10 Video Game Villains We WANTED To Win

5. Saren - Mass Effect

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and that pretty much defines antagonist Saren's arc throughout the first Mass Effect game.

Saren is a member of the Spectres, an elite group which attempts to ensure stability throughout the galaxy no matter the cost, while answering only to the Citadel Council.

Saren eventually comes across the Reaper flagship Sovereign and surmises that the galaxy's organics are better off being indoctrinated by the Reapers and serving them rather than simply warring themselves into oblivion.

Though Saren ultimately becomes wholly indoctrinated, he's far from a one-note drone, and at the end of the game it's entirely possible for the player to tease out his prevailing sense of self, leading him to commit suicide in order to stop himself from opening the Citadel relay.

But whatever your choice, it's made clear that Saren's reasoning was totally sound: the Reapers' return was as inevitable as the sun rising, and if the only palpable "freedom" was extinction, then synthesis with the Reapers was a thoroughly understandable alternative.