I tried DUNE but it was way too heavy for me at least at that time (years ago)
But then I was guilty of the same sin I suppose - The Tenchi story I wrote (was writing) was going to have that same sort of "who's bad? who's good" aspect.
It was going to turn out that the Dikatsu were covertly incited to attack by Azuza's father, as an excuse to expand the empire, and pillage their homeworld's resources. Feeling they were righteous but defeated, they were ripe to be incited again by Kagato, who had been given the means to capture Tsunami by Tokimi.
But that too was a lie, as Tokimi plots to have Kagato "kill" Tsunami (which would return her to the goddess realm). In the end, it would be shown that she was actually trying to SAVE her sisters, as she felt that the universe was nothing more then a failed experiment. Basically she wanted to get her sisters out of the Petri dish before she cleaned it out and sterilized it.
Clay wasn't in the picture, and I guess in the end the only purely "bad guy" was going to be Kagato. But even he had a reason - dating back to the founding of Jurai and his resentment when he - then the leader - was NOT chosen by Tsunami and was supplanted by the then low class Misaki... That was to be the start of his obsession, which would lead him to extend his life by become a being of pure energy....
Remember this was concocted by me BEFORE OVA3.... SO you see, I'm being brief and it's still getting complicated.... I should have seen that it was overly ambitious.
