It's boring and toothless to make villains "well intentioned extremists" or "good guys deep down but troubled" or any other variation. There is essentially one main problem with this type of character, and it's expressed on a spectrum. At one end of the spectrum, they are too villainous, making any notion of grayness or redemption laughable or insulting to the audience. At the other end, they don't do enough villainous things to warrant their status as a villain, so you can't take them seriously. In most cases, these characters fall somewhere in the middle. Theoretically that should make them more balanced, but instead the archetype is just massively overdone. It has become predictable and boring because so many writers use the formula as a crutch to make the character "interesting" instead of giving the characters something actually interesting about them. If you're going to have a villain, you can make them interesting without resorting to this cheap tactic, and if you really want morally gray characters you don't need to bother framing the story as heroes vs villains.
>>47467normies want mid wit slop and the Market must provide.
you know, people who read real books don't start autistic arguments like these.
If you are going to critique, give specific examples.
>>47467It's because the taste-makers in media have been pushing the idea that the highest form of art is some kind of character drama, and consequently the more character-driven a story is, the better it is. Consequently, your villain not really being a character, but a plot device is "bad writing."
I forget the specifics, but isn’t Ganondorf fighting an anti-colonial struggle and his only flaw is becoming the same kind of Tyrant he fought against?