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According to a loose enough definition of 'hero' we qualify. Well, more or less. The point is that good deeds were done and we were nearby. — Red Mage, 8-Bit Theater, Episode 920
A character in a story who, despite being presented as heroic, doesn't really do anything heroic. This isn't a matter of being deliberately unsympathetic or cowardly. They have problems inspiring even pity from the audience. They are mean people with no redeeming qualities. The audience wishes they were simply removed from the story. They're generally given a pass by the writers, freeing them from the consequences of their acts. This character type is used a lot in satire where the Hero-with-a-capital-H is being sent up.
An extremely common plot associated with this character is their riding the coattails of a misunderstanding or undeserved reward, until they finally feel guilty about it, and are allowed to keep it at the end anyway. In so-called 'guy movies', this is sometimes associated with an implausibly attractive woman inexplicably respecting that he came forward with this information and allowing it to wipe away all fault for what he originally did, despite the fact that most reasonable human beings would never want to see him again. But hey, he learned to be a nice guy, right?
It might be easier to present this character as being deliberately morally ambiguous, if not for other characters repeated implying they have great traits, and that everyone else is worse. However, this can even strike the especially annoying brand of Anti Hero. The Scrappy, The Wesley, and the Mary Sue can all fall into this as well. This is the worst part of the Jerkass Stu.
On the other hand, this can be done deliberately; see Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist, Heroic Sociopath, Tragic Hero and Black And Grey Morality. Though these stories usually make a point about not being conventionally heroic.
On the flip side, there's the Designated Villain, who we're supposed to jeer despite the fact that he's pretty much right about everything. This is often because everything he says is accompanied by an annoying smirk. Another inversion would be the Villain Protagonist, who, while presented as the protagonist, is in no way presented as a hero; rather the opposite.
Not to be confused with The Chosen One, though they can occasionally overlap. Also not to be confused with Supporting Protagonist, which is when the story just focuses on a character other than the hero.
Subtrope of Show Dont Tell.
Examples
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Anime and Manga
- The Hidden Elf Village in Fafner In The Azure Dead Aggressor is absolutely horrendous at first, refusing to help the rest of the world against the Cosmic Horror befalling it, as well as maintaining a Masquerade to fool their own children into not realizing The End Of The World had happened to the outside world. They then pick one of these children to be Humongous Mecha pilots, and aren't sympathetic when they don't react well. Halfway through the series it seemed the writers realized that the viewers were more sympathetic to the Designated Villain, the U.N.-backed "Human Army." Steps were taken to make sure that the audience knew who was "right" and who was "wrong".
- There really is little quantitative difference between the cops and the crooks in Dominion Tank Police. Both prefer to drive large, destructive vehicles, and both cause massive amounts of collateral damage to life and property; one side merely has the advantage of legal sanction for their acts, while the other's motives are purely mercenary. This is most clearly lampshaded in the sequel series, wherein Anna and Uni are allowed to make a Heel Face Turn without the least change to their personalities; they've reformed because they're tired of being chased by the police and have realized that being cops would allow them to continue blowing stuff up, but also provide a steady source of income.
- In the first Dominion Tank Police anime, there is an exchange between squad leader Brenten and Lovelock that illustrates this mentality perfectly. Brenten, probably the next most gung-ho member of the squad besides Leona, and most definitely a dyed in the wool veteran of the squad, suggests to Lovelock that they should quit the force right then, and go off and become criminals, for the action, the money, and the lack of regulations that plague them as Tank Police. From the tone of voice, it's clear that he's saying this in a half joking, half not manner, suggesting that if Lovelock had agreed to this, they would have actually left for a life of crime right then. When Lovelock declines, Brenten immediately recants everything he said, and nothing more is ever said of it again.
- The main characters of Crest Of The Stars would be more sympathetic if the whole point of the Abh wasn't interstellar conquest for their own economic benefit, regardless of whether they interfere in a world's internal politics much.
- They briefly mention that they're also trying to prevent wars by unifying the colonies but it's unclear if that's just an excuse.
- Mayo Sakaki. A Clingy Jealous Girl inflicted with some of the most severe Moral Myopia ever, and walking factory of Kick The Dog and Shoot The Dog moments. Becomes a Karma Houdini because the writer expects us to sympathize with her, despite everything she pulls, and is even thanked by the people she spent all of Eikouden mind controlling or trying to kill. She'd be a Villain Protagonist except that the author insists she's just an ordinary, lovesick girl who didn't understand the circumstances she was in.
- Killy from Blame is more-or-less this. He has his share of heroic moments, but they're balanced out by scenes of him killing non-hostile characters, blowing up tanks of Silicon Life babies and appearing generally apathetic towards anything that doesn't bring him closer to completing his mission.
- Gundam00 gives us Celestial Being who decide that the only way to gain World Peace is to force the world to unite. Their actions mainly consist of killing the various armies of the world who rightfully resist Celestial Being's actions. The second season replaces the previous armies with the Innovators who border on Card Carrying Villain just so Celestial Being can finally look good.
Comic Books
- Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, is an alcoholic and borderline Fascist, and also a Super Hero. Of course, a lot of people say that this is simply justification for his being a Designated Villain during the aforementioned Civil War.
- And let's not forget that berserker mass-murderer Wolverine.
- In the Preacher special "Good Old Boys," a parody of by-the-numbers action films, Detective Cal Hicks is arguably the ultimate designated hero. For all his rugged good looks and tough-guy bluster, he turns out to be completely useless. In the end it's Jody and T.C.—the monstrous and perverted Mooks from earlier in the series—who defeat the villain and "get the girl".
- Venom, best known for his appearances in Spider Man. Whenever he shows up, he is either claiming to be the protector of the innocent, or he's being the slaughterer of the innocent. Sometimes even in the same issue! Wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that the writers very often seemed to be honestly trying to turn him into a good guy.
- An in-universe example is Batman's stated distrust for the methods the Green Lantern Corps has for designating their heroes: namely the fact they specifically seek out the "fearless", and that handing huge amounts of power to those not afraid to use it can often lead to the effect that this trope describes, Sinestro being the greatest example.
- Says the dude who was almost handed a Sinestro Corps ring, whose idea of "cleaning up Gotham" was making everyone afraid to face him (so that his apprentice has to take up a cowl he really didn't want just to keep intimidating people), who keeps extensive files on how to kill his friends, but helped name the Dating Catwoman trope, and who keeps up the whole Child Soldier mess that the other heroes have thankfully abandoned. If it weren't for the fact his Rogues' Gallery are Complete Monsters or Well Intentioned Extremists who treat the Moral Event Horizon with all the respect of Arkham's security...
- Everyone in Marvel's Ultimate universe except for Spider-man and some other teenage superheros.
Film
Literature
- Twilight: Edward and the Cullens are the good guys because . . . well, they don't eat humans. They let their vampire buddies eat humans, routinely show up the muggles, use their awesome powers for pure personal gain, and screw up the lives of many a werewolf to get their way, but at least they don't eat humans.
- They don't eat humans very much. They do admit to falling off the wagon, though . . .
- Not Carlisle. He helps people with his powers.
- I hate to be fair to Twilight, but the events of the series are seen through Bella's eyes. Since she agrees with what the Cullens do, of course they'd be presented as good guys. Still doesn't mesh with the fact that the author seems to think they're actions are justified, however.
- The heroes of Sword Of Truth regularly perform deeds of questionable morality, although the circumstances of the plot usually justify their actions (in the oft-criticised slaughter of the strawman pacifists, for example, Richard was left with few other options). Arguably the most villainous act they commit is to torture an enemy soldier to death after he gives them the information.
- Most Bronze Age heroes lack traits that modern audiences would find heroic due to Values Dissonance. Achilles is a well-known example, since most modern audiences side with the Trojans defending their home and have little sympathy for the pouting, slave-taking Achilles. Jason is another example, whose greatest accomplishments are actually performed by his mistress Medea, whom he promptly dumps when he's done with her. To be fair, Jason becomes a Fallen Hero for his treachery at the end of his story.
- Even before he met Medea, Jason didn't really do anything Badass. Prior to seducing Medea, most of the work was done by his much more Badass Crew, which consisted of some of the greatest heroes of Greek Mythology. The only really decent thing he does in the story is to help an old lady across a river.
- This is a recurring element in the Inheritance Cycle: Eragon's condition as The Chosen One, his lack of respect towards his master's skills and his lack of regard for the life of his uncle, all add up to a character that's portrayed sympathetically, but behaves like The Load.
- How about the lack of regard for the life/health/sanity of just about anybody? While he'd had his bad moments all through the series, the scene in Brisingr with the slaves was enough to send book sporkers all over the internet into a frothing rage about what an utterly heartless dick this "hero" is.
- Well, that's not entirely true. He cares a lot about the lives of shrubs and ants. It's really just human life he can't be bothered to care about.
- Subverted in Victor Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris. Everyone - including Esmeralda - assumes Captain Phoebus is the hero fighting to protect Esmeralda from Quasimodo, just because he looks like a Prince fCharming and Quasimodo looks like a monster, when the truth is quite the reverse.
- Cameron "Buck" Williams, in the Left Behind novels, is referred to as an amazing investigative reporter who has won awards. He almost never files reports or writes anything, and when confronted with an international conspiracy that's already killed two people he knows, he... agrees to bury all the evidence if they'll spare his life. Way to go, hero.
- Rayford Steele fits this, too. First there's his stringing-along of Hattie Durham, though in fairness this was portrayed as bad on his part, though he gets over the guilt pretty darn fast. But what really pushes him into Designated Hero territory is the fact that upon seeing a tarmac covered in crashed airplanes, rescue crews, and injured bodies, it never even occurs to him to help.
- Tyrone Slothrop of Gravitys Rainbow, who never solves the mystery he's after, spends his time on various sidequests instead, avoids death only by accident and eventually simply goes mad, gives up and disappears from the story.
- The Doc Savage novels pulled in involved bystanders to their plots to act as first person narrator protagonists assisted by the titular Man of Bronze.
- Two Words: Liu Bei... who manages to get away with abandoning his wives and children multiple times, dashing his infant son into the ground since a brave warrior risked his life to rescue the boy, eating a hunter's wife, turning on or abandoning certain "allies" at rather opportune moments, and in the end having a Heroic BSOD, all because he's for upholding the "rightful" dynasty.
- Several of Raphael Sabatini's protagonists fit this pretty well, tending to be rather Chaotic Neutral characters. For example, the main character of Scaramouche seeks revenge for the death of his friend by an evil aristocrat and ends up as a high ranking member of the French Revolution government and uses this position to cut a swath through France's aristocracy despite the fact he couldn't give a damn about the ideals of the Revolution.
- Although he is a Byronic Hero of sorts in the book, The Count Of Monte Cristo kind of fits this to the extent that the premise of both Gankutsuou and the Stephen Fry novel The Stars' Tennis Balls /Revenge is that without a Sympathetic POV, Dantes looks despicable and it is only because Dumas gave him that POV that the reader can sympathize.
- In Beck Beyond the Sea from the Disney Fairies series, Beck not only shirks her duties in Pixie Hollow to follow the Explorer Birds across Neverland, but she does so by using dust that she knows was made from feathers freshly plucked from Mother Dove, one of the cruelest acts known to fairies. Yet at the end of the book, it is Vidia who is punished, for using Beck's absence as a chance to get more fresh feathers. The fact that Beck indirectly caused this is never addressed.
- Lampshaded in Terry Pratchett's Guards Guards. Although Sam Vimes and company play little part in the successful resolution of the novel the dragon is defeated by Errol the Swamp Dragon and the main villain, Wonse, is defeated by the Patrician himself, the Patrician specifically states that people need to see there are heroes and so rewards Sam Vimes and the Night Watch accordingly. It is also implied that the Night Watch are heroic, merely because they actually did something to stand up to the dragon, even if unsuccessfully.
- Moist von Lipwig actually views himself as this. The people of Ankh-Morpork see him as a hero because he stands up the the Clacks company, but he knows that he's still just a crook running a con. He's just picking on someone worse than himself this time, and only doing that because the alternative is execution. He still acts genuinely heroically on a few occasions, though.
- Yor from Yor Hunter From the Future is undoubtedly the protagonist, but he wipes out several mini-civilizations, including one he was trying to save.
- Michael Crichton's Timeline ends with the protagonists drugging the Corrupt Corporate Executive, and sending him to past to die of the Black Plague. His crime? Being a whiny, annoying bastard. That's it. Nothing he does hints of serious immorality - indeed, he even works actively to prevent the tissue-damage caused to the people who do too many trips through the time-machine/teleporter by forbidding one person from doing too many trips, and all the problems result from those who disobeyed him. But since he's a douchebag, it's all right to murder him horribly.
- Well, he also makes his employee's time-travel related death pass for a suicide so it won't affect The Company. He also likes marooning people in the past a bit too much and it's implied that he's going to do some very unethical things with the time machine once it's perfected.
- Abdel Adrian from the Baldurs Gate novelisations by Philip Athans. Oh, badness, yes. He's the worst thing in books that are a black hole of awful. The writer wants him to be everything positive, but since his skill level at writing is far below zero, the character ends up being the exact opposite. He's treated as the hero even though without being specifically kicked to it he hasn't even the motivation to do anything but booze, womanise, kill random people and possibly kick puppies. And that description makes it sound far better than it is. It's no wonder people have commented that it's unclear why they should care about what happens to any of the characters in these books or even who wins.
- Thomas Covenant from The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant is unusual in being a deliberate, in-universe example. Everyone in the Land thinks he's a great hero because of his magic ring and a resemblence to their ancient savior, but both Covenant and the reader are well aware that this isn't the case. Covenant thinks this because he's a self-hating leper who doesn't have a clue how to use his magic, and the reader has been privy to his general Jerkass-ness and a crossing of the Moral Event Horizon. Indeed, on at least one level the Covenant books could be seen as an exploration of this concept. He does come through in the end, though.
- The Sheik, from the novel of the same name. He's an abusive rapist who is initially portrayed as negatively as he deserves, but once the protagonist falls in love with him the book suddenly expects us to think of him much more sympathetically. Your Mileage May Vary on how well that actually works.
- Anita Blake. Killer, rapist, performs the same actions she reviles in others but its okay when she does them. And apparently the reason all the evil comes to town is that its attracted to her.
- She didn't start out that bad, though. Initially she was kind of annoying but generally well-intentioned, if narrow-minded. Then she got some power and discovered sex, and suddenly she's an abusive, gun-happy sociopath. Wha?
Live Action TV
- Explored and finally subverted in The Wire. The lead character for most of the series, McNulty, starts off seeming like a fairly typical Cowboy Cop hero...until the audience realizes that most of what he does is for his own greater glory and satisfaction, and he's not really that heroic at all. In most series he would never be called on this, but in The Wire his co-workers express their increasing disgust with him, and finally, he himself comes to realize it.
- Despite his claims to moral superiority, the Doctor of Doctor Who has little to no problem with committing mass murder against aliens that threaten Earth or stifling any attempt for humans to progress militarily or scientifically. Granted, there have been several What The Hell Hero moments and the Doctor has shown plenty of mercy to aliens with malicious intent, but still...
- The Doctor's views on this have actually changed several times. The original version had the Doctor berating UNIT for it.
- Ironic, the whole alien thing, considering what he did to Harriet Jones.
- One of the major themes of the new series is that the Time War changed the Doctor, and without his companions balancing him out, he would eventually end up cutting a swath through the "evil" species of space/time.
- As Stargate Atlantis progresses, they go from good guys to Moral Dissonance to "They're the heroes, just take our word for it."
- This may be more What The Hell Hero since it's noticed in the show and some of the bad consequences are a bit too obvious for the writers to not have meant that the humans' mistakes are mistakes.
- Besides, they do some genuinely heroic things. At worst they have Designated Hero moments, rather than being Designated Heroes all the time.
- Really more of a What The Hell Hero since they do generally mean to do good for the people around them, and do alot of stuff like that. It's just that much of the "heroic" stuff they decide to do tends to wind up making things worse.
- An example would be Shepard guilt tripping a man into letting a wraith feed on him and kill him. Then saying it was just a horrible accident. Seriously. what the hell? You're not a good guy. you're a badguy on the 'right side'. You're just as bad as the Wraith. The worst part was technically they were in the SGC, Where General Hammond or O'Neil would say "Hell no, what the heck're you doing?" But apparently in the story they look the other way, Or just aren't smart enough to realize that something smells funny.
- An in-story example occurs in Frasier, when Bulldog is lauded for his 'heroism' in pulling a pregnant Roz out of the way of a gunman who was robbing the coffee shop and disarming him with his coffee - Frasier, however, is the only one who saw that what Bulldog really did was pull Roz in front of him as a human shield, spilling his coffee over the guy entirely accidentally. As everyone fawns over Bulldog's bravery and Bulldog arrogantly milks it, privately confessing to Frasier that he feels absolutely no guilt about what he did, Frasier goes to extreme lengths in his obsessive quest to force Bulldog to expose himself out of guilt at the civic awards ceremony, where Bulldog is receiving a special award. It fails - however, Marty yells "Gun!", and Bulldog pulls the exact same trick he did in the coffee shop, only this time with his elderly mother as the shield and in front of everyone in the room. In a refreshing twist, once the truth is exposed no one is inclined to forgive him and he's stripped of his award.
- Several characters from Lost, but especially Jack and Kate. Aside from the fact that they are Designated Heroes, they are both essentially Jerk Ass types who meander between helpful-yet-arrogant leader types through to paranoid, secretive, unhelpful, cliquey and murderous asses.
- 3rd season Locke was far more reprehensible than even Kate or Sawyer ever were, especially in the last season episode. Jack himself tends to be more unremarkable or just plain capricious than reprehensible.
- Methinks some people have missed the point here; Jack is a subversion of this trope. Almost as soon as the plane crashed, the survivors had proclaimed Jack their designated hero, a position he didn't want and tried to avoid whenever possible. In fact, Jack's decisions have frequently proved to be disastrous, resulting in the character becoming an abusive, guilt-ridden addict.
- Star Trek Voyager Captain "Designated Hero" Janeway - she strands her crew in the Delta Quadrant despite it being a violation of the Prime Directive AND incredibly stupid and subsequently NEVER shows any contrition and then when she has the opportunity to prevent it all happening, which would save half her crew from dying - she doesn't bother. She passed up a free pass to get back to Earth when she was offered it and murdered one of her crew, just to hit the reset button for the episode. She could have a page of her own for this trope.
- Getting there wasn't her fault. Staying there was.
- FlashForward's Mark Benford. Many perceive him to be a major-league Jerk Ass to his coworkers, his family, and pretty much everyone. See: giving his wife huge amounts of shit for seeing herself sleeping with another man in her Flash Forward, yet lying to her about his own (he was drinking in his); routinely flouting international law and direct orders from his boss, but unlike other Screw The Rules types, he doesn't really accomplish anything by doing so; having his hands superglued to the Idiot Ball (best example: shooting an assassin who has what is obviously a unit tattoo); and as the promo for the post-hiatus episodes shows, accusing Demetri of being a mole.
- It's somewhat difficult to quantify Clark Kent of Smallville thanks to this. Lex Luthor is definitely the opposite trope, given that he solved world hunger and was considered evil for it, but until S8, Clark's behavior doesn't really go into outright dickery. Most of his problems are simply sitting back and not doing anything. The constant reinforcement of his will as basically divine despite his impulsive behavior and increasing violence is problematic though.
- Similarly, Lana Lang (S6-S7), Lois Lane (interspersed through S5, S7) and Chloe Sullivan (late S8) have all had moments where one might wonder why or how any of them could be considered the "good guys." The most clear example of this trope in action however is Lionel Luthor.
Opera and Theater
- Raoul from The Phantom Of The Opera, to the point where he has a sizable hatedom and many wish that Christine and the Phantom would end up together. What does he do? Well...he gets captured by the Phantom. He has nice hair. And that's about it...
- Well, being captured and having nice hair is arguably better than being a Stalker With A Crush, killing, maiming, threatening, endangering and kidnapping people. Raoul might be kinda boring, but he`s portrayed as a generally decent person, so the fandom preference for the Phantom comes off as being full of Unfortunate Implications.
- Siegfried from Richard Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung.
- Ummm...This Troper would call fighting a dragon and deliberately walking through a wall of flames pretty average heroic. I guess YMMV.
- Subverted as early as Gilbert And Sullivan's The Yeomen of the Guard, their only tragedy. Colonel Fairfax is often treated by other characters as a great hero. There's nothing they wouldn't do for him. The audience is repeatedly told how great he is, but sees little real evidence. At the end, he is revealed to be an absolutely hateful figure. No wonder audiences treat Jack Point sympathetically as The Woobie, despite him being something of a jerk himself.
- This is partially Values Dissonance to do with Fairfax's views on sanctity of marriage: Having unexpectedly survived, he now has to face the consequences of his scheme to marry a random person and thus prevent his relatives from inheriting. This means he can't let Jack pair up with his wife, even if it was intended as a sham marriage. This doesn't mean Jack isn't terribly screwed by circumstances, but it isn't necessarily anyone's fault. Although it also should be noted that Fairfax is much more of a jerk than he needs to be, getting a bit too familiar with Phoebe in the Act One finale, and pointlessly toying with Elsie in the Act Two finale.
Tabletop Games
- The Imperium of Man of Warhammer 40000 is an entire race of Designated Heroes; the only positive, sympathetic trait they have in the eyes of the audience is, effectively, the fact that they're human and everyone else isn't. Occasionally the crafty and self-interested Eldar and the comparatively nicer yet Orwellian Tau Empire could fit into this category, being the other factions of "Order". The "heroes" of Grand Theft Auto may drive around town committing every crime you can think of, but at least to their credit, they never destroyed an entire planet because of rounding errors in tax returns.
- This troper always thought that humanity deserved its title as Designated Heroes because of the fact that they were preoccupied with fighting Chaos. Of course fighting evil doesn't make you good, it just means you fight evil. so yeah...
- Or the simple fact that the Imperium is fighting for the survival of humanity. Self-preservation is normal, not necessarily heroic.
- Dungeons And Dragons. Any group portrayed as good comes off as self righteous jerks after a while. If you look at why the bad group are evil, you'll find that: the gnomes collapsed their main source of income for fun, they've been forced into inhospitable lands where nothing can grow. There's even a little bit in Cityscape that says that none of these groups have permanent settlements because adventurers like yourselves keep breaking in and smashing everything.
- Too bad that kobolds' story is just the propaganda story that kobolds use to justify their campaign of genocide. As about goblinoids, Cityscape, in fact, says, that they don't have permanent settlements because they are too busy relentlessly fighting everyone within their reach, including each other to build anything properly.
- The Player's Handbook and Deities and Demigods both confirm that Garl Glittergold collapsed Kurtulmak's mine; whether that hurt anything other than his pride is up for debate.
- In the new Forgotten Realms Campaign setting, there's a passage in the section on Turmish about how some Lizardfolk had to abandon their homes precisely because of asshole adventurers, with little to indicate they were doing anything to harass the locals. Now it's home to bandits. Nice Job Breaking It Heroes.
- More generally many campaigns feature "heroes" who treat the lives of NP Cs as worthless, define Evil as "in my way", refuse to help anyone unless they're assured of payment and resolve all conflicts by massacring one side.
Video Games
- Spoofed in Disgaea 3. Textbook evil Mao concludes that the only way he's going to be able to overthrow his father is by becoming a hero. Of course, being unabashedly evil, he does this by mugging the title of hero from some poor sap and going on his merry way. What he doesn't know is that the Theory Of Narrative Causality decides that it's going to remedy this by making him act like a hero - whether he likes it or not.
- Marche of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is frequently, on this wiki, denigrated as such. The game is firmly on his side with regards to whether or not he's actually doing something heroic by dispelling the dream Ivalice.
- Allegretto from Eternal Sonata is a Jerk With A Heart Of Gold with little connection to the main plot, yet acts as the player's avatar for most of the game.
- Luke in Tales Of The Abyss. To begin with, anyway.
- This deserves explanation. Luke is explicitly and deliberately considered to be The Cosmically Desginated Hero, although things turn out to be a tad more complicated than anyone imagined. He is abrasive or at least very gung-ho, a trait encouraged by his mentor, and which gets him into a lot of trouble.
- Tales Of Vesperia plays this trope interestingly: Flynn isn't unsympathetic nor completely ineffectual, it's just that he keeps being lauded for feats and accomplishments that were actually done by Yuri and Brave Vesperia, making it a literal case of "Designated" Hero. His issues over this are what lead to the requisite Tales Series Duel Boss fight against him.
- Yggdra Union: With a bit of in-depth analysis, Yggdra. Think about it: Yggdra says she wants peace, but her only concept of that is "a world without borders", ergo, a world Fantasinia controls. At the end of the game, all other world leaders are dead, some by her hand, leading her to claim power over the entire continent. She doesn't even realize she's got the exact expansionist, supremacist mindset her ancestors did. Looks like Kylier was right.
- Except for the fact that Yggdra comes to realize that most of her enemies are not evil megalomaniacs but noble people fighting for their country and their perception of justice. Throughout the invasion of the Brongaa Empire, she and her army repeatedly call themselves out on horrific things they do. And in one of the endings, Yggdra gives up her sword and in turn receives the Sceptre of Wisdom from Archangel Marietta, which indicates that she chooses wisdom over might (while this screws up Nessiah's crusade against Hector, the point still stands that Yggdra comes to realize her flaws and hypocrisy).
- The targets in Assassins Creed want to convince Career Killer Altaïr (and, by extension, the player) that he is the Designated Hero. It's eventually averted when he comes to the conclusion that he's killing to prevent the takeover of the world, the motivation of his enemies the Templars.
- Depending on how you want to play it, the Nameless One in Planescape Torment can easily be this. Are you battling those thugs who murdered an innocent woman because you are the protector of the weak...or because her sister hired you to kill them? Are you a paragon of truth...or a Consummate Liar who deceives people for fun and profit? When you catch a pickpocket, do you set them on the right path...or take them for all they're worth, then kill them?
Webcomics
- The Light Warriors of 8-Bit Theater are an intentionally extreme example. The characters are literally designated as The Warriors of Light because they were the first to apply and were appointed as such by the insane and sadistic King Steve. These four have little to no redeeming values and cause much more destruction then their enemies, who are often killed in ways that do much more damage then they ever would. The only reason they really even do anything is for personal gain, or because of threats from Trickster Mentor Sarda the Sage, who has demonstrated a willingness to do horrible things to them if they don't continue their quest. In one recent arc, the Light Warriors abandoned their quest to take over a city through extortion, wanton murder of innocents, and eventually mass destruction.
- Albeit that we should note that 8-Bit Theater is a parody of the generic and vaguely sociopathic RPG party, so in many ways, this could be thought of as the ultimate subversion: "good" characters who are so obviously, morally, intrinsically wrong that no decent person could call them good, and indeed they don't. The one person who does is, naturally, White Mage, who was convinced that Because Destiny Says So in regards to the Warriors. However, even she became increasing disillusioned with them and her mission, and later on just tries to minimize the destruction they cause.
- Fighter, to his credit, is a Good-aligned character whose only desire is to do the good and the heroic, he's just too dim to recognize that neither the self-professed Lord of Darkness wannabe Black Mage, nor the self-centered sociopathic Thief, nor the certifiably-insane Red Mage aren't, and the things they're asking him to do aren't usually for the good of everyone in the world.
- It's suggested in the Cave of Ordeals arc that Fighter isn't stupid so much as intellectually lazy; he refuses to consider the idea that his friends aren't heroes. He is then, more of a parody of the "pure" protagonist who doesn't do anything wrong, but lets his friends do it for him.
- Considering the generally crapsackiness of the 8-Bit universe, it's entirely possible Black Mage may be the greatest
mercy killer benefactor in the world, as implied by this forum post.
- Ultimately 8BitTheater is a subversion. The Untwist reveals that they really are the villains.
- Even the "good" guy is an insufferable prick doesn't so much as bat an eye when killing off ANYONE. I would say it's more of a wholesale subversion of "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility", as anyone with an ounce of it is either stupid/crazy or utterly egomaniacal. The only exceptions are White Mage, who functions as the Only Sane Man in a Crapsack World, and Red Mage, who is really more of a sociopath playing the Metagame of Life. (which really should be a trope)
- Double-subversion. It ultimately falls on them to stop Chaos from unmaking reality. Their methods so far have involved theft, fraud, and kidnapping a baby to give to a man who intends to eat it.
- In Looking For Group, Richard is an equal-opportunity Omnicidal Maniac who kills anything and everything in his way. But unlike Fighter in 8-Bit Theater, Cale'anon and the rest of the group at least try to make sure Richard has an ample supply of other villains to butcher.
- Jay Naylor, author of Better Days, actually created a porn series sold online called "Haukiau the Hero". People have pointed out that the title character hasn't done anything heroic, by either the old use or the current one, but has in fact so far been so blatantly unheroic as to not really care that his brain-damaged mother is being used as a sex toy by the men of the village.
- Ariel from Drowtales. As the narrator and viewpoint character, she considers herself a hero, in a world where nobody can decently be called such.
- The fact that she considers herself a 'hero' is toned down in the remake. She just wants to live. Plus, some of her Shoot/Kick the Dog acts have been changed.
- Has there ever been a child who doesn't consider themselves a hero of their own story, given a slightest chance?
- And how could we forget Quain'taina, who displayed as a pillar of absolute virtue despite the fact that she's a sadistic sociopath and a horrifically cruel mother.
- Which should tell you something about Drow society.
- Artax and Yeager in Nodwick are, 90% of the time, high-grade jerks. They were once able to spot that Yeager had been replaced by a doppelganger when confronted with an out-of-reach button; the doppelganger immediately reached for a handy rock, while the real Yeager would have instinctively picked up and thrown Nodwick.
- Also occurs in the comic Black Tapestries. The main star is pretty much a bitch. Also has Designated Antagonist, who manages to be a villain by a compulsive "Shoot the Dog" reflex.
- Goblins the webcomic plays with this by putting the protagonists on the receiving end. A band of adventurers invade their home to clear them out with no other justification than that they were goblins and therefore Always Chaotic Evil. Most of the tribe gets wiped out and the survivors decide that they are sick of being walking chunks of XP and decide to become adventurers themselves to better protect their homes. Then one of their own gets captured and brought into a human city where so-called "montrous races" are routinely captured and tortured to better understand how to kill them. Of course, the heroes slip into Designated Hero territory when they also slaughter guards, who basically believe that they are protecting their homes, and Thaco in particular gets a special mention when he declares his intent to slaughter his way through the human civilians to get to his son.
- The characters of Darths And Droids mean well. Most of the time. They're not very good at it though, and may have accidentally created Darth Vader so they could win a pod race.
- ... and then Annie starts playing him, and he gets worse than the movie version of Anakin. The same on-screen actions, but with much darker background actions and no angst about what he's done.
Western Animation
- Like so many of his fellow prepubescent Nickelodeon protagonists, and despite his scientific mind and regularly learning Aesops, Jimmy Neutron has a glaring inability to learn from his mistakes. As a result, about 90% of the crises that he solves are set in motion by him. Once again, like protagonists on other shows, this notion is somehow justified simply by him feeling really bad about it every time at the very end... all prior to doing it yet again in the very next episode. This was lampshaded within the Made For TV Movie "The Egg-pire Strikes Back", in which Cindy tries to convince the townspeople to listen to Jimmy's pleas that the Egg-pire is still evil by reminding them of his past heroic exploits, swiftly breezing past the fact that "...sure, they were all his fault in the first place."
- Similarly, Timmy Turner of The Fairly Odd Parents uses his wishes to save his hometown and/or the world from impending doom just about as often as he causes it. Granted, the show would end if he were to actually learn that age-old lesson to Be Careful What You Wish For.
- The Kids Next Door, particularly in the first season, often come across as self-centered brats more than heroes, most notably when they try to steal the birthday cake of their enemies, the Delightful Children From Down the Lane, for no good reason. In many cases, the adults, teens or other "villains" weren't doing anything to actually provoke the kids.
- To be fair, the delightful children are massive dicks and most of their birthday cakes are part of some evil plot or caused by an evil plot. E.G One episode where they forced every child on earth to watch them eat their massive cake that nobody else was allowed to have. On the other hand, it's still their birthday.
- Part of the problem may be a case of You Should Know This Already. There's at least one episode that just starts off with the Kids trying to steal the Delightful Children's birthday cake with no explanation to a new viewer as to why the Delightful Children are supposed to deserve this.
- This is probably why Father and the Matrix-inspired "Adult Conspiracy", of which most adults are innocent, were introduced: having the KND using stylized missiles and guns simply to keep parents from sending their kids to bed is bratty Disproportionate Retribution at its finest.
- When I first heard about the show, I thought that the kids acting like jerks was the whole point. I mean, it's bratty, but not completely out of character, for prepubescent adolescents to see adult oppression in being forced to do homework, brush their teeth, go to school...
- Quest of World Of Quest comes to mind, though he's possibly a parody of this.
- Like everything else on the show, played for laughs on Megas XLR. Half the threats Earth or the heroes face was Coop's fault, albeit usually accidental on his part. He also has a tendency to, while technically save the day, make things considerably worse; he's destroyed Jersey City on multiple occasions, blown up an entire planet of robots, and freed all the robots in a robot prison due to him believing that they were actually good robots who were brainwashed.
- He has also freed every criminal from an intergalactic prison, believing it to be an old-school video game. Later in the same episode he proceeded to throw all of the criminals, save one, into the ocean, causing a tidal wave that flooded Jersey City...and prevented the final criminal from destroying the planet.
- Not to mention that in the last episode, a version of himself ends up as the villain.
- In Tom And Jerry, sometimes Jerry had reasons to act against Tom, sometimes, however, he was just being mean for the sake of it. The most common scenario seems to be: Tom is sleeping or otherwise doing nothing while Jerry, being a mouse, starts stealing Tom's owner's food. We're expected to support Jerry while Tom is constantly fed to the lions because, after all, Cats Are Mean.
- There was one episode of the series where Tom was beheaded by his owner for waking him up while chasing Jerry and that little nitwit baby mouse. Let me reiterate that Tom was beheaded, and that Jerry and his sidekick didn't lift a finger to stop the execution. The show stopped being cute and started being an incredibly disturbing expression of the producers' hatred for cats around that time.
- This troper remembers that episode, and it was even creepier than the aforementioned description. Not only are Jerry and Nibbles Musketeers in the episode, the food they're stealing is from the king, the person they're supposed to be protecting, with Tom as one of the palace guards designated to keep an eye on the banquet for later that night. Meaning, they're supposed to be on the same damn side, and the mice are still stealing the food. At the end of the episode, as the mice are walking away with their tiny arms loaded with food, we hear a drum roll, and they look up to see the rise and drop of the guillotine. Nibbles, or whatever his name is in this one, swallows the bite of food in his mouth with a momentarily surprised look, then casually shrugs his shoulders and says "Pauvre, pauvre pussycat. Ah, well, c'est la guerre!" and they go off happily munching with jaunty theme music in the background. What. The. Hell.
- The king part could just be Did Not Do The Research
- On Jerry's defense, Tom is shown to be capable of quite obscene acts of cruelty for no reason at all, like playing pool with Jerry as the ball, or using him for live bait. Then there are the episodes in which they work together, athough usually still to rather amoral ends, like scamming the master/mistress of the house. And sometimes Tom even scores a clear win. Still, he'll never have his mouse and eat it too, because then Carnivore Confusion comes peeking around the corner.
- Tom commits fewer obscene acts of cruelty than Jerry. By rights, Tom should be the hero... meanwhile, that baby mouse shouldn't even be in the show in the first place.
- And then there's the times Tom is doing something non-Jerry related, and it happens to inconvenience the mouse. Such as when Tom was giving a piano recital in a concert hall that Jerry happened to live in... OK. Did Jerry NOT realize he was living in a concert hall that saw regular use or what? I mean, if you live on a shooting range, you can't be mad about the constant gunfire. And then we're supposed to support Jerry ruining Tom's concert because... why again?
- In Jerry's defense, he didn't really start ruining the concert untill Tom provoked him, prefering to just sit and listen to the music.
- The DtV movies are just as bad about this, with the exception being the Fast and the Furr-ious. In the others, Tom and Jerry often have to team up to save the day or find the Mc Guffin, with Tom proving to be a good guy. But at the end, no matter what, Jerry screws over Tom without fail for no other reason . Which, considering Tom not deserving it beyond being a cat, turns Jerry into a Jerkass bordering on Villain Protagonist.
- Fast and the Furr-ious, on the other hand, simply plays the antagonism between them up to eleven, with mindless violence and wanton property damage for all!
- Though it seems to be the result of massive Adaptation Decay of the Prydain Chronicles, Taran, of Disney's The Black Cauldron, sure comes off as an whiny, incompetent priss, outclassed by his supporting cast at every point. This wouldn't be so bad, if he wasn't given the Heroic BSOD moment when he screeches "I'm not a warrior, I'm just a pigkeeper", and said supporting cast tries to convince him otherwise. Apparently, they were reading the book series.
- The books are actually like this too. In the early novels Taran is mostly obsessed with his own honor and glory and frequently makes things worse with his brash foolishness, leaving his allies to clean up the mess. It isn't until around the end of the third book that he actually starts acting like a hero.
- Peter Griffin of Family Guy fame may not be the nicest guy in Quahog, but Seth McFarlane sees to it that Peter remains the good guy by making his antagonists a lot worse than he is. Or at least by making Peter's maladies be caused by his dumbness than by his jerkiness.
- Omar of Rock And Rule, who isn't morally ambiguous so much as he just sits back and look petulant while his sidekicks take the initiative to find Angel.
- Rusty Venture has been seen as the most villainous character in The Venture Bros, compared to the professional and friendly Guild of Calamitous Intent.
- Vendetta, on the Nick Toons show Making Fiends, is technically the antagonist of the story, since she creates the monsters that keep the rest of the town under her thumb. But when "good girl" Charlotte moves to town, the natural order of things is turned on its head by the fact that she's completely immune to the antics of Vendetta's creations and is completely obnoxious to boot. As she progresses blithely through the series, bringing about her own destruction in the process, the townspeople find her even more terrifying then Vendetta. More than once, Vendetta is forced into the role of hero to undo Charlotte's reign of tyranny.
- Chip and Dale whenever they're put up against Donald Duck.
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