Most of the time when watching a movie, the villain is obvious to the viewer, but sometimes when you understand their character and their motive, they might not seem so evil after all. Sometimes, maybe even relatable or completely in the right. Some Disney villains don’t have a good side or even a plausible reason to be evil, but many have backstories that can help in understanding that they might not be as evil as you think.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
In this story, Belle rejects arrogant Gaston’s marriage proposal and sets off to find her father who was imprisoned by a Beast. Belle worries that her father will die there and trades places with him. While living in the castle, she falls in love with the Beast and transforms him back into his original form, a prince.

Gaston wasn’t right about everything, but he was right that Belle should not be interested in a literal animal. He was dangerous, terrible to her, and most importantly, he kept her hostage. At the end of the movie, Gaston leads a crowd to hunt the Beast because he believes he is dangerous to the village after seeing him. We don’t know how the Beast would treat the members of the village, but we do know that he kidnapped Belle and her father, has a terrible temper, sharp claws and teeth. The only reason Belle believes that the Beast is such a kind hearted man is because he became nicer after he fell in love with her.

RATATOUILLE
“Ratatouille” is about a rat named Remy with unusual cooking abilities and an admiration for chef Gusteau, who owned a restaurant in Paris. When Remy finds himself at his restaurant, he meets Linguini, a garbage boy turned chef with no cooking experience, and Remy decides to teach him how to cook.

Chef Skinner yells at Linguini for cooking because he is the garbage boy and has no cooking experience. It is his job to manage the workers of the restaurant and he doesn’t deserve to be called a villain to prefer workers with experience. Chef Skinner isn’t the villain, if anything, he’s the victim. When he sees Remy in the kitchen, he calls a health inspector to investigate. When the inspector arrives, the rats tie him up, tape his mouth and throw him in the walk-in fridge. Later, Chef

Skinner sees the rats again, and he is thrown in with the health inspector. He just wanted to keep rats out of the kitchen and to not violate health codes, what’s so wrong about that?

While his typewriter looks like a skull, his office is shaped like a coffin and he dresses and decorates using dark colors, that may be where his resemblance to a villain ends. Anton Ego is a food critic in “Ratatouille”. When he gives a bad review to a dish at Gusteau’s, the famous restaurant loses its five-star review and chef Gusteau somehow dies from a broken heart. This isn’t Ego’s fault. Unlike traditional Disney villains, Ego is just doing his job, not killing people, but giving his opinion. As a result of his negative opinion, the chef happened to die. He even gives the restaurant another chance when it becomes popular again. This time, he tries the Ratatouille meal, which reminds him of a childhood dish. He asks to meet the chef and is surprised to meet Remy, the rat who has cooked his dinner, but still he writes a good review and promises he will be back for more. In all, he only seems like a villain on the outside, but he is only doing his job.

SLEEPING BEAUTY
In the movie Sleeping Beauty, Maleficent places a curse on Princess Aurora that on her sixteenth birthday, she will prick her finger on a spinning wheel and die. Luckily, the three good fairies can change this curse, and allow Aurora to only be asleep and awoken by true love’s kiss.

Maleficent may be a bit villainous, but she has a good reason to be. At the very start of the movie, it is said Aurora’s parents created a holiday for all of the kingdom to celebrate her regardless of their wealth. Maleficent isn’t invited to this event at all. I’m not saying that it was right of her to curse Aurora to die, but the King and Queen were a bit cruel themselves to invite everyone in the kingdom except for her. Who wouldn’t be bitter about that?

There are a seemingly infinite number of Disney villains and backstories to consider, from other animated movies like Captain Hook in Peter Pan or live action movies and Sharpay Evans. In conclusion, many villains can be seen as justified or even as protagonists if you look at them in a new lens.