Cool Motive, Still A Crime

""It was a crime of love!" "Cool motive, still murder.""

- Jake Peralta, Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Here you have it. A villain or a hero in a jerk moment claims they are like this because of something that happened in their past. A Freudian Excuse can justify their actions and make them sympathetic. Surely that means they have the high moral ground.

"Not so fast!" Another character says. "Just because you had a crappy moment in your life doesn't mean you get to act like a big jerk!"

There is a moment, a Beat. Sometimes the villain or hero will realize this is true. Or they engage in an Ignored Epiphany. Regardless, the emperor has no clothes.

Cool Motive, Still A Crime is when the work acknowledges that someone's tragic past, present trauma or so forth does not justify their actions. They're called out and told they still have to take responsibility for their actions.

This trope still applies if the character in question gives this speech to themselves. It can be a sign of Character Development or a Jerkass Realization. If the trauma happened when the character was a teen or an adult, it still counts.

Compare with Shut UP, Hannibal.

Advertising

 * Many driving PSAs show that you may have many reasons for dangerous behavior -- dealing with a breakup via text, having a bad day at work-- but you as the driver still need to be careful. One ad shows a cop ticketing a teen driver for texting, and we see that if he hadn't, she would have accidentally caused a pileup.
 * A really heartbreaking inversion from a MetLife ad. A girl gives her dad, a single parent, an essay that she wrote in school about why he is her hero, her "Superman". Every other dad at the school has a business suit, a cellphone and a white collar job; her dad goes to work a number of odd jobs, all the while facing rejections from placement agencies and running around town to make his shifts. All the while he lies to her that he is fine, making sure to dress up nicely and comb his hair when dropping her off or picking her up from school, and helping her with homework or playtime. She says in her essay that she notices when her dad goes hungry so she can get a meal, hides that he is tired from doing manual labor, and worries that he's not happy. Yet she also writes that she knows he's working hard to ensure she has a good life and feels that it's her fault; the essay ends with, "Daddy wants me to work hard in school to get a better life. I love Daddy." As he finishes reading, she stands nervously about the fact that she told him he didn't have to hide his pain from her. He sweeps her in a huge hug while crying.

Anime and Manga

 * Fullmetal Alchemist and the Brotherhood anime
 * Edward Elric has this opinion of Scar, the Ishvalan anti-alchemist. Scar didn't make a good first impression on him by chasing him and his brother down trying to kill them, shortly after he killed Nina. Ed is used to people hating him, but the ones trying to kill him usually have a clear reason to hate Ed Elric. Roy is more sympathetic after rescuing the brothers, explaining that Scar was a survivor of genocide and hates the alchemists which inflicted it on the Ishvalans. Ed asserts that Scar is using senseless violence as an excuse to mask his pain. He may have a point, given that Ed and Al were too young to have participated in the Ishvalan genocide. There's also the fact that he killed Winry's parents after they saved his life, albeit in this case it was a Freak-Out and Scar himself says he had no reason to do it, with visible regret. A group of survivor Ishvalans say the same thing to Scar, that he is adding more pain to the world and using their deaths to justifying it.
 * Hoheinheim and Ed both call each other out for this. Ed is furious when his father returns and seems more concerned about his house, the Elric household, being burned down than the fact that his older son has a metal arm and leg respectively. Turns out that Hohenheim went Walking the Earth after his wife Trisha died, leaving Winry's grandmother to raise the boys. Ed calls out his dad for leaving when his sons needed him. Hohenheim in turn asked Ed if it was necessary to burn down the house, and asks if he was trying to run away from committing the taboo..
 * Riza reveals to Ed that.
 * A case of a virtue causing this; Ling has Undying Loyalty and Nice to the Waiter to anyone under his employ; servants and subjects need his protection, not the other way around. It's because he grew up with a Dysfunctional Family having to survive assassination attempts from relatives that don't want him to become the next Emperor; people on his team are the only people that he can trust. He has seen too many royals throw away their subjects like trash, and he doesn't want to be that person. It means, as a result, that Ling underestimates his own worth and has a habit of risking his life for his servants, to the point of Senseless Sacrifice. This was fine when he refused to abandon an injured Lan Fan while Bradley hunted them down, but he nearly ends up dying
 * Inverted in One Piece  regarding Nami's backstory. She hates pirates, and reveals that she only joined Luffy's crew to steal from them. Her sister Nojiko tells the crew why: . Nojiko and Nami herself insist that she doesn't need pity or help, there is no excuse for her actions and she would rather own what she is rather than endanger another person. Sanji and the crew immediately disagree; they say that this is not a situation that Nami can handle alone and strive to help free her. Luffy doesn't hear this tragic backstory; when Nami tearfully begs him for help, he goes to challenge Arlong without hesitation.
 * Pet Shop of Horrors has this both in some stories and the climax:
 * Julia's mother Monica is revealed to be the one.
 * A show rather than tell version. Detective Leon Orcot is struck with survivor's guilt when he sees a former friend become a criminal and die by suicide in front of him. He says to D aloud that he wishes he had been the one to die instead because he must have failed his friend. D uses a butterfly to show Leon that scenario, where he became the criminal and his friend became the cop. It means that his little brother Chris never existed, let alone came to move with him. Leon, however, retains his memories of his previous life and keeps trying to hunt down D for answers, refusing to conform to this destiny. He wakes up after shooting himself in the head during a mirrored confrontation where his friend recognizes him at a standoff; while shaken if relieved to see that his little brother Chris is still in his apartment, he thinks about the fact that there was nothing he could have done to dissuade his friend from making a different choice.
 * It's revealed that D's father hates humanity and is willing to wipe them out, while his grandfather and D himself are more willing to test humanity with magical creatures.

Comic Books

 * Maus has Art confront this about his parents. Anja is deceased, so he was able to find catharsis about her death in a one-shot comic. That comic acknowledged that he regrets his mother's passing and that he was unable to understand her, but she was still unable to hide her demons from him, and he resented the toxic codependence. Vladek Spiegelman is also a piece of work; he's a hoarder, a cheapskate and a racist, as seen with the black hitchhiker. Art asks his stepmother Mala if it's the camps that made him that way. She scoffs and reminds Art that she was also a camp survivor, and you don't see her picking up telephone wire off the street or complaining loudly about money. What's more, Mala has talked to many fellow survivors, and none of them are like Vladek.
 * The Wake arc in The Sandman has . He says that he understands that . Not to mention that . He hints, however, that.

Animated

 * Moana explains that the reason why Maui is so crusty to the title character, complete with trapping her on a cave while stealing her boat, is because he feels that humanity does not appreciate all the good he did for them, and he's been stranded on the island for decades. The reason why he started doing these good deeds is his parents tossed him into the ocean as a baby, something that Tamatoa reveals while thrashing both Maui and Moana during "Shiny", and Maui wanted external validation. Stealing Te Fiti's heart. When he actually faces, however, Maui gives a sincere apology on realizing how much . He fully admits that his desire for validation from humans was selfish and not meant to help them at all..

Live-Action

 * Catch Me If You Can, a biopic dramatizing Frank Abegnale's con artist career, has a judge spell this out when he is extradited to the United States for trial. The judge turns down his request to be tried as a minor, citing that he may have come from a broken home but showed blatant disrespect for the law while scamming airlines, a hospital and a law firm.
 * Marvel Cinematic Universe
 * You can make a drinking game for every time Heel Face Revolving Door characters Loki and Wanda Maximoff face this from protagonists and antagonists alike. Case in point:
 * The Thor trilogy makes it clear that it was very uncool of Odin to hide Loki's true parentage from him. He's forced to reveal to Loki, after the latter's skin turns blue from touching the Cube, that he basically kidnapped him from Jotunheim and raised him as his son. His intention was that Loki could be a peacemaker between the two enemy races, but both Thor and Loki were raised to see the Jotuns as monsters, something that Loki brings up tearfully. Nevertheless, when Thor finds out, he makes it clear that he doesn't care if Loki is not related to him; they are brothers, and thus Loki has no excuse for his trauma-induced actions. The first movie has Thor call out Loki for sending a Destroyer on Earth to finish him and endanger innocents in the process, and Odin while saving Loki while falling off the Bifrost says he knows that Loki didn't enact this scheme of wiping out the Jotuns to please his adopted father. In the second movie, Odin puts Loki on trial for attempting to invade Earth while allied with Thanos and killing innocents; he says the only reason Loki is not facing the usual sentence of execution is Frigga interceded on his behalf. Thor Ragnorak has Thor point out, after tazing Loki for a betrayal attempt, that Loki chooses to be a chronic backstabber rather than the hero he was meant to be. Loki takes this to heart by helping Thor fight Hela, and later . The Loki series has an alternate Loki watch.
 * Meanwhile, Wanda's backstory is tragic. She and her brother Pietro lost their parents in a bombing, and Stark missiles destroyed their apartment. When Hydra recruited them, Wanda takes the opportunity to Mind Rape Tony after he storms their compound, determined to make him suffer as much as she did. Her selfishness leads to Tony creating Ultron, and Ultron going rogue. Pietro was the more reasonable of the siblings, suggesting they just kill him while he's incapacitated and they get their revenge. She does the same to the rest of the team, which leads to Hulk rampaging in Johannesburg while mind-raped. Tony feels guilty on learning why Wanda hates him, but Bruce is not sympathetic when he revives and she tries to stop him from putting Jarvis into the Ultron body they stole from Ultron; he says he doesn't need to turn green to snap her neck and nearly acts on that threat by putting her in a chokehold. Wanda herself gets a horrible Heel Realization on learning that Ultron is going to wipe out everyone in Sokovia in his quest to make the world perfect, meaning she enabled him to cause much worse collateral damage than Tony ever did directly or indirectly. Clint has a more evenhanded approach when she freezes up during the final battle on sensing Pietro's death; he tells Wanda she has a choice to make, to either stay out of the fight to avoid being a liability or step in to make up for her past harm. In  Civil War, General Ross says that he knows Wanda didn't mean to cause a fire in Lagos but still injured innocents and that is why the Avengers need accountability. Following the battle with Thanos, . Later installments from Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness had Strange himself.

Literature

 * In  Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Dumbledore and Harry discuss this about
 * Percy Jackson & the Olympians also has this in the last book regarding.
 * The sequel series Heroes of Olympus reveals that Aphrodite camp counselor Drew Tanaka feels this way about.

Live-Action TV

 * Buffy the Vampire Slayer had one of Buffy's childhood crushes Billy Fordham come to Sunnydale. He's entranced by how Buffy fights vampires and finds reasons to hang with her, while Angel investigates because instinct and jealousy tell him the guy is bad news..
 * Brooklyn Nine-Nine has a few opinions on the tragic excuse for characters being a jerk:
 * During the first Thanksgiving episode, Jake does all he can to extend a case on the night of Amy's Thanksgiving dinner so he doesn't have to spend time celebrating the holiday. He tells Holt that because his mom had to work two jobs as a waitress and a teacher, he was left to spend the day alone watching TV. Holt chides him because this event is important to Amy and he's dwelling on a past that no longer controls him. Jake has a change of heart, comes to Amy's celebration after Boyle saves it, and makes a sincere toast to the Nine Nine, his new family.
 * Jake tracks down a perp that committed murder. The man says, "It was a crime of love." Jake responds, "Cool motive, still murder." This has since become a meme in the fandom.
 * A softer example; after Jake gets badly injured chasing a perp, he defies Terry's orders to take a sick day and tries to track down the guy in Atlantic City. This leads to him needing hospitalization, and Terry demands answers. Jake admits that the last time he took vacation, . Terry takes a deep breath. He tells Jake that.
 * Turns out that Jake's dad was a lousy excuse for a father because his father was also the same, and Peralta garbage gets passed down to the next generation. The senior Peralta, however, admits when talking to Jake at a family reunion that it is no excuse for how he treated his son or daughter, Jake's half-sister. He hopes that Jake can break the Peralta garbage cycle.
 * The Good Place: Season one has Eleanor confront this about herself. She's antisocial, rude and selfish because her parents treated her as an afterthought or a weapon when arguing with each other. Eleanor got herself emancipated on her birthday and celebrated in her new apartment, alone. Jason is horrified when Eleanor relates this to him. She tells him that she justified all her horrible actions on Earth because of how her parents treated her. But now they can't when the Judge is holding Chidi and Tahani hostage unless Jason and Eleanor turn themselves into him. Sure, Chidi and Tahani aren't perfect, but they stepped up to the plate when Jason and Eleanor needed them.
 * In The Sandman, Dream notes this about Alex Burgess. He sees when the Magus's son is still an innocent child, who grows into an empathetic teenager, and Alex is even tempted to free Dream when showing pity towards him as a teenager. Alex's father Rodrick is abusive to him, outright saying that his dead child Randall is the only heir that he recognizes and Alex is a poor replacement. However, Alex also kills Jessamy the Raven on his father's orders, and refuses to free Dream out of fear that he will be punished for his father's crimes. He ends up being right, but safe to say that the sentence would have been lighter if Dream had been freed as soon as Alex had the authority.
 * Scrubs
 * Dr. Cox got this from his therapist, who then fired him as a patient. The therapist says that Dr. Cox had a hard life with an abusive father, but Cox himself refuses to put in the work or change. If Dr. Cox listened to one person, then it would show he was actually putting in the work to undo the emotional damage that makes him an ass. Dr. Cox gets a Jerkass Realization when he yells at J.D. after taking his advice to do an honest physical on Dr. Kelso, and J.D. says that he's asking Doug to replace him on rounds.
 * One new intern named Katie steals credit from Elliott and tries to manipulate her way to being seen as the best newbie. Carla sits her down for coffee and tells her off, saying the nurses see everything. Katie attempts to cry that she has emotionally abusive parents, and an alcoholic father to boot. Carla says, "Oh you poor thing," followed by "Heard it!" She says nearly everyone at the hospital has a tragic backstory, including herself and Dr. Cox. Unless Katie shapes up, the doctors and nurses will eat her alive.

Newspaper Comics

 * In Calvin and Hobbes, this trope is played for laughs. Calvin likes finding any excuse to avoid responsibility for his actions and justify being an asshole. In one case, he told his dad that he felt he wasn't being supported enough and should be given more; his dad sends him outside to shovel snow and build "character". In another, Calvin quotes psychobabble that he is part of a dysfunctional family with parents who never empower him, meaning nothing he ever does is his fault. Hobbes snarks, "One of us needs to dunk our heads in ice water."
 * For Better or For Worse has this with Kortney, a shop employee. She has Elly wrapped around her thumb by crying about how she needs this job, and apologizing when she has a major screwup like letting model trains be stolen right under her nose. As a result, Elly gives her more leeway than she gives to April, her own daughter, who helps out in the shop part-time when not doing schoolwork. When April catches Kortney on sexy chatrooms during work hours, Kortney threatens to knock her teeth out if she tells her mother; April tells Grandpa Jim, who insists that Elly needs to do something because threats are not acceptable. Even John agrees with this, asserting to Elly that she can't employe someone that physically threatened their daughter. Kortney gets a second chance by apologizing to Elly but not to April, and saying that she doesn't have any role models in her life. Elly buys this, but her assistant Moira doesn't. She warns Kortney that any further funny behavior, and she's out of time. . Elly starts sobbing Tears of Remorse as Moira and April gently say I Told You So, that Kortney used excuses to get away with bad behavior. To prove their point,.

Video Games

 * In Omori, Kel confronts Aubrey about this on the Main Route. She's become a giant jerk in the real world and a bully. Aubrey says she has every right to go after Basil after what he did, and that . Kel calls bullshit; he points out that she's not the only one who

Western Animation

 * Avatar: The Last Airbender has this from time to time.
 * Heroes and Fire Nation individuals frequently acknowledges that Zuko is a tragic Anti-Villain. Anyone whose father burned their face and exiled them for refusing to face them in an Agni Kai would have issues. Zuko becomes very conflicted when.
 * Quite ironically, Azula says that she resents that her mother thought she was a monster. "She was right, but it still hurts!" Azula responds cheerfully. Azula pretends that by being aware of her issues, it means that she has complete control over her actions..
 * Later when Zuko attempts to
 * BoJack Horseman has a running motif for most of the characters that try to lean on their tragic backstories:
 * BoJack himself has a few moments. He hopes that by opening up to Diane about his traumatic childhood, after she encourages him to give a real story for his ghostwritten biography, that it means they have become closer. Instead, it makes Diane realize he is a big jerk, and she puts that in her book One Trick Pony. Later, Todd after suffering two seasons of abuse from BoJack hits his Rage Breaking Point in "It's You" after learning that.
 * BoJack at . As he discusses while, that his mother suffered does not excuse.
 * Gargoyles: This is essentially Demona's deal, something that both Goliath and the Weird Sisters note. She reveals that she was part of the plan to betray the castle in the pilot, believing that the invaders would treat the gargoyles better. When the invaders smashed most of them instead, making her think they killed Goliath, she went Never My Fault and went off to find another clan. She scarred a boy while stealing food, who would become one of her nemeses the Hunter. Her betrayal of Macbeth led to them both becoming immortal, and she refuses to acknowledge that Macbeth wouldn't be hunting her down to finally die if she hadn't sold him out. In the modern day, she blames Eliza Mava for coming between her and Goliath, not the fact that she revealed to Goliath that she betrayed their brethren and sold them out to David Xanatos after they revived. The Weird Sisters point out that she betrayed everyone who trusted her, including the gargoyle who nearly went on a rampage all those years ago fearing she was shattered. Puck of all people has to point out that since she imprisoned him, he could give her what her heart desires: Goliath, and the love they once shared. Demona shoots herself in the foot by asking Puck to get rid of Eliza instead, and Puck twists her request since she forgot he was a trickster.
 * Infinity Train has heroes and villains which discuss this trope. Facing it allows their numbers to go down.
 * Tulip is a jerk, who resents her parents for divorcing. She blames them for ruining her life. Then a tape in the Cat's Car gives her the courage to see what really happened, without her Nostalgia Filter or catastrophizing; her parents were actually fighting all the time, she just blocked it out and ignored the red flags. During the actual scene where they break the news, they also were as broken up over the separation as she was, and it wasn't their intent to ruin her life. Tulip leaves the tape with a Jerkass Realization that she needs to go easier on her parents when she gets home.
 * When Tulip sees
 * Season 3 brings us Grace, the leader of the cultist children the Apex. Simon.
 * The Legend of Korra would continue this trend with some of the heroes and villains:
 * When we learn Amon's real backstory, that, Korra says she has never heard such a sad story. Mako and she resolve nevertheless to use this information to stop Amon and save Republic City, because he's trying to wipe out all the benders.
 * Asami calls out her father Hiroshi Sato for falling victim to this. They lost his wife, Asami's mother, to a Firebending gang. As a result, . When they fight in the climax in season one, . It takes a few years, and a stint in, but Hiroshi belatedly realizes the grave error that he made..
 * Lin and Suyin are on opposite sides of the spectrum, but they agree on one thing: that their mother hated her rigid life as a Beifong was no excuse for how she treated them. They wanted a mom; instead, they got an absent parental figure that let them do what they wanted. Suyin tells Korra that she rebelled out of a need for Toph to actually step up and be a mom, to get her approval or any sign of attention. (Lin herself says that this was no excuse for Suyin's delinquent behavior and holds a grudge against her for the scar on her cheek.) While Suyin and Toph talked this out offscreen and reconciled, Lin is much brusquer when confronting her mother in season 4; Toph reverts to her irreverent behavior, and Lin tells her that bullshit is why they never talked for several decades. Toph herself is forced to acknowledge she was not a good parent, though she is proud of both her girls.
 * Sweet Opal in a flashback said this about according to the graphic novel Ruins of the Empire. When they were kids,
 * Phineas and Ferb had this Played for Laughs with Dr. Doofenshmirtz, who had many tragic details in his backstory:
 * Parodied in one instance. In Across The 2nd Dimension, Dr. D meets his successful counterpart who has taken over the tri-state area. This Alternate Dr. D reveals that he became evil because he lost his toy train as a child. After a Beat, Prime Dr. D goes, "That's it?!" He rants about how he suffered so much more, and none of that helped him take over the tri-state area. He also ends up saving.
 * Perry the Platypus delivers a silent version in "This Is Your Backstory". Dr. D's latest inator causes him to become a monster with every piece of trauma he remembers. He prepares to rip apart Perry. Perry grabs his wallet and shows that he's kept pictures of himself and Dr. D, showing that he cares about the scientist and that he has plenty of good memories to go with the bad. This depowers Dr. Doofenshmirtz, allowing Perry to defeat him. Vanessa also visits, telling her dad You Are Not Alone.
 * This comes up a lot more seriously in Rick and Morty with all of the Smiths and Rick himself:
 * "Pickle Rick" has the family attending school-mandated therapy with a psychiatrist interested in their screwed-up dynamics; Rick turns himself into a pickle to avoid therapy, which leads to his Humiliation Conga throughout the episode. Beth at first tries to blame Morty and Summer for their dysfunctions that led to their teacher's concern because she resents having to be at therapy in the first place. Dr Wong is not phased; she pinpoints that Beth's underlying issues from her relationship with Rick may be passing on the stress to the kids so they act out in unhealthy ways following her . Beth responds, "Fuck you, lady," much to her kids' shock. Their session ends with the family being emotionally honest with each other for the first time in ages, and season 4 confirms Beth continued to see Dr. Wong after ending the episode insulting her in the car while talking to Rick.
 * Rick is never impressed when Beth tries to blame her daddy issues on him abandoning her as a kid. "The ABCs of Beth" actually goes into this when he calls her out for.
 * "Mort Dinner Rick Andre"
 * Nimbus, Rick's archnemesis that we never heard of prior to this episode, calls out Rick for this. He says that Diane, Rick's wife, wouldn't have liked the man that Rick became: a bitter cynic that pretends to care about nothing. Rick has no retort to this apart from saying that Nimbus shouldn't establish canonical backstory. Morty also asks why Rick has to pick a fight with everyone, why he can't just get along and be a normal human being for once.
 * The B plot has Morty also call out the Hoovians for this; he accidentally started a generational saga of Hoovians wanting him dead while getting wine to drink with Jessica from their Narnia-like dimension. For context, decades in their world pass in minutes on Morty's world, thus their society evolves every time Morty nips down to the basement portal to get another wine bottle and either gets attacked or retaliates with Rick's armory. When their latest attempt to assassinate him gets Jessica kidnapped, his rescue leads with the robots that defeated the Hoovians capturing him. Morty revives in their lab and says, "I just took some wine! I already apologized! What the fuck is wrong with you?!" Jessica was definitely an innocent party in this fiasco.
 * The season five finale reveals that.