@Myoozik
A big thing for me is I don’t like when I’m told to like a character or told how great a character is by a narrative, when they don’t deserve the praise or do things that actually make them a pretty terrible person, or when characters act against character to make it happen. It pulls me out of suspension of disbelief when like a character is doing nothing but fucking up, doing selfish or bad shit, and has a history of just being this selfish self-destructive person… and yet everyone loves them, all the characters who normally give shit to such characters just accept them, and there’s literally screen-time spent just shilling them like “oh they’re so great!” XD

It’s why I warmed up so much to Trixie. She’s not a bad person, but she’s obnoxious and arrogant and brags and the characters react appropriately: Twilight feels stifled and just doesn’t want to get involved, Spike becomes angry because he knows his mother/sister can magic rings around Trixie, and the arrogant characters of the main six feel threatened and challenged by her and become insecure and start a fight, and this furthers the plot. So in the end when she loses her wagon and gets blamed for something that she actually had nothing to do with, I empathized with her since it was unfair what happened her. If she’d gotten up on stage and gloated and everyone in the crowd was like “Oh yeah she’s so great!” and Rainbow Dash was uncharacteristically like “You’re so much greater than me Trixie, have my babies!” I would have HATED Trixie XD

@Badumsquish
I mean, every human is different so whichever way it can be interpreted depends on the individual. If you surveyed say 30 people and you give them a character who’s morally reprehensible for their actions and explain out why they turned out the way they did in the saddest way possible, 10 will go “Now I feel bad for them”, 10 will go “That’s it? All of that because of that?!” and the remaining 10 will go “Eh, whatever”. If they didn’t have a motive at all and are doing it just because they’re evil, it would produce different results with one side disappointed that there wasn’t a backstory and the other side who’s fine with it cause the character turned out to be great. Nightmare Moon’s backstory was because she didn’t get appreciation and she has fans, Sunset Shimmer was just a stereotypical bully and she has fans, Starlight Glimmer had a friend move away and she has fans, the villainous trio had basically nothing and were just “We’re so evil, we want to rule Equestria, muahahahaha!!” and they have fans.

So it goes back to the whole fork on the road thing, if you go one way it won’t sit well with the other side and vice versa. Reality dictates that it’s hard to please everybody but to put it optimistically, that’s okay. At least it’s better than to keep driving forward and not taking any of the roads and crashing into a tree. Plus, fiction is different than reality but that’s a different Pandora’s Box.

@Myoozik
You can do both. Give a character a sympathetic backstory that defines their actions and personality, but is NOT used to justify or excuse their actions. Like, I actually think the Legion of Doom have a fairly sympathetic plight even in spite of them having no excuse whatsoever for their actions. The final season showed that they genuinely do have depth, and they are capable of genuine and empathy, and showed they have the potential to change for the better, but were ultimately used by someone else for his own ends, pushed deeper into villainy, and ultimately paid the price for it. They’re honestly the deepest villains the series has ever produced, and honestly even with the whole “Discord was Grogar” thing (which I honestly think is the worst writing decision the writers ever made, even worse than fully reforming Starlight in 15 seconds or less), I still think they were an amazing villainous force for the show to finish up with. It’s kind of bittersweet in a way, how these bad people clearly had the ability and perhaps even the desire to change for the better, but it just didn’t come to be thanks to both their decisions and factors outside their control, while meanwhile these other characters got to basically use them and profit from it with no personal consequences :D

@FoldabotZ
He’s honestly a really complex character. Deep down he does genuinely have some redeeming qualities, but they just don’t come anywhere close to making up for what he does. He seems to care about his students, but he also has this sadistic “I will do whatever I must to get what I want” mentality so it’s honestly left ambiguous whether he only “cares” about his students to further his own goals or if he actually does care but is willing to sacrifice them. Especially since the final season actually does have him do a few genuinely altruistic things for other people even though they actually impede his goals. It’s just that he’s the kind of guy where it’s worse to be his friend than his enemy, like his “friendship” with Terry Silver is genuinely disturbing :P

@Badumsquish
So he’s a pure evil villain? Has a sad backstory but it has no bearing to his present villainy and you can’t leverage it to appeal to his “inner goodness”

@Badumsquish
So no story at all? Got it!

@Myoozik
They could do like John Kreese from Cobra Kai where he has quite honestly one of the saddest backstories of any villain in television, but it doesn’t earn him an ounce of forgiveness or sympathy from the rest of the cast since he’s an out-and-out sociopath who just uses other people for his own ends and takes advantage of their sympathy to use them :P

It’s either a sob story or no story at all, don’t know which fork on the road is more dangerous to travel on.

@FoldabotZ  
Totally, but maybe they figured that was too on-the-nose with the whole Japanese sensei thing XD

@FoldabotZ  
Nah, he is friends with Godzilla now. He doesn’t need to teach Batman. :p

@Badumsquish  
Really, Ken Watanabe should have been the Sensei.

@Wayneponeth  
Easiest way to fix that is just make him Ra’s Al Ghul all along. Most people saw that coming a mile away anyways because there’s no way they were going to pick an actor as famous, expensive, and well-known as Liam Neeson to play some random goon in the League of Shadows, and then pick the much less known Ken Watanabe to play Ra’s Al Ghul. Like, you knew Liam Neeson was going to be Ra’s Al Ghul, either by decoy or by inheriting the title when the “original” one died :P

@Badumsquish  
One of the problems with this is that Ra’s Al Ghul in the movie works a bit differently. Originally Liam Neeson’s character wasn’t Ra’s Al Ghul until it was revealed later in the film. The fake Ra’s Al Ghul was killed but Bruce didn’t know he was a fake. There needs to be a way to let Bruce knows Liam Neeson is actually Ra’s Al Ghul before he encountered Scarecrow or the emotional trauma wouldn’t work. Once it is revealed though, it’ll be even better. The real Ra’s Al Ghul would accidentally die even though Bruce tries to save him. Bruce would realize the person that trained him and taught him everything is actually the same person who wants to destroy Gotham. Both the guilt of killing his mentor and the conflict of being unsure what to believe anymore would make a really good psychological challenge for Batman. All these added to your idea would certainly make a better Batman Begins. :D

@Wayneponeth  
That’s the thing about Ra’s though. Like, from a storytelling perspective did that story actually need Ra’s? Scarecrow’s whole motive is his warped obsession with fear and spreading it and studying it and generally just getting off on people being coked out of their minds on fear gas. Wouldn’t it have made tons more sense for him to just be acting on his own? :D
 
Consider this alternate plot. The opening with the League of Shadows happens, but that’s the last you see of them. At some point Scarecrow finds the species of flower used by the League of Shadows, creates fear gas from it, and spikes the water supply with it to see what will happen. This makes Gotham’s residents become more and more erratic from prolonged small-time exposure to it, and it fucks with Batman’s head and makes him hallucinate that Ra’s is back. Then the final game of Scarecrow’s plan is to seed the clouds so it will rain this shit and make Gotham go batshit insane like what happens in the end when the gas is released. Batman ends up fighting Scarecrow on the plane he used to seed the clouds, to stop him from doing it to the rest of Gotham, but Scarecrow is actually a match for Batman due to the effects of the gas. Batman powers through and takes Scarecrow down but the plane gets damaged and begins to fall, Batman goes to go back for Scarecrow but hallucinates and sees Ra’s one final time, and so abandons the plane and lets Scarecrow die. Then in the end Batman is haunted that he let someone die, Alfred comforts him pointing out how it really wasn’t Batman’s fault, but Batman nevertheless reflects on how that darkness is him and how easy it would be for him to start killing if he ever let himself, and so that leads into the sequel and why he is so fiercely adamantly against letting even The Joker die :D
 
It’s practically the same movie, like you could probably edit the existing movie into that, but it gives Scarecrow way more presence as the main villain, has a way more straightforward plot and motivation for the characters, and actually has an “immortal” Ra’s in the form of this unkillable unstoppable hallucination that Batman can’t stop :D

@Phoenixflambe  
But then Nyssa would be killed and there is the risk of Ra’s coming back to terrorize Gotham again. Feels like a bigger sacrifice to me.

@Wayneponeth  
But still you have the option to interfere and save him, cause Batman’s a good boi.

@Phoenixflambe  
In Arkham Knight it’s technically old age that killed Ra’s so it doesn’t count. And I will defend Arkhamverse Batman all the way because I play all the games and love all of them. :P
 
@Badumsquish  
Probably because they have Scarecrow. They needed to make him do something because he really didn’t do much. But yeah, I mean he is not my favorite villain anyway. :P

@Wayneponeth  
That’s one of the things I don’t like about him, and why I brought up the whole Illuminati “so powerful yet can’t do jack” argument. So in the Nolan Batmans his organization has existed for millenia, and they’re able to infiltrate all levels of Gotham’s government, police, and infrastructure, and the best and most effective way they can destroy Gotham is that insanely overconvoluted plan involving hallucinogenic steam from a microwave on a train? Like, Joker AND Bane did a way better job taking down Gotham with a bomb and, to quote the Joker, “a few drums of gasoline and some bullets”. Like, load some cropdusters with bombs and anthrax. Dust the fuck out of the city, and then suicide-bomb the bridges to delay the rescue attempt long enough to kill the inhabitants. Like, Ra’s Al Ghul does NOT do good at his job XD
 
The whole thing where the Tree of Harmony has her cutie mark atop it and how Equestria is literally and unavoidably doomed if you remove her from the equation. I think it actually cheapens her exploits as a hero, and even kind of cheapens her friendships :P

@Wayneponeth  
“I won’t kill you, but I won’t save you either.”
 
So basically he killed him indirectly. And that happened the second time in Arkham Knight too.

@Badumsquish  
Well, he also has the goal of proving Batman wrong, kind of like the plot of Batman Begins. He wants to show Batman that his method doesn’t work and Gotham needs to be destroyed before being reborn from the ashes. I guess that’s basically just like a lot of people saying “Batman should kill people so he can really solve Gotham’s problems”, but Batman doesn’t kill for good reasons. However yeah, I guess Ra’s Al Ghul is just no as engaging as like Joker, Bane, and Scarecrow. Like one does it because it’s fun and the others do it because they’re scared of bats. All are more interesting motivations than “join us Detective and cleanse the world” like you’re immortal and crazy anyway why don’t you do it yourself? I guess Vandal Savage is a better immortal warrior. He doesn’t obsess over a man dressed like a bat. :P  
When did it reveal the destiny thing? I mean the Elements of Harmony choosing her and the Mane Six and all of them getting their Cutie Mark at the same time do indicate some sort of destiny but that’s in season 1. Also in season 1 the first episode, Twilight actually had a choice to go back to Canterlot and leave her friends behind but she chose to stay anyway. That is an indication she does do everything because she wants to, right? :P

@Phoenixflambe  
@Ardashir  
@Wayneponeth  
A big part of it is I’ve never liked Illuminati-style conspiracy-type characters or groups as villains, because their abilities and their motives are weirdly paradoxical, if that makes any sense. It’s like they simultaneously have so much power and resources that they can do literally anything, yet are so capable of doing anything that they either can’t do anything or have such massively lofty goals and actions that they’re completely irrelevant to the story. I seriously think it’s one of the least interesting things you can do in a story. So, a lot of my beef with Ra’s Al Ghul is personal preference I’ll admit :P
 
Same reason I don’t like prophesized or destined heroes. Like, when MLP revealed that Twilight was basically destined by a higher power to do what she did, and I remember thinking about before that reveal how she wanted to be Celestia’s protege, and she does what she does on behalf of Celestia because it’s what she believes in, and because she wants to, and because she wants the world to be a good place. So much so that she eventually proved herself worthy to be a princess, and eventually proved herself a worthy successor. When you think about all of that, not only was the reveal that it was her destiny totally meaningless since she would have done it either way anyways, but it also really cheapens what she did because now it doesn’t matter what she wanted to do or chose to do, because it would have happened with or without her wants and needs and probably with or without her. In other words, she basically doesn’t matter as much in the story with that reveal :P

@Badumsquish  
Ra’s Al Ghul wants Batman to be the next him. Batman is stronger and a lot more skillful than Ra’s. If Batman becomes another immortal warrior, Ra’s can die himself. Ra’s Al Ghul for me is actually just as much an arch nemesis as Joker to Batman. While Joker symbolizes practically everything opposite to the Dark Knight, Ra’s represents everything similar to Batman but more extreme. He wants to rid Gotham of crimes just like Batman does but he thinks it needs to be cleansed, burned, and not saved. He has limitless resources to do so just like Bruce Wayne. That limited resources include life. Ra’s probably believes evil can never be cleansed which is why he uses the Lazarus Pit, but let’s just be honest, he is probably just afraid of dying. That’s another difference between him and Batman. Batman’s probably perfectly fine with death as long as Gotham is safe, but Ra’s is too stubborn and cowardice to let Death decide his fate, to the point he’d even use his own daughter’s body as his own. That’s what makes him one of Batman’s biggest foils. Every villain of Batman has a bit of Batman in them, just more extreme or the opposite, representing what Batman would become if he didn’t have his rule. If Joker represents Batman’s psyche, Ra’s Al Ghul represents Batman’s ideology and moral. Ra’s is exactly what Batman would’ve become if he went into the Lazarus Pit.  
Another long post, guess I like to ramble about Batman lore as much as I do MLP. :P

@Badumsquish  
It’s not just you who feels that way.

@Badumsquish  
Batman doesn’t even want to put him down like with Joker since they appear beyond redemption.

@Wayneponeth  
I might be one of the few people who think this, but I’ve always thought Ra’s Al Ghul was a dumb Batman villain. He always just seemed out-of-place to me, like he seems like he belongs in an anime or a JRPG rather than something like Batman. He has the dumbest reason for fighting Batman too, like he’s been alive for centuries and will continue to live for centuries thanks to the Lazarus Pit, so why is he even fighting Batman? Like, he could just take 50 years off and just resume after Batman croaks XD

@Ardashir  
That’s the tragedy of Victor Fries and the only one who understands and cares for it is Batman.