Token Good Teammates in Literature.
- Young apprentice Monmouth is this for the wizards in 100 Cupboards, distrusting the sudden appearance of Nimiane and defecting to the side of the heroes in the second book. Helps that he's a hidden Green Man and very much aware that his masters would kill him instantly were he found out.
- The Geste brothers in Beau Geste. They are Gentleman-rankers among rather ruffianly Foreign Legionaires and some of this is class difference. However, they do, to some degree, try to be the Token Good Teammate. Like the good English boys they are.
- Rana Sanga is the Token Good general of the Malwa empire in Belisarius Series, being a noble and brave Rajput Warrior Prince.
- Subverted with great gusto in The Blending series by Sharon Green. The team of Psycho Rangers set up in contrast to the main characters appears to have a token good member and Only Sane Man in the person of their Spirit wielder... until he reveals he's been using his power to control the other members of their team and is probably the most evil of the five — and the most ambitious — just a lot smarter and less obvious about it.
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: Augustus Gloop is the least mean of the bratty children. Unlike the others who are spoiled (Veruca Salt), prideful (Violet Beauregard), or just plain ol' lazy (Mike Teavee), Augustus is merely glutenous and mildly greedy given his obsession with Wonka's chocolate, and he doesn't do anything truly bratty whatsoever. He is also the first of the party to be ejected from the tour by getting sucked up the pipe in the Chocolate Room.
- The Crimson Shadow: Duchess Deanna Wellworth of Mannington is the only mage under King Greensparrow who's a decent person, but she has been tricked by him into service since her childhood. When she realizes he killed her family to seize the throne (her father had been the king, with Greensparrow his court mage) she defects to the Eriadoran side. After he's defeated, she becomes Avon's queen.
- Cudjo's Cave: The Noble Confederate Soldier trope is very much not at play for the most part, with most of the named Confederate soldiers being sadistic fanatics, Just Following Orders thugs. Dan Pepperill is the exception, being a kindly moonshiner who was always gotten along with the local blacks, was bullied into enlisting in the Confederate military, and tries to help his friends in small ways as they oppose the secessionists.
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Susan. She's the only one who isn't a total Jerkass in the family. However, she is also the epitome of Stupid Good and can still be rather selfish at times.
- Thomas Raith qualifies as the token good member of his family in the early The Dresden Files, as the only Raith with anything resembling morals. Then he leaves the family.
- Later in Skin Game, Harry himself serves this role in Nicodemus' Evil League of Evil, alongside Murphy and Michael.
- Earth's Children: In The Plains of Passage, S'Armuna is the token good teammate to Attaroa and her minions. Although she initially did little to intervene in Attaroa's cruelty, she doesn't approve of it and begins using her position to subtly oppose Attaroa, mainly by trying to keep Ayla and Jondalar alive due to her belief they can help put an end to Attaroa's regime.
- Patrius in the Farsala Trilogy, though one could argue that it's only really noticeable when he is contrasted with his commander, Garren.
- Good Omens:
- Death is this teammate for the Horsepeople of the Apocalypse. In fact, he's actually an angel. Although maybe Token
True Neutral Teammate is a more accurate description. While the other Horsemen revel in destroying the world with War, Famine, and Pollution and need to be destroyed in order to save the world — Death is seemingly just along for the ride and simply goes away peacefully once the apocalypse is averted. - Crowley and Aziraphale also count for Hell and Heaven, being the only demon and angel who don't view The End of the World as We Know It and the destruction of humanity as an acceptable loss in the great war between their two sides, and actively trying to stop it.
- Death is this teammate for the Horsepeople of the Apocalypse. In fact, he's actually an angel. Although maybe Token
- Harry Potter: Despite being relegated as an evil house, a handful of Slytherins have shown themselves to be just as nice as the other houses, and side with the forces of good, even if they don't necessarily express their gung-ho for it like Gryffindors are.
- Horace Slughorn fulfills this role for the Slytherin House as a member and later Head of the House of Slytherin, he is a representative of many of his house’s characteristics, yet also concurs with the Good Side and is never shown to be mean or cruel (as even Severus Snape, although working secretly for the side of good, was a very mean teacher to all his non-Slytherin students)
- Andromeda Black was sorted to Slytherin like most of her family, but she is not a blood supremacist, as she marries the Muggle-Born Ted Tonks and lends her house to host the Order of the Phoenix.
- Although no Slytherin immediately jumps at the call to defend Hogwarts in the seventh book, Word of God is that some eventually return to join the battle against the Death Eaters with reinforcements in tow.
- The main protagonists of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Albus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy, are both Slytherins. They are also unambiguously good (if rather angsty on Albus's side since he has to deal with the social anxiety of being the only Slytherin in an otherwise Gryffindor family).
- Unlike most of the Slytherin Quidditch Team, Adrian Pucey isn't known to cheat or commit fouls. He got replaced by the more typical Slytherin player Warrington in the third book but rejoins the team for his final year at Hogwarts. Terence Higgs may also count, although he only lasts one book.
- Ernie Macmillan serves this role to the pure-blood elite. He acts like a pompous aristocrat and is proud of his all-magic family, but he doesn't look down on people for having Muggle ancestry, and he becomes one of Harry's strongest and most loyal supporters. The fact that he was sorted into Hufflepuff says a lot.
- While the Honor Harrington universe is full of noble people serving a nation that is up to no good, and villains with many positive qualities mixed in with their villainy, and everything in between, there are only a small handful of cases where a clearly good character is working with a group of clear-cut villains. Cauldron of Ghosts features a platoon of PeaceForce goons with a sergeant who is trying and failing to keep them in line with the letter of the law during a crack-down, and a clearly noble Lieutenant who is adamant on being both a good leader to his men and enforcer of the law and the ideals that PeaceForce should live up to. When the sergeant is distracted elsewhere, the Lieutenant is shot and killed by his own men.
- Darius from The Hunger Games, amongst the Peacekeepers.
- In Island in the Sea of Time it is rapidly made clear that the only reason idealistic young Coast Guard officer George MacAndrews throws his lot in with the renegade William Walker is his being tempted beyond endurance by a deal to keep Black Africa from falling behind the rest of the world this time around ("You help me set up shop, I send you to Egypt with an uplift kit.").
- In It, "Vic" Criss is the one member of Henry Bower's gang who seems to have defined morals and is hesitant to do the more sadistic things that Henry and Belch commit, even convincing them to break down the Loser's dam rather than continuing to search for Ben to carve their names in his stomach with a switchblade. As the book goes on he becomes more and more aware of Henry's crumbling sanity and at one point approaches the Loser's Club to warn them of it. He even briefly considers joining the Losers, but instead follows Henry and Belch into the sewers and is ultimately killed by It. This is also very briefly touched on in the 1990 movie, though condensed to a single scene where he doesn't want Henry to actually cut Ben with his knife.
- In Ivanhoe, King Richard is like this to Robin Hood's men.
- Moon Lady, the First Wife, is the only decent character in Jin Ping Mei.
- David Balfour in Kidnapped. Though the difference is more ideological than moral it is easy to mistake one for the other and he can be self-righteous.
- Túrin spends some time among outlaws in Lay of the Children of Húrin. While a quite violent Anti-Hero, he is much nicer than the ruthless "Wolf-Men" and even organises them into a resistance force against the orcs.
- Legacy of the Dragokin: Downplayed, as Ravage is called such for a reason, but he's the only one in the group that's not interested in Gendercide. He joined the group out of concern for his little sister.
- The hero in Mickey Blue Eyes.
- Otto in Otto of the Silver Hand. In his case, he is a Woobie version of this.
- In PartnerShip, Sapient Ship Nancia's first assignment is to transport five Royal Brats to their new, unglamorous first posts in the Nyota system. Along the way, the most evil of them, Polyon, arranges for them to all compete over who can abuse their positions to make the most money in five years. There is an Anti-Villain in the group, Fassa, who treats her employees well even if her construction company cuts every corner it can. And there's also Blaize, who's outright not a bad person but felt peer pressured into promising to do his worst as well and is a bit spineless when it comes to pleasing his "friends". The only abuses of power that Blaize commits are for the sake of the Angalians he was assigned to oversee, as he discovers that they're sentient and have been wronged by a major First Contact Faux Pas. He turns on Polyon during the climax of the book - so does Fassa, after some hesitation.
- Prince Edward is among London Beggers in The Prince and the Pauper.
- Wintrow in Robin Hobb's Realm of the Elderlings: The Liveship Traders trilogy tries hard to be this, but is mostly ridiculed (or worse) for his high moral standards. Amber manages better with her views on slavery, violence, and the treatment of Paragon.
- Gaston d'Eu from The Traitor Son Cycle is the only man among de Vrailly's knights who doesn't treat everyone around him like trash and strives for a peaceful solution.
- Though she only appears briefly in one scene in the original novel, Bree Tanner is this for Victoria's newborn army in The Twilight Saga. The film adaptation expands her role significantly and especially emphasizes this aspect of her character.
- Freaky Fred also counts, seeing as he's the only newborn who actively refrains from the fighting between newborns and defends Bree from them.
- Vampiros do Rio Douro: Among the titular seven vampires, Gentil is the most kind and friendly of them (his name literally means "kind one" in Portuguese) to the point, he betrays his brothers to save the heroes. His "brother" Espelho also displays traits of being a Reluctant Monster, but only in private.
- Loial the Ogier in The Wheel of Time series. Most of the 'good guys' are just as likely to act in their own self-interest as to help their friends and allies, even when cooperation is vital. Loial sometimes finds himself caught between these squabbles, but he cares deeply for all of his friends and is typically much more willing to risk his neck for them than they are for each other.
- The Witch of Knightcharm:
- Megumi Komatsu comes off as this. While she's a recruit at an evil Wizarding School and an aspiring Vigilante who wants to destroy the Yakuza, unlike most of her class, she makes it clear that she doesn't want to hurt innocent people and that she has nothing but disdain for the myriad cruelties of her school.
- LaTasha Abayo also gives this impression, especially since nobody told her that her new magic school was devoted to The Dark Arts, and she's indicated she doesn't want to get involved in the school's blood sports and other myriad cruelties.
- Janet Yawkly, the Anabaptist witch who indicates that she'd really prefer a nonviolent way of figuring out class rank (rather than have the students fight in one brutal Wizard Duel after another), also seems to be this. It's not yet known why she's at the school in the first place, but it doesn't seem to have been by choice.
- The protagonist Emily Holland wants to be this and only entered the school to undermine it from within. It's been hinted, however, that it won't be as easy for her to maintain her morality as she'd figured going in.
- Worm:
- When she joined the Undersiders, Skitter was originally this, being a Heroic Wannabe who only became a bad guy because the first villains she met were also the first capes who actually treated her with kindness and respect. She eventually comes to downplay this hard, becoming just as ruthless and amoral as her teammates, if never quite losing her altruistic intentions. When she joins the team late in the story, Parian is a much firmer and more consistent version of this trope.
- Burnscar is this for the Slaughterhouse Nine, being an otherwise-normal girl who was Driven to Villainy because using her pyrokinesis mutes her emotions. She deliberately avoids lethally hurting anybody whenever the rest of the Nine isn't around (notably with Faultline's Crew), and generally comes across as much more sympathetic than the rest of her group. Of course, being the most sympathetic member of a group of psychopathic serial killers isn't saying all that much.
- Legend is this for Cauldron, if only because they usually don't provide him with knowledge of their morally shadier dealings. By extension, he's also this for the Triumvirate, all three of whom are in Cauldron's pocket.
