All The Tropes

Asshole Victim: Difference between revisions

Page Discussion

Asshole Victim (view source)

Revision as of 13:50, 23 February 2015

220 bytes removed ,  9 years ago
m
clean up
VisualWikitext
No edit summary
m (clean up)
Line 23:
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]].
 
In accordance with the "[[wikipedia:Just world hypothesis|Just-world hypothesis]]," people may perceive ''any'' victim as an [['''Asshole Victim]]''' just to keep their belief that people get what they deserve intact.
 
Naturally, this trope ''can'' lead to the [[Unfortunate Implication]] that it's okay to kill someone just because that someone is a [[Jerkass]]. For this reason, among others, [[No Real Life Examples, Please]].
Line 47:
** Some of the casual comments used by people outside the main cast abound with harshness. When Lucy is sobbing over Kouta's apparent betrayal, people in the carnival crowd dismiss her as being on drugs. When Mayu offers to take care of the puppy she found to the dog's owner, she is dismissed as being too filthy - something her actual appearance in the episodes introducing her didn't reflect.
* Dr. Heinemann from ''[[Monster (manga)|Monster]]'', as well of many of Johan's other victims.
* Dallas Genoard from ''[[Baccano!]]!'' is pretty much a [[Jerkass]] to end all [[Jerkass|Jerkasses]]es, which is why not many people are angry at seeing [[Noble Demon|Luck Gandor]] give him the [[Cement Shoes]] treatment.
** On the contrary. Many would find it amusing.
* In ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (manga)|Fullmetal Alchemist]]'', Shou Tucker ''really'' had it coming when Scar killed him. The gold-toothed doctor also counts when Pride impales him because he's of no more use to the homunculi.
Line 55:
** A rare exception: in one case, two victims who were thought to be assholes turn out to be okay people.
* Almost all of the people sent to Hell by those seeking revenge in ''[[Hell Girl]]'' were getting what they deserved. Apparently.
* Taken [[Up to Eleven]] with the second victim in ''[[Bio Meat]]'', 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 -- thenearthquake—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]]'' 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:"
*** Cut the only rope that allows them to enter and leave the safe room, for literally no other reason than to amuse themselves by watching the last of the main characters plummet loudly to the ground and alert the nearby Bio Meats to his presence.
Line 84:
 
== Comic Books ==
* The Comedian in ''[[Watchmen (comics)]]'' is perhaps the ultimate [[Asshole Victim]], although that had nothing to do with the (primary) motivation behind his murder. By the end, we feel some sympathy for him. But he's still an asshole.
** Moloch, too. Though he hadn't been an asshole in ''years''.
** And then there's Gerald Grice. The plot needed to show Rorschach violently murdering someone, to establish the full onset of his insanity. Grice being a murderer himself make the story a very solid [[Black and Grey Morality]] type.
Line 92:
* Most people who get beat up by [[The Hulk]] usually have it coming.
* In the Shadowlands comic series [[Daredevil]] completely loses his shit and murders Bullseye after dislocating his arms. This was supposed to show that Daredevil was descending into darkness, but [[Kick the Son of a Bitch|it backfired as most people wanted Daredevil to actually kill the man]] [[Complete Monster|who blew up a block in Hell's Kitchen and gloated over it.]]
* In ''[[Johnny the Homicidal Maniac]]'', most of Johnny's victims are this. Or are implied to be people like this. Or hung out with people like this. Or stood too close to people like this (i.e. around two kilometers). Come to think of it, Johnny doesn't really discriminate once he's gotten going, but it takes a soon-to-be [[Asshole Victim]] to trigger his homicidal rampages... [[Hair-Trigger Temper|Mostly]]. Most of the people he takes back to his [[Torture Cellar]] (who ''will'' be dead pretty soon) are prime examples however. Or at least implied to be.
* From ''[[Dark Times]]'', Dezono Qua.
* Tommy Monaghan, the titular protagonist of [[Hitman (Comic Book)|Hitman]], only takes contracts out on those he considers to be "bad" people.
* In the backstory of ''[[Kingdom Come]]'', [[Nineties Anti-Hero|Magog]] kills the Joker while he's in police custody. Of course, this is '''[[Complete Monster|The]] [[Monster Clown|Joker]]''' we're talking about here, and he was arrested because he went on a rampage in the ''Daily Planet'' offices and killed 75 people -- includingpeople—including Lois Lane. When Superman protests, the public sides with Magog for this very reason.
 
 
Line 156:
* ''Hood of Horror'' the whole film revolves around making people pay for their crimes against man by grotesque brutal death and then hell.
* ''[[Creepshow]]'', being the [[Troperiffic]] delight that it is, has lots of fun with this. We've got Nathan (emotionally abusive, murderous father), Bedelia (his insane, drunk-driving, parricidal daughter), Richard (psychotic, murderous Leslie Nielsen), Billie (emotionally abusive, nagging Adrienne Barbeau), and Upson Pratt ([[Complete Monster]] [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]]). In the final scene of the [[Framing Story]], the boy who was reading the comic is torturing his abusive, hypocritical dad with a voodoo doll.
** That's because the [[EC Comics|EC horror comics]] it's influenced by are just chock-full of [[Asshole Victim|Asshole Victims]] and [[Karmic Death|Karmic Deaths]]s.
* In the ''[[Saw]]'' saga it's rare to ''not'' find ''asshole victims'', but Danica from ''III'', Xavier from ''II'', Dave from ''VI'' and Ivan from ''IV'' stand out.
** There's also the group of racist skinheads from the final movie that are killed for abusing others.
Line 167:
* [[Too Dumb to Live|Micah]] from ''[[Paranormal Activity]]''.
* Doc and Mitchy from ''[[Terror Train]]''.
* Most of the victims in ''Madhouse'' -- a—a proto-slasher movie set in a BBC studio -- donstudio—don't really deserve to die. However, it's hard to feel sorry for the actress who plays Vincent Price's [[Dark Mistress|assistant]], or for his insane stalker, or for her ''completely'' insane parents.
{{quote|[[Genre Savvy|As they say in horror movies]], you will come to a bad end.}}
* Scotty, in ''The [[Evil Dead]]''. As well as the two rednecks in ''[[Evil Dead]] II''.
Line 191:
*** In the [[Recursive Adaptation|original movie]], the dentist, while not as big an arsehole as Orin, is still practising without a licence. Seymour kills him with the drill (and is then [[Crowning Moment of Funny|forced to operate]] on [[One-Scene Wonder|a young Jack Nicholson]]. Audrey Jr's first actual victim is a hold-up man (whose death was given to Mushnik in the subsequent versions).
* Judging by the trailer, it would seem that the upcoming parody ''Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil'' takes the slasher movie approach to this trope to it's logical extreme; the 'psycho degenerate hillbillies' are actually a pair of well-meaning but not incredibly bright guys who, through various misunderstandings, are taken to be that way by a bunch of prejudiced, elitist college kids. [[Hilarity Ensues|Very gory hilarity ensues]] as the kids, much to the confusion and bewilderment of the two, end up accidentally killing themselves while trying to attack the 'evil killers'.
* Both used and subverted in the film ''[[Heathers]]'' -- most—most of the victims are (or seem to be) [[Asshole Victim|Asshole Victims]] but then through the heroine's eyes we see how their deaths affect their loved ones, and see her realize that being an asshole ''isn't worth killing someone over.''
* ''[[The Trouble with Harry]]'' is an early example. Everyone thinks they are responsible for his death, but they don't really care.
* In ''[[V for Vendetta]]'', every named antagonist qualifies as this, with the sole exception of Dr. Delia Surridge. It's no coincidence, then, that out of all the named antagonists, Dr. Surridge is the only one granted a quiet, painless death.
Line 205:
{{quote|''"That woman deserves her revenge, and we deserve to die. Then again, so does she."''}}
* A somewhat failed example of this trope happened in the Vault Of Horror movie. A woman was driven to killing her husband by his OCD need to keep the house neat. However, the actor never really went over the top, and came across more as lecturing than yelling and screaming, to the point where you felt more like they needed to sit down and have a long talk, rather than him deserving to die.
* None of the humans in ''[[Predator|Predators]]s'' are particularly nice, but Stans, a condemned murderer takes the cake for being the most unsympathetic. Even so, he gets a [[Dying Moment of Awesome|pretty badass sendoff]].
** Dale, Nick, and Mark in AVPR aren't very nice either. Dale, as the leader of the trio, gets the most vicious of the three, the alien's blood burning his face.
* Every single character in the horror movie ''Marcus'' (2006) except Brooke(who's not an asshole) and Marcus(who's not a victim).
* In ''[[Dogma]]'', Loki visits a boardroom of [[Corrupt Corporate Executive|Corrupt Corporate Executives]]s, lists their individual sins (idolatry, adultery, statutory rape, intolerance, etc.), then kills them.
** He did spare the only one who didn't have any sins.
*** Although she did forget to say [[Hair-Trigger Temper|GOD BLESS YOU!!]]
Line 248:
* Scottish police detective [[Hamish Macbeth (novel)|Hamish Macbeth]], in the mystery novels by M.C. Beaton, often finds himself investigating crimes in which the victim is someone who many people were glad to see go away. It's even right there in the [[Idiosyncratic Episode Naming|titles]] -- ''Death of a Snob'', ''Death of an Outsider'', ''Death of a Poison Pen'', etc.
* [[Agatha Christie]] liked to do this as well.
** Ratchett in ''[[Murder on the Orient Express]]'' is worth mentioning in particular, being doubly an [[Asshole Victim]]. He's portrayed as a total jackass from the minute he steps on board, so we don't feel too guilty when he's splattered across a Pullman carriage for our entertainment. As we learn more about him after the murder, it becomes even clearer just how deserving he was of his fate. Poirot eventually lets his murderers go.
** ''[[And Then There Were None]]'' has ''ten'' Asshole Victims who each committed a crime, though some of them are portrayed with a degree of sympathy. The murders were committed in order of "guilt", from least to most.
*** Anthony Marston, the first to die, was a reckless driver who ran over a couple of children, and was only upset about the incident because it resulted in the loss of his driver's license. He was completely self-centered, and showed no remorse or sympathy for his victims. The killer felt that the reckless driver was simply born sociopathic and self-absorbed, and couldn't help not feeling guilty.
*** Many of the other characters, on the other hand, do indeed regret their misdeeds. Interestingly, some of the later killings use the exact opposite logic. For example, the surgeon was drunk, so the deaths he caused under the influence weren't intentional or premeditated, and thus considered not as worthy of retribution as say, the nanny who let the child in her charge drown so that her lover would receive the lion's share of an inheritance.
** Mrs. Boynton in ''Appointment with Death''. After she spends the first part of the book psychologically torturing her family, one could be forgiven for cheering when a public-spirited individual does away with the old crone. Except that the actual killer was more ''private''-spirited in their reasons--theyreasons—they were afraid Boynton would expose their criminal past.
** Mr. Shaitana in ''Cards On the Table'', who has a collection of successful murderers -- themurderers—the ones he knows got away with it -- andit—and invites them to a party calculated to make them squirm. Christie plays with this one, as Poirot immediately points out that this is not a safe hobby. Much of the book is spent trying to find out what murders the suspects previously committed.
*** As a further sign of Shaitana's arrogance, very late in the book, it is revealed that one of the so-called "murderers" was actually innocent of his original crime, and thus did not deserve to be put through Shaitana's mind game in the first place.
** Simeon Lee in ''Hercule Poirot's Christmas'' is an selfish old millionaire, who plays sadistic mind games with his family. Here, however, the murder was actually personal revenge.
Line 265:
** Masterfully averted in ''Towards Zero'', where the victim is a rather strict and old-fashioned, but very good-natured and kind old lady, liked all around. Her killing is very much intended as a [[Moral Event Horizon]], though Christie was kind enough to make her terminally ill and actually wanting to die to alleviate reader's guilt. Bonus points for ''the police'' discussing the trope and aversion.
* ''[[Sherlock Holmes]]'' dealt with a couple of these, making this [[Older Than Radio]].
** The most evil being Charles Augustus Milverton, who got rich by [[Blackmail|blackmailingblackmail]]ing people (only to ruin them anyway, [[For the Evulz|for the fun of it]]). Holmes let the murderer go.
{{quote|'''Holmes:''' My sympathies in this case are with the criminal, not the victim.}}
** Holmes seems to have a tendency to let murders of spousal abusers slide. In Victorian England, hitting women is not okay.
Line 299:
** Played with in the case of Barty Crouch. He's introduced as a stuffy man who sacked his House Elf while ignoring her sobbing pleas and tossed his neglected son into Azkaban. He becomes less of an asshole when we realize that he had good damned reason to have his son locked up and the last time we see Crouch alive, he's insane, terrified, and trying his hardest to warn Dumbledore about the planned return of Voldemort.
*** He was also more sympathetic in the movie adaptation where we see his son as a depraved, all-grown-up lunatic before he locked him up rather than a scared, innocent young boy.
** Loxias was such a [[Complete Monster]] that everyone--includingeveryone—including his own mother--confessedmother—confessed to killing him. His murder was never solved.
* The victim in the first [[Lord Darcy]] story is a drunken lech who is killed by his own sister as he attempts to rape her.
* Roughly half the victims in [[Dorothy L. Sayers]]' [[Lord Peter Wimsey]] novels qualify. Most of the others are old and ill enough to have had a life expectancy measured in at most months even before they were murdered.
Line 306:
*** Yeah. Boyes got a woman to live with him out of wedlock by claiming to be above marriage, then proposed to her, and was an emotionally abusive jerk to her during their entire relationship. ''Anyone'' would want to kick his ass. That she was Peter's true love was only icing on the cake.
** ''The Five Red Herrings'' had [[Violent Glaswegian|Sandy Campbell]], a foul-tempered alcoholic who seriously hurt someone at the golf course, threatened people's lives, and physically attacked his neighbor
** If anything, Geoffrey Deacon in ''The Nine Tailors'' is BEYOND an [[Asshole Victim]], so foul and evil that he is by most readings the real villain of the book. Made even more unusual for a mystery novel by the fact that Lord Peter and seven local residents killed him by accident.
** ''Murder Must Advertise'': Victor Dean was a [[Blackmail|blackmailerblackmail]]er.
** Mr. Plant, the titular victim of the short story "The Unsolved Puzzle of the Man with No Face", is horrible to his subordinates.
* Mr. Wagstaffe from the [[Montague Egg]] short story ''False Weight'' had a wife (using a different name each time) in every town his rounds took him to.
Line 349:
* In ''[[Lonely Werewolf Girl]]'' part of Kalix's [[Backstory]] is she killed her father, when readers briefly meet him in a trip to the afterlife it's pretty clear he got off easy with just death.
* ''[[Atlas Shrugged]]'' has an entire train's worth of people brutally killed in an accident based on poor management choices, but not before the author makes sure to tell us all about what terrible people they all were.
* [[The Black Fleet Crisis]] of the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]] presents us with not one but ''two'' [[Asshole Victim|Asshole Victims]] who take turns victimizing each other. The Empire violently oppressed the Yevetha, a (literally) bloodthirsty [[Exclusively Evil]] race of aliens who believe all other species are disgustingly inferior. The Yevetha violently rebelled against them, seized the Empire's ships in a bloody coup, and enslaved the surviving Imperial soldiers. The Imperial slaves later violently rose up against their Yevethan masters and stole the ships back, robbing the Yevetha of the core of their fleet and ensuring the New Republic's victory against the Yevetha. Later the brutal Yevethan dictator, Nil Spaar, is stuffed in an escape pod by the Imperials and dumped into hyperspace.
* In the ''[[Mrs. Murphy Mysteries]]'' at least one of the victims in each book will not be missed.
* You are meant to cheer for Tonya's father in ''[[A Time to Kill]]'' when he kills her rapists. By the end of the trial almost everyone in the town is happy that he gets acquitted. Well, everyone but the Ku Klux Klan.
** It isn't certain that the KKK is an exception. An early scene in the book has the victims' families asking the KKK for help, and the KKK members are thinking, "We shouldn't let a black man get away with killing white people, but [[Even Evil Has Standards|frankly these guys had it coming]]."
* The unnamed rapist at the end of ''[[Rivers of London]]'' who discovered his intended victim had a bad case of [[Vagina Dentata]].
** In the sequel ''[[Moon Over Soho]]'' the woman, who is now known as "The Pale Lady" racks up another three victims. All of whom were sexual deviants of one kind or another (including a corrupt ex-police officer with a taste for ''real'' [[Catgirl|Catgirls]]s).
* [[Robert Bloch]]'s short story "Sweets to the Sweet" features an abusive father who regularly beats his daughter, blames her for her mother's [[Death by Childbirth]], and calls her a witch. His brother isn't much better, making excuses for his behavior and not caring about the girl's suffering. So the girl studies witchcraft and makes a [[Voodoo Doll]], then when the brother catches on and is about to take it away, lies "Why, it's only candy!" and bites off its head.
* Ali, {{spoiler|actually Courtney}} in ''[[Pretty Little Liars]]'' is pretty conniving and bitchy to her friends, and ends up going missing and being found dead in her backyard.
Line 373:
== Live-Action TV ==
* Every detective show has a variation of this exchange at least once or twice in its running: The detective asks, "Do you know of anyone you might've wanted X dead?" The other person snorts and replies, "Who ''didn't'' want X dead?" or "Half the city wanted X dead, and the other half didn't know him." or "People would've lined up for a chance to kill X."
* Probably happens on ''[[Bones]]'' with about the same 50/50 frequency as other crime shows. An example is a [[Parody]] of ''[[The Office]]'', where a hateful manager is dumped down an elevator. It turns out she had an aneurysm burst when one of the couple she busted for a forbidden affair -- oneaffair—one of whom she was already blackmailing to sleep with her -- threwher—threw a stapler at her head in frustration, and the two dumped her body in a panic.
** In another episode, involving a rich jerkass killed at a rock-and-roll fantasy camp, Sweets lampshades this by actually admitting he likes the killer better than the victim.
* ''[[ER]]'': Dr. Robert Romano, the brash, insensitive Chief of Staff at County General Hospital, who was killed off in the Season 10 episode "Freefall" after being crushed to death in a helicopter crash on the hospital's landing pad. One person mourned his death afterward.
Line 393:
* Most of the episodes of the TV series ''[[Ellery Queen]]'' would qualify.
* Virtually any episode of ''[[Murder, She Wrote]]''.
** There are actually some exceptions scattered throughout the show's long run of some perfectly nice people getting killed, but one in particular stands out as a very deliberate subversion of this trope. It centers around this [[Smug Snake]] [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]] where everything about him just seems to ''scream'' [[Asshole Victim]]... until we get to the halfway point and the murder victim is the exec's much nicer brother.
* Emmett Byrne is the major [[Jerkass]] in ''[[Chuck]]''. Yet, in the episode ''Chuck Versus the Pink Slip'' he manages to crank his own jerk-ass-ness [[Up to Eleven]], which makes the scene where he is murdered in cold blood all the more satisfying.
* 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-nazi 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).
** Still another had a sleazy paparazzo (who had just [[Karma Houdini|Karma Houdinied]]ed his way out of a Manslaughter charge) was shot to death outside of his favorite eatery. When the patrons realized who'd been shot... [[And There Was Much Rejoicing|they burst into applause.]]
** When a notorious drug lord is murdered, Detective Briscoe is less than enthusiastic about finding out who killed the guy. Especially when the prime suspect becomes the father of a boy the victim had led into a life of drugs, and later into death by overdose. But later, a priest comes forward and confesses to killing the drug lord... because God told him to.
* Most, but not all, ''[[Perry Mason]]'' episodes.
Line 408:
** Including one character, played by [[Retroactive Recognition|Orlando Bloom]], who was sleeping with at least three different women (one of whom was paying him for it) until he got pitchforked through the chest in the first five minutes. He was also a petty thief and a vandal with a serious [[Jerkass|attitude problem]].
* Most of the victims on the [[Game Show]] ''Cluedo'' were straight-up ass-lacquers. Definitely helps for a show with a small, recurring cast of potential murderers.
** Similarly, the entire cast of the movie ''[[Clue (film)|Clue]]'' was either the [[Blackmail|blackmailerblackmail]]er, his accomplices, or the blackmailed suspects (who all survive the movie), except, of course, {{spoiler|FBI agent Mr. Green.}}
* While he survived, let's not forget J.R. Ewing from ''[[Dallas]]''.
** Similarly, Lionel Luthor from ''[[Smallville]]''. Of course, when he ''did'' die, this trope was averted.
Line 475:
** In the episode "Acceptable Risk", it toyed with this trope when a widow went after the people who dropped charges on a pharmaceutical company after they were bribed by the company into keeping quiet about the drug's potential dangers, which led to the widow's husband's death. She never really gets to [[Sympathetic Murderer]] status, as she's shown being extremely calculating and cruel to the people she kills, understanding that she has a limited amount of time before the police stop her, and she crosses the [[Moral Event Horizon]] when she tries to kill one of her target's innocent wife who [[Go Through Me|was standing between her and her target.]] She comes across as much more terrifying than sympathetic.
* ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'' gets in on this in season 6 when Chase murders a patient, due to said patient being a ruthless African dictator, who let slip that the first thing he was going to do when he got back to his country was order a full out genocide of some ethnic minorities he thought were a threat to his regime.
** Toyed with maybe, the killer is racked by guilt for quite some time and probably only did what they did in the end because they felt '''directly''' responsible for having saved his life earlier (having shouted a warning when an assassin was spotted). The scene where the assassin explains [[Nightmare Fuel|exactly what happened back home]] makes you realize that this dictator is waaaaaaaay past [[Asshole Victim]] and well into the [[Complete Monster]] zone.
* ''[[1000 Ways to Die]]'' features this quite frequently. In some cases, the real-life demise of someone who wasn't an asshole at all will be dressed up in a pseudonym and this trope, to make tragic misfortune seem like poetic justice.
* In ''[[Reaper]]'', Sam has to save his old [[Sadist Teacher]] from an escaped soul wanting to kill him in revenge, and it would have been better had they just let him get killed first. Fortunately he got his comeuppance in the end.
Line 545:
 
== Tabletop Games ==
* Subverted in ''[[Nobilis]]'': one example of play in the second edition rulebook involved an attack on the concept of Treachery that relied on [[Reality Warper|warping reality]] so that a nice person who had been murdered by her boyfriend [[Retcon|retroactively]] ''became'' an [[Asshole Victim]]. This would, apparently, have undermined Treachery by mixing in justice where it wasn't supposed to be, undermining reality. ([[Humanoid Abomination|Excrucians]] are [[Omnicidal Maniac|not nice people]])
 
 
Line 558:
* Subverted in ''[[Dragon Quest VIII]]''. The [[Big Bad]] has been killing people, and you've been following him in the hopes of putting a stop to it. The previous victims have all been high-profile, usually the most important people in their respective towns. Enter Dominico, who clearly is the most important man in Arcadia and seems certain to be the next target. Dominico is also a complete douchebag to everybody in general, but to his servant David in particular, heaping humiliation after humiliation on the doggedly loyal young man, even forcing him to taste for poison in his dog's food. You already know nobody's going to regret this guy's death. Except, it's the eminently likable David who turns out to be the target, rather than Dominico, who isn't quite as important as he thought he was.
* The first victim of the supernatural serial killer in ''Phantasmagoria 2 - A Puzzle of Flesh'' is the bullying asshole of a coworker at the protagonist's work place, causing Curtis a lot of concern as to whether or not he may have killed him during a psychotic black-out. Of course, then the people he ''likes'' start dying, and the otherworldly antagonist gets a lot less subtle.
* ''[[Persona 4]]'' had Kinshiro "King Moron" Morooka, a [[Jerkass]] [[Sadist Teacher]]/[[Gonk|Steve Buscemi-lookalike]] who puts the Main Character on his shit list only after just meeting him. That being said, it avoids the [[Unfortunate Implications]] that it's okay to kill [[Jerkass|Jerkasses]]es. Even the main characters remark that while they hated him, [[Alas, Poor Scrappy|he didn't deserve to end up dead]].
** Ironically, this winds getting such a massive case of [[Alas, Poor Scrappy]] it winds getting subverted, especially because his replacement is such a shameless, spiteful whore that even the teenage guys who hated the first person hate the successor MORE because she manages to outdo the [[Asshole Victim]] she replaced in being a [[Jerkass]], and this is so bad it overpowers any of her [[Ms. Fanservice]] tendencies. And, considering how ass ugly (in temperament and appearance) who she replaced was, that is quite a feat.
* In ''[[Knights of the Old Republic (video game)|Knights of the Old Republic]]'', the player character gets the chance to solve a murder. Turns out the victim was having an affair with one suspect's wife, and had been in a fight over business with the other suspect.
** Later in the game, the PC gets to do play detective/lawyer again, but this time the trope is completely inverted: though the victim is a Dark Jedi -- andJedi—and as such, no girl scout -- herscout—her murderer is even worse. And infuriatingly vital for the Republic's war effort.
*** The game does not force you into saving the murderer, however.
* Almost everyone of Agent 47's targets in the ''[[Hitman]]'' series is some kind of big-time criminal. Sex traffickers, mobsters, terrorists, and corrupt politicians are just some of 47's victims. However in cutscenes, 47 has murdered a presumably innocent postman to protect his identity, and Requiem in Blood Money has him kill a priest and reporter to protect his identity. In terms of targets, stand out "innocents" are the failed private investigator in that biker level and possibly others like Joseph Clarence (who is probably not a bad person, just an utter failure.) Completely innocent targets are still in the minority by a great margin.
Line 570:
* In ''[[Mass Effect]] 2'', Thane's loyalty quest goes to great lengths to show that the target of Kolyat's assassination attempt is corrupt. Even in the outcomes where he winds up dead, everyone cares more about what's going to happen to Kolyat; you can even talk the C-Sec officer into not pressing charges for attempted murder. Thane's role as [[The Atoner]] involves specifically targeting these. In fact, you meet him during what was to be his last job, a [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]] [[Bad Boss]].
* Ozette in ''[[Tales of Symphonia]]''. They [[All of the Other Reindeer|treat Presea terribly]], are [[Fantastic Racism|especially racist towards half-elves]] and even report your party to the Papal Knights when you come back to help Presea. It's difficult to feel much sympathy when Cruxis destroys the town, considering that none of the victims were significant exceptions to the general behavior.
* Ragou and Cumore in ''[[Tales of Vesperia]]'' take this trope [[Up to Eleven]]. In the first act of the game, [[Ax Crazy|Ragou]] is found to have been feeding some of the already-abused citizens of the town he governs to monsters for ''[[For the Evulz|entertainment]]'', claiming that the party doesn't understand the high class of taste it takes to find it amusing. Watching him walk away the first time he is caught is one of the most difficult parts of the game to sit through. In the second act, Cumore has been forcing citizens of the desert town he has jurisdiction over to search for an ancient and [[Physical God|powerful]] phoenix-like creature. They are literally dropped in the middle of said desert to search for said monster. Assuming they found the monster (no one does), it is more than capable of [[Your Head Asplode|instantly]] killing just about anything, including similar god-like creatures. When both are finally brought to justice, the legal system of Terca Lumireis [[Karma Houdini|lets both of them go with either a minor reduction in rank or no punishment at all]]. Both assholes meet their end -- Ragouend—Ragou is slashed across his back and dumped into a river; Cumore is backed into what is essentially a pit of quicksand -- atquicksand—at the hands of disgruntled Imperial soldier turned vigilante Yuri Lowell... whose reward is to get [[What the Hell, Hero?|ragged on it]] by his borderline [[Lawful Stupid]] friend and ex-comrade Flynn Scifo.
* While the player commits many atrocities in the Death Knight starting quests in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', often against civilians, the primary opponents are the [[Knight Templar|Scarlet Crusade]], which tortures and kills perceived enemies, and whose leadership leaves many of the civilians to die in order to flee and attack the Scourge in Northrend. The Lich King's forces may still be worse, but the Scarlet Crusade is also considered an enemy by the other groups fighting the Lich King because of their [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|extremist]] positions.
** By "perceived enemies," they mean "anybody who might be corrupted by the Scourge." And by "anybody who might be corrupted by the Scourge," they mean "anybody who isn't part of the Scarlet Crusade."
Line 594:
 
== [[Visual Novels]] ==
* The ''[[Ace Attorney]]'' games like this trope. At least one victim in each game was pretty explicitly Not A Nice Person--manyPerson—many of them are criminals themselves.
** In ''Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney'' (the first game):
*** The victim in the third case turned out to have been intentionally trying to frame your client, Will Powers, one of the nicest characters in the series, out of jealousy, by drugging him and stealing his costume. The real killer acted in self-defense, though they wouldn't have needed to if they hadn't been blackmailing him in the first place.
*** The fourth case's victim was a defense attorney who sought to get not guilty verdicts even if it meant harm to his clients, and was killed by one of said clients who had been genuinely innocent but had his entire life destroyed as a result of the false insanity plea.
*** While not the victim of a standard homicide, [[Crime After Crime|Joe]] [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|Darke]] of the fifth case could be considered an [[Asshole Victim]]. After killing around five people, he was executed based mainly on faked evidence that made it look like he had killed a sixth person.
** In ''Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice for All'' (the second game):
*** The second case's victim, Turner Grey, was a real [[Dr. Jerk]] killed by a former employee who alleged he had drugged her, causing her to crash her car and kill {{spoiler|her little sister.}} (Whether he actually ''did'' drug her is somewhat unclear, but being one of the few victims met before their demise, his [[Jerkass]] persona is well-evident.)
Line 641:
 
== Western Animation ==
* Although he survived, the shooting of Mr. Burns on ''[[The Simpsons]]'' qualifies -- theyqualifies—they took an entire episode generating an improbable circumstance in which literally every character in the show had a motive to kill him. Then it turned out it was the baby -- whobaby—who he was stealing candy from at the time.
* ''[[Darkwing Duck (animation)|Darkwing Duck]]'' has Doctors Gary and Larson killed by being covered in plants. Considering the fact that they bullied Bushroot, they really are assholes.
* ''[[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."
Gethbot
Bots
10,856

edits

Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/1246929"