5 Video Game Antagonists Who Aren't Actually Evil

Key conclusions

• Antagonists in video games can have complex motivations beyond just being evil.
• Some of the villains, like Blue and Clover Gavin, are more subtle and non-evil characters.
• Characters like Hades and Xavier demonstrate how antagonists can have motives other than being villains.

Bad guys in video games are often perceived as, well, bad guys. However, even this is sometimes something of an oversimplification. Certain antagonists have little investment in being or even joining evil, instead opposing the protagonist for reasons unrelated to their affiliation.

Sometimes this is determined by the genre of the game, but other times these characters simply fall into their circumstances and the player stands in the way of their goals, whatever they may be. Here are some antagonists who aren't truly evil characters in any sense of the word.

5 Blue

Pokemon red and blue

Professor Oak's grandson, Blue, is a childhood friend and avowed rival of Red and later potentially Leaf in the remake. It has a particularly arrogant attitude and always chooses a Pokemon that will have a type advantage against the player's chosen starter Pokemon. In particular, the professor can't remember his own grandson's name, and Red can tell him (this simply serves as a mechanism for the player to name the opponent, with some often using offensive phrases for this purpose).

For all of Blue's hype, he's never really connected with Team Rocket, the game's villainous Pokémon-stealing team. Despite this, Blue is a technical finals opponent, serving as champion, which he accomplished by defeating Lance of the Elite Four. Sometime after his defeat by the Reds, Blue instead became the Viridian City Gym Leader, a position Giovanni left after he disbanded Team Rocket. In particular, he is a rare gym leader without a type specialty that uses all kinds of Pokemon to battle the player.

He often appears alongside Red in segments of the new games that focus on big streaks, and the pair act as prominent trainers that the player can fight against, or in rare cases, fight together. While the new competitors have become more mellow, and many of them were just friendly, Blue stands out as a character who is unlikeable but not evil.

4 Piano Gavin

Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney

Assistant prosecutor it's a series that often feels fairly established in its own way. With the original trilogy intended to be an entire series, popular demand led to a new installment that made an active effort to subvert it. Most prosecutors appear to be at least angry. Eager to convict defendants regardless of their actual criminality, they often make active efforts to help the real culprit as an extension of that effort, confessing only when their crimes are proven. They are also usually seen as personally unpleasant, abusive, and in some cases even defensive.

Often these prosecutors themselves become less evil over the course of the story, rethinking their methods and in most cases are replaced by another prosecutor, at least for the duration of the final trial. In all these ways and more, Klavier Gavin exists as a subversion of these tropes. Although he is somewhat rough with Apollo, he genuinely likes and respects him, and shows a much greater willingness to be open with the defense during the investigation, compared to the other prosecutors who thwart them at every turn.

However, Clavier is still the prosecutor and is responsible for arguing the guilt of the accused, picking holes in Apollo's observations wherever they occur. However, he is much more level-headed and is often willing to help Apollo if he knows the real culprit. He is also a successful rock musician, fronting a band known as the Gavinners. In court, he often plays air guitar to accompany his statements.

In such a diversion, the real villain Apollo Justice is himself a protector, namely Clavier's older brother, Christophe Gavin. Christophe was also Apollo's mentor before the young lawyer discovered that he was guilty of murder. Evidence later points to him being guilty of the second murder and guilty of taking away Phoenix Wright. Although Clavier is hesitant to find his brother guilty, once his documented crimes continue to come to light, Clavier has no objection to his punishment.

3 Hades

Hades

In many works that adapt Greek mythology, the god of death is an obvious candidate for antagonist. To some extent this is true Hadeswho presents him as a harsh, distant figure to his son Zagrey. As his son continues to try to escape the underworld, Hades is the designated antagonist. However, how evil Hades is in this version is comparatively toned down. Instead, he is characterized as an overworked god who cares for his son but finds it difficult to find time for his family amidst the weight of his responsibilities.

Although Zagrei is unable to escape the Underworld for long, he later uses his escape attempts to test its safety. To this end, Hades himself often tests his son, long after their reconciliation. Zagreus is supported by his relatives, the Olympian gods, whom he later reconciles with Hades after reuniting with his mother Persephone. In the end, despite retaining the grumpy nature we've come to expect from most of his pop culture iterations, this version of Hades isn't a true villain.

2 Xavier

Fire Emblem: Thrace 776

The Fire emblem the series has a number of characters that could qualify for this list; characters who aren't truly evil but fight the heroes, at least some of the time. Often these characters are either allies you recruit or enemies you mourn. Xavier should be first, but the painstaking work required to recruit him can often make him second.

Xavier was once a general of Leonster, of which kingdom Leif was prince before the evacuation of it. After its destruction, he was forced to choose between his subordinates and his country, choosing the former. After Leif's return to Leonster, Xavier proves to be an obstacle. To move him, Leif's tactician, Augustus, organizes the families of all of Xavier's lieutenants to convince them to defect. If the player does this, Leif is able to recruit Xavier.

The devil is in the details because it requires the player to commit enough units to protect a number of helpless allies who can be killed by enemy units at any moment. Specifically, there are eight of them, each of which needs to talk to an enemy unit to ensure their defection. The degree to which a player must be committed to this operation can be frustrating for those trying to recruit Xavier. Fortunately, despite​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​a late, all the difficulties involved in recruiting Xavier, Xavier is a reliable unit for the latter part of the game.

1 August Aquat

The psychos

Augustus is a fascinating example of such a character, as he is, from a certain point of view, neither a villain nor a villain. August is a circus acrobat and psychic whose history makes him wary of dealing with other psychics. After discovering that his son, Razputin “Raz”, has psychic abilities, he is deeply disturbed. To that end, he forces his son to do acrobatics daily to distract him from what he perceives as a traumatic world.

However, this had the unintended side effect of making Raza feel negatively about his father. This is reinforced when August flatly refuses to let Raz attend Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp, which backfires when Raz decides to do it anyway. Eventually, a troubled August discovers that Raz perceives him as a monster who hates both psychics and his son's happiness. He is horrified by the revelation and decides to help his son himself in the fight against this deformed version of him. Unfortunately, the intertwined psyches of Raz and his trainer Aleandro cause the evil August to merge with his trainer's own toxic father figure, the Butcher.

August helps his son again, allowing them to reconcile, the beginning of him learning to accept his abilities. The psychos is a series that focuses on perception. Although August wanted nothing but the best for his son, Raz's own perception led to a strained relationship.