Thread:Mediawatcher/@comment-3581997-20150905032118/@comment-3581997-20150922180924

Tragedy if unfortunate series of events that conspire against one person. Therefor a Tragic Villain can be a villain who actively becomes one in response to said events, or someone who is made a villain because of said events, or even someone who believes they are doing something bad for a good cause and then finds out said cause was never real. I'll try to convey the breakdown cleanly as I can.

Type 1: Life is going to piss on you til you've had enough.

 * For Mr Freeze it is the 1st type, his life is effectively over despite having no say in the events that lead to it. His villainy is in response to this. He had a tragic background and he is reacting to it. Basically this type is all about how justified the response is and it can be subjective but we mostly classify them as tragic based on the collective audience reaction.

This applies to folks like  Magneto, Delita Hyral, and so on

Type 2: An offer you can't refuse.

 * Scirocco is the 2nd type, he literally can't do anything to escape his fate. He is not responding to tragedy he is held hostage by it. Many villains are held hostage by circumstance or blackmailed into being villains, they are still villains because of their action, make no mistake of that, but in these cases they are aware of it and actively wish to stop. The tragedy in this case comes from the circumstance actively being presented to the audience as the perpetrator of evil deeds actually has the morality to be applaud by their own actions and yet given no choice in whether or not they keep happening.

Also See The Boss (Snake Eater), Sophitia, etc

Type 3: All for nothing.

 * The 3rd type is for people like Big Boss. Solider sees his fellow man thrown to the wolves, wishes to recreate the system to stop all further events, people die but he is prepared for that as long as they will be the last ones and in the end turns out he was only making the people he he was fighting against stronger and everyone died in vain.

And for that we have examples like Yoshiko Kawashima, Ulfric Stormcloak, Bill (Kill Bill)

Bonus points for close calls.

 * Generally events are held as more tragic if there they could have been easily altered with one or two actions/decisions. The closer the choices the more events display are given to tug at the heart strings of the audience. "Oh I am sorry you hot tails, a heads would have gotten you a winning lottery ticket but a Tails means death by sharks with laser beams attached to their heads". So in addition to the rest, playing with audience expectation can be a serious emotional garnish.

Lapis is mainly reacting to events that transpired so she would fit within the first avenue. The audience sympathy mainly comes from the garnish of the events being avoidable in hindsight yet events not working out that way.