Villanious Characters. But Heroic People: Or, Guys Who Look Evil, But Aren't

[Leliel]

Anyway, this is a more general question for the fictional world at large, but I am intrigued by the concept of a traditionally "villainous" character archetype being well, not all that evil. Since this concept has fertile ground in tabletop, I decided to ask it here.

Take, for example, the scientist that desires to create a new race of atomic supermen of humanity, one that transcends it's physical flaws and puts other mortals to shame. Now, in most worlds, he'd be an unambiguously bad guy, an arrogant mastermind that sees no problem in destroying all life that doesn't fit his image. But what if, say, he comes from Exalted: his motives come from the fact that he genuinely sees the less-than-enviable state of mortals in Creation, and he wants to remove the "Die Horribly" Charm from their "reflexive" list. When it comes down to it, he's a genuinely philanthropic doctor who just has a wide definition of his Hippocratic Oath.

Now, he could still be a villain. I admit that. Now, however, he has sympathetic reasons for being a villain, and he could very easily be a hero without many changes to his moral code.

So, what characters do you have that traditionally fall under the "villain" page of TV Tropes, but are genuinely heroic in the Western sense of the term?

[Jota]

Some would probably cite Lex Luthor. Perhaps Ozymandias. Magneto. Most of the "Well-Intentioned Extremist" crowd probably fit in some form or another.

[Vemynal]

Definitely Ozymandias but I don't see magneto due to his stance of harming non-mutants (now him founding a nation of only mutants? that qualifies)

I don't necessarily know about in story type characters but I know the "good" necromancer thats been asked about a couple times on these boards would fit mechanically. So would the Malconvoker.

[MammonAzrael]

I could see Magneto, but only if he was in his Asteroid M phase, aka how about we just move instead of killing off homo sapien and takin' their land?

Have you read the Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson? The if-you-have-you-know-who-I'm-talking-about could fall under this heading.

[Leliel]

Have you read the Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson? The if-you-have-you-know-who-I'm-talking-about could fall under this heading.

Yeah, him.

Poor bastard. Just trying to keep a God of Destruction in check.