Secretly Selfish motivations (or accusations thereof) in Video Games.
- Advance Wars: Days of Ruin: Waylon/Finn tries to use this in a "Not So Different" Remark to Will/Ed, pointing out that the apocalypse has destroyed all previous codes of ethics and morality and everyone who gathers power in the wasteland is simply doing it for their own selfish reasons, Will included. Will basically agrees, pointing out that saving people and making the wasteland a better place is the core of his personal morality and Waylon has trampled on it, which is why the two are at odds.
- Ultimately this plays a big part on BlazBlue: Central Fiction where the world is trapped in a depressing time loop, and everyone feels like they want to change it to make progress... Except for every one chosen man who wanted change for everyone, there is a selfish reason, and they all contrast to each other so much, that it's impossible for the world to change. On learning this, Ragna ends up deciding to embrace the 'villain of the world' status to devour the selfish desires of the cast and force them to just accept things and move on with their life.
- Previously this is also invoked on one of the cast, the resident Anime Chinese Girl Hospital Hottie Litchi Faye-Ling. On the first impression, she seemed to be this nice and compassionate lady who's dedicated to protecting the Orient Town from the monster Arakune, even as she's trying to save him, but has stated that once the 'saving' is done, she would go back to being the town protector as everyone has idolized her. As the game went further, her own deteriorating condition forced her to take selfish actions, including one Face–Heel Turn and eventually being on board with the plan of an Obviously Evil villain to blow the world up for her one wish to have a world where Arakune is not a mutated being, turning her back against her other friends, who called her stupid for pursuing it. What makes her this trope is that as much as she disliked the notion, she decided that she shouldn't be so picky for her one goal, so she pushed on, even after in Central Fiction, she learned that the world refused to even entertain her one wish because she's simply not The Chosen One compared to the rest, much to her own grief.
- Dragon Age: Inquisition: Downplayed with Solas and Varric, who offer opposing solutions to Cole's personal quest. Both of them genuinely care about Cole and want him to be happy, but their idea of which endgame Cole would like better is very much informed by their own personal biases. Cole, for his part, is satisfied with whichever you pick, since either way he's not troubled by being caught between humanity and spirithood any more. After all, his endgame is to ensure that Corypheus will not be able to control him.
- Varric, being a dwarf, has no real understanding of the Fade (dwarves lack the innate connection to it that humans and elves have) and is far more comfortable with the real world, so his plan is to teach Cole how to be fully human, because that's what Varric can relate to.
- Solas spends a lot more time with spirits, so while he has a better guess about Cole's situation, he wants to return Cole to being a full spirit because that's his area of expertise. Trespasser reveals a new angle; Solas has trouble seeing modern people as people (unless you befriend him) and compares them to how others see the Tranquil, while spirits are more real to him because they are of the Fade, and he sees the world separated from the Fade as a World of Silence. If a spirit can become human and remain the same person (As happens to Cole when he becomes human), then that challenges his whole worldview and forces him to confront that killing most of Thedas to tear down the Veil means genocide and thus morally wrong.
- Ingrid of Fire Emblem: Three Houses longs to be a knight and has extremely idealistic visions of what knighthood and chivalry are, but is constantly badgered by her father sending her potential matches for an Arranged Marriage. The reason he does this, however, is because while Ingrid is a noble, her house is not what it was and they have very little money, to the point that sometimes there wasn't enough food for all of them. As the only one of Count Galatea's children who has a Crest, Ingrid is the only one who can expect to marry well enough to pull the family out of very possible financial ruin. Ingrid constantly rejecting suitors because she wants to focus on her career can therefore be seen as rather selfish of her, something Ingrid herself eventually acknowledges in her supports with Byleth and Seteth.
- Persona:
- A big part of Persona 4, as the characters' shadows will be happy to tell you. The characters work on addressing these issues over the course of their Social Links.
- Yosuke sees himself as investigating Saki's death out of a sense of justice and because of his affection for her. His shadow responds that he was trying to be a hero — and trying to relieve his desperate Small Town Boredom. His Social Link involves coming to terms with Saki's death and his own insecurities about not being "special".
- Chie is Yukiko's protector and confidante. Her shadow sneers that this is only to feed a sense of superiority, because she's jealous of Yukiko (who she sees as superior in every way), and having the other girl depend on her boosts Chie's ego. That said, Chie points out that while her jealousy was true, she does genuinely want to help Yukiko.
- Yukiko is an incredibly dutiful daughter, who's a model student on top of putting in long hours at her family's inn. Her shadow informs her that this is all just an act she puts on, hoping that being so virtuous will attract a "prince" who will reward her by whisking her away to somewhere nicer, where she doesn't have to make as much effort. Her Social Link begins with her deciding to take the initiative to decide her own future and ends with her deciding to inherit the inn for the sake of her hometown and the inn's employees, who've been like family to her.
- Persona 5 also has these sorts of issues.
- When the Thieves target Kunikazu Okumura, a fast-food CEO accused of unethical business practices, they find out that the man's daughter Haru is cooperating with Morgana (who'd left the group due to an argument with Ryuji), but Haru refuses to join them, saying that it's her responsibility to deal with her father. Sometime later, though, the group finds Haru being confronted by a Jerkass man who turns out to be her fiance, and shortly afterward, Haru admits the real reason she's opposing her father—by stealing his heart, she won't have to go through with her Arranged Marriage to the man, whom her father had arranged for her to marry in order to gain political power.
- Yuuki Mishima, in an attempt to make amends for spreading rumors about the protagonist, starts a website for people to make requests to the Phantom Thieves, but it turns out that he's partly motivated by a desire to become popular and get back at those who bullied him. A good part of his Confidant involves dealing with Mishima's Shadow and helping him change as a person.
- Both Ryuji and Ann awakened their Persona to save Joker and Morgana and to get justice for Shiho respectively but they are both strongly motivated to get revenge on Kamoshida for ruining their lives.
- Despite how much Yusuke loves art and wants to paint purely for the pursuit of beauty, it's obvious that he's also desperate for his work and art to be acknowledged and is in dire need for financial assistance, even considering selling his art for money. Yusuke began to worry that his heart was "tainted" now that he had other motives to create art. Both Ann and Ryuji reassure him that these motives don't make him a bad person, as long as he doesn't lose his altruistic reasons for painting.
- A major theme of the game is the protagonists' personas will only manifest if they truly want something and not for the sake of pure altruism. But the game also points out that selfishness and personal desires are not a bad thing, so long as it is balanced out with equal selflessness. As noted above, Haru and Yusuke are still heroes who genuinely want to help people, but they only gained the power to do so after they acknowledge their own wants. Even Joker, who is ultimately a selfless person, wants the power to take down evil to get back at the people who framed him for assault for trying to help a stranger.
- A big part of Persona 4, as the characters' shadows will be happy to tell you. The characters work on addressing these issues over the course of their Social Links.
- Prayer of the Faithless: Although Vanessa claims to enact her draconian policies for The Needs of the Many, Aeyr believes her real motive is to prove her ex-lover Gauron wrong regarding how to best save humanity. In the Tired ending, it turns out that she rejected the Kakuri plan because she already committed so much evil for her Infused plan, making this a case of the Sunk Cost Fallacy.
- Re:Kuroi: Downplayed with Kaito. In the ending, it's revealed that Kaito knew all along that Noelle transformed into a monster and cared more about confirming her whereabouts than actually saving her, since he was afraid that if the public found out about Noelle, his current life will be disrupted. However, he chooses to give up his memories in order to transform Noelle back into a human, showing that he's willing to put his own desires aside if there actually is a viable way to save Noelle.
- Silent Hill 2: After James saves her from a monstrous facsimile of her sexually abusive father, Angela accuses him of only helping her out of sexual interest, claiming that's what all men are really after. She's wrong on both counts and speaking from her obvious trauma, but there is a small kernel of truth when it comes to James himself: One of the factors that led him to Mercy Kill his wife Mary was the emotional abuse and sexual neglect he suffered as her disease worsened. The suggestive, feminized nature of most monsters he faces and Maria's seductive attitude and appearance were engineered by the titular town's malevolent forces to torment James, by exploiting his repressed guilt and shame over letting those selfish feelings drive him to take Mary's life.
- Star Wars Jedi: Survivor: Bode Akuna fervently warns Cal that something terrible is coming for his family and that he doesn’t have time to be confronting him. It seems to be a Pet the Dog moment on paper, but once you think about it, it actually rings very, very hollow since Bode is the one that called that "something terrible" to Jedha by betraying the Path in the first place, and it’s abundantly clear he’s just trying to escape to Tanalor as quickly as possible.
- Undertale: On a Neutral or Pacifist route, Alphys'll offer to guide you through Hotland and protect you from her out of control robot, Metatton, but the truth is that Alphys actually reactivated the puzzles and told Mettaton to pretend to threaten you so that she could "save" you and feel better about herself.
- Xenoblade Chronicles 3 has its protagonist Noah. On the surface, he wants to defeat Moebius because he's got the power to do so, but it soon becomes clear that he is partly motivated by a desire to save Mio, who he falls in love with and who only has a few months left until the end of her lifespan. But the rest of Ouroboros also express the same desire, so how does that make Noah selfish? Well... this is far from the first time he met Mio, with one of his past incarnations abandoning their mission to try and prevent her from dying, and the last one joining the Moebius to revive Mio as one against her will. That incarnation, now going by the name "N", has over time regressed into an Entitled Bastard too bound by his fear of losing his lover to realize how desperately unhappy she is. Learning about that prompts Noah to have a Heel Realization, leaving him to wonder just how close he has become to his Evil Counterpart. Notably, going through this experience is ultimately what allows Noah to forgive N, since he acknowledges that humans just screw up sometimes and that's completely normal.
