Knight Templar: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

{{quote|"''Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart, for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.''"

 

Very prone to [[It's All About Me]], thus, expect their [[Pride]] on being the only righteous ones to bring them down. Many Templars are [[Lawful Neutral]] or [[Lawful Evil]], but the most egomaniacal and self-centered ones are [[Neutral Evil]] (though they'll never admit it), and the [[Animal Wrongs Group]] version is [[Chaotic Evil]].

 

See also [[Knight Templar Parent]], [[Knight Templar Big Brother]], and [[Lawful Evil]]. Those who will ''really'' do anything for their beliefs count among [[The Unfettered]]. A mild, comedic version is the [[Lord Error-Prone]]. Blind devotion to [[All Crimes Are Equal]] without the religious zealotry falls under [[Lawful Stupid]].

 

 

 

{{noreallife|calling real-life people this [[Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment|is an ''extremely'' bad idea.]]}}

* The religious branch of the [[Ancient Conspiracy]] "Soldats" in the [[Anime]] ''[[Noir]]'' were this way, despite the ironic creation of Soldats due to their persecution 1,000 years ago. Altena in ''[[Noir]]'', similarly, will stop at nothing to see her ideals realized, for the sake of humanity, no matter how many must die, Les Soldats or otherwise.

* The Vatican's elite Iscariot Organization in the anime and manga ''[[Hellsing]]''. Not that the protagonists are [[Black and Gray Morality|much better]].

** ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX (anime)|Yu-Gi-Oh GX]]'' has the Society of Light, headed by a vague alien [[Energy Beings|Energy Being]] called "The Light of Ruin".

** ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's|Yu-Gi-Oh 5 Ds]]'' makes a full set with the Yliaster Trio, {{spoiler|Aporia and Zone}}, who have come back from the future where Momentum has destroyed the world for the purpose of saving it. They have the power to erase and rewrite history, slaughtering people behind the scenes without most people being aware of what's happening. Then we have the Ark Cradle, {{spoiler|which has a negative spin, cutting all power to Neo-Domino and coming down to wipe out not only the City, the heart of Momentum, but everything in a radius of 30 miles}}. Paradox himself comes from the same future in [[The Movie]], with the same beliefs.

** He might be more of a hypocritical, propaganda-loving [[Take Over the World|megalomaniac]], however. His underling Genichiro Tsukiomi, on the other hand, {{spoiler|assassinates his best friend at a peace conference for ''daring'' to negotiate with the evil Earthlings, on Kusakabe's orders. He's become [[The Atoner]] by the time of the movie, however.}}

* Duo and Slur from the ''[[Mega Man Battle Network|RockMan.EXE]]'' saga. Slur, in particular, is another example of a thoroughly evil Knight Templar.

* Suzaku of ''[[Code Geass]]'' starts out as a [[Wide-Eyed Idealist]] and a [[Knight in Shining Armor]]. After {{spoiler|Euphemia's death}}, he falls into Knight Templar territory when he starts conquering/enslaving other countries for the Emperor in the hopes of gaining control over Japan some day. {{spoiler|Eventually, after a couple of [[My God, What Have I Done?]] moments, he gets better - or at least self-aware enough to point his [[Necessarily Evil]] tendencies in the right direction.}}

** Lelouch, too, reaches this, as, in the face of catastrophic personal failure, he declares that he's in the right, and the entire world is wrong. Another interpretation, however, is that Lelouch himself was forced to do so in a desperate attempt to compensate the tragic mistake he unwittingly committed, and secretly, he knows that he himself has gone horribly wrong.

* ''Buraiden Gai'': the Director of the Human Institute.

* ''[[Wedding Peach]]'': Saliva believed that reforming devils was stupid and kills even the harmless ones. {{spoiler|Subverted as it's discovered that a devil killed her best friend- after she showed it mercy. She mellows out though}}.

* Danzo from ''[[Naruto]]'' is one. While he does acknowledge that some of his actions are [[Necessarily Evil|morally reprehensible]], the lengths he is willing to go to, his conviction that only he can save the world, and the fact that he still believes his methods to be fully justified even when they ''cause'' most of the problems in the series, pushes him over the edge from [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] into this trope.

* In ''[[Cells at Work!]]'' the White Blood Cells (including the male protagonist) are depicted this way, showing no mercy whatsoever to invading germs and toxins. Maybe he feels ''sympathy'' for them sometimes, like he did towards the Cedar Allergens, but never mercy. Killing these invaders is what White Blood Cells do.

* In the ''[[Spyro Madness Saga]]'', we have Ember's father. He [[Moral Event Horizon|murdered his mate]] after learning she was [[Omnicidal Maniac|Malefor's]] granddaughter, which would make Ember his great granddaughter. He then abandoned Ember's egg in a swamp. [[It Got Worse|It only gets worse]] when {{spoiler|after Ember lays an egg fathered by Spyro, he kidnaps her and fools everyone into believing she's dead. He spends the next few months [[Cold-Blooded Torture|torturing]] ''his own daughter!'' When Ember's discovered [[Tear Jerker|she's badly scarred and missing a horn.]]}} And all of this was just because [[He Who Fights Monsters|he was paranoid and believed she was a demon.]] Ember then [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|shows just how wrong he was]] by {{spoiler|[[Cruel Mercy|sparing his life and allowing the police to deal with him]] proving she's not a [[You Monster!|monster like him]].}} By the way, it's {{spoiler|Terrador}}.

* The [[Mega Crossover]] ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20120424203426/http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7998417/1/Megas_Final_Wars Megas: Final Wars]'' features a wizard who is under the belief that as long as muggles and wizards have to share the world, there can never truly be world peace. So he uses the Glorft invasion as a chance to "free the world" of not just the Glorft, but muggles as well, and finally bring order to the world. To achieve this goal, he kills {{spoiler|Pinky the Chihuahua}}, forces [[Phineas and Ferb|Doofenshmirtz]] to build him a bigger and better version of [[Megas XLR|Megas]] with which he attacks the Earth Coalition while they are trying to defeat the Glorft, and drives them away from Earth, and threatens to kill {{spoiler|Phineas and Ferb}} to set an example for the other Muggles what will happen if they ever try to come back ({{spoiler|he however is talked out of this when a wizard named Madeleine points out he is just as evil as the Glorft are}}).

 

== Film ==

* Similar to the ''Jumper'' example above, the Royal Spanish Navy in ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]: On Stranger Tides'' is on a mission to destroy the Fountain of Youth for the same reasons, and shoot one of the English soldiers ''to begin with''.

* ''[[Transformers: Dark of the Moon]]'': {{spoiler|Sentinel Prime, former commander of the Autobots}}, is revealed to be this. {{spoiler|Originally Optimus's mentor and father-figure, Sentinel had been corrupted by eons of war. Convinced that Cybertron's survival was more important than loyalty to his men, Sentinel struck a deal with Megatron to find another world whose resources could be used to replenish Cybertron. Finding himself on Earth in present day, Sentinel turns on his former allies and joins Megatron to begin making plans to use Earth's resources (in particular, the six billion or so fleshlings they can turn into a [[Slave Race]]). Sentinel's Knight Templar status is also revealed to be influenced by his [[A God Am I|god complex]]; remembering how the Cybertronians, particularly the Primes, once lived like gods, he is immediately disgusted by how Earth's leaders treat the Autobots as simple machines.}}

 

== Literature ==

** The Wardens do end up seeming less like Knight Templars later into the series, {{spoiler|once Dresden becomes a Warden and has to face a lot of the same situations.}} [[Black Magic|Breaking the Laws of Magic]] [[The Dark Side|warps and corrupts people's souls]], and bringing someone back from the edge of corruption is a long and risky process. {{spoiler|Harry's ex-warlock apprentice, Molly, only broke the Laws of Magic twice, and backslides repeatedly despite Harry's constant supervision. Once Harry can't supervise her any more, she starts building up a body count.}}

** Another major subversion is Michael Carpenter. He is a Knight Templar (Knight of the Cross), and is probably one of the best examples of [[Lawful Good]] done right: compassionate, kind, and all that other good-aligned stuff while still being a total [[Badass]].

* In the ''[[Revelation Space]]'' universe, there is a species which plans to prevent any technological civilization from arising for 6 billion years to make sure that life can flourish after the Andromeda and Milky Way galaxies collide. They are perfectly willing to kill trillions of sapient beings and wipe out whole species in order to achieve this goal.

** A similar feature is in ''Anvil of Stars'' and its prequel, where the good guys' mission is to defeat a group of planet destroyers who eliminated Earth. This involves eradicating nine different intelligent species who have the misfortune to be in the way. Apparently, those races were deliberately created as (non)human shields.

* ''[[Forgotten Realms]]'' is ripe with these. Khelben "Blackstaff" Arunsun is a great self-sacrificing hero when there's a real threat. When there ''isn't'', however, he may easily ''find'' something or someone to absurdly overreact to. Eventually, he got kicked out from Harpers for carrying "dealing with evil forces against other evil forces" idea too far for their taste (and they aren't quite paladins themselves). That's the ''mild'' case.

** Renwick Caradoon, co-founder of The Knights of Samular, used his niece as a bait for a [[Deal with the Devil]]—or rather, an ''[[Horny Devils|incubus]]''—whom he planned to betray. When this backfired, he locked the fiend up...along with about 200 relatively innocent souls. When his sanctimonious indiscretions and [[Half Truth|half truths]] sent ''Khelben'' into seething rage, he ensured that the power acquired from the deal stays with him—through blackmail and hiding behind the paladins' [[With Us or Against Us]] mentality—and continued in the spirit of such deeds.

{{quote|"Evil!" the sword hissed, jerking Sir Thongolor's arms this way and that. "Any who would resist or prevent me or the holy warrior who bears me must be evil -- and must be destroyed!"}}

* Inspector Javert from ''[[Les Misérables (novel)|Les Misérables]]''. To him, law is everything, and {{spoiler|when he realizes that to act lawfully is to act unethically, he snaps and commits suicide}}. Doubles as a [[Trope Namer|Inspector]] [[Inspector Javert|Javert]].

** Nemesis is another example, and one that never really pretended to be good in the first place. He's always been after the fascist control of the world, and just picked up the method of taking over or blocking dangerous heroes ''and'' villains while providing safety after the previous method of killing civilians didn't work.

** {{spoiler|The Countess Crey}} is somewhat of a Knight Templar. {{spoiler|Originally a girl named Julianne Thompson, she started out by trying to form a team of metahumans to make the world a better place. When she was denied this due to a criminal history, she murdered a woman, took her identity, used her wealth to marry Count Crey, and then put him into a coma so that she could act out her plan. Most of Crey's work is well intentioned, but her methods are downright evil...}}

** {{spoiler|Scirocco}} is also a textbook example, planning to {{spoiler|use magic in order to force good on every villain in the world.}}

* Both the Brotherhood of Nod ''and'' the Global Defense Initiative of ''[[Command & Conquer]]'' can be considered Knights Templar, especially in the later games, where the more "good guy" traits of GDI start getting subsumed in their aggressive ruthlessness after Nod attacks them.

** The incipient paladin Gloria from her mixed melee class comes off as this, as well. Her characterization starts off painting her as just another run-of-the-mill [[The Fundamentalist|fundamentalist]], but when she starts to engage in activities that might seriously harm Mack, like sanctifying herself before battle and uttering prayers as Mack goes to meditate, which may indicate a slippage towards [[Black and White Insanity]], she becomes this.

** The emancipated golem [[Robot Girl|Two]] also comes off as this in a much less malicious way. She has a pathological desire to do as she is told, and so she takes rules [[Serious Business|very seriously]], sometimes to such a degree that she causes problems for herself and her friends.

 

== Western Animation ==

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Knight in Shining Tropes]]

[[Category:This Index Means Trouble]]

[[Category:This Index Is Not an Example]]

[[Category:Villains]]

[[Category:Depressing Tropes]]