Some thoughts about the (mis)use of tragic villain backstories...
...and a call to be more creative with Freudian excuses.
So, here's the thing. Tragic backstories for villains are all the rage. Most villains in popular media nowadays have one, and if a villain lacks one in canon, fans will be quick to create one for him (or her)--oftentimes even in cases where it's not (strictly speaking) appropriate to the portrayal of the character or the tone of the work (Does Ladd Russo really need a tragic backstory when his main draw is that he's entertaining to watch and loves what he does?). The idea seems to be that the sobstory gives the villain "depth" and "complexity," and that villains without sad pasts are "flat" or "too evil to possibly be real." The sentiment, which I've heard echoed by everyone from teenage fangirls to voice actors twenty years their seniors, is that "real people" who do evil are made, not born.
For what it's worth, I genuinely believe that (as a general rule--I'm willing to allow for exceptions). However, it's been my impression for awhile now that people approach the idea of a villain being "made" to do evil in a far too limited way.
The thing is, there's no reason to think a Freudian excuse has to consist of a tragic sobstory specifically. Yes, real people who do bad things have reasons for doing the things they do (even if those reasons don't make a lot of sense to anyone but themselves), but being "made" to do evil can consist of being driven to bitterness and resentment over some dark, troubled past or it could be as simple as seeing friends or family behaving cruelly and copying them. It could be that they were just following orders, or thought that what they were doing was the best option that caused the least damage out of a set of options available. In fact, many times in the real world people do really terrible things because they simply WEREN'T THINKING of anyone but themselves, and didn't know or care who they hurt.
(In a roundabout way, then, this is pretty much my rationale for considering Grings Kodai the most "realistic" of the Pokemon anime villains. He's not out to do something zany like take over the world, nor does he revel in destruction or evildoing for its own sake--though he can come off that way at first blush. He simply knows what he wants and he's not afraid to go for it whatever the cost, and if others suffer or die as a result of his actions, that's not his problem. Just like a lot of powerful real-life people.)
By the same token, of course, the saddest sobstory in the world can still fall flat if it's improperly handled. Lucy from "Elfen Lied" has a genuinely sad backstory, but that doesn't change the fact that the show is asking us to sympathize with and support someone who routinely kills people in gruesome ways, even if they've done nothing wrong (that, and many of the scenes from her past are so over-the-top it's hard to know what to make of them). And don't get me started on Duke Montague from "Romeo X Juliet," who gets a tragic backstory...only for it to be totally cliche and be dropped as soon as it was revealed. Even with his backstory he was still flat! Clearly just giving a villain a tragic backstory of some sort does not an interesting or likable villain make.
Furthermore, backstories have to be tailored to each story and even to each individual villain. Legato Bluesummers from "Trigun" may have a backstory in which his mother died, his father disappeared, and he was sold into slavery and sexually abused as a child (the latter part was actually in the manga; the former part is personal speculation by me), but EVERY Gung-Ho Gun does not and should not need a backstory of precisely that nature (and in fact their backstories, or at least the ones revealed, are quite varied). For another example, trying to argue that the reason why Drosselmeyer from "Princess Tutu" likes depressing stories is that he was once somehow depressed strikes me as hypocritical considering what he's really doing is following advice I've seen on writing websites time and time again, and which most writers follow quite happily (though given how many authors there are IRL who led unhappy lives it may make you wonder...).
Which brings me to a couple of very real dangers inherent in the idea that every villain must have a tragic backstory explaining how he or she got to be a villain. One of them, the idea that it encourages people to cozy up to real-world evil people on the grounds that they're sad inside and can be healed with love, is something I won't get into because I'd just be beating a dead horse. No, my biggest beef with overusing tragic backstories is that rather than humanizing the villains, it just "others" them further, in the same way insisting that some people are just born rotten does. You're basically exchanging "evil is committed by Those People who are born rotten" for "evil is committed by Those People who were abused as children," but the underlying message is exactly the same. Both of them project evil entirely outside yourself and deny the fact that just about anybody has the capacity to do pretty awful things if the circumstances line up right (to say nothing of the unfortunate implications for people who were abused as children but decided not to do evil).
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I really want more variety and originality when it comes to Freudian excuses. I'd like to see more backstories exploring the ways that people can start out good but do evil on account of little details that they weren't even aware of at the time. Perhaps a few comparisons with the hero would be in order as well, to illustrate just how easily people can let go of their morals regardless of their normal personality. Maybe a villain was spoiled as a child, and so only ever learned to think of himself and what he wanted. Maybe a villain started breaking rules or laws just to fit in with the neighborhood kids, and before he knew it he was doing far worse things than anyone else. Or maybe he pushed around a poor victim at one point because he saw everyone else doing it and so thought it was normal. The possibilities are endless!
I just wish people would stop writing context-less backstories about how Emperor Evil's mother died in childbirth and he fell in with an abusive foster family who beat him every day, and automatically assume that this gives him depth where none existed before.
So, here's the thing. Tragic backstories for villains are all the rage. Most villains in popular media nowadays have one, and if a villain lacks one in canon, fans will be quick to create one for him (or her)--oftentimes even in cases where it's not (strictly speaking) appropriate to the portrayal of the character or the tone of the work (Does Ladd Russo really need a tragic backstory when his main draw is that he's entertaining to watch and loves what he does?). The idea seems to be that the sobstory gives the villain "depth" and "complexity," and that villains without sad pasts are "flat" or "too evil to possibly be real." The sentiment, which I've heard echoed by everyone from teenage fangirls to voice actors twenty years their seniors, is that "real people" who do evil are made, not born.
For what it's worth, I genuinely believe that (as a general rule--I'm willing to allow for exceptions). However, it's been my impression for awhile now that people approach the idea of a villain being "made" to do evil in a far too limited way.
The thing is, there's no reason to think a Freudian excuse has to consist of a tragic sobstory specifically. Yes, real people who do bad things have reasons for doing the things they do (even if those reasons don't make a lot of sense to anyone but themselves), but being "made" to do evil can consist of being driven to bitterness and resentment over some dark, troubled past or it could be as simple as seeing friends or family behaving cruelly and copying them. It could be that they were just following orders, or thought that what they were doing was the best option that caused the least damage out of a set of options available. In fact, many times in the real world people do really terrible things because they simply WEREN'T THINKING of anyone but themselves, and didn't know or care who they hurt.
(In a roundabout way, then, this is pretty much my rationale for considering Grings Kodai the most "realistic" of the Pokemon anime villains. He's not out to do something zany like take over the world, nor does he revel in destruction or evildoing for its own sake--though he can come off that way at first blush. He simply knows what he wants and he's not afraid to go for it whatever the cost, and if others suffer or die as a result of his actions, that's not his problem. Just like a lot of powerful real-life people.)
By the same token, of course, the saddest sobstory in the world can still fall flat if it's improperly handled. Lucy from "Elfen Lied" has a genuinely sad backstory, but that doesn't change the fact that the show is asking us to sympathize with and support someone who routinely kills people in gruesome ways, even if they've done nothing wrong (that, and many of the scenes from her past are so over-the-top it's hard to know what to make of them). And don't get me started on Duke Montague from "Romeo X Juliet," who gets a tragic backstory...only for it to be totally cliche and be dropped as soon as it was revealed. Even with his backstory he was still flat! Clearly just giving a villain a tragic backstory of some sort does not an interesting or likable villain make.
Furthermore, backstories have to be tailored to each story and even to each individual villain. Legato Bluesummers from "Trigun" may have a backstory in which his mother died, his father disappeared, and he was sold into slavery and sexually abused as a child (the latter part was actually in the manga; the former part is personal speculation by me), but EVERY Gung-Ho Gun does not and should not need a backstory of precisely that nature (and in fact their backstories, or at least the ones revealed, are quite varied). For another example, trying to argue that the reason why Drosselmeyer from "Princess Tutu" likes depressing stories is that he was once somehow depressed strikes me as hypocritical considering what he's really doing is following advice I've seen on writing websites time and time again, and which most writers follow quite happily (though given how many authors there are IRL who led unhappy lives it may make you wonder...).
Which brings me to a couple of very real dangers inherent in the idea that every villain must have a tragic backstory explaining how he or she got to be a villain. One of them, the idea that it encourages people to cozy up to real-world evil people on the grounds that they're sad inside and can be healed with love, is something I won't get into because I'd just be beating a dead horse. No, my biggest beef with overusing tragic backstories is that rather than humanizing the villains, it just "others" them further, in the same way insisting that some people are just born rotten does. You're basically exchanging "evil is committed by Those People who are born rotten" for "evil is committed by Those People who were abused as children," but the underlying message is exactly the same. Both of them project evil entirely outside yourself and deny the fact that just about anybody has the capacity to do pretty awful things if the circumstances line up right (to say nothing of the unfortunate implications for people who were abused as children but decided not to do evil).
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I really want more variety and originality when it comes to Freudian excuses. I'd like to see more backstories exploring the ways that people can start out good but do evil on account of little details that they weren't even aware of at the time. Perhaps a few comparisons with the hero would be in order as well, to illustrate just how easily people can let go of their morals regardless of their normal personality. Maybe a villain was spoiled as a child, and so only ever learned to think of himself and what he wanted. Maybe a villain started breaking rules or laws just to fit in with the neighborhood kids, and before he knew it he was doing far worse things than anyone else. Or maybe he pushed around a poor victim at one point because he saw everyone else doing it and so thought it was normal. The possibilities are endless!
I just wish people would stop writing context-less backstories about how Emperor Evil's mother died in childbirth and he fell in with an abusive foster family who beat him every day, and automatically assume that this gives him depth where none existed before.