Villainous Valour / Western Animation

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• The Zuko vs Azula fight at the end of Avatar: The Last Airbender Season 3 would count as this. Azula is clearly losing her mind, and the fight. It's hard not to feel bad for her all of a sudden, over the course of the last couple episodes, especially since even as he makes the challenge Zuko still thinks that if she were sane he wouldn't be able to fight her.
  • In the same episode, after Ozai unlocks Aang's Avatar State, Ozai manages to dodge Avatar State Aang's Sphere of Power for several minutes, even managing to get a few attacks off. Still doesn't work.
  • There's Zuko's attempts at defeating Aang in the first season despite getting curbstomped every time they meet. This along with Zuko's woobie status can easily drive a viewer to root for him simply out of sympathy.
  • Lesser villains get their share of valorous moments, as well. For example, the thoroughly unpleasant prison warden from "The Boiling Rock" declares that he would rather jump into the boiling lake surrounding his prison than let a single prisoner escape. When he's taken hostage he proves his boast true when he orders his men to drop the gondola they're riding into the lake, even though he would die as well.
• For everything said about Sid the Squid in the Batman: The Animated Series episode "The Man Who Killed Batman", including being a Harmless Villain, Bumbling Sidekick, and he was set up to be a fall guy, he did try to take on Batman.
• Castlevania (2017): In the Season 2 finale, Isaac the Forgemaster is all too ready to sacrifice himself for Dracula, not out of fear or fanaticism but genuine loyalty and friendship. Dracula has to open the mirror portal behind him while he's distracted and throw him through it to safety and even then Isaac tries to jump back through before the portal closes.
• The Dragon Prince: Viren is entirely willing to put his life on the line for his cause. When surrounded by soldiers and having several arrows stuck in him, he only stops fighting because Aaravos stops supplying him with magic. On two separate occasions he's ridden into battle against the Dragon King himself and he agreed with Aaravos' plan to enter Lux Aurea alone so only his life, and none of his army, was at risk.
• In Gargoyles, Owen seems to just be Xanatos' butler for the first several episodes; however, when he catches the gargoyles trying to take the Grimorum Arcanorum and they challenge him to stop them, he calmly takes off his glasses, holds up his fists and fights them for it. He doesn't win, of course, but it's the show's first hint that Xanatos keeps him around for more than paperwork and dry humor.
  • Xanatos too. In a scene where he is sparring with Owen, Owen manages to hand Xanatos one of his few, if only, confirmed 100% defeats (given which trope he lends his name to, Xanatos doesn't really lose often). When Xanatos points this out, Owen offers to pretend to lose. Xanatos immediately refuses the offer, telling Owen he's fired if he ever did that.
• Hazbin Hotel has Alastor in the season one finale go up against Adam, leader of the Excorcists and a very powerful angel, in a world where angels are inherently powerful than even a mighty mortal sinner like Alastor, in defense of the titular hotel. Alastor is able to put up quite the fight at first using his greater skill in combat along with creative use of his summoning powers to keep Adam off balance, but once Adam gets some distance and is able to hit Alastor, that one hit hurts the Radio Demon badly enough to force him to flee. In a notable deconstruction of the trope, Alastor is actually horrified that he put himself on the line like that for others and vows not to do so again.
• In Justice League Unlimited, this trope is completely averted - the titular Task Force X is comprised of sociopaths led by Rick Flagg, and the plan devised for them by the Clock King counts on their behaviour being totally self serving to succeed. Flagg for his part is so disgusted that the first thing he does after extraction is punch one of his charges in the gut after they killed teammate to cover their escape.
• The Legend of Korra, Avatar's sequel, has some valiant villains as well.
  • Season 1 has the Equalists, nonbenders who regularly get into fights with not only benders, but the Avatar herself — who has mastered three elements at the series start — and hold their own. Two of them have an all out fight against Korra (said Avatar) and Mako (a firebender of formidable skill) and manage to match them for a bit, though they're eventually forced to retreat.
  • Season 3 has Zaheer. Before gaining airbending from Harmonic Convergence, he was a skilled martial artist, nonbender, and member of the Red Lotus who managed to gain the trust of three powerful benders (winning the heart of one of them.) and led them on an ill-fated mission to capture Korra when she was younger. After gaining airbending, he immediately and singlehandedly breaks his cabal out of their prisons to finish what they started. He is always seen on the front lines with his gang and even provides cover when their plan to capture Korra in Zaofu goes awry. Even during his final confrontation with Korra, who is in the Avatar State and in an Unstoppable Rage mode that makes Aang's worst look mild, Zaheer doesn't back down and continues his attempts to kill her, nearly succeeding had it not been for the intervention of Jinora and the Airbenders. Zaheer is many things, but coward is not one of them.
  • Season 4 has Kuvira, who commands the entire Earth Kingdom (renamed the Earth Empire) but seems to think little of going alone into battle with a half-dozen opponents. At one point she goes one-on-one against Korra for control of Zaofu, and announces to her troops that she wouldn't send any of them into a battle she wasn't prepared to take on as well. She absolutely refuses to give up, even in the very rare times where it's clear that she's outmatched. At worst, she makes strategic retreats or a fallback plan, but never outright surrenders until Korra makes her go through a Heel Realization.
    Korra: Kuvira! Give up!
    Kuvira: (Quietly) Never.
• Miraculous Ladybug: Hawk Moth is willing to put it all on the line to win. Even when the heroes undo his Super Mode as Scarlet Moth and break the spell he put onto his villain army, he still sticks by and fights Ladybug and Cat Noir two-on-one without his cane, proving that he was an Orcus on His Throne more out of being a Pragmatic Villain than a Dirty Coward. Even then he only flees after becoming grossly outnumbered when Rena Rouge, Carapace and Queen Bee join the fight and Mayura creates a sentimonster to be a distraction.
• She-Ra: Princess of Power: While normally a coward who shrinks away from physical confrontation and prefers to stay safe in a disguised form, Imp has broken cover to strike against the rebellion, most notably during "The Locket" when he zoomed in to steal the titular item with a freakin' dragon around.
• The treacherous Commander from Sym-Bionic Titan. Yes he betrayed Galaluna, but he could have fought and killed Lance easily with his Power Armor or let the Mutrati tear him apart, instead he opts to fight him in a fair sword fight. Granted he was considered much more skilled than Lance, but for such a monstrous villain, it certainly takes guts to take on a prodigy like Lance with just a sword when he could have easily finished him off through a more brutal and sadistic method without a second thought.
• In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003), we see this trait in the Utrom Shredder Ch'rell and the Demon Shredder, the original Oroku Saki. Both of them are monstrous, irredeemable villains but if there's one good thing that can be said about both of them, it's that they never retreat and are ready and willing to die fighting against the Turtles.
• Transformers: Prime
  • Megatron fights against a half dozen, mountain-sized Unicron clones before a fantastically choreographed scene of him and long time rival Optimus Prime being Back-to-Back Badasses as they fight Unicron's internal security systems. You start to understand why he's the Champion of Kaon.
  • Similarly, when Airachnid makes her play to commandeer the Nemesis and hijack the Decepticon Army, the previously unbeatable bug finds herself squashed by Soundwave, who makes it quite clear that, even in absentia, Megatron's commands are law. He takes a similar stand in a later season when Airachnid and her Insecticon swarm attempts to overrun the ship, starring down the shrieking horde as it charges for him before opening a space bridge right in front of them and stranding them on one of Cybertron's desolate moons.
  • Soundwave shows this again in season three, when captured and interrogated by the Autobots. He maintains his vow of silence except to play back Optimus' question as a Voice Clip Song, shows no fear when Ratchet suggests vivisecting him to forcibly extract the needed information from his memory banks, and before we find out whether the Autobots will actually go that far, he erases his own brain (he gets better), breaking his vow of silence to give his captors what could easily have been a final taunt.
• We often see Brock Sampson from the henchmen's point of view in The Venture Bros.. The most notable case of Valiant Villainy here would probably be Henchman Number 1's stand against him, or maybe the lightsaber thing.
• In Young Justice (2010) Black Manta's men carry themselves very much like a professional, competent military force who are all personally and unwaveringly dedicated to his cause even in the face of superheroes who outclass them.

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