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Villains with Good Motives
A topic often brought up when discussing villains, be it real life criminals or the monsters of fantasy, is the why. Why did they do what they did? Does it justify it? Does it EXCUSE it? Let's see if there's a common theme. As the title suggests, post villains you believed had good motives while remaining a villain. Antiheroes are far too common to not make note of, and are to be excluded from this topic. A villain must commit actions that may be justified, but not excused. As this is an online forum, I suppose this is the spoiler warning, as motives of villains are often kept secret until the end, or require a lot of intuition and diving into the media they come from. It should also be said that while you are allowed to disagree with what someone else constitutes a villain, try not to turn it into a full blown philosophical debate. I don't intend to maintain the high ground, but we are here to discuss terrible people, not become them. One last thing, there is a difference between being a good villain, and being a villain with good motives. I may have said one last thing, but this one is for realsies. If two villains share the same general motive, try to not spend as much time discussing that motive. There is a large number of reasons villains act the way they do, so it helps to not repeat the same thing over again. On that note, I'll begin.
The Greeed, from Kamen Rider OOO. With the exception of the Kohryu Greeed, the Greeed are artificial life forms born from desire created in the middle ages by alchemists. In the series, the Greeed's primary goal is to become complete, as they are missing distinct parts of themselves. The Greeed do not feel any emotion except desire, and it becomes easy to sympathize with them. Later on we learn that some Greeeds have simple almost childish motives. One wants to know the feeling of having a family, another simply wishes to accompany his friend. Does this excuse their actions? Not necessarily, but it certainly shines a light on the fact that not all evils are committed out of malice. The most important motive for all the Greeeds, is the fight for survival. They live off of materialized desire, which they produce by planting a Yummy (monster that generates said materialized desire) into someone with a strong desire. Not all of the Yummies are inherently evil, only manipulated by the wishes of the host. Some simply magnify the desire of the host and nothing more. That is the quest of the Greeed, to become whole, survive, and experience the emotion they never will be able to. Does it justify their actions? For the most part yes, albeit some are just outright evil for evil's sake. Does it excuse them? No.
Even though she pissed me off to no end, I think Augustine from Infamous: Second Son had a pretty good motive for what she did, even though she went the complete wrong way about it.
Consider the setting of Infamous, where Conduits (called Bio-terrorists derogatorily) are basically people who gain superpowers for some reason or another. Infamous, as a deconstruction of the hero genre, the Conduits are not well recieved by the common population and as seen as freaks or "others", and some use their power to commit criminal acts which further increases the stigma against Conduits. Eventually the government stepped in and began to persecute Conduits in a massive witch hunt to prevent the danger they percieved. Augustine, a Conduit herself, was caught up in the chaos ensuing in Seattle and tried to escape the city with a young girl. Eventually, she had to make a choice between helping out her fellow Conduits, or assisting the government in killing them, effectively the alignment in the game. However, she took a third option. Augustine chose to work with the government to secure and contain Conduits, sealing them away from the population. These Conduits must be seized in any way, shape or form, even if citizens are hurt in the process. This effectively turns Seattle into a place of constant surveillance in fear of the "Bio-terrorist threat". Augustine's motif? she feared the power of the government to destroy Conduits and the possibility that they could be wiped out should the government create a powerful enough weapon. She feared a mass-genocide of Conduits, and she did not want to see that happen, so she took a third route of trying to protect them from themselves, so the people and government would not kill them. In doing so, however, Augustine helped to create a quasi-fascist police state where DUP maintains a strangehold on the population of Seattle and other cities, and effectively turned it into a dystopia where nobody wins. Her motives were good, however, she simultaneously led an oppression of both Conduits and non-Conduits. Oh how things could have been different, Augustine.
I really like and kinda hate Adachi because I can actually relate to him being bored in a small town and starting something but at the same time he inadvertently got others kidnapped.
N.
Pokemon Black and White.
Best Villan in the Pokemon series.
His motive is simple.
To be a hero.
Sure, it wasn't pulled off correctly.
You shouldn't try to take Pokemon away from humans.
But he doesn't do it so humans can be happy
He wants the Pokemon to be happy.
He feels like pokeballs are prisons, and battling with them is wrong.
The only reason that Team Plasma uses Pokemon is because they need to knock out the trainer to steal the Pokemon.
N is definitely the best Villan in the series because he doesn't care.
He feels like he's doing the right thing.
While all the other Villan know they're being evil.
But N is actually doing something good.
Making Pokemon happy.
Even though he's doing it the wrong way.
N. Pokemon Black and White. Best Villan in the Pokemon series. His motive is simple. To be a hero. Sure, it wasn't pulled off correctly. You shouldn't try to take Pokemon away from humans. But he doesn't do it so humans can be happy He wants the Pokemon to be happy. He feels like pokeballs are prisons, and battling with them is wrong. The only reason that Team Plasma uses Pokemon is because they need to knock out the trainer to steal the Pokemon. N is definitely the best Villan in the series because he doesn't care. He feels like he's doing the right thing. While all the other Villan know they're being evil. But N is actually doing something good. Making Pokemon happy. Even though he's doing it the wrong way.N isn't a villain though?
No need to quote someone right above you.
Anyway, N is more of an antagonist than a villain. He is against the player, but his motives and even in his own eyes, his actions are pure. He didn't really know the full extent of what he was doing, he is still a child, deep down inside.
So a lot of the wait on this was me trying to decide which villain from the Tales Series to choose, because they have a LOT of good villains. There are so many great ones that I simply decided to pick one from three different forms of media, games, shows, and print. Without further ado, lets get started
In Tales of Xillia 2, we actually have two major villains, and it would be a shame to go over one and ignore the other, so I will include them both.
First up, Chronos, the Great Spirit of time. IN the beginning there were three great spirits, Chronos, Great spirit of time, Maxwell, Lord of spirits (lesser spirits of the elements and nature that is), and Origin, Great spirit of life. These three beings brought shape to the world as we know it in-game and preside over every essential aspect of it. At some point, humans came into existence. As we are known to do, they frequently fought each other and took advantage of the environment around them, causing all of the world to suffer. Maxwell, grew frustrated and insisted that the three wipe humanity off the face of the planet, thus allowing spirits control over the world again. Origin disagreed, insisting that humans were as vital a part of nature as any other, and thus it would be a mistake to destroy them. Chronos, the third great spirit, had no real opinion on humanity at this point and was tired of seeing his friends argue, so he proposed a deal that would later become known as Origin's Trial. The Spirit of Life Origin would purify the souls of humanity, allowing reincarnation and preventing the evil within them from spreading within the world, Chronos would give a portion of his power to a small subgroup of humanity who was to be tested, and Maxwell was to let humanity expand and choose who the group was. Maxwell chose the descendants of Milla Kresnik, the one human he had ever liked, as the people who would take the trial. The trial goes as such. Every descendant of Kresnik would possess a great power, however, overusing this ability would result in another reality fracturing off the main one. WHenever one million of these realities exist, humanity would be deemed to have failed the trial and destroyed as Maxwell wanted. However, if they managed to find a group of artifacts known as the Waymarkers of Canaan and use them to travel to Origin, then humanity would be granted one wish, anything within the three spirits power.
The early descendants of Kresnik were overjoyed to be blessed with such an ability, and soon enough started to abuse it. One million seemed so far away that none of them seemed to care about the trial at all. After some time had passed with Chronos watching his friend Origin suffer for a group of beings that didn't seem to care for his sacrifice at all, he decided that Maxwell was probably right. So, Chronos took the waymarkers and hid them in these fractured realities that no one should have been able to visit, thus guaranteeing humanity's ultimate failure and the release of his friend Origin.
Holy crap did I write up a storm. Anyways, here we go with part two of Tales of Xillia 2
Enter Bisley Bakur, one of the many descendants of Kresnik. By this time the trial had almost been forgotten about, Bakur only found out about it through sheer luck. With his natural ingenuity Bakur rose up the ranks of society rapidly and, after finding nothing resembling a waymarker in spite of having searched the planet, initially considered it little more than a legend. Then the events of the first Tales of Xillia happened, revealing the idea of alternate worlds, and giving Bakur a clue where to look. Sure enough, with his resources, it only took a few years to be able to locate and enter these Fractured Dimensions. Thus, he formed an elite corp primarily of other Kresnik descendants who would enter these fractured dimensions in hopes of finding a waymarker, or destroying the dimension, thus reducing the count and forestalling the trial's end.
and thus we are finally at the beginning of the game. Early on the main character, Ludger, alongside his cat Rollo and a young girl named Elle end up in a train wreck following a terrorist attack. They recover in a few days thanks to the highly advanced medical technology of Bakur's corporation. However, they are left with an incredibly large hospital bill of 10 million if I remember correctly. Thus, Bakur basically strongarms you, as a descendant of Kresnik, into joining his elite group and following orders, one can imagine he's done it many time before.
Over the course of the game, Chronos fights the party himself several times in an attempt to be rid of them and the rest of Bakur's elite agents, in order to further guarantee his friend Origin's safety.
As for Bakur's part, in addition to forcing at least your group to work for him, and likely many others such as his right hand man Rideaux, he develops special weapons for the purpose of being able to destroy Spirits, such as Chronos, entirely. To guarantee that he is the one to succeed in Origin's Trial, and thus get his wish, Bakur goes so far as to attempt arresting the player characters for no real reason so they cannot follow him to Canaan. Eventually, he makes it to Origin's location and faces down Chronos himself, who is desparately trying to save his friend. Were Bakur to succeed, he would have wished to strip all Spirits, Chronos, Maxwell, and Origin included, of their will, turning them into nothing more than tools for human progress. If Chronos were to win win, humanity would be eradicated and his friend Origin freed.
First mega post out of the way, the next two shouldn't be nearly as long... I think.
For books, I will say the Wizard of the Isle of Ice from the book Dragon Champion, first of an interesting series of medieval fantasy that focuses on the perspective of three dragons rather than the usual people.
Relatively early in his life the Wizard developed some means by which he could control dragons, though very little is discussed about it. Thus, the man starts offering rewards for those who could bring him dragon eggs or dragon hatchlings, including a group of assassins who kill the parents of our main characters near the beginning. Years pass with little else given about him until the main character of the first book, AuRon, hears of a group of dragon living at a far northern island. Here is where the Wizard dwells, with a relatively small group of humans who help him out. For a while, these people worked as mercenaries, highly expensive ones, using dragons to help them complete tasks, most commonly fighting. When AuRon learns that these people have effectively enslaved his species, he decides that he needs to do something about it. Having worked as a mercenary for people for a long time, AuRon visits the Wizard's island with a similar proposal. So, though the people remain wary of him, AuRon goes to the island and competes for a place among the dragons there. In his time at the isle, AuRon learns that there was never any magic involved, dragon hatchlings see green better than other colors shortly after they hatch, and identify one of the first things they see as their mother. The Wizard used this in order to imprint dragons on his men and live alongside them. For what purpose? He simply sought to create a world where humans and dragons lived together in order to dominate the rest of the world and help protect dragons from extinction. When AuRon ultimately uproots this society, allowing all the dragons to go free, he goes to the Wizard's place on top to find that, at this point, they were nothing more than a wise old man, no magic, no nothing, and AuRon calmly ends his life, and that of as many of his men as he could, in order to ensure the secret dies and that no other dragons end up becoming enslaved.
and finally for shows, one much less vague than my book villain, we have the Hero Killer Stain from My Hero Academia.
in the world of MHA, the majority of the planet, about 80% have some special ability known as a quirk, superpowers that vary from controlling electricity, super speed, frog-like traits, various abilities that range from useless to incredible. No one knows why it happened, or how, but once people started gaining these abilities the crime rate drastically increased as people wished to take advantage of their newfound powers. In response, being a hero becomes an occupation, where they would fight villains in order to save lives. However, when it becomes a full-time job, selflessness goes out the window. One of the main aspects to being a successful hero is to have a flashy and noticeable quirk, thus giving them greater publicity and with it more money. In essence, heroes become glorified celebrities. The Hero Killer Stain possesses the ability to paralyze people by ingesting some of their blood, and a strong conviction as to what being a hero means, to stand up to injustices in order to make a better world. However, as his ability is unimpressive and has no effect on the robots used for most quirk tests, Stain never stood a chance in the hero world. So instead, he becomes a vigilante, fighting to bring back the true, selfless, ideal hero of the past. He goes so far as to start hunting corrupt heroes, those who only truly care for themselves, in order to shape up the heroes in the area. And the crazy thing is, it starts working. Places the hero killer visits have a notable drop in crime after these "fake heroes" are rid of, getting him a wide following. Ultimately, Stain ends up severely injuring the brother of one character, Tenya Iida, prompting Iida to seek revenge. Stain easily defeats the teen, and insists Iida leave, only to change his mind when Iida reveals his true motive for tracking the hero killer, to get vengeance for his injured brother. After ultimately losing a fight with several heroes at once, the greatly injured Stain returns to consciousness, saves the protagonist Izuku Midoriya's life, and attempts to kill another of these "false heroes" before finally collapsing from his injuries
Pokemon classified him as Antagonist and he is my fav trainer as well, so there is that. Of course he is more on the heroes side, but just wanted to mention that. His role is not a rival but a temporary antagonist.N. Pokemon Black and White. Best Villan in the Pokemon series. His motive is simple. To be a hero. Sure, it wasn't pulled off correctly. You shouldn't try to take Pokemon away from humans. But he doesn't do it so humans can be happy He wants the Pokemon to be happy. He feels like pokeballs are prisons, and battling with them is wrong. The only reason that Team Plasma uses Pokemon is because they need to knock out the trainer to steal the Pokemon. N is definitely the best Villan in the series because he doesn't care. He feels like he's doing the right thing. While all the other Villan know they're being evil. But N is actually doing something good. Making Pokemon happy. Even though he's doing it the wrong way.N isn't a villain though?
Greed from Full metal Alchemist