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Analysis / Anti-Villain
aka: Sliding Scale Of Anti Villains

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Much like how Anti-Heroes can be vastly different from each other, so can Anti-Villains. This scale is a measure of how ambiguous an Anti-Villain is, goes from A Lighter Shade of Black to being indistinguishable from the good guys. Inversely related to Sliding Scale of Antagonist Vileness. Can contribute to Sliding Scale of Villain Threat and Sliding Scale of Villain Effectiveness. Compare with Sliding Scale of Anti-Heroes.

Noble and Woobie Anti-Villains are often a darker shade of grey (or A Lighter Shade of Black, if they are unambiguously evil), while Well-Intentioned and In Name Only varieties tend to be a lighter shade (with the latter even being in a Good Versus Good situation sometimes).

Works with an Enlightenment leaning tend to make frequent use of Woobie and Well-Intentioned anti villains, showing the villain as a product of society or simply misguided.

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Noble Anti-Villain

Although they may choose to be evil and perhaps embrace their villainous reputation, when the time comes for them to walk the walk, they turn away. This type of anti villain has a set of standards, certain lines that they will never cross. As such, they are the first one to say Even Evil Has Standards when faced with someone who offends said code of conduct. Unlikely to Kick the Dog but will Pet the Dog. Often accompanied by a Morality Pet. Alternatively, villainy is just a job to put food on the table, thus it's never personal. Placed higher on the "evilness" scale than Woobies because villainy is usually a choice rather than something they are driven to. The Noble type is the common definition of the Anti-Villain.

The defining Trope for this type of Anti-Villain would be the Noble Demon (emphasizing the "noble" aspect).

Related Tropes: Noble Top Enforcer, Hitman with a Heart, Minion with an F in Evil, Would Not Shoot a Civilian, Never Hurt an Innocent, Even Evil Has Standards, Wouldn't Hurt a Child, and My Master, Right or Wrong.

    Examples 
Anime & Manga
  • Greed of Fullmetal Alchemist. He may try to paint himself as self-centered, but he cares deeply for his followers. He's also the only Homunculus who doesn't resent humans or is a cold-blooded psychopath. And he's the only Affably Evil villain in the series as well. It's no surprise that he later becomes an Anti-Hero in the series.
  • Yureka: Lotto is self-loving, manipulative, and excessively vengeful, but is also capable of caring about those around him.
  • Tia Harribel of Bleach.
  • In One Piece, we have Bartholomew Kuma.
  • Viral from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is quite honorable, despite always wanting to enact revenge on Kamina for tarnishing his reputation and pride.note  Here are several examples:
    • Just after the Hot Springs Episode, he not-so-politely asks the heroes to Please Put Some Clothes On and allows them to arm themselves before fighting him.
    • When he confronts Simon and Yoko over Kamina's whereabouts, and eventually accepts Simon as his new rival, he agrees to a fair one-on-one duel.
    • When said duel is interrupted by Cytomander, who takes Yoko hostage and orders Viral to perform a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on Gurren Lagann, Viral refuses and sheathes his axe, knowing that his honor cannot be regained that way.
  • The Team Rocket trio of Pokémon: The Series fame were this to start with before moving down into In Name Only territory. During Best Wishes, they and the rest of the Team Rocket organization are firmly in this territory. Afterwards, they regain many of their comical traits, but are frequently shown to still be quite dangerous.
  • En, from Dorohedoro. He might rule over the world of Magic Users World with an iron fist, but apparently things were way worse and somehow even more Darwinian before he took over. And to his own men, he’s a truly benevolent boss who shows patience incredible for a villain around the zanier members of his Yakuza-like Family, and is fully willing to intercede in their lives on their behalf if they merely ask. Just don’t try to betray him or dishonor what it means to be a Magic User.

Comic Books

  • Diabolik may be the King of Terror, but he will not harm children (or anyone particularly sympathetic actually), has little tolerance for human traffickers and drug smugglers and zero tolerance for rapists and biological weapons, tries to avoid collateral damage (not that he cares when he has to cause it), respects those who give him a run for his money, and will always keep his word.
  • Deadpool depending on the day of the week (In his worst moments, he's Faux Affably Evil). With his Blue-and-Orange Morality and all.
  • The Eddie Brock version of Venom from Spider-Man became this (originally, he was just a psychotic Knight Templar).
  • Julius Caesar in Asterix. He isn't above tricking people, but within far more defined limits than Asterix himself, generally being more clever than he is deceitful. He always keeps his promises, treats people below his station and even his enemies with respect (even when they're really annoying), and is one of the few Roman politicians we see who isn't plotting to backstab everyone else, stealing money from the state, being completely ineffectual, or fantasizing about getting the Gaulish magic potion and using it to kill their friends and become god-emperor. It should be noted that in no way is he a nice guy, though - he's still a colonialist tyrant who tries to have people executed, is delighted by various Villain of the Week characters with bizarre and horrible gifts, and is trying to destroy a culture's way of life simply because they're getting on his nerves.
  • The Rogues from The Flash comics. "The Rogues are all about the score."

Fan Fic

  • Dr. Brainstorm of Calvin & Hobbes: The Series tends to fall into this, though usually he's a straight-up Harmless Villain.
    • Discussed in "Thunderstorm":
      Dr. Brainstorm: Because I want to be the heroic villain, okay? There's got to be at least one time where I'm the one who has a victory!
  • Princess Ceymi from MLP Collateral Damage and Without a Hive is a classic Noble Demon. She genuinely believes that the Changelings must be ruthless to survive, and she is loyal to her Hive and Queen Chrysalis. She herself avoids any unnecessary cruelty, and does not like to kill Ponies — though she will if she is ordered to or believes that she has no better choice.

Film

  • Parker, though brutal, usually goes after the Asshole Victim (most of the time) and tries to mitigate excessive intimidation unlike in the novel he is based on.
  • The Chronicles of Riddick has the titular character. He fits better than the other film incarnations, since he's shown to have a more pronounced sense of honor, while still retaining the murderous and renegade nature we know him for.
  • General Miura in Ip Man. He's still a general of the brutal Japanese occupation, but he's shown to be honorable and detested the more extreme measures of his underlings.
  • Pterano from The Land Before Time VII: The Stone of Cold Fire. He's not above kidnapping, but he does make a point to strike his own henchmen to punish them for two things he considers intolerable: violence and asking redundant questions (though the latter is disproportionate on his part).
    Pterano: If there's one thing I will not tolerate, it's violence!
    Rinkus: Then why are you hitting me?
    Pterano: Right... make that two things: violence and stupid questions!
    • He then becomes The Atoner toward the end when he has a flashback to the last time he tried leading a group of dinosaurs to the Great Valley and instead lead them to their deaths due to his arrogance.
  • Junjo from The Streetfighter is a mixture of a Noble and Woobie. Even for a criminal martial artist driven to avenge his siblings, he still fights fairly with Terry.
  • Long John Silver in the Muppets version is very charming, polite, and actually cares for Jim. He even goes out of his way to protect Jim at one point.

Literature

  • Artemis Fowl and by extension, Butler, but only in the early books before they lean more towards Anti-Heroism.
  • Napoleon in the Temeraire series. Indeed he often comes off as better than the people running Britain.
  • Harry Potter has quite a few characters among the Death Eaters who learn the hard way that they're not quite as evil and twisted as Voldemort wants them to be, such as Draco Malfoy and, more sympathetically, Regulus Black.
  • Admiral Sam Trang of the Kollin brothers Unincorporated series at least at first. He starts with very strict ideas of military conduct and honor. Unfortunately that military code includes I Gave My Word and My Country, Right or Wrong and because the President of the UHF is a murderous scumbag, he finds himself Jumping Off the Slippery Slope despite his best intentions. Then his wife is killed during the Avatar War and he briefly goes completely to the Dark Side before then having a Heel–Face Turn.
  • In the Star Wars Expanded Universe Boba Fett fits this trope nicely. He is a thoroughly Consummate Professional, and while he will work for anyone who can afford his prices, he does have a code of honour and a sense of justice. His justice is just much more direct and no-nonsense. The "evil" in him comes from the fact that he believes order, no matter how it is achieved, is preferable to chaos; so he'll work for a genocidal xenophobic totalitarian faction like the Galactic Empire because he genuinely believes it's better than the alternative of chaos across the galaxy without a unifying power. But he has standards and acts on them frequently, refusing jobs that do not meet his exacting standard of justice or outright refusing to do things that he considers wrong, like sniping the clone of Starkiller when he was distracted kissing Juno Eclipse.

Live-Action TV

  • Jesse Pinkman from Breaking Bad, when we first meet him. Through Character Development, he gradually shifts down the scale, and now spends most of his days as a Woobie.
    • Mike could count as Noble. He never hesitates to kill, but he never holds any grudges and only kills because it is his job.
  • Garak in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine does have standards, and is usually quite friendly to the station staff. He is also quite utterly unapologetic about the rather horrifying things he has done (and does).
  • Both Mr.Gold/Rumpelstiltskin and Captain Hook from Once Upon a Time: sinister, manipulative, and generally remorseless about the pain they inflict on others, yet possessing noble qualities and being able to do great good in addition to great evil.

Video Games

  • In the Fire Emblem series:
  • Planet Eater Pyron from Darkstalkers started out as a full straight villain in his debut, but then his ending in the third game indicates that he evolved into this as he began to show curiousity and respect toward Earth and its inhabitants, and chose to not destroy it at the end.
  • Heihachi Mishima from Tekken. While a dickhead, he's got some soft spots to prevent him to be equal or even worse than Kazuya.
  • For a short time, Anji Mito from Guilty Gear, crossing with In Name Only. Unlike Litchi below, Anji has no desperation or pressure to make him join That Man and joins out of complete, unpushed free will (and HIGH level of curiosity) rather than being forced. However, despite all that, he's still friendly as ever to even That Man's nemesis (Sol), tried to befriend May at one of her endings, and in any moment he met Baiken, after one fight, he calls it quits.
  • The Bonne Family from Mega Man Legends series. Tron Bonne especially, as she even becomes an Anti-Hero in certain spin-off and crossover games.
  • Dr. Colress from Pokémon Black 2 and White 2, who has shades of Well-Intentioned as well due to doing what he does For Science!.
  • Pre-Heel–Face Turn Axel Almer in Super Robot Wars: Original Generation. He's still dedicated in kicking the good guys' ass, but he's more of a Noble Demon and his true enemy is actually Beowulf and is actually preventing him to 're-materialize' in that world after seeing the brutality Beowulf caused in his world.
  • Sagat before Street Fighter Alpha 3, he willingly became a subordinate of Bison in order to get stronger and embraced his status as one of Shadoloo's Four Devas. But over time, he developed into a Noble Demon who is disgusted by Bison's more underhanded methods of granting strength and eventually ditches him for good to resume a more healthy rivalry with Ryu.
  • Augus from Asura's Wrath, who only fights him because he fights for the strongest side, and actually treats up Asura's wounds from fighting Kalrow's space fleet before fighting him.
  • Magus from Chrono Trigger. Everyone thought he was summoning Lavos to win his war in the Middle Ages. Turns out Lavos destroyed Magus' home and family in the Dark Ages and the whole war was so he'd have an army strong enough to defeat it. While in the past it's shown he's always been pretty cold, but he offers your party advice on how to save Crono and his childhood pet cat follows him around very willingly.
  • This area would be the most charitable portrayal towards Nova Terra, as she's mostly using a Consummate Professional and Punch-Clock Villain attitude, but she shows genuine concern about how the possibility of breaking out New Folsom prison will have dire consequences, aside of Spectres released (she might be misinformed or lying, but she was trying to keep the galaxy safe, and New Folsom does not only contain anti-Mengsk people), and if that happens, she'll cite that event as why she's convinced that Raynor really is being a threat to the galaxy. And there's the rumors that she's constantly brainwashed by Mengsk, because it's a Ghost thing...

Visual Novels

  • Assassin/Sasaki Kojiro in Fate/stay night embraces his status as Caster's 'gate guardian' and enjoys warding off the heroes from whatever Caster's planning, but he's incredibly polite and only in it because of the good fight he gets from the heroes, without ill-wills and if they beat him fair and square, he'll congratulate them. Essentially, a Noble Demon.

Web Comics

  • Sebastian of True Villains seems to be this; his morals often conflict with his villainy, and he admits to turning to evil because of the adventure it offered him. When faced with the option to kill his rival, he lets Gray live, even though he broke the rules of their duel.

Western Animation

  • Ed, Edd n Eddy: The Kanker Sisters (May, Marie, and Lee) are this in The Movie. After learning the Eds are in trouble, they drop everything and capture their pursuers. Also, they are visibly outraged (Lee) and terrified (Marie) after Eddy's brother shows his true colors and beats up Eddy and Edd.
  • David Xanatos of Gargoyles teeters between this and Pragmatic Villainy. He's far from the purest human being ever to live, but knows that "revenge is a sucker's game," ends up Happily Married, and eventually comes to terms with the titular gargoyles, all without ever quite pulling a Heel–Face Turn.
  • Despite considering himself an official villain, Puma Loco from El Tigre puts his family in first place than his criminal schemes (at least most of the time), and is often seen helping his grandson Manny and his son White Pantera in beating up the other criminals of Miracle City.
  • Ultra-Humanite in Justice League is quite morally ambiguous for a villain. While he does a series of serious crimes, like blowing up a modern art museum because he despises Modernism, he also tends to help the heroes in certain occasions. A particular example is in the Christmas Episode where he helps the Flash giving a desired toy to a group of orphans.
  • Tom of Tom and Jerry, Depending on the Writer. Although he does get sadistic pleasure out of tormenting Jerry and at the beginning of some shorts is shown doing so, in other shorts he's really only forced to go after Jerry by his owner. Jerry does his share of provoking their battles as well, sometimes to the point of Disproportionate Retribution, and sometimes even just because he feels like it.
  • Dreadwing of Transformers: Prime. Undying Loyalty to Megatron and the Decepticon cause, Combat Pragmatist and Mad Bomber, but shows honor, gratitude and respect to Optimus Prime and the Autobots. In the end, Starscream's defilement of Skyquake's body causes Dreadwing to turn on the Decepticons (though he makes it clear that he's not defecting to the Autobots), only for Megatron to execute him.
  • In the show, ''Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?' the title villain, Carmen, steals various objects around the planet and her infamy is so grand, all law enforcement around the world know her by name. However, she never results to violence in her crimes, be it during her thefts or eluding her pursuers. It is a rule she actively follows that she has, on more than one occasion, saved ACME agents, and has berated those working for her when they try to kill the agents.
  • Jack Spicer from Xiaolin Showdown. He is not seen as very evil by any of the other characters. He also will help the Xiaolin dragons, and in one episode, he was neutral. In one episode, he actually turned good.

Woobie Anti-Villain

It's obvious that these types of villains don't WANT to be evil; circumstances just make them out to be. They may act out of Undying Loyalty, love for someone, or maybe they're simply fighting for their own survival. Others are broken cuties who have snapped and want to end their suffering by destroying everything. Usually they are suffering from their alignment. The characters garner our sympathy not because their goal is good but because we can see how the Crapsack World made them the way they are. Often suffer from a damaged psyche. Anti-Villains in this category may become true villains, but they're also just as likely to turn into an Anti-Hero. (Alternately, they may have fallen from said category.)

A lot (although by no means all) of Buffyverse vampires/demons fall into this category. They will tend to be driven to their villainous acts by something within their biology. One example would be vampires who don't necessarily want to kill people, but it's simply that they find human blood to be much more nutritious or tastier than that of animals.

The defining trope for this type of Anti-Villain would be a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds.

Related Tropes: Fallen Hero, Sympathetic Murderer, Jerkass Woobie, Non-Malicious Monster, Tragic Villain, and a typical Dark Magical Girl.

    Examples 
Anime & Manga

Comic Books

  • Mr. Freeze in Batman post-influence from the animated series. All he wants is to find a cure for his wife's terminal illness, but society itself denies him the opportunity to legally do so.
  • Mikhail Rasputin, elder brother of Colossus of the X-Men. He means well every time he appears, but every single time he tries to do something good, it backfires, either because of his power or his dangerous, unstable mental state.
  • Depending on the Writer, another example from the X-Men is Toad, who is often depicted as more pathetic than menacing and occasionally not even malevolent. Cursed with extremely unstable, borderline-useless powers and a life where being caught in a Humiliation Conga is a good day (on a bad day, it's the Trauma Conga Line), Toynbee seems cursed to forever be the Butt-Monkey of the X-universe itself. And the tragic thing is, all the guy really wants most of the time is a place to fit in. Instead, he gets abused and mistreated no matter which side he's on.
  • Ultimate Spider-Man has the Ultimate version of Shocker, who was originally just a naïve scientist who worked hard and was a productive employee for Roxxon, only to be screwed out of all his patents by his employers apparently just because they could. Feeling that he had no other options, Shocker turned to supervillainy, only to be treated like a joke after several humiliating defeats at the hands of Spider-Man.

Films — Animation

  • Yokai/Robert Callaghan from Big Hero 6. His actions are horrible and menacing, but he's also a grieving Papa Wolf who clearly shows remorse at the end.
  • Agatha Prenderghast from ParaNorman is just an angry little girl lashing out at everyone out of revenge.

Films — Live-Action

  • Big Daddy from Kick-Ass. He may be a bit mixed with Well-Intentioned, but he's closer to this once you see what happened to him five years ago.
  • Anakin Skywalker / Darth Vader from the Star Wars prequels, Well-Intentioned Extremist and Love Martyr who turns to The Dark Side because Love Makes You Evil.
  • Loki from Thor was doing the wrong things for the right reasons. Or maybe not "right reasons," but definitely "tragically understandable." He lets the Jotuns into Asgard to prevent Thor from becoming king because he is not ready, he brings them back to Asgard so as to appear to save his father from an assassination attempt, and then attempts to destroy Jotunheim so as to rid Asgard of that threat. At its heart, it was all an attempt to prove to his father that he was just as worthy of his pride and affection as Thor.

Literature

  • Simone and her sisters in Moon Over Soho. Never asked or set out to be what they became (and weren't even truly aware of it until the end), and whose origin was entirely accidental.
  • The "monster" from Frankenstein. He actually recounts how all his thoughts were extremely noble when he had just been hiding and listening to people, but when he actually tried to interact with them and was feared, he became bitter and nasty. This slides it towards Informed Attribute, but the actual events in the novel also give good enough grounds to say this trope applies, especially when the protagonist Dr. Frankenstein is not very heroic himself.
  • Fëanor, Maedhros, and Maglor from The Silmarillion. Mass murderers, but they are bound by an unbreakable oath to recover the Silmarils from anyone, at any cost. All three swore the oath of their own volition, and only Maglor regrets it at the end.
  • Nuada in Alien in a Small Town was born into his people's Warrior caste and really only wanted to be a soldier. Instead, for political reasons, he and most of his kin were shuffled off to a miserable reservation, far from public view, and treated as little more than prisoners all his life. He escaped and was forced to live in hiding in a wilderness for years more, driving him out of his mind. All that said, the eagerness with which he takes to killing for its own sake is nothing good.
  • Carrie from the eponymous book and its film adaptations eventually becomes a Woobie Anti-Villain Protagonist due to her mistreatment over the course of the story, leading up to her infamous rampage.

Live-Action TV

  • The Master from Doctor Who is revealed to be this trope given that the only reason he does what he does is because he's been driven absolutely insane by the drums in his head, and that the drumming was put there deliberately (and in Big Finish Doctor Who the Master was made into Death's Champion without his consent). However, the fact that he takes a lot of joy in the death and suffering he causes makes him a bit less sympathetic than other examples of this trope.
  • Once Upon a Time:
    • Jefferson aka the Mad Hatter from. He's pushed into what he does by Regina's manipulation and betrayal plus love of his daughter. Also he's been driven more than a bit crazy by his time in Wonderland and being one of the few conscientious people in Storybrooke. Subsequent episodes reveal that he was once far more ruthless, and actually helped corrupt Regina and drive her past the Despair Event Horizon.
    • Regina a.k.a The Evil Queen. She struggled hard to avoid becoming evil, but fate itself seemed to conspire against her and the more pain she was put through, the more evil she became.
    • The entire reason that Rumpelstiltskin became the Dark One was to save his son from the Ogre War. His whole background and motivation for doing evil is based around his love for his son. Not to mention that his village and his father Peter Pan belittle him and treated him badly his entire life.
  • The Red Queen of Once Upon a Time in Wonderland. Everything she has done working with Jafar has simply been so she can help him change the rules of magic, allowing her to change the past, in which she abandoned her true love Will Scarlet in order to be queen.
  • Richard Harrow in Boardwalk Empire. An expert killer, utterly broken by his experiences and injuries in the trenches of the First World War. His only friend, Jimmy, is a gangster who has a use for Harrow's skills. Harrow has therefore murdered a couple of dozen people on screen, many of them without even asking why.
  • Cole Turner in Charmed. An Ascended Demon who tries to use his powers for good, but is repeatedly turned evil because of the corrupting nature of his powers, Demonic Possession by the Source of All Evil, or the Charmed Ones refusing to believe that he's actually good.
  • Barca from Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Although he is occasionally a Jerk Jock, all of the truly evil things he does, he does because he is a slave and his master orders him too. He does occasionally show regret about his actions, especially in front of Pietros
  • Alicent Hightower from House of the Dragon. As a young girl, she was sweet and shy, but her own father forced her to marry the father of her best friend and the king at barely 16 years old. After years of a miserable marriage to an older man she becomes emotionally unstable, loses all the sympathy for Rhaenyra, and installs her rapist son as king, usurping the truthfully rightful heir to the throne. And even than, she still wants to avoid a civil war with Rhaenyra and getss angry when she learns her father plans to kill Rhaenyra behind her back.

Tabletop Games

Theater

  • Benjamin Barker, a barber, was such a nice guy with a beautiful wife and daughter before a corrupt judge banished him from London, sexually assaulted his wife, and then engaged in some Wife Husbandry with his daughter. It doesn't excuse his becoming Sweeney Todd, who murders all his customers and gives them to his Psycho Supporter Ms. Lovett to cook into meat pies and sell to unsuspecting Londoners for a nice profit. And yet he's one of the most sympathetic characters in the Crapsack World of the musical.

Video Games

  • Barry Burton in Resident Evil. Wesker threatened his wife, so he went along with betraying the STARS unit.
  • Brad Kilstein in Psychic Force. He's actually pretty decent provided his Split Personality doesn't take over.
  • Zero's girlfriend Iris from Mega Man X4. She didn't take Colonel's death well...
  • Reptile in Mortal Kombat. It's nearly a Running Gag that if you don't off him, his superiors screw him over. Unlike most of the villains, who seek power, his only goal is to resurrect his race, of which he is the sole survivor. He did get a bit better in Mortal Kombat X when he's under the employment of the much more benevolent Kotal Kahn (but not much, considering the game) who treats him with respect, but seeing that Kotal Kahn eventually stood opposed to Earthrealm later...
  • Walter Sullivan from Silent Hill 4 may count. He's just a little kid who wants his mom back. Plus he was raised by a cult of manipulative bastards.
  • The real Overlord Zenon from Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories is this trope. "Everyone who has ever come close to me, has betrayed me..."
  • Jack Krauser is retroactively implied to be of this trope in Resident Evil 4, as Darkside Chronicles explains that his reasons for turning to Wesker was because that was the only option left for him to do the thing he did well at, fighting, after his mission with Leon resulted in him being fired from SOCOM due to an arm injury that never recovered.
  • Dr Stahngun/Dimitri Allen in Professor Layton and the Unwound Future. He's only villainous in order to bring back the woman he loved. Layton even acknowledges he'd never go so far as to kill anyone.
  • Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer features the Founder, the definition of Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds. She inflicted the Player Character with a soul-eating curse and set into motion events that threaten the very fabric of the Forgotten Realms, all to save her lover from the Wall of the Faithless.
  • Yasha from Asura's Wrath is a combination of this, In Name Only, and Stoic Woobie, who is the only one of the deities that turned on Asura to feel legitimate regret for forcing humanity into a Martyrdom Culture after betraying Asura.
  • The Locusts from Gears of War were revealed to be this, despite being Always Chaotic Evil. It turned out that they were fighting a losing war against the Lambent and they invaded the surface world as a means of survival.
  • Shadow the Hedgehog starts out as this in his debut, as he seeks revenge on humanity for the death of his first and only friend, Maria. He later becomes an anti-hero, then later a hero.
  • In the Fire Emblem series:
    • Idunn, the True Final Boss of Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade. She's actually the last of her kind, trying to resurrect the species, which humans had driven away from Elibe.
    • King Zephiel. The prequel shows he was once a kind-hearted ace prince who probably would have made a fine king. Shame his asshole father drove him into misanthropic insanity by trying to kill him at least twice (and nearly succeeding the second time). His sister, Princess Guinevere, says how after King Desmond almost succeeded in poisoning Zephiel (and said poison was implied to be something along the lines of mercury), he was never the same again. He comes to the conclusion that humans are responsible for the evil in the world, and that it would be better off being returned to the dragons.
    • Yen'fay from Fire Emblem: Awakening. He's forced to be a general in an army hellbent on conquering the world because his sister is under constant watch, and leaving his position will result in her dying from the army's spies.
  • The 3,000 year-old king AZ from Pokémon X and Y. Formerly the ancient king of Kalos from 3000 years ago, his Floette, one he loved very much, ended up in the great war, and died, being brought to AZ in a small coffin. This saddened, yet angered AZ, creating a machine that would revive his Floette. he succeeded, but his pain and anger was too great, as he converted his machine into an ultimate weapon that ended the war in one fell swoop. Yet after all this, his Floette, shocked and saddened at his action, left him, as he killed many Pokemon to power his machine. The resulting energy left him and Floette immortal, reducing him to Walking the Earth, trying to atone for his sins. He succeeds in the end, finally letting go of his anger and meeting his Floette after 3000 years of trying to find. "Sniff".
  • Cyrus from Pokémon Diamond and Pearl. While his goal is villainous to those outside, he only wishes to rid the world of the emotions that plagued him for his life. While he does have a lake where a spirit needed to create something for his plan bombed, as well as two others planned for the same fate, he does as little harm as possible in the process and releases the spirits after he completes what he needed them for. He treats his Pokémon and allies great as well, if his Crobat and one of the Galactic admins going into the Distortion World when it closes so he won't be alone are any indication. He also has shades of feeling like he's in too deep to stop, considering how he acts towards the player.
  • Super Paper Mario:

Visual Novels

  • Rider/Medusa from Fate/stay night, throughout the whole series. Her past involves getting bullied by sisters as well as humans and turning into a monster and her resolve in joining the war is simply to protect Sakura simply because they're kindred spirits. Too bad that Sakura handed down the Master status to Shinji and Rider also suffered her abuses, but since it's what Sakura wanted and all to protect her, Rider had to embrace her status as a 'villain'.
    • Even when she is returned to Sakura's control, she still fits this, being quite willing to kill Shirou and Rin if necessary to save Sakura (even if Sakura herself is opposed). In Hollow Ataraxia, she even admits that she would happily destroy the entire city if necessary to save Sakura.
  • Takano from Higurashi: When They Cry takes and interesting yet disturbing approach on Woobies. Her motive for uncovering the truth about Hinimizawa Syndrome starts out noble enough, but due to a combination of desperation and severe PTSD from her experience with the Orphanage of Fear, she becomes progressively more insane as time passes.
  • Kiryuu Moeka from Steins;Gate. Her villainous acts are done on behalf of her superior, FB, who took advantage of her weakened psyche when she was contemplating suicide. Moeka states that she would do anything if FB asked her to.

Web Comics

  • In 151 Hidden Depths, Diglett becomes this after evolving into Dugtrio. Being small led him to be rejected from joining the Pokemon Police Force so he proves he's a force to be reckoned with by destroying cities.

Web Original

  • Dr. Horrible from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is a combination of this and Well-Intentioned until his Despair Event Horizon caused by Penny's death plunges him into complete villainy. Even so, he retains traces of this, given his decidedly depressing turn for the worse.
  • Flippy from Happy Tree Friends. He's a nice guy always happy to help people, but his time in the war left him with a sadistic, murderous Split Personality that emerges to kill everyone around him whenever something (like loud, sudden noises or flashing lights) reminds him of said war. In the "Double Whammy" two-parter, he gets deeply remorseful and traumatised when his good side comes back and sees the carnage.

Western Animation

  • The Ice King of Adventure Time, especially after the revelation that he used to be normal until he tried an antique crown that resulted in a loss of sanity, along with gradually gaining supernatural ice powers and becoming unsightly, leading to his present self.
    • A lot of fans see Lemongrab as being this. Even though he did pretty horrible things, he was described by Word of God as "not evil- just completely unadjusted to living" and "dysfunctional," thanks to his failed experiment-induced problems with his noggin.
  • Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender is somewhere between this and Noble, before his Heel–Face Turn. He wants to capture the Avatar because it is the only way for him to restore his honor and gain his father's approval.
  • In the Sequel Series The Legend of Korra Tarrlok and his brother Noatak, better known as Amon turn out to be examples of this flavor of Anti-Villain. Their father was Yakone, the infamous crime lord that Aang had defeated and depowered decades before the start of the series. Yakone proved to be a Horrible Father, perhaps almost as bad as Ozai. He forced Tarrlok and Noatak to learn bloodbending so that he could use them to exact his promised vengeance against Republic City. Ultimately, Noatak turned on him and ran away from home, with a festering hatred of bending that would one day lead to him starting the Equalist revolution under the guise of Amon. Ultimately, Tarrlok kills himself and Amon by igniting the fuel tank of Amon's escape boat using an Equalist shock gauntlet.
    • Noatak also arguably fits as Well-Intentioned as Tarrlok implies that he genuinely believes that what he's doing is for the greater good.
  • In the movie Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, we have the Phantasm/Andrea Beaumont.
  • Charmcaster becomes this in Ben 10: Ultimate Alien with her motive being to save her home dimension and resurrect her father, with shades of Noble, especially after she moves into neutral territory as a Dimension Lord following the failure to accomplish her aforementioned goals.
  • An interesting subversion/deconstruction of this character type can be found in Demona of Gargoyles. She's certainly got enough nuance and tragedy in her backstory to qualify her as a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds, but at the same time she has both the motive and means to do probably the most large-scale damage of any villain in the Rogues Gallery and her obsession with getting revenge for her own pain has blinded her to the fact that she's spent the last millennium just digging herself in deeper. Plus, it's repeatedly made clear that most of the tragedies she's been through are ultimately her own fault, but she utterly refuses to take responsibility for this.
  • Nox of Wakfu, who desperately aims to be a Well-Intentioned Extremist type but is mostly inhibited by his own delusions.
  • Princess of Alpha and Omega 2: A Howl-iday Adventure is the top enforcer and The Dragon to her father King. However, she doesn't share the same Social Darwinist mindset as the rest of the Rogues and follows her father out of familial loyalty to him. Although this doesn't stop her from caring for and trying to protect Runt when he's taken as the Rogues' hostage.
  • Eddy from Ed, Edd n Eddy is one, though it wasn't made obvious until the Big Damn Movie that served as the series finale.
  • Boba Fett from Star Wars: The Clone Wars is just a young kid who watched his father be killed by the protagonists and wants revenge. Although he's definitely in the wrong, it's obvious from the beginning that he only wants to hurt his father's murderer and is reluctant to drag innocent parties into his schemes. To add to this, he's pressured into most of his more heinous acts by his Evil Mentor, Aurra Sing. By the time the original Star Wars trilogy rolls around, however, he's grown into a straight-up villain.
  • Doctor Reginald Bushroot from Darkwing Duck. Considering a vast majority of his crimes in the series are fueled by a desire to cure his loneliness and that he was a legitimately nice guy before the accident that gave him his powers, it's hard not to root for him in some instances. This is especially true in "It's a Wonderful Leaf", where he didn't set out to cause any trouble and only began his Evil Plan for the episode upon getting attacked by an angry mob just for looking different.
  • Hawk Moth (Gabriel Agreste) from Miraculous Ladybug is both a Woobie and a Well Intentioned III Anti-Villain. He is a supervillain with the power to form a contract with another person, turning them into his loyal supervillain servant. But it is revealed that his desire to seize the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous by creating supervillains and endangering the whole city comes from his desire to grant his wish of his wife awakening from her coma. But does he know about the price he would pay for his wife being again with him if Gabriel makes his dream come true? This makes him even more of a Tragic Villain.
    • Many of Hawk Moth's victims qualify as well; the ones he evillizes are not evil people - just sad, scared and/or angry. Their moment of weakness gave Hawk Moth the occasion to make them one of his minions and turn their negative emotions into a source of malevolent intent, for example:
      • André the Ice Cream Man who was turned into a monster that turns everyone into ice cream, because his dessert didn't help Marinette with her feeling of loneliness;
      • Rose Lavillant was turned into Princess Fragrance because Chloé ruined her chance to meet a prince;
      • Tom Dupain was turned into the werewolf-like supervillain - Weredad - because he wanted to protect his daughter from the pain of being rejected.

Well-Intentioned Anti-Villain

The Well-Intentioned Extremist. They may believe in a good goal, but use whatever means there are to achieve it. The sympathy the audience can garner for this character comes from the fact that they basically share the same goal as the hero, but are pragmatically, expediently, or pessimistically, ruthless about it. They can very much be conscious about their morally questionable actions, but feel that there is no other way. Common antagonist in White-and-Grey Morality scenarios and relatively likely to be redeemed if shown the error of their ways depending on how "extremist" they are. These Anti-Villains may become more malicious true villains, but they are more likely to either stay in this category or possibly become an In Name Only Anti-Villain or an Anti-Hero. The In Name Only can also be a revolutionary of some sort, fighting against the main character only due to their affiliation to some government or organization, and usually fighting for a noble cause. Alternatively, they may not even realize what they're doing is wrong or making things worse in the first place. The more heroic examples tend to overlap with either Unscrupulous Hero, or Nominal Hero.

The defining Trope for this type of Anti-Villain would be the Well-Intentioned Extremist, of course.

Related Tropes: Necessarily Evil, Obliviously Evil, Totalitarian Utilitarian, Utopia Justifies the Means, Villainy-Free Villain.

    Examples 
Anime & Manga

Comic Books

  • Magneto may very well define this category, at least when he's on the Heel side of his Heel–Face Revolving Door. He only wants to protect his people and sees a war between mutants and humans as inevitable so he wants to strike first. He may even have a point or two about this, he just can't resist going several steps too far.
  • Magneto's Dragon from the 90s, Exodus, also fits this definition. A literal Knight Templar who's only wish is to save his people, yet frequently ends up at odds with the heroes due to being a Wide-Eyed Idealist who won't accept any shades of grey. The 2014 run of Uncanny X-Men showed him helping S.H.I.E.L.D. in a massive Heel–Face Turn, which seems to indicate he may finally have admitted that not all humans are irrevocably evil.
  • In The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye, Brainstorm wants to build a time machine to stop the war from ever happening and save billions of lives. The Decepticons are the ones with the equipment - probably down to all the pillaging - so he becomes a double agent for them, while at the same time never handing over any genuinely useful information - just old information repackaged.

Films — Live-Action

Literature

  • Thrawn ends up here by the time of his last campaign. He started out as a morally ambiguous character in Outbound Flight, but turned into a ruthless, pragmatic man who wasn't above committing some truly villainous acts to achieve his goals. His motives were understandable, especially after they were retconned into stemming from a desire to protect the galaxy from an imminent invasion, but he was most definitely not a good or nice man. His men adored him, but Leia might have had something to say about that...
  • Javert in Les Misérables, who is only trying to maintain order and enforce the law, but is extremely rigid in carrying out his goals.
  • Lord Asriel from His Dark Materials. His goal is to eliminate an evil god, but the ways he gets to it includes killing a little boy by separating him from his soul.
  • Luke Castellan of Percy Jackson and the Olympians has legitimate grievances against the Olympian gods, namely that they abandon their children to fend for themselves in a Crapsack World. What makes him the bad guy is the person he wants to replace the Olympians with - Kronos - is far more malevolent. Luke eventually realizes this in the last book, and sacrifices himself to defeat Kronos.
  • The priestess Lady Melisandre from A Song of Ice and Fire and possibly the other red priests. Her ultimate goal is saving the world and she's willing to do pretty much anything to achieve it, including killing a child. On a personal level, she's cold and fanatical, but also kind and extremely forgiving. The motivations and actions of the rest of her order are less clear.
  • Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment has numerous characters who fit this description. Although he may qualify as an Anti-Hero, seeing as he is the protagonist, Raskolnikov also qualifies for this. He is inspired by the goal of showing that he has what it takes to add something to and improve the world, and resorts to murder, theft, and resisting arrest to show it.

Live-Action TV

  • Walternate from Fringe seems to fall into this category. Yes, he wants to destroy our universe, but for all he knows there isn't any other way to save his. He thinks the two universes are at war. True, he is openly malevolent towards Olivia while she is trapped on the other side, along with anyone that helps her and is quite ruthless, but he occasionally has higher moral standards than Walter. Most obviously displayed when he flat-out rejects his top scientist's idea to text cortexiphan on children, an idea that Walter developed and executed far before the conflict between the universes began. Though it was later revealed that Walter only did that in an attempt to find a safe way to cross to the other universe and return Peter home.
  • Thomas from The Event, also Sophia after Thomas' death and finding out the aliens homeworld is dying.
  • Walter White from Breaking Bad, in addition to being an Anti-Hero, before he reaches the end of the slippery slope and becomes a Villain Protagonist.
  • Touch (2012): Guillermo Ortiz may be the most ruthless person to ever hold this distinction, singularly devoted to the goal of killing a group of 36 people whose very existence he believes to be a crime against God and bound to this goal by being a member of said group (presumably he intends to commit suicide after all of the others have been killed), but when he nearly took the life of someone outside this group of 36, it caused him to doubt himself, and when his attempt to confess his sins forced him to do what he'd narrowly avoided doing in order to remain free to continue his mission, he had a severe crisis of faith that only ended when he saved the life of a man who'd been Driven to Suicide and restored the man's will to live. It truly appears that he is genuine in his belief that in hunting down and killing 35 highly gifted individuals and then committing suicide he is merely carrying out God's will.
  • Raymond Reddington from The Blacklist fits this trope to a tee. He is a hardened criminal who cooperates with the FBI to bring down criminals who are far, far more amoral than he is. However, he is utterly ruthless in pursuing them, and anyone who double-crosses him is unlikely to live to tell the tale. He has a strong moral code, but it sometimes comes across like Blue-and-Orange Morality to the other characters (most of whom are FBI agents) because it often doesn't align with the law.
  • Adar from The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is the Tragic Villain variant. He was a former beautiful Elf from Beleriand before being enslaved and twisted into an Orc by Morgoth. In present, he wants to create a home for the his Orcs. Is the methods used that are abhorrent, enslaving, beating and killing innocent lives and ultimately destroying their homes in order to reach his goals.

Video Games

  • Marche in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. He a Villain Protagonist because of this trope. All of his friends in the real world hate their lives. When they discover a book that warps reality into the land of Ivalice, everyone suddenly has everything they want. They're happy and want to stay there. But no. Marche won't accept it. He's determined to take everyone back to the real world because it's just not right to live a lie and abandon their parents and problems that they have to face in the real world. For Marche's brother, that would mean taking away his ability to walk and turn him back into the wheelchair-bound helpless child that he was. He pretty much has NO reason to ever go back to the real world, because nothing in his life went right before coming to Ivalice.
    • Marche is arguable. He wants to go back to the real world, but neglects to notice that Ivalice is real as well and that his friends are plenty happier in it. He also refuses to go back alone and doesn't even bother trying to find a way to leave without destroying the world.
  • Namatame in Persona 4 (due to being oblivious to the consequences of his actions more than anything else).
  • Matriarch Benezia from Mass Effect. And depending on which camp are you on, Saren Arterius. At the end of 3, even The Illusive Man can come off as this, despite his utterly brutal experiments.
  • Keith Evans in Psychic Force. He truly wanted the good of his kinsmen, who was being oppressed by humanity and the only way to do it, he thinks, is being a Dark Messiah.
  • Jedah Dohma from Darkstalkers. He wants nothing but to eliminate all the evil that plagues Makai, but on the other hand his plan consists in fusing all the Darkstalkers (including the good ones) in a gigantic demon womb.
  • Big Boss in Metal Gear did the things he did, besides for his Blood Knight tendencies, out of a legitimate desire to free soldiers so they won't have to be expendable pawns of the government, due to his experience with The Boss' death (and his involvement in it). He also is shown to forgive and save his enemies/defectors if they are threatened, as evidenced by his saving Kyle Schneider's resistance from NATO's nuclear bombing of Outer Heaven despite the latter group being against him.
    • Solidus Snake is similar, having taken in people who weren't wanted anywhere else, and also doing terrorist actions in order to prevent the Patriots from eliminating everything America stood for, such as liberty.
    • The original founders of the Patriots were also this, as they did legitimately attempt to follow through with The Boss' will, and thought they were doing so with their actions.
  • Fallout had The Master, the main villain whose only objective is to unify the wastelanders into a single race and thus prevent any more fighting and wars.
  • Look no further than Ammon Jerro from Neverwinter Nights 2. The man has an army of powerful fiends at his beck and call, murders several people who get in the way of his recovering a MacGuffin, and is canonically Neutral Evil. He's not the Big Bad, not even The Dragon. He's the former court mage of Neverwinter, trying to save Faerûn from the Big Bad by whatever means necessary. And you get to give him an absolutely epic "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
    • The Big Bad he's opposing, the King of Shadows, can come across as this when you meet the ghosts of people who knew him. He willingly underwent a transformation into a magical golem called The Guardian so he could protect the Illefarn empire, and everything he's done since then, from binding himself to the Shadow Weave to waging war on Neverwinter, and all the carnage he's caused, is simply him fulfilling the orders programmed into him.
  • In Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura, Kerghan is a powerful necromancer who seeks the destruction of all life... because, after centuries of using necromancy to study the place where souls go after death, he's wholeheartedly convinced that since all beings undergo suffering during life, the comparable peace associated with death is a desirable state of existence. This view is backed up by one of your party members, who is likely to have been killed and resurrected during the events of the game.
  • Archie and Maxie, the leaders of Team Aqua and Team Magma in Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, who are doing what they think is best for the environment.
  • The majority of Team Galactic (excepting Charon, of course) in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl fall under this category, particularly Commander Saturn and Commander Mars, who sincerely believe the universe will be better off as the result of their plans. Cyrus would like to think he's this type, but he's truly a particularly dark Woobie.
  • Lysandre from Pokemon X. While he does plan on wiping out life from the world, he only does so because he feels it's his duty to make the world a better place due to his lineage and feels pressed for time due to humans not living forever. He even shows remorse over the path he's chosen throughout the game and gives the player an option to stop his plans. He certainly did a poor job hiring henchmen, however. Note that this is not true in Y, due to his motivation changing.
  • When it becomes apparent that Martin Walker is not the main hero of Spec Ops: The Line, he starts to fall squarely into this to a T with a dose of Sanity Slippage and being Obliviously Evil. In the ending, he even outright says that he never meant to hurt anyone. If you choose to kill the rescue team in the epilogue, he goes from a Well-Intentioned Anti-Villain into a full-blown one.
  • Bioshock: Andrew Ryan. The Audio Diaries show that he never let go of his dream, even as he went from a staunch idealist to a power-mad dictator.
  • Kessler from inFAMOUS. His end goals are noble, hoping to prepare the protagonist Cole, his past self, for the coming of the Beast, an entity intent on destroying all life, which Kessler failed to stop in his own timeline. So by extension, he hopes to save Cole's world. He hopes to do this, however, by showing Cole firsthand the kinds of atrocities he has to prepare for when the Beast comes, as well as the agonizingly difficult choices he'll have to make for the greater good, resulting in the slaughter of thousands of innocent lives at Kessler's hands, including Cole's girlfriend and Kessler's former love, Trish.
  • Viridi from Kid Icarus: Uprising. As the Goddess of Nature, she is disgusted with the way humans fight against each other and pillage nature, so she tries to wipe them off the earth with the Reset Bomb. While Palutena and Pit agree with her views, they also say that what she does is not the solution and fight her forces to stop her Reset Bombs. Later on she joins with Palutena and Hades to fight the Aurum Invasion and when Palutena is possesed by the Chaos Kin, she helps Pit so he can rescue her.
  • In the Fire Emblem series:
    • Lord Arvis of Velthomer in Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War wanted Jugdral to achieve a state of peace and is willing to do and sacrifice anything for it, including siding with the Dark Bishop Manfroy and killing Sigurd and the majority of his followers. He makes good on his promises and actually turns Grannvale into a benign, noble Empire for about 10 years... until Manfroy gives his son Julius the tome of Loptous and everything Arvis worked hard for goes straight to hell and he can't even stop it. By the time he's confronted by Seliph, he's been so miserable and outclassed by Manfroy and Julius that he's just fighting to be able to die in the battlefield, giving him shades of In Name Only.
    • Walhart from Fire Emblem: Awakening. While his methods (conquering the world) are very villainous, he's surprisingly noble and only does it to try to avert an even bigger disaster, making him this and Noble.
    • On a similar note, Edelgard in Fire Emblem: Three Houses uses underhanded tactics such as an active, if less than willing, alliance with an Ancient Conspiracy of deeply immoral scientists that were responsible for experiments done on her and her family and starting a long period of war and bloodshed. Nevertheless, they genuinely want to bring peace to their land and free it from oppression by a Corrupt Church in charge of another Ancient Conspiracy, express the understanding of all the questionable aspects of their actions while believing it's the quickest way to achieve their goals, and intend to do away with those 'allies' as soon as they can. On the Crimson Flower route of which she's the protagonist, with the assistance of the player, she's eventually able to do just that and lead the reunited land into a new golden age.
  • Asgore from Undertale could be considered one of these as well. He waged war on humanity and actively sought out to kill any and all humans who fell underground, although this came from a place of grief after two of his children (One human, one monster) both got killed by humans from above, and his heart's clearly not in it.
Web Comics
  • Baron Wulfenbach, absolute ruler of Europa in Girl Genius. He demands obedience of his subjects, kidnaps the children of notable Sparks to his floating citadel in the sky, sends criminals and troublemakers to the Castle Heterodyne to repair it, despite nobody even possibly knowing how to, and has burned entire towns down to the ground to contain unmanageable problems within. He's also absolutely fanatical about keeping the Heterodyne bloodline under control, which puts him at odds with the protagonist Agatha, herself the last known heir of the family. The thing is, he has a point. Prior to his taking control, Europa was a chaotic, feudal place of madness where most Sparks ran wildly and warred against each other with their insane creations, the worst of which included the exceptionally powerful Heterodyne family, which for at least fifteen hundred years had been, with two very notable exceptions, irredeemably evil warmongers singlehandedly capable of bringing Europa into ruin. Everything Baron Wulfenbach has done, however horrific, has been to restore peace and order to the country, and he did a damn good job of it too. Not only that, but once he freezes himself along with the entirety of Mechanicsburg in a bid to keep Agatha from reclaiming the seat of her power, Europa quickly descends once again into a terrible anarchy unmatched by any before.
  • Redcloak from The Order of the Stick, initially; he became more of a straight villain over time due to his association with Xykon. Then he realizes that he is being corrupted and starts making an effort to prioritize the goblins' well-being over Xykon's plan, becoming much more sympathetic and dangerous. Eventually, Durkon finds out about his motives and, with Thor's blessing, reaches out to him to peacefully negotiate. While Redcloak violently rejects the peace offering, it's out of a belief that that the deal isn't good enough for the goblins. On the other hand, Minrah is of the opinion that Redcloak is deluding himself, and his real motives are a combination of feeling guilty about not actually caring about the goblins, and simple Sunk Cost Fallacy meaning that he's just too proud to accept his own mistakes.
  • General Xinchub of Schlock Mercenary started out as this...he did a lot of villainous things with the best of intentions, in order to protect humanity from threats it wasn't even aware of. Of course, by the time the main cast encounters him, he has discovered that he really enjoys doing all these things and is a much less ambiguous villain. About the best thing you can say about him now is that Petey finds him useful.

Web Original

  • Jaffers and the obstacles (except for Suede at the end of part 5) in Suburban Knights just want to protect the gauntlet from Malechite so that he cannot pose a threat to our technology-dependent world. In the process, however, they're willing to fight and kill anyone also looking for the gauntlet in order to prevent that from happening.
  • The Global Occult Coalition, while, like the SCP Foundation, ultimately trying to protect humanity from potential threats, is quite a bit more extreme, seeking the total destruction of all paranormal objects.
  • Skitter in Worm wavers between this and Pragmatic Hero — she is unquestionably a criminal, but her heroic motives and aspirations frequently lead her to risk life and limb for Innocent Bystanders being threatened by other supervillains in the town.
  • Ken'tu Kel, the Big Bad from The Lay of Paul Twister. His evil plan is to reunite the two sundered worlds, which Paul even agrees would actually be a good thing, probably. It's his callous indifference to the suffering that would come along with it, and his relentless willingness to do whatever it would take to accomplish his goal, no matter who gets hurt that makes Paul realize he needs to be stopped.

Western Animation

  • Jet from Avatar: The Last Airbender. He has a good reason to be opposing the Fire Nation, he just takes his grudge way too far.
  • Earl of Lemongrab of Adventure Time just wants the castle to be quiet, clean, orderly, and free of pranks and sass. So he sends EVERYONE to the dungeon for impossible lengths of time. Also, this guy doesn't exactly have all his marbles together, so he overlaps a lot with The Woobie.
  • Tony of Alpha and Omega pressures his son to enter an Arranged Marriage with a complete stranger and will enact a war with the Western Pack to take their territories if they don't comply. But once you get past his Jerkass behavior, his motivation isn't warmongering, but trying to ensure that his pack will have enough food and resources to survive, even if they must take it by force.
  • Kang the Conqueror in The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes becomes sort of this. The sole reason why he wants Captain America dead is because he blames Cap for disrupting the timeline (remember, Cap got preserved in a block of ice in the North Atlantic after an accident in his last mission in the 40's and then was revived to present times by the Avengers), which for an unexplained reason causes the destruction of the world within 10 years and almost erases Kang's wife Ravonna from existence.
    • The "unexplained reason" is later revealed in season 2 as it turns out that a Skrull impersonating Captain America caused a war between Skrulls, Krees and mankind, resulting in the destruction of Earth.

Villain in Name Only

These characters are NEVER actively malevolent. They range from simply being neutral characters who happen to have some other reason for opposing the hero to being outright benevolent, only considered villains because the villains they fight are much more heroic. Ironically, these characters can be extremely dangerous to the hero as their high skill at arms/competence more than makes up for their lack of vileness. Fighting them also poses a moral dilemma which can also sap the hero's morale. It is at this point where an Anti-Villain starts to blur with the Hero Antagonist. Having to kill a particularly well liked In Name Only AV in a boss fight can be a Player Punch. Their deaths are extremely likely to be a Tear Jerker. These anti-villains stand virtually no chance of ever becoming straight-up villains and are much more likely to become a Hero Antagonist put in a Good Versus Good scenario, or even side with the hero in the end.

Related Tropes: more benign examples of My Country, Right or Wrong or My Master, Right or Wrong, Non-Malicious Monster (when the monster doesn't even have sentience to be a considered a character), Punch-Clock Villain, Noble Top Enforcer (when not a Noble Demon), mild examples of Necessarily Evil, those who are Forced into Evil, and occasionally a Token Good Teammate (when amongst a bunch of scumbags). Also the Nominal Villain, the inversion of Nominal Hero, where a hero fighting with the good guys only does so with morally neutral motivations.

    Examples 

Anime & Manga

  • Afro Samurai Afro's sensei — Who had taken Afro in and trained him with the other students, and provided him with a family and a good life to live — only became an antagonist because Afro found out he had the Number 2 heaband.
  • Akame ga Kill! has Wave being one of the Jaegers for the incredibly corrupt empire. He is surrounded by some very evil types, yet still retains his sense of goodness and honor, fulfilling his duty to protect the peace for the innocent and hasn't brutally or coldly killed anyone yet. That nature of his is drawing him closer and closer to the Rage Breaking Point thanks to some of those in the empire he is supposed to answer to.
  • Hajimete no Aku. The "villains" actually try to force the world into doing nice things. The villains are so good, in fact, that the characters question the heroes' good will and say that they are eviler...
  • The Team Rocket trio from Pokémon: The Series were this for a looong time until the Black/White series. They had started out as bumbling and humorous, but still villainous in personality, but by the end of the Johto arc, any evil they had was drained out and they were left as just bumbling and humorous.
  • Excel and Hyatt from Excel♡Saga are both a perfect example of a Minion with an F in Evil. Excel is a hyperactive idiot who can't keep her focus on anything more than 3 seconds and lets her overt loyalty to Lord Il Palazzo prevent her from actually making rational decisions. Hyatt actually is competent but is constantly dying at the drop of a hat that she's only marginally more successful than Excel in carrying out their goals.
  • In One Piece, this type applies to any of the Marines (particularly Smoker, Aokiji and Garp) that aren't corrupt or abusive, and follow a reasonable justice code that usually conflicts with the intentions of their Knight Templar superiors.
  • Coyote Starrk from Bleach is only really considered an enemy because he follows Aizen. He fights against the heroes but never actually takes the step into actual villainy, never attacking to kill. It's eventually revealed that the only reason he joined them is he is so powerful that his spirit energy kills any weaker hollows and he was tired of always being alone.
  • Shin and Noi from Dorohedoro are an interesting example. Both seem to be Blood Knight assassins at a first glance, but in reality they are just Punch Clock Villains that reserve their ruthlessness for those they are supposed to kill.
  • Sasaki in Haruhi Suzumiya. In a Genre Savvy display, she even states she KNOWS she's poised as "the villain of this story", but chooses not to follow through with playing the part, and actively helps in trying to sabotage the REAL villain's plan.
    • Also the Computer Research Society President, who only opposed the SOS Brigade because Haruhi extorted a computer from him. Lately, though, he and Haruhi seem to be on better terms with each other.
  • Ivan from Digimon Data Squad, who kills Digimon to earn money to support his mother and his many siblings. He's a stark contrast with his boss Kurata.
  • The title character of Squid Girl. First of all, her threat of invading and taking over the surface world isn't taken very seriously by other characters (except Nagisa). If she actually tried to invade the surface, she would be defeated easily by the combined might of every military on the planet. However, it only takes one person to keep her docile. Also, the worst thing she can actually do is trying to tie you up with her tentacles and attempt to take over a beach restaurant. She is very oblivious and naive to human society in general. In the end, she end ups a cute squid girl goofball with her villainy not taken seriously by anyone.
  • Chao Lingshen from Negima! Magister Negi Magi. She's such an Anti-Villain, in fact, that Negi had actually considered letting her complete her plan.
  • Ratman is a protagonist version, and is actually a superhero Otaku who is only a "dark hero" because he was tricked into joining Jackal, an Oddly Small Organization of rather goofy and nonthreatening villains. Since his missions have him breaking the law and put him at odds with the Hero Association (especially the more Jerkass heroes), he's a criminal, but takes every opportunity he can to use his powers to help people.
  • Alyssa from the My-Otome manga, who wants to end the Otome system so that she can spend more time with her sister.
  • Panza from Muhyo and Roji. She ends up Taking the Bullet for Roji, and Muhyo points out that she's not evil like the rest of Ark.
  • Maho Nishizumi from Girls und Panzer, especially when it's revealed that her reason for wanting to be a good Nishizumi heiress is so that her younger sister Miho will be free to live her own way.
  • The Wolkenritter from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's spent centuries fighting in the service of the Book of Darkness' masters, but when they entered the service of Hayate, who had no desire for power or to see people harmed in her name, they are content to obey her command not to fight for her. However, when they realize that the Book will kill her unless it is filled, they set out to do so, but do so in a way that minimizes harm.
  • Okay, this might take awhile, but throughout Symphogear G, this is the heart of the role of Maria Cadenzavna Eve. At first, she's just convinced that she'll be the receptor of Fine and would save the world for calamity, something she took at heart, but the death of her sister casted doubts on her that she ended up taking on the mantle of a Noble antivillain, acting like a Noble Demon when she's really full of self-doubts about fulfilling her mission. Then, she found out that she's not the chosen receptor, putting her through more mental anguish, but at that point, she snapped into believing about 'doing whatever it takes to save the world', including siding with a nutjob that she shows distaste of in the first place and mostly just mooching off her organization for his own butt (Dr. Ver), essentially, she became something of a Well-Intentioned Extremist. Combine all those, and she has the qualities of a Woobie. Then Ver betrayed her and gleefully tells her that all those things like pitting her friends together, manipulating (and then killing) her mother, all because he's just looking out for his own welfare, she broke down, went back to her roots and struck against him, before she eventually pulls a Heel–Face Turn.
  • Gaelio Bauduin from Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans is a cheerful Gjallarhorn officer who believes in justice, he doesn't do anything villainous in his entire life, and in fact wants to reform the organisation from the inside. The only thing makes him a villain is the fact his job is to stop the protagonists. Not only he has to see his friends getting maimed and killed by Mikazuki, his gradual breakdown has corrupted him into a sad and vengeful person. And in the end, he dies with the knowledge that his friends were betrayed by none other than his childhood friend, and the said friend would marry his 9-year-old sister.

Comic Books

  • Namor the Sub-Mariner whenever he is antagonizing the other superheroes of the Marvel Universe. His actions are mostly due to his hot-headed and anti-social personality.
  • Ambush Bug, back in his early days before he officially made a Heel–Face Turn.
  • In Pre-Crisis days, Bizarro was Superman's Frenemy, despite being consistently considered part of Supey's Rogues Gallery. His opposite thinking gave him a mild case of Blue-and-Orange Morality, and he was always dangerously stupid, but it was always clear that he never seriously intended to hurt anyone, and most stories ended with him and Superman parting on good terms.
  • Another Silver Age Superman villain, Titano the Super-Ape, was always treated as a simple animal who couldn't be held responsible for his actions.

Fan Works

Film

  • Naval Marshall General Isoroku Yamamoto from Pearl Harbor. While being charged by the Japanese Empire with the task of somehow successfully destroying the American Pacific navy at anchor in shallow waters, he is making comments such as "A brilliant man would find a way not to fight a war."
  • In Underworld once the truth comes out, Lucian is a villain only by virtue of being on the other side. Somewhat unusually for this trope, both Selene and Michael recognize that he isn't a real villain, and turn on the real villain Viktor.
  • Dr. Connors in The Amazing Spider-Man is a genuine, kind man who only tests the Lizard formula on himself to prevent Dr. Ratha from using it on unwitting test subjects at the veteran's hospital. Even when he turns into the Lizard he's only a Well-Intentioned Extremist who wants to heal the world of weakness. Admittedly, he plans to do this by turning everyone into Lizard-creatures, but at least his intentions are noble. He puts himself firmly back into villain in name only territory by his actions after he is cured, saving Peter's life.
  • Ramsey Michel from Chef (2014) appears to be a Caustic Critic who gives Carl Casper's then-employer two stars. Casper takes it personally and trashes him in front of the entire restaurant. Turns out, the reason for his rating is because the restaurant was deliberately restraining Casper's creativity (he's actually a fan of Chef Casper), and once he gets a chance to explain everything, the two patch things up, and Michel finances Casper's new restaurant.

Literature

  • Several of the Havenite military personnel in the Honor Harrington series are only villains because they happen to be part of a nation that is at war with Manticore. This is especially the case after Eloise Pritchart takes over as President and transforms Haven from The Dictatorship into a genuine democracy. They have now become straight protagonists after Haven and Manticore allied to fight Mesa.
  • In many of the original Sherlock Holmes stories, the perpetrator or the closest equivalent turns out to have merely been the victim of the circumstances, not known what they were doing, merely committing a lesser crime for understandable reasons, or at least to be a Sympathetic Murderer taking justice in their own hands against an Asshole Victim who really had it coming. Once they're exposed and explain themselves, Holmes tends to let these characters off the hook even when they actually did do something illegal.
  • Star Wars Legends:
    • Nen Yim from the New Jedi Order was like this, putting her skills to the service of the Yuuzhan Vong more because they were her own people rather than because she believed in their cause (privately, she thinks her peoples' religion is bogus and their God-Emperor is a total nutjob, though she'd never say it out loud). Indeed, her only actually villainous appearance is in Conquest, the first book to feature her, in which she was more a sidekick to a much nastier Mad Scientist than a villain in her own right. Later on, she'd be the protagonist of her own subplot (Rebirth), helping the Warmaster root out a Starscream conspiracy (the Enemy Lines duology), a cameo (Destiny's Way) or in an Enemy Mine with the heroes followed by a Heel–Face Turn (The Final Prophecy), but any further real villainy was off-page.
    • Before that, in the X-Wing Series, there was Admiral Teren Rogriss. In his first appearance (Solo Command), he's a good-natured officer who pulls an Enemy Mine with General Han Solo to take down Warlord Zsinj. In the second (Starfighters of Adumar), more of his background is revealed, showing him to be an overall honorable man who happens to be on the side of the Empire, and is very uneasy with the villainous actions that his superiors are demanding of him. It's mentioned that he's fought the New Republic in ship-to-ship battles, but his name has never shown up in any so-called "dark projects" (like Imperial superweapons or Imperial Intelligence operations). Overall, he's a sympathetic character, and ultimately he pulls a Heel–Face Turn.

Live-Action TV

  • Lt. Kavenaugh on The Shield at least until the premiere of season 6 when he crosses the Moral Event Horizon.
  • Enos from The Dukes of Hazzard. He is never really portrayed as corrupt or evil, and despite his Designated Villain role (by default by being on the same side as Boss Hogg), becomes quite sympathetic and likable over the course of the show. Enos is plagued by a strong sense of duty. He's a deputy, and sworn to uphold the law. Unfortunately for him, Boss Hogg controls the law. At times, one has to wonder if his goofing up isn't at least somewhat intentional as a way of helping the Dukes. Especially considering that he was able to become the head of the Los Angeles SWAT team.
  • Sgt. Shultz and Col. Klink from Hogan's Heroes
  • The Gorgs in Fraggle Rock. While the Fraggles see them as cruel ogres, they just see the Fraggles as pests, and they actually have a valid reason to, seeing as the Fraggles steal vegetables from their garden. (The Fraggles don't consider this stealing; of course, the have a skewed view of many other beings, including humans.)

Music

  • The bully, representing Israel, in "Neighborhood Bully" by Bob Dylan is called a bad guy by everyone in the neighborhood, but his actions suggest he's somewhere between an average man who's surprisingly hard to kill, and a downright hero, while everyone else hates him for some reason.
    "Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized
    Old women condemned him, said he should apologize
    Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad
    The bombs were meant for him. He was supposed to feel bad"

Theatre

  • John Dickenson in 1776 is staunchly against Independency, even coming to blows with protagonist John Adams. His only claim to villainy is he's a Loyalist that truly believes America's best course is to remain with England.

Video Games

  • Grace Holloway in BioShock 2: She's on the bad guy's side, and sends waves of splicers against you, but she's only doing it because the Big Bad made her life easier when it was at a low point, and because she believes you kidnapped a child she was in charge of several years ago. If you spare her, she realises she's on the wrong side, and actually sends you some supplies later in the game.
  • In NieR, The Shadowlord, who is actually the original Nier. His "villainy" is the only thing preserving human life at this point, and his only selfish actions in the series are to save his daughter - the same motivation that ironically drives the player character to kill him and ruin everything forever.
  • The Guardians from Mega Man Zero, especially Harpuia. They're essentially good people (technically, Reploids) fighting for an evil government. Eventually they make a Heel–Face Turn.
  • Litchi Faye-Ling in BlazBlue. She actually disliked NOL and thinks Hazama is suspicious, but the situation forces her to join the bad guys, and Relius kept reminding her that she has a wavering heart that kept her from doing advances. She never makes any malicious plans on her own and the Sector Seven story had her try to walk around Ikaruga just to find Arakune and begging for help to Kokonoe, and not attacking unless provoked, in which she starts crossing Woobie too when it turns out that the Sector Seven treat her as a wanted criminal, and then Hazama-Relius fetched Nu-13 to drag her back. When the main storyline proper comes in, her only 'evil' action is to help Relius on his plan and 'say' that it's just to create a world where Lotte lived and did not turn to Arakune, apologizing as she had to beat down her friends, and being flabbergasted that Carl, for personal reasons, throws himself into villainy by helping Relius.
  • Mid Boss in Disgaea. The worst thing he does is loot the party's picnic basket.
  • Sif The Great Grey Wolf from Dark Souls is a giant wolf that does nothing beside protecting his master's grave, and will fight to the death for protecting it, even when he's too weak to stand.
  • Maiden Astraea from Demon's Souls. The only reason she's even billed as a villain is because she has a demon's soul (she's the Valley of defilement's Archdemon), but it's outright stated that even in her bitter disillusionment after finding out about God's non-existence, she still hasn't lost her kind heart, and her soul is the most impure one because she's taking all the sins and suffering of the Valley's inhabitants on herself, relieving them of some of their misery. The Valley's denizens adore her, and will do absolutely anything to protect her, including judiciously slaughtering pesky soul-hunters looking to snag her soul. Like say, the player character. And she commands such loyalty simply by being a good person at heart. Sixth Saint Astraea, indeed.
  • The Boss in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. Eventually revealed to be a highly compassionate and honorable person, as well as a Fake Defector who Snake is only forced to fight and kill because she's being used as a political scapegoat, which she willingly goes along with to prevent a third world war.
  • Miles Edgeworth in the Ace Attorney series is either this or Well-Intentioned: he starts off as a more typical villain, trying his best to get all the defendants found guilty, but he has a Heel–Face Turn. Now, he looks for the truth, and helps Phoenix if need be.
  • Both Eldigan and Ishtar from Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War. Eldigan is too Lawful Stupid when it comes to knightly loyalty (and dies for it), and Ishtar was great to children and Tine, but just can't say "no" to Julius.
    • Ishtar, however, did go directly against Julius' orders and had children that were due to be sacrificed smuggled into Friege castle, and made it clear that anyone who laid a finger on them would be dealt with by her personally. While she does end up dying for Julius, she does show that she's willing to disobey the orders of the most powerful character in the game in order to do what she feels is right. Really, if she wasn't in love with Julius she'd probably have done a Heel–Face Turn.
    • The Fire Emblem series likes this trope. Others who fit this would be General Eagler from The Blazing Blade, Selena and Glen from Sacred Stones and Levail from Radiant Dawn.
  • General Teo McDohl from Suikoden. And you, being his son, offed him because he serves the Empire, and you lead the rebels.
  • Baldur's Gate:
    • Tamoko in the first game, based on what we see of her. She's only on the side of the Big Bad, and willing to try to kill the Player Character, because she loves him, and she even wants to stop his plans to save him. However, she is officially Neutral Evil according to game files, which doesn't actually contradict her behaviour if we assume she's otherwise willing to do evil but her True Love for the villain is stronger than those tendencies. But according to what we actually see her do, her being merely somewhat amoral rather than evil would be the most sensible explanation.
    • In the sequel, Yoshimo, Tamoko's brother according to cut content. What a Senseless Waste of Human Life indeed. Even more clearly amoral rather than evil, but forced to work for the villain through a Magically-Binding Contract.
  • Tales Series:
    • Leon Magnus from Tales of Destiny, who's fighting you only to preserve the life of Marian, his surrogate mother figure. For double whammy, so is his manipulator Hugo Gilchrist, who turns out to be his and Rutee's father and he's been possessed all along.
    • Arietta from Tales of the Abyss. She hates the party because they killed her mother (there were extenuating circumstances, but still) and because Anise essentially took over her job as Ion's guardian, gaining all his affection in the process. She doesn't understand why Ion doesn't care about her anymore. She doesn't know that this Ion is a clone, not the one she knew. The boss fight where you kill her is a serious Tear Jerker.
  • Sonia/Chris Ryan from Psychic Force. Her loyalty was actually programmed and any events of her death proved to be soul-crushing for her little sister Wendy.
  • Golbez and Jecht in Dissidia Final Fantasy. The first is a Stealth Mentor, the second just wants a reunion with his son.
    • The latter character was In Name Only in his original game as well, seeing how the only reason he's on the villain's end is because he fused with Sin after becoming Brask's Final Aeon with the intention of eliminating Sin, and was perfectly willing to die at the hands of his son as long as it at least ensured Sin's permanent destruction.
    • Cloud Strife and Kuja are depicted as Anti-Villains in Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy, being on the Warriors of Chaos side, yet not being too happy about their current position in the conflict, as well as sympathizing with the other side in the case of Cloud. It's also implied that Cloud's sympathizing for the Cosmos side is because a person he knew and cared for was there. Cloud eventually managed to defect to the Warriors of Cosmos, although at the cost of getting killed by Chaos at the end of the 12th cycle and having to be revived. Kuja, however, wasn't so lucky, thanks to Kefka and his implementing Fake Memories.
    • General Leo from Final Fantasy VI is the Empire's Token Good Teammate. He never once directly antagonizes the good guys, refuses Magitek infusion, is heartbroken when all of the inhabitants of Doma are poisoned to death by Kefka, gives fatherly advice to Terra, and turns against Kefka as soon as the latter proves to be not so harmless. After being slain by Kefka, the heroes give him a heartfelt funeral. Plenty of characters make remarks around him to the effect of "Why is he with them?"
  • From Pokémon Black and White, N, leader of Team Plasma is easily the most heartbreaking example of one of these in the Pokemon series, and has a bunch of qualities of the other 3 types above this one, with none of the truly evil traits that belong to them. While he's an antagonist, it's made clear that this is mostly because he was raised with a delibrately warped view on the world. Fortunately, he gets to pull a Heel–Face Turn at the end.
  • Lemon Browning in Super Robot Wars Advance and Super Robot Wars: Original Generation. Despite her Mad Scientist tendencies, she's generally without malice and kind enough with her creations, and you off her merely because she just has to fight for the side she's on. Oh, and her relationship with Axel is genuine. Add up that she's Excellen Browning's Alternate Universe counterpart...
    • Originally in Advance, if you feel genuine enough, you can avoid attacking her in the last stage and go beat down Vindel, leaving Lemon's fate more open than surefire death.
  • Sophitia Alexandra starting from Soul Calibur IV goes down this path. Despite starting out as the holiest and purest of all fighters, her motherly instincts pushed her to protect her child who was under Soul Edge's influence by protecting said weapon that she swore to destroy. There's a reason why she's crying in her official art in IV.
    • Her daughter Pyrrha gets the same treatment in Soul Calibur V. Being raised by Tira and manipulated into being a new host for Soul Edge, everything out of her mouth screams she doesn't want to do any of it.
  • Donkey Kong himself when he's the antagonist, such as the classic arcade game or the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series. He never has any malicious intent; he simply has trouble controlling his impulses and tends to get angry when he doesn't get what he wants, leaving Mario to stop him. After Mario defeats DK, he generally forgives him and gives DK whatever he wanted in the first place.
  • Claus, AKA The Masked Man from Mother 3. He's only evil because Porky revived his dead body and brainwashed him as an assassin.
  • Aphelion, the silver dragon from Radiata Stories is the closest thing to a Big Bad the game has—and wouldn't be considered evil on any conceivable moral scale if it weren't for the fact that his plan cannot go through without killing his fellow dragons and the host of his opposite, Quasar.
  • Mr Freeze in Batman: Arkham City is this with a bit of Woobie. As usual his main goal is to protect his wife and he only goes against Batman once in the entire game and that's just because Bruce's stubborness lead to a miscomunication between them.
  • The Thieves Guild in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Despite being unrepentant thieves they never kill, protect the poor and only target people who can easily afford the loss. Their leader the Grey Fox in particular fits this as he only resorts to crime due to a curse which he seeks to break.
  • Odin Sphere: Odette deserves the title of "Jerkass Antagonist" more than she does "Villain". Unlike most other antagonists, Odette's ambition is to keep the living from helping dead souls escape the Netherworld or stealing her soul-absorbing crystals to use as weapons. Her most villainous action is trying to enforce a contract with Oswald which was made for him while he was an infant; aside from this, most of the heroes would never even encounter her if they didn't keep jaunting in and out of the Netherworld for their own reasons. A throwaway line suggests that Odette's strictness stems from her fearing that too much rule-breaking would lead to The End of the World as We Know It. She's absolutely right; not only does one hero's escape allow the Big Bad back into the land of the living, but the her death lets one of the prophesied calamities out of its can... along with possibly making death much worse than it ever was before.
  • General Horace Warfield from Starcraft II: While Dominion forces are just going along with Arcturus Mengsk's self-serving plans, Warfield is A Father to His Men and always prioritizes citizen safety, regardless of who they are. He's even fine with working along with Jim Raynor to protect people. Of course, by the expansion, when Kerrigan flipped, he happens to be on her rampage list because she justifiably hates Mengsk and he's under Mengsk's employment, and Mengsk's negligence cost him his life. But before he perishes, he manages to give her a BIG What the Hell, Hero? regarding her descent into villainy and how she'll just disappoint Raynor further if he sees her. This has enough of an impact on Kerrigan that she decides to honor his wish to spare his men.
  • The Dreamer from the added Third Semester Palace in Persona 5 Royal is this mixed with the Well Intentioned and Woobie varieties. Dr. Maruki is a genuinely kindhearted and well intentioned therapist who only wishes to bring eternal happiness to the world. However his idea of doing so is to grant everyone’s wishes, no strings attached, which would kill off any reason for one to grow as a person. He holds no ill will towards the Phantom Thieves, and despite it being noted that he could erase them from existence if he wanted to, he doesn’t and lets them keep access to their Personas and his palace despite knowing they would likely try to steal his treasure. He only fights them once he’s forced too, at great reluctance.
Visual Novels
  • Lancer/Cu Chulainn from Fate/stay night is actually a laid back cool guy whose source of joy is good, fair fights and teasing. It's just that his Master is Kotomine Kirei (after his previous Master got killed by him), a man that he finds disgusting. but too honor-bound to obey the rules despite his misgivings. Kotomine's actions and his other servant Gilgamesh disgust him so much that he ends up defecting when the opportunity presents itself (which leads to him dying as a result). It does show when the show goes Alternate Universe in Fate/hollow ataraxia, where all he does is hang around fishing rather than being hostile.

Webcomics

  • The Monster in the Darkness of The Order of the Stick also counts as this type of Anti-Villain, as he's too simple-minded to really comprehend that he's working with bad guys. His discussions with O-Chul lead him to consider more about what he's doing: he is even shown covertly sabotaging Xykon's plans in some of the later comics which might even count as a full-on HeelFaceTurn.
  • Various characters of True Villains could count as this. Cecile and Xeke only seem to help Xaneth because they are friends with Elia, and Mia is just going along with Sebastian. Had someone different taken her in, she could've easily been a hero.
  • Gordon Frohman of Concerned. He's a villain only insofar as he's in support of the Combine - as far as his attempts to support them go, he's so terrible at it that nobody really notices he is a villain. Although he does get several Resistance members killed, every one is an accident, and they're balanced out with him also getting at least as many Combine killed.

Web Original

  • Notepad of Don't Hug Me I'm Scared seems to genuinely want to give the puppets a good time, and when it all goes to hell she seems as horrified as they are. She's really more of a Jerkass Control Freak than actually evil.
  • Spacewarp of the Transformers Character Blog "Spacewarp's Log" is nominally a Decepticon, but you'd probably struggle to name a time she actually did something evil, with her regularly befriending and teaming up with Autobots, saving worlds on her expeditions, and being fairly derisive towards Megatron and his philosophies as a whole. She's kind of a jerk and overly-prideful, and doesn't have problems with dealing with other Decepticons, but she overall comes across as amoral at worst rather than evil.

Western Animation

  • The Simpsons: Donny from "The Debarted". While he's a Manipulative Bastard and a mole who nearly got Bart a trip to the tightest juvenile detention center out there, he's not actively malevolent, making him less of a villain and more of a neutral character with a downright tragic reason to act against Bart.
  • Waspinator in Beast Wars. Technically, he's never done anything villainous, even compared to Megatron's other mooks.
  • King Julien from The Penguins of Madagascar is a complete Jerk with a Heart of Gold but while he's a recurring antagonist, he repeatedly teams up with the Penguins to help them out. Okay so he sometimes messes things up even worse but at least he's trying.
  • General Iroh from Avatar: The Last Airbender; A jolly old man who just happens to be on the side of the Fire Nation, he has no malicious plan of any kind and only ever tries to advise his Troubled, but Cute nephew Zuko. In reality, Iroh had a Heel Realization long before the series began, and in the present is mainly trying to lead Zuko to a similar realization. He's also a high ranking member of the Order of the White Lotus, a group of Cool Old Guys who end up liberating Ba Sing Se from the Fire Nation.
  • Swiper from Dora the Explorer may be antagonistic, but he's definitely not evil, and is in fact one of Dora's friends. Also, even swipers have standards (for example, after the Christmas Carol-based episode, he never swipes anything on Christmas).
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
    • Cheese Sandwich is a cheery guy whose only goal is to throw parties for ponies and make them happy. The problem is that Pinkie Pie does the exact same thing, and feels threatened that Cheese Sandwich might lure her friends away with his charisma and energy. Once he explains his backstory, the two team up and depart on good terms with one another, and they would eventually go on to get married and have kids together.
    • Rumble is this in "Marks and Recreations". His only reason to be against the Cutie Mark Crusaders is his fear of getting a cutie mark that wouldn't involve being a Wonderbolt and thus, be unable to become one. As a result, he decides to spread his belief to the Cutie Mark Day Camp campers, which lures them away from the camp. Thankfully, his brother, Thunderlane, shows him that he doesn't need to just do what Wonderbolts do to get that type of cutie mark and thus, quickly rejoins the Cutie Mark Crusader's camp.
  • Cecil Tunt of the Archer two-parter "Sea Tunt" plans to get Cheryl declared insane. While he's doing it for money, Cheryl is quite clearly insane. He's also broke and needs outside funding to keep his multiple charities afloat. All the ISIS staff except Cheryl either didn't care or supported him once they found out what he was doing.
  • The League of Super Evil, Played for Laughs. If it weren't for the fact that they keep telling you how evil they are, they'd just be annoying neighbours.
  • For being on the Autism Spectrum, Entrapta of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power hardly notices she's nominally on the side of evil, being much more invested in the pursuit of answering the questions of their reality and studying the First One's relics. Being on good terms with every character regardless of side for ninety-percent of the series also helps.

Alternative Title(s): Sliding Scale Of Anti Villains

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