Even Evil Has Standards/Theater

"But many a king on a first-class throne, If he wants to call his crown his own, Must manage somehow to get through More dirty work than ever I do..."
 * The main focus of the play and movie Short Eyes, in which a child molester is sent to prison. It doesn't end well for him.
 * Urinetown: "If there's one thing I've learned in my many years of enforcing the laws of this city, it's that the journey down to Urinetown offers no surprises. Not even from the very toughest among us. On that journey, expect only... the expected."
 * The Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance makes this salient point:

"The pickpocket: I may not say—a secret. . . Christian (shrugging his shoulders): Oh! The pickpocket (with great dignity): . . .Of the profession."
 * And, of course, the pirates famously refuse to ever attack an orphan. Or to disobey a command given in the name of the queen.
 * Richard III: Buckingham is a-okay carrying out Richard's orders until he hints that he'd like the Little Princes offed.
 * Cyrano De Bergerac:
 * The pickpocket is willing to be one of the one hundred thugs that will punish an impertinent poet, later, he tries to steal Christian but is caught by him, and he was willing to betray the thugs and denounce the plan in exchange for his freedom, but when Christian ask for the name of the perpetrator he doesn’t want to talk and lampshades this trope:

"Cyrano (taking off his hat): Gentle child, Although my Gascon pride would else forbid
 * Cyrano maybe is not evil, but definitely he is a Jerkass and he is proud of it, so when the the buffet girl offers him some food he is eager to lampshade this:

To take the least bestowal from your hands,

My fear of wounding you outweighs that pride,

And bids accept. .."

"De Guiche: I leave no woman in peril."
 * De Guiche sends a hundred men against a poet and stages a Last Stand after one too many humiliations from the Gascons, but then he declares the reason for his Heel Face Turn:

"Fagin: A man's got a heart, hasn't he? Joking apart, hasn't he? And though I'd be the first one to say that I wasn't a saint, I'm finding it hard to be really as black as they paint."
 * In Moliere's Don Juan, while Juan is is pretty much totally amoral and unempathetic to others, in one scene, he intervenes to save the life of a nobleman who was attacked by bandits and grossly outnumbered. This works to Juan's favor as the man he rescued turns out to have been the brother of one of Juan's abandoned conquests, which makes him become conflicted about his task of killing Juan. Additionally, Moliere had strong opinions about contemporary medical practice and how it was populated by a bunch of quacks and charlatans, and Juan echoes the author's opinions on this issue.
 * The aunts in Arsenic and Old Lace are greatly offended when their nephew tells them to lie about killing various men. They may be murderers, but they would never "stoop to telling a fib!"
 * Differing greatly from his portrayal in the book, Fagin from Oliver!, is far more Affably Evil and is increasingly horrified by Bill Syke's brutality. It's best summed up in his song Reviewing the Situation:

"Fagin: I don't want nobody hurt for me, nor made to do the dirt for me. This rotten life is not for me, it's getting far too hot for me..."
 * And then:


 * Inherit the Wind: Brady, a religious fundamentalist, may give Cates a hard time for teaching evolution in a town where rigidly creationism is practiced. Yet, parents condemning their own child like Reverend Brown did to his daughter, Rachel; Brady does draw the line there.