Designated Villain: Difference between revisions

** Averted in the Japanese version, where he wanted to [[Villainous Glutton|wish for finer foods]].

* Donan Cassim in ''Fang of the Sun Dougram''. Sure, the reason why he's so determined to keep the colony planet a part of the Earth Federation is that he wants to use the manpower and technology to develop two nearby mineral-rich planets and save an exhausted Earth, but he's still evil. At some point, {{spoiler|the authors realized that he's a little too sympathetic and installed his aide as the [[Big Bad]] instead}}.

* Luc displays an odd case of this in the ''[[Suikoden III]]'' Manga, where he goes to considerable effort to hide the fact that he's trying to save the world (through mass genocide, but still). When the hero finds this out, he even rants about not needing sympathy for his actions. He was a [[Jerkass]] even when he was a good guy.

* Clair Leonelli in ''[[Heat Guy J (Anime)|Heat Guy J]]''. First, he starts off as [[Kick the Dog|a puppy-kicker]] with [[Joker Immunity]], then [[What Happened to The Mouse?|inexplicably disappears for a while.]] Then, when he comes back still holding the [[Villain Ball]], another [[Designated Villain]] grabs the [[Villain Ball]], and Clair goes into an [[Angst Coma]]. When he comes out of the coma, he has a [[Heel Face Turn]] and is now an [[Anti-Hero]], and the ''real'' [[Big Bad]] (whom we, until a few episodes ago, thought was Clair) [[The Reveal|reveals himself]]. [[Adaptation Decay|In the manga, he belongs in the first category above;]] all he does is [[Kick the Dog]] [[For the Lulz|for the sake of kicking the dog]].

* 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.

* In ''[[Stargate Atlantis (TV)|Stargate Atlantis]]'', Bates, Kavanaugh, and Ellis tend to end up in this role. [[Straw Man Has a Point|They usually have legitimate concerns or complaints]], but because these are against the main cast of characters (Bates seeing Teyla as a security risk, Kavanaugh complaining to Weir about Weir degrading him in public, Ellis wanting McKay to cut the exposition and get to the point), the characters are presented as reactionary jerkasses. There is also a trend of portraying Kavanaugh, in his few appearances, as a coward, even though, every time, he is up against a situation in which his fear is perfectly understandable.

* In ''[[The Office]]'':

** It had a rather frustrating example during their [[Gay Aesop]] episode. Long story short, Finn and his mom move in to live with Kurt and his dad. Kurt happens to be [[Flamboyant Gay]] and has an unrequited crush on Finn, and he organized all of this to happen, including sharing rooms with Finn, in hopes of turning him gay so they can be boyfriends. Eventually, after suffering mockery from classmates and having to deal with his prejudice, he lashes out at Kurt using a gay slur. The rest of the episode is Finn having to learn how to respect others' differences. The problem, however, was that the entire altercation was based off the fact that [[Broken Aesop|Kurt had been blatantly trying to seduce him in hopes of turning him gay]], Finn even let him down gently (explaining that he was flattered, Kurt was great and a good friend, but he's just not into guys and Finn was uncomfortable with that and all the other changes going on), yet only Finn is treated as being in the wrong.

** In a later episode, Kurt is called on this by both Finn and Kurt's dad, who originally called out Finn about it before finding out what really happened.

* ''[[Merlin (TV)|Merlin]]'':

** Mordred, who, in this version, is played by a child. We're supposed to view Mordred as a [[Creepy Child]] because the show plays ominous music over extreme close-ups of his large blue eyes, but all that's played out on screen is a kid who's been hunted, persecuted, and had everyone he's ever loved killed by the people who are generally considered "the good team". He uses his magical powers to kill a group of knights advancing on him with swords drawn, clearly preparing to kill him - this was apparently meant to prove to the audience that he's evil incarnate, even though the good guys make self-defensive kills all the time.

 

== Web Comics ==

** 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 [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 addressed in the comic after a [[Mistaken for Gay]] brief storyline:

== Web Original ==

* ''[[Whateley Universe]]'':

** They claim that they don't hate mutants, but when you see CEO Bruce Goodkind in private, it's clear that he does. And funding bigots is the least of their crimes against mutants. They also shipping children (including their own son) off to be tortured by a [[Mad Scientist]] who horrifically tortures mutants, for example. However, other, less influential, Goodkinds are actually considered good, or at least neutral, characters. The MCO aren't particularly good guys either, thanks to rampant dog-kicking; the Knights of Purity are an enigma - it's not clear where they stand with two major characters having an argument about this...

** Ayla -- nee Trevor, son of the selfsame Bruce -- Goodkind, a.k.a. Phase, is a mutant, a member of Team Kimba, and one of the main protagonists. This is relevant because the stories written from his perspective seem to make it fairly clear that the Goodkinds do believe in using their considerable wealth and power responsibly and aren't necessarily bad people at all...so long as you're a baseline human, anyway (it doesn't help the mutant cause that Ayla's own mother is clinically mutophobic thanks to a particularly monstrous [[Super Villain]] eating her sister alive in front of her when she was six).

[[Category:Villains]]

[[Category:Designated Villain]]