Fictional "Villains" Who Did Nothing Wrong Thread

[Lord Sovereign]

Allowing widespread personal attacks is worse for the health of the forum then allowing relatively minor drift within a topic.

I just wanted to make a point about how it's a dog eat dog universe, mankind needs the shiny, and the RDA were far more restrained than they had to be. Wasn't expecting Megadeath to call me an despicable person for pointing out how the world works, but every day is an adventure on the internet.

 

[Free-Stater 101]

Realpolitik in this context would be acting in the best interest of mankind (as sovereign is factoring in cut content that explains the RDA's actions), which is close enough to a general moral question that I consider it reasonably on topic.

Indeed, as an example, my pick of Galbatorix has clearly done bad things in the books first by proxy and the.one or two bad things in his few appearances in the flesh.

I placed him on the list though, because for all his flaws, he is and has been the King of his empire for over a hundred years and is the legitimate ruling body, his subjects are better fed than most other middle aged peasants of history, and finally his enemy who we are supposed to be rooting for is only wanting to defeat him for revenge and simply because he's the big bad with no plan for rebuilding the empire he seeks to destroy.

Realpolitik does have a place in this thread, although it shouldn't be to the exclusion of all else.

 

[LindyAF]

It's entirely possible for both someone and their enemies to avoid wrongdoing and behave honorably. If unobtanium is necessary or greatly beneficial for humanity to secure it's existence and future in the stars, then it's not just permissible, those in a position to do so are morally required to seize it by any means necessary for both their species and their children's sake. This does not make the Na'vi any less right to defend to the death with lethal force their land and resources.

I'm also just going to note that the choice of phrasing "Did Nothing Wrong" is a reference to the "X Did Nothing Wrong" meme rather than intended to limit discussion to literally only those who were perfectly justified at all times and who never made a mistake or a misstep.

 

[Ash's Boomstick]

One character that seems to split the fandom 50/50 is Sinestro of the Green Lantern series, every single thing he did against the Lanterns ended up being correct as it saved them and the rest of existence when the War of the Rings and Blackest Night happened. He claimed that all he wanted to do and in fact may have been right all along (although that's mostly retcon tbh), allowing the good guys to win and ending up with Sinestro regaining his Green Ring.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

It seems that the humans really needed that mineral to survive, and did make good faith effort. So as a human I have to side with them.

Agreed, BUT! I do feel that the miners could've waited a little bit longer to see how the negotiations resolved. It feels really bizzare for them to invest all this time and effort getting soooooo close to the tribe... only to say "nah, we're not going to even try negotiating, we're just going to go straight for bulldozing them all off the land". Even if they couldn't get them to move off the tree, perhaps they could have been pointed towards other deposits of the mineral.

Also the lady that killed the Crystalline entity in Star Trek enterprise. It was scourging planets and Picard wanted to somehow negotiate with it.

^^^^

Picard is incredibly wishy washy as to what kind of life he is willing to stand up and protect. Remember that time when Picard was willing to let an entire planet of tribesmen die to a natural disaster because "muh we can't interfere with nature! We can't risk exposing these people to future technology!", and Worf's brother had to intervene and teleport the tribe onto the holodeck and force Picard to take them to another habitable planet? So Picard won't save millions of humanoid tribesman... but he will stand up for a carnivorous creature that has eaten millions and will go on to eat millions more?

 

[Ash's Boomstick]

Picard is incredibly wishy washy as to what kind of life he is willing to stand up and protect. Remember that time when Picard was willing to let an entire planet of tribesmen die to a natural disaster because "muh we can't interfere with nature! We can't risk exposing these people to future technology!", and Worf's brother had to intervene and teleport the tribe onto the holodeck and force Picard to take them to another habitable planet? So Picard won't save millions of humanoid tribesman... but he will stand up for a carnivorous creature that has eaten millions and will go on to eat millions more?

Not to mention the issues we see in Insurrection, granted that its not quite the same but neither side was right overall. Picard helped out the totty of the week (who is never seen or mentioned again even in the books) to deny the Son'a, who were going to die if they didn't get access to the radiation, a type that could save how many millions or more in the then currently running Dominion War. the Ba'ku themselves weren't native and in fact the only people who can claim that world is theirs is those who were actually born on the planet.

Picard and his staff also didn't use the logic puzzle to destroy the Borg collective because they befriended and made a single drone independent, so trillions now die or lose who they are because of it. There is no defence against that kind of action, it may be cold numbers but it's one for who knows how many worlds, how many peoples, how many histories, sciences, things that had been or would be, because of a handful of people decided they couldn't do it. Every one of them arguably should have been up for a court martial after that.

Anyone who really knows me or has seen some of my unpublished work knows that I have little to no sympathy or affection for the Federation these days, they claim to be the enlightened best of humanity? I call bullshit, if anything what we see from them is some of the worst.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

Anyone who really knows me or has seen some of my unpublished work knows that I have little to no sympathy or affection for the Federation these days, they claim to be the enlightened best of humanity? I call bullshit, if anything what we see from them is some of the worst.

The Imperium of Man may not represent mankind at its best, but it gets the damn job done. From Inquisitor to lowly Guardsman, no servant of the Emperor would have hesitated to end the Borg then and there.

Speaking of which, the Imperium did nothing wrong.

 

[Ash's Boomstick]

The Imperium of Man may not represent mankind at its best, but it gets the damn job done. From Inquisitor to lowly Guardsman, no servant of the Emperor would have hesitated to end the Borg then and there.

Speaking of which, the Imperium did nothing wrong.

While I am a 40k fan (IG FOR LIFE!!!!), I still think that's very much up in the air to most people, they aren't innocent by any means but they are pretty much better than any alternative.

 

[LindyAF]

The Imperium of Man may not represent mankind at its best, but it gets the damn job done. From Inquisitor to lowly Guardsman, no servant of the Emperor would have hesitated to end the Borg then and there.

Speaking of which, the Imperium did nothing wrong.

Agree, but the Imperium is pretty clearly the setting hero though- almost all sympathetic viewpoint characters are imperial, they're clearly one of the better factions, and if someone is ever going to be a straight up hero, they're almost invariably imperial.

 

[Knowledgeispower]

In a realistic setting the entire command staff of the Enterprise-D would have been sent to a penal colony for if nothing else not passing the extremely important decision about if the Borg should be wiped out or not up the chain of command especially when they're literally a subspace call away

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

In a realistic setting the entire command staff of the Enterprise-D would have been sent to a penal colony for if nothing else not passing the extremely important decision about if the Borg should be wiped out or not up the chain of command especially when they're literally a subspace call away

I do recall that in one episode (I think a Federation-Romulan border standoff?), Picard called up Starfleet Command, and the admiral who answered him said "we trust you Jean Luc to make executive decisions out there on our behalf. You know what's it like, you have all the facts, we trust in your decision". So Picard does have the authority to make those decisions. It's just that he made the stupidest one.

Kirk and other Starfleet captains were also granted such incredible autonomy during TOS. If they did something bad their actions were reviewed, but they didn't have to call Starfleet command before making a big decision that could affect the fate of a planet or the Federation or the Federation's relations with other planets and nations. I think it was in DS9 and ENT, when the Federation started being written more and more as "the United States but in SPACE!" that captains started having to consult the people in the chain of command and that "ambassadors have to forge treaties with other planets, not starship captains" and such.

 

[Knowledgeispower]

I do recall that in one episode (I think a Federation-Romulan border standoff?), Picard called up Starfleet Command, and the admiral who answered him said "we trust you Jean Luc to make executive decisions out there on our behalf. You know what's it like, you have all the facts, we trust in your decision". So Picard does have the authority to make those decisions. It's just that he made the stupidest one.

Kirk and other Starfleet captains were also granted such incredible autonomy during TOS. If they did something bad their actions were reviewed, but they didn't have to call Starfleet command before making a big decision that could affect the fate of a planet or the Federation or the Federation's relations with other planets and nations. I think it was in DS9 and ENT, when the Federation started being written more and more as "the United States but in SPACE!" that captains started having to consult the people in the chain of command and that "ambassadors have to forge treaties with other planets, not starship captains" and such.

Dealing with the Romulans is one thing but not calling in anything related to the Borg seems like a horrible idea.

 

[LTR]

Also the lady that killed the Crystalline entity in Star Trek enterprise. It was scourging planets and Picard wanted to somehow negotiate with it.

Picard is incredibly wishy washy as to what kind of life he is willing to stand up and protect. Remember that time when Picard was willing to let an entire planet of tribesmen die to a natural disaster because "muh we can't interfere with nature! We can't risk exposing these people to future technology!", and Worf's brother had to intervene and teleport the tribe onto the holodeck and force Picard to take them to another habitable planet? So Picard won't save millions of humanoid tribesman... but he will stand up for a carnivorous creature that has eaten millions and will go on to eat millions more?

I mentioned this before, but I think when re-watching TNG, the second appearance of the Crystalline Entity was one of my favorite episodes.

I mentioned this before in the Favorite Eldritch Beings thread or whatever but I'll just quote what I said there.

I found the Crystalline Entity to be the best Eldritch or at least unknowable entity in Star Trek universe at least. But only in the second episode. I liked it's portrayal, especially towards the end with the climatic confrontation with the entity and how it played out. Despite the creature being a mass killing monstrosity, the way the episode managed to shift the narrative from me wanting to kill the creature to me wanting to see how it could turn out otherwise was quite dramatic.

Being able to open a line of communication is a pretty big thing to overcome the fear of the unknown, especially when the unknown entity has killed thousands.

The major drawback to the Crystalline Entity is I still remember it's first appearance... and how it kinda ruins the second one with how the ever affable Lore managed to simply communicate with it directly.

Yes watching through TNG I know I benefited a fair bit because I'm sure I saw the remastered series since apparently the original Season One Crystalline Entity didn't look that good at all.

The Lore episode was probably my favorite episode of Season One of TNG (not that it's saying much) but that was wholly due to Lore doing Lore stuff, the Crystalline Entity was yes... just another monster of the week.

But when it suddenly returned like in Season Four or whatever, I slowly found it more interesting to the point I actually regretted the fact we had encountered it in Season One, because the fact Lore could communicate with it so readily was just so disappointing and clashed with what was going on here in trying to interact with it.

But yeah, remastered though it might have been, the Crystalline Entity looked pretty nice onscreen, even now (according to Memory Alpha it was remastered in 2012 for the home media release) and yeah, it was a good episode. Not only the shift in my own opinion of how to view the Crystalline Entity and how I went from agreeing it should die to... not wanting that outcome but a lot of character development as well and other moral quandries with a Star Trek context.

But yes, the Crystalline Entity could've been even so much more.

As a kid, from the random TNG episodes I had seen... obviously Armus made an impression on me... but as I grew up it I did see it as how most adults did, just a very powerful and petty, petulant ooze. And of course... the Borg... who were awesome before steadily becoming less so. Now I'm kinda bummed I never saw the Crystalline Entity when I was a wee lass... or don't remember it. Would've been interested thinking of how I would've thought of it then and now... especially if I only saw its second appearance.

Like I said, I started watching that episode thinking the Crystalline Entity should fucking die and Picard is a 'tard for trying to negotiate with it (plus there was the knowledge of it from its previous shitter appearance)... but then towards the end of the episode and they send out that transmission and the Crystalline Entity stops and seems to be trying to communicate, and make no mistake, the implication of the episode was that you could communicate with it, I found it very compelling and wanted to see how it'd turn out. Then that Old Lady decided to be all like 'Wah Wah my son or whatever is dead' and was like... LETS TURN IT UP and killed the thing and I was like... Noooooooooo....You f'ing bitch!

I love that episode because it did manage to reasonably make me reconsider my expectations within the episode itself where for most of it I was hoping the Crystalline Entity would be more in the dead category then the studied one and by the end I was like, that hag killed that Entity just as they were about to have a literal communications breakthrough with a being that might've been largely incomprehensible to either side up until now and you fucking shattered any chance of communication... LITERALLY!

So yes... there's obviously good reasons to shatter the Crystalline Entity but I still think she did plenty wrong regardless. But however one stands I feel that show was when TNG was at its best.

 

[What's the sitch?]

The issue is like, what would you even negotiate about with it? Offer it sacrifices? Aim it at the romulans somehow and hope they just don't counter co opt it? If it already isn't capable of siphoning energy from stars or radiation with its build then I doubt it is capable of it.It requires flesh on a massive scale to sustain itself. (remember it strips the entire planet bare)

Lore already negotiated with it previously and it was fulling willing to wipe out people on his behalf.

If that was the first time the entity had appeared and we didn't already have a history of several colonies getting wiped out, I could buy it, but the previous episode and history taints it.

 

[LTR]

The issue is like, what would you even negotiate about with it? Offer it sacrifices? Aim it at the romulans somehow and hope they just don't counter co opt it? If it already isn't capable of siphoning energy from stars or radiation with its build then I doubt it capable of it and requires flesh on a massive scale to sustain itself. (remember it strips the entire planet bare)

Lore already negotiated with it previously and it was fulling willing to wipe out people on his behalf.

If that was the first time the entity had appeared and we didn't already have a history of several colonies getting wiped out, I could buy it, but the previous episode and history taints it.

That is why I say the first episode really ruins the whole thing. Lore somehow speaks with it (though I guess that's not necessarily known to Picard and the others) like he's just a fellow chum. But the way the Season Five Episode handles it though is almost ignorant of the previous episode.

If the Crystalline Entity knew it was committing genocide willfully then the whole plotline of trying to negotiate with it is both facile and foolhardy if Picard had full knowledge of the previous Lore related shenanigans. But the way the episode played out, it was as if the Lore thing never happened. They sent out a signal, the Crystalline Entity stops and hovers close to the Enterprise curiously and totally not in murder mode and sends a communication back and IIRC the Starfleet types are like... We need a little bit of time to decode it but Old Lady is like... let's turn it up and shatters it instead.

It seemed to imply to me that the Crystalline Entity just didn't recognize all of the meatbags it was nomming on as actual life or perhaps some manner of pests like fleas or Jehovahs Witnesses that just got in the way of eating a tasty steak dinner. And they could've had a breakthrough and be like... oh Hey... the Fruit Flies on the Watermelon your eating are actually sentient, living, thinking beings and also mastered powered flight and have an advanced culture and your murdering them by the thousands.

But it's something that's impossible to really reconcile with the dumb Datalore episode unless we somehow assume that the Crystalline Entity somehow recognizes Lore as life because he's silicon or whatever and so its the Crystalline Entity or some sort of Treknobabble. But even then, Lore was basically talking to it like in normal speech IIRC so who knows.

I prefer to push aside the previous episode for the most part because the Season Five episode on its own merits made it an utterly fascinating episode for me to watch and think about... and in this case discuss.

Also... in all honesty, if the Crystalline Entity was still hostile after successfully making conduct, I have almost no doubt in my mind that Picard and Company would've attempted to destroy it anyways. But the thing is, Datalore nonsense aside, being able to communicate with such an Entity could've had all sorts of boons, the least of which being it might not nom-nom on planets filled with Federation citizens on it. No way of knowing though because it got exploded.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Another good option is the Sheriff of Nottingham. He collects brutal levels of taxes, but he's a mere sheriff and can't possibly have much influence on the level set by Prince John, which are a result of King Richard getting himself captured and ransomed. He wants to arrest Robin Hood and prevent poaching but that's his job, and the law. He's really just a middle-manager being squeezed by an uncaring higher-up and doing the best he can in a bad situation.

Of course most modern adaptations realize this and make an effort to fix it, either by making the Sheriff much more evil (Prince of Thieves had him an outright Satan Worshipper) or leaving him out entirely as in the 2010 Russel Crowe version.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

Another good option is the Sheriff of Nottingham. He collects brutal levels of taxes, but he's a mere sheriff and can't possibly have much influence on the level set by Prince John, which are a result of King Richard getting himself captured and ransomed. He wants to arrest Robin Hood and prevent poaching but that's his job, and the law. He's really just a middle-manager being squeezed by an uncaring higher-up and doing the best he can in a bad situation.

Of course most modern adaptations realize this and make an effort to fix it, either by making the Sheriff much more evil (Prince of Thieves had him an outright Satan Worshipper) or leaving him out entirely as in the 2010 Russel Crowe version.

Speaking of Prince John, it's often forgotten that the reason he put the taxes up is because Richard has bankrupted the country thanks to his endless wars and foreign adventures. You've got to refill the treasury's coffers from somewhere.

Granted, IRL, oh no, Bad King John did everything wrong.

 

[Husky_Khan]

Another good option is the Sheriff of Nottingham. He collects brutal levels of taxes, but he's a mere sheriff and can't possibly have much influence on the level set by Prince John, which are a result of King Richard getting himself captured and ransomed. He wants to arrest Robin Hood and prevent poaching but that's his job, and the law. He's really just a middle-manager being squeezed by an uncaring higher-up and doing the best he can in a bad situation.

Of course most modern adaptations realize this and make an effort to fix it, either by making the Sheriff much more evil (Prince of Thieves had him an outright Satan Worshipper) or leaving him out entirely as in the 2010 Russel Crowe version.

All of those film remakes are the real villains. For all of the shit Kevin Costner got for Prince of Thieves, its still leagues better then the subsequent film remakes trying to be more faithful, EngRish, historical, gritty, Michael Baytastic or diverse. And yes many of those adjectives are oxymoronic.

 

[DarthOne]

I’d like to nominate James Ironwood from Rooerteeth’s webshow RWBY. Or at least he fit the bill when I stopped watching in Volume 7.

 

[edgeworthy]

I do recall that in one episode (I think a Federation-Romulan border standoff?), Picard called up Starfleet Command, and the admiral who answered him said "we trust you Jean Luc to make executive decisions out there on our behalf. You know what's it like, you have all the facts, we trust in your decision". So Picard does have the authority to make those decisions. It's just that he made the stupidest one.

Kirk and other Starfleet captains were also granted such incredible autonomy during TOS. If they did something bad their actions were reviewed, but they didn't have to call Starfleet command before making a big decision that could affect the fate of a planet or the Federation or the Federation's relations with other planets and nations. I think it was in DS9 and ENT, when the Federation started being written more and more as "the United States but in SPACE!" that captains started having to consult the people in the chain of command and that "ambassadors have to forge treaties with other planets, not starship captains" and such.

Have we done a discussion on the issue of so much science fiction doing "the United States but in SPACE!"?

There is little that goes against this that is not some sort of neo-Monarchical system, one of the better parts of oBSG was its attempt to do something else (Adama seemed to be more akin to a Roman Consul than a Senator or President) nuBSG is however one of the worst offenders in making its political system Space Murica!