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Magneto in the 90s. He even built an asteroid as a refuge for any mutant.
The older I get, more I agree with Magneto.
More like, the older the character gets, the more they update his backstory to be something the audience can sympathize with. Because a villain for villain's sake gets old fast.
Magneto ftw. Xavier is a naive little bitch.
"You're always sorry, Charles ...and there's always a speech!....but nobody cares."
A Bioshock-like game set on Asteroid M would be, if you will excuse the parlance, baller.
In the third season of the legend of korra, a group of people try to get rid of a monarchy (which is long established as especially unequal and oppressive) in favor of self government. They also try to get rid of the avatar, because she is an infallible being with incredibly outsized power. I love the avatar universe and get how they needed to fight them, but the group wasnβt wrong
Even the first season had Amon, the guy that wanted equality between benders and non-benders. At one point we're even shown that power was cut to a predominantly non-bender neighborhood, and when people went outside to protest to get their power turned back on, they were all rounded up and arrested. Afterwards, when Korra goes and tries to get the people that were arrested set free, she's told
All equalist suspects are being detained indefinitely. They'll be freed if and when the task force deems them no longer a threat.
Just in case it wasn't clear enough by that point that non-benders were treated as second class citizens.
I've been meaning to re-watch Korra, but I remember even the first time I watched it being a bit disappointed in the "enlightened centrism" where they are trying to paint every conflict as pacifists vs extremists.
I think it's similar to looking at BioShock 1 and BioShock Infinite. There's a lot of writers out there who just use politics and ideology as a setting for the conflict rather than actually being central to their message. It's simply a solid formula to make a villain: take any sort of stance and push it to violent extremes. Comstock is a religious zealot, Andrew Ryan I don't think ever even mentions spirituality if I remember. Ken Levine's message in the two games is not about religion, but extremes.
There are benefits. It makes the villains more nuanced and relatable. It gives the protagonist room for doubt and allows for some of the "good" guys to take on antagonistic roles. But Korra also ends up supporting an oppressive regime, and Booker DeWitt gets shoehorned into fights against the people rebelling against his enemy because... Reasons?
Watch 'The Wire' - the good guys are bad guys, bad guys are good guys. It's all mixed up!
Pokemon Sword and Shield.
Rose is trying to move the country off of fossil fuels and onto sustainable green energy. Somehow Gamefreak manages to portray this as being a terrorist and extremist. How dare he try to move Galar away from coal?
Not exactly a story. I just watched Babylon 5, and it's fascinating how the good guys are the bad guys are the good guys are the bad guys...
Voyager kinda fucks with my ability to set spoiler tags, so here is your Spoiler Warning.
The Cabin in the Woods (even tho the organisation is run by complete assholes, they also happen to postpone the end of the word)
Mass Effect series (the Geth are actually ok having peace with everyone. They just happen to be in a civil war with Reaper worshippers)
Witcher 2 (Letho turns out to be the good guy)
Wanted (the father turns out to be the good guy)
Battlestar Galactica 2004 series (yes, the Cylons enacted the nuclear holocaust on humanity, but there is a case to be made that the vast majority of them have been manipulated by a faction of ancient Cylons, which leads to a civil war later in the show)
Cylons being manipulated by other cylons doesn't absolve them of guilt.
BSG did have a few instances of the reverse of OP's question tho -- where the "good guys" turned out to be bad" -- trying to say this without spoilers; it's a 20 year old show but ffs of you haven't seen it, go see it now.
- the (temporary) new admiral
- several main characters during the part where they live on the dirty planet
- a very specific set of seven main characters (wink wink) ... .and more,..
And there's one specific example of the full 360 -- a character that starts good, turns bad, but turns out they were actually good all along. I won't give the name, but they were passing messages to the resistance.
That show was awesome.
One note tho, on the topic generally: flipping character alignments is a frequent pre-shark-jump thing, and is often bad writing. In BSG, tho, all of the "flips" are pre-planned, or at least 100% true to their character (eg the 360 example above).
Does Dr Doom count for this? He believes he's seen humanity perish in every reality except the one where he becomes the absolute ruler.
Does Snape count?
What about Loki(marvel)?
Snape was never a good guy though. Very brave, yes and he had some good qualities. He was also vindictive and a bully - willing to put his petty dislikes above the quality of his teaching.
He was also vindictive and a bully
I formed the impression that James Potter and his gang were the real bullies, and Snape is a tragic character traumatized by their bullying.
Yes, but then he went on to be an adult bullying children.
The book strongly implies that Snape turns into a horrible person as a direct consequence of James Potter's bullying. He seems to be a nice kid before that.
Snape was a good guy, in a sense of oposing the bad guy.
He was however not a good guy in a sense of being at least a decent human being.
Can't believe it's not mentioned yet, but Alan Moore's Watchmen
I cant see Ozymandias as a good guy. At all. None of the "heroes" are, but Oz was the worst of them.
Nah ozymandies was kind of an ass regardless . Did he solve a big problem ? Yes . Was he a good guy ? Far from it.
Kill la Kill, at least with the primary antagonist as the main villain isnβt really introduced until pretty late in the story.
Falling Down. Prendergrass is the good guy.
Game of Thrones, everyone is basically a villain but some of them are actually alright (like the Hound and Jamie).
I think Jaime becomes a good guy. He starts out as a bad guy but he had a redemption arc.
He starts out as a nepo-baby and then has to actually do shit throughout the show.
Satan of the Bible, similar character to Prometheus https://www.enotes.com/topics/paradise-lost/questions/why-satan-considered-hero-paradise-lost-419454
Interview With the Vampire's Lestat was a bloodthirsty murderer. The Vampire Lestat's Lestat was a bloodthirsty murderer ... with a conscience.
God Emperor Of Dune. Leto II needs his bath time.
The French version of La Femme Nikita, although it's more of a redemption arc than "villain turning out to be a good guy." She starts out as a junkie petty crook who murders a cop in cold blood, spends most of the film assassinating people for the government, and in the end seems to have gotten her life together.
But she starts out as a very not-nice person.
Does borderlands count?
!handsome jack started off as an honorable person with morals, but was repeatedly stabbed in the back and jaded over time. He still has the mindset of a good guy but the chaotic planning of a bad guy due to the experiences that he's had.!<
Looks like your spoilers aren't working - spoilers on lemmy are three : on either side of the spoiler.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban comes to mind.