"When Baddies Dream of Being Good": Actually, aren't most "villains" really the good guy in their own mind, and justify their actions? Or do they do anything worse than the "good" guys? But I do love a good redemption arc...
You made me want to try Chief Kim again. As much as I love Junho I've never been able to get into this one.
Is Come Here and Hug Me the same as Come and Hug Me? From your description I think so...Ah, I had to look it up but honestly, I don't remember much about Hyun moo.
And...you're talking to a Loki fangirl here.
Sometimes it's the bad guy who has the most interesting role. Loki's a prime example.
What about "Bad Guy"? Kim Nam Gil and especially Kim Jae wook.
Aargh, now I want to re-watch everything on your list and I'm to pare my list down!
So thanksalot.
I really enjoyed your article too!

Awesome @mary!! I love myself a conflicted villain to root for in my Kdramas (eg: Hyuk in TLE, Junho in Chief Kim, Hwang in The Fiery Priest). But I also don't mind hating the rotten-to-the-core villains (eg: scarface in The Fiery Priest, Evil 4 in Return, Jae Kyung in YWCFTS). They indeed make the drama more exciting and will never be the boring one. (Lol half of my villain list is one actor. I need to find a new drama with new villains to add on my villain list 🤣)

Outside of dramaland, my favourite anti-hero/villain might be Loki. At one point he is evil, another he feels bad...he gave me whiplash trying to figure out which side is he on. Tbh, I think the Thor movies won't be exciting at all without his character.

This was fun. This is why I haven't watched The Last Empress because from the wall I so would of wanted the emperor to end up the hero.
I love the story arc that can come from a grey (or darker)character redeeming themselves.
I dropped The Walking Dead but i couldn't believe how i came to love Daryl. The last season I watched there was a little part of my heart that wished he and Beth could just hide away in that house eating gross sandwiches and playing the piano.
Jamie Lannister was horrible in the beginning of the book and show versions of Game of Thrones but I adored his friendship with Brienne. I wish they'd just kept on going on their road trip.
Then their is Boyd Crowder and how I wanted him to become best friends forever with Raylan Givens a pretty dark grey character himself. This show I finished and loved till the end. Their, "We dug coal together." is still one of my favorite lines.

Food Psycho! I miss him.

My favorite non-drama villain redemption is an oldie but a goodie -- Darth Vader.

...there’s an easy way to put us drama fans on a watching, commenting, and gif-ing frenzy: just dangle the villain redemption carrot

I am in this article and I don't like it. HAHA. Kidding aside, I easily fall in love with female baddies, namely Hoo-ja and Jamie, since aweeesome women like them are rare in Dramaland. But then the Royal Hotness Shin Sung-rok in The Last Empress came into my drama-watching life, and everything suddenly changed. My fan wall became a SSR GIF haven and I became reeeeaaally invested in that show because it does not only contain cunning evil women (which are all amazing and cray cray btw). I only started that show because I saw granny used her weave to beat up the emperor and his mistress and it looks so much fun but I ended up staying for the strong female lead and the emperor that has changed for the better.

Wonderful write-up @mary! 👏👏 I see you're still spreading the Kim Kyung Nam love. Well done! :D First he's a wannabee marshmallow villain in COME AND HUG ME, and then he's the outraged hero sidekick in SPECIAL LABOR INSPECTOR JO. I loved that pic of the chaos in Deok-Gu's lair. 😂

*CHIEF KIM spoilers below*
Gluttonous Sociopath's redemption was the most satisfactory watch for in 2017. I hoped, ranted, and despaired in the recap discussion that he had reached "the point of no return", but then the show redeemed him and gave us just enough delicious pay-off to make it worth it.

I'm so glad you gave me a moment to revisit my favorite heroes villains here. Hyuk, Food Psycho, Weasel, Jamie, and my newest bad girl crush Park Hoo-ja are just so charismatically memorable. (and adorable too)

Boring villains are the worst, especially when you can’t figure out why they are doing things and then they drag down the whole drama. So, it’s always interesting to see the ones that want to be someone else or just become something else for the heck of it. Also, Missing 9 could’ve been an okay show if it didn’t have that last episode party! I’m still mad and confused on why they let him join them, like huh?! He could’ve and probably would’ve killed you all, sigh. Chen’s OST for it was good though, hehe!

Urgh, I loved every single one of those villains. I'm obviously a total sucker for that redemption arc.

Thanks @mary for a great post!

Wow, Mary, you make me wish to watch "come and hug me" only because of that description of the brother.

Thank you for your article. Of all the examples I only know glutton in chief Kim and I also loved his redemption arc.

It may be fun to sum up a list of baddies who wanted to harm our heroes but things went wrong for them, just like the uncle in "shopping king louie" 😂😂😂😂
These baddies were also not boring.

@mary, how did I just KNOW Hyun-moo was going to be in there from the title! 😆
Your write-ups always make my day better!

Some villains are more effective than the hereos like Yoo Seung Ho in Warrior Dong Baek Soo, he did all the bad work for Ji Chank Wook to be the hero. The same in Ruler Master of the Mask, Yoon So Hee was the daughter of the villain but at the end she did more than the Prince.

For Forest of Secrets, I think the hardest part was the killer, he was a part of the team :(

Hyun-moo in Come Here and Hug Me was a great character. His evolution was nice to see. Kim Kyung Nam was great in this role, he really impressed me.

This reminds me of Zuko’s character arc in the three seasons of “Avatar: The Last Airbender”. He moved from villainous, to conflicted, to awkward ally and finally trusted fried.

The Wok of Love gang wanted to become good but had
retain their badness in order to make things work out.

So good. Thanks for reminding me of the times when baddies join the good guys--even for a few scenes. Your words reminded me of Squad 38, when the evil boss Ma Jin-Suk was turned to help the task force. (Oh, how vile was he at first when he made his housekeeper choke down the water.) I never fully trusted him, even when he changed sides. And that made the drama even better.

Ahh....Draco Malfoy....I don't remember seeing any particular crack on his shell except that he sure got scared a lot of Voldy + gang in the final book.

Loki though, is quite interesting. He's so unpredictable, I can never tell what he really wants. It makes the movies fun to watch.

I like the term "Wildcard Villians". It's so apt for your article Mary. And I really like the write up because I too find myself on edge when a villain has second thoughts of being a villain.

"like a redemption story on crack" 😂😂😂😂😂

I actually hate charaters who keep changing sides. But Seo Dong-Jae was so perfectly written and played that I couldn't hate him. It was in a way reassuring that you knew you should never trust him, no matter which side he was on.

@mary you had me at Chief Kim. SOOO satisfying!
Forest of Secrets is on my "rewatch at Christmas" list for its backstabbing double crossing good-but-bad characters.

This reminds me of a song in an animated movie called "All Dogs go to Heaven 2" where an evil cat is proudly singing about how great it is to be bad. If you have a silly moment, watch it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJwd86x81SI

I am sure all our fav Bad God Guys sing this when they look at themselves in the mirror in the morning. lol

I LOVE THIS @mary and im so glad you brought up the URGENCY for us to get our villain redemption, but it has to be done right. The perfect example you used for redemption done wrong was missing 9. Like seriously, bam! They just decide to forget his past actions. HOW? What logic?
And yes, you pinpointed, the exact right issue: we want the redemption to come quick because we know how fragile our villain is and we're afraid for him to do the unforgivable (that didnt stop me from loving royal hotness tho, but let's be honest, no lgic was used in that show).

Seo-Dong Jae. Gosh, I just realized how much I appreciated his character. My favourite thing is that you can't exactly classify him as a villain, or a hero really. Probably that's why he never paid for his mistakes. Ironically, he did had some limits, but just because he knew there would be consequences.
I related to him a lot, because he wasn't in any way genius, he just had this cockroach survival instinct. In the world of Forest of Secrets that was exactly what kept him afloat.

@mary I know I came late to the party but I love it so much ♥️💙💜💛💚💖❤️
"Wildcard villains add chaos to everything" which add more spicing to the story and so much fun to watching a drama