http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/evil
Alt text
There should be a movie where the window into the past is the villain just being a born shithead from day one.
Bonus panel
This was why I loved Esdeath's backstory in Akame Ga Kill.
this post was submitted on 05 May 2025
151 points (98.1% liked)
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
677 readers
27 users here now
Posts and discussion about the webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal by Hugo Award-winning author Zach Weinersmith (and related works)
https://www.patreon.com/ZachWeinersmith
New comics posted whenever they get posted on the site, and old comics posted every day until we catch up in a decade or so
founded 6 months ago
MODERATORS
Meanwhile, real villians: Nah, I'm just a spoiled asshole with an inferiority complex.
Elon?
Or Trump, Bezos, Putin, Orban, Xi, Erdogan... Take your pick.
I wouldn't be surprised, but to my knowledge those are not all troubled kids
Either of the two tropes gets old after enough exposure, and there are good place for both.
But I agree I'd definitely love to see more satirical "dark backstories".
"I'm going to destroy the ecosystem because long long ago, a seagull stole my french fries, and I've never been the same since."
Daddy, why did you eat my fries..
Jack Horner in The Last Wish. Surprisingly good for a Shrek spin-off.
I was going to comment the same thing, that Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is what the image title suggests, and it's really a good.
Lol at the bonus panel. There are already enough jokes about making the art college take hitler so he wouldn't become political, that it wouldn't surprise me if there are people out there who actually believe it.
I think it's also just that we remember and whine about bad writing. With good writing, you don't even think about the villain's backstory because it's so well incorporated. You don't get this sudden spotlight on the villain as they moan about their past as the excuse for why they did everything. You don't get incredibly cheesy and immersion breaking scenes of the protagonist finding diaries and amazingly succinct notes that explain everything. Those are what drive us up the wall.
That's true, but also sometimes it is done well. In ATLA Zuko is just evil until the storm where we see him being exiled for being good and honorable. It's not that sudden explanations are bad, but that they're hard to do well but hit really well when they are. You have to show the light of goodness thst was corrupted or overriden in the villain from the start. It has to feel realistic and relevant. I don't just want "well they could've been good in different circumstances", I want the villain to serve as an interesting character with their own conflict or for the hero to learn of systemic issues that need to be resolved, or to see themselves in the villain, or for the villain to hold a mirror to the audience and challenge us, or even just for the villain to represent something. And if you can't do that well it's not worth having the villain show their reason. Sauron works great both as the twisted follower of the smith god and as the evil guy in black armor throwing orcs at the shire.
Mmm, I like avatar, but zuko would actually be an example of it done poorly. He was a great starting villain, and him freeing aang was a great reveal that the show had depth, but everything with his 'backstory' was exactly the sort of cheesy that ruins immersion. It lost that feeling of depth when you started getting 'good character / bad character' contrasts. It relied on the firelord (bad character) being one dimensional evil, while zuko had a good (character) mother so he could be good, too. Until he and Iroh were alone together, and then the whole 'humanized villain' idea became quite good. You were able to see zuko experience things and adapt, as a character/person should, not just some post-hoc explanation for the present. I'm not going to rag on avatar for the cheesy bits; it was a kid's show, and even adults sometimes need to be hit over the head to grasp things. It still wasn't an excellent example of villain writing.
Jaime in GoT 🙄