Hero Antagonist: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

A '''Hero Antagonist''' is a character who is an antagonist (that is, they oppose [[The Protagonist]]), yet is still technically a hero. They oppose the main character and may not even have [[Sympathetic POV]], but their objectives are things like saving the world, saving large groups of people, heck, saving anybody's life if they have the chance. A tweaking of the narrative could easily make them a sympathetic protagonist.

 

 

 

Compare the [[Knight Templar]], whose devotion to 'good' ideals has become unreasoning fanaticism. Often (though not always, depending on how [[Morality Tropes|the morality is played]] in the work) will oppose his/her inverse, the [[Villain Protagonist]] and is the opposite of the [[Hero Protagonist]]. Contrast [[Designated Hero]], for when he's really ''not'' a nice guy.

{{examples}}

* ''[[Death Note]]''

** The Japanese police.

* {{spoiler|Chao Lingshen}} in ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]''. The only reason the main character opposes her in the end is, basically, to avoid the [[Cool and Unusual Punishment]] he would incur from the authorities if he didn't. And because she absolutely refuses to explain her actions, despite the fact that he'd agree with her if she did. Of course, it turns out [[Xanatos Gambit|winning was actually her Plan B. Plan A was for Negi to defeat her, proving he could handle the rest without her help]].

** {{spoiler|Cosmo Entelechia}} as well, though somewhat more dickish about it than necessary. {{spoiler|Ultimate plan? Save over a billion lives. Opposed by? First an idiot hero who doesn't know what he's really doing and twenty years later a child. To be fair to the idiot hero, Nagi, a lot of what they were doing just doesn't make sense when considering their ultimate goal.}}

* Inspector Zenigata from ''[[Lupin III]]''.

* Inspector Runge from ''[[Monster (manga)|Monster]]'' starts out as one, though he turns to more of a standard villain for a while as his search more Tenma becomes more of a personal obsession than anything to do with justice, causing him to ignore the increasing evidence that Johan does exist. However, he eventually comes to his senses and becomes a hero again.

* By the end of ''[[Shakugan no Shana]]'', {{spoiler|Yuji Sakai with Snake of the Festival are this trope. They get to save the world and make the Flame Haze the bad guys without them knowing it.}}

 

* Finch from ''[[V for Vendetta]]'' in the sense of [[My Country, Right or Wrong]].

* Argent the Wolf of ''[[Grendel]]'', who's opposed to the [[Villain Protagonist]] Grendel (particularly Hunter Rose, but later on Christine Spar) as an [[Anti-Hero]] Werewolf who is compelled to take down what the series equates to the Devil.

* ''[[Lex Luthor: Man of Steel]]'' frames Superman as this for Lex Luthor. Played with, however, in that while it's Lex Luthor's [[Perspective Flip|moment in]] [[Villain Protagonist|the sun]] and Superman is correspondingly depicted in a cold, inhuman and alien fashion, it's still made abundantly clear that he's a better man than Lex Luthor will ever be.

* The New York Police Department to Rorschach in ''[[Watchmen]]''.

* While ''[[Enemy Ace]]'' Hans von Hammer is a sympathetic character, most American readers would also regard his British, French, and American adversaries as "the good guys."

* The DC Comics supervillain Kobra starred in his own series and his worst enemy was his own twin brother, since they had a psychic bond that prevented Kobra from killing him without dying himself.

* Eclipso is another DC [[Villain Protagonist]] whose nemesis was his own heroic [[Enemy Without]].

 

* [[Higurashi no Naku Koro ni|Akasaka]] Miyuki in ''[[Kyon: Big Damn Hero]]''.

* {{spoiler|Near}} reprises this role in [[Kira Is Justice]]. The new Task Force, especially David, better fits the definition, mostly because his own nephew is Kira.

* Strafe in ''[[Fantendo Playing War]]'' and ''[[Fantendo Forgotten Legends]]'' is basically the definition of this. He essentially kills his way through the entire 41 chapters, though it is necessary.

* [[Harry Potter|Dumbledore]] in ''[[My Immortal]]'', who saves the protagonists from Voldemort on numerous occasions and is still hated by them—making him sort of a [[Designated Antagonist]] as well.

** Though the Decommissioning Squad as a whole could count as an averted take on this trope as well, if the reader believes that the KET (Kids Eternally There), a group of anti-decommissioning rebels, [[Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters|are right to protect and preserve the undecommissioned]]

 

* A ''horse'' fills this role in ''[[Tangled]]''. More specifically, Maximus, the Guard Captain's Steed, who happens to be [[Intellectual Animal|a hell]] [[Silent Snarker|of a lot]] smarter than [[The Guards Must Be Crazy|his rider]].

* Copper for the second half of ''[[The Fox and The Hound]]''.

* US Marshal Sam Gerard ([[Tommy Lee Jones]]) in the role that made him famous: ''[[The Fugitive (film)|The Fugitive]]''. His quest is to capture the hero, who is an (innocent) fugitive from justice.

'''Sam Gerard:''' I don't care! }}

** Gerard even functions as the [[Butt Monkey]] at some points in the story, but his status as [[The Determinator]] unquestionably makes him heroic.

* Colin Farrel's FBI Agent brought in to investigate Pre-Crime in ''[[Minority Report]]''.

* Jack Valentine of the movie ''[[Lord of War]]''. He's a good, idealistic Interpol agent opposed to the amoral arms-dealer [[Villain Protagonist]].

* The human cops from ''[[The Matrix]]'', as far as they know.

* The (genuinely good) cops in ''[[The Player]]''.

* Ditto for Kazim in ''[[Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade]]''. He doesn't know Indy's intentions and just wants to protect the grail from falling into the wrong hands, and when the misunderstanding is cleared up, he helps out.

* Tobias Ragg from ''[[Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (film)|Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street]]''. He distrusted Sweeney Todd {{spoiler|and killed him at the end of the movie}}. Unfortunately, he [[Failed a Spot Check]] and trusted [[The Dragon|Mrs. Lovett]] completely.

* FBI Special Agent Adam Frawley fulfills this role in ''The Town''. While he was very much a [[Jerkass]] and not quite as personally sympathetic as the [[Villain Protagonist]]s, he was ultimately an FBI agent trying to shut down a ruthless and rather dangerous gang of bank robbers.

* ''[[The Negotiator]].'' Kevin Spacey plays a negotiator who tries to negotiate another (rogue) negotiator (protagonist Samuel L Jackson) out of doing something dumb after he holds up some hostages because he was framed for murdering his partner. As far as Spacey is concerned, Jackson is armed, has hostages and is therefore the [[Villain Protagonist|villain]].

* The teacher devoted to exposing the protagonist as the eponymous ''[[Bad Teacher]]''.

* A comedic/incompetent version is Marshal Willenholly from ''[[Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back]]''.

 

* Holly Short in the first ''[[Artemis Fowl]]''.

* Morgan from ''[[The Dresden Files]]'', who watches Harry like a hawk, convinced that he's either a traitor to the White Council or just into [[Black Magic]]. At the same time, he's a warrior who will do anything to stop evil and protect the innocent. {{spoiler|Eventually, he gets over his distrust of Harry; he still thinks Harry's a loose cannon, sure (and he's not exactly wrong, either), but he sees that Harry's ''trying'' to do good. Then, he dies.}}

* Kariya Matou in ''[[Fate/Zero]]''. His reason for entering the Grail War and deciding to endure horrible torture and surely die no more than two weeks after the Grail War ends to make up for his lack of training? Because he's the [[Unlucky Childhood Friend]] of Tokiomi Tohsaka's wife and he wants to save her daughter, because he knows pretty well what kind of magecraft the Makiri family perfected. Oh, and since he failed, just look what happened to Sakura in [[Fate/stay night|Heaven's Feel Route]]. Granted, his ending and last couple of actions aren't exactly very heroic, but yea, the motive was good.

* Duke Michael in ''[[The Prisoner of Zenda]]''. Unquestionably a better person and ruler than the legitimate king, and almost as good as the main character.

* Claude Lebel, the man assigned to catch the eponymous assassin of ''[[The Day of the Jackal]]''.

** After Lebel is introduced, the plot stops following the Jackal exclusively, and is as much Lebel's story as it is the Jackal's, so Lebel goes back and forth between being a Hero Antagonist, and a straight Hero. The Jackal goes back and forth between being a straight Villain and a [[Villain Protagonist]].

* Porfiry Petrovich, the brilliant and implacable policeman investigating Raskolnikov, in ''[[Crime and Punishment]].''

* Overlapping with, and the [[Trope Namer]] for, [[The Javert]] is Inspector Javert from ''[[Les Misérables]]''. While we know Jean Valjean has reformed by the end, he still broke parole, resisted arrest and escaped from prison.

 

* Gerard, from ''[[The Fugitive (TV series)|The Fugitive]]''. (In fact, pretty much every [[Inspector Javert]] other than [[Les Misérables|Javert himself]] qualifies.)

* Sergeant Doakes in ''[[Dexter]]''. Somehow, he's the only one in a precinct full of cops and forensic specialists to get a creepy vibe off serial killer protagonist Dexter. {{spoiler|This doesn't end well for him.}}

** ... granted, everything we ever see them do ranges from evil to indifferent (but hostile). Maybe this counts as [[Offscreen Villainy|Offscreen Heroism]]?

* In the second season of ''[[Dollhouse]]'', Senator Daniel Perrin is definitely this as he tries to expose the corrupt Rossum corporation, the Dollhouse's main benefactor. {{spoiler|Until it turns out that he's a Doll imprinted to investigate the Dollhouse so that he can "discover" convincing evidence that it doesn't exist and exonerate Rossum.}}

* Agent Hank Schrader of ''[[Breaking Bad]]''. Something of an interesting case in that he doesn't know the [[Villain Protagonist]] he's chasing is his own brother-in-law.

* Being a show about [[Villain Protagonist|an outlaw]] biker gang and heavy on [[Grey and Gray Morality]], [[Sons of Anarchy]] falls into this trope almost as often as it features its opposite, with examples ranging from the [[Wide-Eyed Idealist|idealistic]] Deputy Hale to the [[Good Is Not Nice|cynical]] but [[My Country, Right or Wrong|loyal]] Lieutenant Roosevelt.

* Lee Jin Pyo in ''[[The City Hunter]]'': His entire black ops team was murdered by their own ''[[Government Conspiracy|government]],'' {{spoiler|who first denied their existence and then branded them as traitors. As he's a "[[Faking the Dead|dead man]]," he can't work/live in his native Korea. He just wants to expose their corruption and [[Grey and Gray Morality|get revenge on the ones]] who ordered his team's execution}}.

* On ''[[Leverage]]'', Sterling is this, as an insurance investigator and later [[Interpol]] agent up against a team of [[Just Like Robin Hood|thieves]]. It doesn't help him that he is a [[Magnificent Bastard]] who is able to always win and seems [[Affably Evil]].

 

 

* [[Older Than Feudalism]]: [[The Iliad|Hector]]. There are a number of scholars who believe that ''[[The Iliad]]'' is the [[Tragedy]] of ''Hector'', not Achilles. They cite as evidence the facts that the Trojans are portrayed far more sympathetically than the Greeks, Achilles finding redemption instead of punishment at the end, and the fact that the narrative ends with Hector's funeral.

** Dante went so far as to place Hector in Limbo (the nicest place a pre-Christian could end up) in ''[[The Divine Comedy]]'', and he became part of the Nine Worthies, nine personifications of Chivalrous behaviour, during the Medieval ages (mind you, the other pagan "Worthies" were Julius Caesar and Alexander, whose "chivalry" should probably be taken with a grain of salt). History certainly treated Hector better than it did most of the invading Greeks, due to the perception of him as a noble man trying to defend his home over his brother's folly and the Greeks' warmongering.

*** Dante was of the belief that the Trojans were the ancestors of the Roman founders and the Judeo-Claudian dynasty—who in turn were the ancestors of Italians, particularly the Florentines. [[Sarcasm Mode|This colors his attitude somewhat,]] such as placing Ulysses and Diomedes deep in Hell for the Trojan Horse gambit.

 

* Agent Edgar Ross from ''[[Red Dead Redemption]]''. At the core, he wants to bring law, order, and civilization as well as round up all those who seek to destroy it. Were he not the antagonist, we would likely think he's onto something, perhaps even root for him in secret.

* In ''[[Deus Ex]]'', after {{spoiler|1=you defect from UNATCO, any cop or U.S. or UNATCO soldier }} that truly believes he is fighting for the greater good and is not flat out sadistic or {{spoiler|part of the conspiracy,}} fit this trope.

* Ash Crimson from ''[[The King of Fighters]]'' series. His actions make him a villain, but in the end, it's for the sake of stopping an even greater evil, who happens to be the final boss of ''KOF XIII''.

** This is actually an inversion. From the start, the POV of the "Tales of Ash" saga makes Ash ''appear'' like a [[Villain Protagonist]], thus painting the former protagonists (Kyo, Iori, Chizuru, and even K') as this trope. But, as ''XIII'' attests to, Ash was [[Good All Along]]. A [[Guile Hero|Guile]] [[Anti-Hero]] unmistakably, but [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|his actions were for a greater good]]. {{spoiler|And then he died in a [[Temporal Paradox]] [[Heroic Sacrifice]] that ''[[Ret-Gone|erased him from history]]''. [[Wham! Episode|Didn't see that one coming, huh?]]}}

** {{spoiler|In the end of the sequel, the mantle of Hero Antagonist goes to [[Chinese Girl|Litchi Faye-Ling]]. She's still the same kind-hearted woman, but opposes Ragna because Ragna's opposition (NOL) took captive of her love interest, and a [[Complete Monster]] [[Troll]] convinced her thoroughly that they have a mean to restore said interest. To top it all off, she's dying because she was exposed to the same thing he was (dying is a better case, the worst case is, she turns into the same monster that her love interest becomes and consumes everything in her path, including the innocents she grew to love), and anyone who could help her refuses to. She's reluctant to fight for that evil organization, but she really didn't have a better option.}}

* Jowy Atreides, from ''[[Suikoden II]]''. A long time friend of the main hero, Riou, he is destined to come into conflict due to picking up opposing runes (Jowy picks up the Black Sword Rune and Riou the Bright Shield Rune). Jowy ends up betraying and murdering (although not willingly) the mayor of Muse, Anabelle. He ends up becoming king of Highland. He ends up as a Hero Antagonist because he helps bring down [[Complete Monster]], Luca Blight, as well as using his strength to keep the Beast Rune at bay. He ends up having the same goals as Riou, to end the war and to unify the land. The problem is that he and his friend, Riou, lead opposing forces. His love of the orphan Pilika truly drives Jowy in his goals for peace.

* Thorndyke from ''[[Soul Nomad]]''. Also, everyone but the complete monsters in the [[Nightmare Fuel|Demon Path]].

* Meta Knight from the ''[[Kirby]]'' series.

* Harpuia from ''[[Mega Man Zero]]''. He even prefers to be destroyed than to be possessed by a manifestation of evil in the second game.

** By extension, Harpuia's fellow Guardians, Leviathan, Fefnir and Phantom, as well as all of the Bosses prior to ''Zero 3'', fit this trope. They were only following orders for the sake of protecting humanity.

* Knuckles in certain ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' games, in particular those where he is tricked by Dr Eggman into stopping Sonic. He eventually realises he has been duped, and usually reverts to a side protagonist for the remainder of the story.

** GUN, especially the Commander, until after the events of ''[[Shadow the Hedgehog]]''.

* In ''[[Golden Sun]]'', Felix, though this is not revealed until ''[[Golden Sun]]: The Lost Age'', where a [[Perspective Flip]] occurs and Felix becomes the protagonist and Isaac becomes the Hero Antagonist.

* In ''[[Touhou Project]] 12: Undefined Fantastic Object'', the ancient mage the antagonists were trying to [[Sealed Badass in a Can|unseal]] turns out to be a Buddhist monk seeking to bring peace and harmony to [[Youkai]]. And she still fights you as the final boss.

** Technically, the entire plot of ''Touhou 10: Mountain of Faith'' counts. Sanae didn't know the Hakurei Shrine was key to Gensokyo's survival; she saw competition for the faith her gods needed to survive, from a [[Shrine Maiden]] who wasn't even protecting humanity from the youkai. So she tried to shut down the Hakurei Shrine, and got her ass (and her gods') kicked by [[Brilliant but Lazy|R]][[Plot Armor|e]][[More Dakka|i]][[Let's Get Dangerous|m]][[Curb Stomp Battle|u]] (or [[Badass Normal|Marisa]]).

* Some parts of the campaign in ''[[Warcraft III]]'' and its expansion have the player control a villainous army, making the enemy army a Hero Antagonist ({{spoiler|except the Blackrock orcs, who are pretty evil themselves}}).

* Araman from ''[[Neverwinter Nights 2]]: Mask of the Betrayer''. From his point of view, unless the protagonist can be stopped somehow, the world will end.

** Okku is this as well, for pretty much the same reason. {{spoiler|However, if you decide to spare him after the final fight against him, he'll decide to help you.}}

* The police in any illegal street racing game, such as ''[[Need for Speed]]''.

** [[Fridge Logic|But they have no mouths...]]

** Food supply? The guys at ''[[2P Start!|2PStart!]]'' see it [[Child Eater|a bit]] [http://www.2pstart.com/2009/05/27/high-in-cholesterol/ differently]. [[Nightmare Fuel|Sweet dreams!]]

* Both the NCR and Mr House in [[Fallout: New Vegas]] if you support Caesar's Legion. The Brotherhood of Steel can become one in Fallout 3 if you destroy the Citadel. Of course, since this is a series where you can nuke entire cities for kicks, pretty much any decent individual in the wasteland can become one if they get on the wrong side of the player.

** [[Fallout 3]] also has the Regulators who will hunt down the player if s/he has Evil Karma.

 

* ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'':

** Berk, who appears at first as Gwynn's weird and annoying new boyfriend, but then, in the chapter "K'Z'K", tries to {{spoiler|assassinate several main characters -- because he's been sent from the future to stop them from causing [[The End of the World as We Know It]] by summoning the demon K'Z'K.}}

*** It's even worse in that he is {{spoiler|half-rightly}} convinced that Agatha could be the Biggest Bad of all time—the spark that destroyed most of Europe while he was removed from the picture decades ago and who may have the secrets of time travel on top of a host of other horrifying technologies. If he's right, he ''has'' to destroy her to save the world. Unfortunately, he doesn't have the full picture, and the pieces he knows look ''really'' bad for Agatha.

* The Robot Masters in the 6th Megaman storyline in ''[[Bob and George]]'' were Hero Antagonists trying to stop a rampaging [[Brainwashed and Crazy]] [[Villain Protagonist]] Mega Man.

{{quote|Everybody has an "[[Evil Twin]]", right? Well, ''these'' guys see our Weatherlight crew as ''their'' [[Evil Twin|evil twins]] and act accordingly. They're not villains, per se, but everybody hates them.}}

* ''[[Last Res0rt]]'' features Jason Spades, a hero on his home planet of Fenirel who happens to want to viciously kill Daisy to the exclusion of everything else, even if 'everything else' is something like ''getting the rest of the crew (including himself!) off an enemy ship alive''.

* ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'' had Major Murtaugh from Sanctum Adroit, [[By-The-Book Cop|By-The-Book Rent-a-Cop]] contracted to protect the local boss who made himself a trouble to Toughs for once not seeking any. Of course, actually she got between {{spoiler|two groups within [[The Federation|U.N.S.]] intelligence, one of which was setting her up as a scapegoat for [[Playing with Syringes|covert research]] they sponsored}}. She ended up arresting their "partner" herself and even managed to avoid any losses to her company, though this got her {{spoiler|kicked out of her team}} for entering a secret deal that involved keeping all the scandalous circumstances under wraps. Later she joined {{spoiler|Tagon's Toughs at the initiative of Kaff's father, likely looking for [[I Want Grandkids|personal goals]]}}, as well as an unattached competent officer.

 

 

* Dib from ''[[Invader Zim]],'' an eleven-year-old paranormal investigator trying to prevent the alien Zim from [[Take Over the World|taking over the world]]. However, ''Invader Zim'' has numerous [[Villain Episode]]s where Dib is the main character, making him the protagonist (and usually casting Zim as the antagonist) a good portion of the time.

** Dib is really closer to the [[Deuteragonist]]. He and Zim team up almost as often as they fight, and a fair number of episodes are about Dib dealing with other stuff while Zim makes only a cursory appearance.

** And by "overdoes it", we mean that only about three of the serie's one hundred episodes portray him as truly unsympathetic. The rest show him as more of a [[Knight in Sour Armor]], or a [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold]].

*** On the other hand, he has blatant traits of [[The Bully]] and often conveys an unsympathetic smugness to the Eds being thwarted. He is often clearly the [[Lesser of Two Evils]] compared to Eddy however, just the latter's higher [[Sympathetic POV]] ([[Butt Monkey|and much weaker evasion to karma]]) makes Kevin harder to pity.

* Borderline case with ''[[The Dreamstone]]''. There isn't very much antagonistic about the Land Of Dreams, [[Sugar Bowl|at all]]. It is perhaps for that reason however, that the heroes are kept somewhat flat compared to the villains and tend to get the shorter straw in [[Sympathetic POV]] in most episodes. [[Depending on the Writer|The odd episode]] attempts to make them the more sympathable side however.

* Candace in ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'', although "[[Anti-Hero]] Antagonist" might fit better.

** Other Looney Tunes protagonists such as Bugs and Speedy occasionally leaned into this trope as well, many of their respective shorts focusing more on the blundering of their foes.

* The Yankee Doodle Pigeon of ''[[Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines]]'' was implied to be of heroic alliance, delivering important messages to squadrons. However, his role rarely exceeded outside blowing his patriotic trumpet and giving bewildered glances to the Vulture Squadron's blundering attempts to "Stop That Pigeon".

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Goodness Tropes]]

[[Category:Hero Tropes]]