"Every villain is the hero of their own story" is true as far as it goes. But this does *not* mean, "Every villain needs to have sympathetic, relatable motivations."

The real world is full of people who just want to dominate, hurt and ruin others. They're the "heroes" in an ugly, terrible story.

@charliejane absolutely. This was one of the things that the protagonist in my latest novel had to learn the hard way-- the primary antagonist didn't have any grand, relatable, redeeming goal. They just wanted to use their power to hurt people they saw as less than them, because they found it fun.