[Hated Trope] When a villain’s motivations are too reasonable, so the writers make them do out of character immoral acts to make them seem more evil

1) Amon from Avatar: the Legend of Korra

Throughout the season 1 of the show, they tell us that in the Avatar universe, non-benders are exploited and crushed by the benders, and they have no political power or representation (every government higher up and politician we see is a bender). And the Avatar, who’s the person that’s supposed to bring balance to the world is a bender who can control every element (and grew up isolated), so she has no way of understanding their struggle. Amon is presented as a non-bender, who has the ability to take away people’s bending somehow. And he creates a huge political movement of non-benders, where he teaches them chi-blocking (a martial art that can temporarily disable people’s bending). And they aim to overthrow the government and take away the bending of everyone, so that every person is truly equal.

I think this version of Amon makes a perfect morally grey villain, where while his aims and methods are questionable, they genuinely represent the pain and struggle of a group of people crushed by the system, who have no one else to look up to. And Amon gives them the power and ability to fight back against the people they see as their oppressors. His mask is kinda similar to the one from V for Vandetta, as in anyone can be behind it, simply due to the sheer number of people hurt by the non-bender oppression.

But then the show later reveals that he lied about his past, and that he was actually one of the most powerful benders alive, and he was using his movement to take away others’ bending so that he can be the only bender(?). And him being disingeous in his beliefs just makes him such a lame character.

2) Zaheer from Avatar: the Legend of Korra

Zaheer is the season 3 villain. Him and his 3 followers want to tear down all systems they see as unjust and oppressive. And they think that the Avatar cycle should be ended, because the Avatar does nothing but protect the status quo (and that’s literally all that Korra does in the show).

For their past actions, Zaheer and his followers have been imprisoned by the “good guys” in the show, for decades, and their conditions are absolute torture. 1 is stranded in the sea in a tiny cage, the other is on the top of a mountain in a tiny cage, the other is in a volcano, and the last one is basically kept in a fridge. And they are all visited very rarely to be given a small ammount of food. Like, the conditions are so torturous that it’s crazy none of them died or went insane. (Also, one of the characters has no arms, and she uses water bending to replace her arms, and she can’t use it since she’s locked in a furnace. So they also figuratively amputated her basically).

Korra gets tricked into helping the Earth Queen, who’s an absolute tyrant, steal money from her own empoverished people. She then says to the Earth Queen that stealing is mean, and leaves. Afterwards, Zaheer pulls up in the palace and kills the Earth Queen (100% deserved). And then the writers realize that he’s too much on the right, so they make him try to kill a bunch of children for no reason.

Also, I am pretty sure that Amon and Zaheer are meant to be bastardized versions of Communism and Anarchism, which they absolutely do not represent. But a lot of their writing feels like red scare propaganda, where the writers misrepresent the ideologies they are meant to portray. It also doesn’t help that the only 2 villains the writers portray as redeemable are the capitalist warmonger who tried to start race riots by doing terrorist attacks and pinning it on a racial group; and Kuvira: the ethno supremacist fascist, who ran concentration camps for non earth-benders.

3) Magnifico from Wish

In the film, Magnifico rules his kingdom as a mage. He takes people’s wishes, and he grants a few of those wishes with his magic every year. When he takes someone’s wish, they forget what their wish is, and lose their ambitions. It is revealed in a plot twist that Magnifico is selective in which wishes to grant (big surprise!!!), because he doesn’t want unintended consequences to happen. And this is somehow portrayed as a bad thing, because the mc wants him to grant everyone their wish, regardless of the risks involved.

And then the writers make him turn evil because he read a spooky magic book that told him he can use people’s wishes to do evil dark magic. And when he does evil dark magic, he also turns evil. (It’s the dumbest shit ever). As punishment, he gets his soul trapped in a mirror forever. Like, for not wanting to magically grant random wishes that can cause limitless destruction due to unintended conscequences.