So this is like another thread I had but the other way around.
The only ones I can think of are EVERY bad guy in Soul Caliber, Save for Nightmare and Cervantes. Tira is in love, Rapheal is in love, Astaroth wants revenge on the god of war, Mitsarugi just wants a good fight, Maxi wants revenge on Astaroth. It's all subjective. They all have good reasons for being bad but they get branded as bad anyway. Who can you think of that even though they are the antagonist, they aren't the bad guy. This doesn't really include games were you specifically play as the bad guy.
There are a lot of Villains in games who aren't motivated by self interest, but are misguided or no longer in control of themselves. I'm pretty sure they outnumber those who are actually evil.
Let's look at every game with a villain I own:
Halo - Prophets: Misguided religious extremists. - Flood: Survival behaviour. - Didact: Proper Villain. Mass Effect - Reapers: Programmed by others, who wanted (SPOILER) - Illusive Man: Humanities best interests at heart. Batman - Villains are mostly mentally ill. Assassin's Creeds 2 and Brotherhood - Proper Villains Skyrim - Alduin: Must fulfill the Prophecy. Portal & Portal 2 - GlaDos: Went mad due to (spoiler) - (spoiler): Went mad due to (spoiler) Super Street Fighter 4 - Several Villains, all definitely evil.
So in but four of my games, the primary antagonists are not truly evil, but driven by circumstance.
Alduin isn't actually driven by the need to fulfill any prophecy. He simply sees humans as inferior creatures who should be slaves to the superior dragons, with himself as the leader as the oldest and most powerful dragon. He also feeds on human souls in order to strengthen himself. So, yeah he really is pretty evil.
none of those soul calibur characters are evil though. Neutral, maybe, but not evil.
That was kinda my point. In number four Maxi beat the crap outa everybody so he could get Soul Edge, that's why his alignment was listed as evil. I believe it was number three were Rapheal tried to get the entire world malfested. Mitsarugi kills indescrimanently just because. Astaroth learned that he was created as a pawn for the god of war and he joined Nightmare so he could steal Soul Edge. Tira is in love with Nightmare (Yah I don't get it either). Voldo (I forgot to mention him.) Was manipulated by soul edge, he was just following what he thought to be his master's orders. Cervantes is just a monster and that's all there is to it, he was a monster before he was nightmare, he was a monster as Nightmare, and he is a monster after Nightmare. He always was and will be a monster. He is THE single most evil character in the series, and that's saying something when compared to the incarnation of pure evil.
But, as he is evil incarnate, can he be considered responsible for his actions?
Ok, now you're just playing at some pseudo-intellectual definition of evil so that you can claim that these characters have no control over their own actions. If you really want to go that far you could say that as characters labeled "villains" locked into standard literary tropes for the sake of telling a story no character is truly a bad guy they're just playing the role they were given like actors on a stage. It might be true from a philosophical perspective, but it's a weak argument that cheapens the entire point of the conversation.
Ok, now you're just playing at some pseudo-intellectual definition of evil so that you can claim that these characters have no control over their own actions. If you really want to go that far you could say that as characters labeled "villains" locked into standard literary tropes for the sake of telling a story no character is truly a bad guy they're just playing the role they were given like actors on a stage. It might be true from a philosophical perspective, but it's a weak argument that cheapens the entire point of the conversation.
Nightmare, and other characters in the same vein (like Akuma in street fighter), are definitely evil and must be stopped to prevent the destruction of everything. However, they cannot be blamed for being evil when it's the fabric of their existence. If you are, literally, evil, is it your fault for performing evil actions? (This is by the by anyway, as regardless of accountability, they are still going to kill everyone if you don't kick them in the head) Characters like Heihachi in Tekken, however, could choose between good and evil, and can be held responsible for their actions.
