mindfulwrath:

Here’s a hot take: villains should be relatable.

Not every villain, not every time, and certainly not to everyone at once, but there should be moments. We should, occasionally, be able to see ourselves in the bad guys, be able to understand how they got there.

Because it reminds us not to fucking go there.

Antis who get upset about villains having relatable qualities (often couched as being “romanticized” or “woobified”) are people who cannot bear to ever think of themselves as having the capability of being wrong.

Every human alive is capable of being a horrible person. Relatable villains remind us to keep an eye on that shit.

True, and this is true in the context of history too. We need to talk about how nazis and slave owners and colonialists were people just like us who seemed ‘nice’ and cared about their dog. We need to remind ourselves that, yes, a person that seems nice and loves their dog can still be a real nazi and yes, nice people can do all the horrors of history all over again. This shit is important.