Designated Villain: Difference between revisions
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* In ''[[Valkyria Chronicles]]'' (the anime), {{spoiler|Faldio's}} "villainhood" is very poorly executed. {{spoiler|He saves everyone's lives with his desperate gamble in activating Alicia, but gets only grief and reproach from everyone, even himself - though nobody ever suggests a possible alternative to his course of action.}} That Alicia survives to live happily ever after, whereas Faldio has an ignominious death off-scene, compounds the problem. Many fans of the game hate his prominence in the anime *anyway*, so they're likely not to care.
* This is ultimately what {{spoiler|Lelouch's}} Zero Requiem aims for in ''[[Code Geass]]''. {{spoiler|With Lelouch deliberately making himself the focal point of the world's hatred, and with his death, usher in the better world his sister always hoped for.}}
* The official ''[[Touhou Project]]'' manga ''Forbidden Scrollery'' has the very infamous case of the Fortune Teller, a man from the Human Village who turned himself into a youkai and was presumably killed by Reimu for this reason alone, as it is apparently considered the greatest sin a human can commit. Apart from that, he didn't do anything reprehensible, his only crime was being a pro-human advocate in a world that caters to the needs of the youkai (who generally treat humans as their playthings and their food), and even when taking [[Deliberate Values Dissonance]] into account, human magic users voluntarily turning into magicians (also a type of youkai) were never considered a problem, so condemning him for virtually the same thing seems very arbitrary.
== Comic Books ==
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** Dumbledore is apparently a very mean and cruel teacher who tortures Ebony for being gothic. He was rightfully angered to see her ''having sex in the middle of the forest''. He laughed at Draco being kidnapped by Voldemort, but you have to admit, [[So Bad It's Good|it was pretty hilarious.]]
** Britney. She's this and a [[Butt Monkey]]. Preps in general are treated as monsters, despite not even doing anything mean.
* Generally common in ''[[Harry Potter]]'' fics that try to portray Dumbledore as a cruel, manipulative man (as opposed to [[The Dumbledore|the ''benevolent
* ''[[For Your Eyes Only (fanfic)|For Your Eyes Only]]'': Sakura largely the result of [[Die for Our Ship]]. She's labeled as a "slut", even though she does nothing more than brush off Naruto. And when she gets killed by Sasuke, no one mourns her death.
** Sakura gets this alot to the point people makes her parents evil just because.
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* Similar to the Leah example, Kayla in ''[[The House of Night]]'' makes a whopping two appearances and is promptly branded a man-stealing jealous bitch by Zoey as a result. Kayla's crime, really, is hooking up with Heath after Zoey tells her several times, in no uncertain terms, that she's broken up with him. In ''Betrayed'', Zoey acts like Kayla was being horribly spiteful and irrational in going to the police after witnessing Zoey drinking Heath's blood, and then having Zoey threaten to do the same to her. To really hammer this point in, Zoey's friends (who never even met Kayla before) begin referring to her as "skank-bitch Kayla" after learning that she went to the police.
* Although it's probably not very nice to pick at a story written by a 12-year old, critics of ''[[Swordbird]]'' by Nancy Yi Fan have complained that the main villain isn't really evil, just annoying.
* In the [[Fairy Tale]] [
* [[They Plotted a Perfectly Good Waste|Done deliberately]] in ''[[Rosso Malpelo]]'', a novel written by Giovanni Verga. In fact, the child miner protagonist is portrayed by the narrator (who embodies the Sicilian mentality of the nineteenth century) as a malicious and bad bully...[[Values Dissonance|due to his red hair.]] However, it is made pretty clear that Malpelo is just a poor [[Jerkass Woobie]], brutalized by the cruel society where he lives, who sometimes even borders on a [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold]], especially when he interacts with his ill friend, Ranocchio. (And no, this is not a case of [[Villainy-Free Villain]]: all the other characters, [[Wide-Eyed Idealist|with the exception of his father and Ranocchio]], are far bigger jerks than him, if not outright evil).
* [[Michael Crichton|Michael Crichton's]] ''[[Timeline]]'' features a [[Jerkass]] corporate executive Robert Doniger whose quantum teleportation experiments kickstart the plot. He supports all possible safeguards for his technology, all accidents and disasters are caused by people refusing to follow his orders, and he does everything in his power to help the protagonists. As thanks for this, they murder him at the end by sending him back in time to die of the Black Plague. For being a jerk.
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* Bishop Patricius in ''[[The Mists of Avalon]]''. Granted, he was very lawful and by-the-book. And he was the head of Christianity, which was the new "invading" religion, as compared to the Druidism that the Lady of the Lake and the Merlin were the heads of. But did he really deserve such a horrendous portrayal?
* [[The Bible]] has numerous examples of misunderstood people whose actions make them out to be villains. Potiphar, for example, may have had Joseph jailed on trumped-up charges, but he's portrayed as a faithful husband to his not-so-faithful wife nonetheless, and he apparently wasn't thinking very clearly.
* Marietta Edgecomb and Cho Chang in ''[[Harry Potter and
== Live
* Helena Peabody in series 2 of ''[[The L Word]]''. Viewers are supposed to dislike her because she chose to give money to help poverty-stricken families rather than Bette's art gallery, and because she winds Bette up even though she only did this after Bette was very rude to her (telling her that she was unwelcome when she came to Alice and Dana's party just because she didn't like her dating her ex). Tina has sex with Bette while she's supposed to be Helena's girlfriend and this is depicted as an okay thing to do, but after this, Helena starts dating other women while going out with Tina and is made out to be a villain for it. The main characters stand her up after she goes to a lot of trouble to organize a meal for all of them, and this is depicted as acceptable behavior. Granted, Helena could be bossy and a little stuck up, but no more so than Bette, and she never got any credit for her many acts of charity and generosity.
* The Odyssey episode of ''[[Wishbone]]'' dealt with the main characters wanting to save a park from being bulldozed by a developer who wanted to build a slushee bar. The developer was labeled a greedy bastard for daring to pave the way for progress. He was not a good, honest person because the sign announcing the bulldozing wasn't in plain sight. (When really, there are numerous explanations as to why that sign could have been on the ground.) At the end of the day, the tree was saved, the developer had been humiliated in court. Many of the villains in the original work were like this, though it's doubtful that played into the original considerations.
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== Web Comics ==
* ''[[PvP (webcomic)|PvP]]'':
** Max Powers. Even though he seems to be a nice, cheery, and outgoing person to everyone around him, the entire magazine crew seems to hate him, especially Cole, constantly saying how "evil" he is even though we have almost never seen him do anything objectionable. When the website [https://web.archive.org/web/20140723024710/http://www.websnark.com/archives/2004/10/because_i_keep.html Websnark] did its analysis of Powers, it came to the same conclusions. Kurtz himself admitted that this was close to the truth. Max [[Sitcom Arch Nemesis|isn't supposed to be an actual villain, but instead, one of those guys who is so nice and perfect and successful that it inspires jealous hatred]]. The closest he comes to "evil" is that he can't see Skull, and only "innocents" can see him. That said, he managed to motivate [[Those Two Guys|Roby and Jase]] into becoming physically fit and productive people. [[Status Quo Is God|It may not have lasted]], but it was a fairly beneficial change [[Pygmalion Snapback|without nasty consequences]].
** Recently{{when}} addressed in the comic after a [[Mistaken for Gay]] brief storyline:
{{quote|'''Cole:''' It's not because of a girl, or because you always succeed where I seem to fail. It's just that, well, you're a better person than I am, or ever will be.
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* [[Doctor Doom]] in Season 5 of ''[[Spider-Man: The Animated Series]]''. He's created a utopia in what is otherwise a wasteland and helped out one of the heroes by improving his powers. True, he has ultimate power over the place, but there are no signs that he has abused it. To be fair, he later obtains power he can't handle, but it's not like the heroes knew that would happen.
* ''[[Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy]]'':
** It has the unique distinction of having Designated [[Villain Protagonist]]s, in the form of the Eds. They [[Butt Monkey|always lose
** Though Eddy's main schtick is [[Ambition Is Evil|scamming the other kids and being exceptionally greedy]], he's often forced to pay the price for attempting legitimate business ventures. More often than not, he (or the other Eds) put a lot of effort into these businesses. An example of this is an incredibly elaborate theme park ride that showcases the sort of [[Bamboo Technology]] we might expect from the future, not unlike the kind people ride frequently at Disney World. {{spoiler|They eventually manage to break out of their role in [[The Movie]].}}
* There's a few cases on ''[[The Fairly OddParents]]'' when characters are designated villains as the result of a wish (Jorgen in "Action Packed", the popular kids in "[[Halloween Episode|Scary Godparents]]", as well as Timmy himself in "Nega Timmy") or the circumstances, as Tootie in "Dread and Breakfast".
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