Here it is. My next candidate is Bandana Dee from the Kirby franchise.
What's The Work?
The Kirby franchise is about a pink ball from the Planet Popstar who saves his home planet (and sometimes other planets or even the entire universe) from any kind of threat, especially intergalactic ones (e.g., Dark Matter, Zero, Star Dream, and Void Termina), often with the help of friends.
Who Is He?
Bandana Waddle Dee is arguably one of the deuteragonists of the Kirby franchise alongside King Dedede and Meta Knight. He was formerly Dedede's right-hand before "redeeming" himself in Kirby's Return to Dream Land, which is arguably also the game where King Dedede fully redeems himself. In this game, he helps Kirby restore Magolor's ship and get the Master Crown, only to find out Magolor wanted to use it to take over the universe. As a result, he helps Kirby stop him along with Dedede and Meta Knight. In Kirby and the Rainbow Curse, he aided in helping Kirby defeat Claycia. In Star Allies, he helps save the universe from Void Termina. In Forgotten Land, he helps save the Waddle Dees from the Beast Pack. He can also help you defeat Fecto Elfillis in co-op.
Admirable Standards?
This is the thing that kept him from being Pure Good before. But that changes now with this proposal.
First of all, it's no use comparing him to Kirby and Meta Knight. Both have way more resources, with Kirby being the most powerful character in the series and Meta Knight having the Galaxia, which is an extremely powerful sword that gives him access to all kinds of moves.
Now how about King Dedede? He only needed a hammer to help Kirby out in his adventures, specifically in Kirby 64 with the battle against 02, where he was the one to sent Kirby to the sky and shoot 02, and Kirby Triple Deluxe, where he saved Kirby from Queen Sectonia, thus playing a key role in her defeat. The argument that he fails to the king is completely invalidated for a few reasons.
Reason Number 1: King Dedede appears in all mainline Kirby games except Amazing Mirror, which gives him tons of screen time in comparison to Bandana Dee, being present in the second highest amount of Kirby games (Meta Knight was absent in the original KDL, Triple Deluxe, and Rainbow Curse, so he's third here, while Dedede was absent in Amazing Mirror and Rainbow Curse). There's no indication Bandana Dee would know about the events of K64 and Triple Deluxe, since he's absent in those games.
Reason Number 2: Bandana Dee does save a lot of Waddle Dees from being enslaved (yes, they're being trapped for slavery, as shown in the first Lab Discovera cutscene) by the Beast Pack.
Proof that co-op is canon to Forgotten Land.
Reason Number 3: He helped Kirby defeat Fecto Elfillis. Yes, he straight up helped Kirby defeat the Eldritch Horror of Forgotten Land. And this is not entirely dependent on player choice either. In the credits scene of the game, he does a pose with Kirby and Elfillin, and in a Natural Plains level too, which is outside of Waddle Dee Town. This implies that co-op mode is canon to Forgotten Land (as if it wasn't already in Return to Dream Land (Star Allies, no need to question it, co-op and CPU Players 2, 3, and 4 are the same, and thus, canon) which further proves that the Kirby franchise, whenever it has co-op mode, always makes co-op canon, though only three mainline games show co-op). Any and all claims of co-op not being canon are further invalidated by the fact that even in single player, Bandana Dee appears in the ending cinematic cutscene of the game when Elfillin sacrifices himself. And Elfillis is one of the worst characters in the series for forcing Waddle Dees to be slaves, shattering Leongar's soul, and trying to make Planet Popstar collide with the new planet. While Bandana Dee doesn't stop Elfillis from crashing Planet Popstar into the New World (mainly because he doesn't have the resources), he nonetheless helps Kirby defeat Elfillis, which is still pretty admirable, because even Queen Sectonia isn't as bad as Elfillis, and saving Kirby from her vines is arguably the only action of Dedede's that could be argued as beating out Bandana Dee aside from playing a key role in defeating 02, but 02 isn't as bad as Elfillis either.
Even if you don't consider that, Bandana Dee still saved the Waddle Dees from slave labor, and this is one of his only major appearances outside of Revenge of the King from KSSU, where he tried helping Triple D in defeating Kirby, and Return to Dream Land, where he shares an admirable act with Kirby, Meta Knight, and Dedede. Him saving the Waddle Dees from slave labor is still admirable enough compared to King Dedede.
Corrupting Factors
None outside of trying to help Dedede defeat Kirby in KSSU, which is out of loyalty to Dedede and obviously subverted for both him and Dedede.
Final Verdict
I've had questions about his status on NPG Wiki for a long time because I believed all of his competition has too many resources compared to him, including Dedede. Then I remembered that Dedede only needed a hammer to help Kirby defeat 02 and Sectonia. And then I remembered that Bandana Dee doesn't even come close in terms of screentime compared to Dedede, who appeared in all mainline Kirby games except Kirby and the Amazing Mirror. And no, Dedede doesn't fail the admirable standards to Bandana Dee for not helping Kirby and Bandana Dee help fight the big threat of the game, that moment where he saved a Waddle Dee from the Beast Pack was so cool, and he did help Kirby defeat three large threats already (that includes Nightmare, which I didn't address, because BWD didn't exist in 1993, which means that this obviously can't be counted against him). As a result, I'm giving Bandana Dee a yes (and a pretty easy one at that due to the tremendous amounts of proof backing up the statement that co-op is canon in Kirby and the Forgotten Land).
Here's my next candidate (though I have to get permission first to repropose her): Alice lookalike from the franchise featuring a spiky animal fighting against a tyrannical and egotistical obese scientist. Guess who it is in the comments below!