Good Is Not Soft / Video Games

When evil rears its ugly head, you'll love playing these guys to kick evil's ass.

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Mass Effect

• Mass Effect's Commander Shepard, as a Paragon, could be named after the trope. S\he really is genuinely nice, caring, loving, and willing to Pistol Whip someone who's crossed the Moral Event Horizon or beat down some Jerkass, or help kill a villain in cold blood. And don't EVER hurt his/her crew and friends. It will probably be the last mistake you ever make.
  • The moment that perhaps cements this more than anything else in many fans' eyes is the ending to Overlord, where a scientist forced his autistic brother to communicate with the geth, in the most barbaric way, then pleads with Shepard to allow it to continue. The Renegade option is to allow it but break his jaw and show disgust over his actions. The good one however is for Shepard to refuse, dodge shots fired at him/her, optionally smash the scientist's face in and threaten to kill him.
    Shepard: You even think about coming after your brother and this bullet will be waiting for you. Then we'll see who's "valuable". ^note  You can go full Paragon in this ending where Shepard's voice is barely suppressed rage, or take the neutral options where s/he doesn't bother holding back how pissed s/he is and lets him utterly have it.
  • Upon meeting Gavin Archer again in 3 as part of a team of ex-Cerberus defectors, Shepard makes it clear that even though they going to save him along with everyone else from the Cerberus forces assaulting the base, they still have nothing but utter contempt for him! Shepard also can mention that David is still safe and been rescued from Grissom Academy, but Gavin is still not going to get within a light-year of him!
  • Another example comes up in I Remember Me. If Shepard has the Colonist background s/he was attacked and nearly taken by Batarian slavers when s/he was sixteen. Because this becomes common knowledge Shepard is asked to talk to a girl who was taken by slavers and is Driven to Suicide. The Paragon ending has Shepard save her, then the officer who asked for help despairs the point in fighting if they can't even keep the little girl safe.
    Shepard: To make people who do these things pay. It's not the severity of punishment that deters crime, it's the certainty.
  • The above is one of the few times that Paragon Shepard is absolutely furious.
  • A Renegade Shepard, on the other hand, is a good demonstration of the sister trope, Good is Not Nice, in that Renegade Shepard can be a real Jerkass yet no matter how bad s/he can be Shepard is still trying to save the galaxy.
  • In Lair of the Shadow Broker, the special Paragon solution to dealing with a hostage situation is to have Shepard do a Badass Boast mentioning either the Paragon or Renegade choices for two of the most extreme actions in the previous game and saying that the hostage-taker had better have a better plan than hoping a hostage will deter you. Although the intent was to intimidate the hostage-taker into letting their guard down so Liara could free the hostage, there's a strong implication that if it had really come to that, Shepard wasn't bluffing.
    • If you don't have the Renegade/Paragon points or just decide not to use those options, you can demonstrate that Shepard is not bluffing by shooting through the hostage to get the villain. To the injured hostage, Shepard says, "You'll live."
  • A full list for just Shepard showing how Good Is Not Soft would take all day, but here's his/her reaction to criticism for all the human lives lost when Shepard gave the order to save the Council during the Battle of the Citadel.
    Shepard: The Alliance lost eight cruisers: Shenyang, Emden, Jakarta, Cairo, Seoul, Cape Town, Warsaw, Madrid. And yes, I remember them all. Everyone in the Fifth Fleet is a hero. The Alliance owes them all medals, the Council owes them a lot more than that. And so do you!
  • Liara counts as well. A curious, well-meaning archeologist, her time with Shepard meant she Took a Level in Badass. After Shepard supposedly dies, Liara becomes obsessed with getting him\her back. During Redemption, she plays nice with shady characters like The Illusive Man, but fends off rape attempts by killing her attackers. After she hands Shepard over to Cerberus in the hope s\he can be brought Back from the Dead, Liara becomes an information broker where she taps her inner Dark!Willow and threatens to flay people alive. But the Good is Not Nice facade is a weak mask and when Shepard finds her she all but breaks down over her obsession and feelings of betrayal to him\her.
    • Her introduction in the third game has her being chased through an air vent by two Cerberus troopers. She drops out of the vent, then uses her biotics to immobilize the troopers in mid-air when they try to follow. And then executes both of them. A Double Tap for each of them.
  • Turians in general, and Garrus in particular, show that not only are they incredibly polite and friendly, they're exceptionally ruthless and militaristic. Their combat philosophies directly reflect this: they hit the enemy with absolutely overwhelming force to end the fight as soon as possible.
  • None of Shepard's True Companions are soft, but not all are good. The "good" squad members would qualify for no other reason than anyone who follows Shepard winds unhesitatingly racking up an astronomical kill count, but others qualify for other reasons. An incomplete listing of the characters following this trope includes...
    • Fan favorite Garrus Vakarian is an incredibly nice guy who genuinely tries to do the right thing. He was essentially a Cowboy Cop in Mass Effect 1 and in Mass Effect 2 killed so many crime lords in a Wretched Hive the population called him Archangel. His actions are game-changing across the Terminus Systems that they are forced to unite just to get his head on the silver platter after Garrus single-handedly cripples their operations (which will go worse as Shepard butts heads against them enough to create a power vaccum around the events of the third game).
    • Kaiden Alenko and Ashley Williams both are loyal, decent Alliance marines who willingly follow Shepard into hell in the first game and show no compunctions about gunning down minions of the Big Bad and criminals. Despite coming into conflict with Shepard due to being left in the dark about the current situation, they remain firmly on the side of humanity and the Council, doing their best to protect innocent people. And even though they outrank (Kaidan) or on the same rank as (Ashley) Shepard on the third game, they still follow Shepard's command without any problem.
    • Wrench Wench Tali'Zorah nar Rayya starts the series as a slightly shy, sweet-tempered girl on her Pilgrimage. In her first scene, she kills attackers trying to bring her down with an explosive and spends the rest of the series in the thick of heavy fighting.
    • Captain David Anderson shows these traits when he serves as a mentor and leader. The Expanded Universe shows he has no problem dealing with the bad guys with force, as he was also the first-ever N7 (human special operations). In the third game, he not only leads the entire human resistance on Earth as an alien fleet tries to harvest humanity for many months but then leads the ground forces which make the suicide run when The Enemy Gate Is Down.
    • Samara is a civil, regal, somewhat distant but unfailingly polite member of a strict monastic order. Her code of honor demands she gun down criminals (or snap their necks) in cold blood.
    • Mordin Solus. Generally atoning for past acts. Decent person. Introduced as former special operations agent turned scientist turned physician. Runs clinic in Wretched Hive. Has killed many gang members. Leave him alone out of fear.
      Mordin: "Lots of ways to help people. Sometimes heal patients; sometimes execute dangerous people. Either way helps."
    • Jacob Taylor is a decent man working for a questionable organization. When he discovers his father has spent ten years living in a puerile sexual fantasy by forcing his crew to eat neurotoxic food, he has no problem seeing to his death or to his incarceration. "[After] what happened here, I should vent his head!"
    • Thane Krios is attempting to atone for a lifetime as an assassin so despite good intentions, he may not count as "good." He has absolutely no compunction about killing villainous wrongdoers and is introduced when he kills a crime lord and then prays for forgiveness.
      Thane: Removing evil from the world is not the same as creating good.
    • Kasumi Goto is a master thief. That's literally the only negative thing you can say about her. She's nice (very sympathetic to the other characters, particularly Jack), kind (saved a little girl from slavers), friendly, and sociable, with her input on morally ambiguous decisions showing high morals. She's also a devastating Glass Cannon that uses stealth to stab enemies in the back, so skilled that Spectres consider her a Worthy Opponent and when mocked about her dead lover she goes into a quiet rage before taking out a crime king's invincible gunship. And the thieving part? Turns out she's now doing it from casinos and giving the proceeds to war victims. You can stop her, but letting her proceed is the paragon option.
    • The Expanded Universe anime film Paragon Lost portrays James Vega as a young, idealistic soldier — but a highly effective commando leading his squad against mercenaries and racers. By the events of Mass Effect 3, he has a slightly darker persona, but still remains loyal to the mission of saving humanity and the rest of the galaxy.
    • Steve Cortez is a nice guy mourning the death of his husband and a competent Alliance pilot. Since he never enters ground combat, many players overlook that he's a complete badass. Not only does he fly into a hot LZ in just about every mission (an act of great courage), but he scores an impressive number of kills in air-to-air combat. In "Leviathan" he finally did enter ground combat in a limited capacity. But in Citadel, he fights more directly. Maybe not as a squadmate, but he joins one of the other two teams, filled with your badass squadmates and holds his own. By a similar token, Jeff "Joker" Moreau, pilot of your Cool Starship, is a Deadpan Snarker with Hidden Depths who is quite personable. He seems positively ecstatic when his ship the Normandy delivers killing blows to enemy ships.
    • EDI, as an AI, can literally be inspired to modify her central directives towards what can only be called humanitarian virtues and loyalty. If this happens, she states that her overwhelming priority is no longer her own survival. Other things — people — are worth fighting for to the death.
    • By Mass Effect 3, Miranda has become this, after breaking free from the extremism of her former employer Cerberus. She is willing to go to any lengths to keep her sister safe from her father and when she finally sees his greatest atrocity, Sanctuary, leaves messages to refugees to stay away from it at all costs. This doesn't stop her from murdering her father the second he lets her sister go. She might be fighting for the survival of the galaxy, but she is still ruthless as ever back at the second game.
    • Wrex becomes this if he survives the first game and gives reformation another shot, becoming the leader of the krogan race. He knows that if the krogan do not make serious changes, then they are going to die out. He assumes his authority with violence if he has to and if others refuse to go along with the reforms, they're left in the dust.
      Wrex: *headbutts a dissenting Clan leader* Speak when spoken to, Uvenk! I will drag your Clan to glory whether they like it or not!
  • Let's face it, Mass Effect is a whole world of Good Is Not Soft. There's a reason this crew is able to win a war against an endless horde of cyborg Old Ones.
  • In Mass Effect: Andromeda, the concept of Paragon vs. Renegade personality changes is abandoned. Now, Ryder is free to be a little of both. He/She is depicted in cutscenes as friendly, charming, humourous, dorky (especially during romance-related portions of the game), and generally a good guy/girl. At the same time, however, many missions require the killing of other humans and intelligent aliens, or standing by as someone else does it, and rarely does Ryder or any of the team show any remorse - even when encountering people expressing grief over the people they've killed. I Did What I Had to Do is the overriding mantra.
• Zaeed's Loyalty Mission in 2 is quite possibly Paragon Shepard's defining moment. Zaeed, out of anger and bitterness, intentionally starts a fire in a refinery full of innocent civilians in order to catch Vito faster. The Paragon response is to deck him, and make it clear that if he ever pulls a stunt like this again, Shepard will not tolerate it. If you do Zaeed's loyalty mission after the Suicide Mission, Paragon Shepard can prove they weren't bluffing by leaving him to die in the fire he started.

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• Corruption of Laetitia: On a low-corruption run, Celeste generally takes the most generous and heroic options, but she'll still kill human enemies out of necessity. Though she also has respect for their lives and enacts a requiem for those she kills.
• Dyztopia: Post-Human RPG:
  • Runi, the leader of Pon Pon Village, is polite and only wants the best for her family and people, but she's willing to kill anyone who attacks the village, putting her at odds with Zetacorp. However, she only killed one Hunter from Zetacorp rather than the two she's accused of, since Kael actually abandoned his mission and went to Vulcanite.
  • Although Akira initially wanted to spare Barbados, he spits on their mercy and destroys Pon Pon Village with the power of Aries. No matter the player's choice in the first bonding segment, Akira decides Barbados is Beyond Redemption and kills him at the end of Chapter 1.
• Knight Bewitched 2: Rae is friendly to others and is open-minded about learning about the world outside the Amazoness community, but when Hermes betrays the party by giving the Vulcan Stone halves to Lissandra, Rae grabs him by the neck and threatens to throw him to his death if he doesn't explain himself.
• Tekken: Jun Kazama is The Chosen One and pure as the driven snow. This does not mean however she isn't devilishly effective in a fight, possess a series of powerful moves...brutal even, or in no shape to punch out Cthulhu. Or go all Mama Bear. Or as Tag Tournament 2 suggests, go downright demonic in the pursuit of good.
  • Depending on the Writer, her being asocial can have her descend to Good is Not Nice, or at least not friendly.
  • Her niece Asuka is another great example. Nice, friendly, gets along well with the likes of Lei (a cop) and Leo (very moral knight\soldier archetype,) and Bully Hunter extraordinaire aiming to take down her cousin Jin, hard. In fact when they first met she tries to revive him, then punches him into a wall because he was an Accidental Pervert.
  • Good is not Soft does not even begin to describe Angel. Of all the characters she is the closest to the Big Good, capable of Flight, shoots Frickin' Laser Beams, fights exactly like Kazuya or Devil, and will genuinely mess you up. With most people she's lovely, doesn't matter if they're good, evil, Darker and Edgier, Big Bad, whatever. With something like Ogre, however, she's downright frightening.
• By the very nature of the genre, most of the heroes in fighting games are this. In Street Fighter, Chun Li, Guile, and Cammy as a good girl are very caring individuals, justice-minded, Guile's a family man, and they are among the best fighters in the series. For Tekken, see above. In Mortal Kombat, you are expected to murder your opponent after a fight, with Liu Kang turning into a dragon to rip them in half, Raiden electrocuting them until they blow up, Stryker blowing their head clear off, and they can do this to the other good guys.
  • Ryu is a particularly strong example of this. He’s mostly a Martial Pacifist who doesn’t have any killing moves like Liu Kang and his fighting style Ansatsuken which was originally designed for murder was adapted into a non-lethal variant. Yet for all his peacefulness, Ryu doesn’t turn the other cheek to villains and those have hurt his close friends and loved ones as Seth, Necalli, M. Bison and eventually Akuma all learned the hard way.
• Mariko "Spirit" Tanaka of Wing Commander is the nicest, kindest, gentlest creature in the series. Then she goes kamikaze on a Kilrathi held space station her fiancé is on.
• Star Wars: Dark Forces Saga has Kyle Katarn, who through the course of the games was with the Empire, became a rebel, then a Jedi, fell to The Dark Side, gave up the Force, became a Jedi again for revenge, then began teaching others. His view of the Force and how to act is it's less about what you do, but how you do it. A good person for example can use bad means to achieve a good end, Good Is Not Soft in action.
  • Tellingly, Jedi Knight had a good and bad ending, dependent in part on what Force powers Kyle chooses. In Jedi Academy, Luke will praise Jaden if s\he chooses light side powers or a mix, or become concerned if more dark powers are chosen... but, perhaps because you're Kyle's apprentice, even if you choose entirely dark powers you will be able to choose the light side ending.
• Knights of the Old Republic uses this trope along with Incorruptible Pure Pureness. The backstory of the first game has the Jedi believing that good has to be soft, even with the Mandalorians running rampant. Revan, Malak, the Exile, and others disagreed, believing that Good Is Not Soft and defied the order to save the galaxy.
  • As far as characters go, Bastila believes that a single misstep no matter how minor will doom a person, yet the likes of Carth or Mission believe Good Is Not Soft and are portrayed as being more light-sided than Bastila.
  • Between the two games, it turns out that the Jedi Masters take their own stance on Good Is Not Soft. While they are happy to let the galaxy burn, they also Mind Rape Revan and attempt to strip the Exile of her force powers.
    • The Jedi council's take on Good Is Not Soft also relates to their principles — believing there is a greater danger in jumping feet first into war, the council refuse to bend their resolve and be drawn into a fight with the Mandalorians, no matter how many innocents they slaughter. To the rest of the galaxy, Good is Not Nice is the most charitable way to view this stance.
  • If you remain Light Side after defeating Bastila, she will express amazement that the Dark Side did not make her stronger, nor did the Light Side make you weak. This is foreshadowed by Juhani thinking the same thing. Malak will express the same, resigned revelation if you defeat him and offer to turn him back to the Light Side.
  • Juhani is a soft-spoken Jedi and of all the characters is the most concerned about being light-sided. That's because she did fall before. Quite kind, caring, and helpful, she's also rather vicious and utterly pissed at what's been done to her, to the point of indulging The Dark Side unless talked around, then becoming frightened of what she could have done.
  • The Jedi Exile in the second game. Canonically light-sided, fought as a General in Revan's army during the Mandalorian Wars and afterwards was the only one to return to the Jedi Council to face the music. Was also responsible for giving the order to deploy the Mass Shadow Generator on Malachor V, wiping out every single living thing on the surface and in orbit, including most of their own fleet. Despite their obvious guilt, throughout the game, the Exile can repeatedly argue why it had to be done since it ended the War in one fell swoop.
  • Queen Talia is the Big Good of the Onderon questline and the light side choice. She also wants to execute her traitorous cousin Vaklu right in the throne room because she knows he's so popular that he won't be imprisoned and remain a threat. And while you can talk her out of it, you don't have to. You can stand by and watch without gaining any dark side points.
• Most Republic characters are this way come Star Wars: The Old Republic, dancing on the edge of He Who Fights Monsters. Grandmaster Satele will admit that there are weapons that should never be used. General Garza will likely disagree. Supreme Chancellor Suresh started her life as an Imperial slave and became governor of Taris only to lose it when the Imperials charge in and sabotage the rebuilding efforts and the only question there is how much of her policies are fueled by wanting revenge. Yet, all three in-game are reasonable authority figures the Republic players. Likewise, messing with Havoc Squad, the Barsen'thor, the Hero of Tython, or Ace the Smuggler is not the wisest policy if you value your lives. However, when your opponents blow up unarmed farming worlds, enslave all non-humans, kill or subject Force Sensitives to Training from Hell with no choice in the matter, and are led by an Ax-Crazy theocratic cabal surrounding an Eldritch Abomination Emperor who wants to devour all life in the galaxy so he can be a God, then the Republic's less-than-angelic tendencies are pretty damned justified.
• From the Kid Icarus: Uprising series, we have Pit. Goofy and cheerful angel he may be, he's still the captain of Palutena's Royal Guard, and a One-Man Army who has no qualms smiting the forces of evil. If Palutena gives him the order to fight, he will fight.
• Kasumi of Dead or Alive is the nicest, kindest, gentlest character in the series (notice a trend?) She gets run off from her ninja clan and then succeeds in not only finding her brother but killing the man who attacked him, then destroys the most powerful bio-weapon in human history, all while fending off constant assassination attempts and proclaiming she does not want to fight.
• Dishonored has this with Corvo Attano. Even if you spare all of your assassination targets, they all end up wishing you'd just killed them instead. High Overseer Campbell gets expelled from the Overseers and it becomes illegal to assist him in any way, shape, or form. He ends up a Weeper. The Pendletons have their tongues cut out, their heads shaved, and get forced to work in their own mines. Lady Boyle is taken away in a boat by her Stalker with a Crush, never to be seen again. The Lord Regent gets his confession about causing the plague and having the Empress killed broadcasted all over the city, after which he is arrested and (according to Word of God) executed by Corvo.
• In Myst, Atrus is an archetypal Absent-Minded Professor, creating Portal Books to fantastic worlds and living according to an extremely optimistic worldview, but after being betrayed and imprisoned by his own sons, and his library destroyed, when finally released he takes the books where the sons have been trapped and burns them! Then, in order to save his wife, Atrus goes on to create a trap book for his egomaniacal father.
  Atrus: People talk about my sons, and the evil things they did, but still I remain strangely mute. I do not discuss my own actions that day, or the rage I felt when I burned the two Linking Books that had snared them.
  • The fourth game retcons this, by revealing that the sons were not killed when he burnt the books, but simply trapped in the prison ages for the next 20 years. At the urging of both his wife and youngest daughter, he eventually decided to see whether they had reformed in their exile and could be allowed to be freed, writing a special linking chamber into each Age to visit them in safety.
  • In one tie-in novel, he agrees to lead a slave revolt in battle, despite his reservations about warfare and his lack of military experience.
• Dante from Devil May Cry. While he comes off as a carefree thrill seeking wildman most of the time, he's also shown to be a real hero at his core and cares deeply for his friends and later his nephew. Push him too far though, and you’ll understand why he’s so infamous among the demon world as the Red Eyes, Take Warning kick in and his Devil Trigger activates. Like his father before him, he’s slaughtered his way through The Legions of Hell and didn’t even show mercy to his brother Vergil when he opened up the Underworld for the sake of gaining power.
  • V from Devil May Cry 5 unlike Dante or Nero, he’s a soft spoken and utterly polite gentleman who reads poetry and shows nothing but compassion to his allies. Yet he’s also a deadly Combat Pragmatist who will unleash a Storm of Blades and go for the kill whenever he can. It’s soon revealed V is Vergil’s Soul Jar being all of his good i.e “weak” qualities and the human side which he spurned, but even as the embodiment of discarded goodness, V is still a deadly warrior.
• In Baldur's Gate II, many of your Good-aligned party members, particularly Keldorn, Minsc, Mazzy, and (in the Enhanced Edition) Rasaad qualify. Aerie is also this by Throne of Bhaal. All are genuinely kind, altruistic people who are nevertheless very proactive in buttkicking for goodness. The PC can play this way too.
• Many examples appear in Final Fantasy:
  • In Final Fantasy VII, although Aerith Gainsborough is very kind to most people and she can be very understanding, she doesn't hesitate to challenge anyone who gives her a hard time. She's ready to break into Don Corneo's mansion on her own without thinking of her own safety before Cloud stops her. After Cloud, Aerith, and Tifa break into Don Corneo's bedroom, Aerith threatens to "rip them off" if the Don doesn't tell them what they want to know. She isn't afraid to let Cait Sith know what she thinks of him when she learns that he's a spy. And of course, she isn't afraid to head by herself to the Forgotten City to summon Holy even though it's only logical that Sephiroth will most likely try to stop her (which is indeed what happens).
    • Similar to Aerith, Tifa herself also qualifies. Like Aerith, she's kind and caring to most people she runs into, while also being a master martial artist and anti-Shinra rebel unafraid to get her hands dirty for the sake of others. Bonus points for the aforementioned Corneo scene in which she threatens to "smash them". At one point in the Final Fantasy VII Remake, while seeing seeing her allies in trouble she says: "Don’t worry guys we’re coming", before turning to the boss and growling: "AND YOU CAN GO TO HELL!" and delivering a megaton kick to him.
    • Cloud himself, beneath his cocky and jerky mercenary persona, is a genuinely sweet and easygoing nice guy who cherishes his loved ones. But he’s still a man who will brutally hack foes apart with his BFS, and even Sephiroth wasn’t safe from Cloud's Unstoppable Rage after the former had burned down his hometown, sliced up his best friend and childhood sweetheart and killed his mom. In Remake, Cloud is fiercely loyal and protective to his companions, but is absolutely merciless to anyone who crosses them, attempting to kill Reno after he invaded Aerith's church and even tried to kill Johnny when he ratted Jessie out to Shrina. When the Turks activate a countdown for the Sector 7 plate to fall, Cloud holds the Buster Sword to the beaten Reno’s throat and firmly demands to know how they can stop it.
    • Barret in Remake is a lot more gentle than his original incarnation, being a Father to His Men and Boisterous Bruiser hero of Sector 7. But against Shinra, he's just as much a Scary Black Man as he was in the original, happily gunning down those who've crossed AVALANCHE like a real Blood Knight.
  • Serah Farron from Final Fantasy XIII-2. She's kind-hearted, friendly, and cute, a stark contrast to her gruff badass Big Sis Lightning. However, like Lightning, she's a hardcore Determinator and Action Girl, and if she's really pushed, she's just as dangerous as her big sis.
  • Most of the main cast in Final Fantasy X. Of the seven heroes, Auron and Khimari qualify unquestioningly. You could make really strong arguments for Wakka, Tidus, and Lulu, and even Rikku and Yuna have their moments of this.
  • Even after his Character Development leading him to be one of the most genuinely heroic people of his world, Clive Rosfield of Final Fantasy XVI harbors no illusions about how dangerous the world is, and is just as willing to get his hands dirty and kill his enemies as he was earlier. This is most apparent in his treatment of Hugo Kupka, whom he despises for destroying his hometown, killing the people of the Hideaway, and trying to have Jill executed as Revenge by Proxy on Cid for Benedikta. He has absolutely no sympathy for Hugo's grief about Benedikta because of how low he sank in seeking vengeance for her, and makes no bones about how he wants the man dead.
• Three characters in BlazBlue: Continuum Shift have their first fight in Story Mode against Hazama, and one of them is Jin Kisaragi. The other two sit nicely in this trope.
  • Litchi Faye-Ling may be a doctor and a former medical officer at Sector Seven, but she still has a strong moral compass and an IQ above room temperature — when Hazama comes a-knockin', she is unafraid to sass at him and, when that doesn't get him to leave, draw Matenbo to evict him by force. While he does offer her the opportunity to join NOL in exchange for the chance to save Arakune after that fails, she doesn't believe he'll hold his end of the bargain one bit, and only winds up Forced into Evil out of desperation over her own condition. Even when she is under the Librarium banner, she isn't afraid to chew out Relius over his bad parenting (this, sadly, convinces him to set Ignis upon her and Carl). Litchi is not afraid to step into 'evil' territory, do things she didn't like, and stain her already perfectly good image and reputation in order to pursue good deeds, that's how much 'not-so-soft' she is.
  • Makoto Nanaya is no different despite being an Intelligence Division Lieutenant (under Captain Hazama himself, at that) — it's sundry that her loyalties are more to her friends than any government. When Hazama tries to assassinate Jin in Slight Hope, she is swift to call him on it and, when negotiations fail, parry the knife and attempt to beat the shit out of him. When that doesn't succeed and Jin has to freeze Hazama to get them both to safety, this only changes her priorities somewhat — to save her friends from him. In her bad ending, she has the gall to call Relius out on sending a still-injured Jin to what appears to be certain death against Ragna the Bloodedge and, again, demand he step aside lest she knock him on his ass (for all the good that does her), and even in the good ending she has no hesitation in demanding an explanation from Hazama about all the crap he tried to pull.
• In Galactic Civilizations the humans are seen by most races as very soft, as they are diplomats by nature and will always try to solve their problems peacefully. The resident warrior/bully race, the Drengin, pity humanity particularly, and decide to show the rest of the universe just how pitiful it is. They convince another race, the Xendar, to start a war with the "soft" race. Needless to say, humanity reveals that millennia of internal warfare have grown a very hard shell beneath the soft crust; it promptly mobilizes and curb-stomps the Xendar back to their homeworld. After the Xendar die altogether due to interference by the Drengin, Humanity disbands its army and goes back to being peaceful and polite with everyone as if nothing had happened. The Drengin decide it's a wise idea to leave the "soft" race the hell alone.
• Sonic the Hedgehog may be the nicest character alongside with Tails and Cream, but anytime he encounters Dr. Eggman or any other villain, expect him to not only go start kicking their asses but also say some snide and/or cocky remarks about them while doing it. In Sonic and the Secret Rings, Sonic in his Darkspine form brutally seals Erazor Djinn away for being so irredeemable and then throws his lamp into a pool of molten metal for good measure.
  • Knuckles the Echidna is shown to be a selfless and caring hero who risks his life to save pretty much anyone in spite of his tough demeanor, but he won't hesitate to deal with a villain with his spiked fists if they aren't willing to listen, or just about anyone who stands in his way. And don't even think about stealing the Master Emerald.
  • Despite being Good is Not Nice, Shadow the Hedgehog has shown to care for others, which includes his two teammates Rouge and Omega and his deceased surrogate sister Maria. When he fights against an evil foe, he has shown no second thoughts about using lethal force on them. The Black Arms learned the hard way that this also means no compunctions against genocide when dealing with exceptional evil. He also won't hesitate to fight the heroes if they get in the way of his current goals.
  • Chaos is a water being who shown to be peaceful and friendly with Tikal and the Chao, but for those who would do any harm on them, he will show no hesitation in going psychotically wrathful in killing them, as the greedy echidna clan had soon suffered dearly. Unfortunately, he was filled with so much anger that he destroyed Station Square, which only took Sonic to purify him with the positive powers of the Chaos Emeralds.
• Kei "Edge" Nagase of Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War has this strange preoccupation, being a combat pilot, of not wanting to kill anyone and regretting Osea going to war with Yuktobania. Soft-spoken, loyal to her flight lead (Bartlett and Blaze), and well-liked by her team, she also comes across as very much a pacifist who would have much preferred to meet enemy pilots on airshow circuits rather than battlefields. That's the same Nagase who — after being shot down and forced to flee on foot — turns the table on enemy soldiers sent to capture her and ends up holding them at gunpoint, fights like a demon (literally in one case where the enemy pilots claim mythical demons had taken her over after she kills a good number of them in retaliation to the death of her fellow teammate Chopper), and punches out a higher-ranking officer whom she finds out to be a traitor. She might not like wars, but if she finds herself in one, she is ready and willing to sweep aside all oppositions in her quest to end it.
• Mario, Link, Samus, and Kirby are Nintendo's textbook examples of this trope. Mario is Fun Personified, Link is a Knight in Shining Armor and All-Loving Hero, Samus is a stoic, quiet professional, and Kirby is a strong yet cute Cheerful Child. Every one of them is a One-Man Army capable of taking on the greatest evils of his/her respective universe and their functionally endless hordes of Mooks. Villains underestimate them at their peril.
• Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider reboot. She's still an Anti-Hero, but more of the traditional type than the "modern" type, and she's much more pleasant than her previous incarnations.
• Sophitia Alexandra may be Purity Personified and one of the most unambiguously good characters in the Soul Series, but her fighting style is quite brutal and she is certainly not afraid to fight dirty, including moves like Groin Attacks and Neck Snaps. And while she is an Apologetic Attacker, she does so with an air of confidence and dignity. She is genuinely sorry she has to hurt her opponents, but she is not going to let anything stop her.
• Most of the Vault Hunters from Borderlands and Borderlands 2. Even though a few of them lean towards being Sociopathic Heroes, for the most part, they're doing their level best to protect those on Pandora who can't protect themselves. They're also some of the most unambiguously badass people on the planet, who think nothing of mowing down hordes of bandits, dangerous wildlife, or robots.
• The Main Characters of Resident Evil (barring Ada and HUNK) fall under this, they’re good people who look out for each other but will go Ash Williams on bioterroism and unleash thousands of bullets on the monsters they face.
  • Chris Redfield is essentially RE’s Captain America, who will do anything to protect the world from evil and cares greatly for his loved ones. Yet as the games go on, he proves how ruthless he can be especially in RE6 and Resident Evil Village where he dips into Good is Not Nice. While still a good man at heart, he becomes an example of Dark Is Not Evil due his appearance and attitude.
  • Leon S. Kennedy is a hero rookie turned secret agent who will Always Save the Girl, protect those he cares about and safeguard the world whenever he can. But he’s also merciless to his foes, throwing knives into enemy’s hands and coldly tells others to shoot the head of their recently zombied-friends. In the RE2make when he learns that sultry FBI lady has been actually been a femme fatale mercenary leading him astray, Leon doesn’t waste a moment trying to arrest her. In later titles even when depressed and drunk, Leon still cares about doing the right thing, and is willingly to shoot a man in the spine just save him from turning into a monster.
  • Jill Valentine is a compassionate person who cares greatly for justice, but also believe in delivering More Dakka to injustice and anyone who’s crossed her and her allies. In RE3make Jill leans right into Good is Not Nice, telling Umbrella mooks in no uncertain terms to go screw themselves whilst trying to save any civilians she can. At the end she’s totally willingly to leave the only other survivor besides Carlos and herself to be atomised by a missile due to the survivor in question being a Smug Snake who destroyed the vaccine to the T-Virus.
  • Claire Redfield is a All-Loving Hero and Friend to All Children and works her heart out trying to make the world she lives in a better place despite not being an agent like her friends and family. Yet at the same time she’s totally willingly and able to deliver hot lead to anyone and anything that means her and her allies harm and is even willingly to give a What the Hell, Hero? to even her closest ally when they fall short of doing the right thing.
• Xian Mei and John Morgan of Dead Island would make Chris and Jill fall to their knees in reverence. They are committed to helping everyone, very sympathetic to the victims of the outbreak, and caring to those caught up in the outbreak. They are also capable of slaughtering half the population of Banoi and Palanai with ease and turn bloodthirsty when coming across those irredeemably evil.
• Sora of the Kingdom Hearts series is this. He travels to different worlds, helping out people in need and befriending them in the process. He is also openly rude to any villain he encounters throughout his journey, and more die at his hands than get arrested or escape. He's also not afraid to fight any women and children who work for or are villains. So, if you piss him off, prepare to die.
• The Assassins in Assassin's Creed are this. Their ideology is based around free will and self-determination, and they're generally good guys. However, as you might guess from the name, their Modus Operandi is assassinating the key people on the other side.
• In A Witch's Tale, Queen Alice did what needed to be done to stop the Eld Witch, including sacrificing a princess to create the seal and denying the Eld Witch's daughters reincarnations.
• Thrall from World of Warcraft probably qualifies. In addition to being a visionary leader who strives for peace among the warring factions, he's also just generally a nice guy. But he's also a fierce warrior who won't hesitate to crack some heads with Doomhammer when occasion requires; most notably, he was seconds away from executing Garrosh on the spot for his crimes, before Varian Wrynn interrupted.
  • Velen is another notable one. Don't let the robes and long white beard fool you: this guy can kick your ass six ways to Sunday and won't hesitate to do so if you're messing with someone. He has been leading the Draenei for thousands of years, battling the Burning Legion the whole time. Unusually among the racial leaders though, he isn't solely concerned about the Draenei: he's very interested in promoting peace and cooperation among the races of Azeroth as well. The Draenei in general are also very much this trope, following Velen's example. They are friendly and hospitable, honest, and always strive to act justly: which means you'd better not do any injustice while they're looking.
  • Really, this applies to most of the inhabitants of Azeroth. Relatively few of them are straight up baddies, and even anti-heroes are the exception rather than the norm. Most people are generally good and caring...but the entire universe wants to destroy the planet so pretty much everyone has to be good in a fight. Also, people have different definitions of "good", like in the real world: so conflicts between groups of people are common, even though there are genuinely good people on both sides. And, of course, good people can be convinced to do bad things.
• The Tenno of Warframe. Millennia old beings who are dedicated to restoring balance and order to the solar system. They are genuinely out to help the civilians who currently suffer under a number of tyrannical regimes and are even known to assist those regimes when dealing with the Infestation. Their standard means of restoring balance is to conduct hit and run attacks, assassinate high profile targets, steal and sabotage their enemies' technology, or brutally slaughter their way through entire battalions of enemy troops.
• Joshua Graham AKA The Burned Man in Fallout: New Vegas. He's a Mormon missionary and the former Legate of Caesar's Legion. His in-game karma is good and he's very friendly towards you. The catch? He's sworn to protect the local tribes from the White Legs, a monstrous tribe that massacred his homeplace and has come to Zion Valley to finish the job. Joshua's solution to the problem is massacring the entire tribe, and he's just as brutal as he was in the Legion. Fortunately, he can be talked out of killing the White Legs leader.
  Joshua: Make no mistake. This is an extermination.
  • He makes it clear what will happen if you mention you might "shake some information" out of Daniel.
    Joshua: If you harm Daniel or any of the Sorrows or Dead Horses, I will find you. Make no mistake. God willing, you will not leave this valley.
  • The Courier can be a Messiah and greatest force of good in the Mojave, and an absolute terror to raiders everywhere. The Courier can go from helping The Kings and supplying the Followers of the Apocalypse to blasting the head off of a Fiend or storming Caesar's camp and killing every legionnaire without even a second consideration for the deaths, simply stripping the bodies of useful loot and moving on.
• Fire Emblem franchise: The notable sizes of cute/innocent females (Caeda, Nino, Lilina, etc) and the main lords (Marth, Sigurd, Roy, etc) are of the high tier Magikarp Power and/or Game-Breaker. Their personalities are genuinely decent, but they're still soldiers who develop to hurl down the toughest opponent soldiers and monsters and to fight for what is right.
  • One of the reasons Ike from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn is so damn popular is he doesn't mince words.
  • Chrom from Fire Emblem: Awakening is a kind-hearted and heroic leader of the Shepherds of Ylisse, but he's also not willing to tolerate evil. When Gangrel, king of the rival kingdom of Plegia, threatens Ylisse, Chrom states that he's willing to kill Gangrel to protect his country.
  • Ferdinand von Aegir from Fire Emblem: Three Houses is a Nice Guy that at worst falls under Innocently Insensitive, but also has no issues with using force (including lethal force) should the situation call for it. He is unfazed by his first kill (a bandit) in Chapter 2, threatens a pushy soldier in his and Mercedes's B-support, and when acting as the Supporting Leader on the Silver Snow route, he states that the only way to end the war is to kill Edelgard, despite any feelings he may have.
  • Mercedes from Three Houses is similarly compassionate, but also not averse to using force. She prays for the soul of the first bandit she kills, but has no regrets about killing the bandit, and actually agrees with Rhea's decision to execute the Western Church members responsible for an elaborate plot involving inciting a rebellion and breaking into the Holy Mausoleum. She's even willing to fight against the Death Knight, after he turns out to be her younger haf-brother Emile, as well as against her best friend Annette and old friend Constance if they end up on opposite sides in Crimson Flower.
  • In Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, Dimitri does not snap and become a violent revenge-obsessed madman, but he's still willing to kill those responsible for the Tragedy of Duscur. When he learns that the Kingdom is on the brink of civil war because of his uncle Rufus, the regent (who turns out to also have played a role in the Tragedy of Duscur), Dimitri takes Shez and some of their classmates to take back the Kingdom capital of Fhirdiad from Rufus. After Rufus is defeated, Dimitri takes his uncle out in front of the people and personally executes Rufus by beheading him. Shez, a battle-hardened mercenary, is somewhat disturbed by the sight, but Felix replies that executing traitors is part of Dimitri's duties as king.
• Ajay Ghale of Far Cry 4 leans towards this characterisation. He's the only Far Cry protagonist so far to have a Karma Meter, which increases if you perform certain Karma side missions, most of which entail rescuing hostages, avenging the abuses of Pagan Min and his forces, and protecting locals from animal attacks. By the end of the game, he'll be something of a saint. He's also a Far Cry protagonist, however, with all that entails as well.
• The Sylvari of Guild Wars 2 may be in many senses beautiful, hopelessly idealistic, aligned-to-good, kind, and compassionate folks who are naive to much of the harsh realities of Tyria, and they may very well be more attuned to nature than any other race in the world — but they constantly remind other, tougher races that roses possess thorns, and their trained soldiers are capable of being just as lethal on a battlefield as most other trained soldiers of other races.
  Thermain (Sylvari NPC): I am no placid gardener, no gentle guardian. Thorns bite, vines choke — and I kill.
• Several characters from Undertale qualify to some extent, due to the cast being something of a Dysfunction Junction, the most clear-cut example is definitely Sans the skeleton. He's among the nicest and friendliest people you'll meet in the game (which is saying a lot), with a laid-back personality, goofy sense of humor, and very close relationship with his younger brother, Papyrus. From the moment he introduces himself onward he treats you like an old pal, despite the fact that humans and monsters have a very ugly history, and he'll pop up throughout the game to give you advice, peddle healing items to you, or just have a nice chat over lunch. However, it becomes clear over time that his Hidden Depths run deep; toward the end of the game, he'll reveal that he actually had every intention to kill you the moment he laid eyes on you, only not doing so because of a promise he made to somebody else, and he's actually been stalking you throughout the game because he knows about the Video Game Cruelty Potential you could indulge in at any given moment. This doesn't disqualify his alignment as a good character — practically every character in the game wanted to do the same at some point due to the aforementioned species divide — but it's still telling that he was willing to stone-cold murder a defenseless child in order to preserve peace among monsters. It doesn't stop there: while he'll take most of your behavior, however villainous, in stride throughout most of the game, he will not take it well at all if you kill Papyrus. And if you kill enough monsters — enough to get him to finally break his resolve and bar you from the game's ending, knowing you'll destroy the whole world if you reach it — then you'll be faced with far and away the most difficult challenge in the game: a boss battle against him. Combat Pragmatist doesn't even begin to cover what you'll be up against...
• Ghost Recon Wildlands: Nomad and the Ghosts rip on each other, swear like dock workers, use torture and intimidation on civilians and want no part of getting involved in Bolivia's civil war, but their targets are drug cartels and their allies, and Nomad does help the people affected by the conflict anyway.
• The Phantom Thieves of Hearts in Persona 5. When not on the job, they're a bunch of affable, easygoing high-schoolers trying to live a normal life. When on the job, however, they ruthlessly punish evildoers by the process of Heel–Face Brainwashing, even sending out calling cards to their major targets to let them know they're next.
• Persona 5 Strikers:
  • Zenkichi Hasegawa, being more cynical than the other Phantom Thieves, exemplifies this trope, since he feels less sympathy for the Monarchs of the Jails, who have more tragic backstories than the Palace rulers and are guilty of less severe crimes. Zenkichi believes that the Monarchs' past is no justification for their crimes, and is quick to call out the Phantom Thieves for letting pity hold them back.
  • Haru is one of the kindest Phantom Thieves, but discusses this trope in the same game. The third Monarch is Mariko Hyodo, a woman Haru knew when she was young, so Haru sympathizes with her and is saddened by how much she's changed. Nevertheless, Haru is determined to change Mariko's heart, recalling a time when the ordinarily kind Mariko sternly ordered Haru to stand up by herself after falling.
    "There's more to good character than kindness. Being good means dealing with the bad in front of you."
• In The Elder Scrolls series, the Aedra, "original spirit" beings who sacrificed large portions of their divine power during the creation of Mundus, the mortal plane, are seen as uniformly benevolent, highly regarded, and worshiped as the primary religion throughout most of Tamriel. However, several instances in history have seen them get tough. Two of the most prominent:
  • After they realized that Lorkhan tricked them out of their power in order to create Mundus, they got even. How? They "killed" him, tore out his heart ("divine center"), and tried to destroy it. When it proved indestructible, they cast it down into the world he had them create where his spirit would be forced to wander.
  • When Alessia and her Nedic people (Precursors to most of the races of Men) were enslaved and tortured by the Daedra worshiping Ayleids, the Aedra sent aid. Not only did mankind win the war, the Ayleids were driven to extinction as a unique race. Whether this counts as "good" or not, is up for debate. Not that the elves are winning any prizes for morality either.
• Officer Ooe from Spirit Hunter: NG tries to be genial and offer her help to Akira at first, but as he continues to keep tight-lipped while bodies pile up around him, she stops playing nice and hauls him into the station to demand some actual answers out of him. It works out for her, as he finally lets her in on what's going on.
• Doomguy is, throughout all games in the series (most especially Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal) considered The Dreaded by all residing in Hell, in that he is a relentless One-Man Army who, if you are unfortunate enough to be a demon, won't just kill you or even gun you down - he will eviscerate you, with his bare hands, and savor the sights of your guts. Preferably, huge guts. However, his ire starts and ends strictly with demonkind; he has repeatedly saved Earth from Hell's forces, punched out his commander for ordering him to target civilians, and in the case of the recent two games, stomped out Samuel Hayden's Argent Energy filters due to the energy basically being fuel for a Soul-Powered Engine.
  • Many fans believe that Doomguy is related to BJ Blaskowicz of Wolfenstein, who would also be an excellent example of this trope.
• Pretty much every 'good guy' in The Walking Dead (Telltale) cannot afford to be soft when fending off hordes of the undead. The protagonists also get into their fair share of fights with other groups and individuals. In particular, repeatedly losing everyone around her has turned Clementine into a hardened survivor who, despite being riddled with guilt and insecurity, is more than capable of fighting to the bitter end to protect others.
• Rudy Roughnight from Wild ARMs. He's a kind hearted kid who will lend a hand to anyone who asks but he doesn't hesitate to step up when the demons threaten Filgaia (even his companions note he's the only one who has nothing to gain by doing so). Also, when some bullies start picking on a lonely Elw girl, he smacks their ringleader hard enough to send him flying backwards.
• Witch Hunter Izana: The Knight Caelyn and the Hierophant Cyrano are both nice people who are willing to do anything to save Scier's island from Verand's brainwashing curse, even if that means cutting through hordes of monsters.
• Kazuma Kiryu, the Dragon of Dojima and main protagonist of the Like a Dragon series up until Yakuza: Like a Dragon, is a Nice Guy despite his past and stoic attitude who is willing to help anyone in need. That being said, if you harm or threaten him or his friends and family, particularly Haruka Sawamura, be prepared to find yourself on the receiving end of a Curb-Stomp Battle and subsequent No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
• In Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, nearly every good character fulfills this as they are crusading against a demonic incursion. However the most explicit statement of this trope comes from Regill, who is evil. He has a possible dialogue where he blows up at Sosiel for making the side of good look weak, pointing out that good people are morally obligated to fight against demons trying to destroy the world no matter what pacifist ideals they have.
• Octopath Traveler: Ophilia is a gentle and kind woman, but she doesn't hesitate to use lethal force on the men who kidnap (and threaten to kill) Bishop Donovan's daughter.
• Leo from Red Earth is a warrior king who has vowed to protect the innocent from Scion's devious plan to slaughter the human race with a new race that which he can call himself God. Leo does so by being The Berserker and mauling his opponents and using his brutal strength to his advantage. He will finish his opponents by cutting them in twain or splitting them in half.
• The crew of the Unreliable in The Outer Worlds all qualify to varying degrees.
  • The Variable can be played as the nicest, most genuine person in the colony. However, they become a wanted criminal in the eyes of the Board for a very good reason, ranging from theft to corporate espionage to murder.
  • Parvati is the Endearingly Dorky engineer keeping the Unreliable from turning into space scrap, but that doesn't mean she won't bash your head in with an electrified hammer if the time calls for it.
  • Felix might be the Token Good Teammate (in a comparable sense), but he's still not afraid to get his hands dirty if he needs to. One sidequest has him put down a friend of his once he learns that friend is a Board loyalist.
  • Ellie acts as the Dr. Snark of the Unreliable, but you first meet her as a mercenary who's killed more people than she's saved them. And she's not afraid to remind people of that fact.
  • SAM is basically a janitor-bot that doesn't do much other than clean. However, he's been customized to spray cleaning agents and acid from his nozzle. There's also the fact that he immediately calls the Chairman "filth to be incinerated."
• Sword of the Stars: The Liir are pacifist space dolphins with psychic powers and adorable sing-sing voices who wiped out the evil Suul'ka with bioweapons. Of course, that isn't the full story: the Suul'ka were really Liir Elders who went mad with power and enslaved their own children and press-ganged them through the industrial revolution to build spacesuits so they could violate the Square-Cube Law and live forever in space. The Liir found a sympathetic Elder known as the Black, kitted him out in black armour and turned him into a Hunter of His Own Kind who has so far killed dozens of Suul'ka and can Mind Rape the entire crew of a battlecruiser from light years away. Don't fuck with the Liir.

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