Bad guys from mythology who aren't that bad - Mordred did nothing wrong

[Mr Bunny]

Hades is pretty much the king of this. Just wants to chill with Persephone, doesn't try to fuck everything in sight, isn't particularly petty.

Don't forget his cute doggo Cerberus.

 

[Lord of the Large Pants]

Hitler

Hey, come on. The Holocaust isn't real, but Hitler was.

 

[The Megalodon]

Melkor from The Lord of the Rings Universe: All the other Ainur were doing some gay ass Choir Hymn shit trying to all be little suck ups to Eru, and Melkor just want to play these sick Technical Death Metal riffs he learned while roaming the Void looking for the Imperishable Flame. Then they got all pissed off and things got really out of hand.

 

[Overly Serious]

Someone said it already: Lucifer in snake form.
All the slithering fuck said was you wont die, and gave humans consciousness, or what ever youd call it. Made them aware? You know what I mean.

Gnostics have entered the chat.

(In Gnostic Christianity, the serpent in the garden was the good one - also possibly a girl named Sofia. They viewed the creator of the world as a sort of blind, dumb force they called the demiurge and saw the real God as the one that brought enlightenment and self-awareness).

Okay, maybe Pontious Pilate? Saw lots of Jews fighting each other again, said: "your laws, your justice. This ain't to do with Rome" and stayed out of it. If he'd spared Jesus, that would have made Jesus and the Roman Empire on the same side. If he punished Jesus, would be Rome buying off the Pharisees, Sadducees (I can't remember who was in charge) by doing something obviously morally wrong (dude said he's the Son of God. Jews big mad! No reason he should die for it, though).

Vader / Anakin Skywalker. The Republic was corrupt, stifling the life out of people and held together by a Jedi order who for all that they eschew attachment fail to see that they are blind to their own massive attachment to the Republic and their role in it. If Anakin hadn't killed the younglings each one would grow up to be a persistent destabilising force (no pun intended). After his actions there were two Sith and two Jedi. And if the sequels hadn't messed it up you'd have been left with two Force wielders only to begin again - Leia and Luke. Leia would have gone to the dark side (war leader, fighter, who would have continued on that path) and Luke stayed light side. Resulting in the start of a new cycle with perfect balance.

Kate from The Taming of the Shrew. They kidnap her, beat her, starve her, do what's basically the Four Lights thing from Star Trek to her. And somehow she's the "villain" and the people doing this to her are the heroes. HATE that play deeply.

Oh, and about Morgana - France had the same reaction in modern day that the Round Table did in myth. They legally prevent fathers from getting DNA tests on their children without the consent of the mother for exactly the same reason they didn't like her wobbly chalice.

Melkor from The Lord of the Rings Universe: All the other Ainur were doing some gay ass Choir Hymn shit trying to all be little suck ups to Eru, and Melkor just want to play these sick Technical Death Metal riffs he learned while roaming the Void looking for the Imperishable Flame. Then they got all pissed off and things got really out of hand.

Yeah, that's true. But then when Illuvatar joins in and out does him with his own sick metal riffs, does Melkor keep going and do some badass duet with his creator? No, he goes into a big sulk and shags a giant spider. ("And Melkor, weakened by all that had gone out of him and into Ungoliant...")

 

[The Megalodon]

Gnostics have entered the chat.

(In Gnostic Christianity, the serpent in the garden was the good one - also possibly a girl named Sofia. They viewed the creator of the world as a sort of blind, dumb force they called the demiurge and saw the real God as the one that brought enlightenment and self-awareness).

Okay, maybe Pontious Pilate? Saw lots of Jews fighting each other again, said: "your laws, your justice. This ain't to do with Rome" and stayed out of it. If he'd spared Jesus, that would have made Jesus and the Roman Empire on the same side. If he punished Jesus, would be Rome buying off the Pharisees, Sadducees (I can't remember who was in charge) by doing something obviously morally wrong (dude said he's the Son of God. Jews big mad! No reason he should die for it, though).

Vader / Anakin Skywalker. The Republic was corrupt, stifling the life out of people and held together by a Jedi order who for all that they eschew attachment fail to see that they are blind to their own massive attachment to the Republic and their role in it. If Anakin hadn't killed the younglings each one would grow up to be a persistent destabilising force (no pun intended). After his actions there were two Sith and two Jedi. And if the sequels hadn't messed it up you'd have been left with two Force wielders only to begin again - Leia and Luke. Leia would have gone to the dark side (war leader, fighter, who would have continued on that path) and Luke stayed light side. Resulting in the start of a new cycle with perfect balance.

Kate from The Taming of the Shrew. They kidnap her, beat her, starve her, do what's basically the Four Lights thing from Star Trek to her. And somehow she's the "villain" and the people doing this to her are the heroes. HATE that play deeply.

Oh, and about Morgana - France had the same reaction in modern day that the Round Table did in myth. They legally prevent fathers from getting DNA tests on their children without the consent of the mother for exactly the same reason they didn't like her wobbly chalice.



Yeah, that's true. But then when Illuvatar joins in and out does him with his own sick metal riffs, does Melkor keep going and do some badass duet with his creator? No, he goes into a big sulk and shags a giant spider. ("And Melkor, weakened by all that had gone out of him and into Ungoliant...")

And then Feanor Aylawgs Morgoth/Melkor so hard that he has a giant spergout at the Ainur, and then starts a gayop with his sons that starts the Kinslaying Curse and ensures the eternal butthurt of all of his elvish kin and Morgoth's Rent Free status in all of their heads forever.

Edit: just thought of this

Melkor busts in with this shit:

it says "The other [Melkor's Theme] had now achieved a unity of its own; but it was loud, and vain, and endlessly repeated ; and it had little harmony, but rather a clamorous unison as of many trumpets braying upon a few notes."

 

[topsikrets]

Karna did nothing wrong Krishna is a dickhead.

 

[Overly Serious]

I mean this pretty much goes without saying to any right-thinking person imo, but pretty much any Old Testament tribe confronted by the ancient Israelites. Bunch of nomads who had been kicked out of Egypt for spreading plagues, come invading other people's lands and murdering them because "God told them it was alright". Sure. David and Golliath? The single combat was a time-honoured tradition amongst many ancient peoples in order to avoid the injuries and deaths of actual warfare. The Israelites accept this until they keep losing to the Phillistine's champion, so what do they do - some treacherous shit kills the guy with a ranged weapon rather than the actual expected ritual combat. Pretty much the entirety of Exodus is the Israelites backstabbing and betraying their way across other people's lands. Who on Earth would want their origin myth to be this?

 

[jorgoth]

Who on Earth would want their origin myth to be this?

A race of clannish, lawless, rootless grifters. ((((Who)))) indeed.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

Loki

 

[Hongourable Madisha]

I mean this pretty much goes without saying to any right-thinking person imo, but pretty much any Old Testament tribe confronted by the ancient Israelites. Bunch of nomads who had been kicked out of Egypt for spreading plagues, come invading other people's lands and murdering them because "God told them it was alright". Sure. David and Golliath? The single combat was a time-honoured tradition amongst many ancient peoples in order to avoid the injuries and deaths of actual warfare. The Israelites accept this until they keep losing to the Phillistine's champion, so what do they do - some treacherous shit kills the guy with a ranged weapon rather than the actual expected ritual combat. Pretty much the entirety of Exodus is the Israelites backstabbing and betraying their way across other people's lands. Who on Earth would want their origin myth to be this?

Even in Sunday school I didn't really see what was so bad about Ba'al. He seemed pretty cool. Apparently he was a rain god, so he watered the crops and made the rivers and was a fertility god by extension. I thought it was a bit unfair of Elijah to choose a firelighting contest with a rain god. I mean, the Ba'al followers did agree to it, but I'm not sure what they really expected.

I suppose I wouldn't mind an origin myth being like that, people generally fucking up and being forgiven rather than all being perfect from the start. It's more relatable or applicable to everyday people's lives.

Medusa was just minding her own business.

She got raped by Poseidon and Athena couldn't really punish him, so she "punished" her by turning her into a monster that could instantly kill any perv that even so much as looked at her. Pretty great result if you ask me!

The Minotaur was similarly pretty blameless I think, it was his parents who were at fault. King Minos for not sacrificing the bull to the gods like he was supposed to, and Queen Pasiphae for getting Daedalus to make her a damn murrsuit (I hate that I know that word thanks to these forums) and shagging the bull. He ate people but he didn't really know any better and he didn't have anything else he could eat. I don't see why they had to give him living victims anyway, why couldn't they just give him corpses of people that had already died? Build the labyrinth next to a morgue or an asklepion or something and dump the stiffs in there.

 

[soy_king]

Efnisien sacrifices himself for his boys and gives paddy what for. True blue Taffy legend.

 

[MAPK phosphatase]

Vader / Anakin Skywalker. The Republic was corrupt, stifling the life out of people and held together by a Jedi order who for all that they eschew attachment fail to see that they are blind to their own massive attachment to the Republic and their role in it. If Anakin hadn't killed the younglings each one would grow up to be a persistent destabilising force (no pun intended). After his actions there were two Sith and two Jedi. And if the sequels hadn't messed it up you'd have been left with two Force wielders only to begin again - Leia and Luke. Leia would have gone to the dark side (war leader, fighter, who would have continued on that path) and Luke stayed light side. Resulting in the start of a new cycle with perfect balance.

I always understood it to mean balance to the force means 100% light side, just a light side that isn't stagnant and decadent. It's the way a balanced breakfast is entirely food that is good for you. It's not 50% spinach omelet and 50% jelly beans.

Or maybe the force is a fickle cunt and demands that there's always some scheming, power hungry assholes out there wielding it.

 

[Solid Snek]

The Greeks did a pretty good job of blackening his name,

But everything we know about Paris came from the Greeks, including the claims about "his intelligence, his courage, and his honesty". Leaving aside the fact that he could wel have been nothing more than a literary invention, it could be just as easily argued that the Greeks did a good job of polishing his name.

Paris is a tragic antagonist, and a good example of what happens when you try to coast by on virtues and natural talents, but disregard ethics. Yes, Paris was the golden boy of Troy - but he was also a dumb trustfund kid who coveted the wife of a Greek king. He let his lust for a thot destroy not just his family and his city, but even his entire civilization. And even if Paris existed, and the war was real, and the war was over trade routes, the fact would still remain that Paris was the nigga dumb enough to piss off the Spartans, and give them the pretext they needed to gather a Coalition of The Willing.

Paris was a nuanced, layered character (fitting, given that his story was, after the Bible, the most important work in the Western Canon for over two thousand years), but he really was "that bad".

 

[soy_king]

But everything we know about Paris came from the Greeks, including the claims about "his intelligence, his courage, and his honesty". Leaving aside the fact that he could wel have been nothing more than a literary invention, it could be just as easily argued that the Greeks did a good job of polishing his name.

Paris is a tragic antagonist, and a good example of what happens when you try to coast by on virtues and natural talents, but disregard ethics. Yes, Paris was the golden boy of Troy - but he was also a dumb trustfund kid who coveted the wife of a Greek king. He let his lust for a thot destroy not just his family and his city, but even his entire civilization. And even if Paris existed, and the war was real, and the war was over trade routes, the fact would still remain that Paris was the nigga dumb enough to piss off the Spartans, and give them the pretext they needed to gather a Coalition of The Willing.

Paris was a nuanced, layered character (fitting, given that his story was, after the Bible, the most important work in the Western Canon for over two thousand years), but he really was "that bad".

His likely historical equivalent, Alaksandu, is pretty interesting. He's ruler of Troy during a conflict between the Hottites and a mysterious nation called Ahiyawa, who could actually be the Mycenean Greeks. He's supposedly well into middle age from the records, and pleads for the Hittite Great Kings help in defeating the invaders.

There's also reference in the Hittite royal records of a brigand king named Piyamaradu who torments and fucks with the Hittites and is harbored by Ahiyawwa. some historians have considered him to be the real life inspiration for Priam, which idk if that fits

 

[Anon88]

If you count Christianity as mythology then I think you could make a case for Judas. Yes he betrayed Jesus and got him kill but without this happening then Jesus wouldn’t had been able to complete the prophecy he came down for. It’s also implied that Satan entered Judas’ body during this time period which means that there was a chance that Judas really didn’t even know what he was doing at the time making him more of a victim then a monster that most paint him out to be.

 

[Meiwaku]

Tiamat did nothing wrong. They struck first

Medusa did nothing wrong. She just killed her rapist

 

[KittyGremlin]

Hitler

Yeah, some people forget he killed the Nazi leader.

 

[Space Cooter]

I like the Satan comment. He’s certainly an interesting, multifaceted character

I also heard a very interesting lecture from a philosophy prof some years ago that god was the true antagonist of Christian mythology. Which would make him the prime example of a “bad guy” who wasn’t actually bad.

 

[jorgoth]

Lilith. Adam turns her away for wanting to mount and fuck him, what kind of faggot does that?

 

[World Famous Quasi Payer]

She got raped by Poseidon and Athena couldn't really punish him, so she "punished" her by turning her into a monster that could instantly kill any perv that even so much as looked at her. Pretty great result if you ask me!

Being turned into a demonic monster, who turns all people she meets to stone and thus can't know friendship or love; all for the crime of being raped. Sounds like a living hell. Of course, if it wasn't rape, that makes her punish slightly just and Poseidon a coward for not rescuing her.