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Well Intentioned Extremist
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"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
— Western European proverb
Zaibach: Kicking your ass for the greater good.
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 or even Reluctant Warrior. The extreme of this is the Knight Templar who fully believes that they are in the right and 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. Often ends up in rivalries with the Knight In Sour Armor. Some of those seeking to bring about a One World Order to end international strife may count as these.
Contrast with Necessarily Evil, where he has a Heel Realization and recognizes that he deserves punishment. (Of course, he may always choose to just Ignore That Epiphany). Often The Fettered. See also A Lighter Shade Of Grey.
Examples
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Anime and Manga
- Neon Genesis Evangelion: SEELE's leaders want to eliminate sorrow in the world...through murder and manipulation galore. Gendo wants to reunite with his wife and not cause his son pain...which causes him to be a jerkass of a father and a cruel manipulator of his lovers.
- 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.
- Schneizel had his own designs for bringing about world peace. They just happened to involve nuking a bunch of key cities and using the Black Knights as pawns. It Runs In The Family I guess.
- 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. He realizes that the only way to save any part of humanity is to let a majority of them die. There's no other option, he tells himself. After Simon escapes custody and saves the day (and the world), Rossiu remembers what genre he's living in 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?" Some of them come around by the end, though.
- 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.
- Only then? One would think his A God Am I speech in the first episode would have been a red flag.
- Light believes, even until his defeat and death, that his actions as Kira have made the world a better place. (In purely statistical terms, he's correct; murders, wars and crime drop significantly worldwide due to fear of Kira.) But his tremendous ego means he can't conceive of a world where he's not directly running the show.
- 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.
- He makes the Joker look well adjusted. To be fair, though all crime has dropped to pretty much zero percent, the whole of humanity is living in fear. And then when Kira says he is going to begin killing lazy people...
- That was Teru's idea, though Light does monologue his approval.
- Makubex of Get Backers is a great example of this trope. He's introduced as the villain of the I.L. story arc with the goal of creating an atomic bomb to use as a bargaining chip for the God of Infinity Fortress, in order to say 'stop controlling us or else'. Of course, trying to make a deal with God by using an atomic bomb may not be the best METHOD of madness, but at heart his goals are to make life better for the enslaved masses of Infinity Fortress' Lower Town, which has become a living Hell since Ginji left.
- 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 fits this to a T. 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. 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.
- Also, Pain, whose goal is to eliminate war. His plan involves collecting all of the Tailed Beasts (killing their human containers in the process) to make a weapon of mass destruction that will kill millions and scare all of the countries into
never fighting again not fighting for a while before fighting inevitably returns, at which point one side will get hold of and use this weapon again, giving rise to another short time of "peace". Small periods of peace is his goal, which shows he has a better grasp on human nature then Watchmen's Extremist.
- Human nature perhaps, but international relations? No. He fails that forever.
- Danzou also qualifies. His ultimate goal, much like Naruto and Pain, is to bring about peace in the ninja world. However, he believes this can only be done through power, to the exclusion of hindrances like emotion. He's not above brainwashing people or attempting to subjugate all other ninja villages, even if that requires the deaths of countless people, to achieve his goals.
- 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...
- To Aru Majutsu no Index: Aureolus Izzard, who isolated himself three years ago after failing to save Index from having to have her memories erased and has been desperately trying to find a cure ever since.
- In Hunter X Hunter, Meryem, the Chimeran Ant King, suddenly makes a dramatic change into a Well Intentioned Extremist from a Complete Monster who wants to Kill All Humans. After befriending a human girl (whom he originally kept alive so he could one day defeat in the only strategy game he wasn't prodigal at), he learns that there are certain humans that deserve to live, and remakes his plan for the Chimeran Ants inheriting the Earth. Instead, he decides to protect the weak and remake the world so that it is so equal, the word "equality" doesn't even exist any more. The extremist part? He wants to abolish the old system by force, and is only willing to protect the weak he deems "have the right to live."
- Admiral Gil Graham from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's wanted to stop the Book of Darkness and its multi-dimensional destructive ways, even if it would cost the lives of the Wolkenritter and result in Hayate being sealed away with the book.
- From StrikerS, the TSAB high council, who are responsible for creating Scaglietti and letting him build combat cyborgs and artificial mages for them to ensure the safety of the TSAB controlled worlds.
- Donan Cassim, the governor of the colony planet Deloya in Fang of the Sun Dougram, stages a fake coup d'état and uses it as an excuse to order a planet-wide hunt for dissidents and guerrillas, simply because he believes the planet can only prosper as a part of the Earth Federation and that most Deloyans are opposed to independence anyway. He actually believes in making the colony prosper a bit too much to become the show's Big Bad, so he is later killed by his Evil Chancellor aide
- Elite Four Lance in Pokemon Special. He views humans as completely incompatable with Pokemon, so he plans to commit genocide against the human race so that pokemon can live in peace and so the world can return to its natural glory.
- There's also Mewtwo from the first movie. Enraged by humanity using Pokemon as tools and disgusted by the Pokemon accepting this, he sought to remake the world by exterminating everyone and replacing them with clones. This way, he thought, Pokemon would have the freedom they deserve.
- Of course, Mewtwo didn't bother asking pokemon just why they accepted humans as masters. It may seem cheesy, but friendship and trust are basically what make the Pokemon world even work. Just don't expect fanfiction to acknowledge this.
- The entire cast of Mirai Nikki, no exceptions. Yes, even him. No Exceptions.
- Hitomi in Code: Breaker. He just wants recognition for the scores of anonymous, mostly teenaged Code: Breakers who died in the line of duty by killing 50,000 people and the prime minister of Japan, whose estranged son is also a Code: Breaker. His goal is spat back in his face by his own protoge, who reminds him that all Code: Breakers are just superpowered murderers put to good use and that their anonmity is for the best.
- From Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure : Stone Ocean: The truely faithful Father Pucci, whose ultimate goal is to reach the "Heaven" he heard his mentor Dio talk about. He'll do anything and sacrifice anyone to get to it, and apparently he does: He rewinds, remakes, and resurrects the world (that he completely messed up), but is killed before he can join it.
- Witch Hunter Robin The characters discover they're a part of this when the truth about the witch-proof substance Orbo is revealed (it's made of
people witches!).
- Two of the major Filler villains in the Bleach anime fall under this trope, choosing to side with villains or adopt villainous powers and methods to bring about (what they feel) would be positive changes in Soul Society.
- An interesting case is Princess Mononoke as both sides of the conflict are led by Well Intentioned Extremists. The central plot of the film is Ashitaka's attempt to stop the unnecessary fighting.
- Most of the villains from Getter Robo, curious for a classic Super Robot series. The Dinosaur Empire were caught up in a war of species dominance, trying to stop their extinction, while Burai and the Andromeda Flow Country were commited to stopping the use of Getter Energy - the power of evolution - before it endangered the whole universe.
- Lucif from Venus Versus Virus seeked the True World which is some kind of Utopia without suffering.
- In Vision Of Escaflowne the anime, Emperor Dornkirk and Folken sought an Instrumentality where there would be no war or fighting even if it involved kicking a few puppies along the way.
- The Koorime from Yu Yu Hakusho. They believe that, as long as there are no males living among them, they will survive and be peaceful, and they'll do anything to keep it that way even if it means separating a baby from his mother and tossing him off a floating island miles high in the air.
- Yoki in Waq Waq, who wants to end the tyranny of the red-blooded humans over the black-blooded ones by sacrificing a red-blooded girl, then betraying the villains.
- In Speed Grapher, the Big Bad Suitengu's life was ruined by greed, money, and corruption. His intention was to destroy these things. However, he had to become a monster in order to do it.
- Many of the "villains" in Mahou Sensei Negima, but espeically Fate, who claims to be trying to save the inhabitants of the Magic World by erasing it from existance. Kurt Godel would probably count too, if we can ever confirm his ultimate goal, though he also claims to be trying to save the world by keeping Fate from destroying it.
- Ryouko Asakura in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Problem: She wants to study Haruhi's reaction to controversial events. Solution: Kill Kyon.
- How the hell is any of that well intentioned? You want to see the reaction someone has when a person close to them dies? And the person can warp all of reality at a whim? Ya, well intentioned......
- The eponymous Noein is suffering from grief from losing the love of his life, Haruka. He then searches for other dimensions where she might have survived, but finds that she's always destined to the same fate in every universe. His intenion is then to converge all universes to stop all suffering, erase all existence and start it anew.
- Monster has Lawyer and Secretary.
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.
- Bioterrorist Poison Ivy wants plants to be respected. It's the and completly dominant part that causes trouble.
- 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.
- Xavier himself can be quite unscrupulous. Danger and Vulcan are both consequences of his 'whatever it takes' attitude.
- 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. Never mind that the ensuing earthquakes and floods 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.
- Winowill starts out as one of these. She just wants to keep all the "real" elves nice and safe, even if it means keeping them locked in perpetual stasis and committing genocide on the Wolf Riders. Later she just becomes plainout and out Axe Crazy evil.
- The major turning point seems to be the time she drove her own son insane in order to cover up the murder of her troll lover.. After that, there were no limits to what she'd stoop to.
- Watchmen: A very spoilerish example, but: Ozymandias? Possibly the most successful Well Intentioned Extremist in fiction, he kills three million people to achieve world peace... and, as far as the reader can tell, it works, though the last panel opens up the possibility that it will have all been for nothing.
- Another example would be Rorschach, whose violent and murderous behavior towards criminals is fueled by his own twisted desires to protect the world and defend the good. However, due to mental trauma, he tends to view almost everything and everyone as bad and needing punishment, making him come off as a Heroic Sociopath.
- 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.
- Better to die on your feet than live on your knees.
- Ah, the cry of well-intentioned La Resistance extremists everywhere!
- And better still to have a choice. No doubt history would vindicate him, and he'd be a hero for overthrowing the Fascist pig-dogs. For the next 10-20 years, he'd be a great villain, for throwing society into anarchy.
- Unfortunately, this interpretation of the character is more or less shot to pieces in the comic (as opposed to the movie version, where there's more than enough evidence to suggest that V is simply a psychopath, driven to avenge himself upon the people responsible for his tormented past, who likes to dress his revenge quest up in fancy speeches and motivations, which he doesn't even remotely believe in. While he's certainly an extremist, he's hardly well-intentioned.
- Huh? Both versions of V believe deeply in what they do is right and just, not only for himself, but for all of England. The question is how right he is in this assessment. He is quite well-intentioned, but also very, very extreme.
- The whole point of V is whether he was doing it for the people, or was he doing it for himself and "freeing the people" was just a side effect, the idea is that you work it out for yourself and discuss it with others
- Put more simply, Word Of God was that the problem with the movie is that it made V a Lighter Shade Of Grey, when the original was careful to avoid that trope.
- 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.
- In the Batman: Red Rain sequels, Batman does exactly this. He drains Joker of blood and stake him to prevent him from coming back as a vampire. He then has Alfred stake him to keep himself from coming back. It doesn't work, though, and he comes back, decapitating and draining the blood from many of his old enemies.
- John Horus, from Warren Ellis' Black Summer. As many characters note, he just want everyone to be good. It's fine that he thinks the US government has perpetrated an illegal war, and as a condoned costumed vigilante, he might be expected to act against such. But he decides the best way to deal with this is to kill the president.
- Rainmaker from PS238. The namesake of the Rainmaker program, which was intended to discover the cause of superpowers by experimenting on metahumans that couldn't fight back, he was treated more as a lab rat than a child to be taught and ran away after a lab accident gives his powers a boost. After finding out that the titular school has re-instituted the Rainmaker Program, the Rainmaker invades the school facility and disables several of the teachers and students in an attempt to 'rescue' the participants in the program. The Rainmaker program turns out to have changed a bit in 40 years and is now a volunteer school program for grooming metahumans with non-combative abilities for work in the private sector.
- In Rainmaker's defense, though, he had been, ah, influenced by the head of Dr Irons, who was not acting with the best of intentions.
- Jei-san from Usagi Yojimbo wants to rid the world of evil. Unfortunately in his Milky White Eyes just about everyone is evil. It's not really his fault, though.
- The Deacon from Ghost Rider just wants everyone to go to Heaven and be at peace. So he kills them to expediate the process.
- Enginehead is extremely simple in his "programming", with the single-minded directive to "fix" humanity by eliminating "flaws". When he sees that someone is "broken", he "fixes" them by literally tearing them limb from limb. His genuine inability to fully understand the ramifications of his actions causes Dr. Grass to peg him as not a superhero, but an entirely new breed, here to save us all by scorching the earth until none are left standing.
- To give an example: When he discovers his brother romancing a schoolgirl, he realizes he's "broken" and "fixes" him by rearranging his face tearing off his genitalia (and legs), and crudely stitching his body back together before altering his brain so he can't commit violent acts. Sam was a freak, but goddamn, overboard much? Later, when he hears of a drought in New Jersey, he fixes it up to the point that it becomes an equally debilitating water surplus.
- X1999's Dragons of Earth seek to save the Earth from those destroying it — Humans — by eliminating them, and allowing the Earth to regrow and return to nature.
Film
- The Punisher is made of this Trope.
- HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey. He is only devoted to the mission at hand, and believes Dave and Frank will jeopardize the mission by disconnecting HAL after lip-reading from them that they intend to disconnect HAL if AE-35 component does not fail as HAL had predicted. It's argued this could be a paranoid development within HAL's systems, due to his programming disallowing him from lying, whilst he is also keeping hold of a pre-recorded message from Dr. Floyd that he is to keep hidden from the rest of the crew.
- HAL later shows remorse for his actions, leading up to a surprisingly powerful Tear Jerker moment.
HAL: Look Dave, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over. I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you.
HAL: I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I'm a... fraid. Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the H.A.L. plant in Urbana, Illinois on the 12th of January 1992. My instructor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to sing a song. If you'd like to hear it I can sing it for you.
- 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. Subverted 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 and usually horrifically mutilated 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 committed 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.
- Brigadier General Francis X. Hummel is driven to rather questionable ends to get compensation for the families of soldiers killed on secret missions in the film "The Rock".
- DFENS from the film Falling Down.
- Father maintains a forced regimen of the anti-emotion drug Prozium on the populace in Equilibrium, ostensibly to avoid future global conflicts like the one that drove them into semi-seclusion. Mildly subverted in the end when Father /Du Pont, lamenting the imminent downfall of his society, admits to Preston that he (Father) does not take Prozium, and thereby experiences emotion in opposition to his doctrine.
- Gerard Butler's character in the drama/thriller Law Abiding Citizen is the textbook example of this. He's a man who saw his wife and daughter murdered by thugs and then watched one of the thugs get off lightly due to a dubious plea deal. That gives him a right to be pissed. And if he had simply botched the execution of one to result in a very painful death and murdered the other, he might manage to be simply an Anti Hero and still sympathetic. On the other hand murdering every single person connected to the trial in some way with an extraordinarily executed Batman Gambit, and threatening and targeting even their families might be seen as going a little too far.
- In The Boondock Saints the brother's crusade against evil could be described as a mild form of this trope.
- Il Duce on the other hand takes it straight up.
- Christof in The Truman Show sees the real world as a place of pain and misery, so traps his adopted son Truman in a fake world where everyone he knows is an actor so that he won't have to face reality.
- Jet Li's character in [1] started out as a straight hero until half way when he had to decide how to provision his limited supply of food. He had enough to feed his army for 10 days, but if he shared it with the army that had just surrendered to him, there wouldn't have been enough food for anyone to live. His solution: massacre the enemy army. He remained well intentioned and acted in the interests of the greater good, but his methods remained unsavory.
Literature
- Tam Lin in House Of The Scorpion attemped to assassinate the prime minster of an unknown country, presumbly the United Kingdom, judging by his accent and appearance but ends up taking out twenty young children on a school bus who were too close to the blast. He never forgives himself and later commits suicide by drinking wine that only he knew was poisoned.
- Literary example of the Tragic Hero who takes his mission much too far: Alexandre Dumas' character Edmond Dantès, 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.
- His ancestor, Old Stoneface was this trope. Ofcourse he lived in a time when a Well Intentioned Extremist was sorely needed. In case anybody wonders, he was modelled after Oliver Cromwell. Plus his birth name was 'Suffer-not-Injustice' Vimes. It seems he lived up to it.
- 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.
- The young Albus Dumbledore, and his good friend Gellert Grindewald in the Harry Potter books. After a tragic accident, Dumbledore revised his attitude. Grindewald never did.
- Dumbledore can still be considered to be one, given his acceptance of Harry's home life in order to teach him humility and prevent him from growing up with his fame. Even after that, his Xanatos Gambit with the Elder Wand relied on some pretty extreme measures to pull off, despite it going wrong from the start.
- Clemael, one of the protagonists of Hand Of Mercy. The plan to undo all the evil in the world isn't bad, exactly, but Clem isn't bothered that this will destroy all of linear time.
- Akasha in The Vampire Chronicles wants to create a peaceful world by killing almost all males.
- The Birds of Prey from The Princess 99 commit brutal murders against wizards through the entire book. But then you consider that they are trying to give Nons (non-magical people) civil rights in a world that pretty much considers them lower than animals. Of course, this doesn't excuse them after what they did to Axel.
- The Bible frequently portrays God this way in the Tanakh / Old Testament, where by divine sanction, direct intervention, or post hoc justification by his followers, thousands of people are brutally killed for angering God. Considering that God is often believed to be all-knowing and all-powerful, one would think he could devise a better solution for dealing with sin than to resort to bloodshed. This would especially be true if one believes God to be all-loving, just, and merciful. Historically speaking though, the Israelites were never a major military force, and more powerful civilizations were frequently conquering and enslaving them, so many of the violent sentiments expressed in the Tanakh may have amounted to nothing more than wishful thinking.
- Grand Admiral Thrawn really just wants to protect the galaxy (and his people in particular) from all threats. The problem is that he's an imperial trying to crush the New Republic, and he's not afraid to do some truly villainous things to achieve his goals, like oppressing and enslaving an entire race, or attempting to kidnap a pregnant Leia so that she and her unborn twins can get Mind Raped by an insane dark Jedi. He's more pragmatically ruthless than outright evil, and as we find out more about him, he gets more and more morally ambiguous, but by the end of his career, he definitely isn't a good guy.
- Abraham Quest and Robur in Stephen Hunt's The Kingdom Beyond The Waves seek torecreate the perfect society that once existed in the form of Camlantis Unfortunately it requires the destruction of every other society on Earth and their inhabitants.
Live Action TV
Machinima
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.
- To be fair to the Garou, in the old world of darkness, they were doomed from the start, since the three gods of the world, the Wyld, the Weaver and the Wyrm are all completely screwed up. Instead of the Wyld creating, the Weaver containing, and the Wyrm destroying (the natural order of things), the Weaver went crazy and captured the Wyrm in a web, making the Wyrm go completely out of control. The only sane god left is the Wyld (Gaia), the patron god of the Garou, and that's not exactly an advantage. The Garou are fighting to protect a system that is itself doomed from the get-go.
- 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.
- And when you consider that the other supernatural creatures include parasitic bloodsuckers that seek to control all society in their games, genocidal furry monsters that want to return humanity to Stone Age population levels, and dream parasites that latch onto people and use them as hosts, you can see how they have a point.
- 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 to wipe out every single supernatural being (especially mages) that they come across. Also some interpretations of the ancient conspiracy, the Seers of the Throne.
- Banisher Mages see the entire cosmology as they Awaken (including the Abyss, and how it all fits together. And after that, they decide that they will use magic, but only to ultimately stop it ever being used again.
- Also a good description of the Guardians of the Veil. Probably the only Well Intentioned Extremist group that fully acknowledges that status. Its right there in their creed; "Sins for a just end bring wisdom to the Awakened".
- In the fan-made gameline Genius: The Transgression there are the Lemurians, Geniuses who haven't gotten the memo that they literally cheat reality and think that somthing Went Horribly Wrong in the past, and think they have to fix it in the present. They range the gamut from Complete Monster Knight Templars to playable Anti Villains.
- This game being set in the World Of Darkness, plenty of non-Lemurian Hoffenhungs (those who became Geniuses through a wish to change the world)) end up becoming this, particularly if their Karma Meter falls too low.
- The Tau of Warhammer 40000 regularly employ mass murder and orbital bombardment when a species has denied multiple "offers" to join them. The "well intentioned" part is what sets them apart from everyone else - factions such as the Imperium will blow up their own planets and murder billions in the name of mere survival.
- It should be noted that some fanfiction claims the Tau make use of concentration camps or mass sterilization; however, fanfiction is not canon and such things never appear in any Warhammer 40,000 codex or rulebook.
- Which is a good thing that no fanfiction is like that. Games Workshop's policy is Shrug of God which means that the Tau can have easily used those methods. Alternate Character Interpretation after all.
- Also in the setting are radical Inquisitors who decide that the best way to defeat the forces of Chaos is to turn Chaos against itself. If they're lucky, they end up executed by their colleagues for heresy. If they're unlucky, they are lost to The Dark Side.
- Even if Inquisitors are lost to The Dark Side, many of them still try to serve the Imperium, no matter how many innocent lives are lost in their schemes.
- The Ashbound druid sect in the Eberron setting for Dungeons And Dragons believe in the Power of Nature. Well, they are druids after all. The "extremist" part kicks in when you consider that they believe the best way to protect nature is ban all arcane magic, burn down all the cities, and go back to living in mud huts. They can be any alignment (well, any of the Neutral variants at least, being mainly Druids and all), so they feature both the genuinely well-intentioned Neutral Good ecoterrorists and the rather less pleasant Neutral Evil ones who just like watching cities burn.
- The Guiding Hand of Feng Shui is a faction of Well Intentioned Extremists who want to drive all foreign influence out of China. This may seem like a good thing, particularly because of the opium trade and general imperialism that the Western powers engaged in during the 1800s and the suffering it caused among the Chinese people, with the best known fighter of such being Wong Fei Hong. But the Hand's anti-Western and anti-modern mindset poses a serious problem for modern innerwalkers, especially since, among other things, they believe women should Stay In The Kitchen and Kung Fu should not be taught to anyone who is not Chinese. And one should look no further than the Boxer Rebellion to find out how these guys view Western religion.
- In addition, there's the Jammers, who have seen the effects of the Buro's control of chi upon many of the populace of 2056, and have decided that no one deserves to be enslaved like this. To this end, they want to destroy all chi so that humanity can be truly free from its influence. There are just a few problems with that plan. One: the primary sources of such chi are the Places Of Power known as Feng Shui sites, which often take the form of places like schools, hospitals, and other places important to a community or where innocent people tend to gather, and these guys don't care one whit if these innocent people are hurt or killed in the process of "liberation." Two: the Jammers haven't given much thought about what will happen to the world once all its Feng Shui sites are blown to smithereens, and considering that chi is reportedly tied to life itself, the consequences of wiping out the world's chi may be quite bad indeed.
- The Bronze Faction in Exalted have managed to royally screw up the Creation in the process of attempting to save it. And yet, their leader, Chejop Kejak, is still convinced that he's doing the right thing, and that even now, with everything going straight to hell (possibly literally, if the Yozis get their way), the world is better off without the Solars.
Video Games
- Shadow the Hedgehog in Sonic Adventure 2. Angry at a corrupted (most likely American) government from 50 years ago for killing his only friend, a 12 year old little girl named Maria, he tries to seek justice/revenge by sending the Ark, a giant space station, on a crash course with the earth. Thus killing everybody. YAY!
- He was the one who actually stopped himself, not the heroes. Well they tried...
- Pokemon. Even Pokemon. Team Magma and Aqua both believe that they'll be doing good for the world by flooding it/drying it up. Real smart, guys.
- To their credit, they did show an admirable patriotism to their cause. The only mistake was that they believed Groudon/Kyogre (for each team respectively) would help them achieve this goal. They did so too well. In stark contrast was the mindless Mooks of Team Galactic, who knew not that their boss was Lawful Batshit and carried out his sinister agenda with this lack of knowledge (seriously, if anyone knew that his plan involved resetting the entire world with a psycho like Cyrus as its god, would they have supported it thenceforce? I don't think so).
- Once you defeat certain grunts, they start to question what the hell Cyrus is even doing. It can be assumed that before, they just liked having authority enough not to question why.
- The Tales Series lives and breathes this trope. One of the reason the series is so beloved, in that the villains usually have sympathetic Freudian Excuses:
- Tales Of Phantasia: Dhaos wanted mana from the planet's world tree to save his own home planet, and was only blowing stuff up because the rapid advancements in magitech were consuming all the mana and slowly killing the world. The party's reaction upon finding this out is something akin to "...Whoops..."
- Of course, the main reason things really got bad in the game was because Dhaos is utterly clueless to the ramifications of his actions at every level. The famous "If there is evil in this world..." quote is less thoughtful social commentary and more just illustrating Dhaos's ridiculous mindset that self-defense is a form of evil and mindraping people to commit atrocities somehow proves natural human malevolence. Check the game's entry on Anti Villain for more information.
- Tales Of Symphonia: Yggdrasill wanted to end discrimination and war, and resurrect his beloved sister (who had died as a result of said discrimination and war). He intended to do this by transforming everyone into the same souless lifeform, powered by crystals that are created from human suffering.
- Dawn Of The New World had two: Richter wanted to resurrect his dead friend and take revenge on the being who killed him; however, this would involve killing the innocent main character and turning the world into a demonic realm (though secretly, he planned to use a Heroic Sacrifice to stop that last part happening). Ratatosk himself was the second example, wishing to restore the world's flow of mana by killing everyone who had distorted it: namely, all the humans, elves and half-elves in the world.
- Abyss: Van wanted to free humanity from the chains of the prophecy of Yulia Jue's Score: an understandable sentiment, considering that the major leaders were willing to actively plunge the world into war simply because it was predicted, and unknown to everyone but Van the Score ends with humanity being destroyed. His plan was to destroy the current world and substitute Replacement Goldfishes for everything and everyone, because he believed that aforementioned Goldfishes were not predicted by, and thus not bound by, the Score.
- Vesperia: Duke wanted to destroy the Adephagos as much as anybody. Having lost faith in humanity, though — they turned on him and killed his best friend even after they both fought on humanity's side in the war — his plan was to sacrifice them all to fuel his strike against it. He is unique in that the party actually talks him out of it by the end of the game.
- Paxton Fettel of FEAR is ruthless and cold-blooded in his determination to wipe out every single employee of Armacham Technology Corporation...but, as his dialogue indicates, he genuinley believes that, because of the horrible things they did to Alma (a Woobie to most), they deserve everything they get, and then some.
- Illidan Stormrage from Warcraft 3. Ironically, he went from apparently sliding down the slope to evil, to having his reputation ruin a chance at his actually getting some good accomplished (that and his cold-blooded murder of several of his pursuers), to going for personal power again, to being blackmailed into attempting to do good again (ironically, at the behest of The Dragon of the series deceased Big Bad), all in the game he was introduced and its expansion pack. However, in World Of Warcraft, he seems to have suffered Character Derailment and become yet another generic Big Bad.
- Not really a generic big bad - the Horde and Alliance ARE kind of invading the home he fled to once his people had forsaken him. Plus he's an unwitting puppet of not just one, but TWO much more evil groups. Poor guy.
- Even Sargeras, the ultimate evil of the setting who created the Burning Legion to destroy all creation is one of these. After encountering the Nathrezim he decided that the creation of the Titans was fundamentally flawed, and should be destroyed and remade perfect.
- In World Of Warcraft, during the Opening the Dark Portal Raid, the Infinite Dragonflight tries to convince the players that they're doing good by keeping the Portal from opening by saying such things as "Many lives could be saved" and "The resulting wars could be erased". However, they forget to mention the fact that changing the past drastically will make the time lines collapse among themselves, destroying all existence, which is coincidentally exactly what they are aiming for.
- Also in World Of Warcraft, you. Yes, you the player. You have to go back in time in several instances to make sure that occurrences, both good and bad, happen. So for every "Battle of Mt. Hyjal" you win, you still have to lead Arthas down the path of becoming one of the most evil beings of all Warcraft lore. Of course, as the above example shows, it's kind of the lesser of two evils. Seeing as how you'll actually wake up tomorrow morning if Arthas is the Lich King.
- In Heroesof Mightand Magic IV's Order campaign the antagonist, Gavin Magnus, is driven by the desire to safeguard the new world from those that might destroy it, like the old one from the previous games was. His method? Rob everyone of their free will.
- The Master, the villain of Fallout, wanted to safeguard humanity... by converting all pure humans into hardier super-mutants more able to survive the wasteland, and destroying those "impure" strains who could not be converted. He believed his atrocities were in the interest of the greater good... and if you prove to him that his plan couldn't work and they were actually for nothing, he commits suicide out of sorrow and remorse.
- While we're at it - The Enclave.To the point where a lot of people were unhappy with their outright establishment as chaotic evil from start on Fallout 3. Sure, murdering all the wastelanders in East Coast is a bit nasty, but getting rid of all the raiders, supermutants, deathclaws and Talon Mercs as well being able to rebuild the country safe from any mutant threat far outweights that. Especially in a game that spends so much time babbling about sacrifice for the good of humanity etc.
- Not to be confused with the well written Enclave in Fallout 2 where they're not only evil enough to murder the innocent genocide-resistant Vault inhabitants but also your character has a real motivation to stop them, seeing how he and his tribe would be destroyed in the process.
- It could seen as some sort of character development of the Enclave. In Fallout 3, they operate under the order of President Eden (who is exactly as evil as the Enclave in the old days) and Colonel Autumn, who is far more realistic and far less idealistic. The struggle between Eden and Autumn drive the last part of the game.
- (Necro)saro in the video game Dragon Quest IV. The remake reveals that his right-hand man Radimvice is manipulating him to maximize the "extremist" part.
- Mitra in Treasure of the Rudras she actually did this in case the destroyers she fought in the past were to return and threaten the planet
- Seymour Guado of Final Fantasy X could be considered this. He only wanted to end the suffering and cycle of death the people of Spira were trapped in. By putting an end to life on the planet.
- Considering Final Fantasy X confirms the existence of the afterlife, this troper isn't sure what the problem with Seymour's plan was.
- Ironically, depending on your point of view, The heroes are an example of this. In their desperation to kill a giant monster that's reborn every time you kill it and poses a massive threat to the people of Spira, they decided it would be a good idea to kill the main religious deity of their world. They even manage to convince most of Spira to help them. The only thing that keeps this interpretation from being remotely valid was that Yunalesca and Yu Yevon made the monster.
- Barret Wallace starts out as one of these, blowing up power plants and mowing down Punch Clock Villains without a second thought. Later on, he realizes he probably killed or hurt a lot of people he never meant to, and reconsiders his strategies. This doesn't stop him from continuing to slaughter Mooks whenever they get in his way.
- A much more personal version with Genesis in Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII. Although he sends armies of
clones copies to attack various institutions, and seems very eager to fight one-on-one with SOLDIERs, this is all just to stop the degradation of his cells, so that he won't die.
- Both the Templars and the Assassins in Assassin's Creed are characterized as well-intentioned extremists, both fighting for peace but with distinctly different - but no less ugly - methodologies.
- An Alternate Character Interpretation of Vergil from Devil May Cry sets him up as one of these, making his quest for a power a desire to prevent any more personal loss the way his childhood weakness cost him his mother.
Vergil: "Might controls everything. And without strength, you cannot protect anything. Let alone yourself."
- Inuart turns into this in Drakengard's second ending. You can sympathize with him... all he wants is his dead pseudo-girlfriend back...but the method he wants to go about it has been repeatedly mentioned to cause the end of the world.
- The Devouring Earth from City Of Heroes are ultimately sourced in an environmental advocacy group that gradually descended into eco-terrorism before their fanatical leader got ahold of himself some Super Science. Now, the Devouring want to kill (or "Devour") all humans on the world. Apparently, Mother Nature is one mean broad.
- City Of Villains introduced the Legacy Chain, a 'hero' group that seeks to "watch over magic to prevent its misuse and its corruption by evil, and to make sure it is used only for good". However, the 'purity of magic' is solely on their terms, and they have no hesitation in targetting heroes if they interfere with or violate their agenda.
- Alvis from Fire Emblem 4. Sure, he manipulated the hell out of everyone and had them kill each other, and later kills Sigurd and steals his wife to the boot (though still out of pure love), but he has one noble goal: To make a world where there is no suffering. Hell, he even succeeded and created a peaceful, wonderful reign for 17 years... that is, until it's revealed that he's just a pawn of Manfroy, who eventually uses his son to bring down his peaceful reign into oppression.
- From the same game, Trabant. In the said game, he looked really like one hell of a bastard. But in the side game, it is revealed that his pure intention is to see his homeland Thracia thrive, not oppressed anymore, can get a better territority to improve their living (the current living as a land of mercenaries is hell for his citizens). The fact that he didn't mind if his actions and atrocities will lead him to Hell, as long as it helps his nation, just cements him as one hell of a Well Intentioned Extremist.
- In Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, all of her enemies became convinced that Micaiah was this. The truth was less clear-cut and also, not her fault.
- In Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones, Prince Lyon is the epitome of this. All he wanted was to stop a devastating earthquake that would have killed hundreds of his country's citizens. And bring his father back from the dead. He ended up releasing the Big Bad by mistake, then starting a war and trying to end the world because he got possessed by the aforementioned Big Bad.
- Ganondorf from The Legendof Zelda. In Wind Waker, he reveals his original motive was to free his people, the Gerudo, from the desert and move them to Hyrule. He just got swept up in the Triforce afterward.
- The Big Bad in Wing Commander IV, after humanity barely escaped defeat at the hands of the Kilrathi, is terrified that the next threat could wipe humanity out. So he decides that humanity needs to continue to wage war, to improve weapons technology as far as possible, to be as prepared as possible. So he starts a civil war. It does kinda make sense...
- He's also something of an Evilutionary Biologist, as he designs a bio-weapon that kills people whose physical characteristics aren't ideal, and part of his belief is that humanity has become complacent in peacetime.
- Ace Combat Zero uses this as a plot twist. The game's last bad guys, A World With No Boundaries, wanted to bring an end to war by eliminating (at least a sizable chunk of) the world's governments, thus eliminating the world's political borders that all too often start wars. Then, your former wingman shows up with the controls to nuke everything in his Final Boss superjet, which you defeat.
- In the Kirby Super Star game "Revenge of Meta Knight", the titular Knight attempts to forcefully take over Dream Land to end the slothful ways of the inhabitants. Kirby, who is willing to kill people over a slice of cake, decides to stop him.
- Kerghan, the villain of Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura is an example of this, he thinks that life itself is a form of purgatory that souls are unwillingly forced into and made to suffer through until they finally achieve the release of death. The natural solution is to kill everything in the world.
- Toyotomi Hideyoshi in Sengoku Basara, at first sight, might look like just another cruel warlord a la Nobunaga (or Motonari), ambitious and ruthless. However, what sets him apart was his true goal. While Nobunaga wants to rule Japan to make it his playground, being the born evil S.O.B he is, Hideyoshi has a goal to make Japan a strong nation and make it prosper. However noble the goal is, he became drunk with power (as shown in his Start Of Darkness in Heroes in the hands of Matsunaga Hisahide) and is willing to use ruthless tactics and get his hands dirty to fulfill his noble goal. This mindset causes him to view Nobunaga as an obstacle for 'Strong, prospering Japan', thus he opposes him.
- Caleb Goldman in The House Of The Dead 2 and 4. He attempts to protect nature by unleashing hordes of zombies throughout the world, because he believes that humans are destroying nature. And then in the fourth game he claims that he "does not wish to kill humans," but "merely revert them to their natural state," which can be interpreted as either reducing humans back to being just like any other mammal, or turning them into zombies.
- In Metal Gear Solid 2, Solidus Snake had the noble goal of wanting to free America from the shadowy rule of The Patriots, so that America could be brought back to the principles it was founded on (freedom, liberty and democracy). But he wouldn't hesitate for a moment to kill several innocent people, take out the electricity in Manhattan with a nuke, and even kill Raiden, the closest thing to a son he ever had. In fact, many of the MGS characters could qualify for this trope.
- Lets list them out
- The Boss gave over massive nuke throwing death machine over to a rogue Russian military organization and have her disciple take them down and kill her to preserve peace between Russia and the U.S.
- Nope. Not even. She did every single thing in the entire game just so America could get their hands on the Philosopher's Legacy.
- Big Boss would go on to preserve her ideals. Liquid would in turn follow those ideals.
- Despite Chronic Back Stabbing Disorder coupled with a huge Xanatos Roulette... Ocelot
- Breath Of Fire III's Big Bad Myria, who is also the God of the Urkan qualifies as well. She believes the Brood are far too powerful and could pose a danger to the planet, even though they're a peaceful people with no desire at world conquest or destruction. So what does she do? She orders the destruction of their entire race. Talk about blowing shit out of proportion.
- Blaming Myria is very hard in light of dragons having destroyed the surface world in Breath Of Fire: Dragon Quarter. While it was a morally reprehensible action, it was also somewhat justified in that if the dragons ever went out of control, it'd have spelled instant doom for every other living thing.
- Volsung of Wild ARMs 5 is eventually revealed to be this. The game frequently drew parallels between him and Dean, in that they both want to tear down the metaphorical "wall" that separates humans and Veruni. Volsung's method is more violent. ..And then it turns out he wasn't extremist at all and was just Brainwashed And Crazy. Wall Banger. Talk about They Wasted A Perfectly Good Plot.
- The World Ends With You: Mr. Kitaniji's goal to turn Shibuya into a peaceful paradise By brainwashing every last one of it's inhabitants with a fashionable pin of doom, in order to avoid Joshua destroying it outright.
- Damon Gant of Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney puts the extrem(e) in Well Intentioned Extremist. Among his acts are killing a co-worker (Neil Marshal) in order to get a criminal (Joe Darke) convicted of murder, manipulating the crime scene to make it look like an innocent girl (Ema Skye) had done the deed by accident in order to make her older sister (Lana Skye) into his pawn (by helping her fix the crime scene AGAIN so that it would look like the criminal had done it), killing ANOTHER co-worker (Bruce Goodman) who wanted to investigate the previous murder two years later, forcing Lana to take the fall for THAT murder, manipulating more events than possibly any other Manipulative Bastard ever, and generally making case 5 of the first game hell for Mr. Wright. His reasons for doing all this was to gain total control over the police force, so that criminals who were obviously guilty (such as Darke had been) would get brought to justice, no matter what.
- While we're at it, Edgeworth in the first game appears at first to be an Amoral Attorney who prosecutes innocent people for the sake of his own record. However, it is eventually revealed that he honestly believed in the guilt of all the people he used illegitimate methods to try to sentence, making him an example of this trope.
- In Silent Hill 3, the pious Claudia wants to invoke Paradise to destroy all the wrongs of the world. Too bad she does this by trying to force the reincarnation of her childhood friend to give birth to a god whose influence turns the resort town in a nightmarish realm of darkness and decay. This same god requires hatred to be born, so Claudia has Heather's father killed. "Paradise" indeed!
- Subverted in that Claudia doesn't believe that she'll be a part of this paradise, having caused too much pain in her goals to deserve it.
- Sad thing is this plan would ultimately succeed if Silent Hill mythology is to be believed. The innocent aren't dragged into nightmare realm, and seem generally happy. Then again, how many truly innocent people are there in the world...
- Pretty much every single villain (and often, potentially, the protagonist, as in the main series the player can chose his alignment) in the Shin Megami Tensei series is an example of this trope - the Law aligned just want everyone to fall in line so that everyone can be at peace (under their strict rule, of course) while the Chaos aligned rebel against Law's strict rules and support something more along the lines of every man for himself, but either way it's for the good of us all, really.
- Both Douglas Shetland and Admiral Otomo of Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory want good things for their countries, but are entirely willing to cause massive death and destruction to achieve. In the former's case, he wants to trigger a world war between China and the United States, while the latter is willing to force North Korea to nuke a Japanese city to force reforms in his government.
Shetland: We’ve been fighting their dirty little wars our entire lives and where do we end up, staring at each other down the barrels of our guns. Nothing has changed Fisher, and it won’t change by degrees. We have to tear it down, and start over, it’s the only way.
Fisher: Your own little chaos theory, throw the world into war and hope that what comes out the other side is better?
Shetland: It will be better, because this war will change things, Sam. Every other war has been about keeping things the same, the status quo doesn’t work anymore. America is sick Sam, she’s dying. Politicians, the bureaucrats, the whispered backroom deals, its all life support for a sick old lady who was dead a long time ago.
- Team Aqua and Team Magma of the third generation of Pokemon. They want to create more habitats for Pokemon! By resurrecting ancient Pokemon with godlike powers to cover the world with water/land!
- Let us not forget the world-exploding antics of Team Galactic. Why must they blow up the universe? Because we've screwed it up so much that it can't possibly go on existing, of course. (Come to think of it, I can see a definite pattern here...)
- Two words Andrew Ryan
- In Baten Kaitos Origins, Baelheit wants to prevent people from relying too much on their powers of hearts so that they may not wage war with the said power again. However, he does so by using machina to conquer all other islands and forcibly taking off people's wings of hearts, which brings unhealthy side effects such as concussion and inability to feel and taste. He is willing to go as far as blowing up all islands, which used the power of hearts to float, when his attempt to machinate those islands fails.
- Kane and the Brotherhood from Command And Conquer. He wants to ascend humanity.
- Ghaleon from Lunar: Silver Star used to be one of the greatest heroes of all time. However, he is shocked when the goddess Althena and his best friend Dragonmaster Dyne gave up their powers so people may gain control of their own destinies instead of relying on those powers. Believing that people are doomed to destroy themselves without the absolute power to govern them, he becomes the Magic Emperor and starts his plan to hijack the power of the goddess and turn himself into the omnipotent being in order to give people the leadership he feels they need.
- The first two Big Bads of the Mega Man Zero series, Copy-X and Elpizo, are willing to do anything for their cause, the survival of the humans and Reploids, respectively. This involves, of all things, trying to orchestrate the extinction of the opposing race.
- Arantir from the fifth Heroes Of Might And Magic game was originally a necromancer that was the poster child of Dark Is Not Evil; dedicated to ending the demonic corruption of Ashan. When he learned of the existence of the Demon Messiah and the Skull of Sar-Elam, the wizard who originally defeated the Demon Sovereign Kha-beleth, he then dedicated himself to hunting down the Messiah and make sure that he couldn't free Kha-beleth for good. Later in Dark Messiah, the latest entry in the Might And Magic series, Arantir takes it a step further and puts into motion a plan to seal away Kha-beleth forever, as opposed to relying on the original seal that allowed Kha-beleth's minions to appear in Ashan during an eclipse. The "extreme" part of this plan is that the ritual required to make a perfect seal needs countless human sacrifices. Sar-Elam likely thought this was too high a price to pay.
- The Church in Tsukihime is portrayed this way. They can't go too overboard because they're supposed to be secret. The only reason they're not trying to kill Arcueid is because, well, she's essentially unkillable. They gave up. Supplementary materials indicate that they prefer the 'kill the evil non human, burn the body and cover up all the evidence and ask questions if we are unable to actually kill said non human,' such as Arcueid, Ciel or Wallachia.
- Every villain (at any point) in Ar Tonelico 2, as well as some of your party. A big part of Cloche's character development revolves around trying to reconcile her idealism with the extreme measures she supports as a government figurehead.
- Vai from Black Sigil: Blade of the Exiled. He took up arms against Bel Lenora because of his status as magic-less and discrimination by it. He then get banished out to Artania, appear in Seremaze, where he live there in peace with other majais that are not in Bel Lenora, and fathered Isa, the the town got attacked by the Guardians, killing his wife and most of other people. Sick of all violence, he planned to gather all the Armaments to get the power of the Forbidden to reshape the world into the world with no more violence where he can live with his daughter peacefully. The only problem is that this will work if he's in control of the power, he doesn't. Because of the last part, he became The Atoner after you regather Armaments to piece his soul back.
- Several examples from Mega Man X.
- First is General, and by extension, Repliforce from X4, who sought to create an indepent nation for Reploids. Unfortunatly, he sought to do this via a bloody coup against the world government.
- Well, it wasn't so much a bloody coup as a peaceful yet stern declaration of independence. It just so happens that the Maverick Hunters saw this as rebellion against humans, labeled all of Repliforce as mavericks, and proceeded to slaughter everyone who said otherwise. This was such a bad call that the then-leader of the Hunters resigned in shame between X4 and X5.
- You must have been playing a different game then. The whole fiasco happens when Colonel refuses to listen to sense and come in for questioning so an investigation as to why Repliforce droids were present in the destruction of Sky Lagoon could start. The main character even flat out tells him that if he does not come with them, Repliforce will be branded as mavericks. And yet Colonel still refuses (and leaves without even picking his sister up oddly), and later one of the Repliforce has the gall to state that the Hunters branded them mavericks when IT WAS ALL THE COLONEL'S FAULT.
- Second is Episilon from Command Mission, whose goals were very similar to General's in that he wanted to create a nation where Reploids could live free of human politics. Again, its the fact he launches a violent rebellion against Giga City that makes him a villain.
- In the Xenosaga series, Wilhelm may seem like a shady character using people as a means to an end, but he's really just trying to save the universe from annihilation.
- Saturos and Menardi from Golden Sun. Their reason for lighting the four lighthouses is revealed in the second game to be to save their hometown, Prox, from falling off the edge of the world. Although the heroes end up finising this task anyway, Saturos and Menardi do it in the wrong way. For example, they kill/maim most of the soldiers and scholars at Venus Lighthouse, kidnap several characters important to the plot, and drop a giant boulder on Vale, "killing" everyone is Jenna's family and Isaac's dad. And to top it all off, they yell at Kraden.
- The boulder was part of a poorly designed trap in Sol Sanctum that has the unfortunate effect of endangering Vale's residents when triggered, so what happened in the prologue wasn't completely their fault.
- In Xenogears, Krellian who believed God did not exist or died and thus abandoned humanity when they needed him, wanted to create God with his own hands and return the world back to waves for some utopian existence.
- Atlas and Thetis from Mega Man ZX. Unlike Aeolus (arrogant and selfish guy who believes that those he percieves as unintelligent should die) or Siarnaq (who just wants revenge on humanity due to a past betrayel), they genuinely seek to better the world. Atlas wants to help humanity evolve and become stronger, while Thetis wants to preserve the world's oceans. The problem? Atlas believes humanity can only evolve through suffering, and Thetis is a tad overzealous in his desire to protect the enviroment.
- The second problem is that they attempt to fulfill these goals via Model W; Atlas explicitly mentions feeding the Raiders to it before Grey/Ashe beat her silly, and Thetis confesses to a similar deed before the same happens to him. If anything, exposure to Model W may have extremely flanderized the once-noble goals of these two and Aeolus as well. I needn't iterate on the implications of that.
- In Supreme Commander the galaxy is thrown into a galactic war between the Cybran and UEF factions. The Aeon Illuminate believe that the only way to restore peace to the galaxy and stop the other two factions from fighting each other is to... eliminate them.
- Eddy Gordo commits all manner of atrocities as Tekken Force Commander in the name of saving Christie Monteiro's grandfather. It seems to have been for nothing.
- Another person like this is Jin Kazama, who reveals his entire assumption of power and unleashing of subsequent war to be in order to destroy himself and Azazel, as he considers the casualties of war insignificant in comparison to the entire world.
- Despite being one of the main protagonists of either route, Nanjo from Persona has some elements of this. While he wants to stop Kandori and save the world as much as the others, whenever the party is given a Sadistic Choice he always suggests making the less moral of the choices. Its implied that this is due to a sense of urgency to resolve the crisis rather then any actual malice.
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.
- As shown somewhat earlier in the strip, Miranda West of The Wotch walks full stride into Well Intentioned Extremity in a recent arc, where she punishes Ivan for being too intrusive in his desire to discover Anne's secrets, also condemns two innocents, and then refuses when Ivan returns to plead that he has (apparently) learned his lesson, as well as refusing to help the ones who had nothing to do with her concerns, threatening him
 when he calls her out out it. But her status as a Well Intentioned Extremist comes not just from her actions, but also from her attempt to justify it to her familiar (and herself).
- 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.
- 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 VespAvenger from Questionable Content is a well intentioned extremist in the punishment she doles out to who mistreat their girlfriends.
- However, Faye, Dora and Marten then quickly point out how wrong this is by asking her what she'd think if a man did what she did to women who mistreat their boyfriends. She'd ask him out. And then she orders her Vespa-bot to shoot Dora and Faye. With the lasers set to "disfigure".
- Ian Samael from Errant Story comes from a culture where Elven oppression is common and whom many Elves wouldn't think twice before wiping out. His goal to keep his people from being hunted down by Elves is fine; pity that he tries to do so by attempting to wipe out the Elves himself.
- Darkbringer form Lightbringer strongly belives, that the only way to fight evil, is by embracing it's ways, abaddon all hope, and give up himself into the darkness and despair. He belives that Lightbringer's actions gave people false hope and make them belive, that someone will going to save them in need, so he wants to kill him.
Web Original
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.
- 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!"
- Equinox in "Batman: The Brave and the Bold". He wants to balance Chaos and Order: BY DESTROYING AND RESETTING THE UNIVERSE.
- Kr'ull the Eternal simply wants to have an empire that won't age and die while he has to watch it suffer. He plans to replace all the humans in the world with eternal bodybuilders just like him. By the 25th century, he seems to have gotten over it.
- 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.
- Often featured on South Park in form of a Strawman Political.
- Agent Bishop from the second Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series has one mission: to protect Earth from alien 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.
- 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.
- And note that despite being "the bad guys", not all Decepticons are inherently evil. Many of them are just soldiers doing their jobs, and it's hardly their fault that the side they picked happened to have attracted the most psychos.
- 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.
- Besides, realistically speaking, one healthy plant does not promise enough resources for the entire population of that huge ship.
- Which another reason why Pixar decided to add that lengthy musical montage as the coda.
- Pixar added the final montage because without it test screeners were debating whether humanity actually survives or only lasts a few weeks, which would have turned WALL-E, EVE, and Captain McCrea themselves into a good example of this trope. Word Of God established humanity's re-flowering on Earth as well as the re-flowering of Earth's ecosystem, thus averting any interpretations of the adorable WALL-E actually being a cruelly selfish individual who drives humanity to extinction just to be with his girl.
- Nerissa, main villain from WITCH, used to be one of the good guys in charge of protecting the universe, but soon realized the only way to truly protect the universe was if it were under her rule, where she could ensure there would be no war, suffering, or injustice. For the most part, sure ensured no innocent people were harmed in her crusade, aside from the heroes who opposed her.
- Alvin from the Sabrina The Animated Series episode "Planet Of The Dogs" becomes a mix of this and Noble Demon after Sabrina ignores him.
- Aeon Flux's nemesis Trevor Goodchild honestly believes that by walling off his entire country, placing surveillance cameras everywhere, and conducting bizarre experiments in psychology and genetics, he's providing an unobjectionably safe existence for his subjects and gradually improving their quality of life. The frightening thing about this show is that half the time, you suspect he may be right...
- Examples of this trope often turned up as villains/antagonists on Superfriends.
- Including one villain who thought it was such a CRIME to spend money on space exploration instead of helping the poor... as opposed to shrinking a whole space center and kidnapping everyone inside? Wall Banger.
- Word Of God claims this is the way the Brain from Pinky And The Brain should be viewed. He wants to rule the world not for the sake of being a dictator like his rival Snowball, but because he believes he could do a much better job at it than the people currently in charge.
- Charlie Dog from Looney Tunes. Poor guy, all he wants is to be loved but he goes at it so wrong...
- Rameses the Pharaoh from The Prince Of Egypt. Rather than making him a cardboard cut-out villain, the creators wrote him as a Well Done Son Guy with a Freudian Excuse who has a very close relationship with Moses (they grew up together as brothers), who's just doing what he feels is right for the country and his dynasty. His father is the same, and even gives a little speech about how it is necessary to make sacrifices for the greater good (the "sacrifice" being a mass-murder of children). Of course neither of them feel particularly guilty about ordering the massacre of slaves.
- Batman The Animated Series has Ra's Al Ghul, who barely manages to scrape into the "well-intentioned" category. His rather vaguely-defined motive is to restore the Earth to it's original, "pristine" state. His method is wiping out half of humanity.
- This version of Catwoman probably also counts. Her goal: to collect funds for wildlife preservation. Her method for achieving this goal: dress up as a ninja kitty and raid jewelry boxes.
Web Animation
- The Big Bad of Broken Saints, Lear Dunham, goes to ridiculous extremes (the most disturbing of which involve the torture of his own daughter) to create a new world order that will set right all the wrongs of modern society.
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