Morality Chain

""God only knows what I'd be without you.""

- The Beach Boys

The Morality Chain is a character who is the reason another character is Good. Stereotypically a female love interest or a mother; as long as this person is alive; her target of affection will at the very least be a Noble Demon.

If a Morality Chain were to Fallen Hero, commit betrayal, or get seriously hurt or die, there is nothing to prevent a Face Heel Turn happening so fast and so hard that the unchained character is gladly chopping his former teammates in pieces before you can say "Neutral Evil". This is more than the Roaring Rampage of Revenge; everyone has to suffer.

The Morality Chain is basically the only thing preventing someone from happily killing their "friends" and family. One wonders whether such a form of "goodness" has much value in it (aside from, well, keeping them from killing their friends and family).

Sometimes this is inverted however, when the death of the Morality Chain actually motivates the target of affection to become more determined to be good. To honor her memory, or something. Usually in these cases the cause of death is either natural, or because of a villain (especially if it's a buddy of theirs that the Morality Chain had disapproved of). Now, if the cause of death is their loved one, either through an accident or because they Kicked The Morality Pet, then they may very well either go comatose or just plain crazy.

See also: Morality Pet, Dead Little Sister, Morality Chip, Living Emotional Crutch, Driven to Villainy. Contrast: The Kid With the Leash, The Farmer and the Viper.

Anime and Manga

 * In Berserk, Casca is this to Guts. Being Guts's lover driven insane by the actions of Griffith and the Godhand during the Eclipse, she is the only reason why he refuses to completely give into his Super-Powered Evil Side. Said evil side, a Hell Hound-like beast, is fully aware of this and constantly importunes Guts to kill her so it can take over his mind and turn him into a being of pure hatred.
 * It can be argued this applies to Sherry Belmont's precious Koko in Zatch Bell, considering it's implied without Sherry protecting Koko's fragile innocent self, terrible things would start to happen. Such as Koko getting controlled by an Evil demon allowing her to burn down her entire village, and then running off from Sherry's grasp. Of course it ends with (a restored) Koko returning to Sherry so she can be protected and not grow to be a terrible person, or really anything Sherry isn't comfortable with. (Which is pretty much to Sherry's hope nothing at all worth mentioning.)
 * Kara no Kyoukai: plays it straight. The only reason Shiki doesn't go around killing people is because she understands that she would break Mikiya's heart if she betrayed his trust.
 * In Yu-Gi-Oh, Malik's Super-Powered Evil Side takes over after his loyal servant Rishid is knocked unconscious. Later, when Rishid wakes from his coma, he is able to persuade the real Malik to overcome his evil side.
 * Yugi and his True Companions are this for Yami Yugi. They have stopped Yami from injuring or killing others several times.
 * Yugi especially, seeing how the very same day Yugi's soul is taken, Yami Yugi loses his cool after Weevil tears up a card in front of him claiming it was Yugi's soul.
 * Nunnally in Code Geass is Lelouch's Morality Chain. Lelouch's main motivation comes from terrorists assassinating his mother and crippling his sister, which led his father (the emperor) to abandon Lelouch and Nunnally. Because of this, he's motivated to avenge his mother, destroy his father's empire, and build a gentler world where his sister can be happy. Even with Nunnally alive, Lelouch already skirts the edges of Villain Protagonist...
 * Nunnally didn't even realise that she was the Morality Chain.
 * In Fate Stay Night, Ilya is evidently this to Berserker. Note, he's still a massive lump of destructive impulse given terrifying form, he's just better tempered when she's around.
 * Unless she orders him to kill someone. Then he gets WORSE.
 * Nana from Elfen Lied has her father. She's the only diclonius with a loving parent, and the only one who hasn't gone on a massive killing spree.
 * And Kouta is this for Lucy.
 * Rurouni Kenshin features this for everyone's favourite Hitokiri; Kaoru's presence during Kenshin's duels with everyone prior to Saitou was what kept him from falling all the way back into the ways of the Hitokiri. Yahiko also briefly functioned as this during Kenshin's Curb Stomp Battle with Raijuta; he told Raijuta that the fact that he was still alive (ie; Raijuta hadn't killed Yahiko) was the only thing stopping Kenshin from murdering the man.
 * Prior to the Kenshin-gumi, his first wife Tomoe Yukishiro's presence makes Battousai less of a cold, ruthless killer. As his employer, Choshu clan head Katsura Kogoro, asked of Tomoe, she serves as "the sheath to temper his mad justice."
 * In Haruhi Suzumiya, an important point is narrator Kyon's role as this for Haruhi. Before Kyon, she was a sociopathic, melancholic Jerkass and with him, she's a sociopathic but cheerful Jerkass. Kyon also is probably the only one who can hammer some sense of right and wrong into her. It is a very credible possibility that, should Kyon ever die, the universe would be destroyed..
 * Gender inversion!
 * In the final Slayers light novel arc (currently Japanese-only), Milina serves this role for Luke.
 * In Hell Teacher Nube, the students of class 5-3 become Minki's Morality Chain altogether unwittingly—she believes she's still a nasty evil Oni who doesn't disregard human life as much as enjoy extinguishing it... until she sees Hiroshi, Kyoko, and Miki in danger, leading her to shielding them with her own body. Similarly, her big brother, Baki, gleefully shifts from Laughably Evil to Neutral Evil depending on his whims, but will go insane with fury if anyone hurts his beloved sister. Therefore, when she decides to fight him to protect her friends, and he sees Nube give HIS life to protect Minki, Baki immediately allies himself with Nube on the condition that he should never hurt Minki.
 * In Deadman Wonderland, apparently, the only thing really holding Genkaku (while he was a child) back from going completely Ax Crazy was his little kitty. So much for that.
 * Minatsuki deserves special mention. Before Ganta and her brother become her morality chain, she was mostly a sadistic sociopath. After this she's mostly Yandere with shades of Heroic Sociopath.
 * It's only implied but, there's the general vibe that if Ganta died, very bad things would start happening in Shiro's vicinity.
 * Yin in Darker than Black is the Anti-Hero Hei's Morality Pet in the main series, but could definitely qualify for this, since he's fairly upbeat at the end of the first season and in the interquel . It's when he loses her  that he Took a Level in Jerkass for the second season.
 * What little we know about the circumstances indicates he may have had a good reason for totally breaking down: No wonder he's to the point where he just wants to drink himself into a stupor.
 * Invoked with Marie Mjolnir for Franken Stein in Soul Eater: they're paired up in the hope that her positive wavelength will keep him from falling (deeper) into madness.
 * From what little we've seen of Stein recently, Marie's influence now Medusa's snake is gone seems to be doing the trick. His reaction to Marie after BJ's death showed that in some way he really does care.
 * Spirit may have something of this, although his role seems to be to keep Stein in line - he states during the Medusa fight it's his "job to control this crazy kid". However, he does seem genuinely concerned about Stein's welfare and is the one who allows him to 'escape' and search for BJ's real killer.
 * In Black Lagoon, Rock acts as a morality chain for Revy that moves her from Neutral Evil to Sociopathic Hero, willing to help Rock pull off good endings in the Yakuza and El Baile De La Muerte arcs (failure and partial success respectively). Suffice it to say that in the event of Rock's death, Revy would make the events of the Nazi arc look like cheerful shoujo by comparison.
 * Let's not forget that the Lovelace family is this to Roberta. Her Roaring Rampage of Revenge in El Baile de la Muerte started when
 * It's kind of scary to think of given how unbalanced the cast is already, but several episodes of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei indicate that Itoshiki-sensei fills this role for his class. Without him, their loneliness and mental instability would drive them completely over the edge.
 * In Bamboo Blade, Miyako "Miya-Miya" Miyazaki has her boyfriend Danjuro Eiga as her morality chain. It's fairly evident throughout the series that she only cares to keep her repressed aggression in check whenever he's around.
 * Umineko no Naku Koro ni has  fulfilling this role for  . Whenever   kicks the bucket (which happens in every arc),   snaps.
 * Also,
 * Precia's Catgirl familiar Linith from the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Sound Stages was this for her, apparently, since the already very disturbed Precia demonstrated normal human reactions from time to time while Linith was around. As soon as she was gone, though, things became, well...
 * It might be said that the Book of Darkness needs a master to function as a Morality Chain. It just has a bad habit of killing them, and everyone else shortly thereafter.
 * In Black Butler Elizabeth's entire reason for existence seems to be keeping Ciel from falling into the abyss.
 * And Luca  was implied to be this for  ..
 * Yachiru from Bleach is this to Kenpachi, to an extent, even though she can be just as violent as him at times. Kenpachi may be a savage now, but before he took in Yachiru he was little more than an animal with a sword. All he did was kill; he didn't even care that he had no name. He may be on the bottom of the morality ladder now, but before meeting her, he wasn't even aware it existed.
 * Kämpfer: Natsuru to Kampfer!Akane.
 * MW: Garai makes ineffectual attempts to be this to Michio, and instead ends up being a heavily subverted Morality Pet - the one person Michio really cares for, but not treated any better for it.
 * The Breaker: Shi Woon Lee and Shiho are this to Chun Woo. Shiho isn't as much of one as Shi Woon but her apparent death provokes quite a reaction in Chun Woo.
 * Hunter X Hunter: The Chimera Ant King only avoids slipping past the Moral Event Horizon because he takes care of a heavily handicapped girl when she's injured.
 * Possibly you could state that on the blimp, Gon played this part for Killua. In the anime, he was about to kill a girl named Anita when he heard Gon still fighting for her outside, and it brought him back to his old self; since then, he's actually seemed to avoid killing people if there was an alternative.
 * Wolf Guy Wolfen Crest: Aoshika-sensei "graduates" from Morality Pet to this, for Inugami.
 * Fushigi Yuugi: With Amiboshi around, Suboshi was as much a Jerkass. When Suboshi thought he was dead... all he needed was a push from Nakago to fly off the deep end
 * Yu Yu Hakusho: Yukina for Hiei.
 * Likewise Shiori for Kurama.
 * In One Piece, in some ways, Fisher Tiger was this to
 * A Certain Magical Index has Last Order as the Morality Chain and Berserk Button of local Anti-Hero Accelerator. Every time she goes missing or is otherwise threatened, he reverts from Jerk with a Heart of Gold to sadistic serial killer. Why is that a bad thing? For one, he's got a shotgun. For another, he won the Superpower Lottery and can manipulate movement vectors. And the kicker? If you really piss him off like Kihara did, he'll become a fucking angel and kill you Deader Than Dead.
 * Hellsing: Integra to Alucard, being the person he acknowledged to serve.
 * Tenchi Muyo!: To some extent, the title character to Ryoko. She's still a Jerkass, but nowhere near as bad as she could be if she didn't have her affections for Tenchi.
 * In Rosario Plus Vampire Tsukune is this for Inner Moka.
 * Tenchi Muyo!: To some extent, the title character to Ryoko. She's still a Jerkass, but nowhere near as bad as she could be if she didn't have her affections for Tenchi.
 * In Rosario Plus Vampire Tsukune is this for Inner Moka.

Comic Books

 * The Saint of Killers' family in Preacher - it is after their death that he becomes so full of hate, which in turn leads to him freezing Hell after his own death and being transformed by the Angel of Death..
 * Lampshaded in Runaways when Chase reveals that he believes his girlfriend Gert is the only thing keeping him in line.
 * Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen doesn't have a Morality Chain so much as a Humanity Chain, in the form of his girlfriend Laurie (also known as Silk Spectre). He states openly that the only reason he maintains any interest in the earth is because of his link to her, and when she leaves him he heads off to Mars within the day, completely indifferent to the fact that his leaving is likely to trigger nuclear holocaust.
 * Notably, it's also their later conversation and partial reconciliation that convinces him to return.
 * Isis serves this role for Black Adam in 52.
 * The comic also has Superman acting as this to Lex Luthor of all people. Granted, Lex is pretty damn evil when Superman is around, but when Superman drops off the face of the Earth and Lex doesn't have him to obsess over, he creates the Everyman Project, which can turn normal people into superheroes,
 * Deathstroke's Battle Butler Wintergreen was this for the entire Wilson family. His Undying Loyalty made him complicit in Slade's shadier dealings, but he always tried to bring out the best in him and his children. Wintergeen's death at the hands of the Jericho-possessed Deathstroke destroyed any chance that Slade could ever go through a true Heel Face Turn. Rose at least managed to eventually turn good.
 * In Justice Society of America, after Damage dies, Judomaster goes after her father's killer because of the loss. Sand reveals to her that Damage, forewarned of his death, had left her a message; this is what persuades her not to kill him.

Fan Works

 * In the Death Note fic A Cure for Love, L becomes Light's Morality Chain. Even after Light  he shows more restraint as Kira than he did before (to the point that a fellow Knight Templar thinks he’s gone soft) and Light even considers L to be his "partner" in destroying another enemy. But then when L "betrays" Light
 * In another Death Note fic, All You Need Is Love, Naomi Misora realizes, to her horror, that she's the Morality Chain so she sticks around Light even while knowing he's a manipulative, narcissistic, mass-murderer because she knows he could be so much worse.
 * In the Avatar: The Last Airbender fanfic by the same name, Zuko (and by some extent Ursa) is a morality chain for Azula. Striving to earn her mother's affection, she goes along her promise to watch over Zuko. She is still a manipulative psychopath with little concept on base emotions like love and still out to capture the Avatar, but she shows genuine care and concern for not only her brother but her friends Ty Lee and Mai as well. You cannot help but to root for her in some scenes.

Film
"Detective Fowler: If this woman's such a goddamned saint, how did she end up raising four total fuck-ups? Lt. Green: Miss Evelyn cycled hundreds of kids out of the foster program and into permanent homes. In 30 years she only came across four lost causes. Four delinquents so far gone she couldn't find anyone to take them in. So she did. Trust me, Fowler, these kids are congressmen compared to what they would've been."
 * Star Wars basically had Emperor Palpatine psyching Anakin/Darth Vader to the point of killing his own Morality Chain, Padmé.
 * For that matter, Return of the Jedi has Luke becoming a Morality Chain for his dying father.
 * Actually, they serve as each other's Morality Chains. Darth keeps Luke from giving in to the Dark Side, and Luke brings Anakin back to the Light.
 * And Palpatine notes in the Revenge of the Sith novel that Obi-Wan is Anakin's morality chain, with Dooku's plan being to break the chain by killing Obi-Wan. Palpatine has other ideas, of course.
 * Kota and Juno is generally Galen's morality chain, with Juno being the only person who he really cared about and loved.
 * Four Brothers has Evelyn Mercer serve a similar function, as the following quote demonstrates. That said, as soon as she dies it's as if Sauron were let loose in that town. Heck, this troper got the impression she was a Barrier Maiden containing their evil, and her murder after having given them genuine love just made their vengeance worse..


 * Shilo acts as one of these for her father, Nathan in Repo! The Genetic Opera. She replaced her mother, Marni, who was more of a Morality Pet. It's implied that without Shilo, Nathan would take on the Repo Man persona full time.
 * Extensively played with in The Sons Of Katie Elder when the four sons return to their mother's home for her funeral and the three elder brothers (all "bad men" in the sense that they were Gunslingers and so forth) decide that the youngest needs to go to college and be respectable so that their mother can be honored. Of course, the youngest son wants to be like his older brothers. They proceed to inform him that he is now required to be the honor bearer for the whole family. This involves a significant amount of brotherly violence to make sure he understands.
 * The title character in Harry Brown loses his wife and best friend in the first few minutes. With them gone, there's nothing left (except advanced age) to keep him from reverting to the ruthless torture-using Royal Marine he once was.
 * In Unforgiven, Will Munny's wife is his morality chain. Once she dies, he tries to continue in her memory, as well as for his kids.
 * Happy Gilmore: Happy's grandmother is his defining moral point — her being in trouble is what sparks the whole plot off, and Happy rejects anything that will cause her harm in some way.

Literature

 * The second half of the original Slayers novels (the ninth-through-fifteenth novels, which were never translated into English) introduced a new rival to Lina, Luke. He is an ex-assassin, and the only reason he never turned back is because of his partner Milina (and it' shown that he is clearly in love with her). With her he is more or less a Jerkass, but when Milina is killed later on, Luke becomes a crazed Omnicidal Maniac,
 * In Castlevania likewise,
 * Arguably, Dexter's foster father, Harry, who at least managed to train Dexter to select his targets according to certain standards of morality and justice.
 * Turned on its head in the Discworld novel Witches Abroad. Granny Weatherwax is good because
 * It should be noted that Granny
 * Witches as a "community" keep an eye on each other for this very reason. Any group of witches larger than three has a tendency to fall apart from bickering, but there's still a silent understanding that some level of contact helps them avoid "going to the bad".
 * In the Empire of Man books by David Weber and John Ringo,
 * Subverted and played straight with in Harry Potter: though his love for  was not enough to keep him from joining the Death Eaters, Voldemort threatening her life switched him to good, and her death (and his responsibility for it) was the main reason he, even though the two loathed each other.
 * Also subverted with Aragog and Hagrid. Aragog's loyalty and devotion to Hagrid were strong enough to suppress Aragog's natural instinct as a dangerous magical creature to eat humans. This only went so far; Aragog didn't try to deny his family the opportunity to eat Harry and Ron when they visited him in the Forbidden Forest, though he would prevent them from trying the same with Hagrid. Of course, whether or not a sapient monster (whose instincts drive it to eat people) actually eating people could be considered "evil" is a tricky matter.
 * In The Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Rees-Brennan, the protagonist's brother Alan acts as a Morality Chain for him.
 * Invoked in the Warhammer 40,000 novel Deus Sanguinius. When Rafen offers to challenge Arkio's claim to be Sanguinius reincarnated in combat,  is glad despite the unexpected turn   has caused, because he believes that Rafen is the last link Arkio has to his humanity and that Rafen's death will cause Arkio to be permanently lost to.
 * "One Lonely Night" begins with Private Detective Mike Hammer angsting over being chewed out by a judge merely for blowing away a scumbag who likely would have been executed anyway. He spends much of the book bothered by his Honor's assertion that he's no better than the man he killed, and so is quite pleased when he's able to retrieve the MacGuffin without killing many more people. Then his Sexy Secretary Velda gets kidnapped and Mike realises he's been kidding himself. Of course he's an evil murdering bastard. That's what he was put on Earth for! He then proceeds to track down the Dirty Communists who kidnapped his secretary and Kill Them All.
 * Gone with the Wind: At no point in the book or movie is Scarlett honestly a morally admirable human being, but after her mother Ellen dies, the puppies really start flying.
 * In the novelization of Metropolis, Hel functioned as one of these for both Joh Fredersen and Rotwang. After she dies, Joh withdraws completely into work and becomes a cold-hearted executive, and Rotwang withdraws into his laboratory to spend all his time plotting revenge and building a Robot Girl clone of Hel. At the end,  is redeemed by , who becomes his new morality chain.
 * It's possible this is from Fanon and not the book, but in Good Omens there is a feeling that if Aziraphale was recalled to Heaven permanently, Crowley would go to town on the Earth and Heaven and nobody short of Adam would be able to stop him.
 * There really isn't anything to strongly indicate this in the book. Not only is Crowley bound by the authority of Hell and the vigilance of Heaven, but most importantly his semi-moral character isn't a result of his interactions with Aziraphale, but with human beings. He's learned to like humans, and Aziraphale only gave him someone to talk with, who understood more or less what he was going through.
 * Hanging out with an angel certainly doesn't hurt, though. Aziraphale does stop him from drowning the ducks in the beginning of the book with a simple "Really, my dear."
 * In the Vorkosigan Saga the sadistic Sociopathic Soldier Sergeant Bothari has two morality chains: his daughter Elena and the young Miles Vorkosigan. Lacking any moral sense, he uses duty to dictate how he treats them.
 * While the cold and ruthless Tywin Lannister of A Song of Ice and Fire was never really a nice guy (he wiped out two families of rebellious vassals as a young man), it's mentioned that he used to be somewhat more humane, and in particular, showed his most visible happiness and emotion around his beloved wife. When she died in childbirth, all of that humanity was gone for good.
 * In The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor, Philip's daughter Penny is the only thing that keeps him from snapping during the Zombie Apocalypse.

Live Action TV
"Eric: "Russell Edgington was maybe the oldest and strongest vampire on the planet. Now he is also the craziest.""
 * In the Xena: Warrior Princess episode "Dirty Half Dozen," Xena says that Gabrielle is something of a morality chain.
 * Confirmed in seasons 5 and 6, Gabrielle throws away her staff, Xena and her minions commit genocide versus gods, centaurs, Amazons, Japanese etc.
 * On As the World Turns: Many characters believe that Luke is the reason that Reid is becoming nicer and more human... and they're right.
 * Connor and Cordelia in Angel have an aspect of this despite the tremendous amount of Squick many felt, influencing him to a reconciliation with Angel, and giving him a much-needed connection to a non-dead and crazy human being. Horribly subverted when, as Connor becomes increasingly dependent on her for guidance, she becomes increasingly Not Herself, and asks him to get her something very important.
 * Team Angel, as a whole, is Angel's Morality Chain. Notably, during Season Two, he abandons them, believing they are making him "weak", and getting in the way of his fight against evil. Without them, he begins to lose more and more of his humanity, until.
 * Dexter: Harry once again, though his are like reinforcing links on the chain.
 * Doing nothing to stop the accusations of Ho Yay, Supernatural did this in "Mystery Spot". Dean is really gone this time and while Sam isn't exactly 'evil', he's a more unhinged, colder mix of John and Gordon. While it didn't last (although there was pretty crappy after-effects on Sam's mental state), it still showcased their Sibling Yin-Yang awesomely: If it weren't for Sam then Dean would commit suicide and if it weren't for Dean then Sam would lose his innate humanity.
 * In Season 1 and early Season 2, there are suggestions in Sam's moralizing that he's going to be the morality chain for Dean. As the troper above indicated, this gets turned around hard in later seasons.
 * Sam didn't get addicted to demon blood until Dean was no longer there to stop him. Sam has generally good intentions, but he went from a deontological moralizer in Season 1 and parts of Season 2 (won't kill humans, doesn't like moral ambiguity, wants Dean to kill him if he goes darkside) to a fervent consequentialist by the beginning of Season 4 ("It's totally cool to bang a demon chick as long as she's in a (mostly) dead body and also to guzzle down demon blood because it lets me save people.") Sam's motives don't fundamentally change, but failing to stop Dean's descent into Hell drives him all the way off the slippery slope on the sliding scale of means vs. ends.
 * At the end of Season 4, Sam brutalizes Dean and nearly chokes him to death before relenting, to which Dean responds with an extremely ill-advised ultimatum mirroring their father's when Sam left for college, and EVEN THEN, Sam's trust in and love for Dean very nearly prevent him from engaging in the final orgy of demon blood and violence just as he's about to do it. It's only because  that Sam finally comes to believe that Dean has abandoned him, and that he has to go through with his plan.
 * Likewise, in a Season 5 episode The End, Dean is sent to a future where he and Sam never reunite and Sam ends up becoming Lucifer's vessel. Even Dean has to admit that his future self is a callous dick and by the end of the episode, has come to the conclusion that they "keep each other human."
 * In I, Claudius, Drusus Germanicus to Tiberius.
 * In the book, it's Cocceius Nerva to Tiberius.
 * Alternate Future Sylar from Volume 3 of Heroes has his son Noah as his Morality Chain, one strong enough to subvert Do Not Call Me Gabriel. With Noah around, Sylar was able to curb his hunger and become a good man. But then it all goes horribly, horribly wrong when it turns out that Knox doesn't know the meaning of Infant Immortality.
 * Davis Bloome from Smallville transforms into killing machine Doomsday with enough agitation; however, Chloe Sullivan seems to calm him enough to stop the transformations. When he finds out Chloe truly loves Jimmy Olsen instead of him, though, Davis (the human) goes apeshit and murderous.
 * Ianto Jones from Torchwood fills this role for Captain Jack Harkness. Word of God has it that if, Jack would not have been able to   later on.
 * Lady Adira and Vir Cotto to Londo Mollari in Babylon 5.
 * Lilly Truscott of Hannah Montana is quite often the only thing reigning in Miley's diva-ness.
 * The various companions of The Doctor sometimes fill this role, though how much this is needed varies across his various incarnations.
 * Although toyed with quite a bit over the years, this is finally fully explored in the revived series, when the Tenth Doctor
 * even says outright in "The Runaway Bride" that the Doctor needs to find someone who can serve this purpose for him.
 * Subverted with The Master: the Doctor pretty much tries to be a Morality Chain for him.
 * One can argue that it's played straight with the Master—the fact that he doesn't need companions is a sign of his sociopathy. He might have sardonically referred to Mrs Saxon as "my faithful companion", but she's just another Weak-Willed subordinate he dominates through mind control as per his Seventies incarnation.
 * In Firefly, Mal is Jayne's Morality Chain, though it's not that Mal makes Jayne good so much as Mal is.
 * One could argue that the entire crew (sans Simon and River) is something of a more classic morality chain to him, probably due to them being a strong sense of family, something he hasn't had as a mercenary (although there's hints he had one as a child). This is shown most in the same scene where he's more concerned about how the crew thinks of him after his death than him actually being dead.
 * On Charmed, many characters have explicitly stated that Phoebe plays this role in making sure that Cole remains good. In fact, Cole's well-known tendency for being a Heel Face Revolving Door is pretty much a function of his relationship with Phoebe—that is, Phoebe and Cole are constantly breaking up and reestablishing their relationship, and every time this happens, it has a major effect on Cole's status as evil or good. Although Phoebe is very much aware of her power to be Cole's Morality Chain, she usually seems to be merely yanking his chain based on her own emotions, rather than consistently using her influence to make sure Cole becomes and remains a redeemed demon.
 * Used in some episodes of Criminal Minds. In fact, one of the killers outright stated that as long as his morality chain was with him, he would do no harm. Another episode has a close examination of the strange, symbiotic relationship between the killer and his chain that ends in a truly heartbreaking fashion.
 * True Blood: Russell Edgington, Big Bad of Season 3, had one in his lover Talbot. While he was always clearly the bad guy, he spent the first two thirds of the season being an Evilly Affable Magnificent Bastard who spent most of his time monologuing, trying to seduce the main characters to his side. However, once Talbot was murdered, shit got real.


 * In Being Human, Mitchell describes this trope - when asked by another vampire how he lives with his Horror Hunger without succumbing, he says: "you surround yourself with good people, that's what you do. You find someone better than you. Cause then when you fail, you have to deal with their disappointment."
 * In the fourth season, Hal.
 * House explicitly asks Martha Masters to become one for him. Without someone acting as an ethical compass, he stands to lose Cuddy.
 * Wilson acts as this for House sometimes too.
 * Buffy the Vampire Slayer: in seasons 5 and 6, Buffy and Dawn act as Spike's Morality Chains. Dawn also fits the role of Morality Pet (Buffy doesn't).
 * An episode of Fringe involved a man and his counterpart  both of whom struggled with an inner "darkness" as a child (resulting in things like mutilating animals), one ended up a memory stealing serial killer, the other was a well adjusted criminal psychologist because he encountered and developed a relationship with a loving mother figure in his youth. Eventually the two cross paths and.
 * Ted is something of this to Barney in How I Met Your Mother, and Barney has been shown to forgo his more despicable actions if he's afraid of pushing Ted too far. Notably, when he has a one-night stand with a recently-dumped Robin, Ted's ex-girlfriend (and very close friend), Ted does temporarily break off their friendship, which sends Barney into a spiral of depression, desperation, and revenge plots. Ironically, this may have been the first time in Barney's life when he was actually being kind and comforting instead of just using a girl for sex, but given Barney's history, it's hard to blame Ted for not believing him.
 * Leverage is interesting in that there are sort of two characters fitting this role. Nate is this to the rest of the team, causing them to do good. On the other hand, he is willing to often go too far in cons unless Sophie stops him. Sophie's importance is especially seen during season 2 when she temporarily leaves and he begins to go too far.

New Media

 * Celes is this for Lady Slaughter in Descendant of a Demon Lord. Celes was able to convince Slaughter that Celes is the successor of the long dead Demon King of Undead, who Slaughter loves. It also helps that if Slaughter steps out of line, Celes would probably be able to kill Slaughter. Even without Celes's influence, Slaughter has a friendly or neutral default disposition towards undead.

Role Playing Games

 * In Survival of the Fittest, Elizabeth Priestly is this to twin brother Lenny. When she's not around him, he acts even more of a complete bastard to get her back/find her.

Tabletop Games

 * The Vampire: The Requiem supplement Danse Macabre introduces the concept of "anchors" as a replacement for the Humanity system. The way it works, essentially, is that you have a set of Morality Chains that prevent you from degenerating and giving into The Beast. You lose an anchor when they become too exposed to the rest of vampiric society or you damage the relationship too thoroughly. Did we mention that the anchor system is meant to be used in conjunction with the Atrocity system and your anchors are the easiest way to safely vent Atrocity dice?
 * In Rifts, Baarrtk Krror is only prevented from giving in entirely to hate by his dear friend, Malik Savant.

Video Games

 * Blumiere (a.k.a. ) of Super Paper Mario decided to when his love interest died. When it was revealed that she was actually alive, he reverted.
 * Inverted in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Midna spends the first third or more of the game thinking only of her own world and recovering the things that she needs. The selflessness she discovers in the personalities of Link and Princess Zelda, however, become a Morality Chain for her which develops over time, to the point where she cares more about them than she does about herself.
 * In La Pucelle by Nippon Ichi, the Dark Prince became such when his love interest is killed. Even after Amnesiac Dissonance, he reverts to such when someone who looks like said love interest is in the same situation that killed his original love, and reverted completely when he witnessed the original event again.
 * In Dragon Quest IV, Psaro is already a Well-Intentioned Extremist. But when  ...Well, that sends him careening over the edge.
 * Bastila and in Knights of the Old Republic serve as each others' Morality Chain, as their telepathic bond allows them to subtly influence each other towards the Dark or the Light. The ending for Lightside! is actually something of a Morality Chain Tug-Of-War, with Bastila trying to use the connection to convince  to fall with her and  using it to support his "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight speech.
 * The mother of the villains Isair and Madae in Icewind Dale 2, although her death happened before the beginning of the story.
 * Raspberyl to Mao in Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice. When she dies in the worst ending, he completely loses it.
 * Flonne could also be seen as becoming one to Laharl gradually throughout Disgaea. In the Normal Ending, when he learns that.
 * In the Bad Ending,
 * Played straight in Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories, though reversing the roles. Rozalin warms up to Adell's strong sense of justice, his family, and his determination to bring her back safely to her father. In the worst ending, unlocked by having too many ally kills,  This, of course, is avoided in the good ending where the Adell who has lived up to his ideals
 * And, in the worst ending, Adell (in addition to failing his Morality Chain duties)
 * In Sonic Adventure 2 and Shadow the Hedgehog, the memories of the titular Anti-Hero are haunted by his friend who was murdered 50 years prior. Due to false recollection, he spends the majority of the first game (and, depending on your options, some of the second) avenging her death by attempting to destroy humanity, but after a revelation in both cases, he remembers her last wish to bring peace to her people.
 * In Planescape: Torment you meet a devil called Fhjull Forked-Tongue. He made an angel called Trias enter into a Deal with the Devil with him, hoping to corrupt Trias to evil. Unfortunately, Trias was better at contract manipulation, and Fjull got stuck with the short straw: By the contract, he bound to be good for as long as Trias is alive; breaking the contract would mean his death. Trias, on his end, does not have to fulfill any part of the contract for as long as Fjull is still in the process of fulfilling his own stipulations (in other words, Trias gets off scot-free until Fhjull willingly becomes Lawful Good, at which point Fhjull wouldn't want Trias to fulfil his part of the bargain). Although forced to be good, Fjull is still allowed to be bitter about it, which he is. Oh so very much.
 * In World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, the night elf Leyara is a key member of Fandral Staghelm's Druids of the Flame, who answer to the malevolent Old God-aligned Ragnaros the Firelord.
 * In Dead Rising 2: Off The Record,
 * In The Elder Scrolls games, Clavicus Vile the Daedric Prince of Wishes and Deals is fond of making deals that often screw over foolish mortals. His hound Barbas is the manifestation of his conscience who tries his best to keep his master from ruining too many lives.
 * Whenever something bad happens to Millennia in Half Minute Hero Beautiful Evil Lord goes absolutely berserk.
 * Grand Cleric Elthina of Dragon Age II is a morality chain to
 * Grand Cleric Elthina of Dragon Age II is a morality chain to

Web Comics
"He makes me a better person just by being around."
 * Dan's mother Destania from Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures was a powerful, manipulative, cunning and utterly ruthless Succubus with little to no regard for Beings (the "Normals" of the setting). Then she fell in love with Dan's adventurer father and gave birth to Dan and grew to love life as a loving mother to Dan and his half-sister Alexi; so much so that she renounced her previous life as Destania. . While scheming to get him back, and without the presence of her children, Destania is slowly but surely reverting to her past villainous self.
 * Well, maybe. She has left Lost Lake Inn to protect her children, the plot she's involved in, if successful, will eliminate not only the threat to her family, but a major re-occurring threat to her kind. And if the plot seems genocidal, that seems to have been the nature of the conflict already.
 * Roy to Belkar in The Order of the Stick. Without Roy (and by extension, the rest of the party) to play the role of commanding officer and coax him into coming along on their adventurers under the occasional threat of force, Belkar would be dropping the 'heroic' part of Heroic Sociopath very quickly. This is given a Lampshade Hanging when a character reveals that Belkar's growth on the 'Evil-O-Meter' began to reverse after he signed on with the Order. Note that Roy isn't making Belkar behave any less evil—he's merely got him pointed in the direction of people who deserve it slightly more.
 * Not only was it reversing a little without Roy, Roy had actually successfully reined it in to a relatively low level, whereas without Roy's intervention he might have ended up a villain nasty enough to rival Xykon (for perspective, the scale upon which Belkar was being measured, was being measured in kiloNazis)
 * His evilness level would have quickly gone to 8 within a year without Roy's guidance (that surpasses the hypothetical offspring of Sauron and Cruella de Ville by 3). That would have been pretty freaking evil.
 * Belkar's cat, Mr. Scruffy, seems to be becoming this as well.
 * Hailey has a more complex Morality Chain, even coming in two parts. Her motive to be good is her dying mother's Last Request to be better than the Vice City they lived in, but it's hard. She finds that associating with Elan makes it easier.


 * This is basically what moirallegiance is in Homestuck's troll society.
 * It doesn't always work, though - Vriska's moirail Kanaya does a terrible job as her Morality Chain (partly due to a romantic conflict of interest), and Vriska freely swings between Jerkass, Evilly Affable and Complete Monster. Plus there's the fact that moirails can actively "break up" their moirallegiance with their partner in much the same fashion as a typical romantic relationship...
 * It might not be quite "morality", per se, but the Draconian Dignitary's influence and nagging is pretty much the only thing keeping Jack Noir from killing everyone and obliterating everything, and instead keeping his murder and Earth-Shattering Kabooms reasonably limited to ensure that Derse still has some people to oppress and tax.
 * At this point, Karkat is probably this for
 * After  in CRFH, Marsha comments on her insanity, saying he was the rope on her catapult. Now he's gone, and she can soar...
 * In The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob, Bob and Molly are this for Galatea.
 * In El Goonish Shive, all known Alternate Universe variants of Tedd got a good friend Elliot and at least once the female counterpart Ellen is his girlfriend; the only exclusion is Lord Tedd's world—and instead of Grace there's a big ill-mannered Blood Knight.

Web Original

 * Dr. Horrible of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog has two motivations: to Take Over the World and to get up the courage to talk to Penny, the girl at the laundromat. When the Jerkass Designated Hero, Captain Hammer,, Horrible's closing song makes it clear that he's lost the only thing he really cared about and now there's nothing keeping him from turning truly evil.

Western Animation

 * On Jimmy Two-Shoes it's implied that the sweet optimistic Jimmy is this to the sadistic girl genius Heloise considering that she has a crush on him, only acts nice around him, and (barely) tolerates Beezy and Cerbee because of Jimmy. (Although even Jimmy is not safe from her rage and wrath at times). It's also been stated that the main reason she fell for him is because there's "something about sweet, innocent guys that appeals to the last shred of humanity in her". Suffice to say, if Jimmy were to disappear somehow Heloise would probably immediately revert from Chaotic Neutral to Chaotic Evil, have no reason to be nice to anyone at all, and lose that last shred of human compassion she has that she only brings out around Jimmy.
 * Lydia is this for Beetlejuice on occasion.
 * Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy: To an extent, Edd is this to the other two Eds.
 * Chuckie is this to Tommy, Phil, and Lil on occasion in Rugrats, particularly when they are being led astray by Angelica. In "Rebel Without a Teddy Bear" Chuckie's vocal intervention is the only thing that keeps Tommy from becoming as much of a mean-spirited hellion as Angelica.
 * Other episodes like "The Gold Rush" and "Chuckie's Wonderful Life" strongly hint that Chuckie is this to the other babies as well.
 * In Darkwing Duck, Gosalyn is this to Darkwing. In one episode, she accidentally joins two villains to a trip to the future. In that future, she, along with the two villains, disappeared for several years, and Darkwing became Dark Warrior Duck, so obsessed with peace that he mercilessly hunts, locks, judges and almost always executes the criminals. Note that for him, being a criminal ranges from effectively threatening his city to people walking in the streets at night.
 * Lampshaded in Justice League Unlimited. When the original seven heroes discuss their worries over sliding down the slippery totalitarian slope like their Bad Future counterparts, Flash cheerfully points out that he's the team's Morality Chain, so all they've got to do is make sure he stays alive and everything's cool. The rest of the team is not impressed.
 * In an episode of Superman: The Animated Series, Lois Lane ends up in a parallel universe, where her double was killed by a car bomb. While in her own reality, Superman got there just in time to save her, this world's Superman failed and has never forgiven himself. Since then, he has become much less forgiving to criminals and abandoned his "no killing" rule, blasting any criminal he sees with his Eye Beams. When Lois encounters this version of Superman, he no longer wears the same uniform and appears to be working for Lex Luthor. She manages to set him right, though. Of course, she goes back to her own universe at the end of the episode, which means the other Superman is once again without a Morality Chain.
 * In Teen Titans, Starfire is thrown into a temporal vortex in the episode "How Long Is Forever?" She lands in a world where she's been lost for several years, and it turns out that.
 * Starfire was actually very near a Despair Event Horizon of her own prior to bumping into Future Robin.
 * Young Justice gives this trope a dark twist in the episode "Secrets:" the psychopathic villain Harm realized that was the only person keeping him from being "pure," and.

Real Life

 * Ivan the Terrible's wife, Anastasia, may well have been an example of this. After her death—well, his name is the Terrible for a reason.
 * He got the name much earlier. (the original meaning of "Terrible", "Inspiring Terror", because of his Badassery.
 * According to Stalin, his first wife was his Morality Chain. She died in 1907.