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He's just a mean character.

When I would watch the movie as a kid, I saw him as the lead player on a high school football team, (just like he's the lead dog for his team), and he bullies Balto like we see jocks do in typical movies and shows that have these high school scenarios in them. I mean, you even have the competition for Jenna.

My point: he's not evil, he's just a bully.

Steele is not evil. He is just a very self-centered character; a bully.

Being said, I think this topic is rather pointless. Since Steele is clearly not a villain, there is nothing more to discuss.

P.S. Please consider using spell-check, there are numerous spelling errors in your writing. Not to mention the failure to capitalize the beginning of sentences, I and nouns.

Seriously, work on your grammar and spelling. If you're going to make topics, consider a spell check before posting and just basic grammar rules, like starting names and new sentences with Capital letters...
I'm not a native speaker but your way of writing annoys me greatly.

If Steele's actions weren't evil, then please tell me what it takes to qualify as such. Must he be in a position to derive no benefit at all from his actions before they count as evil? Perhaps end lives directly rather than simply robbing them of what they need to survive?

If Steele isn't a villain, then I can name a good many others in animation who weren't either.

That said, I'm with you on the spelling/grammar check suggestion.

I don't see the need to get technical over a character from a movie, DT. And I should think someone like yourself would be able to answer that question.

Anyways, Steele is nothing more than a bully, nuff' said.

While it is up for debate whether or not Steele is a true villain, he certainly plays the antagonistic role in the movie, and therefore, from a storytelling point of view, he is in fact the "villain".

Does that make him evil? Not necessarily. He is, as others have said, self-centered and a bully, but that's hardly evil. Shallow, yes, even mean--certainly a jerk--but far from a true "evil".

When I see 'evil' I think demons and the Devil himself. How the heck does a self centered bully fall into that at ALL? No, he's not evil. Just "mean".

I really don't think that there is anything wrong with the topic. People around here seem all too quick to call for discussions to end and threads to be locked etc. I don't really understand that personally.

Steele is a villain in the traditional sense in that Balto is the good guy underdog and any good guy needs a bad guy. I wouldn't call him evil because I don't believe that he was - he was just focussed on his own selfish goals. The fact that nothing bad (apart from losing all of his respect) happened to him at the end confirms this. A truely evil character would have had karma catch up with them in relation to their previous actions.

I think he's just a bully , maybe as a pup he was bullied alot, himself?But i don't look at Steele as the bad guy.

Personally, I don't think Steele possibly being bullied as a pup caused him to be a bully himself. I think a highly inflated ego is more to blame for that--getting cocky and feeling the need to pick on those who couldn't "measure up" to his standard of "worthiness".

Regardless of your personal opinion of his attitude, as I said earlier, he very obviously plays the role of the villain in this story.

Though perhaps, in Steele's case, the term "bad guy" may be more suitable than the term "villain". One can be "bad" like Steele without being considered evil as the term "villain" suggests.

I remember reading somewhere that, contrary to popular belief, bullies often torment others out of a surplus of perceived self-worth, rather than a lack of it. So your assessment of Steele makes sense.

As for questions of the term "villain" as applied to Steele, I'm not sure I agree; I find the idea of drawing a dichotomy between "villain" and "bad guy" somewhat hazy. It's probably not a point I would get into a long dispute over, but forums are for speaking one's mind, so that's that I'm doing.

It depends on who you're comparing him to. If you compare him to Johann from Monster, then Steele is a fricken innocent kitten eating a cupcake. If you compare him to Balto, he's just a bully and a bigot. If you compare him to Fluttershy from My Little Pony, then he's the devil (but oddly enough, he wouldn't even be the worst villain in the series either LMAO).

You can't be so narrow-minded to say "evil is evil, there's no grey area for evil". There is. Someone can do something bad and have good intentions (for themselves or otherwise). Those are some of the best villains. Someone who firmly believes they're doing good when they aren't. They mean well, but they will do whatever it takes to make their goals possible. Steele /could/ fall in this category. But does he? Well, lets do some analysis.

Let's look at "evil" as an adjective.

e?vil

1.) morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked.
2.) harmful; injurious: evil laws.
3.) characterized or accompanied by misfortune or suffering; unfortunate; disastrous: to be fallen on evil days.
4.) due to actual or imputed bad conduct or character: an evil reputation.

1.) Morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked. What did Steele do to constitute to be evil? When it comes down to it, peoples' ultimate argument (other than the ever-so-stupid "he picked on Balto" argument) was that he endangered the lives of children. Yes, he did. But was that his goal? No. His goal was to keep his fame an glory.

2.) Harmful; injurious. He did perform physical and mental harm. But only to Balto xD This doesn't count as anything to me. Mainly because Balto was equal to Steele. He was physically capable, he was mentally capable, he could stand up for himself. Bottom line, Balto wasn't helpless. Bullying someone who is capable of protecting themselves is not evil.

3.) Characterized or accompanied by misfortune or suffering; unfortunate; disastrous. Well, we don't know Steele's past. So could he be tragic? I don't know. The only evidence we get on the possibility is that his musher is losing faith in his own abilities. And he hates wolves. Hate (or anger) is derived from fear or hurt, or in other cases just pure disgust xD But we won't discuss that one. Many villains aren't simply villainous for the sake of being villainous. They have reason (whether logical or otherwise) to do what they do. The only reason we see Steele picking on Balto is because of his being part wolf. So perhaps a wolf did some harm to him or someone he knew in the past. We don't know. Just an observation.

4.) Due to actual or imputed bad conduct or character. This is mainly based on reputation of having done bad things again and again in the past. I'm not talking about the reputation at the end of the movie, because we don't KNOW what his reputation was at the end of the movie. We see the dogs getting peeved at him. Then he's left alone in the boiler room. Symbolism? Sure. But what I've said time and time again, what we SEE is what IS CANON for these characters. So as far as reputation is concerned, I'll talk about his reputation from what we see in the beginning of the movie. Steele had a positive reputation for the most part. He was loved by the ladies, he had fans, human and dog alike, and was seen as a hero. As far as we saw, the only person who was displeased with Steele from the beginning was Jenna. (Even Balto wanted to see the race, regardless of who was winning.) But thanks to the movie's wonderful writing, we never see why Jenna dislikes Steele (in the beginning). She could just not like him because he's egotistical (having an ego doesn't make someone evil). We don't know. You can guess all you want, but if you try to counter my arguments with stupid "well this could be this because of this" nonsense, stop. Stop. STOP. I don't want to hear your theories. What we SEE is what we KNOW.

So like I said. He can be evil by definition. But he's not evil. And he is not the definition of evil. He picked on Balto, and hit on Jenna, and was generally angry and frustrated. To be considered evil, he could have been out to get the residents of Nome, Rosie specifically to "get back" at Jenna. Hurting people was not his intention. (if you recall, he was trying very hard to get back) He wanted to be the one to deliver the medicine and get fame for it. And he didn't kill a bunch of people to make sure it happened. Would that have happened due to carelessness? Probably. But again, not his goal.