11 Villains Who May Have Actually Been The Good Guy

With film and TV writing getting better by the day, it’s near-impossible to expect any more stories with purely good people vs. purely evil people. Folks in the TV realm like to pinpoint Season 1, Episode 5 of The Sopranos as the moment that allowed future shows like Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad to portray “bad guys” as the “good guys.” The episode sees Tony strangle Febby Petrulio to death, then go right back to his fatherly duties of picking up Meadow from a college campus tour. The script was fought over to no end at HBO. Because a TV show's main character had never brutally murdered someone before, they thought people would instantly hate Tony (and the show). They could not have been more wrong.

Tony (and many other “antiheroes” along the way) helped show audiences that things in real life are rarely “good vs. evil,” so why should we expect that from movie and TV characters? George Galloway once said, “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter,” and that sentiment is actually very useful for anyone creating a good villain. Each villain's backstory is riddled with injustices and traumas, and sure, these 11 may have done some bad, almost unforgivable shit, but one could make the argument that they were actually pretty decent people.

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