History Main / PragmaticVillainy

* ''Manga/HenkyouNoRoukishiBardLoen'': Jogg Ward kicks his minion through the wall for trying to kill a villager who refuses to side with them. Becuase the village chief is still useful, but his wife on the other hand is not.

** [[Characters/RWBYSalem Salem]] doesn't engage in blood-thirsty, murderous behavior, even though she possesses the power and ability to take whatever she wants by force, as she's savvy enough to realize that she would be making herself a common enemy of the known world and they might eventually luck out and find a way to have her KilledOffForReal. While Hazel honours this by chastising the White Fang leaders for their violence instead of minimising unnecessary killing, Cinder directly questions Salem's attitude. Salem explains that Cinder must never underestimate the usefulness of others. [[spoiler:She cites the example of Professor Leonardo Lionheart, one of [[BigGood Professor Ozpin's]] oldest allies, whom she turned against Ozpin because he controlled the access to the Relic of Knowledge hidden inside Haven's vault. However, once the plan to obtain the Relic fails and Lionheart's duplicity is exposed, [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness Salem has no further use for Leonardo and has him murdered without hesitation]].]]

* Illithids in ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' have to be pragmatic since their powerbase is a mere shadow of what it was in their glory days. Illithids would like nothing better than to gorge themselves on humanoid brains, but most of them are smart enough to realize that too many suspiciously brainless corpses will alert their ''many'' enemies (including an entire ''species'', the Gith-kin, who regard Illithid murder as a religious duty and cultural pastime) to their presence, and bring pretty much everyone else down on their heads. So they limit themselves to one or two brains a month and make backroom deals to slowly regain a stable power-base.

** Blue [=and/or=] black villains tend to abide by this. For example, in the ''Literature/{{Odyssey|Cycle}}'' and ''Literature/{{Onslaught|Cycle}}'' Cycles, the Cabal is a ruthlessly evil organization that is, nevertheless, primarily interested in profit, and the Cabal Patriarch recognizes that certain types of evil are... wasteful.

* Shows up with some of the supercomputers in TabletopGame/GURPSReignOfSteel (a 'RobotWar, [[AfterTheEnd the robots won]]' setting). The basic and most common example is that several of the supercomputers that ''have'' kept to the KillAllHumans goal of the original A.I. have decided that it's really more resource-efficient to work them to death since you at least get something more than a dead human out of it. More elaborate examples tailored to the A.I.'s specific interests:

** Like their Camarilla counterparts, the five playable Covenants in ''TabletopGame/VampireTheRequiem'' put great efforts into avoiding pointless acts of violence and murders that would attract attention and break TheMasquerade as [[MugglesDoItBetter humans pose an existential threat to the vampires]].
*** Starting with the Second Edition, while vampires still treat their [[TheRenfield Ghouls]] as little more than a SlaveRace, smart ones will at least ''try'' to limit the abusive treatment and be ''somewhat'' decent with them-- after all, they are precious agents who act during the day, and [[TheDogBitesBack there is only so many times you can kick a dog before he bites back]].
** In ''TabletopGame/MageTheAwakening'', it's noticed that the Exarchs and their Mage servants [[LesCollaborateurs the Seers of the Throne]], despite being corrupt people who actively try to keep mankind weak in order to rule it from behind the scenes, do occasionally take actions to contain [[EldritchAbomination the Abyss]] and prevent it from invading the Fallen World. After all, they cannot be tyrants if all their subjects are dead.
** In ''TabletopGame/DemonTheDescent'', the God-Machine is a [[DeusEstMachina divine supercomputer]] that will do ''anything'' to achieve its goals in the most expedient way possible. It is not actively malicious, it just can't take moral considerations into account because, powerful as it is, it's just a computer and sees them as elements in an equation. This means that it doesn't go out of its way to hurt people -- if it needs to screw someone over to achieve a goal, it'll do it, but if it meets significant resistance it will [[KnowWhenToFoldEm give up and find another way to do things]], instead of wasting time and resources overcoming the new obstacles. This is the closest thing to victory against the God-Machine people can expect; it's ''possible'' to become [[BullyingADragon a threat the God-Machine cannot merely ignore]], which will almost definitely end in RocksFallEveryoneDies.
** In ''TabletopGame/LeviathanTheTempest'', this used to be the reason why the Marduk Society would avoid resorting to their KillSat against Leviathans whenever possible: their leaders, [[TheManBehindTheMan the Sky Wizards]], kept themselves immortal by eating Leviathan flesh, and a corpse destroyed in such a spectacular way would leave little to eat. After the Sky Wizards were overthrown, the Society still avoids using this sat, but this time more because they want to avoid civilian casualties.
** In ''TabletopGame/SirenTheDrowning'', while [[HunterOfMonsters Flensers]] will sometimes rely on [[ToxicInc willingly polluting an area]] to attract Sirens, even the least moral of them usually avoid resorting to this if possible, because [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome it typically also gets the attention of mortal ecologists and authorities, who can quickly shut down an entire Flenser institution because of this]].

** In ''TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade'', this is engaged in by both [[ALighterShadeOfBlack the Camarilla]] and [[ReligionOfEvil the Sabbat]] with regards to humans-- the Camarilla have made revealing the existence of vampires to humans a crime punishable by death (this is the titular "Masquerade"). And while the Sabbat say they want vampires to openly rule over humans, the higher-ups at least realize that vampires couldn't possibly come out well off from a war with humans- lose and they'd be massacred, win and not only would they have given up a lot of resources in a worldwide war, they've eliminated their primary food source. So they encourage their soldiers to keep their actions at least somewhat under the radar and have a few [[TheRenfield Ghoul]] dynasties who clean up after them.
** [[EvilSorceror Clan Tremere]] engages in a lot of highly questionable magical practices, all of which include blood and death, but they draw the line at consorting with demons. Not because they find demons objectionable, but because they understand that EvilIsNotAToy and any demon powerful enough to be worth the effort is also too powerful to be controlled.

* In ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'', velstracs (formerly [[RenamedToAvoidAssociation kytons]]) are a [[Film/{{Hellraiser}} Cenobite-like]] race of fiends who seek self-improvement through surgery, who consider the augurs the least of their kind due to their lack of pragmatism. All velstracs take pleasure in mutilation, but most are very goal-oriented and keep their sadism under control, while augurs tend to die because they're too busy rolling blood to notice enemies.
* In ''TabletopGame/{{Rifts}}'', the Vampire Kingdom of Mexico. Their Master Vampire is evil and ruthless, but he's LawfulEvil and understands the value of keeping a contented blood supply around, and thus the Kingdom is actually [[FriendlyNeighborhoodVampire one of the safest and most peaceful realms on Rifts Earth]]. Blood is provided through a painless system of blood donations, staggered to avoid causing harm to the humans who donate, and vampires are forbidden from attacking humans to feed (though they still tend to be dicks toward them; they are, after all, nearly always evil). In part because of this system, Mexico is the most powerful and advanced of the Vampire Kingdoms.
** Similarly, Lord Splynncryth, the [[EldritchAbomination Splugorth]] ruler of Atlantis, is very much an interplanetary conqueror and slaver but realizes that Rifts Earth has too many mighty powers fighting over it and so satisfies himself with ruling Atlantis and running the Splynn Dimensional Market. He also keeps his deals or at least doesn't break them [[ForTheEvulz out of sheer dickery]]. One of his "conquests" was achieved by offering the residents of a planet on the verge of ecological collapse an escape from their dying world if they would work for him. Now he has an army of fanatically loyal brutes and they're still deliriously happy with the deal.
* In ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'', both Shadowrunners and {{Mega Corp}}s live by this.

** Most megas you steal from tend to follow the same 'code': Shadowrunning is simply a cost of doing business. Runners who can avoid or escape internal security and the police response without leaving the corps with a big pile of death benefits and property damage or an irreplaceable loss of prestige may not be worth sending a kill team after. On the other hand, if the price of hiring assassins becomes just another decimal point to the losses you've already caused them, the insurance that you won't be troubling them again becomes very tempting indeed.
*** However, there are exceptions to this. Reveal Aztechnology blood rituals or steal a set of the Renraku Red Samurai's signature armor and they might just call down a KillSat on you. Meanwhile, Mitsuhama makes it a matter of company policy to take ''all'' shadowruns against them personally. Conversely, runners do not care so much about collateral damage when running against Mitsuhama.

** The Leagues of Votann, at their worst, can be this, though most often they fall under TrueNeutral; they maintain cordial, if distant and aloof, diplomatic ties with the Imperium and Tau, and will even on occasion trade with the Aeldari. But they prize the survivial of themselves and their people first and foremost, and if your planet has resources they need, they ''will'' have them, one way or another. They'll negotiate if possible, but won't blink at simply ''taking'' them, even if it means hollowing out an inhabited planet. Survival at any cost is the name of the game to the Kin.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'':

* ''Manga/DeathNote'' has VillainProtagonist [[KnightTemplar Light Yagami]] who was willing to kill tens of thousands of criminals and other undesirables to further his ambitions. But he doesn't approve when his [[AxCrazy less stable]] follower Teru Mikami, announces that Kira is going to kill lazy people as well... because Light considers the move premature. Once all the criminals are dead and Kira is regarded as God, Light fully intends to prune out other undesirable elements from "his" world.

[[spoiler: '''Not-Arthur'']]: That ''stray'' the Hero of Melee brought home? An unacceptable x-factor. ''She had to be removed from the equation.'' So I sent her out on an errand before everything went down.

** Cinder Fall berates her minions Emerald and Mercury for murdering a White Fang terrorist defector without orders. This isn't because she opposed the killing itself, as she'd already ordered Roman Torchwick, a local known criminal, to kill the defector in the first place. Rather, she's pissed because her plan requires herself, Emerald, and Mercury to remain unnoticed while they infiltrate Beacon Academy and the killing could draw unnecessary attention to them. [[spoiler:When Ruby permanently maims Cinder during the Battle of Beacon, Cinder prioritises [[RevengeBeforeReason seeking revenge above all else]]. In Volume 5, she violates Salem's orders and sacrifices all pragmatism due to her obsession with Ruby.]]
** [[BigBad Salem]] doesn't engage in blood-thirsty, murderous behavior, even though she possesses the power and ability to take whatever she wants by force, as she's savvy enough to realize that she would be making herself a common enemy of the known world and they might eventually luck out and find a way to have her KilledOffForReal. While Hazel honours this by chastising the White Fang leaders for their violence instead of minimising unnecessary killing, Cinder directly questions Salem's attitude. Salem explains that Cinder must never underestimate the usefulness of others. [[spoiler:She cites the example of Professor Leonardo Lionheart, one of [[BigGood Professor Ozpin's]] oldest allies, whom she turned against Ozpin because he controlled the access to the Relic of Knowledge hidden inside Haven's vault. However, once the plan to obtain the Relic fails and Lionheart's duplicity is exposed, [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness Salem has no further use for Leonardo and has him murdered without hesitation]].]]

** This is the reason why [[spoiler: Ginjo]] tells [[spoiler: Tsukishima]] to stop {{Mind Rap|e}}ing [[spoiler: Chad and Orihime.]] He has no moral objection to it, but destroying your hostages' minds means you can't use them as pawns. It's easier to just stick to MindControl.

** Arlong from is a [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain Fishman Supremacist]] who despises humans, but is willing to put his prejudices aside for profit, and prefers bribing corrupt Marine Captains over attacking them. He also finds Nami valuable for her map-making skills [[YouAreACreditToYourRace and praises her for it.]]

** Early in the series, Don Krieg wanted to feed his starving crew at the Baratie so he won't lose the manpower at hand.
** Used in a cruel manner in the Alabasta arc when Crocodile was confronted by Alabasta's elite soldiers, who had taken a lethal elixir to enhance their strength at the cost of dying in five minutes. Even though he could easily defeat them even with their power-up, Crocodile didn't see any need to since they would die in a few minutes, instead, refusing to fight them and denying them an honorable death at the same time.

Pragmatic Villainy is when a villain either refuses to do something horrible or does something nice. It's not because [[EvenEvilHasStandards the action is too evil even for them]], nor is it a genuine PetTheDog moment. No, it's because it's in their best interest to not act the maggot this time. Whatever the situation might be, choosing the most evil option would be [[StupidEvil counter-productive to]] ThePlan. As such, the Pragmatic Villain doesn't take this evil option, instead opting for something a little less evil or even genuinely good.

* In ''Manga/RedRiver1995'', one of the reasons it takes so long to get any accusations against Nakia and Urhi to stick are because both are ''very'' good at leaving themselves ways to ensure their plans don't get traced back to them. Nakia relies heavily on methods such as using magic water to brainwash unsuspecting people into helping her (the water vanishes when it's thrown up, so no evidence remains behind) or having Urhi do her bidding. At one point, [[spoiler:Urhi successfully kidnaps Yuri, but returns her. This is not out of the goodness of his heart, but because Kail would kill Nakia.]] Similarly, [[spoiler:he only admits to assassinating the king because it allowed for him to pin the crime ''solely'' on him (Nakia had actually planned it and he carried it out) and let Nakia get off free while he was executed for it.]]

* In ''Manhua/GoddessCreationSystem'', morally shady protagonist Xiaxi saves the life of the rival that kidnapped her not because she's such a kind person, but because she'd be killed for sure if the other girl died. She openly admits it, too, which Ming Zhu seems to appreciate.