Dark Is Not Evil/Video Games: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

{{quote| Master Assassin:"We work in the dark to serve the light. We are Assassins. Nothing is true, everything is permitted." <br />

* The Necromancer from ''[[Diablo]] II'', who sees raising undead as a necessary evil for the greater good. He may be on to something, as the years he's spent in the crypt studying the dark arts make him much more likely to resist being corrupted by diablo's evil like the heroes of the first game. {{spoiler|You even find his apprentice in a random event in [[Diablo III]], carrying on his master's legacy of using necromancy for the greater good, and he comes across as being rather noble.}}

* Similairly, the Witch Doctor from ''[[Diablo III]]'' uses zombies and voodoo as part of a mutual pact with the spirits, it's not treated as a twisted abomination or desire for power, but sheer reverence for the spirits of the departed. The witch doctor himself is also a very kind and mellow (if somewhat backwards) person.

* Millenia from ''[[Grandia II]]'' is a textbook example of this. Despite being a piece of the setting's local [[Satan]] figure, she's actually a rather pleasant person when she's in a good mood. {{spoiler|Eventually she becomes one of the main characters' love interests.}}

** Overall, this trope is pretty much half the point of the game itself...the other half being {{spoiler|[[Light Is Not Good]]}}

** Nero from ''4'' is another example: His arm [[Evil Hand|looks like living lava]], and he's implied to be possesed by the ghost of [[Aloof Big Brother]] Vergil. Despite this, he's a [[Knight in Shining Armor]] who, despite what you may think from the word "possessed", does ''not'' have a [[Super-Powered Evil Side]] (aside from the intial awakening of his brand of [[Super Mode]], and even then, he just seemed like a fairly calm [[Blood Knight]]. Sort of like Dante.

* Dark type ''[[Pokémon]]''. Dark types also aren't emo, despite what the good people of [[Deviant ART]] tell you. Though they aren't perfect, they're no worse than any other type of Pokémon. A good example is Absol, who can sense disasters and tries to warn people of them, but gets [[Mis Blamed]] as the perpetrator, or Umbreon, which evolves due to ''happiness'' (at night).

** Igor from the ''[[Shin Megami Tensei]]'' spin-off ''[[Persona]]'' game series is a very sinister-looking character, with a hunched back, bulging eyes, an enormously long nose, and pointed ears. He's actually a steadfast ally to the main characters throughout the series, giving advice and his services of Persona fusion. And he's the only character to appear in all ''Persona''-related media to date, including the anime.

*** Though whether he's ''good'' isn't entirely clear, since he may or may not take orders from [[Complete Monster|Nyarlathotep]] as well as [[All Powerful Bystander|Philemon]].

** Most Black Mages in ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' aren't evil at all.

** Cecil, too. Yeah, he throws away his own Dark Blade and becomes a Paladin, but the prophecy mentions wielding both dark and light... and indeed, at the end, it takes both Cecil and {{spoiler|[[Heel Face Turn|Golbez]]}} to finish off the [[Big Bad]].

{{quote| ''Without darkness there can be no light... So how can darkness be truly evil?''}}

**** In ''[[Final Fantasy IV the After Years]]'', this gets... complicated. In the first half of the game, we encounter Dark {{spoiler|Kain}}, and later in the story, we have a surprise reunion with {{spoiler|Dark Knight Cecil}}. It initially seems as though both are pure evil. However, Dark {{spoiler|Kain}} saves Porom from a horde of undead without a second thought, and Dark {{spoiler|Cecil}} is less evil and more... angry. Venting the hatred that {{spoiler|Cecil}} tried to forget. Their dark selves seem to be more a representation of their deepest feelings and strongest emotions given form. In fact, Dark {{spoiler|Cecil}} truly believes that he is the ''true'' {{spoiler|Cecil}}. In both cases, it is only when the character ''accepts'' the dark half of their soul that their journey is complete.

* Riku from ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' in the more recent two games; at the end of Kingdom Hearts 2 Riku was purified of Xehanort's darkness, but he keeps his own darkness-based abilities because they're part of who he is.

** Terra from ''[[Birth By Sleep]]'' is an even better example. He's basically Riku's predecessor and also uses darkness despite being a good guy. However, unlike Riku who [[Badass Decay|becomes kinda emo about it]] for most of ''Kingdom Hearts II'' and wangsts about how he gave into the darkness, Terra angsts about it for a few minutes but gets over it and remains a slightly stoic but kind, heroic and loveable goof even after he starts [[Eye Scream|zapping people's eyes out with dark energy.]] Unfortunately, he learns the downside of dark power in the end. Whether it's used for good or evil, use of darkness weakens a person's heart's natural defenses of light, {{spoiler|making him helpless when Master Xehanort attempts [[Grand Theft Me]].}} So it seems that while darkness can be used for good, it is much more hazardous to wield.

** The new Death Knights are pious fighters of the light who died, and where brought back as mindless servants of the Scourge. Towards the end of the questline the Lich King loses control over the player, and the player joins either the Alliance or Horde depending on race.

*** One of the biggest examples is the NPC Death Knight Thassarian, first to rejoin the Alliance. {{spoiler|Even while still loyal to the Scourge, he shows a bit of weakness by showing concern for a captured ally, frowned upon by his colder comrades. After returning to the Alliance, he's primarily concerned about saving his sister.}}

** Gilneas also fit this in ''Warcraft II'', in which their color was black. Though tremendously selfish [[Jerkass|jerkasses]] they still fought with the Alliance in the end.

*** If by "fought with" you mean "walled themselves off for a decade" then yes, they did do that in the end. It's also worth noting that they didn't have free will until at some point during the beginner area, they work some magic to give you your free will back.

** Driving the point of this home is a sequence in the first game. The angel Vulcanus sneaked down to the netherworld out of rage that Flonne had be sent to deal with the situation there instead of himself. He steals a pendant that Flonne (or any trainee angel) needs in order to survive down there. As he's escaping the Netherworld, the pendant starts to blaze into heat in his hand, causing him to drop it, for the [[Noble Demon]] <s>Veyers</s> Mid-Boss ({{spoiler|who turns out to be a reincarnation of Laharl's dad, mentioned above}}), to find and pick up. Before the last battle of the chapter, the main characters find Mid-Boss in possession of the pendant, and Flonne warns him that it will burn the hands of anyone with an evil soul. Not only does its failing to do so in Mid-Boss' hands display this trope, [[Light Is Not Good|But what does it say about Vulcanus back up there?]]

*** To be fair, Vulcanus couldn't be any more [[Obviously Evil]] if he tried. Just look at him...

* Yuri from ''[[Shadow Hearts]]'' is a "Dark"-elemental character, and the main character- a heroic main character, even. He can transform into various demons, but he uses that power to fight against the really nasty bastards, and himself suffers absolutely no evil attitudes other than being a bit of a dumbass and a slight pervert. There's also Shania, in the third game, who is not only the main heroine and a [[Proud Warrior Race Guy]]... er, ''girl'', but very much a Darkness element character.

** Lucia from ''Covenant'' is also a Dark-elemental character...who's also a [[The Ditz|ditzy]] and nice fortune-teller, barring the whole attempted murder by giant, pink pussy on the cat (she has a good reason for that).

** Sheogorath is the Prince of Madness, but it's not always [[Ax Crazy]] madness. In ''[[Morrowind]]'' he calls madness a "bitter mercy" that is sometimes a blessing for people who would otherwise fall into despair. And in ''[[Skyrim]]'', {{spoiler|the new Sheogorath}} acts as a ''therapist'' to the spirit of a dead and [[Ax Crazy]] former emperor. Being a deity of madness also means knowing how to ''treat'' madness.

** {{spoiler|The Underking}} from ''Daggerfall''. {{spoiler|It turns out that he ''doesn't'' want to destroy the Empire and take over Tamriel, he just wants to ''die'', and needs the Mantella to do this. Of course, he still hates the Empire for reasons deliberately left vague, so he's not exactly ''good'' either.}}

** A few games have depicted Luigi with rather dark powers.

* [[Sonic the Hedgehog|Sonic]] in ''[[Sonic Unleashed]]'' unwillingly gets turned into [[Our Werewolves Are Different|a werehog]] after absorbing some of the [[Big Bad]]'s dark energy. He may look ferocious but he's still (mostly) the same hero we all know and love.

** Shadow the Hedgehog qualifies for this after his drawn out [[Heel Face Turn]].

** In ''Star Ocean: The Second Story'', Leon's ultimate weapon is the ''Necronomicon''. Evil flavor text about opening portals to hell and summoning demons also included.

* Oichi in ''[[Sengoku Basara]]'' is known for her dark powers and even has 'dark hands' as her special moves. But she's pretty much an innocent, melancholic woman that doesn't seem to be pure evil, driven with her love with Nagamasa. [[Break the Cutie|Push her too far]], however, and she'll really show that she can be destructive with her dark power (or to be exact {{spoiler|she gets taken over by her dark side and wreaks havoc}}). Another example would be the jovial ninja Sarutobi Sasuke, who is only "Dark" due to his job.

** He's contrasted in ''Symphonia'' by Luna and Aska, who [[Light Is Not Good|will kill you if you lose the pact-making fight]], and they're the Summon Spirits of Light. (Note that in ''Phantasia'', neither Luna nor Aska had a fight either.)

*** They don't necessarily ''kill'' you. But you'll get a [[Game Over]] for losing the fight, which is justified by the fact that the group can't simply return like on the other fights. {{spoiler|Kratos}} would block the way, making things like leveling up somewhat impossible.

*** Emil, the protagonist in the sequel, is also Darkness-affiliated. Although with his [[Berserk Mode|Ratatosk Mode]], this may not be a perfectly straight example.

*** Judas (as well as Harold) both feature Light and Dark elemental spells in their moveset. Judas's stronger hi-ougis have him using Light elemental attacks, and his best move involves him materializing a sword of light out of thin air. As a result, he could be considered an example of a [[Yin-Yang Bomb]].

** Neither of them, however, are ''good''. Morrigan is a self-indulgent and childish princess, and Demitri is a power-hungry vampire who wants to conquer Makai/the Dark World. However, several of the characters the closest to purely good in the series also fall under this, including Rikuo/Aulbath, the fish-man; John Talbain/Gallon, the werewolf; Anakaris, the living mummy; Lei-Lei/Hsien-Ko, the [[Chinese Vampire]]; and Victor, the [[Frankenstein's Monster]].

*** At the end of Morrigan or Lilith's routes in ''Vampire Savior'', however, it does show Morrigan starting to actually grow up and accept responsibilities.

** Also, the various Dark power sets, which have a variety of quasi-vampiric powers, are freely usable by heroes and villains. Pain Domination may or may not involve this trope, as it is a set of villain-only ''healing'' powers with a [[Color Coded for Your Convenience|black-and-red color scheme]].

** Since the recent advent of power customization, you can have a hero with cloven hooves, horns, a demon's tail and wings, a skull head (and a costume consisting of skulls, chains and barbed wire) who fires off black energy blasts or carries black swords.

*** Yeah, but morale is more about the perceptions of the troops than it is about actual alignment. Angels really hate Devils, even if the Devils are actually pretty good guys and misunderstood. They still hate each other, thus a morale hit.

** The Dark Elves of the ''old'' verse were slightly-dusky mercantile-focused city-dwellers whose last war with their Light cousins was a long time age. In the one game in which they show up in, you work for their Merchants' Guild to save the world (admittedly, it was destroyed not long after anyway, but that was for unrelated reasons they couldn't have done much about).

* ''[[Second Sight]]'' introduces members of the psychic Zener Children that were horribly mutated by the treatments used to activate their powers: despite their repulsive appearance and cannibalistic habits, when John Vattic arrives in the lower levels of the Zener Project base, they are quite generous in assisting John through the passages, eventually banding together with the unmutated Zener Children in the final battle.

* The ''[[Seiken Densetsu]]'' series has Shade, the spirit of Darkness. Despite having spells with names like "evil gate" and pitting the party of one game against a monster in order to prove their worth, he's still a purely good entity, as dedicated to saving the world as the heroes are.

** It should be noted that at least in [[Secret of Mana]], he's the only one not possessed and only attacks to prove your worth.

*** The ''Sword of Seals'' (''FE 6'') game also uses this trope, as you can recruit ''three'' dark magic users: two shamans (Ray and Sophia, the first one being cynical but not evil and the other being a [[Shrinking Violet]]) and a Druid (Niime, a [[Hermit Guru]] {{spoiler|and Canas's mother}}

** In ''FE 9'' and ''10'', the character Soren, who is both dressed in black and born with the "dark" affinity, is possibly THE most loyal character to the protagonist's cause... and one of the most amoral and cynical of the Greil Mercenaries.

** This is actually [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in ''FE 8''. Look up Lute and Knoll's support converations.

** In ''10'', your army ends up working for the goddess of chaos ''against'' the goddess of order. The goddess of chaos is considerably kinder than the goddess of order.

** For clarification: When you bring Gooey into the final boss against Zero you need to be flying. Gooey can fly on his own. Now the relevance is the fact that Gooey looks exactly like a dark matter, his body changes its overall shape and he gets the orange nubs on the back, the only difference between him and regular dark matter is he has a face instead of a single eye.

** Shadow Kirby is actually just the {{spoiler|Kirby of the Mirror world, meaning he was supposed to be the hero, but he just helps you out by having you attack him and dropping power-ups if you do so.}}

** However, Dark Eco is still pretty nasty stuff that [[The Corruption|turns benevolent gods into monsters]], makes nice heroes [[Super-Powered Evil Side|go bat-shit insane]], or else just kills things in a horrifically painful way. Not to mention that most of the major baddies ''thrive'' off the stuff, some more literally than others.

* The Nanaya clan in ''[[Tsukihime]]''. A family of assassins. Seclusive, described as vicious killers and also seem to have a penchant for rape. The only glimpse we get of one is Nanaya Shiki, the hero's [[Super-Powered Evil Side]] who first brutally destroys Arcueid and then later tries to rape her. However, as Akiha points out, they weren't actually that bad (nor that were they very ''good'' either) because the only ones they ever had that impulse towards were non humans, who generally are ''not'' good people to have around ie: the Dead Apostles, demons and the inverted members of the Tohno family. They still seem to enjoy themselves a little too much when 'working' though.

** Actually, the rape was due to {{spoiler|Arcueid's mystic eyes}}. It had absolutely nothing to do with the Nanaya side.

** The Talking Deathclaws in Fallout 2. Deathclaws in general may look frightening, but they're not evil per se, just really dangerous.

* Toby from ''[[Quest for Glory]] 4'' is this giant, furry, hulking, red-eyed, fanged, ill-tempered monstrosity. However, he's just protective of his ward {{spoiler|[[Tear Jerker|to the point where he will sacrifice himself to bring her back to life.]]}}

** ''Subterranean Animism'' featured youkai hated even by other youkai for their [[Bad Powers, Bad People|distasteful powers]], and exiled to the Underworld. Yamame, the friendly [[Cute Monster Girl]] spider monster could inflict diseases at will, but was popular for her friendly, cheerful personality. Yuugi, a much-feared Oni, mostly played around (though [[Blood Knight|very roughly]]) with the heroines before helping them out. Satori and Koishi both had telepathic powers that terrified youkai and humans alike, forcing them to live with nothing but animals, even if they had done no actual wrongs to anyone. Rin carries away corpses and uses them to regulate the Hell of Blazing Fires, and initiated the game when she began driving evil spirits above ground, but only to lure the more powerful beings living there underground to stop her friend Utsuho from doing anything foolish or dangerous. Even Utsuho herself, the nuclear-powered hell raven with ambitions to [[Take Over the World]], just went a little [[With Great Power Comes Great Insanity|mad with power]] and was fine after having some sense blasted into her.

* Rose from ''[[Legend of Dragoon]]'', who, being the dragoon of the dark dragon, has such attacks as: sucking out an enemy's life force, doing ''something'' that leaves the enemies utterly terrified, and sucking the enemy party through a portal to hell. She can be rather harsh, but she also saves the main character's life, teaches him how to use her powers, and faithfully follows the rest of the party in their missions. It's eventually revealed that {{spoiler|as the only apparent survivor of the original seven dragoons, she has spent the last 11,000 years taking the unpleasant but necessary steps to keep the world from being utterly annihilated by the [[Light Is Not Good|supposed Messiah]].}}

* In the tragically-underexposed PAL-only PSX Konami-Atlus survival horror game ''Hell Night'' (''Dark Messiah'' in Japan), the Cult antagonists in the game give the protagonist a test (which you have to pass in order to get a key item) to determine if he understands "True Darkness". The impression one gets is that such darkness is not supposed to be in conflict with, but actually in complement to the Light:

* ''[[Soul Reaver]]'' features a [[Crapsack World]] and a number of fearsome-looking characters who could not exactly be called blameless, but their appearance is no guarantee of their moral alignment. The protagonist Raziel is former vampire, twisted by cruel execution into a ghoul who must feed on the souls of humans and monsters alike. However he rejects the brutality of his former brethren and acts with honor and is genuinely searching for the truth. The vampires are revealed to be the victims of a curse by their enemies, and were once a race of winged celestial beings. The vampire Vorador is a green scaly monstrosity but is basically decent. Even Kain, the [[Big Bad]], is partially justified in his actions in the end. Contrast this with the supposedly righteous human characters, who are xenophobic, religiously fanatical exterminators of anything not human, including {{spoiler|Raziel in his pre-vampire days as a member of the ruthless Sarafan order.}}

* ''Noctropolis'' features a post-cataclysmic city in perpetual night under a cloud of volcanic ash. The city's main hero restores his health, powers and equipment by immersing himself in a pool of [[Applied Phlebotinum]] called Liquidark, the distilled liquid essence of darkness, created by the Brotherhood of the Night as research into the extradimensional Elementals particularly the Patronage of Darkness, none of whom seem malevolent. The protagonist takes up the hero's mantle to fight the [[Big Bad]] {{spoiler|revealed to be his predecessor switched over to [[Light Is Not Good|Light]] in a [[Face Heel Turn]] to take over the world.}}

** There's also [[Token Mini-Moe|Rachel]] [[Our Vampires Are Different|Alucard]] and her butler, [[Battle Butler|Valkenhayn]] [[Our Werewolves Are Different|R. Hellsing]]. Rachel may be a vampire who acts quite bitchily and condescending towards almost everyone around her, but that doesn't change the fact that she also genuinely cares about the cast, and wishes to devote as much she can to defeating [[Complete Monster|Terumi Yuuki]], the man who has caused pretty much ''all'' of the suffering which takes place in the game's universe. Her faithful butler, Valkenhayn, is a werewolf, was one of the Six Heroes who saved the world from the Black Beast, an abomination which destroyed most of the world.

* Shadow from ''[[Twisted Metal]]''. A ghostly black hearse that's had several drivers (including an undead mortician, a goth girl, and [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|a nerdy kid with a pet frog]]), all with fairly sympathetic motives.

** The rebel drow in Hordes of the Underdark, though their replacing the traditional drow black and red with blue and purple uniforms doesn't hurt either.

** Ammon Jerro, the second game's resident [[Knight Templar]], is a demon-summoner with grey skin and glowing spiderweb tattoos that the game tries to convince you is the [[Big Bad]] for the first two chapters. If you have enough Influence with him by the scene at Shandra's farm, he will not be quite as evil as he was before.

** Also from the original, the werewolves. {{spoiler|They're actually the descendants of humans that killed Zathrian's son and raped his daughter centuries ago. [[Pay Evil Unto Evil|Zathrian cursed the humans so that they and all of their descendants would be werewolves.]] The werewolves were just desperate to be cured, so they attacked and infected the Dalish hoping that Zathrian will lift the curse once he saw the curse affecting his own people. They're not purely good, but then neither are the Dalish. This is [[Gray and Grey Morality|Dragon Age: Origins]], remember.}}

** Near the end of ''Awakening'', during the defense of the City of Amaranthine you encounter a Disciple (sentient Darkspawn) sent by The Architect that fights alongside you if you let it. If you choose to let it go afterwards, the epilogue states that it becomes a hooded traveller that helps those it encounters (though it accidentally spreads the taint where it follows).

** Technically, Tallis of ''Mark of the Assassins''. Despite the fact that she's a follower of the Qun, one of the most hated factions of the series, she is portrayed as relatively heroic and an idealist who believes the [[Blue and Orange Morality]] [[World of Silence]] of the Qunari really is the best option.

* The beginning of ''[[Splinter Cell]]: Conviction'' has a flashback to [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|Sam Fisher telling his daughter who's scared of the dark that the dark can be used to protect you from bad guys.]]

* The Duty faction in the ''STALKER'' series. While their uniforms have dark tones with red marks and their attitude can come off as harsh and somewhat elitist, they're not inherently evil (or good, for that matter).

* Necromancers - one of the player professions - from ''[[Guild Wars]]''. They have all sorts of creepy and sometimes [[Squick|disgusting]] powers, but they're one of the most popular professions. The three NPC necromancer heroes - Olias, the Master of Whispers, and Livia - provide the personnel for two of the most powerful player/NPC team combinations in the game, the so-called "Sabway" and "Discordway" skill sets. The NPC female necromancer Eve is one of the [[Fan Service|poster girls]] for the game.

** On that note Grenth, the patron god of necromancers, the undead, and death in general isn't actually that bad(despite being cowled and having a deer skull for a face). Grenth overthrew the previous god of death who ruled over the dead with an ironfist, and didn't allow the dead to be resurrected(whereas Grenth does). So every time you resurrect in Guild Wars, you can thank Grenth.

* [[Shinobido|Goh Asuka]] is known as the Crow and wears black from top to toe, but he's the good guy.

* In ''[[Spyro the Dragon|The Legend of Spyro Trilogy]]'', Cynder is the only [[Color Coded for Your Convenience|black dragon in the game]] and has control over the element of [[Casting a Shadow|Darkness]] but is only a villain in the first game, after being freed of being [[Brainwashed and Crazy]], turns out she's actually a pretty nice girl and a loyal ally, and {{spoiler|love intrest}}, for Spyro, even becoming playible in the third game.

** Detective Tyrell Badd isn't bad, although he is [[Badass|Baddass]].

* Garret from the ''[[Thief]]'' series may seem like an uncaring and dark fellow who'd do anything for some extra gold, but he never goes so far as to kill anyone that doesn't deserve it (that is if the game is played properly, of course) and usually ends up doing the right thing, whether intentionally to or not, even saving the world a few times.

* ''[[Soranica Ele]]'''s Zenobia has a power called Lucifer that commands the forces of darkness to strangle her opponents and disguise herself. She's really not a bad person, and in fact carries a heavy burden from all that she's been through, and seeks forgiveness for it.

* ''[[Riviera the Promised Land]]'' has the Arcs, a tribe of benevolent bat-winged and eared Sprites entrusted with guarding Lacrima Castle. Their race was almost completely wiped out by demons {{spoiler|and by a [[Light Is Not Good|Grim Angel]], [[Meaningful Name|Malice]]}}, before the heroes' arrival. Serene, the sole survivor of the race and one of the [[Tomboy|main heroines]], exhibits these traits. Played with during a battle event in Mireno Cemetery against two vampires:

* The plot for [[Off Switch]] has the hero fighting to save his world (which is composed of shadows) from the invading light demons.

* Several armors and weapons in the ''[[Monster Hunter]]'' games are rather dark and sinister-looking, some even coming with descriptions that indicate a "cursed" legend or attributes considered "evil". However, your character is usually doing heroic things like saving villages and forts from gigantic, vicious monsters.

{{reflist}}