Monster Sob Story: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:
Monsters and villains in works of fiction aren't usually made to invoke sympathy. Engaging a monster emotionally as someone would another person diminishes the terror and revulsion villains are supposed to evoke. However, this isn't the case if the villain has a
Unlike the [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds]], or the [[Anti-Villain]], this villain was already evil long
▲Monsters and villains in works of fiction aren't usually made to invoke sympathy. Engaging a monster emotionally as someone would another person diminishes the terror and revulsion villains are supposed to evoke. However, this isn't the case if the villain has a [[Monster Sob Story]]. Basically, this is a villain who gets a moment when, to everybody's surprise, he's cast in a somewhat sympathetic light. His motivations and emotional state are explored, and the audience finds itself pitying (if not identifying with) the villain. They may be a [[Smug Snake]] or [[Magnificent Bastard]], but the reader/viewer feels sorry for them. The heroes themselves may even feel pity. The experience enbeds up giving the villain a level of characterization that goes beyond what a villain doing things [[For the Evulz]] usually gets.
See also [[Sympathy for
▲Unlike the [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds]], or the [[Anti-Villain]], this villain was already evil long before-- and will likely remain so, despite anyone's pity. May be an [[Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain]]. May also bring about [[Badass Decay]] or [[Villain Decay]] if not done well. This is not to be confused with a [[Villainous Breakdown]] containing a [[Motive Rant]], which usually occurs after the villain has suffered a setback or is almost defeated. Here, the sympathy is more triggered by the villain's goals or feelings rather than any pain the villain is going through himself. If the villain simply chokes out "[[Freudian Excuse|I had a]] [[Dark and Troubled Past|terrible childhood]]!" and then dies, it's [[Alas, Poor Villain]].
▲See also [[Sympathy for The Devil]] (where the characters feel the monster's pain) and [[Cry for The Devil]] (where the ''audience'' feels the monster's pain).
{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] And [[Manga]] ==
* Told by both Souther and Kaioh to Kenshiro in [[Fist of the North Star]] ''right before'' their final battles, when there's no time left for the reader to watch them grow as characters or sympathise with them. Though the week-to-week short term plotting of the shounen manga industry is probably to blame here.
* He's never made 'pathetic' but Askeladd is made sympathetic in the revelation of his origins in [[Vinland Saga]].
* [[Neon Genesis Evangelion|Gendo Ikari]] after his [[Oh Crap]] moment in ''End of Evangelion''.
* Both Jesse and James of [[Team Rocket]] gets quite a few in ''[[Pokémon]]''.
* During the Eclipse in ''[[Berserk]]'', Griffith gets a childhood flashback scene as he's alone with the Godhand, which serves as one last moment of feeling sorry for him after [[Trauma Conga Line|everything he's been through up to this point]]
* In ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (
** Sloth doesn't want to be one of Father's evil minions, he just wants to sleep all the time.
** [[Fullmetal Alchemist (
* Yuca from [[Immortal Rain]] certainly does this, to the point of being a grade-A [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds]]. He's a horrible, misanthropic, nihilistic sociopath; but then, he's lived for [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old|centuries]] through [[Reincarnation]] and experienced inconceivable pain in those many lives. He hates the world, simply because he's so sick of living in it.
* [[Magnificent Bastard|Suitengu]] from [[Speed Grapher]].
* {{spoiler|Yamamoto}} the Conwelian (and their race in the whole, really) in [[Level E]]. Having to eat your own females to fertilize their eggs is one thing, having the instinctive urge to do so triggered by ''[[Cartwright Curse|romantic attachment]]'' --[[Nightmare Fuel|is another story completely]]. But continuing to do so after resettling {{spoiler|on Earth}} as a refugee from the war that destroyed your own planet (and was fought over the cure to that urge, that some hardliners viewed as abomination) with the ''local''
* [[Katanagatari]]: Nanami life is one of continuous pain, alienation from her Martial Arts School, existential frustration and continued assassinations attempts (even from her own family!) that she would desire were successful. Even so, after seeing what she is capable of, is very difficult to empathize with her.
* Hansel and Gretel from [[Black Lagoon]]. They gleefully torture and murder through their story arc. They are also children who in the past were raped and forced to kill other children. They are eventually {{spoiler|hunted down and killed}}.
* Many of ''[[Naruto]]'s'' cast of villains, including Itachi, Nagato, Kabuto, and even Orochimaru, have sympathetic backstories.
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* Two-Edge the half-troll from [[Elf Quest]] spends half the time fomenting wars or designing death-traps and torture devices, and the other half soliciting (and sometimes getting) sympathy from the elves because of his mistreatment by Winnowill {{spoiler|his mother}}.
* Some versions of Scarecrow. He's a nasty piece of work, but geez, try to read about his childhood in Scarecrow: Year One without crying. He was [[Parental Abandonment|abandoned by his mother]], ruthlessly bullied at school, was dirt poor and his grandmother basically used him for child labor and locked him in an old church to be attacked by birds over and over again for "sins" such as reading books besides the Bible. She's been dead for years, but [[Mommy Issues|he's still freakin' terrified of her.]]
* [[Alan Moore]]'s take on the third Clayface takes this [[Up to Eleven]]. The character falls in love with a mannequin , has his home burned down, deals with insane paranoid jealousy (from his perspective it seems like his inanimate love is cheating on him), is attacked by Batman, put in an asylum, and finally grows to resent the one (imaginary) romance he has. In the end it's implied that he has come to hate his new life to the extent that he's just waiting for his wife to die...which she won't. Ever.
* In a classic [[Silver Surfer]] story, the Surfer goes to a planet after receiving a call for help. He finds a group of natives being attacked by a monstrous dragon. After a brief battle, the Surfer is surprised when the dragon proves capable of speech. The dragon explains that his race was actually a peaceful one, and after escaping their doomed planet, they arrived here in search of fuel. The natives, [[Fantastic Racism|for no reason other than the dragons' monstrous appearances]], gave them a chemical that [[Kill It
* [[Norman Osborn]], after the failed Siege of Asgard that ended [[Dark Reign]], gets a [[Motive Rant]] (spoken to his alter-ego, the Green Goblin) about how he ''knows'' the Hulk, the X-Men, or some other superhuman is inches away from completely wrecking the world. (It would be more sympathetic if he weren't one of those same superhumans endangering the planet).
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== [[Literature]] ==
* In ''[[
* The Vord Queen, in the ''[[Codex Alera]]''. In the first five books she is not sympathetic in the slightest, but in the sixth {{spoiler|we discover that she is attacking the Alerans because the Queens she has produced in Canea are trying to kill her, so she fled.}} She's still quite clearly evil, but it's very sad, in a way.
** Even all-around [[Chronic Backstabbing Disorder|treacherous bitch]] Invidia Aquitaine gets treated with a little sympathy in the same book, as she's managed to screw everything up so badly that even Isana is feeling sorry for her. For reference, Invidia {{spoiler|arranged to have Isana's husband killed, repeatedly tried to kill her son, and is helping the Vord Queen hold her hostage}}.
* Gollum's [[Character Development]] in ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'', though there were traces of this in ''[[The Hobbit]]''.
* The creature from the original ''[[Frankenstein (
* Kallor from ''[[The Malazan Book of the Fallen]]'' was a son of a bitch long before he was cursed to a) live forever and b) fail at everything he did. ''Toll the Hounds'' however, spends a great deal of time demonstrating that not only did the curse fail to fix him, but the constant misery he has suffered over the millennia has only succeeded in making him even worse, transforming him from a standard [[Evil Overlord]] and into a [[Misanthrope Supreme]] who hates himself and all humanity with equal passion. An example of a character who you can both pity, and wish a horrible death upon all at once.
* In ''Ghost Story'' of ''[[The Dresden Files]]'', Uriel says {{spoiler|he kind of pities the Skinwalkers, as their rampages and the pain they cause is some desperate attempt to prove to themselves that everyone can be as screwed up as they are. His sympathies are far more toward their victims though.}}
== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* The original trope namer was the [[Lone Dalek]] in the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' episode "[[Doctor Who
** It started out as [[Narm]] when it seemed less upset about being the last Dalek in existence than about having no orders left to
** Even The Doctor felt sorry for this Dalek when he learned it had absorbed some of Rose's DNA and was impure - something it couldn't bear to live with when it found out.
*** That fact makes it even more tragic: for the most part, the Dalek race is essentially damned to self-loathing, fear and finally suicide if it ''ever'' [[Face Heel Turn|sees the light]]. And I thought Davros was a bastard before..
** Also from ''Doctor Who'', {{spoiler|[[The Master (trope)|The Master]]}} turned in this direction when it's revealed that {{spoiler|he was driven insane (partially) by the High Council's [[Plan]] to escape the Last Time War. And then he's cast aside, because he's "diseased"}}.
** Done intentionally by Blaine in "Boom Town". In her previous appearance she was just one of many Slitheen who planned to initiate a nuclear holocaust simply so they could sell the radioactive remains of the Earth as starship fuel. When the heroes meet her again, her motives haven't improved much; she intends to nuke Cardiff (tearing apart the rift) in order to escape the planet. She certainly never pulls any sort of [[Heel Face Turn]], but attempts to forestall her own execution by explaining how horrible her life has been (she would have been killed if she'd refused to be a killer like the rest of her family) and how unnecessarily cruel her death will be (dissolved in boiling vinegar). In the end she does get a sort of second chance, as she is regressed to an egg and can start her life over.
* ''[[Veronica Mars]]'': the season two [[Big Bad]] is like this - we all pay attention to the [[Freudian Excuse]], and think about just how messed up someone like that would be, and if this villain ever really had a chance.
* Sylar, as of Volume 5 of [[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]. He hates what he is, he realises that no one will ever love him and he'll spend all of eternity alone and miserable and after spending all that time gaining new abilities he now wants to be rid of them because he knows that he'll never stop killing while he has them. He's still pure evil, but it's hard not to feel a pang of sympathy for him...like some takes on the vampire myth he's a wretched monster, controlled by his bloodlust and unable to change unless FORCED to.
* Total Monster Tate in ''[[
* Kim Young of [[Dae Jang Geum]]. She did some unforgivable things to Jang Geum and Lady Han, but most of the time she was caught between a rock and a hard place and she was always miserable about her life and her situation.
* The ''[[
* This is practically the entire point of ''[[The Sopranos]]''. Like it or not, we spend as much time watching these mobsters in moments of humanity and vulnerability as we do watching them violate nearly every moral code known to man. Most cross the [[Moral Event Horizon]] at some point (possibly even multiple times), but are still portrayed as human beings with relatable problems, which is what makes the show so fascinating and horrifying at the same time.
* Echidna, the otherwise utterly repulsive (and quite literal) "Mother of All Monsters" from ''[[Hercules: The Legendary Journeys]]'' got this treatment prior to her later [[Character Development]]. A loathsome she-beast with scaly green skin, snakelike fangs, a grotesque shriek of a voice, and tentacles that seemed to stretch out for miles, she nevertheless evoked sympathy: her hatred of Hercules was entirely justified, as he had slain all her children, even if it was in self-defense. She plotted Herc's demise on a number of occasions, but eventually underwent a [[Heel Face Turn]] and even enlisted the hero's help after her youngest child was kidnapped. Interestingly enough, she also married [[Big Fun|a fun-loving giant]] (who was of course very large but otherwise normal-looking), making their case a rare inversion of [[Ugly Guy, Hot Wife]].
* ''[[The X
* ''[[Being Human (UK)]]'' has Cutler, who is revealed to have {{spoiler|been tricked into drinking his murdered wife's blood by Hal.}}
== Tabletop RPG ==
* Both ''[[
* The Yozis in ''[[Exalted]]'' manage to be somewhat sympathetic despite being insane god-monsters whose plan to break out of hell involves an obscene amount of death. As for ''how'' sympathetic they are...well...[[Base Breaker|the flamewars on that subject]] [[Your Mileage May Vary|are of epic proportions]].
== Theatre ==
* [[Clive Barker]]'s ''[[The History of the Devil]]''. He ''is'' the devil, but he just wants to go home. He seems to win at the ending, being allowed to return to heaven on the condition that he can never leave it again, but in a massive [[Downer Ending]] {{spoiler|it's revealed that heaven is completely empty, abandoned by God and all the other angels}}.
== Toys ==
* Makuta Krika of [[Bionicle]], who only went along with Teridax's plans seeing as it would just be a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. He longs for the old days when the Brotherhood of Makuta stood for something and helped the people rather then trying to enslave them and usurp the Great Spirit Mata Nui.
== [[Video Games]] ==
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*** This is [[Mind Screw|Silent Hill]]. He might not be wrong.
* Capehornus from ''[[Knights in The Nightmare]]'' is what can be lightly called a douchebag obsessed with [[Disproportionate Retribution|taking revenge on everyone and everything for the slights he's suffered in life]], and many a player grows to dislike him intensely. Then Zolgonark, the demon he summoned to help him do so, {{spoiler|turns his granddaughter--the only person he loves--into a harpy. And all of his plans slowly but surely come undone as Yellma cheerfully ignores his plight to pursue her own agenda and the Wisp's army dispatches his subordinates.}} After his last stand and his bitter death speech, even Maria and Meria admit that he's [[Not So Different]] from them.
* The ''[[Portal (
{{quote|
* The [[Big Bad]] of [[Tsukihime]] in Hisui's route gets one of these when it's revealed {{spoiler|SHIKI has been experiencing the same psychic link Shiki has been coping with, and if anything has been feeling even worse than Shiki. He just wants to kill Shiki to sever the link and give his mind some peace.}}
** Not to mention the whole thing about {{spoiler|being disowned by his family, locked up in a basement for years and years because his family carries demon blood that drives its' members crazy, and unknowingly being the reincarnation of an immortal vampire, which amplified the effects of said demon blood when it "awoke" in him.}}
* [[Rule of Rose]]. It's such a [[Tear Jerker]] (still being survival horror) that it's hard to determine where to begin. Both villains have major sob stories, still being [[Complete Monster
* Every single boss in the ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' series decides to have a [[Story to Gameplay Ratio|15-minute conversation]] before trying to kill you. Some try to justify their actions by telling you their motivations. Others just [[Smug Snake|gloat about how screwed you are]] and that you have [[Gambit Pileup|no idea what is really going on.]]
* In ''[[The Legend of Zelda:
* In ''[[Amea]]'', {{spoiler|Mish, the title character's childhood friend}} is shown to have turned into a [[Humanoid Abomination]] that controls many monsters all because of his efforts to embrace the suffering that the others have tried to expunge by {{spoiler|becoming slaves of the Master}}.
* With the ''[[
* In ''[[Fire Emblem Tellius
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* Syphile, Ariel's abusive stepsister / governess in [[
* In ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]]''
** This trope is played much more straight when we finally learn Fructose's origin story, starting [http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20100828.html here.]
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** It goes deeper than that, though. Zim's classified as a defective, meaning his erratic, crazy personality is due to, essentially, a programming error. He seems to be able to feel affection (the first words out of his mouth were "I love you, cold unfeeling robot arm!"), but hasn't been taught affection by the society in which he was raised. Because of many, many bad things happening due to him (most of which seemed to be complete accidents, though he wasn't at all remorseful about it), culminating in him accidentally killing off all the other Invaders in Operation Impending Doom, he was banished to Foodcourtia and made to work in what appears to have been a truly horrible job. When he escaped and arrived at the Great Assigning, the Tallest sent him on a fake mission into deep space in the hopes that he'd die along the way. Face it: Zim's had a tough life, and his method of coping seems to be deluding himself into thinking that he's the greatest Irken ever and beloved by the Tallest.
* Lucius from ''[[Jimmy Two-Shoes]]'' is normally a completely unsympathetic [[The Caligula|Caligula]]. But you'd be hard-pressed not to see his [[Flash Back]] in "Happy Birthday Lucius" and not feel just a little sorry for him.
* Mr. Freeze from ''[[Batman: The Animated Series
** In ''[[Batman: The Animated Series
** By the time of ''[[
{{quote|
'''Freeze''': Believe me, you're the only one who cares. }}
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Villains]]
[[Category:Monster Sob Story]]▼
[[Category:This Index Has Had a Hard Life]]
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