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Nominal Hero
- 880 statements
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Fictional heroes tend to be a diverse bunch, but most have one thing in common: a morally positive motivation. Even morally questionable heroes usually are at least partially motivated by a genuine concern for others, desire for justice, belief in playing by the rules, etc. The Nominal Hero is the exception to this rule. While at least technically on the side of good, their motivations are neutral at best. So why are they on the side of good? Usually, it's one of the following: Leave Me Alone: They didn't want to join the fight. But Bob the Villain specifically targeted them, so like it or not, they had to get involved. Annoyance/Revenge: Bob did something to them, and they want revenge. They're not really in it to fight evil, they want to get Bob. Often overlaps with Enemy Mine. Boredom: "Help you fight Bob? Why not? We've got nothing better to do." They might not even care if the heroes actually succeed; they just enjoy an adventure. A Heroic Comedic Sociopath or The Trickster might have this motivation. Mutual Interest: These characters have selfish reasons to help the heroes defeat Bob. Often, they are characters who would normally be villains, but they recognize that Bob is the bigger problem (perhaps the first villain just wants wealth and/or power, but the second one wants to destroy everything). Often an Enemy Mine. A Magnificent Bastard might aid heroes to manipulate events in their favor as a standard tactic. Or a heroic dissident fighting an oppressive regime might end up side-by-side with criminals who probably deserve to be imprisoned or executed. Relationships: Not all Nominal Heroes are purely selfish. Some have a love interest or other that they do care about. A Nominal Hero might do something heroic to impress or rescue that someone, even though they couldn't care less if other people die. As mentioned above, this can also overlap with Annoyance/Revenge if the Nominal Hero is pissed off about something the villain did to a loved one. Reward: These characters want something in return for their help, such as a share of the treasure, or simply something to look good on their resume. They aren't interested in whether anyone else benefits. The Miles Gloriosus is an example of a character type that might choose to join a band of heroes for this reason. Force: Some characters become heroes because they literally aren't allowed to be anything else. Maybe they're on an Explosive Leash or are a Cosmic Plaything, but when they fight for the side of good, it's only because it's their only option other than perhaps death. Lawful examples of this trope find themselves "stuck" to the good side by a deal, contract or some similar bind, or (more ideally) simply out of a sense of loyalty to the heroes. Other motivations: Not all Nominal Heroes need to have a motivation that makes any sense to others. They might be a Cloudcuckoolander or have Blue-and-Orange Morality. This type of hero is rarely averse to working alone, with other heroes. On a team of otherwise conventional heroes, they'll often be in an Enemy Mine, Sociopathic Hero, or Token Evil Teammate role. Other heroes may only work with them because they could use all the help they can get, or specifically to keep an eye on the hero-in-name-only so that they don't become a more serious threat. In terms of sympathy, most Nominal Heroes are Noble Demons. Many other tropes about questionable heroes can overlap with Nominal Hero, but most are not true subtropes: An Accidental Hero, Reluctant Hero, or Unlikely Hero is at least as likely to turn out to be a Classical Anti-Hero at heart. Note: This is for In-Universe characterization. Subjective/Audience Reaction interpretations go in Designated Hero. noreallife |
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Nominal Hero / int_102a22a7 | type |
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In Ansem Retort, the only difference between Axel and the villains he fights is that the villains want to destroy all of humanity at once while Axel would prefer to do it one person at a time. | |
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Sherlock: In this 2010 BBC modernization, Sherlock Holmes describes himself as a "high-functioning sociopath," and cautions Dr. Watson: "Don't make people into heroes, John. Heroes don't exist; and if they did, I wouldn't be one of them." This shows that his motivations are not those of a typical straight hero and that he's possessed a very cynical worldview. His motivation is quite explicitly boredom and a need for intellectual stimulation. | |
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Watchmen: The Comedian: a thrill-killing Blood Knight, rapist, war criminal, and all-around Psycho for Hire (and he's actually a more sympathetic version of the trope, believe it or not). | |
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Megas XLR: Coop can come across like this much of the time. He views M.E.G.A.S. as less like a vital weapon in Earth's defense and more like a fancy toy he can show off and play with. In many episodes, Coop only fights the villain because they did something to offend him and the only reason he is relied upon to pilot M.E.G.A.S. is that he modified it in such a way that only he can pilot it. | |
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Kane is treated as a demonic, rage-filled force of nature who nobody wants to cross even as a face. | |
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Many of the heroes in Worm are morally dubious or in it for the sake of their own careers. The clearest example is Shadow Stalker — a thrill-seeking psychopath with a poorly articulated philosophy that serves only the purpose of placing her at the top of the food chain and regularly brutalizes or kills criminals when she thinks she can get away with it. | |
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Terminator 2: Judgment Day: The T-800 is a killer machine with no emotions, only protecting and following the orders of a ten-year-old because of his programming. By the end of the film, he's able to understand human behaviour and emotions, so he becomes a more traditional hero over the course of the movie. | |
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The Rise of Skywalker: Admiral Hux becomes The Mole for The Resistance within the First Order. When confronted by the heroes about it, Admiral Hux states the rationale for this is so that rival Kylo Ren loses, and the best way to accomplish that is by having The Resistance win the war. | |
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Amleth is only the "hero" of The Northman because Fjölnir is a horrible person who destroyed his life and Amleth is paying in kind. Beyond that, Amleth is just as much of a brutal warrior who engages in, at least, the "pillage and burn" parts of Rape, Pillage, and Burn, as well as slavery at first, and it could be argued that he only freed Fjölnir's slaves at the end merely to provide a distraction; and although he doesn't directly harm women or children, he's got no problem with his fellow berserkers doing it. Even so, by the end, he has killed a woman and a child, who were also his kin, making him a kinslayer like Fjölnir too, albeit in self-defense. They have similar positive qualities too, making Amleth only A Lighter Shade of Black. In general, the movie consistently shows that Amleth and Fjölnir are similar; both products of their time and culture. | |
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Lieutenant Commander Brokosh, the Lethean protagonist of the Star Trek Online fic Red Fire, Red Planet. He does follow an ethical code of his own making*At least part of it reads, "Don’t kill anyone you don’t have to, don’t risk your underlings without cause, and treat your prisoners with decency.", but he's a mercenary who signed with the Klingon Defense Force for the money since he's married to a minor Klingon noblewoman from an Impoverished Patrician house and they have a son to support. | |
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Goldeneye and The World Is Not Enough: Valentin Zukovsky is an ex-KGB operative turned Russian mafia head. He helps Bond in the former film only because Bond bribes him with military equipment and because he hates Janus for being a Lienz Cossack, and in the latter out of revenge for Elektra King betraying him and killing his nephew. Though he develops a begrudging respect for Bond as a Worthy Opponent and possibly even a friend, he is still an unrepentant criminal who will help save the day only when this aligns with his personal interests. | |
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We Are Our Avatars: A version of Aurora is supposed to be the Dragonborn. Instead, she chose to focus on sidequests, and the Group essentially stole her job. However, the Dragonborn ends up being congratulated for their achievements, angering Imca and Asagi. | |
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In The Street Fighter, Takuma "Terry" Tsurugi is a brutal and pitiless man. He sells a girl into slavery and kills her brother when they're not able to pay him for services rendered, and he's not above sacrificing innocents that he's not directly helping. He avoids Villain Protagonist territory by fighting against Yakuza, whom he despises, and working to protect the good guys, even though he does so for his own reasons. In the Video Game version, he's portrayed in a somewhat more positive light. | |
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The protagonist of The Mental State, Zack State, appears to be this. He never does anything virtuous unless he can justify it with a selfish motive. Of course, it is open to interpretation as to whether this is always the case, or if he is simply trying to convince himself that he doesn't care about others. | |
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Lobo: Depending on the Writer, Lobo is sometimes portrayed as one, instead of a Satire/Parody/Pastiche of an unstoppable villain-full-stop. Considering that he is literally worse than Hitler, without any hyperbole involved, as he wiped out his own Pillars of Moral Character utopian species for kicks and giggles... when he was a teenager, this reveals a lot about media conventions in general. | |
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X-Men: Sabretooth usually tends to be this. If he's working with the heroes, it's because he was forced to and/or had something to gain. In other instances, he's tried to do right by a love interest. Holly & Bonnie are examples. He's not a hero when he meets either of them, but was very protective of them, and would've possibly settled down with them had they survived. During the AXIS event, Creed was inverted into a hero due to a spell gone wrong by Scarlet Witch. He starts off as a truly heroic figure wanting to atone for his sins, even refusing to kill for a time. During Uncanny X-Men (2016), his nominal hero tendencies returned after developing feelings for Monet St. Croix, whose well-being he cared more about than anyone else. He's still inverted and repentant, but when Monet is around, his priorities shift. | |
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In Sluggy Freelance, any time Bun-Bun does something good in the series, Pete Abrams is always careful to give him a completely selfish reason (usually either that the good guys bribed him, or that the villain happened to piss him off). It's rare that he's implied to do anything solely because he cares about a member of the main cast. | |
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I Shot Jesse James: Robert Ford is more than willing to kill Jesse James (and later, John Kelley) when he thinks it’ll get him Cynthy’s hand. However, he also has a sense of honor and seems decent enough in every other aspect of his life. | |
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Ulquiorra from A Hollow in Equestria fits the lawful kind of Nominal Hero, something he spells out when Luna first calls him a hero, noting that the things he's done in the past without remorse mean he can't be a hero by their standards. | |
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A Brighter Dark: Hans, of all people, rescues Sakura and Mozu from Nohrian bandits for the purely selfish motivation of retiring safely in Hoshido, who he believes will inevitably win the war. | |
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The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Blondie is "The Good", but only because the other two main characters are even worse. | |
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Amos from The Expanse (who is very reminiscent of a heavily Flanderized Jayne) only seems to stick around with the others out of personal loyalty and/or Unrequited Love for Naomi and because he has nowhere else to go, at least in Season 1. | |
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Dexter: The titular character is at the far, dark end of this to the point where he could fairly be considered simply a likeable Villain Protagonist, being a Serial Killer who was disciplined at a young age to channel his sociopathy toward killing other evildoers. By the end of Season 7, he is 100% Villain Protagonist. | |
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Sub-Mariner: Namor can veer between this and Unscrupulous Hero depending on the book and era. Unless he's the villain of the piece. | |
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DR. BEES is an odd case, in that he does seem to want to do good... it's just that his conception of "good" is "adding swarms of angry bees to any given situation." Despite this, he seems to be respected as a genuine superhero by the people and has even pursued the defeat of a supervillain, The Comforter... whose acts of villainy consisted of making people more comfortable. | |
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Yarol, the Venusian sidekick in C.L. Moore's Northwest Smith stories, is heavily implied to be this. The narration never specifies his enormities, but hints that his angelic beauty belies his absolutely evil nature. | |
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Selina Kyle in Gotham is a street thief who cares mostly about her own survival but springs to action when a friend needs help (Bruce and Bridgit) and tries to stop her old friend Ivy from murdering a lot of people | |
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Into the Woods uses this as part of its deconstruction of Fairy Tales. Everything that goes wrong in the Darker and Edgier second act is a direct or indirect result of the heroes putting their own Happily Ever After above the greater good. By the end, the cast admits that they have no idea who's the hero and who's the villain, and the most sympathetic character is the Wicked Witch who was the first act's Big Bad. | |
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Heroes Reborn (2021): The entire Squadron Supreme, with the exception of Zarda, who can't even aspire to that. Blur is the closest to actually heroic, but even then he's an easily distracted ditz who does nothing to try and rein in his teammates' behavior. The fact The Man Behind the Man rewrote reality to make them the only heroes in town helped with this. | |
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Beavis And Butthead: Beavis and Butt-Head are selfish, amoral delinquents whose goals range from getting laid to getting rich; most of their "heroic" acts are completely unintentional. In fact, the only reason they qualify as "heroes" is because their enemies sometimes make them look like saints by comparison. | |
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012) has an In-Universe Show Within a Show example with Captain Ryan, the "hero" of the Star Trek: The Animated Series parody "Space Heroes". He does nothing "heroic" on-screen, with actions like openly stating he brings along the red shirts so they die, refusing to help two red shirts because "they'll never learn if we keep saving them" (and not caring that this is their first mission and they have no weapons), subtly taunting the Spock expy about being in love with one of the just-killed red shirts, and sucking a bunch of innocent aliens out into space because he finds their noise annoying. He's played on a meta-level as a Heroic Comedic Sociopath, in that the audience is amused by the fact that Leonardo seems to never realize how utterly terrible Captain Ryan is and tries to emulate his perceived leadership, whilst Raphael and the others recognize that "Space Heroes" is a terrible show because of Captain Ryan's utter lack of heroic qualities. | |
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012) | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_2d316bc0 | |
Nominal Hero / int_2f8f16ed | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_2f8f16ed | comment |
Eddie Guerrero's motto throughout his entire career was "lie, cheat and steal", and he would live up to this even as a face. The only reason he was a face at all is that he was so charming that the fans would cheer him no matter what he did. | |
Nominal Hero / int_2f8f16ed | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Nominal Hero / int_2f8f16ed | featureConfidence |
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Eddie Guerrero (Wrestling) | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_2f8f16ed | |
Nominal Hero / int_309df9ea | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_309df9ea | comment |
Atop the Fourth Wall: Linkara fell into this trope during the Lord Vyce arc, becoming gradually more self-centered and obsessed in his fight against his enemy to the point of being abusive to his friends. The hard light hologram replica of himself he leaves behind to do reviews while he goes on a walkabout to figure out why his magical abilities shut down reflects this perfectly: it turns evil not because it was buggy or corrupted, but because it was a perfectly accurate reflection of Linkara at the time it was created. | |
Nominal Hero / int_309df9ea | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Nominal Hero / int_309df9ea | featureConfidence |
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Atop the Fourth Wall (Web Video) | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_309df9ea | |
Nominal Hero / int_31a8701b | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_31a8701b | comment |
The Flash: The Clipper, a "hero" from the Great Depression era who is mentioned in The Flash. While he gunned down poor people driven to crime by desperation and then cut off the tips of the ears of the survivors, he lived in a fancy mansion and had it easy. He's quoted as having said "it doesn't matter if they're guilty, it matters if they're dead!" indicating he didn't even bother to check if his victims were innocent. | |
Nominal Hero / int_31a8701b | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Nominal Hero / int_31a8701b | featureConfidence |
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The Flash (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_31a8701b | |
Nominal Hero / int_31db3e7d | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_31db3e7d | comment |
Sam & Max: Freelance Police: Max considers it a compliment to be called a grade-A sociopath, and was even dubbed the most terrifyingly dangerous force in the universe by the villain in Season One of the Telltale games. The only thing that really seems to keep him in line is his less sociopathic partner. In most other media, both Sam and Max qualify as this, with their loose moral compass mostly putting them on the side of good because while they are unhinged sociopaths, they find it more fun to direct their brand of justice on people who really deserve it. | |
Nominal Hero / int_31db3e7d | featureApplicability |
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Nominal Hero / int_31db3e7d | featureConfidence |
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Sam & Max: Freelance Police (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_31db3e7d | |
Nominal Hero / int_334120fc | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_334120fc | comment |
The Light Warriors in 8-Bit Theater (with the exception of Fighter) only possess the distinction of being protagonists due to showing up at the recruiting station at the right time. Both in-story and by Word of God, they are far worse than any of the monsters they end up facing. The worst of the lot are Black Mage (a pure Villain Protagonist and an Omnicidal Maniac who wants to deliver the world to Chaos) and Thief (a kleptomaniac Jerkass Miser Advisor and race elitist who's only in it to screw over as many people as possible). Red Mage is an amoral Munchkin who's in it for the XP but will happily commit atrocities toward that end. Fighter, on the other hand, is an Idiot Hero who is only going along with the others because he thinks they're actually on the side of good. Still, the epilogue has them being credited as the individuals who started the events that led to the world being saved. That is, by being responsible for the world-ending threat in the first place. | |
Nominal Hero / int_334120fc | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Nominal Hero / int_334120fc | featureConfidence |
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8-Bit Theater (Webcomic) | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_334120fc | |
Nominal Hero / int_35c619e2 | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_35c619e2 | comment |
Green Arrow: Deconstructed with Oliver Queen. Oliver was a spoiled rich kid who was stranded on an island and forced to learn how to survive by himself. Eventually, his experience changed him, and Oliver decided to use his skills for good as a superhero, Green Arrow. However, despite being genuine in doing good as a hero, Oliver is also a very selfish man, and you can also argue that despite being a hero, he isn't a very good person himself, showing that his experience on the island hasn't completely broken him of his selfish habits. As a result of his selfishness and thoughtlessness, Oliver's personal and professional lives are a wreck because of his behavior and actions. Oliver is constantly cheating on his longtime girlfriend, Black Canary (Dinah Lance), neglecting his sidekick and ward Speedy I/Arsenal/Red Arrow I (Roy Harper), abandoning his biological son Green Arrow II (Connor Hawke) at birth, and lying to Connor that he did not know he was his son when they met and Connor became his sidekick. Oliver also, at times, doesn't have a great relationship with his superhero colleagues because of his smug tendencies and boorish behavior. Eventually, Oliver realized how harmful his behavior was to his loved ones and colleagues and eventually started cleaning up his act; he stopped cheating on his girlfriend and worked to be a better boyfriend to Black Canary, who eventually believed he had changed and married him. Oliver worked to be a better father figure to Roy and Connor, who eventually reconnected and forgave him. He also worked on being a better superhero and building a better relationship with his friends and colleagues. But things went crashing down in the "Cry for Justice" & "Rise and Fall" storylines, where Oliver murders Prometheus for destroying Star City and causing the death of his adopted granddaughter, Lian Harper. His family washes their hands off him, with his wife returning her wedding ring and declaring their marriage over and Roy and Connor telling him they are through with him. It's implied that Oliver killing Prometheus is the last straw for his family, and his mistreatment of them is the main reason they leave him. This ultimately shows that being a superhero for selfish reasons and not being a good person will ultimately destroy the hero's personal life, and the hero needs to work on being both a better person and a better hero so he can have a good social life or else the hero selfish actions will catch up to him. Oliver himself accepted that his selfish actions destroyed his relationship with his family and believes they’re better off without him. He decides to work on being a better person and a better here all by himself as he works as a solo hero in Star City. | |
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Nominal Hero / int_35c619e2 | featureConfidence |
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Green Arrow (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_35c619e2 | |
Nominal Hero / int_37400b11 | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_37400b11 | comment |
Lampshaded and played for laughs in Mystery Men. Captain Amazing is constantly viewed by the residents of Champion City as a great hero, even though he is often rude, inconsiderate, thoughtless, and only interested in making money off his powers. He even brings about the events of the film, unwittingly, by getting his archnemesis released from prison so he can fight someone worthy (and save his sponsorship deals), eventually getting himself killed stupidly in the process. The audience isn't supposed to like him. Their sympathies instead lie with the title characters, who are the underdogs of the superhero world; most of them have crappy superpowers (such as only turning invisible when literally nobody is watching...not even himself), and they're respected by next to nobody in the city they've sworn to protect. | |
Nominal Hero / int_37400b11 | featureApplicability |
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Nominal Hero / int_37400b11 | featureConfidence |
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Mystery Men | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_37400b11 | |
Nominal Hero / int_38662f0a | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_38662f0a | comment |
Escape from New York: When ordered to rescue the President of the United States, Snake Plissken would gladly hijack his transportation and fly to Canada, but a bomb planted in his body makes him do otherwise. | |
Nominal Hero / int_38662f0a | featureApplicability |
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Nominal Hero / int_38662f0a | featureConfidence |
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Escape from New York | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_38662f0a | |
Nominal Hero / int_38fa34eb | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_38fa34eb | comment |
Wonder Woman: Hercules tries to be heroic, but this is hampered by Deliberate Values Dissonance and the fact he cares little for the people he is supposed to save, expecting them to pretty much grovel at his feet. It also doesn't help that he's a rapist perpetually stuck in a Heel–Face Revolving Door, for a given value of "face". | |
Nominal Hero / int_38fa34eb | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Nominal Hero / int_38fa34eb | featureConfidence |
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Wonder Woman (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_38fa34eb | |
Nominal Hero / int_3942bcd6 | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_3942bcd6 | comment |
Chloé intends to become this in Chloé's Lament. Having Wished to trade places with Marinette, she expects to become this new reality's Ladybug, and immediately starts scheming about all the ways she could abuse that power. Such as stealing the Miracle Box for herself, sabotaging and destroying the reputations of anyone she chooses to target, and withholding her Miraculous Cure unless she's paid handsomely for her efforts. Fortunately for everyone else, she fails her Secret Test of Character without ever realizing she was going to be tested in the first place, and the Ladybug Earrings are entrusted to Sabrina instead. | |
Nominal Hero / int_3942bcd6 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Nominal Hero / int_3942bcd6 | featureConfidence |
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The Lament Series (ChaoticNeutral) (Fanfic) | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_3942bcd6 | |
Nominal Hero / int_3a5e2165 | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_3a5e2165 | comment |
Sebastian in True Villains is a Living Legend who took on heroic exploits more for the thrill and reward than any real benevolence. He becomes a Villain Protagonist more or less as soon as he gets a more interesting offer from a demon he'd intended to vanquish. | |
Nominal Hero / int_3a5e2165 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Nominal Hero / int_3a5e2165 | featureConfidence |
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True Villains (Webcomic) | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_3a5e2165 | |
Nominal Hero / int_3b34143f | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_3b34143f | comment |
Severus Snape in the Harry Potter books does have something of a moral compass, in that he aims to atone for his mistreatment and inadvertent betrayal of The Lost Lenore by avenging her death. He doesn't care much for anyone else, though, as evidenced by his general nastiness… though this may have changed under the years of working with Dumbledore, taking into account his reply to Dumbledore on the lives he couldn't save, and risking blowing his cover to attempt to save Lupin's life at the start of the final book. | |
Nominal Hero / int_3b34143f | featureApplicability |
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Nominal Hero / int_3b34143f | featureConfidence |
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Harry Potter | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_3b34143f | |
Nominal Hero / int_3defe34c | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_3defe34c | comment |
Discussed in It's Over, Isn't It (it's only just begun) after Inko learns about Katsuki's bullying. When her six-year-old son tries to insist that he doesn't want to get Kacchan in trouble because he's going to be a hero, Inko gently questions his logic, walking him through the realization that if his bad behavior is never challenged, he wouldn't be a very good one. | |
Nominal Hero / int_3defe34c | featureApplicability |
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Nominal Hero / int_3defe34c | featureConfidence |
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Discussed Trope | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_3defe34c | |
Nominal Hero / int_3f633fb4 | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_3f633fb4 | comment |
On Cracked, Dan O'Brien's darker grittier Spider-Man film franchise reboot (basically him as Spider-Man) was this. He only ever beat up bad guys if he felt like it and he only ever rescued Mary Jane. His archnemesis was Doctor Scarlett Johctopus and they ended up making out. | |
Nominal Hero / int_3f633fb4 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Nominal Hero / int_3f633fb4 | featureConfidence |
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Cracked (Website) | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_3f633fb4 | |
Nominal Hero / int_43576f5 | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_43576f5 | comment |
Crowley in Supernatural starts off as this. He's no less evil than the other demons, but he is the only one to realize that it's in his best interest to stop Lucifer from destroying humanity, as he knows Lucifer will come for the demons once he's done with the humans. He mostly acts as a straight-up villain once Lucifer is out of the picture, but periodically goes back to being this whenever he finds it in his interests to work with the Winchesters against an even more evil entity. | |
Nominal Hero / int_43576f5 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Nominal Hero / int_43576f5 | featureConfidence |
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Supernatural | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_43576f5 | |
Nominal Hero / int_44ae6edb | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_44ae6edb | comment |
Getaway in Transformers: MHA may be an Autobot, but he's one of the most morally dubious of them. He's highly ambitious in becoming the next Prime and is not shy in making backdoor deals with Decepticons like Swindle to achieve it. | |
Nominal Hero / int_44ae6edb | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Nominal Hero / int_44ae6edb | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Transformers: MHA (Fanfic) | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_44ae6edb | |
Nominal Hero / int_44e08ee8 | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_44e08ee8 | comment |
Homicide: Life on the Street: Munch treats being a homicide detective as a mundane job and only really wants to get paid, and is much more interested in having a lighter workload than solving murders. He does occasionally become legitimately altruistic when children are involved and can be persuaded to do the right thing, but he's just as frequently too much of a lazy, abrasive cynic to even bother trying. Felton similarly treats being a homicide detective as a mere job, and doesn't show much investment in it. He shows a quite stunning Lack of Empathy at times, even joking about a woman's death in front of her husband, and occasionally shows a willingness to violate the law for his own ends. |
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Nominal Hero / int_44e08ee8 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Nominal Hero / int_44e08ee8 | featureConfidence |
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Homicide: Life on the Street | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_44e08ee8 | |
Nominal Hero / int_4522fd1 | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_4522fd1 | comment |
In Whateley Universe, the Scourge, which in the distant past has destroyed entire galactic civilizations in its efforts to defeat Mythos monsters. Sociopathic Hero Jobe Wilkins may fall into this trope as well. | |
Nominal Hero / int_4522fd1 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Nominal Hero / int_4522fd1 | featureConfidence |
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Whateley Universe | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_4522fd1 | |
Nominal Hero / int_455e3038 | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_455e3038 | comment |
Cotton Hill from King of the Hill. While he (and Hank at times) love to remind everyone he "killed fitty men in WWII", Cotton is also a racist, sexist, bitter old man who treats everyone (except Bobby) with utter disrespect and contempt. It's also shown that he exaggerated many of his "heroic" deeds in the war (such as him claiming to have been shipped from Italy to the Pacific, but then also claiming to have participated in two different battles that took place at roughly the same time on entirely different fronts - the only front we can be sure he actually fought in is the Pacific since one two-part episode focuses on his illegitimate half-Japanese son). It's even discussed in one episode when Hank points out to Peggy that, despite all his many shortcomings and exaggerated war deeds, he did come back from the war with a chest of medals, both his shins blown off, and a lot fewer friends. | |
Nominal Hero / int_455e3038 | featureApplicability |
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Nominal Hero / int_455e3038 | featureConfidence |
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King of the Hill | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_455e3038 | |
Nominal Hero / int_457b671e | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_457b671e | comment |
24 protagonist Jack Bauer skirts along this trope during the show's eight seasons but manages to stay away from it for the most part. The sequel mini-series "Live Another Day," however, shows that he's officially entered this territory due to how much his experiences in the show's original run have soured him. He comes out of hiding to save the day again solely because he learned that his old flame Audrey and her father and his former boss James Hellar were in danger and displays a much more ruthless attitude than he did during the original series, including shooting a group of people in order to incite a riot for a diversion and outright murdering the main villain of the first half of the season with little provocation even after she's been successfully captured, a stark contrast to the original seasons where he primarily killed only in self-defense or if someone murdered someone important to him. | |
Nominal Hero / int_457b671e | featureApplicability |
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Nominal Hero / int_457b671e | featureConfidence |
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24 | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_457b671e | |
Nominal Hero / int_45854dfc | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_45854dfc | comment |
Starship Troopers. Humanity in this film is a race of arrogant, jingoistic, xenophobic bastards run by an openly fascist and militaristic People's Republic of Tyranny. Their every action in the war against the Klendathu Arachnids is framed as heroic by in-universe propaganda, embodying the film's intended satire on militarism. | |
Nominal Hero / int_45854dfc | featureApplicability |
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Nominal Hero / int_45854dfc | featureConfidence |
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Starship Troopers | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_45854dfc | |
Nominal Hero / int_45dbe39b | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_45dbe39b | comment |
Randy Orton is a sadistic psychopath even as a face, with the only difference in his behaviour being that he attacks heels instead of faces. Even then, he often dishes out random, unprovoked RKOs to people who have done nothing to deserve it, which will get him cheered regardless because the move is too cool to boo. | |
Nominal Hero / int_45dbe39b | featureApplicability |
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Nominal Hero / int_45dbe39b | featureConfidence |
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Randy Orton (Wrestling) | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_45dbe39b | |
Nominal Hero / int_46d48eba | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_46d48eba | comment |
Everyone knows who James Bond is, but James Bond in the original Ian Fleming novel is a homophobic and sexist character who has no problems showing his disdain towards women doing work associated with men and the existence of lesbians. Ian Fleming noted in an interview that this was intentional. | |
Nominal Hero / int_46d48eba | featureApplicability |
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Nominal Hero / int_46d48eba | featureConfidence |
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James Bond | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_46d48eba | |
Nominal Hero / int_47f0eac3 | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_47f0eac3 | comment |
Metalocalypse has Dethklok, who are barely out of Villain Protagonist territory. Outside of being thicker than cement to a man, they're also supremely self-centered, showing a Lack of Empathy for any of the many, many people injured or killed as a result of their concerts. For the most part, their main motivation is to just live a hedonistic celebrity lifestyle with no limits, and they treat anything else as an inconvenience. | |
Nominal Hero / int_47f0eac3 | featureApplicability |
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Nominal Hero / int_47f0eac3 | featureConfidence |
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Metalocalypse | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_47f0eac3 | |
Nominal Hero / int_490a7d52 | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_490a7d52 | comment |
In The Karma of Lies, Adrien firmly believes in Protagonist-Centered Morality, and that everything he does is right by default. This blinds him to the impact of his choices; so long as HE isn't personally impacted, he doesn't care if Lila is conning his classmates or destroying Marinette's social life with Malicious Slander. His Skewed Priorities lead to him skipping what turns out to be the Final Battle with Hawkmoth because he can't slip away from the party he'd started while waiting for a distress signal from Ladybug. | |
Nominal Hero / int_490a7d52 | featureApplicability |
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Nominal Hero / int_490a7d52 | featureConfidence |
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The Karma of Lies (Fanfic) | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_490a7d52 | |
Nominal Hero / int_4afc2089 | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_4afc2089 | comment |
Daffy Duck is usually portrayed this way when he's the hero. Usually his heroism is motivated either by glory, money, or because the true villain is a threat to him personally, and in the last case it's often made clear that he wouldn't do it if it were anyone else who was in danger. He tends not to care about the damage his "heroic" antics cause as long as he gets what he wants, and he is perfectly willing to screw those around him over for even the slightest benefit to himself. All of these traits carry over to his incarnation as Duck Dodgers. | |
Nominal Hero / int_4afc2089 | featureApplicability |
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Nominal Hero / int_4afc2089 | featureConfidence |
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Daffy Duck | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_4afc2089 | |
Nominal Hero / int_4b1ed375 | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_4b1ed375 | comment |
frog in a well: The only reason Nobara and Megumi have enrolled at U.A. is that they want to use the Sports Festival as a way of broadcasting a live message that will hopefully help Yuuji find them, with the intent of quitting the school once they're reunited and concentrating on finding a way back home. Nobara even declares outright that she doesn't care what happens to the world they're currently trapped in. Megumi cares a bit more, but also recognizes that he can't possibly save everyone. | |
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frog in a well (Fanfic) | hasFeature |
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Nominal Hero / int_4b38bdfb | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_4b38bdfb | comment |
Beast Tamer: Arios Orlando is this. He's a hero only because he has the Hero skill "Limit Breaker", which he inherited, and allows him to be humanity's champion against the Demon Lord and its armies. However, he's an arrogant, entitled asshole who thinks all the people in the world only exist as part of his personal heroic tale. He has no moral scruples and believes he can do whatever he wants to whoever he wants without consequence just because of his Hero title. He's also a Sore Loser who wants murderous vengeance against the protagonist Rein Shroud whom he kicked out of the party at the start of the story because Rein wasn't outright begging to be let back in the party when the party needed him to do something, fully intending to kick him out again, and instead fighting back when Rein dared to defend the honor of this new Battle Harem party. Arios lost and was forced to apologize. The instant he loses his "hero" title because his crimes are too grievous, he turns on the rest of the party and joins up with the Demon Lord to get revenge on humanity for the "disrespect" he's getting in not being recognized as a hero anymore. The rest of the Hero party also qualifies for being Arios's escorts on his assigned quest against the Demon Lord. The commoners loathed them for their snobbery and being suck-ups to nobility and the wealthy while treating the commoners as dirt beneath their boots and they're even shown outright abandoning people in distress the moment they lose the tactical advantage and passing off the blame to others, and enforcing this shift of blame with blackmail and threats of force. It's not until Arios himself turns on them that they realize that they're not heroes at all. |
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Nominal Hero / int_4b38bdfb | featureConfidence |
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Beast Tamer | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_4b38bdfb | |
Nominal Hero / int_4d397907 | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_4d397907 | comment |
Curse Quest: It is unclear why Avalon is even in the group considering he cheers on monsters trying to kill his teammates and pretending to be someone else when he needed to provide identification in the International Heroes Guild book. He does get excited about getting a quest to the Land of Avalon, so it can be assumed he has ulterior motives and is simply siding with the heroes as a cover. | |
Nominal Hero / int_4d397907 | featureApplicability |
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Nominal Hero / int_4d397907 | featureConfidence |
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Curse Quest (Webcomic) | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_4d397907 | |
Nominal Hero / int_4dccc4bc | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_4dccc4bc | comment |
Thor: The Dark World: Loki's reasons for helping Thor defeat Malekith are fairly selfish (Loki wants to avenge Frigga's murder, and this mission offers him an opportunity to escape his prison cell), but he nevertheless puts his life on the line to achieve their mutual goal. | |
Nominal Hero / int_4dccc4bc | featureApplicability |
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Nominal Hero / int_4dccc4bc | featureConfidence |
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Thor: The Dark World | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_4dccc4bc | |
Nominal Hero / int_4ed7cac8 | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_4ed7cac8 | comment |
Liadain from Nowhere Stars is a Downplayed example; she's not a bad person, but her motives for being a Keeper are ultimately selfish: she's dying of a Soap Opera Disease and wants to find a magical cure and, eventually, Complete Immortality. The quickest way to do this is by hunting Harbingers and absorbing their powers, which tends to mean saving their victims as a side-effect. She's not callous, though, and will at least make sure the people she helps get proper medical attention, but by her own admission she wouldn't be doing this if it didn't benefit her. | |
Nominal Hero / int_4ed7cac8 | featureApplicability |
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Nominal Hero / int_4ed7cac8 | featureConfidence |
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Nowhere Stars | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_4ed7cac8 | |
Nominal Hero / int_4f55e330 | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_4f55e330 | comment |
The titular Starbarians are so profoundly unheroic that multiple episodes have suggested they're a bigger threat to the galaxy than any threat they've ever stopped. One even has the mass-murdering criminal they're attempting to collect the bounty on reveal that, in fact, he's trying to collect the bounty on them, which is ten times larger than his own. Later episodes have Hogstrong at least attempting to be more heroic, while Killgar wants to just keep murdering people for money and fun. | |
Nominal Hero / int_4f55e330 | featureApplicability |
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Nominal Hero / int_4f55e330 | featureConfidence |
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Starbarians (Web Animation) | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_4f55e330 | |
Nominal Hero / int_4f7a49d9 | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_4f7a49d9 | comment |
The people who identify as Animals in The Keys Stand Alone could be seen as these since they were brought over by the Pyar gods as heroes to help overthrow the Black Tower and its minions. Theoretically, they're doing this, though all the reader ever hears about them is what miserable torturing cruel bastards they are. Several minor characters even express bewilderment that the gods would bring over such people as potential saviors. | |
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The Keys Stand Alone (Fanfic) | hasFeature |
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Nominal Hero / int_5084d29e | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_5084d29e | comment |
Captain Marvel: The third Captain Marvel, Genis-Vell, ending up becoming this during a period of madness (caused by Entrophy). Genis became something of a Villain Protagonist with a severely warped sense of justice and rabid sense of entitlement. Rick Jones, to whom Genis was molecularly bonded, constantly opposed him and (rightly) questioned Genis's sanity. On one occasion, Genis bestowed powers upon a serial killer whom his friend Rick Jones had testified against in order to get the killer to stalk both Rick and his wife, Marlo. After putting Rick through absolute hell to the point where death seemed certain, Genis then executes the serial killer and explains to Rick that all of this was to teach Rick that he only lived on Genis's own whims and that he was never to question him again. He does get better once freed from Entrophy's control. | |
Nominal Hero / int_5084d29e | featureApplicability |
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Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_50bcf7a6 | comment |
Homestuck: The Midnight Crew are a group of bloodthirsty, vicious criminals. The only thing that keeps them from being outright Villain Protagonists of the first Intermission is the fact that the gang they're facing off against, the Felt, is led by the even worse Big Bad. Vriska is normally fairly solidly on the heroes side, and still comes across as a villain most of the time. Any time she becomes too sympathetic she'll gleefully kick some random dog, and never stops being in it mostly for her own ego. |
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Nominal Hero / int_5293b208 | type |
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Nominal Hero / int_5293b208 | comment |
Kamen Rider Ex-Aid: Taiga Hanaya/Kamen Rider Snipe, who fights against the Bugsters not because he cares about the patients or their lives. He just wants to collect all the Gashats so can he destroy all the Bugsters and get his revenge on Graphite. He also doesn't care about who gets hurt because of his actions. However, he later reveals Hidden Depths and shows that this is mostly just an act of him pretending to be a jerk. Former Big Bad Kuroto Dan/Kamen Rider Genm eventually joins the heroes, but not out of a change of heart. He's upset because his father Masamune, the new Bad, has hijacked his scheme and diverted it away from the purpose he intended it for, and taken credit for all his hard work. There are also bits of the Relationship and Force motivations there, as he feels a familial connection to Poppy (for reasons that are complicated to explain here) and can now be trapped in a Bugvisor if he starts acting up. |
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Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_564115c7 | comment |
Senna Wales, the witch of Everworld. She is motivated by her completely selfish goal of overthrowing the powers of Everworld, seizing control over the foundations of reality, and then ruling over the universe as an absolute god. However, she is kept from being a Villain Protagonist because most of the real villains that she opposes (Huizilopocli, Hel, Ka Anor) are monsters, she helps the other protagonists more often than she goes against them, and she seems to genuinely think that Everworld and its people would be better off with her ruling them all. | |
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Uhtred Ragnarsson of Bebbanburg, the main protagonist of the Saxon Stories, is this in his halfhearted service of Alfred the Great. Although he would much rather accompany the Danish invaders, certain events forced him to make an oath of service to King Alfred that he refuses to break. | |
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Nominal Hero | |
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Guardians of the Galaxy: All of the Guardians have some kind of criminal past, and even Token Good Teammate Groot has apparently spent some time kidnapping and/or impaling people for money as Rocket's accomplice. They're interested in stopping Ronan either to save themselves or to get revenge on him for wronging them in the past. | |
Nominal Hero / int_56cb92c3 | featureApplicability |
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Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) | hasFeature |
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Nominal Hero / int_5726d301 | comment |
In the spin-off series, Danger Force, when the Danger Force teens become Captain Man's sidekicks, they too start out like him and even go as far as promising that even though they respect and admire Captain Man as a mentor, they'll never become like him, only fighting crime for the fame and attention. However as the series goes along, especially in the second season, it becomes apparent that they're becoming more and more like Captain Man and that he's rubbing off on them way more than they'd probably be willing to admit, especially when it comes to only fighting crime because they want the fame, glory, and attention and because they like the romantic attention from their young teen peer fans who have romantic crushes on them. | |
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Nominal Hero / int_5726d301 | |
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Nominal Hero / int_5755b96a | comment |
The Order of the Stick: Eugene Greenhilt swore a Blood Oath to defeat Xykon the Sorcerer because the latter killed his mentor, but he was the one who muttered "yeah, whatever," afterwards. He was a horrible father and an inattentive husband, and the small amount of interest he has in Xykon being defeated is only because that oath he swore is keeping him from resting. He's only barely inside heaven in the afterlife. When his son Roy died and went to heaven, Roy was able to get much further inside heaven because unlike Eugene, he actually gave a damn and did everything he could to fulfill the family oath. Belkar Bitterleaf is an unapologetic Heroic Comedic Sociopath with no actual redeeming qualities. At one point, Roy claims that the only reason he keeps Belkar around is to keep him from using his abilities to become a full-blown villain. Belkar's Stupid Evil antics are entirely deliberate on his part, as he finds being his own personal Mook Horror Show is not only entertaining but also an effective way of gaining XP. Later, he shifts to a more subdued Token Evil Teammate role and gains an actual Morality Pet of sorts, his Right-Hand Cat, Mr. Scruffy. |
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Nominal Hero / int_5755b96a | featureApplicability |
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The Order of the Stick (Webcomic) | hasFeature |
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Nominal Hero / int_5ada53ed | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_5ada53ed | comment |
James Bond: Unlike his novel counterpart, Bond himself is too heroic for this trope, varying from Pragmatic Hero to Unscrupulous Hero Depending on the Writer. However, several of his allies do qualify. Goldfinger: Pussy Galore is a full participant in Goldfinger's plot to set off a nuclear bomb at Fort Knox, which would kill 60,000 people and cause economic chaos in the entire western world, and is motivated solely by money. While she eventually pulls a Heel–Face Turn and does more to stop Goldfinger than even Bond himself, her motivations for this are a combination of falling in love with Bond and realizing her partnership with the dangerously psychopathic Goldfinger is doomed anyway rather than any sudden change in morality. On Her Majesty's Secret Service: Marc-Ange Draco is the head of one of the world's most powerful crime syndicates. He only becomes Bond's ally in the first place because he wants Bond to marry his daughter Tracy, as a form of therapy for her suicidal depression brought on by her first husband's death, and he is so casually sexist and dismissive towards Tracy that even the notoriously misogynistic Bond is taken aback. He supplies Bond with an army to defeat Blofeld and SPECTRE in the Final Battle not to prevent Blofeld's plan to hold the world to ransom with the Omega Virus, but solely to save his daughter as Blofeld had kidnapped her. Goldeneye and The World Is Not Enough: Valentin Zukovsky is an ex-KGB operative turned Russian mafia head. He helps Bond in the former film only because Bond bribes him with military equipment and because he hates Janus for being a Lienz Cossack, and in the latter out of revenge for Elektra King betraying him and killing his nephew. Though he develops a begrudging respect for Bond as a Worthy Opponent and possibly even a friend, he is still an unrepentant criminal who will help save the day only when this aligns with his personal interests. |
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Invasion angles have a tendency to create faces by default since no matter how disagreeable a heel is he still represents the company the fans came to see, that those jerks are getting in the way of. Ray Gonzales, who was directly responsible for bringing AAA luchadores into WWC in the first place and only fell out with them when they stopped doing what he told them, is a prime example, since, hey, he's still a Puerto Rican fighting the foreigners in the Puerto Rican company. In fact, this can apply to invaders that have simply been around longer than more recent arrivals, such as the W*ING wrestles becoming faces in FMW when IWA Japan and VÃctor Quiñones's Puerto Rican Army came in. The Dominican Los Compadres and Los Broncos becoming faces when different foreign wrestlers came into WWC and the Dominicans were nominal faces again when wrestlers from the Puerto Rican independent circuit came into WWC. There are a few aversions though, as Carlito Caribbean Cool remained a heel when Savio Vega invaded WWC with IWA PR (mainly because his argument to Vega about not being a tecato just made fans think he was lazy instead). Another was Averno, El Texano Jr and El Terrible taking advantage of first Los Independientes attack on CMLL to blindside Brazo de Plata, Jon Strongman and MÃstico, as they ran out to stop the independent circuit invaders. | |
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AAA (Wrestling) | hasFeature |
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Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_5ae479dd | comment |
La Sombra, La Máscara and especially Rush, the most hated man in CMLL, only avoided being officially designated rudos by the latter's sheer insistence that they were merely "Los Ingobernables, técnicos diferentes", and that the other técnicos they typically opposed like Volador Jr. and MÃstico were still their brothers. | |
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Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_5c51d44d | comment |
Fade: Beyond Birthday. The only reason he bothers opposing Kira is that he hates L, who has become Kira in his attempts to stop the original's rise to power. It's implied that if L hadn't become Kira, he would've sided with the original instead just to get back at L. Once Light enters the picture and becomes L's partner (mainly due to a combination of attraction and Stockholm Syndrome), Beyond's motivation goes from "stop L" to "stop L and save Light" in quick fashion. | |
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Nominal Hero | |
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Abigail from BACK seeks to overthrow a corrupt dictatorship, but only so that she may more easily bring about the apocalypse. Any lesser villain she fights is because they got in her way. | |
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Nominal Hero | |
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The Shield: Vic Mackey alternates between this and a full-on villain. He's a drug-dealing, manipulative, murderous Dirty Cop but he still frequently finds himself trying to bring down criminals far worse than he is and put an end to crime in Farmington… whenever he isn't behind it. He slowly but surely slips into full-blown villainy over the course of the series, especially as his cruel manipulation tactics start being turned on legitimately good people who just happen to be in his way. With the exception of Lem, the rest of the Strike Team falls into this too. Ronnie is a loyal accomplice who doesn't bat an eye at even Vic's worst crimes and Shane is a short-tempered, violent bigot. However, they still aid Vic in his nobler endeavors just as loyally as they do with his crimes. |
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The Shield | hasFeature |
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Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_635abe30 | comment |
What If Zamasu Did Nothing Wrong?: Initially, Zamasu only attempts to aid the Barbarians as a personal experiment, hoping to impress his master Gowasu and convince him that he's worthy of succeeding him as the Supreme Kai. Over time, however, he grows into a more geniunely noble person. | |
Nominal Hero / int_635abe30 | featureApplicability |
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Nominal Hero / int_635abe30 | |
Nominal Hero / int_63ce3930 | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_63ce3930 | comment |
Death Note (2017): Light Turner becomes this after Mia kills the FBI agents. Before that happened, he was an Unscrupulous Hero, as he used the Death Note to make the world a better place. But afterwards, he used it to keep it from people worse than him. | |
Nominal Hero / int_63ce3930 | featureApplicability |
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Death Note (2017) | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_63ce3930 | |
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Nominal Hero | |
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"Stone Cold" Steve Austin in 1997. Although events involving Bret Hart made him firmly a face in the fans' eyes, he retained all of the aspects that made him a heel, to the point where some fans thought he was just a Designated Hero. He beat up people who tried to help him, smashed Bret Hart's leg into oblivion with a chair and then hijacked an ambulance to beat him up some more and generally acted like a massive Jerkass to everyone. | |
Nominal Hero / int_65e80f63 | featureApplicability |
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All the protagonists of Kelly's Heroes are disgruntled US soldiers, who intend to abscond to Switzerland with 16 million dollars in Nazi Gold. They never do anything outright evil and are all fairly sympathetic in that they are repeatedly pissed on by their superiors and blamed for things they had no power over, but are also very blatantly only out to line their own pockets and don't care much about what they have to do to get what they want. | |
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The Scorpion Jar revolves around Izuku deciding to ensure that Katsuki and the other bullies at Aldera never get the chance to become these, as they're far too accustomed to throwing their weight around and abusing others. | |
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Nominal Hero | |
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Sin City: Miho's motives are unknown since she is mute, but she seems to have loyalty almost exclusively to Old Town. She has assisted Dwight in the past only because he once saved her life but that didn't stop her from essentially threatening to kill him if he interfered while she was torturing a corrupt cop in the middle of the street. Otherwise, the best you can say about her is that she doesn't target innocent people. In the first movie, she does seem like an Unscrupulous Hero, but only because it covered her more heroic actions. | |
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During Analog Control’s Let's Play of Fable, the hosts’ protagonist, Arseface, shifted between pragmatic heroism, Chaotic Evil and Accidental Heroism at sporadic intervals. Most notable of his nominal heroic deeds was slaying Big Bad Jack of Blades in the simple hope of being left alone, then rejecting Jack’s offers of alliance and immortality because his first life had been shitty enough. | |
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Nominal Hero / int_6e1d5f36 | comment |
Farscape, which was blatantly Blake's 7 with money, was also filled with Nominal Heroes. The only reason why the main characters come together is that they're all being hunted by the oppressive government, but only one of them was anything approaching an idealistic revolutionary. (That one person was not the main protagonist and died just over halfway through the show's run.) In four seasons, they only consciously set out to do something "good" for the universe on two occasions, at the end of the third season and in the Grand Finale Wrap It Up. Amusingly lampshaded when Rygel offers to nobly escape their latest encounter with certain doom in order to carry their message, only to be reminded that they don't actually have one. | |
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The entire main cast of Archer. Most of them are petty, hedonistic assholes who are more concerned with their lavish lifestyles and do things that are morally questionable or just plain stupid in their spy business. The worst case however is Malory Archer, the head of ISIS who lies, manipulates, and abuses her workers for her own selfish gains. Worst yet, one of them happens to be her son Sterling Archer, whom she has abandoned and abused since he was a kid. | |
Nominal Hero / int_7460586f | featureApplicability |
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On Her Majesty's Secret Service: Marc-Ange Draco is the head of one of the world's most powerful crime syndicates. He only becomes Bond's ally in the first place because he wants Bond to marry his daughter Tracy, as a form of therapy for her suicidal depression brought on by her first husband's death, and he is so casually sexist and dismissive towards Tracy that even the notoriously misogynistic Bond is taken aback. He supplies Bond with an army to defeat Blofeld and SPECTRE in the Final Battle not to prevent Blofeld's plan to hold the world to ransom with the Omega Virus, but solely to save his daughter as Blofeld had kidnapped her. | |
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Oxventure: Jane Douglas's character, Prudence, in the games of Dungeons & Dragons. She's a moderately sadistic, demon-descended Cthulhu cultist who specialises in Eldritch Blast, who seems to care about nobody besides the other Oxventurers. | |
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Magick Chicks: Melissa was introduced as an antagonist, back when she first appeared in Eerie Cuties, but was eventually given her own Spin-Off series which was meant to reform her — against her will. The comic stuck her with a sentient wand that acted as her conscience and Tiffany as her self-appointed instructor. Except Melissa couldn't care less and remained as self-centered and petty as before - despite occasional moments of heroism. | |
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Nominal Hero | |
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Jen Black in Princess of the Blacks is only fighting Voldemort and his forces because 1) He tried to kill her (Jen even admits to herself she probably wouldn't have bothered reporting his return if he hadn't), and 2) Her patron (Death) has demanded she kill him. When asked, Jen admits she wouldn't join Voldemort, not for moral reasons, but because he's made himself her enemy. | |
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On X Company Mirri asks to join the resistance spies in order to get the chance to kill her enemies. | |
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X Company | hasFeature |
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Power Rangers Lost Galaxy: Magna-Defender is like this. He may assist the rangers in taking down a monster or two and want to take down Scorpious, but he's only doing it for revenge. This definitely becomes clearer when he tries to destroy Terra Venture because it might destroy Scorpious. Although he gets better, near the end. | |
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Power Rangers Lost Galaxy | hasFeature |
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Girl Genius: Tarvek is really only a "hero" because he cares about Agatha and Gil, something which led him to realize just how messed up mind-controlling the masses really is. He has at least one other surviving person he cares about, but that sibling-like relationship would have done nothing to prevent him from fulfilling the destiny the Knights of Jove were planning for him and generally being a back-stabbing manipulator. He also admits that he's willing to burn the whole world down to protect them no matter who he has to kill. | |
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The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck: Scrooge McDuck develops into one by the "Empire Builder From Calisota" chapter. His life experiences have hardened him to the point that he's become a corrupt robber baron, hates his family, has Ignored Epiphanies, and only derives joy from getting even richer. He is redeemed later on, however. | |
Nominal Hero / int_877bc78 | featureApplicability |
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Array from Chronicles of Harmony's End. He represents Order, and therefore opposes Discord on principle rather than morality. | |
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Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_8ba43df | comment |
In John Wick, John himself. He massacres dozens of mobsters simply because the son of their boss, Iosef, killed his puppy and flat-out threatens to kill Viggo if he doesn't hand over Iosef. He's kept from being a full-on Villain Protagonist by a strict sense of honor (for starters, he takes great pains to avoid collateral damage) and the fact that, well, he's going up against The Mafiya that John himself put into power. | |
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John Wick | hasFeature |
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Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_8c20a74c | comment |
Midoriya, Plus Three-Sixty-Five: The majority of Izuku's classmates in this Alternate Universe Fic are primed to become nominal heroes. Much like Katsuki, they've been coddled and praised for having powerful Quirks, allowed to bend the rules and get away with stunts. Suffice to say, they're shocked when Aizawa refuses to allow them to continue their selfish ways, and most wind up expelled for their bad behavior, such as engaging in underage drinking and nearly offing a classmate with a barely-averted Deadly Prank. | |
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Nominal Hero / int_8df52a8d | comment |
Superboy: In the New 52, Superboy is this initially. This version of Superboy has no interest in heroics beyond what it takes to survive/gain his freedom. Between the first and second issues, he kills many of his captors by reflex and feels no remorse or guilt, tortures a group of soldiers who hold him at gunpoint, and flat-out threatens to kill anyone who stands in his way. Issue #4 steers him toward being a Knight in Sour Armor, and he eventually becomes an All-Loving Hero. | |
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Goldfinger: Pussy Galore is a full participant in Goldfinger's plot to set off a nuclear bomb at Fort Knox, which would kill 60,000 people and cause economic chaos in the entire western world, and is motivated solely by money. While she eventually pulls a Heel–Face Turn and does more to stop Goldfinger than even Bond himself, her motivations for this are a combination of falling in love with Bond and realizing her partnership with the dangerously psychopathic Goldfinger is doomed anyway rather than any sudden change in morality. | |
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The Boys: Real Justice: The Seven's main motivation for attacking the Legion of Doom is that their reputations as "heroes" have been suffering lately and they want to boost their profile by beating up some bad guys. | |
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Nobody: Hutch Mansell is a man with a lot of pent-up anger, and unlike similar protagonists in other action films (like, say, John Wick), he's only looking for an excuse to snap and lash out instead of any kind of justice or revenge. He also shows no remorse for the violence he did in his past or in the present. The only thing that stops him from being a straight-up villain is that the people he's fighting against are just as bad as he is. | |
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Kamen Rider OOO: Ankh is only helping Eiji against the other Greeed because it's in his own best interests, and has no qualms about who is hurt so long as he gets what he wants. though he gradually transitions into a Knight in Sour Armor by the end. | |
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Hank starts off Madness Combat as a mass-murdering One-Man Army willing to kill people over a boombox, and only becomes heroic in later episodes because his enemies now include an Ax-Crazy Monster Clown and a reality-warping God of Evil. | |
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Ozzie the Vampire: Ozzie and Kimmy to varying extents. Ozzie doesn't care about humanity so much as protecting the city she lives in from demon invaders. Kimmy verges on being a Heroic Comedic Sociopath — it's implied she made some kind of deal with Grimsley that obligates her to fight and seal away demons. | |
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Nominal Hero / int_9e7f8a9c | comment |
The Boys: Virtually the entire superhero community. Thanks to the massive media empire built around them by Vought-American, they don't even have to save anyone to be considered heroes as embellished comic lines surrounding their supposed "adventures" are made, and many let the fame and money go to their heads and end up becoming narcissistic sociopaths. Several of them used to even be supervillains but only switched to the "hero" side because it pays better. | |
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Nominal Hero | |
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The Heisei incarnation of Godzilla saves the world, or at least Tokyo from other monsters, but it's not clear whether he has any motivations other than territorial instinct and devotion to his son, "Junior". | |
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Nominal Hero / int_a183d57f | comment |
Futurama features a few: Zapp Brannigan is a selfish, womanizing, ignorant Jerkass Glory Hound whose incompetence is of epic proportions, and whose battle plans often if not usually call for callously sacrificing thousands of lives in order to further his own career. Nonetheless, he is a key asset for DOOP. In many appearances, though, he's a functional or outright antagonist due to his habit of screwing over the Planet Express crew. Bender is an extremely selfish kleptomaniac and thus falls into nominal heroism at times. However, much of this can be excused by the fact that as a robot, he does not fully understand human needs and emotions. He also has quite a few Pet the Dog moments. Professor Farnsworth is an amoral crackpot who treats human life as expendable and freely admits that he's always expected that he would cause the apocalypse one day. He's still always on the front lines to save the Earth whenever it's put into peril by an even more evil entity. |
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Nominal Hero / int_a4420d22 | comment |
Dr. Venture from The Venture Bros. often falls into this category, sometimes bordering on Villain Protagonist. He's a Brilliant, but Lazy Bungling Inventor with extreme Freudian Excuses thanks to his emotionally abusive father and Hilariously Abusive Childhood. Usually, he still does the right thing in the end, but in a few episodes ("The Buddy System", "What Color is Your Cleansuit?",) he's "heroic" only in the sense that he is the show's protagonist, and the "good" he does (cloning a child who was killed on a tour of his compound, restoring the interns after exposing them to extreme radiation) is basically done to keep himself out of trouble. | |
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Nominal Hero / int_a5e160e0 | comment |
While Lucifer Morningstar from Lucifer (2016) has a strong sense of right and wrong (albeit a very twisted one), the only reason why he joined up with Chloe and her investigations was that she fascinated him due to her moral compass and immunity to his charms and because he found punishing criminals to be exciting. He only ever stays the course whenever it interests him in any way, becoming easily distracted or simply dropping out of the case altogether if it bores him, only to re-enter the case if it suits his needs. | |
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The "heroes" of The Adventure Zone are in the business of tracking down Artifacts of Doom for two reasons: because they don't want the planet destroyed (it's where they keep all their stuff) and because the pay is pretty good. They'll gleefully lie, cheat, steal, and murder along their way toward saving the world from the latest threat, and everyone else has to put up with it, because their track record at world-saving can't be beat. | |
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The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Galadriel of the Second Age is defined by her selfish desire for revenge. She has no problem risking the lives of her own troops, threatening the Orcs with genocide, or manipulating Halbrand and Miriel in such a way the queen puts the troops of Numenor at her disposal. | |
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Violine: Kombo is cowardly, greedy, willing to betray his friends for money, and prone to abandon the heroes to their death at the first sign of trouble, but is treated by the main characters as an ally. If no one is around to steer him onto the right path, the plot will conspire to do so anyway, and he will take credit for "saving" everyone. | |
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Nominal Hero / int_ab65451f | comment |
Max Dembo from No Beast So Fierce. He's an ex-convict making a genuine attempt to reform, but it's motivated entirely by pragmatism and he's shown to be racist, homophobic, misogynistic, short-tempered, and amoral. He does have a few Pet the Dog moments, but after enough rejections and humiliations, he dovetails right back into being a criminal. | |
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Father Ted: Father Jack Hackett is a violent, selfish, perverted alcoholic and flashbacks suggest he was once a bullying fire and brimstone preacher and a paedophile. The only thing keeping him from being a Villain Protagonist is that his alcoholism and old age usually render him too docile to harm anyone. And sometimes they do the exact opposite. | |
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Cold Print: Strutt is a snide sexual predator, and he'd probably be an outright Villain Protagonist if he weren't fighting against the far worse Y'gonolac if only for self-preservation. | |
Nominal Hero / int_aed36abc | featureApplicability |
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Cold Print | hasFeature |
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Nominal Hero / int_af872a82 | comment |
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Hyde, Griffin, and Nemo are a murderer, serial rapists, and psychopathic pirate respectively, who are offered an official pardon if they'll turn those qualities against the Empire's enemies. In the film version, Griffin is replaced by Lovable Rogue Rodney Skinner, and Hyde and Nemo get a makeover. In the second volume of the comic, Griffin eventually becomes a straight-up villain when he betrays humankind to the Martians. His characterization never really changes, though, which shows how nominal a hero he was to begin with. | |
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Takeshi Kovacs tends to rack up an alarming body count at the best of times, but in the second book in particular he's only in it for the money. | |
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Game of Thrones: In Seasons 3 and 4, Sandor "The Hound" Clegane, having abandoned his position as a Kingsguard for the tyrannical Lannister regime, works to return Arya Stark to her family, which is a heroic goal, though his primary motivation is the ransom he expects to be paid for her. He's still not by any means a good person, as he robs innocent peasants on two separate occasions, on the first barely being convinced not to murder his unconscious victim by Arya, and on the second leaving a kindly farmer and his young daughter to starve after the man had invited him into his home, given him a free meal and offered him a job. However, he despises (and helps Arya kill) monsters like the Frey soldiers who murdered her family at the Red Wedding and Psycho for Hire Polliver, and by the end of Season 4, he has come to care for Arya enough that he is now looking after her with no hope of a reward. After a near-death experience, he returns in Season 6 as a much more heroic character, albeit still not a particularly nice one, fighting to save the world from the White Walker invasion for purely noble reasons. Bronn is a mercenary who fights for whichever side pays him best, including propping up oppressive monarchs like Joffrey and Cersei, resorts to dishonourable tactics in battle, and, in his time as Commander of the City Watch of King's Landing, uses extreme measures to keep the peace such as having every known thief in the city rounded up and summarily executed. Though he does have some standards, being clearly disgusted by Joffrey having Sansa Stark beaten by Meryn Trant in front of the Royal Court, the only reason he qualifies as a hero at all is that the characters he spends most of his time working for are Tyrion and Jaime, who the audience is generally inclined to sympathise with. |
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Hulk is a milder example. But it's not entirely clear (until possibly the end) if the title character really knows and/or understands what he's doing. | |
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The titular character of Black Dynamite is brutal, aggressive, prejudiced, commits crimes on a regular basis, and rarely does anything out of altruism unless it affects one of his friends (and sometimes, not even then). He's mostly the good guy because he opposes "The Man", and The Man is much, much worse. In the original film, he was closer to an Unscrupulous Hero, willing to stick up for the black community as a whole even if it would endanger him. | |
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Spider-Man: At the start of Superior Spider-Man (2013), Otto Octavius who took over Spider-Man's body and poses as Peter Parker (It Makes Sense in Context) just wants to prove he's better as being Spider-Man than Peter and one of the best superheroes the world would see. In fact he lost nothing of his arrogance and pathos from his villain days as Doctor Octopus. He later gets some Character Development in the original run. | |
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Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_b50cc7e6 | comment |
The Incredible Hulk: The Incredible Hulk can frequently turn into this. While he generally dislikes the "puny humans" (and understandably so, given how often they provoke him or misblame him for things that are someone else's fault) he nonetheless ends up doing a lot of good by smashing villains whose plans threaten humanity, even if it's only because they made the mistake of pissing him off. This is especially pronounced with the more intelligent varieties of Hulk, such as Joe Fixit or the Green Scar, who are entirely cognizant of the damage they do and don't tend to particularly care. | |
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Learning with Manga! FGO has its take on the protagonist, generally referred to as Gudako. As a satire of the average gacha fan, she's self-absorbed, lazy, a massive pervert, and plays the game to obtain as many pretty girl Servants as possible. She's so uninterested in actually resolving the plot that her Servants have taken to doing it themselves without her. Her male counterpart actually does try to get through the story, but he's pretty transparently doing it because he thinks it's the best way to get lots of cute boy Servants. | |
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Nominal Hero / int_b6c15d0 | comment |
Nikolos Drakonakos from The Conversion Bureau: The Palladium Wings is the extremely cruel, borderline sociopathic leader of a band of Sky Pirates. He fights against the Equestrians out of sheer hatred and desire for booty. In fact, many of the Sky Pirates have the same motivations that he does. | |
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Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_b712435c | comment |
Zigizagged on Leverage. In the pilot, the heroes are clearly only motivated by payback and greed. Throughout the rest of the series, their motivations flip back and forth in almost every episode between wanting to atone, wanting to help the victims, and the love of stealing. Also, the "alternative revenue stream" is occasionally mentioned, implying that the team continues to profit from their work by betting against their marks in the stock market like they did in the pilot. | |
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Nominal Hero | |
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Captain Hammer of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog's only qualification as a hero is that the guy he's fighting is trying to get into a supervillain organization. He may look like The Cape, but underneath his dashing, larger-than-life demeanor is a misogynistic, self-centered, bigoted glory hound who's far more interested in his image than in actually helping people. This makes him the antagonist of the story, set against the nerdy, Technical Pacifist, Shrinking Violet protagonist, Dr. Horrible. | |
Nominal Hero / int_b80c3b | featureApplicability |
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Nominal Hero / int_bc7736c8 | comment |
Suicide Squad: Amanda Waller. Depending on the Writer she is either this or a Knight Templar; her job is always in the government's best interest, but she sometimes uses methods that tend to be too extreme. Her plans are not limited to recruiting supervillains to get the job done but extend to outright hunting superheroes. | |
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Nominal Hero | |
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Sentinel Prime from Transformers: Animated is technically on the side of the good guys, being a member of the high-ranked Autobot Elite Guard, but is a pompous, arrogant, incompetent Glory Hound Jerkass with a truly appalling level of anti-organic bigotry. He hates the Decepticons, but that's about the only thing "heroic" about him. He manages to get even worse as we learn more about him, and discover the reason for his hatred for Optimus Prime: way back when they were both cadets together, they had a female friend, Elita-1, until one day Sentinel and Elita-1 talked Optimus into making a trip to a forbidden, organic-inhabited planet to search for the wreck of a Decepticon battleship and retrieve its lost stockpile of Energon. Despite the fact that, as he repeatedly pointed out, this was both illegal and highly dangerous, Optimus eventually went along, mostly to keep them out of trouble. As expected, things went disastrously wrong when they were attacked by a colony of Giant Spiders and the Energon stockpile blew up; Optimus managed to drag Sentinel to safety, but Elita-1 was presumably killed. This got them both court-martialed, but because Optimus took all the blame, only he was expelled from the Elite Guard Academy. Sentinel never admitted he was the one who led them to the planet, nor stopped blaming Optimus for Elita-1's death. And just when you think he couldn't get worse, when he finally meets Blackarachnia, the transmutated Elita-1, he is so disgusted by her technorganic state that he outright tells her that she should have killed herself rather than living like this, making Blackarachnia, herself no fan of her state, protest that it's not that bad. He truly cements his Jerk with a Heart of Jerk status when he promptly attacks her and tries to kill her himself! | |
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Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_bd447006 | comment |
Sherlock Holmes. In the early stories particularly, he's more interested in fighting crime for the novelty of it, and the fact that the more unusual cases give him something to do; if he gets too bored he starts doing cocaine. Later stories shy away from the drug use and make him a bit more classically heroic, though his main fascination with his work is still the strangeness of his cases. He rarely shows an interest in financial gain; he even states that "my work is its own reward." Holmes's motivation is really a combination of a sense of justice but also of a desire for a worthy challenge. He takes cases whose riddles he will enjoy trying to solve. You could say that he is a heroic foil of The Riddler who enjoys creating riddles. | |
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Nominal Hero / int_bff01809 | comment |
Nagash is one of Warhammers biggest douchebags, and likely the single most evil person in the setting. He still has a vested interest against Chaos destroying the world however, and so for a good chunk of the lore, he's technically been a "good guy". The quotation marks are very much justified, and in Warhammer: Age of Sigmar it's no real surprise when he finally gives in to his baser urges. It's fair to say he was only prevented from betraying everyone in Warhammer: The End Times because one of the other "Why are we friends with this guy again?" characters, his subordinate Mannfred von Carstein, betrayed him before he had the chance. It speaks to Nagash's character well that the moment his soul was released from imprisonment in Age of Sigmar and ascended to godhood, one of his first actions was to bring Mannfred's soul back in a continually decaying part of his empire just to torment Mannfred by making him his servant again. | |
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Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_c0da5437 | comment |
The Punisher: The Punisher, in his darker takes, tends to sit somewhere around here. He simply summarizes his reasons for doing what he does in Welcome Back, Frank as "I hate them." He kills people who are a danger to others, but there's no actual altruism involved in it, and he doesn't think what he's doing actually helps people; he just wants revenge, and to keep killing until the day he dies. That doesn't mean he's incapable of behaving altruistically or that he has no moral code whatsoever, but both him and everyone he interacts with understands that the only thing that really puts him ahead of those he kills is that he'll Never Hurt an Innocent. | |
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Black Adder: Lord Flashheart is a rare example of a Fake Ultimate Hero who really was brave and dashing and always won. He first appeared as an Elizabethan swashbuckler in season 2 and a dashing flying ace in season 4 and was handsome, bold, admired by all, adored by the ladies, and laughed in the face of danger. He was also an arrogant prat who boasted constantly, lied, sucked up to his superiors, patronized his admirers, and treated women as sex objects. And the only reason he always won was that he was an underhanded bastard who cheated and employed every dirty trick in the book. | |
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Asterix: The vast majority of Gaulish villagers are like this. They're only heroic at all because they're fighting against The Empire, which they mostly just pick on, usually for fun, rather than make any serious rebellion against them. They have two reasons for fighting them — they love fighting (even turning on each other when Romans aren't available) and they're incredibly set in their ways, usually even when the Roman way is better. They started out intended more as a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits La Résistance but got Flanderized into this mostly because it's funnier. Asterix, Obelix, and Getafix are much nicer people, though. | |
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In Braveheart, Steven the Irishman seems to have only joined the Scots because he'll be able to kill Englishmen, not to help the Scots get freedom. | |
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Two Letters: This is played for horror with the new Ladybug. While she still saves the city on a regular basis, she's only in it for the money and fame, and she's willing to weaponize her rabid fanbase to ruin the life of anyone who crosses her. She uses this to extort bribes from anyone with enough money, force the city to cater to her whims, and generally boost her own ego. Most of her fans are too devoted to pick up on this, and those who do won't speak out for fear of becoming her next target. Adrien also qualifies, thanks to his Skewed Priorities. As Chat Noir, he cared more about trying to force Ladybug into a Relationship Upgrade that she clearly didn't want, and only decided to leave her alone after switching targets to Marinette. And while he does want to do something about her Sketchy Successor, his motivations for doing so remain entirely selfish, and he still intends to force Marinette into a relationship with him. The Reveal at the end confirms this also applies to Marinette. From Luka's perspective, she's been through hell as Ladybug and is well within her rights to wash her hands of Paris's problems and air some lingering grievances in the bargain. While she's a bit too gleeful about the misfortune her retirement has caused, he's hopeful that she'll improve with time. However, Marinette's POV reveals that she's been traumatized to the point of becoming a Yandere who only cares about herself and is convinced that she deserves to revel in everyone else's misery after what she went through. She's only playing nice outwardly to keep up appearances for Luka. Oh, and if Luka ever tries to leave her, she'll remake the entire universe to force him to stay with her forever. |
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Blake's 7: Over the course of his development, Kerr Avon varies from Token Evil Teammate to a Jerk with a Heart of Gold but loses all sympathetic qualities towards the end of Series 4 when he tries to kill Vila in cold blood. He's still fighting the Lawful Evil Federation but he only cares about saving himself. His reasons for fighting the Federation also change as time passes: in Season 1 he claims to have nothing to do with Blake's revolution other than living on the same ship, in Season 2 he's playing along because he wants the ship, in Season 3 the Federation is a threat to his freedom and by Season 4 he genuinely hates them, though by this time he's sliding down the sanity slope and it's hard to tell what his true motivations are. Most of the other "good" main characters — except Blake, Cally, Dayna, and perhaps Jenna and Gan — are being dragged along behind Blake's idealism. They fight because there's nowhere for them to run. Dayna seems to stay with Avon out of a combination of not having anywhere else to go and wanting revenge on Servalan for her father's murder. While the seven more or less end up as Fire-Forged Friends, only Blake and Cally really have anything approaching idealism, rather than being motivated by loyalty or self-interest, and they're both gone by Season 4. |
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In ItsJustSomeRandomGuy's YouTube I'm a Marvel... And I'm a DC sketches, this trope is played around with. Wolverine says to The Comedian, "You kinda remind me of myself at your age ... except I've got ethics... and I'm not a sociopath... or a rapist... you know what, maybe you remind me of someone else." | |
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The Wire: Omar Little is a stick-up man who robs drug dealers for a living. As Maurice Levy points out, he is an amoral man profiting off the drug game that is leeching the life out of the city of Baltimore, and the only reason he opposes the show's villains such as the Barksdales or Marlo Stanfield is for revenge when they've killed someone close to him. However, he has a strict code of honor, never targeting anyone who is "not in the game", and his victims are such colossal Asshole Victims that he comes across as a Karmic Thief. Many policemen and public servants don't really care about fighting crime or improving the city and would only perform good deeds when it furthers their own agendas. Examples include: Bill Rawls is a foul-mouthed Jerkass whose only interest in fighting crime is to "juke the stats" by any means necessary so that he can appear to be doing his job properly and get himself a promotion. He initiates the investigation into the Barksdales in Season 1 only because his superiors nagged him into it under pressure from a judge. Stan Valchek is a slimy schemer who uses all manner of politics to climb the upper ranks of the Baltimore Police Department. While he does establish the Major Crimes Unit to commence a very important investigation into Frank Sobotka's shipping yard in Season 2, he does so only out of petty revenge for Sobotka showing Valchek up by beating him to donating a stained glass window to a local church. |
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The Spoony Experiment: Spoony (the character, not Noah Antwiler) is a sleazy pervert and a confirmed rapist as both The Nostalgia Critic and The Nostalgia Chick found out the hard way. The Chick herself is a sociopath with no qualms when it comes to tormenting and manipulating her best friend. | |
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Scarlet Lady: Chloé Bourgeoise as the titular heroine, full stop. She has no interest in fighting Akuma or saving Paris, just in getting famous and beloved. She makes her partner Chat Noir do the lion's share of the work and just uses her Lucky Charm/Miraculous Cure as needed. Pretty much everyone who knows her personally hates her (and only put up with her because she's the only one who can purify Akumas and fix the damage), but her talent for playing the media ensures that the world at large thinks she's the real deal. | |
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Yojimbo: Sanjuro cleans up the town in which the film takes place, not out of concern for the people, but because he jumped at the opportunity to make money killing people. He's kept from being a Villain Protagonist only by one or two Pet the Dog moments and the fact that his victims are even worse. | |
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Godzilla himself in Kaiju Revolution, as even though he seeks to protect the planet from hostile forces, it's mainly due to him seeing the world as his territory. He frequently clashes with the other benevolent Kaiju and is extremely destructive and aggressive, obliterating cities and devouring other monsters. | |
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Andromeda: Tyr Anazasi is a mercenary. He is also a Nietzschean, a member of a Human Subspecies that practices enlightened self-interest, genetic engineering, and social darwinism. Tyr is ultimately on no one's side but his own; he is not only not much of a hero, he is an out-and-out antagonist at times and will always play the heroes and villains against each other for his personal benefit (though he is more than willing to drop an immediate benefit for a larger, long term one). He will stand by the heroes, even at great personal risk, when their interests align with his and it seems like they will come out on top (which, he recognizes, is most of the time; Dylan and Rommie are good enough to beat the odds more often than not), but doesn't hesitate to throw the heroes under the bus when he thinks the risks are small and the payoff big enough. | |
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The Arms Monsters in Kamen Rider Kiva. They’re no fans of the Fangire, but they aren’t afraid to indulge in rape and eating humans to survive. They only assist Kiva as a life debt to his father. | |
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The Harry Potter depicted in Seventh Horcrux is a Retired Monster with the mind of Voldemort and a major-league Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist. He's entirely amoral but still ends up saving the world largely by accident or for selfish reasons. Of course, it helps that he's mellowed out of the blatant sadism and racism of his canon counterpart. | |
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Beware of Chicken: The magistrate of Verdant Hill is universally beloved, and he does in fact do quite a lot of good for the province, but when the narrative peeks inside his head, it becomes clear that his motivations are entirely selfish and petty. He is thoroughly addicted to having everyone's praise and approval, and so he does what it takes to keep getting those things — meaning that he's a rather good ruler in practice, but without any actual moral principles. Jin finds him to be exceedingly helpful, and assumes it's because of his great care and concern for his people; it's really driven by his constant stomach-churning fear that Jin will raze the town if angered. | |
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Latias' Journey has an in-universe example in the Red Ranger. An amoral and borderline sociopathic "superhero" is designated as heroic by Mr. Ford. | |
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Hellblazer's John Constantine is also a milder case. But being an Anti-Hero, many of his battles are because he was being forced to comply, for personal gain (ready to sacrifice anyone), or simply just being bored and wanting to do some shit. | |
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A Rabbit Among Wolves: Jaune is trying to reform the White Fang and battle corruption, but he has zero genuine interest in either cause. But having accidentally murdered Adam Taurus, he has inadvertently become Public Enemy #1 and wants to prove to the public he isn't a cold-blooded killer. He even admits that if not for his situation, he'd probably ignore the plight of the poor. | |
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The Book of Boba Fett: Boba Fett is a crime lord whose sole motivation is to consolidate his newfound power. The only things making him worth rooting for are his strict sense of honor, desire to rule with respect rather than fear, and the fact that his enemies are also notorious crime lords who are far worse than him. | |
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Damien Darkblood in Invincible (2021) is this and a literal Noble Demon. He's a Captain Ersatz of Hellboy who escaped from Hell and works as a Hardboiled Detective in order to redeem his soul by seeking justice for others and delay, if not prevent, returning. However, according to Omni-Man, his motivations are purely selfish and he doesn't actually care about the people he helps. | |
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Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Spike from seasons 4-6. After having a chip inserted in his head that prevents him from attacking humans, but still leaves him free to hurt demons, he frequently teams up with the Scoobies solely because it's the only way he can get a good fight. From season 5, he's also motivated by having fallen in love with Buffy and gains Dawn as a Morality Pet, but still operates on Blue-and-Orange Morality compared to the rest of the good guys and commits many horrifying actions. He grows out of this and becomes a true hero in season 7 after regaining his soul. | |
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DSBT InsaniT: Lisa will fight for what is right, but only when she feels like it, and she'll often wait until the last minute to do so anyway. | |
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Hybrid × Heart Magias Academy Ataraxia: As of Volume 8, Nayuta Hida has joined the protagonists in their battle against the Deus Ex Machina. Nayuta has no regrets about what she has done for her pursuit of godhood, such as the way she treated her children, and makes no attempts to redeem herself. For their part, Kizuna and the others know this and only accept her help because she is the best chance they have against the Deus Ex Machina. | |
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X-Ray of X-Ray & Vav is nothing more than a Glory Hound, seeking to gain the fame and attention of being a hero and not actually really being a hero. He hates the idea of anything taking his spotlight and will attack and blame them for his shortcomings. | |
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Firefly: Jayne is working for Mal only because Mal offered him more money and his own bunk. When given the offer he immediately shot the mercenaries he was currently working for and sided with Mal. He makes it clear throughout the series that he would do the same again if a better offer came along... Maybe. The big lug goes through a lot of Character Development in thirteen episodes and one Big Damn Movie and shows regular signs of Hidden Depths. Arguably this can be applied to all the crew (with the exception of Book, whose motivations are unclear though his loyalty less so), who are on the crew for either financial gain or survival. Though there are moments of sincere heroism that even Mal can't ignore — such as returning the medicine they stole (only Jayne objects), helping out the whores (which only Jayne agrees to when he realises it'll get him free whore sex), and risking everything to out the secret behind the Reavers (even Jayne agrees to this). |
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Allysin Kay's Heel–Face Turn in Shine Wrestling began with Kay insulting her own fans and ended with her embracing them after all her friends "betrayed" her and she had no one else to turn to. This betrayal consisted of Kay's friends proclaiming that Kay was NOT The Leader of their Power Stable and making what they thought was a good business decision even though Kay was against it. All the initial violence in the resulting feud was instigated by Kay, something their Psycho for Hire Sweet Saraya called her out on, and when not feuding with her former friends Kay continued to try and force the Shine promotion to give her what she wanted by "destroying innocent girls". What made Kay a baby face was that the friends she betrayed had made five on one no holds barred beatdowns of genuine baby faces their modus operandi, the business she was against was them merging with an even crueler power stable and after her face turn none of the "innocents" Kay was destroying were actually innocent. | |
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A Certain Infinite Possibility: In Season 5, Teitoku Kakine has only three reasons for working with Jason: they're pursuing more power, want revenge on Ricane, and are incapable of disobeying Jason's orders due to their Mark of Lust. | |
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Breaking Bad: Walter White is this for most of the series. He's a ruthless criminal for sure, but he's doing it for understandable reasons (so that his family will have enough money to live one after he dies) and the Juarez Cartel (represented by the Faux Affably Evil Don Eladio) and Gus Fring are much much worse than him. This goes away in Season 5, when he fully embraces the life of a drug kingpin even though both Gus and the Cartel are no longer a threat and he has enough money to keep his family living comfortably for the rest of their lives. He reverts back to this in the final episode; while he does his best to undo the damage his actions have done, he makes it clear that he doesn't have any regrets about his crimes. | |
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The Terminator from Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines plays this far more straight. At one point he even flatly admits he doesn't care at all about John or Kate and is only protecting them because it's his mission. Even toward the end, when he's been corrupted by the T-X and is about to kill John, it's being reminded that he's about to fail his mission that makes him stop. | |
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The Epic of Gilgamesh has its titular character, who doesn't really become properly "heroic" until the end of the story—he starts off as a cruel tyrant, and even after meeting Enkidu and mellowing out somewhat, he's still immature and self-centered. It's only when he learns to accept mortality that he becomes a good king. | |
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Raistlin Majere is this in the original Dragonlance Chronicles trilogy. Really the only thing keeping him with the Heroes of the Lance is some lingering affection for some of them and the presence of his brother Caramon. Even during Chronicles, Raistlin started drifting towards becoming the Token Evil Teammate and the Face–Heel Turn was complete by the next trilogy Legends. Still, he did earn his Redemption Equals Death and had a few Pet the Dog moments. | |
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The Sopranos: Tony Soprano is a con artist, a thug, a womanizer, a thief, a murderer, an extortionist, and an adulterer. But the things separating him from a Villain Protagonist are his genuine love for his family, kindness to his friends, occasional pangs of guilt and moments of vulnerability, and the fact that his friends (and enemies) are even worse than he is. It actually makes him seem like a milder case of the trope... and then he loses much of it by Season 6B and the finale. | |
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Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_fb8549c | comment |
Deadpool: Deadpool is a Noble Demon Sociopathic Hero. He easily eclipses even The Punisher, as he frequently finds it funny to casually torture, dismember, and murder people. Though in later years, Deadpool has become more and more heroic, to the point where he's a solid Anti-Hero in the place of his old Nominal Hero status. To the point where he was the Only Sane Man and the conscience of the X-Men's Black Ops squad under Wolverine who thought that killing the kid who was Apocalypse's reincarnation is just wrong. Throughout the arc, he became more and more heroic too via Character Development, and even convinced the kid to join the Jean School for the Gifted so he can use his powers for good instead of evil. | |
Nominal Hero / int_fb8549c | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Nominal Hero / int_fb8549c | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Deadpool (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_fb8549c | |
Nominal Hero / int_fc36bfd7 | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_fc36bfd7 | comment |
Secret Wars II: The Beyonder tries being a superhero for a while, just for the heck of it. He quickly gets bored and decides instead that he wants to destroy everything. | |
Nominal Hero / int_fc36bfd7 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Nominal Hero / int_fc36bfd7 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Secret Wars II (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_fc36bfd7 | |
Nominal Hero / int_fcc7ec6b | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_fcc7ec6b | comment |
The only real differences between Triple H as a heel and as a face is whether or not he's directly insulting the fans, and how often he tries to weasel out of a fight. | |
Nominal Hero / int_fcc7ec6b | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Nominal Hero / int_fcc7ec6b | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Triple H (Wrestling) | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_fcc7ec6b | |
Nominal Hero / int_fd289bb0 | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_fd289bb0 | comment |
Revolution: Rachel Matheson reveals herself as this in "The Longest Day" when she directly tells Aaron that she wants to turn the power back on not to help anyone, but to give the other factions the power to kill Monroe as revenge for killing her son Danny. | |
Nominal Hero / int_fd289bb0 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Nominal Hero / int_fd289bb0 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
Revolution | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_fd289bb0 | |
Nominal Hero / int_ff674297 | type |
Nominal Hero | |
Nominal Hero / int_ff674297 | comment |
The Devil of Zero: Vergil is just as power-hungry as he was in the past and as anti-ethical in his methods of dealing with his enemies. It's just that he's on the side of good due to being Louise's familiar. | |
Nominal Hero / int_ff674297 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
Nominal Hero / int_ff674297 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
The Devil of Zero (Fanfic) | hasFeature |
Nominal Hero / int_ff674297 |
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