Dark Is Not Evil/Western Animation

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Waterbending in Avatar: The Last Airbender. It is powered by the Moon, and as a consequence it is stronger at night, it is associated with the Winter, and there's a Dangerous Forbidden Technique of bloodbending, but waterbenders are normal people like everyone else, and waterbender Katara is a main character; the swamp tribe in particular double counts because it is a subversion of Swamps Are Evil.
  • Raven of Teen Titans, though she devotes a sizable amount of mental effort toward staying on the good side of the equation.
  • The title characters of Gargoyles may look like classical demons from Hell, but they are unambiguously heroes sworn to protect the innocent. (Well, most of them.)
    • This trope may only apply to the main characters, who were Scottish gargoyles. Gargoyles from other countries can have different appearances; the English ones resemble mythological beings like griffons.
  • Dib from Invader Zim raised network concerns because he looked like the kind of kid who would pull off a school shooting. He's the only person trying to save the Earth from an insane alien. (Although admittedly, he's not always nice about it, either.)
  • The Gaoul from Titan A.E. fit this trope nicely... creepy, red-and-black batlike aliens that really turn out to be a helpful mix of Giant Flyer and Red Shirt.
  • The Ruby Gloom cartoon intentionally exemplifies this trope. Perky Goth Ruby Gloom's friends include a two-headed Frankenstein's Monster, an animate skeleton, a banshee, a cyclops, a black cat, a bat, and three ravens. Despite being traditionally being monstrous or "dark", all are decidedly not evil, and very friendly, if a bit eccentric.
    • Other characters introduced along the way (including, among other things, a ghost, a mad scientist with the brains exposed and a carnivorous plant) are always examples of this trope if they are friendly. And there's an episode where the dark clouds covering the sky of their home place disappear; cue the oppressive hot sun.
  • The "Drak Pack" were a heroic Power Trio of a vampire, werewolf and a Frankenstein-like Monster.
  • Little Gloomy, which had similarities to Ruby Gloom. Sure, some of the characters were obnoxious, but there were only two particularly nasty ones in the lot. (The Lovecraftian thing, for all his vows to destroy all life, did not seem to be one of them.)
  • The diesel engines in Thomas and Friends. Diesels are typically portrayed as evil; rude, heartless machines who want all steam engines scrapped. But several kind-hearted and friendly diesels have emerged, such as BoCo, Derek, and Rusty. Likewise, while steam engines are shown as the good characters, several aren't.
  • The Chaotic tv series features the Underworlders tribe of Creatures, who seriously play up the "Dark Beasts of the Netherworld" type for all it's worth, is host to some of the show's nastier monster badguys, like Lord Van Bloot, and it's leader, Chaor, is constantly organizing attacks against the Overworlder tribe. Yet, Chaor has been displayed honorable tendancies, and the Underworlder, H'earring, is practically Team Pet to Tom, Kaz, Peyton and Sarah. Furthermore, the Underworlders claim that the Overworlders were responsible for starting the war over the Cothica.
    • Just to point out that Chaotic is often all over the map with the tribes' and creature's morality. Yes the Underworlders are the most unashamedly morally grey tribe but the Overworlders have just as many problems. They've got a couple members who look and act like mindless thugs and some have a habit of arrogance and intolerance while not being afraid to Shoot the Dog while claiming to be moral guardian types. It's just that their Teamwork mechanic makes them seem nicer.
  • The Real Ghostbusters are typically hired by human clients to get rid of evil supernatural creatures, but some of the ghosts they've encountered are not evil, and are easily gotten rid of when the Ghostbusters help them complete their Unfinished Business. Other times, the supernatural creatures are the ones who hire the Ghostbusters, either to get rid of another supernatural being that really is evil, or to protect them from overzealous human villains.
  • In the Grand Finale of Fairly Oddparents the cosmic entity know as "the Darkness" turns out to have never been seeking trouble; everyone that saw it simply got scared and preemptively started filling it full of explosives. When Timmy decides to be the first one to send anything nice into it (namely a smile made from light coming from every planet in the solar system) it returns all the people it swallowed and its Killer Robots started hugging people.
  • The Pixar Short Partly Cloudy follows a storm cloud who is only capable of making potentially dangerous creatures such as baby gators, porcupines or sharks for his Delivery Stork while all other clouds make cute little babies or puppies. Nevertheless, he is depicted as well-meaning, only wishing for companionship and not at all malevolent.
  • Grim, The Grim Reaper of The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy. He may be death personified, but he enjoys watching television and is always (although reluctantly) willing to use his supernatural abilities to save others.
    • It's no wonder if Grim seems like a nice (or at least likable) fellow compared to the company he is forced to keep.
  • The Men in Black all work on the side of good (except for Alpha, but he left a long time ago).
  • Don Bluth's animation for Scizzor Sisters has a a warlock/wizard that helps the hero to save his girl. He looks like your average magic wielding villain though.
    • Now that I've mentioned Don Bluth there's also the owl and Nicodemus from The Secret of NIMH, both of which are old looking and very scary characters that are on the good side.
  • Several aliens in Ben 10 and its sequel Ben 10 Alien Force, some of which Ben himself transforms into thanks to the Omnitrix. Most notable examples include Ghostfreak and Big Chill, who are both ghost-like aliens (though Ghostfreak did turned evil after escaping from the Omnitrix) and the forms Ben got from Ghostfreak's minions (Benmummy, Benwolf and Benvicktor), who are all horror-themed alien.
  • Sid Philip's mutilated toys in Toy Story, despite being some of the creepiest things Pixar has ever rendered, are all pretty nice guys and have a knack for fixing things.
    • The toy version of Emperor Zurg (Buzz Lightyear's archnemesis) would probably count. The real reason why he appears evil is because he thinks he's evil, believing that he is the real Zurg, just like how Buzz himself thinks that he is the real Buzz. The toy Zurg is actually very friendly.
  • If not Affably Evil, the Griffin from Quest for Camelot could arguably count. He's pretty much just the bad guy's pet, who ends up as being quite sympathetic for his Butt Monkey status, as the movie pretty much only shows him suffer in a way or another. The worst thing he did was his attempt to get revenge on the good guy's falcon (and getting burned by a siamese twins dragon for that), but then again he was asking for it.
  • Disney's Tarzan movie uses this along with Light Is Not Good with symbolization with the lighting. Deep shadows represent being hidden and well protected, while sunny areas resemble being vulnerable and out in the open.
  • Oddly enough, the zombies in Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island. Indeed, it turns out the cat demon creatures (aka, the true forms of their 'hosts' whose mansion they were staying at) are the villains, and trying to kill them for some form of life energy (and the zombies were the remains of the people the villains had killed in the hundreds of years before the gang arrived, and were trying to warn them about the villains). After the demons are killed, the zombies simply fall apart with their souls at rest, and the ghost of one of the Confederate soldiers who they'd seen in their earlier camera footage on the island thanks them.
    • However, some of the zombies weren't nice people when they were alive, as for instance the pirates responsible for killing the original settlers of the island.
    • Speaking of Scooby Doo, how about Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School? The girls of the eponymous school are all quite nice and friendly, and even their father (including the likes of The Mummy, Dracula, and The Wolf Man) are nice, if frighteningly protective of their daughters. The only really evil monsters to appear in the entire thing are Revolta and her minions.
    • See the Real Life page for more, but in Scooby Doo and the Witch's Ghost, Wicca is portrayed as good and its even gone into detail as to the fact they're very different from witches. Of course the 'Wiccan' they thought they were clearing the name of was actually an evil witch, but Wiccans were the ones who imprisoned her inside her own spell book and only a Wiccan could imprison her again. The Hex Girls (introduced in this movie) also play this trope; they dress like vampires for their act, but are actually three really nice girls and love the environment. They even help the Gang everytime they meet, and their leader is the one to banish Sarah the witch back into her prison.
  • The Web Riders in ReBoot. Sure they fight the heroes and look like something made up of pure Nightmare Fuel, but are actually quite nice and helpful once you get to know them. They weren't fighting the heroes because they were evil or malicious, but because they were defending their herd of Web Creatures from the Net invaders.
  • Disney plays with its portrayal of villains in The Lion King 2: Simba's Pride. Kovu and the other Outlands lions are drawn exactly like Scar (lean build, dark coloring, pointed facial features), but only Zira is actually evil. Especially true for Kovu, who looks like a more muscular version of Scar, and even gets a similar scar after a while
  • Then there's the Vampire Queen Marceline from Adventure Time, who, for the most part, is more mischievous than actually evil.
  • In Cow and Chicken, there's a literal case of Dark Is Not Evil with Cousin Black Sheep. He's overall a good person, but people assume the worst because he's a literal black sheep (plus, the populace tends to take his Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness the wrong way).
  • The kindhearted necromancer Dr. Orpheus from The Venture Bros. He states that he only took the title of Necromancer because the other titles for sorcerers were taken.
  • The Gypsies from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. This is especially noticable with Esmeralda's design.
    • Speaking of Disney, The Beast also counts. He's a complete inversion of the classical giant, hulking and evil monster stereotype. He's instead gentle, nice and brave.
  • Lumpy from Winnie the Pooh.
  • In He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Castle Grayskull is just about the creepiest looking piece of architecture any villain could ever hope to design. Yet the place is always presented unambiguously as a source of power for good. Presumably, its appearance isn't really supposed to look evil... Just Badass.
    • In the 2002 animated series episode King Randor, Adam and Man-At-Arms travel to the underground land of Subternia to negotiate between two races, one of which is a fearsome-looking tribe of bat people that a freaked Adam nearly pulls his sword on before Duncan stops him. Despite their appearance they're very friendly towards the visitors and Randor is greeted warmly by their king Lord Dactus. There's a funny moment of Not So Different when Adam expresses disbelief that Dactus is really their king and Dactus gently calls him on it.

Randor: I apologize for my son...
Dactus: I've been apologizing for mine for years! (they laugh as Adam and Man-At-Arms give each other wry looks)

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