http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VillainWithGoodPublicity

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A Villain with Good Publicity is one of the most frustrating opponents a hero can ever face. On the surface, this villain works within the system and commands a great deal of respect from the average citizen, but behind the scenes, conducts all manners of nastiness. Even the heroes (or the audience!) may be fooled until The Reveal, unaware that The Man Behind the Man is someone so publicly trusted.

Should the heroes know the truth, they're still stymied by the fact that no one else does. Attempts to bust the villain will be met with harassment lawsuits, breaking & entering or assault charges, or bad press. The heroes may even be falsely painted as villains in the public eye. (Some heroes embrace this image and become the Lovable Rogue or the Anti-Hero.) Should the heroes turn up actual evidence that something is up, it'll probably be ripped up by the villain's crack legal team (which Villains With Good Publicity always have), or spun to look like honest behavior.

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The Villain With Good Publicity is very good at getting the hero (or other innocents who get too close to the truth) accused of criminal activity. Then again, heroics are 90% based on breaking and entering, stalking, trespassing, assault, battery, and espionage anyway, so they may have a point there.

Worthy Opponents, Enigmatic Minions, Punch Clock Villains and other types of sympathetic antagonists often find themselves working for the well-liked villain, unaware what their boss is really up to.

In an episodic series, a Villain With Good Publicity is a good way to preserve the status quo; the best the hero can hope to do is foil a particular plot, not bust the actual villain. Although not always legally invincible, often the only way to defeat this foe permanently is to kill them. Heroes in this situation will frequently try to Trash Talk the villain, or tell them they won't get away with it.

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If the heroes are really unlucky, they're up against the entire government (or church, depending on the setting). The villain might also be a single person within the government, a corporation head or other public figure with a good PR department, or a religion engineered for this purpose. There's also a good chance that the villain is using copious amounts of bribery to keep their image clean. If things get even worse, the people whom the hero tries to protect will actively assist the villain against the heroes.

This villain's favored weapon is the Propaganda Machine. Or Bread and Circuses.

This villain may be portrayed as a hero (or the hero), and may even think of themself as the hero. Their villainous acts might even be portrayed as heroic. Alternative Character Interpretation may lead to viewing a story's hero as a Villain With Good Publicity.

If you need to take down a Villain With Good Publicity, send in a Cowboy Cop, Knight in Sour Armor, or anyone else who's prepared to play dirty for the greater good — or perhaps organize an Engineered Public Confession to out them as a Straw Hypocrite. The Ideal Hero and other idealistic heroes, by contrast, have no idea how to deal with these guys. Either way, any hero attempting to take one of these guys on can end up as a Hero with Bad Publicity. A Guile Hero might have some luck setting up an Involuntary Charity Donation to deprive the villain of assets while being unable to retaliate without compromising their good publicity.

Compare with Falsely Reformed Villain, where a villain puts on short-term pretense of reform. Contrast with most Evil Overlords and Card Carrying Villains who make no attempt to hide their villainy, and the Ancient Conspiracy, which hides its entire existence. The exact opposite is a villain who has a 0% Approval Rating, and a more extreme version is the Devil in Plain Sight (whom no one cares about one way or the other). Can be a form of No Hero to His Valet.

In some settings, the villain may actually have a plausible case for being considered a (sorta) good guy. If so, expect the setting to lean towards the "cynical" end of the Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism. May use Too Funny to Be Evil as an affable PR tactic. Villains who win over the fans are Rooting for the Empire or Draco in Leather Pants.

This trope is much more common in real life than Card-Carrying Villainy. However, as an "Evil Trope", examples would quickly devolve into complaining, so No Real Life Examples, Please!.

Examples:

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Anime & Manga

Comic Books

Fan Works

Films — Animation

Films — Live-Action

Literature

Live-Action TV

Music

Pro Wrestling

Radio

Dr. Blackgaard on Adventures in Odyssey — he preferred to let his Mooks like Richard Maxwell take the fall for everything.

Roleplay

James Talon, a character from Mass Effect: G.U.A.R.D.I.A.N. roleplay server is an uncaring psychopath, who murdered three prisoners of war, framed one of his teammates for it and later indirectly killed said teammate. Afterwards, he was promoted, given his own ship, and is currently praised as a hero by pretty much everyone. It might change in the near future.

Tabletop Games

Desus, one of the signature characters of Exalted, is one of the most famous and well-liked of the First Age Solars, and has no real enemies. Even those who oppose his faction are convinced of his nobility and good intentions. As for his true character...Well, he repeatedly beat his wife, Lilith, until she miscarried, and then brainwashed her into believing that it was all her fault. And that's how he treats the woman he (in his own sick way) loves. You don't even want to know what he does to people he's not attached to...And let's not even think about what he does to people that he actually dislikes. Considering that Lilith was one of the toughest warriors that ever lived out of a race whose entire shtick is "enduring hardship", that hints at just how badly Desus was beating her.

Inverted in Genius: The Transgression. One of the benefits of having a high Karma Meter is that people naturally see you as a trustworthy authority figure and have a very hard time believing you're up to anything evil. That said; Some Clockstoppers have the ability to brainwash normal people into Evil Luddites and gain good publicity that way Since obligation measures how much of a connection a genius has with humanity, it's perfectly possible for an evil genius to have high obligation by abusing this trope (an example NPC does so by keeping his hands clean). You don't have to be mad to be evil, after all.

There's a whole lot of these in Rifts, but the biggest one is probably Emperor Prosek. Within the Coalition States, he is considered to be incapable of doing any wrong. He gave a live televised speech announcing that he was plunging the nation into a series of unprovoked wars, including a Civil War against one of their own states, and he was cheered on for it. Outside his nation, he is regarded as a Jerkass or a Magnificent Bastard, but inside the Coalition States, he's unanimously regarded as the savior of Humanity.

Aztechnology, in Shadowrun, makes this their modus operandi. Formed from three Columbian drug lords, the megacorp has PR as one of their main pillars, and it does it so well that most of the world thinks of them as the angels. Because this is Shadowrun, though, that front hides all the Blood Magic, illegal gengineering, and assorted malfeasance just below the surface. It's so bad that not a single 'runner thinks poorly of Ghostwalker for simply removing them from Denver in the most expedient way.

Delta Green: New Life Fertility is a private company that provides very expensive but completely infallible fertility services to the global elite  with the helping hand of Lac Maternum, or the milk of Shub-Niggurath. The highest leaders, and the oldest New Life children, are devout worshippers of Shub-Niggurath. They are publicly known by the public, having the non-profit NGO New Life foundation, which sponsors a number of social works, and their clientele includes millionaires, celebrities, and royalty. If the players go after New Life, they'll have to fight their large network of supporters, connections, law firms, PR companies, and hired thugs. The Sowers are publicly known as a small and reserved hyper-fundamentalist Christian sect who hide in plain sight due to the "metaphysical innocence" from ritualistic sacrificing Azazel, an avatar of Nyarlathotep, which makes them invisible from the eyes of the public. If the players go after the Sowers, they'll first start using their own resources and personnel; if the players persist, they'll escalate and hire a law firm to harass and bully the players' agents (if identified) and a PR firm to call the attention of the national  and often conservative  media. Reporters will visit the Sowers' compounds, who will sell their image of an innocent church focused on farming, self-sufficiency, and recovering local communities, and that they are being unjustly persecuted by the federal government.



Theater

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Web Animation

Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation states this is how a villain should truly act, and why he thinks moral choice systems are stupid, since often all the evil actions one can choose are, and make you, Obviously Evil.

Red vs. Blue: Season 12 had Locus and Felix, two halves of the same mercenary team. Together, they managed to plunge the planet of Chorus into civil war and sabotaged multiple attempts at peace, each one convincing his side that he hated his "former" partner and maintaining great report with his side. Only an Engineered Public Confession by Felix managed to stop the civil war Even more so is UNSC Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Malcolm Hargrove, who, despite his well-liked status, is the person who hired Locus and Felix in the first place .

X-Ray & Vav had The Mad King in this position during the second half of Season Two. He's able to take back his company, win the hearts of the city and make X-Ray and Vav look pathetic in front of the mightier Mogar (which isn't really that hard) as well as turn the two against each other and be all-around awesome while initiating a plot to gain amazing powers by making people drink the milk from Mogar's mother, then sap it away for himself. The only thing that stops him is having him have a Villainous Breakdown

in this position during the second half of Season Two. RWBY: In Volume 5, it's revealed that Adam himself is seen as a popular symbol amongst the White Fang. Despite the fact that Adam is shown to be cavalier over the loss of Faunus lives in pursuit of Salem's plans, the Vale faction of the White Fang follows him loyally. Adam confirms to Sienna Khan that his Vale followers, and several in Mistral as well, see him as the true High Leader of the White Fang, not Sienna. Indeed, Sienna's own personal bodyguards turn on her and do nothing when Adam kills her. The White Fang finally turns on Adam when he attempts to blow them all up in an attempt to deny Blake victory , and then flat-out bails on them to avoid getting arrested, before slaughtering the few remaining members in Volume 6's first episode.

Webcomics

Web Original

Western Animation