Well Intentioned Extremist Discussion - Television Tropes & Idioms

Blitz Blast: Why is the entry for Megaman X defending the Repliforce? Even looking at the script shows that everything happened because Colonel was a retard who held his pride above the lives of his men, his sister, his commanding officers, and himself.

AlthorEnchantor: Is there an entry for a character who doesn't eventually take the slippery slope into villainhood but otherwise fits the bill? A truly Heroic Well Intentioned Extremist? Someone who wants to create a utopia, but would rather his plans failed than have his "perfect world" forever tainted by what it took to get there?

: Wouldn't they stop being extremists then?! The whole point is that they're willing to do something the hero finds reprehensible.

whitetigah: I tried to restore the Girl Genius section from google cache, but I couldn't find anything. Sorry.

Ununnilium: Though I'm sure including more Muslims as White House interns would have an effect too. ``v

Lale: Moved the second quote to Knight Templar because it fits better.

H. Torrance Griffin: I am debating on if to place Chao Lingshen from the Negima manga here or under NecessarilyEvil over the current plot to expose the existence of mages and magic to the world at large. Her casual dismissal over the effects of her success over the next decade indicates what she is either lowballing same or worried about something Really Bad.

Both the Templars and the Assassins in Assassin's Creed are characterized as well-intentioned extremists, both fighting for peace but with distinctly different - but no less ugly - methodologies.

Nezumi: Personally... I have to disagree with the "no less ugly". The game portrays the assassins as wanting to create peace by eliminating those evil people who fuel war and conflict... while it portrays the Templars as wanting to achieve world peace by enslaving the entire world under mind control to make them nonviolent and complacent. The Templars' method is much more horrifying, and the game continually treats it as such. In fact, near as I can judge from what I've played of the game, the Templars (unsurprisingly) are supposed to go into full-on Knight Templar territory, resorting to truly insidious and evil methods, while the assassins are more antihero Well-Intentioned Extremists, taking an extreme solution to a difficult problem, while not coming across as thoroughly evil and twisted as the Templars.

Jester: Aren't all Inspector Javerts basically Well Intentioned Extremists?

KJMackley: I removed Mr. Freeze from Batman The Animated Series because he doesn't have good intentions, he is merely sympathetic. That goes under Anti Villain.

Charred Knight:Deleted because its not a subversion, and not important. Lelouch will overthrow his father no matter the cost. That doesn't meen he can't Pet The Dog, he just can't do it to much or it will destroy the balance that the series has been using. In other words he can take one million Japanese, but the battle must be fought on Tokyo.

More Subversion: Lelouch, with his Magnificent Bastard skills noticeably present, manages to get himself, and 1 million other Japanese (including The Order of Black Knights) out of Area 11 by having every one of them dressing as Zero so that the banishment of Zero applies to each of them as well. Those Japanese are now technically free from the persecution of the Britannian empire. For now...

Kerrah: The World Of Warcraft example (The Infinite Dragonflight) doesn't really count because they are just trying to trick you into allowing them destroy the universe.

Fire Walk: Attack of my chainsaw of anti-matter From The Dark Knight (under comics), but anyone who can reasonably quantify his plans, knock yourself out.

But didn't he himself created the corruption and crime, through economical weaponry?
- As I recall his idea was that humanity needs a place where all the corruption and decadence building up over decades of progress is best exemplified/gathered, so that it can be destroyed to force another beginning or some such.

Maximillian Thermador/Otsdarva in Armored Core 4: For Answer (videogames) is a classic example of this. He plots to bring down the power supply for the 'cradles' floating arks in the stratosphere where hundreds of millions of people live to escape the radiation pollution on the surface of the Earth, potentially killing huge numbers of them. His motivation is revealed at the end to be so he can use the power supply instead to power anti-satellite cannons to clear millions of orbital mines littering Earth'a orbit placed there by competing fascist corporations that control the world to stop each other entering space and getting an advantage over each other.

By doing this, he'll free humanity to escape Earth and find their destiny in the stars and overthrow the corrupt corporations rather than inevitably face extinction on a dying world, albiet at the cost of millions of lives. Interestingly if you side against him (there are three endings) you never learn his motivation and thus the 'good' ending is actually the bad one, whereas if you do side with him, millions die, but the 'bad' ending where millions die is actually the good ending as humanity prospers, so in a sense the game is sympathising with the well intentioned extremist.

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