Fallen Hero Based On Envy (Idea)

[Leliel]

During my daily dose of TV Tropes, I realized that, despite seeing quite a few anti-villans and heroes based on ye old biblical synonym for lack of self-esteem (come on, since when has anyone been jealous of someone beacuse of confidence?), there has never actually been any fallen heroes who actually became that way beacuse of it, despite having a lot of potential. So...

How would one set about making an antagonist of the "Fallen Hero" archetype whose "Start of Darkness" (So to speak) was a result of biblical Envy, and make them still seem sympathetic?

[martyboy74]

I think that the archetypical character for this would be Cain. He fits this pretty well. You could just take his story alter a couple a details, and you'd have a working character.

[MisterSaturnine]

Martyboy makes a great point. Cain really makes an excellent villain or anti-hero. Also, you could look at Henry from Skin of Our Teeth (who is Cain, I suppose): no one loves him, and all he really wants is to be loved/accepted (especially by his father). When that doesn't happen, he does a lot of evil things and basically goes, "Well, if I can't be loved, I'll settle for being hated. The world rejected me--now I'm rejecting the world." Hell, one of his line (referring to his father is:

"I'll kill him so fast. I've spent 7 years trying to find him; the others I killed were just substitutes."

Keep in mind that at this point, Henry is basically Hitler. That's a lot of people to kill. And every single time he kills someone, he's killing the person he's always wanted to love him.

Now that's a good villain.

[Leliel]

Oh come on! Surely it isn't that bad an idea!

[Azerian Kelimon]

It ain't THAT hard. Any emotional cripple could qualify for this. As an example, I'm a (minor) emotional cripple, and I was treated like a freak when I was in school (throughout primary and high) because I "suffer" from hyperlaxitude. As a result, I'm VERY introverted, and I have it very hard to make contact with someone else. It's a good example of how you could start a villain, though it'd have to be on a larger scale.