Top 20 Disney Villains Who Were Right All Along

#20: John Silver “Treasure Planet” (2002)

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The cybernetic pirate may be in the dirty business of hunting treasure, but he’s not a bad guy. Sure, he has an abrasive demeanor and he’s greedy, but he also has a sense of honor. His principles include avoiding violence and harm whenever possible. Plus, he has his priorities straight. Near the end of the film when he’s given the choice between rescuing Jim or a bunch of valuable goods, he picks Jim. He clearly loves the troublemaker like he would his own child, and gives him support that Jim didn’t otherwise get. He may be complicated, but at his core, Silver is good.

The main antagonist from this Disney sequel is pretty horrible, but we understand her perspective. Not only is she an outcast from society, she also struggles with living in Ursula’s shadow. Apparently, their mother always showed a preference for Ursula. Her motivations are complicated. She’s driven by a desire to both avenge her sister’s death and to prove that she can do what Ursula couldn’t – take over the kingdom. Sure, she’s violent, but some might say that Triton and his kingdom had it coming thanks to their mistreatment of Morgana and Ursula. Not to mention, Morgana is only able to deceive Melody because the latter’s parents, Ariel and Eric, kept her mermaid heritage a secret.

They say hurt people hurt people, and it definitely applies to this antagonistic doll. Although her actions are sinister, she acts out of a desire to be loved. Her methods are questionable, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Despite being roughly as old as Woody, she has never really experienced what it’s like to be played with and adored by a child. For decades, she’s been stuck in an antique store, her purpose as a toy unfulfilled. It’s pretty tragic and totally unfair. Woody has had not one but two fantastic owners by this point in the story. Even he realizes that Gabby is deserving of a fair chance at finding one of her own.

#17: Captain Gantu “Lilo & Stitch” (2002)

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Imagine this scenario from Gantu’s point of view. As a captain of the Galactic Federation, enforcing intergalactic safety is literally his job. As far as he knows, Stitch is a destructive monster capable of wreaking havoc on Earth and in space. So Gantu believes capturing him is in the best interest of both the alien and human populations. Since Pleakley and Jumba are unable to recover Experiment 626, he’s sent in as reinforcement, which explains why he comes in so hot. Sure, Stitch isn’t actually evil – but he doesn’t know that at first. And capturing Lilo isn’t cool, but Gantu doesn’t target her specifically. He’s merely determined to complete his mission, and ends up paying dearly for it.

#16: Sid Phillips “Toy Story” (1995)

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Sid doesn’t deserve the hate he gets. Besides not being the best brother and ruining his sister’s toys, he doesn’t really do anything wrong. First of all, he’s a kid. Second of all, he doesn’t realize the toys are sentient. Some might argue that he’s mistreating his playthings, but as long as they’re his property, it’s his right to destroy them – because again, he initially thinks they’re inanimate. He’s actually demonstrating incredible creativity with his play, as well as the ability to work in high pressure situations. By taking the toys apart and putting them back together differently, Sid is developing skills folks like surgeons, scientists, and engineers hone, and these abilities can help him as he grows up.

Lotso is a character who goes through something terrible and is fundamentally changed. After being lost and replaced, he grows jaded and ruthless. The strawberry-scented bear takes over Sunnyside Daycare and governs it harshly, to say the least. He’s not kind, but he does what he does in an effort to maintain control of his life. Lotso felt secure as Daisy’s toy, and thought he would always be loved. When that’s torn away from him, he finds a way to take charge. It’s basically a trauma response. All he really needs is another child to love him, but he doesn’t get it.

Although he’s technically an antagonist, we don’t think Denahi is morally in the wrong. The middle child believes not one but both of his brothers were taken by a bear and seeks to avenge them. The problem is that the bear being hunted by Denahi is his brother, Kenai, alive and magically transformed. Luckily, Denahi realizes the misunderstanding before he’s able to complete his mission. To be fair, revenge isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and we certainly understand protesting the unnecessary killing of a creature. That being said, one could argue Denahi’s behavior is somewhat justified. He’s not an evil person. Rather, he’s someone working through the pain of losing his family the only way he knows how.

Orphaned when she was young due to a hero-related tragedy, the tech-smart Evelyn doesn’t trust Supers, and we can’t blame her. She imagines a world where regular people aren’t dependent on superheroes, which sounds pretty good to us. While her ambition to keep the heroes illegal is emotionally driven, it is also kinda practical. Things can get complicated when vigilantes, super-powered or otherwise, take law enforcement into their own hands, which is essentially what Mr. Incredible and his pals do. She may go about things the wrong way, but ultimately, Evelyn was just trying to manage the weird power dynamic that exists between Supers and regular people.

These poor hyenas somehow get lumped in with Scar, but we think they’re victims. They were banished from the Pride Lands, for who even remembers what reason. Considering they were essentially left to starve by Mufasa, can you blame them for taking up with Scar? When Scar reveals his plan to kill Mufasa, you kind of get the feeling that they’re not really into it. Instead, they’re just desperate to return home. And let’s not forget that Scar is kind of a scary dude. Shenzi, Banzai, and Ed are just a trio who backed the wrong guy, and continued to obey at first for their own self preservation.

Ursula is definitely manipulative, but she never lies to Ariel. Ariel knows that Ursula is a sea witch and yet actively chooses to seek her out. Now, Ursula’s eel-y minions did do some persuading, but there was nothing stopping Ariel from simply swimming away. Instead, she goes to Ursula, asks for her help, and willingly signs away her voice. Ursula never forced Ariel to do anything she didn’t want to do. All the villain really did was give the mermaid exactly what she wanted, and then came to collect on what was owed to her when Ariel tried to back out of the deal.

Admittedly, it's kind of hard to sympathize with a guy who mistreats animals. But to be fair, Edgar’s employer, who he loyally served for decades, was planning to leave an outrageous fortune to her cats. Sure, it would’ve gone to Edgar after, but still! What the heck are the cats gonna do with all that money? The bank doesn't trade in Meow Mix! Can you blame him for getting upset? Edgar definitely went about things the wrong way. But Duchess and her kittens never asked Madame Adelaide Bonfamille to leave them her fortune; they were just living their best cat lives. As for Edgar, all we’re trying to say is that his frustration was understandable. His anger was just severely misplaced, and things snowballed.

#9: Maleficent “Sleeping Beauty” (1959)

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What kind of middle school levels of pettiness is this? Are these monarchs really going to invite the entire kingdom over for their daughter’s christening and exclude Maleficent? Yeah, she’s dark and edgy and doesn’t fit the aesthetic, but considering her power and influence, the King and Queen should’ve known better. Now, the evil fairy definitely over-reacted, and misguidedly took out her anger on Aurora. But there’s no denying that Stefan and Leah were being jerks. We’re not saying that the King and Queen were obligated to invite Maleficent to the party, but if they didn’t want her there, maybe they should have kept it a more low-key affair. Don’t invite seemingly everyone BUT her!

#8: Robert Callaghan “Big Hero 6” (2014)

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In spite of all the terrible things he did in his quest for revenge, you can't help but feel at least a little sorry for this guy. He thinks he lost his daughter in a tragic accident because of a colleague's careless eagerness to test an experimental machine before it was ready. In a fashion similar to his own personal villain, however, Callaghan ends up causing the death of his protegé, Tadashi, and becoming a villain in his own right. And yes, he did terrible things after becoming the masked Yokai. Still, Callaghan wasn't really evil at heart; he was just a grieving father driven to madness.

#7: Yzma “The Emperor’s New Groove” (2000)

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She is absolutely wild (and yes… evil), but that doesn’t make her wrong about Kuzco. He’s initially a horrible Emperor. When we first meet him, he’s cruel to his people and only cares about himself. He lives in lavish luxury while his people struggle to make ends meet. And yet Kuzco spends much of the movie whining and complaining about how unfair his life is. He constantly puts Yzma down and neglects her skills and talents. No one would call Yzma’s motivations altruistic, but you can’t blame her for wanting to see him dethroned. And considering she is seemingly the only semi-competent politician in sight, we can’t help but wonder if she might have actually done a better job, even if her style proved a little much.

It's hard to look past the fact that he tried to harm Mowgli, but to be fair his motives aren't completely incomprehensible. After all, he is a TIGER. He thinks that men don't belong in the jungle because all they do is tear everything down. And when you think about logging, poachers and forest fires (just to name a few man-made problems), this big cat totally has a point. His grudge against Mowgli specifically is a little much, but you can't really deny his logic. He’s just attempting to preserve his home. His willingness to target our young protagonist makes him an irredeemable villain, but if he re-evaluated his methods, he could be seen as a heroic protector of the jungle.

#5: Captain Hook “Peter Pan” (1953)

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In the original version of this story by J.M Barrie, Peter Pan is actually a much more flawed character. And when you really think about it, he’s not exactly a great role model in the 1953 Disney flick, either. He fed Hook's hand to a crocodile, and clearly took pleasure in tormenting the Captain. It’s one thing to hurt an opponent in the heat of battle, but to feed their hand to a crocodile is just plain malicious. The argument that Peter is just a boy doesn’t really hold up either because he is literally young forever, which just means Hook’s pain is never-ending. Honestly, it wouldn’t be hard to rewrite this story with the villain and hero roles reversed.

Hades and Zeus take sibling rivalry to a whole other level. Hades was banished to the underworld by his holier than thou brother. Just imagine how it made him feel to be all alone down there while all the other gods got to live in paradise on Olympus. We’re not condoning his behavior. He did try to hurt the innocent Hercules in an attempt to overthrow Zeus, and that’s a no. That whole thing where he released the Titans to destroy all of the gods because they neglected him was super petty, too. But he just wanted a place on Olympus, and we can’t help but feel for him in that regard.

#3: Michael "Goob" Yagoobian [aka Bowler Hat Guy] “Meet the Robinsons” (2007)

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Poor Goob – or should we say, “Bowler Hat Guy.” His juvenile, ill-intentioned schemes are motivated by the deep-seated resentment he has for his former roommate, Lewis. Kept up the night before by the sounds of Lewis’s tinkering, Goob falls asleep during a baseball game and doesn’t make a big catch. With his confidence shot, the orphan grows up to be a loner who struggles because he hasn’t processed his pain in a healthy way. So yeah, his grudge makes sense. While he goes down a dark path, all he’s really seaking is closure, which he deserves. Unfortunately, he gets taken advantage of by DOR-15 and becomes part of a plan that’s truly evil.

We’re not fans of how Skinner exploits Gusteau’s legacy to sell frozen food and tries to rob Linguini of his inheritance. That being said, we’re on board with his efforts to keep rats out of a commercial kitchen. To state the obvious first, it’s a huge health violation. Who knows where those rats’ claws have been? Not to mention, it’s kind of unfair for Linguini to get credit for food he didn’t technically make. Skinner taking Remy is a little much, but we don’t mind him reporting what he sees to the health department. Gusteau's famous restaurant closing is a sad consequence, but Remy, Linguini, and Colette seem to end up okay in the end.

#1: Syndrome “The Incredibles” (2004)

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No one is responsible for the actions of others, but Mr. Incredible’s treatment of this impressionable young man certainly didn’t help matters. It was clear that this fan was in need of some guidance, and Mr. Incredible was totally patronizing, leaning into the elitist mentality of superheroes. Even after supers became illegal, Mr. Incredible had this obnoxious air about him like he was somehow owed more because he was once a superhero. Syndrome’s tactics are irredeemable, but the philosophy that drove them is a good one. Why shouldn't average people be able to be super? He was a champion of the little guy and believed in equal opportunity, using his intelligence to achieve it. If only he hadn’t turned to such villainous methods!