Cool Motive, Still A Crime: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|'''Perp''': "It was a crime of love!"▼
'''Jake Peralta''': "Cool motive, still murder."▼
▲{{quote|"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 [[Jerkass]] 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.
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{{examples}}
== [[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.
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** 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. {{spoiler|His reasons are that humans wiped out their family after one of their women turned down a member of the royal family, and the prince didn't take the rejection well. D, however, doesn't think that humanity deserves his father's genocidal weapon and says as much. When Leon uses his last bullet to kill D's father, he expects D to either kill him or let him die in revenge and says he won't fight. D saves him instead, and transports him to a hospital while Leon is unconscious.}}
* Precia Testarossa in the original ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha (anime)|Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'': wracked by guilt over accidentally killing her own daughter Alicia, she tried to resurrect her via a clone, but instead of getting Alicia back got Fate -- another, different, girl with her daughter's face and voice who calls her "mother" but ''isn't'' her daughter. The constant presence of the ''imposter'' trying to usurp the place of her true daughter is slowly driving her into madness. Of course, she was insane to start with, and is completely unable to see that her ''second daughter'' is a beautiful, loving girl who is utterly loyal to her despite the horrific physical and emotional abuse Precia subjects her to for the crime of not being Alicia. No one watching the end of this series would argue that Precia didn't deserve ''some'' sympathy for the crap her life devolved into but at the same time ''nothing'' excuses what she did after.
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* In ''[[The Batman Adventures]]'' comic "Mad Love", this comes up about the Joker and Harley Quinn.
** We learn that Dr. Harleen Quinzel, a psychiatrist intern at Arkham, fell for the Joker after he told her a sad story about trying to make his abusive father smile. She was prepared for his manipulations, but not for her to feel bad for him. Joker also said that he felt he could trust the doctor with his secrets, convincing her that his intentions were solely to make Gotham laugh. In the present day, when Harley prepares to kill Batman to settle down with her "Puddin'", Batman bursts out laughing while tied up, which causes her to freak out before he becomes solemn again. He then tells her bluntly that Joker doesn't love her, and was using her from the day she entered Arkham. Harley insists that Joker trusted her with secrets; Batman asks if it was the runaway mom story or abusive father. Joker apparently told a parole officer that his dad was happiest at the "ice show"; Harley quietly whispers that Joker told that story, only with the circus. Batman tells Harley that Joker is full of backstories and lies, but not all of them could be true; and even if they were, that doesn't excuse his murder schemes. Joker then proves Batman is right by showing up when Harley calls him, beating her up and pushing her out a window for attempting to kill Batman without him. This ''almost'' snaps Harley out of it.
** Batman also tells Harley this about her choices in life. He has frequently asked her why she tossed her medical career on the worst criminal in Gotham, when she could have done so much more with her genius. Dr. Joan Leland says the same thing at the end of the comic, asking an injured Harley [[Armor-Piercing Question| how it felt to have a man she loved nearly beat her to death]].
* ''[[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 {{spoiler|Dream-Daniel confront his mother Hippolyta about this}}. He says that he understands that {{spoiler|she thought he was dead and was trying to avenge him by killing the original Morpheus. Nevertheless, allowing the Furies to rampage through the Dreaming ensured that the Baby Daniel would become the next Dream}}. Not to mention that {{spoiler|the murderer of the first Despair did not cause as much harm as she did, and his punishment is worse than hers. Dream-Daniel gives his mother eternal protection from Morpheus's allies and enemies, but also unofficially exiles her from the Dreaming}}. He hints, however, that {{spoiler|this sentence can change. Indeed, in the sequel series ''Justice Society of America'', Hippolyta and her resurrected husband are allowed back into the Dreaming after they both rejoin the Justice Society. Hippolyta for her part atones for the sensseless destruction}}.
* Kron Stone, the Venom of [[Marvel 2099]] and enemy of both Miguel O'Hara (Spider-Man 2099) and Jake Gallows (Punisher 2099), was a serial killer who'd butcher happy families, children included, before bonding with the Symbiote. His hatred for families stems from his awful childhood, where his neglectful father allowed his robotic maid to treat him like a dog (as in, forced him to sleep in a dog house, fed him kibble, made him wear a dog collar...) and left him with the belief that loving families are a lie. He tries to play the [[Freudian Excuse]] card when Jake is preparing to stab him to death as revenge for murdering his family, but he isn't having it, and only has this to say when asked if he knows what it's like to be abused the way he was.
{{quote|No, but I know what it's like to have your family butchered by a crazy with a sob story.}}
== [[Fan Works]] ==
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** 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'' series 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 Ragnarok'' 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 in ''Avengers: Infinity War'' {{spoiler|sacrifices his life in a longshot attempt to assassinate Thanos before he can kill Thor}}. The ''Loki'' series has an alternate Loki watch {{spoiler|his prime self's death with a tearful expression, and later apologize to a hologram of Sif for his actions}}.
*** 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 ''[[Captain America: Civil War (film)| 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, {{spoiler|losing Vision and attempting to create an idyllic sitcom-style life where she has children with him and brings back Pietro backfires horribly; Agatha of all people makes Wanda review her life and ask what her excuse is for imprisoning a bunch of people who would have legitimately become her neighbors. [[Your Approval Fills Me with Shame|She admires the power]]}}. Later on, ''
** In ''[[Guardians of the Galaxy]]'', Drax the Destroyer essentially drunk-dials [[Big Bad|Ronan the Accuser]] in hopes of avenging his wife and daughter, who Ronan murdered in the past. Instead of getting revenge, Drax's recklessness leads to Knowhere (the Guardians' pit stop) being nearly obliterated by the fleet Ronan sends after them. When Drax explains himself to Rocket Raccoon, the latter isn't impressed and takes him to task over selfishly getting people caught in the crossfire in his quest for vengeance against the hated terrorist. His shaming definitely gets to Drax, and is the thing that kicks his [[Character Development]] into gear.
* While Velociraptors in previous ''[[Jurassic Park]]'' movies were either hungry territorial animals or glorified [[Serial Killer|serial killers]] in dinosaur bodies, the ones in the [[Jurassic Park III|third movie]] are in full-on [[Mama Bear]]/[[Papa Wolf]] mode, and menace Alan Grant's team out of a desire to protect their eggs... which his assistant Billy stupidly stole despite his clear warning against tampering with raptor nests. While Billy did it so he could secure funding for Alan's research expeditions, Alan makes it absolutely clear that good intentions or no, Billy's willingness to compromise their rescue mission and endanger the lives of everyone involved has caused him to lose all respect for his protégé. {{spoiler|While he eventually forgives Billy, it's only after he sacrifices himself to save a young boy from a flock of vicious Pteranodons and barely survives.}}
== [[Literature]] ==
* ''[[A Christmas Carol]]'' goes into this more sympathetically: Jacob Marley sends three ghosts of Christmas to save his former partner and protegee
* Happens in ''[[Harry Potter]]'' from time to time.
** ''[[Harry Potter
*** Dumbledore and Harry discuss this about {{spoiler|Merope Gaunt slipping a love potion to her crush Tom Riddle and drugging him for months. When she stopped drugging him, he ran for his life, leaving her destitute just as she was about to have their child. She died, and Tom Riddle Jr. aka Lord Voldemort was sent to a Muggle orphanage. They both acknowledge that she was in a bad situation, with her father and brother being abusive while treating her as unpaid labor and hexing any Muggle that so much as breathed on their property. Dumbledore asserts, however, that using a love potion on Tom Sr. was rape regardless of Merope's desperation. Tom Sr. had every right to leave her; if it had been a Muggle roofie, it would be just as horrific.}}
*** Harry eventually comes to this conclusion about {{spoiler|Severus Snape}} after the latter's actions in this book. He did feel bad for him after learning {{spoiler|that his father was exactly the arrogant bully that Snape kept describing and humiliated Snape just for being in the way.}} Then he finds out that {{spoiler|Snape was the one who overheard part of Trelawney's prophecy, which led to Voldemort deciding to kill the Potters. Harry is righteously furious and calls out Dumbledore for not telling him, screaming at him for defending Snape's assholery at every turn.}} Dumbledore says that {{spoiler|Snape also came to warn the Order, surrendering to Dumbledore personally, because he didn't want a family with a baby to die, even if it was the family of his sworn rival}}. Harry can sense that Dumbledore's lying, but the point still stands when {{spoiler|he relates this to the Order after Snape kills Dumbledore, and no one knows it was pre-planned between the men; Lupin is incredulous and says, "And Dumbledore believed him? Snape hated James."}}. Sure, Harry eventually forgives the man in ''Deathly Hallows'' {{spoiler|after seeing that he was flawed but eventually well-intentioned in the end}}, but the rest of the Wizarding World debates if he was just selfish or misguided.
** ''[[Harry Potter
* ''[[Percy Jackson & the Olympians]]'' also has this in the last book regarding {{spoiler|Luke and the half-bloods that sided with him. When he and Nico visit his mother to obtain her blessing, Percy certainly pities Luke on realizing that his mother lost her mind trying to be the Oracle and wasn't able to be a parent. Hermes was also no help, as is typical for the Greek gods. At the same time, Percy commits to stopping Luke because the latter has Kronos possessing him. Sure, Luke ends up making the decision to pull a [[Heroic Suicide]] when he hurts Annabeth in battle, but he himself acknowledges that he'd rather reincarnate and live a better life than face the judgement of Hades for his actions, since Hades doesn't give second chances}}.
* The sequel series ''Heroes of Olympus'' has a few:
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== [[Live-Action TV]] ==
* ''[[Angel]]'' occasionally discusses this, for either characters or their antagonists:
* ''[[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. {{spoiler|Buffy learns that Billy was going to sell her and several innocent teens called vampire worshipers out to Spike, in exchange for becoming a vampire. Billy explains he has terminal cancer, and becoming undead is the only way he can live. Buffy expresses pity for Billy, but knocks him out and rescues the worshipers from Spike's gang. She says that she can't abide by a guy that would sacrifice innocent lives for his gain}}. ▼
** Angel himself fears his [[Super-Powered Evil Side]] Angelus, who is essentially a soulless monster with a brain. His low point in season 2 is when his sire Darla revived as a human but Wolfram & Hart used Drusilla to make Darla a vampire again, against her will; Angel, to bring Angelus back, let the two rampage on the Wolfram & Hart employees, locking the doors, and then fired his friends when they told him it was not the right or mature action. On top of that, Cordelia is enraged on learning he gave away her clothes, a wardrobe she struggled to maintain as an unemployed actress. Angel tries to use Darla to lose his soul, only to learn that sex won't do it anymore. He has a [[Heel Realization]] when learning that Cordelia kept monster hunting to deal with the visions she received, being kidnapped by eye monsters, and she calls him out while barely conscious for firing them. It takes a few episodes for the team to forgive him; they say that they know he suffered, but that was not an excuse for trying to dive into evil and treat them like garbage. As punishment he has to work at a kiddie desk while being the lowest-paid Angel Investigations employee, which he admits fair enough, but he feels guiltiest about nearly letting Cordelia get killed. Cordelia forgives him after he buys new stylish clothes for her wardrobe, making up for his earlier "charity"; Wesley takes longer, glaring at Angel for buying back Cordelia's goodwill.
** Happens in the season 4 finale. After {{spoiler|Connor kills Jasmine on seeing her true form, and realizing that she used him and Cordelia to come into being, he has a breakdown. Angel sees him holding a store hostage. Connor rants about the fact that Angel let Holtz take him as a baby, condemning him to a torturous existence as Holtz's pawn. Angel tries to point out that's between them, not these people. They end up coming to blows as Connor attempts [[Suicide by Cop]] and it seems to work as Angel slits his throat... only for it to be part of a condition for a reality-warping spell that would give Connor a life with a normal human family.}}
* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]''
▲**
** Buffy attempts to do this with Willow in the season 6 finale, along with [[If You Kill Him You Will Be Just Like Him]]. She is grateful that Willow saved her life, and understands that {{spoiler|Warren needs to pay for shooting Tara as well. But she tells Willow that Warren is human, and he needs human justice. That is, the police. If Willow kills him in revenge, Buffy will have to treat her like a criminal}}. [[Wham! Episode|Her pleas don't work]].
* ''[[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.
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** 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.
* In Victor Larue's last appearance in ''[[Walker, Texas Ranger]],'' his lawyer attempts a sob story about Victor being a victim of child abuse which drove him [[Insanity Defense|insane so Victor wouldn't have to go to trial.]] A criminal psychologist points out that while Victor was insane, he knew right from wrong and was deemed fit to stand trial.
* A funny example of this trope happens with the villain of the ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' episode "The Most Toys": when [[Collector of the Strange|Kivas Fajo]] tries to justify kidnapping and enslaving [[Ridiculously Human Robot|Data]] he mentions that he grew up poor and homeless, only for Data to politely, but firmly call him out for trying to make excuses for his crimes. Fajo immediately drops the act and smugly admits that he lived a privileged life as the son of a successful thief.
== [[Music]] ==
* Discussed in [[Amanda Palmer]]'s song "[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5i0o3JRaF2g| Runs in the Family]" from her album ''Who Killed Amanda Palmer.'' She sings with a [[Motor Mouth]] about if you can blame your genetic mental illnesses on your family, especially if they don't talk about the [[Generational Trauma]] that came with the anxieties or phobias. Doctors make these scary diagnoses, many that are incurable, and it's luck of the draw if you inherit the genes that make you sick. Amanda asks if she has permission to blame her genetics for this bad luck. There is no answer, and the music video ends with her crying about how hard it is to function with inherited traumas or genetics.
== [[New Media]] ==
* The "Am I The Asshole" AITA Reddit operates on this for some of the entries.
** In the saga of Jorts the Cat -- for context, in a government office where a subordinate named Pam was trying to train office cat Jorts and said that the manager, Pam's boss, was ethnically discriminating about Jorts by saying that you can't expect him to be as smart as his furry tortoiseshell coworker Jean -- the update reveals that Pam may have been feeling insecure as a recent transition from volunteer to paid employee, projecting her insecurities on Jorts. The manager maintains, however, that "training" Jorts is a futile effort and only would stress the cat further, so Pam didn't have Jorts's best interests at heart. Plus, Pam confessed that she was buttering Jorts in margarine in an attempt to encourage him to groom himself better. (As one commenter put it, "I can't believe she fucking buttered Jorts.")
* ''[[(The Customer is) Not Always Right]]'' has a few of these moments:
** "[https://notalwaysright.com/its-way-too-early-for-this/262803/| It's Way Too Early For This]" had a kid call out his parents for this. Both parents are heavy snorers. One day, while blocking access to the coffee machine and the fridge, they each accused the other of waking them up with loud snores. The OP, their teenage child, was having none of it; they shouted, "“YOU WERE BOTH SNORING SO LOUDLY LAST NIGHT THAT IT WOKE ME UP AT 2:00 AM! YOU WOKE ME UP, AND THEN YOU WOKE YOURSELVES UP WITH IT!” that ended the fight, and they were able to get breakfast.
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* 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. {{spoiler|Sure enough, Moira and April find out later that Kortney was stealing inventory and covering it up with forgery checks and phony donation letters to churches; she stole the checks from a neighbor. Moira takes the initiative to fire her while Elly is on vacation with John. The train theft was also not an accident; the thief was actually Kortney's boyfriend at the time. Kortney deliberately left the display case unlocked so he could steal it}}. 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, {{spoiler|Kortney tries filing a suit of wrongful termination, but she loses because the cops link her to the train theft}}.
== [[Puppet Shows]] ==
* ''[[The Muppet Christmas Carol]]'' keeps this for Scrooge, in line with the source material. Scrooge is a bitter moneylender that hates Christmas, and people in general. Then the ghosts of Jacob and Robert Marley come to him, starting to heckle him for saying they seem to have "more of grave than gravy" about them; he says that they always criticized him and never treated him well. They agree, but point out they never treated ''anyone'' well; regardless, unless Scrooge changes his ways, the same afterlife chains that torture them will do the same to him after he dies. The Ghost of Christmas Past is kind but firm with Scrooge as she takes him through various Christmas memories, including the one where his love Belle ended their engagement. Belle calls out Scrooge because he keeps putting off their wedding to make more money; because he waited too long, the spark has gone out of their relationship and she leaves him. She understands he wants to provide for her as a husband supports a wife, but he has forgotten the reason in his ambition. To prove her point, the younger Scrooge lets her go, while the older Scrooge joins her in song and bursts out crying.
== [[Theatre]] ==
* Comes up in ''Twisted: The Untold Story of a Royal Vizier'', a role-reversal parody musical of ''[[Aladdin (1992 Disney film)|Aladdin]]'' where Aladdin is the villain and Jafar is the hero. After Aladdin "rescues" the Princess from the marketplace, he tries to seduce her by singing that he lost his parents at 30 and it was so hard. The guards storm in before it gets further than a song and check that the Princess aren't hurt, while arresting Aladdin for killing a retinue of guards with his "One Jump Ahead" antics the previous day. When the Princess protests that Aladdin needs mercy because he lost his parents, the Captain bluntly says that is not an excuse. He points out that one guard lost his brother thanks to Aladdin indirectly killing him, and they both have parents mourning the son they lost.
== [[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 {{spoiler|the friend group abandoned her after Mari died}}. Kel calls bullshit; he points out that she's not the only one who {{spoiler|lost Mari. They all did, including Basil.}}
* This is the entire Investigation Team's response to {{spoiler|Adachi's}} excuse for why he committed his crimes in ''[[Persona 4]]''. To the credit of the latter, he does wind up accepting he was full of crap in the followup spinoff titles.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* The ''[[PvP (webcomic)]]'' has a few instances:
** When their college roommate Max Powers reenters their lives, and their rental building, Cole and Brent start an [[Escalating War]] of pranks out of pettiness. Jade tries to stop it because it's not professional and could get the pair in serious trouble. After
** Also happens between an argument Brent and Jade have after Skull accidentally totals Brent's car and the latter has to drive with his girlfriend. Brent's micromanaging makes him a backseat driver, complete with him ''trying to take the wheel'' while in the passenger seat. Jade is fed up and smacks him. They arrive to work sullen, with Brent being shaken. Brent has a legitimate point when talking with a therapist and Cole about it, the fact that Jade thought it was okay to hit him and people at the office mocked him for being upset: if it had been the other way around, he'd look like a domestic abuser. Jade in the meantime does apologize but also points out that Brent could have gotten them in another bad accident.
* Downplayed in [http://superredundant.com/?comic=1190-toxic-patterns this] ''[[League Of Super Redundant Heroes]]''.
{{quote|'''Buckaress''': I know at least one supervillain who uses that as an excuse too. It's not a great one.}}
== [[Western Animation]] ==
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** 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. {{spoiler|Azula's hallucination of Ursa in the series finale says she loved Azula, always, as Azula's sanity frays following Ty Le and Mai's betrayals. ''The Search'' would confirm that Ursa loved Azula when she begged to take both Azula and Zuko into exile after helping Ozai kill Azulon}}.
** Later when Zuko attempts to {{spoiler|switch sides and join Team Avatar, most of them say no. Toph is willing to give him the benefit of the doubt because she sensed he was telling the truth from her lie detector abilities. She also sympathizes with the fact that living as part of a rich elite family means conforming to arbitrary rules, having been in that situation. Katara says sarcastically let's give him an award for not being as big of a jerk. She reminds Zuko at the end of the episode, when he's accepted on probation as part of the Gaang, that she's watching him for any backsliding}}
* ''[[Batman: The Animated Series]]''
** In "Trial," DA Janet van Dorn comes to this conclusion when the Arkham inmates kidnap her and Batman, putting the Bat on trial and "volunteering" her as the defense lawyer. Despite the fact that she doesn't want Batman in Gotham City, Batman tells her put personal feelings aside and play their game, stall for time. She cross-examines the Mad Hatter about the fact that Batman didn't get involved in his case until he brainwashed his coworker Alice, kidnapping her and several people. Jarvis keeps saying that Batman was going to take Alice from him, and he had to stop the Bat. Janet asks why didn't he respect Alice's wishes since she rejected him. Jarvis blurts out that he would have killed her, only to realize what he said. He meekly asks the Joker to strike that from the record, much to Joker's confusion as there is no record. Rinse and repeat with both Harley Quinn, who attacks the Judge on finding out Joker ratted her out last time she escaped without him, and Poison Ivy who attacks Janet for plucking a flower in front of her. Janet concludes that while Batman "helped" with their outfit choices, they would have become villains without him.
** The animated adaptation of "Mad Love" has this for the Joker. Much as in the comic, he tells Harley a sob story about his abusive father only being happy at the circus. Harley buys it hook, line and sinker because the Joker said that she was the only one in Arkham that he could trust with his secrets. Batman tells Harley later that Joker has a "million" of these stories and she was just another pawn for him. Harley briefly comes to this conclusion after Joker pushes her out of a window and leaves her to bleed out before trying to kill Batman, swearing to herself that she will never let the Joker fool her again. That is, until she sees a flower and Get-Well card from him in her Arkham cell, restarting the cycle.
* ''[[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 {{spoiler|BoJack slept with his crush Emily. BoJack blames it on the drugs and Oscar stress while apologizing. Todd spells it out: BoJack can't keep blaming his actions on his addictions or bad childhood. In the end, it's him. He has to take responsibility for his actions. "Fuck man, what else is there to say?"}}.
** Goes both ways with Todd and his family. Todd at first resents his mother and stepfather for kicking him out; the reason they did is a videogame sucked him in to the point where he dropped out of high school and shut out everything in the real world. Kicking him out was a last resort as they both tried to reason with him to unplug. In season six, Todd admits that his mother may have had a point in forcing him to grow up with some [[Tough Love]] while talking with his stepfather, but also points out they didn't talk to him for ten years. His stepfather apologizes for that, after Todd saves his mother's life by tracking down the kidney he sold. They all reconcile by the series finale, with Todd admitting that they all made mistakes but are growing past them.
** BoJack at {{spoiler|his mother's funeral acknowledges that Beatrice Horseman had a hard life. She had him when she was too young to know better, and didn't have the resources that his generation did to talk about independence, mental health, divorce, or self-actualization}}. As he discusses while {{spoiler|popping pills}}, that his mother suffered does not excuse {{spoiler|the way that she treated him as a kid, or how she poisoned Hollyhock with diet pills to "help" her lose weight}}.
** Part of the reason that Diane has intense self-loathing and righteousness about how the world should be is that her family treated her as [[The Unfavorite]], with her brothers keeping a video of a cruel prank they pulled on her at prom. It means, however, that she can make selfish decisions with these quests. BoJack called her out for leaking chapters of ''One Trick Pony'' and never considering how it would make him feel when she's being harassed for trying to expose a celebrity named Hank Hippopopalous for abusing his secretaries and wants BoJack to support her. Mr. Peanutbutter, who is no saint, tells Diane that it may make her feel like she's doing the right thing by flying to Cordovia to cover the war there, but she could die and it's not worth risking her life for a moral crusade. {{spoiler|Diane finds out that he's right when a child's death traumatizes her so much that she flies home early.}} Her GirlCroosh boss Stefani bluntly says that Diane's desire for perfection makes everyone miserable, including Diane. {{spoiler|Guy, her new boyfriend, says that he knows that Diane hates lavish gifts after Mr. Peanutbutter refused to stop his [[Grand Romantic Gesture]] habit, but he is offering her a ''coat'' as a gift, and she needs it in Chicago rather than borrowing his all the time}}.
** When {{spoiler|Biscuits Braxby}} goes off-script during her second interview with {{spoiler|BoJack, her conclusions ultimately boil down to this regarding BoJack. She just found out that BoJack waited seventeen minutes to call 911 after Sarah Lynn passed out in the planetarium from heroin overdose, and her reaction is pure [[Tranquil Fury]]. Yes, Sarah Lynn was a druggie and a ticking time bomb to anyone that bothered to look beyond her [[Stepford Smiler]] [[Jerkass]] exterior, but she was a kid when BoJack started inadvertently corrupting her. He was the one who accidentally gave her alcohol as a child and made his hairdresser Sharona take the fall for it when Sarah Lynn got sick. BoJack also gave her the terrifying speech to never stop performing and that no one would ever love her except her fans, when she was a ''preschooler''. Sarah Lynn has less moral culpability for her own actions now that she's dead, and that the living are trying to change her image either out of guilt-- like Dr. Hu who gets clean of drugs on realizing it was dumb luck that he didn't kill Sarah Lynn as her supplier-- or profit -- like her parents who commercialize her death. BoJack doesn't help his case by blurting out that he "didn't sleep with Sarah-Lynn until she was thirty!" and she played his TV daughter on ''Horsin' Around''. Biscuits points out with that revelation, it sounds like BoJack groomed Sarah Lynn into the lifestyle that led to her overdose; he gave her alcohol as a child, slept with her as an adult, convinced her to break her nine months of sobriety to go on a bender, and left her to die. Even worse, paramedics have a [[Don't Ask]] policy so he never would have gotten in trouble anyway! BoJack tries to justify that he never meant to do any of this; addicts are stupid owing to their addictions. Biscuits shuts that down by pointing out that BoJack consciously chose not to save Sarah Lynn, purely to cover his ass}}.
* ''[[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 Elisa Maza 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.
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*** 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 {{spoiler|the tragic backstory that Rick presented to the Citadel was ''real'' and not made-up as he claimed at the time. A rogue Rick did kill his Beth and Diane using a bomb, when his Beth was a little girl, and Rick spent months both coming up with the interdimensional formula and recovering from his injuries. He never abandoned any Beth before she was old enough to have Summer and Morty. When Morty comes out of the memory gun flashback, he apologizes to Rick for what happened. Then Evil Morty holds them at gunpoint; he says that all Ricks try to justify their actions based on tragic backstories, and Morty's Rick is no different. He may have a point; this was this same Rick that went on a rampage to kill dozens of Ricks trying to avenge his family, leading to the Citadel and Council of Ricks being formed}}.
** The season six premiere has {{spoiler| C-137 aka Prime Jerry}} call out Morty for this, abandoning his family. He as well as {{spoiler|C-137 Beth and Summer respectively had reasonably assumed that Rick had kidnapped their son to find a new dimension, and were horrified when Morty was using them as a cautionary tale in the season 3 premiere, realizing Morty planned to leave them in that universe with only Cronenberged dimensions. When Morty ends up in his original dimension, he tries to apologize and say the Citadel arrested him and Summer before they could do anything when the Citadel froze Prime Jerry, Summer and Beth. C-137 Jerry says that even if Rick didn't tell Morty about hopping dimensions the first time, Morty damn well knew he could have saved them, and Jerry had to mourn and raise himself alone in this wasteland. Morty himself is repentant.}}
** Discussed seriously in the episode "Jimmy" regarding the title character and his bullies. Richie got shot at the community center, and Virgil is seeing a school counselor for the trauma. The story comes out, with Virgil abridging to keep his hero identity a secret: he and Richie noticed that Nick, the [[Jerk Jock]] of the school, was picking on an introverted kid named Jimmy. While Virgil tried to reach out to him, he freaked out when Jimmy revealed he had access to his father's gun -- Virgil's mother was killed by gunfire during riots while she was saving lives on the streets-- and left Jimmy's house immediately. When Nick's bullying goes too far, Jimmy misses school for a week. Virgil and his dad go to check on Jimmy; they learn that he's not home, and Virgil finds a revenge journal on Jimmy's computer. [[Mass "Oh Crap"|They also realize the gun is missing from his dad's drawer]]. Mr. Hawkins tells Virgil to stay put and they'll go find Jimmy before he can hurt Nick; Virgil waits until they're gone before changing into his Static uniform. {{spoiler|He arrives to the community center, only to see Richie lying on the floor, bleeding and screaming, Jimmy in a [[Troubled Fetal Position]] and Nick looking terrified. Jimmy ''was'' going to fire on Nick, but Frieda and Richie told him [[You Are Better Than You Think You Are]] and that Nick wasn't worth it. He was putting the gun down, only for Nick's goons to attack him, causing him to accidentally shoot Richie}}. In the present, Virgil admits that he's angry at everyone involved, including himself; he knows Jimmy never meant to hurt {{spoiler|Richie but his best friend still has a leg cast and could have died.}} He's mad at himself for not telling his father or a trusted adult about the gun as soon as he knew, and he's mad at Nick for causing the situation in the first place with his assholery. The counselor has an evenhanded response; she says that having anger is natural, especially after such a traumatic incident, but what matters is what you do with that emotion. Jimmy chose to use his anger to hurt others, but Virgil doesn't have to do the same thing. He finds a more productive use for his anger: {{spoiler|sign Richie's cast}} and reach out to help other kids who are bullied. Turns out the law was pretty reasonable and this trope is shown rather than told: {{spoiler|Jimmy was sentenced to a few months in juvie but is also receiving counseling, providing hope that he has guidance to fix his future. Nick and his goons get suspended and sentenced to community service, since it was indirectly their fault Richie got shot}}. While it seems that Nick really is sorry, as shown when he and his father come out of the principal's office, he still has to face punishment. Everyone also witnessed his cowardice when Jimmy confronted him, so his popularity has gone down the drain. The PSA at the end has Static reveal the statistics for gun violence and orders the audience that no matter which kid has a gun, whether or not they are a close friend or even a family member, ''tell an adult'' who can better handle the situation.
* ''[[Tuca & Bertie]]'':
** This is what leads to the season one fight between the title characters. Tuca has a phobia of hospitals because her mother died in one after suffering a car accident. She also overhears Bertie calling her "clingy" which Tuca is, and stubbornly refuses to see a doctor about a sudden pain. Her virtual sex client has to drive seven hours to save her when she collapses on a call, and he notifies Speckle about the situation when Speckle mistakes the call for a videogame and starts "playing". While Bertie is relieved that Tuca pulls through a terrifying surgery, she's annoyed that Tuca didn't come to her for help earlier because she was doing a pastry event that could boost her career and had to leave to check on her dying best friend. When a recovered Tuca notices that she's upset, Bertie says all of this, that she would have been fine with taking Tuca to a doctor before the problem became serious, rather than Tuca endangering herself the one time Bertie wasn't available to bail her out of her immaturity. Tuca goes [[Never My Fault]], and they have a huge argument.
** Comes up during the series finale arc, when Bertie {{spoiler|ghosts her longstanding boyfriend of several years in favor of confronting a childhood trauma at Jelly Lakes. When she returns, she finds herself unable to explain to Speckle why she didn't his calls and blew off work at the same time, right before Molting Day, this world's version of Christmas. Speckle gets mad at her and calls her out, saying that he can't be the "rock" in their relationship all the time. While they do make up thanks to Bertie visiting the fixer-upper he bought and admiring it, Bertie herself admits that she was a bad girlfriend and seeks therapy next season to try and "fix" herself and not repeat this incident. Therapy doesn't work that way, but she does make progress}}. Season two shows that they finally talked about it, which was all Speckle wanted; {{spoiler|Bertie didn't tell him in season one about being molested as a twelve-year old, or having a weird attraction to Pastry Pete after he manhandled her, because she thought that not getting over trauma or irrational feelings made her weak and morally bankrupt. Speckle reassures her that it's not her fault that the lifeguard that molested her or Pastry Pete took advantage of her, and her therapist Joanne says it's normal to have trauma recur years later}}.
* ''[[Steven Universe]]'' has this trope crop up from time to time:
** Part of the reason why Pearl is occasionally insecure, jealous and catty is that she's mourning Rose, the leader of the Crystal Gems and her lover, and sees a lot of her in Steven. Rose died to have Steven, a morally questionable decision but her choice to make. Garnet calls out Pearl for getting jealous when they learn that Steven's lion belonged to Rose and contained her scabbard; she says Rose kept secrets from all of them them, and Pearl is no different. Steven is furious when Pearl during Connie's fencing lessons is turning his squishy human friend into a martyr and talks her down. {{spoiler|When Pearl can finally reveal the full truth -- that she belonged to Pink Diamond, who ''became'' Rose Quartz-- she is able to tone this down.}}
** Steven and Amethyst in season two find out that {{spoiler|Pearl was rebuilding Peridot's distress signal tower so as to keep fusing with Garnet}}. They bust her before it happens again, but try to break it gently to Garnet. "Gently doesn't work"; Garnet becomes infuriated, but Amethyst says that it's because Garnet's love makes her and Pearl feel strong. Immediately, Garnet orders Amethyst, "Don't defend her!" before fusing with her to destroy the tower once and for all. {{spoiler|It takes several episodes for Garnet to forgive Pearl, when Pearl admits that she lied to Garnet because without Rose, she feels like she's nothing.}}
** Peridot has a hard time adapting to Earth life when {{spoiler|the Gems learn they need to keep her unpoofed when she talks about an event called the Cluster that will cause an apocalypse, and she's the only one with expertise to stop it}}. She's still rude, bitter and condescending towards the "clods," with her warming up to Steven after he gives her prosthetic foot back. The season two finale has her explain to Steven that she stole a Diamond communicator to try and convince Yellow Diamond that this planet "is of use" to the Diamond Authority. Steven takes this to mean that Peridot is selling them out and tries to stop her, thinking that her fear of the Cluster is no excuse for this betrayal. {{spoiler|Ends up subverted; Peridot was trying to ''reason'' with Yellow Diamond to spare the Earth and use its resources for the Diamond Authority without disturbing its natural life, and doesn't reveal that the Crystal Gems survived. When YD refuses, Peridot calls her a clod and refuses to make the Cluster go on as scheduled.}}
** ''Steven Universe Future'' has Jasper stubbornly refuse to listen to either Steven or Amethyst {{spoiler|when they try to convince her to not spend the rest of her existence on a barren piece of land training for a new war. Steven goes in the premiere to invite her to Little Homeschool but gets irritated as Jasper says that he is not her Diamond and he can't order her around. It's understandable that Jasper is hurt on learning that Pink Diamond lied and was Rose Quartz the whole time, but not-so-much that she is being a giant jerk about it to Steven, who helped undo her corruption and just wants her to be happy. Steven says as much, pointing out to Jasper that she got herself corrupted and has rebuked all offers for the Gems to help her, because she wasn't the only one that Rose deceived. Jasper only listens after he beats her in a fair sparring match, tries her best to train him to control his surging powers when he comes to her for help, and the finale has them part as friends at least}}.
** Steven calls himself out for this and represses his guilt and trauma after {{spoiler|shattering Jasper during a training bout gone wrong. It was an accident, and he quickly revives her while crying [[Tears of Remorse]] and apologizing to her, but Steven is horrified that he became even worse than his mother, because Rose only lied about shattering someone. He tries to isolate himself from his friends and go to the Diamonds for help with his spiraling, but ultimately the ensuing meltdown causes him to proclaim [[I Am a Monster]] and saying he has no reason for what he did, which leads to his corruption and turning him into Steven-zilla. To get him back, Connie realizes that Steven were handling a Corrupted Gem who couldn't be poofed, he would empathize with them. So she rallies the Gems, Diamonds, and Greg to do what Steven would do and show love for him, warts and all. Doing so allows Steven to shrink back to his human self. Even so, the finale shows that he's seeing a therapist via telecall and has to check in with them during her road trip.}}
* ''[[Danny Phantom]]'':
** Comes up frequently about Vlad Masters, and numerous characters call him out for his attitude about being Vlad Plasmius. No one denies that it was Jack's fault that he caused the accident in college that led to Vlad getting his ghost powers, as well as ghost acne, and ending up in the hospital; Jack himself acknowledges in Vlad's debut that he messed up but is confident that Vlad has forgiven him. Danny feels sorry for Vlad after learning about Plasmius, if squicked out on hearing that Vlad has the hots for his mother Maddy; Maddy has the same attitude when Vlad conspires to isolate her and Danny at his mansion in Colorado. While Vlad in the [[Bad Future]] is remorseful about what he was, an alternate timeline where Jack receives ghost powers has Danny and alternate Maddy call him out for {{spoiler|lying to Maddy about Jack wanting revenge and forbidding her from studying ghosts as a housewife. Danny even points out that Maddy isn't happy being married to Vlad, and Vlad announces that he ''doesn't care'', only that he got what he wanted.}} The Series Finale proper has {{spoiler|Vlad reveal his ghost self to the world by using a deadly asteroid as a power play, commandeering Jack's spaceship to get close to the asteroid and make it intangible. Jack is horrified and asks how he could "hold the world hostage," and finally learns that he was responsible.}} He asserts that he never meant to hurt Vlad, and always considered him a friend. {{spoiler|When Vlad realizes that the asteroid is immune to ghost powers and tries to beg for a ride back to Earth, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEF2D9iofrQ Jack tells him they're no longer friends]] with an [[OOC Is Serious Business]] [[Tranquil Fury]] look and abandons him in space.}}
** Dark Danny in the [[Bad Future]] was born from a traumatic experience, namely that {{spoiler|thanks to one mistake of Danny holding onto career test answers and using them not knowing he was busted, his family and friends get killed in a freak accident at the Nasty Burger. When Vlad at Danny's request separated his ghost half from his human half, the ghost half killed the human boy.}} Yet when Prime Danny confronts him, he says that he will never become the monster that Dark Danny is. {{spoiler|And he is right; Prime Danny fights Dark Danny with everything he has to the bitter end, which convinces Clockwork to reset the timeline, imprison Dark Danny outside the timestream, and give Prime Danny a chance to fix things. Prime Danny chooses to hand in the test answers and confess to Lancer, which prevents the freak accident.}}
** "Girls' Night Out" has the lady ghosts in the series band together after fighting with their boyfriends, including Skulker, and banish all the males from Amity Park while hypnotizing the women into loving them. Jasmine, Sam and Maddy remain immune while Jack takes Danny on a fishing trip so they remain unaffected. The trio tries to take down the ghosts, with Maddy and Sam calling out Ember for thinking that ''all'' men deserve to suffer for normal couple fights.
== [[Real Life]] ==
* The real Frank Abegnale (of ''[[Catch Me If You Can]]'', cited in ''Film'' above), now a reformed con artist, says that sure his crimes started after his parents divorced, but that did not justify his actions with defrauding Pan-Am airlines, impersonating a doctor, and becoming a fake lawyer. (What makes the doctor impersonation, if it actually happened, egregious is he nearly got a baby killed due to not knowing medical terminology.) He was actually amused that Steven Spielberg used that point in his life as the fictional Frank's motive for stealing money: to get his parents back together. The real Frank asserts there was no emotional reason; he did it because it was fun. Plus, he points out plenty of parents divorce and their kids don't become con artists.
* Paul Dini and Bruce Timm discussed this during the director's commentary for ''[[Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker]]'' regarding Harley. After what Harley does in the movie, Bruce mandated that Harley had to die; that she was a domestic abuse victim of the Joker did not justify her {{spoiler|helping Joker kidnap and torture Tim Drake into a Joker Jr.}}. Paul Dini protested this as Harley was his creation, and jokingly drew himself crying about writing the scene. They reached a compromise where {{spoiler|Harley survived falling into a pit, but retired from crime, becoming a grumpy old lady with a cane who smacks her granddaughters for becoming Jokerz gang members. Harley didn't escape unscathed from the consequences of her actions. Bruce allowed it because he felt the moment that Harley revealed herself as alive and a grandmother was a much-needed moment of levity.}}
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[[Category:Morality Tropes]]
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