Asshole Victim: Difference between revisions
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* [[Robert Heinlein]]'s ''[[Friday (novel)|Friday]]''. Lieutenant Dickey is described as someone who had repeatedly tried to sleep with Janet despite being repeatedly told no, as "slimy", and as having "a size-twelve ego in a size-four soul". About a minute later, the title character kills him as he's trying to arrest one of her friends at gunpoint.
** Some context: the officer in question is threatening lethal force to try and enforce a detainment order for immigration control, when no one in the scene has shown any weapons, made any threatening gestures or statements, or done anything except calmly insist that a) the internment order should not apply to their one friend as he is on a permanent resident visa and b) that they do not know where the other person the officer is looking for is. (They are admittedly lying, as Friday is just in the next room, but that's not justification for drawing down.) So the scene is framed not so much as a cold-blooded murder as Friday defending her friends from a technically legal (due to martial law being in effect) but ethically completely unjustified incident of police brutality.
** 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.
*** Of the three people facing Lt. Dickey, Janet was a small woman with no combat training, Georges was a medical doctor with no combat training... and Ian was a very large, muscular veteran combat pilot with a black belt. That Dickey had his weapon aimed at ''Janet'' quite clearly indicates his motive as an attempt to illegally threaten and intimidate, because if he was actually in any fear for his life he'd have been covering Ian first.
* The ''[[In Death]]'' series by J.D. Robb does this at least once with J.D. Robb's usual subtlety (zero). A victim that starts out as a nasty, small-minded prima donna just gets worse with every single thing we find out. The victim would likely have been facing a life sentence if found out by the law before the murderer, and that's mainly because the relevant jurisdiction wouldn't have the death penalty available. It's a good book to read for anyone wondering why a court system might employ justifiable homicide as a separate claim from self-defense. (Though there was a halfway decent "defense of another" argument as well.)
** Another book in the same series threw this type of victim into a killing spree of otherwise sympathetic victims. One of the cops seemed to be really trying to feel bad, and pretty much failing.
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