#willgrief

In my opinion, Afton is (OBVIOUSLY) affected by a mental illness, which makes him less empathetic and more risky with his decisions which leads to him displaying serious neglect towards people he should care about

He does not know right and wrong, exposing his family to danger he doesn't see as “that serious”, and he often prioritizes minor victories in his passion over them, which, obviously, creates an appearance of a heartless person, but could actually be a result of him just being... Unstable. Ill.

When it comes to people who are ill, you can't just choose one side of a spectrum and proclaim you're correct. When trying to prove their point, i've seen a lot of people say something like “he did (bad thing), (bad thing) and (bad thing), obviously he doesn't care about anyone! But don't bring up (that one thing where he displayed actual care) because it's overshadowed by the amount of the bad deeds”

Why not take valid arguments into account? The relationships of a character is not some rock-concrete “yes or no” question, it's not “one or the other”, and I think many people fail to understand that. For example, if William actually did not care about anyone, why would he continuously tell Elizabeth not to go to Circus Baby? What would be the point of that? If he did not care what child would be the test subject of the kidnapping mechanism, why care if it's Elizabeth or not? In fact, if it was her, it would be even beneficial to him, as nobody would question his innocence as the owner of the restaraunt if it was his child that dissapeared, and it would be just one less mouth to feed. You can't just leave that out as “inferior” to the arguments that prove his horribleness. Why would he organize a birthday party at his restaraunt for the Crying Child if he did not care? And, when it comes to the movie, why would William give away personal belongings of the victims, his “trophies”, to his daughter? Why would he care to make his kid happy with yet another toy if he could just keep it somewhere, hidden? I think it's obvious he viewed his children as his children, just very negligently exposing them to danger and hurting them with his experiments or his blind devotion to his work. When he stabs Vanessa, you can see a moment of thought and regret in his eyes – which is, of course, just a speculation, but adds to the point.

I feel like people just hate the assumption of Afton being actually human with human feelings, which are, surprise-surprise!, complex, and complexity is what makes a good character. You don't need a character to be literal Satan to be considered a worthy villain, and accepting their humane characteristics does not equal justification for their wrongs. In fact, if you cannot consider a character a villain if they're not the incarnation of evil in their every aspect, it's possible that you find any positive or neutral feature of theirs a worthy excuse that cancels out their every wrongdoing and makes them “less of an antagonist”, which puts your understanding of right and wrong to the question.

Just to be clear, I am not trying to attack anyone in this post, I am not seeking to start an argument – all I'm saying is, if you take EVERYTHING into account, it is false to decide on just one part of a character's behaviour and call it absolute. You should be equally accepting of all opinions and not start unnecessary fights on the internet because somebody thinks differently. Be nice spread love