Hate Sink: Difference between revisions

* ''[[Blaz Blue]]'': Yuuki Terumi is a weird zig-zagged example. [[In-Universe]], he's the personification of this trope, being a sadistic and cruel [[Troll]] who thinks of himself as the center of the universe, and ruins everyone's lives [[For the Evulz]], to the point he even uses this trope to survive. Out of universe, though, he's [[Love to Hate|beloved by the fans]] for his design, cool powers, accomplishments, and generally being praised for succeeding at being this trope.

* ''[[Undertale]]'' invokes this trope with [[Big Bad|Flowey]]. For most of the game, he's shown as a [[Jerkass|repulsive]] [[The Sociopath|sociopath]] who tries to kill you at the beginning of the game, {{spoiler| steals the six souls you collected ''twice'', uses his resetting powers to torture the player, and overall tries to prevent you from getting your happy ending.}} This is done to make [[The Reveal]] about him all the more effective: {{spoiler|Namely, his true identity as [[The Lost Lenore|Asriel]] [[Nice Guy|Dreemurr]], and consequently, the [[Came Back Wrong|most]] [[Tragic Monster|tragic]] [[Jerkass Woobie|character]] of the game.}} As such, his status as this can be [[Subverted Trope|subverted]] with both the Pacifist Run ({{spoiler|When he, as Asriel, recovers his compassion for enough time to apologize for his actions}}) and the Genocide Run ({{spoiler|When he's killed by [[Bigger Bad|the Fallen Child]] while [[Ain't Too Proud to Beg|pleading for mercy]], making his fate [[Alas, Poor Villain|too horrifying to get any satisfaction from it]].}})

* ''[[Animal Crossing]]'' has another invoked example in [[No Fair Cheating|Resetti]], [[Foil|in a completely opposite role to the aforementioned]] [[Undertale|Flowey]]. His main job is to prevent players from resetting the game by acting as a deterrent, which means acting like a loud [[Jerkass]] by lecturing the player endlessly and forcing him to say certain words for the player to be left alone. [[Gone Horribly Right|It worked a little too well (there were reports of young children crying because of his attitude)]], so he was [[Rescued From the Scrappy Heap|toned down]] in ''New Leaf'' by making him an optional feature, giving certain options when he appears to prevent his lectures, and emphasizing his [[Jerkass Woobie|pitiful traits]] and [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold|benevolent intentions]]. [[Never Live It Down|Don't expect fans to live his previous reputation down, though.]]

* ''[[Digital Devil Saga]]'' doesn't have a clear cut villain, as all antagonists have legitimate reasons for what they do and have extremely cool traits to boot. Because of this, the duology gives us {{spoiler|[[Mad Scientist|Serph Sheffield]], [[The Hero|Serph]]'s human template and [[Bigger Bad|the catalyst for every tragedy in the story]]. He was a sociopathic [[Smug Snake]] who wanted to become [[God]] by performing callous experiments on [[The Woobie|Sera]], [[Bitch in Sheep's Clothing|whom he frequently manipulated at every turn]]; dismissing [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold|Heat O'Brien]]'s concerns about it, and has him killed for trying to stop him, [[Hoist by His Own Petard|which led to Sera snapping and angering God himself, transforming him into a demon and killing him not soon after]]. Poor [[Nice Guy|Serph]] was ''horrified'' about this, and when fighting him as the Fake Varna, he shows he hasn't changed one bit, which makes all the more satisfying when you finally kick his ass.}}

** Blaze Heatnix and Infinity Mijinion are a lot easier to hate than the rest of the Nightmare Investigators, who are either tragic, sympathetic, or merely a lot less severe in their attitudes and crimes. Heatnix was an asshole who endangered his companions as a disaster relief worker and would leave them to die, not giving a damn because he thought they were too weak to live. Meanwhile, Mijinion was also prone to endangering his coworkers while testing out heavy machinery and didn't care, causing them to murder him and cover it up as an accident with no one caring to look into it any deeper. Now that they've been revived, they're bloodthirsty and willing to kill anyone they look down on... which is basically everyone else in the world, with Mijinion being particularly obnoxious and haughty about it.

* There aren't any true villains in ''[[Stardew Valley]]'' due to it being a farming simulator, but Morris is so unlikeable that he may as well be one. He's a representative of the corrupt Joja Corporation who seeks to establish a Jojamart in the valley, and goes out of his way to antagonize the town's local shopkeeper Pierre by poaching his customers by offering to slash his prices so they're way cheaper than his. He's also written letters expressing mock-pity for his shop floundering and offers to take him on as hired help and pay him ''5G'' (Around 5 cents or so) an hour. He's so smug and cold-blooded that when you restore the community center, it doesn't matter if he's chased out of town in a panic or {{spoiler|''punched though the ceiling'' by Pierre}}, it's satisfying to dump him on his ass either way.

* ''[[Bug Fables]]'': While a vile piece of work himself, the Wasp King doesn't go out of his way to antagonize the good guys and is a pretty impersonal foe at the end of the day. The same does ''not'' go for [[Bitch in Sheep's Clothing|Mothiva]], Team Snakemouth's explorer rival. Despite acting the part of a friendly bubbly popstar, it's all an act for her fans. When she's out of the public eye, she's a rude and antagonistic pain in the ass who attacks Team Snakemouth twice in order to steal their glory. The second time is especially bad, since she's threatening to ruin important negotiations with another kingdom to help save the world and doesn't give a damn when [[The Big Guy|Kabbu]] tells her this. The one guy she's decent to is her partner Zasp, but that's because he's useful to have around. If he falls in battle first during Team Mothiva's boss fights, she's every bit as rude and bitchy to him as she is with everyone else.

* As befitting of one of the [[Darker and Edgier|darkest]] takes on the [[Batman]] universe, the ''Batman: Arkham'' series has quite a few nasty, despicable punks that will make you want to bash their skulls in with a Batarang.

** Unlike the Tinkerer - who is at least ''supposed'' to be sympathetic ([[Unintentionally Unsympathetic|with mixed results]], but still) - Simon Krieger's designed to attract all the player's bile during the main campaign of ''[[Spider-Man: Miles Morales]]''. He's a smug, sociopathic blowhard and textbook corporate douchebag willing to allow his dangerous new energy resource to poison the citizens of Harlem with the justification that no one will care about the deaths of sick people in a bad part of town. [[Bad Boss|His own mercenaries are treated with the same kind of disdain]], and he's more than happy to screw over anyone who works with him if he can benefit from it in some way. His creepy willingness to torture and dissect the teenage Miles don't win him any likability points either.

* The fourth ''[[God of War]]'' game doesn't have a [[Big Bad]] per se, and since most of [[Jerkass Gods|the Norse Gods]] don't appear in this game and [[The Heavy]] {{spoiler|The Stranger/Baldur}} is [[Jerkass Woobie|surprisingly]] [[Tragic Villain|sympathetic]], there's Thor's son Modi to take up the mantle. Unlike his brother Magni (who at least has ''some'' [[Even Evil Has Standards|standards]] and [[Noble Demon|decency]]), Modi's a [[Dirty Coward|cowardly thug]] who constantly throws out misogynistic taunts about Kratos' late wife, as well as some seriously ''creepy'' comments about his young son Atreus that have heavy pedophilic undertones to them. Any fathers playing the game will absolutely want to bash the little creep's skull in out of sympathy for Kratos.

* [[Villain Has A Point|He may have valid points in being so harsh towards the depraved outlaws that plague the old West]], but Pinkerton Detective Edgar Ross from ''[[Red Dead Redemption]]'' is clearly designed to be so utterly unlikable that it's impossible to even remotely agree with him despite this. He's already a big enough creep for holding former outlaw John Marston's family hostage and blackmailing him into killing the remnants of his old gang for him, acting like a smug little prick every step of the way. But when he releases Abigail and young Jack, he {{spoiler|betrays him and leads a platoon to John's home and shoots him dead, grinning smugly during his last moments.}} [[Glory Hound|He even goes on to claim that ''he'' was the one responsible for taking out the remnants of the Van der Linde gang]]... but unfortunately for him (and fortunately for us), he never stopped to consider that [[Dramatic Irony|the consequences of his own crimes would come back to haunt him they way they did with John Marston]], and {{spoiler|John's son Jack kills his smug ass in a duel three years later}}.

** Micah Bell from [[Red Dead Redemption 2|the sequel]] not only eclipses Ross in sheer loathsomeness, but has made his mark as one of the most hated villains in video game ''history'', to the point that there's an entire [https://www.reddit.com/r/FuckMIcah/ subreddit] dedicated to hating him (with even his voice actor joining in!). Every ounce of hate he gets is completely warranted: he's a sadistic mass-murdering asshole, kicks and later on ''kills'' Jack's dog Cain, is openly racist and heavily implied to be a rapist, {{spoiler|sells out the rest of the Van Der Linde gang to the Pinkertons}}, and depending on your playstyle, {{spoiler|kills the lovable Arthur Morgan.}} Thankfully, {{spoiler|his fate is similar to that of Ross's, as you end the game by playing as John Marston, who hunts him down and kills him for his betrayal.}}

* [[Big Bad|The Origami Killer]] in ''[[Heavy Rain]]'' is set up to be this, thanks to the ridiculous sadism he shows as he murders children and forces their fathers to endure hell in a bid to save them. It's subverted later on once it's revealed that he is {{spoiler|Scott Shelby}}, who is a very sympathetic and even likable man with a fucked-up childhood that ''explains'' why he does what he does, even if there's no justifying it.

* Pigma Dengar from ''[[Star Fox]]'' has his fair share of entertaining moments, but he's a lot less likable than his Star Wolf wingmen and even Andross himself. A total swine of a man [[Pig Man|in more ways than one]], Pigma was a loyal member of the original Star Fox team before selling them out to Andross and playing a role in the death of James McCloud. He's disgustingly proud of being a greedy traitor, and cruelly taunts Fox, James' son, by ''making fun of his dying screams''. When you shoot him down during the boss fights against Star Wolf, it's hard not to smile when he whines and complains about his misfortune.

* The '''[[Dragon Age]]'' franchise has plenty of despicable jerks, but Arl Rendon Howe from ''[[Dragon Age: Origins]]'' is arguably the worst. While Loghain at least [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|has an understandable reason]] for his evil deeds, his underling Howe (his dismissive smugness portrayed ''excellently'' by VA [[Tim Curry]]) is little more than a power hungry coward; players who choose Human Noble origin are likely to hate him the most, where his betrayal of the PC's father is there for all to see and [[Quisling]] behavior is the most pronounced. The man is even willing to murder children to fulfill his selfish goals. While you are able to gain revenge - and a great deal of Catharsis - later, he maintains his [[Entitled Bastard]] delusions to his final breath, and a lot of players were upset that they couldn't make his death more agonizing than it was.