Nominal Villain

Villains come in all shapes and flavors, and not all of them are irredeemable monsters. Some possess a code of honor. Some were once broken until they snapped. Some have noble aims but go too far in their methods.

And some are genuinely and thoroughly good people but serve a villainous cause anyway. They're on the side of Evil, but their motivations are entirely Good or at worst, Neutral.

Why are they working for the villains, then? There are a few possible reasons:

• Pragmatism: They may not believe that the heroes have the resources or will to accomplish their goals, or that some good may be accomplished in the long run through serving the cause of evil right now. Alternately, they may be assisting the villain for their own benefit, or the benefit of others they care about.
• Naivete: They may simply have the good guys and the bad guys mixed up. These characters are the most likely to join the heroes if forced to take a close look at their own organization.
• Love/Relationships: Some Nominal Villains care so deeply for another person, even though that person's beliefs and actions are explicitly evil, that they'll put aside their own morality and assist their loved one in their task. This may be a case of My Master, Right or Wrong.
• Force: Their service to the cause of evil may not be entirely willing: they may be pressured into it by mind control or blackmail.
• Card-Carrying: They are a Nominal Villain because they want to be seen as a villain, even if all evidence points to the contrary. Any attempt at an evil act will be Poke the Poodle at worst.
• Apathy: Some people don't see much if any difference between working for the good guys and bad guys.

Type IV on the Sliding Scale of Anti-Villains.

Do not confuse with Designated Villain, where the author says that a character is evil but the audience considers them neutral at worst.

If a "good" antagonistic character serves good rather than evil, they're a Hero Antagonist. A nominal villain is similar to but not necessarily a Token Good Teammate. A Token Good Teammate is a character who is more principled than whatever antihero or villain team they are part of and they themselves could still be evil in some way. Some examples can also be a Punch-Clock Villain. Compare and contrast Nominal Hero, an "evil" character who happens to be on the side of good. See also Protagonist-Centered Morality, if the story treats someone as a villain solely by the protagonist's perspective.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Cardcaptor Sakura: Eriol creates problems for Sakura to fix, but not out of malice. He does it to force her to convert the Clow Cards into Sakura Cards before they lose their power. He uses tricks and lies, but he has a reason for doing so.
• Code Geass: Suzaku Kururugi starts out this way. He joins up with Britannia because he incorrectly thinks that the system can be changed from within and that Lelouch's/Zero's methods are too extreme and ultimately harmful toward the people of Japan.
• Digimon:
  • Digimon Adventure: Earlier in the series, most of the antagonist Digimon the heroes fought were only evil because of a Black Gear. After Devimon's defeat, the Digidestined began encountering one-shot Digimon antagonists who were evil of their own volition.
  • Digimon Adventure 02:
    • The Digimon enslaved by the Digimon Emperor's Dark Rings have a similar deal with the ones corrupted by the Black Gears in the original show.
    • Wormon isn't under mind control, but he still follows the Emperor out of loyalty. When the Emperor's actions go too far for him to ignore, Wormon turns on him and helps the Digidestined defeat his latest creation. This leads to Ken's Heel–Face Turn and eventually him joining the heroes after Wormon's return.
    • Ken himself is ultimately revealed to have been this when he was the Digimon Emperor. As it turns out, he was actually corrupted by a Dark Spore, a device that corrupts humans while increasing their intelligence.
  • Digimon Frontier: Duskmon is the Legendary Warrior of Darkness and serves the villain Cherubimon. However, Duskmon is actually Koji's brainwashed brother Koichi and isn't evil by choice. He is eventually freed from Cherubimon's control.
  • Digimon Ghost Game: While they don't always have the excuse of mind control like in Adventure and 02, some of the 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 by the next time we meet him, he's a firm ally of the protagonists.
• Dragon Ball Z: Fusion Reborn: The Saike Demon is corrupted into becoming Janemba by the evil energies unleashed from the Soul Cleansing Machine. Otherwise, he isn't a malicious person and is at worst a teenage slacker.
• Food Wars!: Rindo Kobayashi is one of the six members of the Elite 10 who voted for Azami Nakiri as Tootsuki's new headmaster, allowing him to rise as the main villain for the Central Arc. Despite this, she never does anything to support his goals, and even allows some of the heroes' allies to remain in Tootsuki when she's supposed to get them expelled via Shokugeki. It is implied that she only voted for Azami for Tsakasa's sake, as she promised to remain by his side during middle school.
• MÄR: Even though the Chess Pieces are a villainous organization hell-bent on taking over the world, and gleefully massacring anyone who stands in their way, not all its members are bad.
  • Despite being one of the strongest Knights, Rolan has a sweet and ditzy personality and prefers to dodge and avoid harming his opponents too much when fighting. He understands that the Chess are bad people, and he doesn't particularly approve of what they do, but he owes a life debt to Phantom and will follow his orders no matter what.
  • Ash's introductory scene has him play with a bunch of local kids, and when Ginta faces him in the War Games, he is shown to be a nice, friendly guy who genuinely 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.
• One-Punch Man: Garou is a villain who goes by the name "Hero Hunter" and aims to become the strongest monster, so much that the Monster Association aims to recuit him. However, it turns out that Garou has never actually killed any heroes, he openly disapproves with the Monster Association for they aim to destroy mankind instead of just being terror figures, and is only presenting himself as a villain in hopes of uniting the world in their hatred against him.
• Transformers: Robots in Disguise: In this continuity, the Decepticons are Autobots whose protoforms were discovered and reprogrammed to be evil by the Predacons. They are not villains by choice despite what they believe. While Optimus expresses hope that they can be swayed to the side of good, their corruption proves too strong.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!:
  • Battle City Arc: Rishid only serves Marik to keep the latter's much more ruthless Split Personality from taking over and causing far more havoc. When Rishid is rendered comatose, we see just how much worse Marik is when Rishid isn't around to act as his Morality Chain.
  • Waking The Dragons Arc: Rafael is the only one of Dartz's minions who isn't motivated by some grudge against the heroes and genuinely believes that Dartz's action will make the world a better place. He pulls a Heel–Face Turn after Atem shows him how Dartz is taking advantage of his naivete and idealism.

Comic Books

• Power Girl (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 Gaia's Vengeance on the world. After Power Girl undoes the transformation, she gets Diane an internship at an environmentally friendly firm.
• Spider-Man Beyond: Marcus Momplaisir works for Beyond's "Hero Department" as Ben's mission control and handler. However, Marcus genuinely cares about Ben and Janine's well being and is oblivious to the true extent of Beyond's dealings, namely that they are only investing in superheroes as a solution to villains they are creating.
• Transformers (2019): Despite the Decepticons being Obviously Evil with shades of Putting on the Reich 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.
• Usagi Yojimbo: Usagi once had to fight a daimyo's chief bodyguard despite the daimyo being involved in a traitorous plot (and the bodyguard fully aware of the treachery, and the daimyo being a Bad Boss entirely undeserving of the bodyguard's loyalty), because a samurai's duty is loyalty to his lord in all circumstances.

Fan Works

• WITCH Season 3: Theodre Riddle kidnaps Matt and holds him for ransom of Will's power so he can be reunited with his loved ones. When Elyon offers her power in exchange, Riddle lets Matt go as promised and never bothers the heroes again.
• Yang Yin: The fanfic is a retelling of Digimon Frontier which focuses on Koichi and the four kids who were seen with Angemon in episodes 40 and 41. In this fic, the main five Digidestined from the anime are brainwashed slaves of Ophanimon and it takes quite a while before t hey are freed.

Films — Animation

• Chicken Little: The aliens who invade the Earth are only looking for their missing son. They don't actually kill anyone and fix the damage they cause once they get him back.
• The Emperor's New Groove: Kronk is a very nice and decent guy who gets along with almost every living creature. While yes, he happens to be the Minion with an F in Evil for this movie's Big Bad Yzma, this is just his job. Once Yzma is defeated none of the movie's main cast sees any problem with including him in their circle of friends.
• 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 Megamind wouldn't hurt her (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 Megamind 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 Hal decides to be a villain, Megamind does everything he can to stop him and atone for his mistakes.

Films — Live-Action

• Avengers: Age of Ultron: The only reason Pietro and Wanda Maximoff join Ultron is their desire to get revenge on Tony Stark and because they're sincerely convinced Ultron is a legitimate alternative to the Avengers in protecting the world. When Wanda manages to read Ultron's mind and see his plan for destroying mankind and Earth, they decide to turn against him.
• Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) Godzilla: Dr Emma Russell is a Monarch researcher who joins forces with Alan Jonah and his men, aiding them in waking up King Ghidorah because she believes it will help Earth heal from the damage humanity has done to the planet. When she realizes that King Ghidorah plans to alter Earth's environment to better suit his anatomy (and that Jonah wants this to happen so all of mankind will die), she joins the protagonists to assist Godzilla in defeating him.
• The Princess Bride, Fezzik and Inigo Montoya initially work with Vizzini for financial reasons, and are not as invested in starting a war as Vizzini and his bosses, Prince Humperdinck and Count Rugen. In fact, they are upset to find out that Vizzini intends to kill their abductee, Buttercup, and when confronted by the Man in Black, actually Westley, they insist on giving him a fair fight. Eventually, they team up with Westley to rescue Buttercup from Humperdinck and Rugen.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (2020):
  • Agent Stone works as an assistant to the evil and insufferable Dr. Robotnik, but seemingly has no bad intentions, and puts up with Robotnik's abuse while keeping a positive attitude the whole time. However, this gets fully subverted in the second movie's prequel comic, where he masterminds a bank heist to retrieve one of Robotnik's gloves, and then actively and intentionally ruins several people's lives to gain ownership of a coffee shop, then ends up fully on-board with Robotnik trying to Take Over the World.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022): Knuckles only works with Eggman because of their shared enmity with Sonic and the scientist's promise to help Knuckles find the Master Emerald. 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. After Eggman reveals his true colors and Sonic saves him from drowning, Knuckles joins forces with him and Tails to stop the madman.
• Spider-Man 2: Unlike his comic incarnation, this version of Dr. Octopus only becomes evil because the AI controlling his robotic tentacles possesses him. In the film's climax, Peter is able to help him regain control of himself and he performs a Heroic Sacrifice to save the city.
• Star Trek V: The Final Frontier: Sybok is on an emotional quest to find God and is willing to kidnap diplomats and hijack a ship to accomplish. Despite this, he is unfailingly well-mannered and compassionate, and doesn't even kill anyone, which is quite rare for a Star Trek movie villain. In the end he sacrifices himself to buy the crew time to escape the entity.
• Star Wars: While the Galactic Empire is indisputably an evil organization, some of its members have various sympathetic reasons and do not act villainous in any way despite being brought into conflict with the Rebel Alliance. For some, their allegiance carried over from the Clone Wars, but for others, there's little information on their motivations.
  • A New Hope: ISB Chief Wullf Yularen firmly believes the Empire are the good guys in the Galactic Civil War and acts the part in stark contrast to everyone around him, being nothing short of unfailingly courteous to everyone he meets and treating all of his men with respect.
  • The Empire Strikes Back:
    • General Maximillian Veers serves the Imperial military and is ambitious, but he is a devoted family man and even tries to defend his fellow Imperial leadership when he senses what Vader has in store for them.
    • Captain Lorth Needa is merely doing his duty as an admiral under orders to capture the Millennium Falcon when it outmaneuvers his Star Destroyer. On a demand from Vader to give an update, he voluntarily delivers the news himself to spare the crew a worse fate.
  • Rogue One: Galen Erso is coerced to work on Imperial Project STARDUST, and does so, though he installs a weakness in the project as a way of fighting back from the inside.
  • Star Wars Rebels: Grand Admiral Thrawn willingly serves the Empire because he believes the Empire are the best hope of the Chiss Ascendancy of surviving the oncoming threat of the Gryssks. While serving as a member of the Empire, he is ruthless, but he shows respect to Phoenix Squadron and treats his subordinates well, even when they fail him.
  • Grand Admiral Rae Sloane is portrayed differently between adaptations, but is generally shown to be one of the few good Imperial commanders, typically seeing the Empire as a means to the greater good in the galaxy.
  • Lost Stars: Ciena Ree started out having a rose-colored view of the Empire when she joined as a pilot. However, as she witnessed the atrocities committed, her view changed until she began to view working for the Empire as a Fate Worse than Death.
• Street Fighter: Zangief only serves Bison because he foolishly buys into Bison's propaganda about him being the hero and the Allied Nations being the villains. Once he realizes the truth, he turns on Bison and helps the real heroes.
• Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen: Wheelie is a Decepticon spy at first. His surprise at Jetfire's defection suggests that he was only serving the Decepticons out of fear and was unaware that being a Decepticon was a choice. He pulls a Heel–Face Turn in earnest after this.
• Triple Threat: Payu and Long Fei initially accompany a band of mercenaries who raid a village to free the mercenary leader Collins. Despite nominally being on the side of the mercenaries, Payu and Long Fei do not kill anyone, and once they realize that they are not on a humanitarian mission like they thought, they turn on Collins and his crew, freeing the prisoners who would have been killed by Collins' explosives.

Literature

• Star Wars Legends: Legacy of the Force had Darth Vectivus, a Force-sensitive Honest Corporate Executive who became a Sith Lord purely out of curiosity after discovering that the asteroid he lived on was infused with The Dark Side. He lived a peaceful life researching the Force and the galaxy at large, and died surrounded by his loved ones. Millennia after his death, his Virtual Ghost sought to prevent his Villainous Legacy from being abused by his successors but failed, resulting in the rise of Darth Caedus.

Live-Action TV

• Dark: This can apply to any character who has the intention to either end the suffering inside the knot or save their loved ones, in particular Noah, Claudia, Adam and Eva. All of them are okay with deceiving and murdering people for their goals but don't show other motivations like cruelty. Even the Unknown is just doing what he and his mother consider necessary to keep the loop stable and doesn't act out of personal malice.
• Good Omens (2019): Crowley is a demon and for that a servant of hell and supposed to do evil. However, despite his demanour he actually is a Nice Guy and likes Earth and humans enough to live with them and help them. A flashback in season 2 reveals he actually joined Hell because he didn't agree with Heaven and hoped as a demon he could find an easier way to do what he thinks is right.
• Kamen Rider:
  • Kamen Rider Dragon Knight: Brad Barrett, aka Kamen Rider Thrust, is a motocross racer who was framed and blacklisted for sabotaging another racer by Xaviax. Xaviax convinces Brad to enter and win his "Battle Club" in order to get the evidence that will clear him but is horrified when he sees Kamen Rider Camo get vented (the series' stand-in for death), as he didn't believe anyone would be truly hurt. Despite this, Brad continues serving Xaxiax due to the dirt the villain has on him, even though it is clear he finds the entire situation appalling. He is vented by Kamen Rider Strike who feared that Brad would eventually side with the heroes.
  • Kamen Rider Gaim: Takatora is in the unenviable position of trying to protect Earth from an alien invasive species that has already started mutating and endangering native life. When a human mutates into a monster, he executes them because there's no cure; and if a site gets completely overrun he's prepared to Nuke 'em. The company he works for is manufacturing protective equipment, but they're only projected to 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.)
  • Kamen Rider Revice: The initial antagonists are a demon-worshipping cult, but not all of its members are as evil as that would suggest:
    • Aguilera is introduced as the cult's leader, but it's eventually revealed that she was merely a figurehead, raised within the cult her entire life and (unknown to her) groomed as an ideal Human Sacrifice. Once the cult is dismantled, partly by the heroes and partly by treachery from the actual leader, she's left lost, confused, and Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life. She's not necessarily a good person, but not really a bad one either.
    • Julio also is revealed to be a decent person, as he was driven to join the cult after being bullied in school; especially after one incident where his best friend was pressured into betraying him. He was ultimately in it for the sense of family and community; and once the group breaks up he decides to go straight while remaining personally loyal to Aguilera, encouraging her to join him and even begging her Friendly Enemy Sakura to step in and help.
• Power Rangers:
  • Power Rangers in Space:
    • Ecliptor is the second-in-command and parental figure to Astronema, and the only one among the villains who actually cares for her. When Astronema regains her memories and turns on Dark Spectre, Ecliptor shows his love for his surrogate daughter to be greater than his loyalty to his evil master and fights to protect her. This results in him being brainwashed and turned into a cyborg to prevent further disobedience.
    • This applies to Karone later down the line. Initially, she served Dark Spectre as the villain Astronema, but she turns on him after discovering she was kidnapped as a child. Dark Spectre captures and brainwashes her to be evil again, which also results in her becoming The Starscream. After Zordon sacrifices himself in the season finale, the evil in Astronema is purged and she becomes Karone again.
  • Power Rangers Lost Galaxy:
    • 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 Token Good Teammate 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 and turns on Trakeena when she starts using her own soldiers as suicide bombers.
    • This applies even more so to Villamax's squire Kegler who mostly just follows Villamax around and never actively contributes to the villains' plots. His loyalty seems more to Villamax than Trakeena.
  • Power Rangers Ninja Storm: Hunter and Blake Bradley (respectively Crimson and Navy Ranger) are initially opponents of the Wind Rangers because they are convinced Sensei Watanabe, the Wind Rangers' mentor, murdered their parents; they have no true loyalty to Lothor. They manage to kidnap Sensei and almost to kill him when their parents' spirit manifest and stop them, revealing that it was Lothor who killed them. Eventually, the Wind and Thunder Rangers join forces and remain a team to the end of the series.
  • Power Rangers: Dino Thunder: Trent Mercer is a good person who spends a significant amount of time corrupted by the white Dino Gem. After his father destroys the evil encoding on the gem, Trent joins the Rangers.
  • Power Rangers Mystic Force: Koragg is unique among the villains in that he prefers to beat his opponents honorably and will sacrifice a victory if it doesn't meet this standard. It is revealed that Koragg is actually Udonna's husband Leanbow and his obsession with honor is his true personality shining through the Master's corruption of him.
  • Power Rangers RPM: Tenaya-7 is Dillon's younger sister who was Brainwashed by Venjix into being his enforcer. Like Astronema, Trent and Koragg, she is eventually freed from the villain's control.
  • Power Rangers Dino Fury: Void Knight is the main villain of season 1, but his true goal is awakening his comatose wife Santaura. Once he accomplishes this goal, Void Knight plans to leave Earth in peace, but Santaura decides to continue the conflict and brainwashes Void Knight into becoming Void King.

Professional Wrestling

• While Sting was a baby face for his entire TNA run, he was a nominal heel while leading the Main Event Mafia, which was a de facto heel stable due every other wrestling in the group being a heel and Sting doing nothing to reign them in. He tried, verbally, sometimes, and did not engage in cheating or ambushes himself, but this only resulted in Kurt Angle kicking Sting out for not being evil enough and taking control of the group. However, the Main Event Mafia still became de facto baby faces due to increasing friction with another Power Stable, World Elite. In the end, Angle saw the wisdom in Sting's words and pulled a Heel–Face Turn.

Video Games

• Bayonetta:
  • Jeanne spends most of the first 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 Father Balder.
  • Bayonetta 2: Balder relentlessly pursues Bayonetta and Loki because he has been deceived by Loptr into thinking Loki murdered his lover Rosa. He turns on Loptr when the deception is revealed. It is also revealed that Balder imprisoned Aesir within himself, suggesting that his evil actions in the first game were a result of Aesir corrupting him.
• Deltarune: Queen is under the assumption that creating a new Dark Fountain will expand the influence of her Cyber World and please the Lightners that get drawn in. When Ralsei reveals that creating too many Dark Fountains will cause an apocalyptic scenario known as "The Roaring", Queen quickly abandons her plan and allows the heroes to seal her Dark Fountain.
• Demon's Souls: Maiden Astrea is one of the five Archdemons who have inherited the largest pieces of the slumbering Old One's Soul. However, while the other four are either giant destructive monsters or legendarily evil men, Astraea is a literal saint who, after discovering that the God she believed in was a lie all along, had accepted the Old One's demon soul and has since used its powers exclusively to care for the sick and the downtrodden of the Valley of Defilement. She will not even fight you when you come to claim her soul (her fanatically loyal knight Garl Vinland, though, will).
• Ensemble Stars!: The entirety of the war is a case of Gone Horribly Right, 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 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.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Final Fantasy VI: The only reason General Leo's an enemy of the Returners is because he works for the Gestahlian Empire. Even then, Leo attempts to minimize casualties on both sides, is A Father to His Men, and has a sense of honor and morality. As Sabin notes, "he could be my friend if he weren't my enemy." The few times he works with the party, he's also very polite and courteous, even giving Terra some genuine words of encouragement. When he pulls a Heel–Face Turn against Kefka, it's not much of a shock; Leo didn't have very far to turn.
  • Final Fantasy X: Jecht. While he was an abrasive father to Tidus when he was younger, his experiences in Spira as Braska's guardian caused him to change for the better as a person - and then due to the Final Summoning, he is forced to become the next Sin and host of Yu Yevon against his will.
• Kirby:
  • This will quite often be the end result for a lot of residents in the, most notably with King Dedede who tends to be brainwashed or possessed by whoever is the real villain of the story.
  • Kirby's Adventure: 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.
• The King of Fighters: Nameless is a troubled young man who's been offered the chance to resurrect his dead love interest, Isolde. And if it means remaining under NESTS's thumb, then so be it.
• Mega Man 4: Dr. Cossack is a brilliant Russian robotics scientist who was blackmailed by Dr. Wily into attacking Mega Man by kidnapping his young daughter Kalinka. Once Proto Man saved Kalinka, Mikhail was willing to help, going so far as to build Beat for our hero.
• Senran Kagura: "Evil shinobi" in general are only called such because they take corporate contracts rather than government-approved ones, but very few of them are actually evil.
  • The Hebijo shinobi, consisting of Homura and her squad (and their mentor Rin/Suzune), are only villains because they're out to steal the Super-Secret Ninja Scroll from Hanzo National Academy in service of the legitimately evil Dogen. Other than that, they're normal girls with their own lives and a strong bond of friendship, and even do a Heel–Face Turn by the end.
  • Miyabi and her squad, Hebijo's replacements for Homura's crew, want to destroy the other three shinobi schools and are legitimately more violent in their methods, but it's revealed that Miyabi is being extorted by Dogen into doing so to save her father's job and the others are Brainwashed and Crazy; once Dogen is defeated, they prove to be just as willing to become friends as Homura's squad did.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Sonic 3 & Knuckles: In Sonic The Hedgehog 3, Knuckles opposes Sonic and Tails because he has been tricked by Eggman into thinking they plan to steal the Master Emerald that he is guarding. When the deception is cleared up in Sonic & Knuckles, he teams up with Sonic to fight Eggman.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (2006): Silver only tries to kill Sonic because he has been deceived into thinking Sonic will cause the Bad Future he comes from. When he learns Sonic is innocent, he ceases his attempts on the blue hedgehog's life.
• Tales of Legendia: Stingle the Viscous is one of the 3 Terrors in Vaclav's army who's not in it For the Evulz. He desperately needed money for medicine to heal his sick daughter and joined Vaclav's army in the hopes of gathering ingredients from his apothecary. He even went so far as to kill the parents of another child to achieve his goal, and he's not proud of it.

Web Animation

• Epithet Erased: Giovanni Potage loves to see himself as an evil villain, despite being kind to both his minions and Molly along with having a strong aversion towards jerks, ditching the Banzai Blasters after finding how poorly Bugsy and Arnold treat their minions. While a criminal, Giovanni's worst crime is stealing artifacts he likes from a museum, with his usual crimes being on the level of loitering (which he proudly boasts about).

Webcomics

• The Order of the Stick: The Monster in the Darkness. He's an extremely powerful beast who works for Xykon the lich, but only because he's horribly naïve and thinks that Xykon's constant cruelties are actually gestures of affection.

Western Animation

• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender:
    • Iroh, Zuko's uncle, is the White Sheep of the Fire Nation royal family. He initially helps Zuko in his quest to capture the Avatar, but not because he believes it's truly for the best: rather, because the quest gives Zuko some much-needed hope. He becomes the Big Good 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 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.
  • The Legend of Korra: Ghazan is a genuinely chummy person, especially by the standards of the Red Lotus (the other members don't qualify for some reason or another, like Zaheer's extremism or Ming-Hua's sadism). He even has to be told by his teammate to stop being friendly to Bolin.
• Ben 10: Ultimate Alien: 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, 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 tearfully begs to be killed, because there's nothing left for him.
• Harley Quinn (2019): Mr. Freeze only turned to crime in order to find a cure for his wife Nora. He displays none of the cruelty and sadism common among the other Gotham villains. In fact, the most evil thing he does in the show is freezing Harley and putting her on display as a sculpture, and the only reason he did that was to keep the other villains from killing her. In the end, he sacrifices himself to save his wife, proving himself to be a good man deep down.
• The Owl House: The Golden Guard is firmly on the side of Belos, and is the only one of his subordinates who purely wants to aid the emperor with no ulterior motive, lacking the sadistic and self-serving qualities of other coven officials like Kikimora or Terra. Instead, Hunter genuinely believes serving Belos is the right thing due to having been specifically raised to see the emperor and the coven system as the best thing in the world despite the glaring evidence to the contrary. When he learns Belos is really planning to kill everyone in the Demon Realm, Hunter finally runs away.
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power:
  • Lonnie, Kyle and Rogelio were orphans raised by the Horde and, as such, were just fulfilling orders without questioning. When Catra takes over and starts bullying everyone without even explaining what they were doing, the trio gives up and hides in the Crimson Waste. And they take Imp, that was on his own after Hordak was abducted by Horde Prime.
  • Scorpia was there basically for the same reasons, and also because the Scorpions' kingdom was the first territory taken by the Horde, but she never liked her job and preferred making friends. She leaves the Horde temporarily to accompany Catra, when the latter is exiled to the Crimson Waste, and even tries to talk her into staying there, after Catra suceeds in taking over a gang of local bandits. After going back to the Horde, Scorpia stays only because she is worried about Catra, but has enough of the latter's mistreating and defects to join the Rebellion.
  • 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 abilities 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 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. 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.
• Teen Titans (2003): Thunder and Lightning are brothers causing havoc around Jump City out of sheer amusement. Once Beast Boy calls him out on the danger their "fun" is causing, Thunder starts to realize the severity of the situation and questions his and his brother's actions throughout the episode, making their actions seem less evil and more naïve and playful at best.
• In The Venture Bros., Red Mantle and Dragoon retired from active villainy a long time ago, and consequently, despite being part of a ruling council of villains, they mostly just act like a pair of old grandpas. Even in flashbacks to their youth, it's shown that the two of them were actually rock stars who kind of got dragged into the villain lifestyle after faking their deaths, and don't seem to have committed any serious crimes. The evilest thing that either of them has ever done is probably Dragoon going to a Halloween party in blackface (he was trying to do a The Thing with Two Heads costume).

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