Pragmatic Villainy: Difference between revisions

 

{{examples}}

* In ''[[Code Geass]]'', Cornelia tries to fight the drug trade because the drugs hurt productivity among the conquered Japanese.

* Dutch from ''[[Black Lagoon]]'' runs illegal booze, slaves, guns and drugs. He does piracy when the delivery business goes slow. He does not, however, condone his employees running off [[Ax Crazy]] and taking out their issues by shooting at noncombatants when he's in a combat zone. Not because he gives a crap about their lives, but because he wants to know that his backup can be relied upon and stay professional.

** Dutch also said in the manga that he doesn’t want to risk himself in an operation that could make him a lot of money, (dooming himself to work for significant less money that other operators) because he knows [[One Last Job|that is the best way to get himself killed]]).

* The Gandor Family in ''[[Baccano!]]'' stays steadfastly out of the drug trade, sticking with [[Neighborhood Friendly Gangsters|relatively less objectionable crimes]] like bootlegging and gambling. This is due to [[Even Evil Has Standards|actual moral objections]] on the part of Keith Gandor, but the other two Gandor brothers, Luck especially, recognize that it's also because their relatively small organization is not equipped to compete with the larger organized crime families currently running drugs.

* Moo in the ''[[Monster Rancher (anime)|Monster Rancher]]'' anime captured Holly to use the Magic Stone to locate his original body, figuring he could destroy the heroes with it. They rescued her, but by that time he had gotten what he needed to know. Rather than let them find out where he was going or try and stop him in his humanoid form, he simply left them behind so they had no idea where he was.

** [[Mad Scientist|Mayuri]] has shades of this too. He's outright worse than most of the actual villains, but he sticks to being the [[Token Evil Teammate]] because of this. Working for the Soul Society gets him: an officer position, funding, minions, supplies, etc. Working freelance gets you.. execution by the Soul Society. He's still committing all sorts of atrocities in the name of science, but at least this way, [[Cut Lex Luthor a Check|he gets paid for it.]]

* In ''[[Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force]]'', Arnage and Veyron take on two other Eclipse infectees. The latter's willy-nilly attacks on innocents will be blamed on the Huckebein, who don't want the added attention.

** Although it's implied Light's only real objection to it was that he considered the move premature. Once all the criminals were bumped off and Kira was God, Light fully intended to prune out other undesirable elements from "his" world.

 

* Crime Boss Wallenquist from ''[[Sin City]]'' refuses to seek revenge on Wallace, who almost singlehandedly dismantled his human slavery market, because there's no benefit to him.

{{quote|"Revenge is a loser's game. There's no percentage in it. All that matters is profit and power."}}

** The Shocker is almost unique among the wall-crawler's enemies in that he's rarely concerned with taking revenge on our hero and prefers to only commmit crimes that are actually profitable. Of course, superhero comics being what they are, Spider-Man is almost always the one to interfere with the Shocker's robberies.

** [[Venom (Comic Book)|Carnage]] is known to be a sadistic [[Serial Killer]] who kills simply [[For the Evulz]]. In one story, however, after escaping from Ravencroft, assaulted Martha Robinson and then wrote his catchphrase "Carnage Rules" using her blood ''and'' his own next to her on an elevator wall, but did ''not'' kill her. His own reasoning was that a live, injured, and frightened victim would cause more panic among the ''Daily Bugle'' staff than a corpse would. (And it certainly did.)

{{quote|'''Mob Boss:''' Idiot. This man is a superhero. They ''always'' have friends. Kill him and tomorrow I will have ''Superman'' pulling me out of my car.}}

* Many times in Marvel's history, Loki has fought on [[The Mighty Thor|Thor's]] side when some other villain attacks Asgard; Loki's goal is to ''rule'' Asgard, and he realizes he can't do that if it's reduced to rubble.

 

* Used for comedic effect in Dogbertcarroll's "Lex Marks The Spot", which involves Xander Harris mindswitched across universes into the body of Lex Luthor. Xander considers using Luthor's power and resources as a hero... for about five seconds, at which point he decides it would be much funnier to [[Troll]] the Justice League by doing good things while acting like an eccentric supervillain. Some examples include:

** Blowing Clark Kent's mind by suddenly announcing that he intends to give a much more generous health and pension plan to Lexcorp employees instead of going forward with a planned series of layoffs, and then claiming he's doing it not for humanitarian purposes but because "we ran the numbers and market forecasting says we actually make more money this way."

** Meanwhile, Lex Luthor is in Xander's body and discovering just how close to [[Stupid Evil]] he's been for years, after watching and reading everything with Superman in it. As a result, it seems entirely likely he may keep up Xander's efforts if they get switched back.

 

* ''[[Pale Rider]]'': "I want that preacher with a rope around him. No, wait, if we get too rough we'll make a martyr of him, last thing we want to give them is a martyr to fight for."

* In ''[[The Godfather]]'', Vito Corleone defends his refusal to involve his family with the drug trade by claiming that [[Screw the Rules, I Have Connections|his friends in the criminal justice system]] would quickly turn against him if they found out his business was drugs, as opposed to "harmless vices" like gambling or prostitution. This is [[Truth in Television|a reflection of the real-life decline of the mafia]], as one of the lynchpins in its downfall (That is, assuming it really has "fallen") was the greater involvement of federal forces in the "War on Crime" resulting from anti-drug legislation and the demonisation of drug dealing.

** Subverted later on, when they actually capture Will. They proclaim they're going to spill all his blood into the chest, just in case a cut on the hand doesn't do the trick (and also because most of the crew probably didn't want to "savor" him). They also decide to do this to Elizabeth, after seeing her blood didn't work at first.

* In ''[[Reservoir Dogs]]'', Mr. White and Mr. Pink disapprove of Mr. Blonde's killing spree...not because they have any qualms whatsoever about killing someone (they don't) but because they need a reason, even if that reason is "I'm fleeing the cops and you're standing in my way." Mr. Blonde appears to kill and torture [[For the Evulz]].

 

* Vetinari, from the ''[[Discworld]]'', does not really rule his realm with an iron fist. He has the novel idea of maintaining control by making people actually ''want'' him in charge, or at the very least, [[Vetinari Job Security|make removing him from power an unsavory prospect]].

{{quote|''He didn't administer a reign of terror. Just the occasional light shower.''}}

* In the ''[[The Draka|Draka]]'' series, the [[Villain Sue|Draka]] are horrified at the Holocaust. Because the death camps were a massive waste of resources.

* In ''[[The Hobbit]],'' the three trolls don't want to eat Bilbo, simply because he wasn't big enough to go through the trouble of skinning and boning him.

* In Tony Hillerman's ''People of Darkness,'' the hit man Colton Wolf kills as few people as he can manage (aside from his assigned targets), because the fewer people that are killed, the shorter the resulting manhunt is.

* This is one of the defining traits of [[Evil Overlord|the Lady]] in the ''[[Black Company]]'' novels- she's almost entirely devoid of compassion and mercy, and totally devoid of remorsely, but neither is she cruel for the sake of cruelty- everything she does is to get some kind of advantage, and her empire is designed to be stable and enduring. She's deliberately contrasted with her psychotic rival {{spoiler|and sister}} Soulcatcher, who is pretty much pure chaos, and her ex-husband, [[Sealed Evil in a Can|the Dominator]], whose empire, rather than being opressive but stable and organized was almost literal [[Hell on Earth]].

* In [[Belisarius Series]] Narses is a partial example. His chief motive seems to be delight in [[Because I'm Good At It|craftsmanship]] however given that, he has utter contempt for incompetent evil. Damadora is a better example. He is willing to do evil things up to and including war crimes-but only if he thinks it necessary to achieve his goal which seems to be roughly, keeping him and his family from being executed first, and stopping the war second.

 

* The Ferengi from ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]'' are a [[Planet of Hats]] based on greed. They'd never practice mass slavery or genocide-because people who are enslaved and/or dead can't buy things.

** Which doesn't actually stop one of them (working for a non-Ferengi) from selling weapons that they know will be used for genocide, though another Ferengi prevented it.

* In ''[[Power Rangers Beast Morphers]]'', the bad guys show way ''too much'' pragmatism in the episode “Making Bad”, where [[Big Bad| Evox]]’s [[Evil Plan]] involves forming an army, using the Reanimator to resurrect a villain from the past to serve as general. The decision they have to make is, who? [[The Dragon| Scrozzle]] at first suggests [[Power Rangers Mystic Force| Koragg the Knight Wolf]], showing recorded footage of his battle prowess against the Mystic Rangers (the episode is, more or less, a clip show), but then Robo-Rita points out that Koragg’s loyalty to Octomas ended [[Amnesiac Hero|when he realized who he was]], and [[Heel Face Turn|defected to the Rangers as a result]]. She then suggests [[Power Rangers in Space|Astronoma]], against showing footage of her considerable skills against Andros, but then Robo-Blaze points out this idea is worse than Koragg, showing additional footage of the reformed Kerone as the Pink Ranger, using those same skills against Villamax and Trakeena. Scrozzle then suggests [[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers|Lord Zedd]], but then Robo-Roxy points out how [[Power Rangers Zeo|he had double-crossed the Machine Empire]] and that with him they’d have a potential [[The Starscream|Starscream]] on their hands - [[Horrifying the Horror|Scrozzle quickly withdraws that suggestion]]. (Some humor is added here where Poisandra points out that Zedd was a much better husband to Rita than Sledge was to her, causing the two to argue.) A shift of scenes later, Robo-Blaze suggests Psycho Red, but Robo-Roxy questions whether he - or ''any'' of the Psycho Rangers - are a good idea, pointing out that [[Sanity Has Advantages|their obsession and lack of cooperation]] ruined the Dark Specter’s plans numerous times. Eventually, Evox gets tired of all this arguing, and after the current [[Monster of the Week]] is totalled (the battle also resulting in {{spoiler| the deaths of both Curio and Poisandra}}, which nearly louses up the whole plan to use the Reanimator) [[If You Want Something Done Right, Do it Yourself|Evox chooses his own candidate]], {{spoiler| Goldar, whom he restores as Goldar-Maximus, whose first act as the new general is to execute Sledge for his stupidity.}}

 

* In ''[[Dick Tracy]]'', the final Big Boy Caprice story by Max Allan Collins has him trying to kill Tracy with a million dollar open contract on the detective. Eventually, the organized crime ruling committee, The Apparatus, confront Caprice and tell him that the contract must be canceled. In this case, this is not motivated by moral considerations, but as a matter of professionalism considering the fact that Tracy has learned about the mob contract on him and has taken personal control of the department's Organized Crime Unit to retaliate. The Apparatus knows that they can't afford to let Tracy come at them full bore and so they must take action.

 

* ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'' has the Tau, who are (besides the [[Card-Carrying Villain]] that is Chaos) the only faction that do not have "All the aliens must die, sooner or later" as policy, and are willing to incorporate other species into the Empire - sometimes at gunpoint, but other times a species will willingly join the Tau.

** The Dark Eldar was made into this to explain how a bunch of [[Neutral Evil]] backstabbers were still alive after 20,000 years.

** Illithids will also often make alliances with humanoid of savage natures and limited intelligence, like grimlocks. Since grimlocks eat the flesh of other humanoids, they tend to take care of any brainless corpses the illithids leave behind. 5th edition takes this further, claiming grimlocks are descendants of a human-like species that worshipped illithids back when they ruled large empires.

 

* In Tennessee Williams' ''Sweet Bird of Youth'', [[Corrupt Hick|"Boss" Finley]] is upset to discover that his son arranged for a team of goons to break into his political rival's house, rough him up, and burn some of his possessions on the lawn. Not because it's wrong, of course, but because they left evidence linking them to the Finley campaign. [[Crosses the Line Twice|The least they could have done was dress up like the Klan and let them take the blame.]]

 

* In ''[[Heroes of Might and Magic]] IV'', after founding his own kingdom, the necromancer Gauldoth the Half-Dead gains a once-in-a-lifetime chance to invade his neighbouring nation while their armies are elsewhere and become the most powerful ruler in the world. Instead of doing this, he sends the invasion plans to the queen of said nation, telling his [[Number Two]] that [[Genre Savvy|whenever a necromancer gets too greedy, every living thing in the world allies against them]]. Instead, he's content on ruling his own little nation for all eternity, overlooked by everyone else.

* [[Super Mario Bros.|Bowser.]] At times he helps the Mario Brothers and other people, only because he wants to be the only one to take over the Mushroom Kingdom. Also, since his goal is conquest and not destruction, he'll assist the Mario Brothers so that others can't destroy what he wants to conquer.

* While Derek Clifford Simmons from ''[[Resident Evil]]'' is initially horrified by what Carla Radames did to him, he quickly realizes that Carla also gave him a pretty good way to kill his enemies, Helena and Leon. So he keeps on mutating into progressively more and more dangerous forms to gain the upper hand.

 

** His entire philosophy is when [[Evil Is Stylish|style]] fails, fall back on this trope.

{{quote|''And now I see that planning doesn't matter. Strategy doesn't matter. Only two things matter: Force in as great a concentration as you can muster, and style. And in a pinch,'' style can slide. }}

{{quote|It's okay to have a steak when there's a chicken in every pot. But if you're eating steak and the majority of people have nothing, it doesn't take long for you to look like a chicken.}}

 

* Pretty much the basis of the [[Evil Overlord List]].

* Dark General Cobalt of ''[[Sailor Nothing]]'' is this in contrast to his [[Card-Carrying Villain]] acquaintances. It's not that he has a moral objection to rape, torture, and murder, it's just that he finds it a colossal waste of time. He'd much rather focus on getting things done. Interestingly, his pragmatism actually results in his being the villain the heroes encounter the ''most''—in the interests of actually getting his project off the ground, he decides to kill the girls who've been wiping out his underlings.

* The very reason the [[Flanders Company]] was created in-universe.

 

* Shere Kahn in ''[[Tale Spin]]'' once made certain that his workers were freed from a corrupt underling who was working them to death.

{{quote|'''Shere Khan''': ''My dear, I desire only money and power. Unpresentable employees provide me with neither.''}}

* Zordrak, of all villains, invokes this in ''[[The Dreamstone]]'' when Urpgor asks why he doesn't just ''kill'' [[Team Rocket|his bumbling minions Blob, Frizz and Nug]].

* In ''[[South Park]]'', "Fun With Veal"

'''Wuya:''' Hmm, good point.}}

 

* [[Francisco Franco|Generalisimo Franco]]. While he was not a nice person, he was competent as a dictator, was more instrumental about his atrocities, and avoided the type of "eccentricities" that [[Those Wacky Nazis]] are associated with. One contemporary said, "Franco made Spain safe. Not for Democracy, but for the people."

* [[Benito Mussolini]], ''Il Duce'' of [[Fascist Italy]], killed far fewer political opponents than Hitler or Stalin (whole orders of magnitudes fewer) and remained fairly pragmatic (although unnecessarily showmanlike) about instituting Fascism in Italy and the world up till the point he started getting chummy with Hitler.

** That may be more, [[Even Evil Has Standards]]. He was an incompetent tyrant, unlike Franco who whatever his faults was competent at least. Mussolini also devoted himself to a cult of conquest which Italy's military capability could really not support (nor morale - what's with all the accounts on how the Italian troops abroad clearly wanted to go home no less than the locals wanted to throw them out), and which brought no benefit to Italy. Franco did none of this; he was perfectly happy to remain neutral, and avoid tangling with the [[Brits With Battleships|Royal Navy]]. And Franco didn't give a hoot about how ungrateful [[Adolf Hitler]] thought him.

*** Of course, Mussolini is the one who got himself messily lynched.

{{quote|Kill everyone, and you take a million bolts of silk all at once. Let the people live, and you can have ''500,000'' bolts of silk ''every year''.}}

** He also recognized the value of trade, even with nations whom you planned on conquering, and encouraged trade with other nations heavily. Gaining material goods from other lands is always a welcome asset, and sending your own merchants into foreign lands allowed them to gather crucial intelligence for when you finally moved in to conquer them. In fact, he didn't move on Baghdad after the local ruler robbed the caravan (loaded mostly with gifts to him in the first place - which is to say, performed the exact opposite of Pragmatic Villainy), but sent envoys to investigate what the hell just happened - though when ''they'' were assaulted, this was one of the things he considered unforgivable.

 

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