Handsome Jack, Magnus the Red, Vriska Serket, Bill Cypher, Edelgarde von Hresvelg, The Empire, Griffith, Homura, Feanor, Thanos, Shinji, Severus Snape, Magneto.
There is a single similarity for all these characters, and it is there is a large demographic of people who seem to believe these people who did a lot wrong, didn’t do anything wrong. Saying ____ DID NOTHING WRONG is generally done to mock these people. Why they do it is either because of fandom drama (People blaming everyone in Gravity Falls for the Apocalypse other then the Demon who caused it) or it’s mostly because people don’t like saying “I like this flawed or villainous character” and feel they need to defend them so they can feel good about themselves or it’s pure Meming in the case of Feanor and Thanos.
We have several cases of this in WoW, and i’ll go over each individual case one by one, why people feel the need to defend them (imo) and what they did wrong
GARITHOS: 90% sure this one is pure meming, the other 10% is that some people are salty the Belves went Horde. Anyway, even ignoring his attempts to get Kael’thas killed, dude was a terrible general. Like legit awful, guy got himself mind controlled by a dreadlord then allied with a later person on this list
DAELIN: This guy is awkward to talk about because blizzard seems adamant on proving him right. Basically he is the one responsible for reigniting hostilities between the alliance and horde under the belief the horde couldn’t be trusted, and then blizzard repeatably villain batted the horde until they… couldn’t be trusted, way to go guys. Let’s just say he wasn’t supposed to be right when Metzan and Crew wrote him.
ARTHAS: These guys really really liked Mr.Menethil, to an unhealthy degree. They beleive Stratholhme was justified and will defend it to the end, then convienaintly forget all the other awful crap arthas did (like leaving muradin to die and killing his own soldiers) and will claim he was possesed by the lich king (Ignoring the fact Arthas’ will is stronger then Ner’zhuls).
Garrosh: Orc Supremacist and hothead tyrant, Garrosh gains a lot of Sympathy points for his final moments and the fact you can quite obviously point out he was doomed to failure (Made Warchief in a reasource crisis with his own advisors hated his guts). He also was the one Horde Warchief in wow’s lifespan to actually care about making life better for a part of the horde, sure it was only the orcs, but it’s better then letting them starve in a desert for penance, doing literally nothing and dying, or our next canidate. Still man was a super racist hotheaded fool who’s warmongering is still felt thoughout the world.
Sylvanas: Sylvanas’ Defense Force exist for a variety of reason. One is the fact her characterization has been changed like 6 times so some authors might make her care a lot for the Forsaken, some will have her veiw them as meat shield. She also stole all the spotlight and themes of the Forsaken, so that part of the playerbase is super attatched to her because their entire society was trimmed away until it was only her left. Finally she is a female elf. On the other hand she is responsible for many, many atrocities from as far back as Cata, and in BfA she wen’t completely off the deep end and brutally murdered around 55% of the Night Elf population at the very least
Genn: Wolfman opposses Sylvanas so the part of the fanbase that hates Sylvie is far more willing to overlook the old mans flaws. Namely how he ruined a joint military front to chase after and try to kill Sylvanas. Sure blizzard tried to whitewash it by making her be evil, but Genn didn’t know that, he just wanted to kill her and was willing to reignite the alliance horde was to do it. Man also abandoned his allies to the scourge and his recklessness lead to his son taking an arrow to save his life.
Jaina: Jaina is fun because if they like war Jaina you can use peace Jaina to show why she’s bad (Such as abondening a perfectly good attack to let the people mourn, and being willing to let her father die), while if they like Peace Jaina you can use the Purge and trying to drown orc orphans as why she’s bad. Ultimately Jaina is less a character and more a series of personalities that take turns driving the super-powered wizard lady
Gallywix: He is the one character to do no wrong, sure he might be an arms manufacturing trying to exploit the wars the horde find itself in for maximum profit, sure he might have enslaved his entire cartel in an attempt to be even richer, but he is the hottest character in wow so it evens out.