History Main / NominalVillain

* ''ComicBook/PowerGirl'' (2009): Diane Dorst is an environmental activist who comes into contact with a magic book that transformed her into Zoraida the Elf Queen, who tries to go full GaiasVengeance on the world. After Power Girl undoes the transformation, she gets Ophelia an internship at an environmentally friendly firm to help her best channel her activism.

** ''Anime/DigimonGhostGame'': While they don't always have the excuse of mind control like in ''Adventure'' and ''02'', a number of Digimon of the week are only antagonistic due to confusion or misunderstandings. One such example is the Mummymon who abducts and mummifies humans because he doesn't understand how modern medicine works. After being informed of his error, he frees the humans he abducted and resolves to learn modern medicine.

* ''ComicBook/Transformers2019'': It is a plot point that despite the Decepticons being ObviouslyEvil with shades of PuttingOnTheReich behaviour-wise, many Transformers continue doing their jobs simply because they don't much care whether it's the Autobots or the Decepticons incharge. One Decepticon mentions that virtually all the high-level engineers or technicians left to join the Autobots, meaning they have to make do with the lower level, less skilled ones to run infrastructure.

** ''Film/SonicTheHedgehog22022'': Knuckles only works with Eggman because the scientist offers to help him find the Master Emerald and their shared enmity with Sonic. Even then, Knuckles only hates Sonic because of the war between the echidnas and the owl tribes, the latter of whom Sonic's adoptive mother was from. [[spoiler: After Eggman reveals his true colors and Sonic saves him from drowning, Knuckles joins forces with him and Tails to stop the madman.]]

** ''Series/PowerRangersNinjaStorm'': Hunter and Blake Bradley (respectively Crimson and Navy Ranger) are loyal to Lothor and enemies to the Wind Rangers because they are convinced Sensei Watanabe, the Wind Rangers' mentor, murdered their parents. They manage to kidnap Sensei and almost to kill him [[spoiler:when their parents' spirit manifest and stop them, revealing that it was Lothor instead to be responsible for their deaths. Eventually, the Wind and Thunder Rangers join forces and remain a team to the end of the series.]]

* ''ComicBook/Transformers2019'': It is a plot point that despite the Decepticons being ObviouslyEvil with shades of PuttingOnTheReich behaviour-wise, many Transformers continue doing their jobs simply because they don't much care whether it's the Autobots or the Decepticons in-charge. One of the Decepticons mentions that virtually all the high-level engineers or technicians left to join the Autobots, meaning they have to make do with the lower level, less skilled ones to run infrastructure.

** ''Anime/DigimonGhostGame'': In his first appearance, Mummymon abducts and mummifies humans. However, he only does this because he doesn't understand how modern medicine works and after being informed of his error, he frees the humans he abducted and resolves to learn modern medicine.

* ''Anime/DragonBallZFusionReborn'': The Saike Demon is corrupted into becoming Janemba by the evil energies unleashed the Soul Cleansing Machine. Otherwise, he isn't a malicious person and is at worst a teenage slacker.

** Entrapta apparently didn't see much difference between both sides of war. She joins the Alliance of Princesses because she wants to make friends, but everybody just tolerates her for her habilities with techs and disrespects her. After she is mistakenly left in the Fright Zone during the rescue of Glimmer and Bow, Catra convinces Entrapta the princesses abandoned her on purpose. She joins the Horde [[BetterOffWIthTheBadGuys because she feels more comfortable there, she thinks Catra and Scorpia are her friends (well, Scorpia is... sort of) and because she loves Horde technology]]; and, afterwards, she also falls in love with Hordak. [[spoiler: After Catra almost kills her and sends her to Beast Island, Entrapta becomes more conscious of the destruction caused by her inventions, and makes her best to atone.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Megamind}}'': As a child, Megamind was raised by criminals and had his attempts at making friends met with rejection due to his appearance and the trouble caused by his inventions. He decided to become a villain because that was what society expected from him and he thought that was the only thing he was good at. Roxanne wasn't even scared when he kidnapped her because she knew Megaman wouldn't hurt her ([[spoiler:differently from Hal, whose actions she couldn't predict after he became Titan.]]), hinting that he didn't kill people... until Metroman's death. And Megaman didn't even expect him to die, he was as shocked as everyone, before celebrating his victory, and regretted that afterwards. After he starts dating Roxanne in disguise, he gives back the art he stole from the museum and cleans up the city because she complained of the trash in the park. And, after [[spoiler:Hal decides to be a villain, Megaman does everything he can to stop him and atone for his mistakes.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/Ben10UltimateAlien'': The titular antagonist of "Prisoner 775 Is Missing" wanted to break free and get revenge on Colonel Rozum, who kept him prisoner in a POW camp for aliens for decades, without even giving him a chance to explain why he was on Earth. Because of this, he was unable to return to his planet, which was taken by a dictator and his entire family is murdered. He plans to kill Rozum's wife and baby, [[WouldntHurtAChild but he hasn't the heart of doing such a horrible thing]]; instead, he tries to trick Ben into killing him. And, when even that doesn't work, he begs tearfully to be killed, because there's nothing left for him.

* ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'':
** Iroh, Zuko's uncle, is the WhiteSheep of the [[TheEmpire Fire Nation]] royal family. He initially helps Zuko in his quest to capture [[TheHero the Avatar]], but not because he believes it's truly for the best: rather, because the quest gives [[TheWoobie Zuko]] some much-needed hope. [[spoiler:He becomes the BigGood later in the series as the leader of the Order of the White Lotus, a group of ancient masters who help Team Avatar and a [[HeelFaceTurn now-redeemed]] Zuko defeat the Fire Nation.]]
** Mai and Ty Lee only follow Azula on her mission to carry out the Fire Nation's campaign of conquest out of fear of her (and boredom, in Mai's case). In "The Boiling Rock", Mai proves her love for Zuko to be stronger than her fear of Azula and turns on her. This in turn leads to Ty Lee turning on Azula when the latter attacks Mai.
** In the SequelSeries ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'', Ghazan is a genuinely chummy person, especially by the standard of the [[WellIntentionedExtremist Red Lotus]] (the other members don't qualify for some reason or another, like Zaheer's extremism or Ming-Hua's sadism), even being told to stop fraternizing with Bolin.

** ''Series/PowerRangersLostGalaxy'': After Scorpius's death, Trakeena takes over as the main villain of the series and appoints Villamax, who served as her mentor on Onyx, as her general. Villamax doesn't seem to have any true malice in him and borders on being a TokenGoodTeammate for Trakeena's forces, only serving Trakeena out of loyalty to her. On one occasion he allows the Rangers to leave peacefully after Leo surrenders [[spoiler:and turns on Trakeena when she starts using her own soldiers as suicide bombers]].

** Agent Stone works as an assistant to the {{evil|Genius}} and {{insufferable|Genius}} Dr. Robotnik, but seemingly has no bad intentions, and puts up with Robotnik's [[MeanBoss abuse]] while keeping a positive attitude the whole time.

** ''Series/KamenRiderGaim'': Takatora is in the unenviable position of trying to protect Earth from an alien invasion. When a human mutates into a monster, he [[ShootTheDog executes them because there's no cure]]. The company he works for is manufacturing protective equipment, but they can only squeeze out a billion units while the world population is ''seven'' billion. As a result, they're trying to manipulate various resources to create a mass die-off to bring the number down to something more manageable. Takatora finds all this reprehensible, but he genuinely doesn't see any other way out for humanity as a whole. (There's also a bit of naivete here, as Takatora thinks his coworkers are just as altruistic when they're really trying to exploit the situation for their own gain and conspiring against him.)

** ''Anime/DigimonGhostGame'':
*** In his first appearance, Mummymon abducts and mummifies humans. However, he only does this because he doesn't understand how modern medicine works and after being informed of his error, he frees the humans he abducted and resolves to learn modern medicine.
*** [=DarkLizardmon=] and Saberdramon tried to help a human, but because he refused to listen to their instructions, he ended up dying. The witnesses mistook them for murderers and they decided to leave the human world. They had good intentions but their methods in reaching their goals put them in conflict with the heroes.

*** [[=DarkLizardmon=]] and Saberdramon tried to help a human, but because he refused to listen to their instructions, he ended up dying. The witnesses mistook them for murderers and they decided to leave the human world. They had good intentions but their methods in reaching their goals put them in conflict with the heroes.

** ''Anime/DigimonGhostGame'': In his first appearance, Mummymon abducts and mummifies humans. However, he only does this because he doesn't understand how modern medicine works and after being informed of his error, he frees the humans he abducted and resolves to learn modern medicine.

* Anime/DragonBallZFusionReborn'': The Saike Demon is corrupted into becoming Janemba by the evil energies unleashed the Soul Cleansing Machine. Otherwise, he isn't a malicious person and is at worst a teenage slacker.

* ''VideoGame/EnsembleStars'': The entirety of the War was a case of GoneHorriblyRight, in which all of the villainous characters heavily underestimated how successful their sabotage attempts would be against their victims. However, Souma in particular knew ''nothing'' about these plots when he first joined Akatsuki, believing it to be a wonderful new idol unit that would soon do great things, and totally unaware that it was created solely to carry out the Student Council's wishes. When he finds out the specifics of what Akatsuki was planning to do to Kanata, a close friend of his, he was very upset and tried to convince his seniors not to, but was expelled from the unit for this. After a lot of soul-searching and crying, he decides to try to stay in Akatsuki in the hopes that he will be able to change it from the inside, as they have already begun to engage in some real idol activities and turn into a legitimate unit. As a result he knowingly goes along with some of Akatsuki's later activities, particularly during the main story when they stand as a barrier to Trickstar against ''fine''. However, he works hard for Akatsuki only in the hope that it will someday break away from ''fine'' entirely and become a great, audience-pleasing unit that won't hesitate to challenge ''fine'' itself. And he is actually successful: Kuro and Keito both come to realize their mistakes due to [[MoralityPet Souma's positive influence]] and become extremely protective of him, and in Quarrel Fest, Akatsuki does finally escape from its unhappy origins and become the great idol unit Souma always believed it could be.

* ''VideoGame/EnsembleStars'': the entirety of the War was a case of GoneHorriblyRight, in which all of the villainous characters heavily underestimated how successful their sabotage attempts would be against their victims. However, Souma in particular knew ''nothing'' about these plots when he first joined Akatsuki, believing it to be a wonderful new idol unit that would soon do great things, and totally unaware that it was created solely to carry out the Student Council's wishes. When he finds out the specifics of what Akatsuki was planning to do to Kanata, a close friend of his, he was very upset and tried to convince his seniors not to, but was expelled from the unit for this. After a lot of soul-searching and crying, he decides to try to stay in Akatsuki in the hopes that he will be able to change it from the inside, as they have already begun to engage in some real idol activities and turn into a legitimate unit. As a result he knowingly goes along with some of Akatsuki's later activities, particularly during the main story when they stand as a barrier to Trickstar against ''fine''. However, he works hard for Akatsuki only in the hope that it will someday break away from ''fine'' entirely and become a great, audience-pleasing unit that won't hesitate to challenge ''fine'' itself. And he is actually successful: Kuro and Keito both come to realize their mistakes due to [[MoralityPet Souma's positive influence]] and become extremely protective of him, and in Quarrel Fest, Akatsuki does finally escape from its unhappy origins and become the great idol unit Souma always believed it could be.

* ''WesternAnimation/Ben10UltimateAlien'': In "Prisoner 775 Is Missing", the title character wanted to break free and get revenge on Colonel Rozum, who kept him prisoner in a POW camp for aliens for decades, without giving him even a chance to explain why he was on Earth. Because of this, he was unable to return to his planet, which was taken by a dictator and his entire family is murdered. He plans of killing Rozum's wife and baby, [[WouldntHurtAChild but he hasn't the heart of doing such a horrible thing]]; instead, he tries to trick Ben into killing him. And, when even that doesn't work, he begs tearfully to be killed, because there's nothing left for him.

** Entrapta apparently didn't see much difference between both sides of war. She joins the Alliance of Princesses because she wants to make friends, but everybody just tolerates her for her habilities with techs and disrespects her. After she is mistakenly left in the Fright Zone during the rescue of Glimmer and Bow, Catra convinces Entrapta the princesses abandoned her on purpose. She prontly joins the Horde [[BetterOffWIthTheBadGuys because she feels more comfortable there, she thinks Catra and Scorpia are her friends (well, Scorpia is... sort of) and because she loves Horde technology]]; and, afterwards, she also falls in love with Hordak. [[spoiler: After Catra almost kills her and sends her to Beast Island, Entrapta becomes more conscious of the destruction caused by her inventions, and makes her best to atone.]]

* ''ComicBook/{{Transformers|2019}}'' (2019): It is a plot point that despite the Decepticons being ObviouslyEvil with shades of PuttingOnTheReich behaviour-wise, many Transformers continue doing their jobs simply because they don't much care whether it's the Autobots or the Decepticons in-charge. One of the Decepticons mentions that virtually all the high-level engineers or technicians left to join the Autobots, meaning they have to make do with the lower level, less skilled ones to run infrastructure.

* ''Manga/{{MAR}}'': Ash is one of the Knights of the Chess Pieces, but despite working for the villains, he is very friendly, fun-loving and loves children. When Ginta asks him why he joined the Chess Pieces, Ash seems to genuinely believe that the Chess would make the world a safer place for kids, and he escapes when the Queen finally reveals her true intentions to conquer the world.

** In the SequelSeries ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'', Ghazan is a genuinely chummy person even by the standard of the [[WellIntentionedExtremist Red Lotus]] (the other members don't qualify for some reason or another, like Zaheer's extremism or Ming-Hua's sadism), even being told to stop fraternizing with Bolin.

** Jeanne spends most of the game as an adversary to Bayonetta, but is revealed to be under a spell after the fourth battle with her. After being freed, she aids Bayonetta in the final battle against [[spoiler:Father Balder]].

* This will quite often be the end result for a lot of residents in the ''VideoGame/{{Kirby}}'' series, most notably with King Dedede.
** In ''VideoGame/KirbysAdventure'', Kirby is tasked with retrieving the Star Rod that Dedede took away from the Fountain of Dreams and divided among his subjects. However, he only did that to keep the true threat sealed away.

** ''VideoGame/{{Sonic the Hedgehog|2006}}'' (2006): Silver only tries to kill Sonic because he has been deceived into thinking Sonic will cause the BadFuture he comes from. When he learns Sonic is innocent, he ceases his attempts on the blue hedgehog's life.