Good Is Not Nice / Video Games

Douchebag heroes in video games.

---

• Godot in Ace Attorney. He's an outright jerk to Phoenix Wright in court, and the three 'targets' of his prosecuting are a sweet but hapless young woman, a sweet but hapless young man, and a sweet but secretly conspiring with him young woman. However, all of his actions in the final case were either to avenge Mia, take down Dahlia, or protect Mia's sister Maya.
  • Edgeworth post-Justice For All is an even better example, as his commitment to the truth doesn't always manifest itself in the most sympathetic ways. He wants the truth to come out, even if someone is hiding it for sympathetic reasons or if revealing it would have devastating consequences. However, there are hints of Cruel to Be Kind under his darker moments — he himself lived with an Awful Truth for fifteen years, and he didn't get free from it until he finally confessed what (he thought) he'd done.
• The Colonial Assassins from Assassin's Creed Rogue are guilty of acting like this, especially towards Shay. Remember, these were the "Heroes" we were suppose to root for, but their attitudes and sketchy plots make even the Templars of that time seem more trustworthy. In a way, this was a clever plot device, showing neither faction to be purely good nor evil.
• Baldur's Gate:
  • Jaheira wouldn't let innocents come to harm and as a True Neutral druid, she has a deeply ingrained need to maintain balance in nature and in oneself – but she can also come off as stern, bossy and a bit of a know-it-all until one gets to her more vulnerable inner self.
  • Balthazar from Throne of Bhaal may the Token Good Teammate to the Five, who's plotting their downfall, but he still seizes control of a city and rules it with an iron fist to do so, while not lifting a finger to stop the mercenaries he hired from bullying the townsfolk.
• In the Bayonetta series the heroes are the Umbra Witches, snarky crusaders of darkness who use powers gained by making a Deal with the Devil to slaughter evil angels, and however good they are for defending humanity they are not always very nice or polite. In Bayonetta 2 we also get introduced to Loki, who is the pure good half of the former God of Chaos and overseer of humanity, Aesir. Despite being literally made of pure good, he's just as snarky, rude, and having a penchant to curse as Bayonetta, herself.
• BlazBlue:
  • Hakumen, one of the six legendary heroes who stopped the Black Beast, and a real dick. Not a total one, though. He's an alternate timeline version of Jin, listed below. He's better than Jin in some ways and worse in others.
  • Ragna the Bloodedge has taken part in a one-man campaign of mass murder against the NOL, the body governing BlazBlue's world. He's also the closest thing that this Crapsack World has to a hero by being one of the few willing and able to take on the oppressive government and consistently shows that, despite his rough exterior, he's a good man.
  • If his newly found levels in badass and dog petting, plus his apparent Heel–Face Turn at the end of Continuum Shift, are any indication, Jin looks set to become this. Probably a bit more emphasis on the "not nice" part, though.
• Jimmy Hopkins from Bully IS this trope.
• Magus of Chrono Trigger is unpleasant even as a young boy and becomes a Disc-One Final Boss as an adult. You can eventually have him join the side of good, which does cause him to mellow a bit and reveal some well-hidden noble traits, but he never fully stops being an asshole.
• In Dante's Inferno the eponymous character has the choice to either "Absolve" or "Punish" The Legions of Hell he battles as a Finishing Move. The bright and shining Absolve-based finishers aren't all that much less brutal than their scythe-based Punish counterparts.
• Freaking Marietta from the Dept. Heaven series. She's a Jerkass Knight Templar who spends much of Knights in the Nightmare kicking little puppies, killing you, imposing Sadistic Choices, and flat-out denying that Meria has any right to be alive at all. The only way to get her to be even slightly kind to you is to jump when she tells you to, no matter how much it grates. She's also a guardian of order and has extremely strict good intentions, sort of. To the surprise of no one, by the time of Riviera: The Promised Land she's already become a Fallen Hero.
• If you choose to play non-lethal in Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Adam Jensen is essentially Batman with alloy fists and muscles made of nano-fibres. You better believe some of the people you beat up with the non-lethal approach won't be okay afterwards... But then again, they can get augmentations, right?
  • Arguably, being lethal as Adam Jensen is this trope to an even larger extent. Yes, you'll murder cops, terrorists and spec-ops, but it's in the pursuit of uprooting a domineering and controlling Ancient Conspiracy. What's a few deaths to that?
• Doom: The Doom Guy, especially in his latest incarnation. He is an absolute force of Good who is fated to rise up against Hell when it threatens to invade our universe. If you're a demon, he's also the last thing you want to go against, as that will get your head split open with a clean shot in the best-case scenario, and your heart being ripped out and forcefully shoved in your mouth in one of the worst. If you're a human... well, you're safe, but don't expect him to have any respect for you or hear you out, and if you have something he needs, he'll just take it off you like it was his all along.
• The Warden in Dragon Age: Origins can be a good example. He or she can always choose the more Lawful Good options and save as many innocent people as possible while still being a Jerkass Deadpan Snarker to everyone they meet.
  • The Grey Wardens in general fit this trope. While they seek to save Thedas from the Blight, they use rather questionable methods to do so. In particular, they refuse to tell their recruits about the risks associated with becoming a Warden until after their induction, when it's too late to back out, and are willing to burn down Blight infected villages to prevent the Blight from spreading.
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • Some of the Daedric Princes qualify. As a whole, the Daedric Princes are divine beings Above Good and Evil who operate under Blue-and-Orange Morality in line with their spheres of influence. However, they can certainly be seen as "good" or "evil" from the point of view of morals, usually depending on whether a certain Prince's actions benefit or harm mortals more often. Specific examples:
    • Azura, Daedric Prince of Dusk and Dawn, also known the Lady of Prophesy, encourages her worshipers to love themselves as much as they love her, and is very benevolent and protective over her greatest servants, as seen in her treatment of the Nerevarine from Morrowind. However, she has no compunction against expressing her displeasure in very nasty ways, having a cruel and often petty streak toward those who defy her in any way. She is a fan of Disproportionate Retribution toward those who wrong her, such as (possibly) cursing the Chimer race to becoming the ashen-skinned, red-eyed Dunmer after their leaders, the Tribunal, defied her. Later, in Morrowind, she guides the Nerevarine into casting down the Tribunal under the guise of guiding him/her in defeating Dagoth Ur, whose source of power just happens to be the same as the Tribunal's. In the years that followed, as an indirect result of these actions, Morrowind is practically destroyed as a result of the Oblivion Crisis, the "Red Year", and the Argonian invasion. The entire Dunmer way of life is disrupted, but Azura becomes even more revered by them as the center of their "New Temple" religion.
    • Meridia, a Daedric Prince whose sphere is obscured to mortals but is associated with Light, Beauty, and the Energy of Living Things, is another example. She is a noted adversary of Molag Bal, Daedric Prince of Domination and Rape, who might be the closest thing to a true God of Evil in the setting and whose actions are never benevolent toward mortals, which definitely makes her a lighter shade of gray in comparison. She also has an extreme hatred of anything undead or involving Necromancy, and wiping these things out is also typically beneficial to most mortals. However, she can very quickly cross into Knight Templar territory regarding these things, is a Narcissistic Proud Beauty, and will go through the Face–Heel Revolving Door with each appearance. In one instant, she'll be acting as the Big Good in defending mortal lives from hostile takeover by supernatural forces. Then in another, she'll be giving aid to beings who seek to overthrow the Nine Divines and enslave the races of Men.
    • Noctural, the Daedric Prince of Night and Darkness, also known as "Lady Luck", is another. Being the patron of thieves automatically makes her a few shades of gray darker, but despite this and her association with darkness, she is usually quite benevolent to her followers. As long as they remain on her good side, they are gifted with "scoundrel's luck" and, for the highest-ranking followers, extremely powerful and useful abilities. She is also stated to be a "Well Done, Son" Guy toward them, offering little praise but pushing them to do better.
  • The Eight (later Nine) Divines, aka the Aedra, pre-creation beings who aided Lorkhan in creating the mortal world, are almost universally seen as a benevolent force of good on Nirn. However, they've been known to cross this with Good Is Not Soft. After learning that aiding Lorkhan had caused them to lose a significant portion of their divine power, they "killed" Lorkhan and tore his "divine center" (heart) from his sundered body. They cast it down into the mortal world he helped to create, forcing his spirit to wander. Later, when the Daedra worshiping Ayleids enslaved the races of men and tormented them with unimaginable cruelty, they allied with the leader of the humans (Alessia) to overthrow the Ayleids, sending her divine reinforcements (Morihaus and Pelinal Whitestrake), as well as aiding in other ways, to ensure a human victory. It may not have been entirely benevolent on their part, however, as Alessia promised to make the Divines the primary religion of her new empire and followed through on this promise after the Ayleids were defeated.
  • Lorkhan himself is in the old Nordic pantheon, where he is known as Shor. Shor is a "bloodthirsty warrior king", though to the Proud Warrior Race Nords, this is a good thing.
  • In Skyrim, the Vigil of Stendarr is a Church Militant order dedicated to hunting down and destroying supernatural threats to mortal life, including Daedra, Daedra worshipers, vampires, lycanthropes, and others. The Vigil formed in the wake of the Oblivion Crisis with the goal of preventing any similar incidents. The Vigilants are very much a force for the greater good, but they have no qualms with brutally killing any worshippers of malicious Daedra. They'll also forcibly confiscate Daedric artifacts and will readily kill anyone who refuses to hand them over, even those artifacts associated with the less malicious Daedric Princes.
• Fable II invokes this by having a Pure/Corrupt alignment scale in addition to the regular Good/Evil scale for player characters. Your character can become corrupt by doing morally reprehensible, but not per se "evil" actions (like drinking too much, having multiple spouses or charging too much rent), while remaining fundamentally good. The title for being both Good and Corrupt at once is "The Decadent". Conversely, a character can also be Pure Evil and obtain the title "The Fanatic" (Pure Evil is not what it sounds like, that would be the Corrupt Evil alignment, which awards the title "The Ghoul").
• The New California Republic in Fallout: New Vegas is a post-war federation with a democratic government, a strong military, safe territories, and a very high standard of living by post-apocalypse standards. They're dedicated to the ideas of liberty, justice, and rule of law. However, their military can get heavy-handed in their efforts to put down their enemies, their government is corrupt, and they do many morally questionable things over the course of the games, including hiring mercenaries to terrorize Vault City (a racist, slavery-based city state), dealing with the Bishop crime family in order to annex New Reno, hunting down Enclave members who never took an active part in the Enclave-NCR War years after it is over, using 'enhanced interrogation' on prisoners, and occasionally shooting surrendering enemies. They're still by far the nicest faction in the series.
  • In the Honest Hearts DLC, we have Joshua Graham, the former Malpais Legate (now a good guy again). While he truly cares for the tribals he's sworn to defend, he is a completely over-the-top Papa Wolf who will (and has) gone to great lengths to prove that fucking with those under his protection will result in the Wrath Of God killing the hell out of you. However, depending on how things play out, you can either encourage him to take this to its logical, ultraviolent conclusion or help him temper his ultraviolence for a good cause with a little mercy.
  • The first game gave us Set, leader of the Necropolis ghouls. Set is a massive Jerkass and openly contemptuous of everyone who is not a ghoul. However, as a leader, his rule is quite righteous and just. He doesn't take violent action against those who oppose him, provides his town with clean water, allows outsiders to roam freely during daylight hours, and refused to hand over the non-ghouls he claims to hate to the Big Bad. All in all, his track record is far better than that of most wasteland leaders.
• Fate/stay night Archer, Archer, Archer. Almost all of the above examples apply to him. The constant switching of sides really muddies the issue of whether he's 'good' or not for a while. As a matter of fact, he's s Wild Card.
  • Archer's own lifetime shows the problems with this trope: Because he kept switching sides, treated everyone rudely, and never told anyone his reasons, nobody liked or trusted him, so he was framed for war crimes and sentenced to death by the people he'd fought to save.
• Squall from Final Fantasy VIII. He gets better, but still never becomes a paragon of niceness. Another Final Fantasy example is Shadow from VI.
• Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII starts out this way, mainly because since her parents' deaths, she has had to put her emotions aside and thinks of everything like a strategy. She manages to soften up significantly after several events where her attitude causes others pain (mainly when Odin is first summoned when she has a flashback about her last words with Serah, and when she realizes she has encouraged Hope on his revenge path).
• Cody from the Final Fight series, as he appears in the Street Fighter series. After defeating the Mad Gear gang, he went on to pick fights for no good reason until he got himself thrown in prison. Even then, he not only continued to pick fights but would break out of prison for no reason other than boredom. While his former ally Guy believes he still has a sliver of good in him, Cody will just shrug and continue being a dick.
• First appearing in Five Nights at Freddy's 2, The Puppet will viciously attack whoever makes the mistake of letting him out of his box. However, it is revealed in the sequel that he was actually the Big Good all along, and was nevertheless a bit cranky from being stopped from trying to save the souls trapped in the Animatronics. Lefty from Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator will also attack the protagonist if allowed into the pizzeria, however Lefty is revealed to be a disguised Puppet, and it's strongly hinted that the reason the Puppet's attacking the protagonist is a case of mistaken identity.
• Baird in Gears of War is a complete Jerkass but he's still a loyal member of Delta Squad.
• Gene from God Hand is a snarky, somewhat childish demon-hunter. His female protectee and love interest also shows traces of this trope.
• Golden Sun games love this trope, the biggest example being the twist in The Lost Age that the "bad guys" we hunted down in the first game were trying to save the world. Several subplots involve other characters with good intentions but questionable methods.
• Jarek from the Guild Wars Nightfall expansion certainly qualifies. A former Sunspear himself, he's brought out of retirement to lead the Sunspears while Kormir, the real leader, is absent. To call him "arrogant" and "petty" wouldn't be much of a stretch, and he's still bitter that Kormir was chosen to be Spearmarshal instead of him. In fact, the only thing he seems to hate more than you are the bandits who keep attacking the villages. It seems fitting that his name is an anagram of "a jerk".
• Doctor Magnusson from Half-Life 2: Episode Two is temperamental, impatient, and arrogant. He's also capable, in his own way, of showing genuine gratitude.
  • Some players actually find it surprising and a little heartwarming that the guy thanks you, because they know it took an almost superhuman effort for him to admit that he's grateful.
• Hidden City has Mr. Black, the Head of Security Service and de facto leader of the Upper City. He's a Reasonable Authority Figure who does his best to protect the law and order of the region and keep its inhabitants safe from the fog, but at the same time he's suspicious, hostile and often rude towards everyone he comes across, and treats all the suspects in his investigations as guilty until proven otherwise.
• Hypnospace Outlaw: R3ckoning_inc (only known by their username) is one of the most prominent members of hacking group m1nx. They have No Indoor Voice. They participate in several pranks that send Hypnospace into a panic. They're extremely rude. And they're also one of the most unambiguously heroic characters in the game. The people they yell at — which includes the likes of Pointy-Haired Boss Dylan Merchant and Control Freak Gill Sanders — completely deserve it, they make overpriced antivirus HypnoCure Pro readily available because its "safe mode" is the only way that pages built using the still-popular NetSettler backbone can be viewed, and most importantly, it's only because of their investigations and defiance of Merchantsoft cracking down that there's enough evidence of Merchantsoft's knowingly hiding the health risks of using Hypnospace to make Dylan's Karma Houdini Warranty finally run out after twenty years.
• League of Legends: Jayce, hextech inventor extraordinaire, is a hugely arrogant Insufferable Genius who tends to insult and look down upon those he considers less intelligent than him (that is, most people), and in his focus story A Quick Fix, he flat-out refuses to fix the broken toy of a heartbroken little girl because he considers her breaking it "stupid." On the other hand, he spends his time enforcing justice and fighting crime in his hometown of Piltover, armed only with his masterpiece invention, the cannon-hammer hybrid known as the Mercury Hammer. Funny enough, the story notes that the majority of Piltover's citizens see him as an ideal Humble Hero, only to be disappointed by the man's actual mannerisms.
• Miranda of The Legend of Dragoon. She's the First Sacred Sister of Mille Seseau, a combination of princess, general, and priestess for the people of her country. She's also chosen as the White Silver Dragoon, the holiest and gentlest of dragoon spirits. Too bad she's a raging bitch. She gets better as the game goes on, but her cynical business-first attitude puts her in stark contrast to her predecessor, Shana.
• Malo of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess claims that even though he can't be a hero, he seeks to end the corruption and inflation in Hyrule Castle Town by bringing heroic business deals, but often acts blunt towards any unfortunate soul who crosses his path, insulting Link if he doesn't buy anything from his shop.
  • From the same game, there's Midna, at least up until the first half of the game.
• Light Fairytale: Daichi is an ungrateful Jerkass to the party even after they save him from goblins, but he is trying to save Junk City by convincing the Ice Elemental to stop her endless blizzard.
• The moral choices in Mass Effect can be either "Paragon" or "Renegade" - and a Renegade Shepard can be a real ass.
  • The sequel shows that Paragon Shepard, while generally fitting the description of The Ultimate Hero, won't put up with your crap either. Paragon Shepard in ME2 better fits Good Is Not Soft in contrast to Renegade Shepard because Renegade Shepard can do some really downright malevolent things. Grunt sums up the Paragon mentality pretty well when he says "You offer one hand, but arm the other. Wise, Shepard." Paragon Shepard starts off nice, but if s/he has a reason to be pissed at you, s/he'll kick your ass just as hard as Renegade Shepard would.
    • Case in point, during Zaeed's loyalty mission, there's a part where Zaeed goes out of his way to set off a refinery. The paragon option involves punching Zaeed and asking him what the hell he was thinking, and later on when Zaeed gets pinned under a girder because he refused to play as a team, the paragon option involves laying out for Zaeed exactly why acting like a loose cannon isn't going to fly if he wants to stay on the team. You can even leave Zaeed to die there, but only after completing the main storyline quests.
  • Mordin also flits between this and Good Is Not Soft, in that while a doctor driven by a desire to help those in need, he's also quite capable of being incredibly ruthless should the situation warrant it and generally doesn't hesitate in Shooting The Dog.
  • Similarly Samara. As a Justicar, she operates by a very strict code that demands that if any even minor wrongdoing is committed in her presence, she must punish it on the spot regardless of her personal feelings or relationships. This even goes as far as killing her own daughter.
  • Another case in point: on Omega, Shepard encounters a Quarian merchant who got stuck there while on Pilgrimage. He's selling salvage to try to get off the station, but another merchant, an Elcor named Harrot, is forcing him to sell higher than him to maintain market share. Shepard can talk to Harrot with the traditional Paragon/Renegade dialogue options. The renegade approach is to convince him to shut down the Quarian, with the merchant's fate left uncertain. The paragon approach, meanwhile...
    Shepard: What if you and I made a deal? You let him set his own prices, and I won't break your legs.
    Harrot: [with barely-contained terror] You drive a hard bargain, human.
  • Also on Omega, if Shepard buys a drink from the Batarian bartender in the Afterlife s/he nearly dies because the bartender poisons it. Afterwards, you learn that you're not the first human he poisoned and certainly won't be the last if he continues. The Renegade response is to get the bastard to drink his own poison. The Paragon response is to incite a Turian bystander to shoot him for you — after all, he could easily start poisoning other races too.
  • Lair of the Shadow Broker: "I sacrificed thousands of lives to save the Destiny Ascension! I unleashed the Rachni on the galaxy! So, for your sake, I hope your escape plan doesn't hinge on me hesitating to shoot a damn hostage!" Even more ironic if you went full renegade in the first one only to be a paragon in the sequel: "I let the Destiny Ascension die with ten thousand people on board, including the council! I personally destroyed the last Rachni Queen! So, for your sake, I hope your escape plan doesn't hinge on me hesitating to shoot a damn hostage!"
    • Incidentally, those lines are a successful attempt to intimidate someone taking a hostage into letting their guard down long enough for Liara to free the hostage. Renegade Shepard can also full-on show that this was not a bluff: "Nice move, taking a hostage. A Spectre does whatever it takes. But you're forgetting something: I'm a Spectre, too." And shooting the hostage through the shoulder to wound the hostage taker.
  • Also, in the Overlord DLC, Shepard, no matter Paragon or Renegade, shows absolute disgust and horror at what Gavin Archer did to his brother in the name of Cerberus and the Illusive Man. In the Paragon ending, as Shepard angrily confronts Gavin for trying to shoot him/her, a Paragon Quick Time Event comes up to pistol-whip him.
  • And one last one involves Conrad Verner, the Renegade plan is to simply force the weapons dealer to apologize to Conrad. The Paragon one sets her up to be arrested as she foolishly believes that Conrad has the situation under the control.
  • In short, Paragon Shepard, while s/he can be very kind and supportive depending on the circumstances, is also one of the crowning examples of this trope and also a great example of Good Is Not Dumb and the Most Triumphant Example of Good Is Not Soft.
  • If he survives Virmire, Wrex becomes leader of the largest and most powerful Krogan clan in Mass Effect 2. He does everything in his power to make the Krogan people a legitimate part of the galactic community, but in a society where Klingon Promotions are the norm and Blood Knights are plentiful, he has to be pretty damn tough to keep his job.
• Zero from Mega Man X. He was Good Is Not Soft for the first three games, but after he has to kill Iris, he goes through a Heroic BSoD and adapts a Hidden Heart of Gold.
• Harpuia in Mega Man Zero. He's an honorable, well-intentioned Hero Antagonist, but the only people he's nice to are his siblings.
• Solid Snake of Metal Gear, especially in the first game, where he's a flirtatious asshole who bluntly tells you he can't be bothered getting to know you. In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, he ends up doing some very douchey things for very good reasons.
  • Raiden becomes this as of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. He genuinely wants to protect the innocent and has a very soft spot for Child Soldiers forced into fighting like he was. But he won't hesitate to dice other cyborgs to bits. He goes into full-on Knight Templar mode when he finds out about the children whose brains were removed and put into VR training to become cyborg soldiers against their will, evoking his Jack The Ripper persona and massacring anyone who stands in his way, including (albeit corrupt) police officers to stop the bad guys and rescue the children's brains.
• Wess from Mother 3. Constantly berates his son Duster for everything he does wrong. However, the two of them were the ones whose job it was to retrieve the Hummingbird Egg from Osohe Castle, and he does help Kumatora save Salsa from the even more abusive Fassad.
• The pretentious, self-righteous Believers in Neon White don't hide their blatant belief in their own superiority over the blasphemous Neons, and cheerfully rebuke any attempts they make at indulging in Heaven's delights. Also, the masks on the Neons' faces are rigged to explode if they rebel.
• In Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer, Kaelyn the Dove is a just, noble half-celestial that tries to do good whenever she can. However, she is obsessed with destroying the Wall of the Faithless, and is willing to do anything to tear it down.
• Despite being a prime example of Dark Is Not Evil, Oswald from Odin Sphere can still be cold and ruthless when the need arises. He is feared and hated throughout Erion for being a heartless butcher, after all.
• Randal's Monday: Kramer is not a nice cop by any means, but he is absolutely a good cop.
• John Marston of Red Dead Redemption left behind the life of an outlaw in order to go straight and settle down with a family, only to be forced to hunt down his old partners (granted, said partners did leave him for dead and are genuinely bad folk). The unenviable position he has been pushed into has left him with a rather sour attitude, helping people very reluctantly to get what he needs, threatening them when they drag their feet, and dealing with most situations in the most violent ways possible.
• The Sonic the Hedgehog series has a number of these kind of characters:
  • Shadow the Hedgehog after his Heel–Face Turn. His heart is in the right place, but he is aloof and apathetic which makes him come off as cold and uncaring towards other people. His ego and violent tendencies also rub others the wrong way.
  • Knuckles the Echidna is also this. Even if he's on the side of good, his hot temper and hostile demeanor can make it difficult for him to get along with others. Despite this, he can be friendly, at least as long as he's in a good mood.
  • Blaze the Cat started off as a cold and antisocial loner, but it only took Cream's influence for her to accept others, at least slightly.
• Sam Fisher of Splinter Cell, according to the manual, has a strong belief in justice and freedom, a dark sense of humor, a disturbing amount of knowledge of ways to hurt people, and the scariest voice ever.
• Some of your allies in the Suikoden series can come off as complete jerks who you nonetheless respect because they're good at what they do. Shu and Zerase immediately spring to mind.
• Yuan from Tales of Symphonia is snarky, impatient when the heroes need things explained, apparently changes sides without warning... and is doing everything in his power to save the world from the Big Bad. No matter who's in his way. In fact, it's a little iffy to label him "Good", except that he ends up (somewhat reluctantly) on the party's side when it becomes clear that they actually might succeed... and that they're the only ones in the world with a chance.
  • Asch from Tales of the Abyss takes this trope up to eleven. He works as a Double Agent in part of helping out the heroes by keeping them in the loop of the Big Bad's plans. The problem is, he is a verbally abusive, ill-tempered Jerkass who prefers to work alone. His fiancé isn't one to be spared from his wrath, either, even if she is the only one who can draw an ounce of anything resembling compassion from this cold individual.
  • To a lesser extent is also Yuri Lowell from Tales of Vesperia, who willingly commits crimes and notably murders corrupt nobles who would otherwise be protected by the law. This quote from Yuri to Flynn (who was calling Yuri out for the aforementioned murders) it up best:
    Yuri: You can't deny that lives were saved because those bastards were put down! You'd rather tell people, 'sorry you have to die today, I promise we'll change things soon'?
  • Considering he's essentially a sociopath, that he allegedly killed small animals as a child and scavenged corpses from battlefields, and that he's the Mad Doctor who invented fomicry, and that he's the one who suggests Luke kill himself to dissipate the miasma, Jade Curtiss should count too. He also spends the better part of the game mercilessly snarking at people, even in their most mentally tender moments. He's really brutal to Luke after Akzeriuth, and he's not much nicer to Guy after finding out about the circumstances of Mary's death and Guy's condition. He's much more of a Jerk with a Heart of Gold than Asch is, though, but you still have to look really hard to find it.
• Jun Kazama from Tekken is generally portrayed as pure; however, the second Tag game and the animated movie show she's pretty asocial. Case in point, Tag 2 allows a trick to select win poses, one being a positive one, a high five, a fist bump, etc. Even with someone who Jun should like she's pretty aloof. It also helps that she's Unknown, who does something most find rather uncomfortable should you lose to her.
• Touhou Project has its protagonist Reimu Hakurei, who is generally portrayed in official works as lazy, standoffish, greedy, and comically inept at her job as a shrine maiden. However, she's much better at her other job — preserving Gensokyo's peace by protecting the Great Boundary and resolving any Incidents^note large-scale chaos or upheavals that threaten the land. Even then, she has a tendency to beat the ever-loving crap out of anyone who gets in her way (including those who didn't have anything to do with what's happening) and has no tolerance for any Incidents, regardless of cause or motive.
  • We also have Reimu's Stealth Mentor, Yukari Yakumo. She's one of the beings who helped create the Great Boundary and is dedicated to preserving Gensokyo, and though she usually leaves matters to Reimu she has been known to intervene in major Incidents. However, her trollish personality and habit of sleeping 12 hours a day are the least of her flaws. It's all but outright stated that she abducts humans from the Outside World so the Youkai will always have a food supply, and "preserving Gensokyo" includes ensuring that humans and Youkai remain in conflict simply because it's the natural order. And then there's Touhou Bougetsushou, where she manipulates practically everyone in Gensokyo as part of an incredibly complex gambit, with the primary purpose being to flip the metaphorical bird at the Lunarians.
• Trauma Center (Atlus): Angie Thompson is The Lancer, strongly committed to her duties as a nurse, and means well for Derek, but at her worst can be an absolute brat; her temper and emotional immaturity often lead her to display obnoxious behavior that negatively impacts those around her.
• Victor Saltzpyre from The End Times Vermintide and Vermintide II is an utterly dour, humourless and domineering zealot of a man responsible for torture, witch-burnings and other unpleasant deeds. But he lives in a Crapsack World where the supernatural really is that bad, and everything he does is so innocent people can sleep in their beds at night.
  • Several conversations between him and Sienna in II have him urging her to return to the College of Mages in Altdorf to train and control her fire magic. Rather than his usual threats and accusations, his tone and choice of words suggest that he sincerely wants to help Sienna control her addiction to raw magic.
  • A number of lines in II reveal that he is earnestly grateful for Kruber's presence despite often being a Mean Boss to him, and he profoundly respects his underling's courage, even offering his sword as a badge of office in case he dies in battle.
  Kruber: Uhh, why? So people will think I'm a Witch Hunter?
  Saltzpyre: No... So that people will think I liked you.
• In Telltale's The Walking Dead:
  • You can play Lee Everett as this by picking the more snarky and dickish dialogue options, but picking the more moral actions when they are presented.
  • Kenny genuinely cares about everyone in your group, excepting the members who get on your nerves. However, from Episode 2 onwards, he does a lot of Jerkass things, mostly out of pragmatism, though some out of pure anger.
• Cenarius from Warcraft III is shown to be rather rude, arrogant, and threatening so the player will be more eager to kill him.
  • The Night Elves' are another example. Rather than informing Grom that he's trespassing on their land (which wouldn't have stopped him), their solution was to launch a series of aggressive raids on the orcs. In fact, night elves' attitude in WC3 was generally "shoot first, ask questions later".
  • Maiev, leader of the Wardens, got an increasingly concentrated dose of this in The Frozen Throne. She was utterly obsessed with capturing Illidan, her efforts gradually becoming more and more fanatical as time passed.
• Marshall Yatish of Wildstar, good lord. If you are a "baddie" and threaten his people or innocents, be prepared to be horrifically murdered, your comrades butchered, your camp burned to the ground, and your corpses strung up as a warning to any present and future "baddies." Keep in mind he is a 3-foot high alien rabbit armed only with a spear.
• Witch Hunter Izana: The titular Witch Hunter is a classic example. She is brusque to even her allies, will often proudly boast of skinning her enemies alive and cares absolutely nothing for her enemies except for killing them. She's the hero. Although she does eventually become a touch softer.

---