Writing Tips and Reviews

Bad People can still be Victims

"She has a character who's a bad person as the protagonist, I have those too, but they're always the antagonist."
🥧
Sigh... I haven't spoken about writing tips in a while since I didn't think I had anything new to say, but it turns out there is something new. I've spoken about how the protagonist is simply the person who we follow as the reader so I'll summarize it before getting into the main subject. The protagonist does not have to be a good person, the mentality of pure good vs pure evil has changed over the years, and anyone can be the protagonist. Kumo desu, also known as "So I'm a Spider, so What?" Is a series that looks into both perspectives. The protagonist of one side is a hero while the other side is a monster. Shun is a good person, he's the hero of his story but the villain of Shiro's. Shiro is arguably a bad person, she's the hero of her story but the villain of Shun's. There, that is the gist of protagonist and antagonist. Now let's get to the main topic.
🥧
"Only good people can be victims of bad people." I won't speak about the drama I'm covering where this is a topic as my friends and I are doing a commentary. This series is purely for writing tips.
🥧
I don't know what century this was acceptable in, but stances have changed over the years and this quote is outdated. Let's bring back Shiro, as a child she was a victim of hard circumstances, she was a baby spider born in a labyrinth full of high-level monsters. She ran away from home and learned to survive on her own. Her family attacked her for running away and got the Demon Lord Ariel as her enemy. That's as far as the anime goes, so I'm stopping there. Shiro is a monster, there's no doubting that from how humans see her, she is evil. She is a high-level monster who has killed and eaten humans. Yet, she is still a victim.
🥧
Let's talk mythology for a second. Medusa, many know her as the gorgon who was cursed to turn people into stone. She was a monster who needed to be killed before she did more damage. But deeper into her story, you realize she's a victim. Before she became a monster, she was a beautiful girl like her sisters. She had to protect her family from attacks and ended up getting the gods angry. They turned her into a monster and she killed her sisters after losing control. Medusa, while a monster, is a victim.
🥧
One more before we move on. Demon Slayer's Rui was an abusive person. From the outside, all he did was beat his fake family, threaten them, and kill them if they didn't follow his rules. But on the inside, he wanted to be loved and didn't know how to do that. He was young when he became a demon and killed his real family before he realized what love was. He didn't understand it until he saw Nezuko protect Tanjiro and died wishing he could do things over again. Like the others, Rui was a victim and a monster.
🥧
Not every monster needs to be a victim or need a sympathetic backstory. Some of them are simply assholes. However, don't dismiss who they used to be or who they are to only call them a monster. I'm writing demon siblings who were outcasted and shunned for who they were and had to become monsters because that was the only way they knew would get the abuse to stop. Pure good and pure evil have been overwritten with characters who have both good and evil in them. Yes, some characters have the trait of one or the other, but it needs more than it used to. Writing a purely evil villain or a purely good hero can bore the readers, which is why people have been focusing on heroes who are capable of doing evil and villains who used to be good or still think they're good. 
🥧
Heroes and villains can be victims. As Ponder Sprocket said, "a terrible person can still be a victim of a terrible person." Calling something a lie or dismissing it entirely to think of someone as a bad person and they shouldn't be trusted at all is not a good mindset to have. In real life and writing. You shouldn't ignore the backstories of the demons of Demon Slayer, how all Medusa wanted was to protect her sisters, or how Shiro has gone through hell to become stronger to survive the world she was born in. You can keep your negative view on them, but you can't ignore who they are to look at the piece of them you hate. If you still hate Rui because he's an abusive family member, then that's fine. You should still understand how he got there.
🥧
There's a saying, "evil isn't born, it's created." Think of a villain from a piece of media you like and ask yourself how they got there. What drove them to become evil or do evil things? Many have lost their family, their home, been shunned, beaten, or mentally destroyed, there is even some whose own self-hatred have driven them to do the worst. Some are programmed for evil, who crave destruction because that's all they've known. No matter what it is, there's a side to them that's beyond "evil villain," and writers nowadays want that deeper storyline because those characters can be memorable.
🥧
The victims of some of the worst tragedies of their world can become the greatest evil or the purest hero. It all depends on what the writer wants. No matter which side is chosen, dismissing that they were a victim because "they're a bad person and only pure innocent people can be victims" is stupid. Focusing on the hero being a victim and not the villain feeds into their reasoning for being evil. In the story, evil can be born when multiple people are victims of a situation and they're excluded from the sympathy of the public.
🥧
As an end note, just remember that everyone can have the same experiences and react to them differently. Dismissing one person's experiences because you hate them is shit and don't do that. Characters can be based on real-life people, that doesn't make them the same, it just means that it can happen in real life. Don't call someone's experiences "all lies" because you don't like them. I don't care what they did, if they're a victim, they're a victim. Plain and simple.