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Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Difference between revisions
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*** There's also Nina. Who has one of these when {{spoiler|her idol Euphemia is killed.}}
* In ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam 00]]'', the Trinity group shows up and starts actually destroying military bases and arms manufacturers. Most of the battles up until this point had hundreds of civilian casualties, with one battle threatening to basically screw the entire world with nuclear radiation. Through destroying military installations instead of waiting for war to start, Trinity is preventing these needless deaths. However, the "it's not right to attack before you're attacked" excuse is played, Trinity is painted as villainous when it's actually clearly good... and it suddenly starts blowing up random buildings for no reason. Let's also point out that the villains out to cause perpetual war for personal profit are never portrayed in nearly such a negative light.
** While Trinity's actions may have been jumping of the slippery slope they were hardly 'clearly good' in the first place- Gundam 00 is full of [[Grey and Gray Morality]] and the point is that no one side is clearly good or clearly evil. The Trinity's actions were simply causing more needless deaths by murdering civilians in arms factories and blowing up military bases which weren't attacking anyone, simply defending their homeland. Trinity's actions are a classic example of jumping of the slippery slope by quickly resorting to overly extreme methods, and are hardly unambiguously good ones being wrongly portrayed as evil. And forgive me if I'm wrong but I can't remember anyone in the series who wanted perpetual war, well besides [[Complete Monster|Ali Al-Saachez]].
*** It's the difference between shooting the gun out of someone's hands and shooting their hands off so they can't wield a gun in the first place.
** Depending on your viewpoint, Celestial Being itself was doing a lesser version of this before Trinity even showed up. They certainly had no compunctions about blowing up a training facility for [[Super Soldier]] children, and all the civilians inside, as a revenge operation.
*** Allelujah certainly had his compunctions.
*** As did the rest of Celestial Being. Halleluah, Allelujah's dark half, enjoyed it and egged him on.
* The last two episodes of the first generation in ''[[Gundam AGE]]'' shows Flit Asuno taking the dark descent to becoming a revenge-obsessed Earth Federation fanatic. {{spoiler|His refusal to accept the UE as human beings and his [[Unstoppable Rage]] from seeing Yurin die only matters worse for him.}}
** The last episode of the second generation shows that [[It Got Worse]], when Flit {{spoiler|leads a task force that purges the Federation government of any and all Vagan sympathizers, accusing them of collaboration and having them executed. When it's pointed out that this action will kill any chance of a peaceful resolution to the conflict, Flit merely says "Yes, I know. That was my intention from the beginning".}} Honestly, the man is getting dangerously close to the [[Moral Event Horizon]] here, if he hasn't crossed it already.
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* Notably averted by Alan Grant's DC Universe character of Anarky: where originally the character was scripted to be willing to murder in pursuance of his anarchic philosophy, as written he upholds the same moral standards as Batman, which makes for some nice [[Not So Different]] interactions.
* In [[Superman]] Annual 3 in the Armageddon 2001 crossover, Superman declared war on all nuclear weapons. At first, he just took away all nuclear weapons. Then, he started to steal from rich countries to give to the poor countries. Over the course of ten years, he became more intense and actually started sinking submarines that has nuclear weapons on them. When, people started to die (accidentally), everyone started to get worried that Superman has gone too far. So, Batman decided that he had to kill Superman with the kryptonite ring.
* Played with when Scans Daily showed a panel with [[Batman/Characters|Robin and the Spoiler]] foiling a convenience store robbery and Stephanie taking a soda. Tim assumes she's going to pay for it, while she explains that she's earned it as they saved the whole store. She grudgingly puts down some money when Tim explains that once you start like that, you soon bend all the rules.
{{quote|'''SD''': "It just starts with stealing a soda after saving the store...next thing you know, you're hacking up people and putting them in your freezer!" }}
* A German Film ''Stahlnetz: PSI'' begins with two brothers kidnapping a rich girl {{spoiler|actually she is not...}} for ransom. They reason a girl is a [[Spoiled Brat]] anyway and a few days in captivity won't hurt - and for her family, a million is only a pocket money, so it's not really bad. But then the younger brother decides that it is better to leave the girl to die, and {{spoiler|when the other brother objects, beats him up and locks him together with the girl to die}}.
* In [[Star Wars Legacy]] Emperor Roan Fel is willing to use Sith powers to get his Empire back. {{spoiler|He finally slips to the dark side when he plans to use a bio weapon on Coruscant to wipe out the Sith, unbeknown to him they are immune to it, but it will kill his allies and billions of lives still on the planet.}}
* Dealt with in a two-issue arc of ''New [[X-Men]]'' involving Prodigy, a student at the Xavier Institute with the ability to absorb the knowledge of anyone in the immediate vicinity, but ''only'' as long as they're in the immediate vicinity. When Emma Frost discovers that he's subconsciously put a block in his mind that prevents him from retaining the knowledge permanently, David asks Emma to remove the block, figuring he'll be able to do so much good for the world that way. The story then fast-forwards a few months, and David is already head of his own [[Mega Corp]] that has developed cures for cancer and AIDS. How did he achieve this breakthrough? {{spoiler|He killed his friend, the healer Elixir, and harvested his organs}}. Okay, that's certainly bad, but we're still at the point where it can be argued to be worth it. The next issue fast-forwards again, to twenty years later, and David is now the President, and has united most of the world's countries into a utopian [[One World Government]]. And he's also {{spoiler|planning the genocide of the Chinese because they refused to join}}. Okay, ''now'' he has to die. Fortunately {{spoiler|the whole thing turns out to be an illusion, courtesy of Dani Moonstar, in an effort to convince him to leave the block in}}.
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== Film ==
* Yoda warns of the danger of the Dark Side, giving a slippery slope argument on how it works: "Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate... leads to suffering." However it is exceedingly rare for somebody to not simply go to hate and Dark Side in the EU.
** Anakin in ''[[Star Wars]]''. Specifically, note how quickly he goes from {{spoiler|agonizing over his role in Mace Windu's death}} to {{spoiler|killing children without a problem}}. Anakin finally slips so far, his own wife, Padme, loses the will to live and eventually dies, and Obi-Wan Kenobi is forced to duel him, ending gruesomely. In order to keep Anakin alive, Darth Sidious subjects him to painful body reconstruction. The final push to the Dark Side comes from Sidious himself- when Anakin asks if Padme is still alive, Sidious tells him in his anger, he killed her. In pure disbelief of this, Anakin's true powers of the Force flare up, and he screams out in despair, fully overtaken with pain and hate, completing his transformation into Darth Vader.
*** Fortunately, it was not to last. By the sixth film, it becomes evident Vader shows signs of regret when Luke challenges his motives, but Vader dismisses them and says it is too late for him- no one can leave the Dark Side. It isn't until Sidious repeatedly strikes down Luke with Force lightning that Vader finally comes to his senses and reverts back to Anakin Skywalker, slaying the Sith Lord, but at [{{[[[Redemption Equals Death]] a very costly price}}.
* The character of {{spoiler|Amanda}} in the ''[[Saw]]'' movie series makes Jigsaw look downright merciful by the third movie. Of course, this was the fault of Jigsaw himself, who made her a murderer in an attempt to "help her", much to his shame when he realizes this. It didn't help any that {{spoiler|Jigsaw's other protégé, Hoffman, was already far down the slope, tugging on her leg at the time.}}
* ''[[Magnum Force]]'' has Dirty Harry dealing with cops who have been executing guilty criminals who escaped justice due to technicalities. When he refuses an offer to join them, they try to murder Harry, thus proving they didn't have a complex or unorthodox sense of justice after all, they just like killing.
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*** Lee did acknowledge the argument about the need for a black market, though, given that he allows it to stay in business afterwards. He just wanted them to clearly understand where the [[Moral Event Horizon]] was.
* Seems to happen about once a season in ''[[Doctor Who]]''. A few notable examples;
** In ''The Mind of Evil'', a scientist invents a machine that removes criminal impulses from the human mind, and offers it to the government as a means of dealing with dangerous criminals without resorting to the death penalty. Turns out its inventor is actually the Master and the device brainwashes people to serve him.
** In ''Genesis of the Daleks'', Davros invents the Dalek (or "Mark III Travel Machine", as he initially calls it) ostensibly for the purpose of making life easier for mutated Kaleds. When his superiors start getting cold feet about the research, he has the entire Kaled race wiped out.
*** The audio drama ''Davros'', released much later, showed that Davros was already lying in a heap at the bottom of the slope by this point. Not hard, when you're the leading [[Mad Scientist|scientist]] of a race of [[A Nazi by Any Other Name|ersatz Nazis]]...
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** Kael'thas Sunstrider's goal was originally to improve his suffering people. As time went on he began to make more and more questionable alliances, first with the [[Snake People|naga]], then the [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|partially demonic Illidan]], and finally knowingly aided the purpose of [[The Legions of Hell|Kil'Jaeden and the Burning Legion]] (albeit only helping them to fight Arthas, which was an admirable goal no matter who wanted it). And then he tried to summon Kil'Jaeden so the Burning Legion can destroy Azeroth, killing his own people when they tried to stop him. [[Flat What|What.]]
** Illidan was always a self-serving [[Jerkass]], but he had a more gentle side to him. After nearly being killed by Arthas, though, that gentle side was replaced with paranoia, insanity and a desire to crush anyone he deems as a threat, which happens to be ''everyone not on his side.''
*** This happens every time one of his plans fails though. Logically all that needed to happen was for Malfurion to beat on him for a few minutes and Tyrande to be in danger, and he'd do the same thing he's done every other time. Switch sides to save her.
** The Scarlet Crusade (at least those within the Monastery) can be accused of this.
** And, while we're on Warcraft games, as you play the human campaign of Warcraft III, Arthas starts out as a dedicated disciple of Uther Lightbringer (even though Arthas is a prince, Uther's military rank is higher than Arthas's, and they both respect that) but gradually starts betraying more and more people, and becomes less and less concerned with the whole reason he's fighting the Undead in the first place. Eventually, {{spoiler|he totally betrays Azeroth, dresses in Undead armor, and kills his own father. In fact, in World of Warcraft, the very throne room in which he killed his father is now directly above Undercity, the Capital City of the Undead.}} In his case his abrupt descent was exacerbated by him taking up a cursed sword that stole the soul of ''anyone'' it touched.
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** Both slopes were [[The Dark Side|greased with phlebotinum]] in this case; {{spoiler|Meredith was being corrupted by the lyrium idol in addition to her own paranoia, and the rogue mage was possessed by a demon of Vengeance.}}
* Adele in [[Arc Rise Fantasia]] jumps right off the slope and onto the [[Axe Crazy|crazy train]] the ''very instant'' she finds out that she's an [[Unlucky Childhood Friend]], taking this trope to a ''terrifying'' degree.
* The Protagonist from the [[Saints Row]] series gleefully leaps headfirst off of the slope, and then proceeds to nuke it. In the first game, you start off as a [[Heroic Mime|(mostly) silent]] henchman who more or less indifferently does what Julius, Gat, Lin, Troy, and others tell you without hesitation, and you seem to be a pretty sane individual. While you are killing, you're killing the other gangs for peace , and the cops you kill are corrupt anyway (of course, not counting civillian casualties in your gameplay rampages). But in Saints Row 2, after being betrayed by Julius and being blown up and disfigured to the point of needing severe plastic surgery ([[Gameplay and Story Integration|which is really just an excuse to make a new character]]), it's implied that you went insane and very much stated that you're paranoid, corrupt with power, take deep pleasure in murder, is only after the city, and nothing short of evil- the only people outclassing you are [[Asshole Victim|the gangs you fight and their leaders]], but not by much. As the game goes on, it becomes clearer and clearer that you're not very interested in wiping out the city for peace anymore as your actions become more and more violent and [[Crazy Awesome]], [[Berserk Button|espicially after two of your homies get murdered]]. The only person who ever stood a chance of stopping you, your old boss Julius, turns out to have done it because he [[Genre Savvy|savilily]] [[Too Powerful to Live|realized that you were a dangerous person]]; you kill him while happily stating you have full intentions of taking over the city in any means neccesary.
** Johnny Gat qualifies as well.
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== Real Life ==
* If [[Real Life]] examples are accounted for, then LG is doing this at this very moment. When a [[Blu-Ray]] license consortium was formed, [http://www.techeye.net/business/lg-dodges-blu-ray-patent-group-because-it-still-wants-to-litigate LG refused to join just so it could continue to litigate against perceived patent infringements of BluRay-related patents.] [[Evil Plan|All part of its plan to hold an illegal monopoly on the BluRay industry, of course.]]
** [[Alternative Character Interpretation]] LG refused to join an illegal trust so as to litigate their legal monopoly derived from their patent rights.
* There was a time when Robespierre was an ardent anti-capital punishment activist who was fighting the really obvious injustices of his time. [[Those Who Fight Monsters|His rule]] would later be called [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|The Reign of Terror]].
** Subverted- He knew what he was doing was immoral, but [[I Did What I Had to Do|he did what he had to.]] [[Your Mileage May Vary]].
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Character Derailment]]▼
[[Category:Heel Face Index]]
[[Category:Writer Cop Out]]
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[[Category:Jumping Off the Slippery Slope]]
[[Category:Sturgeon's Tropes]]
▲[[Category:Character Derailment Tropes]]
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