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McNeil: You're not God, Kane!
Kane: ...No. I'm not God. But I'm a close second.
It's a Crapsack World, and things are only getting worse. There are heroes, but the status quo won't let them cause more than a few ripples of good in a sea of Black And Gray Morality. Out of this ambiguity comes a "savior", someone who brings hope to the downtrodden and preaches a message of peace. However, he isn't afraid to fight fire with fire. In a world where moral absolutes are impossible to find, he will use underhanded tactics, preemptive strikes, and otherwise act like Genghis Khan's patron saint in his quest for "peace".
No, he's not The Antichrist, but a character with delusions of (or actual feats to back up) being a Messianic Archetype. As a "messiah", the heroic version of this character doesn't hesitate to sacrifice himself for the masses, in fact he would die a thousand times and just as well accept a life of sheer torture to reach his goal. Thing is, he's graduated from the old testament school of Utopia Justifies The Means. So while he'll hug orphans, he won't hesitate to make them with bizarre doctrinarian attacks on the Powers That Be.
More tragically, he may be a Fallen Hero (or fallen messiah) who has suffered so much he has revised his belief system from rainbows to carbombings. He'll usually be a Knight Templar with enough good acts and intentions to stay this side from outright villainy, but he stands on very slippery and muddy ground. If the hero upsets his plans enough, or he gets a(nother) Dead Little Sister or Heroic BSOD, you can bet he'll go Jumping Off The Slippery Slope. After all, anyone who tries to, I dunno, improve the world through active effort is doomed to fail or die a Karmic Death, because Ambition Is Evil.
The ' villainous' version of this character is usually hiding behind a more traditionally "good messiah" image. He may secretly be a Straw Hypocrite, but just as often he is terrifyingly fervent in believing his messianic message and getting others to do the same. May or may not be secretly spreading the Religion Of Evil, but usually assembles a Cult around themselves; may or may not have good as their ultimate goal. Always operates on an Ubermensch morality.
Contrast with The Revolution Will Not Be Vilified. Has nothing to do with the video game Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, in which the titular character does not fit this trope. See also Apocalypse Maiden, Anti Christ.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
- Paptimus Scirocco from Zeta Gundam could certainly qualify. Though he is introduced as a textbook Manipulative Bastard and his motives are shrouded in mystery throughout the series, his Motive Rant in the last episode seems to hint at this.
- Griffith from Berserk is a definite example. He cares for the weak and helpless everywhere, fights tyranny and cruelty, and everyone loves him. However, after getting imprisoned and tortured to within an inch of his life, he's sold his soul to the evil Godhand to become its fifth member Femto, hires demons as enforcers, and ruthlessly kills anyone who opposes his rise to power, including the Band of the Hawks that he once led, whom he sacrificed in order to become Femto in the first place.
- And in the latest arc of the manga, Griffith is called by the people an actual Messiah. Hell, he has the Crystal Dragon Jesus equivalent of the Pope proclaiming him to be the best thing since sliced bread. We the readers, can only cringe in expectation of the devastation that will ensue.
- And to top it all off, since he still possesses at least a significant amount of a Godhand's power even though he was supposedly reborn as a human, and seems to still be backed by the other four demon lords, he actually IS a Crystal Dragon Antichrist, who is currently posing as a Dark Messiah. No matter how bleak things are already, they WILL get much, MUCH worse.
- Bishop Mozgus from the same story in Berserk may be a lesser example — a dedicated destroyer of evil forces who took in and nurtured deformed, sick and dying orphans, giving them hope in a world without any...aaaand then trained them to be his torturing, murdering inquisitorial hitmen.
- Lelouch Lamperouge, the main character of Code Geass. A Well Intentioned Extremist Anti Hero who seeks the overthrow of The Empire that killed his mother, Lelouch means well (most of the time) but even at his best he's shot a dog or two — some of whom he even unleashed himself.
- And he's obviously aware of his status, as he ends up setting himself up as the ultimate tyrant and concentrating the hatred of the world on him, so that when he's killed, the world can finally unite in peace.
- Shinobu Sensui from Yu Yu Hakusho, who was one Face Heel Turn away from being considered an actual Messiah.
- Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind is played straight as The Messiah in the film, but in the manga (which finished later), she ultimately winds up fulfilling the archetype at the cost of destroying the ancient plans which are which have allowed humanity to survive After The End, essentially dooming everyone.
- Light Yagami, at least at first. Over the course of the series, though, he gradually abandons his original ideals and changes the emphasis of his message from "and I shall be god of that perfect world!" to "And I shall be GOD! of that perfect world." Of course, his Bishonen status means some fans will forgive practically anything he does.
- Hotaru Tomoe aka Sailor Saturn in Sailor Moon. Or better said, her Superpowered Evil Side, Mistress 9.
- Ribbons Almark from Gundam 00
- Aion in Chrono Crusade seems to fancy himself as one of these—at least for his fellow Sinners.
- If Altena from Noir isn't a Dark Messiah, I don't know who is. The only difference is that she is, in fact, the villain.
- She's more like Dark John the Baptist. After all, she's devoted to bringing the true Dark Messiah pair, Noir into the world.
Comic Books
- Adrian Veidt (Ozymandias) in Watchmen causes the deaths of millions in order to unify the world and prevent the nuclear armageddon he believes is otherwise inevitable. The comic itself refuses to either obviously support or condemn his actions.
- Abu Adallah in Shooting War masterminds a conspiracy against the US military occupation of Iraq, and dies for his cause. He engineered a nuclear apocalypse in the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
Literature
- Paul Muad'Dib from Dune.
- Except Muad'Dib was a reluctant Messiah who recognized the Darkness in his Messiah-ship and sought to avoid it. God Emperor Leto (Paul's son) would be a better fit.
- Lord Asriel in His Dark Materials. Though his plans include, in the short term, separating an innocent child from his soul to rip the universe apart (environment be damned), though he is portrayed to have a very haphazard respect for human life, ultimately he's for freeing all the universes to live in freedom of thought and government, by destroying the angel who claims himself as God. Even the heroes don't like him that much.
- Nyarlatothep in HP Lovecraft's work often appears as a messianic figure, gathering large amounts of followers by various demonstrations of power and seemingly working for the good of mankind. In reality his goal is no less than The End Of The World As We Know It. May be more of The Antichrist without the connection to Christianity, though.
- "Yet one shall be born to face the Shadow, born once more as he was born before, and shall be born again, time without end. The Dragon shall be Reborn, and there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth at his rebirth. In sackcloth and ashes shall he clothe the people, and he shall break the world again by his coming, tearing apart all ties that bind. Like the unfettered dawn shall he bind us, and burn us, yet shall the Dragon Reborn confront the Shadow at the Last Battle, and his blood shall give us the Light. Let tears flow, O ye people of the world. Weep for your salvation." Dark enough for you?
- Masema would be a better example than Rand himself, except that he's the (self-proclaimed) "Prophet of the Lord Dragon", not the Dragon himself. He and his ragtag army of Ax Crazies go around randomly slaughtering whole villages for not serving Rand devoutly enough. Rand keeps telling him to stop, but...
- Kellhus from Second Apocalypse eventually becomes much like this. He might well just be a Villain With Good Publicity posing as a Dark Messiah though. (Fans debate this.) His POV sections later on are careful to dance around his real motivations.
- Ras the Destroyer in Invisible Man is almost a deconstruction of this type—he thinks he's going to be the leader of a revolution against white power, but in truth he's a ridiculous figure who's easily manipulated by the Powers That Be.
- Agent Ben-Canaan in Exodus is a little like this. Though he is not vicious as such, he is cunning, and can be ruthless when put to it.
- On the other hand, he really isn't "dark" enough to quite fit this.
- Melisandre from A Song Of Ice And Fire is a female example. She genuinely believes that Stannis Baratheon is Azor Azhai come again, and preaches a message of peace and tolerance, uniting in the name of Rh'lor, the Lord of Light... unfortunately, Melisandre is a Knight Templar, Stannis Baratheon is completely unyielding, and worshipping Rh'lor involves blood magic and burning people alive. Since she's in Westeros, however, her faction is not much worse than most others.
- Kelsier from Mistborn: The Final Empire is like this right down to dying for the cause in the well substantiated hope that his death will enrage the masses enough to make them rise against their oppressors.
- The Lord Ruler from the same series is a Dark Messiah made good. Turns out he actually did save the world from an Omnicidal Maniac about a thousand years ago, but turned it into a hellish totalitarian theocracy in the process.
- John Galt, who brings down the world economy in the service of his ideology.
Tabletop Games
- The Emperor from Warhammer 40000. The fact that he is worshipped as a god by The Empire he created 10,000 years ago with a bloody, galaxy-spanning crusade tells you just about everything one needs to know about the morality of that universe.
- Especially since the alternatives to the Emperor's rule are by and large much worse.
- Of course, one of the key parts of the Crapsack World life that is the Imperium in WH 40K is that even the Emperor himself would never have wanted his empire to become (quite) as oppressive and ruthless as it is now- many of its greatest flaws come from the fact that the bureaucracy and security services have been running along without his control for almost ten thousand years.
- Most of his actions while noble contradict that, the only difference being that he supported atheism as the state religion (for obvious reasons).
- The God Emperor may have supported atheism only to eventually set up his Apotheosis. The Emperor, after all, needs worshipers if he's going to smite Chaos. Of course, the people who state this serve Chaos.
- This is actually subverted by the God Emperor. His god life status was only established after his death, and against his will. During his life he spent a significant amount of time fighting the people trying to establish a church around him. Part of the reason of the crapsack state of the world at the moment is because of the Horus Heresy, which of course put The Emperor into a coma so he could no longer prevent the church being established. Ironically, it was caused by Chaos showing Horus a vision of the future where the emperor was a Dark Messiah..
- Arguably the Tau Ethereals can count as an entire caste of Dark Messiahs, being seen as leaders of the Tau's belief system while supposedly secretly controlling the entire race through Mind Control pheromones. Essentially, they can be seen as equivalent to Covenant Prophets in Halo, who are strangely not mentioned on this page.
- Exalted . While each of the Solars are Golden Hero of Virtue, each of their corrupted kin, the Abyssals, each irrevocably Dark Villians of Despair. The Abyssal's signature Martial Arts style is even named Dark Messiah Style.
Television
- Adam Monroe of Heroes. Thirty years before the events of the series, he gathers twelve unique individuals to follow him, terms them his 'disciples,' and attempts to save the world. Does this story sound just a little bit familiar?
- Jordan Collier in The 4400. He insists everyone take Promicin to gain powers, knowing it has a 50% death rate. When a method is discovered to see whether you'd live or die if injected, he sabotages the attempt because it would "polarize the world between haves and have nots". Despite being at times manipulative and bastardy, he really was chosen by people in the future to be the messiah, with the alternative implied to be even worse than a 50% death rate.
- Gul Dukat for a bit in Star Trek Deep Space Nine, when he lead a cult to the Pah Wraiths.
- Stargate SG-1 has the Ori and their Priors, who use belief from billions of worshipers on thousands of planets to fuel their powers. The best example, though, is Adria: The Ori's Prime Directive (or rather, the equally powerful Ancients' Prime Directive, which they also enforce on their Ori cousins) prevents directly attacking the masses (except in their own galaxy, where anything goes), so their knowledge and a considerable amount of power was placed in Vala's asexually-conceived daughter, who rapidly grew into a beautiful, charismatic, and very deadly adult to lead the attack. Of course, she eventually had to Ascend To A Higher Plane Of Existence to survive poisoning... and, as such, now falls under the Prime Directive that bound her bosses. Oops. Worked out well enough for Adria, though, since her bosses died in the interim, meaning that Ascension gave her all of their previously shared godlike powers.
- Adam from Buffy The Vampire Slayer was specifically described as the Dark Messiah at one point, and intended to bring about a new world order ruled by demon/human hybrids. The Master also intended to bring about his utopia by opening the Hellmouth, and was certainly treated with reverence by his subordinates.
- Much as it has its own good Messiah in Locke, Lost has Ben, almost perfectly a mirror image of Locke in every way (and understandably pissed that Jacob apparently chose Locke to replace him).
- Jasmine from Angel attempts to bring peace to the world ... by employing global-scale mind control to disguise her appearance and make demands regarding worshiping her, eating scores of people along the way. The existing world conditions and effectiveness of the actual heroes fit the bill perfectly.
- Carnivale has no less than two such characters: Brother Justin (aka The Usher of Destruction) and Sofie, the Omega, as revealed in the series finale.
Video Games
- Obviously, the titular Dark Messiah of Might And Magic. If you're NOT able to work out his identity within 2 hours of starting the game, you're dangerously Genre Blind.
- Seymour from Final Fantasy X may very well be the incarnate of this trope (as well as a Nietzsche Wannabe).
- To a certain extent, Count Bleck in Super Paper Mario is believed to be such. However it's really Dimentio.
- Sylvanas seems to generally want to help her people and presumably the other races too. She seems much more (positively) emotional (though still very cold) than most other undead and is portrayed about as sympathetically as you can be if you're a character bent on utter destruction of all her enemies so she can raise then into undeath with her. Oh, and while she seems to have a bit of a setback due to Varimathras most of her really nasty plagues and poisons are still around whenever she feels like killing everyone.
- Gross slander. The Forsaken have never wanted to turn everyone undead; in fact, they have a strong near-religious distaste for doing so.
- Kain R. Heinlein of {{Fatal Fury)) strives to build the ruins of Southtown into an independent utopia. Of course, his preferred means of doing this is by culling the strong from the weak through combat and mercilessly killing the weaklings and parasites in his city.
- Jedah Doma from Darkstalkers. His whole spiel was to save the demon world of Makai from falling into irreparable corruption, and despite being impossibly polite and caring to those he's trying to save, he's willing to sacrifice them all in order to force Makai into a demonic version of the Rapture.
- Noir from La Pucelle Tactics hands out minor miracles like they were M&M's on Halloween, will forcibly stop his own demonic servants when they get overtly destructive, and honestly is attempting to create a paradise for himself and others. But he's willing to do some absolutely horrible things in order to get enough dark energy to make it happen.
- Kane of Command And Conquer, who is even literally called "the Messiah" by his followers, the Brotherhood of Nod.
- Also fulfilling the Messianic Archetype, he is ultimately betrayed by his most trusted friend, Seth.
- And then General Hassan. And then Brother Marcion. And then apparently Killian Qatar. Treachery is kind of standard issue with Nod.
- And yet, he takes it all in stride. And summary executions. Mostly the executions.
- Now, by the 5th direct game in the series (C&C 4) He shows up to GDI command with some kind of Proposal. Oh dear.
- Gill, the Big Bad of Street Fighter III. Such is his influence and charisma that he was actually able to rebuild the Illuminati. His brother Urien is very unhappy with that, and wants to take leadership of the cult for himself.
- Takaya, the Nietzsche Wannabe of Persona 3 who looks a lot like Jesus (with several Fan Nicknames because of this) becomes this near the end of the game, becoming an internet cult leader after learning of The End Of The World As We Know It and attempts to encourage everyone else to embrace The Avatar of Death coming to destroy them all.
- according to a scene in FES, Shuji Ikuski saw himself as one of these.
- The Jackal from Far Cry 2.
- Guildenstern from Vagrant Story.
- Archer (and the rest of the guardian spirits) from Fate Stay Night. The World itself (Yes, it's a character, sort of) in the Nasuverse combats events that could threaten it or humanity... By having a stable of 'guardian spirits' at hand that are deployed to the scene and kills every single living being there and blocks the event using their powers. There is no talking, there is no attempt to save people. They kill everone related to the incident, saving humanity, and then they go 'home'. Archer is practically the patron saint of this because he recognizes it as the most efficient means of saving people, even if he hates it. Unusually for story telling purposes but usual for the Nasuverse, this is maintained as essentially the 'best' course of action, much better than a straight Messiah would be, even if it makes the character personally miserable or seems atrociously uncaring.
- Emir Parkreiner, aka Garcian Smith, in Killer7
Webcomics
- Redcloak, who serves as both The Dragon and something of an Anti Villain in The Order Of The Stick is a messiah of a dark god (aptly named "The Dark One") who preaches a better world for the Always Chaotic Evil Goblin race, who in the Dungeons And Dragons themed world are doomed to the fates of being Mooks for the "heroes" to gain XP from. His plan basically is a Xanatos Gambit to blackmail the Gods into evening things out for his race. Although he preaches a better future he is a ruthless and brutal individual who despises humans (particularly Paladins, who killed his family) and formerly Hobgoblins.
- Baron Wulfenbach, from Girl Genius, is arguably one of these, as showcased here
 . Crapsack world indeed.
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