Not So Well Intentioned Extremist / Video Games

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• Ace Combat:
  • In Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere, Abyssal Dision the leader of Ouroboros in claims that he wants to make all of humanity like him, and Brain Upload everyone into the Electrosphere. This turns out to be a lie, for in all five routes, he reveals that he hates being uploaded, and is actually out to avenge his girlfriend Yoko Martha Inoue.
  • Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown:
    • In the main campaign, it’s eventually revealed that the war was orchestrated by a faction in the Erusean military called the Radicals. The Radicals had lead everyone to believe that with their drone army, they could wage a ‘clean war’, and not cause civilian casualties with them. However, this turns out to be a ruse, as its immediately revealed afterwards that the Radicals were looking to restore Erusea to its former glory with the power of the drones. After war circumstances cause a global communications blackout, radicals take the opportunity to backstab the conservatives to kick off a civil war and commit ethnic cleansing against foreign workers.
    • In the DLC missions, Matias Torres, an Erusean captain and former war hero who commands the Alicorn (a massive nuclear-powered super-submarine with WMD capabilities rivaling Stonehenge itself), makes it clear from the start that he has deadly intentions, but preaches to his crew, who follow him loyally, that his cause is to end the war before it causes more casualties. However, as you fight him and push him further against the wall, his facade and sanity begin to break down, and it becomes clear his true intentions, as exposed by OIA agent David North, are to kill a million innocent people with a single shot from the Alicorn's main gun as part of his fetishistic obsession with death and also to get his feat into the history books, Laughing Mad and ranting about the beauty of his impossible shot until his last moments. That being said, he became so unstable after the trauma he suffered back in Shattered Skies along with the submarine accident leaving him and his crew trapped underwater for nearly two years, that he falls into Believing Their Own Lies to a degree, until the very end where he completely loses it.
      Torres: Don't you see, Three Strikes? Ten million lives will be saved, at the cost of a mere million lives!
      North: You liar! You just want to kill people! We won't let you!
• Asura's Wrath:
  • The Seven Deities do everything they can to destroy Gohma Vlitra and rid the world of the Gohma forever, especially since Emperor Strada refused to let them prepare for future attacks during peace times. But only Deus and Yasha truly care about the cause beyond their own interests with only Yasha regretting the atrocities they've committed; the rest of the Seven Deities only use the cause as an excuse to gather power for themselves.
  • Chakravartin claims to have destroyed and remade the world to find a suitable heir to be a god so he could find new worlds for him to spread his guidance. Asura calls him out as nothing more than The Sociopath who cares more about his god complex than actually helping anyone else.
• Astral Chain: Yoseph Calvert seeks to save mankind from the Chimeras, and believes the only way for them to do so is to "become as gods." Eventually, however, he openly admits in File 10 that his main concern is more about how history will judge him as the savior of humanity rather than actually saving them.
• Baldur's Gate III:
  • Barbarian Hero Karlach's Arch-Enemy Lord Gortash, an Evil Overlord who pulls a Tyrant Takes the Helm on the titular city while arguing Utopia Justifies the Means and calling himself "the author of justice". However, it doesn't take more than a cursory glance to see he's The Sociopath and just trying to seem more noble than he actually is to make his We Can Rule Together offer more enticing. He turned the city into a Police State using an army of Mecha-Mooks, and wrote an entire manifesto espousing The Evils of Free Will. He enslaved gnomes to build said army, and wrote a note explaining that he refused to Mind Control them so his partners couldn't use them against him, explicitly stating he wants them aware of what they're doing "and unhappy about it". He justifies his betrayal of Karlach with Misery Builds Character, but if Karlach is the Player Character and presses him on it he freely admits that he sees all other people as tools. Being The Chosen One for the god of tyranny and strife pretty much makes it obvious he's full of it from the start.
  • The devil and Manipulative Bastard Raphael explains in Act 3 that his main motivation is to conquer Hell and end the Forever War plaguing demonkind. However, in the Downer Ending where the Player Character helps him do it, he then expresses a desire to spread his conquest to more worlds, theirs likely included.
• Batman: Arkham City: Hugo Strange claims that Arkham City and Protocol 10 are being done for the benefit of Gotham City by rounding up all of the city's criminal scumbags and executing them en masse; however, it soon becomes clear that Strange isn't really committing such atrocities out of a twisted desire for justice or the greater good, but to receive public adoration as a "hero" in order to satisfy his own ego. Not to mention the fact that he's willing to throw in lesser, not-so-violent criminals and even completely innocent citizens into Arkham City so that they can share the same fate as all the truly evil bastards, makes it clear that he doesn't actually give a damn about making the world a better place.
• House Espinosa from the single-player campaign of BattleTech (2018). The narrative doesn't do much to explicitly contradict Lord Santiago's contention that the Aurigan Reach needs to take a harder foreign policy line when stuck between several much larger neighbouring powers and that the ruling House Arano weren't doing enough to keep colonies on the fringes from breaking away, and even Lady Kamea admits that initially she was more upset about being kicked off the throne because she was the legal heir than because she thought her uncle would do a bad job of ruling. But Espinosa's claims to be acting for the greater good start to ring very hollow indeed once La Résistance liberate the detention camps on Weldry. And that's not even the worst atrocity House Espinoza are responsible for before the finish.
• BioShock:
  • Atlas in the first game. At first, he seems to be a swell guy who initially rose up against the cruel tyranny of Andrew Ryan in Rapture, but many of the audiologs found throughout the game show that Atlas ultimately wasn't that much better than Ryan himself, with him kicking off his revolution by suicide bombing a public restaurant. This is fully cemented when it's revealed that he's actually Frank Fontaine with a different face and name, who simply used his widespread support from the poor so he could take over the city and eventually market ADAM to the surface — which would likely turn the whole world into the exact same chaotic hellscape that Rapture is right now.
  • BioShock Infinite: Father Zachary Hale Comstock of Columbia literally looks down upon the world and thinks he can eradicate civilization and rebuild it from a floating city with access to infinite resources and wisdom from alternate universes as a utopian society. In reality though, he's a massive racist who wishes to restore the caste system, invade other parallel Earths to continue the murder-spree forever, and refuses to accept the horror of his actions (because he thought "Go and Sin No More" meant that he didn't have to accept it).
• BloodStorm: Talon, initially, would kidnap and perform horrific experiments on "bios" to try to cure the flesh-rotting plague ravaging Cyberia. However, as time went by, and he replaced more and more of his brain with circuitry, he became an unfeeling murderer instead intent on dominating all life.
• Borderlands 2: Handsome Jack claims that he wants to save Pandora from all the bandit and dangerous creatures by taking over, but he himself is a violent, sadistic asshole who is barely any different from the bandits he is "saving" people from. And judging from Opportunity, his "paradise" would be something akin to North Korea, meaning the people of Pandora are justified in taking their chances with the bandits and monsters.
• BoxxyQuest: The Gathering Storm: Mother Zoe, the leader of the Social Justice Warriors, claims that her plan to enact mass androcide is to create a paradise for women who will not have to suffer the evils of men. However, she and her cult are perfectly willing to harm women just as well, such as experimenting on them to create the “perfect women”, enslaving both male and female Furries, repeatedly resurrecting her Co-Dragons in increasingly malformed bodies while ignoring their suffering, and trying to kill the heroines for refusing her utopia. Compared to Arianna and Boxxyfan, who have genuinely good intentions behind their apocalyptic agendas, she is noting more than a hateful, power-hungry lunatic seeking to justify her bigotry.
• Chrono Trigger: The Chancellor from 1000 A.D., in spite of his unjust treatment of Crono when the latter is accused of abducting Marle a.k.a. Princess Nadia, can be believed to be taking his duty to protect Marle way too seriously. However, when that same Chancellor deliberately strains the relationship between Marle and her father by lying to the former about how her mother died when she returns to Guardia Castle, it becomes clear that he has no good intentions. It turns out that he is actually Yakra XIII, who impersonated the real Chancellor from the start as part of his plan to kill Crono and avenge his ancestor, who Crono killed in the past.
• Contra: In Neo Contra, Master Contra claims that he wants to destroy Earth as a means to demolish all structured society and their morals. In reality, him destroying the planet is simply For the Evulz.
• Corruption of Laetitia: Cardinal Alfredus Marian claims that his industrial revolution will provide a military that can protect his people from invaders, but he ignores that the pollution from his policies is causing a famine and is aggravating local monster species. He refuses to address this issue even when confronted by Celeste, due to being tunnel-visioned into thinking military power takes precedence over all other aspects of governing. Additionally, his paranoia causes him to betray allies such as Celeste and Riliane's mother, just because he suspects they could harm him or threaten his power. In reality, his excessive industrialization and theft of Celeste's power are more to make him feel safe rather than to actually keep his people safe.
• Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls: Monaca Towa initially appears to support the other Warriors of Hope, who genuinely want to create a children's paradise free from Abusive Parents and adult tyranny, but it is later revealed that Monaca just uses it as an excuse to further her real goal: to spread despair around the world in accordance with the will of Junko Enoshima, and turn Komaru, the sister of the first game's protagonist, into a successor to Junko by throwing her into the hopeless war that the Warriors of Hope and the Adult Resistance created. Her friends are nothing more than pawns in this goal, unaware of her true intentions.
• Dead Rising 3: Isabela Keyes seems like she wants to get Nick Ramos to safety in order to ensure the cure for humanity no matter the cost at first after causing the Los Perdidos outbreak, but it's later revealed that she only caused the outbreak to find the cure in order to boost her ego and look like a hero, rather then genuinely wanting to help America return to its pre apocalyptic state.
• Deltarune: The King of Spades tries to present himself as acting in the Dark World's best interests and justified in his quest for revenge against the Lighteners, at one point claiming he's a hero to his people. However, the fact that he dethroned and imprisoned the other three kings of the Card Kingdom, combined with his draconian policies and willingness to kill his own son just for befriending the heroes^note Although Chapter 2 revealed he was bluffing and did not really intend to go through with it., makes it abundantly clear that he's merely a selfish tyrant who wants to expand his realm by conquering both the Light and Dark Worlds.
• The Hive in Destiny see themselves as liberators, crusading across the galaxy to destroy the Traveler and the lies it espouses, which lure civilizations into complacent, decadent stagnation. The Hive are social darwinists who worship the concept of Might Makes Right, and their definition of "decadent stagnation" involves things like pacifism and caring about other people.
• In Deus Ex: Human Revolution, there is Hugh Darrow, who is credited as the "father of augmentation". However, near the end of the game, he activates a "switch" that causes all mechanically-augmented individuals to go insane. Since there are hundreds of thousands of augmented people, this is utter chaos. He claims to have done it in order to shock humanity into banning augmentation outright, both out of remorse for essentially playing God and for engineering the Illuminati's path to world domination. But if your persuasion skills are good enough you can get him to admit that he did it out of petty jealousy: ironically, his body rejects all but the simplest augmentations, so he has come to resent other people because they can use his inventions while he cannot and is taking out his jealousy on everyone else.
• Subverted in Disco Elysium by Evrart Claire. At first, it appears he's a cynical, greedy opportunist hiding behind union rhetoric to keep the support of Martinaise's residents with no real morals besides money. However, it's eventually revealed he's actually a devoted if ruthless communist sincerely dedicated to worker's rights, and that his pessimistic corruption is the real mask designed to hide that he's a genuine revolutionary. In essence, he's a true Well-Intentioned Extremist pretending to be one of these.
• Dragalia Lost: Elua, from Chapter 16, claims that he is putting Raywall in a position where they can't win a war against Grams in order to save it. However, when Chelle points out that Grams would move on to other lands after conquering Raywall, Elua shows to not care at all what happens to any land outside of Raywall.
• Dyztopia: Post-Human RPG:
  • Prime Minister Morgalia claims that submitting to Zeta is the best way to ensure that the imperialistic state doesn't hurt Vulcanite citizens too much, even though it's clear that most Vulcanites resent the occupation and many of her citizens are forced into homelessness and horrible working conditions. However, when Akira's party and the Vulcanite Resistance take over the capital, Morgalia threatens to blow it up if they don't return Chase to her, showing that she's motivated more by her desire for control and power than altruism. Worst of all, she follows through on this threat out of spite. Her desire to protect Chase also counts, she since's such an abusive Control Freak towards Chase that she wants Clyde to brainwash Chase into loving her again.
  • In the Evil Runi route, Gemini completely takes over Runi's body and engages in extra brutality, such as killing Kael and kicking his body off the train, and then killing Virgo/Rosie despite the latter's willingness to negotiate. While she claims this is for the sake of ending Zazz's fascist regime, it's clear that she's on a power-high from having full control of her sync with Runi and that she killed them out of sadism. After Zazz is defeated, she then kills everyone in the party except for Akira, even though they're the only ones who can reform a post-Zazz world. The Broken Gemini route reveals that her true goal is to kill her siblings, and that she sees Runi and the resistance movement as pawns to make that happen.
• Epic Battle Fantasy 5: The Devourer claims that its crusade against the player party is for the sake of maintaining order and balance in the universe, but it really views the universe's inhabitants as cogs in a machine and has no qualms about wiping out an entire planet just to kill off a few disobedient sentient beings.
• Elohim Eternal: The Babel Code:
  • The Cainite faction led by Goliath and Anat want to kill the Kosmokraters at any cost, and they have a point due to how the Kosmokraters manipulate both Idinites and Cainites into warring with each other. Anat claims that doing so will free Idin from the Forever War, but considering that her faction stole most of the remaining Manna and her own Lack of Empathy towards all life, it's clear that she and her group are more motivated by revenge than saving Idin from the Kosmokraters.
  • In the ending, the Kosmokraters claim that everything they do is out of love for the Idinites and that fighting the Cainites is necessary to protect them, but the party points out that they're willing to kill Idinites for getting too close to the Kingdom of Heaven. The Kosmokraters drop the act and threaten to split Idin in two with the infernos if the party tries to use the Transmigrator, even though they could easily destroy only the Transmigrator, showing that they consider everything expendable to fuel their god complex. Joshwa accuses them of acting only in fear that someone else could reach their level of existence and dethrone them.
• Eternal Twilight:
  • Azael claims that he once wanted to kill the first human because he feared that non-magic users would eventually try to persecute the Magi. It's unknown how sincere he was at the time, but in the present, he has no care for his fellow Magi and is willing to convince an empire to enact a genocide of Magi simply to get rid of the Black Magi who could potentially succeed him as a Supreme, as well as to kill off any Magi he deems "weak".
  • Empress Verona claims that the genocide of Magi is necessary to rid the world of dangerous, devil-worshipping Blood Magi like the aforementioned Azael. However, she shows no mercy for her fellow humans if they dare to question or oppose her genocidal goals. It turns out she's secretly sacrificing strong Magi to steal their powers while killing off the weaker ones, all to ensure that only she and her followers can use magic.
• Fallout: New Vegas:
  • Caesar's Legion as a whole definitely fall into this category, especially its namesake leader. Although you get a first glimpse of how far Caesar and his Legion are willing to go when you wade into the ruins of Nipton, when you first meet the man himself, he's a calm and logical ruler who tells you how he plans to use his horde of thugs to bring peace and prosperity to the Mojave. At first, anyway. Then you hear about his more unsavoury actions, like slaughtering entire camps and tribes down to the last man, woman and child out of little more than unadulterated bloodlust, his downright nauseous habit of taking those he conquers as slaves, of which the women are used as broodmares or perverted entertainment, and his downright inhuman glee at bringing a merciless, messy end to all that question or defy him even so much as an inch. Which ultimately show him for his true nature as a violent, petulant, psychopathic thug who neither comprehends nor cares that his actions bring more harm than good to the Mojave as a whole, and is so driven by his ego he would gladly run it into the ground than admit he was ever wrong. And this mentality trickles down to the rest of the Legion's members.
  • The backstory of Vault 11 had Roy Gottlieb. His group was locked inside with the threat that if one human was not sacrificed a year, the mainframe would kill everyone. He helped set up a voting system to choose sacrifices, but took the oppurtunity to throw his weight around, even pulling a Scarpia Ultimatum on Kate Stone when her husband was at risk of being nominated, only to get him on the list anyway. When Kate took control of the system and ensured that future sacrifices would be chosen randomly, without any votes, Roy launched a bloody civil war that left almost everyone dead. It turns out that not sending a person to be sacrificed unlocks the door of Vault 11, something he could have found out if his first instinct hadn't been to throw his fellows under the bus.
• Faraway Story: The unnamed Armonican priest claims that banning outsiders from Chime Water is necessary to prevent them from abusing the church's resources and he wants to kill Ellevark for supposedly using heretical healing powers. Despite his claims of being a devout worshiper of Gran and performing Necessarily Evil actions for the church, he ignores his religion's message of generosity in favor of looking for justification for his bigotry. His transgressions against Ellevark are less to prevent heresy and more to eliminate a potential threat to the church's — and by extension his — influence.
• Fate/Grand Order: God Arjuna's whole plan is to create a world where no evil exists. Unfortunately, his definition of evil is simply anything flawed in any way, no matter how temporary or trivial, to point a person with a twisted ankle is considered unneeded enough to be a target for deletion. He eventually started accelerating the Yuga cycles to the point where he destroyed and recreated the world every ten days, during which he would wipe out anyone who had even a trace of evil within them or could possibly become evil with no chance of reincarnation, leaving them forgotten by the survivors. His actions eventually began threatening the trichiliocosm due to his impatience and arrogance, and the laws of probability mean that eventually everyone would fall under his definition of evil (nobody's going to avoid minor injuries forever) and he'd wipe out his own Lostbelt.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Final Fantasy VII: Barret Wallace blows down power plants and mows down Shinra employees without a second thought, justifying it by pointing out Shinra's mako reactors are sucking the planet dry and will eventually bring about The End of the World as We Know It. Later, however, Barret realizes he was just using that as an excuse, and he was only destroying the reactors because of his personal grudge against Shinra. After this, he reconsiders his strategies.
  • Final Fantasy XIV: During A Realm Reborn, Gaius van Baelsar claims he wants to free Eorzea from the yoke of blind worship to the gods who he thinks are draining the world of Aether by binding it under one rule. While he is correct that the Primals are an existential threat who are willing to eradicate anyone who doesn't worship them, and he's apalled at the destruction the Ascians want to bring, during his boss battle he lets slip that he believes himself the rightful ruler of Eorzea, showing that despite all his honor and convictions, he's still as power-hungry and self-centered as the rest of the Empire he serves. He does get better as the story continues at least.
  • Final Fantasy XV: Bahamut, the Draconian manipulated Ardyn into becoming the Immortal Accursed and the entire Lucian line into the creation of the True King, in order to finally put an end to the Starscourge. However, the Dawn of the Future novel revealed that he views humans as expendable sacrifices and is perfectly willing to eradicate them all, even using the Starscourge itself to fuel Tera Flare.
  • Final Fantasy Tactics: When you meet Cardinal Alphonse Delacroix at the end of Chapter 2, he gives a speech of this nature to try and convince you that his goal is to make the world a better place regardless of cost. When Ramza shoots him down, he immediately turns into a Lucavi, revealing that it was all a lie and his real goals are far more horrific.
• Fire Emblem:
  • Nergal from Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade is revealed to be this should you get all of the extra side chapters in Hector's story. He started out as an actual Well-Intentioned Extremist, wanting to get more power so he could rescue his wife and then reunite with his kids. Unfortunately, The Dark Side Will Make You Forget kicked in big time, and Nergal eventually decided that the reason he wanted power must've been because he actually wanted to use dragons to take over the world.
  • Ashnard from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance would probably see his motives as well-intentioned. His foremost goal is to inflict enormous trauma upon the continent in the hopes that the resulting society will be (by necessity) a meritocratic utopia. This parallels his own rise from 14th-in-the-line of succession all the way to throne by his own hands; but those parallels also reveal Ashnard's hypocrisy. His rise was possible only because he was already well positioned as a military officer and prince; a chaotic, war-torn Tellius may favor established players (like, say, Ashnard himself at this point) no differently than the previous one did.
  • Gangrel from Fire Emblem: Awakening acts like he loves Plegia and wants to fight for their interests, but all he really wants is power and to start a war with Ylisse just because he can. Supports in SpotPass reveal that he was actually a Well-Intentioned Extremist who was conquering places in order to strengthen the country against Walhart, but the power went to his head and caused Motive Decay.
  • Desaix, from Fire Emblem Gaiden and its 3DS remake, Shadows of Valentia, killed the King because he thought he could be a better King for Zofia and guide the nation to a better state, considering Lima IV to be a hedonistic and poor ruler spoiled with the blessings of Mila, and considering Mila herself to no longer be worthy of being worshiped, as she had grown slothful and uncaring (he even refers to her as a "monster"). However, he comes off as just a power-hungry and murderous man driven by personal ambition rather than the good of Zofia despite the situation, not exactly doing a better job at being king than Lima IV was.
  • Fire Emblem: Three Houses has Nemesis and Those Who Slither In The Dark. Nemesis is viewed by history as a Fallen Hero, whose followers believed he would liberate the world from the rule of Abusive Precursors. In truth Nemesis was a common bandit who only waged war on the Children of the Goddess for personal power, and massacred their race to make weapons from their bones and blood. Those Who Slither In The Dark were his backers, who still exist in the present day and declare themselves the "saviors of all" doing humanity a favor by wiping out all traces of the Goddess Sothis and her Children and avenging their fallen advanced civilization of Agartha. Though they aid Edelgard in their war against Rhea and the Church of Seiros, their reasons for opposing them are nowhere near as well-intentioned: they only do so out of petty revenge for an ancient war they started and ruined the world over before Sothis had to fix the damage and general Fantastic Racism towards them and all surface peoples who are implied to be a "reborn" humanity Sothis made in her efforts to restore life.
• First Encounter Assault Recon: Though Genevieve Aristide pretends that she is interested in locking down Project Origin to keep people safe, Aristide's actions, up to and including murdering one of the people who was putting her in protective custody, and setting the other up as The Bait for Alma, give away the fact that she is far less interested in the public wellbeing or her own employees than she is about her own safety and status.
• Freedom Planet: Lord Brevon's after the Kingdom Stone to save his world and will do whatever it takes to get it, but Torque throws this right back in his face by pointing out that the suffering he's caused to other worlds is the reason his planet is in danger in the first place. Brevon doesn't deny this.
• Gaia's Melody: Agares claims that opening the Gate is necessary to reunite the parallel worlds of Gaia and Earth, and performs horrific experiments on clones to create a mage who can accomplish this task. His real goal is to conquer Earth and force its inhabitants to worship him as a god. He only came up with his initial justification to trick Eeon into giving up their princess as the cloning template.
• Galaxy Angel: In the first game, Eonia was exiled from the Traansbal Empire because he wanted to use the Lost Technology to expand it (read: conquer other worlds with it), claiming that he wants to increase the prosperity of the empire. However, after he returns having found the Black Moon, he has no qualms about using it to destroy anyone who opposes him, even firing upon civilian ships or attacking the Fargo residential zone, resulting in countless innocent casualties. Shiva even says he's just using his "dreams" as a pretext for revenge against the empire.
• Get in the Car, Loser!: The Machine Devil cultist, Gaius, claims that he has more in common politically with the party than they think and that he's trying to create a fair society. However, he scapegoats marginalized groups for all the problems of society, victim-blames anyone killed by the cult, and wants to wipe out all "degenerates", making it clear that he cares more about harming groups he hates than actually improving society.
• God of War: In the past, Kratos was a warmongering, bloodthirsty Spartan who led his soldiers on conquest after conquest. When his wife Lysandra called him out on it, Kratos declared that he was going it for the glory of Sparta; Lysandra was not convinced and knew that he only did it for his own personal glory.
• Golden Sun: The villains of the original duology are revealed to be trying to light the elemental lighthouses to prevent Weyard from eroding away, as Prox, the home of Saturos, Menardi, Agatio and Karst, is in immediate danger of falling off the edge of the slowly-eroding world. However, while Alex is working towards the same goals by aiding them (and the heroes of both games eventually start working towards them too), his ulterior motives for preventing the end of the world are so that he can claim the power of the Golden Sun for himself once the seal on alchemy is broken and become a demigod.
• Grandia II: Selene seems to be well-intentioned at first, "purifying" people for their own good, but in her final moments it becomes apparent that she has no particular goodwill toward humanity.
• Grand Theft Auto:
  • Officer Frank Tenpenny in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is a brutal and corrupt cop who claims to be doing what's necessary to fight gang violence and drug abuse. In reality, he is nothing more than a self-serving criminal who builds his empire using street gangs as his pawns and becomes hated enough by the public that riots break out all over Los Santos when he is acquitted on trial for his crimes (due to all witnesses being silenced by CJ's actions).
  • Deputy Police Commissioner Francis McReary in Grand Theft Auto IV is deluded about his "good intentions" since while he rants about corruption, drugs, and gangs ruining Liberty City, he is noted by his criminal brother Packie to be just as crooked as him and their other brothers, perhaps even more so. Though he justifies his actions by working towards a greater good, all missions he gives out to Niko are to get rid of people that could expose his corrupt activity as a dealer/pimp, claiming that police procedure would take too long, but it's clear he did it to silence him since said criminal had dirt on McReary.
  • Steve Haines in Grand Theft Auto V is an FIB agent who claims to be fighting the good fight against terrorist threats and boasts that he serves America's greater good. Ultimately, he serves himself first and foremost — when discovering that the IAA is planning to stage a terrorist attack to increase their funding, he is more concerned about the rival agency getting funding over the FIB more than the citizens' safety. He also has a sadistic streak, such as when he orders the unnecessary torture of an innocent man willing to cooperate for no reason but to amuse himself.
• The Great Gaias: Emperor Grindelwald Maultor convinces the Validian citizens that the elves are behind the Blight, a horrible wasteland in their region where no crops grow and the air is dangerous to breathe. He claims that if they commit genocide on the elves, the Blight will go away because it's supposedly tied to their magic. Unsurprisingly, Maultor is the one who caused the Blight and seeks genocide against the elves to claim a time-traveling artifact and hurt the other gods. After revealing his true identity as Malviticus, he claims that he took over the Celestial Realm in order to free the lower gods from the restrictions placed on them by the elder gods, but since he killed all the other gods and attempted to kill Tantalasia's vessel in the final boss fight, he clearly just wants to rule Tenat alone.
• Halo:
  • The original trilogy has The Prophet of Truth, Ord Casto. In theory, his initial decision to exterminate humanity came about not out of malice or zealotry, but because he feared that if the truth ever came out about humans being the inheritors of the Forerunners, the Covenant would collapse into civil war. However, it's ultimately revealed that he was also doing it to keep the San'Shyuum in power over the Covenant, not to mention that he was still willing to activate the Halo rings just to see if he would become a god as a result. In this regard, a civil war would be far less costly than destruction of all life in the galaxy.
  • In Halo 4 Dr. Halsey initially justifies her SPARTAN II, which was based around abducting children and horribly experimenting on them to create perfect soldiers, by (correctly) claiming that her Spartans saved humanity from the Covenant. However, when someone points out that she began the program during the wars against the Insurrectionists before they knew about the Covenant, she effectively admits that her true goal was creating the next step in human evolution.
• Hero King Quest: Peacemaker Prologue: Dark Lord Spidergland claims that she needs to subjugate non-dark elves because other races are untrustworthy and is willing to sell out non-dark elf citizens to avoid war with the Cerulean Land. However, she imprisons her daughter out of fear that the Azoth sword will deem the latter a more worthy ruler, showing that she's nothing more than a paranoiac trying to hold onto her own power, even at the cost of her citizens and family.
• inFAMOUS:
  • inFAMOUS 2: Joseph Bertrand III claims that he just wants to protect New Marais from the "freaks" and "monsters" that threaten his fair city; but not only is he actually a freak himself, he was responsible for creating those monsters and setting them loose in the first place, all as part of his plans to seize power over the city, along with validating both his huge ego and self-hatred.
  • inFAMOUS: Second Son: It's revealed at the end of the game that Brooke Augustine set up the D.U.P. and captures Conduits because she believes that humanity will never accept Conduits and imprisoning them is the only way to keep them safe from those that would try to kill them. Of course, she's prevented from being actually sympathetic by her blatant sadism, and the inhumane experiments on and treatment of the Conduits she has imprisoned.
• Injustice: Gods Among Us: In an alternate dimension, Superman became a Knight Templar bent on ending crime at all costs, having been tricked by the Joker into murdering his wife Lois and nuking Metropolis. As time progresses, he becomes a twisted tyrant selfishly and desperately obsessed with subjugating the Earth, especially when he kills Shazam and Luthor while ranting about the populace "complaining" about his dictatorial rule. He even plans to invade the Multiverse, kill Mainstream Superman and forcefully take Mainstream Lois Lane as his bride even if she won't like it.
• Jak and Daxter:
  • Jak II: Renegade: Baron Praxis claims his tyrannical rule is necessary to protect Haven City against the Metal Heads, but in reality, all he cares about is staying in power, and it turns out he's been bribing them into attacking the city to justify his rule. Even his ultimate plan to backstab them is because the deal's about to fall apart.
  • Jak 3: Count Veger really wants to destroy the Metal Heads, and the Dark Makers, but does a lot of terrible things to meet that end. Though given his narcissism, greed and lack of regard for those around him, his desire to destroy the Metal Heads are likely for his own selfish benefit for good publicity.
• Kingdom Hearts: Master Xehanort believed the balance between light and darkness in the universe was unsustainable and sought to begin a Keyblade War to engulf the worlds in darkness, and when he wins, to claim the power of Kingdom Hearts with which to remake and fix it. However, he's since become Drunk on the Dark Side to the point he's dismissive as opposed to defensive when called out for the harm he's done. Kingdom Hearts III reveals he still sincerely believed his actions were just and his plan was to lead the Next World in order to dictate all destinies to prevent them from polluting the world with Darkness. He's promptly called out how he's proven himself unworthy to be said leader and after being defeated realizes he did this to validate his ego.
• Legacy of Kain: The Elder God constantly pressures Raziel to kill Kain, insisting it's necessary to restore balance to the dying lands of Nosgoth. In reality, all he cares about is finding more souls to feed on and spin in his Wheel of Fate and take over Nosgoth for himself, and he wants Kain dead because, as the Scion of Balance, he's the only one who can stop him.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • In The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Ganondorf makes a climactic speech explaining his motive to conquer Hyrule, saying he came from a harsh desert country where the wind brought only death whereas Hyrule's wind was so pleasant that he coveted it. However, nowhere in this speech does Ganondorf claim he was doing this to help his people, the Gerudo, nor does he pretend that his wish is anything but personal and selfish in nature. If he had any well-intentioned motives, they had eroded away long ago and he's only now recalling them in hindsight. The fact that he's the reincarnation of Maou the Demon King didn't help matters.
  • In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Zant claims he wanted to conquer Hyrule to help the Twili escape the Twilight Realm and their persecution by the Light Dwellers. As Midna points out, Zant acting out of altruism for the Twili is completely disproven by the fact that he turned all the Twili into monsters against their will and is in service of a Light Dweller, the very species he despises so much.
  • In The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, Yuga helped Princess Hilda reassemble the Triforce, but he didn't care about saving his world from destruction, only to recreate it in his image.
• Luminous Avenger iX: In the first Gunvolt game, Asimov (a.k.a. Demerzel) claimed that he wanted to create a better world for Adepts, even if that meant cutting down anyone in his way or killing humans indiscriminately, because he saw them as fearmongering threats to Adepts fully willing to subjugate and kill them in turn. Here, it's clear that every other thing he does was for the sake of power — humans are obviously labeled "Minos" and exterminated (and in one case even forcibly brainwashed to become Asimov's personal enforcer), but even other Adepts are forcefully mellowed out against Minos using the Butterfly effect, surveillanced and prevented from leaving Sumeragi-controlled cities, and risk being conscripted under threats against their lives or loved ones. Even worse, if you're an Adept with an Septima that benefits him like the Muse or simply happened to be an oddball case, you will be captured and subject to torturous experimentation, the very same sort of experimentation that led Asimov to want to destroy humanity in the first place. This is notably a Whole-Plot Reference of Dr. Weil's mass Reploid enslavement in Mega Man Zero, below — based on how the Mega Man franchise inspired the Azure Striker Gunvolt Series as a whole and both Zero and the Gunvolt series are made by Inti Creates, the similarities might be deliberate. Azure Striker Gunvolt 3 puts a possible explanation for the Motive Decay by retroactively suggesting that Asimov's transformation into a being of living electricity was in fact his own Primal Dragon transformation, which also causes enhanced aggression and mental instability on top of the new and increased powers, and with no one to snap him out of it over the next century he degenerated into the full-on villain shown.
• Manafinder: King Vikar uses a draconian legal system to purge Manahill of criminals and claims that his actions are keeping the country safe and holy. Later on, the Settlement citizens reveal that they can be exiled for political disagreement, researching technology that King Vikar doesn't like, and offending the nobility, showing that the legal system favors the upper class and is really used to abitrarily punish the lower class, regardless of the criminality of their actions. It later becomes evident that King Vikar is aware that the gods are displeased with his abuse of his powers, and he purged the Oracles specifically to keep them from publicizing this fact. In Starkas's route, Lambda gains the blessing of the gods and fights him, causing him to declare that the gods cannot undo the pinnacle of mankind, in other words, himself.
• Mass Effect:
  • Warden Kuril from Mass Effect 2 claims that he runs the prison ship Purgatory to take on all the criminals that nobody wants on their planets. However, he also tortures his prisoners, enslaves them, and runs a protection racket on all the planets he visits (if they don't donate to keep Purgatory running, he'll return their prisoners to them at an unspecified time and place). He also tries to kidnap Commander Shepard for their bounty. This does not end well for him.
  • Cerberus becomes this by Mass Effect 3. The organization continues to expel their rhetoric that they are the best hope for humanity in the galaxy,^note which they were genuine about in the previous games, even willing to work with aliens but their actions throughout the game cause far more damage to everyone in the galaxy, including humans, all for the sake of finding a way to control the Reapers to ensure dominance. It is later revealed in the game that they were Indoctrinated by the Reapers and are unconsciously acting in the Old Machines' interests. In other words, they could never find a way to control the Reapers, because in reality it is the Reapers who are controlling them.
• In Master Detective Archives: Rain Code, Yomi Hellsmile, The Heavy of the story and the director of the Amaterasu Corporation Peacekeepers, claims that his actions are intended to keep the city safe from criminals and keep the peace. These actions include things like masterminding murders and eliminating anyone who opposes him however he can even if they're innocent and he attacked them first, believing this makes him Kanai Ward's savior. In reality, Yomi is trying to protect himself, and not the city, but he'll repeatedly claim it's for the sake of the city even if there is blatant evidence of otherwise.
• Mega Man:
  • Mega Man X2: In the English script, Serges talks about how reconstructing Zero as an evil robot was for the good of all. Given the implications that he is Dr. Wily, this seems more like a mask to get revenge for the defeats he suffered in the past which is later cemented by Wily aiding Sigma in his doomsday plot that would rain destruction on the world and kill off all reploids and mankind.
  • Mega Man Zero: Back when Dr. Weil pitched Project Elpizo (creating the perfect Reploid to be used with the Mother Elf so he can control Reploids worldwide) to the masses, he claimed that it was to prevent Reploids from going Maverick ever again. The problem was, well, X already used Mother Elf to rid the world of most Mavericks, so nothing exactly justified his "concern". So he creates the Evil Plan above that leads to the Elf Wars. His true intentions, to simply Take Over the World through mass Reploid brainwashing, were only made clear once Zero in a new copy body stole the Dark Elf from him and he was forced to unleash Omega and other controlled Reploids on the masses.
• Memoria Freese:
  • Winter Magic Miracle Campaign: Vitteaux/Vito of Evilus talks about the world being a messed-up and imperfect place needing to be destroyed in favor of a newer better one, but this claim is undermined by the fact that he both has no qualms about killing innocent adventurers and that he is a cruel Child Hater.
  • Nightemare Academia campaign: Tiones Walpurgis (a.k.a. the Spirit of the Dream) and her fellow spirits kidnap people and drag them into their dream world claiming it to be a paradise that protects them from the pain and suffering of the real world. But said paradise was in reality, as Fels called out, "a nightmare of death" and the happiness provided there was false and temporary as the kidnapping victims would eventually die.
• Metal Gear:
  • The Patriots claim that they act in the best interests of humanity, but given their blatant disregard for human life they display in a needlessly dangerous and expensive plan which only served to test their ability to manipulate human beings (which includes likely deliberately leaving the hostages on Big Shell from Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty to die since it was made without lifeboats), they seem far more interested in maintaining their own control over anything else. In addition, they later establish the war economy in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, resulting in countless soldiers dying and the public being groomed into promoting and continuing an endless cycle of wars.
  • Like every antagonist in this series, Skull Face from Metal Gear Solid V idolizes the Boss and wants to fulfill her dream of utopia, but at the same time, he's a Soft-Spoken Sadist who wants revenge on the world after the Nazis destroyed his cultural identity. His ultimate objective is to break up every oppressive empire on the planet and replace them with equal nations. While this sounds noble at first, his core plan involves unleashing a pandemic designed to destroy global communications, international alliances, and intermingling cultures, and then selling nuclear weapons to terrorists and unstable dictators in the chaos. The end result would be a Villain World where every nation on Earth is driven by military cults maintaining the Walker Gears and mini-nukes upholding their borders. Nobody would ever have hope of collaborating with their allies or immigrating to somewhere better; every nation would be ruled by the worst of humanity and every attempt to work with foreigners on humanitarian issues would result in Mutually Assured Destruction.
  • Senator Armstrong from Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance claims that he wants to turn America into a utopia and allow people the freedom to fight for what they believe in, but he actually wants to create a Social Darwinist, Might Makes Right society by triggering a Forever War that will let soldiers, the politically powerful, and cybernetically enhanced people like himself rule over mankind. Raiden sums it up neatly: "I was wrong about you; you're not greedy... you're batshit insane!"
• Metal Wolf Chaos: Richard Hawk claims he's trying to improve America by culling the weak and lazy. Then he tries to nuke the entire planet out of spite for his rival, showing that he doesn't care about anything except his own power.
• Metroid Dread: Raven Beak attempts to convince Samus that he is trying to bring order to the galaxy... by mass-producing an army of Metroids much like the Space Pirates tried to do and massacring his own people in the process. Samus makes it clear she does not buy his spiel for a second, especially since it's the exact same plan Mother Brain described in the manga.
• Minecraft: Story Mode: PAMA claims that through their method of brainwashing and mind controling everyone in Crown Mesa, it is making the town "useful", however, it is soon revealed that Harper made PAMA so it could help out with their everyday lives, until PAMA decided they weren't being efficient enough and started making them "useful", showing that PAMA is only making the townspeople useful for itself, rather than for the town as a whole.
• Mortal Kombat 11: Kronika claims to want Balance Between Good and Evil and seeks to do so by causing a Time Crash and beginning the timeline anew. However, her idea of a balance between good and evil is about having her two children Cetrion and Shinnok pitting the realms against one another endlessly, leading to never-ending fighting just so that she can dictate how everyone's destiny unfolds, and she's also repeatedly wiped out countless timelines trying to put her plan into motion. Raiden even calls her out on it, telling her point-blank that good and evil being equally powerful is literally the worst possible thing.
• Octopath Traveler: Miguel Twinspears, from Alfyn's Chapter 3, claims that he is a desperate family man who has fallen on hard times and steals to feed his three children to get Alfyn to save him. It doesn't take long before he betrays Alfyn's trust, kidnaps and stabs a child, and mistakenly claims he has four children instead of three, then gleefully admits that he doesn't have a family and does what he does just for the fun of it.
• Enoch, the guardian of the third zone from OFF. When you meet him, he claims that his zone is a fortress of "happiness, a wall against the spectres" and that all he's done, he's done for the good of his people. While Enoch started out as a genuinely good man, by the time you find him, it's blatantly clear that what he's saying is bullshit, as he's creating a substance made from burned bodies and feeding it to his workers, and they are so dependent on it as a drug they go mad and berserk without it. He also posts signs advertising that the very hostile spectres are nice and friendly, deliberately making it easier for his workers to get killed to supply more bodies to make the substance. So he puts up a facade of Well-Intentioned Extremist, but he isn't one.
• Persona 5:
  • Masayoshi Shido constantly claims that he wants to lead Japan into a new age of prosperity, but in reality, he just wants power for the sake of power, and goes out of his way to ruin other people's lives purely because they insulted him or gave him minor injuries, or because they were a convenient scapegoat for his own actions. To drive the point home, his Palace is a cruise ship sailing over a sinking country, showing how his deepest desire is to stay afloat even if the entire nation around him is sinking.
  • This can be seen with Black Mask/Akechi. While he initially is put as a sort of Knight Templar/Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist willing to go any lengths to stop the Thieves and restore justice, we ultimately find out that his entire plot was an elaborately organized revenge scheme against his unaware-father Shido, and that his fame as a detective and upholder of justice was built off of murders he himself committed.
• Phantasy Star IV: Zio feigns being well-intentioned to followers who weren't completely corrupted yet, saying that he'll purge away the undesirables of Motavia and that Utopia Justifies the Means. Of course, he plans to purge everyone, and his only Utopia is a universe free from life.
• Pokémon villains tend to be Well-Intentioned Extremist characters, but there are two who appeared to be this initially only to be revealed as selfish monsters:
  • Upon derailing his plan in Pokémon Black and White, Ghetsis Harmonia reveals himself as Team Plasma's true mastermind and that their stated goal of freeing Pokémon was a lie; his real plan was to take over the region by being the only faction left with Pokémon. By the sequel, Team Plasma has split into those who sincerely want to help Pokémon, and those following Ghetsis to Take Over the World and not bothering to hide their ill-intent anymore.
  • Pokémon Legends: Arceus: Volo mentions that his core belief is that Life Isn't Fair and as such he wants to destroy this reality and make a new, more kind and fair reality, but this is quickly overshadowed by his plans to control Arceus, itself. He makes no attempt to even reason with the player character, instead choosing to beat and later kill them right off the bat. Also unlike Lysandre who at least felt some semblance of sorrow at his genocidal plans, Volo gleefully tells the player character his plans with a Slasher Smile on his face, and unlike Cyrus (who also has a similar motive) he doesn't seem to even have a Freudian Excuse over it.
• Blackwatch in [PROTOTYPE 2] are this in what's more or less a parody of their Well-Intentioned Extremist portrayal in the original game (and Necessarily Evil organizations in general). Sure, maybe it's necessary to have an army of sociopathic soldiers willing to shoot children and generally slaughter screaming civilians in order to stop the Zombie Apocalypse, but when you drop them in a major population center you'll find that the average trooper didn't sign up to protect anybody.
• Chairman Drek from Ratchet & Clank (2002) is destroying planets and taking pieces of them to make a new world for his species, the Blarg, since their old planet, Orxon, is too polluted to live on. Before the final battle, the titular duo learns the truth: Drek himself is the one who polluted it and is making this new planet solely because of profit. And once everyone's moved in, he'll repeat the process for more cash. Downplayed in the re-imagining, where it's his father who polluted his planet (which is now Quartu instead of Orxon), and his main plan really is just to find a new world for him and his people, but it's still clear that he has ambitions of money or power as shown by this line late-game:
  Drek: After I've built us a new home world, I'll make another, and another! [chuckles] Can you imagine? Dozens of Blarg-owned planets, forged not by nature, but by my company. We'll create an entire empire using your galaxy's wasted planets! I suppose this will leave many of your citizens homeless or, well, dead... but sacrifices must be made!
• Rave Heart:
  • Prince Eryn claims that siding with Count Vorakia Estuuban will put him on the throne, which will allow him to use his position for the good of the galaxy, but he's clearly acting out of jealousy towards his sister Ellemine for being chosen as the heir to the Rave throne, going as far as to blame her for their mother's death just to avoid his own guilt. Even worse is that Ellemine would have gladly shared political power with him, so he could have chosen a much safer means of improving the galaxy if he was more willing to cooperate with his sister.
  • Count Vorakia Estuuban claims that he needs to take over the galaxy of Xerxes so he can invade the rival constellation of Ursula, stating that this is the best way to protect and expand Xerxes. Arcturo accuses him of only caring about his own power and glory, which Vorakia immediately admits to.
• Dutch from Red Dead Redemption and its prequel Red Dead Redemption II certainly fancies himself a regular ol’ Well-Intentioned Extremist fighting the encroaching modern world. However, due to the character’s Ambiguously Evil status, this is also a perfectly reasonable interpretation of the character. He could have very well just used his Just Like Robin Hood schtick as a cover so he could rob and kill people with glee.
• Resident Evil:
  • Resident Evil 5: Albert Wesker claims during the climax of the game that his releasing Uroboros across the world and kick-starting a biological apocalypse will save the world, since humans come closer to self-destruction every day anyway, but it's obvious to anyone who's paying attention that he's nothing but a crazy social Darwinist whose actions are centered around fueling his raging god complex.
  • Resident Evil 6: Simmons' primary motivation for having the President zombified is to prevent the social unrest and mayhem that he believes would be the inevitable result of revealing the U.S. government's involvement in the Raccoon City incident. However, Simmons is prevented from becoming sympathetic by his lust for Ada Wong. Not only do Simmons' actions in pursuit of his lust squick out several other characters (most notably Ada herself and her Love Interest Leon Kennedy, whose disgusted reactions will most likely be shared by the player), they are also the direct cause for Carla Radames' Start of Darkness, and therefore, pretty much every bad thing that happened over the course of the game. Furthermore, in the process of preventing said information from becoming public, he infects and kills over 70,000 innocent people with the C-Virus; Helena even calls him out on it, pointing out that he caused an actual disaster to prevent a possible one.
• Rise of the Third Power:
  • Noraskov enacted a coup against the previous king of Arkadya because the latter made too many concessions in the aftermath of the Great War, and he claimed that overthrowing the weak king is necessary to restore Arkadya to its former glory. However, he tortures, purges, and enslaves anyone who speaks against him or is considered "undesirable." His definition of undesirable includes society's most vulnerable, such as the impoverish and disabled, simply because they don't fit his image of strength. Adding to that, he later writes a book where he outright calls himself a dictator who wants everyone to submit to him, making it clear that he only cares about power. Natasha originally helped him rise to the throne because she believed in his rhetoric, only to defect to the Resistance once she realized his true intentions.
  • Played with in Lord Phillip's case. Although Phillip has a point about King Horatio being an incompetent king, he colludes with Noraskov to assassinate Horatio and become the interim regent of Cirinthia. While he claims that he'll be a more efficient and mindful ruler than Horatio, a soldier mentions that he's enacting purges of dissendents, implying he shares Noraskov's belief that dissenters and weaklings should be persecuted, calling his supposed good intentions into question. However, when he's defeated, he claims that the party doomed Cirinthia to being attacked by Arkadya, implying that at least part of his reason for siding with Noraskov is because he believed Cirinthia would be spared.
• RosenkreuzStilette:
  • In the original game, Iris Zeppelin instigated the RKS rebellion against the Holy Empire in order to protect the Magi from re-emerging persecution. However, unlike the rest of the organization, Iris Zeppelin doesn't actually care about their cause, and has in fact been manipulating the organization into waging war for fun and to become a goddess. As revealed in Grollschwert, she actually intended for the members of RKS to fail and be killed by the Empire.
  • In the sequel, the Pope of the Orthodox Church, in response to the RKS rebellion, declares all Magi enemies of the state and has them thrown into camps. Though supposedly this is to protect the humans of the Empire from the dangerous Magi, it becomes clear that it is more about Fantastic Racism and trying to protect his power from those who threaten it. Furthermore, he is also revealed to be a fake controlled by Iris, whose real motive is stealing the Magi energy and kidnapping Spiritia to fuse with her and gain ultimate power.
• Senran Kagura: Dogen intentionally causes wars between good and evil shinobi in order to draw out yoma, and initially seems to be doing this so the yoma can be destroyed and peace can be achieved, which is why shinobi were created in the first place. But it turns out that he wants to control the yoma, not destroy them, and use them to Take Over the World.
• Shining Resonance: At first, Captain Georg Zalbard and the Sanguine Church seem to support Excella and the Emperor's goals of stabilizing the empire and perform horrific experiments to harness dragon energy in service of that goal. Their real goal is to bring back Deus so that he can purge the weak and nonbelievers, allowing them to rule over the remains of the world. Additionally, Deus is revealed to be a machine with no will of its own, making it clear that the Sanguine Church's piety is a load of bull and that they ultimately see Deus as a weapon to enact the genocide of anyone outside their inner circle.
• Shock Troopers (1997): The leader of the Bloody Scorpions talks about keeping the world out of the hands of those who are incompetent, but Cecilia does not believe any of this and even protests that forcing her grandpa to create the α301 drug will result in the world's destruction. Towards the end, it becomes more and more clear that the leader is nothing more than a selfish man pursuing his own gain.
• Silent Debuggers: Charles Smith talked about how mankind should be reborn as a stronger race, but the fact that he sends his mutated victims to die quashes any positive claims he made. The protagonist was even disgusted by how low Smith stooped in search of creating a Master Race.
• Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time: Penelope claims she's betrayed the Cooper Gang to Le Paradox for Bentley's sake, as he's wasting his potential on them. But as Bentley himself points out, Penelope is a selfish Gold Digger, acting like a yandere when she's actually a sociopath. She may claim everything she did was for Bentley, but in the end, Penelope is nothing more than a Classic Villain with no noble motivations, and just sees Bentley as a tool.
• Soma Spirits: In the past, Form and Dissonance split the planet Soma into two worlds of pure Joy and Sorrow after overthrowing the Sun King, who started wars for his amusement. Dissonance, who is trying to steal all the happiness in the world and create a world without happiness, claims he only wants to prevent another war and create a society where no one will sacrifice others for their own personal gain. In turn, his sister Form also wants to prevent another war, but by forcing happiness on everyone. In reality, both of them desire to eradicate all emotions they hate along with anyone who has these undesirable emotions, all to create their "perfect" world. When this goal becomes impossible in the true ending due to the two worlds merging, they opt to destroy Soma in its entirety, supposedly to stop the inevitable war that will happen in a populace with conflicting emotions- but as the sequel reveals, they were the ones who started the wars that they blamed on the Sun King in the first place, and Form only wants to make everyone dependent on her to spite Dissonance, who in turn wants to force everyone to share his inability to be happy. Ultimately, both are selfish Control Freaks who would rather destroy the world than allow any perceived imperfections to exist.
• Soma Union:
  • Zeta (aka Guidance) deluded himself into thinking that the only way to create a world for spirits is to destroy the current one, but it's also clear that he's doing this out of spite towards Professor M and Zero, who he feels stole his place in the world. Despite claiming that he's trying to free his fellow spirits from being burdened by unsuitable purposes, he has no qualms about manipulating Zero and the Epsilon series by giving them false purposes, knowing that none of them want to sacrifice the rest of Soma for their own benefit. Ultimately, he cares more about his own Unfulfilled Purpose Misery than actually helping his fellow spirits.
  • Absolution tells Bright that the only way to protect his friends and Soma's denizens is to conquer the planet and have everyone move into a single location. This is a ruse so that Absolution can make Bright kill everyone in one fell swoop.
• Songbird Symphony: During the Owl's Motive Rant, he declares that the songbirds and their ability to sing others' birdsong just makes everybirdy else overindulged and dependent. This sounds like a Well-Intentioned Extremist viewpoint, until he goes on to say that he should be the one with that power.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • On some level, Dr. Eggman does seem to genuinely believe that the world is better off with him in charge, and desires to create a technologically advanced society ruled by scientists. However, this belief is warped by a blind faith in science and a complete disregard for all life. It's shown that any time he actually succeeds, the world is a polluted, mechanized hellscape, completely depleted of natural resources and plagued by Eggman's increasingly desperate attempts to eradicate all opposition. Sonic Frontiers indicates that his real motive is a selfish, narcissistic desire for adoration stemming from his family being too busy mourning Maria to pay attention to him.
  • Shadow the Hedgehog: Black Doom justifies his Alien Invasion by claiming to Shadow and co. that humanity's actions will only lead to their own extinction, and the Black Arms are here to offer salvation. However, their true purpose is to turn humans into their food source, and Black Doom's words fall flat considering the numerous atrocities he's committed, which include mass murder and blowing up the White House.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (2006): Mephiles sent Blaze & Silver to the past, not to help them stop Iblis from destroying the world by killing Sonic as he claimed but to use Silver to break Iblis' seal so that Mephiles and Iblis can reform into Solaris and consume all the time in existence.
  • Sonic Frontiers: The End's motive for destroying all of reality is to "enforce order and neutrality on it" However, it becomes increasingly clear that The End has no desire to make the world a better place as it takes great pride in the countless lives it has ended and doesn't actually care about the difference between good and evil, being truly motivated by what it believes is right and wrong, not what is actually right and wrong.
• Soulcalibur VI: Azwel regularly claims to love the human race and that his experiments and goals are for the benefit of humanity. In reality, he's a maniacal sadist who intends to exterminate most of the human population with the Ultimate Seed and rule over the remainder as a living god.
• Spider-Man (PS4):
  • Wilson Fisk/The Kingpin states that his criminal empire kept order in New York, and the ensuing power vacuum will completely destroy it. Spider-Man, Mary Jane, and the authorities themselves all dismiss Fisk's claims, stating that his actions have caused so much harm to the people of the city that there's no way they can justify viewing him as Necessarily Evil. He still has more of a point than the next two:
  • Martin Li and Doctor Octopus both hate Norman Osborn and want to get revenge on him. Each has a genuine grievance with him (One of Osborn's experiments killed Li's parents, and Otto thinks Osborn is profiting off his life's work) and are correct that he's profiting off corruption and unethical experiments. But given how their go-to response is to commit terrorist acts against Norman or the citizens of New York to "prove" Norman can't protect them instead of actually attempting to expose his real corruption and get him arrested for evil stuff he actually did himself, it's pretty clear that they don't want Osborn brought to justice, they just want him to be hurt. In the end, Osborn's downfall is nearly unrelated to him; he has to resign as Mayor in disgrace because of Sable International (a mercenary company he hired as security) causing their own problems. Their rampages instead end up destroying a lot of evidence that Osborn did the things that made them hate him.
• Spyro: Year of the Dragon: Before the game's events, the Sorceress drove the dragons out of their homelands, the Forgotten Worlds, so she could take over as the ruler. Subsequently, she discovered that the dragons were the source of all magic in the Forgotten Worlds, and without them, it's all drying up. She sends Bianca to capture 150 dragon eggs and bring them back to their world, claiming that doing so will restore the magic and return the Forgotten Worlds to the way they were. Near the end of the game, the Sorceress reveals what she really wants the eggs for: to use their wings in a spell to make herself immortal, and intends to kill them just because it would be easier if they didn't struggle. Bianca is rightfully disgusted by that reveal and does a Heel–Face Turn.
• Star Shift Series: Colonel Thraxton tries to claim that the new timeline is just and that the Earth Systems Alliance will bring order to chaos, but the ESA is oppressing their colonies and using brain implants to brainwash people into compliancy, making it clear that his so-called order will only benefit a select few. In Rebellion, they claim that suppressing rebel groups is necessary to prevent a war that will cause the Purge, an event that will cause the collapse of time and space. However, they conveniently ignore that the rebel groups only rose up because of the ESA oppresses the people of the Outer Rim, meaning they are the real source of conflict. Finally, all the planets under their administration suffer from pollution due to excessive industrialization, making it questionable how sustainable their peace really is. Even in the event that they do win, the Purge happens anyways due to their own abuse of time-space manipulation, which implies that they care more about monopolizing such technology and controlling the universe than actually saving it.
• Super Paper Mario:
  • Count Bleck seeks the destruction of all universes, telling his minions that it's so they can be remade without bad things like war. In actuality, he only intends everything to stay destroyed out of despair over the loss of his fiancée. He ultimately makes a Heel–Face Turn to stop The End of the World as We Know It once realizing she was still alive, with the help of his loyal minions.
  • Double Subverted with Dimentio. He reveals to Mario and Luigi that he was Playing Both Sides to stop Count Bleck because, unlike Count Bleck, he actually does want to create new worlds after destroying the old ones. After Count Bleck's defeat, he takes over Bleck's plan so he could remake existence to his whims, proving he is only in it for himself by attempting to destroy all reality out of spite once defeated. Even if he succeeded, no one would benefit from it since he's an Ax-Crazy sociopath who doesn't understand the concept of love or care about anyone but himself.
• Super Robot Wars T: Dyma Goldwin's plans of unifying the galaxy sounds like a Well-Intentioned Extremist, but in truth, he just as bad as Ragnayael, only that he wants to put the Earth and himself on top, not at all caring for what happens afterwards, or the potential loss of life in his conquest.
• Sword of Paladin:
  • Zigzagged with Lancelot, who starts as a Well-Intentioned Extremist who believes that he has to take over the world to save it. In the final chapter, he goes through Motive Decay and joins Anguis because he feels that the world rejected him, leaving him as simply a power-hungry villain. Nade almost convinces Lancelot to give his old ideals another chance, showing that there's still some good intentions left in him, but Anguis kills Lancelot before he can turn over a new leaf.
  • Berienstahl was the one who fed Lancelot the idea of using the Extra Gems to unite the world. While the latter truly believes this is for the greater good, Berienstahl admits his real goal is to become a famous "war hero" rather than actual altruism.
  • Rashid claims that selling out his country of Saber to the Armadias Empire is the only way to ensure peace, but when he realizes Lena is a Valkyrie, he threatens to blow up the castle town if she doesn't meet him in the pyramids, showing that he really only cares about ruling the country rather than protecting his people. He also admits this is just the first step to eventually betraying the Armadias Empire so he can take over the world.
• Tattered World: The Narrator, former head of the Shadow Stage, claims his total tyranny over the Remnant was only to protect what was left of the world, but seeing how they survive just fine without him, and his next appearance has him attempt to burn another whole Remnant down...
• The Tiamat Sacrament: Ry'jin started his coup promising to overthrow King Khytiel and put an end to the latter's mismanagement of Ildria. To that end, he kills dragons in order to empower his soldiers enough to defeat the king's guards. While he has a point about the original king neglecting his duties, Ry'jin really just wants to rule the country as a dictator and kill all dragons in order to monopolize their power.
• Trails Series:
  • The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky: The Big Bad, Georg Weissmann, claims to be fixing humanity's flaws by using the Stigma to make them perfect, thus preventing their Vicious Cycle of complacency, regression, and violence. Given that he constantly instigates human conflict and enjoys the suffering caused by his schemes, it becomes obvious he's a misanthrope who cares more about controlling and toying with humanity than actually saving them. This is further shown in his interactions with Joshua and Kevin. He claims the Stigma can save them from their tragic pasts but is angered when their friends help them overcome their issues with their own free will since that robs him of the opportunity to experiment on them and mold them to his liking.
  • The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero: Joachim Gunter claims Aidios is a false goddess because she can't save everyone, and therefore he needs to raise the Divine Child, KeA, to become a true goddess. Despite his supposed good intentions, he disregards his Divine Child's wishes when she chooses the SSS over the cult and he never once considers the children the cult kidnapped to be among those saved by his goddess. In reality, he only cares about forcing his idea of wisdom onto the masses with no true regard for their wellbeing.
  • The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel:
    • Black Alberich wants to use the Great Twilight and the upcoming war to upstage the Septian Church and become the new leading political power. He claims that his technology-based order will be better than the church's order, but Class VII points out that his plans will reduce human civilization to nothing and that he'd likely have no one to rule over. It's implied that he's banking on enough of humanity surviving so they can become dependent on his Zauber Soldats for Ishmelga's endless wars.
    • Ishmelga claims that by instigating conflict among the Erebonians, he's helping them become stronger and more innovative. However, like Alberich, he doesn't acknowledge that the Great Twilight plan could end human civilization after Erebonia's war with Calvard and the rest of Zemuria. Additionally, if his curse spreads throughout Zemuria, the population will be in constant conflict with each other, resulting in a Forever War in the best case scenario.
  • The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie: The Simulacrum Rufus gives lofty speeches about how unifying Zemuria into a single nation will bring world peace, which the EDF grunts eat up, and he sounds convincing enough that many EDF soldiers still buy into his rhetoric even after the Simulacrum and Ilya are defeated. The real Rufus, who understands his past self's motives perfectly, explains to two grunts that the Simulacrum cares more about surpassing Osborne than serving the greater good of Zemuria. Learning of the Simulacrum's selfish motives causes those grunts to finally overcome their delusions and abandon the Simulacrum's cause.
• Varth: Operation Thunderstorm: DUO through DELTA-7 declares that all humans need to die for "crimes against the planet". However, since DUO did manipulate mankind into war before ordering for the surviving 20% to be killed, this seems more like an excuse to Kill All Humans for something that was its fault in the first place.
• View from Below: During the final battle, the Crimson God states that humanity is sinful and that by burning them all to the ground, he's helping them repent. In reality, he's a sadist who wants revenge for his crucifixion as Jesus and feels that humanity denied him his rightful place as their messiah. Additionally, it's highly doubtful the slaughtered humans can repent as lost spirits or demons trapped in Below, who are unable to move onto the afterlife properly.
• The Prophets from Wild ARMs 3 appear to want to revive Filgaia by terraforming it with nanomachines, with the help of a demon they're trying to revive. However, this isn't done for the good of the planet or anyone living on it, but to save their own decaying bodies. And while Siegfried does want to revive Filgaia, it's only so he can turn it into his own personal battleship and go around waging wars to satisfy his desire for conflict.
• In XCOM: Enemy Unknown it's established that the Ethereals performed the Alien Invasion in order to develop humanity into a force strong enough to fight some unspecified foe on their behalf, and present their actions as a greater good. However, they turned every other species they encountered into a mutated Slave Race, and in XCOM 2, they're shown to actively hold disdain for the humans they rule over in the Vichy Earth they created with their new Evil Plan being to harvest as much human DNA as they can for Bio-Augmentation before saying Screw This, I'm Outta Here.
• Xenoblade Chronicles:
  • Xenoblade Chronicles 1: Gael'gar, from the Nintendo Switch remake's Future Connected scenario, claims his actions are for the future of the High Entia, but what he actually wants is pure racism and the rejection of their people's history, both the good and the bad. In addition, while he claims to protect half-blooded High Entia, he attempts to kill both Melia and Teelan just because they oppose him.
  • Xenoblade Chronicles X: Grandmaster Luxaar claims that he wishes to exterminate humans to protect the Ganglion species, who under the Earthlings might once again become slaves, or be wiped out entirely. However, while the biological threat humanity poses to them turns out to be genuine, this is undercut by his organization being a crime syndicate that actively enslaves or exterminates other species in the name of consolidating power. He and other Ganglion higher-ups are shown to have believed humans too primitive to be an immediate threat (as shown by him wondering how humanity even got the technology that helped them escape Earth's destruction) and generally treat them as lesser beings that deserve annihilation and that are unworthy of being the true descendants of the Samaarians.
  • Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Praetor Amalthus has positioned himself as the leader of the people of Alrest by using his church state Indol to regulate the release of Core Crystals ostensibly to prevent all out war between the rest of the countries and avoid a repeat of the Aegis War that destroyed three continents. As the game continues however, it's clear Amalthus wants the Core Crystals to propagate his own power and influence as he was the one who caused the Aegis War in the first place and his nihilism and misanthropy turned Malus into the man he is now. His crusade against Torna and Malus isn't out of a desire to save the world, but a petty belief that he and only he is worthy to meet the Architect.
• Yakuza: Like a Dragon: Bleach Japan is a political protest movement that claims to stand for a fairer society, less corruption, and removal of the "grey zones" (i.e crime). It quickly becomes clear that the majority of its members either only joined to look trendy, impress women, or to incite violence against the poor and disenfranchised (many carrying improvised weapons to ostensibly "peaceful protests"). They're also entirely willing to resort to legal "grey areas" in their crusade, without a hint of irony. And then it turns out they're directly in-league with the Omi Alliance Yakuza clan (and so are only removing "grey zones" to replace them with something worse), and the whole movement is secretly a front front for a former Yakuza-turned-politician, to control both the political world and criminal underworld of Japan.
• Ys: Multiple:
  • In the Esteria arc^note Ys I & II, Ys Origin'', Darm, aka Cain Fact, claims that he seeks to use the Demonic Essence because the twin goddesses are limiting humanity's potential by not allowing them to control the Black Pearl. This is just a thinly-veiled excuse for a power-grab for himself, as shown centuries later when he wages war on the people of Ys/Esteria and sacrifices countless humans in rituals to restore his power.
  • Gruda from Memories of Celceta claims he's in the right for unleashing the apocalypse upon humanity because he sees them as weak, lazy, and in need of "trials" to bring out their full potential. While his supposed master, Dark Eldeel, has similar views, he still genuinely cares for humanity and wants them to survive his trials, even if he has to hold back against them. On the other hand, Gruda believes that if humans cannot survive the full brunt of the apocalypse, they don't deserve to exist. He cements this after the Final Boss battle, where he refuses to accept that the party passed his "trial" and madly tries to resume wiping out humanity.

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