User blog comment:HELO/How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Catalyst/@comment-24174486-20120710232656/@comment-147.4.154.112-20120712211103

I don’t remember “actively evil” being a requisite character trait for supervillains. (Common, sure, but not required.) And I don’t think I pointed to the Catalyst’s personal motivations as being the source or proof of his supervillain status. (I was also using the term "supervillain" hyperbolically, but admittedly not so hyperbolically that I would take it back.) I’m actually pretty sure I referenced his actions--that is, unblinking repeated pan-species mass genocide--as what makes him a bad guy. And that’s black-and-white, sure, but I don't really see another way to put it. There's not a lot of wiggle room when you describe what the Catalyst is doing.

I certainly wouldn’t argue with your assessment of the Catalyst as a Well-Intentioned Extremist. The reason behind his actions is, in its own way, logical and comes from a “good place” (or certainly not a bad place, given that he’s not trying to help so much as complete a task). But you know what they say about the road to hell. And good intentions certainly don’t exclude you from being a villain.

For example, the Illusive Man has good intentions (look out for humanity), but I think he’s pretty clearly a villain. And in the Dragon Age universe, Loghain, the Arishok, and Meredith can all be considered Well-Intentioned Extremists, but I don’t think anyone would argue that they weren’t villains. Why? Because their defining actions are…well, more-or-less objectively not good guy-ish.

And separate from that point: the Catalyst doesn’t choose to help Shepard. The Crucible makes him do it by “changing” him so that he can now see other options besides cyclic Reaperization, and to try any of those new options, he needs Shepard’s help.