Moral Event Horizon/Video Games



"The Darkness: "Aww, what did they do to poor ?""
 * Sephiroth (pictured at the right) in Final Fantasy VII is initially shown to be quite sympathetic despite Cloud's hatred of him. He saves the party at Shinra HQ and seems to be working against the Evil Corporation finding the Promised Land. Even during Cloud's flashback, when you discover that he's not entirely human (his Mom, Jenova is actually a feminine alien in a tank), he remains worthy of pity. But then he goes crazy and burns down Cloud's entire hometown, killing Cloud's mom and Tifa's dad among others, as well as almost killing the devastated Tifa when she lost it and tried to take revenge for her father. And if that wasn't enough of an Event Horizon for you and you're still somewhat willing to feel sorry for him, there's always the part where he murders Aerith (also pictured at the right) pretty much For the Evulz. Now we must kill him with fire!
 * Let's not forget President Shinra and Heidegger ordering the destruction of an entire sector of Midgar just to get rid of some terrorists. The Turks (mainly Reno and Tseng) might have crossed the line too by actually carrying out this heinous order.
 * Then there's Scarlet leading mass murder via the complete destruction of the town of Coral.
 * And Hojo. Where do we start with Hojo? Injecting alien cells into his unborn child? Murdering Professor Gast right in front of his wife Ifalna and his child, whom he then kidnaps for horrible experiments? Doing more horrific experiments on Vincent, Zack and Cloud? Also being indirectly responsible for  You might as well assume that he crossed the line right at very beginning of his career.
 * In Final Fantasy VI, Kefka is introduced as more of a nuisance, but a general of the enemy Empire nonetheless. His clownish charm fades rather quickly, however, after he disobeys direct orders and poisons Doma's water supply. The situation up to that point: General Leo had Doma Castle besieged, and was likely to win in just a matter of time with minimal casualties. Some time after Kefka arrives, Leo is summoned back to Vector to meet with the Emperor. Now there's no one to stop Kefka from dumping deadly poison into the Doma River, killing absolutely everyone in the castle; men, women, children, and Imperial P.O.W's that he knew full well were still trapped inside. The kicker here, which cements this act as Kefka gleefully tapdancing and cackling his way across the Moral Event Horizon, is that the Empire was going to win anyway. There was absolutely no possible justification for this heinous war crime other than Kefka wanting to hear "the music of hundreds of voices screaming in unison".
 * And if there's still any glimmer of humanity at that point, it's all but lost when he Just because he could.
 * Really, he doesn't even last THAT long. The introduction alludes to him, and later shows him, controlling Terra with a Slave Crown and forcing her to burn HIS OWN SOLDIERS ALIVE! According to another Imperial Soldier, it was as many as 50 soldiers in mere moments. The man had maybe a few seconds of screen time before he's revealed to be a thoroughly terrible person without a shred of decency. No wonder the soldiers at the Doma base keep complaining about him, who in their right mind agrees to serve under someone like that?!
 * His only excuse, at all for all this? As an early magitek knight, the process very likely drove him insane. No, that doesn't cut it.
 * Emperor Gestahl, while not nearly as evil as his subordinate Kefka, still crosses the line when he is shown in a flashback to have orchestrated an invasion of the esper world. While the invansion ends in failure, at the end he discovers an infant half-esper, and rips the baby from her mother's arms, killing the woman in the process, while gloating about how he's going to subject her to a life of experimentation. Oh BOY.
 * Psychonauts: As if Doctor Loboto wasn't bad enough, he crosses the Horizon by
 * What, and wasn't crossing the line?
 * That crossed the line twice due to being shamelessly absurd standard-issue Mad Science. Something about threatening to was so much more personally cruel. The Moral Event Horizon is weird like that.
 * In Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, right after you decide to follow the Dark Side path, the game makes it plain what an ultimately depraved monster you have chosen to become by allowing you to Force Persuade Zaalbar to kill Mission, his best friend, because she refuses to either join you or run away to save herself, and she's too nice to be brainwashed into going Sith herself. And Bastila compliments you for it. Note to put it all in perspective: Mission is a 14-year-old orphan girl who by this point in the game has not only helped save your life at least twice, but whom you've taken under your wing as a surrogate daughter, and who at this point in time is the only member of your party still believing that you can be turned back to the Light Side. You get to hear her anguished cries of betrayal and disappointment as she dies.
 * The whole point of the game (on the light side path, at least) is that there IS NO moral event horizon - that NO ONE deserves to die, and that there is no point beyond which someone cannot be redeemed. The fact that the game forces you to callously kill Mission if you side with Bastila at the end kind of turns this into a Broken Aesop.
 * Or, that anyone can be redeemed - if they make the choice to do so. Slaughtering half your party and capping it off by cutting down the teenager who looks up to you as a parental figure pretty much means you've taken your Last Second Chance and spaced it.
 * Or not. What really breaks the Aesop is that the extra scene where Carth could convince you to pull Redemption Equals Death was removed.
 * In Starcraft, there are a few. Arcturus Mengsk.
 * To elaborate, prior to, Mengsk has only used the psi-emitters on Confederate troops. Letting the Horde of Alien Locusts eat your enemies? That's a Kick the Dog for sure, but could be justifiable. Kerrigan (very loyal to Arcturus) even calls him on it.
 * It's hard to say if Kerrigan crossed it
 * Not to mention Stukov and DuGalle's meeting at the beginning of Brood War, over a hapless terran base overrun by Zerg, brought there by the UED themselves! It's debatable whether it was the crossing of the UED into the event horizon, since they hadn't done anything else yet, but it certainly showed you they weren't fucking around. The Power of Rock didn't save THOSE marines...
 * World of Warcraft/Warcraft III - "This city must be purged"
 * A better example would probably be taking up Frostmourne. Razing Stratholme was bad, but there was little that could be done otherwise. Frostmourne? He takes up a sword that he knows is cursed, saying all he wants is revenge. The ice shatters, and Muradin is hit by it as a direct result of Arthas' hatred and his own loyalty and then left to bleed to death in the snow. And he doesn't even care when he gets back to base.
 * "You lied to your men and betrayed the mercenaries who fought for you!" Stranding his own men in an icy wasteland and blaming and murdering the mercenaries he hired to do it show just how low Arthas will go in the pursuit of his revenge. Muradin is utterly disgusted by this, but due to his aforementioned loyalty, stays to help Arthas.
 * Neltharion, later known as Deathwing, crosses the Moral Event Horizon when he tricks the other Dragon Aspects into giving much of their power to the Dragon Soul, and then turns on them and kills nearly all the blue dragonflight. The rest of the Black Dragonflight crosses it with him in the eyes of the Red Dragonflight in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, and the player is tasked with eliminating them in the Twilight Highlands. There was also the matter of him causing a massive earthquake that does enormous damage to Azeroth...
 * Malygos crosses the Moral Event Horizon when the player, after defeating one of his minions, . Like Deathwing, when Alexstraza learns of his plans, she sadly decides that he is beyond redemption, and decides to kill him to save Azeroth.
 * Sylvanas Windrunner has crossed the line so many times that she plays double-dutch with it, and despite some Warcraft fans remaining loyal to her and claiming she hasn't done anything wrong because "it's for the good of her 'people'", many more have found her to be irredeemably evil. She has committed so many atrocities that it would actually be much easier to list what she hasn't done. She has: killed civilians, killed children, experimented on children with biological weapons, used biological weapons on civilian towns, committed genocide, disobeyed direct orders, reanimated the men that she has killed into more Forsaken, kidnapped, taken hostages, invaded foreign countries, framed a Foraken man who may or may not have committed a crime and then tested biological weapons against him, mind-controlled a Death Knight (essentially a volunteer Horde warrior), used propaganda, and set herself up as the object of cult worship. If Sylvanas sees a line to be crossed, she gleefully cartwheels over it.
 * Ace Attorney's Manfred Von Karma.  He's probably already passed into the realm of Complete Monsterdom.
 * While we all knew Dahlia was a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing from the moment she popped up, her status as a monster wasn't fully confirmed until the flashback case where
 * In Suikoden V, the villains had toed the line between reasonable and malicious up until they sent assassins to wipe out the beavers, for no reason other than a desire to remove all ethnic diversity from the kingdom. After that, they were just plain evil.
 * And in Suikoden Tierkreis, the Religious Leader Valfred goes too far when he
 * Planescape Torment. The game's plot revolves around
 * The Practical Incarnation has his MEH on-screen, in one of the game's most emotionally affecting scenes.
 * Given the sorts of horrible things you can do within the game if you so choose,
 * Probably he was the explorer who first mapped out the Lower Planes, the knowledge of which allowed the demons and devils to come into contact with one another, and started the Blood War in the first place.
 * Spoofed in Armed and Dangerous: King Forge's men take over a retirement home. This is seen by everyone as a horrible act, while it was actually done because one of the heroes moved a sign.
 * Dr. Suchong from Bio Shock at first seems like a very slimy scientist with a Morally-Ambiguous Doctorate, but no worse than any of the other psychos running around Rapture. Then comes The Reveal audiodiary: . After that, his eventual Karmic Death is fully justified.
 * The game, meanwhile, will conclude that the player has crossed the line if
 * Nearly every major figure in Rapture can be said to have crossed the Moral Event Horizon. Steinman becoming the "Picasso" of cosmetic surgery, Cohen's definition of art, the whole Little Sister project... However, while Tenenbaum does do actions that could count as crossing the line (collaborating with the Nazi prison camp, letting ADAM research go on despite being fully aware of the consequences, the whole Little Sister thing...) she still manages to appear sympathetic as she becomes The Atoner of the game.
 * However, truly special mention must be made to Dr. Sofia Lamb of the sequel. The opening cutscene is you bringing your Little Sister, Eleanor Lamb around on a gathering expedition, and being attacked by a group of splicers as is normal. Then the good Doc Lamb shows up.
 * Possibly topped by.
 * Her Moral Event Horizon may have come even earlier when  or when.
 * Stanley Pool is just as bad, in a horrible,fat toad sort of way. Not only does he turn Dionysis Park into a den of vice after being given control over the district, but he prevents Eleanor from reporting this by kidnapping her and giving her to the Little Sister program. Then, when Sofia escapes from prison, he decides silence any remaining witnesses by sabotaging the district's pressure systems, drowning just about everyone left in the area. Is it any wonder that getting the game's best ending requires you to kill the despicable jerk?
 * In Fallout 3 the player can merrily trip over the Horizon by erasing the peaceful town of Megaton out of existence for a handful of caps and a room at Tenpenny Tower. Doing so will immediately sink your Karma meter to the lowest it can go -- earning you the attentions of the Gunslinger-esque Regulators -- and your pacifist father will have a very stern word to you about it later on in the story. Although this is if you choose to do it your Crowning Moment of Villainy, elsewhere in the game you may enslave children, feed a pack of lies to a gullible character which she will then publish as fact, sabotage your erstwhile home thus forcing your neighbours out into the hands of almost certain death, and finally.
 * The effect of many of your evil actions is kinda ruined as you can erase the negative consequences of many such actions by giving water to beggars or donating to the church.
 * Actually, the very act of turning the purifier on gives you the same amount of positive karma as poisoning it does negative. So, for killing the entire wasteland population, the karma system just remains somewhat indifferent to you.
 * In Fallout New Vegas the player can cross this. YMMV if the Moral Event Horizon goes to selling your friend into slavery, letting Mortimer, a high class cannibal, use one of your human companions as the main course of a banquet, or teaming up with the Powder Gangers to destroy Goodsprings and kill everyone in it, including the guy who saved your life. Or other things.
 * The Locust from Gears of War were nasty in the first place, but just in case you thought that they might actually be justified in their extreme actions (as Myrrah continually tries to pass them off as being), they skip gleefully past the Moral Event Horizon in Gears Of War 2
 * The reason  commits suicide is his religion believes that the soul can leave the body before death, and this is what happened during the torture. After he was free, his body was soulless so   saw no point in having earthly remains.
 * The Player can cross this in Armored Core: For Answer with the mission "Destroy Cradle 03"-- a mission that has you destroy 5 "Cradles", huge flying cities housing 20 Million people each. Your progress through the mission is kept track of by Old King saying how many people you have killed, ending with the staggering total of 100 Million. The next mission comes from a case of What the Hell, Hero?, and 4 of the game's major characters come after you in a final, semi-heroic last stand (5 on Hard Mode, with the 5th being the female lead of the game), that will, ultimately, because you are the main character after all, end with you coming out victorious, and as the game implies becoming a Complete Monster.
 * Lieutenant Virgil from Xenosaga was a Jerkass from the start, but crosses the Moral Event Horizon when he blows up some Realians for no better reason than that there's some chance it might buy some time, and talks cheerfully about how he loves eating their flesh. When he dies shortly thereafter, Shion still cares, but the player most likely doesn't.
 * Albedo. He
 * Another option for the player to cross the horizon: using a PlanetBuster in Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri. Using one will put you beyond redemption in the eyes of the rest of humanity (unless you repealed the UN Charter), and trigger a round of Gaias Vengeance from an already contentious ecosystem. Made even more noticeable because not only will the Planetbuster obliterate its target, it will probably level the entire continent it hits, leaving nothing but a giant crater, as a personal reminder to everyone, and yourself, what a bastard you are.
 * Actually, repealing the UN Charter is not gonna save your hide. Everyone will still hate your guts and the planet will also still hate your guts. Lets just say that a Planet Buster will make anyone hate your guts (expect your own followers).
 * Depends. Without the Charter, it's VERY Possible to be liked enough to not have everyone hate you after a buster or two (or 27, Twenty-Freaking-Seven... on one turn.) With the Charter, you're screwed.
 * Seedle's back story revealed in the last episode of Makai Kingdom even has SEVERAL Overlords pissed with him. Put quick and dirty, he (an allegedly noble samurai) raped Salome (who fought back and killed him), and she was burned at the stake for slaying a hero; he thinks it's not enough.
 * In The Darkness video game, the death of serves as a Moral Event Horizon for both Paulie Francetti and The Darkness itself. Paulie for executing her and The Darkness for restraining you as you are Forced to Watch and sadistically joking about it all.
 * Albedo. He
 * Another option for the player to cross the horizon: using a PlanetBuster in Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri. Using one will put you beyond redemption in the eyes of the rest of humanity (unless you repealed the UN Charter), and trigger a round of Gaias Vengeance from an already contentious ecosystem. Made even more noticeable because not only will the Planetbuster obliterate its target, it will probably level the entire continent it hits, leaving nothing but a giant crater, as a personal reminder to everyone, and yourself, what a bastard you are.
 * Actually, repealing the UN Charter is not gonna save your hide. Everyone will still hate your guts and the planet will also still hate your guts. Lets just say that a Planet Buster will make anyone hate your guts (expect your own followers).
 * Depends. Without the Charter, it's VERY Possible to be liked enough to not have everyone hate you after a buster or two (or 27, Twenty-Freaking-Seven... on one turn.) With the Charter, you're screwed.
 * Seedle's back story revealed in the last episode of Makai Kingdom even has SEVERAL Overlords pissed with him. Put quick and dirty, he (an allegedly noble samurai) raped Salome (who fought back and killed him), and she was burned at the stake for slaying a hero; he thinks it's not enough.
 * In The Darkness video game, the death of serves as a Moral Event Horizon for both Paulie Francetti and The Darkness itself. Paulie for executing her and The Darkness for restraining you as you are Forced to Watch and sadistically joking about it all.

"Hespith: But the true abomination... is not that it occurred, but that it was allowed. Branka... my love... The Stone has punished me, dream friend. I am dying of something worse than death... Betrayal."
 * That is, of course, assuming Paulie hasn't crossed it already by blowing up the orphanage where Jackie grew up with a rocket launcher. With the kids inside it. Out of spite.
 * Lezard Valeth of Valkyrie Profile is one nasty piece of work and crosses the line many times (especially in the sequel/prequel), but very early on he crosses the Moral Event Horizon when he orchestrates the deaths of his former teacher, Lorenta, and her husband by giving the latter a potion that turns the drinker into a monster. Lorenta's husband begs her to kill him before he succumbs to its effect, but Lorenta can't bring herself to do it. He then turns into a monster and kills her. All of this was to draw the attention of the protagonist, Lenneth Valkyrie. Lezard claims he needed a sacrifice of lovers to lure the goddess to him and chose his former teacher because she and her husband had a "lifetime of love."
 * In one of the background books in Morrowind, an axe-fighter named Ellabeth becomes part of a love triangle. She kidnaps her rival and leaves her in a room with three doors, telling her that one door will lead to freedom, another to the guy, and the third to a demon that will kill her. That's a nasty enough revenge, right?  It's called "The Third Door."
 * This one's arguable. Not because Ellabeth was enacting revenge for being wronged, but because, before leaving the girl to her fate, takes pity on the poor thing, points her to the correct door, and tells her to ignore the other two and just leave. Her advice is disregarded.
 * In the embellished historical account of Morrowind's war with the Empire, we get a plethora of bastards merrily hopping across the MEH. The Akaviri potentate and his son gleefully plot the absolute destruction of the Emperor and his minions, callously catching innocents in their web of intrigue, while they are at peace with the Empire. A deranged Khajiit lord sets Molag Bal, one of the most sinister and cruel Daedra Lords, on a helpless town because a bard from there had told him a depressing tale. Later on, to get revenge for Lord Vivec of Morrowind blacklisting him for incompetence, a mercenary manipulates a poor bereaved girl who had been trained in witchcraft into summoning Mehrunes Dagon to destroy the capital of Morrowind. The mad Empress has her own son assassinated, and the Emperor (after being tricked into believing that his concubine was an assassin), casually remarks to her that he's going to free her, but he thinks he'll have her innocent little sister brought in as her replacement.
 * Outside of the literature within Morrowind, Lady Almalexia, one of the three mortal gods of the Morrowind Tribunal, goes insane with power and uses her reincarnated lover (whom she betrayed to his death the first time) to carry out her increasingly unsettling orders, and finally sends him off to murder one of the other members of the Tribunal based on sketchy evidence. When the player arrives, they find Sotha Sil already dead, and Almalexia arrives to try to murder you before going on to take care of Vivec so that she will be the sole ruler of the Temple.
 * Depending on the player's choices in Devil Survivor, different people can end up crossing the line. One major example is, who loses it after finding out that demons aren't the only threat in the lockdown and decides to deal with it by slaughtering anyone they judge irredeemable. Again, the player decides whether they've gone too far with their well-intentioned extremism, or if they want to pull them back from the brink.
 * Lord Yuna of Breath of Fire 4 at first appears to be a simple officer of the Fou Empire's forces. He doesn't even appear to be as evil as some of the other members of the army (CoughRassoCough). Then you learn near the end of the game that After learning all that, there isn't a Breath of Fire fan that doesn't consider him a Complete Monster, especially since
 * Wiseman from Baten Kaitos Origins crosses it in a big way when he, an act so evil that Seph, perhaps the best example of a Blue Oni in the game up to this point, goes completely berserk. To the point where he.
 * Shanath isn't any better in this regard. Even as someone who had been a major pain in the ass for pretty much the entire game, he manages to take it to a new level when he . This pisses off Sagi to such a massive degree that when it is revealed later in the game that this wasn't Shanath's idea, but, it's treated as that character crossing the Moral Event Horizon as well. Yes, the same event counts for two different people.
 * In the first game of the Trauma Center series, it's already pretty enraging the thought of a fanatic unknown organization, threatening the lives of the innocent and the main character's beloved ones with their parasites for no good reason. But wait until the last part of the game, when you discover that Add this up to some calculation:.
 * The Tales series is known for having sympathetic villains, so it's kind of shocking that Tales of Vesperia has two of the most vile, inhuman villains in the entire series.
 * First there is Ragou. The very first thing we learn about him is that he demands cripplingly high taxes from the people, and abducts the children of those unable to pay. Doesn't seem so bad, right? Well, then you learn that And his reason for doing this? He was bored.
 * And then there's Cumore. Was there ever Cumore. At first, he only seems like a Smug Snake, but then he tells Leblanc right to his face that the Schwann Brigade is weak for showing mercy. Sometime later, we discover that he has forced the people of Heliord in brutal labor camps very similar to WW 2 labor camps. All this is topped off when it's discovered that he's sent countless people on a literal suicide mission, including one of his own men because he didn't load a prisoner wagon fast enough.
 * One could argue that crossed the line worse then Ragou and Cumore.  Oh, and then we learn that . And then, as the icing of a very vile cake, . Did I mention that  Yeah, Vesperia pulled no punches in regards to pure evil villains...
 * In Symphonia, Rodyle crosses the Moral Event Horizon when he floods a passageway full of escaping prisoners, killing them all, in order to prevent the heroes from reaching the Mana Cannon.
 * In In Famous the player is given a karma choice.  You become literally irredeemable: the Karma Meter sets to its most evil setting and sticks there permanently.
 * Similarly,
 * In Dead Rising, there is a rival photographer, who helps you learn to use the camera, and has photography contests with you, but in the last day, he ties up an innocent man, and was going to take a picture of the person "Crossing into zombiehood". By the way, if you don't get there at a specific time, you'll find out he is not kidding.
 * Thankfully, the game lets you, in your metagame precognition, kill him before this even begins to happen...while he's giving you the tutorial on how to use your camera. The game still counts this as a Psychopath kill.
 * Kartikeya of Wild Arms 5 seems at first your typical Psycho for Hire, first shown killing enemy troops after they'd already surrendered, nothing too special here. An element of It's Personal is introduced when Greg reveals that Kartikeya killed his wife and son for no real reason, but that's still on this side of the line. When Greg finally does confront him?  The Moral Event Horizon is now crossed.
 * The Sorceress in Spyro: Year of the Dragon crossed the Moral Event Horizon when she reveals to Bianca that she doesn't want to keep the baby dragons in the Forgotten Realms to keep the magic alive,
 * "I don't have to kill them. It just stops them from wriggling too much.''
 * The Hamlet special forces unit from Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception unleashes a biochemical agent on the innocent city of Santa Elva in order to kill civilians. It's a bit hard to feel sympathetic for the Leasath military after that.
 * crosses it in a big way at the end of episode 4 of Tales of Monkey Island, when
 * What makes this Moral Event Horizon even worse?.
 * Before then, his sadistic torture of Guybrush in the final areas of Monkey Island 2.
 * from Okami has all the marks of a very cool villain: sly, sneaky, Evil Counterpart to Ammy and an awe-striking battle. All of this is negated by it  And then, once it had accomplished its goals, it . Whereas other Demon Lords are traditional villains (Orochi at least let people live their own lives, provided they yielded the yearly sacrifice,)  is an irredeemable, hateful, Complete Monster.
 * Somehow those yearly scheduled murders of virgins seem less charming than the single cold-blooded murder and following deception.
 * In Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, 's moral event horizon will undoubtedly go down as one of the most horrifying scenes in videogames, or any medium for that matter:  Sure, in some ways his plan means well, but this little moment definitely cemented his status as a Complete Monster.
 * You, the player, cross the Moral Event Horizon during the famous level "No Russian."  General Shepherd tells you in the mission briefing "This will cost you a piece of yourself," and he is not joking. Even though you do have the option to not shoot the civilians (you can either not shoot at all or purposely shoot over their heads), it doesn't excuse the dozens of SWAT cops you gun down on your way out.
 * And the kicker is you can't even prevent the massacre by gunning down the terrorists instead, because doing so gives you a Nonstandard Game Over.
 * You can skip the level, though (even during the level itself), and the game reminds you of this several times leading up to the event itself.
 * Plus one in Black Ops, and how. During one of the Vietnam levels, you hear a recording cementing the bad guys as complete, irredemable monsters, wherein one mentions the effectiveness of the evil phlebotinum Nova 6 on infants. And now I must scream.
 * Makarov crosses it multiple times - orchestrating and leading the "No Russian" bit above in MW2 counts, and he adds two more in the third game: unleashing a large-scale chemical weapon in major cities all over Europe, likely resulting in dozens of millions of civilians dead, and . That last one is considered Makarov's final point-of-no-return by, who proceeds to unleash a Roaring Rampage of Revenge that doesn't end until.
 * Several characters in Fate Stay Night cross this. Shinji Matou manages to do so in every route. In Fate, he does so when he and in UBW, he does so when he . However, with Heaven's Feel comes the revelation that he actually crossed it four years earlier, when he first began . Gilgamesh (arguably) crosses it when he . The best example, however, is  in the last bad end.  sets Rin up to experience her life with  and notes that for her it's still only the first day, and she's already crying because she was a virgin. Even  Shirou (who previously was willing to do anything to save ) recognises that  has gone too far. This is especially notable because a slight change in circumstances (which  has no direct involvement in) allows  to be redeemed entirely.
 * Fitting with the Matou family, Zouken manages to surpas Shinji before even appearing onscreen (At least if you know the background). He's an immortal worm-mage who loves killing people and absorbing their bodies with his worms. He's the one that taught Shinji ethics and morals, therefore being the one responsible for Shinji being... well, the way he is. Did I mention that  and laughs in when called out on it. These worms are responsible for turning  . He had planned on sacrificing  . The writers try and make you feel some sympathy for him , but after all the horrifying junk he's done to EVERY character... Doesn't help that to actually beat him you must have finished two routes where he is never even discovered, much less forced to pay for what he's done.
 * The recent anime of Fate Zero gives us a nice, high-def, high detail animated look at exactly what Zouken did to Sakura. It is totally and utterly sick and twisted.
 * In Dragon Age: Origins, the dwarf Paragon Branka doesn't so much cross the horizon as she flies across it, laughing the whole way. We find out just how completely depraved and insane Branka is when it is revealed that in order to reach the Anvil of the Void,  The sole survivor, Hespith, explains it in simple terms:

"Fuminori: "Actually, I've only killed one so far", Fuminori replies unapologetically, with perfect cheerfulness. "I've taken apart three or four, though. I've gotten pretty good at cutting the tendons and draining the blood and such.""
 * The stories of Flemeth indicate she crossed the line into irredeemability when she started.
 * Super Robot Wars Original Generation kind of... subverts this. Wilhelm von Juergen might've come across sympathetic. He was only like, couldn't bear the thought of being unable to protect his family and humanity from aliens so he created a system that unites humanity by force. That may be stupid, but... good intentioned... wait a minute, what's that?! He just... All right, he may not be hitting the Complete Monster status, but that's the last line of sympathy he can get. Forever, he shall be known as an unsympathetic Big Bad Wannabe.
 * Kyosuke's Evil Twin Beowulf crossed it big time during The Anime of the Game (Inspectors). His first on-screen appearance consist of
 * Should be noted that
 * Now, murder is a pretty bad thing in Ghost Trick, but with Sissel on the job it's not a big deal until we find out how  died.
 * also takes one when he backstabs
 * Kane and Lynch. Which character doesn't cross the Moral Event Horizon? Well, Lynch has the excuse that he's a complete psychopath, but even his psychotic episodes cross it.
 * The part where  definitely counts. Made even worse when, instead of apologizing or something, he refuses to take responsibility and yells at Kane for negotiating deals with the enemy.
 * Grand Maestro Mohs from Tales of the Abyss crosses the line hard. First, he manipulates two nations into igniting a bloody, pointless war, knowing full well that the losses would be through the roof, just because a prophecy of questionable legitimacy said this might bring prosperity to his own nation. This is only the tip of the iceberg, though, as we later learn that The absolute worst thing he did, however was
 * While he's not as reprehensible, the Big Bad
 * In Ocarina of Time it's hard to tell where Ganondorf crosses this line, but it's probably
 * Averted with Ganon in The Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker, where he is far less evil than in some other games in the series. When, he grabs a hold of  , . Granted, a man who's like eight feet tall   might be a moral event horizon for a minor character, but this is the Big Bad we're talking about. His decision to
 * During this same pre-battle scene, Ganondorf also
 * Zant in Twilight Princess crossed this line in a similar manner when he.
 * For some, it's the scene where he.
 * Zant's final nail in the coffin is
 * Kyoji Nanba of Racing Lagoon gets depressed as he's defeated by Sho Akasaki(you) and lose his chance to race in the Yokohama GP.
 * In Blaz Blue, both Terumi Yuuki and Relius Clover are already a fine pair of jerks, but they keep pushing and pushing beyond the horizon. At this point, it seems like they're competing in a "How far over the deep end can you go?" contest. At the moment, Terumi is winning this contest, if only for the fact that he's been around longer. However, what Relius lacks in quantity, he more than makes up for in sheer bastardry.
 * Terumi:
 * created the Black Beast that ravaged the world for years, joined the Six Heroes to defeat it when he realized it couldn't be controlled... then betrayed them and killed Nine, Kokonoe's mother, when she learned about his involvement in the Black Beast's creation.
 * burned down the orphanage where Ragna and his siblings were living, kidnapped Ragna's sister, Saya, possessed Ragna's brother, Jin and, through him, cut off Ragna's right arm, and ate Jin's memories; finishing the ordeal by murdering Nine's sister, Mercury, who had been running the orphanage.
 * Mind Rapes Noel and pushes her into the Cauldron in order to forcibly make her turn into Mu-12, Sword of the Godslayer: Kusanagi, using her negative emotions to amplify her hatred for mankind and give her a reason to destroy it, the world and the Master Unit: Amaterasu. Oh, and not before painfully revealing the truth of her origins and her inhumanity to psychologically torture her. Just because.
 * . Oh, and we're nowhere near finished yet..
 * Then there's Carl's bad ending in CS, where.
 * He also sacrifices hundreds of NOL personnel when he makes Mu-12. And this is just in his story mode's opening cutscene.
 * Relius:
 * Transformed his own daughter Nirvava into a Nox, and left her half-finished with Carl, leaving them to fend for themselves. This is also knowing full-well that she's actively eating Carl's emotions and driving him into madness.
 * Using the knowledge gained during his experiments on his daughter, he.
 * In Tager's bad ending,.
 * Last but not least, there's Makoto's bad ending. Trust us, you will hate him after seeing it..
 * Let's not forget his Astral Finish. Most characters either kill or knock out the opponent. Relius? He captures the enemy, drags him to a facility where he ties him up and closes the door behind him, implying he's about to perform more of his horrific experiments. The special quotes not reserved for Hazama indicate that he's got worse in mind for the recipients.
 * Also, Kokonoe's.
 * In Metal Gear Solid 3, Colonel Volgin crosses this right after he's introduced.  gave him two Davy Crockett portable nuclear warheads as a "gift" when she defected, and he decides to take one on a test-drive, blowing up the research facility (where thousands of his own countrymen were still stationed) while Ocelot clings to his arm, begging him not to. When one of the greatest Magnificent Jerk-faced Jerks in history thinks you've gone so far over the line that he's begging you to stop, you know you've crossed the line big time.
 * Colonel Volgin is small time compared to the one behind most of the Metal Gear Solid series,
 * In Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker, it's revealed that Hot Coldman set up what happened in Metal Gear Solid 3. In other words, . Basically, he's behind one of the biggest Tear Jerkers in video game history and even being indirectly responsible for Major Zero's fall as well. Worse is that he shows absolutely no remorse for what he did and even a little glee. If that's not enough, he also instigates a nuclear apocalypse again, and it is implied that he was the one responsible for the butchered A Is in 4 (Coldman makes some statements that parallel the A Is foresaking The Boss's will when developing the War Economy.).
 * Vamp in Metal Gear Solid 2 crosses it when.
 * In the first Metal Gear Solid, Liquid Snake is pretty much an evil son-of-a-bitch from the beginning, but
 * Strega does this throughout the game. Chidori is the only one who manages to pull a Heel Face Turn . Takaya is the worst of the three.
 * After all the killing he is responsible for, Black Doom has the balls to proclaim himself a savior of humanity, intent on saving people from their own errors.
 * How is he going to save humanity do you ask?
 * Fuminori Sakisaka, if he decides he has no qualms with eating human meat. Just listen to him when Kouji comments to him on his cell phone about becoming "quite the meat eater":
 * How is he going to save humanity do you ask?
 * Fuminori Sakisaka, if he decides he has no qualms with eating human meat. Just listen to him when Kouji comments to him on his cell phone about becoming "quite the meat eater":


 * Umineko no Naku Koro Ni has The Witches' Tanabata for . You initially assume that because of her own back story she'd be sympathetic to the protagonists. Then you learn in that story that   At that point, many players wanted to see her get sent back to the  ...or worse.
 * Screw you, . The exact moment for most people differs, but if you haven't felt she crossed it before, there's a line she says in the 6th Episode that hurls her across this line:


 * Pokémon Black and White:
 * On the subject of that place, Ghetsis is basically running neck-in-neck with the Cipher syndicate for the title of biggest human Complete Monster in the franchise both in terms of horrific deeds (which we're discussing here) and the potential for the continuation of such horrific deeds. See the main Pokémon Colosseum page for the further gruesome details on Cipher's many sins.
 * Stuck in third would be Purple Eyes from Pokémon Ranger Guardian Signs. Before we even learn he exists, he's beaten Rand within an inch of his life and kidnapped both his wife and daughter. Later, he beats the daughter up, too! He kept getting worse up until he thought it would be a good idea to bark orders at Arceus - at which point he dearly paid for it.
 * From Pokémon Mystery Dungeon:
 * Speaking of Super Hero Aurum, let's not let him off the hook, shall we?

""For the pain that I've caused you, I deserve no mercy. Even if it was to save mankind, it was too deep a sin.""
 * In literally the first scene of Suikoden II where we see Luca Blight, he has just finished massacring almost all the members of a Youth Brigade camp (read: basically fantasy Boy Scouts) so that he can frame a neighboring country for the deed and get the people's support for a campaign of slaughter, rape, and pillage. And he only gets worse from there.
 * In Spider Man Web of Shadows, choosing the evil decisions lead to some pretty mean acts against to the characters around you. But one thing that can particularly make the Web-Head cross the line is the dark option against Symbiote Wolverine:  Let me repeat that: Spider-Man can cross this by
 * The "Children of Tarrone" in the eighth mission of SWAT 4. Seems like your standard doomsday cult until you get to the basement and find
 * Ansem definitely crossed this line in the original Kingdom Hearts when it was revealed that he experimented on living people just For Science!. And it was outright stated that the experiments caused their hearts to collapse! Keep in mind that in this series, hearts are basically a Captain Ersatz for souls. So essentially, his experiments caused people's frickin' souls to collapse!
 * The space combat simulator X-Wing: Alliance had a richer plot and cast of characters than its predecessors, particularly a subplot involving the protagonist Ace Azzameen's family. When Ace is new to piloting for his father Tomaas' shipping company, he helps out with a covert delivery of bacta to the wounded soldiers from Hoth, only for the Empire to show up and destroy the freighter that Ace's father and eldest brother were on. Their uncle Anton helps them escape to the Rebel Alliance. Near the end of the game, Anton gives them information that indicates that Tomaas and Galin are alive on an Imperial prison station. When the Azzameen children go to rescue them, Imperial ships arrive to capture them. They learn that their dear Uncle Anton not only set them up, but told the Empire about Tomaas' bacta run way back when. To recap, the man sold his own brother and niece and nephews out to the Empire, all because he figured Tomaas' dealings with rebels would ruin their business.
 * Harlan Wade from F.E.A.R. indisputably crosses the MEH when he . The Big Bad's murderous rage that leaves dozens or hundreds of civilians dead is a bit understandable after you learn all of this.
 * Right in the first level of Singularity, you read some notes and hear recordings that suggest that the Big Bad had done some highly unethical things in the 50s. But all of that is off screen and only (strongly) implied. When you meet him at the end of the level, ]
 * Prototype has cross this the moment he.
 * In Dragon Age II, crosses the line  in order to.
 * Then
 * Then crosses it when he reveals that he knew about and protected  He even uses the fruits of  research to turn himself into a literal monster after the reveal.
 * Due to the game's Grey and Gray Morality, a lot of Hawke's actions have some sort of justification. However, there is absolutely no excuse for  It's so awful that almost all of your companions will call you out on it.
 * Return to Krondor starts off with Bear and his pirates killing off a ship full of priests to steal treasure and one special object. If this does not qualify as a Moral Event Horizon, then the next few parts will. Bear attacks a bar and kills a young barmaid (it may have been worse than that), leaving the barowner without a daughter. He attacks a jail just so he can personally kill a small-time pirate who decided he needed to get out of the business. He cut down half the Krondorian guard squad.  He sets an orphanage on fire when he is unable to escape the city through the gates. He escapes through the sewer, tearing through the Mockers (the Guild of Thieves) who got in the way. Bear accomplished all this in the first couple of levels. Of course, it seems that he that he not only crossed the Moral Event Horizon before the events of the game, but he sprinted through it and never looked back.
 * Ephidel having  butchered in Fire Emblem: The Blazing Sword, and watching it with that perpetually-irritating smug grin on his face. Interestingly enough, he just gave the order; the character who actually did the butchering, , a Heel Face Turn ends up as one of the most sympathetic in the game!
 * Not to mention, there's what he did do before to ...
 * Let's not forget Sonia
 * And then it's followed by
 * And then we have, who orders the Black Fang to carry out   Is there any wonder that  ?
 * Curtis Blackburn of Killer 7 is a murderous sociopath, but hey, you're playing as a group of assassins. Then you see what he did to his ex-partner Pedro as punishment for getting in his way, and suddenly he becomes the worst person in the entire game.
 * The Mass Effect series tends strongly towards ambiguity, but there are still some cases where a line to ultimate unredeemable evil is crossed.
 * Even though he can be seen as not entirely responsible for his actions in Mass Effect, one optional dialog reveals that Saren crossed the line a long time before any of that. He once destroyed an entire colony with thousands of dead just to make it look like Andersons fault because he didn't want a human to join the Specters.
 * The Collectors in Mass Effect 2 are pretty evil but most of the time they simply emotionlessly capture paralyzed humans and bring them to their ships. But at their home base, they wake them up and dissolve them with acid while alive to harvest their organic components as a building material for a new Reaper.
 * In Overlord,
 * Cerberus has shown to be completely ruthless in their research projects throughout all the games, which often resulted in heavy casualties from escaped experiments, and they were never above murdering anyone who started to know too much about their activities. But in Mass Effect 3, they drop all pretense and secrecy and straight out murder any wittnesses. But the final line is on Sanctuary
 * Kai Leng has a fair number of candidates.
 * Assuming he didn't already cross it in the novels...
 * Another example from the third game: Quarian Admiral Han'Gerrel vas Neema is willing to
 * Even  seems to have defintiely crossed this line by Mass Effect 3. Fans of the series will argue over how evil   However, all of those things could be seen as least somewhat justified, both by in-universe characters and by players. What really seems completely monstrous and unjustifiable in the third game is if   After all of that,
 * Baldurs Gate: Irenicus would have been just unlikeable for torturing you in his lab. When he casually murders (and in at least one case, defiles the corpse of ) two party members from the previous game and leaves you to walk through a dungeon complex full of people he's experimented on and left sealed in vats with only madness to keep them company, he becomes The Guy You Really Want To Kill.
 * In Portal 2 Cave Johnson's posthumous Moral Event Horizon was actually Dummied Out because Cave Johnson's voice actor found the lines too disturbing.
 * Arguably,  had one when
 * Another potential Moral Event Horizon, if that one didn't do it for you, is
 * Or earlier, when, despite all your plans for
 * Therese Voerman from Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines Crosses this when after you become an inconvenience to her, attempts to  Although, she might have crossed it way, way, way before then...
 * This is a weird one, since Therese and Jeanette
 * In the first installment of the Eagle Eye Mysteries Edutainment Game, during Book 2's version of "Case of the Crazy Compass," the mystery's guilty party slips a powerful magnet into Alex Hane's backpack; this has the effect of severely messing up Alex's compass while he's out in the woods with the rest of his Explorer Trek club, causing him to get lost for hours and being potentially put at risk of experiencing the very real dangers associated with getting lost in the woods--and the perp put the magnet in the backpack knowing that Alex and his group would be going into the woods. It becomes even worse when you learn the motive for the act, as well  and it's especially telling that the character doesn't show up in any subsequent cases in the game's linear order.
 * In Red Dead Redemption, Edgar Ross, when he's first seen in the opening cutscene, merely seems to be a bureaucrat making John hunt down his former gang members. When you finally get ahold of Escuella in Mexico, he definitely seems to be an awful individual, especially since he is the one imprisoning John's family. When dealing with him personally in Blackwater, he continues to build his Jerkass points for every second he's onscreen, constantly insulting and mocking John, and at one point shoving a gun into John's stomach just to remind him that he can do whatever he wants, and John can't do a thing about it. However, once John takes care of all of the former outlaws he ran with, Ross lets him go, and John is finally allowed to return back to his family, who is unharmed. But... . Before this point, he was simply a thoroughly unlikable man who hated John. After this, he crossed the line.
 * In Myst IV: Revelation,.
 * Nekisahloth----is a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds until the murder of Willow Engberg.
 * In the novel Book of D'ni, Ymur is another Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds until.
 * Saavedro--and you--can cross the Moral Event Horizon in various endings of Myst III: Exile. If . Later, if you get the Book from him, . Atrus calls you out if you do this.
 * You wouldn't expect this from Dwarf Fortress, would you? After all, the game practically runs on Video Game Cruelty Potential crossing the line twice. But apparently "mermaid farming" -- building a pool system for captive wild merfolk so you can steal and air-drown their babies for their valuable bone materials -- was too much for the game's creator, who massively devalued merbone in his next update so the practice would stop.
 * Megatron In Transformers:War for Cybertron he warns the Autobots to leave Cybertron or be destroyed, and when the Autobots began leaving the Cybertron in spaceships,
 * Killzone Stahl
 * This happens in Mega Man Zero 3, when Copy X and Weil destroy a human residential area to capture the Dark Elf. Though Weil was Obviously Evil upon his introduction, Copy X's previous actions were a bit more morally ambiguous up until now. At this point, Harpuia can't stand it anymore and defects from Neo Arcadia. A bit later, when Copy X and Weil contact the resistance to cooperate, Ciel cites this event as why they can't be trusted.
 * In Silent Hill 3, Claudia crosses this when she . She certainly seems to think so, as she straight-up tells Heather that she doesn't expect to have a place in the paradise she's trying to create.


 * In Skies of Arcadia, Lord Galcian gains the ability destroy any or all of the lands underneath the Six Moons. To display his newfound power, he What is amazing about this is that the  continue to stick with him as Galcian is that much of a Magnificent Bastard.
 * It's very easy to hate Admiral Greyfield in Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, although the clincher is when of the enemy Lazurian Army, surrenders to him and takes responsibility for all of the bad things his troops have done. Greyfield's reaction?
 * Mushihime-sama Futari brings us Queen Larsa, who goes pretty much psycho-insane after learning that her older son Aki has been killed, and sends her army out to kill Reco, who accidentally murdered him in the previous game. Sounds like typical Mama Bear tyrant fare. Then there's her younger son, Palm, who, while understandably upset by his brother's death, believes Reco to be a good person and that Aki's death wasn't her fault. How does Larsa react to this? She disowns him and leaves him to die. And tells him he can be replaced. If you make it to her as Palm, she tries to kill him--although she is a Shmup final boss, that she would try to kill her own son--at FULL STRENGTH, no less--says something about how she cares for anyone other than Aki.
 * The Covenant from the Halo series have murdered BILLIONS. For an In-Game crossing, the entirety of Halo Reach is probably it, particularly during the mission Exodus when they shoot down a ship that had 600 innocent people on it. After that, no one wonders why people have fun killing the alien jerks.
 * In Halo Combat Evolved, 343 Guilty Spark is a Well-Intentioned Extremist (with emphasis on extreme), however, at the end of Halo 3, Spark goes Complete Monster and.
 * In Command and Conquer Red Alert, the very first cutscene for the Soviets has Stalin and his cronies casually discussing the effects of Saren nerve gas on a village of alleged dissidents. Then just to remind you that you're one of the bad guys as well, your first mission is to kill the villagers who escaped said gassing.
 * While in the second game, the Soviets are more quirky, they cross this line in the Allied campaign when General Vladimir nukes the city of Chicago, just as you won the city back.
 * In Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising, each squad has a Corruption meter, and which goes up with evil actions and down with good actions (or penance). When a squad reaches the maximum level of corruption they become "Lost to the Dark Gods" and are irredeemably evil, regardless of actions including  Doing this results in a change of endings depending on how corrupt you became.
 * The Conduit ends with . In the sequel, we find that   Jerk.
 * In Terraria, the player character. In order to progress to the endgame, you must summon a boss in the Underworld, and in order to do so, you must murder the Guide with the Guide Voodoo Doll. As of 1.1, it's clear that death is not cheap for the non player character allies, as when they die they are not resurrected, but rather replaced, and thus this amounts to murdering the Guide simply to progress in the game.
 * YMMV as to weather that counts as a crossing. Because you do kill the guide, but there are a few factors to consider. It's left pretty open ended as to weather the guide is willing to die to release the hallow, not knowing what's going on, and the fact that the summoning might be a total accident. Also, as the crulest you can be at the moment is killing the guide, a generally less helpful character if you have your crafting charts down, is the worst the player could do.
 * If it turns out there was one person behind skeletron, wall of flesh, and the other monsters they would automatically cross the moral event horizon, due to just how much they screwed up people.
 * There are several opportunities for the player to achieve this in the classic RPG Arcanum. One involves siding with Kerghan in the finale, which immediately causes any good-aligned party members to accuse you of being a traitorous bastard and attack you. Kerghan then tasks you with killing off his demonic competition in The Void, before finally helping you wipe out all life in Arcanum. Depressing stuff indeed.
 * Did you fail to collect all the chaos emeralds at the end of the Game Gear version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2? If so, then . Definitely not something we'd expect from the Robotnik we know form the games.
 * Saints Row has several of these crisscrossing one another, on both your side and the side of the enemy gangs and police. These are not nice people we are dealing with, here.
 * In the beginning of Kirby Mass Attack, Necrodeus appears and crosses the line by DELIVERING a Curb Stomp Battle to Kirby by splitting him into 10 (That's right. 10!), completely defenseless Kirbys (Yikes!), and then proceeding to murder ALMOST EVERY KIRBY and leaving only one to survive this massacre by following his heart (Literally!), which also counts as a scene of Nightmare Fuel. What else would you expect to set off the story of the game?
 * Soul Nomad and The World Eaters is a case where.
 * Command and Conquer Generals the GLA's crowning moral event horizon is them using bio weapon on China's cities.
 * Tikal's father Pachacamac crosses it in Sonic Adventure, although he doesn't become a Complete Monster. Through the flashbacks we are told that he wanted to use the Master Emerald to turn his city into a utopia. To get it he storms the Emerald shrine with his soldiers, slaughtering the Chao there and even attacking Tikal when she tries to stop him. He ends up getting himself and his men killed by Chaos by doing this but also corrupts Chaos, causing him to become bitter and filled with hatred towards all life. It's pretty heavily implied that he's actually doing all this to use the Master Emerald as a weapon and build a Great Echidna Empire.