History KnightTemplar / Videogames

* In the ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys'' franchise, [[spoiler:the Puppet fits the Trope. As revealed in ''3'', it is inhabited by the soul of a murdered child (possibly the first victim of the Murderer) and its goal throughout the whole franchise was vengeance on the Murderer. It was responsible for turning the animatronics murderous in the first place and binding the spirits of the murdered children to them in an attempt to kill its enemy. Unfortunately, they and the Puppet itself wound up killing a ''lot'' of other security guards, too.]]

** The Bounty Hunter's ArcVillain in chapters 2 and 3 is Jedi Battlemaster Jun Seros, who ''ostensibly'' is trying to bring the BH to justice for assassinating Master Kellian Jaro in peacetime and destroying his ship. Depending on roleplay, you were arguably JustFollowingOrders: it was a bounty contract from Mandalore, [[BlamedForBeingRailroaded which the game gives no option to complete nonlethally]]. And he commits a lot of dirty, un-Jedi-like tricks to get at you, which ultimately backfire horribly on the Republic itself when he drives the BH to team up with Darth Tormen.

** Nomar Organa in the Sith Inquisitor story is a TautologicalTemplar who is utterly convicted of his own rightness no matter how the PlayerCharacter approaches their interactions with him and his ex-fiancee Rehanna Rist, whom he left out of adherence to the Jedi Code. Even faced with a lightside Inquisitor who legitimately means it when they try to play matchmaker between him and Rist, he remains utterly convinced that they ''must'' be an evildoer trying to trick them ''just'' because they're Sith.

** The Sith Warrior's first StoryArc has them pursuing a Jedi Padawan, Jaesa Willsaam, with unusually strong empathic powers whom Darth Baras deems a risk to his spy network. At one point the Warrior is confronted by two of her master Nomen Karr's other subordinate Knights, and can try to TalkTheMonsterToDeath by pointing out that Jedi aren't supposed to pick fights and they ''don't'' truly know that the Warrior's intentions towards Willsaam are to harm her. One of the Knights is actually receptive to this and can be convinced to stand down, but the other insists that the only good Sith is a dead one and attacks.

** Despite the name, the Protoss High Templar may or may not be like this. However, one of the major characters, Aldaris, is a Knight Templar to the core. At first, he didn't care whether Tassadar was contacting the Dark Templar for the good of the Protoss race in general because he knows that they are the only ones who can destroy the Overmind; he violated the Conclave's orders, so he must be arrested. Before that, during the Zerg and Terran campaigns, he ordered the destruction of all life on any planet with a Zerg presence. He got better after seeing Tassadar and Zeratul's efforts (also Raynor's) to defeat the Overmind and started supporting them, but in Brood Wars, once again, he acts as a Knight Templar, refusing to work with Kerrigan while the others had no choice but to ally with her. Unfortunately, this is the only time where his actions were actually RIGHT. And he's killed soon after. By Kerrigan, who reveals that she's been using the rest of the Protoss the whole time.

* [[TheRival Shadow the Hedgehog]] of the ''Franchise/{{Sonic|TheHedgehog}}'' series depending on who is on his hit list.

** The ending for [[spoiler:Siegfried]] in ''[[VideoGame/SoulSeries SoulCalibur IV]]'' [[spoiler:causes him to say, after defeating Nightmare, "With this... it ends." "Our kind must not exist in this world; not ever again." This causes [=SoulCalibur=] to crystallize him, Siegfried, and Soul Edge...as the screen fades to black, the epilogue says that the world will soon be "covered in crystals, making it a utopia without wars or suffering." Whether this is Siegfried's choice or [=SoulCalibur=]'s is unknown.]]
** [[spoiler:Cassandra]]'s ending makes it pretty clear that [[EmpathicWeapon SoulCalibur]] has a serious Knight Templar streak. [[spoiler:She is so fed up with what her sister, [[WellIntentionedExtremist Sophitia]], has become because of [=SoulCalibur=] that, after destroying Soul Edge, she destroys Soul Calibur as well]].
** Confirmed in ''[[VideoGame/SoulSeries SoulCalibur V]]'': [[spoiler: Soul Calibur fakes Sophitia's form to manipulate her son Patroklos to kill his sister Pyrrha, the wielder of Soul Edge. After unleashing its true power, the sword subtly mind controls him to assure him he can't save her, and when he kills her, the sword dumps his soul into a void while it turns the world to crystal. After the Edge Master hits the ResetButton, Patroklos sees through the illusion and Soul Calibur gets infuriated at his defiance of its goals and tries to kill his spirit so it can take his body by force, and manifests itself as Elysium, the TrueFinalBoss of the story mode. LightIsNotGood indeed.]]

* The Engineers in ''VideoGame/SplinterCell: Blacklist'', who are trying to force the U.S. to pull their military forces out of all foreign countries they are currently stationed in (All 153 of them) in retaliation to atrocities America has committed in those countries and/or the belief that American influence is corrupting/has corrupted those countries by unleashing devastating terror attacks on major U.S. cities. Notably, some of the Engineers themselves are American.

* Despite the name, the Protoss High Templar from ''VideoGame/StarCraft'' may or may not be like this. But one of the major characters, Aldaris, is a Knight Templar to the core. At first, he didn't care whether Tassadar was contacting the Dark Templar for the good of the Protoss race in general because he knows that they are the only ones who can destroy the Overmind; he violated the Conclave's orders, so he must be arrested. Before that, during the Zerg and Terran campaigns, he ordered the destruction of all life on any planet with a Zerg presence. He got better after seeing Tassadar and Zeratul's efforts (also Raynor's) to defeat the Overmind and started supporting them, but in Brood Wars, once again, he acts as a Knight Templar, refusing to work with Kerrigan while the others had no choice but to ally with her. Unfortunately, this is the only time where his actions were actually RIGHT. And he's killed soon after. By Kerrigan, who reveals that she's been using the rest of the Protoss the whole time.

** The Chantry has a very anti-mage bent, as its 'serpent in the garden' equivalent story has a bunch of mages decide to invade Heaven and get cursed with the Blight for it. Officially, the party line is that magic is meant to serve humanity, but more often than not this works out in practice to 'templar right, mage wrong'. And Templars have had a long time to get used to being sanctioned to do whatever they want, so abuse of authority has slowly become more the norm than the exception. It's mentioned that most Templar mage hunters are in it because they like killing people, and few times the [[KillEmAll Right of Annulment]] (intended for when something has gone so horribly wrong at a Circle that it needs an immediate [[MercyKill mercy killing]]) was called, it was because the Templars decided to go massacre a bunch of innocent mages for the hell of it and blame demons. There's also the Rite of Tranquility, which turns a mage into a magically-inert EmptyShell. It's supposed to be used as a last resort if a mage doesn't want to go through their Harrowing (their final test to prove that they have what it takes to not get in trouble), but as of ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'', some Templars are using it on grounds as flimsy as a mage falling in love with a Templar (and that's not taking into account the guy who uses it to turn people into sex slaves).

** Knight-Commander Meredith, the leader of the Templars' Kirkwall division, is the very embodiment of the Knight Templar archetype, resorting to whatever means she can to ensure that mages don't go out of control, considering it her painful but righteous duty to suppress any free will that mages might exhibit, all the while rigidly clinging to her faith in the Maker and her position as His 'humble servant'. [[spoiler: She falls into a short crisis of faith during the final battle, when she is close to falling, but instantly reassures herself that the Maker is with her, and continues the fight with renewed zealous conviction]].

* The Chantry templars of ''Franchise/DragonAge'' are interesting studies of this behavior. While they do hunt down bad mages, many of them have a hard time differentiating a bad mage from a perfectly good one, and are all too willing to completely purge the Mage's Circle if anything goes wrong -- and at least one was actually a coverup by templars who had already massacred a group of mages, then killed the witnesses and claimed they had been possessed. This has happened at least once per century for the last seven hundred years. According to the Codex, candidates for the order are chosen first and foremost for religious conviction and martial aptitude. They're administered lyrium in order to assist them in fighting evil mages -- but a conversation with Alistair implies that the entire purpose of the lyrium is to get them addicted, ensuring their loyalty. They track and destroy dangerous rogue mages -- but a conversation with Wynne implies that many mage-hunters take a sadistic pleasure in their work, and a dialogue option with Cullen in the Mage Origin has him admit that some templars do enjoy killing mages.
** What makes the Chantry templars even more interesting is that the religious motivations behind a Knight Templar's actions is played straight even though their concerns about dangerous magic seem secular. While there are definitely individual templars who are extreme in their methods and abuse their power, the templar order overall is framed as necessary because what they guard against -- demonic possession from the Fade -- is real, subtle, and very dangerous. But there are many non-Chantry cultures who deal with spirits and the Fade perfectly well without templars: The first example a player oftens comes across are the Dalish elves in ''Origins'', whose mages not only live freely but serve as their clans' leaders. Rivaini and Avvar mages routinely train to be possessed despite how the templars think that [[AlwaysChaoticEvil possession is universally evil and destructive]]. The idea that [[WitchHunt a mage's connection to the Fade brings horror into the world]] and [[PoliceState mages must be controlled by templars]] is tied to the Chantry's religious ideology and its teachings on how mages started the Blight for sins they committed against the Maker. No wonder there are so many templar abuses when there are templars who say, "[[TheTheocracy we have dominance over mages by divine right]]."
*** The Fade is the great supernatural force in Thedas and most cultures have religious beliefs connected to it. While mages are [[SatanicArchetype the source of evil]] in Chantry faith, they have important roles in many other cultures. Dalish Keepers, Rivaini seers, Avvar augers, Nevarran mortalitasi, and Chasind shaman are mages who perform religious functions in their society, but those cultures are marginalized by the Chantry -- for example, Dalish characters will say part of the reason their clans are nomadic is because if they stay in one place for too long they face attacks from both secular lords and templars, who take offense to mages living outside the Circle. Other cultures' magical traditions are outlawed and persecuted by templars, mage children are taken to the Circle and separated from their culture by templars who wholeheartedly believe [[WithUsOrAgainstUs they are the only solution to magical problems]]. In ''VideoGame/DragonAgeInquisition'' the former templar Cullen is horrified if an Avvar-trained possessed mage is recruited as an agent, and urges that she be guarded by a templar. But if another advisor's suggestion is taken instead, she awes a group of scholars and mages with her magical knowledge.
** The Grey Wardens themselves also offer an interesting variation on this, both subverting this and playing it ''very'' straight. The Wardens are single-mindedly determined to defeat the Blights whenever they arise, whilst remaining vigilant in the shadows when they are not. What makes the Wardens an interesting variation when subverting this is that they remain politically neutral in all internal affairs, often serving in a diplomatic capacity between nations and factions, while accepting members of all races and nations in Thedas without a thought. In this capacity, the Wardens can be seen as an order of Warrior Monks who maintain and attempt to keep the peace in Thedas. However, when the Blights and the Darkspawn emerge once more, [[LetsGetDangerous all bets are suddenly off]] in what the Wardens will do, which, as we're often reminded in the game, can lead to, as Alistair puts it, [[GoodIsNotNice "some pretty extreme things"]]. The Wardens will, in these circumstances, accept former or active Blood Mages, burn down innocent villages in order to protect more vital ones, potentially side with and thus gain contingent of ''Werewolves'' to help defend cities, authorise the creation of Golems ([[AndIMustScream who are completely self aware, but have no free will]]), and will forcibly recruit people into their order, even [[spoiler:Loghain]].

** Even before Meredith, you had Ser Alric, who proposed a "[[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything final solution]]" to the mage problem [[spoiler:in the form of making ALL mages Tranquil]]. And, from the start of the game, we had [[spoiler: Sister Petrice]]. At first, she's content to [[spoiler: get someone killed in order to highlight how "barbaric" the Qunari are and what a blight they are to the Chantry]], but she takes this ''[[JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope several]]'' steps higher when [[spoiler:she murders the Viscount's son in cold blood because A) he was a convert to the Qun, and B) to set up a FalseFlagOperation about a Qunari supporter ([[PlayerCharacter Hawke]]) having killed the man while he was in the Chantry itself repenting his sins and coming back to the fold]].

* Sofia Lamb, leader of a sinister cult in the ruined undersea dystopia of Rapture during the events of ''VideoGame/BioShock2'', is this. [[spoiler: She believes that utopia cannot precede the utopian, plans on making humanity devoid of free will and self-awareness, and thinks that every action must be for the "Greater Good". She doesn't care about any moral arguments, individual pain, or suffering caused by her philosophy (kidnapping girls from the surface to make more Little Sisters to keep a bunch of insane mutated folk living in an abandoned underwater dystopia with a large supply of mutagenic drugs, because, in her mind, the pleasure gained by the Splicers overrules the suffering to the girls' families, is perfectly acceptable), and plans on injecting her daughter with all the minds of Rapture, making her into a mindless...thing that only serves the "common good" as defined by Sofia. It's even worse than it sounds.]]

*** The Fade is the great supernatural force in Thedas and most cultures have religious beliefs connected to it. While mages are [[SatanicArchetype the source of evil]] in Chantry faith, they have important roles in many other cultures. Dalish Keepers, Rivaini seers, Avvar augers, Nevarran mortalitasi, and Chasind shaman are mages who perform religious functions in their society, but those cultures are marginalized by the Chantry -- for example, Dalish characters will say part of the reason their clans are nomadic is because if they stay in one place for too long they face attacks from both secular lords and templars, who take offense to mages living outside the Circle. Other cultures' magical traditions are outlawed and persecuted by templars, mage children are taken to the Circle and separated from their culture by templars who wholeheartedly believe [[WithUsOrAgainstUs they are the only solution to magical problems]]. In ''VideoGame/DragonAge: Inquisition'' the former templar Cullen is horrified if an Avvar-trained possessed mage is recruited as an agent, and urges that she be guarded by a templar. But if another advisor's suggestion is taken instead, she awes a group of scholars and mages with her magical knowledge.

** Outside of the Brotherhood, we have President John Henry Eden, who just wants to "rebuild America"...[[spoiler:by wiping out anyone with a trace of mutation, even benign or unnoticeable ones.]] Since radiation is so pervasive in the world of ''Fallout'', and since radiation [[ILoveNuclearPower mutates whole organisms]] (rather than individual cells) in this world, [[spoiler:President Eden's plan would kill many more people than it would actually save]]. Exactly how he intends to help Americans rebuild their country by [[spoiler:killing them all]] is never explained. A smart or charismatic enough [[PlayerCharacter Lone Wanderer]] can actually [[TalkingTheMonsterToDeath point out]] [[LogicalFallacies this logical flaw]] in his plan, [[spoiler:convincing him to [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone self-destruct]].]][[note]]With the right setup you don't have to claim he's JustAMachine, but that the Enclave itself is the greatest threat to the future of America in the long term.[[/note]]

** Outside of the Brotherhood, we have President John Henry Eden, who just wants to "rebuild America"...[[spoiler:by wiping out anyone with a trace of mutation, even benign or unnoticeable ones.]] Since radiation is so pervasive in the world of ''Fallout'', and since radiation [[ILoveNuclearPower mutates whole organisms]] (rather than individual cells) in this world, [[spoiler:President Eden's plan would kill many more people than it would actually save]]. Exactly how he intends to help Americans rebuild their country by [[spoiler:[[KillEmAll killing them all]]]] is never explained. A smart or charismatic enough [[PlayerCharacter Lone Wanderer]] can actually [[TalkingTheMonsterToDeath point out]] [[LogicalFallacies this logical flaw]] in his plan, [[spoiler:convincing him to [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone self-destruct]].]][[note]]With the right setup you don't have to claim he's JustAMachine, but that the Enclave itself is the greatest threat to the future of America in the long term.[[/note]]

* The Sarafan Brotherhood of ''VideoGame/LegacyOfKain'' are depicted as fanatical hunters of vampires and other such non-humans who embark on relentless genocides of them simply for being different, all while deluding themselves that their crusade is noble and righteous. During the final boss of the first ''Soul Reaver'', Kain explicitly tells Raziel that the Sarafan were ''not'' noble or altruistic, and in fact sought to take over Nosgoth just as he did.

* [[spoiler:Edna Strickland]] of Telltale's ''VideoGame/BackToTheFutureTheGame''. [[spoiler: She had prudish tendencies before (which [[DeanBitterman runs in the family]]), but it gets cranked UpToEleven in the third episode -- she and Citizen Brown have turned Hill Valley into a police state in order to rid it of vice, and she later [[MoralEventHorizon sentences her own husband to be tortured and brainwashed]] for daring to disagree with her.]]

* In ''Videogame/{{Borderlands 2}}'', Handsome Jack has dedicated himself and the near-limitless resources of the Hyperion Corporation to bringing order, civilization, and peace to the lawless planet Pandora. Unfortunately for Pandora, Jack's idea of "order, civilization, and peace" is a fascist police state under his absolute control where crimes like [[DisproportionateRetribution profanity and littering are punished by death.]] He's also a despicable hypocrite personally who is convinced he really is the hero of the story, yet he engages in slavery (including [[spoiler: enslaving his own daughter!]]), wanton murder (including a mandatory execution lottery in the town of Overlook) and gleefully murders and tortures people personally (though he periodically lets them survive because "That's what heroes do: We show mercy."). He spends the entire game being utterly convinced that he's still the hero, right up to his death.

* [[spoiler:The goddess Ashera]] from ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemTellius Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn]]''. [[spoiler:About 700 years prior to the events of the game, the world made a covenant with Ashera. She would sleep for 1,000 years, and if she is awoken by war, she would destroy the world without hesitation. She was awoken when her counterpart Yune was freed from the titular MacGuffin, so she turned 99.99% of the world's population to stone instead. Those who remained fought back, so she freed some people, gave them blessed arms, and sent them after the survivors. This turns out predictably, since one of the survivors is [[OneManArmy Ike]].]]

* ''Videogame/PathfinderKingmaker:''

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** What makes the Chantry templars even more interesting is that the religious motivations behind a Knight Templar's actions is played straight even though their concerns about dangerous magic seem secular. While there are definitely individual templars who are extreme in their methods and abuse their power, the templar order overall is framed as necessary because what they guard against -- demonic possession from the Fade -- is real, subtle, and very dangerous. But there are many non-Chantry cultures who deal with spirits and the Fade perfectly well without templars: The first non-Chantry culture a player oftens comes across are the Dalish elves in ''Origins'', whose mages not only live freely but serve as their clans' leaders, and Rivaini and Avvar mages routinely train to be possessed despite how the templars think that [[AlwaysChaoticEvil possession is universally evil and destructive]]. The idea that [[WitchHunt a mage's connection to the Fade brings horror into the world]] and [[PoliceState mages must be controlled by templars]] is tied to the Chantry's religious ideology and its teachings on how mages started the Blight for sins they committed against the Maker. No wonder there's a templar who says, "we have dominance over mages by divine right."

* The Chantry templars of ''Franchise/DragonAge'' are interesting studies of this behavior. While they do hunt down bad mages, many of them have a hard time differentiating a bad mage from a perfectly good one, and are all too willing to completely purge the Mage's Circle if anything goes wrong. This has happened at least once per century for the last seven hundred years. According to the Codex, candidates for the order are chosen first and foremost for religious conviction and martial aptitude. They're administered lyrium in order to assist them in fighting evil mages -- but a conversation with Alistair implies that the entire purpose of the lyrium is to get them addicted, ensuring their loyalty. They track and destroy dangerous rogue mages -- but a conversation with Wynne implies that many mage-hunters take a sadistic pleasure in their work, and a dialogue option with Cullen in the Mage Origin has him admit that some templars do enjoy killing mages.
** What makes the Chantry even more interesting is that this is subverted just as often as it is played straight. While there are definitely those templars who are extreme in their methods, the Warden meets quite a few who are more reasonable and J,. They are partially justified because what they guard against -- demonic possession from the Fade -- is real, subtle, and very, very dangerous.

** ''Awakening'' gives you the option to either save the Warden stronghold of Vigil's Keep or the City of Amaranthine at the expense of the other. It's potentially possible to do both and keep all of your companions alive afterwards, but this is [[EarnYourHappyEnding not easily done]]. There is also the option to [[spoiler:keep the Architect, a sentient ''Darkspawn'', alive so he can continue his research into removing the HiveMind connection the Darkspawn have to the Old Gods hopefully preventing future Blights.]].

* The Chantry templars of ''Franchise/DragonAge'' are interesting studies of this behavior. While they do hunt down bad mages, many of them have a hard time differentiating a bad mage from a perfectly good one, and are all too willing to completely purge the Mage's Circle if anything goes wrong. This has happened at least once per century for the last seven hundred years. According to the Codex, candidates for the order are chosen first and foremost for religious conviction and martial aptitude. They're administered lyrium in order to assist them in fighting evil mages -- but a conversation with Alistair implies that the entire purpose of the lyrium is to get them addicted, ensuring their loyalty. They track and destroy dangerous rogue mages -- but a conversation with Wynne implies that many mage-hunters take a sadistic pleasure in their work, and two sidequests can result in the Chantry considering an Exalted March against the dwarven city of Orzammar.