
** [[spoiler:Even worse is that he wanted to kill himself but he was unable to. He tried to limit his evergrowing power at all costs and still failed. This lyrics of End of All (which his soul wrote) sum up his suffering:]]
--->"Sing with me a song of silence and blood"\\
"The rain falls but can't wash away the mud"\\
"Within my ancient heart dwells madness and pride"\\
"Can no one hear my cry?"
* The bitter, nihilistic warlord [[VideoGame/OgreBattle Lans Tartare]] - it's revealed in the prequel/GaidenGame ''The Knight of Lodis'', where he is the main character Alphonse Loeher, that the entire reason he's that way is because he was forced to kill his best friend, watch his girlfriend die, then be branded a traitor by his home country before they eventually turned around and made him a high ranking knight.
* ''VideoGame/SilentHill4'': Walter Sullivan. It's ''almost'' enough to excuse the fact that he's a delusional SerialKiller.
* ''VideoGame/TrialsOfMana'' does this with the Crimson Wizard, though it depends on whether you pick Angela or Duran as your main character. [[spoiler: As the second to final boss, you defeat the Crimson Wizard, who then laments doing so much damage, claiming that, in his desperation to gain magic power, he sold his soul to the Dragon Lord. If Duran is your lead character, he feels sorry for the Crimson Wizard and it makes the player do so as well as the Crimson Wizard takes his own life. However, if Angela, who hates the Crimson Wizard, is your main character, you get a much different scene. The Crimson Wizard claims it wasn't his fault; but Angela refuses to forgive him as he brainwashed Valda, her mother, into neglecting her and then tried to make Valda kill Angela. Angela calls him a coward and while the Crimson Wizard still takes his own life, it is made to seem as if Angela wanted to deal the killing blow instead.]]
* Many players of ''VideoGame/{{InFAMOUS}}'' felt this way about Kessler [[spoiler: once they discovered he was Cole from an alternate future, doing everything in his power to ensure that, this time around, Cole will be able to fight "The Beast", the being that destroyed his world and life.]] Cole himself, however, is unmoved -- he refuses to forgive Kessler for his heinous actions, even knowing why he acted the way he did and that he might even be justified in the long run.
** The Beast himself! [[spoiler:It's arguable if he even ''qualifies'' as evil when we learn who and what he actually is. He's just stuck in a situation where it's the {{Muggles}} or the Conduits, and he's a Conduit.]]
* ''VideoGame/GodOfWar'': Kratos spends the course of three games murdering everything in Greek mythology on a quest for vengeance. He is presented as a violent, sadistic monster (though still not as bad as a lot of the more [[ValuesDissonance traditional Greek heroes]]), but he wasn't always this way. His desire for conquest led to him making a pact with the god Ares, [[DealWithTheDevil offering his life in exchange for power]]. He and his army slaughtered thousands of innocents, and he grew more monstrous every day. But when [[spoiler: Ares tricked him into murdering his own wife and child,]] Kratos realized the horror of [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone what he had done]], and tried to become TheAtoner by serving the Gods of Olympus. The twist in all this is that Kratos is the ''[[VillainProtagonist player character]]''. The experience of playing as him and seeing things from his point of view is the only thing that inspires sympathy from the audience; in any other situation, he'd be the villain.
* [[VideoGame/{{Myst}} Gehn]] doesn't get much back-story in ''VideoGame/{{Riven}}'' (aside from a journal entry mourning his dead wife), but read [[AllThereInTheManual ''The Book of Ti'ana]] and you learn [[spoiler: he lost his home world and almost his whole family - save only his mother, who was partly (albeit unintentionally) responsible for it. Then, at eighteen, he loses his young wife in childbirth.]] Everything he does is to try and restore his lost childhood.
** Saavedro from ''Exile'', though played straighter. He might be insane, but he has good reason to be.
* In ''[[VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl Pokémon Platinum]]'', you, at one point meet, an old man, who bemoans not intervening in his grandson's shattering, pressured life when he saw that the boy was falling apart from trying to live up to what his parents wanted. He doesn't mention the boy's name, but there's more than enough clues to point straight to who he's talking about: [[BigBad Cyrus]]. Made even more tragic by the fact that, by this point in the plot, Cyrus has already [[spoiler: exiled himself to a parallel dimension]] and there's no way to tell his grandfather this or take him there or anything.
** And therein lies the greater tragedy. For all the academic success, a great number of people can see the potential for good in Cyrus. The one person who needed to see this the most was the one conditioned into never seeing it at all. One of the brightest minds in Sinnoh instead dedicated himself to its unmaking...Cyrus' faith was in his parents seeing him as a point of pride, and the more you place your faith in one cause, the farther it has to fall.
* In ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'' In the post-game, you can visit Guzma's childhood home. His mother tells the player he used to be a rising battle star, complete with trophies. His father says he tried to ''beat'' him, and Guzma fought him off. Golf clubs in the house are bent as evidence of this. This revelation contextualises why [[spoiler: he latched onto Lusamine, who is definitely abusive to her own children. By the time he is trapped in Ultra Space, he is clearly terrified and way out of his depth.]]
** Similarly, one might come to sympathise with Gladion very early in the game because of how he is treated by his supposed Skull team-mates.
* Vergil from ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry'', particularly in the third game, ''[[VideoGame/DevilMayCry3DantesAwakening Dante's Awakening]]'', [[spoiler:after Vergil falls into Hell]].
-->'''Lady''': Are you crying?\\
'''Dante''': [[ItAlwaysRainsAtFunerals It's only the rain]].\\
'''Lady''': The rain already stopped.\\
'''Dante''': Devils never cry.\\
'''Lady''': I see. Maybe somewhere out there even a [[TitleDrop devil may cry]] when he loses a loved one. Don't you think?\\
'''Dante''': Maybe.
** While the above is more an example of SympathyForTheDevil, reading into the [[WildMassGuessing subtext of Vergil's lines]] can invoke this trope in very short order.
** In ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry5'', we get some of V's backstory,[[spoiler:as it's revealed he is dying and the incarnation of Vergil's cast off humanity]]. All he wanted was to be protected and loved. [[spoiler:As he is a part of Vergil, that means this was the case with him as well. Vergil feeling abandoned by his family was what convinced him to abandon his humanity in the first place.]]
* [[spoiler:Moric]] and [[spoiler:Qualna]] in ''VideoGame/{{Mardek}}'' chapters two and three, respectively. [[spoiler:Qualna turns out to only want to peacefully resolve the conflict between Rohoph and the Governance Di Magi. Rohoph goes ahead and seals his soul anyway. And Moric...[[TearJerker Oh]] [[TheWoobie boy]].]]
* ''VideoGame/DarkChronicle'' gives one of these to its villains:
** After [[TheDragon Gaspard]] [[spoiler:reveals his tragic backstory and decides he will no longer fight the the heroes, his boss, Emperor Griffon forces him to attack them by turning him into a giant monster.]]
** [[spoiler:[[BigBad Sirus]]]] is slowly given a sympathetic angle as the player progresses through Moonflower Palace and sees how he was during his life.
* The ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' arcs that explore the origins of [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Countess Crey]] and [[CircusOfFear Vanessa DeVore]] portray both as starting out well-intentioned, but losing sight of that en route to becoming the villains they are now.
* [[spoiler: Wendy]] at the end of ''VideoGame/RuleOfRose''. It was all her fault, but she paid the ultimate price. LoveMakesYouCrazy.
** There is also the Stray Dog, [[spoiler:aka Gregory Wilson, a deluded serial killer who snapped after the death of his son, and keeps then abducting children, mistaking them for the dead boy, and killing them in a fit of rage when he realizes his mistake. He's a completely broken individual, and is at his sanest while contemplating suicide.]]
* In ''VideoGame/Portal2'', [[spoiler:[=GLaDOS=], when you go through the game and find out that she used to just be a normal woman, devoted to her company and boss, until he chose her as the back-up AI host should he die before the project was completed. Listening to her desperately insist that "she doesn't want this" makes you feel bad for the woman she used to be, especially since she had no choice in becoming this way. ]]
** On that note, listen to the sad way [[spoiler:[=PotatOS=] says "Goodbye, sir..." after hearing the last recorded message from Cave Johnson, knowing that he died shortly after.]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Nier}}'': [[spoiler:The Shades]]. [[spoiler: and given how they aren't even really villains to begin with...]]
* Repeated in the sequel, ''VideoGame/NierAutomata''. Just like in the first game, the second 'cycle' through the story will provide you with more information about the 'villains', often making them seem far more sympathetic - [[TragicMonster Tragic Monsters]] in many cases. Even before then, several side-quests provides you with background data on the foes you just faces that makes you realize that destroying them hardly counted as heroics.
** The best example may be one of the main bosses, Simone. The first time you face her, she's just a terrifying machine who looks like an oversized opera-singer, bedecked with Android corpses. Even the other machine lifeforms consider her a monster, calling her a 'broken machine' and thanking you for putting her down - apparently, she cannibalized other machines in order to build her body. Facing her on a second playthrough, however [[spoiler: you realize that she was [[LoveMakesYouCrazy madly in love]] with Jean-Paul, the philosophical robot you probably met during a [[HarsherInHindsight rather comical side-quest]] in your first run. Desperate to make him 'look her way', she sought to make herself 'beautiful' by any means necessary, gradually growing more and more monstrous as she went to greater and greater extremes in the hopes of catching his eye. In the end, she realized that he'd NEVER look her way, that his obsession with his own existentialistic musings prevented him from paying any attention to ANY of his many female fans... but by then, she'd already been ostracized from robot society for her actions. Her final thoughts were simply a cry for someone, ''anyone'', [[DesperatelyCravesAffection to look her way]]...]]
* ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'' gives us Ulfric Stormcloak. Whether he's actually a villain depends on your point of view (and on who you side with during the Civil War). But even if you go Imperial, it's hard not to feel for the man when his backstory consists largely of [[ColdBloodedTorture the universe]] [[SurvivorGuilt kicking him]] [[DeceasedParentsAreTheBest in the teeth]].
* Grasshopper's ending in ''[[VideoGame/TwistedMetal Twisted Metal II]]'' gives this treatment to Calypso. [[spoiler:Turns out Krista Sparks is ''his daughter who had died'', and has since been rebuilt as a living mechanical bomb. Even though he knows she's seconds away from exploding AND that she's not technically even his daughter, ''he still holds and comforts her as she explodes since she's afraid it will hurt''. He might be an evil son of a bitch, but it's hard not to cry for anyone who loved his daughter that much.]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Tekken}}'' could be said to have this with Kazuya. When you realize his cursed heritage and his backstory of how he came to have the Devil Gene in the first place [[spoiler:Tossed off a cliff by his father Heihachi for being too kind hearted, when he was only 5, and being reborn by the Devil to extract revenge]], you no longer see him as simply an evil man, but rather ruthless because of what fate thrust upon him. And depending on how you may or may not view it, his ''relationship'' with Jun, or even his respect for his grandfather, could point to a more sympathetic villain.
** Kazuya's son Jin counts for this in Tekken 6 too. Considering the whole ordeal he has gone through, which is much more than Kazuya [[spoiler: Grew up in a broken home, lost his mother when he was 15, trained vigorously for the next 4 years for revenge, sabotaged his life, was betrayed by Heihachi, became consumed with rage and anger, had several identity crises, and then once defeating Jinpachi was granted access to so much power and recognition he had been denied for his whole life of feeling powerless to stop everything he endured)]], it's honestly no surprise he became how he did.
* [[LizardFolk Azala]] from ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'', after her last stand, drags herself forward as sad music plays and she asks that the humans never forget that she and her kind fought bravely to the bitter end. She then refuses to be rescued, as it is [[TheFatalist their fate to die there]]. Then, her final words seal it as a TearJerker:
-->'''Azala''': The future... we... have no future...
* The [[BigBad Big Bad of the planet Noveria]] in ''VideoGame/MassEffect'' is Lady Benezia, the [[MakesSenseInContext Indoctrinated (brainwashed) Asari Matriarch]] who has been overheading the resurrection of the supposedly long extinct Rachni, exhibits an example of this trope if you bring Liara (her daughter) along for the fight, whose final words to that point will be of how proud she is of Liara.
-->'''Benezia''': Goodnight, Little Wing... I will see you with the dawn. (pause) No... light... they always said... there would be...
** This continues on in ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' where Liara will remark that her favourite colour was yellow, and would always wear clothes in that colour. In the same conversation she will reminisce about how Benezia caught her digging for Prothean ruins in a local park, which resulted in Liara's first history book.
* The third installment of ''Monster Girl Quest'' has [[spoiler:Lazarus, the leader of [[FantasticRacism Ilias Kreuz]]. You see through his eyes a FlashBack that reveals he used to be a truly heroic man who took up the sword to protect people, what led him down [[StartOfDarkness his path to become a murderer]], and it's ultimately revealed he still has a heroic heart and [[HeroicSacrifice sacrifices himself to help save the city]]. What clinches it is that nobody else knows this; to Luka and everyone else, he was nothing more than an evil man who simply died [[EnemyMine lending a hand in the battle]].]]
* Lampshaded in ''VideoGame/BorderlandsThePreSequel'', where Brick and Tina (who are [[FramingDevice listening to the story being told]]) hates how the story starts off by making Handsome Jack, the villain of ''Videogame/Borderlands2'', a helpful and somewhat likeable character compared to the megalomaniac in the second game. Of course, [[StartOfDarkness that comes later]].
-->'''Brick''': Man, this story's making Jack out to be a good guy. I hate it.
* You'd think the ''VideoGame/{{Disgaea}}'' series, with its demonic protagonists, would feature this, but actual demons are actually just [[BadButt slightly bad]] most of the time, and have just as little tolerance for "real" evil as regular people. The real example of this trope comes from a human, SmugSnake and OmnicidalManiac Nemo from Disgaea 4. He seeks to end the entire human race, which will also destroy the Netherworld and Celestia, because they require the fear/awe produced by humans to survive. But Nemo goes from detestable to pitiable when you learn his backstory; he was a soldier in a pointless war who was injured and cared for by a nun named Artina, despite her being on the other side. Despite her IncorruptiblePurePureness, she was executed by her own countrymen for aiding the enemy, leading Nemo to conclude that HumansAreBastards, and that demons and angels are no better because they allowed humanity to slip this far. He is also unable to perceive that Artina has actually ''become'' an angel (and is begging him to stop), as losing his faith made her invisible and inaudible to him.
* For most of ''VideoGame/PeretEmHeruForThePrisoners'', Professor Tsuchida is an aggravating, self-serving {{Jerkass}} treating the tour group as his unwitting meat shields. However, he also shows signs of [[VillainRespect warming up to Ayuto]], and after his VillainousBreakdown, reveals his motives: [[spoiler:he lost his daughter in a terrorist attack one year ago, and blamed Dr. Kuroe for [[FailureToSaveMurder not saving her]], as Kuroe wasn't licensed yet and didn't want to risk losing everything by attempting a risky surgery. Tsuchida believes Kuroe put his own ambitions ahead of saving Shizumi's life, and wanted to see him face judgment for his inaction]]. Following this revelation, Tsuchida pleads with Ayuto to be careful that he doesn't turn out like him, embittered by his losses [[spoiler:and dying for it]].
* In ''VideoGame/Fallout1'', the Master plans to conquer the world with his Super Mutant army, [[MasterRace converting all viable humans into Super Mutants]] and prohibiting the rest of humanity from breeding, so that the Earth can be [[VisionaryVillain ruled by a superior version of humanity,]] [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans uniting mankind and eliminating war and suffering]]. [[AntiVillain His genuine belief in this ideal]] makes it all the more heartbreaking when you inform him that [[AllForNothing all Super Mutants are sterile]], causing him to [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone break down]] and [[VillainousBSOD kill himself.]]
--->'''The Master:''' '' But it cannot be. This would mean that all my work has been for nothing. Everything that I have tried to . . . a failure! It can't be. [[VoiceOfTheLegion Be. Be. Be...]] I . . . don't think that I can continue. [[VoiceOfTheLegion Continue?]] To have done the things I have done in the name of progress and healing. It was madness. I can see that now. [[VoiceOfTheLegion Madness. Madness?]] There is no hope. Leave now... while you still have hope.''
* ''VideoGame/GuildWars2'' set up the Elder Dragons as being abominations to be hated and killed without regret until the player confront a mortally wounded Kralkatorrik alongside Aurene, his granddaughter. Kralkatorrik reveals that the vision he saw of Aurene replacing him, which was assumed to have terrified the dragon, actually filled him with ''hope'' for a better future. Everything he has done up to this point, even killing Glint and temporarily killing Aurene, was to ensure that vision would come to be. He willingly offers his heart to Aurene and tells her that he hopes she'll never have to kill the things she loves. His last word as he dies is a longing "Mother".
[[/folder]]

* ''LightNovel/EndoAndKobayashiLiveTheLatestOnTsundereVillainessLieselotte'' has an in-universe example. Lieselotte plays the role of the AlphaBitch in the {{Fictional|VideoGame}} RomanceGame ''[=MagiKoi=]'', but [[AllThereInTheManual Lieselotte's line of the fan disc]] reveals she is a {{Tsundere}} who is NotEvilJustMisunderstood... Kobayashi becomes highly sympathetic with Lieselotte's plights after playing that line, and eventually {{invoke|dTrope}}s this on Endo by having him play the same fan disc first before playing ''[=MagiKoi=]'' proper. This is the motivation of the commentators when they noticed [[NoInnerFourthWall the inner Fourth Wall suddenly disappears]]--they want to give Lieselotte a happier ending.

* Vergil from ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry'', particularly in the third game, ''Dante's Awakening'', [[spoiler:after Vergil falls into Hell]].

** It also does it ''[[IncrediblyLamePun insanely]]'' well with Mao in episode 15. He's introduced as a completely diabolical SmugSnake who tries to kill our [[AntiHero hero]], Lelouch, and chase down C.C. and seems unstoppable with his mind-reading skills. Then C.C. confronts him and invokes...[[spoiler:pictures of Mao together with her as a ([[ImTakingHerHomeWithMe cute, huggable]]) little boy as she promises to stay with him forever...!]] And once he's taken care of for the episode, C.C. relates that [[spoiler: she found him as a ''six-year-old orphan'' and gave him {{telepathy}} that he lost the ability to control and which ultimately caused him to go insane...]] By the time [[spoiler: he finally dies, [[MercyKill it isn't]] a KarmicDeath [[LetThemDieHappy at all...]]]] and shouldn't very well be, since it wasn't even his fault he was insane!

* The hyenas of ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing1994'' get a lot of sympathy from viewers since their only real motivation is hunger and jealousy that they are forbidden from entering the Pride Lands to hunt where animal life is plentiful. Of course, they also gained a ''lot'' of fans thanks to [[Creator/WhoopiGoldberg their]] [[Creator/CheechAndChong voice]] [[Creator/JimCummings1952 actors]]. [[spoiler: They do get a happy ending though, as they devour Scar for the latter's betrayal, and [[WesternAnimation/TheLionKingIISimbasPride the sequel]] even reveals they left the Pride Lands afterwards, implying that maybe they're living better lives at this point]].

* The hyenas of ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing1994'' get a lot of sympathy from viewers since their only real motivation is hunger and jealousy that they are forbidden from entering the Pride Lands to hunt where animal life is plentiful. Of course, they also gained a ''lot'' of fans thanks to [[Creator/WhoopiGoldberg their]] [[Creator/CheechAndChong voice]] [[Creator/JimCummings actors]]. [[spoiler: They do get a happy ending though, as they devour Scar for the latter's betrayal, and the film's sequel even reveals they left the Pride Lands afterwards, implying that maybe they're living better lives at this point]].

* Lyrics common to both versions of the song "Behind Blue Eyes" (Music/TheWho's version and Music/LimpBizkit's CoverVersion) seem to imply that the character it's sung from the point of view of is a villain, but both versions are still clearly intended to make the listeners feel sorry for the character.

* Lyrics common to both versions of the song "Behind Blue Eyes" (Music/TheWho's version and Music/LimpBizkit's version) seem to imply that the character it's sung from the point of view of is a villain, but both versions are still clearly intended to make the listeners feel sorry for the character.

* Lucy from ''Manga/ElfenLied''. As the series begins, Lucy is seen escaping a laboratory, and mercilessly slaughtering anyone, and we mean ''anyone'', who stands in her way. It's a complete and utter mystery as to why she seems to be unwilling to kill [[UnluckyEverydude the]] [[AccidentalPervert male]] [[NonActionGuy protagonist]], Kouta. Cut to a few chapters/episodes later and we are shown the girl's hellish childhood. Turns out that Lucy, whose real name is Kaede, was abandoned by her father at an OrphanageOfFear, where she was mercilessly tormented by the other children and neglected by the staff, who only pretended to be nice to her and spoke ill of her when they thought she wasn't listening. It all culminated with some of the children, led by [[TheBully Tomoo]], [[MoralEventHorizon slowly killing her puppy (the only living being she's ever cared for) in front of her, revealed to them by a supposed friend that backstabbed her, and laughing at her misery]]. Cue the girl going AxCrazy and slaughtering them all in a textbook example of both BewareTheNiceOnes and BloodBathVillainOrigin. And thus, [[ThatManIsDead Kaede ceased to be]], and Lucy, the [[KillAllHumans destroyer of mankind]], was born...
** This was merely the beginning: after meeting Kouta, befriending him, and almost turning their relationship into something more, she discovered that he lied to her...about the gender of the cousin he was going to a festival with. Broken and betrayed, the girl flew once more into an UnstoppableRage and crossed the MoralEventHorizon by [[spoiler:brutally killing everyone around her, including Kouta's family right in front of him]]. Ultimately, this cemented her decision that [[KillAllHumans all humanity had to simply die]].
*** And that's without mentioning [[spoiler:that most of her murders were dictated by the manipulations of an OmnicidalManiac [[EnemyWithin inner voice]]]].

* In-universe example in ''LightNovel/MyNextLifeAsAVillainessAllRoutesLeadToDoom'', where the unnamed protagonist finds herself sympathizing with Katarina, a SpoiledBrat rival from an otome game she had been playing (as Katarina is the only character in the game who never gets a happy ending or a chance for redemption). Of course, part of this is because [[ReincarnateInAnotherWorld she reincarnated as Katarina after she died]].