Moral Event Horizon/Western Animation

"Abe: Take the art if you want, just don't hurt the boy! Burns: I'd rather do both."

- The Simpsons, "Curse of the Flying Hellfish"

"Burns: Don't kill me. Abe: I ain't gonna kill ya. That'd be cowardly. Monty Burns cowardly."
 * The Simpsons has "Curse of the Flying Hellfish," where it's revealed that Mr. Burns and Abe Simpson are the two surviving members of their unit from World War 2, and that the last surviving member would get a case of old paintings stolen from German homes during the war. When Burns tries to have Abe killed, Bart convinces Abe to get the case instead of letting Burns get it. When they actually arrive at the location of the case, Burns shows up too and takes the paintings at gunpoint. When Bart calls Burns a coward and an embarrassment to the name Hellfish, Burns points the gun at Bart's head. Abe says Burns can take the paintings so long as he does not hurt the boy. Burns says he would rather do both, and then kicks Bart into the empty case hard enough to send the case falling into the water, and then boats away saying "so long, Sarge, see you at the reunion in November!" In other words, Burns attempts to drown a child, (even though he could have taken the art without doing so) for no apparent reason other than that the child insulted him. Furthermore, Burns gets away with said murder attempts too. And when Abe corners Burns...


 * Also, in an earlier The Simpsons episode, "Crepes of Wrath," Bart is treated like a slave by two mean winemakers in France. At first, this is amusing as we see Bart get what's coming to him for his brattiness. However, it fades when you see Bart sleeping with nothing so much as a blanket after reading a letter from his mother as the abuse he is suffering begins to sink in. When the winemakers finally force Bart to drink wine doctored with antifreeze, putting him in real danger of being killed or blinded, the louts sail over the moral line and all your sympathy goes to the boy, which makes his eventual escape and revenge all so sweet.
 * Sideshow Bob in all of his appearences tried to kill Bart, but he finally crossed the line when he.
 * The Preschool Teacher's treatment of Bart, as seen in "Lisa's Sax". THIS IS THE REASON why Bart is Bart today. What makes it worse is that Bart was just five years old and her actions made Bart actually consider suicide. Until the "Boys of the Bummer" this was probably the worst line crossing moment in the series.
 * South Park: Cartman went over it in "the chili incident" from Scott Tenorman Must Die, as part of his Evil Plan against Scott Tenorman. He's done lots of evil things since, varying in their badness, but this was pretty much where most viewers decided that it was no longer in-character for him to perform an act of selflessness, and many others decided that he is and always will be a complete and utter sociopath.
 * An example of crossing the horizon without being a Complete Monster is Butters' parents in "Jared Has Aides". After they both beat their son at the same time (and from the sounds of it, the event was pretty savage), it was generally agreed that they are, while not certifiably evil, not good parents. This opinion didn't change even after the episode "My Future Self And Me" when they promised never to beat him again.
 * Danny Phantom played it oddly straight with Danny's alternate future. The whole "Dark Danny creation" scene was horrific and it horrified even Vlad, which really says something. Also see Dark Danny's first appearance where he apparently kills multiple people on screen. Ax Crazy, indeed.
 * Return of the Joker gives the Clown Prince of Crime a rather infamous line-crossing moment:
 * Even for the Joker, the events of Return of the Joker was extreme. He was already dangerous and psychopathic, but the very nature of how he did it turned him into someone that had to be destroyed as far as DCAU is concerned. Not even Harley Quinn gets a get out free card after even helping with that.
 * Even Mark Hamill, who had been voicing the Joker for years at this point, felt uncomfortable with the role this time due to scenes like this.
 * Long before that, there was his serial murder spree (complete with victim photos) using laughing gas in one of the earlier Gotham Knights episodes.
 * The Batman has their version of the Joker cross the line.
 * In Season 4 of Winx Club, Ogron, the leader of the Sorcerors of the Black Circle, recently got to this dreaded point of no return. This single act caused, and marked the point where the Sorcerors of the Black Circle sunk to a low no other Winx Club villain ever reached.
 * The Trix also cross the line several times. Darcy crosses it when she attempts to murder Musa for liking the same guy (who incidentally, Darcy didn't really love but at best viewed him as a boy toy), Icy crosses it when she tries to murder Bloom's parents in a twisted Batman Gambit designed to weaken her (which works) before cruelly revealing her true origins and joining her sisters in a needless No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on Bloom before taking her powers, and Stormy crosses it when she tries to murder Musa's father just because Musa beat her with a raindance.
 * While the Shredder has always been the closest thing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) has to a Complete Monster, his personal Moral Event Horizon comes in the episode "Mission of Gravity", when he orders his lieutenants to steal the Triceraton engine holding the city of Beijing aloft miles above the earth, despite the fact that doing so would naturally doom the millions trapped within it. It was possible to remove the engine without killing anyone, but he didn't care.
 * In an example of crossing the Moral Event Horizon without becoming a Complete Monster, when Leonardo saves Karai from falling her to her death, she stabs him from behind with his own katana when he would have let her go in the spaceship anyway. This is one of the things that leads him to tell her she is just as bad as the Shredder. It can be argued that every decent thing she did after that was just self-preservation.
 * Phineas and Ferb: In Phineas And Ferb's Quantum Boogaloo. The Knight Templar Moral Guardians outlaw all fun and creativity in that episode's Bad Future. While that could be fairly easily chalked up to being Well-Intentioned Extremist, stuffing their own children into tiny capsules until adulthood is just plain sickening, no matter what the intent. That just ain't right, man.
 * Doof's Alternate Dimension counterpart in the movie did this as well. It was bad enough he transformed his version of Perry into a cyborg soldier, but when he took over his version of the tri-state area, he transformed it into a dystopia controlled by robots, then he really got there when he tried to feed Phineas, Ferb, Perry, Candace, and his own dimensional counterpart to a monster called a Goozim. Thankfully, the fact that he was just as quirky and ultimately redeemable as the other Doofensmirtz kept him from entering Complete Monster territory.
 * While very rare on Kim Possible, it could be said that Drakken touched upon it when he created a synthodrone to mess with Kim's feelings.
 * Monkey Fist played it even straighter in the fourth season. Attempting to murder and/or kidnap a child is bad enough, but he made a Deal with the Devil, or rather, a demonic monkey being in order to command it. Some could say that his Taken for Granite death was well deserved.
 * In the first season finale of Avatar: The Last Airbender, Admiral Zhao crosses this when he It hadn't even done anything to him: he wanted to make a name for himself so that he would be remembered by history forever, but as Iroh told him, "History isn't always kind to its subjects."
 * It's made worse by the fact that
 * Azula in the season 2 finale is either her Moral Event Horizon, her Moment of Awesome, or both. On the one hand, she'd be stupid not to do it, since this is an important battle in a war and all. On the other hand, the sadistic pleasure she clearly took in it was rather unnecessary. But then again, it IS Azula.
 * Fire Lord Ozai started at this and just kept running. After his son disrespected one of his generals in the war room, he burned his face and sent him on a Snipe Hunt. When Zuko mouthed off to him years later, he tried to kill him with lightning. Still, villains have been redeemed from worse. What truly defines him as a Complete Monster is his utter excitement at carrying out his plan in the finale, which is to
 * He gets one of these moments earlier in the finale, too. Azula had been completely loyal to him, and even helped him think up his current plan by suggesting burning the Earth Kingdom land to end a revolt (which he ) He then rewards her by promoting her to Fire Lord... right before promoting himself to Phoenix King, rendering the position of Fire Lord entirely powerless. It's entirely clear that he intended this to be an as-cruel-as-possible You Have Outlived Your Usefulness. She gets the position she's always wanted... and is rendered completely impotent for it.
 * Moral Event Horizon crossing seems to have been a family trait since Sozin's day: Sozin, and Azulon would only allow Ozai to become the heir if  . Zuko could have easily become just like that if it weren't for the guidance of Iroh.
 * And let's not forget Long Feng, the Earth Kingdom's Evil Chancellor, who
 * Hama has every reason to be sympathetic: she was stolen from her tribe, kept locked up in a prison that took every precaution to prevent her from bending, and kept there for decades. In fact, she uses this information to garner Katara's sympathy, then reveals that she escaped by bending the blood in the bodies of the guards, and is now using this same power to herd innocent civilians to a mountain where she keeps them prisoner out of blind revenge. And then she tries to forcibly teach Katara the technique, and sends her into an Heroic BSOD by using her bloodbending power to manipulate Aang and Sokka into fighting a panicking Katara. She serves as a reminder that even the most innocent people in a war can become no better than those who persecute them if pushed far enough.
 * In Sequel Series The Legend of Korra episode "When Extremes Meet", Councilman Tarrlok crosses it when he captures civilian nonbenders on Equalist suspicions, arrests the new Team Avatar for trying to help them, and to top all off, bloodbends Korra and has her exiled from Republic City to a mountain retreat where he locks her up in a metal box, hoping she'll never be found.
 * The first Big Bad, Amon, crosses it when he threatens to take away the bending of Tenzin and his children, thus making airbenders extinct all over again.
 * Yakone did it when he bloodbended an entire courtroom of people, and then afterwards attempted to use his bloodbending to snap Avatar Aang's neck, slowly and painfully, all with sadistic joy. If this didn't put him over the line, then the abuse of his two young sons (including ordering them to bloodbend each other and preparing to assault the younger son when he refuses) definitely did.
 * Chief Unalaq, the second Big Bad, crossed it a lightning speed when he threatened to destroy the soul of Jinora, who's just a pre-teen girl...and then very nearly did it. And this is before we learn that his plan is to
 * Think that's not bad enough? How 'bout
 * Zaheer, the third Big Bad, crosses it in the season finale by
 * Dr. Rockso, hitherto one of the most popular characters in Metalocalypse, crossed this when he stole the Christmas presents Toki got for everyone, hocked them for cocaine money, then received a handjob on live television while bragging about his drug addiction, and getting Karma Houdinied because Toki experienced Diabolus Ex Machina before he could beat up Dr. Rockso.
 * At the end of the second season of Re Boot, Megabyte and Hexidecimal team up with Bob to stop the Web Creature invasion. However, near the end of the episode, Megabyte launches Bob into the Web and soon after takes over Mainframe. There was no turning back for him after this.
 * The Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy series, for the last few minutes of it, crossed this when he began to mercilessly beat the shit out of, and freely admit he's always done this to him.
 * Some - if not all - of the many things that the Justice Lords (counterparts of the Justice League) did in A Better World. Lord Green Lantern when attacking League Lantern attempted to stab in League Lantern's neck for his first move. Not trying to disarm him or to knock him out. He chose to go immediately for the kill. From the DVD commentary, the writers did that on purpose so that it showed that the Justice Lords while having good intentions, they ultimately are truly villains who deserve to be defeated.
 * In the same episode, Lord Superman had Flash by the neck with Flash trying to appeal to any remaining good in him. Also, keep in mind that  However, Lord Superman coolly told him that "one more won't hurt", that this universe's Flash's death was just another means to an end. This contrasts him with the more-redeemable Lord Batman, who is visibly horrified when he thinks Flash's heart has stopped.
 * A minor villain named John Dee/Dr. Destiny in the episode "Only A Dream", where he "operated" on his wife in her dreams, torturing her until she died of fright, shortly after he had found out that she was planning to leave him for another man.
 * Orm tried to kill his brother's infant son. His brother did not take it well. At all.
 * Vilgax in Ben 10, after getting a valuable crystal, murders the entire planet for no reason. They weren't doing any harm to him, he fired on the planet for no reason other than to test just how powerful the crystal is, and shows no regrets.
 * Kevin 11 in his debut episode was getting there when he attempted to cause trains filled with innocent people to crash just so he could take their money, but the moment he made a Redemption Rejection to Ben by trying to forcibly rip the Omnitrix off his arm is when it was proven that there was no going back for him. Not in the original series anyway.
 * He only gets worse in the future. As Kevin 11,000, he attempts to have Ben, Ben's 10 year old son, and even his own son killed. For FUN.
 * Ghostfreak crossed it when he possessed Gwen and threatened to make her jump off a building to her death if Ben and Grandpa Max didn't surrender to him. And he did it with a Slasher Smile!
 * In Ultimate Alien, Aggregor did this onscreen by However, he could be considered to have already crossed it when
 * Defying Villain Decay, Zombozo crosses this by
 * Colonel Rozum imprisoning 775 aliens in a horrible underground prison for over five decades, many of whom likely did nothing wrong. Prisoner 775 for example was exiled to Earth by an alien tyrant who he was trying to save his planet from. He told Rozum this, multiple times and they didn't listen. The only thing keeping this guy from being a Complete Monster is his love for his family.
 * Prisoner 775 himself has one. Once he escapes, he intends to exact his revenge against Rozum. A viewer might not condone it, but could certainly understand his reasoning for revenge against just Rozum. Problem is, 775's targets expand to Rozum's whole family. They had absolutely nothing to do with his captivity, and he knows it. He just wants to kill them to make Rozum suffer. This may have been an intentional crossing of this on his part, as in the end
 * Word of God comments made online actually seem to indicate that
 * Captain Nemesis crosses the line in "To Catch a Falling Star"
 * As of the second episode of the second season, Archer has Even Archer himself feels bad about it, if it has any permanent damaging side effects.
 * Murdoc constantly teetered on the line between Jerkass and Complete Monster, but he finally crossed it when he kidnapped and imprisoned 2D. It wouldn't be quite so bad if not for all the horrific undertones of the drugging, incarceration and physical abuse. Granted, 2D was never the bravest or keenest individual, but he was always pretty harmless. Murdoc's brutality and the constant isolation have all but broken the singer, and it's around that point that Murdoc bridged the Moral Event Horizon.
 * Clay Puppington crossed the line in "Nature part 2" the moment he shot Orel, his own son, in the leg. How does he feel about it? No regret. Even if there are two episodes showing of how did he become the bad father to be, there is no sympathy for him now.
 * X-Men: Evolution had one for most of the villains:
 * Avalanche tried to kill Kitty in their first episode after an episode of emotional manipulation, and possibly killed hundreds of students when he destroyed the school. It took a whole season, if not more, to have him portrayed in a somewhat more sympathetic way;
 * Pietro had his when he had a train derailed for the purpose of pretending to save people, and upon finding out that if they fail hundreds will die, including himself, he runs away and leaves those trapped, and potentially the entire town, to die. And keep in mind that he knew his Brotherhood friends and his sister were there, and he left them there anyway;
 * Magneto crossed it when he had his own daughter Wanda Mind Raped, just so she'd stay away from him. Said Mind Rape took place via replacing her memories of him abandoning her in a mental institution, which is what made her become a Dark Magical Girl in the first place, into loving memories that made her forget his abuse;
 * Mystique when she tried to kill the New Recruits, for literally no reason other than them being unable to fight Magneto. And she did it again via kidnapping Scott, stealing his Power Limiter aka his ruby quartz glasses, and leaving him stranded in the middle of nowhere
 * Apocalypse's was the plot of the finale: to turn everyone into mutants, knowing that most would die in the process due to the nature of it, but not caring because "only the strong should survive."
 * In My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic
 * Discord nearly' crossed this in "The Return of Harmony" by screwing with the other ponies' psyches and bringing chaos throughout the land. In "Keep Calm and Flutter On", Discord claims that he was acting out in self defense and did so with such glee only because he was Chaotic Evil, so Fluttershy becomes his Morality Pet. In "Twilight's Kingdom", Discord actually touches the line by betraying the ponies, including Fluttershy, in favor of Lord Tirek, but because he gets betrayed by Tirek afterwards and feels remorseful for what he did, he makes a true Heel Face Turn, bringing him back over from the MEH.
 * Cadence crossed this by
 * And this after letting an Twilight think
 * Lord Tirek crossed it in "Twilight's Kingdom" by sucking the magic out of everypony in Equestria, banishing the Alicorn princesses to Tartarus, and betraying Discord by sucking out his magic once he was sure he'd earned his complete trust. Which is after he'd made a false gesture of friendship by giving Discord a pendant that had previously belonged to Tirek's own brother Scorpan, whom he deems as worthless as the pendant and the concept of friendship itself.
 * In WITCH, you have a number of villains, but one who could easily stand out as crossing the line is Nerissa. Where Prince Phobos was already a Smug Snake, Nerissa started out as a normal woman, no, Guardian. But, she got a little too attached to the Heart of Candracar and was forced to hand it over to her dear friend Cassidy. When Cassidy refused to return it, Nerissa struck her down in a fit of anger. She would spend the next generation plotting Phobos' downfall so she can take over, armed with as many Hearts as possible, going on a dog-kicking spree "for the good of the universe".
 * In Transformers Prime, Megatron and then gloats about it. He was only attacking Bumblebee at first and may not have known, but when he found out what he'd really done, his reaction takes away any fragment of good left in him.
 * An earlier episode has Arcee avert this. She ends up having Starscream on the ground begging for mercy after a fight and then prepares to murder Starscream as an act of venegence. However when she sees that Bumblebee is seeing this she realizes her mistake and lets Starscream go.
 * In the third season of Jem, Eric Raymond crossed it when he destroyed the master tapes to the music of Jacqui Benton, Jerrica's mother. Keep in mind that instead of meeting either Eric's demands (either one million dollars for the tapes or controlling interest in Starlight Music), Jerrica asked that Eric just return them, hoping that there was still some shred of humanity left in him...
 * The Misfits crossed it in The Fan, where they cause poor Jerrica to have a *serious* mental breakdown.
 * In Star Wars: The Clone Wars a Zygeerian slaver wants makes sure Obi-Wan obeys his command,
 * Futurama: Zapp Brannigan is a grade-A Jerkass, putting himself above others and commanding suicide missions. However, some may argue that he crossed the line in The Beast With a Billion Backs. Kif dies as a result of trying to go against the Dimensional portal Yivo. After hiding in a shack with Amy and Leela, Zapp begins "reminiscing" about Kif. Zapp then SLEEPS WITH AMY. So, yeah, the jerk literally used a widow's husband's death.... to get laid.
 * In Thundercats 2011, the act that cements Mumm-Ra's evil happened in the backstory to create the metal needed to forge the Sword of Plundaar. It even acted as one in-universe. This heinous act convinced Leo that Mumm-Ra was not the visionary bringer of order to the universe that Leo thought he was but a monster that needed to be stopped.
 * In Thundercats 2011, the act that cements Mumm-Ra's evil happened in the backstory to create the metal needed to forge the Sword of Plundaar. It even acted as one in-universe. This heinous act convinced Leo that Mumm-Ra was not the visionary bringer of order to the universe that Leo thought he was but a monster that needed to be stopped.