Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-33754845-20190919204913/@comment-43757330-20190920155435

Megadracosaurus wrote: Kaitryona Acheron wrote: I only mean that, by this show's standards, she's sympathetic. You have to at least admit that her motivations are less evil than the other villains, right? But they’re evil none the less. She’s a lesser evil at most. That doesn't make her not a sympathetic villain. By definition, villains are always evil. That's the difference between a villain and an antagonist. An antagonist is someone who acts against the protagonist's interests. A villain is a character who either commits evil acts or has evil intentions.

So my labeling Raven as a sympathetic villain, by definition, means I'm conceding that she's evil. The difference between a simple villain and a sympathetic one, however, is that the sympathetic one is A) capable of being redeemed, and B) has grayer motivations than someone that is pure evil.

Raven, for example, is one of only 3 villains on this show who has ever done anything altruistic, empathetic, or expressed remorse. She went out of her way to save Yang in Volume 2, she aided Yang and Weiss in getting to Haven, and she expressed clearcut remorse for her actions at the end of Volume 5. She didn't have to do any of that. She did it out of some deep-seeded goodness that's, admittedly, buried under a mountain of evil behavior.

The only other two villains that have done that are Ilia (who got a full blown redemption arc), and Hazel (who expressed regret for Sienna being killed). Every single other villain has never gone out of their way to do anything good for anyone else, and has never expressed regret for their actions. Emerald has expressed regret for working for Salem, but that's only because she's terrified of her. Not because she actually feels bad for, say, killing the bookstore manager in Volume 2.

So objectively, and comparatively, Raven is a sympathetic villain. That doesn't mean she's not evil, it just means she's a lighter shade of evil, and one that could be reformed.