Paul Farquhar
Legend
Consider dragons. Long before D&D, in the West, dragons where long considered evil incarnate. Then, as time went on, they became more nuanced. By the 1930s Smaug is still evil, but he has a personality, including a sense of humour. He isn't just evil. Then, by the 1960s/70s we see a number of revisionist novels, where the dragons are either not all bad, or the dragons are good and the knights that kill them are evil. So, by the time D&D comes out, it has both good and evil dragons.
I would say that any villain that lasts for any length of time naturally becomes more nuanced, or becomes revaluated. Because you can just keep telling the same old story, but there are a limited number of different directions you can take a new story. The only villains that stay monolithically evil are the ones that only appear in one episode.
I would say that any villain that lasts for any length of time naturally becomes more nuanced, or becomes revaluated. Because you can just keep telling the same old story, but there are a limited number of different directions you can take a new story. The only villains that stay monolithically evil are the ones that only appear in one episode.