The Extremist Was Right: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}{{Needs Image}}

{{quote|''I was away for a '''few years''' and I came back to a world in '''ruins'''. Death, destruction, chaos, the endless fighting--it was like the [[Big Good|Heterodyne Boys]] had never existed. Things were worse than ever. So I stopped it. And I did it '''my''' way this time. No more negotiating. No more promises. No more second chances. [[In the End You Are on Your Own|And I did it alone.]] [[I Did What I Had to Do|Because I had to.]]

 

The [[Shades of Conflict|scale]] of morality swings quite a ways, from [[The Messiah]] to a [[Complete Monster]], and it gets even more confusing when you factor in [[Anti-Villain|Anti Villains]] and [[Anti-Hero|Anti Heroes]]. But they're all easily defined. [[The Messiah]] is the ultimate [[Neutral Good]]; an [[Anti-Villain]] is a ''very'' morally ambiguous villain, and a [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] is someone who does the wrong things for the right reasons—or at least reasons right to his mind.

 

{{noreallife|people are not going to agree on your nominations for extremists who were right all along, and that'll lead to [[Flame War]]s, and nobody will walk away happy.}}

{{examples}}

* ''[[Planetes]]'': The [[Western Terrorists|Space Defense Front]] eventually manages to force the richer nations to the negotiating table, and get a better deal for the poorer nations.

* Lelouch Lamperouge of ''[[Code Geass]]'' starts off on a [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] armed with [[Compelling Voice|the Geass of Command]]; by the end, he's not only saved the world from his father's mad scheme to force [[Assimilation Plot|Assimilation]] upon all humankind, but he's executed a thoroughly genius gambit to unite the world in peace {{spoiler|by becoming [[Complete Monster|the most cruel and brutal dictator of all time]], [[Zero-Approval Gambit|and at the moment of his ultimate triumph, being publicly assassinated by his best friend in the guise of the very hero he himself created]].}}

 

== Comic Books ==

* ''[[V for Vendetta]]'' averts the trope, implying that the anarchist state V created via his terrorism may turn out to be just as bad a place as the fascist state he overthrew. The film adaptation plays it straight though, with no fear of a possibly dark future portrayed.

* In ''[[Watchmen]]'', also by [[Alan Moore]], {{spoiler|Ozymandias' plan to trick the superpowers into peace}} works initially, but it's [[Left Hanging]] whether it's going to last for long. In this case, [[Watchmen (film)|the movie]] doesn't differ much.

** In the older days of the Superman comics, there was an entire planet called Lexor that worshiped Luthor as the greatest hero ever, because he had saved their entire planet. The planet ''blew up'' due to Lex shooting at a control tower that kept the planet stabilized. While trying to shoot at Superman. [[Never My Fault|Unwilling to accept his role]] in destroying his own home and ''killing his own family'', Luthor's hatred of Superman [[It Got Worse|got worse.]]

 

 

== Film ==

** Of course, the Coopers' {{spoiler|[[Not a Zombie|stubborn refusal to admit]] [[Zombie Infectee|their daughter's state]]}} may have doomed them all anyway.

* ''[[Thor (film)|Thor]]'': The [[Big Bad]] engineers Thor's banishment to Earth because he felt he was unfit to rule. In the course of his adventures Thor drops his hot-headed [[Boisterous Bruiser]] ways, becoming [[Reasonable Authority Figure|humble and mature]]. Of course, the ''intention'' was to frame him up and rule in his place, [[Nice Job Fixing It, Villain|but still]]!

*** The ''whole plot'' 'just kind of happened.' It is the most thrown-together villainous scheme I have ever seen actually operate, probably because it is done by a brilliant prankster and politician while his mind shatters into little tiny pieces.

*** ''Thor'' was two movies: A tragedy about Loki's insanity and a combat-heavy rom-com about Thor's maturity. Then they crossed over again and there was a giant robot battle. And it was actually kind of awesome.

* ''[[Ender's Game]]'': Peter Wiggin is cast as a nascent serial killer in the beginning of the series. By the time the third book rolls around he is "Peter the Hegemon," the man who united humanity via Machiavellian politics, the vilification of his own brother Ender ("the Xenocide") [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|and]]...[[Sock Puppet]] bloggers. Yay for sociopathy!

** It should be noted that Ender was [[My God, What Have I Done?|kind of down for]] [[The Atoner|the whole vilification thing]].

** Graff and Rackham also have shades of this trope.

** At the end of [[Orson Scott Card's Empire|''Hidden Empire'']] this seems to be the conclusion.

** And the flip-side of that is, the one Hand who relied on morality and honor instead of ruthless effectiveness is also the one whose actions directly led to the death of the king, the resulting shattering of the kingdom and civil war, and indirectly to just about 90% of the deaths that occur in the series.

** Thats a bit of a simplification of the whole affair. Tywin kept the peace as Hand for Aery's for twenty years '''without'' doing all that much ruthless persecution, because there wasn't much need to, and sowed the seeds of his own destruction with his behaviour towards his son Tyrion. His most extreme actions, like unleashing [[Complete Monster|Gregor Clegane]] or orchestrating [[Kill'Em All|the Red Wedding]] ultimately destabalised the country further. Ned Stark's actions did not lead to the death of the King- he was already marked for death long before he came along, and the killer points out all they did was get him more drunk than usual and wait for him to do something stupid as always. Stark's mistake was trusting the local [[Manipulative Bastard]] who, its later revealed, murdered his predecessor, betrayed him and later murdered the new King for the express purpose of sending everything to Hell, so at worst Ned just gave him the excuse he was looking for. Ned just trusted the wrong man who, it must be said, has managed to dupe smarter and less noble men than he.

* The rationale of the Thallonians in [[Star Trek: New Frontier]]. The Thallonian Empire brought peace to the warring races of their sector by conquering them all, forcing squabbling factions to settle on different planets, and generally ruling with an iron fist. They were a harsh and often brutal regime...but they did keep the peace. With the empire gone, Si Cwan rightly fears all the old conflicts will start up again, throwing the region into chaos.

* David Gerrold's ''Yesterday's Children'' keeps it ambiguous whether the first officer is insanely chasing a hallucination or conducting a [[Batman Gambit]] against an unseen foe. Then it works out just fine in the span of about a page.

* The Redeker Plan in ''[[World War Z]]'' was basically a strategy that required the world's governments to use a good chunk of their civilian population as bait to distract the zombie hordes, while the nation's military, industrial and political figures, as well as the rest of the population, regroup in a single safe zone... and it works. Oh, and the plan was originally created by [[The Apartheid Era|apartheid]] [[South Africa]] to deal with a black revolution.

* Emperor Ezar in [[Vorkosigan Saga]] who first started an unprovoked war and then lost it deliberatelty, in the process almost driving his most loyal and incorruptable supporter into suicide, killing thousands and bringing about the rape of several women as a by-product. The reason? [[The Emperor]] believed(not inplausibly) son was so absolutely [[The Caligula|insane]] that the only other choice would be to ruin his realm with a bloody civil war just to get rid of him. As the final result was that Barrayar in fact was able to evolve into a period of peace, prosperity, and stability, well one might say he was right. Sort of.

 

== Live Action TV ==

 

* In [[Deep Space Nine]], a secret organization in Starfleet poisons the entirety of the Great Link, a species of shapeshifters who the races of the Dominions see as gods (Or at least rulers). Their reason for this is that The Dominion is the greatest threat The Federation has ever faced, and so genocide would be an acceptable solution to the problem. In a show where every cast member has engaged in highly morally questionable acts in order to do good, every one of them sees this as going too far. And yet, it is only the promise of the cure for the disease that convinces the Founder in charge of the armed forces to surrender peacefully when she is captured. Under any other circumstances, she would have ordered her soldiers to fight to the bitter end, which would have resulted in countless more casualties, in what was already the largest battle in the history of The Federation.

** Of course Section 31 didn't want the cure to be found. They tried to stop Bashir from finding it and tried to interfere when they thought he had. The Federation Council also could have offered to give the cure to the Founders in exchange for surrender but voted not to. It's only because of Odo's decision to cure the Female Shapeshifter that the war ended, which wasn't the original plan. Also there is the fact that they used Odo as a carrier to spread the disease to the others. Odo had been a long time Federation ally who sided with them against his own people, and they not only infected him but were willing to prevent Bashir from getting the cure to save him. If Odo had died, the war would have gone on a lot longer.

** The same goes for the Scarlet Empress. Sure, she did some pretty bad things to gain control of the [[Wave Motion Gun|Sword of Creation]], used it to make herself the undisputed ruler of what she made the most powerful empire in the world, and created a series of oppressive vassel states and [[Deadly Decadent Court|a ruling class fixated on self-aggrandizement and low-level infighting]], but she also used the Sword to save Creation from [[The Fair Folk|the raksha]], made sure they could never come back to finish the job, and spared Creation the constant intense (civil) wars that characterised the regime preceding her reign.

* The Brotherhood from ''[[Mutant Chronicles]]'' is an oppressive religion that tortures and executes apostates, assassinates threats to its power, demands tithes from everyone, takes children that show signs of abilities the Brotherhood needs from their parents and indoctrinates them for the rest of their lives and suppresses new technology. New religions and certain technologies are invitations for the setting's [[Big Bad]], and the money and talent the Brotherhood gathers give them a lot of power and influence, meaning that there actually is one major power that has the best of ALL humanity at heart.

** Unfortunately, 40000 is ''such'' a [[Crapsack World]] that being an [[Absolute Xenophobe]] is the only way for humanity to survive...but that hate is also the fuel their worst enemies live on. The only scenario that currently exists for defeating Chaos is if [[Kill'Em All|the Necrons wipe out sentient life first.]]

*** Or hoping the ''Rhana Dandra'' is right, and that the Imperium hasn't killed too many Illuminati and Sensei Knights, ensuring the failure of the Long Watch. Oh, and killing the God-Emperor of Mankind so he can be reborn as the Star Child and destroy Chaos by replacing it.

* An example shows up in ''[[Tales of Phantasia]]'', but it's not that game's villain who gets vindicated. It's the villain of the game's [[Prequel]], ''[[Tales of Symphonia]]''. ''Symphonia'' [[Big Bad]] Yggdrasil created the dual-world system, deprived both sides of mana, and stuck the worlds in a state of [[Medieval Stasis]] in order to prevent [[Magitek]] proliferation, which he believed would lead to another great war of the same type that destroyed civilization when he was a child. In ''Phantasia'' you come cross the ruins of magitek civilizations dating ''after'' the events of ''Symphonia''. Logs show that, you guessed it, without Yggdrassil's system, civilization destroyed itself in a [[Magitek]] war and underwent a [[Cataclysm Backstory]], sticking the world right back in [[Medieval Stasis]].

 

* ''[[Fallout: New Vegas]]'': The ''very brutal'' empire known as Caesar's Legion successfully unified eighty-six warring tribes and turned it into a safe regime for its subjects. Safe does not mean free, except if you [[He-Man Woman Hater|have a dick]] and don't have a slave collar.

** The NCR has heavy taxes, often would rather shoot first and ask questions later and limits water to a point were most barely have any to drink but its one of the best places to live.

** Actually, by the time we get to see the Council for the first time in the third game, the invasion is well underway, so we unfortunately miss their initial shocked/horrified reactions to the fact that Shepard was right all along. {{spoiler|And the Turian Councilor Sparatus ends up being [[Took a Level In Kindness|the first of the Councilors to offer Shepard aid]] in the form of vital intel}}.

** As a corollary to that, {{spoiler|The Illusive Man. Indoctrinated though he may have been, his belief in controlling the reapers is one of the three ways Shepard can choose to save the galaxy. Additionally, the 'Control Reapers' Ending is the only one wherein the Citadel isn't blown to smithereens, thus saving countless lives. Well, assuming that it wasn't all a dream anyway}}.

** In Mass Effect 2, Maelon, a former student of Mordin's, is revealed to be conducting brutal experiments on live test subjects in an attempt to develop a cure to the Genophage. After dealing with him, Shepard is given the choice of whether to either preserve the data or to destroy it. However, {{spoiler|the data becomes vitally important in the third game to ensuring the survival of the last fertile female Krogan.}}

 

== Webcomics ==

 

** A big part of the reason it worked is that his empire is not a Byzantine clusterfuck like most empires. All [http://girlgenius.wikia.com/wiki/Pax_Transylvania "The Baron's Peace"] demands is "Don't Make Me Come Over There". Which covers only two things: starting wars and possessing the [[Lost Technology]] left behind by [[Big Bad|The Other]]. [[Reasonable Authority Figure|He also heavily supports and sponsors the infrastructure of his empire with his technology.]]

** Tarvek [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20051104 shows] the same tendency, though so far hasn't had an opportunity to apply it on a large scale: "I'm not proud of that, but time was ''running out''. And I ''did'' it!". However, it's more a subversion of the trope, as though he succeeded at first, [[Laser-Guided Karma]] eventually hit him '''hard''', and plans similar to his own plans to rule Europa are falling apart around his ears.

** Subverted in recent editions of the comic, despite the fact that Klaus was the original [[Trope Namer]]. Now that Klaus is incapacitated and/or dead, the Long War has resumed, perhaps even more violently, as rulers squabble over pieces of Klaus' empire. How this will actually shake out remains to be seen, but the Aesop seems to be that all dictatorships, even benevolent ones, only last as long as they have a strong leader to keep everyone in line.

*** Not necessarily; the end result of the war may be a new empire under Agatha, Gilgamesh and Tarvek, who may be able to permanently stabilize Europa, which would provide the happy ending the comic may be going towards (as well as being totally awesome).

* Petey from ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'': He is trying to keep organic lifeforms in the galaxy from exterminating themselves by dealing with [[Omnicidal Maniac|the big threats to their existence]] for them (because they lack the will and power to do so), not caring a whit how many organic toes he has to step on in the process of doing it.

 

== Web Original ==

[[Category:Hero Tropes]]

[[Category:Villains]]

[[Category:No Real Life Examples, Please]]

[[Category:Index Has a Point]]