History Main / TerroristsWithoutACause

** The first ''Film/DieHard'' set the template with Hans Gruber. While he was once legitimately part of a left-wing terrorist group, he had long since abandoned any ideals and turned to crime for profit. He specifically posed as a terrorist as a BatmanGambit, as the FBI's standard response to a hostage scenario included cutting the power to the building, which was necessary to get the vault's magnetic lock open. In one scene, as he's reading off a list of terrorist organizations whose "comrades in arms" he wants released as part of the hostage negotiations, and [[TheDragon Karl]] quietly asks what he's doing, Hans quickly remarks to him that he read about them in ''Time'' magazine.

** Averted in ''Film/DieHard2'', where the terrorists are ex-army officers trying to free a BananaRepublic dictator whom they see as an anti-communist stalwart. Probably this was a NoCelebritiesWereHarmed version of Ollie North and Noriega.

** "Kickback" has a fictional Italian terrorist group carrying out an assassination for hire, with the contemporary connection between TheMafia and terrorism lampshaded. In "First Night" the situation is reversed with {{London Gangster}}s kidnapping an Israeli minister and offering to sell him to the highest bidder.
** Even though stories were RippedFromTheHeadlines, terrorists featured on the show were the NoCelebritiesWereHarmed version. The Organisation in "Runner" appears to be a Scottish version of the IRA, there's a German terrorist group in "Close Quarters" that's inspired by the Baader-Meinhof Group, and Ramos in "Long Shot" is likely an {{expy}} of Carlos the Jackal.

* The Joker, as portrayed in ''Film/TheDarkKnight'', fits this trope to a T. He has absolutely no motivation except to inspire terror. And he's ''really good at it''.
--> '''Alfred''': Some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.

* ''Film/July22'': While he proclaims himself to despise Marxists and that it was a "righteous" execution, it is heavily implied that Breivik's actions are motivated more by a desire for a massive media spotlight towards himself above all else.

* In ''ComicBook/FiftyTwo'', Black Adam's wedding is attacked by a suicide bomber -- fortunately killed by a private detective before she blows up -- sent by a {{Cult}} ''worshipping crime''. During the brief period between ''Infinite Crisis'' and the ''Flashpoint'' reboot, the Religion of Crime was a real force to be reckoned with. Intergang and other normally-mundane Mafia analogues were being recruited into a massive human-sacrificing cult, and the new Question was trying to prevent them from finding "The Crime Bible".

* ''Manga/RosarioToVampire'': [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Kuyou]] is given this treatment in the anime. As {{Fa|rEastAsianTerrorists}}iry [[AntiHumanAlliance Tale]] was AdaptedOut, Kuyou was changed to be nothing but a generic human-hating thug who just makes people miserable ForTheEvulz.

[[folder:Anime]]

* The Panthers Modern in ''{{Literature/Neuromancer}}'', whose manifesto is a postmodern statement on terrorism. They commit acts pretty much at random, saying that since the media and society in general seems so intent on divorcing acts of terror from the ideologies that drive them, the Panthers Modern will complete the push by committing acts of terror with no driving ideology whatsoever.

* One Villain Of The Week in ''Series/CriminalMinds'' was a Unabomber-esque anti-technology terrorist, but was revealed to [[spoiler: just be doing it because he thought a sci-fi author that wrote a book about a war between humans and robots he based his idea on [[FreudianExcuse was his mother who gave him up for adoption, but it turns out that wasn't her]]]].
* An episode of ''Series/LawAndOrder'' had a young white man who'd murdered two college professors claim to be a follower of radical Islam who'd killed his victims for their disrespect towards Islam. Turns out he was just a JerkAss who'd latched onto that particular form of Islam to get revenge on a girl who humiliated him in front of the victim during a dinner party he was invited to. [[RealityIsUnrealistic This is a sadly accurate depiction of many Islamist terrorists and how they got that way.]]
* Sark from ''Series/{{Alias}}''. He routinely changes his alliances, and his true allegiance seems to be only to himself.
* Subverted in the MTV series ''Super Adventure Team''; a group of Middle-Eastern terrorists kidnap some Americans, and Team America wants to know their demands. The terrorists were taken aback; they didn't know that they could ''make'' demands. After a few moments huddling together, the lead terrorists give their demand: "We want to see Music/{{Kiss}}!"
* The United People's Resistance from ''Series/TheATeam'' episode ''[[Recap/TheATeamS1E13TheBeastFromTheBellyOfABoeing The Beast from the Belly of a Boeing]]''. They consisted of Americans, hijacking an airliner with the aim to extort money.

* In ''Series/PainkillerJane'', the MonsterOfTheWeek for "Playback" was one of these. He was trying to assassinate a Chinese diplomat, simply because [[EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas his mother wanted him to]]. While it's mentioned that the diplomat's death on US soil could start WWIII, what she planned on getting out of it was never revealed.
* The terrorists in FairlySecretArmy can be considered this, as it turns out that they are not Marxists, but have chaos as their AIM (with some bickering about whether they represent Old Chaosism or Middle Chaosism).

* The PURGE secret society in ''TabletopGame/{{Paranoia}}'' has no common motive beyond overthrowing The Computer.
** Death Leopard is an even purer example, since at least PURGE '''has''' one common goal; the members of Death Leopard just like to make things go boom.

* The Heaven Smiles in ''VideoGame/{{Killer7}}'' are, as the game goes on, manipulated to various ends, but their original purpose is, to quote the game, "terrorism for the sole purpose of causing terror". Kun Lan, their creator, is a HiddenAgendaVillain who (as the game is a MindScrew) never ''quite'' reveals what that agenda is.
* The ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'' DLC module Bring Down the Sky averts this by giving the batarians a very DisproportionateRetribution sort of reason for their terrorist attack. Given how much of an AlwaysChaoticEvil culture the batarians are portrayed as having and just how psychotic Balak is, it actually makes a disturbing amount of sense. Subverted in that it was ''supposed'' to be a slave raid, he basically cracked and threw the terrorist attack in at the last second. A chunk of his followers, including his second in command, will abandon the whole thing and run for it if Shepard lets them.

* ''VideoGame/DisasterDayOfCrisis'' has SURGE, a band of elite former special forces soldiers. At first, they have a rather understandable excuse - they were fighting alongside a rebellion in another country, then the American government at the time switched support and tried to have them all killed. Part of Colonel Hayne's demands was compensation to be paid to the families of those in SURGE who were killed, a perfectly reasonable demand... Then Evans takes over, and starts doing it for shits and giggles, right to the point of ''trying to set off a nuke in the middle of a hurricane''. The characters even remark that Evans is basically nuts and who knows why he does anything.

* The terrorists in ''VideoGame/TargetTerror'' seem to be this.
* In ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare 2'' it's explicitly stated by General Shepherd that the terrorist leader Makarov has no nationality ''or'' ideology.
** May have been subverted by the sequel, though; contrary to what Shepherd said, ''Modern Warfare 3'' shows Makarov to have a very clearly defined goal of establishing Russian dominance over the world, with himself at the top. [[spoiler: That, and the fact that Shepherd's traitor pulling the strings meant he was outright lying when he said that.]]
*** Still the [=OpFor=] in ''Modern Warfare 2'' play this straight. The first game had them overthrowing the government of a [[{{Qurac}} nameless country in the Middle East]] because they felt their President was corrupt due to his ties to the Western countries like the United States. However, in the second game they apparently decided to move their operations to Afghanistan and are [[MotiveDecay fighting with no apparent goals]]. The best guess is the [=OpFor=] in the second were just a [[NoCommunitiesWereHarmed Taliban stand-in]] and not the same group from the first game.
* ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyAdvancedWarfare'' gives us the KVA who are described ''anti-western'' in a mission that has them taking a Technology summit in Nigeria hostage. The following level has them causing [[GoingCritical Nuclear Reactors around the world to meltdown]] (with mentioned sites including the not Western at all China, Japan, Russia, and Egypt) and ends with their leader giving a speech more akin to an EvilLuddite than an anti-western terrorist. It also doesn't help that we never find out what he was planning to do with that meeting in the mission you kill him, but seeing as it was a decoy, it's unknown if there was really meeting at all.
* In ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOpsIII'' has the second mission has the player going through a simulation where you have to stop a terrorist group from bombing a passenger train in Zurich. No motivation or even a ''name'' is given to this terrorist group for the attack. This is subverted in the Alternative Universe Nightmares mode where both a name, the Cotardist and a motive (they believed the [[NotUsingTheZWord Undead]] were next step in humanity's evolution and Zurich was at the time the only city that was Zombie-Free) were given. This may just be a different group that uses the same character models as the unnamed terrorist.
* The PLR from ''VideoGame/{{Battlefield 3}}'' seem to have rather nebulous motivations, though it's at least clear that they're not jihadists of any sort. Analyzing some of Al-Bashir's dialogue suggests that they may simply be radical Iranian nationalists who want to oppose the West, but that's about as far as it gets, and [[TrueFinalBoss Solomon's]] own motivations are a mystery.
* The protagonist of ''VideoGame/{{Hitman}}'' is nominally killing for money. But while in some games there was a given reason he needed the money, in ''[[VideoGame/HitmanBloodMoney Blood Money]]'' it was only used to buy upgrades so he could do more assassinations. Meanwhile, 47 was living in derelict warehouses. There is an overarching conspiracy going on, but 47 didn't care for it. He could've probably done the first 2, 3 hits without buying upgrades and live off the proceeds for the rest of his life, but he kills because he's been ''programmed'' to kill ''for his entire life'': it's all he's able to do. His attempt to retire at the opening of the second game only led to him being drawn back into the job. The money is just there to keep him on top of said job.
* Happens to the Divine Crusaders in ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsOriginalGeneration'' eventually. At first, they have a clear goal for their terrorism. Sabotage and kill any corrupt politicians trying to make deals with alien invaders (which would essentially sell most of humanity into slavery so a few guys at the top could live cushy lives) and fight the Earth forces army in order to get them into fighting shape for the real force arrives, with the intention to graciously surrender or die when that is accomplished to let the EFA defend the planet. However, quite a few guys only signed on for selfish or personal reasons (grudges against the EFA, genuine desire to conquer the world, or just the desire for wanton violence and destruction they couldn't get with a lawful organization) and keep the organization going after most of the good people either died or left it. As a result in later games, they come off as this, simply rebelling against the EFA for the sake of rebelling and blowing stuff up. Finally this all comes to a head in the 4th game where the Earth Forces are taken over by a ruthless violent faction dedicated to turning the planet into a police state....and most of the remaining Divine Crusaders sign on with them, showing that all they really want is to work for essentially "the bad guys" and cause violence and destruction without really caring about the cause.
* The Global Liberation Army in ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerGenerals'' were Al-Quaeda with the serial numbers filed off... and these serial numbers included Islamism (AQ's main motivation), leaving the GLA with only a ''very'' vaguely defined "liberation" as motivation.
* [[NebulousEvilOrganisation Ouma]] from ''VideoGame/NamcoXCapcom'' and ''VideoGame/ProjectXZone'' appear to have no motives as to why they want to cause chaos, though the most likely reason is to TakeOverTheWorld.

* ''VideoGame/FarCry2'' features two rival factions of AfricanTerrorists who are warring to take over an unnamed central African country, despite the fact that their conflict has destroyed nearly all economic resources. We get almost nothing on their ideologies except what we can piece together from [[AllInTheManual the manual]] or deduce from their rhetoric. One faction even uses a Communist red star in its iconography but denounces the other for being communists.
* ''VideoGame/FTLFasterThanLight'' does not particularly explain why is the Rebel Fleet rebelling against TheFederation. That their (not automated) ships are crewed entirely by humans suggests there might be FantasticRacism behind the cause, and few events suggest there might be economical reasons as well[[note]]In one event you can bribe a Rebel crew from inspecting civilian ships by offering a meager amount of [[PracticalCurrency scrap]]. In another event you find a Rebel ship [[PetTheDog supplying a remote colony]]; If you decide to attack that ship, one of the colonists will lament "my son was on that ship".[[/note]], but the Rebels never outright state their goals beside gloating about [[GoodIsOldFashioned doing away with the old-fashioned Federation]].

* In ''VideoGame/DriverSanFrancisco'', gangster Charles Jericho steals components to build a hydrogen cyanide bomb, then threatens to detonate that bomb in downtown San Francisco, with no demands given. [[spoiler:Because he never built the bomb at all. It's part of a massive BatmanGambit to get the city evacuated so he can stage a prison break.]]

* The motives of the terrorist group in ''Roleplay/SurvivalOfTheFittest'' are, as of yet, unclear. It's not entirely certain if they even ''have'' a motive beyond trying to cripple the US with fear through targetting its children. For some reason, "ratings" are important to them; that's about all we get. Originally, they were from a country at war with the United States, and one of Danya's demands in v1 is that the American military completely demobilize, but given various [[{{Retcon}} retcons]] to the setting, it isn't clear how much is still canon; at the least, them being at war with the US isn't.

* The 1940s ''WesternAnimation/{{Superman}}'' episode "Destruction, Inc.", while otherwise one of the series' better efforts, never gets around to explaining ''why'' they're wreaking havoc at the factory.

* There are some terrorists that the ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'' stop at the very beginning of one episode. They claim to have a cause, and maybe they do, but since they're such minor characters we never find out what it is.
** Similarly, to most people the Hunters would ''seem'' like a group of terrorists (or at least, incredibly well-armed militants willing to go to such lengths as blowing up the clock tower atop police headquarters) with no cause whatsoever... Unless you know the secret that gargoyles are actually a living, breathing species. [[DisproportionateRetribution One of whom scratched the face of someone about 950 years ago, and now their entire bloodline is sworn to hunting Gargoyles.]]

* In the ''WesternAnimation/ActionMan2000'' series Asazi is described as a "Terrorist for hire" until she became TheDarkChick for the Council Of D.O.O.M.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Archer}}'' has two Welsh "[[YourTerroristsAreOurFreedomFighters freedom fighters]]" plotting to blow up a dam, appearing in "Archub Y Morfilod". Archer asks about their cause, accidentally revealing they don't have one. They claim they are revolting because the British government flooded an ancient village. Archer is horrified that the government would something like that ForTheEvulz, only for the Welshmen to admit it was to bring more drinking water to the region. Archer is still appalled that thousands of people were displaced, only for them to admit only forty-eight people were affected. Archer is still upset that those people were left homeless, only for them to admit that everyone was compensated and in many cases were now living in much, much nicer homes.
* Le Papillion/Hawkmoth from ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'' seems like this at first- his usual tactic is "turn random person into MonsterOfTheWeek, order them to capture heroes' [[TransformationTrinket Miraculouses]], hope they succeed, curse when they inevitably fail". You might wonder what he wants to use the Miraculous for, and it's not until the very end of the first season that the audience find out: [[spoiler: He wants to use them to bring his wife BackFromTheDead.]]

* ''Manga/BlackLagoon'' actually gives this trope [[DeconstructedTrope something of a serious treatment]] with Masahiro Takenaka, a villain in one of the arcs who's an ex-member of the Japanese Red Army: having [[SillyRabbitIdealismIsForKids long since outgrown any notion that he'll ever get to incite a worldwide revolution through his actions]], Takenaka keeps fighting as part of terrorist organizations that have absolutely nothing to do with his original goals because being an enemy of the state's the only thing he finds meaning in doing; with the series' usage of BlackAndGreyMorality, he's [[SympathyForTheDevil actually presented sympathetically for it]].
* [[MadArtist Deidara]] of ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' thinks of his explosions as fine art and wanted to share his art with everyone. Because indiscriminately blowing up people and ''villages'' is not acceptable behavior for a nation at peace, he went rogue and worked for various anti-government factions even before Akatsuki recruited him. When Pain summarizes the Akatsuki members' motives for fighting, he states that Deidara's reason is "a whim."

* The Creator/DCComics series ''Wild Dog'' had an example of this, in a terrorist group that was a coming-together of factions from the fringes of the left ''and'' right. ("We're going to destroy the current order. What will we replace it with? That's for later - first things, first!")
* In ''ComicBook/FiftyTwo'', Black Adam's wedding is attacked by a suicide bomber -- fortunately killed by a private detective before she blows up -- sent by a {{Cult}} ''worshipping crime''. During the brief period between ''Infinite Crisis'' and the ''Flashpoint'' reboot, the Religion of Crime was a real force to be reckoned with. Intergang and other normally-mundane Mafia analogues were being recruited into a massive human-sacrificing cult, and the new Question was trying to prevent them from finding "The Crime Bible".

[[folder:Film]]

* In ''Film/UnderSiege'', Tommy Lee Jones is Strannix, a rogue CIA operative who specialized in hijackings. He and his men disguise themselves as musicians in order to seize a battleship with the help of a crooked Naval officer, Gary Busey. Strannix plans to load the ship's Tomahawk missiles onto a waiting sub (which he stole from the North Koreans!) and sell them.
** In ''Under Siege 2'', mercenaries team up with an ex-government hacker to blow up a nuclear reactor and irradiate the eastern seaboard on behalf of mideast terrorists.
* A major hallmark of the ''Franchise/DieHard'' series of movies is that the BigBad is usually a thief disguising his actions by acting like a terrorist.
** Averted in ''Film/DieHard2'', where the terrorists are ex-army officers trying to free a BananaRepublic dictator whom they see as an anti-communist stalwart. Probably this was a NoCelebritiesWereHarmed version of Ollie North and Noriega.
** Played perfectly straight in ''Film/DieHardWithAVengeance'' with Mathias and Katya Targo. Freelance terrorists who work by written contract.

* ''Film/{{Nighthawks}}''. Wulfgar (Rutger Hauer) and his "worse half" Shaka (Persis Khambatta) make it very clear that they will commit acts of terrorism for anyone who will pay. And if no one will, they'll do it anyway, either for ransom, or just because they have a desire to see civilization crumble. (Word is that Wulfgar was based on Ilyich Ramirez' Sanchez, aka "Carlos the Jackal", though his cause was international communism.)
* The BigBad former IRA nut in ''Film/BlownAway'' is accused to his face of not caring for the cause but [[MadBomber merely being fascinated by bombs]]. He doesn't really deny it.
* This characterization gets used on a group of {{Mooks}} that are former IRA gone mercenary in the first ''Film/SinCity'' movie. They KickTheDog early by casually mentioning that their current job "Sure beats the hell out of blowing up airports and churches without shite to show for it", but their MadBomber Brian who talks about not being fond of guns because a little "bang-bang" will never match the sight of roofs coming off buildings with people parts flying out is an JustForFun/{{egregious}} example.
* The terrorists in ''Film/RedEye'', seen only briefly, are white guys who speak Russian. Their reasoning for wanting to kill the deputy head of Homeland Security are never explained, though it is strongly implied that they have one. The primary villain of the film, Jackson Rippner, mentions that their organization "wants to create a big brash message", but never explains exactly what. It's something to do with the Deputy Head's controversial comments and hinted-at authoritarian international policy. In other words, they have a goal, but it's not a very important one to the plot of the film. In any case, Rippner himself is clearly just a PsychoForHire.
* The Ten Rings terrorist organization in the ''Film/IronMan'' films have no discernible cause beyond conquest and power. [[spoiler:It's eventually revealed that they're an ancient international organization ruled by the mysterious Mandarin, not that his own motivations are particularly clear]]. That said, the Afghan cell that kidnapped Tony Stark in the [[Film/IronMan1 first film]] [[spoiler:was actually hired by Obadiah Stane to kill him as part of an exchange for money and weapons; they decided instead to keep Tony alive and make him build weapons for them because Stane wasn't paying them enough]].
* [[OlderThanTheyThink Predating]] the ''Film/DieHard'' example, in Eric Ambler's novel ''The Light of Day'' (filmed as ''Film/{{Topkapi}}''), the Turkish SecretPolice believes a group of individuals to be terrorists since they captured the AntiHero protagonist driving a car stocked with weapons. Eventually, they figure out that the group are actually [[GentlemanThief international criminals]] and are ''overjoyed''.

* The Red Triangle Circus Gang, who work for The Penguin in ''Film/BatmanReturns'', could be classified as terrorists. They are never seen stealing, robbing, or doing anything else that is normally associated with ordinary criminals. Moreover, they seem to delight in random bombing, machine-gunning, hostage-taking, and general scaring of people, all with apparently no endgame in mind. As it turns out, the Penguin is using them as a political weapon to embarrass Gotham City's mayor so that he can run against him - and the members of the Red Triangle Gang themselves obey Penguin only because [[BadBoss he'll shoot them dead]] [[DisproportionateRetribution if they even think about defying him]].

* The villains in ''Film/{{Next}}'' are terrorists. Just terrorists. They seem to be a bunch of French-speaking Eurotrash led by a guy that looks like Gavrilo Princip. The best we can figure, they were trying to liberate Quebec from California and have it form a part of a new Greater Serbia. Or maybe it was just the ''ennui.''

* Played straight in ''Film/TheEnforcer''. Although assumed to be black radicals by Dirty Harry's boss, the terrorist group that kidnaps the Mayor of San Francisco for ransom are actually small-time white crooks in it purely for the money, while pretending to be radicals themselves.
* Although the film ''Film/VantagePoint'' tries to be TheRashomon for a terrorist bombing, showing the same event from the perspective of the news media, the terrorists, the US Secret Service, and an innocent bystander, we never really learn what the terrorists' goals were other than they are vaguely Islamist. It's never explained where their sophisticated equipment came from, [[spoiler:how a respected 20-year-veteran of the Secret Service could be in league with them]], or what the purpose of their secret plot was. [[spoiler:They assassinate the US President, only it's actually a body double, but they know this and manage to kidnap the actual President. Which gets them what? They've already convinced the world the President is dead, what does having him prisoner accomplish?]] For a movie about different points of view, they sure didn't bother explaining any.
* Similar to ''Film/VantagePoint'', ''Film/AirForceOne'' never explains why [[spoiler:[[BodyguardBetrayal Gibbs, a veteran Secret Service agent]], decided to betray his country and help a group of Russian ultra-nationalists take over the titular airplane.]]
* The group of mercenaries from ''Film/HighRisk'' only care about money and causing destruction. The Doctor in particular has a [[MadBomber fascination with bombs]] and is not above killing innocents to satisfy his own sadism.
* In the Creator/JohnTravolta film ''Film/FromParisWithLove'', the terrorist [[spoiler:(the protagonist's fiance)]] never gives a reason for the plot to [[spoiler:suicide bomb an African aid summit]] other than [[spoiler:saying she was looking for a purpose and a man she met six years ago explained things to her]]. Arguably parodied because the Travolta character explains a bit during the early part of the film, but Meyers' character (and, since we're viewing the scene through his eyes, the audience) is too [[spoiler:high on cocaine]] to understand it.
* The group (that appears to be largely white and British) in ''Film/{{Passenger 57}}'' doesn't appear to have any real motivation for their acts, beyond a suggestion that they may be terrorists for hire and that the two leaders just really enjoy killing people.

* Lampshaded by Tony Stark in ''Film/IronMan3'' while trying to analyze a new terrorist mastermind's incomprehensible background: "Named for an old Chinese war moniker... South American insurgency tactics... Talks like a Baptist preacher..." [[spoiler:Then justified in that the terrorist turns out to have been a fiction, created by a CorruptCorporateExecutive trying to create a threat to national security so that he could sell weapons.]]
* ''Film/MissionImpossibleIII'' gives us the character of Owen Davian, an ''ArmsDealer'' Without A Cause. The man provides weapons to anybody who pays him, without caring what the weapons are for or how horrifying they are. [[DissonantSerenity He never even]] [[DullSurprise raises his voice]], let alone tells any reasons he may have to be such a monster.
* A comedic example in the "midequel" to ''Film/AnchormanTheLegendOfRonBurgundy'', ''Wake Up, Ron Burgundy! The Lost Movie''. This movie was composed of deleted subplots from the actual movie, the main one concerning the Channel 4 News Team's investigation into a terrorist group called ''The Alarm Clock'', who seek to "wake up" San Diego. The problem is, they don't know what they mean by "wake up", and they're incompetent to boot.
* The group in ''Film/DayNightDayNight'' make a propaganda video before their attack is to be carried out in the style of Islamic terrorists, but we never actually see what statement they had prepared for it, and the diverse nature of the group was deliberate on the part of the filmmaker to obscure any presumption on the part of the audience as to what their motivation might be.
* On a smaller scale, Gus Van Sant's ''Film/{{Elephant}}'' showcases a pair of [[AxesAtSchool School Shooters]] Without A Cause. Sure we are given multiple ''potential'' causes (neo-Nazism, closeted homosexuality, [[MurderSimulators violent]] [[NewMediaAreEvil videogames]], LonersAreFreaks, bad parenting, etc), but the story never quite decides to point to a ''specific'' cause for the two to take up arms and kill everybody they can inside the school (and the shooters never explain themselves). At least one critic felt that giving the shooters such a contrived "perfect storm" of reasons to be violent psycho-killers in an attempt to make the reason a RiddleForTheAges [[RealityIsUnrealistic made them much more of a caricature instead]].
* ''Film/{{Cyberjack}}'': The terrorists don't seem to be in it for any cause in particular; they just want the virus so they can seize power for its own sake.
* ''Film/TheAceOfHearts'': The "brotherhood" is a group of terrorist bombers. Although the implication is that they are left-wing or Bolshevik terrorists, the film actually never does state just what it is the brotherhood is trying to accomplish. The only hint comes when their assassination target is eventually revealed as an arrogant rich fat cat.
* ''Film/July22'': While he proclaims himself to despise Marxists and that it was a "righteous" execution, it is heavily implied that Breivik's actions are motivated more by a desire for a massive media spotlight towards himself above all else.

* Not so much TerroristsWithoutACause as Terrorists With Flexible Causes: The ''Empty Quarter'' oneshot ''Comicbook/ThePunisher'' comic had Frank Castle and a Mossad agent crashing a meeting of every major terrorist group in the world. The purpose of the meeting: [[EvilIsOneBigHappyFamily terrorist groups with radically different agendas would basically trade targets, so the authorities wouldn't see them coming.]] This included plans for blowing up the Vatican, [[FridgeLogic with no mention of how, say, the IRA members in the room felt about that.]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Some experts, such as Max Abrahms, have seriously argued that this may be TruthInTelevision for most or all terrorists. It's remarkably common for a terrorist group's policy demands to contradict each other, or to change suddenly for no apparent reason - in particular, if the group's demands are actually met, they almost never disband, [[MovingTheGoalposts but instead switch to a new issue that may be completely unrelated]]. In several cases, leaders of major terrorist organizations have been unable to explain exactly what they're fighting for when directly asked. So why do people join terrorist groups, if it's not really about the cause? Apparently because they're looking to make friends. No, really.
** Of course, this is still a Downplayed example as most Real Life terrorists at least play act at having a noble goal, while the Fictionland version [[NotEvenBotheringWithAnExcuse can't be bothered.]]
** One could argue that the reason these groups are so wildly self-contradictory is that the leaders recruit people using little more than cultural prejudices and peer pressure to ensure that they'll be too fanatical to bother questioning their orders or listen to an outsider. End result: a handful of men can raise an army of servants ready to do whatever they're asked simply to fit in. It's like a grand, horrifying version of high school cliques.
** There's a whole lot of sociology of why terrorist groups get started, why people join them, why their goals change, and so on. It's complicated.
** Add in that's its a whole lot easier to blame others and kill them than it is to actually run a country and keep your citizens from throwing you out. It's easier to divert their anger outward.
* Many ideologically-motivated guerrilla or terrorist organisations can devolve into glorified criminal gangs over time; the Peruvian Shining Path, for example, were originally a Marxist insurgency, but after Alberto Fujimori's administration crushed them and caused their faction to splinter (which involved both increased military pressure and several hundred suspected insurgents and leaders executed without trial), devolved into a string of loosely connected gangs with a thin ideological veneer. Other examples include some of the surviving [[UsefulNotes/TheTroubles Northern Irish paramilitary organisations]], the pre-Taliban Mujahideen in Afghanistan and some nationalist militias in the Warlord Era of the Republic of China. It even gets to the point where [[EvenEvilHasStandards their nominal allies move to take them out]], cutting through the usual red tape. In Northern Ireland, for example, the Provisional IRA purged several factions of the Irish People's Liberation Organisation (an Irish National Liberation Army splinter group) because it had begun to engage in organised crime (although this was probably due to competition more than anything, since the IRA engaged in drug trafficking and extortion itself).
* More of Riots Without A Cause, the 2011 England riots started because of a police shooting but involved burning shops and houses down and looting, which has nothing to do with a police shooting. This was lampshaded by a woman giving a speech on the streets when she said that the protest was supposed to be about a police shooting, not about robbing Shoe Locker and other shops.
** Interestingly enough, this was in no small part owing to MotiveDecay. The initial "rioting" was the victim's family and friends protesting peacefully, and gradually more people joined in, with tempers rising as it happened. Things eventually reached their logical conclusion when somebody threw a bottle at the police, she was promptly swarmed as a result, and then the riots started hours later, which caused other people to start looting and burning stuff right and left.
** Many if not most riots work this way. Consider how many of the stores looted after the infamous "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Los_Angeles_riots Rodney King verdict]]" riots were owned and operated by African-Americans or Koreans with no affiliation to the police (however, the relationship between African American and Korean American community in LA is already quite strained, especially after incidents like the [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Latasha_Harlins death of Latasha Harlins]] and Lee Arthur Mitchell. It's most likely that the rioters used the riot as a vent against those they think oppressed them).
* In 2011, some acts of sabotage were committed against railway and subway lines in Berlin. Though gasoline bombs were used, damage was only limited and nobody got hurt, and many bombs were found days later without having exploded at all. A statement released on the internet is generally considered as genuine, but can be summarized as "Fighting for Freedom! And Equality! Against world hunger and stuff...We guess...". Even genuine far-left activists thought the whole thing was laughable.
* Possibly OlderThanFeudalism. Herostratus burned down the most famous of Artemis's temples [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity in order to become famous.]] [[UnPerson His sentence included his name being stricken from the record and made even speaking it illegal to try and prevent this,]] although a later historian still passed it on.
* Szilveszter Matuska, a Hungarian MadBomber who blew up trains because it [[NightmareFetishist made him orgasm]].
* Joseph Konopka, known as Dr. Ch@os, hired a bunch of teenagers to commit crimes like causing failures at power plants, committing arson, disrupting broadcasts, disabling an air traffic control system, and hiding cyanide in the Chicago transit system. When asked why he did those acts, he admitted, [[ForTheEvulz "I don't have a real good reason".]]
* Some of the anarchist terrorists in the late 1800s basically devolved into this, bombing people loosely connected with the system which they opposed (e.g. just being "bourgeois" was for some enough to make you a target). One faction, the Illegalists, explicitly denied any motive beyond committing crimes, saying that in fact this was the most true anarchism.
[[/folder]]

** Millenium's former high command -- a group of aging non-vampire nazis --, on the other hand, actually did have a cause: establish the FourthReich, et cetera, et cetera... can you guess what happened to them? If you guessed "they got eaten alive by their vampiric subordinates in an AntiMutiny that was also part of Millenium's EstablishingCharacterMoment," you guessed right.

* ''Why'' does Millennium want to fight Alucard and destroy England in ''Manga/{{Hellsing}}''? Revenge for being defeated by the Allies during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII? Nope. Do they want to TakeOverTheWorld and have it ruled by vampires? Nuh-uh. Why, then? The Major not only admits that "[Millennium's] purpose is the ''total absence'' of purpose," he openly states to his mooks his main drive for doing what he does: "Gentlemen, [[BloodKnight I like war]]."
** Near the end when Seras and Integra fight the remnants of them, Integra notes [[DeathSeeker how excited they are that they are going to die.]] Seras is infuriated since she wonders why they didn't just kill themselves instead of becoming vampires. The Major admits pretty much that they are remnants of a bygone era and that for them, it was not just dying, but dying in battle like soldiers. So while they have no real grand goal besides their love of violence, the endgame does seem to be for them to die in a blaze of glory.

* In ''Film/FaceOff'', Castor Troy is a flamboyant "freelance terrorist" and assassin who only shows a flicker of dismay when he kills a kid by accident. His brother Pollux later mentions the pair were hired by some "[[RightWingMilitiaFanatic militia nuts]]" to plant a bomb intended for three SCOTUS Justices in a major urban center. Money, women and drugs are his main motivatiob. In the {{novelization}} he's a former Central Intelligence Agent using his skills for personal profit.

* ''Film/BrokenArrow1996'' and ''{{Film/Speed}}'' were penned by the same guy, and both feature [[GoingPostal disgruntled, ex-government types.]] Payne was a bomb squad guy who felt short-changed by the city when he retired. Deakins' motives for stealing the warheads are never explained in full. The hero, Hale, psychoanalyzes him at several points, and Deakins doesn't confirm or deny anything. Allusions are made to Deakins getting old and being passed over for promotions because he can't take orders. (Tellingly, he kills the guy who orchestrated the theft.) There are clues that Deakins doesn't live in the same moral universe as the rest of us, such as [[JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope his bemusement at killing somebody with his bare hands]] rather than a fighter jet, and his willingness to [[TakingYouWithMe blow himself up]] (along with his henchman) rather than lose face.
* In ''Film/UnderSiege'', Tommy Lee Jones is Strannix, a rogue CIA agent who specialized in hijackings. He and his men disguise themselves as musicians in order to hijack a battleship with the help of a crooked Naval officer, Gary Busey. Strannix plans to load the ship's Tomahawk missiles onto a waiting sub (which he stole from the North Koreans!) and sell them.

* The BigBad of ''Film/FaceOff'', Castor Troy refers to himself as a "freelance terrorist", while Pollux later mentions the pair were hired by some "[[RightWingMilitiaFanatic militia nuts]]" to plant a bomb (which it's revealed was for assassinating three US Supreme Court Justices), but his motivation clearly boils down to ForTheEvulz. Money isn't his main objective. In the {{novelization}} he's a former CIA agent using his skills for this purpose.

* In ''Film/UnderSiege'', Tommy Lee Jones is Strannix, a rogue CIA agent who specialized in infiltration. Him and his men disguise themselves as musicians in order to hijack a battleship with the help of a crooked Naval officer, Gary Busey. Strannix plans to load the ship's Tomahawk missiles onto a waiting sub (which he stole from the North Koreans!) and sell them.

* In ''Film/UnderSiege'', Tommy Lee Jones is Stannix, a rogue CIA agent who specialized in infiltration. Him and his men disguise themselves as musicians in order to hijack a battleship with the help of a crooked Naval officer, Gary Busey. Stannix plans to load the ship's Tomahawk missiles onto a waiting sub (which he stole from the North Koreans!) and sell them.

* ''Film/BrokenArrow1996'' and ''{{Film/Speed}}'' were penned by the same guy, and both feature [[GoingPostal disgruntled, ex-government types.]] Payne was a bomb squad guy who felt short-changed by the city when he retired. Deakins' motives for stealing the warheads are never explained in full. The hero, Hale, psychoanalyzes him at several points, and Deakins doean't confirm or deny anything. Allusions are made to Deakins getting old and being passed over for promotions because he can't take orders. (Tellingly, he kills the guy who orchestrated the theft.) There are clues that Deakins doesn't live in the same moral universe as the rest of us, such as [[JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope his bemusement at killing somebody with his bare hands]] rather than a fighter jet, and his willingness to [[TakingYouWithMe blow himself up]] (along with his henchman) rather than lose face.

* In ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare 2'' it's explicitly stated by General Shepherd that the terrorist leader Makarov has no nationality or ideology.

*** Still the The [=OpFor=] from ''Modern Warfare 2'' play this straight. The first game had them overthrowing the government of a [[{{Qurac}} nameless country in the Middle East]] because they felt their President was corrupt due to his ties to the Western countries like the United States. However, in the second game they apparently decided to move their operations to Afghanistan and are [[MotiveDecay fighting with no apparent goals]]. The best guess is the [=OpFor=] in the second where just a [[NoCommunitiesWereHarmed Taliban stand-in]] and not the same group from the first game
* ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyAdvancedWarfare'' give us the KVA who are described ''anti-western'' in a mission that has them taking a Technology summit in Nigera hostage. The following level has them causing [[GoingCritical Nuclear Reactors around the world to meltdown]] (with mentioned sites including the not Western at all China, Japan, Russia, and Egypt) and ends with their leader giving a speech more akin then to an EvilLuddite than an anti-western terrorist. It also doesn't help that we never find out what he was planning to do with that meeting in the mission you kill him.
* In ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOpsIII'' has the second mission has the player going through a simulation where you have to stop a terrorist group from bombing a passenger train in Zurich. No motivation or even a ''name'' is given to this terrorist for the attack. This is subverted in the Alternative Universe Nightmares mode where both a name the Cotardist and a motive (They believed the [[NotUsingTheZWord Undead]] were next step in humanities evolution and Zurich was at the time the only city that was Zombie-Free)

* ''Film/{{Cobra}}'': The New Order movement is based entirely around murder and torture for its own sake (with some social Darwinistic rhetoric thrown in), yet seems to attract a surprisingly large member base.

* The BigBad of ''Film/FaceOff'', Castor Troy, explicitly refers to his profession as "terrorism-for-hire", which suggests that he's a mercenary hired by organizations which actually do have causes. That said, ''he'' quite clearly doesn't have an actual cause besides ForTheEvulz. Money isn't his main objective. In the {{novelization}} he's a former CIA agent using his skills for this purpose.

* The Panthers Modern in ''Literature/Neuromancer'', whose manifesto is a postmodern statement on terrorism. They commit acts pretty much at random, saying that since the media and society in general seems so intent on divorcing acts of terror from the ideologies that drive them, the Panthers Modern will complete the push by committing acts of terror with no driving ideology whatsoever.

Terrorists in action movies generally represent no organisation, movement, religious sect or political tendency known to the real world. Even if they are identified with a real organisation ([[UsefulNotes/TheTroubles the IRA]], [[TheMafiya the Russian Mafia]], Basque separatists, whoever), they will be described as a RenegadeSplinterFaction, not the parent organisation. In many cases, they actually represent no identifiable cause at all, beyond making things go ''BOOM''.

They are related to and might occasionally be the literary descendant of BombThrowingAnarchists, who were the main type of terrorism in late 19th century and early 20th century literature, especially short stories. [[AnarchyIsChaos Terrorism by anarchists]] was, in real life, mainly committed by Frenchmen, such as Ravachol, possibly explaining why anarchists seem to have mainly been used as villains by British writers. Anarchists however have political motives then and now (absent a few like Illegalists that might fall into this category however, saying crime ''itself'' was the motive).

In addition, these may be confused with terrorist groups that are [[SillyReasonForWar just plain silly]]. A real life example is Comité Régional d'Action Viticole, an organization made up of French wine growers who don't like foreign competition. Not to be confused with MartyrWithoutACause, which is for characters who look for any excuse to commit a HeroicSacrifice.

[[folder:{{Anime}}]]

** Near the end when Seras and Integra fight the remnants of them, Integra notes [[DeathSeeker how excited they are that they are going to die.]] Seras is infuriated since she wonders why they didn't just kill themselves instead of becoming vampires. The Major admits pretty much that they are remnants of a bygone era and that for them, it was not just dying, but dying in battle like soldiers. So while they have no real grand goal beside their love of violence, the endgame does seem to be for them to die in a blaze of glory.

* Turkes from ''Manga/MotherKeeper'' is this, as is supposedly the rest of Chaos Tide. Most the resistance groups are fighting Eden for the rights of those living in the slums or for revenge, however Turkes is fighting purely to cause terror and kill random people for his own entertainment.

[[folder:ComicBooks]]

[[folder:{{Film}}]]

* ''Film/{{Cobra}}'': The New Order movement is based entirely around murder and torture for its own sake (with some social darwinistic rhetoric thrown in), yet seems to attract a surprisingly large member base.

* [[OlderThanTheyThink Predating]] the ''Film/DieHard'' example, in Eric Ambler's novel ''The Light of Day'' (filmed as ''Film/{{Topkapi}}''), the Turkish SecretPolice believes a group of individuals to be terrorists, since they captured the AntiHero protagonist driving a car stocked with weapons. Eventually, they figure out that the group are actually [[GentlemanThief international criminals]] and are ''overjoyed''.

--> '''Alfred''': Some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.

** Stromberg, from ''Film/TheSpyWhoLovedMe'' and Drax from ''Film/{{Moonraker}}'' (basically a 2.0 version of Stromberg, who in turn is an {{expy}} of Blofeld) both want the population of the earth to die; that's genocide but not terrorism, because inspiring terror is an unwanted side effect.

* Although the film ''Film/VantagePoint'' tries to be TheRashomon for a terrorist bombing, showing the same event from the perspective of the news media, the terrorists, the US Secret Service and an innocent bystander, we never really learn what the terrorists' goals were other than they are vaguely Islamist. It's never explained where their sophisticated equipment came from, [[spoiler:how a respected 20-year-veteran of the Secret Service could be in league with them]], or what the purpose of their secret plot was. [[spoiler:They assassinate the US President, only it's actually a body double, but they know this, and manage to kidnap the actual President. Which gets them what? They've already convinced the world the President is dead, what does having him prisoner accomplish?]] For a movie about different points of view, they sure didn't bother explaining any.

* The group of mercenaries from ''Film/HighRisk'' only care about money and causing destruction. The Doctor in particular has a [[MadBomber fascination with bombs]], and is not above killing innocents to satisfy his own sadism.

* Discussed in the Literature/ModestyBlaise novel ''The Night of Morningstar'', in regard to the Watchmen, a terrorist group who claim a different motivation for each attack and have espoused causes from all over the political spectrum including several that are mutually exclusive. Tarrant tells Modesty that investigations have established that it really is a single group behind all the attacks, and that they're not just a MurderInc whose goals change depending on who's paying them, but nobody knows what they're really out to achieve. It turns out that they're being run at arm's length by the USSR, with the aim that once they've established their legend they'll start carrying out attacks that serve the USSR's purposes disguised among the random ones.

[[folder:LiveActionTV]]

* Americon Initiative in ''Series/{{Revenge}}'', the organization behind the downing of Flight 197, initially appear to be this. However it is later revealed in the Season 2 finale that [[spoiler: they are merely a front for a group of wealthy businessmen seeking to profit from the aftermaths of disasters.]]

[[folder:TabletopRPG]]

[[folder:VideoGames]]
* ''VideoGame/CounterStrike''. Well, since it's multiplayer only and has no plot. The terrorists have some {{backstory}}, but the fighting going on has no plot other than special forces and terrorists blasting each other. It doesn't need one. Subverted and played straight in ''Condition: Zero'' - the single player has you completing non-plot objects [e.g.: kill five terrorists in a row within so-and-so time], but ''Deleted Scenes'' has actual stories behind it. Although, a few episodes don't explain why the terrorists got the hostages or why there's a bunch of homicidal jihadi trying to kill you.

* ''VideoGame/DisasterDayOfCrisis'' has SURGE, a band of elite former special forces soldiers. At first, they have a rather understandable excuse - they were fighting alongside a rebellion in a another country, then the American government at the time switched support and tried to have them all killed. Part of Colonel Hayne's demands was compensation to be paid to the familes of those in SURGE who were killed, a perfectly reasonable demand... Then Evans takes over, and starts doing it for shits and giggles, right to the point of ''trying to set off a nuke in the middle of a hurricane''. The characters even remark that Evans is basically nuts and who knows why he does anything.
* The terrorist group in ''[[VideoGame/RainbowSix Rainbow Six: Vegas]]'' is rather odd. They waste [[NGOSuperpower an enormous amount of manpower and resources]] [[spoiler: including a state-of-the-art WMD, which they try to use ''inside'' Vegas for no good reason,]] in their attack on Vegas. [[spoiler: It turns out the whole point of the attack was just to distract the army so they could break into the research facility where those very same [=WMD=]s were being build. So...they went through all of that just to get weapons they already had, but lost because they were using them to steal more? And it's not very well explained what they want to do with them anyway, or how they got the first one.]]

*** Still the The [=OpFor=] from ''Modern Warfare 2'' play this straight. The first game had them overthrowing the government of a [[{{Qurac}} nameless country in the Middle East]] because they felt their President was corrupt due to his ties to the Western countries like the United States. However in the second game they apparently decided to move their operations to Afghanistan and are [[MotiveDecay fighting with no apparent goals]]. The best guess is the [=OpFor=] in the second where just a [[NoCommunitiesWereHarmed Taliban stand-in]] and not the same group from the first game
* ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyAdvancedWarfare'' give us the KVA who are described ''anti-western'' in a mission that has them taking a Technology summit in Nigera hostage. The following level has them causing [[GoingCritical Nuclear Reactors around the world to meltdown]] (with mentioned sites including the not Western at all China, Japan, Russia and Egypt) and ends with their leader giving a speech more akin then to an EvilLuddite than an anti-western terrorist. It also doesn't help that we never find out what he was planning to do with that meeting in the mission you kill him.
* In ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOpsIII'' has the second mission has the player going through a simulation where you have to stop a terrorist group from bombing a passenger train in Zurich. No motivation or even a ''name'' is given to this terrorist for the attack. This is subverted in the Alternative Universe Nightmares mode where both a name the Cotardist, and a motive (They believed the [[NotUsingTheZWord Undead]] were next step in humanities evolution and Zurich was at the the time the only city that was Zombie-Free)

* The protagonist of ''VideoGame/{{Hitman}}'' is nominally killing for money. But while in some games there was a given reason he needed the money, in ''[[VideoGame/HitmanBloodMoney Blood Money]]'' it was only used to buy upgrades so he could do more assassinations. Meanwhile, 47 was living in derelict warehouses. There is an overarching conspiracy going on, but 47 didn't care for it. He could've probably done the first 2, 3 hits without buying upgrades and live of the proceeds for the rest of his life, but he kills because he's been ''programmed'' to kill ''for his entire life'': it's all he's able to do. His attempt to retire at the opening of the second game only led to him being drawn back into the job. The money is just there to keep him on top of said job.
* Happens to the Divine Crusaders in ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsOriginalGeneration'' eventually. At first they have a clear goal for their terrorism. Sabotage and kill any corrupt politicians trying to make deals with alien invaders (which would essentially sell most of humanity into slavery so a few guys at the top could live cushy lives) and fight the Earth forces army in order to get them into fighting shape for the real force arrives, with the intention to graciously surrender or die when that is accomplish to let the EFA defend the planet. However quite a few guys only signed on for selfish or personal reasons (grudges against the EFA, genuine desire to conquer the world or just the desire for wanton violence and destruction they couldn't get with a lawful organization) and keep the organization going after most of the good people either died or left it. As a result in later games they come off as this, simply rebelling against the EFA for the sake of rebelling and blowing stuff up. Finally this all comes to a head in the 4th game where the Earth Forces are taken over by a ruthless violent faction dedicated to turning the planet into a police state....and most of the remaining Divine Crusaders sign on with them, showing that all they really want is to work for essentially "the bad guys" and cause violence and destruction without really caring about the cause.

* Scoia'tael in ''VideoGame/TheWitcher'' had basically [[MotiveDecay devolved into this]]. In the books, they fought on the side of invading Nilfgaard Empire, hoping that in return, the emperor will help them establish an independent elven country in Dol Blathanna. After invasion ultimately failed and Nilfgaard [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness went back on all their promises]], many Scoia'tael refused to put down their weapons, remained in hiding and continued their guerilla against Northern Kingdoms. By the time the video game adaptation takes place, they are reduced to a bunch of terrorists who randomly kill humans left and right just out of hatred and make the fate of non-humans trying to live peacefully even more miserable. What makes their ''modus operandi'' even more pointless is that for some reason, they were now joined by the dwarves (although in the books, dwarves were never a part of Scoia'tael and remained firmly on the side of Northern Kingdoms).

[[folder:WebOriginal]]

[[folder:WesternAnimation]]

** The Eco-Villains did have bizarre and psychotic reasons for doing what they did, however insane they seem to normal people. Three of them (Looten Plunder, Sly Sludge and Hoggish Greedly) were just greedy international corporate raiders, especially Greedly and Plunder. All they wanted was money, making them slightly better than your average [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Gordon Gecko-like corporate nutjob]]. They're pretty much the personification of rampant capitalism, with Greedly spiking into the realm of what the faux-intellectual call "anarcho-capitalism", that is, literally capitalism without boundries, either moral or ethical (or ''logical'' for that matter).
** Verminous Skumm and Duke Nukem had reasonably clear motives as well. The former was out to destroy humanity so he could rule the wreckage, and the latter was a walking nuclear battery that needed to spread radioactivity so that he could feed and survive (this is severely ironic because Nukem could have been an eco-hero if he had just applied his radiation-absorbing powers to existing nuclear waste, instead of trying to cause meltdowns at nuclear plants). Of the recurring villains, only Dr. Blight and Zarm were really wayward, pointless ForTheEvulz. Dr. Blight claims to do stuff ForScience or for profit or both, and Zarm at least had the excuse of literally being the GodOfEvil.

*** The tagline for the show and movie says their goal is world domination, but despite that they never really try to capture and control anything more than simply blow it up.

** Similarly, to most people the Hunters would ''seem'' like a group of terrorists (or at least, incredibly well armed militants willing to go to such lengths as blowing up the clock tower atop police headquarters) with no cause whatsoever... Unless you know the secret that gargoyles are actually a living, breathing species. [[DisproportionateRetribution One of whom scratched the face of someone about 950 years ago, and now their entire bloodline is sworn to hunting Gargoyles.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Archer}}'' has two Welsh "[[YourTerroristsAreOurFreedomFighters freedom fighters]]" plotting to blow up a dam, appearing in "Archub Y Morfilod". Archer asks about their cause, accidentally revealing they don't have one. They claim they are revolting because the British government flooded an ancient village. Archer is horrified that the government would something like that ForTheEvulz, only for the Welshmen to admit it was to bring more drinking water to the region. Archer is still appalled that thousands of people were displaced, only for them to admit only forty eight people were effected. Archer is still upset that those people were left homeless, only for them to admit that everyone was compensated and in many cases were now living in much, much nicer homes.

[[folder:RealLife]]

** One could argue that the reason these groups are so wildly self-contradictory is because the leaders recruit people using little more than cultural prejudices and peer pressure to ensure that they'll be too fanatical to bother questioning their orders or listen to an outsider. End result: a handful of men can raise an army of servants ready to do whatever they're asked simply to fit in. It's like a grand, horrifying version of high school cliques.

* More of Riots without A Cause, the 2011 England riots started because of a police shooting but involved burning shops and houses down and looting, which has nothing to do with a police shooting. This was lampshaded by a woman giving a speech on the streets when she said that the protest was supposed to be about a police shooting, not about robbing Shoe Locker and other shops.

* Possibly OlderThanFeudalism. Herostratus burned down the most famous of Artemis's temples [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity in order to become famous.]] [[UnPerson His sentence included his name being stricken from record and made even speaking it illegal to try and prevent this,]] although a later historian still passed it on.