Not So Well Intentioned Extremist / Western Animation

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• Arcane: For all his talk of wanting Zaun free of Piltover for its abuses, Silco is perfectly fine with flooding his side of the river with drugs, and preying on the desperate for unethical experiments while letting his thugs run amok, especially Jinx, to stay in power. In fact when Silco finally has a way of getting Zaun's independence he ultimately refuses it, because it would mean giving up his surrogate daughter.
• Action Man (2000): Dr. X claims he's trying to help humanity evolve, even if many won't survive the transformation into "Neo-Humanity". In actuality, he's a psychopath with delusions of grandeur and world conquest. In fact, his plan is a very literal example of In Their Own Image, as he plots to turn the most physically powerful survivors into clones of himself. When his plans start to crumble, he decides to decimate the Earth with an asteroid. He basically says "I am humanity" during his final We Can Rule Together speech to Action Man.
• Alfred J. Kwak: Dolf leads a fascist coup of Great Waterland after building up his own political movement and making public speeches denouncing the King's terrible spending and that he doesn't take his job very seriously. While Dolf is absolutely right about those things and his own popularity with the people is what gets him into power, he is actually only interested in seizing the throne for himself. After deposing the King, he immediately names himself Emperor and becomes even more tyrannical than his predecessor.
• American Dragon: Jake Long: The Dark Dragon's goal is to wipe out all humans so that magical creatures can reclaim the Earth. His goals have made him the #1 enemy of the Magical Community, including to his fellow dragons, whom he has eliminated for rejecting his plans. This includes magical creatures who don't share his anti-human beliefs. If he ever really did care for making the world a better place for magical creatures, it's now more of an excuse for genocide and world domination.
• Amphibia:
  • King Andrias turns out to be one in the Season 2 finale only to then subvert it in Season 3. He might put on airs that he's looking out for Amphibia's interests in using the Calamity Box's powers to invade other worlds and harvest the resources for their own use, but it's clear that while this is indeed the goal of the Core, Andrias himself is just a tool to carry out their will and deep down he's really more ambivalent on the whole thing and hates what he's lost in pursuit of it, but continues to spout the lines because he still wants the Core's (i.e., his ancestors' and especially his father's) approval and that trying to go against it after so long is meaningless.
  • The Core, on the other hand, is this played straight. As the collective consciousness of all past rulers of Amphibia, including Andrias' father Aldrich, it boasts their continued intent to use the stones in their goals of being a Multiversal Conqueror as a means to aid their world of Amphibia; however, their stripping other worlds of their resources, their decades of familial abuse, encouraging bigotry towards other amphibians, and draining their own world's natural resources paint a clear picture that it only wants power and glory for its own sake. This is evident when, as Darcy, it shows sadistic pleasure in attacking Earth. Once its plans are thwarted, the Core attempts to destroy the entire planet by ramming the moon into it out of spite.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • From the original cartoon:
    • In "The Avatar and The Fire Lord", Sozin claims that the Fire Nation's campaign of global conquest is a way of "sharing their wealth and ideals with the rest of the world and uniting the four nations". Over the 100 years this campaign lasted, the Fire Nation has committed actions such as the genocide of the Air Nomads (a peaceful people) to try and wipe out the next Avatar, the kidnapping and displacement of the Southern Water Tribe, attempted genocide of the Sun Warriors (who themselves are Fire Nation), occupation of Earth Kingdom territory, and propaganda meant to paint other nations as savage and evil. While the flashbacks show that Sozin genuinely believed in that goal and ultimately realized how far he had fallen on his deathbed, his successors would exploit that reasoning as nothing more than a cover for the plain goal to Take Over the World. In "The Day of Black Sun, Part 2", Zuko calls out his father Ozai and by extension the entire Fire Nation out on this pointing out that the Fire Nation's actions have justifiably earned them nothing but hate and fear from the people all around the world.
    • Hama from "The Puppetmaster" is a waterbender from the Southern Water Tribe who was kidnapped by Fire Nation soldiers from home. She escaped using a technique she invented that allowed her to manipulate the water in people's bodies. (She left the remaining waterbender prisoners to die, and whatever she did to the presently helpless guards on her way out, it's implied that the story was one reason many further waterbenders attacked by the Fire Nation — including Katara's mother — were killed by frightened soldiers rather than captured as per orders.) She later hid as a Fire Nation citizen and used her power to kidnap townspeople and hide them in a cave. She claims that she's doing her duty to combat the Fire Nation — but unlike Katara (who has spent the last two and a half seasons directly combating the Fire Nation Military), there's no sign that she's actually tried to do anything that would even inconvenience the war effort; just tormenting ordinary civilians who are in no way complicit with the Fire Nation's atrocities besides maybe believing the propaganda (and that just makes it worse).
  • Most villains in the Sequel Series The Legend of Korra legitimately want to make the world a better place, but just go overboard. (Though Vaatu, the Big Bad of Season 2, is the personification of evil itself, and doesn't hide his true nature in the least.) Among the human antagonists, the one clear exception is Korra's uncle, the other Big Bad of Season 2, Unalaq. A strongly religious Knight Templar, Unalaq seeks to unite the spirit and material worlds and argues that the world needs to respect the spirits, but Korra calls him out for being a power-hungry Hypocrite. He is shown ready to sacrifice his own children to achieve his ends, and is also working with the literal embodiment of all evil. Whatever good intentions he had may have been genuine at one point, but by the time he's introduced, it's become a sham, warped to Omnicidal Mania by his desire for power. If even a genuine extremist like Zaheer is calling you selfish, you really qualify.
• Hyperion in Avengers Assemble constantly passes himself off as a hero whose brutal methods towards others are to keep people safe and establish order, but not only does threatening people's lives go against the intent to protect them, but he is unwilling to make compromises, has no sense of compassion whatsoever and he later says he's only interested in having power over others.
• The Batman: During the two-part premiere episode of the fifth season, Lex Luthor puts Superman under his control to help in his plan to control Earth's defense systems. Since an Alien Invasion took place previously, he insists that this is to make sure no one tries to take over the world. Batman points out the one hypocritical point of his plan: Lex is basically trying to Take Over the World himself since this involves robots that destroy foreign military bases that step out of line. Lex half-heartedly defends himself by saying that "someone has to be in charge".
• Big Hero 6: The Series: Di Amara, a clone of biotech CEO Liv Amara, says she will go to any and every measure to cure the terminal illness of the real Liv Amara (who is in stasis). The issue is that she takes her "progress at all costs" mantra way too literally. There were ways to find a cure that were easier, cheaper, and more scrupulous, but Di was too proud and callous to come up with any, and doesn't mind mutating humans into monsters for funding. Di ultimately blackmails Hiro by mutating his friend Karmi, forcing him into risking his life in a "Fantastic Voyage" Plot to dispense an experimental cure inside Liv's body (Di could have just asked for help saving Liv's life, which heroes like Hiro and the rest of the Big Hero 6 team would have wanted to do), and then tries to mutate Hiro anyway when the cure succeeds. The revived Liv is ashamed of her, as she didn't want to be cured this way.
• Care Bears: The Wizard's goal is to bring law and order to Wonderland. In any other context, this would ordinarily make him the de-facto hero, in trying to bring order to chaos - but this is Wonderland. His plan would destroy the life and soul of this alternate reality. Moreover, he's also hinted to be a hypocrite, as the reason he brings law and order is to have "everything at [his] command".
• Castlevania (2017):
  • With his true love Lisa having been murdered by the superstitious people of Wallachia, Dracula remains a lot more sympathetic than most examples in spite of this trope. The majority of his War Council are vampires who join his Kill All Humans campaign believing they'll get to rule the world once humanity's been eradicated, and the two human Devil Forgemasters on the council (Isaac and Hector) are convinced that Dracula will make the world a better place by removing human cruelty. In actuality, Dracula's campaign is at its heart just a Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum, and Dracula wholly expects the vampires, himself included, to follow humanity to the grave.
  • The Bishop abuses his authority to use anyone fighting Dracula's monsters not affiliated with the Church as scapegoats to his denial that Dracula's rampage was his fault, even though Dracula said to his face that it was due to the Bishop ordering his wife Lisa burned at the stake. He also seems fine with all the murder as it gives him a higher standing in the Church with fewer people. Ultimately his supposed goal of helping the people is just hollow lies to get away with murder and heartless behavior. In the end, he's killed by the demon Blue Fangs, who tells him point-blank that his Knight Templar ways have desanctified his Church and caused God to turn His back on him, making it possible for a demon to enter the church in the first place.
• Codename: Kids Next Door:
  • In "Operation: F.O.O.D.F.I.T.E.", Grandma Stuffum sings about how if she force-feeds the Kids Next Door her disgusting food, they'll become too fat and listless to get in trouble. Right after Sector V initially defeats her, Grandma Stuffum returns with Slamwich and essentially says that if she can't force the Kids Next Door to eat her food, then Slamwich will eat the Kids instead.
  • Robin Food and his Hungry Men from "Operation: L.U.N.C.H." say their modus operandi is to steal food from the kids and give to the starving senior citizens. At the end of the episode, it's revealed that they're the cafeteria staff of a retirement home who are too lazy and incompetent to cook meals for the elderly so they steal food from kids. Adding on to this, the senior citizens don't even like the food they steal because it's for kids and thus it messes with their digestive systems.
• Danny Phantom: Walker is the warden of the Ghost Zone prison and seems keen to combat the chaos with order in his prison. However, the rules he establishes are extreme, which includes arresting Danny for "real world contraband" even after Danny says he's arrived to retrieve it. While there are ghosts who intend to do harm, the fact that Wulf, who is not evil, was a prisoner suggests he's not actively doing any real good. Add on how he had his men attack Amity Park, framed Danny Phantom, and kidnapped teenagers as hostages, it's clear that he's just a Control Freak and nothing more.
• The Dragon Prince:
  • Lord Viren, in the interests of "protecting humanity", has betrayed his best friend Harrow, convinced Harrow to kill the Dragon King, wanted to kill the princes of Katolis (Harrow's sons) so he could seize power, driven his own son Soren away through this behavior, and gotten the Human Kingdoms to launch an invasion of the elven land of Xadia. He claims everything he did was to protect humanity, but in reality his cause is rooted in paranoia, xenophobia, and his own desire for power. He uses this as an excuse to conquer Xadia, vaguely asserting it's necessary for "Humanity to flourish", which Aaravos lampshades when trying to get Viren to admit that he really seeks to rule Xadia.
    • Averted later on in Books 4 and 5, when Viren realizes the error of his ways and simply seeks to spend his remaining life with his daughter Claudia.
  • Sol Regem fits this trope as well. While Sol Regem asserted that Dark Magic was immoral and demanded it cease, threatening to slaughter an entire city of innocent humans if they didn't give it up, he also claimed that humans are "lesser beings" because they don't have inherent magic like dragons and elves, demonstrating that he wasn't just acting out of moral opposition, but xenophobia and magical supremacy as well.
• DuckTales (2017):
  • General Lunaris portrays his invasion of the Earth to his people as them simply acting in self-preservation... except the "attack" on the moon was orchestrated by Lunaris himself, and his actions are driven more by a desire to surpass the Earth, as opposed to any concern for his people. Any illusions that he was acting for his people's interests are swept aside when he attempts to destroy the Earth while all his people are still on it, purely so it "won't be a planet" anymore.
  • Bradford Buzzard claims that the entire purpose of F.O.W.L. is to take the McDuck family out of the picture due to the fact that their many adventures have regularly put the world at risk. Then "The Last Adventure!" came around and did away with any good intentions he might've had: he's fully willing to eliminate children and innocents to reach his goals, he backstabs his allies the second Scrooge points out he'd be a hypocrite to keep working with villains who are themselves as quirky as the Ducks, and he even forces Scrooge into signing the Papyrus of Binding by threatening to erase Donald from existence and then tries to do so anyway after Scrooge signs it. Top all that off with The Reveal that A) him getting dragged along on his grandmother Isabella Finch's expeditions gave him a lifelong hatred of anything adventurous and B) he was the one who told Della Duck about the Spear of Selene (which is the direct cause of both of the conflicts of the past two seasons), and it paints a clear picture of Bradford being little more than a self-righteous villain lashing out in an attempt to give himself some emotional security.
• Gargoyles:
  • Demona's biggest flaw aside from her Never My Fault tendencies is her ongoing delusion that her paranoia against humankind is justified. The show demonstrates Demona is simply an utterly vengeful, bitter woman lashing out from centuries of isolation and denial, and she's more concerned with having a scapegoat for her sins so she can keep being the victim. She has blamed humanity for all of the betrayals that have fallen the two clans she was part of, not recognizing those betrayals were brought on by her own distrust towards humans. When the trickster Puck deliberately misconstrues Demona's genocidal wish to be rid of humans by turning all humans into gargoyles, instead of being thrilled that her kind is now finally the dominant species, she's disgusted humans have been granted the gift of being a gargoyle. Demona simply cannot let go of wanting humans to die even when she's finally gained the world she proclaims she's been fighting for.
  • Taro tries to pass himself as well-meaning when he creates a theme park supposedly to get humans from outside Ishimura used to the idea of coexisting with gargoyles, but even his dupe Yama eventually sees him as the greedy bastard he is.
• Generator Rex:
  • Van Kleiss claims all of his evil is him merely working to create a better future for all EVOs, but it's propaganda. He's been going for omnipotence since before the start.
  • Hunter Cain wants everyone to see him as the hero of the people against the EVOs. It's clear to anyone who does meet him that he's full of hate and paranoia and looking for an excuse to kill anyone or anything he doesn't like. He will go to any extreme even if it goes against what he supposedly fights for, even threatening to murder an old woman for protecting the EVO children under her care.
• Gravity Falls: Bill Cipher claims he wants to liberate the heroes' dimension and make it a fun world with no rules or restrictions. However, that would render it pure chaos inhospitable to non-demonic life, and it and his Weirdmageddon back in his own decaying world is heavily implied to be why it's decaying in the first place. Considering his sadism and how he admits he's insane and wicked either way, it's very likely his claim is just an excuse for his own enjoyment.
• Green Lantern: The Animated Series: Atrocitus formed the Red Lantern Corps to take revenge on the Guardians for the Manhunters' destruction of the forgotten zone. However, he's also destroyed countless worlds and murdered millions of innocents to add to his army. He rejects Hal Jordan's offer to help the forgotten zone, meaning he's a violent monster who is more interested in killing the Guardians than actually helping his sector.
• Hazbin Hotel: The stated reason for Heaven enacting genocide on Hell once a year is stated to be curbing Hell's overpopulation issues. Then the opening to the first episode reveals that some demons believe that the real reason is so Hell can never rise up against Heaven. To make it worse, Adam, the leader of the Exorcists (the angels that enact the genocide), not only states that they enjoy doing it but that they're going to start doing it twice a year just because they can. It's revealed this is actually because an unknown demon killed a single angel in the last genocide, and they want to make sure no one else ever gets that idea again. This gets further compounded in "Welcome to Heaven" when it's revealed that the majority of Heaven has no idea that the Exterminations are happening. If that wasn't enough, Adam promises to start the next purge at the Hazbin Hotel, just to spite Charlie.
• Hilda: Erik Ahlberg quickly proves himself to be this; while he does occasionally point out legitimate security concerns, like Vittra tunnels running under the wall being a way that trolls could get into the city, he's a Glory Hound who, in his debut episode, nearly gets himself and Hilda killed by a troll because he keeps ringing a bell despite having read Hilda's essay and thus knowing that trolls are more annoyed than scared of bells.
• Invincible (2021)
  • Omni-Man reveals that he really came to Earth in order to facilitate an Alien Invasion by his home planet Viltrum, an intergalactic empire that dominated thousands of planets beforehand. He claims this is a good thing as the Viltrum empire can better the planet and protect it from danger... except the Viltrumites are shown to be ruthless social darwinists that only care about ruling over lesser species and putting down any resistance. Omni-Man himself murdered Earth’s mightiest heroes to make the planet easier to conquer, and he makes it clear that he'll slaughter countless more if there is opposition.
  • Mark’s Arch-Enemy Angstrom Levy wants to kill him on the premise that he is evil and getting rid of him would be doing the world a favor, supported by how across The Multiverse Mark’s alternate selves are evil while Levy’s own are good people opposing him. Except this Mark is a virtuous, genuinely heroic outlier to that constant, meaning Levy is the villain this time around for antagonizing him. Add to this him perceiving his alternate selves' memories as his own, blaming Mark for his self-inflicted disfigurement, and wanting to kill Mark's loved ones as well, Levy is really driven by a lust for revenge and a crusade built on delusion, doubling down on his "Invincible is bad, I am good" rhetoric when he's called out on it.
• Justice League: Aresia from the "Fury" two-parter is a victim of war who was shipwrecked and raised on the Amazon island Themyscira. Developing an intense hatred of all men, she assembled a chemical bomb that was designed to kill all of them, creating what she would see as a utopia inhabited only by women. She ignores men like Superman actively rescuing people, or the fact that she's allied herself with female supervillains who are as violent as the men she despises. Queen Hippolyta leaves Themyscira and, to Fury's surprise, objects to her plan for worldwide murder. Even learning that the captain of the ship she was on, a man, saved her life when she was a child does not change her mind. Even ignoring that a planet of one gender would likely die out, it's clear that she's only taking the revenge she desires on those who destroyed her birth home out on all men, ignoring the harm she'd do the world.
• Miraculous Ladybug has Gabriel Agreste, a dour and strict father who claims that he does everything he does for his son Adrien after his wife was put into a coma. It turns out that he's actually Hawk Moth, who is trying to steal Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculouses in order to gain the power of Cosmic Retcon so that he can heal Emilie by erasing whatever caused her to fall into her coma due to overuse of the damaged Peacock Miraculous. Gabriel's hammy demeanor as Hawk Moth, however, is an early sign that he's enjoying his villainy far too much for that excuse to hold water. He allows his assistant Nathalie to help him as Mayura, despite the Peacock Miraculous still being damaged, and he only intermittently shows concern for her well-being. Furthermore, Adrien cannot remember him being anything but controlling, even before what happened to his mother. Finally, the events of both "Cat Blanc" and "Ephemeral" have shown that if he knew Adrien was Cat Noir, he would have no objections to turning his own son into his latest pawn. No matter how much he claims his actions are for his family, Gabriel is only truly dedicated to his own self-interest. In "Evolution", he has the perfect chance to save both Emilie and Nathalie, but passes it up to go after Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculouses. This causes Nathalie to angrily denounce Gabriel and refuse to help him any longer. This becomes very ambiguous come the Season 5 finale, however, where Gabriel actually does finally manage to get the Miraculouses and make his Cosmic Retcon wish, choosing to sacrifice himself as the price for healing Emilie and Nathalie. However, in order to do this he notably threw away of a direct offer of redemption from Marinette, making it unclear if he viewed himself as Beyond Redemption or simply wanted to go out on his own terms without facing proper punishment.
• In My Adventures with Superman, Amanda Waller argues The Needs of the Many in Task Force X's mission to eradicate Superman, but her willingness to endanger civilians proves that she's lying to herself and simply has tunnel vision on revenge against the being she believes slaughtered her entire team on Zero Day (in fact it was a different Kryptonian in a cape and armor, as Superman was just a baby at the time). To that end she deliberately threatens Metropolis and unleashes empowered and now-trained super criminals back onto the streets so that she can pull a Tyrant Takes the Helm by scapegoating and deposing General Sam Lane, after he has second thoughts. She's also shown to be a Tautological Templar who refuses to entertain the idea that she could be wrong.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Queen Chrysalis claims right away that as the Changeling queen, it's her job to feed her people with the love energy of others. However, her true motive is to conquer Equestria for the power that she herself craves and has conditioned her people to think taking love is how to be fulfilled when it really isn't. When the changelings realize that she truly cares only about herself and not them, they waste no time turning on her to gain their better forms and becoming allies to Equestria under the leadership of the truly benevolent King Thorax.
• The Owl House:
  • Emperor Belos claims to bring order through wild magic, but he is actually a human Witch Hunter who aims to "save" humanity from evil by committing genocide. His hypocritical methods and Lack of Empathy undermine his claims of defending mankind. Belos' hatred of witches stems from his inability to accept Caleb's love with a witch. He aims to be the hero of his delusions, causing him to nearly kill all life in the Boiling Isles.
  • Jacob Hopkins on Earth. He is convinced of his role as The Hero, but he is motivated solely by attention and perceived glory for proving the existence of demons, disregarding the feelings of others, as evidenced by his cues and word choices.
• Rick and Morty: Evil Morty's goal of bringing down the Central Finite Curve is, on paper, the objectively right thing to do. The Citadel of Ricks built a wall around infinity so the only alternate realities they had to coexist with were all ones where Rick was the smartest man in the universe, giving them free reign to play God in their corners of the multiverse as well as literally engineer Mortys to sell to other Ricks as disposable sidekicks. Doing gruesome things in the name of that goal could be seen as well-intentioned, except Evil Morty only cares about getting freedom for himself, not for any other person who's also been victimized by the system he's bringing down.
• Samurai Jack: The High Priestess of a cult that worships Aku raised her daughters to believe Aku was a force of good and Samurai Jack was the evil ruining their world. The sole survivor, Ashi, discovers the opposite is true and sides with Jack. Later, the High Priestess attempts to kill Jack herself while he's unable to fight back, showing she's just a fanatic blindly loyal to Aku who would rather have her own children risk their lives than she herself.
• In Star Trek: Prodigy, we have the Diviner. His main goal is to claim the Protostar, a Super Prototype Starfleet cruiser, which he claims will be the salvation of his people. However, his actions are driven by his own desires and ambitions, ruling the prison colony Tars Lemora with an iron fist, using the Medusan Zero to Mind Rape those who don't follow him (prior to their escape, that is) and when given the choice between saving his daughter Gwyn and claiming the ship, he chose the ship. Then there's the fact that the reason he wants the Protostar is to destroy the Federation because, some fifty years into the future, First Contact with his race led to a civil war between those who embraced continued isolationism and those wanting acceptance with the universe, leading to his world's destruction. Even when Gwyn points out that all he needs to do is to go to the Federation and just tell them to stay away, he'd rather continue with his plot.
• Star vs. the Forces of Evil: While Toffee was implied to have once had good intentions in the form of wanting to liberate his monster brethren from oppression on Mewni, these seem to be completely gone by the present in favor of revenge. Even then, it's eventually revealed he murdered Comet more out of hatred than her having actually done anything wrong, as she was probably the single most pro-monster queen other than Eclipsa and genuinely trying to give the monsters racial equality.
• South Park:
  • In "Cartoon Wars, Part One", when terrorists threaten reprisals over a depiction of The Prophet Muhammad in an episode of Family Guy, Cartman uncharacteristically takes the point of view that people could get hurt over it, and convinces Kyle to help him get the episode taken off the air. However, it turns out he just hates Family Guy and wants to exploit the controversy to get the show cancelled.
  • Lampshaded in "Coon vs. Coon and Friends" when Eric Cartman dons his superhero alter-ego, the Coon, and commits several atrocities with Cthulhu's help. Kenny, AKA Mysterion, immediately calls him out on it.
    Cartman: I'm making the world a better place.
    Mysterion: For you! You're making the world a better place for you!
    Cartman: ...Right, that's what superheroes do.
  • Lennart Bedrager from Season 20 seems to want to stop trolling and make the world a safer place and prevent similar fates like Freja. However, many of his methods result in massive destruction, such as the incident in Fort Collins and his plan to pit countries against each other. Then it is revealed in "Not Funny" that he has no good intentions at all and wants to cause World War III solely because he finds it amusing.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987):
    • In the episode "Dirk Savage: Mutant Hunter", A.J. Howard hires the eponymous mutant hunter to capture mutants claiming them to be a menace to society with no regard to them being good or evil. However, not only is Howard a mutant himself, he plans to build an army of brainwashed mutants in hopes of mutating and controlling the entire human race. This leads to Don and Raph stopping a vengeful Rahzar from killing Dirk in order to convince him to turn against Howard.
    • In the episode "Cry H.A.V.O.C.!", the Turtles meet the mutant organization H.A.V.O.C., which claims to protect mutants shunned by humans. Donatello and Raphael, sick of being Heroes with Bad Publicity and dealing with the ingratitude of humans, decide to join them... until they discover H.A.V.O.C. mutating a captive man and realize that their real goal is to mutate people to dominate humanity completely, not much different than Howard.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003): Skonk from "H.A.T.E." proclaims himself a defender of humanity, but has no qualms killing other humans to carry out his scheme of alien genocide.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012):
    • Rat King, despite stating his goal is to liberate rats, has sent several plummeting to their doom to kill Splinter, doesn't lift a finger to help one that mutated itself by accident, and called them disgusting shortly before his mutation. It seems more likely he considers his brethren a means to an end than actually believing in his goals.
    • Za-Naron claims she's "cleansing" the world of its corruption, but she has no problem with killing everyone on Earth, including innocent people. She enjoys trying to painfully kill the heroes, giving an Evil Laugh while doing it. And at the end, she's enraged at April for giving up "all the power in the universe", showing that she seems to be quite power-hungry.
• Transformers: The Decepticons generally at least claim to have some sympathetic goal like restoring Cybertron to glory, preserving the Cybertronian race, or eliminating a Fantastic Caste System. While sometimes they did legitimately start out that way, they're always undermined by the fact that most of their ranks are inherently cruel and vicious towards anyone who's not a Decepticon. The fact that the Autobots also share their goals, but pursue them in a much more humane way is what solidifies them as the villains of the franchise.
• Wakfu: If you asked Qilby the Traitor of Season 2, he'll tell you that he's willing to drain the wakfu out of planets in order to fuel his massive spaceship for the Eliatropes and find the perfect home for them after their Homeworld Evacuation from the war that devastated their planet. In reality, he just wants to cruise the Krosmoz for eternity and witness its marvels in order to stave off his eternal boredom, be damned to the consequences to anyone else. Once this little fact came out in the backstory along with the reveal he started the very war that required the Eliatropes to abandon their ravaged world because he had seen everything on their planet that was novel and didn't want to be lonely on the trip, his people turned against him and tossed him into a Blank White Void. When he returns in the present and once again outed for the truth, not even Yugo, who felt Sympathy for the Devil when the genuine Well-Intentioned Extremist Nox wept as the consequences of his actions hit him in Season 1, shows him mercy when it becomes apparent Qilby both selfishly says all his actions were Worth It and flat-out denies feeling guilt before locking him back in the Blank White Void.
• Xavier: Renegade Angel: Xavier claims to want to help people, but he actually only cares about being seen as someone who helps people. The finale shows that he's totally fine with burning innocent people to death if he doesn't think he'll personally gain from helping them or just to get out of an awkward situation.

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