Scans_Daily

I do see your point, but when it turns into *all*, or even *most*, of the villains having horribly abusive pasts that drive them to do what they do...I'm not sure I like the implications of abused = non-neurotypical = evil. (And not all mental illness is caused/contributed to by child abuse, naturally.) From a pure storytelling point of view, using the same trope wears it out -- unless, like in this story, you have something different and character-specific to do with it. For far too many writers, Alcoholic Abusive Father #146870 is what they throw in when they can't think of anything else. And it shows.

But mostly, I don't find it disrespectful of people who have been abused to say that when abuse is used as a cheap gut punch, a generic way to win audience sympathy, then it is in fact gratuitous and itself disrespectful. In the same way I don't find it disrespectful of people who have been raped to say that the way rape is treated in comic books (as the go-to angst and/or backstory for female characters) is gratuitous.