The fact that Killmonger tried to incite a war after becoming king rather than use Wakanda's immense resources to help those in poverty (like where he grew up) should tell you everything you need to know about his true priorities.

“Just because you’ve suffered, doesn’t mean you’re right”

That's why Jiraiya is King. Ill carry his lessons thru life. "Just because we've experienced pain isn't an excuse to perpetuate it. In fact, it's a reason to do better."

"cool motive, still murder" brooklyn 99

it really brings the point home when Dabi straight up *admits* he knows what he's doing is wrong...he just doesn't care.

“Just because someone has past trauma does not mean they get to do horrible shit!” Is something a LOT of people need to hear these days tbh

A girl told me that Kilmonger was just fighting for civil rights. I was like, “trying to steal advanced tech to kill a bunch of people isn’t fighting for civil rights.”

"You think you're entitled to everything just because you've suffered, but suffering isn't enough. You can't just be strong, you have to be smart. You can't just be deserving, you have to be worthy. But all you have ever been is a *BLOODY MIGRAINE!*" -Watts, RWBY Volume 8

I love the idea killmonger being the imbodment of if a village rejects a child he will burn it down to feel its warmth... but he did have a god complex still one of my favorites tho

“Say it with your chest for the people in the Back Bro” Dabi was ready to murk Men, Women and children with no remorse what so ever even one’s that had nothing to do with him or his ‘cause’

Dabi is even worse, because when Endeavor and his wife understood that Dabi's flames would kill him, they tried to make him stop. In fact, the trauma from having him burn himself up is probably a good portion of why Endeavor was emotionally distant from the whole family in addition to being abusive.

And then on the other side of the villain spectrum you got Doofenschmirtz.

“My parents don’t like me so I decided to destroy the world”🤡

I remember someone said something along the lines of, "Heroes go through trauma, and want to protect everyone so that they don't experience that trauma. Villains go through trauma, and want the whole world to experience their trauma so they can be understood"

A sympathetic villain doesn't make a morally right villain

Demon Slayer seem to handle this well. Tanjiro sympathize with the demons, but that doesn't stop him from doing his job and sending them to a not so nice place.

fucking finally, the hate endeavor gets while girls are too busy shipping dabi with other characters while calling him ''baby boy'' has me fuming

I actually realised that Dabi wasn't treated that badly. Endeavour realised pretty early on that Dabi was hurting himself, and tried to help him stop. Dabi was just obsessed with it. Much more obsessed than even his father. Endeavour tried to actually protect Dabi, even before Todoroki was born.

It's because the moment we find sympathy or a good point about a villain, we cling to it. On the other hand, if a good person shows a problem, we can hate on them more.

People need to realise. Just because a villain have a good point it doesn't mean they are justified. Villains are villains in the first place. They are motivate by selfish desire, and they intetional harming others.

Dude did a great job of explaining the whole point behind Killmonger. Killmonger was clearly designed to be likable on a surface level, but I always felt his actions were meant to be proof of how truly evil and toxic he was.

I love the kind of villain who's just an absurdly evil bastard with a super tragic backstory, but then it's casually revealed they aren't even motivated or even affected by there tragic backstory, they're just insane.

Gives a whole new meaning to "Just because you're correct, doesn't mean you're right."

“Everyone has a sob story, that doesn’t give you the right to be a jerk” -Sam larusso

“I hate him because he’s abusive” “awww he’s so cute even though he’s murdering innocent people and even children😍”

Trauma can explain why your being a horrible person, but it absolutely does NOT and NEVER will excuse those actions.

I always say: "That was your reason. That is not your excuse."

Dabi wasn’t even really abused. He was upset that he wasn’t daddy’s special prodigy anymore

I actually like it when the villain just wants to see shit explode, no ulterior motive, no wanting to rule the world. They just want to be evil.

It's so surprising because Naruto and killer B had almost every right to be villains or destroy the village but they chose to live with that pain and neglect.

People forget how casually killmonger betrayed and murdered his girl. He's not loyal to anyone but himself.

Honestly I’m convinced that the only reason why people like the mha villains are because they’re kind of attractive.

"He's a psychopath with a- *loops*" A what? He's a psychopath with a what?!?

Dio is the prime example, bro was given a second chance to be great and he wasn't satisfied with that. HE WANTED TO ELIMINATE AN ENTIRE BLOODLINE AND EVEN AFTER DYING HE BASICALLY GROOMED SOMEONE TO KILL THEM.

Just because John Wayne Gacy had an abusive father, didn't give him the right to become a serial killer.

Actually by far Dabi had it the best he was just desperate to prove to his dad he could handle his own fire. Bro is actually a self made villain cuz Endeavor even tried to stop him didn't put any pressure on him to be the strongest once he realized he couldn't handle his own fire.

Killmonger burning the heart shaped herbs just showed that he was all too willing to pull up the ladder once he made it to the top

"I had a bad dad so now I'll destroy an entire bloodline using my vampire abilities and gay priest 'friend' "

Being a sympathetic villain doesn't make them any less of a villain. They're still butchering people and making the wrong decisions on the end.

I half wanted Endeavor to say f*ck you and attack Dabi. Son or not he’s a murderer and no past justifies the murder of innocence.

People want sympathetic villains, but never learned that just because someone has a justification it doesn’t mean that they are just.

I feel like this is because writing an ACTUALLY misunderstood villain is really hard. The difference is that the actually misunderstood villain has a point which, when events are viewed from their point of view, explain their actions and make them make sense While the "misunderstood" villain has a sad backstory/motive that makes you feel sorry for them or make you think they have a point, that still doesn't excuse their actions

“B-but secky emo boy 🥺 I can change him.” Emily you can’t even change your drawls ☠️

I just watched a video about that Adult Swim short "Opal", and this quote from it pretty much sums up this kind of "you all need to suffer for what happened to me" mindset: "Our adversaries are in denial. They don't know the wrong that they do. And they never repent how I want them too."

Arcane fans be like: Jinx is an anti hero because of her trauma! Jinx's actions: -Committing friendly fire because she mistook an enemy for her sister. -Luring four cops into a burning building and then blowing them up. -Killing a bird. -Suicide Bombing her friend. -Kidnapping her sister's lover. -Tying up her sister and her father figure. -Killing her father figure. -Nuking the capital. Yeah......real anti-hero right here........

“You can spin it, ride it, deny it, and justify it.” Man was spittin pure fire.

This is also realizing that Endeavor didn't even treat Dabi badly if you compare it both emotionally and mentally to his siblings. Endeavor acted because Dabi was obsessed and was hurting himself, he wanted that pain.

Killmonger had the intellect maturity and ability to do better there is no pass when you know your actions are wrong.

“My bunny died, so I violated all of hell” Seems reasonable for a villain backstory

It’s even worse when movies/shows expect the audience to sympathize with villains who commit genocide and mass murder and every horrible crime imaginable, but when the bully Chad gives a wedgie to the mc he’s beyond redemption.

Rocket: Everybody has dead people, that’s no excuse to get everyone kill the way.

Count Olaf from A series of unfortunate events (the books, not the movie) is anothwr good example. He did too much without remorse, and they expected us to feel bad for him at the end. At least in the movie, they stuck with the pure evil route, which was one of the few things they did right

Same , I hate the whole “ he just misunderstood “ shit , I mean you mightest well apply that to real life people huh, that’s right. You can’t because It doesn’t make sense

This was is probably why Zuko is a great character. Like yeah his life sucked, but he never got a free pass to be a dick. Even when he wanted to join the Gaang, he had to earn their trust.

I watched what if for Killmonger, I called my sister up and was like "I told you Killmonger was a bad guy through and through". Felt so vindicated. So many people have tragic backgrounds but they don't rage against the world. Humanity means overcoming your own self, your background, your hurt, your hate, heal and then heal others. That's why we are here.

I feel Kung Fu Panda tackles this subject perfectly. Tai Lung grew up prideful because of Shifu. He even made Shifu face his mistakes in a painful way, yet he wasn't redeemed because no matter what, he still hurt a lot of people and got punished for it.

Lowkey kinda wish Todoroki said "it's your quirk not his" in his fight with Dabi as he was pushing the blame on Endeavor for everything. For Deku to Todoroki it was "it's your quirk not his, you are free to use it to it's full extent." But from Todoroki to Dabi it would mean "it's your quirk not his, you're the one who used it to harm others and now you need to pay the price."

People just struggle to understand nuance in a lotta areas. Having a hard time doesn't justify being evil

I'm realizing this more and more as I'm getting older. I understand that giving the villain a backstory not only allows writers to revive a film/series/character and build off of an interesting platform, and it does give interesting stories and interesting perspectives because it makes you think. But you are correct, in that, in the long run, it's going to do more damage than good, and only give children an excuse to act a fool. I loved maleficent, I thought it was a very visually beautiful movie, and I love anything that has a good story about fairies, but at the end of the day, she cursed a newborn baby. Seriously.

It's better to break the cycle of trauma than to become the trauma.

They can have the saddest back story, and I can have the utmost pity for them, but there is a point where it goes from "Yeah, they just messed up cause of they past" to "Nah, this bitch straight evil"

And Toga could literally snap a baby in half and eat it’s guts like spaghetti and people will still be saying “hEr PaReNtS wErE mEaN tO hEr!!”

Animes :"wait till we redeem them after killing thousands in a brutal way."

Bro, YES. I'm sick of people trying to non-ironically say that evil characters are "baby" just because some bad shit happened to them. Like, I genuinely believe that there's a decent number of villains in the league that are arguably can't be held fully accountable for their actions. Do they need to be stopped? Yes. Are they doing bad shit? Absolutely. But they need mental health care more than they need jail. But Dabi!?! So for example, Toga and Twice are straight up insane. Twice fell on hard times and ended up a criminal, then he had the mother of all existential crisis', watched hundreds of versions of himself murder each other, and now he genuinely doesn't even know if he's real or not. That is mad fucked up. He only really joined the league because they accepted him as he was. Toga actually genuinely believes she is friends with Uraraka and Tsuyu. She really thinks that slicing someone up and drinking their blood is an acceptable form of affection. She cannot tell the difference between reality and her fantasies. That is the textbook DEFINITION of insanity. Society abandoned for being born different and now she exists however she can. Even Shigaraki was abused by his bio father, accidentally murdered his entire family, and was abandoned by society as well. After all that, the person who took him in was a straight DEMON who groomed him from childhood to be his little villain puppet like jeezus. But Dabi? Dabi is completely sane and aware of his actions. He chose to be evil. He doesn't care about how many people he hurts as he tries to take his revenge. In fact, he revels in people's pain. As sad as it is, plenty of people go through horrific and tragic experiences, that isn't an excuse to go around murdering people!

"I know he is a representation of black anger but he just does more harm to the black community than good" 👏 👏 👏 I BELIEVE that was the point.

These tragic backstories for these types of characters are supposed to make you feel sad for them coming to this point & realise that the world can tend to make their own monsters & regret the circumstances that brought them to this point you should want to change them, redeem them not try to justify their means you should feel for why they got to this point not outright ignore horrible acts they make (but also you can just enjoy them for being well written characters too if ya want)

I LOVE Endeavor!! 🔥 He owns his past & doesn’t want forgiveness, only to move forward with changed actions.

Everyone deserves love, even those with horrible origins and pasts. But the moment people start hurting others, that’s when someone needs to step in and stop the whole thing.

Preach, this applies to ALL of the members of The League of Villains, they act as if they're misunderstood victims in an Unjust world. But in reality, they're just a bunch of selfish idiots who use their backstories and fucked up logic to justify their awful actions. That's how you know a story is good, when you hate a character as was intended and it doesn't come off as overbearing

Nothing made me laugh harder than when it was revealed that Dabi was a horrible sibling, after all the years fans spent gaslighting eachother into believing that he was a caring big brother lmao

Magneto is a good example. Who can’t sympathize with a Holocaust survivor? But the thousands if not millions of dead innocents don’t change that he’s evil.

Dabi especially kills me because out of ALL those kids he didn’t go through shit yet the others didn’t turn into monsters. He always had that inside him.

Thing is Endeavor didn’t even throw Dabi away he didn’t really become super abusive until AFTER the accident before he was more trying to keep Dabi from destroying himself and Dabi didn’t listen and it messes Endeavor up so bad he became super abusive and more obsessed with accomplishing his goal(possibly to make up for what he thinks happened to Touya) which makes sense some parents could have whole shifts in who they are after a child passes away

Exactly, this is why Endeavor went up in my opinion, because it's so rare having a hated character go through an actual redemption arc. Honestly, this might be my favorite part of the anime, bc other animes would have him say "sorry" and then everyone would forgive him in under five minutes.

So here’s the things: I feel sympathy for characters like Dabi, or Pink Diamond, who were in shitty situations but could’ve made better choices. I EMPATHISE with Twice, and Toga, and Spinner, who truly didn’t have a choice, who were truly only allowed to become villains.

I’m gonna say this every time someone tries to defend Harley Quinn

True after all there’s a fine line between “being broken” and down right becoming a sociopath

I'm so glad he talked about kill monger I thought I was going crazy when I thought he wasn't deserving of forgiveness and just wanted to hurt people when I first saw him

Just because someone has a horrible past does not give them a free pass to be a absolute asshole🤦🏾‍♂️ they're not misunderstood THEY'RE CRAZY 😭

Helluva Boss fans: "Stella is in the right to hate Stolas, he cheated on her!" Throughout their entire loveless marriage, Stella had done nothing but constantly slander Stolas, the only thing that benefited her during this was the fact that she got to flex her status on social media. And not to mention that the only reason she was mad about him fucking Blitz was because it made the Goetia look bad.

Honestly villains backstory never made me give them a pass, it just made understand why they do what they do, I always thought that was the purpose for giving villains backstories like this.

"You know, you're not entirely wrong. You just didn't need to be such an asshole about it."

“What if” really opened to my mind to how Killmonger is not just an asshole by circumstances. He truly is shitty

Someone said this ..that both the hero and the villain are broken by life but ultimately one chooses to let it shape them to fight for justice and the other to take revenge.

I mean, I remember some guy who did some pretty bad stuff after not getting into the art school of his dreams, but he might've been just misunderstood.

Of all the children endeavour had I think he treated Dabi the best like he genuinely didn't want Dabi to hurt him self and he wanted Dabi to actually be a child

I always said this, understandable and excusable are two different things, a person can have a sad backstory and I can can understand why they doing something, but that doesn’t justify the death of innocent people

Facts. Im tired of people saying villains are to be admired. No, the writer jsut sucks. Villains are typically awful people. Regardless of background, they CHOSE to be villains.

Bro thank you for having this perspective on killmonger. Too many people put this character on a pedestal and totally miss the point that he was the bad guy!

Writers need to remember the difference between having a sympathetic backstory versus *being* sympathetic.

We have an unfortunate ability to make our bad moments into catastrophes and then convert them into someone else’s bad lifetime.

And this is why I love Tanjiro from Demon slayer. The dude might be compasionate and kind but he isn't naive. Because of his experiance with Nezuko he now understand how becoming a demon poisons a persons soul and mind. But he also never really tries to make them out to be good or in the right. Only understands the humanity that drove them to demon hood and too still respect them as people even if they act like monsters.

From a character perspective, the general rule is "are the people you're taking your trauma out on the cause of said trauma? If not, you're probably not a good person."

Exactly, I'm tired of villains and anti heroes getting away with murder just because they have a sad backstory

They tell you Killmonger's goal in the movie. He destabilizes nations so they collapse. He was doing the same to Wakanda.

THANK YOU!!! i will never NEVER understand why ppl sided, or even liked killmonger as a villian. he was just another villian! theres was no good in his intentions

Thank you! Same goes for Wanda/Scarlett Witch as well!

Dabi kills people Fans: why would Endeavor do this?

Born out of society perpetually trying to reject personal responsibility. Ultimately that's what it all boils down to, it doesn't matter what happened in your past, you are responsible for how you react to the circumstances you are placed in. You are not some mindless child incapable of thinking for themselves.

This is EXACTLY how I feel when it comes to Obito! “Just because someone has past trauma, does not mean they get a free pass to do horrible shit!”