Moral Event Horizon/Film/Animated Films

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 lawbooks.
- Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty 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.
- 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. However, Gaston finally crosses this by stabbing Beast AFTER Beast spared his life. He falls to his death soon afterwards.
- In The Lion King, Scar (picked up) 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. Further evil actions (such as tricking Simba into blaming himself, or sending the hyenas after him) were done to get away with murdering Mufasa, which makes that the most likely candidate for Moral Event Horizon.
  - 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 emphasises the cruelty of the action.
  - And in the sequel, Zira threatened to kill her own daughter for refusing to participate in an attack on the pridelands. Zira's own followers defected to Simba after this.
- 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 kills 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.
- Clayton from Tarzan crosses this when he shoots Kerchak, Tarzan's adoptive father, then, much like Gaston, tries to kill Tarzan after Tarzan spares him, resulting in a gruesome Karmic Death afterward.
- In Atlantis the Lost Empire, Commander Rourke, who planned to steal the crystal from Atlantis all along without telling Milo, 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.
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 against 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.
  - Pfft, he crossed the line a long time ago by luring many superheroes to their deaths in retaliation of said history above.
- 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.
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, that was the worse 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.
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.