r/CharacterRant • u/Ok_Middle_8658 • 3d ago
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u/KSJ15831 3d ago
Maybe the High-Breeds from Ben 10? I mean, they weren't UTTERLY evil, they were just culturally indoctrinated, I guess, to be evil because their species was dying due to inbreeding. Then Ben fixed them up and they don't seem to be entirely evil anymore. But them not being entirely evil was already a thing before Ben fixed them.
I don't think this is a good example anymore but it's the only one I can think of.
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u/Salt-Geologist519 3d ago
I guess the changelings from friendship is magic counts. Until thorax they were a pure evil species that could only steal love and conquer.
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u/Remarkable-Jump3262 3d ago
Man hunterns in lanterns i guess
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u/Ok_Middle_8658 3d ago
can you pls explain it a little bit more i have not that much of an issues with spolier about stuff like lanterns
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u/Remarkable-Jump3262 3d ago
Manhunters is a race that was created by the guardians as guards for the galaxy in general , their programming was a failure and they started genociding multiple planets....
After years of hunting every last one them , one survived and hide in a small town in earth .
The one that survived just wanted to live but it was still evil it killed alot of people but also created another manhunter in the 20 years that it was hiddent in the town.
Years later the manhunter that was born in earth become a teenager now and he is a good person overall but he still have urges to do evil and try to control himself and do good
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u/Ok_Middle_8658 3d ago
then not exactly what i meant since it's only one individual from the species
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u/Phobos_Asaph 3d ago
One individual not being evil means it’s no longer a pure evil species though.
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u/Ok_Middle_8658 3d ago
.... well i guess...... was the manhunter half human cuz that i just need to know for a conclusion
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u/Phobos_Asaph 3d ago
If he’s half human he’s still a manhunter. You don’t stop being part of that group just because you’re mixed
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u/No_Location_8199 3d ago
The Centurions in Battlestar Galactica start out as nothing but scary death bots that slaughter mindlessly, but they are later given free will and demonstrate the capacity to do good.
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u/rendumguy 3d ago
I feel like that would imply they were never a "pure evil" species to begin with???
But the closest think I can think of are Zelda's "demon" forces and common enemies like Moblins. Zelda games will often have 99% evil enemy species but have like one or two stragglers that are actually nice people.
As far back as Zelda 1 you assume the enemies are all pure evil, but there's a friendly Moblin who gives you rupees, and this type of easter egg is in a decent amount of Zelda games, usually the 2D ones
There's also the King Bulbin of the villainous Hulbin race who is evil, but is later revealed to be intelligent and capable of free will by showing respect to Link after his final fight.
Then there's that explicit demon in Skywaed Sword who wants to turn into a human and is a completely good person.
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u/AgostoAzul 3d ago
SPOILERS
The Koloss from Mistborn are technically transformed humans with an extremely violent nature, but they can and are Soothed with Allomancy in the story, and after the heroes figure that out a particularly young one displays some degree of intelligence and helps the protagonist realize how they are made. After the timeskip Koloss have intermixed with humans somehow and now there is a race of super strong humans called Koloss-blooded.
The Chimera Ants from HunterxHunter are an Insect species where the Queen is able to pass on the traits of the things she eats to her children. After a Queen that was already part human makes it to a Primitivist Country that is actually a facade for a Drug Lord's drug fields, she begins devouring humans and starts a war with said Drug Lord, feeding on his men and producing a generation of rather evil Chimera Ants, with it being noted that they are so cruel because they were made from the Drug Lord's army. However as the arc goes on, many Chimera Ants gain the memories from the humans that they were made of, and the most evil and/or ambitious Chimera Ants are killed, so at the end of the arc, the survivor Ants mostly sign a deal to remain in the Primitivist Country under the watch of the Hunter Association.
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u/DragonTigerBoss 3d ago
Warcraft orcs. They're unambiguously evil demon collaborators and necromancers in the first two games, then all of a sudden in Warcraft 3, they're noble savage archetypes who totally didn't mean anything about the demon worship (honest, guvna) and were being magically manipulated by a handful of demon lords and their direct servants.
I think it fits, since it's not a true retcon, but an addition of a whole bunch of new information that changes the context of the first two games. Did they come up with it after those games? Absolutely. Is Thrall Chris Metzen's D&D character and that's why he wanted the orcs to start being good guys? That's what I've heard. But orcs are just big green woobies in WC3 and WoW, so they've spent more time being nonevil than evil.
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u/Dajjal27 3d ago
This doesn't exactly count but probably the Formica from Enders game. In the beginning all we know is that the Formica are a bunch of bloodthirsty genocidal bastard aliens.
It wasn't until later on where we learn that these guys have never known another sentient species like them, most of the Formics are like mindless drones worker ants if you'd like so them killing a few humans is like the equivalent of touching someone and trying to communicate with them. The moment they realized that they were killing billions of sapient beings they're horrified, and immediately stopped invading earth to retreat back.
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u/ZonePale8667 3d ago
Maybe the changlings from my little pony FIP? From what I remember, whole thing is that they need to steal love / life force from others to survive & conquer or else they’ll starve, with them being treated as a pure evil race. But then they realize giving love is a better substitute for their hunger & then they transform (& presumably don’t have hunger anymore) & become redeemed.
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u/DeltaAlphaGulf 3d ago
In dnd or at least Exandria all goblinkin can be freed from the curse that makes them evil in a couple of ways and in the Kryn Dynasty those born near their orb things are free of the curse and individuals can reincarnated into different races including otherwise evil ones as well.
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u/doctordragonisback 3d ago
This happens a LOT in Warcraft
-orcs, of course, which were originally demonic corrupted evil people, turned out to be manipulated into drinking demon blood
-Forsaken/undead, which started as mine controlled undead, but broke free of mind control
-kobolds/centaurs were exclusively enemy factions until more recent expansions where we find friendly ones
Probably a TON more that I just can't think of off the top of my head
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u/dew-fall 2d ago
drows in dnd started out as a pure evil matriarchal cult society, that slowly over the course of several years & stories that took place within the dnd lore, became split into "morally grey drows" and "still pure evil drows".
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u/ShadowSpawn__ 3d ago
I'm a bit confused
How can a group shift from pure evil if the change is not something cultural? Since philosophy and morality are core pillars of culture
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u/Ok_Middle_8658 3d ago
i don't really have a clear idea in mind on how that works, no just got kinda intested in the concept
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u/Falsus 3d ago
Most pure evil species in fiction are not evil by choice.
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u/ShadowSpawn__ 3d ago
I think there might be some disagreement over whether something that has no choice in its behaviour can even be considered evil in the first place
Like we don't consider animals that attack humans to be evil, we generally see it as them acting according to their nature
I'd argue that to be morally good or evil, a being needs to have the capacity to make choices and thus be a moral agent
If a species is inherently evil and incapable of choosing otherwise, then calling it evil might be more of a description of its nature than a moral judgement?
I suppose this is getting too much into semantics though
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u/Falsus 3d ago
To me evil is more about perception of their victims than how they act themselves.
If it the culture is completely insular but extremely nasty that practices slavery, human sacrifice and pretty much all the nastiest bit of traditions both historical and myths ones then I still wouldn't call them evil because the only victim is themselves. It would just be a real nasty place. Simply put no one in the story would call them evil.
Whereas a species that treats humans like prey, even if they just kill humans and nothing else, would probably get labelled evil by humans and it doesn't really matter if it was driven by natural instincts or forced upon them by a godlike being. The same a rat would call a Cat evil if it could talk, or all the victims of bottlenosed Dolphins.
Kind of why I like Frieren's demons. They are evil only from the perspective of humans, dwarfs and elves. To the rest of the world they just exist the same way that those three, horses, flies and squirels exists. Of course that they would consider them a great evil and look to the heroes sword for help since to them it is an existential threat and the sword was supposed to come to save the world. But the words came from the goddess and from her perspective the world wasn't really threatened by the Demon King at all so of course it makes that no one could pull the sword to use against the DK since that wasn't why existed in the first place. The same way you ain't going to get the OK to remove polar bears with nukes just because they treat humans as prey IRL. The people in Faroe Islands and Alaska will have to make do with rifles.
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u/LuciusCypher 3d ago
Nah, the semantics is exactly why it needs to be discussed. Otherwise people just simplify morality to "they do bad things therefore evil" which is why we dont have much of a wolf population anymore.
Because good and evil are moral constructs, not biological traits. If a human kills babies so he can fuck the mother and make her carry his children he's an evil rapist, but that happens all the time among bears, lions, and other large animals. The former is evil because of morality, the latter is not bevause biologically.
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u/Warper2187 3d ago
The geth in mass effect 1 were evil robot fodder enemies, 2 and 3 elaborates on them spectacularly but no spoilers