Even Evil Has Standards/Live-Action TV: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

* The Drazens in ''[[24]]'' agree to spare Kim Bauer's life in exchange for Jack surrendering himself to them after originally planning to kill them both.

* In [[Drrt|D!rt]], main character Lucy Spiller has a reputation of being evil incarnate. However, she holds journalistic integrity above all else; she's only interested in the truth, not gossip (no matter how big it may be), and she always protects her sources.

* ''[[Doctor Who]]'' deconstructs this trope in the episode "Boom Town", which features the return of the Slitheen, aliens who had previously appeared in "Aliens of London" and "World War III." This time the only surviving character from those episodes has had herself installed as mayor of Cardiff and is planning to destroy the city to get herself home. However, when she is about to kill a reporter who is getting too close to the truth, she stops when she learns that the intended victim is pregnant. It leads to this exchange between her and the Doctor:

'''The Doctor:''' "You let one of them go, but that's nothing new. Every now and then a little victim is spared because she smiled, 'cause he's got freckles, 'cause they begged...and that's how you live with yourself. That's how you slaughter millions, because once in a while, on a whim, if the wind's in the right direction, you ''happen'' to be kind." }}

** Played straight in "Journey's End", where {{spoiler|a ''Dalek''}} actually pulls a [[Heel Face Turn]]. {{spoiler|Said Dalek, Dalek Caan, had been exposed to the time vortex and was witness to literally every act the Daleks have and ever would commit. This perspective made him decide that it was time for ''all'' Daleks to die. Note that Caan was actually one of the more "conservative" (read: stubbornly genocidal) members of the Skaro Cult and initially had no hesitation in destroying an entire species}}.

* [[Double the Fist]]. "Eating babies is Unaustralian!"

* In ''[[Dexter]]'', [[Serial Killer]] for Justice Dexter Morgan has a strict code he adheres to driving him to kill only people who have somehow escaped justice. When he confronts a [[Serial Killer]] of children, Dexter states his revulsion for his crimes with the claim, "I have standards."

** Dexter is always sure to kill quickly, the release is in the killing. When he discovers that the Trinity Killer has been {{spoiler|psychologically terrorizing and physically torturing his own family for years}} Dexter is completely horrified.

* Sebastian Stark from the TV series ''[[Shark]]'' wasn't exactly "evil", but some of his clients came close. When called in to the murder of a sleazy pornography producer, Stark remembers him.

'''Stark:''' Guy made Larry Flynt look like [[Mary Poppins]]. [[Values Dissonance|Even I have standards]]. }}

* Inverted on ''[[Angel]]'': Kate describes Wolfram & Hart as "the law firm [[Chewbacca Defense|Johnny Cochran]] was too ethical to join."

** Lindsey decided that he "wanted out" of Wolfram & Hart when they tried to get him to defend a woman for killing three blind children and their teacher. And again later when he discovered that they kept people in storage for spare parts. Of couse, when Lindsey stands up to the firm and comes out on top, the firm ''rewards'' his guts and cleverness. They know they'd be far better with him on their side.

*** With him, it was probably similar to the Doctor Who example above.

** Another example of Spike being appalled by Angelus' actions, albeit about a much ''much'' lesser crime, is the ''[[Angel]]'' episode "Destiny". William the Bloody (the future Spike), newly vamped, confides in Angelus about how he is completely in love with Drusilla, and he even considers her his "destiny". Angelus then goes and sleeps with Drusilla, just to piss William off. William is shocked and appalled by both Angelus and Drusilla, who taunt him and tell him that being a vampire means [[Even Evil Has Standards]] basically goes out the window. Judging by the above example, he never learned this.

** Vampires and demons are supposed to give the mortals a break on Halloween. Spike treats those who violates this rule with disdain.

*** Faith doesn't really count, because it wasn't so much that she ''enjoyed'' killing, so much than she was digging herself deeper and deeper after the first kill. After the initial shock of killing a man, she tried to hide, then bury, then conceal her guilt by pinning the blame on Buffy because she was afraid of going to prison. Even when she joined the Mayor, she was only rationalising her murders with the fact that "Boss wants you dead" because she valued the Mayor's approval so much, shutting off her empathy. It's not until she {{spoiler|switched bodies with Buffy and found herself [[Becoming the Mask]]}} that she finally started to really recognise that she'd been wrong and tried hard to repent for her actions.

**** On top of that, Faith only went to work for the Mayor because of Wesley's actions (trying to ship her back to England for punishment of what was an understandable accident, right when she was most vulnerable). That betrayal drove her to the Mayor, who she felt she could trust.

* In ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'', Anubis was once expelled for committing "crimes unspeakable even for a Goa'uld". What these are [[Noodle Incident|is never mentioned]], but considering that Goa'uld [[Evil Overlord|System Lords]] are quite capable of torturing even their own kind to death only to resurrect them and start over again (and again. and again. and again. and again...), this says quite a lot.

* ''[[Malcolm in the Middle]]'' episode "Evacuation", where, even in school gym where the neighborhood is staying (because Hal's couch accidentally tipped over a train carrying radioactive waste), Malcolm is still grounded, despite not being at home. When Malcolm has had enough and sarcastically asks Lois if she's going to spank him, she puts Malcolm over her knee and... [[What Do You Mean It's Not Heinous?|lightly taps him on the butt.]] EVERYONE IN THE GYM reacts with silent shock as if it's the worst thing ever and Lois is banished outside along with Hal, Reese and Dewey, [[Earn Your Happy Ending|while Malcolm finally gets peace.]] Though Reese was banished for setting up a black market, Hal for causing the problem, and Dewey and been telling people his family was dead to get sympathy (and toys).

* In an [[Alternate History]] episode of ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise]]'', it is all but openly stated that the American Resistance movement against the Nazis in a timeline where they held the East Coast is made up entirely of gangsters and other mafia-types.

* In the ''[[Firefly]]'' episode "Objects in Space", [[Bounty Hunter]] Jubal Early tries to pull this on River during their exchange. However, she pretty quickly and bluntly shoots that notion down by revealing what a [[Psycho for Hire|cruel and sadistic bastard]] he really is.

*** Based on the information about Book's past from the comic book ''Serenity: The Shepherd's Tale'', {{spoiler|we now know that this isn't a valid example of the trope. Book wasn't simply "assuming the identity" of a holy man--he had a genuine conversion, so this is at most a [[Heel Face Turn]]. But even that is arguable: When he was working for the Alliance, he was actually a double-agent for the Independence, and it's not clear that he ever did anything evil as an Operative. On the other hand, he ''did'' kill a random passerby and steal his identity in order to join the Alliance in the first place.}}

* On ''[[Dollhouse]]'', the Dollhouse's operators -- whose entire organization is based on mind control, prostitution and illegal activities including murder -- are nevertheless horrified to learn one of their employees has been raping one of the Dolls in her Wiped state (which means she basically had the mind of a child and couldn't resist).

** The episode "Belonging" shows what happens when the character of Topher, a man identified as having no morals who views other human beings as playthings, discovers that there indeed is a line he will not cross. In the previous episode, Topher having a moral problem imprinting a VIP onto Victor is used as evidence that it's probably not a good idea.

*** Well, not precisely. It should be pointed out that all of the Actives have ''supposedly'' signed on voluntarily for the job, and will be compensated at the end of their contracts. Topher's limit (and, to a lesser extent, {{spoiler|1=DeWitt's}}) comes when they find out that (a) not all of the Actives are volunteers and (b) Rossum has no intention of letting them go.

* [[Dukes of Hazzard|Hazzard County]]'s Boss Hogg may be so crooked he makes Al Capone look honest, but he draws the line at actions that might actually physically harm someone and refuses to work with anyone who supports that sort of thing. (One episode that dealt with marijuana had Boss Hogg vehemently declare that he would never sell drugs for any type of money.) His would-be partners don't take kindly to such an attitude, of course, and Boss Hogg often needs the Dukes to pull his bacon out of the fire when this happens.

*** There was one episode where Boss Hogg had no problem with trying to sell off a large truck of firearms (which included a Browning Machine Gun) that he stumbled across, perhaps making this character trait an example of [[Depending on the Writer]].

** More specifically, the Ferengi second in command said "There's no profit in this ''for us''," so YMMV.

** In a ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|Deep Space Nine]]'' episode, the Ferengi Grand Nagus (Basically their Leader / CEO) is replaced by Brunt, a recurring antagonist of Quarks. They object to him being the Nagus not because he's greedy (Greed is considered a virtue), but because he puts his own personal greed before the collective greed of the Ferengi Alliance.

** Ryan O'Reilly, ostensibly a sociopath, confesses to having his brain damaged brother Cyril kill Gloria Nathan's husband, even though it means another 40 years added to his sentence. Nathan later finds herself falling in love with him and hates herself for it. She is raped soon after and O'Reilly confesses to having orchestrated this as well. However, Sister Pete figures out that he was lying in an attempt to allow Nathan to hate him as she should (he wasn't lying about having her husband killed).

* In the ''[[Seinfeld]]'' episode "The Limo," George accidentally impersonates an up and coming white supremacist named Donald O'Brien, whose manifesto includes the Jews stealing money to help the Blacks buy drugs, and further oppress "our white minority subcultures." A reporter at the scene mentions that real life Ku Klux Klan member David Duke has denounced O'Brien as a dangerous extremist.

* [[Mystery Science Theater 3000|Both Dr Forrester and TV's Frank]] apologized for showing Joel and the Bots ''[[Manos: The Hands of Fate]]'', feeling they "really crossed the line".

** Later in the series, his mother Pearl compliments the then-recently-deceased [[Raul Julia]] despite the fact that he was the star of [[Overdrawn at the Memory Bank|the terrible movie]] she was about to inflict upon Mike and the Bots.

* In a two-part episode of the ''[[The A-Team]]'', the titular team go on a mission to rescue someone from some pirates who were hired by a gangster. Later, the pirates end up teaming up with the A-Team when the gangster turns out to be a Nazi.

* A ''[[CSI: NY]]'' hitman turns himself in and spills the beans on his client when said client switched targets from a man to a woman. This hitman doesn't do women.

* Omar on ''[[The Wire]]'' is a badass shotgun-wielding terror of the streets, preying on drug dealers and stealing their money. He's very careful, though, to make sure that nobody who's not in the game gets hurt... in other words, civilians and citizens who don't deal drugs. He also brings his grannie to church once a month. Also, when two hitmen try to kill Omar on a Sunday, the Baltimore underworld reacts in uproar. Business is business, but Sundays are sacred.

* ''[[Power Rangers]]'' has had plenty of villains who followed this trope.

** In ''[[Power Rangers Lost Galaxy]]'', Villamax questions Trakeena's desire for revenge on the rangers for [[You Killed My Father|destroying her father]] when she attempts to destroy all of Terra Venture. After saving a little girl from death and is ordered to attack a shuttle full of innocent people, he disobeys. Refusing to [[Wouldn't Hit a Girl|fight back]], he is killed by Trakeena.

'''Villamax:''' [[Last Words|You... learned... nothing.]] }}

** In ''[[Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue]]'', Diabolico swears off his loyalty to Bansheera when she tricks his best friend, Loki, into fighting the rangers and forcing the former to attack them, resulting in Loki's death. He starts helping the rangers, showing that even though he hated them, he hated Bansheera more. This is a creature who saved a man's son so he can keep him for years while turning him against his father, sent monsters to destroy a city, considered killing the infant prince to keep his place as second-in-command, but the loss of his best friend caused him to go renegade. In the final episode, his ghost arrives and saves Carter (the red ranger) from Bansheera, resulting in the latter to fall in a pit [[Fate Worse Than Death|where several monsters presumably torture her for eternity]], fulfilling his revenge.

* ''[[Xena: Warrior Princess]]'' refuses to kill women and children long before she turns good... in fact, saving a baby is why her army turns on her. They're warriors, not barbarians....

* The [[Too Good to Last|unfortunately short lived]] series ''[[Action]]'' has [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL0SILzGs4g this memorable scene] where an amoral director and a hypocritical senator argue over which of them has standards and which is truly repulsive.

'''Peter Dragon:''' I manage. I never voted to subsidize the growing of tobacco, while turning my back on food programs for starving kids. I've never vetoed a gun control bill. All ''my'' guns are fake, Senator! I've never rushed to the defense of Kuwaiti oil fields, while ignoring genocide in Africa, because big oil companies that line your fat pockets aren't concerned with black Africa. Those are all productions of ''your'' company Senator, this company right here! }}

* In one episode of ''[[ER]]'', African rebels didn't hesitate to shoot their hostages who had absolutely nothing to do with the war (some being doctors and a geologist) in cold blood and rape a woman, but they won't kill a man they believe to be a priest.

* ''[[Forever Knight]]'': Lucien LaCroix, despite being quite the sociopath, wouldn't {{spoiler|turn a young Adolf Hitler into a vampire because he felt too much evil from him.}} And a near word-for-word invoking of this trope comes when LaCroix's {{spoiler|daughter / maker}} Divia shows back up and reminds him of his refusing her long-ago wish (she wanted him to have sex with her, which LaCroix of course refused to do, as she was {{spoiler|''his daughter''}}. LaCroix's feelings, however, haven't changed.

* Erastes Fulmen, crime boss of the Aventine Hill in ''[[Rome]]'', is sitting in his den of scum and villainy when he hears an account of Mark Anthony's rabble-rousing at Caesar's funeral. This provokes him to an indignant and foul-mouthed rant on standards of public behaviour.

* Played for laughs in ''[[The IT Crowd]]'': owing to a convoluted series of events, Moss and Roy have agreed to allow a German cannibal to consume some of their limbs if he lets them watch a movie Roy's been desperate to see on his swanky home entertainment system. The same episode has also featured a parody of the standard over-the-top and slightly hysterical [[Digital Piracy Is Evil|anti-piracy adverts]]. They put the DVD, the advert starts, and the cannibal immediately shouts out "Oh, these piracy warnings!" in frustration and disgust.

*** But the major tipping point was when he heard about the Penn State scandal and got so enraged over the cover-up and how nothing was done to bring down Jerry Zandusky that the Devil decided to quit his job as Prince of Darkness and go back to his old job as Time-Warner Cable's customer service representative.

'''Monster:''' No, man, it's because she was ''thirteen!'' I may be a monster, but that's just ''sick!'' }}

* Subverted by Al Swearengen in ''[[Deadwood]]''. Swearengen begins the series by stepping on a woman's throat, then goes though three seasons of [[Pet the Dog]] moments. In season three, he delivers a avenging beatdown on one of Hearst's mooks, berating the man for trying to hurt women and children. Moments later, Swearengen admits that he was only putting on a show. He himself has no qualms about killing women and children, and is torturing the mook simply because he enjoys it.

* An episode of ''The Montel Williams Show'' had psychic Sylvia Brown answer questions from the audience. One audience member expressed concerns about her health problems. Brown gave the usual psychic BS about chakras being out of line, etc. When the audience member said her doctor suspected multiple sclerosis, Montel cut to a commercial. Montel has MS himself and obviously wasn't going to have this woman played with.

** Seeing as how one of his victims was a 14-year old girl and that he implies that he did in fact threaten to harm the 9 year old if her mother didn't come with him, it's more likely that he didn't want any witnesses.

* Marty [[Di Stasio]] is as unethical as any other reporter on the ''[[Frontline]]'' team, but even he balks at his executive producer's decision to air an unsubstantiated story about a priest accused of rape. When Emma asks, he admits to being a (lapsed) Catholic.

** He also does not like it when he sleeps with someone who is either married or is dating someone else/about to get married to someone else. In fact, most times he does these things, he usually doesn't even know that they were this until ''after'' the fact.

* In ""Little Hell"" Nick Cocks, a child killer who once brutally slaughtered a 3 year old baby in cold blood while it's weeping mother watched as well as then going to rape said mother before killing her husband then drowning the mother, is shocked and horrified when he hears about a man who went on holiday while leaving his cat without food for a 2 day break. Nick even goes as far as to kill the man before taking the cat to a animal shelter stating:

** As well as this in one episode, a criminal is taken to court on suspicion of killing his friend. As the trial proceeds it is revealed that the lawyer of the man, raped a woman however the trial proceeds anyway. Just as a not-guilty verdict is about to be pronounced, the man steals a guards gun and shots the lawyer in the head before being tackled the ground. When asked why he did so he replies by saying:

** Another episode involves a group of terrorists whose ultimate goal is to destroy both American and British spirits. They have been behind multiple major attacks evening once flying a plane into a nursery, however what one thing makes then so utterly shocked and disgusted that they end up shooting themselves to stop the painful thoughts that it provokes? The story of a man throwing a crisps packet on the ground. As they put it:

* An episode of [[Walker, Texas Ranger]] had a group of criminals escape from prison and hide out in a church, taking the people there hostage. One of the gang members is extremely uncomfortable with this and keeps saying so. The ringleader tells him to shut up. . .and two seconds later, punches out another gang member who has begun to make sleazy advances to one of the nuns.

* Although not quite "evil" (with the exception of their ringleader, Max Hudson, who murdered his wife), the shock jock team members J.J. and Little Willie (who is as small as his name implies) were very obnoxious and often play very cruel jokes. However, when Hudson mocks Trudy's death on the air when [[Monk]] admits that his wife was killed via a carbomb, even they were horrified at Hudson's actions, telling Hudson to go easy on Monk.

** {{spoiler|it's happened a couple of times in the real world.}}

* ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'': [[Magnificent Bastard|Crowley]], being the chief Crossroads demon (and later {{spoiler|King of Hell}}) has no problem with making [[Deal with the Devil|deals with desperate humans for their souls]], and will usually even twist the wording of the deals to his benefit. However, he will ''not'' have his "clients" killed so he can collect their souls sooner, as he explains to a lower demon who had been doing exactly that, before canceling all of the demon's deals and taking him away for punishment.

** That's more a case of [[Pragmatic Villainy]]. Crowley says it's more to do with consumer confidence. You sell your soul, you get 10 years with whatever you made a deal for, then you go to Hell. But if word got out about demons collecting early, nobody would make deals with them.

** Balthazaar is a rogue, [[The Hedonist|hedonist]] angel, who takes up the demons' hobby of making [[Deal with the Devil|deals]] with humans for their souls. However, when he learns that his part-time employer {{spoiler|and friend, Castiel,}} is working with Crowley to locate Purgatory and take control of its souls, he's so horrified that he switches sides and teams up with the Winchesters to stop them. {{spoiler|[[Killed Off for Real|This ends up costing him]].}}

* A [[Show Within a Show]] example in The ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'' episode "Living Witness", when the Kyrian civilization uses [[Historical Villain Upgrade|historical revisionism]] to depict a centuries-earlier run-in with Voyager. The biased depiction of the neighbouring Vaskan leader has him going to war with the Kyrians simply to steal their land. He contracts Voyager as mercenaries to accomplish this, but even he objects on moral grounds and tries to cancel the deal when evil Janeway decides to effect massive genocide of the Kyrians as the best solution.

* ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'' plays this trope straight and averts it! In ''[[Manos: The Hands of Fate]]'', both Dr. Forrestor and TV's Frank realize and even admit they went too far picking the movie, though apparently they just can't stop the movie, so Joel and the Bots still have to suffer. On the other hand, Pearl shows no sympathy at all for Mike and the Bots when she shows them ''[[Hobgoblins]]'', then again, they kinda deserved it.

* On ''[[Casualty]]'' the Farmead Crew is a council estate gang that deals drugs, among other things. Anton, the gang leader, is horrified that one of his subordinates set up the gang-rape of a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl in order to keep her boyfriend quiet about a failed shooting.

* Played for laughs in an episode of [[Room 101 (TV series)|Room 101]], a programme in which celebrities discuss their pet hates. Ian Hislop had just argued the case for Piers Morgan being put into the titular room, and host Paul Merton pulled the lever... at which point the room vomited Piers up on the grounds he was [[Take That|'too toxic for Room 101']].

* The Mentalist: {{spoiler|Red John does NOT tolerate "poor imitations" of his work, and is even kind enough to spare the life of the patsy the main perpetrators of the plot blackmailed into it (with his mother's life no less) with merely a shot to the leg.}}

** In the Season 4 episode Pink Champagne on Ice a Women who is planning to rob a casino kills her accomplice, finding him too evil as he laughs about killing the room-mate of the girl he kidnapped as a hostage. The Women, Trish, is prepared to kill the hostage and two people who can recognise her despite them giving her the money. She says she would have felt terrible about it though.