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Well Intentioned Extremist
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"He was just... well, like a lot of madmen. Somewhat accurate view of the problem, really insane view of the solution." - Kid Radd
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
- Portuguese proverb
A villain who has an overall goal which the heroes can appreciate in principle, such as saving the environment or protecting a minority. However, it is the methods the villain uses (such as mass murder) which are the problem; despite any sympathy they may have with his cause, the heroes have no choice but to stop him. Taken to extremes, he may fully believe that Utopia Justifies The Means.
Other times, the villain may be out for simple revenge against a person or corporation or other entity that has undeniably wronged him. Again, the heroes may sympathize with his plight, but are obliged to stop him because he cares not who gets in the way of his planned revenge. However, the heroes will often investigate the villain's grievance themselves and will complement stopping the villain with taking down the offending party as well.
Either way, it's a common end result of Jumping Off The Slippery Slope. Their favorite phrase is I Did What I Had To Do. They are not afraid to sacrifice themselves for the cause.
Often a Tragic Hero that became an Anti Villain, and sometimes a Worthy Opponent. The extreme of this is the Knight Templar who believes the best way to save the world is to remove free will. Vigilante Man is a case where the Well Intentioned Extremist hasn't (yet) descended to the point of not caring who gets hurt.
Contrast with Necessarily Evil.
Examples
Anime
- Almost the entire cast of Code Geass. In fact, it's probably the point of the series.
- Magnificent Bastard protagonist Lelouch, who is often compared to Light Yagami, is actually much closer to well-intentioned extremism. His primary goal is overthrowing the oppressive Darwinist empire because it tramples on those who are weak or kind-hearted. In a subversion, even he has trouble stomaching some of the steps it takes to achieve his goal, as seen when he becomes physically sick after killing a half-brother who fully supported the empire, and nearly breaks down after unintentionally causing the death of his beloved half-sister who was much nicer and dedicated to similar but less extreme goals.
- Then the show really messes with the audience when it reveals that both of Lelouch's parents, Emperor Charles (whom he despises) and Marianne (whom he admires) intended on creating an ideal world free of war, strife, or lies, by slaying the gods and starting their own version of Ragnarok. Oh, and they ask him to go along with it too.
- Lelouch throws the "Well-Intentioned" out of Extremist when he becomes a despotic overlord and Emperor of the world, and moves to execute any and all political opponents. Oh, wait, no, that's how he wants to portray himself, so that once the world's hate is concentrated on him, he can arrange for himself to be publicly assassinated, ending the chain of hatred by setting up the infrastructures and political status quos he had set up earlier himself and achieve world peace through his death.
- PLANT Chairman Gilbert Durandal in Gundam SEED Destiny, inspired by Rau Le Creuset's inability to understand his own existence (which drove him insane and allowed him to nearly wipe out the human race), decides that human conflict stems from human dissatisfaction of their own roles and abilities, and attempts to implement an utopian society through the Destiny Plan, which would craft a world civilization under genetic determinism. To this end, he is perfectly willing to manipulating the masses, assassinating his political opponents, destroying countries, using superweapons, and doing that all while maintaining an extremely high level of charisma throughout the world.
- And another Gundam example, Zechs Merquise/Milliardo Peacecraft of Gundam Wing, who became convinced in the final episodes of the anime that the only way to end humanity's penchant for war was to destroy the Earth, the cradle of humanity's bloody history, as he believed that the people of the space colonies were purer in purpose in regards to peace than those who lived on Earth.
- Both of them were inspired by Char Aznable (Durandal even has the same Seiyuu) from the first Mobile Suit Gundam series, or to be more precise, Char's Counterattack in which Char tries to make the Earth uninhabitable to force the population to migrate into space, which he believes will prevent wars by making everyone a Newtype.
- And G Gundam has Master Asia, Domon Kasshu's Old Master. When he's first revealed as a villain, he seems to be just another Brainwashed minion of the Devil Gundam, but he eventually reveals that he's Not Brainwashed and is aiding the Devil Gundam of his own free will. From his time on Earth in the previous Gundam Fight, Master Asia concluded that humans were destroying the planet. The Devil Gundam had been made (as the Ultimate Gundam) to restore the Earth with its Nanomachines, but due to a malfunction concluded that this mission required it to Kill All Humans. Master Asia agreed. When Domon finally defeated Master Asia near the end of the series, Master saw the error of his ways. But of course, Redemption Equals Death.
- Celestin from Ah My Goddess The Movie is, in tune with the emphasis on romance in the series, a much lighter version of this. Still, the fact that he purposely erases Belldandy's memory of her love for Keichi specifically, infects her with a virus that uses her as a contact point to infect Yggdrassil, and forces her to undergo a procedure that has a 16% chance of working properly, otherwise erasing all of Bell's memories of not only Keichi but her sisters and Heaven itself, all in order to gain the power necessary to eliminate sadness and suffering from the world by force, he's not exactly nice either.
- The Anti-Spirals from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann are out there to prevent the universe from being destroyed by an overload of Spiral Power, and in order to do that, they take The Heartless way and prevent any feelings of hope and courage from sprouting around the Universe.
- Rossiu from the same arc of the same series qualifies, as he betrays his friend Simon by placing the blame for the Anti-Spiral attacks on him, sets him up in a phony trial, and sentences him to death so he can stop the riots. Then he decides to let the greater part of a million humans die. For the greater good, he tells himself. After Simon escapes custody and saves the day (and the world), Rossiu sees the error of his ways and decides to take his own life, but Simon forgives him and shows him the light. And by "the light" I mean a clenched fist moving slightly below the speed of sound followed by a pep-talk. Gotta love that little guy.
- Similarly, Lord Genome. To protect humanity from growing too numerous and being wiped out, he forced it underground and had the Beastmen kill anyone who wandered onto the surface.
- Finally, at least from the viewpoint of the three above, Simon himself and the Dai Gurren-Dan, who are doing exactly what the antagonists fear will destroy humanity/the Earth/the universe, and with no other justification than "Who the hell do you think we are?"
- Light Yagami from Death Note claims to have good intentions in the first half of the series, by using the Death Note to get rid of the criminal element. After L dies, it becomes clear that making the world a better place has been put on the backburner, while he instead acts purely to inflate his own ego.
- Not to mention Teru Mikami, who, as a lawyer, saw helping Light achieve his goal as the best way to serve justice. Too bad he quickly devolved into a rambling psycho that made Light look well-adjusted by comparison.
- In Space Runaway Ideon, the Buff Clan's supreme military leader, Doba Ajiba, was willing to risk the destruction of the majority of his race if it meant the destruction of the Ideon. Of course, when one considers that the power of the Ide was forcing the Earthlings and Buff Clan to genocidally slaughter each other, it probably is the lesser of two evils.
- Not to mention that the home planets of both the Earthlings and the Buff Clan were just destroyed by meteors, leaving those fighting as the few left of their kind.
- The villain of the third Tenchi Muyo OVA, Z, becomes one due to unfortunate circumstances.
- Nagi from Mai-Otome believes that the Otome system of sending female bodyguards off to war in place of their country's leaders is an outdated model, and wants to put an end to it (which is exactly what series protagonist Arika wants to do)...by literally destroying the system from which the Meisters derive their abilities, using ancient weaponry and a horde of sentient monsters (summoned by cultists willing to give up their lives for the cause).
- Dewey, from Eureka 7 either fits this to a tee. After all the spiels about human dignity, it's not hard to believe he truly believes that obliterating the hive mind of the Coralians is the best way to save the planet. Unfortunately this actually would have ended the entire universe because the rest of the Coralians would have woken up and there would be too much thought in the universe. I am not making this up. Even worse he had a backup on him to take out the backup hive minds... Eureka and Anemone.
- Itachi Uchiha in Naruto. Kill your entire clan, including your mother, father and best friend for peace? Mind Rape your brother into becoming an "avenger"? Sympathetic Good or Stupid Evil? You decide, but he did get a Freudian Excuse.
- The British Library in R.O.D the TV honestly believe that the world will be a better place if Mr. Gentleman rewrites everyone's memories and personalities however he pleases, including their own. Strangely they never think to ask him if he thinks it's a good idea...
Comic Books
- Ra's al-Ghul's intentions in the Batman comics (and Batman The Animated Series) were to stop mankind's destruction of the environment. This could be accomplished by wiping out roughly 2 billion people. In the movie Batman Begins, he attempts to make Gotham an example of crime and decadence in order for the world to see its own horror.
- Magneto in X-Men; a common comparison, implicit in the Live Action Adaptation, is that Lensherr is the 'Malcolm X' to Charles Xavier's more moderate 'Dr. King'. Of course, Magneto goes much further than that.
- Spider-Man's enemy the Vulture is a good example of the other type of this trope. Many years after his debut he was given a backstory in which an unscrupulous business partner cheated him out of the proceeds from his inventions. He wrecked said partner's business, stole back his money, and discovered that he enjoyed the thrill. Eventually the partner surfaced, and the usually not-murderous Vulture went after him; Spidey stopped the Vulture but taped the partner's confession.
- Grant Morrison's Marvel Boy is a good example of this. The miniseries' alien protagonist, the extradimensional Kree, Noh-varr, has his ship shot down and the rest of his crew killed by a supervillain that wants to make a profit off of its technology and his dissected remains. As such, he winds up understandably pissed at the human race (to the extent that he knocks down buildings to spell out "F#$k you" to the human race in letters several blocks high, though he herds the inhabitants away so there are no casualties). Noh-varr finds Earth's social ills to be ridiculous and unreasonable and intends to make war on Earth and "terraform" it to be like his home planet, Hala. He would be a classic Villain Protagonist, but genuinely does seem to believe that what he's doing will better Earth for its inhabitants.
- Professor Fairfax in Paperinik New Adventures. The problem: as the years go on, overpopulation and dwindling natural resources will become more and more of a problem. The solution: using earthquake machines to raise a large section of the Pacific Plate above sea level, freeing up space for new cities and cultivations. Nevermind that the ensuing earthquakes and floodings would have all but wiped out the entire west coast of the United States. As one character put it: "If you think about it, his plan isn't illogical at all: he's simply willing to kill millions of people to give billions of people a better future."
- Rayek in Elf Quest claims to want what's best for all of elfkind, but is also convinced that he's the only one who knows what's best for them, in spite of all arguments to the contrary. This comes to a head when, in an attempt to correct a Time Paradox, Rayek takes Leetah, Skywise, Ember, Suntop, and Picknose and his family, ten thousand years into the future in the Palace - leaving Cutter and the rest of the Wolfriders stranded in the present.
- Watchmen: A very spoilerish example, but: Ozymandias? Possibly the most successful Well Intentioned Extremist in fiction, he kills two million people to achieve world peace... and, as far as the reader can tell, it works.
- During the events of Civil War, though the battles get bloodier and the tactics get more extreme, Tony Stark still believes he's ultimately fighting for the lawful good. Right up until that lawful good ends up getting Captain America killed.
- V from V For Vendetta is the poster child of this trope. He wants to free England...by causing riots and crippling the government.
- To be fair, it's a fascist government that threw him and millions of others into concentration camps, of which he was the only survivor.
- But on the flip-side, it's pretty explicitly stated that the collapse of the fascist government would result in the total breakdown of English society, killing the vast majority of the population not dead yet.
- Sinestro falls into this, especially during his debut and the Sinestro Corps War. His planet was, by all accounts, lawless and wild, so he used his Green Lantern ring to conquer it and instill order. By brutally oppressing the entire population. When the Sinestro Corps starts up, he seeks out people who can instill great fear, including Batman (who refuses), so he can save the galaxy from itself. Again, by ruling the entire population through fear.
- Batman himself comes close to this from time to time, especially the Frank Miller variations. It's implied that the reason Batman sticks so close to his code of no killing is because he's afraid that once he crossed that line, he would become this.
Film
- Poison Ivy in Batman and Robin (though she does make her extremist ways known from the outset), as well as the version of the character from Batman The Animated Series. In fact, most of the animated Bat-villains are sympathetic in their first appearance, then less so as their motivation shifts to "revenge on Batman".
- A similar thing happened with the version from The Batman, who was set up as even more sympathetic due to being a teenager, but in subsequent appearances is simply a villain. Subverterd in the show's spin-off comic "The Batman Strikes", in which her sympathetic aspects and good intentions are retained.
- The Operative in Serenity is very extremist but still fits in this category. He attempts to paint himself as Necessarily Evil, however.
- The Paladins from Jumper hunt and slay members of the titular breed of humanity to protect the world from the Jumpers' sociopathy that descends into evil. This would be a reasonable claim if not for the Paladins' killing of Jumpers' friends and family too.
- Jigsaw in the Saw movies claims that his sadistic deathtraps give people an opportunity to truly appreciate what they have by making them fight for it. That the survivors are left emotionally traumatized seems to be merely an unfortunate side effect.
- The Galactic Empire from Star Wars, most generally believe they are the good guys fighting rebel "Terrorists"
- Hot Fuzz: The Neighborhood Watch Alliance of Sandford have been killing off anyone who might lower their chances at getting the "Best Neighborhood" award. Not well-intentioned enough? It's because one of the protagonist's mother commited suicide after the neighborhood didn't win once. One of the villains is the mother's husband, thereby, said protagonist's father. He always knows he's his father though, so this is not an example of I Am Your Father.
Literature
- Literary example of the Tragic Hero who takes his mission much too far: Alexandre Dumas' character Edmond Dantes, in The Count of Monte Cristo. The self-styled Count, having escaped prison after many years of undeserved confinement, devotes himself obsessively with taking revenge on those enemies who framed him and ruined his life. For most of the book, Edmond is able to ignore the fact that the grand machinations of his vengeance are heaping danger and grief on numerous Innocent Bystanders as well as the guilty.
- Arguably, the protagonist in Robert Heinlein's JOB: A Comedy Of Justice. Not because of anything he does in the story (he's actually a really nice guy), but because of his Back Story; he comes from an Alternate Universe where America is ruled by extreme conservative Protestantism, and finds absolutely nothing wrong with that. Among the things he talks about having contributed to are making abortion a capital offense and preventing the science of astronomy. Similar to a Strawman Conservative, but not actually meant to represent anyone in the real world. Up until he's assumed into Heaven and finds out that God doesn't really care, of course.
- Captain Vimes from Discworld spends much of his time trying not to become this.
- In Terry Pratchett's Only You Can Save Mankind, the Gunnery Officer of the Scree-Wee cares about honor more than life and attempts to force the final battle despite the fact it could easily be avoided. On the other side, Johnny has to spend a long time persuading Kirsty to try to talk to the aliens instead of simply shooting them all.
- The antagonist corporation in Rainbow Six by Tom Clancy, who plan to kill everybody to allow nature to take over. Did anyone else notice how hypocritical they were, though? Planning to pollute just as much, but since they would be the only ones left, it wouldn't matter?
- Well, they do get their just deserts. Clark has them stripped of all gear and left to die in the jungle. Protests ensue from the villains. His (paraphrased) response? "Hey, you wanted humanity to co-habit with nature. Go co-habit."
- Help Earth in the CHERUB books and Force Three in Alex Rider (although this turns out to be just be a cover) are both terrorist groups dedicated to helping the environment.
- Kurda Smahlt of The Saga of Darren Shan does this when he plans to use the night of his investiture as the night of the Vampaneze invasion and take-over of Vampire Mountain, all in order to bring the two warring clans together and even killing one of his best friends in the process. He is found out and stopped though. If Darren hadn't found out about the plan, however, chances are the whole War of the Scars would've been averted.
Live Action TV
Tabletop Games
- The Garou from White Wolf Games' Werewolf: The Apocalypse. Each of the Changing Breeds was created to serve Gaia, and the Garou served as her warriors, protecting her from all things "of the Wyrm." Unfortunately, Gaia never told them about the other Changing Breeds, or even some of the other tribes of Garou. Genocide ensued. By the time the game begins, three Changing Breeds and one whole tribe of Garou have been driven to extinction, the other Changing Breeds are mostly in hiding, and the Garou have finally come to realize just how much they shot themselves in the foot.
- Furthermore, while most of the tribes have valid motivations, some of them go much, much too far. Don't ask about Red Talon Christmas trees.
- The Technocracy from White Wolf Games' Mage: The Ascension is an organization dedicated to making the world safe and predictable for sleepers. Unfortunately, their plan includes exterminating any supernatural creatures they find, even those who are also trying to protect the helpless and innocent, as well as attempting to monopolize scientific research and advancement.
- Essentially defines the Banishers of Mage: The Awakening. They believe the supernatural, especially mages, to be inherently evil (not necessarily without reason). Their solution is to attempt towipe out every single supernatural being (especially mages) that they come across. Also some interpretations of the ancient conspiricy, the Seers of the Throne.
- The Tau of Warhammer 40000 regularly employ mass murder, orbital bombardment, concentration camps and forced sterilisation, for the "Greater Good". The "well intentioned" part is what sets them apart from everyone else.
Video Games
Webcomics
- Celesto Morgan in Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire. Compare him to the far more ruthless (and detestable) Knight Templar Raf Maliksh, who tries to kill Celesto for being insufficiently fanatical.
- Another example: Professor Broadshouders in Zebra Girl
 has made it his life's mission to rid the world of demons - and doesn't care who he has to hurt, damn, or kill to get the job done.
- Up to and including himself.
- Baron Klaus Wulfenbach in Girl Genius rules with a iron fist to protect the world from the sociopathic, unwittingly violent genius of the "Sparks". Attempts are made to paint him as Necessarily Evil, though; it is stated a few times that Klaus doesn't enjoy babysitting Europe.
- Othar from the same series plans to kill every spark in the world...ending with himself. This may explain why people often throw him out of airships.
- Umm, pretty much EVERY Spark (who isn't already a full-time villain) is, at one time or another, one of these. It goes with the Sparkiness. Even Agatha. As demonstrated here.
- In Kid Radd, GI Guy believes that humans and sprites are too far predisposed to hurting each other to hope for peaceful existence, and that a mercy-genocide is in order to stop the suffering.
- Redcloak from Order Of The Stick, if one reads Start Of Darkness, falls squarely into this. He wants to improve life for the goblinoid races, but attempts to do so by putting down the other humanoids with a case of divine blackmail instead of by actually helping the goblins improve their lot.
- On the heroic side, Vaarsivuus is getting there as well in recent comics. At this rate (s)he'll end up like Belkar...
- It can be argued that Vesp Avenger from Questionable Content is a well intentioned extremist in the punishment she doles out to men who mistreat their girlfriends. [1]
Western Animation
- The fanatic but charismatic Jet, a guerilla freedom fighter on Avatar The Last Airbender from mid-Season 1, who reappeared near the end of Season 2 with the intention of redeeming himself only to discover that Redemption Equals Death.
- Played surprisingly straight in The Simpsons.
Sideshow Bob: Because you need me, Springfield. Your guilty conscience may force you to vote Democratic, but deep down inside you secretly long for a cold-hearted Republican to lower taxes, brutalize criminals, and rule you like a king. That's why I did this: to protect you from yourselves.
- Similarly, the episode "Sideshow Bob's Last Gleaming". Certainly, Bob claimed he was doing a good deed by ridding Springfield of TV, but all it really did was make him the ultimate dog in the manger.
- In almost all incarnations of Transformers, Megatron is forced to become one of these because Decepticons are second-class citizens after an earlier war. That is, of course, his only redeeming quality and it isn't a very good one.
- Well, some of them are nice guys to those troops that don't betray them, or give Prime the "worthy opponent" bit.
- Agent Bishop from the second Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series has one mission: to protect Earth from alien in invasion. In order to achieve this, he has: used aliens as unwilling test subjects for genetics experiments; faked an alien invasion and kidnapped the President in a ploy to guarantee funding for his agency, the Earth Protection Force; attempted to produce a sleeper army of super-soldiers to covertly kill people suspected of being an alien; and ironically, prolonged an alien invasion in order to fulfill the terms of an agreement with yet another group of aliens. Eventually, however, deciding that diplomacy is a more long-lasting and effective way of protecting Earth, he gives up Black Ops.
- Often featured on South Park in form of a Strawman Political.
- WALL-E's Auto, the autopilot of the Axiom, refuses to let the inhabitants go back to Earth, even though this directive is more than 700 years old and plant life does exist (as shown at the end).
- But hey, he's a computer. He can't choose not to follow his programming. It's not so much a crazy AI as an ill-considered directive by a man seven centuries dead.
- Waternoose from Monsters Inc. is a father-like figure to Sulley and his motto "We Scare because we Care" is genuine, as he really does wish to maintain the Monster World through providing energy from childrens' screams. So to this ends, he builds a horrifying machine that will suck the screams out of children and, as he says to Sulley, is willing to "kidnap a THOUSAND children before he lets the company die...and silence anyone who gets in his way!"
Real Life
- This is, sadly but not surprisingly, a very common characteristic throughout human history. Crusaders and jihadists, for example, generally think they're doing the righteous thing (because anyone who thinks they're doing the wrong thing wouldn't do it).
- An outstanding recent example is the Earth Liberation Front, which in the name of protecting the environment burned down a university horticultural center because they thought (falsely) that the scientists there were doing genetic engineering research.
- Lyndon LaRouche attracts a lot of disaffected liberals because he talks about how Bush and Cheney need to be removed from office and we need to get out of Iraq immediately. He's also an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist who thinks that Jews and the English are behind a massive global conspiracy and advocates what amounts to a fascist state to combat it.
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