I always thought Crocodile as a cold realist kind of person.
He has respect for people who are strong and who is on his level, even a plus if at the same time they can be of use to him.
For those who are "weak" or average or dumb(mr3), he has no qualms manipulating and destroying.
He plays around with Vivi and Cobra for that reason, a god complex but not like that of Enel(because I don't see our fake god respecting anyone.)
If you are strong and have power, he will respect and see your line of thought to a certain degree.
Even partnering with you when it calls for it because he sees the profit in it, doesn't really matter if you ruined his masterplan that took years, as long as he sees you as a potential partner that won't drag him down.
In his world, only power exists. And rightfully so in the pirate's world, Vivi's goodwill would never have saved the kingdom.
Orochimaru, on the other hand, does a 180 character transformation because Kabuto followed his "path" and failed so he saw this failure and the futility of it through him.
and the death of Jiraiya supposedly(or we were lead to believe) sparked good in him.
I got that all from fans defending or preaching that he is a "neutral" on google.
Yeah utter bullshit.
Look maybe if he was manipulated(Obito) or it was due to circumstances (Zabuza) then it's maybe slightly believable.
Out of all the villains in Naruto, there's a reason why Madara is revered and one of the better bad guy if not the best.
Because in the end the dude didn't enter the religion of Narujesus and stuck to his middle finger to fake peace.
Sasuke influenced no one during his entire career as an emo avenger and supposedly we are made to believe Naruto has this huge influence on everyone. So basically Naruto(and part Itachi) influenced Sasuke when he seeks to redeem himself with the massacre plan so when Orochimaru saw that "he did the right thing" and because he was his student(that he manipulated, amongst others who are all dead), his worldview of decades changed because of Sasuke.
Oh and Also because seeing his crazy fan-boy/follower(Kabuto) end up almost mentally crippled and devasted apparently helped him realize that his whole dream/goal was stupid.
No amount of plot or character development will ever write psychopath out of Orochimaru.
He toyed and experiment on a bunch of kids, killed the 3rd Hokage and let's no mention the countless people he killed.
He was the epitome of Evil during the first half of Naruto and even after that every single deed he did was for himself and his raging boner for immortality.
You think he ever really cared about furthering the ninja world research or being a devoted scientist? Yeah no.
ALL villains in Naruto share a general trend of having something to emphasize with.
Orochimaru has zero.
The only redeeming factor about Orochimaru is that he didn't get talk-no jutsued.
About Mayuri: at least he's consistent.