Quote Originally Posted by The Glyphstone View Post
Who else would make sympathic-villain remake material? Cruella? Jafar? Frollo? Gaston? The last one could be interesting if you framed it right.
I say no to jafar and frollo, making them sympathetic would require too massive of a alteration to their characters. Gaston would be great because he is already like 90% protagonist. He is the hero of his village, the primary hunter, the towns defender in his own way. He is genuinely loved and popular and enjoys his life. He falls for this strange girl, the only one in the town that doesnt crawl all over him and is refused. He actually does decently well with the initial rejection, treating it as another "hunt" where he has to figure out the right bait to use. Then she vanishes and only her crazy father seems to know anything but he is ranting about magic beasts and such. She comes back and still refuses him, preferring to marry some ANIMAL rather than him and that final nudge pushes him over the edge.

Cruella might be interesting in more of a villain origin story rather than a feel bad for me im really a good person story. We get to watch her as a young woman trying to make her way in business and seeing the truly cruel and misogynistic world she is trying to make a name for herself in. She learns fast, after taking a few knives to the back, that the only way to get ahead is over the bleeding bodies of those ahead of you and she learns that lesson well. She starts buying into the mindset, rather than just using their tools against them, she accepts it as the way things are and becomes colder, crueler, and nastier than anyone else on her rise to the top.

And agreed to ursula, considering her already existing backstory of being tritons sister we could make her super sympathetic. The sister cast out for being born ugly, mocked and ridiculed by her brother and the court in general, eventually cast out after getting caught trying to do something for some petty revenge as a witch. Something along those lines.

Maybe Scar would work? A lion raised to rule but denied his place by a brother who is better than him in every way, barring maybe cleverness, loses control after his nephew is born, firmly removing him from the succession forever. You could feel bad for him as he lives a meaningless life as the king in waiting at best, not truly able to contribute, or give him a loki vibe.