History Main / VillainyFreeVillain

* ''Literature/AChristmasCarol'': [[TheScrooge Ebenezer Scrooge]] isn't actively hurting anyone or trying to do anything evil or illegal. He's considered a terrible person by ''not'' doing good with the fortune he has amassed, such as helping those less fortunate.

* "Pretty" Ricky Conlan in ''Film/{{Creed}}'' is extremely abrasive and deliberately antagonizes Adonis at a press conference, almost to the point of being a [[{{Heel}} wrestling heel]]. However, he is also a clean fighter and, after narrowly winning on points, tells Adonis that he is [[WorthyOpponent the future of the division]], and his abrasiveness is somewhat justified by the fact that he's being forced into retirement in his prime, and that Donnie is getting a title shot on his second professional bout off the strength of his name, while Conlan had to scratch and claw his way up from nothing. He ''is'' being sent to jail for punching someone at a weigh-in before the events of the film, but that has nothing to do with his conflict with Adonis.

* John D. Rockerduck from ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse is Scrooge's main business rival, but while he often uses underhanded tactics, in some stories he competes entirely fairly (or at least, doesn't cheat any more than Scrooge himself does), but is still unsympathetic due to his smug attitude. In the only story which Creator/CarlBarks ever used him, all he did was enter a boat into an upcoming race to prove his gasoline was better than Scrooge's.

In any work of fiction in which the protagonist is a LovableRogue or JustifiedCriminal or [[ClearMyName an innocent person who has been framed for a heinous crime]], the law enforcers chasing after them are inevitably going to appear unsympathetic to the audience, even if their motives are beyond reproach. The hero may even end up fighting them as much as the villain. Authority figures who have to control children (teachers, especially) also make fine default antagonists even without being a genuinely malicious SadistTeacher. So do any authority figures [[GoodIsNotNice whose job requires them to be harsh]]: police officers, judges, and [[DrillSergeantNasty drill sergeants]] are all especially prone to this. As mentioned, a RomanticFalseLead will often be depicted as a jerk and bad partner so we don't feel bad when they get dumped and the OfficialCouple gets together.

In any work of fiction in which the protagonist is a LovableRogue or JustifiedCriminal or [[ClearMyName an innocent person who has been framed for a heinous crime]], the law enforcers chasing after them are inevitably going to appear unsympathetic to the audience, even if their motives are beyond reproach. The hero may even end up fighting them as much as the villain. Authority figures who have to control children (teachers, especially) also make fine default antagonists even without being a genuinely malicious SadistTeacher. So do any authority figures [[GoodIsNotNice whose job requires them to be harsh]]: police officers, judges, and [[DrillSergeantNasty drill sergeants]] are all especially prone to this. As mentioned, a RomanticFalseLead will often be depicted as a jerk and bad partner so we don't feel bad when they get dumped and the OfficalCouple gets together.

But sometimes, writers encounter a problem. Sometimes, what the antagonist is doing isn't illegal, or even immoral. In a sports story, the antagonist would just be the leader of the OpposingSportsTeam. If, say, you're writing an inspiring story about an underdog who aspires to be a great chef, the antagonist would be a tough-to-please food critic or the owner of a rival restaurant. Sure, their success would make the hero's life worse, but in real life, nobody would hold it against them. That's just the way the world works. Surely, these stories are going to be GoodVersusGood, right?

In any work of fiction in which the protagonist is a LovableRogue or JustifiedCriminal or [[ClearMyName an innocent person who has been framed for a heinous crime]], the law enforcers chasing after them are inevitably going to appear unsympathetic to the audience, even if their motives are beyond reproach. The hero may even end up fighting them as much as the villain. Authority figures who have to control children (teachers, especially) also make fine default antagonists even without being a genuinely malicious SadistTeacher. So do any authority figures [[GoodIsNotNice whose job requires them to be harsh]]: police officers, judges, and [[DrillSergeantNasty drill sergeants]] are all especially prone to this.

** Francesco from ''WesternAnimation/{{Cars 2}}''. He's not an unscrupulous racer like Chick, the previous film's antagonist; indeed he's a very good sport, but he ''is'' just as obnoxious as Chick, enough to give [=McQueen=] a motivation in the otherwise Mater-centric story: [=McQueen=] really, really wants to beat this guy. By contrast, the actual BigBad (the Lemon Kingpin) and TheDragon (Professor Z) are a pair of murderous terrorist leaders and two of the vilest villains in Pixar ''history''.

* ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc'': Byakuya Togami, TheRival of AmateurSleuth protagonist Makoto Naegi, is a snobby RichBastard who antagonizes the other students trapped in the [[DeadlyGame Mutual Killing Game]] and often argues against Makoto in trials, but the worst he actually ''does'' is complicate the investigation into Chihiro's murder and argue against students that he truly believed to be guilty. [[spoiler:He's also unique as the only rival to make a HeelFaceTurn; after the fourth trial shows the cracks in Monokuma's DeadlyGame, he announces he will no longer participate and instead joins forces with the others, eventually ending up a survivor]]. This is averted with the next two rivals, as Nagito Komaeda and Kokichi Oma both do genuinely villainous things in their games: [[spoiler: Komaeda provokes Teruteru to murder the Ultimate Impostor (although he was intending Teruteru to kill ''him]]), threatens to blow up the islands, and gets Chiaki executed by making her the culprit for his murder. Kokichi Oma manipulates Gonta into killing Miu.]]

* ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc'': Byakuya Togami, TheRival of AmateurSleuth protagonist Makoto Naegi, is a snobby RichBastard who antagonizes the other students trapped in the [[DeadlyGame Mutual Killing Game]], is usually the one pointing the finger at an innocent student who's name Makoto must clear, and is even willing to mess with the investigations to make things more interesting, to the point that [[spoiler:he is the closest Chapter 4 has to an ArcVillain since the victim [[SuicideNotMurder killed herself]]. Despite this, [[spoiler:he never becomes a murderer or ever does anything outright villainous, and by the end he has started to develop into a JerkWithAHeartOfGold.]] This is instead averted with the future rivals [[spoiler:Nagito Komaeda]] and Kokichi Ouma, who commit villainous actions in the pursuit of their goals.

* ''Franchise/LesMiserables'' has InspectorJavert, who pursues JustifiedCriminal Jean Valjean because... he broke his parole. How sympathetic he is depends on the adaptation, but as Valjean acknowledges [[spoiler:when he saves Javert's life]], Javert's actions are completely in accordance with the law, even if he's cruel in doing so.

* ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc'': Byakuya Togami, TheRival of AmateurSleuth protagonist Makoto Naegi, is a snobby RichBastard who antagonizes the other students trapped in the [[DeadlyGame Mutual Killing Game]], is usually the one pointing the finger at an innocent student who's name Makoto must clear, and is even willing to mess with the investigations to make things more interesting. [[spoiler:But he never becomes a murderer or ever does anything outright villainous, and by the end he has started to develop into a JerkWithAHeartOfGold.]] This is instead averted with the future rivals [[spoiler:Nagito Komaeda]] and Kokichi Ouma, who commit villainous actions in the pursuit of their goals.

** Remy Buxaplenty deconstructs this concept. Remy isn't really doing anything wrong by one-upping Timmy, and [[ParentalNeglect his backstory]] makes him easy to sympathize with, except that he's such a huge jerk about it. He starts out like this, but we see that get pulled apart when we see him attempt to bribe Timmy from his fairies and later enter a magical duel with him. After they tie, Timmy tries to get Remy to just call it a draw, saying he doesn't care if Remy has fairies. However, it's an issue for Remy because he doesn't view it as fair for Timmy to have both loving (if not idiotic) parents and his godparents, when his real parents are never around. He ends up losing his (but Juandisimo returns in a later episode and a few more times.) He became a full villain the moment he decided that he'd risk losing his fairy just for the chance for Timmy to lose his.

* Augustus St. Cloud from ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'' is little more than a pompous collector who only tries to get under Billy Quizboy's skin. The worst he usually does is outbid Billy at auctions, cheat at games and mishandle the memorabilia he owns.

* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'': The episode "[[Recap/BatmanBeyondS2E19SneakPeek Sneak Peek]]" has a slimy tabloid reporter named Ian Peek who uses a {{intangibility}} device to sneak into restricted areas to get exclusive footage of secret meetings. Even after discovering how he does so, Bruce admits he's just a reporter, and, although he's incredibly unethical, the worst he's done is trespass, which isn't enough to send him to jail. Even after Peek uses his snooping skills to get a camera into the Batcave and discover Batman's secret identity, there's nothing they can do about it. [[spoiler:Later subverted, as it turns out Peek stole the intangibility belt and killed its inventor to cover up his crime.]]

* In many ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'' shorts, while he tends to take more enjoyment in his work than necessary, Tom isn't really doing anything wrong by trying to get rid of Jerry. Often, he's just following his master's orders because as a cat, that's what's expected of him.

-->-- ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'', "Sneak Peek"

* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'': The episode "Sneak Peek" has a slimy tabloid reporter named Ian Peek who uses a {{intangibility}} device to sneak into restricted areas to get exclusive footage of secret meetings. Even after discovering how he does so, Bruce admits he's just a reporter, and, although he's incredibly unethical, the worst he's done is trespass, which isn't enough to send him to jail. Even after Peek uses his snooping skills to get a camera into the Batcave and discover Batman's secret identity, there's nothing they can do about it. [[spoiler:Later subverted, as it turns out Peek stole the intangibility belt and killed its inventor to cover up his crime.]]

* In ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue'', Blue Oak, TheRival to Red and the original Pokémon rival, spends the game racing you to the championship. While [[TheDon Giovanni]] and [[TheMafia Team Rocket]] are the main villains, they are irrelevant to the goal of becoming the Pokémon League Champion, with Blue serving as the actual main antagonist despite not being the BigBad. So to make you ''really'' want to beat him, he starts off by picking the Pokémon that your starter has an elemental weakness to, giving himself an advantage in the first fight. From there, he shows himself to be an arrogant {{Jerkass}} who constantly mocks you, sees his Pokemon as tools, picks fights with you whenever he can, and is a SoreLoser -- so when it all culminates in him becoming the FinalBoss, you feel that extra bit of motivation to settle the rivalry and prove you are the better trainer. His reappearances in future games would [[CharacterDevelopment have him grow and improve until he lost this aspect entirely]], while later rivals (barring Silver, who is guilty of actual crimes like theft) would go on to avert this by being genuine friends of the protagonist.

* {{Subverted|Trope}} in ''{{WesternAnimation/Turbo}}'' with Guy Gagné, whose original offence is being narcissistic and leaving Turbo a {{broken pedestal}} by implying he can't win but ultimately attempts to kill Turbo for having beaten him.

* In David Belasco's ''The Girl Of The Golden West'' and its opera adaptation by Puccini, Sheriff Jack Rance represents the law, so it makes sense that he'd torment a man who, after all, is a wanted criminal. His EstablishingCharacterMoment, punishing a card sharp with a MarkOfShame, shows him to be less bloodthirsty than the other miners who were calling for a hanging. He also acts possessively towards the Girl and tries to push her into a bigamous relationship with him, but doesn't really go lower than a common JerkAss, despite the opera's attempts to play up his second-act advances as an IHaveYouNowMyPretty moment. In the end, he even joins in the miners' decision to [[IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy let Johnson go free for the Girl's sake]].

* Done in-universe with Mr. St. Peter in ''WesternAnimation/TheBraveLittleToaster'' who's a good-natured, fun-loving, and likeable chubby little man who runs a shop that dismantles old appliances to sell their parts as replacements. Really, the only "villainous" thing he does is sell these parts under the pretenses of being new -- the thing that makes him such a feared and horrid villain is that the film is from the viewpoint of the ''sentient appliances'' who have been locked in his shop and driven insane from watching him rip their friends apart one by one. Fittingly the scene of him dismantling a blender is framed like a scene from a horror movie, complete with a GoryDiscretionShot and a scene of the lifeless blender's corpse ''[[MachineBlood dripping "blood"]]''.

-->--''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'', "Sneak Peek"

'''Note that a character cannot qualify to be a Villainy-Free Villain if they participate in unethical activities. As the name suggests, this antagonist has all the aspects of the villain except the actual villainy. Also, for a character to qualify, they have to actually be as unpleasant as a normal villain, enough so for the viewer to not sympathize with them, otherwise, they’re just a DesignatedVillain.'''

On the other hand, if they are evil but barely even do anything to fill the "antagonist" role, then they’re a PlotIrrelevantVillain. If they aren’t necessarily unpleasant -- heck, they can be even downright nice -- yet their actions are the cause of unpleasant effects for other innocents without their knowing, they’re ObliviouslyEvil. If the antagonist is morally good and intended to be so, they are a HeroAntagonist. Compare HateSink, who may not be the main conflict-maker but acts nasty so the audience has someone to root against, and SitcomArchNemesis, who is usually unpleasant and antagonistic but not a genuine threat. Contrast AntiVillain, a sympathetic and generally likable villain who isn't outright villainous, and AffablyEvil, for a villain who is downright ''nice''. For the {{Fanon}} version, see RonTheDeathEater, where a character is good in Canon, but fans demonize them and cherry-pick their actions to make them seem evil. If the fans hate this character more than other, legitimately evil characters, then you have a case of JerksAreWorseThanVillains.

* In ''Manga/YuGiOh'' Rex Raptor/Dinosaur Ryuzaki is little more than a pawn in Mai’s grudge against Jonouchi/Joey and is one of the few opponents in Duelist Kingdom who doesn’t try to cheat or kill the protagonists. He even warns Jonouchi about Esper Roba in Battle City after he loses! Though, in the anime, he forfeits any rights to this when he sells his soul alongside Insector Haga/Weevil Underwood for the power of the Orichalcos to join DOMA. Before this? He’s treated as just as much of an asshole as Haga.

* {{Subverted|Trope}} in ''{{WesternAnimation/Turbo}}'' with Guy Gagné, whose original offence is being narcissistic and leaving Turbo a {{broken pedestal}} by implying he can’t win but ultimately attempts to kill Turbo for having beaten him.

* Mr. Zero in the Literature/RaggedyAnn WesternAnimation/{{Noveltoons}} short "Suddenly It's Spring" is stated to be a Coldhearted miser by Mr. Cloud and the sun to Raggedy Ann. But ultimately all he really does is manage the winter season. It isn't his fault Nancy got sick, and although he comes off as a jerk ("Melt all the snow? I’ve still got two weeks to go! Have you no respect for tradition?!") he isn’t entirely wrong in how outlandish Raggedy Ann's request is to help one little girl. Ultimately he does relent and shows he's not as heartless as the others made him out to be.

* In ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue'', Blue Oak, TheRival to Red and the original Pokemon rival, spends the game racing you to the championship. While Giovanni and Team Rocket are the main villains, they are irrelevant to the goal of becoming the Pokemon League Champion, with Blue serving as the actual main antagonist despite not being the BigBad. So to make you really want to beat him, he starts off by picking the Pokemon that your starter has an elemental weakness to, giving himself an advantage in the first fight. From there, he shows himself to be an arrogant {{Jerkass}} who constantly mocks you, sees his Pokemon as tools, picks fights with you whenever he can, and is a SoreLoser- so when it all culminates in him becoming the FinalBoss, you feel that extra bit of motivation to settle the rivalry and prove you are the better trainer. His reappearances in future games would [[CharacterDevelopment have him grow and improve until he lost this aspect entirely]], while later rivals (barring Silver, who is guilty of actual crimes like theft) would go on to avert this by being genuine friends of the protagonist.

** Nahyuta Sahdmadhi and Princess Rayfa Padma Khura'in are extremely arrogant, self-righteous enforcers of the Khura'inese regime who look down on the heroes for being defense attorneys (as they are hated in Khura'in and losing ones are [[DystopianEdict punished with their clients]]), but otherwise they're just doing their jobs. Rayfa also doesn't realize the full depth of her actions due to being a young teenager indoctrinated into anti-lawyer propaganda, while Nahyuta is [[spoiler: being blackmailed by Queen Ga'ran; if he doesn't toe the party line and act like a stereotypical HolierThanThou Khura'inese prosecutor, she'll ruin Rayfa's life by exposing her as Dhurke's daughter. When not being coerced, Nahyuta is quite reasonable and understands the necessity of defense attorneys]].