You know, the older I get, the more I understand The Wicked Witch of the West.
Wouldn't you have flipped out if some random chick had killed your sister and was being egged on to do worse by the weirdo inhabitants of Oz and the so-called "Good Witch"?
Perhaps the genius of this story is how easily we've been manipulated into accepting that Dorothy is a good person and not just a pawn in some feud between magical beings.
People had more to say about the Wicked West—and others—after Redditor armedshutter asked the online community:
"What movie villain do you agree with?"
"When I was little..."
"When I was little, I always sympathized with Jerry because he was a teeny mouse being chased around by this big, mean cat. Now, as an adult, I watch the show and realize Jerry's a selfish jerk who invites himself in everywhere and causes problems. Meanwhile, Tom just wants to enjoy his life and hang out with his friends. However, Jerry won't let him. Instead, Jerry takes advantage of every opportunity to torment Tom and make him miserable."
Yes, Tom just wants to be a cat and chill out! Would you want a mouse in your house? A sadistic one at that?
"If someone killed my sister..."
"The Wicked Witch of the West. If someone killed my sister, led a whole parade to celebrate, and then walked off with the fancy shoes she took off of my sister's dead body, I'd definitely go after her. And her little dog, too!"
That makes a lot of sense. Dorothy was the villain!
"If chicken strips..."
"Bruce the Shark from Jaws
If chicken strips came into my house and started swimming around me, I'd eat a few of them too. Does that make me the villain?"
Well, when you put it like that... it's pretty easy to see where we fall, isn't it?
Oh snap.
The shade of it all.
Yes, The Night King thankfully didn't make it to the end. He would have been so disappointed with how that series turned out.
"As bad as it sounds..."
"Magneto. As bad as it sounds, he was right. By the time "Logan" took place, they were cloning mutants and treating them horribly and were murdering them (little children) so they wouldn't be found out and they were wiping out people with the mutant gene via corn syrup. Magneto had warned Charles they were going to do something like that eventually."
We all did Magneto dirty, didn't we?
Admit it. We suck.
"I wouldn't say that I agree..."
"Lady Eboshi from Princess Mononoke. Miyazaki really knows how to write a good villain. She's the leader of a town that is absolutely destroying the surrounding forests and she willingly has spirits of the forest killed, but she's also an advocate for women's rights and her village is a refuge for outcasts like lepers.
I wouldn't say that I agree with her entirely, but she's a very dynamic character who has some points that I agree with."
Princess Mononoke is a wonderful film and probably the most layered of all of Miyazaki's films! And yes, Lady Eboshi was done dirty.
"Imagine if he increased..."
"Thanos had a valid point, just the wrong approach.
Imagine if he increased resources by 100x, and every living being lived in a post-scarcity society."
Yeah, the "snap" would get rid of a lot of our problems, wouldn't it?
Sure, *you* might not be around, but... that is a sacrifice Thanos would be willing to make.
"He lost his dad..."
"Harry from Spider-Man. He lost his dad, the closest person in his life besides Peter, and to know that his best friend killed him really does hurt. The part that he completely misses (which is truly heartbreaking) was that his dad wasn't the same dad he grew up knowing and loving. He didn't know, and will never understand, that his dad wasn't his dad anymore when he died."
That's the tragedy of Spider-Man and honestly, largely why the human drama between these characters works so well. (And it's even better in Spider-Man 2.
"If anything..."
"Plankton from Spongebob. If anything, Mr. Krabs is more of a villain than him. Krabs almost always does things just for money, and he doesn't care about anyone if they don't have cash on them or if they can't work for him. Plankton, on the other hand, only acts the way he does due to the selfishness of Krabs."
Mr. Krabs is a greedy capitalist! Does he love anything or anyone, even his daughter? For shame.
"He was just trying..."
"Squidward. He was just trying to enjoy his day and relax after a low-paying exhausting job, but SpongeBob and Patrick kept bothering him. I felt for him when I started working as a waitress."
Now that you have all of these opinions in mind, it might be worth revisiting some of your childhood favorites to see if you've changed your mind at all. You might surprise yourself.
Have some opinions of your own? Feel free to tell us about them in the comments below!
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again.
@SecretaryBurgum/X
@Doug Ellin/X
@evanrachelwood/Instagram