History Main / WindmillCrusader

* [[spoiler:The Director]] from ''[[WesternAnimation/Nimona2023 Nimona]]'' is a dark and villainous example. They're so terrified of the unsubstantiated stories of monsters outside their kingdom's walls that they view an violation to the status quo as an invitation to the kingdom's destruction, which results in them kickstarting the events of the story by [[spoiler:orchestrating the murder of the queen all for the sake of framing a squire who wasn't of noble birth.]]

* [[spoiler:The Director]] from ''WesternAnimation/Nimona2023'' is a dark and villainous example. They're so terrified of the unsubstantiated stories of monsters outside their kingdom's walls that they view an violation to the status quo as an invitation to the kingdom's destruction, which results in them kickstarting the events of the story by [[spoiler:orchestrating the murder of the queen all for the sake of framing a squire who wasn't of noble birth.]]

* ''ComicBook/BitchyButch'': Butchy is infamous for this among her fellow gay rights activists. She's paranoid about men (oppressors all of them!) and heterosexual women (traitors!) as well as lipstick lesbians (potential traitors, "not real", or whatever), and see [[HeteronormativeCrusader the religious right]] in every shadow.

* Shun Kaido from ''Anime/TheDisastrousLifeOfSaikiK'' is a Chuunibiyou crusading against the villainous organization "Dark Reunion". They do not exist.

* ''Fanfic/WhisperedTribulation'': The whole plot happens because "Eraserhead" Aizawa assumes that there is a traitor within the UA campus because of some odd things that have happened recently, sees that Izuku Midoriya (a humble [[ForWantOfANail General Studies]] student) has some notebooks full of Quirk analysis ramblings, and immediately decides that he is the traitor in question. In the quest to force Midoriya to confess, he performs such a heavy amount of psychological torture that when [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure Principal Nedzu]] finally puts his foot down [[BreakTheCutie Izuku is an utterly shattered young man]].

* ''VideoGame/SpecOpsTheLine'': [[spoiler:Captain Martin Walker]] goes into the game trying to rescue the survivors of a sandstorm-ravaged Dubai while dealing with the rogue Damned 33rd and their leader Joesph Konrad. [[spoiler:Except that Konrad killed himself prior to the events of the story, and that taunting voice Walker hears for most of the game is all in his head. All those people shooting at him and his squadmates are just trying to keep that crazy gung-ho American from destroying what little hope the survivors have left.]]

* The main character in ''Creation of the Humanoids'' is a high-ranking member of a radical anti-robot organization. Recently, they've finally found evidence that the robots actually are engaging in a conspiracy of some sort -- have the robots finally TurnedAgainstTheirMasters, [[CassandraTruth just like the main character's organization has been warning against?]] [[SpoileredRotten Well, no]]. The robots really are up to something, but it's nothing that anyone has to be afraid of.

* In ''Film/{{Downfall}}'', Hitler and some of his closest followers are portrayed as tragic anti-villains who desperately tried to save the world from a world-engulfing conspiracy that they honestly believed to be real. As Berlin falls they face what they [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman believe to be the twilight of mankind itself]]. Hitler himself is portrayed as a person who is most likely insane, while his followers are rational except for their misguided belief that he is a legitimate leader rather than a madman. Their actions make total sense when one takes this tragic belief into account.

* The Soldier from ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' has this as his backstory: where he tried applying for every branch of the United States Army in order to go overseas and take the fight to the Nazis. He then bought himself a ticket to Poland and went on a Nazi Killing Spree where he was awarded with medals that he had designed and gave to himself, only stopping his rampage when he heard that the War was already over... four years after-the-fact.

The TropeNamer is Literature/DonQuixote, a crazy old man who wanted to be a heroic knight but had zero knowledge of what knights actually were, thanks to being born several centuries too late. He saw some windmills and believed that they were actually evil giants, and set off to attack them, in the most famous scene of the novel.

* In ''Film/DrStrangelove'', the TropeNamer for GeneralRipper launches an all-out nuclear attack on Russia because he's convinced himself that they're using water fluoridation to "sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids".

* ''Literature/DonQuixote'': The TropeNamer is Don Quixote, a delusional would-be knight errant who engages in a constant struggle against evil sorcerers and wicked monsters that exist only in his own mind. Most famously in chapter thirteen, he mistakes a group of windmills for "thirty or forty outrageous giants" despite his squire Sancho telling him that he is wrong, and gets thrown into the air by one of the sails when he sticks his lance into it.

* Maximillion of Northshire, a quest giver in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft''[='=]s Un'goro Crater, will take the player's character on a long quest to defeat the [[DinosaursAreDragons "evil dragons"]] in the area, rescue the "purse" of a "fair maiden" [[spoiler:-- a [[DudeLooksLikeALady male Blood Elf]] --]] who dropped a box of unknown contents from the hot spring, a second fair maiden from a high place [[spoiler:'''by throwing her off a cliff''']], and rescued a third maiden from a "foul beast" [[spoiler:by killing her parrot companion.]] Finally, he takes you to something that is actually dangerous: kill an Azeroth-equivalent UsefulNotes/TyrannosaurusRex... by running away from it while throwing his armor at it. In the end, he's convinced he's truly done good. Also notable is that one of the rewards for his final quest is a trinket called a Toy Windmill. The entire quest chain is a huge reference to/parody of the TropeNamer, Literature/DonQuixote.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

** Miko starts out as a regular KnightTemplar but descends into this trope as she becomes increasingly delusional. In the end, she is busy saving the world from imaginary threats and interpreting pretty much anything as signs that the gods are approving of whatever she is doing -- ignoring the very real sign that they have stripped her of her [[AlwaysLawfulGood paladin]] powers. [[spoiler:She ends up making a misguided HeroicSacrifice that saves the BigBad from justice and condemns her people to AFateWorseThanDeath.]]

%%* Referenced in [[http://www.xkcd.com/556/ this]] Webcomic/{{xkcd}} comic.