- The Beginning After the End: Sylvie Indrath becomes an example of this, After it is revealed she is the daughter of Agrona Vritra and her grandfather Kezess Indrath is a tyrant no better than Agrona. She has the lineage of a basilisk and a dragon meaning she has access to both magical arts of both races which are Indrath mana, Vritra mana arts and aether arts. But she is the only decent one in both Asuran factions because she is raised by Arthur Leywin a human lesser unlike her father and grandfather whom are not very nice people. Her father Agrona is responsible for experimenting on and interbreeding with the people of Alacrya for his self serving goals and her grandfather Kezess is responsible for commiting genocide against the Djinn out of jealousy regarding insight on Aether also responsible for Agrona's Start of Darkness.
- Sylvia Indrath is also an example of this, As she has access of the Indrath clan mana and Aether arts but she cares about Arthur genuinley unlike the rest of the Indrath clan who treated him with a grudging tolerance. In Volume 8, In her next message to Arthur she informs him of the Indrath clan crimes in the first place that caused the mess of the Alacrya-Dicathen war is that Kezess Indrath exiled Agrona Vritra when Agrona attempted to reveal the truth about the Indrath clan's exterimination of the Djinn causing Agrona's madness and ruined the life of Sylvia's husband.
- Arthur Leywin himself becomes an example of this in volume 8.After Sylvie pulls Heroic Sacrifice to save him from dying in his battle against Nico and Cadell because of the 3rd phase of her mother's will though later she is Back from the Dead. After her sacrifice Arthur's body becomes a half asura and gain new powers excceding her previous powers which are aether core, more insight on aether arts understanding more than the Indrath clan, Ancient Armor and the accolrit given to him by Wren awakens as Regis. In the climax of volume 9, Arthur has rematch with both scythes which ends in crippling and kills Cadell before escaping Agrona in front of all Alacrya then returns to Dicathen where ends up fighting Taci who is sent by Kezess to purge the resistance. In volume 10, He retakes Darv, kills a squad of the wraiths, destroys an entire military base in Vechor and returns to end Vildorial's seige. Lastly he is able to retake Dicathen in a matter of days.
- Also there is among the Scythes, Seris Vritra has vritra blood allowing her acces to decay type mana art. Despite her Vritra blood she was never loyal to Agrona and was planning against the vritra lord for quite sometime as she knows he will burn the world in his war with Kezess Indrath.She saves Arthur Leywin and Sylvie from Uto haven taken interest in him during the war when she discovers his survival in Alacrya she covers up for him becoming a genuine ally to Arthur. And after the Victoriad and battle for Vildorail in where Arthur achieves an impressive feats undermining the Vritra she orchestrates an entire rebellion against Agrona and the Vritra clan to give Arthur time in cleaning up Dicathen making her a Token Heroic Orc.
- Book of the Dead (2021): Tyron has been hit hard with this trope. Upon his Awakening at age 18, he was given, not a regular mage class like Wizard, which would let him spend his days studying, but instead the Necromancer class, which is highly illegal. Pragmatically speaking, though, there's nothing necessarily evil about skeletons and zombies, since they're mindless puppets under the necromancer's control; the class is banned mostly because a high-level necromancer is a One-Man Army, and because the simplest and fastest way to get dead bodies is to make them. At the same time, however, Tyron was granted the Anathema subclass, a gift from the dark gods that levels up when he acts selfishly, spreads chaos, desecrates sites sacred to the five gods, pierces the veil to contact the horrors beyond, etc. Nonetheless, rather than have his classes burned out of him and be forever crippled, Tyron is determined to invoke this trope and someday prove that necromancers can still be good people.
- Nico di Angelo in The Camp Half-Blood Series. While his powers (Necromancy, Seeing Dead People, Casting a Shadow, etc.) aren't bad, exactly — just unsettling — they're definitely regarded as bad by many people, who believe Dark Is Evil. Nico himself is definitely good, if a bit damaged (especially in Percy Jackson and the Olympians), and in fact pulls more Big Damn Heroes moments than almost any other character. His half-sister Hazel, introduced in The Heroes of Olympus, is a much straighter example — one of her abilities is to attract jewels, but they're always cursed. She is still one of the most good-natured and helpful characters in the series, despite having undergone a Trauma Conga Line.
- A Dearth of Choice: The dungeon system apparently requires all of a dungeon's abilities to be capable of killing or helping to kill people, even though the protagonist really wants to avoid it, and in fact is the least murderous dungeon the locals have ever heard of. He actually manages to unlock new crafting options just by contemplating how they could theoretically be used as weapons. Fortunately, although everything has to have the potential for slaughter, the system doesn't seem to care what he actually does with it, leaving him free to grow crops (removing and destroying the poisonous/diseased/cursed ones that appear) and care for lost children (with his six-foot-tall orc mage).
- Discworld:
- There's an interesting example in the book Thud!. Sam Vimes is ... possibly the best word for it is infected ... by the Summoning Dark, a supernatural entity of vengeance. Vimes doesn't seem to have a lot of problems with it, because he already regarded himself as a monster with only his conscience keeping his darker impulses perpetually in check.The Guarding Dark: Who watches the watchmen? Me.
- Granny Weatherwax is this through and through. She is constantly aware that she could become the worst witch the Disc has ever seen, but exercises iron self-control to make sure this does not happen. Made particularly explicit in Witches Abroad by the contrast with her sister Lily, who is similarly powerful but notably deficient in conscience.
- Dr. Hix, Unseen University's head of Necromancy (or Postmortem Communications as it is officially called) is required by his position to be a little evil, but is otherwise a mostly decent person. Unless you consider an interest in amateur theater to be particularly evil.
- There's an interesting example in the book Thud!. Sam Vimes is ... possibly the best word for it is infected ... by the Summoning Dark, a supernatural entity of vengeance. Vimes doesn't seem to have a lot of problems with it, because he already regarded himself as a monster with only his conscience keeping his darker impulses perpetually in check.
- In the Old Kingdom trilogy, the Abhorsens are a family of necromancers who use both Free Magic and Charter Magic to keep other necromancers in check. They can also walk in Death and use the bells like a necromancer, but they are always good people dedicated to undoing the harm done by necromancers and otherwise helping people. On the other hand, it is discovered that Chorr of the Mask was once the Abhorsen-in-Waiting Clariel, but lost the correct respect for Death and fell first into necromancy proper and then into being one of the Greater Dead. So Abhorsen can go dark side, they just quickly stop being Abhorsen then.
- In Chronicles of Nick, the Malachai (the demon inside Nick) is said to be a "nuclear bomb" of evil. Nick uses this power for good though, although it overwhelmed him in the beginning.
- In Loyal Enemies, Necromancy is considered one of the worst forms of magic, and it's bad enough to justify torturing people who are suspected of practicing it. Nevertheless, Veres is a skilled necromancer, although he only uses his skill to summon spirits of the dead, and only when he's confident that they wouldn't oppose it. It should be noted though that in this setting only Muggles (including people in power) consider necromancy as inherently bad; professional wizards not only disagree, but usually study some basic necromancy as part of their education.
- In Chronicles of the Kencyrath, Jame can reap souls from the living when she dances, blood-bind people (and other creatures) to her, has a Compelling Voice (easily able to permanently damage people), and she's aligned with That-Which-Destroys. Brenwyr is a Curse-flinging maledict with berserker tendencies.
- The entire plot of A Fistful of Sky is Gypsum being gifted with the power of curses, which she has to use frequently or else, and how she figures out how to deal with this.
- Cal Leandros uses his ability to create gates in the later books in the series in fights, to dispose of bad guys, etc. While the gate-opening ability in itself doesn't seem evil, frequent use of it leads to Evil Feels Good, with Cal on a raging high and feeling far less concerned about not killing his nearest and dearest.
- Dorilys of Stormqueen! does manage to use her storm-control powers for good on a few occasions... but also kills people with them.
- Lives of the Mayfair Witches: Rowan Mayfair is a dedicated surgeon who is 'almost universally liked' and whose colleagues describe her in nearly saintly terms. Her trademark power? Telekinetically causing arteries to rupture. Anybody who puts Rowan in fear for her life or even hits her Berserk Button has a brain hemorrhage or a heart attack. If she's particularly worked up, you'll die straight away. If not so much, it might take a few weeks (and she might not realise she even did anything), but you'll still be dead. She strenuously learns to control this power, refusing to use it, and that might have something to do with why she comes off cold; she's lethal when scared or angry. Complicated because she has more neutral powers too, like telepathy and a 'diagnostic sense' that lets her know anyone's chances of survival, as well as a more overtly 'good' one, healing hands.
- Merry Gentry: The Unseelie have always had pretty bad press, what with powers like turning people inside out, consuming them with magical green fire, stealing their virility, opening every wound they've ever had, calling all the blood from their body... They are the protagonists of the series.
- From the same author, Anita Blake has the ability to turn a human into a living mummy fully aware of what is going on around him or her and in terrible pain. She uses this ability, or the threat of it, to get information used to save the day.
- In the third book of Midnighters, we get to see the consequences of one character's temporarily becoming a half-darkling in the second book. Among other things, he can look at anyone and know exactly what they're afraid of, and to a certain degree imitate that fear (e.g. move in a manner reminiscent of a snake.) He loses a bit of his humanity, and pretty much becomes the Token Evil Teammate, but he's still a member of the group.
- The Elenium: The Shining Ones from The Tamuli are an entire race of these. They're a simple, pastoral people, gentle to the point of pacifism. They also possess a Touch of Death that causes the victim to instantly and painfully rot away into a puddle of foul-smelling goo. The reasons behind it are quite complex, but the results are fairly simple — actually using their powers, even if it's absolutely necessary, causes most of them to burst into tears, or fall into a deep depression. In one case, the goal is to depopulate some cities. A group of Shining Ones who cannot bear to kill are allowed to use their powers to destroy the walls of a city, allowing the populace to flee for their lives, which means the Shining Ones don't have to kill anyone.
- The Dresden Files:
- Harry Dresden
- Thanks to Lasciel, he had access to Hellfire, which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. He continues to use it to do what he can to help other people. Though it's pointed out that it's affecting his subconscious — his motives don't change, but he gets more extreme and angrier. However, once Lasciel was no longer a factor, Harry lost this ability and was given the angelic equivalent, Soulfire, instead.
- In order to fight against some powerful necromancers, necromancy is needed to shield himself from the effects of their ritual, which would otherwise strip his own life from him. So, Harry comes close to breaking the law against raising the dead by raising an animal instead. The law only prevents humans from being summoned back. Also, zombies are more powerful the older the remains they're raised from... And the animal remains in question happen to be a 65 million year old T-rex fossil. One of his allies calls this act both wrong and amazing, and she is the captain of the group meant to hunt down necromancers and dark wizards.
- Then there's Thomas Raith, life-sucking White Court prettyboy ... who, instead of draining his victims dead, 'sips' from the customers at a hair saloon and fights on the side of the good guys. While Thomas Raith is still allied with Harry Dresden, his torment at the hands of a skinwalker makes him forsake the Friendly Neighborhood Vampire status.
- It's an ongoing question whether a person who uses Black Magic is redeemable. The fact that the White Council has a means for probational rehabilitation at all implies that it is, but we haven't seen it so far. Everyone who actually broke the laws of magic except in self-defense has slipped back into Black Magic regularly. Harry is more and more coming to suspect that this trope is totally averted for the Dresdenverse.
- The Necromancer Kumori believes that she is this, but comes off more as a Well-Intentioned Extremist. Nevertheless, she did use necromancy to save a life; the guy was in total agony until the paramedics had him stabilised, but if he made a full recovery it might be considered worth it.
- Harry Dresden
- In Dragaera, Morganti weapons are evil weapons which devour the souls of their victims and seem to hunger to kill. Great Weapons are the same, but are much more powerful and even more sentient, and make the wielder feel good/protect the wielder. However, everyone in the series who has one—Sethra, Morrolan, Aliera, Telnan, and eventually Vlad, is on the side of good (within the series' Black-and-Gray Morality). In the case of Vlad, the weapon itself qualifies, since it was created from the soul of one of the series' nicest characters.
- Harry Potter speaks Parseltongue, the language of snakes. Most people think Parseltongue is an evil power, because several evil wizards (Voldemort being the most recent and bigger example, Salazar Slytherin the most famous) not only spoke it, but used it for nefarious purposes. Harry becomes ostracized for having this power, and only uses it for good, most notably to rescue his future Love Interest Ginny Weasley. This becomes useful in Deathly Hallows, as Ron manages to imitate the word "Open", which he had heard twice (first when Harry opened the Chamber of Secrets back in book 2, and then when he opened the locket that Ron then destroyed).
- Then there are the "Unforgivable Curses": Imperius, Cruciatus, and Avada Kedavra, spells considered pure evil and worthy of life imprisonment. The spells are introduced in the fourth book, a good character uses one for the first time (maybe) in the fifth (Kingsley Shacklebolt might have used Imperius on Marietta Edgecombe, though it's also possible he used a Memory Charm instead), and by the end of the series Harry himself has used both Imperius and Cruciatus several times. On the third hand, Cruciatus is shown to work only very poorly for anybody using it with half-decent intentions; it takes real malice to properly drive it and as a result Harry only successfully cast it once out of the three times he used it.
- In the seventh book, Severus Snape use of the killing curse on Dumbledore in the previous book is all but named as this, since it's revealed that it was done as a Mercy Kill. Even though murder is said to split one's soul in the Harry Potter 'verse, Dumbledore assures Snape that this won't happen to him since the Mercy Kill was agreed upon beforehand.
- Remus Lupin, the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher in Prisoner of Azkaban, is revealed to be a werewolf, but takes a special potion once a month to keep from killing or hurting anyone, and is a member of the Order of the Phoenix.
- Seth Sorenson from the Fablehaven series fights demons with his own dark-magic powers.
- A Song of Ice and Fire:
- Melisandre of Asshai has among her magical abilities, the power to dispatch shadow-assassins to do away with her or her king's enemies. As to whether she is good, well, she maintains that she is, and she is fighting to save the world. Opinion on her is divided, however, but most readers would allow that she is at worst a Well-Intentioned Extremist or a Knight Templar.
- Played straighter with Thoros of Myr, who is more or less a Good Shepherd and belongs to the same religion as Melisandre. His specialty is necromancy, which he seems to think is a Healing Hands type power. It may not be deliberate, but he functions quite well as a dark parody of the requisite cleric medic for an adventuring party. Even more hilarious is the fact that he joined the priesthood because he had nothing else to do, then woke up one morning to find his rituals did magic.
- Valentine Ivashchenko's protagonist of Warrior and Mage and Dancing Flame, Vale, nicknamed "Black Earl", is a grand necromancer working by Dark Is Not Evil. He has kept his soul from the local Satan and in most cases takes power from things and ideas associated with secrecy, night and darkness, e.g. solitary contemplation, restful sleep or intimacy of lovers. Examples of good uses include:
- Curing a plague released from a disturbed ancient burial site, although he used the responsible grave robber's forfeited life to fuel the spell. This was according to the Empire's law and with consent of the present heir to the throne.
- Releasing the ghost of an ancient knight from a tomb by introducing said ghost to his direct descendant. The ghost is the founder of the Empire, the descendant is said heir to the throne.
- Saving a dwarven tribe from an undead horde raised by making camp on a hill over another ancient burial site. In-universe quote: "Bringing together blood, fire and steel in any manner will cause nasty undead things to rise at most remarkable places."
- Sealing the spellbook of the last grand necromancer inside himself to prevent power leaks.
- Saving a girl from a voodoo-like curse. The girl is one of the Empire's princesses, and the curse part of an attempt to replace the Emperor, funded from outside.
- Enchanting the steel layer of a ship's armour to prevent mussel growth.
- Removing a curse from a trader's daughter.
- Taking at least one Night Rider (a girl who has willingly sold her soul for revenge, e.g. after losing her entire family and village, and works as a mercenary after completing the revenge) from death row, and later redeeming Night Riders in his employ.
- Completing the local pantheon.
- Saving numerous captives and Inquisition prisoners during the war.
- However, the trope does not apply completely:
- The losses in the war against the local Absolute Xenophobe Church Militant trigger a Roaring Rampage of Revenge during which Vale the Black Earl crosses the line. After finding those responsible for the destruction of his home castle and the death of all within including his parents, sister, pregnant wife and family-in-law the Black Earl began a dark ritual damning them one by one by Cold-Blooded Torture. His second-in-command struck him down, breaking the spell and making the death of the captives quick.
- Bruce Coville's Book of... Magic II: Given an aside mention in "Transitions". In a world where most people get the power of wishing when they go through puberty, the main character's late aunt is mentioned to have gotten the power of curses instead. Since she didn't have anyone she disliked enough to curse, she didn't, and the unused curses built up inside and gave her cancer instead.
- Jander Sunstar from Vampire of the Mists is basically good (although he does some very bad things) but at least some of his vampire powers, such as mind control, are at least morally questionable.
- In The Shadow Speaker, Ejii can talk to shadows (hence the title). However many of the people in her remote village in Niger believe in Bad Powers, Bad People and think that she is a witch.
- Juliette, the main character in Shatter Me has a fatal touch. She refuses to use it to harm people and hates being forced to use it for the bad guys aims, wanting to escape and live as normal live as she can.
- Mr. Crowley of I Am Not a Serial Killer only wants to stay with his wife but he has to kill people and take their body parts to do it.
- Zig-Zagged in the Wild Cards universe with Black Shadow, who can suck both heath and light from his surroundings. He may be a violent vigilante whose signature is hanging criminals from lightposts, but he is apparently a decent person at hearth and has been manipulated by Puppetman, who can enhance other people's emotions and gets a sadistic kick out of makig them commit heinous actions.
- The heroine of Graceling Realm has a supernatural gift for dealing out death. As she grows up her powers are exploited by her uncle, but at the start of the novel she has already managed to subvert this and turn her abilities to the good. During the story she develops her altruistic use of her power further, and develops a new understanding of it, that her Grace is not death but survival.
- Chloe Saunders from the Darkest Powers series is a genetically-altered necromancernote . Chloe is perfectly capable of raising the dead simply by trying to summon a spirit to talk to, or just by dreaming about the dead, and she can raise an entire cemetery complete with ripping open the ground with the force of a small earthquake to allow the corpses to rise just by thinking too hard about using her powers. Raising the dead requires a necromancer to shove the dead person's soul back into their corpse, which the necromancer then controls completely; the trapped soul cannot disobey. Chloe is the protagonist of the first three books and is unambiguously a good, kind person.
- Mercedes Lackey's Children of the Night had a band member become a psivamp, someone who feeds off of the emotional energies of others and can affect emotional states to get the right intensity. This generally leads to either burning the victim out or giving him or her a fatal heart attack. As a psivamp weaned off of positive emotions and adjusted to fear and rage, he can't survive on food anymore. He eventually decides not to go along with his other psivamp bandmates and the vampire dad and has a fantasy of feeding only on the deserving, so he goes out and kills first a crackhead trying to kill him, then a pair of almost-rapists, before he realizes that the hunger doesn't distinguish between the bad guys and the victims, and he knows he'll slip. In the end, he helps take out the other psivamps, then commits suicide.
- In the Heralds of Valdemar series, Empathy is a standard, if uncommon, Gift, usually found in Healers. Herald Talia has Empathy strong enough to weaponize, capable of dropping an Emotion Bomb of terror or suicidal despair on anyone at will. She also knows dozens of ways to rewrite someone else's psyche, ranging from subtle and benevolent to blatant Mind Rape. A villain with that skillset would be the worst monster in the entire series, but Talia is Loved by All and The Heart of the Heraldic Circle.
- This is both subverted and played straight in Brian Lumley's Necroscope novels.
- In it, protagonist Harry Keogh learns as a child that he can speak to the dead telepathically. He eventually uses this ability to fight vampires and necromancers (and vampire necromancers).
- The Necromancers are a particularly unpleasant bunch — especially the ones that learned to use their powers at an early age: this is because their abilities involve stealing the knowledge and strengths a dead body has gained during life, via dissection, dismemberment, cannibalism, and occasional necrophilia. Ouch. However, this is clearly meant to set up the Necromancer Boris Dragosani as a dark counterpart to Harry.
- In the Fingerprints series, the psychics' powers have no relation to their alignment and some heroes have traditionally villainous powers like People Puppets. Note that this does not stop some characters from assuming Bad Powers, Bad People is true, which is why Steve Mercer kills Amanda Reesce.
- Averted in Perry Moore's Hero by Typhoid Larry, a sickly young man who can induce illness in others. Following the book's comedic tone, he's mostly played for laughs since his powers seem to have a greater affect on his teammates than the villains. Until the end, that is, when he really comes in handy. Sadly, we never learn much about him or his past, as he's the only member of the team Thom doesn't spend any one-on-one time with.
- In The Lord of the Isles series by David Drake, Ilna's various abilities are demonic in origin, but rather loosely defined, and after a Faustian Rebellion, she begins to think of non-evil uses for them.
- Graendal, in The Wheel of Time series, has an incredible talent for Mind Control—which, in the Age of Legends, she used as a psychotherapist. She eventually went bad (and began using her magic for more conventional purposes), but it had nothing to do with her powers.
- In Orlando Furioso, Malagigi is a sorcerer who can summon demons but fights on the good guys' side.
- Pretty much the point of Brimstone Angels. Heroine Farideh is a warlock in a Dungeons and Dragons setting, which means she gets her magic as part of a Deal with the Devil, and her powers are appropriately creepy and sinister as a result. That said, she's also a fundamentally goodhearted character who wants to use her abilities to do the right thing insofar as she is able; the resulting tension between Farideh and Lorcan (the devil aforementioned deal was made with) is a running theme.
- The novelisation of Development Hell Doctor Who lost episode "Shada" runs into this due to Pragmatic Adaptation reasons — the original had an evil character, Salyavin, who possessed the unique and (in the setting) utterly dark ability to copy his own mind into other people's minds, but he did a Heel–Face Turn and became a good friend of the Doctor under another identity. Since this didn't make a lot of sense, the book establishes that Salyavin was never evil, and never even considered using his power for more than making people do silly dances at important political events and other such harmlessness — but the other Time Lords assumed that he was evil, because if they had possessed his ability, they would have used it to take over the universe, and had no concept that he simply didn't want to.
- Aiden and Grent in Rogue Sorcerer both use their blood magic for the forces of good, with Grent even sacrificing his own wellbeing in order to save Claron's life.
- This is ostensibly the basis of "dirties" in Christopher E. Long's Hero Worship series. When you exhibit powers, you're tested, and only those with "clean" powers can use them to make money, while "dirties" are ostracized as being dangerous to be around even if they don't use their powers for profits. The actual reason lies in back-alley deals with unions to prevent superpowered individuals from taking jobs from non-powered workers. The clean/dirty line is based on quotas, not the actual nature of the powers.
- Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain
- The first book introduces Mourning Dove, an ostensibly heroic zombie construct of some type. There isn't much detail on her precise powers, but they're lethal and have created at least one vengeful ghost.
- In the prequel, I Did NOT Give That Spider Superhuman Intelligence!, her origin is revealed. She started life as a hero named Bluejay with Healing Hands, but Came Back Wrong as a result of an attempted resurrection.
- In follow-up book, Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm Queen of the Dead, Avery winds up with a set of friends all with "bad powers" including necromancy, mind control, the ability to summon fire, insect control, and shadow control.
- Devil's Cape has a character who calls himself Bedlam and whose power comes from a curse and allows him to transform into a demonic form of himself, complete with horns and a tail. In civilian life, he's a respected psychologist, uses his training to persuade a dangerous criminal to give herself up, and is the first of the heroic team to say that they intend to stay in Devil's Cape to protect its citizens.
- Comes up a lot in the Wild Cards universe. Most aces and jokers are just average civilians who are going about their lives regardless of their potentially horrifying powers. John Hive is an excellent example; his power involves being turned into a sentient Hive Mind swarm of wasps. Despite this being a perfect power for a villain, John is a slightly snarky Nice Guy and Intrepid Reporter who's always ready to help out the heroes.
- The Poster Children: Ernest’s mother Gloria had passive pheromone powers she could not control. It only spiraled from there.
- In the Monster Hunter International series, Earl Harbinger is a werewolf. Nonetheless, he leads one of the most successful monster hunting businesses in the world.Though it's theoretically possible for someone to learn to control the werewolf curse (except on the full moon) and thus be able to (mostly) live among humans, he's stated to be one of the very few in history to actually do it. He has an exemption from the government-funded bounties against monsters, due to using his werewolf abilities in several wars.
- Lucias of Dark Ones Mistress is able to steal souls and control people's minds. He only uses either ability on criminals.
- In the Cahill Witch Chronicles, the protagonist finds out she is a talented magic healer. Then she finds out that there are two sides to this, and she can kill just as easily. Her first kill is a mercy kill, that she's asked for by the dying person.
- In Children of the Black Sun, this is the protagonist's whole situation, really. Sierra recharges her magic from other people's pain, but despite what people assume, doesn't go around causing pain just to get her magic. It isn't even unpleasant for the people she's drawing from, because converting their pain into magic means that they aren't in pain any more. However, the whole "feeds on pain" angle naturally leads people to conclude that she's evil (and people in her country already hate and fear ordinary magic as it is).
- In Shaman Blues, Katia is a necromancer, with her art being part of Black Magic, because raising the dead and using them against their will poisons magic and auras. However, she's one of the heroes, and most of her work is putting the dead back in their graves.
- Dark Heart: Myrren. Despite having powers based in black magic, she's appalled by indiscriminate violence and loyal and protective of her friends and family.
- In The Witchlands:
- Iseult can kill people by infecting them with a Mystical Plague, and it's implied that the mechanism that lets her do that would also allow her to turn other witches into zombie puppets against their will. Nonetheless, she's an altruistic, heroic person, helping others in need and only using her powers to aid people.
- The Marstoki Adders can poison any liquid in their vicinity just by standing next to it, but they're also the infinitely loyal and dedicated Praetorian Guard of the (non-villainous) Empress.
- The Infected: The second book stars Gabriel, a scary mind-controller, and his efforts to turn his life around and become a good person. Starting with joining a riot squad so he can keep a series of protests from turning violent. It helps a lot that his powers work more easily when helping people, but he's still terrified and rightly so in future books where he discovers how few his limitations really are.
- In the Dreamblood Duology, Sunandi eventually understands that neither Ehiru nor Nijiri are bad people, but their ability to kill people in their dreams and make them enjoy and welcome it just goes against anything Sunandi considers right. The Gatherers simply believe they are doing a service to the community by allowing those unwilling or unable to go on a pleasant way out and they genuinely care for Hananja's faithful.
- Star Wars Legends:
- "Electric Judgment" was a weaker version of typical Sith Force lightning that drew on the Light side of the force rather than the Dark. However, due to its close association to it the technique was considered forbidden to Jedi Knights with a select few Masters such as Plo Koon allowed to practice it.
- Jaden Korr was the apprentice to Jedi Master Kyle Katarn, who freely invoked this and allowed himself and his disciples to use Dark Side powers in limited amounts, stating that the powers aren't inherently evil but it's how you use them that counts. In Crosscurrent Jaden discovers that he has a natural affinity for the Dark Side (like Master Mace Windu), which becomes a significant source of angst for him as he struggled to control his Force lightning. Kyle eventually helps him move past his self-doubt and realize that his usage of the Dark Side is only a problem if he lets it become one.
- New Jedi Order tried to invoke this with the "Grey Side" or "Unifying Force" theory during the Yuuzhan Vong saga. The idea was that there wasn't any such thing as "Dark Side" and "Light Side" — there was simply "The Force." There was no real reason a Jedi shouldn't be able to use so-called Dark Side abilities (like Force Lightning) at need. This led to several Jedi (most notably Jacen Solo) doing just that. While the audience was split on this idea (Some saying "about time" and others thinking it messed with the franchise mythos too much), George Lucas himself came down on the side of "Light Side/Dark Side — that's it" and ordered the Grey Side retconned, with Vergere (the Jedi who came up with the Uniforce theory) turning out to be a Sith who used the theory to lure Jacen Solo to the Dark Side in the sequel series Legacy of the Force. It should be noted that the Star Wars video games have long allowed players to use Sith abilities as a Jedi and vice-versa (though overuse could cause a player to lose their chosen alignment).
- Unifying Force was inspired by Potentium, a theory formed in 132 BBY which argued that the Dark Side came from people rather than the Force itself, and if users stayed moral then they would be immune to The Corruption and could use whatever powers they wanted. The followers were branded heretics and expelled by Yoda & the rest of the Jedi Council, with Word of God even coming out to call it corrupt and misguided.
- Jedi Shadows were a subclass of the Jedi Sentinel who acted as spies and infiltrators tasked with destroying artifacts and people tied to the Dark Side. They were permitted to use some mild Dark Side powers like Force Choke by the Order with some becoming paranoid loners due to the nature of their work, but many were kind individuals such as Jedi Master Taria Damsin who was a close friend and former lover to Obi-Wan Kenobi.
- Worm:
- Taylor's power is to control swarms of bugs. The Squick imagery of her power is probably a part of why she is mistaken for a villain on one major occasion, and if she is not careful, offensive use of her power carries the possibility of anaphylactic shock (bee stings), comas (black widow spiders), tissue necrosis (brown recluse spiders) or death (all of the above). Despite this, she has aspirations of being a superheroine and is constantly striving to do the right thing.
- There's also Crucible, of the Brockton Bay Wards. His power? To make a solid force field bubble, which he then fills with an insane amount of heat, incinerating everything inside. Taylor even lampshades it by asking how on earth he's a hero after he demonstrates his power.
- A minor character, but Taylor briefly encounters Sere, a hero who's power is to violently pull the moisture out of a person. Although he can pull enough to just dehydrate them and not kill them, Taylor still notes how surprisingly brutal the power is, and that it easily could have ended up with him marked as a villain under different circumstances.
- In the sequel Ward, we finally learn what Parian's true power is. Normally she constructs and controls golems out of fabrics and cloth, but it turns out that her actual power is to construct golems out of dead human flesh. These are far, far more powerful than her cloth golems, but she absolutely hates constructing such things... not to mention what she'd have to do to obtain "materials". The one time we do see a demonstration of her true power, she went out of her way to obtain permission from the friends and loved ones of the deceased to use their bodies like this.
- Within The Dark Wizard Of Donkerk, Dark Magic is considered to be evil, and is persecuted, because it requires sacrifice. Some, such as the protagonist, argue that sacrifice is acceptable given the outcome is better than the sacrifice. It's shown that Dark Wizards tend to wind up with a bad case of utilitarianism, if they don't start deciding that their own lives are more valuable than those around them...
- A major theme in The December People series by Sharon Bayliss. Magic is hereditary, and although each individual's magic is unique, defined by a particular date and time on the solar calendar (this is not the same as their birthdays), certain types of magic tend to run in families. Dark wizards and witches, have magical dates that fall within the winter (the most powerful dark witches and wizards have the winter solstice as their date). Dark or winter magic is inherently destructive. No matter what their intentions, their magic always has some kind of destructive effect- some dark wizards are great protectors or soldiers- however, their magic tends to go horribly wrong if they don't know what they're doing. A dark wizard might cast a spell to make money to support their family which results in their spouse dying in a car accident, leaving the next of kin with a big life insurance payout. Dark magic can be used to destroy harmful things, such as painful or traumatic memories but that can also come with side effects like wiping out memories of someone's entire childhood. Since magic tends to be unpredictable in this universe, many dark wizard families choose not to practice at all and try to live normal lives. Many light wizards and witches whose magic falls closer to summer are able to practice magic with fewer negative consequences, but they are not necessarily depicted as being good people-they can be cruel or cause harm deliberately, and many of them seem to think of themselves as being better than normal people or dark wizards which they believe gives them the right to do what they want to others-some of them think it's perfectly acceptable to kill dark wizard families who have done no harm just because of what they are. Fall and spring magic workers tend to be more balanced, but they are still all human, with the same foibles and weaknesses as anyone else. Many dark wizards and witches are ordinary people- they make mistakes, but many of them just want to lead ordinary lives.
- Vampiros do Rio Douro:
- Downplayed with Gentil, a member of group of vampires known as the Seven that gained immortality and demonic superpowers from Satan himself by sacrificing their souls to him, and he is the nicest and most friendly vampire with the power to stop time completely still. With that said, he considers himself far from good due to having succumbed to his condition and tries to be Affably Evil at best and an Anti-Villain at worst. At the end, he pulls an Heroic Sacrifice to save the heroes from his brethren on the condition they protect his biological brother... Who is not only a vampire, but also the worst of the Seven.
- Played straight in the second book when Tiago becomes a vampire himself after drinking Gentil's blood and the Devil himself empowers him for free to take down the Big Bad himself, being able to [[{{Intangibility} phase through solid matter, becoming just as strong as all the Seven combined and gaining authority over other vampires]].
- Yurika in INVADERS of the ROKUJYOUMA!? is a good-aligned magical girl, but she proves to be very skilled at using poison and acid spells (that said, she can still use other types of magic). She herself is uncertain whether these kinds of powers are okay for a good magical girl.
- The warlocks and witches in The Mortal Instruments are the common children of humans and demons. Although many of them are nice people, and their magic is also used for good things, it is explicitly stated that the magic is demonic.
- InCryptid:
- Sarah Zellaby and Angela Baker are polite, kind, well-adjusted people who belong to a species of sociopathic mind-controllers. Gorgons can turn you to stone and have venomous snakes for hair but are gregarious neighbors with a strong sense of place and family. Most ghouls — the only obligate carnivore in family Primates — keep themselves out of other people's hair as much as they can.
- Elsie and Artie, son and daughter of incubus Ted Harrington, are succubus and incubus respectively. Elsie is extremely careful not to sweat or bleed around humans because they react to her pheromones and blood like an irresistible lust command. Artie, whose pheromones are stronger than those of his sister, leads an entirely reclusive life, refusing to leave the family home even in dire situations.
- The titular protagonist Vandalieu of The Death Mage Who Doesn't Want a Fourth Time is a Dhampyr with a talent for death magic. Although such powers are easy to abuse for evil ends like creating undead slave armies or spreading deadly poisons or diseases, Van tends to use it for altruistic purposes like food preservation, killing harmful pathogens, medical treatment, or elevating mindless undead back into fully sentient people.
- Myr of the North in Tales from Netheredge is a part fey magician whose magic runs on "sex and cruelty, preferably both". He refuses to let it get to his head (possibly for fear of ending up like his ruthless father), and doesn't even know the extent of his own power until he finds a consenting partner to help him with creating valuable magical artifacts. He finds himself aroused by said partner being humiliated and tortured in front of him, but is promptly reassured that it isn't his fault and doesn't make him evil.
- The House In The Cerulean Sea:
- Lucifer (called Lucy by everyone in the orphanage) is the antichrist, with the ability to do all manner of horrendous things (summoning darkness, giving people terrifying hallucinations, and throwing people around the room like rag dolls are the least of his capabilities). He is also a theatrical, music-loving six year old boy with separation anxiety who dearly loves his fellow orphans and the director of the orphanage.
- Arthur Parnassus is a phoenix, with potentially has the ability to engulf the entire world in flames. They're also the most patient, kind-hearted character in the entire novel.
- He Who Fights With Monsters: The powers Jason gets a hold of are all on the "evil" side of things, letting him become an affliction specialist. He is able to kill by inflicting agonizing poison and rot on his enemies, but in general is a pretty nice guy. Of course, his reputation isn't helped by the time he went full Terror Hero in a training match, and the recording got spread throughout the city.Random Adventurer: Hey, aren't you that guy with the evil powers?
Jason: [sighs] - Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi: Demonic cultivation is looked down in the cultivation world upon since it makes use of resentful energy and involves necromancy. The protagonist Wei Wuxian primarily uses this as his fighting tool for helping others, and although he's had a few mishaps due to loss of control and has used it for cruel and unusual deaths for the enemies that wronged him, he is otherwise a kind and heroic guy and one of the most morally pure characters in the story. Many people become more lenient in their views on demonic cultivation after witnessing him use it for good.
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