A Lighter Shade Of Black / Live-Action TV

• By the third season of Boardwalk Empire, Villain Protagonist Nucky Thompson had taken a level in jerkass and embraced his role as a gangster to a degree that he was no longer clearly the Gray in the Black-and-Gray Morality framework. So, he was given an opponent in Gyp Rosetti, a brutal sociopath with a Hair-Trigger Temper, against whom Nucky looks like a saint in comparison.
• Deconstructed in Breaking Bad. Gus may be a drug kingpin, but his culture, dignity, and professionalism make him a borderline good guy compared to the bloodthirsty sociopathy of the Juarez cartel... and only when compared to the cartel. Otherwise, his villainy is aimed at Walt with the same cold ruthlessness he deploys against the cartel. Walter himself looks good in comparison to Gus, but after Walt kills him, he becomes just as bad if not worse. The only reason Walt remains at all sympathetic at the end of the series is because the antagonists he's up against are still worse than him.
• Dexter: This applies especially to the TV series. Dexter Morgan is a serial killer who thinks of himself as a sociopath, but he only kills murderers and pedophiles who escaped the system, so you might root for him more than for his victims. He has also shown to care about the people close to him and children, while some of his enemies don't show any sympathetic traits.
• Game of Thrones: Sandor is brutal, but unlike Gregor has some sort of morals. This only becomes more pronounced over time as Sandor begins to develop more of a conscience and feel more remorse for his crimes, whereas Gregor remains as monstrous as ever (and even arguably became worse when he Came Back Wrong thanks to Qyburn.
• Casual racism pops up quite a bit in Sons of Anarchy, which is probably why the gang ends up fighting actual white supremacists. The blue collar, decidedly Un-PC Sons seem like paragons of liberal virtue in comparison to the brutal, bloodthirsty skinheads they battle throughout Season 2.
• In Justified, Boyd Crowder transitions from antivillain to outright villain as the series progresses. For all his machinations and bloodshed, however, he has sympathetic moments, as is far less sadistic than his adversaries, who include his father, Bo (drug lord, casual killer and eventual mass murderer), the Bennetts (a clan of marijuana dealers who kill anyone who so much as questions their control), Robert Quarles (an Oxycontin-addicted serial killer and sexual predator), Nicky Augustine (a sociopathic starscream with a jerkass streak), Daryl Crowe Jr. (a murderous smuggler who had his own brother killed for screwing up a job), and the Mexican cartel, who skin their enemies alive. This works to Boyd's advantage in-series as well, as series' protagonist Raylan Givens will typically focus on the more evil villain of the season and leave Boyd more or less alone.
• From Dusk Till Dawn: Going from the example in the original film, the Gecko brothers are thieves and murderers, but they're confronted by most of the vampires, who run an international drug cartel and drain innocent girls by the container-full.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Adar's conflict with Sauron is this. Adar is by no means a nice person, willing to destroy the lives of countless humans in order to create a homeland for the orcs and overseeing torture and forced labor; however, he doesn't share Sauron's goals of endless destructive conquest.
• As with the novel it's based on, this is all over the place in the live-action adaptation of The Man in the High Castle, due to the setting. Adolf Hitler of all people comes across as this in comparison to Reinhard Heydrich's faction, whose goals are by all accounts a nuclear war with Japan. Interestingly, the novel portrays Heydrich's faction in the exact opposite manner; there Heydrich's faction is the only one that opposes nuking Japan. This may be a minor case of Not His Sled.
• Rumpelstiltskin/Mr. Gold from Once Upon a Time fits this trope throughout the series. While most other villains in the series either die or become active heroes (Anti-Heroes at worst), Rumpelstiltskin holds his Neutral position all the way through. He usually keeps out of the affairs of the savior and her friends and family unless he benefits from them in some way (either through a deal or a common goal) or if the villain they face threaten him or Belle directly, flip-flopping between Anti-Hero, Anti-Villain and straight up menace throughout.
• In Season 4 of Orange Is the New Black, three of the least-likable members of the prison staff in Healy, Luschek, and Coates turn out to be nothing compared to the majority of the new guards headed up by Capt. Piscatella. All three at various points of the season display at least a basic degree of concern for the inmates or remorse for their own misdeeds, in stark contrast to the likes of Humphries and Dixon who have absolutely no empathy whatsoever.
• The Sopranos: By the second half of the last season, Tony has shed almost every one of his sympathetic characteristics and gotten much more despicable as a person, and is just as selfish and ruthless as any other mafia don. However, the viewers are still led to root for him in the Mob War because he's nonetheless an unambiguously better person than the utterly psychotic and cowardly Phil Leotardo.
• Star Trek has a multitude of villainous alien races throughout; the Blue-and-Orange Morality driven Klingons who value honor above all else, the unscrupulous Romulans who practice deceit amongst their Empire, the militaristic and duplicitous Cardassians, and many more. All of them are usually small potatoes for the Federation to deal with compared to bigger threats that have often forced many of them to their side because the situation is that bad. Case in point? The Dominion, an empire of shapeshifters who decide to force the "chaotic" Alpha Quadrant into submission because they view the species as being too much of a threat. While many of the Federation's past foes are not without their own problems, at least they have a good number of people amongst them who recognize Starfleet and its allies as being honorable if nothing else (and some series have shown this kindness eventually translated into Federation membership for these species later down the line). The Dominion, and many others? They will commit total annihilation and enslavement of all their foes.
• In Season 2 of Stargirl, the Shade initially appears to be the new Big Bad, except when he meets Courtney at a book store, he explains that he isn't after the black diamond to team up with Eclipso. He wants to throw that stone to the bottom of the ocean so no one finds it again. Sure, he has broken some laws and killed some people, but he claims that all those people deserved it. Meanwhile, Eclipso kills people, including children, because he wants to. Plus the Shade, having lived for centuries, is frankly bored. The Shade also has no patience for any Well-Intentioned Extremist like Icicle, since they often leave lots of dead bodies in their wake. To top it off, he didn't actually kill Dr. Mid-Nite all those years ago. He imprisoned him in a shadow dimension.

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