Well-Intentioned Extremists in Fan Works.
Crossovers
- In Blood Sisters, this is basically Trick's reasons for preventing Dyson from being aware that Bo was his imprint, as he was worried that if Bo did turn out to be affiliated with Aife she would drag Dyson down with her. As Dyson observes, imprinting on Bo wouldn't actually have turned him against Trick like that if he really objected to what Bo was doing as the effect of an imprint on the wolf in question isn't so great that he wouldn't be able to resist if his partner did something he truly didn't agree with.
- Child of the Storm: Doctor Strange is this. Thanks to his unsurpassed skills as a master of Time Magic and as a Seer, he saw that in the vast majority of futures, humanity fell to Thanos, along with the rest of the universe. As a result, he set about weaponizing the Butterfly of Doom trope (he even quotes the "For Want of A Nail" poem in chapter 80 of Book 1 when explaining himself, rhetorically asking if he'd have been more help as just one more warrior, or as someone able to provide that nail) via extensive time travel and epic scale personal manipulation, to guide Earth to the best possible future, one where it can take on Thanos and win, shaping Harry into the tip of the spear. The measures he takes to ensure this happens, and the things he allows to happen lead to him sadly reflecting that in many ways he is as much a monster as the creatures he fights in the sequel, Ghosts of the Past. His main redeeming features, such as they are, are that he does little kindnesses where he can, he will not put anyone through something that he won't put himself through, his methods of shaping Harry into a soldier involve giving him a strong support system in the form of a loving Family of Choice, and when he fails Rachel/Maddie, he almost kills himself frantically rearranging the timeline to make amends and give her a happy ending.
- Dark Dynasty
: Dumbledore is so desperate for a powerful saviour that he decides to abduct Cora's unborn child. Wiping the mother's memory is no big deal, because hey, she's a bad mother so she doesn't deserve a kid (okay, he's kinda right but still). And he manipulates Harry's life without remorse, as the kid shows great potential for Dark magic, and it would be such a travesty to let another Dark Lord rise when you can force him onto the proper way since the beginning, right? - Death Note Equestria offers up several examples:
- Twilight Sparkle, as Kira, has set upon a quest to eliminate all crime in Equestria, by killing all criminals. And she's willing to kill innocents as well, in order to protect herself.
- Fluttershy, the Second Kira, likewise believes in Kira's message and is willing to kill anypony who speaks against her. Twilight objects to this.
- L is willing to go to any lengths to stop Kira, no matter how morally objectionable.
- Ace, leader of the Kira Neutrality Movement, believes that the only way to stop Kira is to remove her motivation (crime), and is thus pushing for harsher laws. That this would border on turning Equestria into a Police State and in no way prevents Kira from being a Karma Houdini are acceptable consequences to him.
- The Dresden Fillies: False Masks:
- The Order Triune seek to wipe out any trace of an Evil Overlord called Obisidian, who has historically reincarnated multiple times. This is all well and good until they mistake Harry Dresden for his latest reincarnation. In the process of trying to kill them, they kidnap Twilight and Trixie, spy on many ponies, release a hydra that could have killed bystanders, and summon He Who Walks Behind twice, severely injuring the princess. Their final act, before they're themselves sacrificed to summon a demon, is to attack the Mane 6 and a disguised Princess Celestia to get to Dresden. When it turns out Obsidian never resurrected, Vigilant Watch, one of the surviving members of the Order Triune, is extremely remorseful for all her crimes, and is dismayed when she is let off so easily by Princess Celestia.
- Novel Notion, who manipulated the Order into going after Harry, orchestrated their sacrifice and planned to the same thing to the Mane 6 and Princess Celestia to become powerful himself, claims to be this, trying to create a society ruled by ponies (specifically his own cohorts) by eliminating Princess Celestia and getting rid of the Order, and he totally unrepentant about it. While his reasoning for destroying the Order is pretty sound (it also made him what he was), and Princess Celestia admits that she is a tyrant, she also tells him that he would have killed many more ponies to cement his rule.
- Dungeon Keeper Ami: Both Empress Mercury and The Light qualify in different ways. Mercury wishes to return home, despite bonding to a Dungeon Heart, which means if she succeeds she will draw the Dark Gods after her. The Light knows that Mercury is an unwilling Keeper and has no intention of harming her native world, or the world she now lives in. However, they see no alternative but to oppose her as there seems to be no way to help her without also helping the Dark Gods.
- Earth's Alien History:
- Torchwood, as per canon, is a black ops organization determined to protect humanity (and their allies) from potential threats no matter the cost. If that means unleashing chemical weapons on populated planets or breeding enslaved super soldiers, so be it.
- The Harvesters, as it turns out, aren't destroying planets For the Evulz. They deem it as a necessary evil to prevent life from evolving in a way that would bring back the Reapers and/or enabling them to strengthen themselves for when the Reapers do come back.
- The Vinn parasitically possess people, turning them into drones, for the sake of unifying the galaxy to take on the Reapers.
- Xanatos is willing to support all kinds of morally questionable methods of keeping the Andromeda colonists safe from whatever threats are lurking in their new galaxy.
- Equestria Girls: Friendship Souls: Human Starlight Glimmer and her group (with the obvious exception of Chrysalis) are doing very morally dubious things that leave innocent people crippled and even killed in their wake, but their goal is to stop the Zero Division from pulling off an Evil Plan involving the fallen Soul Queen. Discord and Ditzy, despite being burned so badly by Starlight's actions, actually empathize with her once they realize just what said plan entails.
- Fallout: Equestria:
- In the backstory, this is what did in Equestria. When Princess Luna took the throne, she recruited the land's six greatest heroes to help in the war effort. They founded six government ministries to overhaul the nation and better handle the war: The Ministry of Magic, the Ministry of Technology, the Ministry of Image, the Ministry of Peace, the Ministry of Morale, and the Ministry of Awesome. These quickly devolved into doing horrific experiments to make ponies stronger, a violent arms race with Powered Armor and robots powered by biological brains, ceaseless propaganda, world-ending spells, omnipresent surveillance combined with lots of drugs, and a secret black-ops team. Almost three hundred years later, and most of the bigger problems in the world can be traced directly back to the Ministries.
- Red Eye is this, and naturally fits Face–Heel Turn too. He started his own personal quest to rebuild Equestria, probably long before Littlepip even found her Cutie Mark, but became so driven to reach this huge goal that he let go of his morals. Soon, he had built up an empire upon the backs of slaves, hired merciless mercenaries to protect his assets, and forged a deal with The Goddess (which he planned to break once he worked out how to become a God himself and kill The Goddess), who was a genocidal maniac herself. All of the things he did, no matter how horrible, were done to achieve the noble goal of rebuilding Equestria and bettering the lives of its inhabitants.
- Littlepip can classify as one too, or at least she has shades of it. Scootaloo, on the other hand, is a more straight example.
- Fate of the Clans: Alaya has no sense of right and wrong and will have the Counter Force carry out whatever's necessary to preserve the human race. Wipe out a city's worth of people just to off one person? Done. Kill both sides to end a war? No problem.
- Fate: Game Night SE: Ryokou Mikado antagonizes Shirou multiple times, including trapping him and his instructor/love Saeko in the Reverse World in order to find a way to heal Tearju. When Shirou destroys all her minions, Ryokou surrenders and offers her servitude if he can heal Tearju.
- Guardians, Wizards, and Kung-Fu Fighters:
- It ultimately turns out the Dark Hand's true goal is to manipulate the world's governments into accepting the existence of magic and seeking to weaponize it, in order to protect the world from extra-dimensional threats.
- Jackie becomes this after an Oni mask is forced onto his face and it starts corrupting him. He comes to the conclusion that the only way to keep everyone safe from the constant fighting between good and evil is to steal their shadows and put them into magical comas, thus rendering them unable to fight anymore.
- Harlequin: Pomni's goal as the titular akuma is to free herself and the others from their digital prison, something she can successfully do immediately after her Face–Monster Turn. However, her desire to maintain this freedom leads her to attack Ladybug and Chat Noir to keep up her deal with Hawkmoth, trap Caine in his own prison along with anyone else that gets in her way, and even unleash Abstractions against Paris and her enemeies.
- Justice League of Equestria: In Mare of Steel, this is how Steel Wing sees himself, willing to do whatever it takes to defend Equestria from Supermare. However, it's clear both in and out of universe that he's just a paranoid Knight Templar putting innocents in danger for no good reason. Alexander Silversmith also tries to present himself as one, who does despicable deeds as part of a larger plan to make Equestria a better place. However, he's just a Corrupt Corporate Executive using it as an excuse.
- No one in-universe has a problem with Homura wanting to wipe out the Incubators in Kwami Magi Homura Magica. Everyone who knows what they are agrees they are the worst. The problem they have with Homura's goals is her solution is making a Wish with the Ladybug and Cat Miraculouses to do so, which will at minimum wipe out the current reality to do so and at most destroy reality as it remakes itself due to how much the Incubators have gotten their hooks into everything.
- Megami no Hanabira has Shusui Naito, the leader of the Yakuza Demon Tamers. During his battle with the girls, he reveals his ultimate goal: to spread the Demon Summoning Program outside the city, to as many people as he can. When Yuuna protests that it would likely cause a societal meltdown as people abuse the Summoning Program, Naito counters that that is what he's counting on: when social order breaks down, people who have been historically oppressed will have a chance to use the Summoning Program to take revenge on their oppressors and claw their way to the top without being held back by arbitrary societal constraints. Ultimately, he dreams of an Übermensch that will prove themselves worthy of ruling the world through skill with the Summoning Program and the charisma to rally people beneath them, leading the world to a golden age. The death, destruction, and mayhem that would likely ensue in the meantime mean very little to him.
- Kage (part of Project Dark Jade), has one of these, in the backstory — long ago, a disciple of Kandrakar, Althair the Mad Sage, led a crusade across the Known Worlds, killing thousands (especially children) in order to prevent Oracle N'ghala's vision of the "Incoming Darkness" from coming to pass. Nerissa believes she is one, but thinks that the best way to a peaceful universe is through obedience to her and her alone.
- Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku!: Alan Scott, better known as the Green Lantern, has spent decades in his floating Kill Sat, the Green Palace, defending the Earth from and potential alien attacks. The problem is, his definition of "alien attack" includes any alien who isn't a member of the Green Lantern Corp. Because of this, any alien living on Earth or even coming remotely close to the planet is utterly terrified of him, as he'll have no qualms with murdering them even if they don't mean any harm. Izuku lives in constant fear of Scott and the wave of anti-alien hysteria that arose after the Lantern War to the point that he's on the verge of having a panic attack whenever someone seems to be coming close to deducing his identity as an alien.
- Origins: Sarah the Force-sensitive Siren falls into this category. Stopping an alien invasion that ends up taking over a galaxy and nearly taking over a second in the span of a few years may seem to cross the Godzilla Threshold, especially when the aliens in question are the Flood. However, Samantha Shepard, et al. take issue with killing hundreds of millions of people or leaving the Terminus systems as a sacrifice to save Council Space—which doesn't even work in the end.
- Remnant Inferis: DOOM:
- The Doom Slayer is willing to commit gruesome actions if they deny Hell or Salem a foothold. He suggested killing Amber should doing so deny their enemies the Maiden's powers. Ozpin is certain that if he knew about the relics, he would destroy them as well, despite them being necessary for Remnant's salvation.
- Ozpin has shown a willingness to use Ruby as bait to lure the cultists stationed at Beacon out of hiding, though it's made clear that he doesn't like the idea.
- Professor Peach's motives for betraying Remnant to Hell is revealed to be this. To her, there is no stopping the war between Ozpin and Salem, and she truly believes that the only salvation is to wipe the slate clean, which translates to killing everyone and effectively sentencing them to damnation.
- Shepherd Of The Stars features the Liir as these. After several years of slaver raids from the Batarians, their agents come to the conclusion that peace will never be possible and that Batarian culture will always cause them to attack their neighbors. So they try to completely exterminate the Batarians to keep them from hurting anyone else. Only at the end of their attempted xenocide do the Liir realize that they've been duped by the same information control the Batarians used on their citizens and that most of the Batarians they killed were decent people.
- Son of Sparda D×D: Kokabiel, aka Modeus, wants to unite the angels, devils, and fallen angels to bring about peace, but he's willing to start a brutal war and become the monster they will unite against in order to make that happen.
- Steven Voorhees: Steven Universe adopts the identity of a Jason Voorhees-like killer in a misguided attempt to protect humankind from his and the Gems' activities.
- Strange Potter: While calling Dumbledore an extremist might be an exaggeration, other characters note that his greatest flaw is his belief that he is always right, Sirius and Remus realising with hindsight that Dumbledore never accepted any disagreement with his plans during the war against Voldemort but just kept subtly arguing with people until they accepted his ideas. This leads to him objecting to Doctor Strange encouraging a greater awareness of muggles in the wizarding world, ranging from Lily becoming the first muggle-born to receive an Order of Merlin (albeit posthumously) to an increased Non-Magical Protection Act, as Dumbledore is more concerned with wizards turning to the likes of Voldemort as they're angered at the loss of power and freedom rather than the immediate benefits of first-generation witches and wizards feeling more secure.
- Sudden Contact: The Overmind seeks to end the Reaper cycle by assimilating the entire galaxy to present a united front against the Reapers.
- There Was Once an Avenger From Krypton:
- Through backing Project Centipede, and various other actions that haven't been fully detailed, Doctor Doom seems to be trying to toughen Earth and its heroes up to face the looming threat of Thanos. In fact, he and the version of Reed Richards he's allied with are so determined to stop Thanos getting the Infinity Stones that they've been altering the timeline repeatedly in order to put more heroes and allies at Earth's disposal.
- Vilgax has torn through the universe to try and gain control of the Omnitrix… because he wants to use it to defeat Thanos before he can carry out his own plans.
- Transcendence: The Bronze Dragonflight are understandably freaked out about Ichigo's unexplainable ability to permanently alter Azeroth's carefully maintained timeline simply by getting involved in events, leading to changes in time that the dragons can't predict. His presence has already led to the survival of both Adelina and Codexia, both of whom were supposed to die in the main timeline, and Anachronos foresees that Ichigo may completely derail the entire plan of events of Azeroth's future as they are supposed to happen, which in turn may lead to something cataclysmic. As such, they are determined to fix this before it goes any further. Unfortunately, their method of fixing the problem is to simply murder Ichigo when they find him. After all, he can't derail Azeroth's knowable future if he's dead, right? The worst part is that Ichigo doesn't know that he's somehow changing events at all, so he isn't even aware that the Bronze Dragonflight is actively hunting him. Thankfully, his summoning to Azeroth granted him some sort of seal that he's also unaware of that hides him from the dragonflight's ability to locate him through the timestream, meaning that the dragons have to find him the old-fashioned way, something they are having a very hard time doing.
- Twilight Storm: In "Time's Ashes", this definitely describes the Monk; having survived the Time War by hiding outside of history, the Monk attempts to infect the Doctor with a "time virus" that will erase him from history, reasoning that without the Doctor, the Daleks will never be created (more specifically, the Time Lords will send another agent on the mission in "Genesis of the Daleks" who will kill them) and thus Gallifrey will be saved. The fact that this means Earth (and numerous other planets) will be destroyed without the Doctor around to save them is considered a "justifiable loss" in the Monk's mind... up until it turns out that Gallifrey was destroyed by the Sontarans this time around, and the aforementioned clones now use Gallifrey's resources to wage a greater war.
- What the Cat Dragged In: This is the result when Hawk Moth akumatizes Tony Stark. The villain essentially wants to teach people to defend themselves against supervillains, without having to depend on heroes to save them...except he does this by trapping people in replicas of the Iron Man armor that only he can control. He also wants to get Ladybug and Chat Noir out of the way in the process, because A) they're teenagers and he genuinely believes people as young as them shouldn't take up the burden of being a superhero (which is also part of what triggered Tony's akumatization in the first place); B) without heroes to hide behind, the citizens of Paris will have to accept his methods; and C) because Hawk Moth wants their MacGuffins.
- Alex (MovieVillain): The titular character wants to make Marceline pay for everything she has done by getting her position as the new Vampire Queen. How does she do that? Turn the Land of Ooo into a dark swamp and blame her for it.
- Another Brother has Prince Iroh, who's determined to bring his nephew home. Unfortunately, the nephew is very keen on avoiding this and constantly flees away. Iroh's reaction to that — having come to the not entirely unreasonable conclusion that his nephew is Brainwashed and Crazy — is to burn anyone and everything in his way to help the boy. He's also out to unite the world under the Fire Nation, seeing it as Necessarily Evil because Sozin wiping out the Air Nomads put the world seriously out of balance. The Air Nomads were, well, nomads, and nowhere near all those of Airbender heritage lived in the Temples, yet no new Airbenders have been born. Therefore, something is very wrong. As a result, when the spirits come back in earnest during Harmonic Convergence, they are going to be pissed, and humanity could easily be wiped out entirely. Ergo, humanity needs to be united beneath the Fire Nation's rule to even stand a chance. However, he stops both of these after realizing that neither situation is quite as it seems: Zuko's not brainwashed, and as Gyatso, his spirit-guide, shows him, at least some of the Air Nomads survived by physically moving into the Spirit World.
- Field of Innocence: Lu Ten is portrayed as a loving family...who nevertheless is convinced of the Fire Nation's superiority and need to conquer the other kingdom.
- Reluctant Hero: The Northern Water Tribe tries to restore balance in the world and searches for the Avatar in order to fulfill this goal. When they find the teen, they abduct him — while thinking they're rescuing him from the Fire Nation - basically imprison and force him to follow their customs, and consider wiping his memory clean from everything related to the Fire Nation in order to help him progress. Is that such a wonder that the kid escaped?
- The Dilgar War: Supreme Warmaster Gar'shan, the saner members of the Warmaster Council (like the protagonist Jha'dur, also known as Deathwalker), and the Dilgar emperor are trying to save the Dilgar race from the imminent explosion of their homeworld's sun. To do so they invaded the League of Non-Aligned Worlds, with the intent of conquering a paradise planet with adequate infrastructure already present for their people and the rest of the League for their advanced technology and worlds in which their population would be able to move when they'd grow too much for a single world, and intend to kill or enslave and work to death every single inhabitant of the League to make space and have the workforce they'll need for the first period. To be fair, they know exactly what they are, and their plan also includes making sure the next generation of Dilgar will be better people than themselves.
- A Protector's Pride: Ichigo says this about Aizen. Ichigo claims that Aizen might have wanted to change Soul Society for the better, but he, unfortunately, took to A God Am I. Along with his inability to talk to others as equals, this led to the monster he became.
- Blackened Skies:
- Kaede has some elements of this despite being a Guile Heroine... or rather, because of that. She is so singularly determined to stop this killing game after failing to prevent the last one that she is willing to go to some pretty severe lengths in the process. In particular, she's willing to lie to and manipulate her peers, trying to figure out just what she needs to say or do in order to get them on her side... which winds up undermining her efforts and status as a Magnetic Heroine. Turns out it's hard to trust somebody who treats any resistance to her ideals as an obstacle to be overcome.
- Kaito runs into similar issues; just like Kaede, he's determined to make up for past mistakes by uniting everyone else right NOW — leading to him pushing too hard and trying to shout down and overpower anyone who disagrees with his Hot-Blooded methods. The harder they shove, the more their targets push back.
- A Cure for Love: The Astraea organization, especially V. When the original Kira disappears, they take it upon themselves to "cleanse the world" in his absence.
- Fade: L's Start of Darkness is a combination of this and getting Drunk with Power.
- The Sleeping Survivors: Professor Osmond Stone is kidnapping people to put them in suspended animation, but does it out of a belief it will help humanity survive an alien attack.
- Transcendence: Digital Curse: Alphamon seems to truly want to protect the Digital World. However, he believes that every problem that has endangered it originated within the real world. As a result, he wants to completely sever any links the two worlds have to each other. Gennai notes that if such a thing were to actually happen it could even destroy the digital world, but it's unknown if Alphamon actually knows this fact as well. So far, none of his actions seem to have contributed much to this goal. His attempts to eliminate Agumon even seem to be just to spite humanity by stopping them from having a relationship with Digimon.
- Disney's War — A Crossover Story: The Master of Worlds at first seems like one, as he invokes the Utopia Justifies the Means trope in his justifications, claiming that merging all the Disney worlds into one, removing all the troubles caused in the past by travels unbalancing the various worlds, would be a greater good for which the death of the magical beings is a lesser, necessary evil. However, The Reveal that a much more nefarious force controls the Master of Worlds since the beginning shows that the Master of Worlds was not so "well-intentioned".
- What About Witch Queen?: Generals Berg, Kristiani, and Olafsen. Their plan has shades of Insane Troll Logic (start war with Weselton to prevent war with Weselton), but they honestly believe that what they do is for the good of Arendelle, even if the queen clearly doesn't see it that way.
- Walking in Circles: As in per canon, Solas is this trope with his goal of taking down the Veil and thus destroying the current world, along with many lives in it. But later, his lover Evelyn also becomes one due to her experience before and during the Mage Rebellion. Even Solas is surprised by her decision and he grieves for her loss of innocence to become like that.
- Clear Skies: Hausmann just wants to get his planet back. When the battle with the Caldari fleet turns against him, he chooses to surrender rather than get any more of his people killed.Hausmann: I came here to get our planet back, but I've lost more of my people in the last five minutes than in the last two years! No more!
- "What Chapter 372 Of Fairy Tail Should Have Been": Unlike Kyouka who tortured Erza For the Evulz, Erza is torturing Kyouka because she believes she is punishing an evildoer, which she thinks is a noble thing.
- A Brighter Dark: Garon merely wants to save his people from starving to death. And since the Hoshidans refuse to share their wealth, he will take it by force.
- Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): Mariko committed an act of this before she first comes into the story. Like in the Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) novelization, she agreed with Emma Russell's speech claiming that humans have no right to contain the Titans or leave their fate up to an unreasonably anti-Titan government, so she enabled Behemoth's containment breach during the Mass Awakening which got her colleagues killed.
- Departure From The Diary: Tamelyn Riddle wants to kill off muggle-borns in the short term and remove them from their parents immediately after birth in the long term because she's trying to protect wizarding kind from muggles* .
- Reparations: Draco works in the St Mungo's Department of Magical and Chemical Dependence (Chem Dep for short), which is basically rehab for magic folk. Most of the patients are addicted to a wizard drug called Chromia, but there's also a new drug called Chromia X, which is stronger, more addictive, and thus more dangerous than regular Chromia. It turns out that the department is constantly running the risk of being shut down because the the board doesn't understand its importance, so the head of the department, Draco's boss, creates and distributes Chromia X because he figures that if the number of patients increases, the board can't justify shutting down the department.
- The Rigel Black Chronicles: Tom Riddle is insistent on passing legislation that would incentivize half-bloods to marry pure-bloods — even require a half-blood to accept a proposal — but forbid them from marrying muggle-borns. In his preferred scenario, he would be hand-picking the couples. It turns out that he does actually have a partially sympathetic reason: excessive inbreeding is creating a fertility crisis, with many "hyper-pure" families only able to have one child, and marrying half-bloods will stave it off. But he's genuinely prejudiced against all muggle influences, too.
- Hivefled: Lereal Belsai genuinely wants to do what's best for the warmbloods. Unfortunately, he thinks this involves overthrowing and enslaving the coldbloods in turn. He also masterminds an attack in which all 250 of the Child Soldiers of the Sufferist cult attack the thousands-strong Alternian fleet, relying on the protective magical powers Karkat Vantas has repeatedly and truthfully insisted he doesn't have.
- Intercom: One of Riley Andersen's classmates, a girl named Tracy, begins antagonizing her about Hearing Voices (which for Riley are actually her emotions). While Tracy is a bully toward Riley, she does want her to get psychological help since it appears Riley has a mental illness that's getting worse by the day.
- Horseshoes and Hand Grenades: Damballa A Month of Sundays, transformed Shotaro, Haruto, and Eiji into Creepy Dolls because he has been trying to find a way to revive his own grandson who got lost in the struggle of the War of the Stars. Unfortunately, he's forcing the transformation on them, shattering their minds in the process and he truly cannot grasp the idea of a human mind. Thankfully, Jun helps him see the light and reunites him with his grandson.
- The Shrouded Path: Vanitas, the Big Bad behind Silent Hill, is responsible for the torture (and often death) of the people who enter the town. However, he honestly thinks he is doing the universe a favour by ridding it of those people's evil.
- The Tie That Binds: After Ven and Vanitas merge, the new Ventus ends up keeping Ven's motivation of protecting his friends. However, he also keeps Vanitas's selfishness and affinity for violence, and ends up doing things like encouraging Terra's/Xehanort's experiments in Radiant Garden and joining the Organization.
- Thanks to his amnesia, Terranort ends up as a similar fusion of Terra and Xehanort. Terranort's experiments in Radiant Garden are motivated by his desire to find Aqua and only turn towards darkness when he has recurring visions of her in the Realm of Darkness.
- For a Friend: Black Widow spends the entire story manipulating Steve Rogers towards canon events for no readily apparent reason. The final scene of the story reveals that she's working on behalf of Thanos to spare half of humanity, due to Ebony Maw convincing her Thanos planned to wipe out humanity entirely, leaving out that Thanos' SOP is to kill off half of each planet's population.
- X-Men 1970: The "Students Against the Vietnam Insanity" activist group wants to raise awareness about the Vietnam War by taking over a building and threatening to set off a bomb if their demands aren't met.
- The Karma of Lies: Adrien attempts to excuse Hawkmoth this way upon learning his motivations. However, these efforts are quickly shot down. The fact that Adrien had already tried downplaying and dismissing Hawkmoth's villainy by claiming that Ladybug's Miraculous Cure always fixed everything certainly didn't help his case.
- Marinette Dupain-Cheng's Spite Playlist: Emilie Agreste believes that Hawkmoth was a case of this, given that his ultimate goal was to use the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous to make a wish that would restore her to life. Given the circumstances, they're obviously pretty biased on the matter, and Adrien calls them out on it, decisively rejecting the idea and confronting her about how she wouldn't have been in that magically-induced coma in the first place if she hadn't been abusing the power of the broken Peacock. There was nothing well-intentioned about either of their actions; both of them were just selfish, not caring what happened to Paris or the rest of the world so long as they got what they wanted.
- Fairy Tales and Hokum: The Big Bad, Charles Hamilton, is fully aware of the dangers Nazi Germany presents to the world; his goal is to unleash Anubis's Army on the Nazis. Unfortunately, to him, even the German Jews and opponents to Nazis are just collateral damage and he's (wrongfully) convinced that the undead army would stop at man-made borders. (They wouldn't.)
- Whispered Tribulation: After dealing with several villain attacks targeting his students, Aizawa's convinced that there must be a mole at U.A. Upon identifying a promising suspect, he and his co-conspirators abduct the student and spirit him off to be interrogated, intending to secure a confession by any means necessary. Unfortunately for them, Midoriya Izuku is completely innocent, and Aizawa's campaign against him is nothing more than a Windmill Crusade.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- Asylum (Daemon of Decay):
- Dr. Rose, Twilight's doctor, uses highly questionable methods but it is to make sure that no unicorn ever has to be "cured" by a Keratotomynote . Or at least, that's what claims. Just like most things in Asylum, it is hard to say if this is true or just a lie used to cover a much more sinister motive.
- Twilight repeatedly uses manipulative tactics and other morally questionable actions that could harm her own friends to try to prove herself right, but only because it's what she believes has to be done to save Equestria.
- Best Friends Forever (written by the same author as Love, in All Its Forms): After Fluttershy died of old age, Twilight, not wanting to outlive her remaining friends, devised a method to keep them immortal by isolating them and herself in a castle, magically regressing them into babies and having them live out their lives with her, then turning them into babies again when they get too old. According to Twilight, they weren't happy being regressed at first, but "came around" eventually.
- Chronicles of Harmony's End: Array desires nothing more than to erase his counterpart, Discord and considers backstabbing the Top God (the only one keeping them - especially Discord - in line) a price worth paying for the chance. He then proceeds to lose to Discord.
- Equestria: A History Revealed:
- According to the Lemony Narrator, the canon version of Discord is an example of this, at least when compared to the "ultimate evil" of Celestia. Given she says this at the end of a chapter describing all that occurred during his Age of Chaos makes such a claim very questionable, especially when Celestia's regime doesn't seem to do anything as obviously destructive as his.
- In a more serious example, the former pegasus war hero Thunderhide is a clearer example of this, joining Luna's side after losing faith in the Celestia-Equestrian system, and believing that joining her in destroying it is the only way true change can occur.
- Inner Demons: Scootaloo, having performed a Face–Heel Turn and joined up with Twilight (who herself had been consumed by her Queen of Darkness persona and become the Big Bad), is this mixed with The Starscream. She admits that, unlike Trixie and Sweetie Belle (who both also had Face Heel Turns around the same time she did), she's known all along what a monster Queen!Twilight is, and has only served her in order to get close enough to kill her and end her rule over Equestria. However (and this is where the Starscream angle comes in), she is clearly enjoying the pain and suffering she inflicts on the heroes, and more to the point, she has no intention of returning the throne to the Princesses — once Queen!Twilight is dead by her hoof, she intends to set herself up as the great Hero who saved the day, and then take the throne for herself. After her Heel–Face Turn, she admits to having gotten Drunk with Power and lost sight of her original goal.
- Let My Ponies Go!: Celestia realizes that every crisis faced by Equestria has only been defeated because of the Mane Six, but since they're not immortal, Equestria will lose its only defenders when they die. She decides to turn the Mane Six into stone statues to preserve them for when future disasters strike, so they can never die of old age.
- Love, in All Its Forms: Celestia banishes her niece, Luna's changeling daughter Antumbra, to a desert wasteland to stop her from draining Luna dry of all love and accidentally killing her. She then lies to Luna that Antumbra is dead to keep her from searching for her daughter. The story has No Ending, leaving readers to decide whether or not Celestia was justified in her actions.
- The Lunar Rebellion: Ephor Swift Blade is essentially one such extremist who got his facts wrong. He truly, honestly believes that Celestia is a tyrant, that Nightmare Moon was a better leader who was banished unjustly and should be returned to power, and that Equestria would be genuinely better off as a Pegasus-run military dictatorship. He's wrong, of course, but even if he were right, that still doesn’t excuse allying with warlocks and lunar cultists, violently overthrowing other governments, and using equine sacrifices and Blood Magic to turn a fellow ephor into the Avatar of Nightmare Moon.
- Misunderstandings: The conspiracy against Peter Collins, a human who ends up in Equestria, is actually a subversion but in different ways. For many of the nobles out to get Peter, it is subverted on the "well-intentioned" part. They seek to target Peter, but only because they see him as a way to discredit Princess Twilight in the eyes of Princess Celestia and seek other personal gains, and show almost no concern for who gets hurt in the process. For Sergeant Peppermint York, it is subverted on the "extremist part". She genuinely believes Peter is a dangerous monster and in all fairness, Peter did almost fatally shoot Aircolt Swift Wind but is unwilling to hurt other ponies to get to him, and finds herself more and more infuriated by the actions of the conspirators which have endangered lives than with Peter being free in general. When Peter is proven to be totally innocent of any wrongdoing, she confesses to the role she played.
- Pages Of Harmony also portrays Twilight as this. All she seems to want is for Harmony to reign in Equestria... which she plans to achieve through performing torture and Mind Rape on her friends to extract their Elements, as well as anypony who gets in the way of her plans.
- Paradise has the Unicorn chief Phantom Spell. He is an autocratic Unicorn chief stallion, is very (large emphasis on "very") strict on his orders and rules, and has zero tolerance for misbehavior and internal conflict, but he does so to keep his herd safe from the frequent dangers of the Everfree Forest where they live in (such as the Ursa Major that passed through the Unicorn territory later).
- Pony POV Series: The second Big Bad, Princess Gaia, Fluttershy's Superpowered Evil Side, is this. She only wants to create a utopia where no one suffers and everyone is happy...by brainwashing everyone into being happy and turning every pony into foals in both mind and body.
- Ponies of Olympus: In Rolling in Beaches, King Kenbroath and his clan honestly believe that ponies are descended from cursed dragons (it's actually the other way around) and that they must use the Rainbow Pearl to revert it. He doesn't care to ask anypony's permission first because he figures granting them all substantially longer lives and great power would be a blessing.
- RainbowDoubleDash's Lunaverse: Zecora, who foresees danger coming to the land and genuinely believes the only path to survival is under the Big Bad's iron fist: in this case, Princess Celestia gone Caligula. As for what's threatening Equestria for Zecora to believe a power-mad Sun goddess is the queen it needs to survive? We haven't been told as of this edit.
- Rainbow Factory: The workers want to keep Cloudsdale full of Rainbows, which are an important part of their society. They do this by killing failed fliers, all of them children. Though depending on the version you are reading, there are hints that they have other reasons for killing the "weaker" children...
- RealityCheck's Nyxverse: In Nightmare Night and Nyx, the conspiracy trying to eliminate Nyx are all convinced she's still evil and has brainwashed the Princesses, and thus has to be destroyed. They all have a collective My God, What Have I Done? moment when they realize how wrong they were.
- Deconstructed in The Kakashi Way: Hiruzen believes his old rival Danzo to be one of these, which is how he justifies his reluctance to act against him. Sure, Danzo is highly ambitious and wishes to become Hokage himself, but Hiruzen clings to the belief that at his core, Danzo is driven by a sincere love for Konohagakure and an equally sincere desire to protect the village from any threats. Problem is, the Sandaime severely underestimates what qualifies as a "threat" in Danzo's eyes — as far as he's concerned, anything that threatens his rise to power counts. And since Virtue and Love are weaknesses in his eyes, he ruthlessly targets anyone connected to these perceived threats, causing a lot of pain, heartache, and suffering to the very village he's supposedly protecting. Once this starts coming out, Hiruzen is left deeply regretting how he'd misjudged his long-time comrade and enabled him to go effectively unchecked for so long.
- All Mixed Up! also paints Oprah as this, although it's less well-intentioned. Following on the heels of Precinct 13579's previous leader, Olesya, she creates a tight regime where Individuality Is Illegal — agents are free to have their expertise lie in subjects that aren't mathematics-based, but it's to be expected that they will conform to loving, and gaining knowledge of, mathematics in due time, just like every other agent. Mariana Mag had a run-in with this regime and tried to justifiably fight back to no avail, and as a result, she tried to rebel by creating a Hostage Situation where she turned numerous agents and parts of Headquarters into anagrammed objects while offering Oprah freedom of her agents and her Headquarters pieces in exchange for incorporating language into the precinct's doctrine. The Director agreed to the deal but did not uphold her end as Mariana upheld hers, instead firing Mariana from Odd Squad, demoting her partner Oksana to the Food and Beverage department for being a Guilt-Ridden Accomplice who kept silent about her rebellion, and wiping part of her memory, something that she describes as being akin to a vivisection. At the end of the story, Oprah has a Heel Realization and apologizes to Mariana, resurrecting her after her defeat at the hands of Otto and offering her a chance to start her life over in running her aquarium.
- The Evil Queen: Makoto Niijima, after discovering that gym teacher Kamoshida has been assaulting several students, blackmailed the principal to have the teacher removed and grant the student council more power. By the time Akira transfers to Shujin Academy, Makoto has the school in her iron grip to turn it into a utopia by any means necessary.
- Round Two: Makoto's antagonism to Akira is explained like this. In her eyes, a convicted criminal rumored to be a rapist is spending time with her former friend Ryuko Sakamoto and could very well bring harm to her, which is why she reported to Shujin's headmaster that he was acting violent to other students. The action is still viewed as jarring to Akira, who remembers her as his loyal tactician.
- Pokémon Master: The Pokemon League unleashes the Forbidden Pokemon upon the world because Gary Oak has deceived them into believing their post-apocalyptic wasteland of a world will be renewed after the Forbidden are done with it.
- Pokémon Reset Bloodlines has several examples from the canon media, especially among villainous team leaders. The trope is discussed in the Steven Interlude side story, where the title character talks to Sawyer about how it's in human nature that everybody has their own vision of the future and strive to make it a reality, but no matter how noble your intentions are, it means nothing if other people must suffer to achieve it.
- Poké Wars: Ho-oh wants Pokémon-kind to live in a utopia. He plans to achieve this utopia by engaging in genocide against humanity. He later goes Jumping Off the Slippery Slope by doing things like ordering the wanton killing of Pokémon, contrary to his ideals, utterly ruining the environment and not giving a damn about it, and generally being a filthy hypocrite.
- Return of the Hero: The Sky Soldiers just want to rid the world of all evil...at the cost of Ho-Oh's life and unleashing Pure Impurity, which would result in the destruction of the entire universe.
- Rosario Vampire: Brightest Darkness Act III: When Akua and Kahlua are revealed to be working for Kiria and participating in his plan to use the Chrono Displacement spell to change history so monsters rule the world, they insist they're doing it for their father Issa, wanting to make him one of the top dark lords of the Earth once humanity is subjugated. However, in doing so, they killed their father's servants and stole the Chrono Displacement spell from the Shuzen family archives in the first place, and it all turns out to be for nothing when they discover that Kiria's plan would have put him in place as the only dark lord of the world, and part of said plan would be Issa's death.
- Emergence (RWBY): General Ironwood intends to invade Earth through the newly formed portal and establish a safe haven on the other side for the natives of Remnant.
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
- Cat-Ra: Due to staying with the Horde, Adora retains the belief that the Horde are the good guys and that conquering Etheria will make it a better place. However, thanks to Shadow Weaver stepping up her manipulations to keep her with the Horde, she has become extremely ruthless in her methods.
- The Smurfs That Canon Forgot: All Scaredy wants to do is protect the village and all his friends while Papa is away. They can't rely on Papa's magic, wisdom, and guidance when he's not there, so they have to improvise. His defenses work, but imperfectly, and increasingly go against the smurfs' preferred pacifistic ways — one malfunction injures Scruple, and another takes off one of Gargamel's hands. His supporters also encourage the idea of him stepping up and officially becoming the new leader in Papa's absence, leading to even more strife, as not every smurf is on board with that idea...
- Hellsister Trilogy: Blackstarr works for Darkseid because she is convinced that there will no be more war and strife if he wins.
- Superman of 2499: The Great Confrontation: Adam Kent wants to take over the world because he thinks that is the most efficient way to protect it.
- Clash of the Elements: Joe Dark THINKS he is one of these, but as Alex points out to him after learning of his backstory, his ends don't really justify the means.
- New Tamaran: Lex Luthor’s hatred of space aliens (as well as Amazons and Atlanteans) is fueled by his desire to protect the human race from being conquered.
- A whole new universe has Clu. He conquers, not because he hungers for power, but because he genuinely believes that anything imperfect must be made perfect with all possible means and that his way is the only possible way. In his own words: "Whenever I look around, I see unexpressed potential. I see cultures that could be so much more. It is my duty to make them reach and exceed that potential. (...) In time, I want everyone to reach perfection.". In the rare event that he fails, he resorts to genocide.
- In Turning Red: Secrets of the Panda, Xia experiments on people to try and see whether she can join the red panda spirits with them, but she is only doing so to help others be able to defend themselves. She also removes Mei's panda spirit, as she thought Mei wanted to be rid of it. However, she soon realises that she was only making things worse.
- Brewdening Love Expanded Universe: Mary, Hugo's stepsister. In his own words, "It wasn't that she was mean to him—and that was what made living with her so hard. She honestly meant well."
- Nobledark Imperium: The Zoats are single-mindedly focused on wiping out the Tyranids. This is good insofar as that goes, but it's noted that, while they work with the Imperium since they also fight the Tyranids, they don't answer to or accept orders given to them by the Imperium either, and some of the actions they accomplish solely to "spite the 'Nids" can have pretty hellish consequences. Two specific examples given are the Zoats awakening a Necron Tomb World to wipe out a Hive Fleet (even though the Tomb World would then go on to ravage the entire sector) and also attracting a Chaos warband to attack a planet with a strong Genestealer cult.
- Better Bones AU:
- Ashfur believes that killing Hollyleaf, Lionblaze, and Jayfeather will protect the Clans due to the danger of having cats more powerful than StarClan, and this and the fact he did not work with Hawkfrost here lead to StarClan accepting him. However, he is still the Crazy Jealous Guy he is in canon and is also partially motivated by wanting to cause Squirrelflight pain.
- Ripplestar launched attacks on all the other Clans because he wanted to gain enough territory to allow SkyClan to come back from exile and have a home.
