Best "Villains in Name Only"?

[Legion]

Jamie Lannister for sure. Yes he is an arrogant arsehole, and he is a Lannister which is a pretty nasty family overall. Yet all the things he does is largely either out of duty or what he believes to be justice. He isn't nice when he does it, and he certainly does some bad things, but he is not as bad as he originally seems.

Andrew Ryan is another one. On the surface it seems like he is a bad guy, but when it comes down to it, he had a civil war forced upon him by insane addicts and a mob boss raising an army to take the city that he made from him. Most of what he does was to try and regain stability in the city and out of a certain sense of paranoia as opposed to malice.

 

[Olliesama]

Vergil from DMC 3. While he is a villain as he sides with the demons, he has similar, and in some areas superior, skills to Dante. He's incredibly fast and a strong swordsman as well as being half-demon.
He only does antagonistic things like awakening the Temen-Ni-Gru in order to claim what in his eyes is rightfully his, the power of his father in order to protect not only himself but those that he holds dear. Some may argue he only wanted a power superior to his in order to permanently defeat Mundus or the demons to make sure the incident with his mother never happens again.

 

[Rawberry101]

Roy Batty from Blade Runner. All he wants is to escape slavery and live as a human, but he can't because of his own biology. He's more sympathetic than any other character in the movie, especially with that ending monologue.

This guy. I have to admit that his final monologue was pretty powerful, It's hard to feel sympathetic towards a serial killer robot, and yet, I was.

 

[RJ 17]

Saren from Mass Effect

granted, he is somehow disturbing (Anderson's story), but let's be honest - he was probably indoctrinated already and besides, his reasoning while with Sovereign? He thought he was going to save trillions of lives. Tragic character in my opinion. And dat voice.

Which of course brings up The Illusive Man as well. Everything he did he thought he was doing "for the betterment of mankind". But like with everyone that gets Indoctrinated, the Reapers turned that ideal into a twisted reflection of itself and played TIM like a fiddle.

 

[direkiller]

The Hellgast
atleast in the back story they got cartoonishly evil at some point in the games.

 

[tellytoy]

General Knoxx. He just wants to go home.

 

[Toriver]

Stannis Baratheon from the Song of Ice and Fire.

Stannis isn't a bad guy, he's just Lawful Good/Neutral. He views order as the most important thing, he despises the chaos of war which is causing such hardship to the people, and he even forbids his men from looting, raping, and doing the other things that the rest of the would-be kings are doing. Even Melisandre isn't that bad; she's just a religious extremist who, while she has killed a few people, seems to actually be trying to help (by putting Azor Ahai reborn on the throne) so he can save the world from the Others.

Jamie Lannister for sure. Yes he is an arrogant arsehole, and he is a Lannister which is a pretty nasty family overall. Yet all the things he does is largely either out of duty or what he believes to be justice. He isn't nice when he does it, and he certainly does some bad things, but he is not as bad as he originally seems.

These would be good answers, but I really don't consider either of them villains either. Jaime really wasn't a villain since Catelyn Stark released him from imprisonment in Riverrun, and to me after that surpassed Tyrion to become the true "good" character among the Lannisters. And I agree with the above posters that Stannis was never meant to be a villain. In fact, as far as I've gotten in the series (later on in book 4), I'm pulling for Stannis to "win" and take the Iron Throne.

The REAL "villain" of the series is obviously Cersei, though. There is absolutely nothing likable about Cersei.

 

[Legion]

These would be good answers, but I really don't consider either of them villains either. Jaime really wasn't a villain since Catelyn Stark released him from imprisonment in Riverrun.

That was my point though. Jamie seemed like a bad guy until we saw it from his perspective. In the first one he tries to kill a child, orders some of Ed's men killed who had done nothing wrong and had also killed a king.

It's not until later that we see it from his perspective that we realise he isn't the villain he is made out to be.

Bear in mind that in the books, nobody knows what the reader does, so to many, he still looks like a villain.

 

[Compatriot Block]

Stannis Baratheon from the Song of Ice and Fire.

Stannis isn't a bad guy, he's just Lawful Good/Neutral. He views order as the most important thing, he despises the chaos of war which is causing such hardship to the people, and he even forbids his men from looting, raping, and doing the other things that the rest of the would-be kings are doing. Even Melisandre isn't that bad; she's just a religious extremist who, while she has killed a few people, seems to actually be trying to help (by putting Azor Ahai reborn on the throne) so he can save the world from the Others.

Jamie Lannister for sure. Yes he is an arrogant arsehole, and he is a Lannister which is a pretty nasty family overall. Yet all the things he does is largely either out of duty or what he believes to be justice. He isn't nice when he does it, and he certainly does some bad things, but he is not as bad as he originally seems.

These would be good answers, but I really don't consider either of them villains either. Jaime really wasn't a villain since Catelyn Stark released him from imprisonment in Riverrun, and to me after that surpassed Tyrion to become the true "good" character among the Lannisters. And I agree with the above posters that Stannis was never meant to be a villain. In fact, as far as I've gotten in the series (later on in book 4), I'm pulling for Stannis to "win" and take the Iron Throne.

The REAL "villain" of the series is obviously Cersei, though. There is absolutely nothing likable about Cersei.

Cersei is so unlikeable that if anyone I'm talking to about the series says that she's one of their favorite characters (in a non "love-to-hate" fashion), I'll assume that they're trying to be irritating on purpose.

Seriously, talk about a character with no redeeming qualities.

 

[Eddie the head]

In the Ultimate X-men series Magneto reversed the earth's poles causing massive Tsunamis which killed millions of people and caused destruction on a global scale.I think that kinda puts him firmly in the actual villian category

There is so much wrong with that sentence I don't think I am going to try. Not that your wrong but that's not how the earth works.

 

[Semudara]

In the Ultimate X-men series Magneto reversed the earth's poles causing massive Tsunamis which killed millions of people and caused destruction on a global scale.I think that kinda puts him firmly in the actual villian category

There is so much wrong with that sentence I don't think I am going to try. Not that your wrong but that's not how the earth works.

It happened, so don't blame the poster. Blame the comic writers.

 

[SenorNemo]

A lot of these are still villains, they're just complicated villains. That does not necessarily make them villains in name only. A lot of good, genuine villains are "only trying to do what's right." What makes a villain a villain in name only is when the people trying to stop him or her have an equally good justification for doing so than the villain has for doing what he or she is doing.

Roy Batty is a good example. I would probably also defend Siegfried Kircheis and much of Von Lohengramm's inner circles (but probably not Reinhard himself) from Legend of the Galactic Heroes as, at the very least, an ambiguous case.

 

[MetalMagpie]

They already beat me to it about Magneto. One can be "right" and even understandable about his goals, but then do incredibly evil things to make it happen like, you know, mass murder.

No, wouldn't be on his side either given his methods.

anyway, the "Wicked" Witch of the West.

Seriously, what WAS the reasoning behind her being a villian? Maybe I missed something since it's been ages since I picked up a Baum book (yes, there were several books and they were neat, dark reads), and if Wicked/Son of a Witch are to be considered canon as well, her only crime seemed to refuse to be a scapegoat in her circle based on her looks and flip the bird to an extremely corrupt regime.

I thought Wicked was meant to be a subversion of The Wizard of Oz (turning the villain into the hero). It seems unfair on Baum to make Maguire's novels cannon to his world after his death.

 

[WildFire15]

how about every Villain in City of Heroes? If Paragon City is shut down, what will they have to conquer?

 

[MetalMagpie]

They already beat me to it about Magneto. One can be "right" and even understandable about his goals, but then do incredibly evil things to make it happen like, you know, mass murder.

No, wouldn't be on his side either given his methods.

anyway, the "Wicked" Witch of the West.

Seriously, what WAS the reasoning behind her being a villian? Maybe I missed something since it's been ages since I picked up a Baum book (yes, there were several books and they were neat, dark reads), and if Wicked/Son of a Witch are to be considered canon as well, her only crime seemed to refuse to be a scapegoat in her circle based on her looks and flip the bird to an extremely corrupt regime.

I thought Wicked was meant to be a subversion of The Wizard of Oz (turning the villain into the hero). It seems unfair on Baum to make Maguire's novels cannon to his world after his death.

You could say that IF Maquire's novels were radically different from Baum's, and honestly, they weren't. True, Baum's novels were still for young readers but they were far far darker and the characters much meaner/sleazier than any movie portrayal. If anything, Maquire got back into the original groove of Oz being a pretty dangerous and corrupt place.

That doesn't change the fact that Baum had already been dead for 76 years by the time Maguire's first book was published. In my personal opinion, only the author gets to decide what can be added to his cannon.

 

[Adeptus Aspartem]

Wile E. Coyote and Elmer Fudd.
Also Tom and/or Jerry, depends on which side you are.

Did i win a cookie?^^

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

Ah, Magneto. I think I understand pretty well where you're coming from, but still have to go all nay-saying on you - Magneto is definitely not a "villain in name only", as the body count is just too high, and he clearly eventually stopped caring about collateral damage. Just like the Joker - dude is crazy, no matter how fun and enticing he's been portrayed in that one good Batman movie of our century.

Then again, bear in mind that every re-iteration, every re-make and every prequel or origins story is bound to be - at the very least - laden with inaccuracies, at most it's an unimaginative trainwreck by a single individual in power or a think-tank of people that plain didn't get it.

I think Anton Szandor LaVey was too much fun to be a proper villain; also, his writings are rather reasonable and entertaining to read. Whoopee cushions for everyone!

Now, in closing, I'd like to answer your question in the sense I first understood it before clicking on it:

Best villain name, ever: Professor Elvin Atombender - now, that is just an awesome name!