Light Is Not Good/Video Games: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

* In [[Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions]] {{spoiler|Mysterio used the power of light on the first phase of the final battle}}

* Taken literally in ''[[The Path]]'', where a light at the edge of the forest means that you are approaching some infinitely creepy tableau {{spoiler|if not your character's metaphoric psychosexual death}}.

* The [[Evil Empire]] of ''[[Xenogears]]'' is the Sacred Empire of Solaris. Despite being populated mostly by slave labor and an upper-class of unrepentant douchebags, native Solarians are mostly light-haired, most wear white clothing, their military Gears and vehicles tend to be white. Solaris ''itself'' is white. White is also a major motif of the [[Big Bad]] and his component parts. Save for a few notable exceptions, you might almost say that this game plays the trope straight.

** M. Bison's "true" form in ''[[Street Fighter EX]] 2'' wore a white uniform.

* The final bosses of the ''[[House of the Dead]] 2'' and ''3'' are magnificent shiny quicksilvery creatures bearing a striking contrast with the usual shambling rotten and untidy lot of the zombie army. They are still dicks though.

** In fact, Solaris was the original being. Iblis was the embodiment of his pure unrestrained power and Mephiles was his consciousness, which was probably shadowy and dark due to how ''supremely pissed off'' Solaris was at being experimented on.

* [[Fatal Fury|Kain R. Heinlein.]]

* One of the major plot points in ''[[Tales of Symphonia]]''. The major villain, {{spoiler|Mithos, is a [[Fallen Hero]], and his main form of attack carries over into his villainous style}}. Appearing as a [[Bishonen]] angel with wings of multifaceted crystal, he uses mainly Light based attacks, and has a very specific vulnerability. What is it? Why, darkness! In fact, all the angels {{spoiler|except Kratos and Yuan}} have that weakness.

** Only two of the Summon Spirit boss fights result in a [[Game Over]] when you lose, one being the humanity-hating Volt, and the other is the Luna and Aska battle, and Luna and Aska are the Summon Spirits of Light. They're the last Summon Spirits to form a pact with, and since {{spoiler|Kratos}} is on the previous floor, there's no opportunity to leave and level up. So a Game Over is the only logical end to a lost battle.

* Regardless of their leader's alleged [[Omniscient Morality License]], Celestia in ''[[Disgaea]]'' qualifies as this. Though not evil, they are people capable of being very wrong while also being very sure they're right, and aren't above [[Fantastic Racism]] towards demons ''and'' humans. We do know that Lamington and Flonne aren't as apeshit about order as [[Knight Templar|Vulcanus]], but the rest...

** Actually in this sense it would seem that Lamington was usurped by the ambitious Vulcanus (despite him having no chance), and the rest of the angels merely followed orders. Lamington never actually does anything offensive besides dealing with Vulcanus and Flonne, however Flonne is dealt with by their laws {{spoiler|and in the good ending returns as a fallen angel rather than being turned into a flower}}. Flonne seems to be ruled more by ''[[The Power of Love]]'' and the ''[[Rule of Cool]]'' than anything else. She has no prejudices (and in fact states as much early in the game) and no real desires beyond living a happy life and bringing love to those around her.

** Sir Zeliek. He's a paladin with phenomenal Light powers. And he serves the Lich King. Granted, he's pretty much [[People Puppets|a prisoner of his own body and the Lich King controls him like a puppet]], so he's somewhat a subversion of this trope.

** Some skeleton paladins in Icecrown have their own interesting variation on the Light.

** The Elven priest's attack quote sums it up best: "By the power of The Light, burn!"

* Mildred Avalon, the [[Big Bad]] of the first ''[[Arcana Heart]]'' game, uses a light-elemental arcana, wears [[Woman in White|white clothing,]] is incredibly beautiful, and has shiny, beautiful blonde hair. She's also an angel bent on tearing down the barrier between the human and Elemental worlds, [[Utopia Justifies the Means|regardless of how many people she kills in the process]].

* In ''[[Grandia II]]'' the {{spoiler|Pope of the popular religion}} turns out to be helping to revive Valmar (the game's [[Satan]] analogue) because {{spoiler|contrary to the world's standard mythology, Granas (the "God"/CrystalDragonJesus of said popular religion) ''lost'' the ancient "Battle Between Good and Evil". Said Pope also seems to actually be ''much more evil than Valmar'', and sought to revive the "devil" to steal its power and make himself into a replacement for the long-dead Granas}}. Mareg's religion doesn't believe in complete evil or good (much to the disdain to one character) and is proved correct when the "real" history of the gods is shown to the heroes.

* In the ''[[Shin Megami Tensei]]'' games there are usually the alignment choices of Law (Light), Chaos (Dark), and Neutral (Whatever) (each having their own advantages and flaws). Law's flaws are that the rules are too strict and harsh, and that anybody who doesn't obey the rules must be eliminated. In fact the only reason the Chaos alignment exists is to stop the Law alignment's tyrannical reign.

** Especially seen in ''SMT 2'' and ''Nocturne'' where YHWH is the true ending's final boss in the former and a total douchebag in the latter (He is confirmed to the leader of the Law alignment).

** Light as an elemental spell. In the Persona subseries, Light's main form of offense is insta-kill spells, identical to Dark except for their element. Sometimes seemingly Light-oriented personae will learn both Light and Dark spells. Whether or not these spells are effective, Light as an element can be pretty dang cruel.

** In ''[[Strange Journey]]'', Metatron's ''Judgment Light'' insta-kills with 80% efficiency, for those not weak to Light.

*** Also plot-wise, {{spoiler|Zelenin}}'s transformation into an angel practically turns {{spoiler|her}} into a walking demon-slaugthering human-brainwashing machine.Who ''enjoys'' the whole thing.It is creepy even if you're going for the Law ending...

* All of the Totema bosses of ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics Advance]]'' use are healed by Holy, and some use it too. One of the game's most powerful swords does Holy-elemental damage, much to the dismay of many players who went into the final battle with it equipped.

* ''[[Phantasy Star IV]]'' has this as a major theme toward the end of the game. {{spoiler|The Great Light, the creator god of Algo, is not shown to be good, just not straight-up evil. The main character, Chaz, has a moral objection to the expectation that he and his companions should do the Great Light's bidding, being that the Great Light itself abandoned the solar system ages ago, and that doing so would make them no different from Zio, the cult leader/evil wizard who killed his mentor figure. More directly, though, the elemental Light creatures are few in number, live in idyllic, magical crystal castles, are immortal figures made of glowing fire. De-Vars, Sa-Lews, and Re-Faze embody Strength, Courage, and Anger respectively, and while they're all pleased that that the heroes triumph over them, they do make a point of trying to crush them in order to make sure they're worthy of the task of saving the universe. Re-Faze in particular is willing to isolate, trick, traumatize, and insult Chaz in order to test his mettle.}} In the end, only good can truly triumph over evil, and good can only exist in the human heart.

* Destroyman in ''[[No More Heroes]]'' appears to be a [[Superhero]] and claims to fight with honour...but it's not hard to see that he's one of the most dirty fighting, [[Ax Crazy]] assassins that Travis has to fight.

* The Angels in ''[[Bayonetta]]'', which are best described as "grotesque monstrosities with marble-colored skin, stereotypical Greekish clothing, wings, and halos."

* ''[[Jak 3]]'':

** Count Veger is a [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] and [[Knight Templar]] who seeks to become "the glorious light that burns away the shadows". This includes [[Dark Is Not Evil|Jak himself]], who has already saved the world two times.

* [[Fall From Heaven]], a ''[[Civilization|Civilization IV]]'' [[MOD]], features the Mercurians: angels so [[The Unfettered|single-minded]] in their hunt for demons that they are often mistaken for the very demons they hunt.

* {{spoiler|Taki's}}, {{spoiler|Siegfried's}}, and {{spoiler|Cassandra's}} endings in ''[[Soul Series|Soul Calibur IV]]'' touch upon the fact that the titular spirit sword can easily be just as dangerous and manipulative as its darker counterpart and precursor, Soul Edge.

*** The Izayoi's reputation as a very nasty Sealed Weapon has spread far and wide, and everyone in the know {{spoiler|who isn't Hazama or Relius}} voices their objections to her wielding it. In her Story mode, Jin is exasperated that she would wield it, and Hakumen's Story mode conversation with Jin is a request to save her {{spoiler|both from Terumi's machinations and}} from it. Ragna, after defeating her in Arcade mode, tells her to get rid of it immediately, and if her combat quotes are any indication, Makoto's not fond of it either.

** When we first see Mu-12, she descends from the Cauldron bathed in a bright light, lending her an almost angelic appearance. Also, most of her attacks are light-based to some extent. She's also known as Kusanagi, the sword that slays gods, and is {{spoiler|Noel's [[Super-Powered Evil Side]]}}.

* The [[Big Bad]] of the upcoming MMO ''[[Star Wars: The Old Republic]]'', the Sith Emperor, shows his face for the first time in the game's lead-in webcomic (he'd been nothing but a hologram in previous promotional material) and he's... a serene, clean-shaven young man, almost monk-like, dressed in a brilliant white cloak. [[Sarcasm Mode|Certainly he won't be a problem, right?]]

* ''[[Tales of Graces]]'' at first seems to [[Light Is Good|avert]] this trope, seeing how the Sophie, the heroine, has powers related to light, and the [[Big Bad]] prefers [[Dark Is Edgy]]. But later it turns out {{spoiler|Sophie was more or less a [[Lawful Neutral]] [[Amnesiac Dissonance|before her amnesia]] and tried to kill the [[Big Bad]]. The villain at first acted in self-defense and then became a [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds]]. In the end, he does a [[Heel Face Turn]] and befriends the heroes.}}

* [[City of Heroes|Nova Praetoria]] by far the brightest, shiniest zone in all of ''[[City of Heroes]]''. There's a bright Gold on White Motif, all of the civilians are happy, statues of superheroes dot the landscape, and one of the first missions involves ''picking flowers''. Did I mention that this is the Evil [[Mirror Universe]] version of Paragon City?

** With the new side switching system, now even the brightest, most light oriented Empathy/Energy Blast Defender can be a [[Complete Monster]]!

** Subverted with Reshiram from ''[[Pokémon Black and White]]'' (especially in ''White''), however.

*** Team Plasma is rather strongly based on Christianity, with their Templar-like uniforms, talk about "saving" Pokemon, and use of the Chi Rho, an ancient symbol used to represent Jesus, as a symbol. They're also a deranged hypocritical terrorist cult {{spoiler|being manipulated by a fraudulent leader in his attempt to gain power.}}

** The Khalai Protoss *do* get better though, most likely because nearly all of the Judicators and Conclave leaders were killed during the Zerg invasion of Aiur. Aldaris was the last of the "old order", {{spoiler|and he gets killed by Kerrigan after starting another war among the Protoss}}. All of the [[Lawful Stupid]] fundamentalists were killed off, and only the ones more willing to change their ways and work with the Dark Templar survived.

* ''[[Magical Vacation|Magical Starsign]]'' assigns a starsign to everyone, including antagonists. Most of the Space Police is of Light. And a sizeable chunk of them cooperates with the pirate otters.

* The guardian faction from [[Rift]], they're the chosen of the world's gods, live well and faithfully, yet they're [[Knight Templar|genocidally zealotic]] towards anything that shows a sign of heresy, they're also very, very quick to lose their minds, for example in the Defiant version of [[Bad Future]] instance fall of lantern hook, where the world is being assaulted by [[Playing with Fire|Maelforge]], they completely lose it and start throwing everyone, innocent, guilty, believer and heritic alike into the fires.

* [[Team Fortress 2]]: see the [[The Medic|healer]] [[Man in White|decked out in white]], [[Sophisticated As Hell]] and surrounded by his [[Disturbed Doves|flock of pet doves]]? He happens to be (arguably) the most [[Heroic Sociopath|sociopathic]] character in the game, and is generally [[Deadly Doctor|more invested in cutting people up than putting them back together.]]

* ''[[Assassin's Creed]]'': Abstergo Industries, the current incarnation of the Templar, favour sterile white surroundings, with [[Big Bad]] Dr. Vidic as a [[Man in White]].

* In [[Terraria]], you have the hallow biome, which is a polar opposite to [[The Corruption]], with multicolored trees and a permanent rainbow, but infects other biomes exactly the same way, and its inhabitants (which include pixies and unicorns) are just as nasty as their corrupt counterparts.

* Tabuu, the [[Big Bad]] of [[Super Smash Bros.|''Super Smash Bros. Brawl'']], actually resembles an angel.

* [[Viewtiful Joe|Viewtiful Joe 2]] has {{spoiler|Jet, Joe's father}}. At first, he's the [[Dark Is Evil|Black Emperor]], but after absorbing the power of the [[Applied Phlebotinum|7 Rainbow Oscars]], he becomes {{spoiler|Dark Hero Jet Black}}, who wears an all-white outfit. [[Genius Bonus|Fitting, because white is made up of a full spectrum of colors.]]

* [[Wii Ware]] title The Magic Obelisk has the main character as a tree spirit who must remain in the shade, or else he will turn into a tree, resulting in [[Game Over]].

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Light Is Not Good]]