Light Is Not Good/Western Animation

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • The Guardian Angel from Adventure Time.
  • While My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has lots of Light Is Good (unless you're one of the fans who considers Celestia evil), there are some hints that light powers =/= goodness. It is implied briefly that the stars helped freeing Nightmare Moon, and considering how actual star made beings exist in the forms of Ursa Minor and Major, it isn't a stretch to think at least some are actual entities. Discord also seems to like to teleport by using bright white flashes.
    • Celestia does qualify for this Trope, or more accurately, has the potential to do so if she's not careful, and in "A Royal Problem", the appearance of Daybreaker - Celestia's evil side given life, much like Nightmare Moon was the same for Luna - confirmed it. (Which means, ironically, Celestia's "dark side" is a being of Light.) This could have potentially turned Celestia into a light version of Nightmare Moon, and - ironically - it was Luna's aid that helped her from succumbing. Yeah, Celestia, if only you hadn't been so quick to judge way back when...
  • Teen Titans
    • Dr. Light, who even makes a joke about it while fighting Raven, the Teen Titans' version of Dark Is Not Evil. After pasting her with a laser bolt, he asks her, "What, scared of the light?" (Then her Super-Powered Evil Side got him, right after mockingly asking him if he was afraid of the dark. He wound up being so for a while. In a later appearance he fought as usual against the Titans until seeing Raven, at which point he instantly surrendered.)
    • Brother Blood wears white and yellow and is quite charismatic. His powers are psychic in nature, but otherwise seems light aligned. Bonus points for Word of God, which states that he was intended to be a Foil of Slade; while he hides in the shadows, Brother Blood likes being the center in the spotlight.
    • Angel, an angel themed H.I.V.E. student.
  • South Park
    • In the Christmas episode, Stan helps cute forest critters build a manger for their baby to be born in, only to find out they're satanists and the baby is the Antichrist.
    • The furry little animals later return in Imaginationland as part of the Evil Imagination army. They prove to be the most evil of the group, all of their actions involve violent rape, urophilia, or some other horrible thing that squicks out all other evil creatures. The fact that they're borne from Cartman's imagination might come as no surprise.
    • The Knights of Standards and Practises from "It Hits the Fan" are Knight Templar in nature, although they were clearly the lesser evil. The forces of Heaven, while technically good, sometimes get less pleasant.
  • Interestingly, Jackie Chan Adventures presents dark (well, "yin") as good, and light as evil. Well, more like nice and Jerkass than good and evil. This is in keeping with Chinese symbolism, in which Yin represents coolness, shade and calm, while Yang represents heat, fire (or sunburn) and passion, and neither is entirely good nor entirely evil.
  • A certain Freakazoid! villain whose name is not any mystery always carries a candle when kidnapping his victims.
  • Mike Morningstar from Ben 10 Alien Force. Sparkly, golden, glittery light powers. But to fuel these powers... he sucks life-force from girls, turning them into his private zombie army. Yes, that does sound familiar.
    • Until he became the hideous Darkstar, though in one episode he managed to return to his old sparkling self for some moments, by draining the life from his enemies.
  • Superman villain Luminus from the DCAU. The Justice Lords may also qualify.
    • Again, the Justice Lords are the DCAU version of Wildstorm's Authority.
  • The Overworlders from Chaotic count for this. Although being contrasted with the evil-looking Underworlders no side is given to be more or less evil then the other.
    • In "Chaotic Crisis", Maxor, during an attempt to force the Underworlders back to Perim, reveals his intentions to conquer Earth for the Overworlders ( It was All Just a Dream).
  • Daemon, the most powerful villain in ReBoot, is brightly colored, speaks with a soft French accent, and is generally styled after Joan of Arc. She also wants to unite the entire Net under her order and then destroy it, to create perfect order in oblivion.
  • In a segment of The Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror VI", Homer gets trapped in a 3D dimension. When Reverend Lovejoy asks if he sees a light Homer says yes and the Reverend instructs him to "Head into the light my son." Cue the sound of electricity and Homer screaming in pain.
  • In a ThunderCats episode, the titular feline heroes are faced with two aliens: one is a gruff, armored reptilian(?) and the other is a gentle-voiced, delicate golden robot in white robes. The golden robot claims he's being hunted by the reptile (either they're at war or it's a cop chasing a criminal); naturally the opposite is true.
  • Although good, the Air Tribe from Gormiti: The Lords of Nature Return resort to anything to defend their people, fitting well on the Knight Templar aspect of this trope; this is exploited by the Fire Tribe, which convinces them to do a Heel Face Turn on the backstory of the series, with not very pleasant results. Being modelled after fairies and angels, and with white, yellow/gold and bright blue as their main colouration pattern, they look rather pleasant compared to the other tribes, which have quite grotesque members. An actual Light tribe exists in the franchise; they just haven't showed up in the series. Since the show is quite Animesque, it wouldn't be surprising if they were Knight Templar-ish as well...
  • In Cats Don't Dance, Darla Dimple looks like a sweet, cute little girl that wears pink and or other light coloured clothes, she is blonde and has blue eyes, and she even goes as far as playing the role of an angel in a movie. Sure she must be innocent and sweet, right? WRONG!!!!
  • Stimpy's conscience in The Ren and Stimpy Show. A Jiminy Cricket Expy who appears in a burst of light and goody goody sounding music, offering platitudes with a twisted attempt at a warm facial expression and demeanor. He's really a dense, dangerous, domineering jerkwad who himself abuses Ren against his own conscience when he sees Ren pick on Stimpy, and leaves Ren entirely alone otherwise despite having been lent to him to be his temporary conscience (since Ren ordinarily has none).
  • On Young Justice, the Big Bads (so far, at least) are a council referring to itself as the Light. So far its leaders are not seen directly except as bright silhouettes on computer screens. Superboy, who was created by them, originally wore a white version of Superman's costume before switching to a black one after his Heel Face Turn.
  • Little Suzy, the usually pretty blonde little girl often spouting cute nonsical words and adorable in almost everyone's eyes on Phineas and Ferb ...is actually a monster. She makes Candace's life a living hell whenever she's around to the point of Candace becoming frightened of her. This also applies to Buford. "Justified" in one episode where she tells Candace that it's just how she acts in order to control her older brother... which doesn't make it any better.
  • The Big Bad in Batman Beyond's first season, Blight, emits a bright radioactive green glow. This contrasts with Batman, who is dark, and can even turn invisible.
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Fire Nation has this secondary to Kill It with Fire. The Power of the Sun? Check. Lawful Evil tendencies? Check. The best Firebenders use of Lightning Bolts? Check. Subverted with the the good Firebenders.
  • Miss Power from Word Girl looks like a superhero but anything but heroic about her...
  • In She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Light Hope, by her very name, seems to be trustworthy, especially to fans of the original series. She is not. While her cold and creepy demeanor is an early clue of her Knight Templar views, Light Hope's morals have been further corrupted by the First Ones, genocidal beings who seek to turn Etheria itself into a super-weapon that can "purify" the rest of the universe by "cleansing" it of "impure" races.
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