This is why I think the anime “Avatar: The Last Airbender” has a really unique perspective on “evil”. The villains in Avatar (and also in Korra), do incredibly evil, even genocidal things. Things that normally a viewer and everyone in the story universe would say “they deserve to die for that”. And maybe they do.

But to me, what was unbelievably powerful, was that the Buddhist protagonist, Aang, survivor of genocide, he actually STRUGGLES with the concept of killing ANYTHING and he questions the assumption that in order for him to defeat the Fire Lord and bring balance back to the world, he needs to kill him. And even though everyone around is telling him he needs to kill him, he chooses to find a third way. It’s a conclusion I’ve never seen in mainstream TV let alone a children’s anime.

Indeed, the whole Avatar universe is built on the idea that no one is one hundred percent evil. That it’s more about certain choices being evil, and a lot of the time the villains (Zuko, Kuvira, Zaheer) are shown as people who had understandable or even sympathetic motivations in some ways, but who took their beliefs too far and ended up becoming a monster.