From Villain to Victim

There has been a swell of movies of late featuring the villains of past stories in a new light. As such, it raised some questions from me. Children’s stories generally have some sort of moral or lesson. They often depict characters with either desired or undesired traits, a hero and a villain. In these stories, the hero never does wrong, as that is how they win, doing the right thing. Always. 
    It’s interesting though, looking at these villain remakes, how much depth is put into someone's personality when before their entire being was evil for evil’s sake essentially. To try and make those notorious for causing suffering and death have a reason behind their actions is a perplexing choice. Granted, few people are solely terrible, but at the same time, there are those that just predominantly suck. It would make sense to show someone go to great lengths to exact revenge upon someone who wronged them. It has all the potential of an exciting story with a twist when using a classic villain as the protagonist. They are known to be vile but then oh look, someone did a tragedy upon them and that’s why they’re so bitter. 
    What I find intriguing though, the original “heroes” or “good guys” stay the same completely. Whether it be in their own remake or whether they’re a part of their arch nemesis’ remake, those characters never change. They always choose the high road, they never fight dirty, they never kill to avoid being killed. Because those things are bad. So why are we garnering sympathy and understanding for these terrible people? People who have attempted murder, eternal curses, the de-pelting of newly born canines. Why are they the ones we try to bring humanity to?
    There is nothing wrong with being the bigger person in most situations. Most. However, would it not be far more powerful to show the hero, the good guy, go through the gauntlet of emotional turmoil as they face this person trying to destroy them for whatever reason because they want to do better but they aren’t always given that choice? Don’t get me wrong, these themes are definitely touched on but never with as much devastation and drama as they are in these villain remakes. Maleficent was horrifying when a vital part of her being was burned off by the person she grew up with and came to love. Her actions thenceforth felt completely justified. Snow White in Once Upon A Time refused to kill the evil queen after this woman nearly killed her prince charming, forced her to abandon her newborn child, wiped her memory and thrust her into a completely different world for twenty-two years. Maleficent cursed a baby and ultimately killed her lover because he de-winged her and tried to destroy her home. Snow White did nothing because her heart would turn black or something if she did anything violent. There is no such thing as being all good. People are flawed and damaged. And we seem to really want to show that with the already despised characters of stories but not so much the ones we look up to. Would it not be a much better message to show that even our heroes can feel fury and hatred and the lust for vengeance? Would it not be a good thing to show that good is not always putting up with a problem but sometimes destroying it completely?  Mulan is a lovely example of what I mean. She had an enemy, that enemy was killing a lot of people and trying to take over a country, she did not try and reason with that enemy, she blew him up with fireworks instead. That needed to be done, that was the good thing to do. 
There is rarely a clear answer to the solution of conflicts. We are seeing that with our villainous protagonists now. But it would be nice, if the same effort was being put into the redesigning of flawless do-gooders since they’re human too, and as such should be given more layers as well.