Moral Event Horizon/Film/Animated Films

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


"Long live the king!"

Frollo: Until [the home] smolders, these people are traitors and must be made examples of.
Phoebus: With all due respect, sir, I was not trained to murder the innocent.
Frollo: But you were trained to follow orders.

—From the Disney version of Hunchback of Notre Dame when Frollo is burning down houses with people still in them.
  • Many Disney Animated Canon movies have the main villain do some form of Moral Event Horizon at some point. Here are some examples, in chronological order of movie release date:
    • Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. After Snow White has grown up enough for the mirror to declare her more beautiful than the queen, the queen orders her hunter to kill her and bring back her heart as a trophy (she even already had a box custom-made for the occasion) and had studied murder spells as a backup plan. Snow must have had her hands full as the new Queen--she probably had to sort out some pretty sadistic law books.
    • Lady Tremaine in Cinderella crossed it when she locked her stepdaughter up in her room, and then even further by deliberately breaking the glass slipper so that Cinderella's identity as the woman the prince was seeking would not be exposed.
    • Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty crossed it after she condemns Princess Aurora (as a baby no less) to her doom by pricking her finger on a spindle needle on her sixteenth birthday--and all because she wasn't invited to the party.
      • That, or just for fun, with even the not being invited thing as a mere excuse. The movie leaves room for interpretation as far as her motives go.
    • Though Laughably Evil as the average Disney villain, Prince John from Robin Hood crosses it when he plots to use Friar Tuck as bait to capture Robin Hood...by threatening Friar Tuck with hanging. Even Sir Hiss is shocked to hear that his boss plans to hang a man of the church!
    • In The Rescuers, it's hard to tell when Medusa, who kidnaps a young girl named Penny to make her look in a flooded well for diamonds, crosses this, but it's probably when she refuses to let Penny up even when Penny's life is in danger.
      • And in its sequel, it's not that clear when McLeach, who kidnaps a young boy named Cody to try to get the location of some eagle out of him, crosses this, but it's likely towards the end when he ties Cody to a crane, lowers him into a crocodile-infested river, raises him back out again, and is about to dunk the boy in again until the power on his halftrack goes out. When this happens, he takes out a gun to shoot the rope, suggesting that he was originally intent on murdering Cody anyway and just wanted to torture the kid first.
    • Gaston from Beauty and the Beast comes close to this when he tries to blackmail Belle into marrying him by threatening to have her father tossed in the loony bin. He comes closer to it still when, out of envy of the Beast, he stirs the town into an angry mob to make them kill him. He finally crosses this by stabbing Beast AFTER Beast spared his life. He falls to his death soon afterwards.
    • In The Lion King, Scar (pictured above) evidently crossed this by murdering his brother Mufasa. It even seems, from Scar's facial expression at the edge of the cliff, that he realized there would be no going back once he did this, yet he did it anyway...and enjoyed it. Further evil actions (such as tricking Simba into blaming himself, or sending the hyenas after him to kill him even after getting him to run away) were done to get away with murdering Mufasa, which makes that the most likely candidate for Moral Event Horizon moment. There's even a second of pause before he crosses it: when Mufasa is screaming for help, he just stares at him... and then he commits the murder. This emphasizes the cruelty of the action.
    • Governor Ratcliffe from Pocahontas crossed this when he tried to shoot the Chief after his fellow colonials chose to make peace with the natives, resulting in John Smith taking the bullet and almost dying.
    • Most Disney villains are goofy, somewhat quirky people. Not Judge Claude Frollo from their version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. If he didn't cross this after almost dropping a baby down a well, he did after burning down multiple homes with families still inside them. And he killed Quasimodo's mother within the first few minutes of the movie! That means that he crossed the line shortly after the film began and just kept running. The fact that Frollo uses religion to justify his actions only makes it worse.
    • Shan Yu from Mulan crosses this when he and his Hun army are shown to have razed an entire village and slaughtered all of it's inhabitants, including a little girl who lost her doll, which is how Shan Yu knew where to find this village in the first place. Worse is that the little girl wasn't just one of many causalities - Shan Yu had singled her out as someone he wanted to kill after "returning her doll to her."
    • Clayton from Tarzan crosses this when he shoots Kerchak, Tarzan's adoptive father, then, much like Gaston, tries to kill Tarzan even after Tarzan spares him, resulting in a gruesome Karmic Death afterward.
    • In Atlantis the Lost Empire, Commander Rourke, who planned to steal the core crystal from Atlantis all along without telling Milo, first stepped on the line when he punched the King of Atlantis, mortally wounding him given how old he is. It was enough for Dr. Sweet to turn against Rourke and try unsuccessfully to treat the King's wounds when everyone else was abandoning Milo and the people of Atlantis taking the crystallized Kida with them, even before Milo's sarcastic, fatalistic appraisal of the people he thought were his friends actually convinced Audrey, Vinny, Moliere, Cookie and Ms. Packard to join him and abandon Rourke, who had just crossed the line even further by punching Milo down for his "soapbox," and stepping on the picture of Milo and his grandfather, breaking the glass of the frame. His big crossing, however, was when Milo told him that taking the crystal would kill all the Atlanteans - and Rourke now wanted to take it even more because the value of the artifacts would be tripled if the people were all dead.
    • Scroop of Treasure Planet crosses it when he murders Mr. Arrow For the Evulz and then makes it look like it was caused by a mistake made by Jim.
    • Dr. Facilier of The Princess and the Frog has an entire plan that puts him over the line - in exchange for wealth and status, he's willing to sacrifice the souls of everyone in New Orleans to his "friends on the other side."
    • Mother Gothel in Tangled officially crosses the line when she stabs Flynn Rider and very nearly kills him, so that Rapunzel's secret would die with him.
    • In Wreck-It Ralph, the Big Bad King Candy/Turbo, crosses the line late in the film, where after all his plans to stop Vanellope racing have failed, he resorts to trying to beat her to death with a car-part simply to stop her from crossing the finish line and resetting the game. Some people, especially in-universe, say that he crossed it by putting Turbo Time and Road Runners out of commission, making homeless dozens of characters, because he couldn't stand not being the center of attention anymore.
    • In Frozen, if Hans using Anna and lying to her the entire time isn't bad enough, then there's him leaving her to die followed by his attempted murder of Elsa.
    • Zootopia: Bellwether crosses it when she shoots Nick with the Nighthowler serum (which he thankfully switched out prior with blueberries) in an attempt to make him kill Judy. Considering how friendly and supportive Bellwether had been to Judy in all their previous encounters, it really drives home how twisted the little sheep really is and how far she'll go to get what she wants. Bonus points for her choosing to simply stand there and watch her ex-friend be eviscerated. And that is without going into her whole scheme, which involved transforming innocent citizens into mindless, feral beasts without any concern about their loved ones or the possible casualties that could be caused and planned to use them to turn the whole city against predators and who knows how far would she go in her steps against them?
  • Speaking of Disney, Pixar movies often apply this as well. Again, here are some examples, in chronological order of movie release date...
    • In A Bugs Life, Hopper punts thousands, if not millions, of puppies when he steals all the ants' food, but where he really crosses the MEH is when it's revealed by one of his goons that he planned to squish the Queen after they finished the mass food theft just to teach the ants a lesson.
    • Randall Boggs from Monsters, Inc. plans to kidnap small children so he can use the Scream Extractor on them, a device that sucks the scream and oxygen out of them, effective suffocating them to death. And unlike Waternoose, he can't claim to be a Well-Intentioned Extremist, because his reason for doing it is petty jealousy of Sully.
    • An example from The Incredibles: main villain Syndrome is given a sympathetic history as Mr. Incredible's former number one fan, cruelly (in his eyes) rejected by his hero. However, he shows his true colors when he fires missiles at the plane approaching Nomanisan Island, even after being told that children were on board.
    • AUTO from WALL-E may very well be a Well-Intentioned Extremist, but giving WALL-E painful-looking electric shocks and then throwing him and EVE down the garbage disposal tube really helps to cement audience disdain for him.
    • Charles Muntz of Up ties a child to a chair and drops him out of a blimp. Said child gets rescued, but still...
    • In Toy Story 3, Lotso establishes himself as a dog-kicking machine as he tortures, Mind Rapes, and tries to kill the toys during the movie, but irrevocably crosses the horizon when he pretends to try to turn off the Conveyor Belt of Doom leading to the incinerator, then leaves the other toys to their deaths with the remark "Where's your kid now?", complete with a mocking salute and evil smile. This after he pretended to be redeemed and after Woody and Buzz had just risked their lives to save him. So much for Rousseau being right this time, as is usually the case for Pixar.
  • Starting the non-Disney examples... Heavy Metal. During the Harry Canyon segment, the titular character helps an unnamed woman hide from a group of thugs who want the Loc-Nar from her. The following day, Ratnik, the leader, contacts Harry to meet with him at the Statue of Liberty and give the Loc-Nar to him in exchange for a huge sum of money, getting the woman out of danger. And how does the woman thank him? By pointing a gun at him and demanding the entire amount for herself. The 2 of them previously agreed to split it in half.
    • Although, the film implies it wasn't entirely her fault. The Loc-Nar is said to corrupt the will of people it interacts with, and bring out the evil potential within them.
  • In Kung Fu Panda, when Tai Lung fights his de facto foster father while wailing about how all he wanted was to have Shifu be proud of him and finally extracts an apology from him. When Tai Lung rejects that apology and still demands the Dragon Scroll and is about to murder his father for it, many fans believe he crosses a moral point of no return and deserves the beat down Po is about to give him.
    • In the second, Darker and Edgier movie, Lord Shen definitely crossed the line when he massacred a village of pandas in order to avoid them interfering with his plans due to a prophecy he heard. Po's mother was among his many panda victims.
    • In the third movie, if Kai didn't already cross the line when by stealing the Chi of several deceased and living Kung Fu Masters, thus binding their very souls to him in order to fuel his own power, he did it when he decimates the Jade Palace and absorbs a helpless Master Shifu's Chi before heading off to do the same to the entire Hidden Panda Village.
  • Steele from Balto seems to be your average animated movie Jerkass at first--making fun of Balto, flirting with Jenna even though she's not interested, etc etc. All par for the course. But when he refuses to let Balto take the crate of medicine, thus condeming the children who desperately need it to certain death, just because Balto proved better than him... well, I'd just like to see anyone try to Draco in Leather Pants him after that.
    • And, once he was defeated, he deliberately tried to ensure that Balto and the whole team of dogs got lost and died, while he could return home and pretend to be a heroic survivor. Good lord, he got off WAY too easy in the end.
    • Well not quite. While to us he might have gotten off easy, to Steele, who thrived off of reputation and respect, that was the worst possible fate: losing all his fame and being left an outcast while the dog he thought was worthless is now the town hero.
  • Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole: Kludd moonblinks his baby sister, which is essentially zombifying her. Seriously, dude, NOT Ka HOOLE!
    • In the book, he crosses much, much sooner, although Soren/ the reader doesn't know it at first. He shoves Soren out of the nest, hoping it will kill him (his own brother) then does the same to said little sister, and has a hand in his own parents' deaths.
  • Pharaoh Seti in The Prince of Egypt led a campaign to curb the Hebrew population by rounding up and killing all of their infants. He's not too sorry about it, either, with murals depicting the event adorning the walls of his palace. When Moses, his adopted son, tries to call him out on it, Seti just blows off his concerns, saying "Oh, my son... they were only slaves..." He thought this would make his adopted son feel better. He was trying to comfort him with those words. Oops...
  • Lord Barkis Bittern in Corpse Bride crossed the line a long time ago after he murdered Emily in cold blood to steal her dowry.
  • Superman in Superman vs. the Elite jumps through the MEH when he decides to finally buy what Manchester Black is selling by murdering each of the Elite and lobotomizing Black by destroying his powers. Then, we find out he subverted it by revealing none of the Elite are dead, that an army of robots saved them, and that his way works.
  • The Shredder of the 2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series crossed it in Turtles Forever when he tries to kill the Turtles Prime while ignoring Karai's warnings that killing them will wipe everyone out of existence, including himself.
  • In The Powerpuff Girls, if you thought that Mojo Jojo was an incompetent and harmless villain in the TV series, be disappointed when you see The Movie. He arguably crossed the line by enslaving Townsville with super monkeys, destroying half the town, and betraying the girls' trust in the process. Confronted with this development, he tries to Break Them by Talking.
    • Ironically, since the show is set after the movie, this trope is inverted, as Mojo peaked in his evil here and only had down to go, becoming MORE redeemable than less.
  • Plankton definitely crossed this line sometime during the events of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie. He steals King Neptune's crown and frames Mr. Krabs for the deed, leaving him at the mercy of his highness. He does this knowing full well that Neptune will try to kill him with fire. If that didn't put him over the line, taking over Bikini Bottom and turning it into an awful hellhole definitely does.
  • In How to Train Your Dragon 2, if it wasn't clear enough by then that Drago Bludvist is 100% morally bankrupt, it most certainly was when he uses his Alpha to brainwash Toothless into killing Stoick.
  • Darla Dimple and her servant Max from Cats Don't Dance crossed it when they sabotaged Danny's chance to impress L.B. Mammoth (or, more specifically, their method of doing so). They do so by flooding the stage with so much water that it practically drowns the entire studio (which, if this were realistic, would have killed lots of people), but instead, it sets up Danny and co as incompetent and causes them to abandon the production. To rub salt in the wound, Darla even shows up to rub it in Danny's face, laughing her head off at them all for getting set up by her! Less scary and not as bad as the other examples, but still a MAJOR Jerkass move.
  • Archibald Snatcher in The Boxtrolls doesn't seem that nasty of a villain and rather a goofy one at best, until later on in a flashback that reveals he kept Eggs' biological father captive for many years, driving him to insanity even though the flashback had him intending to murder him with a wrench. Even worse, he knows the whole time that the Boxtrolls are harmless but lied to the whole town simply so he can be a part of the White Hats. His actions are bad enough to make him be on the list, but near the end He forced Eggs to watch his adopted family get murdered (they escaped in time, but still), and dressed Eggs up as the last Boxtroll and tried to kill him in a furnace. Archibald then rampages through the square and endangers everyone before abducting Winnie.
  • Chester V from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 crosses this by kicking Flint down a cliff to try and kill him, revealing his Evil Plan to have all the sentient food animals turned into food bars, and trying to drop Flint's friends into a machine to shred them to bits.
  • Deconstructed in ParaNorman.
    • Judge Hopkins and the Puritans crossed the line when they executed Agatha Prenderghast, which directly led to the Witch's curse of Blithe Hollow. Note that Norman and the modern townsfolk knew Agatha was a witch; Norman finds out, courtesy of a vision from Agatha's ghost, was twelve years old at the time of her death, and she was hung. What was her crime? Talking to the dead. Norman himself becomes even more scared of the zombies and tells them off for murdering a child. However, the MEH was not done out of senseless cruelty, but out of good intentions and fear induced by the values of the time period they lived in. The MEH crossers are shown to be wrecked with guilt upon realizing they committed an unforgivable act. Thus, they help Norman out of a desire of making things right, even though they know Hell awaits them when they'll pass away.
    • The Big Bad is revealed to have a good reason for her actions; she's the ghost of a girl accused of witchcraft, whose crime was talking to the dead. You can't blame her for cursing her executioners to die on the spot but remain conscious in their graves for four hundred years, coming back as decaying zombies; as she puts it, "Now everyone can see how ugly they are." Norman, however, tells her that while the zombies may have deserved it, the modern townsfolk had no idea of the truth while using Agatha's legend for tourist income and she's bullying (relatively) innocent people the way she was. Rather than finding peace in death, she's continuing the cycle of violence that killed her. This was the filmmakers' intent; viewers were quick to point out, however, that those townsfolk were willing to burn Norman alive in the zombie panic, only stopping because his friends, big sister, and bully formed a barricade and told them off for wanting to murder an innocent kid. They may be more innocent, but only because they didn't cross the same line.
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