Villains you would join if given the choice between them and the "good guys".

[Souplex]

The Equalists from The Legend of Korra. Their cause was legitimately good and noble at heart, all they wanted was for non-benders to be treated as equals to benders. Although I wouldn't agree with the removal of Bender's abilities, that's crossing a line.

To be fair though, their plan wouldn't work long-term.
We've seen that the children of benders who lose their bending can still bend.
Once Amon dies, things go back to normal in one generation.
Also, pretty much every industry is built around bending. Power-plants run on bent lightning, and mining is done via earthbending.
Taking away the world's bending would cause a total economic collapse.

 

[Azkar Almsivi]

Gaius Van Baelsar, the main antagonist of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. He judges people on their actions and not their race, sex or origin. He is disgusted by overly destructive weapons, ultima's revealed spell and Dalamud were both things he disagreed with and refused to use. He brings a legion under his sole command due to unrest at home to liberate Eorzea from corrupt governments and greedy immense entities confused as Gods that manipulate and bleed the people dry on a whim and for more power.

He has strong beliefs that the weak can never rule. When the weak rule they succumb to the temptation of power and become corrupt and greedy, when that happens the people turn to religion in their misery, where the Gods take from the people and return nothing but requests for more faith and more magic crystals. (take the crystals out and his stance rings a little too true for comfort)

The governments of the city states range from oppressive banking clans ruled over by a queen who generate poverty, xenophobic forest dwellers who fearfully appease a group of elementals posing as Gods so they don't get thrown out of their homeland or murdered by enraged flora and fauna, a medieval nation going through a crusade period that murders anyone seen to have anything to do with "heresy" and a lovely nation that is made up of pirate groups that legalized pirating in all forms as long as it's performed on people from other countries. "Can't go raping and murdering our landlocked neighbors hey guys?"

The testimony of Rhitahtyn Sas Arvina states that the Empire eliminates corruption and rejuvenates areas that it conquers. Of course energizing your country, freeing yourself from false worship to disturbing giant crystals and hideous powerful spellcasting monsters and bringing peace and safety apparently aren't worth giving up your freedom to oppress beast races and do whatever the hell you want.

The people you have to work for in the game love to sugar up their racial genocide, but it's said a few times that beast men only summon their powerful primal gods when they are TERRIFIED. Why are they terrified? Because the good guys are massacring their families and stealing their lands and resources. The Gridanians literally stole an entire nation from the Ixal birdman because an angry elemental wasn't getting enough out of the Ixal and kicked them all out. By kicked out it means made every living entity in the forest attack them with insane bloodlust until they picked their children up and fled for their lives.

?Eorzea, a blighted realm riddled with false gods. Twice now it has eluded the empire's grasp, twisted beyond all reckoning. Rotten nigh to the core. Yet it must be saved.? -Gaius Van Baelsar

The worst part is he asks you to help him bring peace and order and of course that question doesn't let you choose your response. You can almost hear the cheesy guitars wailing and someone screaming "FREEEEEDOM!" as your character pulls a stupid angry face and raises their weapon.

 

[SnakeTrousers]

Count Olaf. Dressing up is silly costumes and pulling off nefarious crimes beats being murdered over some depressed midgets.

I mean, orphans.

 

[Sarah Kerrigan]

Gaming wise, I'd choose Handsome Jack from Borderlands 2. Something about that handsome face and the idea of ruling Pandora is kinda tempting, ya know?

Movie wise it would probably have to be Priest, i'd join Karl Urban as a vampire. I mean, come on he's hot in that movie!

 

[Silvanus]

Very much this. These movies really made me hate humanity. First Class especially. They try to kill the very people who just prevented nuclear war?!?! Magneto had every right to be pissed and then he ends up being right about humanity trying to get rid of them. Out of curiosity, is Magneto a lot more evil in the comics?

Sometimes, and sometimes not (he works with groups of the X-Men on occasion, for example during the 'Avengers Vs X-Men' arc).

As for Movie-Magneto... you may have overlooked the scene in X2, in which Magneto and Mystique turn Cerebro against all humans. That's quite mass-murdery.

I agree that he's an incredibly sympathetic character at times, though, and he certainly makes a list of good points. The humans are a bunch of jerks. It's difficult to argue with Magneto's aims much in the third movie.

 

[Frankster]

"Apart from the blowing up of a planet didn't do anything wrong"

If there's one thing the star wars extended universe taught me, it's that Alderaan fuckin' deserved it xD

Not done anything wrong? Maybe if just taken in context of the films . But outside it they are some the sneakiest two faced self righteous bastards in the star wars galaxy, had the Empire blown up alderaan years prior then it wouldn't have had the troubles it later had. And did I mention the Alderaan tradition of claiming you're on a peaceful diplomatic mission or just that they are innocent whilst in reality being exactly what they were accused of?

You have a point, but what do we really know about Alderaan?

We know quite a bit about Alderaan assuming non film sources haven't been automatically invalidated by the upcoming new movies (and even then my sources would be clone wars and new republic mmo so should still hold out) and I've grown to utterly hate them the more I've learnt about them xD

To answer some of what you asked, Alderaan is a feudal society dominated by self righteous arrogant twats of nobles, the common people on Alderaan are good folks but are the equivalent of serfs in medieval times even if a lot better treated and living in more sanitary conditions.
The world itself is really pretty, there's lots of pretty mountains and picturesque green fields, and the cows are cute, not a bad place to spend a holiday really.

Also meh kinda went majorly offtopic there ><

Well in keeping with stars wars theme...
Kreia from Kotor 2, she wanted to break the universe free from the insidious "force" that made free will in the stars wars setting a blatant lie.

 

[Shinkicker444]

Darth Malgus. Really, that guy was my hero in SWTOR. Then he goes off and starts a rebellion to cleanse the corruption from the Empire (and make things better for my Twi'lek)? Hell yes, let me join him! When we did the dialog I was really hoping for a join option even though I knew it wouldn't happen (I think I said I agreed with him and we should try later), but nope, fight time. I was very disappointed, but he's still my hero in SWTOR.

 

[Allar]

EDIT: WAIT! Does Hank Scorpio count?? =D

Spoiler: Cus I'd TOTALLY work for him!

So much this. That is still my favourite episode of the Simpsons ever.

The Templars in the Assassin's Creed series without a doubt. Their tactics are heavy handed but no more so than the Assassins most of the time and I feel like the goals of the Templar are considerably more likely to come to fruition than those of the Assassins. I mean the idea of everybody having the freedom to do what they want and that freedom being preferable to a cabl of well intentioned puppet masters is laudable but I think that the Templar's elitism is probably sounder in practice.

Also the Brotherhood of Nod in the Command and Conquer universe. While the cultish aspect of the Brotherhood is maybe a bit off-putting the fact remains that for people living outside of the Blue Zones it's Nod or bust because the GDI is too concerned with protecting it's own pristine corners of the world to give a hand to anybody else.

 

[Epicspoon]

Bowser just because I wanna chill with him. Also Doctor Doofinschmirtz. He's so harmless. Even if he pulled off one of his plots it probably wouldn't do much except for being really annoying to the general populace and that's the kind of hilarity I can get behind. Besides, I would have a boss who owns a waffle gun.

 

[TheMann]

That's easy, the humans from Avatar. Fuck those space smurfs. And I'd do it right too, nuke the site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure. Or hell, all they had to do was bomb from an altitude too high for those flying lizards to reach. You know what else pissed me off in that movie? I realized that Jake Sully never even did his fucking job. He had one job; to negotiate a peaceful mining deal with the locals. Does he do that? Nope. He gathers tactical info for Colonel Badass, but never once mentions to the Na'vi why he's there. I'd strap into a mech suit and kick ass for humanity. Also room temperature superconductors, FTW.

Also, the Armies of Mordor would be tempting. Why?

Spoiler: Because I'd get to ride one of these:

MWAHAHAHAHAHA!

Maybe COBRA, but I'm not sure about that one.

 

[beastro]

...Well let's see here. You know that Alderaan is an apparently pacifistic world ("Alderaan is peaceful, we have no weapons!"), you know that it's being explicitly used for the sake of invoking fear in Imperial controlled worlds, and from the dialogue you can infer that it's a heavily trafficked and likely well populated world ("Dantooine is far too remote to make an effective demonstration - but don't worry, we'll deal with your rebel friends soon enough")...Do I really have to go further than that? It was a genocidal act done for what can literally be described as terroristic purposes that were targeted at the terrorist's own people. That should probably be ringing a few alarm bells...

They used that image as a front while they were a hotbed for the Rebellion, if not core of the Rebellion itself as the prequels revealed all too well.

They Copenhagened Alderaan not just as statement of what happens when you collude with the Rebels but as the opening move of actively cracking down and crushing it.

For Star Trek, the Romulans to help break down the growing hegemony of the Federation in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants in the hope of overturning their illusory Social Utopia.

I know what you mean and it does make sense but i've never been a fan of the whole "end justifies the means" thing. If an Empire considers blowing up a planet to be a reasonable means of warfare that's pretty fucked up. Honestly, I wonder if some of the more morally conscious parts of the Empire split off to join the Rebellion when they got word of them blowing up a planet.

It's something which has served many nations when bothersome pesters have annoyed them or dared threaten their interests - see the background to the term I used above about Copenhagen, or for a less harsh demonstration, the Battle of the Medway where the Dutch Republic told Restoration England to stay out of the bloody business by attacking the very heart of England and humiliated the English by conducting the operating with extreme professionalism and dignity. Regardless, it tells you're enemy not to not F*ck with you or you'll turn them to cinders.

 

[Ieyke]

Also, the Armies of Mordor would be tempting. Why?

Spoiler: Because I'd get to ride one of these:

MWAHAHAHAHAHA!

Technically, no. Those aren't part of the forces of Mordor. The mûmakil (oliphaunts) belong to the Haradrim(Southrons), the armies of the kingdom south of Gondor.

 

[Tiamattt]

Surprised no one said this guy yet

Spoiler

OK sure it's a full time job where you're probably going to go completely mad with guilt, but if you can say screw it to your conscience the benefits are AMAZING.

 

[chinangel]

Loki, outside of the fact that it IS Loki, he was basically made into a villain by his own family.

 

[VeneratedWulfen93]

I'd fall to the Dark Gods of Chaos in a second if I was just a ganger or hab-cleaner in 40k. the difference between a life of servitude with no chance of becoming anything or selling my soul to dark gods in exchange for power above lesser men. Awesome.

"I slaughtered thousands in the name of the emperor and all he gave me was his damning silence. Now his lap-dogs yap for every life I take while the gods promise me the galaxy."

 

[the December King]

Starship Troopers.

I'd join the bugs!

If there was any way, I would help them eliminate the spray-tanned, self-entitled, egotistical, moronic, brutal monkeys from earth.

Once they had won, they could put me in a zoo!

...

Or, you know, a smart bug could suck my brain out.