Most people would only turn evil if they had a really good reason. Life is mostly terrible so no wonder that these people end up becoming heartless.

If people didn't have a considerably solid motivation, they would never even consider becoming evil. This theory perfectly applies to villains, a lot of them found themselves in a very harsh reality and the only options they found in front of them ended up being evil. So naturally, everyone sided against them and eventually attempted to destroy them.

After Reddit user, u/not_anakin asked the question "Which villain actually had a good motivation?", a lot of people had a lot of really good answers to it.

1. Batman could've easily solved this problem

Mr. Freeze.

Guy just wanted to save his wife.

2. Humans are the real aggressors

The Machines in the Matrix.

The Second Renaissance showed that it was humans who struck first and tried to destroy the sentient Machines once they became intelligent. The Machines removed themselves from society and created their own city 1-0 in the middle of the desert to try to allay human fears but it still didn’t work.

Humans were the aggressors. The Machines wanted to protect themselves.

And the Machines are not even evil. Instead of just exterminating humans or chopping off their heads and using their bodies as batteries they took the trouble to create a massive virtual world for us. They even tried making it a Paradise at first (according to Agent Smith) but we rejected it so they went more realistic.

3. Typical daddy issues

Luke Castellan from Percy Jackson. His motivation was that the gods didn’t pay enough attention to their kids (himself included) and wanted the gods and Camp Half-Blood to recognize the children of the minor gods.

4. He's quite impressive

Zemo from Captain America Civil War. Superhero battle kills everyone he cares about, destroys his city and sets his country back to the Stone Age.

Then they just go home. Zemo targeted the avengers and set them up to turn on each other.

A man with no powers was able to beat the Avengers.

5. They wouldn't leave him alone

Dr. Doom.

He has literally, like without a shadow of a doubt seen every single outcome of every single decision he has or will ever make. And the only way humanity survives is if he rules them and takes them on a certain path.

Yet the fucking fantastic four keep on beating his ass down.

His rule isn’t even that bad, even in the context of ‘a great leap forward.’ The FF just don’t like him because he’s just a power hungry single leader and being that and ruling the earth has historically been bad. But you know what all those other populist leaders didn’t have? LITERAL DEMONSTRABLE CLAIRVOYANCE AND SUPER INTELLIGENCE.

6. Ain't that the truth

Tom from Tom and Jerry. He was really the good guy all along. Keeping rodents out of his house.

7. It's the president's fault

Ed Harris’s character in The Rock. Ex-vet wanted a decent funeral for some of his fallen comrades plus I think a 100 mil in compensation for their families

Spoiler alert: the president said no

8. All he truly wanted was to go home

Prince Zuko, before he sided with Team Avatar.

All he truly wanted was to go home, have the respect of his nation, and the love of his father.

9. His crime was only an accident

Sandman from Spider-Man 3. He just wanted a chance to see his dying daughter before she died. The only reason he robbed places was the get enough money to find treatment for her. He accidentally killed uncle Ben, and felt really bad about it, to the point where it haunted him.

10. Now we can understand his struggles

Squidward

11. The Grinch

the grinch. loud ass whos.

12. That's how things are supposed to be

The hyenas from The Lion King. Hunger is a powerful motivator.

13. Totally makes sense

Magneto. Having been a Holocaust survivor, it makes a lot of sense to not want to see the people you identify with once again persecuted for the circumstances of their birth.

14. So true

Feels like a good place to drop this quote :

“The best villains don’t have evil intentions, only evil methods.”

Edit: For everyone saying Palpatine, kindly peruse: r/EmpireDidNothingWrong

15. It was imposed on him

Megamind. He became bad because people told him he could only be bad just because of his background, Smh my head. We live in a society.

Edit: the amount of people I got to woosh because of smh my head.