- Ichigo's hollow gets this treatment in fics he where he's shown as a Deadpan Snarker Blood Knight who wants Ichigo to loosen up and generally causes minor amounts of (hilarious) chaos when he appears.
- A Protector's Pride has Ichigo note that the only difference he has with his hollow is his lack of Blood Knight tendencies.
- All For Luz:
- Luz often wears darker clothes, her Quirk gives off dark-colored electricity when its activated, yet she wants to be a superhero.
- King is a giant, black-furred demon with a skull for a face, but most of his actions lean more to the side of good and he cares about the lives of his friends and family. Hell, after his initial scuffle with Luz they end their fight laughing like old friends.
- In Amazing Fantasy, Bakugou is the Venom of Earth-2018.688 and is covered in the black and white symbiote during his nightly vigilante work. Despite his fearsome appearance, he genuinely wants to save people and stop Carnage. Unfortunately, he's still a Jerkass and is terrible at conveying his intentions.
- The Bridge has Princess Luna, par for the course is a caring diarch who won't standby when her citizenry is attacked. On the kaiju side we got the current Godzilla, the grown up "Junior" from the Heisei series. While extraordinarily powerful, a tad rough around the edges, and not abiding by Thou Shall Not Kill when the situation is dire enough; he never outgrew his Gentle Giant personality from his youth. After almost twenty years of protecting humanity from malign monsters later, and he's effectively become his world's Big Good by the time the crossover starts.
- In the Jackie Chan Adventures and Teen Titans crossover fanfiction A Shadow of the Titans, Jade fits this trope, as her being thrust into the TT universe has made her a Shadowkhan once again, and her new outfit is dark colored, but Jade is not evil, and is currently an Anti-Villain, forced into the role to survive. It forms a good contrast with Brother Blood.
- In the Jackie Chan Adventures and W.I.T.C.H. crossover fanfic Kage (part of Project Dark Jade, like A Shadow of the Titans above), Jade is an Anti-Villain who has been forced to join the Knights because of Nerissa's blatant lies, and is trying to remain a good person, despite her Casting a Shadow powers.
- The Recursive Fanfiction Shadows over Meridian:
- Downplayed with Jade by this point; though her Split-Personality Merge with the Queen has turned her into the Queen of the Shadowkhan willing to ally with Phobos to have revenge on the heroes, she intends to remain an Anti-Villain rather than embrace full-hearted villainy like the demons in her own universe.
- Tyrian's religious sect firmly believes that their prophesied goddess from the Shadow Realm will snuff out the blinding light of Meridian's queens and allow everyone to truly see again in the protective darkness.
- The Recursive Fanfiction Shadows over Meridian:
- Dungeon Keeper Ami shows us both the titular protagonist, Keeper Mercury and everything under her command as this. Due to the evil nature of her powers, her dungeons tend to magically shift towards dark artistic themes and force her to wear either revealing outfits or Evil Overlord attire.
- In Eye Of The Fox, Kira is both a jerk and a half-demon, but he is clearly not evil as he wouldn't have botherered to look after his brother or burn Konoha to the ground when he had the chance.
- The King Of Street Fighters has most of the characters from KOF who know Iori Yagami comment on this, saying that he's currently adopting this trope.Blue Mary: "You don't quite understand what I mean. Seriously, when he started in the Ko F tournaments, he was focused on burning Kyo to a crisp. Never said a word to anyone and acted a lot like a puppy that got kicked around too much and grew up into a rabid dog just to pay the whole world back. Now, he's just...going along."
- A main plot point on Dark Phoenix
, a Harry Potter and Percy Jackson and the Olympians crossover. Most of Nico's powers are considered dark magic in the wizard community but he is generally (if not a little grumpy) Nice Guy. It's also later revealed that one of Nico's greatest fears is to be corrupted by his powers and become evil.Nico: The powers of a person, or a wand for that matter, does not determine who you are� your choices do. And just because something might be what some people call Dark, does not necessarily mean it is evil. After all, even what is considered Light magic, can still be used to harm innocent people. - Season 1 of the J-WITCH Series eventually shows that shadow magic is not inherently evil when Jade becomes the Guardian of Shadows after being cured of her corruption into the Queen of the Shadowkhan by the Heart of Kandrakar.
- Rebecca Christiana Jasmina Xaila Rodrigues Diogo Velazquez from MRA Trilogy is an example of this, having "darkness powers" apparently granted to her by God and Jesus.
- The dark never consumes all, for the light remains within its core: Despite being the somewhat on the villain side in this, both Lord Garmadon and Lloyd Garmadon legitimately care for Ladybug's well-being, mostly because she’s a vital key in the universe’s survival (in the former's case). Plus, they’re disgusted by the way her classmates treated her.
- The Night Unfurls:
- Kyril's gothic hunter attire sticks out like a sore thumb among the medieval world of Eostia. Despite constantly exuding a sinister vibe, he is a Knight in Sour Armour who can be a gentleman towards any decent person, and his main enemies in the story are rapists, pillagers and slavers.
- The dark elves of Garan, despite their affiliation with the Always Chaotic Evil orcs, are not inherently barbaric. In fact, they generally behave no different than any regular human or high elf, yet are regarded as a commodity in slave markets.
- While dark is portrayed as a destructive and scary force in The Queen's Consort, it is not evil per se. Maleficent, as Queen of Night, is an expert on darkness and the magic that can harness it and she is looked upon the rest of fairy kind with both fear and respect.
- In The Tabula Avatar Universe it works out that many of the Dark deities of Faerun, when given the opportunity to grow beyond their status of two-dimensional game characters, network and make better choices.
- Viconia, one of the Generally Evil Drow, has her alignment shift away from the extreme, thanks to good works and Character Growth. Even in canon, when left alone between games, she tries to live a simple, non-threatening life. As she's the most vital core of Shar's worship thanks to her nearness to the 'realness' matrix that is Dawn, this affects her patron goddess of shadows as well.
- In The Wizard in the Shadows Harry wears black and is referred as 'the Black Wizard'. While he is absolutely terrifying on occasion and complete ignores any concept of Thou Shalt Not Kill and often believes that Violence Really Is the Answer with Blood Knight tendencies, he tends to be absolutely horrified if he comes near to crossing the Moral Event Horizon.
- The Massive Multiplayer Crossover fic, The World of the Creatures, features Batman as a prime example. In addition, the main character - Brendan Anderson - dresses all in black. He describes this as a way of defining himself in an ever-changing world.
- Sparks Among The Stars: As in Magic canon, every color of mana has positive and negative qualities associated with it, even Black, with multiple heroic characters having an affinity with the color.
- Jakorai is a Golgari Lich, but in all of his scenes, he has been nothing but friendly to the heroes, with his first appearance having him give Ruby an apple shortly after she arrives on Ravnica.
- Jaune has an alignment with both White and Black mana, and despite his ability to kill people and absorb their ghosts via his arm, he still tries to be a hero and protect his friends.
- Weiss struggles with this concept, as she has learned enough about Black mana to be horrified when she realizes she can use it, since Weiss associates the traits it embodies with her father. Although Argent tries to reassure her by giving her a more nuanced understanding of the color, she's still conflicted about it.
- In Maple Sugar Pretty Cure (a crossover between Turning Red and Futari wa Pretty Cure), Cure Evermore, despite her gothic appearance and poison attacks, is also the Emissary of Heart and has healing powers.
- Never Tear Us Apart: When Morrigan visits Grimmauld Place 12 for the first time, Sirius finds strange that she doesn't like the place's darkness. Morrigan explains that darkness "should feel warm, encompassing, like a blanket", instead of being grotesque and stagnant like the Blacks' house.
- Chiyo Ueda, the Super High School Level Medium, from Despair's Last Resort. She dresses in all black, has a talent involved with speaking to ghosts, and is rumored to have the ability to see when someone is close to death. Yet she's the most polite out of the students, and makes protective charms to keep the others safe.
- Light has a big Pet the Dog moment in A Cure for Love when he calls up his Astraea contacts and chews them out for their attempt on L's life, obviously being very protective of L. Matt who is present for the meeting later relates to Mello that "Kira is bad news," that he's totally evil and compares him to Nazis. Makes sense since Mello and Matt ran away from Wammy's House, Matt may not care about L anymore and Kira was threatening Mello's mother. Later there's the instance where Light makes the Eye Deal when cornered in order to save himself and L and to stop L from dying for him.
- In the AU of Seigikan when amnesiac!Light wakes up at a hospital, he is unnerved when he catches a "weird stranger" staring at him but then when "the weird stranger" helps him back to his hospital room Light decides he's not so bad.Light: If he was kind enough to help me back to my room, the least I could do was be civil. So what if he looked like a pedophile? He was kind enough to help a complete stranger, the least I could do was give my thanks.
- In the Tamers Forever Series by Daneel Rush it is made very clear that despite his violent tendencies Chaos is NOT evil
- Digimon Reboot has Poemon, who is more of a Shrinking Violet than a megalomaniac, despite her viral typing.
- Surprisingly, Sayori exemplifies in the Doki Doki Literature Club Loops by taking up the mantle of a Sith and calling herself Darth Somnus. It helps that her mentor is Pinkie Pie. The other Dokis also qualify to varying degrees.
- In Zero no Tsukaima: Saito the Onmyoji, Saito has a devil and an ogre as his familiars. However, while not without their faults, both of them are fundamentally decent individuals who genuinely care about him.
- Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): Monster X has dark-gray hide, yet it's aligned with Earth's heroic Titans, and its tendency due to Vivienne Graham's compassion and influence to go even more out of its way than most heroic Titans to avoid or minimize human casualties arguably makes it a complete antithesis to Ghidorah. Driving this trope home, Ghidorah (as always) and the Many have Bright Is Not Good to contrast.
- Kaiju Revolution: Biollante is a fairly peaceful being that helps maintain the ecology of Skull Island and is even mentioned using her vines to provide the Iwi with sustenance and protection. However, her combat forms are all quite gnarled and monstrous in appearance.
- In The Dark Witch and the Necromancer Harry became known as the "Dark Avenger" for his liberal use of necromantic and other dark spells against Death Eaters. And when he wasn't slinging dark magic around, he acted like a Jerkass toward his friends and the Order.
- If not a troll, Tara Gillesbie tried to make the protagonists from her fanfic, My Immortal, pretty much this, being goffs associated with darkness. Unfortunately for her, all she managed was to create extremely selfish and stupid self-inserts.
- 3 Slytherin Marauders demonstrates this with Snape, Lucius and Tom Riddle.
- Thoroughly deconstructed in Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. Although most noteworthy evil wizards are referred to as Dark, including the Big Bad, much of the cast (especially Harry, Quirrell, anyone Slytherin) use it to refer instead to methodologies involving force, trickery, threat of force, blackmail, etc. Especially early on Harry finds that Dark tactics can be used to achieve good goals and to do things he couldn't accomplish without them; however, he eventually realizes that anything he achieves that way turns out to not be quite as good as it would if he'd done it without (for example, scaring a rumormonger straight ends Hermione's problem and may ultimately help the victim but angers Hermione and risks her reputation; going with an even darker plan of manipulation would have solved Hermione's problem but not helped the rumormonger at all. He realizes he should have just talked to her directly) and usually raises the stakes in ways that have unpleasant consequences. Too many Dark actions also affect people's perception of him. Even as he comes to understand this, though, he can't give up the sheer utility of his dark side entirely.
- Discussed in this quote from Hermione.
But the thing that people forget sometimes, is that even though appearances can be misleading, they're usually not.- In the rather amusing fanfic No Competition due to the Yin-Yang Bomb that is Lily's sacrificial blood magic Voldemort's horcrux Harry's magic and aura is the deepest blackest dark. He however is a very cheerful, lovable and loving child. He has a town's worth of dark creatures ready to fulfill his every whim and revere him as their righfull and absolute monarch. Unlike Voldemort, Harry is a Benevolent Boss and treats his subjects as friends and family.
- Queen of All Oni:
- A bit literally, as Brother Dark (of the three sages), despite being a Jerkass, isn't so bad. He's apparently just there to balance things out.
- It's also implied that the Shadowkhan were at least a neutral, and possibly a positive force prior to the corruption of the Elders that led to Tarakudo's rebellion. As we see that Matriarch Jade (the loving mother who ordered her most skilled fighter to act as her daughter's protector) still exists in the future that Karasu sends Drago back to, this could give Jade a happy-ish ending despite never being freed from the Shadowkhan curse.
- Karasu tells Jackie that while Darkness and Evil may have aligned a lot, they are not mutually inclusive.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- The Ash: The Ash Ponies are, essentially, what you'd get if ponies worshiped Nurgle without being evil: they act like creepy cultists, live in a Mordor that is so poisonous to ordinary ponies that having skin contact with the dust is the only thing that maybe won't kill you, their methods of recruitment includes exposing ponies to the soil of their abovementioned homeland or infecting them with the diseases which they themselves caught from the soil and survived which are both extremely painful, their appearance is a Brown Note that causes that causes a fight or flight response in most ponies and caused Rarity to nearly suffer a Freak Out when trying to make a dress based on it and they managed to get Fluttershy to not want to be near them ever again in a week. But apart from that Diamond Dust seems to be the only one of them who is actually evil. They're just very creepy.
- Duel Nature: Luna is a borderline case. She does seem to care for the ponies around her even though she's bad at expressing it, but also seems confused by and disconnected from mortals and willing to do pretty terrible things when pressed.
- Nine Days Down: Briareos the hekatonkheire is horrifying, even by the standards of the things that live in Tartarus. He physically resembles nothing so much as a living lake of gel, bearing fifty bleached skulls as his heads, each at the end of a long pseudopod and belonging to a different animal species, and with a hundred tentacle-like arms that he can extend and retract at will. He speaks in a chorus of voices, is bizarre and off-putting when he speaks, and even when trying to be pleasant he always has a few heads that glare angrily or sulk or bear no readable expression. He is also one of the few truly kind beings in Tartarus, and when Twilight stumbles across his home he tries to be a courteous host and simply wishes to break up the monotony of his isolated life for a bit.
- Pony POV Series:
- Fluttercruel is a darker furred, Jerkass version Fluttershy created by Discord as her Evil Counterpart originally who now shares Fluttershy's body with her, heck she has the word CRUEL in her name! But she isn't actually evil, or even that bad a person. She's just pretty much a "newborn" who doesn't know any better than what Discord "taught" her. Fluttershy realizes this and reconditions her over the course of the story. Fluttercruel is still a bit of a Jerkass, but there's now a a good heart underneath it.
- Also, during the Final Battle with Fluttershy's Superpowered Evil Side, Princess Gaia/Nightmare Whisper, Fluttercruel forces herself out and is revealed to be a second Element of Kindness! The irony of this does not escape her.
- Later on, we discover that the Elements of Chaos, despite belonging to Discord (or at least he can give them to ponies), actually have positive sides, as did the Rainbow of Darkness from which they originated. After Dark World!Twilight, Dark World!Applejack, and Dark World!Rarity are redeemed, they keep their Elements of Chaos while reawakening an Element of Harmony. It's explained that the Elements of Chaos were corrupted and 'incomplete' before, now they're purified and complete due to them having figured out their true meaning.
- Dark Magic is not evil in and of itself, it's merely governed by emotions that are hard to control and therefore difficult for most to safely use without losing control of themselves. Those that can control those emotions, however, can use it safely. Sweetie Belle is one such pony.
- The Draconequi, despite representing darker concepts like Anarchy and Destruction, are actually benevolent and the Rainbow of Darkness/Elements of Chaos is more collectively from them than Discord alone. They're Good Is Not Nice, sure, but they desire just as strongly as their Lawful counterpart the Alicorns for mortal life to thrive and grow, just in different ways. Even Strife, the most standoffish and cruel of the lot, only feels being challenged is necessary for life to grow, and hates the idea of killing for the sake of killing that serves no other purpose.
- Havoc and Entropy, the Elders of the Draconequi, represent Fear and Hell, and The End and Nothingness respectfully. Despite this, both are Big Goods who have creation's best interests at heart in their own ways. Both them and their children come to help save the world from Discord's endgame personally, and Entropy even takes the bullet to protect the CMC from the Rewriting Reality wave that's unleashed, resulting in her avatar becoming Maud Pie, a mortal incarnation that is shown to soften her a good bit.
- In Under the Northern Lights this is part of the philosophy of the Temple of Hrimfaxi, along with "darkness is neccessary".
- Rather obviously lampshaded by Princess Celestia in Whispers. Arcanus then takes it further by musing that fiction has a tendency to overlap the two.
- You Obey has a protagonist who isn't all that evil, despite being a changeling who interrogates ponies.
- In Faith and Doubt, after a falling out with her friends, Twilight starts using black magic. Black magic can make a pony emotional and highstrung, but is doesn't automatically corrupt an individual. Twilight takes this idea to heart, that bad powers can be used for good, and soon Spike has been trained to harness his dragon-greed mode without slipping into the violent greed associated with it.
- Princess Luna in RainbowDoubleDash's Lunaverse. The author actually notes that most of the ponies find the contrast of this trope with Corona's Light Is Not Good more than a bit disturbing. It's easy to think of the Princess of the Night as "spooky, mysterious, and a little bit evil". But now you have the Princess of Day, the very personification of the light and warmth of the life-giving Sun, turn against you, and you are only saved from her by the creepy Princess Of Night, whom you're still not quite sure you trust.
- A Diplomatic Visit: The Power of Hatred, which is based on negative emotions, is actually designed to encourage positive use of anger and hatred - to channel it in a productive manner, and direct it at a suitable target. Some of the time at least, this is so the person being affected (or the one they're aiming it at) can grow a spine.
- Special Agent Charlotte Brooks of Numberjacks Advanced is a serious woman in a black business dress, but unambiguously on the side of good. Her first appearance has Three, a pink Genki Girl, anxious to work with her, considering her scary, but once she gets to know her properly, she realizes she wasn't scary at all.
- Clouded Sky has the protagonist Tobias Talltree, who is a "darkling", a Pokémon trainer who received a dark-type Pokémon (in his case, a Murkrow) as his starter. Despite him getting much contempt from various people he meets for this, he's still a perfectly kind, noble person. All of the other darklings shown throughout the story are generally shown as being nice, friendly people despite their affinity with the dark type.
- Two examples in Poké Wars:
- Darkrai sides with Lugia to take down Ho-oh.
- The Houndoom in Goldenrod city are terrifying hellhounds. They broke Entei's pact to help May and her friends.
- Dark-types in general tend to get portrayed as Combat Pragmatist well-meaning jerks at worst. At best, they're loyal companions with cool attacks (just like everything else in Pokemon).
- Near the end of Rainbow Brite and the War of Darkness, the King of Shadows is redeemed and freed from his evil spirit. He renames himself "Lord Dark". His wife, Lady Brite, notes that darkness and evil are not synonymous.
- Noir in RWBY: Second Generation is this in spades. He wears primarily black and gray, keeps his face hidden with a mask and has a very brooding personality. It doesn’t help that his Semblance allows him to move his shadow around and use it to affect the real world. Despite all of the darkness in his nature and his past, Noir is a force for good and one of the primary protagonists.
- Sailor Moon: Legends of Lightstorm: The only two male heroes are dressed this way. Tuxedo Mask wears a black-and-red outfit, and Lightstorm wears an ultra-black set of body armor that makes him look a bit like an armored ninja. This doesn't stop them from being two of the biggest badasses on the side of good in the story.
- Goddess Reborn Chronicle has a number of demons and evil-looking creatures who actually aren't necessarily. At best, they might be creatures like Bugaboo while at worse simply on another morality metric entirely.
- Sonic X: Dark Chaos has several examples.
- Venus the Seedrian; a scarred cybrog Seedrian wearing a black leather combat outfit and armed with a Sinister Scythe. She has made it her mission to protect the remaining members of her race from Tsali at all costs. Subverted when she's possessed by Dark Tails.
- Tsali and Maledict are deconstructions of this trope. Tsali is more brainwashed by his programming than truly evil and Maledict is basically a Well-Intentioned Extremist taken to its extreme.
- The Marmolims who worship Maledict dress up in black robes and perform satanic rituals in his name. Despite that, they are all actually quite reasonable and friendly, and they immediately come to Sonic's aid.
- The title character of Empath: The Luckiest Smurf wears a black Smurf suit with white stars on it, and was raised by the morally-ambiguous Psyches, but otherwise is good at heart.
- Darken the Shadow Guardian in The Portal may look dark and threatening, but he does care for the safety of everyone at the Dragon Academy.
- In The Headhunt, the god of the night in the main Pe'khdar religion is a watchful guardian rather than a God of Evil.
- In Double Agent Vader, Darth Vader is one of the heroes but still looks exactly as he does in canon. Vader and his mask remind Leia of Torhu the Destroyer, a spirit in Alderaan's religion who is also an example of this trope. In the folklore of the Tatooine slaves, black is the color that symbolizes freedom.
- While his canon counterpart is a clear-cut case of Dark Is Evil, the Dharkon of Incorrect Smash Bros Quotes is anything but, being an energetic Keet who proves quite friendly once you get past the initial hyperactivity. He actually has stronger morals than Galeem, whom he occasionally tries to serve as a Morality Pet for (with varying degrees of success).
- In Turning Red: Secrets of the Panda, Catherine Moore, despite wearing black, is actually a heroic character who tries to help the protagonists.
- In Warriors Redux, ShadowClan has an unsightly reputation as sneaky and malicious, but it's baseless. The average ShadowClan cat is no more evil than a cat of the other three Clans. In fact, ShadowClan cats are often nicer than their peers. The Clan began as a group of downtrodden outcasts.
