History Main / FairPlayVillain

** The Joker takes an almost perverse pleasure in seeing his plans be foiled by the Batman. This helps justify why he continues to give Batman a way out instead of just executing him when the opportunity arises.

* Subverted in the [[Manga/TheLegendOfZeldaAkiraHimekawa manga adaptation]] of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask''. Majora's Mask gives Link the Fierce Deity Mask for an even match, but it flies into a VillainousBreakdown when it starts to actually lose the fight, or as it calls it, "game."

* Subverted with Zora Salazar in ''WebAnimation/EpithetErased''. Zora, who won the SuperpowerLottery with a hugely overpowered Epithet, laments that since NoChallengeEqualsNoSatisfaction, having incredible TimeMaster powers has actually made her less happy, and hungers for a fair fight...so Percy puts on PowerNullifier cuffs and challenges her to a no-powers confrontation, with the winner taking both the Arsene Amulet and Ramsey Murdoch (Ramsey, for his part, is less than thrilled to be part of the prize pool). Zora accepts...[[{{Hypocrite but, when she stops using her Epithet, that means it stops affecting the dozens of time-frozen bullets she set up ahead of time]], so while GunsAreWorthless (or at least nearly so) in ''Epithet Erased'', Percy and Ramsey still need to endure a ridiculous volley of bullets before they can "fight fair" against the character with the highest stats seen so far in the story. [[spoiler:Then, when Zora starts actually being beaten, she loses her temper and starts using her Epithet in violation of the rules, only calming down and admitting that she broke the rules when Percy and Ramsey actually manage to take her out. Even then, she calls it a draw and leaves rather than actually accepting defeat.]]

** ''Literature/TheLastHero'': Dark Lord Harry is the only Dark Lord remaining who practices the Silver Horde's brand of villainy- he always makes sure the jailer has the keys in an obvious location, his minions are all stupid, and he always has an escape tunnel handy for his inevitable defeat. This in turn means the heroes don't try to kill him as hard as they could, since both sides understand it's part of the schtick.

* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'': Reconstructed with the Weeper. He's seen as a HarmlessVillain by most people because EvenEvilHasStandards, but when Batman goes KnightTemplar and spreads SinisterSurveillance all over Gotham causing Weeper to see a child trying to steal a candy bar recoil in horror at the sight of the Batsignal in the sky he becomes motivated enough to stop him.

** Everything is settled by a battle between trainers. Adult villains far older and stronger will concede the day to a small child once you knock out their Pokémon. Even if they do win, they wait for you to heal up at the Pokémon Center and let you try as many times as you need before you defeat them.

** Zig-zagged with the fifth game. [[spoiler:The window bridge game is a game of luck which gives later players a ''massive'' advantage while for earlier players it is mathematically infeasible to win. But since the players aren't told the significance of the order of players, their choice of position is is a calculated risk on their part, the trope is played straight as it is "fair" in the sense that players are only disadvantaged by their own choices or their own hesitation. It's then subverted in the game itself, as the designers failed to account for one of the participants being able to tell the glass panels apart and eliminate the luck element, so the Front Man [[NoFairCheating cheats back]] to eliminate his advantage.]]

* A serious example with ''Literature/TheArtOfWarSunTzu'': Sun Tzu stresses that when the enemy army is cornered you should always give them room to retreat, because enemies with no way out will fight more fiercely and cause you additional losses.

** ''Literature/CarpeJugulum'' by Creator/TerryPratchett introduces the old Count Magpyr, the traditionalist vampire who litters his castle with weapons that can be used to take him down - instructions and diagrams included! After all, taking a stake through the heart is one thing; looking like Swiss cheese because the average peasant can't find your heart is quite another. For him, this is also PragmaticVillainy: if he can be overthrown by anybody with a lot of guts and a little luck, the villagers will generally be satisfied with 'killing' him (something a vampire can eventually recover from) rather than being so horrified that they'll take extreme measures to make sure he's DeaderThanDead.
** ''Literature/TheLastHero'' Dark Lord Harry is the only Dark Lord remaining who practices the Silver Horde's brand of villainy- he always makes sure the jailer has the keys in an obvious location, his minions are all stupid, and he always has an escape tunnel handy for his inevitable defeat. This in turn means the heroes don't try to kill him as hard as they could, since both sides understand it's part of the schtick.

** [[AntiVillain Grimmjow]] toward Ichigo. After [[spoiler: killing Loly and Menoly]] and saving Orihime, he drags her to where Ulquiorra's [[LeftForDead left Ichigo for dead]] and demands she heal him so they can have a proper battle. He even turns on Ulquiorra when the latter appears and demands to know why he's having Ichigo revived. In truth, Grimmjow [[spoiler: was doing it more for the sake of his own pride, rather than fair play. He wanted Ichigo at his best, before crushing him, to pay him back for scarring him.]]

** A ''lot'' of the characters that have been brought back to life using Endo Tensai are this (considering they are forced to fight for [[BigBad Madara]] and [[TheDragon Kabuto]]). The best example is Gengetsu Hōzuki, the second Mizukage, who goes out his way to point out how his [[MasterOfIllusion jutsu]] works ''and'' how to specifically counter it and defeat him to the squad that was fighting against him. It was just too bad for him that said squad was full of ''extremely'' incompetent ninjas.

** The main villain Kayaba Akihiko traps ten thousand players in a virtual reality video game, and promises to let them out when they defeat the 100th floor boss. The game is fairly balanced, and so on, which starts to show this, but the real point comes when [[spoiler: [[TheHero Kirito]] defeats the final boss (Kayaba, it turns out) on the 75th floor.]] Kayaba keeps his word and lets everyone out.
** Subverted by [[spoiler: Heathcliff, his alter ego]] who has an exceptionally powerful unique skill that even people in-universe consider broken. He also [[spoiler: is immortal after taking a certain amount of damage and explicitly cheats during his first duel with Kirito.]] The ''game'' may have been fair, but his place in it sure as hell wasn't. Double-subverted [[spoiler:during his second and final duel with Kirito]], however, as [[spoiler:he intentionally turns off his [[GameMaster admin privileges]] to give Kirito a fighting chance of winning and freeing everyone. Kayaba/Heathcliff always intended to give the players a fair chance of beating the game once his own role as FinalBoss was exposed, he was just rigging the game before that point to make sure he wouldn't be killed by somebody who ''didn't'' yet know he was the final boss. Since as Heathcliff he was ''helping'' the trapped players clear the floors up to 75 (and was intending to do so up through the 99th floor before revealing himself) rather than impeding their progress, Kayaba considered that to still be sufficiently fair]].

* ''Series/CobraKai'': By the end of season 4, Tory has becomes this. Her motivations have, due to some character development, changed from wanting to be able to hurt the world in revenge for her life being shit, to wanting to show the world that she can match it on an equal footing and win. She is genuinely horrified at the thought of hurting Sam and deeply hurt by the revelation that [[spoiler: Silver bribed the ref at the All-Valley.]]

* ''Film/HighlanderIIITheSorcerer'': Subverted. In Connor's final duel with Kane, he loses his sword. Kane offers it back, claiming he can't fight an unarmed man. He immediately retracts the offer, since life isn't fair anyway.

* ''Fanfic/FateRevelationOnline'': Even more than canon; Kayaba's game is ''shockingly'' fair, with a reasonable attempt made to have something fun for everyone. Even the criminal players and [[spoiler:the ''dead'' players]] get their own content patched in. Probably has something to do with how he [[ToUnmasqueTheWorld teach everyone magic and break the masquerade]]; it's in his best interest to keep everyone engaged. He also doesn't punish Illya for contacting the outside, admitting that [[LoopholeAbuse he hadn't actually made a rule that she wasn't allowed to do that]].

* This is one of the few positive traits of Gruntilda in ''VideoGame/BanjoKazooie'' and its sequels. She's selfish, greedy, spiteful and cruel...but she gives the bear and bird ample opportunities to beat her, is willing to wait an ''incredibly long time'' to let them arrive there, and abides by the rules of the game show she sets up, to the point of handing over Tooty without a fight when Banjo wins. In ''VideoGame/BanjoTooie'' she'll even hand over free resources like red feathers or fire eggs if you get lucky when visiting her fortune-telling tent. Also, during the final fight with her in the Hag 1, if Banjo answers her surprise quiz questions correctly, she will abide be her promise to fire off slower spells which are much easier to dodge.

A Fair Play Villain is a villain who, when the hero is at their mercy, gives the hero a way to survive. If he traps the hero in his Dungeon of Fear, he'll deliberately leave a possibility of escape. If he throws the hero into the Arena of Doom, he'll promise to let the hero go if he emerges victorious. And, unlike most villains, [[IGaveMyWord he probably will.]] In both cases, he has the hero in his power... but crushing him wouldn't be ''sporting.''

** This also applies in the final arc to [[spoiler:the face card citizens. Each one leads a game, but they vary pretty wildly in how fair they are. The King of Diamonds and the King of Clubs both play their games 100% fair and square, on the other hand the Jack of Hearts outright cheats to attempt to win his game (he has a prosthetic eye that he can remove that tells him info he needs that normally the players would have to rely on each other to get). And in the middle you have the King of Spades (who has access to a blimp that can ferry him around and access to whatever guns he needs in a ''Literature/TheMostDangerousGame'' style game involving the whole city and every player in it) and the Queen of Hearts (who secretly drugs the protagonist's drink in order to mentally break him). Neither of their actions are technically cheating within the premise of their games, but they certainly stack the odds in their favor.]]

** Everything is settled by a battle between trainers. Adult villains far older and stronger will concede the day to a small child once you knock out their Pokémon. And even if they do win, they wait for you to heal up at the Pokémon Center and let you try as many times as you need before you defeat them.
** Notably subverted by [[spoiler: Ghetsis, who simply attempts to kill the player character of ''VideoGame/PokemonBlack2AndWhite2'' with icicles before being interrupted by N - and, later, after being soundly defeated by the player character of ''VideoGame/PokemonUltraSunAndUltraMoon'', threatens to harm another protagonist if the player refuses to drop their Pokéballs.]]

* The Black Knight of ''VideoGame/FireEmblemPathOfRadiance'' challenges Greil and Ike to duels. While he could beat them with his invincible armor, it wouldn't prove that he was stronger than them. The only reason he kills Greil despite this is because Greil refused his offer of a weapon that COULD hurt him. And while Ike has a weapon capable of piercing his armor by their duel, he ran into him before then and refused to pursue him. Unless of course, [[ViolationOfCommonSense you decided to fight him anyways]], avoiding the games advice to just head to the goal.

** Several games distort this notion of fair play. Most notably the [[spoiler:window bridge game, a game of luck which gives later players a ''massive'' advantage while for earlier players it is mathematically infeasible to win. But the players were able to pick their position in the order they played the game beforehand (despite not knowing about the game itself), thus it is "fair". Despite that, when a player finds a trick to the game to eliminate the luck element, the Front Man [[NoFairCheating cheats back]].]]

* Monokuma from ''Franchise/{{Danganronpa}}'', and by extension The Mastermind behind him. He also follows the rules of the DeadlyGame by remaining an [[VillainsNeverLoe honest]] and impartial (if not a little sadistic) judge, for the most part. This is for both ideological and [[PragmaticVillainy pragmatic]] reasons; for one thing, nobody would bother to play his game if they thought he'd cheat ([[spoiler:which is indeed what happens when he cheats by faking Sakura's suicide note in the first game]]), and for another, [[spoiler:it wouldn't be interesting [[TrumanShowPlot for the audience]] if the game was obviously rigged. While the Masterminds have different motives, Junko wanting to prove a point about despair (which would only work if the students turned on each other) and Tsumugi wanting to run an ImmoralRealityShow, in either case their point is best served if they interfere only minimally. Indeed, when Monokuma starts breaking the rules in the first game, it's pointed out as a sign that he's ''losing'' and getting desperate.]] This is to the point that if a student can make a fair case that he judged a trial unfairly, he'll hold a retrial with whatever new evidence they found.

* Monokuma from ''Franchise/{{Danganronpa}}'', and by extension The Mastermind behind him. He sets rules for his DeadlyGame that he too is also bound by, purely through choice. While he ''does'' break his rules occasionally by framing students for crimes that they didn't commit, Monokuma is willing to submit to demands when called out on it. [[PragmaticVillainy Granted, this is not done out of a sense of honor]], but because [[spoiler:Junko Enoshima and Tsumugi Shirogane don’t want to disappoint/piss off [[TrumanShowPlot the audience watching all of this carnage]] by blatantly screwing over the cast. This would ruin the point of the ImmoralRealityShow, which is to get the students to kill each other and give into their despair. And in [[VisualNovel/Danganronpa2GoodbyeDespair the second game]], since Enoshima is an AI, she physically cannot defy the laws of the [[LotusEaterMachine Neo World Program]]. Enoshima, Shirogane, and Monokuma frequently point out that it creates better despair if people have hope first, and just killing all of them without hope would be boring]]. As such, Monokuma and the Mastermind are willing to play within the rules of the game, even if [[ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem they do stretch the interpretation of these rules to the breaking point]] quite often with liberal uses of YouDidntAsk and ExactWords.

* ''Literature/CarpeJugulum'' by Creator/TerryPratchett introduces the old Count Magpyr, the traditionalist vampire who litters his castle with weapons that can be used to take him down - instructions and diagrams included! After all, taking a stake through the heart is one thing; looking like Swiss cheese because the average peasant can't find your heart is quite another. For him, this is also PragmaticVillainy: if he can be overthrown by anybody with a lot of guts and a little luck, the villagers will generally be satisfied with 'killing' him (something a vampire can eventually recover from) rather than being so horrified that they'll take extreme measures to make sure he's DeaderThanDead.

* ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline'':