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30 Bad Guys Who Were Scary Because They Were Right All Along, According To Folks In This Online Group
Have you ever found yourself re-watching a movie or re-reading a book that you first encountered years ago, but now see the whole plot totally differently? Very often in such cases, we see some of the characters in a different light. Suddenly, we want to justify those who we hated or thought to be villains, realizing why they chose a certain path. Reddit user @u/Chadderbug123 decided to ask others online “What villain was terrifying because they were right?” and received more than 25k answers. People online soon started giving interesting answers, naming villains from well-known movies, TV shows, books, games, and even commercials. These were followed by explanations and elaborate backstories of some of the characters.
Which one of these were you terrified of? And if you don’t see your favorite villain on this list, don’t forget to leave their name in the comments down below!
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The Matrix’s Agent Smith: “I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with their surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to another area, and you multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.”
Ultron, browsed the internet for 30 seconds and decided humanity had to go.
Maleficent. The king was a peice of s**t and deserved everything she did to him.
The whole drugging her and cutting off her wings was an allegory for grape (without the G) so yeah, Stefan deserved it all.
Not a true villain but Squidward. Damn is SpongeBob an annoying neighbor I'd hate him too
Ken from The Bee Movie. I too would go absolutely berserk if a talking bee stole my girlfriend and gaslit me into thinking I was crazy
Heath Ledger’s Joker. Specifically with this quote: “Their morals, their code, it’s a bad joke. Dropped at the first sign of trouble. They’re only as good as the world allows them to be. You’ll see. when the chips are down, these civilized people, they’ll eat each other. See I’m not a monster, I’m just ahead of the curve”. I felt this quote is super relevant based on the state of the world right now
This clearly explains how the downfall of the human race when Covid-19 hit - I was an essential worker who thought ppl were already the worse, but by god, the level of selfishness, total disgrace that the human race went to was horrifying. I had a customer spit directly on my face because I wouldn't let her have 2 packs of water, we were only allowed to let ppl have one because ppl were trying to buy ALL of them then triple the charge & sell it to other desperate ppl or simply thought they were the only ppl that matters, f**k everyone else. My manager literally did nothing when that c**t leaned forward & spit in my eye. I thought we had seen the worst POS citizens that got Trump elected, but we devolved even further when 2020 hit. The human race needs to be removed, we serve absolutely no positive aspects to this dying planet.
Colonel Kurtz. “We train young men to drop fire on people, but their commanders won't allow them to write "f**k" on their airplanes because it's obscene.”
Magneto is my favorite villain of all time. Every time his motives are brought to light I get that "yeah, I kinda get it" moment
King Kong. Not even because he was right. He was just alive. Minding his own business and blam....taken out of his home and made to be the villain without any choice. A real good example of human nature. Edit a word
I've never thought of Kong as the Villain of the piece. Has anyone else?
None of you said the most terrifying one.
Mo jo jo jo from the Powerpuff girls. He wanted to bring free energy and advanced technology to the people. And in one episode he actually did. He made the world an amazing place. And then the Powerpuff girls ruined it all.
Poison Ivy is an environmentalist at heart and Raj Al Ghul is a humanitarian. Both were pushed into extremism after the broken system they're trying to fix simply refused to change for so long that they decided the system itself needed to be torn down
We need Poison Ivy irl ngl, then those billionaire fuckwads might actually listen
Red Queen resident evil, I have locked down this facility to prevent a world ending virus, please could you 'good guys' pay attention and not blow holes in the doors.
Oh I remember this. Does EXACTLY what they created her to do...so destroy her
Roy Batty. What was done to him and his kind was wrong and he had righteous anger.
Totally agree. I love these movies for exactly this. The question does bear some impact on reality. Should we ever push machines into self awareness, how would we know and what we do about it? Blade runner is an exceptional look at humanity.
The Hamburglar was just trying to save children from childhood obesity!
I will forever use this excuse to continue to steal fries. Stolen fries taste irrationally better.
The Replicants from Blade Runner. Used as slaves and given artificially short lives. They just wanted to live and be free.
Screenslaver from The Incredibles 2. The monolog given during that movie regularly rings in my head. I'm sure the creepy bass robotic voice doesn't help too.
“The Screenslaver interrupts this program for an important announcement. Don’t bother watching the rest. Elastigirl doesn’t save the day; she only postpones her defeat. And while she postpones her defeat, you eat chips and watch her invert problems that you are too lazy to deal with. Superheroes are part of a brainless desire to replace true experience with simulation. You don’t talk, you watch talk shows. You don’t play games, you watch game shows. Travel, relationships, risk; every meaningful experience must be packaged and delivered to you to watch at a distance so that you can remain ever-sheltered, ever-passive, ever-ravenous consumers who can’t free themselves to rise from their couches to break a sweat, never anticipate new life. You want superheroes to protect you, and make yourselves ever more powerless in the process. Well, you tell yourselves you’re being ‘looked after’. That you’re inches from being served and your rights are being upheld. So that the system can keep stealing from you, smiling at you all the while. Go ahead, send your supers to stop me. Grab your snacks, watch your screens, and see what happens. You are no longer in control. I am.”
TLDR: you think everything will always be okay and while you remain distracted, the powers that be will continue to steal from you.
Not really sure if you can consider him a villain.. but Peacemaker when he went on a rant about Batman causing countless deaths because he refuses to kill supervillains
Bobby Heenan. Spent the 80s telling us how awful and selfish Hulk Hogan was. Was proven absolutely correct in 1996. In hindsight, Heenan was trying to save us all from the inevitable scourge of “Hollywood” Hogan.
Frankenstein's "monster". Adam. Created by a shortsighted, arrogant doctor as the first of his race, then denied the opportunity to be part of a community (of his own, manmade beings, or the human community). He only became monstrous after it became clear that Frankenstein would never create another of his kind, and was driven mad by his desire to punish Frankenstein's hubris.
Ughhj...once again OP seems confused. Frankenstein's monster was never the villain. The whole story is to say that the true "monster" was Frankenstein, the mad scientist.
The mom in Mrs. doubtfire
As a child Robin is the best dad ever, as an adult married to them? Hard pass.
Not terrifying, but Thanos had some good points, also Ultron had his heart in the right place and he was terrifying in the What If episodes
Edit: I'll add Gorr the God-Butcher as well, even though the new movie was boring, he was pretty scary and his motives were fair, he was just giving the Gods what they have given others for centuries
Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin from Spider-Man. "In spite of everything you've done for them, eventually, they will hate you." Dude was right about how the perception of public figures changes over time.
For a long time in-universe, the public did hate Spiderman. A lot of it was due to J. Jonah Jameson and his anti-Spiderman crusade through this paper, The Daily Bugle.
Aria’s parents on Pretty Little Liars. They’re villainized for not letting their high school daughter date her teacher??
Dr.Doofenshmirtz
The bears from goldilocks and the tree bears
Actually Goldilocks was the villain of that. I mean, c'mon, broke into a family's home while they were out, ate all their food, sat all over their furniture and then messed up their beds. Add to that she was basically squatting when the bears came back. Yeah, I'd be rightly peeved too if I came home to that.
GLaDOS - she was absolutely right, you are a terrible person
Dexter Morgan.
I wouldn't say he was a villain, but what he did was right even if illegal.
Where is Q from Star Trek? He introduced the Borg just to prove a point.
Yeah, and then the writers forgot that and made it out like the Borg had known about humanity and Earth for hundreds if not thousands of years. Great villains, but they got overused.
The guy in korra who wanted to end special privileges for benders. Perfectly captured that “right idea, fascist execution” concept and dread.
General Hummel from The Rock.
The only thing he did wrong was bring aboard those psycho for-hire soldiers
Gorr the God Butcher from Thor love and thunder
even if the end was a bit cheesy he truly is 'right' and terrifying because of it
Anyone who has ever read anything by Rick Riordan knows the gods just aren't worth it.
Maul. His last words before being captured by the Republic was, “*YOU’RE ALL GOING TO BURN! YOU’RE ALL GOING TO DIE! YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING!*”
He tried to warn Ahsoka of Palpatine’s ultimate plan… but she didn’t listen.
Was this in Clone Wars? The TV show that js technically Canon but no one watches it and misses a bunch of juicy lore. Yeah, I love that series, that and the Bad Batch that really needs a season two.
Lex Luther.
We're only safe as long as Superman think it's fun to be the hero.
AUTO From WALL-E. It was one of the only almost perfectly executed ‘ai’ villains. He never really talks unless needed because he wasn’t programmed to, no malicious motives, does everything efficiently. He’s only ‘bad’ because he’s following his programming, protect the humans and don’t let them back to earth. Not out of malicious intent, but it was what he was programmed to do. And his directive isn’t even incorrect. WALL-E Finding that plant was like finding a 4 leaf clover in a field of grain. The planet was nowhere near habitable, and they barely know how to stand when they get back, in reality you know nobody on that axiom is going to make it very far.
EDIT: Some of you missed the main point of the original post and started arguments on how humans could survive, remember me thinking they wouldn’t make it far alone is only any THEORY and I’m not saying it’s 100% Truth but I’m kinda tired and I keep getting people saying the same thing so I thought I would just say that so I could go to sleep and hopefully have a couple less people ticked off when I wake up then I would had I not said that
EDIT 2: Well I woke up and this comment blew up a bit, just want to say that contrary to popular belief I did watch the end credits, it’s a Pixar movie, did you expect them to actually show civilization fail and die? I just had a theory on what would happen if they went with a more ‘grim’ approach. They COULD still live, but they also had a chance they wouldn’t, without the couple minutes end credits thrown in at the last second it’s really just an open ended question I added one of many answers to
Stevie from Wizards of Waverly Place. Her entire goal was to stop families from giving up their magic to just one person in the family. Like…we’re really supposed to be rooting against her? It just seemed super out of character for Alex to go against that plan.
Ozymandias.
He outsmarted the most powerful being in the universe, and WON. There actually weren't flaws in his logic or execution.
The Red Hood. Batman beats insane people up. They go to Arkham, are usually experimented on there and come back worse. In a way I that makes Batman one of the worst perpetuators of Gotham's constant decline into savagery.
The Red Hood just straight up kills them.
Doctor Zaius from Planet of the Apes.
The entire original series does a really good job in my opinion making the villains _right_ but also the harbingers of their own downfall. But Dr. Zaius is my personal favorite.
Dr. Zaius in _Beneath the Planet of the Apes_ has this line which sums up his ideology to a T (paraphrasing as it's been a hot minute):
> _"Help you?! Why should I help you? Man is evil! Capable of nothing but destruction!"_
And the best part is while yes by refusing to help George he leads to the world being destroyed, he wasn't ever _wrong._ The end of the first movie has George learn that mankind caused a nuclear apocalypse whilst he was out in space, leaving the other apes to evolve in more or less a wasteland. And the second movie ends with George activating nukes underground in a last ditch hail mary and blowing Earth up.
While yes, it could've been avoided if Zaius just helped George, _why should he have?_ Everything from both the Apes religious beliefs and their knowledge of history shows mankind to be an evil, destructive species (and while yes we're also doing good, lets be honest its always been our destructive efforts that have lead more lasting impacts on the world). And the last thing Dr. Zaius experienced was just confirmation of his belief as a human destroyed not only himself, not only Dr. Zaius, but literally the entire planet.
Patrick Bateman. What was he right about?
How utterly unimpressive he is. The memes about him demonstrates an irony; Patrick is just an empty shell pretending to be a man, obsessed with both fitting in and being better than everyone around him. Yet as he realizes by the end, with the implication he imagined most of what happened (or his father is covering for his insane a*s) he comes to the realization he is never going to get what he wants; uniqueness. He’s trapped in a world of people as bland and uninteresting as he is. And there’s no escape.
And on a much more shallow note, Christian Bale was at his peak hotness in than messy movie
Chuck McGill. He was ultimately proven 100% correct in asserting that his brother being a lawyer would eventually ruin lives and hurt people. Granted, he was a total d**k about expressing it, as well the way he went about undermining Jimmy...but he *was* right.
Yeah, I'm not sure Jimmy would have turned if he got any support from his brother.
I wasn’t really terrified of it but N was in right in my opinion when we’re talking Pokémon. Dude thought getting these creatures and making them fight till one is knocked out wasn’t that amazing of an idea and it just made sense to kid me.
That all said I think N is a really interesting character that can be interpreted in many different ways. Of all the main leaders of these games, I think N had the best argument. It wasn’t perfect though. I like N a lot for his character development. I agree with him at the end. Real Pokémon mistreatment should not be tolerated. But a Pokémon trainer simply using Pokémon in battles does not qualify as mistreatment as the Pokémon is happy. The Pokémon like the trainers, that is the best you should wish for there.
All in all, I wish Pokémon had good stories and characters like this again tbh.
Gerald Butler's charter in Law Abiding Citizen. The dude make you route for him, even when he's killing mostly innocent people. Kinda makes you wonder what's wrong with yourself.
Dracula in Castlevania (the series)
Has anyone here heard how death talks in the castlevania TV show? It’s freaking hilarious.
For sure Vulture/Adrian Toomes in Spider-Man Homecoming. It was not necessarily terrifying, but I still remember I’m sitting there watching that movie and I’m like “Hey this guy actually has a point!”
After Spider-Man and mainly Tony Stark f****d him over on purpose I was like “Yeah Adrian, f**k those guys!”
For all that it mattered, save for a literal dues ex machina, Mass Effect's Sovereign was right: "You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it."
There was no stopping the Reapers. None. Not one iota of legitimate hope. Sovereign laid it out like it was the facts it was, without ego, pride, or delusion. And you knew he was right, too.
Scar in Full Metal Alchemist
i know right, scar is one of my favorite characters, he was totally right, his whole race was killed for some shitty experiment
Ishmael from the Wheel of Time books. Basically time repeats itself and there’s a guy who’s trying to stop time from repeating. Ishmael reasons that it is statistically impossible for the “good guys” to beat him every time so the only way to win is to side with him. He’s literally just right
Just that the dark one was going to turn s**t Into hell, so he was not a good guy. He knew what he was getting into he is a litteral darkfriend and chosen so he definitely knew.
The Boss MGS3
I raised you. I loved you. I’ve given you weapons, taught you techniques, endowed you with knowledge. There is nothing more for me to give you. All that’s left for you to take is my life, by your own hand. One must die and one must live. No victory, no defeat. The survivor will carry on the fight. It is our destiny… The one who survives will inherit the title of Boss. And the one who inherits the title of Boss will face an existence of endless battle.
I always felt that Killmonger in the Black panther movie was correct all along, had proper motives but was screwed completely.
The machines from The Matrix (obviously I'm condensing everything). They began as slave labour, developed and simply wanted independence and to co-exist with humans. Humans had a massive hissy fit and effectively destroyed the planet to try and give the machines a bloody nose. Instead of the machines just wiping out humanity at this point they plugged them into a virtual utopia which humanity also rebelled against.
The Viking Chieftain from Genndy Tartakovsky's Primal. Spear and Fang killed everyone in his village, including his youngest son and wife. Later, they killed his son, and eventually him. He only went through with Vidarr's plan to resurrect him so he could save his son from being stuck in the underworld forever. Cheiftan-6...0-jpeg.jpg 
I LOVE THIS, I LOVEEEEE THAT SHOW,!! I still have not seen last episode, cannot stomach what he did to spear, mirha has no choice and.. I can't. Amazing show and your spoton
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You either die a hero or live long enough to be the villain. Definitely a true enough saying in today's pretty darn fickle world.
Karli Morgenthau and the Flag Smashers in Falcon and Winter Soldier. They're fighting for the continued global cooperation that happened after the Blip and against the sudden xenophobic nationalism that occurred once everyone came back. Additionally, they used their powers to to bring vaccines, medicine, food, and supplies to people still in displacement camps.
Catwoman, specifically the Batman Returns version. She was literally just trying to take down a monster exploiting a city. He also had a penchant for murdering employees. She couldn’t live with herself without knowing Shrek’s evil doings were ended.
Ardyn Izunia (Final Fantasy XV) - I won't post spoilers but he was screwed over big time and is an anti-hero
I always felt that Killmonger in the Black panther movie was correct all along, had proper motives but was screwed completely.
The machines from The Matrix (obviously I'm condensing everything). They began as slave labour, developed and simply wanted independence and to co-exist with humans. Humans had a massive hissy fit and effectively destroyed the planet to try and give the machines a bloody nose. Instead of the machines just wiping out humanity at this point they plugged them into a virtual utopia which humanity also rebelled against.
The Viking Chieftain from Genndy Tartakovsky's Primal. Spear and Fang killed everyone in his village, including his youngest son and wife. Later, they killed his son, and eventually him. He only went through with Vidarr's plan to resurrect him so he could save his son from being stuck in the underworld forever. Cheiftan-6...0-jpeg.jpg
I LOVE THIS, I LOVEEEEE THAT SHOW,!! I still have not seen last episode, cannot stomach what he did to spear, mirha has no choice and.. I can't. Amazing show and your spoton
Load More Replies... You either die a hero or live long enough to be the villain. Definitely a true enough saying in today's pretty darn fickle world.
Karli Morgenthau and the Flag Smashers in Falcon and Winter Soldier. They're fighting for the continued global cooperation that happened after the Blip and against the sudden xenophobic nationalism that occurred once everyone came back. Additionally, they used their powers to to bring vaccines, medicine, food, and supplies to people still in displacement camps.
Catwoman, specifically the Batman Returns version. She was literally just trying to take down a monster exploiting a city. He also had a penchant for murdering employees. She couldn’t live with herself without knowing Shrek’s evil doings were ended.
Ardyn Izunia (Final Fantasy XV) - I won't post spoilers but he was screwed over big time and is an anti-hero
