What heroes are "good", "evil" or "grey"?

General Discussion
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Been reading the backstories of different heroes. Very interesting stuff. Right now I am trying to classify them as straight up good heroes, evil and whick are morally grey.

Some of the good ones are easy to spot like Winston, Tracer and Mercy. Same with evil ones like Reaper and Doomfist. Grey ones are harder of course. Like Symmetra. She strikes me as someone who wants to do good but is being controlled by someone less than benevolent. Even Sombra. She may work with Talon but her true goal is to expose some grand conspiracy.

How would you classify some of these people?

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People classify Moira as evil, but I highly disagree with that. I classify her as confident, strong-willed, and ready to tackle controversial matters that plague society. The only reason she joined Talon was so she could acquire the funds necessary to continue her research
 ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT!!!

She’s so much more interesting than the stereotypical doctor/medic who vouches for world peace (Mercy if you couldn’t tell). Like
 What are you doing on a battlefield if you’re a pacifist?

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Good

  • Mercy
  • Mei
  • Winston
  • Tracer
  • Dva
  • Lucio
  • Reinhardt
  • Brigitte
  • Zenyatta
  • Genji (maybe? We don’t really know much about him)
  • Torbjorn
  • Zarya
  • Orisa/Efi
  • Pharah

Evil (Note: including characters who don’t necessarily think they’re evil, or think that they’re doing good, puppets are evil if their master is evil)

  • Junkrat
  • Roadhog
  • Doomfist
  • Reaper
  • Sombra (kinda? We don’t know her end-game really).
  • Widowmaker
  • Symmetra
  • Moira

“Grey” is weird because technically Winston should be here, but he’s overwhelmingly portrayed as a good guy.

  • Soldier
  • Ana
  • McCree (kinda borders on good though).
  • Hanzo
  • Bastion

But there’s a lot of leeway in there. I know people will disagree with me saying that Symmetra or Widowmaker are evil, but the entities they currently serve clearly are, even if those two are just puppets.

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I think the cast of Overwatch mostly fall into the Good/Grey areas and none of them are really necessarily evil.

“People never see themselves as the villain in their own stories”

They may know their methods aren’t considered moral, but the justify the means with their goal. Like how Doomfist wants humanity to be “stronger” but believes that the best way to strengthen it is thru “conflict” (i.e. war, fighting, etc.) it’s twisted for most of us, but it may be grey for some.

The Evil in Overwatch isn’t quite so Black and White. It’s not like we have any characters that murders and eats babies or something.

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Really the closest thing we have to a truly evil character is Reaper, but even then, that’s largely because we don’t know their backstory that well (GIVE US THAT REAPER LORE MICHAEL). Every Talon member has a reason for being there, but we don’t know Reaper’s.

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I want Michael Chu to make an infographic of the typical alignment grid (lawful, neutral, chaotic vs. good, neutral, evil) for all the cast. I think it would be interesting.

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Current 76 is Grey. Used to walk the good line through and through but you can see in his cinematic he’s just tired of people ignoring the fight and now takes a more vigilante approach to action.

Good would be imo Winston, Tracer, Lucio, Orisa, Torb (despite his omnicphobia), Zarya (despite being used) Zenyatta, Mercy, D.Va, Reinhardt, Brigitte, Ana

Grey would be 76, Sombra, McCree, Genji, Hanzo, Junkrat, Bastion

Bad would be Reaper, Doomfist, Widow (Though its not her fault), Roadhog, Moira

I don’t think Sym falls into any of these, she’s more neutral but working for a corrupt organization.

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id say reaper and doomfist are dark grey though

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Well basicly we dont know who is good and evil. You say Winston is good but by recalling ow agents he acted against petras act and in the eyes of the law he is criminal. You can say Reaper is evil but we dont really know much about him, we dont know why he want to kill all ow agents. What if ow was corupted and lots of agents were involved in illegal activities. He was leader of special forces/spies so he may find out about it and decided to confront Morrison in hq and tell him to stop it (or somethink like that cuz i cant really imagine reaper just asking him to stop without using any other eghm force eghm methods :stuck_out_tongue:P) (we knew how it ended). So now he want to have revenge on all agents that were involved in illegal activities. He couldnt do it alone so he joined talon.
Maybe talon is the good organisation, we see them as evil only because they are in conflict with ow, but what if they have greater plan :stuck_out_tongue:
Sorry for that wall of text :slight_smile:

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Aren’t they all rainbow?

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if I was thinking alignment i’d say

Pure/Lawful Good:

  • Mei (Wants to preserve the world)
  • Reinhardt (Wants to protect the innocent)
  • Brigitte (Also wants to protect the innocent, and support her heroes)
  • Tracer (Supporter of Omnic Rights and Good)
  • Torbjorn (Leaves Grey after the Binary comic since he was able to look past his Omnic prejudice and protect Bastion)
  • Pharah (Lawful because she is the Law)
  • Winston (Wants to do good, even if it means breaking the Petras Act, more Pure than Lawful)
  • Orisa (The Purest)
  • Zenyatta (The Zenniest Pure)
  • Mercy (More Lawful than Pure, she’s okay without Overwatch, she just wants to help people)
  • Zarya (Lawful soldier, keeping Volskaya’s secrets for the country)
  • LĂșcio (A little grey due to being a rebel and a thief, but a definite pioneer for freedom and peace)

Grey Good

  • Soldier: 76 (Doesn’t see himself as a hero, really just a vigilante outside of the law hunting a Deadman)
  • McCree (Good Moral code, never been one for rules, all about that Frontier Justice)
  • Genji (Muddy past, he’s a decent guy who’s probably gonna pick the right side)
  • Ana (From what we’ve seen, she’s certainly good, but she’s not about world peace, more protecting her friends and family)
  • D.Va (tough one, she’s a child soldier celebrity treating war like a game, she streams her battles and is locked down by her nation’s military, we’ve not really seen if her motives are just to be the best or to actually do good)

Uninvolved/True Neutral

  • Bastion

True Grey

  • Symmetra (She mainly buys Vishkar’s rhetoric but she also questions the contrary, as seen in the comic)
  • Hanzo (Isn’t Evil, but probably can’t forgive himself enough to be ‘good’)

Victimized Evil

  • Widowmaker (She is evil, but it’s because of the mind control and the torture)

Chaotic Neutral

  • Junkrat (He doesn’t do anything because it’s evil, he just treats international law as a challenge to spice up his plans rather than a reason against it)

Necessary Neutral

  • Roadhog (he does things because he thinks the world deserves it rather than malicious intent)

Grey Evil

  • Sombra (she has her own agenda)
  • Reaper (Motives aren’t truly known)
  • Moira (Walks past ethics like it’s graffiti on tarmac, but thinks she’s benefiting humanity in the long run)

Lawful Evil

  • Doomfist (his ideals are more necessary evil to strengthen humanity)
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Lore-wise, Junkrat and Roadhog would be grey. Roadhog is actually closer to the “good” side of the spectrum. He cultivated a personality as a psycho-killer in order to overcome the tragedy of his past and survive in the apocalyptic wasteland. Read his background and he’s got the standard “Hulk” operating procedure: leave him alone and he leaves you alone.

Sombra could be in the grey area, too. Even though she worked for Talon, she was just out for herself.

Soldier goes into grey: doing good in a vigilante way.

And has been pointed out before, Bastion. He has PTSD, which makes him a bit tragic, but he’s still a killing machine with no allegiance.

McCree, gun for hire. Never really good, but never really hurt anyone in his quest for reputation. Just kinda didn’t pay attention to them or the world around him.

I’d put Hanzo in the “bad” category. While he is just out for himself, and he has never worked for talon, his power grab has hurt many people and destroyed lives.

Now what about Zarya and Symmetra? They are both nationalists who do what they’re told. But the difference is, Symmetra enforces fascism, even though she is focused on a better future. Zarya is just an anti-omnic soldier for Mother Russia; there are no real ideologies beyond that for her.

Lucio goes into grey, because while he is a freedom fighter, he’s a criminal. Just because he has a more positive attitude than Soldier76 doesn’t make him any less of a vigilante.

Genji goes into the grey, as he is still very self-centered, even though he isn’t actively doing bad and is in the right side of the ethical balance. Outside of a romance and a learned philosophy, he isn’t really out to make the world a better place, possibly because he is still overcoming his own problems.

So, as for good: Winston, Tracer, Torbjorn, Lucio, Orisa, Zarya, Zenyatta, Mercy, D.Va, Reinhardt, Brigitte, Pharah, Mei (even though she did kill all of her friends in Ecopoint)

The grey: Soldier76, Sombra, McCree, Bastion, Ana, Lucio, Junkrat, Roadhog, Genji. Note that almost all of the grey characters, outside of Junkrat and Sombra, have good intentions, even if they are bitter or self-centered.

The bad: Reaper, Doomfist, Widow, Moira, (charismatic but amoral), Symmetra and Hanzo

At its core, Overwatch is a setting of “hope” that defines itself more by it’s good guys and almost-good guys than it’s villains. And it really good use a few more bad guys to round things out, but I don’t think we’re going to ever reach that point.

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I think practically everyone but Hanzo, Symmetra, and Widow are doing what they personally think is “right”, beyond that it’s a basically a scale of Moira to Mercy on how much blood someone’s willing to feed their Noble Goal in order to make it a reality.

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Mei killed her teammates? I watched that short. My impression was that it was a system failure. Nothing she did.

Interesting perspectives. Thanks to everyone who has responded.

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I definitely agree WhamBamDan’s interpretation. Couldn’t have done it better myself

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Ana is most definitely good she still fights evil in Cairo even in her old age

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I think that :
“Good” are :
Ana (she wants to help others even though she’s old)
Brigitte(she wants to help and fight for the innocent people)
D.Va(wants to help and protect her country)
Genji ( now , here i’m not really sure if it’s confirmed or something but i truly believe that Genji is a good guy, because of all the things he’s been through and what Zenyatta had taught him + we know that he helped Overwatch)
Lucio( he wants to protect his nation, his people from the Vishkar Corporation )
Mccree ( yeah , we know that he was a bad guy before joining Blackwatch , but i think the time he had spent with Blackwatch and Overwatch really changed him)
Mei( she want’s to save the world , she even has a voice line : “Our world is worth fighting for”)
Mercy ( she’s basically Guardian Angel , she helps everyone in need as both doctor and savior , she brings people back to life etc. She’s so pure)
Pharah (“I’ll protect the innocents”)
Reinhardt(“I’ll be your shield”)
Tracer(she so happy and enthusiastic, she’s an Overwatch agent who helped to save the world during The Uprising )
Winston( really kind Gorilla scientist)
Torbjorn
Zenyatta (even though he is an Omnic i think he has good intentions and does not want to do any harm to anyone or anything)
"Neutral" are :
Bastion
Hanzo( “Dragons” revealed that he has a “fight” inside him and he is stuggling to choose the right thing)
Roadhog ( I don’t think he is a bad guy - he only works as Junkrat’s Body Guard and as long he is paid he doesn’t care much , he even hates Junkrat)
Soldier 76( The animated short revealed that he doesn’t care anymore and wants to find the truth about Overwatch’s shutdown)
Sombra( again , Sombra is kinda strange character- she’s with Talon , but she doesn’t care about their intentions and goals , she just want to find who really rules the world)
Symmetra ( she’s not bad , just being controlled by Vishkar)
"Evil" are:
Doomfist
Moira( Moira’s lore is really strange and i don’t know if i should list her here , she doesn’t care about anyone , she just wants to find the real power of science)
Junkrat
Reaper
Widowmaker( Her lore is so sad - she’s not bad , just being brainwashed changed her personality but i think at some point she will change because in the Reflections comics she is seen next to Gerard’s grave and some of her voice lines reveal that maybe the experiment is starting to fail , Guess Moira is not that brilliant)
I think we need more lore , please Blizzard do something about it.

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Mei leaving the sensors to have her massive data set may have drained enough from the batteries to cease cryostasis for her squadmates. She may very well have unintentionally murdered her team.

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Whaaaat Junkrat and Roadhog aren’t all that evil! :stuck_out_tongue: Sure they love blowing things up, stealing pachimari and despise Omnics (don’t forget even “heroic” characters like Zarya and Torbjorn have bad blood with Omnics), but the dynamic duo really are more free-spirited light-hearted nutty comic relief than anything else. Like Timon and Pumbaa, Abbott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Spongebob and Patrick, Jay and Silent Bob, Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, Farley and Spade, etc.

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Naw man, it’s confirmed that they are both murderers.