Asshole Victim: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}{{Needs Image}}

The frequent impression left is that [[Pay Evil Unto Evil|"the victim had it coming"]] - an author has a corpse-shaped hole in the story, and decided to fill it with a character the audience won't mourn.

Also shows up in Horrorhorror and Suspensesuspense films, for much the same reasons; ([[Everyone Is a Suspect]] frequently gets replaced by a [[Clear My Name]]). However, it will generally not apply to victims of [[The Scourge of God]], except sometimes when said scourge is a [[Poetic Serial Killer]]. Criminals in a [[Colliding Criminal Conspiracies]] generally are this.

For [[Kick the Dog|dog kickers]] who kick an asshole (not necessarily fatally), it's [[Kick the Son of a Bitch]]. Can also be an invoked [[Take That, Scrappy!]] moment. See also [[Disposable Fiance]], which is similar in several respects. When the victim was as asshole for things they did in the process of trying to survive, it's [[Death By Pragmatism]].

== [[Advertising]] ==

* One of the most prominent aspects of the series ''[[Elfen Lied]]'' is the fact that while the [[Tyke Bomb|Diclonius]] tend to have a murderously misanthropic view towards humans, said humans [[Humans Are Bastardsthe Real Monsters|tend to be savagely cruel and inhuman]]. It's hard to feel sympathy towards some of the murder victims, when said victims just [[Moral Event Horizon|beat the dog to death in front of its kind but quiet owner, when it was the only thing that she loved in the world, force her to watch, and laugh at her.]] They act so ''surprised'' when she slaughters them. Then again, unless you were in on the conspiracy, the expectation that she ''could'' was probably reserved for people on hard drugs.

* Taken [[Up to Eleven]] with the second victim in ''[[Bio -Meat: Nectar]]'', an old woman. When we first see her, she's mocking and ridiculing the lead character's mother for daring to not have a husband. (It's implied very shortly after that she was previously married and her husband died, or at least ran out on her) Next, we see her berating a neighbor for roof tiles falling into her yard during an earthquake—then further insulting them for daring to suggest they could '''clean up''' the tiles to make it up to her. Next, when she first sees a Bio Meat, she mistakes it for a pig, and calls Animal Control... and when they turn out to be taking too long, she decides to try to ''stab it to death with a broom handle for no reason''. She gets picked off shortly thereafter, but she's ''still'' not done being an asshole, as she had decided to attack it in front of a little girl, who gets so traumatized by witnessing what happens to the woman that all she can do when the Animal Control officers finally arrive is repeat the [[Madness Mantra]] "Little piggy dragged off the big lady..."

** ''[[Bio -Meat: Nectar]]'' even includes Name Tropers, listed in the credits as "Asshole Victims" in the fifth volume. This is a group of the main characters' fellow middle school students who are saved from being eaten when Bio Meats swarm the school by the quick thinking and leadership skills of one main character, and then given an avenue of escape and communication with the outside world by the inventiveness of another, though said escape route has to be used sparingly and carefully lest the Bio Meats use it to invade the safe room. Just as the last of the main characters leaves through the escape route to bring back help, the "Asshole Victims:"

* It's not a murder-mystery, but Steve in the remake of ''[[Dawn of the Dead (2004 film)|Dawn of the Dead]]'' more than qualifies. When he finally gets zombified and then shot in the head you're likely to cheer, same goes for CJ.

* ''[[Sorority Row]]'' probably has a record for the number of deliberately unsympathetic victims; out of all the people killed maybe one or two qualify for [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold]] status. The killer actually [[Lampshadeslampshade]]s how horrible the murdered characters all were.

* {{spoiler|[[Villain Protagonist|The main character, Tony Montana]]}} from ''[[Scarface]]'' might as well be the ultimate kind of this trope. Although he gets a [[Redemption Equals Death]] moment when he {{spoiler|[[Even Evil Has Standards|refuses to blow up the journalist's car, along with said person's wife and children by killing Sosa's hitman.]]}} {{spoiler|Tony}} also paid the price for said incident, however, when {{spoiler|Sosa sent his men to attack him.}} His death wasn't played out in a [[Alas, Poor Villain]] moment either. By the end, we still retain some sympathy for him, but he is still an asshole from start to finish, including when {{spoiler|he killed Gina's future husband, Manny Ribera, because of his over-protectiveness for said sister.}}

** Colonel Protheroe of ''[[Murder at the Vicarage|The Murder at the Vicarage]]'' is the most despised man in the village; even the local ''vicar'' says that killing him would be a service to the community. However, yet again, the murder turns out to have been committed for purely selfish motives.

* ''[[Harry Potter and Thethe Goblet of Fire (novel)|Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire]]'' starts with the local Muggles' viewpoint of the murder of the Riddle family, for whom no one wastes any breath feeling sorry. That said, they didn't sympathize with the man suspected of the murder either, even though he was never charged.

* Usually not seen in [[Discworld]], where posthumous dialogue between victims and Death tends to paint all but [[Complete Monster|the worst]] villains in a sympathetic light. Used straight with Homicidal Lord Winder from ''[[Discworld/Night Watch (Discworld)|Night Watch]]'', though: a paranoid former Patrician so universally despised that, when an ''undisguised'' assassin walked up to him in the midst of a grand ball, the majority of guests either allowed it to happen, or actively distracted Winder's few supporters. Partially averted, because the target's paranoia was so great that the assassin (a young Vetinari) didn't actually have to strike him down; rather, the stress of the confrontation caused the deranged Lord Winder to suffer a fatal heart attack.

** As the officer is alone and faced by three people who are despite their lack of physical violence so far still visibly in absolutely no mood to cooperate, at least one of whom could pick him up and throw him with one hand, he ''could'' have been responding to the implied threat by going for intimidation. Admittedly, that still makes him an idiot as a) it is a major violation of weapons safety rules to aim your weapon at someone for intimidation purposes and b) the fact that it was a very busy night and he did not want to take the time to wait for backup to arrive is not sufficient justification to avoid calling for backup.

* Arguably, in [[Fyodor Dostoevsky|Dostoyevsky's]] ''[[Crime and Punishment]]'', Raskolnikov justifies his murder of the landlady because she's a skinflint.

== [[Live-Action TV]] ==

* Many ''[[Law & Order|Law and Order]]'' episodes. In one episode in particular, in which the killer was acquitted by the jury. Jack McCoy's philosophical reaction is that this sometimes happens "when your victim is sleazier than your perp." In this case, the victim was a [[Dragon Lady]] who let the killer's underage son run up $50K in sex line charges, whom it also turns out was running a sex slave ring.

** Another was set up to look like a type 3, since the victim was a neo-naziNazi child molester. Turned out that the murderer was a brilliant but unbalanced writer who basically killed a stranger on impulse. The rest of the episode was about whether he should be executed, turning this into a type 2 (since it would be hard to sympathize if he'd killed a pregnant mother of three).

* ''[[Homicide: Life Onon the Street]]'' once had them investigate two suicides caused by a particular nasty piece of work, who was going to reveal their extramarital affairs. This wasn't blackmail, as he was going to reveal regardless, and only giving them a few days warning, as his Moral Judgment. The SOB was killed by the photographer who he blackmailed into being his accomplice.

* Subversion in one ''[[CSI: Crime Scene Investigation]]''. The victim is an asshole to his four co-workers, all of whom were the only ones to have access to the room he died in. The audience is led to believe that a combination of two or more of the four are the ones who offed the [[Jerkass]] (all of whom are pretty jerkassy themselves). Turns out it was the janitor cleaning the vents, who killed the man when his hammer fell out of the pocket and through the grate. He didn't know the guy and removed the hammer because he didn't want to go back to jail.

** It happens many, many times in the ''[[CSI]]'' franchise, usually coupled with a [[Sympathetic Murderer]]. Examples include:

** In "Angels", the victim is a child molester who had kidnapped two boys from GuatamalaGuatemala and beat them as well as molested them. Elliot even says killing the guy was a public service, but they still go after his killer.

* ''[[The Onedin Line]]'' has a storyline in series one with a discussion of a disputed death of a shipmate, covered up by the original captain but which probably was murder, four years prior to the events of the series. When Annie calls it a brutal murder, James claims he was a brutal man - so that's all right then...

* The ''[[City Homicide]]'' episode "Cut and Dried" has a convicted child molester murdered in prison, and few of the detectives are motivated to investigate too thoroughly. It's then subverted when it turns out he was genuinely repentant, was intending to give evidence against the pedophile ring he belonged to, and was in fact silenced by two of the prison ''guards''.

* Pretty much everyone on ''[[Oz]]'' qualifies for this, since they're in a maximum security prison. Especially nasty pieces of work were William Cudney, who murdered the son of the doctor that gave His wife an abortion, and MalcolnMalcolm Coyle, who murdered an entire family including an infant for fun. Even inmates who committed murder were appalled by Their crimes.

* At the beginning of season nine of ''[[Two and Aa Half Men]]'', it is implied that Charlie may have been shoved in front of a train by a girlfriend who caught him cheating. His funeral is full of women talking about the STDs they got from him and a man who wants to collect $30,000 in what are implied to be drug-related debts.

* "I Remember Larry" by [["Weird Al" Yankovic|Weird Al Yankovic]] has the eponymous Larry do all sorts of horrible things to his neighbor, who eventually snaps.

{{quote|''And one fact most astounding to them quickly came to light--

''That '''every''' moment of the Count was vouched for on that night.

''The castle folk by ones and twos came forward on their own

''To swear the Count had never once that night been all alone.

''So though the Tower had been locked tight, with two keys to the door,

''One his, one hers; the Count of guilt was plain absolved for sure. }}

* "38 Years Old" by [[The Tragically Hip]] is about a man imprisoned for murdering his sister's rapist.

{{quote|"''[[Technical Pacifist|You just got your ass kicked trying to play-fight a pacifist]]

''Plus [[Angrish|got called a Faggot by a Gay-Rights Activist]]

''In broad daylight, hey guys

''[[Passive-Aggressive Kombat|My place for a lesson in aggression in passiveness]] }}

** In other media, whenever Zeus or another godsgod is overthrown the Olympians are portrayed as having it coming by emphasizing their [[Jerkass]] side.

*** Also, Vulpes ''is'' lying. In several places in town you will find corpses of townfolk lying next to dropped weapons, and surrounded by the corpses of dead Legionnaires.

=== [[Visual Novels]] ===

* In ''[[Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors|Nine Hours Nine Persons Nine Doors]]'', Ace/Hongou was the head of a [[Corrupt Corporate Executive|corrupt corporation]] and recreated the Nonary Game for experimentation into [[wikipedia:Morphic field#Morphogenetic field|Morphogenetic Fields]]. The Ninth Man, who is betrayed by Ace and [[Your Head Asplode|explodes rather nastily]], was Kubota, was in charge of R on the Nonary Project. Nijisaki asd Musashidou were other members, killed by Ace to keep his identity secret. It just makes his [[Karmic Death]] in the "Safe" ending so much more fulfilling.

** [[Complete Monster|Teppai Hojo]] is a [[They Killed Kenny]] -grade example. Gets his brains bashed in by Keiichi in the Curse Killing chapter, his head split in half by Rena (shortly after Rina's deatah) in the Atonement chapter, and killed by Keiichi, Rena, and Shion in the Exorcism chapter. Two of these are as [[Knight Templar Big Brother|punishment for exceptionally nasty child abuse against Satako]].

== [[Web Comics]] ==

* ''[[Something *Positive]]'' has the completely evil Avagadro Pompey, who actually did die of natural causes, although nobody believes [[Jerkass|Kharisma]] when she said that, although she really was trying to kill him, all her murder attempts failed.

== Western[[Web AnimationOriginal]] ==

* ''[[Batman: The Animated Series|Batman the Animated Series]]'' has an example in the episode "Heart of Ice", the origin episode of [[Anti-Villain|Mr. Freeze]]. On the outside, CEO Ferris Boyle of GothCorp seems like a pretty decent fellow, even gaining an award for being the "Humanitarian of the Year". But this couldn't be further from the truth. Not only did Boyle nearly kill Nora Fries by stopping her husband from freezing her until a cure could be found for her terminal illness but he ruins Victor's life forever by kicking him into a table full of chemicals, freezing him and forcing him to live in a subzero environment to survive. Even Batman is [[Oh Crap|horrified]] by Boyle's callousness and leaves him frozen from the waist down, while saying in disgust "Good night, Humanitarian."

* In ''[[Ben 10: Alien Force]]'', [[The Atoner|Kevin]] averts [[Save the Villain]] by leaving his nemesis Ragnarok fall in the Sun. Considering the guy was an [[Omnicidal Maniac]] who killed his father from cold blood and attempted to destroy Earth's sun for the sake of selling its energy, it's hard to blame Kevin for this act.

** And again in ''[[Ben 10: Ultimate Alien]]'', Kevin, after turning psychotic again, goes on a [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] against several people, including Prison Director Morgg. While he fails to kill him, he still scares the crap of him, and most fans wouldn't have minded if he had succeeded, seeing as Morgg was a corrupted [[Complete Monster]] who hated and killed on of the prisonners for acting like [[The Mentor]] to other prisonnersprisoners, and later developped an alien drug traffic in the prison using the prisonners as labour slaves. Some fans even actually ''blamed'' Ben for saving this guy.