Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

{{quote|'''Spike:''' Taking up smoking, are you? <br />

Smoking is generally considered bad for you. Thus, smoking is portrayed by the villain, so as to drive home the [[Anvilicious]] [[An Aesop|Aesop]] that [[Drugs Are Bad]].

== Anime and Manga ==

* Used unusually in ''[[Darker Than Black]]''. "November 11" is forced to smoke [[Power At a Price|every time he invokes his contractor's power]], and he ''hates'' tobacco smoke...

* ''[[One Piece]] '': Smokers who are Luffy's allies, such as crew member Sanji, smoke cigarettes. Those who are his enemies are more often the ones with cigars.

* Alan of ''[[MAR]]'' is a cigar-smoker who meets the "badass" exception.

* ''[[Black Lagoon]]'''s [[Anti-Hero|Anti Heroes]] mainly smoke cigarettes, with the main cigar-smoker of the cast being [[Magnificent Bastard|Balalaika]].

* Gilbert in ''[[Pandora Hearts]]'' could fall under sexy smoking. In an omake, however, the other characters make fun of him for smoking. Then they make fun of him for trying to quit (eight times now, in fact). Then they make fun of him for failing to quit (...eight times). [[Butt Monkey|He gets a lot of abuse for everyone's entertainment]].

* Choji Suitengu of ''[[Speed Grapher]]'' does not just smoke long cigarettes. He smoked using rolled up [[Money to Burn|10,000 yen bills]].

* Gokudera from ''[[Katekyo Hitman Reborn]]!'' is a chainsmoker and makes it look really cool - partly justified in that he needs it to light his bombs and cuts down when he gets new powers.

* When {{spoiler|Tsubaki Kasugano}} from ''[[Mirai Nikki]]'' shows [[The Fake Cutie|her true colors]] to Yukki and Yuno, she pulls out a pipe and smokes on it. Definitely evil smoking.

*** Gambit was also known to smoke in his early appearances in the 90s.

** Mob boss Kingpin originally had a cigarette holder, but switched to villainous cigars after they went out of style.

** In reprints of the original 1940's [[Captain America]], Steve Rogers can be seen smoking a pipe. This gets the "correct to the era" exemption (probably why Marvel didn't photoshop the pipe out).

** Dr. Stephen Strange, the man who eventually became [[Doctor Strange]], is shown lighting a cigarette ''in the operating room'' immediately after performing a surgery. In context, it indicates how self-centered he was.

* ''[[Fables (Comic Book)|Fables]]'' has a [[Big Badass Wolf]] who smokes cigars to {{spoiler|mask the scent of his One True Love}}. He's a heroic badass example, but unusual in that he has a specific reason for smoking.

* Miss Misery in ''Sleeper''. For her to stay perfectly healthy, she has to do bad things, which is why she's always seen smoking.

* [[Batman]] has been seen smoking a pipe, while in his Bruce Wayne identity as late as 1980 in an issue of New Teen Titans. He was addressing Robin in a fatherly way while relaxing in his armchair.

* ''[[Preacher (Comic Book)]]''. Jesse smokes constantly, even pausing to light up mid fight on more than one occasion.

* [[Lucky Luke]] used to smoke until he quit and switched to a ''piece of straw'' circa 1983.

** [[Frosty the Snowman]], according to [[The Other Wiki]].

** Emperor Zombie in ''The Amazing Screw-On Head'' actually smokes a ''scholar'' to learn everything he knows. Miraculously, it actually works. The fact that he was smoking and killing a person at the exact same time kind of seals the deal on that one.

* [[Sin City]] is filled with smokers:

** [[Anti-Hero|Marv and Dwight]] both smoke cigarettes.

== [[Film]] ==

** Cruella DeVil not only smokes, but for added evil, uses a cigarette holder. Indeed, no animated film ever made smoking look more disgusting than this film with Cruella polluting the air with green smoke and putting out her cigarette in a pastry. In addition, the quick scene where Jasper Badun contemptuously flicks cigar ash onto Horace's sandwich bread is even more stomach churning. Cruella also has this habit in the live-action films. The sequel, ''102 Dalmatians'' uses her attitude towards smoking as an indicator of her "Ella" personality (who now hated it) and the return of "Cruella" (who loved it). Disney released quit-smoking ads on their DVDs featuring clips of Cruella and her ''greeeeeen'' smoke.

** Roger smokes as well, but he smokes a pipe.

* In ''[[Song of the South]]'', [[Magical Negro|Uncle Remus]] smokes a pipe. Along with one of the animated frogs. [[Old Shame|Disney's already tried to cover up THAT film]] for [[Fair for Its Day|entirely]] [[Unfortunate Implications|different]] [[Moral Guardians|reasons]]...

* Disney:

** Donald Duck, as much as people don't remember it now, was a sailor. He cursed up a storm (in duck quacks), he got mad, and yes, he smoked cheap stogies. Huey, Dewey, and Louie once got a taste of the 'forced excessive smoking' part of the trope above. Of course, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQuKK3uPJ2I it being Donald...]

** The Caterpillar smokes a hookah ominously, as he does in the book.

* Soldiers smoke in war movies. Grunts are generally seen smoking cigarettes, while colonels and generals smoke cigars.

* In ''[[Santa Claus Conquers the Martians]] '', Santa Claus is depicted smoking a pipe in many scenes before being kidnapped by martians.

* A subversion and a straight example feature at the same time in ''[[Chicago]]''. "The Cell Block Tango" Velma Kelly being very sexy and smoking. But she's an incarcerated murderess who sings "HE HAD IT COMIN'!" about the victim, so she's also evil.

** So the smoking makes her more evil than all the non-smokers with [[Implausible Deniability]].

* Helena's [[Evil Twin]] in ''[[Mirror Mask]]'' smokes (and snogs goth boys! Ick!), though never on screen. Even the commentary admits that this is a bit odd.

** The Comedian chomps cigars, lighting one with the torch of his flamethrower, to show that he's a [[Badass]] as well as a [[Jerkass]].

** Silhouette uses a cigarette holder as she does in the comics.

* In ''[[Independence Day]]'', Steve only smokes cigars at the end of any aerial dogfight he wins, because he's the hero. David, on the other hand, spends the whole movie as an over the top green type. He berated his father for smoking cigarettes. But after he and Steve have saved the world (and they light up Victory Cigars together), he cheerfully tells his father, "Oh, I could get used to it."

* In ''[[The Core]]'', Zimsky was the self-serving [[Jerkass]] through the entire movie, and had been denied his cigs by the rest of the cast. Due to the tendency of [[Disaster Movie|Disaster Movies]] to off the cast one member at a time, he finally ends up alone with his cigs, just in time for a [[Redemption Equals Death]] soliloquy.

* Applegate in ''[[Damn Yankees]]'' mentions that he's trying to quit smoking after demonstrating his trick of pulling a lighted cigarette out of the air. One wonders whether [[Fire and Brimstone Hell]] would stop smoking if he did...

* Mr. Banks in ''[[Mary Poppins]]'' smoked a pipe. We never actually ''see'' this, but he mentions it in "The Life I Lead":

{{quote| ''At 6:01, I march through my door''<br />

''My slippers, sherry and pipe are due at 6:02''<br />

''Consistent is the life I lead!'' }}

* The entire cast of ''[[Event Horizon]]'' shares a cigarette early in the film, which works as kind of a "Three on a match" callback. Thing is, that includes both good and evil characters.

* In ''[[Kill Bill]]'' Elle Driver smokes, and it is definitely evil smoking.

** Papa Midnite subverts the cigarillo trope by being a good/neutral witch-doctor turned bartender.

** Constantine smoked excessively, only to find out he has cancer at the beginning of the movie. {{spoiler|After Constantine willingly sacrifices himself to save the world (allowing him to enter heaven), Satan ends up curing his cancer to keep him alive so he can claim him later.}} At the end of the movie, he's seen popping gum in his mouth.

* The evil Smokers in ''[[Waterworld]]'' not only rely on smoke-spewing gasoline engines, but also seem to have an unlimited source of cigarettes.

* In the 1997 version of ''[[The Borrowers]]'', Mr. Potter smoked a cigar while wearing a suit and being played by overweight actor John Goodman. Guess what his alignment was.

* ''[[Inglourious Basterds]]'': SS officer Hans Landa's [[Faux Affably Evil]] personality is embellished by his huge and cartoonishly extravagant calabash pipe.

* In ''[[The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus]]'', [[Louis Cypher|Mr. Nick]] is usually seen with a cigarette holder in his mouth.

== [[Literature]] ==

* In the famous Christmas poem ''Twas The Night Before Christmas'', [[Santa Claus]] smokes, and the smoke encircles his head like a wreath.

* [[Sherlock Holmes]] also smokes a pipe in the adaptations of his story. Probably because the screechy violin and the fact that he did cocaine in the book made it a case of choosing the lesser evil. He also smokes cigarettes in the original stories, but that detail rarely makes it into other adaptations, probably at least in part because of the prominence of this trope.

* [[Discworld]]

** On a minor note, the goddess Anoia<ref>Goddess of Things Getting Stuck In Drawers, but after Moist von Lipwig namedrops her for a bit of "providence" the spike in popularity has her tipped for Goddess of Lost Causes</ref> is also a chainsmoker, and smelling cigarette smoke is supposedly a sign that you're in her presence, but it doesn't come up much since she features most prominently in Going Postal and Making Money, and thus her presence is rather overshadowed by that of Adora Belle.

* Stephane Maturin of Patrick O'Brian's ''[[Aubrey-Maturin]]'' series smokes a pipe on occasion. He also struggles with a laudanum addiction throughout the series, gets addicted to coca leaves in the later books, and experiments with various other drugs that he comes across.

* In ''[[Forgotten Realms]]'', one of [http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Elminster_Aumar Elminster's] "trademarks" is pipe spewing vile blue or green smoke. [[Justified Trope]]: magic in FR requires material components (burning pipe provides several) and Elminster is immune to mundane ailments like smoker's cough (...or some poisons, or need to sleep). Pipe itself holds lots of enchantments (e.g. it's able to follow owner, teleporting when necessary) and is activation key to some others.

** Saruman is also a smoker, secretly picking it up after having seen Gandalf smoke, although in the open he ridiculed him for it. In the movie he makes a wonderfully suggestive snarky comment about it to Gandalf: "Your love of the halflings' leaf has clearly slowed your mind."

** The Balrog smokes too. Okay, that's because he's on ''fire.''

* In ''[[The Dark Tower]]'', Roland smokes. [[Deliberate Values Dissonance|He thinks it's healthy.]] Given that he lives in an alternate world, it may very well be.

** It was more that he would accept a cigarette when someone offered him one, rather than fretting about the health implications of one cigarette every couple of months or so; there is nothing to suggest he had acquired a pack-a-day habit.

* The character Halloween smokes cloves in ''Idlewild'' as part of his teenage rebellion. He is very cool. The character Pandora also smokes cloves, presumably for the same reason, perhaps because {{spoiler|she loves Halloween and wants to share something with him.}}

* Everybody in ''[[Atlas Shrugged]]'' smokes and one of the very many [[Character Filibuster|filibusters]] in that novel is about how appropriate it is to smoke while thinking: this notorious "point of light" argument is one thing that Rand haters and Rand fans both generally agree on.

** Elsewhere in the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]], Lando Calrissian occasionally smokes a cigarra, but not at all often. Possibly only when he was young.

** Not the only one, Professor Grubbly-Plank smokes as well

* [[Kinky Friedman]] smokes cigars but [[Badass]] may not be the best way to describe him.

* The early ''[[The Cat Who Series|Cat Who...]]'' books were written in the 1960s and depicted the main character as a pipe smoker. The series was discontinued after only a few books, but revived close to 20 years later. At that point, attitudes about smoking had greatly changed and within a couple books into the relaunch, a female doctor convinced Qwilleran to drop the pipe.

* In [[The Stainless Steel Rat]], the protagonist smokes cigars. He used to have an alternate persona (used to actually commit crimes) which smoked cigarettes.

* The [[James Bond]] novels ditch all the smoking tropes here. Good guys smoke, bad guys don't. If the bad guy does smoke, it's invariably cheap, low quality cigarettes. Bond himself smokes as an indicator of how little he cares about anything. He knows he's hurting himself by doing it, he just doesn't care.

** Practically everyone smokes in ''[[Caprica]]'', to tie in with the general "1950s USA in space" atmosphere.

* In an homage to the 1978 ''Superman'' film, ''[[Smallville]]'''s Lois Lane is seen smoking in her debut episode, however she's trying to quit, and apparently does so because we never see her smoke again or hear it mentioned.

** Morticia Addams subverted it. She'd ask, "Do you mind if I smoke?" then began randomly emitting smoke.

** Gomez, on the other hand, smoked cigars.

** That second time it's Angel, not Angelus. It's kinda a plot point. The first time it's definitely Angelus.

** He also smokes in season 2 during a flashback, as Angel.

* Sarah Connor has quit smoking by time of ''[[The Sarah Connor Chronicles]]''. Prone to lighting up in T2, one episode shows her in a bar proving the habit well and truly kicked. Just as well for her, too, since one of the things she missed while time-travelling was California's smoking ban.

* Lampshaded in an episode of ''[[Flash Forward 2009]]'': "Only villains smoke. We know this, right? You may call me Flosso, and I'm a villain."

* None of the main characters on ''[[Frasier]]'' is a regular smoker, and Frasier and Niles usually come down against cigarettes - they are doctors, after all. Their intolerance apparently does not extend to ''cigars'', however, which Niles, Daphne, and Martin all enjoy puffing on in "Adventures in Paradise, Pt. 1".

* ''[[Melrose Place]]''

{{quote| '''Glottis''': It's not just a job, it's what I was created to do! If I get any farther away from a car than this, I'll get sick and die! It's like I'm not happy unless I'm breathing in the thick, black, nauseating fumes!<br />

'''Manny''': *takes a very long drag of his cigarette* [[Hypocritical Humor|I can't imagine...]] }}

* Elvis in ''[[God Hand]]'' constantly smokes a massive cigar and uses it to fight. When he dies, the cigar goes out.

** As a subversion Solid Snake is always berated by his friends for smoking.

** Even in ''[[Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater]]'' Paramedic tells Naked Snake that scientists have found evidence that smoking caused cancer. But being 1964, Snake doubts that to be true.

*** On a related note: the installing screens. Which would explain why Snake's health is so bad. Smoking for half an hour straight can do that to a man.

* The Glukkons from the ''[[Oddworld]]'' series all smoke cigars, due to being a race of [[Corrupt Corporate Executive|Corrupt Corporate Executives]].

* Cid Highwind from ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'' is most often seen with a cigarette. And keeps a pack held by his goggles. He actually uses them to light a stick of dynamite in one [[Limit Break]].

** Though his [[Kingdom Hearts|other major appearance]] has his smoking habit replaced with him holding a reed in his mouth, and he's not seen to do much smoking in ''Advent Children''...but then he lights up a victory cigarette after blowing up a reactor in ''[[Dirge of Cerberus]]''. This may be because in ''Advent Children'' he appears very briefly and spends most of the time killing a gigantic monster, and ''[[Kingdom Hearts]] '' is a [[Disneyfication|Disney game.]]

** In gameplay, smoking a pack of cigarettes restores a little EVE (magic points) at the expense of a an equal amount of health. Drinking booze does the opposite.

* Captain Price in ''[[Modern Warfare]]'' is shown smoking a cigar before the mission Crew Expendable. In in the sequel, Soap, who served under him, smokes a cigar before the mission Cliffhanger.

** Price also lights up a few times in ''MW3'', most notably after he {{spoiler|hangs Makarov from the ceiling of the Hotel Oasis.}}

* ''[[Soul Nomad and The World Eaters]]'' uses the Evil Smoking for Lobo, one of several of the [[Complete Monster]] Villains, a [[Black Market|Black Marketeer]] who has no compunctions, amongst other things with selling children for sexual slavery to [[Aristocrats Are Evil|corrupt people in high places]] like Hawthorne. There's also Christophe, who represents Good Smoking and has a pipe. The two are later revealed to be former friends.

** One of the arcade games has [[Dummied Out]] sprites of Heat Man smoking. While he is evil, the fact that he's based on a Zippo lighter probably has more to do with it.

* ''[[Mass Effect 2]]''

** The Illusive Man enjoys a good cigarette while doing...well, everything we've ever seen him do, really. An evil example who [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|claims to be good]].

** The Blue Suns mechanic guy in Garrus' recruitment mission smokes, and Shepard seems visibly annoyed. Although that could be because the mechanic blew the smoke right in Shepard's face.

** A couple of servers give the Soldier a huge Cuban cigar, for the express purpose of making him ''more'' badass, as the description for the thing says. Nowadays he has a misc items, a pair of mutton chops, this gives him a pipe, complete with a visible trail of smoke.

** The Spy is rarely seen ''without'' a cigarette. One of his taunts involves flicking his cigarette onto his enemy's corpse! However, he is also French.

** This is era-correct; the game takes place in the sixties.

** When the [[Pyromaniac]]'s around, ''everyone'' smokes. Because they're ''on fire''.

** ''[[City of Heroes]]'' does have a Cigar costume piece.

* Mr. Leland in ''[[Alpha Protocol]]'' is chewing a big, fat cigar throughout his debriefing with Mike, {{spoiler|and if Mike accepts his offer and joins Halbech at the end, Leland gives him a cigar to seal the deal at the end of the game, signifying his [[Face Heel Turn]]}}.

* Gentleman Cho'Goth skin of ''[[League of Legends]]'' features a pipe to go with the monocle and glass of wine.

== [[Web Comics]] ==

* Enkidu of ''Heroes of Lesser Earth'' is an [[Anti-Hero]] type who is always chomping on a cigar.

* Miriam from ''[[Out There]]'' smokes, and gets the sexy rule suspension. She's got a pile of character flaws, but not enough to mark her down as evil.

* In the "Bare Breasted Brawl" storyline of ''[[The Blonde Marvel]]'', Victoria smokes a cigarillo to make her breasts larger.

* [[Dominic Deegan]] smoked a pipe until his younger brother accidentally healed his lungs.

** This was a plot point in an early arc - Luna's mother cursed him to have a fish fall on his head whenever he smoked.

** Mr Egbert is an example of Good Smoking - he smokes an old-fashioned pipe almost constantly (his online handle is even 'pipefan[[Arc Number|413]]'), and is portrayed as a [[Bumbling Dad]] and [[Doting Parent]] who genuinely cares about his son.

** Snowman, on the other hand, is an example of Evil Smoking, complete with a cigarette holder she likes to {{spoiler|stab people with because it is also a lance}}.

** This being ''[[Homestuck]]'', it eventually gets [[Up to Eleven]] when we see John's Dad's WALLET MODUS contains, among other things, a pile of pipes that is about the same size as John, as well as 10 ''tons'' of pipe tobacco.

* ''[[The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage]]'': Ada Lovelace, while not a pipe smoker in reality, has been given one for the purposes of this comic. It does, however, represent [[Badass|Isambard Kingdom Brunel]]'s 40-a-day cigar habit fairly accurately.

** The company recently announced that smoking of ''any'' kind, [[But Not Too Evil|by any character]], would never again be depicted in a film released under the Disney Studios label.

** ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'' shows they are holding true to that edict. In "Last Train To Bustville", we see Glenda the engineer with a pipe. It's a bubble pipe.

* ''[[The Venture Brothers]]'''

** Dr. Girlfriend gets the "sexy" rule suspension...almost. She has a gravely mannish voice from years of smoking.

** Brock Sampson almost always has a cigarette in his mouth, and has the bad-ass exception ''in spades''.

** Professor Impossible smokes a pipe. He's an expy of Reed Richards, with an old-fashioned, pseudo-wholesome personality.

* Paw Rugg from [[Hanna-Barbera]]'s "The Hillbilly Bears" smokes a corncob pipe. So does his wife, Maw.