Fictional "Villains" Who Did Nothing Wrong Thread

[ShadowArxxy]

That's a fair cop, it is a common theory that Hook attended Eton as well and quite likely more common than the Lost Boy theory. It makes no sense, however, because Hook notes that he needs to have good form to be "Eligible for Pop" and yet does not believe he himself has good form, and obsesses with getting it. If he'd already attended Pop he'd already know that he had good form.

I'll also note that Hook was bo'sun, hence a senior officer, under Blackbeard (Edward Teach died 1718). He also, according to the same paragraph, served alongside Captain Flint and Long John Silver (Whom he defeated and nicknamed Barbecue). Now I'm not complaining that Treasure Island is fictional as it's perfectly reasonable that it's a true story in the world of Peter Pan. Rather I'm noting that from the dates in Treasure Island (1754 is on the map as when the treasure was buried), Flint and Silver lived a minimum of 35 years after Edward Teach died. For Hook to have done all that he would have to have been at least in his 60s by the time he got to Neverland, which hardly fits his description in the stories.

True, but the connection to Flint/Silver is thin because they're not explicitly named; the only part that's explicit is the nickname "Barbecue", which is generic enough that it doesn't necessarily have to mean Long John. Given the parallelism of the whole, "the only man X feared" boast, I pretty much always took that as an out of character tip of the hat rather than an actual in-universe crossover.

Also, Pop isn't a nickname for Eton; it's a prestigious social club *at* Eton. So him not perceiving himself as having good enough form to be eligible for Pop in no way indicates he didn't go to Eton; indeed, it confirms that he did, because an outsider wouldn't even know about it.

 

[Bear Ribs]

True, but the connection to Flint/Silver is thin because they're not explicitly named; the only part that's explicit is the nickname "Barbecue", which is generic enough that it doesn't necessarily have to mean Long John. Given the parallelism of the whole, "the only man X feared" boast, I pretty much always took that as an out of character tip of the hat rather than an actual in-universe crossover.

'I am the only man whom Barbecue feared,' he urged; 'and Flint himself feared Barbecue.'
-Peter and Wendy, Chapter XIV The Pirate Ship

Flint is called out explicitly by name, and it's not reasonable to pick and choose which parts of the sentence are canon, declaring that "Blackbeard" must be a statement of fact but "Flint" is just a boast and shouldn't be taken as factual.

 

[Ash's Boomstick]

There is the possibility that because Never Never Land kind of stops the aging process or at least retards it, maybe Hook did serve under Teach and alongside the Treasure Island characters but at different times, between those era he did in fact find NNL and stayed for a while which is the first time he met Peter and lost his hand. He left the area a shattered half-maimed wreck and so went back to sea under an alias with another crew until he recovered which is when he took/captured the Jolly Roger and headed back to take down his now nemesis and that is when the story we know begins.

Yes its a stretch but given the fantasy aspect of the story and the less than stable mentality of most incarnations of Hook, its possible that he did suffer a break at one point in his time. The one issue I can't quite figure right now is why his former crew would have left him alive (short of bribery or loyalty) or if the crew he had when he left the first time returned with him the second or if possibly they had stayed the entire time awaiting his return.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

'I am the only man whom Barbecue feared,' he urged; 'and Flint himself feared Barbecue.'
-Peter and Wendy, Chapter XIV The Pirate Ship

Flint is called out explicitly by name, and it's not reasonable to pick and choose which parts of the sentence are canon, declaring that "Blackbeard" must be a statement of fact but "Flint" is just a boast and shouldn't be taken as factual.

Very well; I didn't have that quote at hand.

On the other hand, this quote from the very same chapter explicitly confirms that Hook *did* attend one of the elite British schools; the only implicit part is that it was specifically Eton, but details like "distinguished slouch" and being eligible for Pop make it very, very clearly Eton:

Hook was not his true name. To reveal who he really was would even at this date set the country in a blaze; but as those who read between the lines must already have guessed, he had been at a famous public school; and its traditions still clung to him like garments, with which indeed they are largely concerned. Thus it was offensive to him even now to board a ship in the same dress in which he grappled her, and he still adhered in his walk to the school’s distinguished slouch. But above all he retained the passion for good form.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

The villains of Trails to Azure.

Turns out that yes, the ends really do justify the means... if the end will alter the timeline to bring back everyone you killed along the way to create a better timeline for everyone.

I guess this is also going to be a little bit of a rant. I was legitimately angry at the game for construing the villains as the bad guys, and that the protagonists undid everything they worked for.

Trails to Azure takes place in the year 1204. 2 years have passed since Trails in the Sky (whose villain who did nothing wrong was discussed here). The game takes place in Crossbell State. Over the past few centuries, Crossbell was a territory that went back and forth between being conquered by the Erebonian Empire, and the Kingdom of Calvard (before Calvard had a bloody french revolution and became a "people's republic"). 70 years before the game began, Erebonia and Calvard sat down and decided to establish Crossbell as a buffer state that they both control.

As per the agreement between the Empire and the Republic, Crossbell is not allowed to have any real sovreignty. There is an elected mayor, but he has very limited powers. Crossbell's military forces, the Crossbell Guardian Force (CGF), are heavily restricted: they can't have airships or tanks or any of that jazz. They get armored cars and humvees... and that's it. Crossbell does not have its own airforce to defend its own airspace. If any Erebonian or Calvardian citizens are arrested by the Crossbell State Police Department (CSPD), they have to be put on a train and sent back home (where they will likely get off the hook for any crimes committed in Crossbell).

Crossbell is also in a bad spot because it is used by the Empire and the Republic to commit shady activities. There is a black market and smuggling operations that people on both sides of the border use. The mafia and the triads are allowed to openly work in Crossbell. Child prostitution/trafficking is normally a hangable offense in the Empire and the Republic... so politicians and rich people go to Crossbell where it isn't cracked down upon (a vigilante eventually torched that place and killed the bastards). And so on. If any Erebonian or Calvardian citizens are arrested by the Crossbell State Police Department (CSPD), they have to be put on a train and sent back home, where they will likely get off the hook for any crimes committed in Crossbell.

Oh, and the Erebonians and Calvardian governments are deeply suspicious of each other. To deter Calvardian forces from entering into the Crossbell valley, Erebonia builds two gigantic railway guns and has them pointed at Crossbell 24/7 from their side of the border. And Calvard has a division of bombing airships ready to go 24/7 right on their side of the border at Altair.

Imagine living in Berlin during the Cold War... and organized crime is rampant as if it was Chicago, and your government isn't allowed to do anything about it. That's the life of the people of Crossbell State.

Imagine waking up in the morning, knowing that these things are pointed at your house and can wipe your city off of the face of the earth in an afternoon, and your government can't do anything about it.

Meet the trio of villains. (From left to right):

• Dieter Crois, owner of the International Bank of Crossbell.
• Ian Grimwood, attorney.
• Arios MacClaine, a former CSPD officer turned Bracer (international adventurer's guild with limited police powers).

All born and raised in Crossbell.

Arios and Ian are victims of the escalating cold war between Erebonia and Calvard. In the year 1189 (15 years ago), Erebonian agents bombed a passenger airship (it was probably carrying an Erebonian defector or a Calvardian agent) that killed everyone on board... including Ian's wife and two children. In 1199 (5 years ago), Arios' wife and daughter were travelling on a bus that was also bombed (also probably bombed by Erebonian agents), with Arios' wife being killed and his daughter Shizuku blinded. Shizuku has to be hospitalized for the next several years, with medical bills Arios' wages as a CSPD cop can't pay.

Understandably, Ian and Arios are rather embittered and disillusioned. Ian can't really sue Erebonia or Calvard or get an investigation going to avenge his wife and kids. Arios' CSPD uniform means jack all if his investigations are shut down by orders from above and he's not allowed to detain any Erebonians or Calvardians. Their wives and children will never be avenged. Arios decides to put down his CSPD badge and become a Bracer, working long hours every day of the week taking on as many bracer jobs he can to pay for Shizuku's hospital bills and surgeries.

Nothing changes until Ian and Arios meet Dieter Crois. Dieter is a patriotic Crossbellian, and he's a man with money. A lot of money. He's the owner of the International Bank of Crossbell. And he's the man with the plan. He wants out from under the thumb of the Empire and the Republic. He wants Crossbell not to be a smuggling route and a dumping ground for the Empire and the Republic, but for Crossbell to stand on its own. Crossbell for Crossbellians.

Dieter's plan:

• Dieter is going to get elected of mayor. Then, he's going to forge a defensive pact with other countries and get them to acknowledge Crossbell as a sovereign nation (namely anyone not named Erebonia or Calvard). Due to Crossbell's lucrative trade, Dieter has some bargaining power here.
• If that fails, Dieter has plan B: use military force to assert Crossbell's sovereignty and defend from invading Erebonians and Calvardians. He's got the money to fund and equip the CGF with actual military equipment. He does acknowledge that numerically speaking, Crossbell is totally outnumbered by Erebonia and Calvard, so he's going to have to pull an WW2 Germany/Japan and put some faith into experimental superweapons (3 gundams) and pray that they carry the day, somehow. (to his credit, his faith paid off and it actually worked).
• AND IF THAT FAILS... then Dieter has one last plan: timetravel. He has it on good authority that there is a magical artifact within Crossbell that is capable of remaking the timeline however he wants.

So: Dieter recruits Ian and Arios.

• Ian is going to draw up the constitution for an independent Crossbell and figure out how Crossbell's legal system will work from out under the thumb of the Erebonians and the Calvardians. Granting the CSPD the authority to actually arrest people within their borders and crack down on bad guys, etc.
• Arios is charismatic and is going to be used as an agent, travelling abroad to network with influential figures in other nations, and when the time comes to declare independence, Arios is going to be the Secretary of Defense. Arios is also the muscle who goes around searching for the magical artifact in Crossbell.
• Dieter will become the first President of Crossbell (no he's not going to be dictator for life; he is actually going to step down after the rocky first few years once he is sure Crossbell is safe and allow a new president to be elected).

Years pass. Preparations are coming along well. Arios finds and retrieves the time travel power. Dieter begins campaigning to become mayor. War materials are being stockpiled. Etc. Arios' buddy from the policeforce, Guy Bannings, did notice that something was up with Arios and decided to confront him. Ian was too invested to risk the plan falling apart and decided to kill Guy to keep the conspiracy secret. Ian and Arios covered up Guy's death.

Poor Arios. Loses his wife. His daughter gets blinded. His country is falling into ruin. And his best friend has been killed.

Year 1204. Dieter gets elected. Unfortunately the cold war between Erebonia and Calvard is really heating up. Crossbell's life expectancy as a buffer state seems to be really short. Dieter decides to hurry up and hosts the trade conference, declares to the other world leaders that he wants Crossbell independence. He tries to persuade the other nations to form a defensive pact (namely Liberl and Remiferia). Unfortunately for him, Liberl is ruled by Queen Alicia, who is an idiot who wants to appease Erebonia (despite the fact that Erebonia literally tried to invade 12 and 2 years ago and is clearly going to try a third time when the world war finally happens). Prince Albert of Remiferia supports Dieter, but just Remiferia and Crossbell alone against Erebonia and Calvard is... not optimistic, so he can't officially ally with Crossbell (if Alicia had thrown in too then likely there would have been a Remiferia-Crossbell-Liberl defensive pact. Calvard probably would have bitten the bullet and relinquished their claims over Crossbell and joined the alliance against Erebonia. The world war might not have happened since Erebonia might've been deterred from making any moves. Alas...).

With plan A having failed, Dieter decides to switch to plan B. It's revolution time! Dieter equips the CGF with new uniforms and their military equipment. Arios resigns from the Bracer guild, pulls his daughter out of the hospital and has her protected by his CGF soldiers. Dieter and Arios hold a televised press conference publicly announcing that yes, they're now sovereign and they're going to fight for it, Dieter is president and Arios is Secretary of Defense. Dieter declares that as owner of the IBC, he's going perform an asset freeze*, which will hurt Erebonia and Calvard the most since their megacorporations have a lot of their assets tied up in the IBC. This is to bait invasion as quickly as possible. Arios waits until an Erebonian tank division and a Calvardian airship division cross the border into Crossbell before unveiling the gundams and having them roast the invaders. The Erebonian railway guns also aim at the IBC and shoot at it. The gundams block the shell and disintegrate the railway guns. Dieter and Arios use the magical power to erect an impenetrable shield around Crossbell City.

With this show of unfathomed force (the powerlevel of these gundams had never been seen before in the setting up until this point), Dieter then broadcasts the carnage, and declares that any foreign power that invades Crossbell territory is going to get blown up. And at that... HOORAY! CROSSBELL IS FREE! A month passes and nobody makes a move on Crossbell, and one by one the other nations start formally acknowledging Crossbell sovereignty (perhaps NOW Alicia would like to join that defensive pact?). Erebonia and Calvard have no answer to the gundams, and their economies start hurting really bad (Calvard begin to near total economic collapse), so soon they will have to pull back their forces from the border and let Crossbell go to in order to get the asset freeze* lifted. Aside from Guy being killed and a few hundred Erebonia and Calvardian soldiers being roasted in self defense... this is a pretty good ending!

Alicia, don't you want these things as your allies? Wouldn't it be nice if your country got invaded, your enemies got roasted too?

(Asset freeze*: the IBC is depicted as your standard fraction-reserve bank, where if you put $100 in a savings account, the bank lends out $90 of it and keeps $10 in reserve based on the assumption that most people will not be pulling out their saving's account (keeping a small reserve to pay the people who do). And then they lend out 9/10ths of the profits, and then 9/10ths of that... you end up creating almost 10 times as much money using a fraction-reserve banking system. more dollars. So only like 10% of the "money" tied up inside the IBC is actual tangible gold; the other 9/10ths of the money is all ink on accounting books, right? Imaginary money? I'm not a banking expert, but can't the other nations just found another international bank, use their copies of IBC wire transfers and receipts to recreate the accounts and declare that bank to be replacing the IBC, with your IBC receipts being acceptable at that one? That way the other countries can ignore the IBC's asset freeze declaration?)

And then the protagonists had to screw it all up. Once again, the protagonists have no good reason for opposing the antagonists and desire to reset the status quo. WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU WANT TO RETURN YOUR COUNTRY TO BEING A LAWLESS CRAPHOLE WHERE CHILD TRAFICKERS CAN GET OFF SCOTT FREE AND YOUR PEOPLE ARE BEING BOMBED!?!? WHY DO YOU WANT YOUR COUNTRY TO REMAIN DEFENSELESS AND BECOME A BATTLEFIELD IN AN IMPENDING WORLD WAR THAT IS GOING TO BE LEVELED INTO A MOONSCAPE CRATER!?!? WHY!?!?

It's rather rich for the protagonists to call Dieter's declaration "unlawful". Have the heroes not been paying attention to how lawless their country is? Their justice system doesn't work!

With the power of friendship, and by the power of plot armor, the protagonists fight and defeat the gundams. (Dieter was piloting the gundam and refused to disintegrate the protagonists, who he viewed as his countrymen. He would rather be defeated by them than kill them). Oh, and the protagonists deactivate the shield around Crossbell... so yay the Erebonians and Calvardians are about to invade. Good job heroes!

With Dieter arrested and the CGF about to get wiped out by (or surrender to) Erebonian and Calvardian forces, Arios and Ian are the last guys left who can salvage this. They decide to use the time power to recreate the timeline so that everybody who died comes back, and Crossbell is a secure sovreign nation. Everyone gets their happy ending. This is... actual completely possible with the time power with pretty much no drawbacks whatsoever. Arios and Ian ask the protagonists if they have any regrets, and offers them a chance to change that.

And the protagonists say no. Their reasoning? "The deaths of the people we love gives life meaning... and undoing their deaths would render their deaths meaningless."

... What? This is murder by inaction! You have the opportunity to bring all these people back. The protagonist's brother Guy. The Erebonian and Calvardian soldiers. Arios' and Ian's wives and kids. Randy can grow up having never been a child soldier and his best friend can be brought back! And you're not taking it!

And here's the real kicker. How does Arios know that the power to remake the timeline actually works? Because he already did it. It is revealed that the entire game has actually been taking place in a second, remade timeline. In the original timeline before, the protagonists died to the final boss of the prior game. Arios was so stricken with grief, he used the timeline power to remake the timeline so that they never died in the first place, bringing them back from the dead.

Final boss of the previous game (cultist who overdosed on drugs, turning into a demon whose body was disintegrating) took down the protagonists with him in the original timeline.

Our main character is dead.

Our heroines are dead.

Randy apparently survived, but given how this is the second time he lost his best friend, and everyone he knew is dead and he's left all alone... he probably committed suicide after this in the original timeline. Or he joined the conspiracy and begged Arios to change the timeline in the first place, bringing back our heroes from the dead.

Kind of hypocritical to say "nah, we won't use the timeline power to bring people back from the dead!"... when you yourself are only alive because the timeline was remade to bring yourself back from the dead. If the protagonists really meant what they said, they could've commanded the power to revert back to the original timeline and then destroy itself, thus returning the SSS back to the dead. (Ironically the original timeline would probably have been better than this one, since the heroes wouldn't be around to screw up Crossbell's independence. Crossbell would still be protected by the gundams and the shield. World war is unlikely.)

The protagonists defeat Arios and arrest Ian, and then proceed to throw away the timeline power. Hooray! Erebonia and Calvard are invading you now! Crossbell turns into a battlefield. Erebonia emerges victorious and conquers Crossbell. The cold war begins turning hot and skirmishes start becoming common place in Nord and in Crossbell, eventually turning into a world war that will kill untold thousands of people, leaving many widows and orphans and many people homeless. I feels rather sadistic playing future games where you meet orphans of the war... knowing that the protagonists of this game are responsible for them.

The heroes could've prevented this. In fact, it only happened because the heroes opposed Dieter.

Aren't games supposed to end with the heroes making the world a better place? And yet, here it was the villains who were making the world an objectively better place to live... and the heroes who made it worse.


TL;DR: Dieter, Arios, and Ian did nothing wrong.

 

[BlackDragon98]

That's a fair cop, it is a common theory that Hook attended Eton as well and quite likely more common than the Lost Boy theory. It makes no sense, however, because Hook notes that he needs to have good form to be "Eligible for Pop" and yet does not believe he himself has good form, and obsesses with getting it. If he'd already attended Pop he'd already know that he had good form.

I'll also note that Hook was bo'sun, hence a senior officer, under Blackbeard (Edward Teach died 1718). He also, according to the same paragraph, served alongside Captain Flint and Long John Silver (Whom he defeated and nicknamed Barbecue). Now I'm not complaining that Treasure Island is fictional as it's perfectly reasonable that it's a true story in the world of Peter Pan. Rather I'm noting that from the dates in Treasure Island (1754 is on the map as when the treasure was buried), Flint and Silver lived a minimum of 35 years after Edward Teach died. For Hook to have done all that he would have to have been at least in his 60s by the time he got to Neverland, which hardly fits his description in the stories.

Maybe the treasure had a curse, like the one from Pirates of the Caribbean that turned the crew of the Black Pearl into zombies?

 

[Bassoe]

President Averell Torrent from Orson Scott Card's Empire technothrillers. His supposedly unforgivable sins being:

• When teaching history in collage, prior to his ascension to the presidency, he gave a theoretical lecture on weakness of political systems as compared to the fall of the roman republic and rise of the roman empire which was listened to by blofeldian megalomaniac Aldo Verus, who took it as an instruction manual to becoming a warlord-turned-emperor. His attempted coup failed, backfired spectacularly and led to Torrent being elected as a populist war hero tactical genius. Later, an imprisoned Venus claimed that he though Torrent had been on his side, having given him a plan for the rebellion and a electromagnetic death ray superweapon, only so he could get Venus to recruit all dissidents to Torrent's planned regime into one movement, and simultaneously get them to discredit themselves to the public as violent revolutionaries and get them to all hole up in one secret fortress which Torrent knew the location of (because he'd supposedly planned its construction) to be rounded up and persecuted for treason.
• Upon becoming president, he was heavily populist and nationalist, attempting to rebuild american infrastructure and domestic manufacturing including updates such as nuclear reactors and powersats to offset the requirement for foreign oil and funding every single experimental technological development he could find to revitalize the economy, while outright calling the loyalty of the wealthy who'd left said infrastructure to rot, offshored it and generally not done those things into question.
• When the nictovirus, a super-contagious, super-deadly plague broke out in nigeria, he predicted that there was no regime on the african continent with the monopoly of force and lack of corruption to maintain a successful quarantine and attempted to fold it into his plan to make america self-sustaining, justifying it to the public as attempting to quarantine america from any nations which had outbreaks of the nictovirus. As it turned out, he was totally right, the nictovirus did go global.
• When a number of soldiers who'd believed Venus' claims that everything had been plotted by Torrent to give himself power attempted to storm the white house and assassinate Torrent, he defended himself using a portable handheld-sized version of Venus' electromagnetic death ray from the first book to essentially microwave them to death in their power armor. He claimed it was a reverse-engineered copy DARPA had made after seizing the original from Venus' lair, Venus claimed it was the original prototype that Torrent had built and he'd modeled his giant version off of.

 

[Spartan303]

President Averell Torrent from Orson Scott Card's Empire technothrillers. His supposedly unforgivable sins being:

• When teaching history in collage, prior to his ascension to the presidency, he gave a theoretical lecture on weakness of political systems as compared to the fall of the roman republic and rise of the roman empire which was listened to by blofeldian megalomaniac Aldo Verus, who took it as an instruction manual to becoming a warlord-turned-emperor. His attempted coup failed, backfired spectacularly and led to Torrent being elected as a populist war hero tactical genius. Later, an imprisoned Venus claimed that he though Torrent had been on his side, having given him a plan for the rebellion and a electromagnetic death ray superweapon, only so he could get Venus to recruit all dissidents to Torrent's planned regime into one movement, and simultaneously get them to discredit themselves to the public as violent revolutionaries and get them to all hole up in one secret fortress which Torrent knew the location of (because he'd supposedly planned its construction) to be rounded up and persecuted for treason.
• Upon becoming president, he was heavily populist and nationalist, attempting to rebuild american infrastructure and domestic manufacturing including updates such as nuclear reactors and powersats to offset the requirement for foreign oil and funding every single experimental technological development he could find to revitalize the economy, while outright calling the loyalty of the wealthy who'd left said infrastructure to rot, offshored it and generally not done those things into question.
• When the nictovirus, a super-contagious, super-deadly plague broke out in nigeria, he predicted that there was no regime on the african continent with the monopoly of force and lack of corruption to maintain a successful quarantine and attempted to fold it into his plan to make america self-sustaining, justifying it to the public as attempting to quarantine america from any nations which had outbreaks of the nictovirus. As it turned out, he was totally right, the nictovirus did go global.
• When a number of soldiers who'd believed Venus' claims that everything had been plotted by Torrent to give himself power attempted to storm the white house and assassinate Torrent, he defended himself using a portable handheld-sized version of Venus' electromagnetic death ray from the first book to essentially microwave them to death in their power armor. He claimed it was a reverse-engineered copy DARPA had made after seizing the original from Venus' lair, Venus claimed it was the original prototype that Torrent had built and he'd modeled his giant version off of.

Okay...tell me more.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

President Averell Torrent from Orson Scott Card's Empire technothrillers.

It sounds like everyone else is just being idiots tripping over their own feet, and Torrent is just being pragmatic and making the best of the situations those people created.

 

[Husky_Khan]

I stopped reading your post when I saw this map. It's a Kingdom of Liberals? I'm sure they did plenty wrong.

I mean look... their literally based around a Fictional Bay Area! Coastal Elites for sure.

Unless the villains were fighting against the neoshitliberal globohomo Blue Anon Magic Conspirakingdom... in which case... yes... good post. I'll read the rest of it as soon as I figure out what your talking about. 😁

 

[Knowledgeispower]

What's with the "heros" in that setting apparently drinking lead since birth?

 

[Bear Ribs]

What's with the "heros" in that setting apparently drinking lead since birth?

It is extremely difficult for authors to write characters smarter than themselves.

 

[Ash's Boomstick]

It is extremely difficult for authors to write characters smarter than themselves.

Nah just use the term 'Quantum' or 'time space nexus' and people assume you are smarter than you are.

 

[Spartan303]

No, @Bassoe I'm being serious. What can you tell us about this series?

 

[Bassoe]

Okay...tell me more.

No, @Bassoe I'm being serious. What can you tell us about this series?

They're ridiculously over-the-top cliché airport technothrillers with pretense of being serious sociopolitical thrillers, somewhat hampered by the giant maser death rays, off-brand AT-ATs, power armor, secret underground/underwater* villain lairs with explosive self-destruct mechanisms, sinister schemes for world domination, etc.

The first book, Empire, covers Aldo Verus' unsuccessful attempt at taking over the country by having the president assassinated to create a massive authoritarian crackdown to catch the conspiracy responsible for said assassination, then leading his organization of 'freedom fighters' against said authoritarian crackdown.

The sequel, Hidden Empire, involved Torrent getting in bureaucratic fights with the entire american political status quo over the expense and the fact that it removed the profitable loopholes of his planned reforms, and a doomsday pandemic.

It sounds like everyone else is just being idiots tripping over their own feet, and Torrent is just being pragmatic and making the best of the situations those people created.

Pretty much yes, Torrent is either a diabolical mastermind who's been manipulating everyone, inventing multiple new fields of technology in the process, or he's spent the past decade in an escalating loop of trying to prove that he isn't secretly some kind of supervillain, with his attempted proof being misconstrued as the next step in his supposed supervillainous scheme.

>Torrent's political theorization inspire a crazed tyrant to attempt to start civil war 2 and how to do it.
'I've got to prove I'm not connected with this, better make myself extremely useful to everyone fighting it.'
>Torrent's genius plan leads to the defeat of the crazed tyrant, the arrest of all his soldiers for treason, a crackdown on connected corporations manufacturing his gadgets and weaponry and Torrent being treated as a war hero in line for the presidency.
>Then the captured villain claims this was Torrent's plan from the start.

An alternate universe of the events of John Wick, where instead of leaving what he thought was “some nobody” unconscious on the floor of his house, Iosef straight up kills him.

Hilarity ensures as he becomes The Man Who Killed John Wick. The movie follows this spoiled dumbass as the underground world of badass assassins start coming after him, convinced that only someone on their level could have killed someone as lethal as John Wick.

In other words, a more lethal version of that episode of Batman: The Animated Series that I’ve never seen before.

* Technically both, to say more would spoil the lair's location and most of the second half of the first book.

 

[Spartan303]

They usually end up being Super Villains'. Wouldn't it be awesome if he was just a regular guy who had some common sense and intelligence?

 

[Ash's Boomstick]

They usually end up being Super Villains'. Wouldn't it be awesome if he was just a regular guy who had some common sense and intelligence?

A lot of Super Villains could be rich if they sold their inventions instead. if anyone hasn't read it then maybe look for the fic 'The Shocker: Legit' which shows exactly what happens when a single member of a rogues gallery makes a decision and the huge amounts of ripple effects that choice makes.

Back to the thread though, it has been shown that some Villains are normal everyday people who get screwed by the system or someone manipulating the system (I'm looking at you Tony Stark) and have no choice but to turn to crime for that reason, its those kinds of characters who come closer to the 'did nothing wrong' type than most. I'll also point to Syndrome from The Invincibles, was he necessarily the bad guy everyone thought he was? He screwed up yes, but he wanted to make everyone super so that no-one would be unique, that could be an issue where people use that power for ill but then again it might stop a lot of society's problems as a whole.

 

[Bassoe]

Yeah, add MCU Vulture to this list. In a sensible world, he'd be enjoying his nobel prizes and six figure salary with the DOD's new XCOM branch for reverse-engineering scavenged alien gadgetry before the next invasion.

 

[Spartan303]

Yeah, add MCU Vulture to this list. In a sensible world, he'd be enjoying his nobel prizes and six figure salary with the DOD's new XCOM branch for reverse-engineering scavenged alien gadgetry before the next invasion.

One could almost add Baron Zemo to that list as well. Almost.

 

[Ash's Boomstick]

One could almost add Baron Zemo to that list as well. Almost.

Nah Zemo's a prick through and through.

A technical villain who did nothing wrong, The Winter Soldier. He was a villain but didn't know he was, what he had done, who he was or anything else helpful, thats why I said 'Technical' as he did kill people, he did hurt others, did incredible amounts of damage and almost helped wipe out hundreds of millions of people. THEN he turned back when he realised what was happening and began to regain his identity.

Then Bucky Barnes made a return and regained his place as a hero.

There are others that have technically been villains but the person themself did not do anything wrong, because it wasn't truly them that did it. (Including Superman at one time).