Modern Television Series Increasingly Trade Unrepentant Villains for Sympathetic Backstories

A trend toward humanizing fictional villains is reshaping modern television, according to an analysis by The Guardian. Critics suggest that shows are increasingly prioritizing empathetic backstories over the "deliciously sinful" and unrepentant evil that characterized classic portrayals, arguing this shift may be softening the impact of iconic antagonists.

In Netflix’s recent adaptation of John Steinbeck's *East of Eden*, showrunner Zoe Kazan and lead actor Florence Pugh presented a version of Cathy Ames—a character who commits acts of arson, murder, and poisoning—that is rooted in childhood trauma. While the book depicts Cathy as cold and unfeeling, the television series introduces a flashback sequence implying she was abused, effectively shifting the character from a pure brute to a figure shaped by pain. Similarly, the series shortened a violent encounter between brothers Adam and Charles Trask, reframing Charles as a lonely, remorseful figure rather than the vicious antagonist found in the novel.

This pattern appears elsewhere in contemporary media. In the 2026 series *Carrie*, based on the Stephen King novel, primary antagonists are given more sympathetic motivations; the bully Chris Hargensen is depicted as a victim of neglect, while Carrie’s mother is framed through a lens of misguided but fierce love. Meanwhile, the legal drama *War* portrays a billionaire social media mogul, Morgan Henderson, as a character whose hostile actions are presented as external mandates rather than innate malice, ultimately allowing for an amicable resolution between the leads.

According to The Guardian, while this "softer touch" reflects a contemporary cultural receptivity to redemption and empathy, it may come at the cost of the catharsis found in traditional storytelling. Antagonists like Matthew Rhys’s sociopathic character in *The Beast in Me* serve as examples of why audiences may still find enjoyment in "unapologetically evil" figures. The report concludes that when television forces viewers to feel pity for characters who behave poorly, the act of "hate-watching"—often a source of entertainment—becomes less rewarding.