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Compare [[Villain Episode]] and [[POV Sequel]]. Contrast with [[In Another Man's Shoes]], [[Only One]], [[The Rashomon]]. See also [[A Lighter Shade of Grey]].
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== Anime
* The second season of the ''[[Gunslinger Girl]]'' anime showed the perspectives of the SWA who were trying to protect Italy and the Padanian terrorists who were trying to free their country from an oppressive government.
* In the ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' manga the near-genocidal Ishval Massacre is told from the point of view of the invading Amestrian soldiers, the Rockbells (heroic war-zone doctors), and an unnamed Ishvalan Warrior Priest (Scar). Nearly all the Amestrian soldiers are shown as disgusted by the orders of the higher-ups, who are mostly [[Complete Monster|remorseless bastards]], to the point where about 20% of the Amestrian officers are killed by subordinates tired of killing innocent people. By the end of the volume everyone except the actual villains are traumatized. In one scene Alex Louis Armstrong, mainly a source for comedy relief, is shown having a nervous breakdown right on the field while cradling a dead Ishvalan child.
* ''[[S-Cry-ed]]'' features Ryuho, who is at first supposedly the villain, but throughout the show, both the characters have their heroic and villainous moments. {{spoiler|After Ryuho loses his memory and Kazuma goes through a masochistic phase, neither character appears to be the villain. This also happens to Asuka Tachibana, who goes from being a villain talking about his [[Have a Gay Old Time|balls]] to a heroic, lone ranger}}
* ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]] A's'' does this for the Wolkenritter. While they at first appear to be evil when their motives haven't been revealed, the narrative POV later occasionally changes and focuses on them, their past and such. Turns out they are just trying to save an innocent [[Ill Girl]] that showed them what a real family is like.
* The staff and cast of ''[[Code Geass]]'' openly admits that [[Magnificent Bastard|Lelouch]] is a [[Nineties Anti-Hero]]. Ultimately subverted, intentionally or not, in that he often suffers [[Disproportionate Retribution]], and that some of his problems are a result of [[Diabolus Ex Machina]], especially later on in the series, whereas [[Karma Houdini|the comparable if not worse transgressions of a few other characters]] [[Moral Dissonance|are never addressed]].
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==
* This is the entire reason Rorshach of ''[[Watchmen]]'' is considered an [[Anti-Hero]] and not a [[Serial Killer]].
* The comic ''[[Lex Luthor: Man of Steel]]'' looked at [[Superman]] from the perspective of his [[Arch Nemesis]]. Here, Superman comes across as a cold, distant, incredibly powerful alien whose immense natural abilities make a mockery of human accomplishments.
** Although in this case, for all his supposed humanism and the angry glowing super-eyes of his rival, Luthor's actions in the comic still make it absolutely clear who the villain is.
== Film ==
* ''[[The Prince of Egypt]]'' does this with Rameses, focusing equally on him and Moses. He's generally shown as a nice guy struggling between responsibility and his own feelings (but with two [[Evil Chancellor
* In ''[[Land of the Dead]]'', the gas station attendant zombie gets peeved at the humans [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?|shooting his fellow zombies]]. Because [[Humans Are
* In the movie (well, at least the remake) ''[[The Longest Yard]]'', most of the protaganist's football team are self-confessed scumbags and degenerates. The viewers end up rooting for them because the guards are even nastier.
* ''[[Four Lions]]'' is a black comedy from the POV of four Islamist terrorists who are just young guys who happen to want to blow themselves and other people up.
** There are actually ''five'' of them. [[Token Evil Teammate|It's just that they're not all nice young guys.]]
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== Literature ==
* Notable in the ''[[Discworld]]'' novel ''[[
** The later book ''[[
** And in ''Thud!'' we see the trouble both the ''Times'' and, to a lesser extent, the Post Office are causing from the Watch's point of view.
** Many think that this is Vetinari's doing, since his whole modus operandi for staying in power is that everyone hates him, but hates each other more.
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* [[A Song of Ice and Fire]] has a couple of these, namely
** '''Tyrion''', who mostly comes across as sympathetic because we see him almost entirely from his point of view. It's easy to forget that he's the same guy who {{spoiler|ordered a singer to be murdered and carved up for soup in King's Landing, threatened to rape his nephew to keep his sister from abusing a girl she thought was his whore, murdered the same whore while on his way towards murdering his father, and let his group of thieving, raping barbarians run wild around King's Landing}}.
** '''Jon''', although to a milder extent. The few viewpoints we get on him that aren't from a friend (namely, {{spoiler|Theon}}) describe him as cold and stand-offish.
** '''Jaime''', who spends two books cast as a cold bastard hiding behind golden armor before we get to his POV right around the time he starts to defrost and realize his errors. Even if after that, he does threaten to {{spoiler|send Edmure Tully -- who's already lost his sister and nephew to the Freys turning coat and joining the Lannisters -- his new daughter on a trebuchet if he doesn't comply with a truce}}.
** '''Cersei''' is actually something of an aversion; while the audience finally gets a look at {{spoiler|the childhood prophecy that's shaped her entire life through fear}}, they also get a look at her utter hostility, such as her silent fury during the marriage of Tommen and Margaery. Even in her own POV, she comes across as rather petty and selfish.
*** '''Theon''' also comes across as a bit of an aversion in the second book. While we see through his eyes his self-pity and the many ways he tries to justify {{spoiler|his betrayal and steadily escalating brutality against the people who were once practically his family}}, his actions kick him seemingly well past the [[Moral Event Horizon]] and none of his angst and self-serving rationalizations can change that. {{spoiler|Yet, against all odds, A Dance with Dragons seems to be intent on dragging him ''back across'' that particular horizon and making him actually sympathetic again.}}
** GRRM pulls a dirty trick with this re: Stannis-- [[The Ghost|throughout the first book]], we're told that he's rigid and unpleasant. Then the prologue to the second book sets him up as a possibly-evil [[Knight Templar]]. ''Then'', for the rest of the series so far, we see Stannis through the eyes of Davos, who is both the most honorable POV character we still have and probably the person who loves Stannis the most in the Seven Kingdoms (including his wife). So after 900 pages of thinking this guy might be the [[Big Bad]], and watching him let his [[Evil Chancellor]] {{spoiler|''kill his brother''}}, we still can't hate the
* ''For Love of Evil'', the sixth book of the series [[Incarnations of Immortality]], which [[POV Sequel|features different protagonists for each volume]], gets told from the POV of Satan, the antagonist of all the previous books, giving him [[Satan Is Good|noble motives]] for all his actions in the previous novels. Turns out Satan wants for good to triumph and all that.
* [[Judy Blume]]'s ''[[Fudge]]'' novels (''Tales of a Fourth-Grade Nothing'' and its sequels) are written from the perspective of Peter Hatcher, an ordinary pre-teen boy who has to put up with such torments as his goofy kid brother Farley ([[Only Known by Their Nickname|better known to all and sundry]], including his parents, as "Fudge") and his [[Sitcom Arch Nemesis]] Sheila Tubman. Blume also wrote a book starring Sheila, ''Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great'', around the time ''Fourth-Grade Nothing'' came out.
* ''Ender's Shadow'', the sequel to ''[[Ender's Game]],'' is mostly from the view point of Bean, whose POV is much more sympathetic and more profound. It's Bean who gives the actual final order of the War to detonate the MD device within the last fighter remaining.
* ''[[Honor Harrington]]'': The first few novels give the viewpoints of a [[Punch Clock Villain]] from time to time. Rob S Pierre and Oscar St Just are given more and more time over the book series, while more minor characters given viewpoints earlier eventually take over. Not only did the former leaders of Haven gain much sympathy, as they were doing the only course of action they thought could save the government, but the ones who replace them are some of the most heroic characters of the series, despite being still at war with the Heroes. Thiessman himself goes from [[Punch Clock Villain]] to [[Worthy Opponent]] to Cincinnatus.
* ''[[Soon I Will Be Invincible]]'' takes Dr. Impossible's POV for alternating chapters, and makes him remarkably sympathetic for a [[Super Villain]] on his thirteen attempt to [[Take Over the World]].
* Each [[Women of the Otherworld]] book is written from a different point of view, so the obnoxious little upstart from ''Stolen'' becomes the sincere young woman struggling to fulfill too many varied responsibilities in ''Dime Store Magic'', and the antivillain motivated by greed in ''Bitten'' turns out in ''Personal Demon'' to have good reasons for his trust issues with the world in general and the former protagonists in particular.
* ''[[I, Lucifer]]'' by Glen Duncan is told from the point of view of Lucifer himself, all whilst he is inhabiting a mortal body for a chance at redemption. It details his take on the fall from heaven and many other aspects of his life. It's a surprisingly sympathetic take on the Father of Lies.
* The early chapters of ''Wolf of the Plains'' are mostly told from the view of Temujin, who will grow up to be Genghis Khan, but a few segments take the view of Temuge, his youngest brother. When we look through Temujin's eyes, Temuge comes across as a greedy, whiny brat, but when Temuge tells the story, we see him as a poor kid who constantly suffers the bullying of his four older brothers and cruel father.
* This happens a lot in '[[The Wheel of Time]]'', often from one chapter to the next. This is most noticeable with Rand, who is increasingly insane throughout the books. In chapters that take his perspective, his actions and decisions make some kind of consistent, if twisted, sense. Conversely, with other characters, his behaviour seems dangerously erratic.
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*** The show wouldn't be called ''Doakes'' if they could get away with ''Doakes, [[Cluster F-Bomb|Motherfucker]]''
* Some episodes of ''[[Criminal Minds]]'' give the killer a huge portion of screentime to the point where in a couple, they're more the protagonist than the actual protagonists. Of course, some of those guys are just generally sympathetic anyway, but the bonus screentime certainly helps.
** The best example of this is the episode "True Night," in which the perspective is with the unsub probably three-quarters of the time; we never even see the team deliver the profiler, or the witnesses come forward. It is very effective.
** The episode "Parasite" is particularly remarkable in this regard: the killer was a horrible person even before he started killing people, but he gets so much screentime that he almost becomes sympathetic.
* ''[[Angel]]'s'' episode "Harm's Way" is done from the point of view of Angel's [[Comic Relief]] vampire secretary Harmony, and though she continues to be the [[Butt Monkey]] of the episode, also shows why she can't bring herself to trust the more or less reasonable protagonists; from her point of view they're seeking an excuse to terminate any employee of demonic persuasion with extreme prejudice.
* ''[[Dollhouse]]'' is perhaps one of the best examples of this trope, the fact that Topher and Adelle (and all Dollhouse employees) get so much screen time prevents the fact they mindwipe and pimp out "volunteers" for a living sinking in too far. And it is then only their very nastiest acts that horrify the viewers.
* ''[[The X-Files]]'' had an episode following the [[Monster of the Week]] ("Hunger"), a voraciously hungry [[Extreme Omnivore]] who was just quietly trying to follow his [[Tragic Dream]] of [[I Just Want to Be Normal|being normal]], despite his nature. Mulder and Scully only appear at the end.
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== Tabletop Games ==
* The story mode of the old ''[[Forgotten Realms]]'' RTS game ''Blood and Magic'' was ''based'' around this. No matter which side of any of the five scenarios you choose, you're always at the very least a [[Designated Hero]]. On one end, the first scenario has you control either a king attempting to pacify a country so that his formerly nomadic people could have a homeland, or a champion of the old king, attempting to drive out the invaders. On the other, the last scenario involves either a wizard aiding a village in destroying a [[Vicious Cycle|regularly occurring demon invasion]]...or a group of demons fighting off an unprovoked human attack, and discovering a convenient, renewing food source!
* ''[[Rifts]]'' devotes a considerable section of
== Videogames ==
* In ''[[Suikoden III]]'', getting all your army's possible recruits by a certain point in plot [[
** There is a much better earlier in the game. From Hugo's POV {{spoiler|He comes home to find his village in flames. Than his best freind is cut down right in front of him by a knight.}} From Chris' POV {{spoiler|Her men are attacked at what was surpose to be a peaceful truce meeting and are forced to set a fire and escape though a village. On the way out someone attacks her and she kills him before she notices that he is just a kid.}}
* The game ''[[TIE Fighter]]'' applies this trope to the ''[[Star Wars]]'' movies: [[The Empire]] are the guardians of peace and order, fighting terrorists and Imperial factions.
** The [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]] takes it even further; there are a lot of books where the Imperial characters who don't jump ship to the New Republic are [[Card-Carrying Villain|blatantly evil]], but there are also Imperial [[Worthy Opponent]] characters who support only the non-evil aspects of the Empire. Some of them, as in ''[[Death Star]]'', never even go through a [[Heel Face Turn]] because they were never [[Heel
*** [http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Tenn_Graneet Tenn Graneet] could be the poster boy for this trope. In ''[[A New Hope]]'', he's the heartless Imperial bastard who push-buttons [[Earthshattering Kaboom|Alderaan into oblivion]]; in ''[[Death Star]]'' [[My God, What Have I Done?|he's]] [[Heroic BSOD|much]] [[Be Careful What You Wish For|more]] [[Doomed by Canon|sympathetic]] [[The Woobie|by far]].
* A campaign of ''[[Age of Empires II]]'' features Saladin vs. the Crusaders. Another, Barbarossa, at a certain point enters the Third Crusade and fights Saladin. And the expansion of the previous game had four campaigns on the [[Ancient Rome|Roman Empire]], and another with Rome's enemies.
* ''[[Iji]]'' has the [[Story Breadcrumbs|logbooks]] of the Tasen {{spoiler|and the Komato}}, including such things as one soldier gushing about her girlfriend (Yes "her", [[Les Yay|you overjoyed]] [[Yuri Fanboy]]), and another wondering if he has his gun loaded, because he thought he saw something big right around that corner. They show that not all of the alien soldiers you're killing are heartless monsters, after all. Some of them are, though.
* One of the four playable characters in ''Dreamfall: [[The Longest Journey]]'' is Kian Alvane, a faithful soldier and apostle of the Azadi Empire, which up until that point of the game is seen only as [[The Empire]]. His prescence in the game adds shades of grey to the empire's action, both by making the Empire's motivations seem more human, and by presenting a counterpoint to April Ryan's (one of the game's other protagonists and a rebel fighting the Azadi) seemingly-righteous goals.
* Used to great effect in ''[[Yggdra Union]]'' starting in the middle of the seventh chapter, where the game's [[Grey and Gray Morality]] becomes blatant. This is the first point in the game where the important scenes starting off each battlefield are shown from an Imperial perspective, {{spoiler|and happens to be just in time to make the remaining generals' [[Heroic Sacrifice]] moments considerably more poignant}}.
* ''[[Breath of Fire]] IV'' allows the player to control the [[God-Emperor]] Fou-Lu, who initially seems like the [[Evil Counterpart]] of the protagonist Ryu and the [[Big Bad]] of the game. {{spoiler|As the game progresses, it becomes clear that Fou-lu is a very sympathetic individual. Subverted in that the real villains of the game are ''far'' from sympathetic, particularly the obstensible [[Big Bad]] Yuna.}}
* In the jump from ''[[Persona 2]]: Innocent Sin'' to ''Eternal Punishment'' has this with Tatsuya's older brother, Katsuya. He's rather dislikable in ''Innocent Sin'', shown as a distant big brother who puts work before family. However, in ''Eternal Punishment'', he's a kind older brother who constantly worries about his delinquent, rebellious younger brother. What caused this sudden shift? The change in perception of course: in Innocent Sin you're playing from the perspective of Tatsuya, whereas in Eternal Punishment you're playing from the perspective of Maya Amano, who has JUST met him.
* ''[[Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe]]'': The characters of both respective franchises, whether they be good or evil, see the other side as alien invaders trying to enslave their world. They all come to their senses at the very last minute.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Narrative Devices]]
▲[[Category:Sympathetic POV]]
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