Top 5 Worst Video Game Heroes Who Ruined Everything
While many video game heroes are featured in basic premises with clear-cut protagonists and antagonists, there are also times when such characters, meant to be the former, are actually the indirect (or outright direct) reason for effectively ruining everything in a story. Sometimes due to simple misunderstandings, and other times even selfish motives, the following video game heroes show just how badly they can do horrific damage on their own…and just how little they occasionally differ from supposed “villains.”
5. Wander (Shadow of the Colossus)
Once again touching on a particular game I’ve mentioned multiple times since I started writing here, protagonist Wander from Shadow of the Colossus is an ostensibly traditional video game hero with an extremely understandable motivation: resurrecting Mono, a young woman sacrificed for having a nebulously defined “cursed fate.” And despite being given an upfront but cryptic warning by the entity promising Mono’s revival that it will come at a great cost, Wander goes forth and slays the colossi to successfully destroy sixteen corresponding idols…all of which seem to be acting as seals of some sort.
4. James Sunderland (Silent Hill 2)
Going from one particular game that I’ve discussed multiple times to another, the 2001 original and 2024 remake versions of Silent Hill 2 feature the fairly average-looking (and extremely milquetoast) video game hero James Sunderland, who’s on a bizarre “quest” to find his wife, Mary…after receiving a newly written letter from the latter despite having died three years ago. The bizarre – and equal parts reproachable and heartbreaking – “truth” behind everything James experiences in his morbid journey through the titular town is a harrowing lesson in crime, punishment, and the depths of guilt.
3. Oswald Mandus (Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs)
Labeling Oswald Mandus from Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs as a “video game hero” is admittedly a major stretch, but he nonetheless fills the basic role of protagonist that players will be tasked with guiding through the innards of an absolutely colossal mechanical complex simply known as the “Machine”: the exact function of which is revealed to be quite horrible and nightmarish. Without going too deep into spoilers, Mandus’ specific purpose in the story (as well as his true connection to the so-called “Engineer”) is steeped in the darkest, most twisted form of “mercy” one could imagine.
2. Althena (Lunar [Multiple Games])
Serving as the “big good” of the Lunar RPG franchise, the goddess Althena chooses to reincarnate as a mortal based on the (actually pretty admirable) decision to relinquish her divinity and control over the world to humanity itself in reverence for the human spirit being flawed but powerful in its own right. However, the decision of this particular video game hero leads to two major disasters: firstly, her decision to live as a mortal inspires a fallen hero to claim her divinity for himself; secondly, her eventual death as a mortal allows the world’s ultimate evil to regain its presence in the human world.
1. Dr. Thomas Light (Mega Man [Multiple Games])
And ending things on a video game hero with an insanely wide-reaching impact well beyond his original intentions and natural lifespan, Dr. Thomas Light – from the mainline “classic” Mega Man franchise – indirectly dooms mankind to extinction and replacement with robotic lifeforms several millennia into the future. Setting in motion various overlapping events involving escalating conflicts between humans and Reploids (the latter modelled after X, his last creation), Dr. Light’s attempts to thwart Dr. Albert Wily (and his posthumous “legacy”) would unintentionally leave the world in ruins.
Parting Thoughts
“The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” – Old Proverb.
“The battleline between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
“Never let a man imagine that he can pursue a good end by evil means, without sinning against his own soul. The evil effect on himself is certain.” – Robert Southey.
“God save us from people who mean well.” – Vikram Seth.
