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Genocide Backfire: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|'''Freeza:''' You...you...what are you?<br />
'''Goku:''' You haven't figured it out yet? I'm a proud Saiyan who calls Earth home, and I'm here to defeat you. I am the warrior you've heard of in legend, pure of heart and awakened by fury. That's what I am. I AM THE SUPER SAIYAN, SON GOKU!|''[[
A type of [[Villain Ball]], and subtrope of [[Laser-Guided Karma]].
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== Anime and Manga ==
* [[
** DBZ, the manga (Goku was last) and anime (Broly was last) canons, qualifies through Goku. Goku was only there due to a plot by Vegeta to overthrow Frieza due to this trope.
** Vegeta even [[Lampshades]] this shortly before Frieza transforms into his second form.
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* The Ishvalan Genocide from ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' is an interesting case. The purpose of the extermination was not to prevent a prophecy from being fulfilled or to dispose of a threatening ethnic group ''per se'', but to simply kill as many people as possible - their aim was to kill every Ishvalan, but as you would expect, there were some survivors. Now, one of those survivors was Scar, whose brother was killed in the extermination and who was determined to revenge his death to the State Alchemists... that is, in the beginning. {{spoiler|Later, he does a [[Heel Face Turn]] and starts helping the Elric brothers. In the end, he plays a crucial role in causing the [[Big Bad]]'s [[Evil Plan]] to fail and kills Bradley, the man who ordered the genocide - which he would not have done, if the genocide had not existed in the first place.}}
** And in the first anime, the purpose was {{spoiler|to make the Istvalans desperate enough to attempt to create a Philosopher's Stone}} -- something Scar {{spoiler|ends up doing by using an entire army unit of Amestris as the resources for one}}. Meanwhile, {{spoiler|Bradley is killed by one of the soldiers who was a part of the Genocide and was instilled with an immense hatred of the current system by the atrocities committed there -- Roy Mustang.}}
* In [[Yu-Gi-Oh!]] Millenium World Arc, the Millenium Items were a result of an alchemical ritual that involved sacrificing an entire village through genocide. Unfortunately for the priests of the pharaoh and the civilians 3000 years later, they forgot to kill the young {{spoiler|Bakura}}.
* In ''[[Bleach]]'', there was a disagreement among the Soul Reapers and the Quincies about how to handle wayward and malevolent spirits called Hollows, which ended in the Soul Reapers killing off every Quincy they could find. Fast forward to the present, and the revenge-filled Quincies who survived the massacre {{spoiler|have formed the Vandenreich. Suffice to say that they've turned the series from total heroic [[Plot Armor]] into [[Anyone Can Die]], extinguishing established characters left and right}}.
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== Comic Books ==
* In the comic version of ''[[Wanted]]'', the [[Big Bad]] Mister Rictus ''deliberately'' invokes this trope, though on a much smaller scale. After murdering an entire family, he leaves a single child alive, banking on the chance that he will grow up to try and take revenge on him. Yes, Mister Rictus really is ''that'' bored and crazy.
* The ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog (
* An interesting variant in one ''[[Sandman]]'' story, it's implied that Despair organises the destruction of Krypton, but decides to leave [[The Last of His Kind|a single Kryptonian alive]], assuming that he will spend his entire life mourning his lost world in despair. That Kryptonian grew up to be [[Superman|Earth's greatest hero, and a symbol of hope to billions of people]], so [[Nice Job Fixing It, Villain]].
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* In ''[[The Chronicles of Riddick]]'', the Lord Marshall of the Necromongers tries to wipe out the Furyan race, due to a prophecy that a Furyan would kill him. He misses (at least) two of them; the titular Riddick is one of them.
* In ''[[The Dark Crystal]]'', there's a prophecy that a Gelfling will undo the damage to the Dark Crystal, ending the reign of the Skeksis, so of course they go off on a Gelfling killing spree. One of the Skeksis himself, (pretending to be friendly) says "[[Self-Fulfilling Prophecy|Prophecy!]] [[Genre Savvy|Prophecy caused all this trouble!]]"
* In ''[[Tron
* ''[[Star Wars]]'', of course. They didn't kill Anakin and Padmé's children. Nor did they kill Obi-Wan. They didn't even kill Leia when they killed all the other Alderaanians. This did not work out well for Palpatine.
** It's not genocide, but the Jedi invoke a version of this trope themselves. For thousands of years, Jedi were trained from infancy in order to avoid the complications and risks (for force users) of emotional relationships and personal attachments. Then along comes the potential prophesied child and they decide that, this one time, because of the circumstances and the [[Dying Wish]] of Qui-Gon Jinn, they'll take in this little emotionally battered former-slave child (abruptly taking him from his mother who he is never allowed to see again). That one came back to bite them in the ass. HARD.
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== Literature ==
* In ''[[
* Arguably happens in ''[[Dune]]'', where {{spoiler|The Baron Harkonnen kills his rival, Duke Atreides, and attempts to do the same with his only son, thus wiping out the Atreides family line and ending the millennia old Atreides/Harkonnen blood feud. At first he thinks he's successful, but they [[Never Found the Body|never find the boy's body...]]}}
* In R.A. Salvatore's [[Forgotten Realms]] novel ''Homeland'', one Dark Elf house in Menzoberranzan is punished for failing to kill off ''all'' of a rival house's noble family by the [[Deadly Decadent Court]], which sentences the attacking house to be exterminated ''properly''. This is built into their "law"; total extermination is fine, just don't leave any witnesses. Of course, only surviving nobles count as witnesses, not ordinary underlings. Wouldn't want to actually ''discourage'' [[Klingon Promotion|competition]], now. And it would be a waste of people to kill everyone.
* In the novel ''[[Raymond E. Feist|Talon of the Silver Hawk]]'', the eponymous character is almost the [[Last of His Kind]], and ends up working (under the name Talwin Hawkins) for the guy who ordered it in a long-term plot to bring him down.
* Played with in [[
** Also different in that it was the other survivor, his grandfather, who groomed him to be an instrument of justice. The hero may have just gone off to life peacefully somewhere else if given the chance early on.
* In the first book of Laurie J. Marks' ''Elemental Logic'' series, a whole tribe is killed off because of a prophecy that indicates Bad Things for the invading army if a single member of the tribe survives. Of course, one (and only one) tribe member escapes...
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* Implied at the end of [[Out of the Dark]], again by [[David Weber]]. The Shongairi announced themselves to Earth with a series of [[Colony Drop|Colony Drops]] on Earth capitals, and when controlling Earth proved to be impossible tried to exterminate mankind with a biological weapon. They failed, and at the end Humans knows how to replicate Shongairi technology and where they live.
* A small-scale version of this is the core plot of [[Mercedes Lackey]]'s first [[Heralds of Valdemar|Vows & Honor]] short story ''Sword-Sworn''. A large force of bandits, with the aid of a wizard to strike down the sentries, ambushed the Shin'a'in clan Tale'sedrin on the way back from a horse fair and killed every one of them... save the skinny teenager they did [[Not Quite Dead|not bother making sure of]] after strangling and gang-raping her.
* ''[[
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** After the Doctor supposedly wiped out the Daleks and Time Lords when the Time Lords were prepared to destroy time itself, one more Time Lord managed to escape the War some time before. {{spoiler|Not only is he his (other) arch-enemy, but the rest of the Time Lords use him to escape.}}
* Played with in ''[[Chikyuu Sentai Fiveman]]'' where the [[Big Bad]] was defeated by the flower of the first planet he wiped out (he forgot the memo to destroy it completely).
* Near the series finale of ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]'', the Cardassians have at that point lost all standing with the Dominion and are not much more than unwilling vassals. This leads elements of the [[La Résistance|the civilian population]] to subvert the Dominion war effort through acts of sabotage. As a result of one particular incident which nearly cost them a battle, the Female Changeling orders a major Cardassian city to be wiped out by orbital bombardment as an example, and announces that the Dominion will destroy one city for every act of sabotage committed. After hearing this, however, the entire Cardassian fleet does an abrupt [[Heel Face Turn]] in favor of [[The Federation]] instead, as well as getting many Cardassian soldiers on-planet to defect. This in turn prompts the Dominion to to start slaughtering the Cardassians en masse, but since her subordinate proceeds to send out most of their troops stationed at the base to do so, this leaves their installation critically under-guarded when Damar and his crew attack Dominion Headquarters.
** Irony time: the Cardassians used the [[History Repeats|same tactics during their earlier Occupation of Bajor]], with the same results (except they were smart enough not have Bajorans fighting alongside them on the front lines of an interstellar war at the same time).
* ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'' had a variant: The Krenim were going around exterminating entire races from the timestream to make it as though their empire never fell. Unfortunately, this was a hit or miss endeavour. Sometimes, it resulted in their empire at near full strength, others it set them back centuries. But the first backfire that happened was that one of the races that helped destroy their empire in the first place also introduced some disease treatment that without which caused the death of the project lead's wife, and none of the altered timestreams had a cure. Since then, the project lead was desperately searching for a way to fix things for his own ambitions.
* In ''[[Stargate: Continuum]]'', Baal is [[Genre Savvy]] enough to know that trying to exterminate the Tau'ri will only cause eternal resentment among the survivors who will try and take revenge. Instead, he tries to woo humanity to his side peacefully with the intention of turning them into the next generation of Jaffa. Unfortunately for him, his wife didn't quite see it that way, and decided to do a bombardment of the planet after murdering him.
** In a first season episode where Daniel lands in an alternate grimmer dimension where the Goa'uld have invaded Earth, an cold-hearted O'Neill sends a nuke to the Jaffa homeworld upon learning the location from Daniel who wanted. This bites him in the ass when he pleas Teal'c to think of his son, who has been killed by the attack.
* Tried by Darken Rahl in ''[[Legend of the Seeker]]''. He got wind of a prophecy that the True Seeker would be born in a certain town, so he had his troops, led by his most trusted lieutenant, to kill all the first born sons in the town. Sure enough, Richard was spirited away, and when Rahl finds out 20 years later, [[You Have Failed Me|he executes the lieutenant]].
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== Tabletop Games ==
* In Rokugan, the setting of ''[[Legend of the Five Rings]]'', the Scorpion Clan serve as the Emperor's Underhand. They protect the Empire from hidden or subversive threats, the sort that can't be met with force of arms. Rokugan's CIA, basically. Sounds good, right? Well, the leader of the Scorpion Clan, Bayushi Shoju, discovers some hidden prophecies that foretell the return of [[Sealed Evil in
** Of course, with the rise of {{spoiler|Daigotsu}}, he might have had the prophecy completely wrong anyway.
* In the Battletech universe, during the Clan invasion, Clan Smoke Jaguar [[War Ships]] power up their weapons and glass a Draconis Combine colony world in an attempt to break the back of the stubborn Combine resistance. Not only did this serve to alienate their allies, drive the Combine to even greater heights of stubborn defense, but, when a defector revealed the Exodus road, the closely guarded secret route to the Clan homeworlds, the battle cry (and mission) of the armada of the Restored Star League Defense Force was "Clan Smoke Jaguar Must Die!"
* ''[[Magic:
* Inverted in ''[[Warhammer 40000|Warhammer 40,000]]'' of all places. When the Imperium first encountered the Tau, they were a race of non-technological primitives living on one world. They were scheduled for routine genocide ([[Crapsack World|it's that kind of universe]]), but the paperwork got lost somewhere. A thousand years or so later, and the Tau are the fastest-growing alien empire on the Eastern Fringe, and a major thorn in the Imperium's side. Keep in mind the Tau never realized the Imperium even existed, much less had them slated for death.
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== Video Games ==
* In ''Bastion'', the Caelondian government {{spoiler|had the Calamity created in order to completely eradicate the Ura to prevent them from ever having to go to war again. When he finds out, the Ura scientist that created the Calamity sabotages it so that it destroys the world instead.}}
* In ''[[
** In ''[[
** In ''[[
* [[The Old Republic]], introduces a heroic version as part of the backstory; A large part of the Sith Empire's motivation is revenge after the Republic [[It Would Be Rude To Say Genocide|exterminated]] the rest of their society.
** And in [[Knights of the Old Republic]], One of the only people who escape the bombardment of Taris is the exact person Malak intended it to kill.
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* Played with in the ''[[Metroid]]'' series. ''Metroid 2: Return of Samus'' has Samus tasked with exterminating the Metroids on their home planet of SR388; the game ends with Samus sparing a single hatchling, which has imprinted on her. ''Super Metroid'' starts off with scientists studying the larval Metroid making the discovery that the Metroids have abilities that could be used for the good of galactic civilization, right before the Space Pirates massacre the researchers and abduct the larva so they can build another Metroid army; the next time Samus encounters the larva, it's grown to horrendous proportions and almost kills Samus before it recognizes her. Then, during the final battle, it performs a [[Tear Jerker|truly heartbreaking]] [[Heroic Sacrifice]], saving Samus from Mother Brain's onslaught and giving her the unstoppable Hyper Beam weapon. (Then ''Metroid Fusion'' reveals that the Metroids on SR388 were keeping an even more dangerous threat in check, which is [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|another trope entirely...]])
** Samus herself is portrayed as the sole survivor of a Space Pirate attack on the mining colony of K-2L. Who would have thought that cute, 3-year-old girl would come back to bite them in the ass so hard.
* [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|Iosa the Invincible]] of ''[[
** For that matter, Iji is one of two known human survivors of the Tasen Alpha Strike and subsequent invasion of Earth, and the other is playing [[Mission Control]] for her.
* The Covenant failed to commit genocide on mankind in Halo. It started in 2525 when the High Prophets found out that the Humans were the inheritors to the Forerunners, the species that the Covenant worshiped as gods, and they realized that the truth about it would splinter the Covenant if it ever was spread. They decided to wipe out Humanity so that no one would find the truth. 30 years later, all the High Prophets were killed, the Elites became the Humans' best friends, High Charity fell to the Flood only to be destroyed by Master Chief, the Covenant lost billions of soldiers in the battles of Reach, Earth, the Halo and the Ark and the Covenant is now nothing but a shadow of its former self.
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** The new ''Forerunner Saga'' novels reveal that the Forerunners and the ancient human interstellar empire fought a devastating war, with the Forerunners winning and literally blasting humanity back to the Stone Age. Unfortunately for them, the humans had plenty of research and experience with the Flood, which was destroyed when Earth fell. Then the Forerunners themselves get wiped out by the Flood.
* In [[Mass Effect]], The Quarians try to do this to the Geth to [[Defied Trope|defy]] [[AI Is a Crapshoot]]. To quote [[Se7en|John Doe]], it didn't work.
* The third variant occurs in the ''[[
* A fairly straightforward case in ''[[Bayonetta]]'': the [[Big Bad]] {{spoiler|Father Balder}}, the last Lumen Sage, began the Witch Hunts against the Umbra Witches (in which the titular heroine is a member of) more or less [[For the Evulz]]. Naturally, Bayonetta stops this plot.
* In the ''[[Prince of Persia|Forgotten Sands]]'' variant for the PSP - there are four different games on different consoles under that title - an ifrit hears of a prophecy stating that a lonely hero with royal blood will kill him, so he starts assassinating people who are part of Persia's royal family. The Prince of Persia, upset over the deaths of his cousins, then tracks down and kills the ifrit. [[Self-Fulfilling Prophecy]].
* [[Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty]] does a subverted variation: The Patriots had Dead Cell liquidated (IE, most of its members killed off) for terrorist attacks it apparently committed. In actuality, the Dead Cell unit was actually framed for the Terrorist activities by the Patriots (in other words, it was actually the Patriots who did terrorist attacks on its own country), and more importantly, they deliberately allowed some survivors to exist in Dead Cell specifically to get them angered enough to attempt to challenge them and more importantly further use them in the S3 plan.
* In ''[[
** In ''[[
* In ''[[
* A variant occurs in ''[[God of War (
* In the first ''[[
* In ''[[Dragon Age]]: Origins'', during the Human Noble origin, Arl Howe attempts to wipe out the entire Cousland linewhen the main army leaves Castle Highever to fight the darkspawn. However, thanks to the Grey Warden Duncan, the player survives, becomes a Warden, gains armies of support and powerful allies, and eventually returns to Howe's manor to express your disapproval of his ambitions by rearranging his face.
* [[Double Subverted]] in ''[[Mega Man ZX]]'' and its sequel, ''[[Mega Man ZX]] Advent''. In a similar manner to the [[Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty|S3 Plan]], Serpent (and ultimately Albert) were heavily implied to have deliberately spared only a handful of people during Maverick Raids in order to get them to become Mega Men and thus participate in the Game of Destiny to become the Mega Man King. However, by the end of the game, regardless of the deliberate attempt to spare them or not, it still put an end to their plans and presumably the Game of Destiny.
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== Web Comics ==
* In ''[[The Order of the Stick
** And in comic 842, boy does Darth V's Familicide coming back to bite him/her in the ass. {{spoiler|The Draketooth family were all part dragon.}}
* {{spoiler|[[Gambit Pileup|Linda, brainwashed by the government, actually the Britjas under a false flag]]}}, all from ''[[Walkyverse|It's Walky!]]'', killed all the so-called "Martians" in [[The Seventies]]. "So-called" because {{spoiler|Mars was just an outpost of an intergalactic empire}}. Of [[Cthulhu Mythos]]-like creatures who'd been leaving around all that [[Magic From Technology|sufficiently advanced]] [[Imported Alien Phlebotinum]] that drove half the comic's plots. This goes about as well as you'd expect.
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* Sometime during the Dominion War in [[Terinu]]'s past, the human rebels attempted to destroy the Varn Dominion's main power source. Said source consisting of childlike sentient beings known as the Ferin. The Terran Federation trying to both finish the job and keeping the secret from their allied races is a major plot point.
* A few centuries into the back story of ''[[Errant Story]]'', the Elves discovered that some Half-Elves may go crazy and spontaneously develop inexplicable talent in destructive magic. The Elves forbade cross-breeding with Humans and organized a branch of the military to hunt down Half-Elves. They haven't been exterminated-- there are at least enough Half-Elves to populate a hidden village-- and no prophecy is involved, but one Half-Elf has absorbed a comatose Elven deity and is leading an army of the descendants of the Elves' Human bodyguards to wipe out the last surviving Elven city.
** Even better: The reason that there's just one Elven city left? They were so [[Can't Argue
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== Religion ==
* [[
** In Egypt, Pharaoh commanded that all male Hebrew babies must be put to death. The lone escapee, Moses, got the Hebrews free and inflicted massive damage to the Egyptians.
*** And before that Pharaoh attempted to secretly have every male baby Hebrew killed at birth by a group of Hebrew Midwives... who decided they were having no part of it. (Lying to Pharaoh that the babies were born before they arrived to midwife the mothers)
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