Big Good / Other Media

aka: Other

Big Goods in Other Media. There are certain minor/supporting heroes that will become the major forces of good at some point of the plot/story, so beware of spoilers ahead.

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Multiple Media

• The Great Spirit Mata Nui in BIONICLE, particularly for the Matoran Universe, which he once contained. Although he doesn't lead anyone for much of the story (partly due to being in a coma, and partly because that isn't his original purpose), he is regarded by the Matoran Universe as God and has numerous agents acting out his will, or what they perceive as his will. Later on he becomes an active character, even The Hero for a short while, taking on the usual attributes of a normal Big Good, before giving up his position to let society go its own way instead of worshiping him.
  • The Great Beings serve as the Bigger Good, despite their small role, but they once ruled the planet Spherus Magna, made many technological advances for species such as the Agori and Glatorian, and built the Great Spirit massive robot, which by extension included Mata Nui himself, the Matoran universe and race, Tren Krom, Artakha, Karzahni, the Bohrok swarms, Toa Helryx, the first Rahi, and the Kanohi Ignika, or the Mask of Life.

Music

• Elluka Clockworker can be seen as this in the Evilious Chronicles series of Vocaloid songs by Akuno-P/mothy, considering how the songs revolve around villains representing the Seven Deadly Sins.

Mythology and Religion

• In the Abrahamic religions, Yahweh/God/Allah, obviously; in Christianity the same goes for His son, Jesus. While He is undoubtedly the universal Big Good, His narrative role in the universe is closer to that of a benevolent The Man Behind the Man (mostly because looking at Him makes you explode, which is something of an inconvenience when it comes to public speaking), and He generally has a prophet or representative^note Moses, The Kohanim, Kings Saul/David/Solomon, The Popes, Mohamed, etc. to serve as functional leader to handle day-to-day management and policymaking of the forces of good whenever He needs something done. Depending on your interpretation of His place in the universe however, it could be said that He isn't just the Big Good, because He is the Big Everything, because nothing is beyond His vision or power. Thus, even evil could theoretically be utilized for His purposes (although in what manner, and the precise nature of evil itself, are debatable).
• Hinduism has a plethora of these. Vishnu on a cosmic scale, some of his avatars like Rama on the wordly scale, and Indra of the early Rig Veda. Yudhishtir is another one. Interestingly, the different sects of Hinduism are distinguished by who they believe is the cosmic Big Good: for Vishnaivites it's Vishnu, for Shaivites it's Shiva, for Shaktas it's Devi, certain spin-off religions and the Hare Krishnas believe it's Vishnu's avatar Krishna, and Smartas give the Mathematician's Answer and say it's all of them.
• Classical Mythology: Say what you will about Top God Zeus/Jupiter, but he is the God of Order in a culture that believed order is good. He was the patron of justice, law, hospitality, kingship, and other things just about every ancient Greek citizen valued. Not to mention he was the father of several demigod heroes.
• Thor in Norse Mythology, god of thunder and protector and friend of humanity. Odin was sometimes considered this, sometimes not; most of the time he was regarded as a noble ruler (for better or for worse) from afar, while Thor was considered to be the one actually fighting for the humans on the frontlines.
• In Japanese Mythology (as well as works based upon the Japanese myths) the Sun goddess Amaterasu-Oomikami is almost always portrayed as both this and God of Good. All Shinto gods with any form of characterization at all have their moments of being Jerkass Gods, except for Amaterasu.
• Arthurian Legend: King Arthur, in his capacity as King of the Britons. Many of the stories focus on individual knights of the Round Table, such as Gawain, Lancelot or Perceval, with Arthur as something of a background character. However, he represents the benevolent authority that they are all loyal to (when things are going well, anyway).

Pinball

• In the Superman pinball game, the titular superhero is this, like in the comics. In fact, you have to spell his name to get extra points and light the Special.
• In the X-Men pinball game, Professor Xavier is this like in the comics, of course. The premise of the game is to assemble eight of his X-Men, then lead them to triumph against their various enemies.

Podcasts

• Sequinox has Gaea, the goddess of Earth who split her staff into four pieces amongst the four main girls to turn them into Sequinox.

Professional Wrestling

• Carlos Colón from the very beginning of CSP/WWC, being the first Puerto Rican wrestler to breakout as a star on the island itself. His role was temporarily usurped by his son, Carly, during the late 90s/early 2000s but after Carly left for Ohio Valley Wrestling and disowned his family Carlos gradually retook the role, as his other son, Eddie wasn't nearly the commanding presence, despite being a fine wrestler, and his daughter, Stacy, retired early.
• Jack Veneno on International Wrestling and in the Dominican Wrestling Federation, to the point "The great Poison tecnicosdel fighters" were the collective name for good guys in Dominican Republic wrestling...though technically the use of "poison" instead of veneno comes from his father, Maicoque Poison.
• Giant Baba typically served as such in All Japan Pro Wrestling, both as a wrestler and after as a promoter. In New Japan his role is mirrored by former BI Cannon partner Inoki, who has done many good things such as leading both North and South Korean officials in the honoring of Rikidozan and convincing Saddam Hussein to release Japanese prisoners, though his many Bad Boss tendencies and failed experiments lead him to lose his company.
• Los Tres Fantásticos ended up being the stars created by UWA's Los Misioneros de la Muerte saga, but the we all El Santo was ultimately the most important man involved, and not just because he was the initial target of Los Misioneros.
• Jackie Stallone in direct opposition to Aunt Kitty in GLOW, where almost every wrestler worked for one or the other, their feud becoming more pronounced in each subsequent season.
• Sting was the default leader of the WCW locker room 1990 through 96. Even after the nWo takeover, Sting in the rafters was whom everyone looked to for what to do next and he was the most successful wrestler against the faction. He was also this in TNA after forming The Main Event Mafia, yes, the stable intentionally designed to keep young talent down, of which he was the initial leader and still came off as the Token Good Teammate...who was, naturally, inevitably, betrayed by the more appropriately evil Kurt Angle.
• Jinsei Shinzaki, aka Hakushi, the unofficial leader of Michinoku Pro Wrestling in The Great Sasuke's absence and literal spiritual leader of the promotion.
• Mike Quackenbush is generally accepted to be The Leader of Chikara's tecnicos. Even Manami Toyota uses his special submission.
• A most unlikely candidate was Naoya Ogawa, a judoka disliked for his seeming lack of respect for pro wrestling, who lead the charge in defense of pro wrestling in Fighting Opera HUSTLE when Generalissimo Takada began his campaign to destroy the pro wrestling industry with his Monster Army. More traditional faces like Hard Gay might have been The Hero, from time to time, but only Magnum TOKYO ever came close to usurping Ogawa's overall role.
• John Zandig was a twisted example in the Ring of Honor-CZW feud, as he ultimately bared responsibility with Rob Feinstein, in a relationship that could equally be interpreted as Big Bad vs Big Good or Big Bad Ensemble and was treated as "good" when he took active command during what until then had been a passive standoff made active by Chris Hero. The closest thing to a straight example would have been Jimmy Bowers on the ROH side, who was still more of a jerkass than he needed to be to the CZW wrestlers, but to an understandable degree when they were threatening his contracted workers and trying to destroy his company.
• Kurt Angle, ironically, became this in TNA after Dixie Carter turned on the locker room in favor of putting herself in the spotlight and pushing her nephew, then MVP, who replaced her, became Drunk with Power after realizing his job as director of wrestling operations wasn't as secure as he thought. Yes, Angle, having fulfilled all of his pro wrestling desires by this time, became the Reasonable Authority Figure and when he did gain new aspirations he willingly stepped down to avoid becoming a Bad Boss.
• Back in the 80’s, the WWE had a man named Jack Tunney whose on-screen role was the President of the WWE. And unlike Vince McMahon and his family who came after, who often screwed over faces whenever possible, Tunney was a very respectable figure who often punished heels for doing egregiously bad things. For example, after Ted Dibiase came up with an elaborate plan to have André the Giant hand him the belt after making a false referee screw over Hulk Hogan, Tunney announced the following week that he was stripping Dibiase of the belt on the grounds that he had not won it cleanly.
• Around the turn of the 2010s, Vince McMahon seems to have settled into this role, being a face but only coming on TV once in a while to punish Heel authority figures. Occasionally he'll bust out the heel character he's more famous for, such as when he feuded with Roman Reigns in 2015.

Radio

• John Avery “Whit” Whittaker from Adventures in Odyssey is unquestionably this. It’s the reason why both kids and adults alike love and respect him.
• The Shadow from the radio series is the rare Pragmatic Hero version. While certainly not blanching at putting a permanent and lethal end to evil, and laughing like a maniac while he does it, The Shadow is firmly on the side of protecting the innocent.
  • His Big Good tendencies are more pronounced in the radio show where standards and practices forbade the Shadow actively killing.

Tabletop Games

• BattleTech:
  • Alexander Kerensky epitomizes this, during the Amaris Civil War, the Exodus and long after he is dead by both the Clans and the Inner Sphere.
  • Victor Steiner-Davion takes the role during the Clan Invasion, and the Fedcom civil war.
  • Devlin Stone is this in the Jihad. He rallied every major faction in the Inner Sphere(except the Cappellan Confederation) against the Word of Blake.
• Many of the Good-aligned deities in Dungeons & Dragons can fulfill this role, depending on the campaign. Heironeous is especially heroic (being defined by his enmity with Hextor, Lawful Evil god of Tyranny), and Pelor (God of the Sun and ultimate enemy of unlife) makes an excellent Big Good in a campaign centered around Undead (for example, "The World Born Dead" from Elder Evils).
  • on a more mundane level, Plenty of factions and their leaders can fulfill the role: The Lords Alliance, The Knights Of Solamnia Jaela Daran, for instance.
• The Unconquered Sun of Exalted was created to be an ultimate hero-type being in order to give the Cosmic Principle of Villainy, the Dragon's Shadow (eventually the Ebon Dragon) something to compare himself against and therefore the ability to actually do stuff.
• Interstitial: Our Hearts Intertwined lets you play as the Big Good using The Light playbook.
• Magic: The Gathering:
  • Urza fills out this role in the first several stories... in terms of leading the good guys anyway, since he's far from being a nice guy.
  • Ever since Urza died, Sorin Markov of all people takes up the mantle. He's not much of a nice guy either, but while he is wholly and completely selfish, he tends to take the long view of things; he finds a (relatively) peaceful and un-destroyed multiverse to be more enjoyable than the alternative, and thus tends to be very proactive about stopping potentially apocalyptic threats before they get to the part where they start breaking his stuff.
• In Massacards, that’s The Witness’s role. They know who The Killer is while having the job to help other alignments know who The Killer is. It's a good idea for The Witness to keep their role secret from other players because at hte end of a game, The Killer wins if they correctly guess The Witness's identity on the first try.
• Warhammer 40,000:
  • The Emperor of Mankind remains humanity's only defense against being snuffed out like a candle in a hurricane. As he's a near-corpse on a chair that eats humans, whose only real input on the Imperium is psychic landing lights through the warp, whether he's the actual "leader" as opposed to the figurehead whose will is interpreted by legions of bureaucrats and spread around the galaxy as literal gospel (as well as whether the Imperium itself is not the "Big Bad" itself) is uncertain. Several millennia later, the Ultramarine Primarch Roboute Guilliman was revived with the help of the Eldar and has since taken up this role for humanity.
  • Ethereal Aun'va served a similar role for the Tau Empire. He's so beloved by his people that if Aun'va is killed in battle, all Tau soldiers within sight enter Unstoppable Rage... with plasma guns. Unfortunately, an Imperium assassin slaughtered him and his retinue during the Second Damocles Crusade, but the Tau are using a hologram to keep up the appearance that he's alive, because his death would be devastating to Tau morale if word got out.
  • The Eldar goddess of life, Isha really wants to be this trope and actually has the power to make the 40K verse a better place. Too bad she is being held captive by Nurgle in the deepest pits of the warp and no one is even remotely strong enough to save her. And even if she was free, she would be on her own against four crazy powerful chaos gods...
• Warhammer has Emperor Karl Franz, Prince of Altdorf, Elector Count of Reikland, ruler of the Empire and Ascendant avatar of Sigmar.
• Warhammer: Age of Sigmar has the titular God-King Sigmar, ruler of the Celesial Realm and the leader of the Grand Alliance of Order. Gods allied with Sigmar often fill this trope to specific Realms — such as Tyrion and Teclis to Hysh, Realm of Light, or Allarielle to Ghyran, Realm of Life — Sigmar's just the one with the most reach and the biggest goal, that being driving Chaos out of the Mortal Realms and restoring civiliation across the Realms.

Theatre

• Annie: Franklin D. Roosevelt as portrayed in the show is a benevolent leader who gets the FBI to arrest the Hannigans for fraudently posing as Annie's parents and ushers in "A New Deal for Christmas" that will hopefully end The Great Depression.
  • This is, ironically, the exact opposite of how FDR is shown in the original comics. The creator Harold Gray was not a fan of the president, and FDR is written as an incompetent leader who is screwing over hardworking, honest, successful capitalists like Daddy Warbucks with his socialistic New Deal.
• Macbeth: Macduff is the prophesied man not "born of woman" who eventually defeats the despotic Macbeth.
• Duke Vincentio of Measure for Measure is the only one who can stop Lord Angelo's tyrannical rule over Vienna.

Webcomics

• The rabbit spirit in Blue Moon Blossom is a powerful Living MacGuffin that joins the bunny protagonist's adventuring party. It gladly defends the party from snake-spirits, apparently being the only entity capable of doing so, and even restores the other rabbits to life with the last of its power after they were turned to stone by said snake demons. But by the end, an argument could be made that the real Big Good is the dino, the bunny's constant traveling partner, given that it appears to be a rabbit prophet or possibly even god in disguise.
• Mr. Verres in El Goonish Shive, who is explicitly compared to both Dumbledore and Gandalf.
• Baron Klaus Wulfenbach from Girl Genius, assuming you label him one of the good guys. If you don't, he's at least the Vetinari, in that his rule keeps everyone from killing everyone else. This becomes obvious when he freezes Mechanicsburg, as well as himself, in time and is thus unavailable. Everything starts going bad immediately. Also, as posthumous or at least vanished characters, the Heterodyne Boys.
• Played with in Homestuck. Writ Keeper (formally the White King) is supposed to be this in a normal session of Sburb, leading the forces of Prospit and acting as an ally/mentor for the players. However the Kids session going Off the Rails results in an in-universe instance of Demoted to Extra and he ends up never interacting with the Kids. In the case of something like this happening, Wayward Vagabond is meant to take his place as Big Good and help the players beat the Final Boss instead. Yet again, the Kids session being messed up meant that he doesn't actually meet the Kids until it's way too late to fix things.
  • Later on, Roxy - Dave and Rose's mother - becomes this to the Kids after the Scratch renders her and the other ectobiological parents the Players instead of the Guardians. Dirk calls her the emotional crutch to just about everyone she meets.
  • Even later still, an alternate timeline version of Calliope - a cherub who will eventually exist in the distant future - becomes the ultimate force of good and is key in defeating her brother Caliborn/Lord English (the ultimate force of evil) by draining him of his power.
• The Order of the Stick: Lord Shojo, leader of the Sapphire Guard and ruler of Azure City, largely fills the role for a time in the comic while Azure City remains a major base for the good guys. His nephew Hinjo succeeds him, but his claims for relevance are less impressive.
  • For the dwarves of Firmament, we have Sigdi Thundershield, mother of the party's cleric Durkon Thundershield, who leads an entire clan of extended adopted family members from the five dwarves she resurrected before Durkon was even born.
• In Spinnerette, the leader of the American Superhero Association, a mix of lobbying group for superhero interests and hero support organization, is a time-traveling Benjamin Franklin.

Web Original

• Fine Structure: Mitch Calrus, AKA Xio, is one of two Eldritch Abominations sealed in our universe. He's the one opposed to senselessly destroying all sentience.
• Hero House features Optimus Prime in this role, fittingly enough.
• In Mario Brothers, Princess Toadstool rules over the Mushroom people and can produce life-giving mushrooms from nothing.
• Queen Fyora and the faeries in general (barring the occasional Obviously Evil one) are considered this in Neopets.
• The Nostalgia Critic has Santa Christ, who atones for all our sins, also eats pancakes, saves puppies from a fire and also eats pancakes. And Critic himself, after taking on the Plot Hole in To Boldly Flee, giving him higher ranking and therefore giving him the ability to ask Santa Christ to bring Spoony back from the dead and tell all his other friends that everything is fine now.
• The Yostwell of The Questport Chronicles, according to legend. It disappeared after a Heroic Sacrifice millennia ago, but left behind a relic with a portion of its power.
• Zig-Zagging Trope in SCP Foundation. The O5 council and SCP Foundation have taken the role to combat XK-level threats, but serve primarily the status quo and have few lines they won’t cross.
  • in SCP-5000 (“Why”) The Global Occult Coalition take on the role in the resistance against the SCP Foundation, even managing to recruit SCP-076-2 (“Able”) to protect Ganzir, which holds up against numerous assaults. The SCPF manages to destroy it and shatter the coalition, then breaks up The Church Of The Broken God when they try to lead.
• Shadowhunter Peril has Nuriel, Puriel, Bezaliel, and Ra. The first three are angels of God, while Ra is the last King of the Phoenix Dynasty, and commands a great army made up of Noble Bird of Prey. By the end of the final battle, Nuriel and Ra are both dead. Bezaliel and Puriel each get a Moment of Awesome. Puriel kills Oblivion for killing Ra and Nuriel, and Bezaliel calls for much needed reinforcements with his voice.
• In The Sydney Scroungers, Rachel Zhu, the Marshall of the Sydney Shatterdome is revealed to be this after the first story arc.
• Whateley Universe: Whateley Academy's headmistress Elizabeth Carson. Even the villains generally respect her.
• Worm:
  • The triumvirate, made up of Alexandria, Legend, and Eidolon, are acknowledged as the most powerful heroes in the world, excepting Scion.
  • Dragon, the world's finest Tinker, who supplies the PRT and Protectorate with their advanced technology, coordinates their responses to large-scale threats, and mass-produces superhuman-tier combatant combat suits. She also happens to be a spectacular aversion of A.I. Is a Crapshoot, being secretly an artificial intelligence who is still one of the kindest and most moral individuals in the setting.
  • Scion, the messianic golden man who spends all his time flying all over the world and helping people.
  • Taylor/Skitter ends up as Khepri, and saves the world from being destroyed from Scion-turned-evil.
• All of the Netkings in TVTome Adventures and its revamp, TOME, with the exceptions of EXE and Rubirules, respectively. In TOME, SOFDTI is the best example, though.
• RWBY:
  • Professor Ozpin is the enigmatic headmaster of Beacon Academy, a man with a strange knowledge of the secret history of the world, which legends are actually true, and what the real threat to humanity's existence is. While he acts as a wise advisor to the heroine Ruby Rose and other students, he is also the leader of a secret Benevolent Conspiracy of Huntsmen that are trying to use the true legends to protect humanity against the equally enigmatic Big Bad, and Ozpin's Arch-Nemesis, Salem. The four Huntsmen Academies were created to hide and protect four dangerous, divine Relics that Salem needs to destroy humanity. In Volume 3, she successfully destroys Beacon Academy, leaving the protagonists to drift without direction in Volume 4, unaware that Ozpin can Body Surf to escape death into a new host that possesses his identical Aura and Soul. While the protagonists struggle to survive, Ozpin struggles to convince his new host, Oscar, to accept his destiny as the guide the protagonists so desperately need. When the heroes learn the Awful Truth about Ozpin and Salem's past, they turn on him and he disappears from Oscar's mind. He only returns at the end of Volume 7 when General Ironwood's attempt to take up the mantle of Big Good fails.
  • Ironwood sees himself as the only person who can lead the fight against Salem when Professor Ozpin disappears. Atlas controls most of the global Dust mining and trade, contains the world's largest military and is the most technologically advanced kingdom in the world. He controls the Atlesian Council by holding two seats and designating certain projects, missions and decisions as 'military classification' which enables him to circumvent the authority of the council entirely. Volume 7 explores the growing concern among the Council, kingdom's citizens and heroes over his decisions and determination to concentrate power and control in the hands of himself and a few hand-picked supporters. He is determined to avoid the mistakes Ozpin made, so shares as much information as he dares with the heroes. However, it's his determination to avoid the mistakes of the cowardly Leo that cause the biggest problems. In the face of fear, he becomes paranoid and controlling. By the end of the volume, he has descended so far into fear that his decision to institute martial law and abandon Mantle to save Atlas turns the heroes against him. When Oscar fails in his last effort to bridge the divide and observes that Ironwood is now as dangerous as Salem, Ironwood shoots him, cementing his subversion of the Big Good trope by triggering the return of the actual Big Good, Ozpin.

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