Post 43: Sympathetic Bad Guys and Evil-doers

Recently, I was confronted by a major twist in a TV show I watch. Without revealing too many spoilers I want to share what happened.

Basically there is what is seen as one of the worst serial killers in the city of Santa Barbara. The killer is called Mr. Yang. He kidnaps and then kills young women and he teases the police along the way with clues, hinting that if they figure it out in time the person won't die. This character reappears in three episodes. 

The first episode she and the main character go head to head, the killer kidnaps his mother. But in the end they catch her. Yeah, it turns out to be a her. But she goes to jail. In the second episode, Mr. Ying first appears and kidnaps his girlfriend and a woman he works with who he is in love with. He tries to make him choose which one will live and which will die. They consult with Mr. Yang to try and catch him. They don't catch him but no one dies.

The third episode Mr. Ying is back. And this is where the big twist hits. Mr. Ying was the killer all along. Mr. Yang, she kidnapped people and she sent clues to the police but she never actually killed anyone. 

She was also Mr. Ying's daughter and prodigy. He was a horrible psychologically and physically abusive father that tried to train her to assist him in the murders. But in her own crazy way she cared about the main character and in the end her first kill was her father, to save the main character.

She is hated by so many as a killer. She was locked in a cell. She was treated horribly.

And in the end the main character asks her why she didn't say anything, perhaps not that it was her dad because as crazy as she is and as mean as he was he was still her dad, but why she didn't say that it wasn't her. She said that she was just as responsible, because she knew and didn't

stop him. 

And this got me thinking about other bad guys, or rather "bad guys", and I started to wonder if perhaps there were others that were labelled harsher than others. 

The first two that came to mind are not from crime shows or movies that, I guess, would be typically suspected but from Disney. The first is Gaston From Beauty and the Beast. The second is Stevie from Wizards of Waverley Place.

Gaston is a jerk, don't get me wrong. But did he deserve to die? Did he deserve to be branded the villain? 

Let us take a look at the story, not from Belle's perspective but Gaston's.

The first time he hears about the beast it is from Maurice. Maurice says Belle has been kidnapped by a monster, a vicious monster. Then he hears about the Beast again from Belle, and she shows him the mirror. In the mirror Beast is growling  or possibly groaning but it looks like growling, and is rather frightening. And considering the fact Belle herself was both horrified and frightened by the Beast's appearance, they probably felt the same. And her saying he was kind and gentile, could have just been Stockholm Syndrome, not that Gaston would know the term. But still, really, as far as he knows at this point there is a beast who looks scary and kidnapped Belle and kept her in a castle for quite awhile.  

As the typical stereo-type hunter guy/epic hero, he goes off to kill the Beast. While, yes, some of it is clearly out of jealousy, it is possible that there was more to it than just that. 

And if you think about it, Belle might have a small amount of Stockholm going on. I mean, he locked her in her room. He refused to give her food unless she did what he wanted her too. He yelled at her a lot. The main thing he did for her to label him as nice in the beginning is stopping her from dying. When that wasn't even his main goal. He left to drag her back, and saved her partially so he could do so and partially cause he wasn't going to watch her be killed after finding her. 

After that, they start to be 'friends' based on the fact that he stopped screaming at her and he wasn't as scary as before. Then, he gives her use of his library. And she acts like it is a grand gesture. He doesn't even know how to read anymore or use the library, she already has free reign of the house anyway, and she is still being held prisoner. And considering she thinks that he and the animate-inanimate objects are the only "people" she will ever talk with, it makes sense she would form attachments to them. 

Also, as far as locking Maurice up. It was kind of justified. Maurice's inventions are dangerous. They involve axes and throwing things. They also have a tendency to explode. All things that could cause himself or someone else harm. And he does seem absolutely crazy when talking about a beast, so the fact that he hasn't been locked up yet seems like a minor miracle.

So, while Gaston did not have always have the best intentions, I don't think he really deserved to die.

Next, I want to look at Stevie. Who technically died in the series with little to no remorse. (Alex turned her into a statue, Max broke the statue.)

She was labelled as evil because she didn't want to give up her powers. Which makes sense, no one does. 

But she had plan to break the machine things that took the powers of wizards to give them only to one. Let me further explain for those who haven't seen the show.

Basically, how it works is that in a wizard family only one member of each generation gets the full family powers. If you are an only child, you get them. If you have siblings, you have to compete for them. 

If you lose, you not only don't get more power, you lose the power you have.

Stevie wanted to change this because her brother was more studious, and had won the competition. She didn't want to take anyone's powers away. She didn't want to hurt anyone, in fact this really would have benefited more people than anything else. But it was against the rules and against tradition. So, she was brand as evil.

Alex stops her. Everyone is happy. Max breaks the statue. And everyone laughs. Like they didn't just technically kill someone. 

Stevie was always a kind of "bad girl" character, so she would fit next to Alex who had a similar image. But in some ways she actually proved nicer. In an earlier episode, she helped Justin get elected. Then, in another episode when they planned on tricking Alex's brother, Stevie pulled the plug on the prank because she didn't want to cause a fight between the two siblings that would keep them apart.

Maybe she wasn't really killed, but I don't think she was really evil either. Especially not compared to some of the other bad guys they had on the show that were looking to cause people harm.

Any other bad guys or villains that you think didn't deserve that title? That didn't deserve to die?