Whenever you sit down to play a video game, there's a good chance you're going to be playing a hero. Granted, playing a bad guy can be fun, but there's something about rescuing a princess or defeating a gigantic monster that terrorizes the land that keeps players coming back for more. You might make your way through an expansive game, moving through the levels as you power up and make progress. Once you finally reach the big boss and defeat them, you feel a sense of accomplishment knowing that you're the hero who saved the day ... or are you?
After all, you probably had to stomp, slash, shoot, or otherwise annihilate untold numbers of enemies to make it to the end, and did they all truly deserve it? Probably, but that doesn't mean your hero character is as noble as you might think. Maybe you stole some good loot while playing the newest Fallout game, or you accidentally slammed your car into a pedestrian while cruising around a track -- whatever the game, odds are your hero's hands aren't clean. Each of these characters is highly regarded as a noble hero players enjoy returning to, but in hindsight, they're not as noble as you remember.
Kratos is very much the God of War franchise, and each title offers more details about who he is and why he fights. It's easy to see him as a hero, given how he takes the fight to the vengeful and selfish gods, but it's also easy to overlook the things he's done. The games portray Kratos as a tragic warrior tricked by Ares, the God of War, into slaughtering his family, which sets him on a quest for vengeance. For him, revenge is all he cares about, and he will stop at nothing to ensure he attains it. Kratos eagerly slashes his way across the games' narratives as he sacrifices innocents, destroys whole lands, and even unleashes plagues, and there's nothing noble about that!
You're probably wondering how someone like Mario could wind up on a list of ignoble gaming heroes. Still, when you stop and think about it for a moment, it makes sense. Despite being Nintendo's mascot with over 200 titles and counting, Mario is pure, unadulterated evil. Since Super Mario World, released in 1990, Mario has routinely used Yoshi as a mechanic to increase his jump height by sacrificing the adorable dinosaur, dropping him into pits. It's happened so many times since 1990 that it's become a meme. It's hard to overlook the many times he's done this across his numerous titles, but sacrificing Yoshi is, at this point, so common that most players don't even think about it.
It's easy to love Joel Miller, especially now that he's been portrayed on the small screen by none other than Pedro Pascal. Unfortunately, Joel isn't the saint many remember him as, and it all boils down to how he handles Ellie's immunity. He sees her as a daughter, having lost his own, and while this is a noble quality in and of itself, what he does in this capacity is horrific. Through The Last of Us Part I, Joel takes Ellie to the Fireflies, hoping to create a cure. Instead, he learns that, while a cure is possible, it will cost Ellie her life. He chooses to save Ellie, dooming humanity in the process. While his actions are understandable, he's complicit in humanity's extinction.