Even Evil Has Standards/Video Games

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


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Examples of Even Evil Has Standards/Video Games include:


  • Arc Rise Fantasia has Prince Weiss agreeing to a peace treaty. Considering how, until that point, he's expressed very strong imperialistic sentiments, it's something of a surprise to the party.
  • Batman: Arkham Asylum has a lot of conversations between henchmen delve into this after getting the Batclaw. It varies from some henchmen being less than thrilled about their friends' past exploits, getting fed up with the antics of the super villains, and even one case of Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas. Hell, Harley released Poison Ivy, even though she wasn't on Joker's party list, not that it bothered him though. And even Joker had to give Harley props for all her hard work.
  • In Makai Kingdom, when it's revealed that one of the Demon Overlords once tried to rape a woman - and is now trying to get revenge on her for having fought back - the other Demon Overlords pretty much agree that he's scum. Of course, considering that the demons of Nippon Ichi's games tend toward the Anti-Villain, Affably Evil, Card-Carrying Villain, and of course Noble Demon types, this actually makes sense.
  • Aurum gets a massive tongue lashing by the entire party (even the demons) in the last chapter of Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice after all the horrible stuff he did to Mao.
  • We see this again in Soul Nomad and The World Eaters: one New Game+ option is to play the "Demon Path". In this, the main character is such a sadistic child-killing bastard that many of the other villains are so horrified that they turn good to get away from him and to try to ensure the world survives. Even Gig is impressed by the sheer evil of some of the things that take place. And Gig is even disgusted by the state of Drazil in the main story.
  • In a cinematic of Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, Sylvanas Windrunner orders Varimathras to kill his brother, Balnazzar. Varimathras is repulsed by this, saying that Dreadlords are forbidden to kill one another. However, it is revealed that in World of Warcraft, Balnazzar is alive and heading the Scarlet Crusade. It would seem that Varimathras isn't as loyal to Sylvanas as most might think...
    • The Drakkari Empire consists of the trolls so savage and vile the ancient troll empires banished them.
  • The Dark Queen from Battletoads knows when to put her foot down. She may be evil, but she doesn't use cheat codes!!!
  • In Fallout 3, even though eating corpses and blowing up Megaton is all fine and dandy, you can't commit infanticide.
  • There's not one, but two assassin's guilds in Morrowind (and the Elder Scrolls universe as a whole), the Morag Tong and the Dark Brotherhood. Originally a single group, they split over ethical disagreements. The Morag Tong is strictly professional and Imperially sanctioned, while the Dark Brotherhood will take any job and go to any lengths to accomplish it.
  • Grand Theft Auto: Drug dealing is presented as the ultimate evil in Grand Theft Auto III and San Andreas, though it's perfectly acceptable in Vice City and Chinatown Wars.
    • Niko Bellic from Grand Theft Auto IV may be a mass murderer and an smuggler but he detests men who are violent towards women. He is also against drugs even at one point (in a optional side mission) helping a drug abusive woman on the street to quit and to move out of the city and get an education. It is also noted that Niko will never harm a woman unless the player makes him (when carjacking a female driver he just pulls them out the car and will never harm them).
    • He did hit Gracie Ancelotti a few times while he was kidnapping her. Granted it was to make her cooperate, but still.
      • That and there was the little thing about her being very uncooperative, verbal, and violent herself, i have lost that mission quite a few times due to her violenty ripping the wheel in a very high handling vehicle, making it go out of the road and either destory the car, or let her leave
  • Similarly, if you choose the evil path in Fable 2, you're pretty limited in the kind of evil things you can do. Sure, you can murder the town, sell people into slavery, steal their stuff, scare people with your nasty growl, and eat baby chickens alive, but that's pretty much it. You can't do anything evil to children, rape is non-existent (in fact, in Albion so is bad sex and extra-marital pregnancy), vandalism is limited to doors and crates, and the fire spell suspiciously only causes damage to your enemies but can't actually burn anything. You also can't do anything to hurt your dog, apart from being cross and refusing to heal him, and the worst that will do is keep him from following you. Of course it's necessary so that the dog can heroically sacrifice himself for you at the end of the game.
  • The Sniper in Team Fortress 2 almost echoes the page quote in the "Meet The Sniper" video. Although in his case it's work ethic standards rather than moral standards:

"Feelin's? Look mate, yah know who 'as a lotta feelin's? Blokes what bludgeon their wife to death with a golf trophy. Professionals have standards. Be polite. Be efficient. Have a plan to kill everyone you meet."

    • For certain values of Evil, the Heavy Weapons Guy also counts: "What sick man sends BABIES to fight me?"
  • HK-47, our lovable killing robot from Knights of the Old Republic has a fine degree of standards and function compared to his successor. While he adores violence, his programming by Revan was to prevent the collapse of the Republic and never to kill his master (although accidental suicides still work). Another point is that when assassinating his targets, it must be his target only; he can't kill anyone else unless it was collateral damage, which is fine by 47. HK-50, on the other hand, will gleefully kill everybody to obtain their objective and it didn't ride well with HK-47.

HK-47: When I kill, when I dispatch a target, it is not about wanton slaughter, about body count. It is about finesse, function. Doing more with less. It is art.

    • Granted, HK-47 was objecting its impracticality more then seeing it as wrong.
    • And of course, there's the reason that HK-47 was created to begin with. Revan believed that mass slaughter like what happened at Malachor V should never be necessary again.
  • Even though he's a Magnificent Bastard who likes kicking dogs, Prince Maximilian expects his troops to be disciplined enough to follow the rules of war. In one of the side chapters, an Imperial war criminal finds this out the hard way when he is court-martialled by his own superiors for his war crimes.
  • Travis Touchdown could not find it in himself to kill the 18 year old Shinobu or Holly Summers, who he loved for her personality. His standards boil down to Wouldn't Hit a Girl.
    • He also hated Destroyman and Bad Girl because he saw them not as assassins, but as "perverted killing maniacs." Considering the amount of "professionalism" that Travis himself shows (i.e. virtually none), those remarks seem more like a lame attempt at justifying himself as an Anti-Hero, instead of an outright Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist or Heroic Sociopath.
    • It's probably more Worthy Opponent than Wouldn't Hit a Girl. Travis spared Shinobu likely because he recognized that she was still too young to reach her full potential, and does the same for Ryuji in the second game. Similarly, he spares Kimmy Howell because she didn't have a realistic idea of what the assassination matches actually were. As for Holly Summers, she was pretty much the only assassin in the first game who did not immediately establish herself as a utterly evil psychopath (remember, even Shinobu, who is arguably the most sympathetic assassin, was introduced by Travis walking in on her slaughtering several classmates for overhearing a conversation they might not have understood), so Travis wanting to spare her is somewhat more understandable.
    • Played a little less straight at the end of the second game when after Jasper's ridculous One-Winged Angel routine, Henry refuses to fight it out of embarassment:

Henry: It's not happening, brother. I can't be associated with that travesty. I mean, I've got standards, for fuck's sake."

  • Trilby, from the Chzo Mythos series, may be a thief, but he's a GENTLEMAN thief. Though he is the protagonist.
    • Even the Tall Man won't kill children. Which may be why he was replaced...
  • City of Villains players early on complained that the missions they received didn't make them feel evil enough. Then the developers added Westin Phipps and his set of missions, which were instantly criticized for being too evil. Mainly because working for Phipps skips the Kick the Dog phase and sends you right over the Moral Event Horizon.
    • In the game's In Game background story, the titular City (more like a country than an actual city) stays Neutral during WWII with strong allied leanings. That's right, folks, not even a City of Villains is evil enough to consider supporting the Nazis.
    • In one mission, a bit of Enemy Chatter has a member of Arachnos expressing doubts about working with Phipps:

"I don't know how I feel about this with Phipps. It's...I don't know. There's wrong...and then there's WRONG."

  • In Baldur's Gate II, one of the very few decent things you ever hear Korgan Bloodaxe say only occurs if you pursue Jan Jansen's personal quest to help his friend's child. When it comes to light that the little girl's catatonia stems from being physically abused by her father, Korgan—who we must remind you is an Ax Crazy murdering bastard—condemns the actions leading to her condition.

Korgan: Ehhh, there be many things I would do gladly. Harming children be not one of them. Her man be a cur and not worthy of the spittle on me boot.

"How can I take over the city & create the Eggman Empire, if there is no city?!"

  • Crime syndicate Duelhorn in Final Fantasy Tactics A2. They know they are nothing but criminals, but they say that they do not attack innocent people and they even attack other criminals that go after innocents. Alys saves a caravan that is attacked by a band of thugs and Marquis had saved an innocent girl from Kahmja. Duke Snakeheart eventually conspires to break up his fellow bosses and take over the clan as the sole boss just because he doesn't agree with the whole protecting the innocents and he wanted more power. He even went and attacked the girl that Marquis saved, but Marquis got his revenge.
  • Yellow 13 from Ace Combat 4: Shattered Skies isn't all that evil, to be honest, but he does still show disapproval when some of his countrymen set up an AA gun on a hospital.
  • In Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown, despite Erusea being the aggressor in the war with Osea, the idea of Rogue Agent Captain Torres running around with nuclear weapons is unacceptable enough to the former that even though they could easily gain victory if they would just get out of the way and let him nuke Osea's capital to force a surrender, they instead choose to leak the plans of his super-sub to Osea so that he can be stopped before a million civilians get killed.
  • Affably Evil Career Killer Shelley de Killer from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice For All has very strict standards. To win the game, you have to show him just how much of an amoral Complete Monster his current boss is, up to and including planning to blackmail him over the murder he was hired to commit. Disgusted at just how lacking in standards his boss is, Shelley releases his hostage and plans to kill his boss next, and he pleads guilty so he can be safe from Shelley in jail.
    • Also inverted and likely played straight in the same case, where Phoenix, realizing that Matt Engarde was more or less responsible for the murder in question, struggles ridiculously hard to get him acquitted, as doing so means that Maya, who's in captivity by Matt's hired hitman, will be set free. Of course, Edgeworth picks up on it and, since he's been away to do some soul-searching and realised that he should searching for the truth instead of just earning his guilty verdicts (which leads on to the events preceding Trials & Tribulations and Investigations), he helps Phoenix eventually resolve the crisis. And when asked by Edgeworth why he seems to be rejoicing despite getting his first guilty verdict in his entire career, Phoenix simply replies, "It doesn't feel right."
    • Also played with in Trials and Tribulations with the Mask*de Mask case when Luke Atmey is shown to be the true villain with Godot. Despite the fact that he still opposes Nick because he blames Nick for the death of his girlfriend, and Nick's mentor, Mia Fey he admits that Atmey is a sad excuse for a man.
  • Gauldoth The Half-Dead in Heroes of Might and Magic IV ultimately fights against the Omnicidal Maniac demons.
    • Archibald Ironfist notes that Even I can't bear the thought of my brother remaining in their [the Kreegans/Demons] hands. So he helps you rescue Roland, the man that deposed Archibald from what he sees as his rightful throne, and then made him into a statue for ten years.
      • Note that he personally helps get Roland back to Erathia, despite knowing full well that that means putting himself into the hands of Catherine Ironfist, a person that would be more than happy to kill him (she nearly does, too).
    • Charna, one of the Death Faction's heroes in IV, is described as being capable of evil that 'even the demons balk at.'
  • Subverted by the VUX in Star Control. They give you this reason if you try allying with them, and then again in Star Control 3 when they defect away from you. In reality they are xenophobic bigots who find humanoids absolutely hideous and will confirm if you pester them enough about why they distrust humanoid races so.
    • Played straighter with the Ur-Quan Kzer-Za. They are basically out to enslave everyone in the entire galaxy, but maintain that it's for your own good because their counterparts, the Ur-Quan Kohr-Ah, are out to destroy everyone in the entire galaxy. They are also unfailingly polite, never kill or destroy needlessly, give their slaves a choice about whether they want to join them (and thus have more freedom) or simply be imprisoned (and thus have security), and will even accept your surrender no matter how many of them you have destroyed (and your crew at least will be spared). And both factions of the Ur-Quan, even the genocidal one, will delay battle with you and explain the rationale behind their actions if you ask them in the right way.
  • Colonel Augustus Autumn of Fallout 3 is quite willing to shoot helpless innocents in order to make a point, however, he is genuinely shocked that his boss President John Henry Eden was planning to spread a modified virus, which would kill pretty much every non-Enclave person in the Capitol Wasteland.
    • And eventually Enclave personnel too. That's the dangerous folly of biological weapons.
    • Tenpenny may want to nuke Megaton because he thinks it spoils his penthouse view, but he has enough morals to at least want the townspeople evacuated before the deed is done. Too bad the guy he put in charge of the operations doesn't have such moral qualms.
    • Unlike previous installments (where Fallout 2 even had a specific "perk" for the act), Fallout 3 and the recent Fallout: New Vegas will absolutely refuse to let you target children. Children are in fact completely invincible in these games; on the other hand, they are also completely passive.
    • For one quest in New Vegas, you need to steal a ledger from two slave traders so that the NCR can arrest them. If you read the ledger yourself, it reveals that the slavers have decided not to sell anymore slaves to Cook-Cook, a Complete Monster, Pyromaniac and sadist, after he torched one of the kids they sold him for fun.
    • Not sure if it fits here, but Butch of Fallout 3 is the resident Jerk Jock, but later in the game, if you recruit him and start doing evil things, he'll begin to comment on your actions by saying things like, "Bad is one thing, evil is another". Even he doesn't approve of half the things your evil Wanderer does.
    • Legatus Lanius will gladly crush anyone who opposes him in his quest to bring the might of the Legion to bear in the Mojave. If you oppose him in a certain way, he expresses his intent to nail you to the west-facing side of the Hoover Dam "so you can watch your world die"—and yet he finds the methods of the Frumentarii, such as dirty-bombing Searchlight and subjecting Nipton to a sadistic lottery, distasteful. He also refuses to lead his men to a Pyrrhic Victory where they will inevitably die of attrition and reveals that he personally believes that he's lost too many of his men getting to this point despite what Caesar thinks.
      • Caesar also is subjected to similar standards as he disapproves of Vulpes Inculta's methods of expansion (the aforementioned dirty-bombing and lottery)
    • The Legion themselves are pretty much all the bad parts of the Roman Empire—crucifixions, enslavement, ransacking various other societies—but they really, really hate drug dealers... something you can use to your advantage if you're trying to give the Great Khans a reason to defect.
    • Despite their racism towards nonhumans (something almost unheard of) the Legion won't shoot them on sight.
  • Though Jak 3 established Veger as a Knight Templar in favor of Light Eco research, some fanworks still portrayed him as joining the Dark Makers, or responsible for the Dark Warrior Program, because Dark Is Evil after all. However, his cameo in Daxter has him vehemently arguing with Erol against the DWP, saying that it's "disgusting" and a "failure", and warning Erol that it will be his downfall and those "eco freaks" won't save them. He's half-right.
    • This is less Standards than it is just his total (though not completely unjustified) hatred of Dark Eco, which he believe nothing good can come out of, including the Dark Is Not Evil Jak.
  • Final Fantasy Tactics - Gafgarion expresses dismay when he finds out what his employers are up to, but not enough to quit his day job.
    • Wiegraf is the antagonist for Chapter 1, and it's clear the Corpse Brigade/Death Corps don't care about killing Noblemen who raise weapons at them. However; when he learns that the Marquis and Teta were kidnapped, Wiegraf says that they are beyond that. He even kills Gustav for kidnapping the Marquis and tells Ramza, Delita, and Argath to take the Marquis to safety.
      • Wiegraf is an odd case. Excluding his ultimate fate, his back story and actions could easily have allowed him to be the protagonist of the game. He is a Holy Knight fighting for the rights of the disenfranchised veterans of the previous war against an uncaring nobility. He most closely falls into being a Hero Protagonist, so he doesn't actually fall under "evil" himself.
  • Dragon Age Origins - Morrigan expresses disgust when she sees Sten locked up like an animal in a cage by the Chantry in Lotharing and left to die at the hands of the darkspawn horde. She remarks that if the Grey Warden can't find a use for this warrior then he/she should help release him out of mercy. Alistair is pretty shocked by Morrigan's display of compassion.
    • She responds to this shock by stating that they should lock Alistair in the cage in Sten's place instead, to which Alistair dryly notes is far more in-character for her.
    • Loghain knows when he's been defeated, and willingly accepts execution, dying secure in the knowledge that The Warden will do a better job than he in halting The Blight. This stands in stark opposition to his daughter Anora or even Alistair, who leaves the party in a rage if you choose to spare Loghain's life.
    • Also, despite being a Well-Intentioned Extremist, Loghain states that he would not kill his daughter Anora just for power, even though Shale tells him that it'd be the quickest way.
    • Zevran may be an amoral assassin, but he will deliver a What the Hell, Hero?? to the Warden if they side with the werewolves to kill the Dalish clan or decide to kill all the mages in the tower. He also tells the Warden to "look into their eyes" before deciding to let a Tevinter slaver leave with the elves he captured.
  • Even with the Gray and Grey Morality of Dragon Age II's mage-templar conflict which turns into Evil Versus Evil by Act III, Anti-Villain Ser Cullen begins to realize just how crazy Knight-Commander Meredith has become near the end of the game when she orders for Hawke's execution regardless of whether the player supported the mages or the templars, when they originally were going to arrest the Champion. He ends up turning against Meredith when she uses the lyrium sword to fight Hawke, and either he and the templars bow down to Hawke at Meredith's defeat or they let him and his companions peacefully leave the city.
  • Dandy in Ghost Trick acts the perfect gentleman to Kamilla after he and Beauty kidnap her, even scolding Beauty (who he adores) for taking her to the house where she accidentally murdered her own mother. Of course, if he'd wanted to be really nice he probably shouldn't have kidnapped her in the first place.
    • Oh and In the alternate past where Kamila was accidentally killed by Dandy, (He fell on a lever that released a concrete statue that landed on her), he has a VillainousBreakdown at that.
  • In Super Robot Wars K, this trope is invoked by Gainer who, after seeing the destruction of Berlin at the hands of the Destroy Gundam, comments that, even at its worst, the Siberian Railroad never even came close to Blue Cosmos' acts of depravity.
  • Prototype : The hero, Alex Mercer, is a "man" with Lovecraftian Superpowers who physically assimilates people in order to regain health and take their memories and skills, on a bloodthirsty quest to find who made him that way. Later, we discover that the protagonist is actually the virus itself, using Mercer's form and memories. The real Alex Mercer was a sociopathic scientist who worked on improving the lethality of Blacklight, not caring about the consequences simply because it wasn't his job to care. After he caught wind of a coming purge of his company, he tried to make a run for it, carrying a vial of his improved Blacklight as insurance. When that failed, he broke it and released the deadliest virus ever created into Manhattan out of spite, not even caring that his own sister was in the city. When we learn this, the Blacklight virus itself is disgusted.
    • In Prototype 2, one of the sidequests involves capturing scientists involved in "Project: New Templar". When they finally reveal that the project involves sterilizing immigrants and poor people, Heller is so disgusted that he refuses to consume them, instead choosing to fly to maximum altitude on the helicopter they're in and then jump out so that the scientists plummet to their deaths.
  • Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz : A text adventure where your main opponent is the titular Wizard, who will randomly appear and harass you with all sorts of spells that begin with the letter F, and some of which may incidentally result in your death. One other character you will meet is a woman in a trance. If you should be such a heel as to attempt to besmirch her honor, the Wizard (who has shown no particular interest in helping her before) will immediately appear and cast a spell on you reserved for that particular happenstance: "Fry!" (Although some fatal mistakes still allow you to finish the game with a reduced score, this particular one will make it impossible.) The narrator of the adventure will throw in his two cents as well: "Serves you right, too, if you ask me."
  • Appears to varying degrees in Street Fighter. Word of God is that despite all of his ingame comments, Akuma has his honor code that forbids killing anybody too weak to push him far enough to do so. Also inspite the talk Satsui No Hadou being winning at winning cost, he won't use dirty tricks to win, which led him to stopping his fight with Gen because of Gen's terminal illness. Possible to appear in Street Fighter Alpha III in Vega's storyline. He displays disgust over what Bison would do to Cammy and fights him over it, though in the canon storyline he probably just get ticked off and didn't fight him. In Rolento's storyline, he displays an interest in aquirring the Psycho Drive, but destroys when he finds that it's a Mind Control machine.
    • Hell, Akuma could even just be Affably Evil; one official art of him depicts him selling fruit to a child. Without glowing eyes and all.

Akuma: Defeating you takes less effort than smacking a baby. Not that I'd ever do that!

    • Akuma is looking to be the strongest in the world. Cheating and killing the innocent have no part of that. Case and point, he kills Bison after he fights Ryu and Ken to a standstill, and then switches to a new body now that they're exhausted and broken (but victorious). Akuma jumps in and one-shots Bison, calling the move "unfair".
  • In the video game of The Godfather, your crew will stand by you and not say a thing as you murder hundreds of police and civilians, or bomb a bakery. However, if you attack a woman, they will snarl remarks like "That could've been someone's mother!" and "We don't hit women!" Doesn't stop them from helping you, though.
  • Helena Blake from Mass Effect definitely qualifies, if she is being honest with the PC. She tells Shepard that she is a crime lord who is wanting to be rid of two business partners, due to their habits of selling a highly addictive drug to people, then selling the addicts to slavers when they fall into debt. She makes it plain that she is disgusted with them and will run the operation in a more tasteful manner once she is in charge.
  • Zaeed of Mass Effect 2 is an amoral, revenge-driven mercenary who's done some really bad things in his career, but even he thinks what the people who experimented on Jack did to her was messed up. Horrific experiments on kidnapped children will do that.
    • Likewise, The Illusive Man claimed that the facility that created Jack in the first place was one that went rogue and later ordered the death of all the scientists involved. At least, that's what he tells you since he's likely more upset about how it all resulted in a dangerously powerful Biotic with an extreme hatred of Cerberus being set loose.
    • A dialogue option on Illium with Zaeed will also reveal how he prefers mercenary work over a desk job, as it forces him to care about who he's killing instead of being another name on a piece of paper.
    • Yet another example involving Zaeed comes from a dialogue exchange during his loyalty mission regarding Batarians.

Zaeed: "Cheaper labor," he said. "Goddamn terrorists," I said.

  • A conversation overheard in Mass Effect 3 has a turian smuggler asking a human smuggler if she still has a ship and is looking for work. He then suggests that there are a few crates of medi-gel in customs, bound for Alliance soldiers, that they could make off with. When he asks her what she thinks of his, she responds that she thinks she should slit his goddamn throat, and proceeds to angrily berate him for suggesting that they screw over the people who are fighting and dying for the galaxy, especially while her homeworld is being burned to the ground.
  • Seems to be implied with Mad Jack in Donkey Kong 64, in the level Frantic Factory, an evil toy factory. The boss, a freaky, crocodilian cyborg jack-in-the-box with DonaldDuck's voice, and evil laughs every minute, drops into the battlefield through a chute labeled "Reject". Maybe he's not evil enough?
  • In the Backstory to Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, Trellian, known as The First Assassin, severs an alliance between the assassins' guild he leads, The Molochean Hand, and the Derian-Ka, a cult of necromancers, when he learns of the atrocities committed by the cult's founder, Kerghan, and leads the Hand in a war to purge the Derian-Ka from existence. In the present day, The Hand's current leader, Gideon Laiar, will do the same to the Dark Elves of T'Sen Ang if you tell him they want to bring back their leader-in-exile, Arronax the Destroyer.
    • Vollinger, a Hand assassin who you can recruit as a follower, supposedly gets sickened if you take him to a vivisection laboratory/factory farm which the gnomes of Tarant used to force-breed Half-Ogres.
  • Caim, the Heroic Sociopath of Drakengard gleefully kills everyone in his way, including Child Soldiers and loves to kick decidedly harmless people around for the hell of it. However, when the revelation of his sister Furiae's incestuous love for him, even he seems disgusted.
  • In Kane and Lynch: Dead Men, you are told by Shelly, a convicted killer on death row, that Lynch killed his wife. At this point Kane, another convicted killer who has killed armies of cops at this point, gets pissed at Lynch.
    • He also acts in pretty much the same way when Lynch goes off his meds and begins killing hostages, although this is partly because it screwed up the bank robbery.
  • Star FOX Even Wolf O'Donnell couldn't stand Pigma Dengar and kicked him out of Star Wolf. And in one of the endings to Star Fox Command, it's implied that all the members of Star Wolf were disappointed in Krystal defecting to them from Star Fox.
  • Final Fantasy VI: The Gestahlian Troops were perfectly willing to torch a castle to get the occupants to surrender to their demands, as well as invade Narsche to steal an Esper fossil. However, when Kefka Palazzo orders them to poison Doma's water supply, even they were horrified at such a dirty tactic, especially seeing how there were still Imperial POWs in Doma.
    • Also, Gestahl condones Kefka's horrible actions, including the poisoning in his bid for world domination. However, when Kefka goes completely off the deep end and threatens to misalign the Warring Triad, which would unleash apocalypse on the planet, he turns on Kefka. He wants to rule the world, not blow it up.
    • In the Dissidia subseries, the Emperor was perfectly willing to betray Chaos and screw over his own allies to become god of the remanents of the universe when Chaos killed Cosmos.[1] However, when facing Kefka in battle, he says "A taste of hell may be just what you need!" as his intro quote, implying that even he was extremely disgusted with Kefka's atrocities. Ditto with Cloud of Darkness and her saying to Kefka "We will not allow you your sordid cries!" in the same game. Sephiroth also expressed disapproval of the Emperor's plan when he attempted to recruit Sephiroth to his cause, and he's the guy who, in his own game, tried to ram a meteor into the planet to become a god.
  • From Final Fantasy IV: Rubicante was perfectly willing to serve Golbez/Zemus in conquering the world, even committing some atrocities, yet when Dr. Lugae turned Edge's parents into Chimeras, even he was disgusted with this.
    • He is also willing to kick your ass, but not before fully healing your party.
  • In Metal Gear Solid, Sniper Wolf was a Sniper who often has an obsession with tailing her targets. However, she does follow a strict code in regards to never killing Women and Children, meaning that even she would not wish lethal harm on Meryl. As opposed to Ocelot, who had no such qualms.
    • In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Vamp and Fortune did not like the fact that Fatman was trying to blow up the entire Big Shell after the first attempt failed, as well as the fact that he sold out his loyalty to Commander Jackson.
    • Olga Gurlukovich does not like it when she is forced to betray her comrades of the Gurlukovich Mercenary Group, especially when she values them as not only comrades, but also her family.
    • Ocelot had no qualms with helping Colonel Volgin in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, but even he balked at the man firing nuclear warheads at his own countrymen for shits and giggles. On top of that, when Naked Snake fights Volgin one-on-one & starts to get the better of him, Volgin calls out to the onlooking Ocelot & orders him to help him; only for Ocelot to tell him to act like a man & do it himself.
      • The exact extent about whether he had absolutely no qualms about serving Volgin is debatable, however, as Ocelot implies a few times that he really doesn't like serving Volgin but has to put up with him anyway, especially after the above incident.
    • Although not outright stated, it is implied in Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker that the CIA was apparently not too happy with Coldman, a former CIA Director, for the events of the Virtuous Mission and Operation Snake Eater and had him Kicked Upstairs to the CIA Station Chief of Central America as an excuse to have him exiled. Of course, it also works under Pragmatic Villainy, since, as he knows the true purpose of Operation Snake Eater and the Virtuous Mission too well (since he was the one who planned them), and he wasn't willing to keep quiet about it, exiling him was the only other option to keep the cover story solid.
  • Banjo-Kazooie: "Now I will erase your Game Pak, because you had the need to hack!"
  • In one of School Days's paths, Makoto the Casanova Jerkass who plays with the bodies and hearts of all the girls in his Harem... decides to protect one of them, The Ojou Kotonoha, when he finds out that other girls are bullying her. Doubles as Kick the Son of a Bitch, considering that Kotonoha's bullies are borderline Complete Monsters, or at least among the few who can compare with Makoto in Jerkassery.
    • Also, Makoto is pissed in the sort-of sequel Cross Days when he finds out that a bunch of guys (including his Bromantic Foil) gangraped his Gay Option, Yuuki Ashikaga. He's actually so angry that he tries to physically attack the culprits. It fails, though.
  • In Fire Emblem Jugdral, the Loptuous Sect conducts a really horrifying project known as the "child hunts", in which children and pre-teens from the whole continent are either sacrificed to the God Loptous or forced to fight each other to death, with the few survivors becoming noblemen that in reality are few more than puppets of the the Sect. Several of the minor and major villains in the game are VERY repulsed by such crap, and two of them ( Emperor Alvis and his sorta daughter-in-law Princess Ishtar) are even willing to secretly aid the heroes if it'll put a stop to them. And you know an opponent is specially terrible if they openly support such a plan (like Alvis's son/Ishtar's boyfriend Prince Yurius aka the vessel of Loptous itself, or Ishtar's Evil Matriarch mom Hilda).
    • Aso, in the first Jugdral game, Duke Langobalt is a Smug Snake willing to participate in the complot that ended with the death of Prince Kurth and Sigurd's dad Vylon, but when he learns that his co-conspirator Andorey killed his own dad for the inheritance of Jungby, he expresses deep disgust about it.

Langobalt: That contemptuous little brat. He shows absolutely no remorse for killing his own father. Lord Ring... may you rest in peace.

Caellach (to Carlyle): I'm not like that freak Valter. I'm kind to women.

And later...
—Riev: Ah, Valter... You're a beast. You're bound to no country. You care nothing for friend or foe. Kill a man, claim a woman... You live for nothing more, you wretched beast.
  • In Assassin Blue, the titular character becomes disenchanted from his boss after being told to kill innocent people. This is also played straight by Red.
  • In Master of Orion, a game in which everybody spends lots of time destroying whole planets, two things that are sure to make A Is mad at you are annihilating a race, and using biological weapons.
  • Mario Super Sluggers: Bowser SAVES Mario from a Bullet Bill Wario and Waluigi put in the baseball machine after being invited to dinner. See it in action here.
  • In Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines, Vandal Cleaver is a Nightmare Fetishist ghoul who works at the blood bank, kidnapping vagrants and runaways to keep their stock high; he's excited by stories of people being badly mutilated and killed, worships vampires who embrace the Beast, considers blood to be the most beautiful thing, Doesn't Like Guns because cutting someone up with a knife is more elegant. In the event that he refuses to sell you any blood, you can try to seduce him. Turns out he does not believe that Vampires Are Sex Gods and is disgusted by the idea of fucking someone clinically dead. Plus, the last time he did so, he ended up getting Ghouled by Therese Voerman

Vandal: Start breathing, you corpse!

  • If you look closely in Epic Mickey, Mickey will feel bad for some of the things he did. Examples include giving Damian Salt Ice Cream for his love interest, using thinner on the fake bolt, and starting the thinner disaster.
  • Subverted in Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars where Yaroslav Demidov seemed horrified when the Zemya leader decided to leave his soldiers to their fates when the Ghosts storm their base. But he ended up following him without any need for the leader to convince him.
  • In Tropico, you can use the personal edicts of "eliminate [kill]," "arrest [send to political jail]," "capture [send to dungeon]," "brand heretic [unfairly cause someone to lose everyone's respect]," and "bribe [give $1,000]" on any adult citizen (though for practical reasons it doesn't really work on rebels). However, if you try to do it to a child, tourist, or animal, you won't be allowed to.
    • Trying to use the eliminate edict on a child and then being told, "You can't do that to a child!" makes you feel like a Complete Monster who just got scolded. The sense that the message may have come from your advisor rather than the game itself creates the sense that he just told you that even he has standards. That's saying something, considering that your advisor is a My Master, Right or Wrong Yes-Man who's so much more loyal to you personally than to the country or any kind of decency that he encourages you to embezzle money because you "deserve" it.
    • Branding a child a heretic might actually be practical if it worked (if you wanted them to be a future general who isn't respected enough to be able to lead a coup, or were simply worried that the child in question has such a good leadership skill that he/she might run for your job someday), but the other possiblities for using the harmful edicts on children, animals, and tourists would mostly be sadistic.
      • That's not to say that the way you use those edicts on adult citizens can't be sadistic if you're willing to risk sparking rebellions...
  • Now, of course, in majority of Shin Megami Tensei, both God and Lucifer are evil (or amoral) but as noted in this boss battle theme even the demons you're fighting hate humanity for killing Jesus.
  • In Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising, there is a traitor in your ranks who grants your vox channel's access codes to Apothecary Galen, who is possessed by a daemon and working with Azariah Kyras, who has more willingly betrayed the chapter in favor of the ruinous powers. As he is doing so, however, he explicitly warns Galen not to use the vox to set up an ambush, lest their deal be undone.
  • In Nethack, any god (even the chaotic ones, who reward you for sacrificing members of your own race) will get angry with you for eating the corpse of a dog or cat.
  • In Inazuma Eleven GO, Tsurugi Kyousuke gets outright pissed off at the attempts to deliberately break Tenma's leg and make it look like an accident, to the point where he starts defying Fifth Sector's orders out of spite and eventually does a full Heel Face Turn.
  • In Skyrim, the Thieves' Guild has a lot of rules and standards for a group of thieves. Guild leader Mercer Frey mocks the idea that the Guild is anything more than a band of thugs out for themselves and is perfectly willing to take all of the Guild's fortune (in the monetary and lucky sense) for himself. During your final confrontation you can actually agree with him -- then kill him because he has a couple of huge expensive gems that you want for yourself.
  • One of the unlockable Abstergo files in Assassin's Creed: Revelations has the writer describing the reign of the Borgias (Rodrigo and Cesare) atop the Order of the Knights Templar as a "Dark Age," where they sought power and control for their own sake instead of advancing the ideals of peace and enlightenment of humanity whatever the cost, and in fact seeking to keep people cowed and ignorant. Then again, considering the actual behavior of the 21st-century Templars and how thoroughly the Borgias were eventually thwarted, this renunciation may be as much "internal PR" as a sincere distaste for the Borgias' corruption of the Order from the top.
  • In Saints Row the Third, the Boss is fine with murder, theft, human trafficking, insurance fraud, and wanton destruction. Hypercommercialisation, on the other hand, is something the Boss starts having doubts about. This may or may not stick depending on the ending chosen.
  • In Shin Megami Tensei II, YHVH calls down apocalyptic scenarios, one after another, on a Humanity that's already living in a miserable Crapsack World ravaged by nuclear destruction. When it's revealed his ultimate plans are essentially ruling over all that exists at the cost of any kind of freedom, no matter how many have to die to make his vision a reality, the Archangel Gabriel and Satan himself get desperate and angry enough to seriously consider joining The Chosen One to finally put an end to the tyranny. Satan, in particular, in his role as God's Judge, proves he's not just YHVH's personal killing machine, fulfilling both sides of his title and rising along with The Hero to judge Him for His actions.
  • One of the biker gang guys in Pokémon Gold and Silver and the remakes says he won't hang out with Team Rocket even though he's a bad guy.
  • MadWorld is a game filled with terrible people and killers, all which sponsor Agent XIII is just dandy with, enjoying the terror and spectacle. Well, except for when he finds out why the current Deathwatch games are being held. Turns out that Leo's dad started the games because his company was going under and he created a need for a cure for an illness used in the game. With the world aware of the horror of the illness, he could jack up the price of the cure and make a lot of money. However, Leo himself didn't actually care, he just wanted to watch the chaos. This made Agent XIII mad since the games usually decide the fate of the known world, shifting around major powers without the need of war. A pointless genocide for the sake of something as small as profits was disgusting to him, disrespectful to the reason the game was made. As a result, he later decides to give Jack information.
  • In the X-Universe, the Paranid Empire is a xenophobic totalitarian theocracy. But in X3: Albion Prelude they're so disgusted by the Argon Federation's destruction of the Earth Torus and subsequent invasion of Sol with artificially intelligent warships that they side with the Terrans.
  • Gnarl from Overlord almost quotes this word for word when you're travelling through a dense and murky area to retrieve some Green Minions, who are known for poor hygiene anyway.
  • Neo Cortex utterly despises N. Tropy in Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time, especially after being unfortunate enough to be watching as N. Tropy and Female N. Tropy shamelessly flirt with each other during the infamous opening cutscene of "Out For Launch".
  • Two examples in Octopath Traveler:
    • Mattias, the main antagonist in Ophilia's story gets his dark power from the Dark God, Galdera, and seeks to loosen his bonds to draw even more power. However he doesn't want Galdera fully released as that would mean the end of the world.
    • Werner, the main antagonist of Olberic's story was granted financial power from Lylblac the Daughter of the Dark God to bring Hornburg down. He then used the wealth he accumulated to become the tyrannical ruler of Riverford. However, he described her as a purely evil witch that sought to bring ruin to all humanity and cut all ties with her to avoid her corruption.
  • Doki Doki Literature Club!: Even Monika was surprised by Yuri telling Natsuki to kill herself in Act 2...and she's the one who made her that way!
  1. ↑ And that's not even getting into several of his atrocities from his own game.
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