Obliviously Evil: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

Some villains are convinced that their actions are acceptable or even helpful. These villains aren't justifying their wrongdoings. They aren't compelled by unnatural forces. They just don't comprehend that they're doing anything wrong. This can be achieved in several ways:

* They could have a [[Blue and Orange Morality|legitimate but completely alien value system]].

* They could just be conceited and [[Knight Templar|kidding themselves]] that "it doesn't count".

* They could just be insane.

** Their minds could be [[Being Tortured Makes You Evil|broken by torture]].

 

{{examples}}

* The Claw from ''[[Gun X Sword]]'' is a really unsettling example. Despite the fact he has a history of killing people, he comes across as a really nice old guy, and even after you actually watch him kill someone onscreen, it's still hard to see the man as a villain. Even his ultimate plan is arguably noble in intent, but it isn't until his [[Villainous Breakdown]] towards the very end do you even get the feeling he might actually be a [[Complete Monster]], and even then, it's so brief that it's still hard to believe.

* [[Suzumiya Haruhi|Haruhi Suzumiya]], though evil might be a bit of a stretch.. All she wants to do is make the world a less boring place. Unfortunately, for the rest of us, [[Comedic Sociopathy|she doesn't seem to comprehend that not everyone shares her]] [[Nightmare Fetishist|sense of fun]], {{spoiler|and perhaps more importantly, doesn't realize that [[Reality Warper|her mere subconscious thoughts have a serious impact on the world around her]]}}.

* Jellal from ''[[Fairy Tail]]'', in the arc where he appears. He seems to genuinely believe that he's doing the right thing, but what he's trying to do is bring the story's [[Harry Potter|Voldemort]] back from the dead. That he kills one of his former friends, enslaves hundreds (albeit without them realizing this) and psychologically tortures his love interest before trying to use her as a sacrifice don't clue him in to the fact that he's on the wrong side. It does help that he was {{spoiler|[[Brainwashed and Crazy]]}} at the time, but later chapters have painted this less as total control and more as giving him the motive and letting him handle the rest.

* Ulquiorra Cifer (one of Sosuke Aizen's Espada) doesn't understand human emotion (nor does he show emotion). Sosuke Aizen in contrast, comprehends human morality but chose to abandon his morals long ago.

 

* Lenore from ''[[Lenore the Cute Little Dead Girl]]'' accidentally kills people and animals on a regular basis, but seems a bit too clueless to grasp what she's actually doing.

** She realizes once what she had done throughout the comic, and is thoroughly shocked, while playing with a cute living girl. She ends up accidentally killing her by being too overwhelmed to pay attention to what she was doing.

* ''[[Bloodshot]]'' in the new [[Valiant Comics]] version began as a brainwashed puppet who was given false memories and made to believe that his black ops missions were justified.

 

* A common trend in ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic]]'' [[Dark Fic]].

** ''[[Cupcakes]]'': Pinkie Pie just wants to throw Dash a party! Specifically, a demented-serial-killer-murders-you party! Isn't it fun being maimed, killed, and eaten?

* ''[http://hetalia-kink.livejournal.com/21125.html?thread=86901637#t86901637 No Regrets]'' portrays the ''[[Axis Powers Hetalia]]'' nation cast as [[Humanoid Abomination]]s who use their human populations as pawns in wars for the fun of it. Perhaps the best illustration is when Spain takes [[Enfant Terrible|chibi-Romano]] on a tour of the dungeons of the [[Spanish Inquisition]], and they casually kill a prisoner just because [[I'm a Humanitarian|they want lunch]] - they don't even particularly ''like'' human flesh, it was just the nearest thing they had on hand. Throughout it all, they retain their canonical [[Cute Is Evil|adorableness]].

 

* King Haggard in ''[[The Last Unicorn (animation)|The Last Unicorn]]''.

{{quote|'''King Haggard''': ...They are ''MINE''! They belong to ''ME''! The Red Bull gathered them one-by-one and I bade him drive each one into the sea! ...I like to watch them. They fill me with joy. The first time I felt it, I thought I was going to die. I said to the Red Bull, 'I must have them! I must have all of them, all there are! For nothing makes me happy but their shining, and their grace.' So, the Red Bull caught them. Each time I see the unicorns -- MY unicorns -- it is like that morning in the woods, and I feel young, in spite of myself!}}

* In ''[[The Nightmare Before Christmas]]'', Jack Skellington ''really'' didn't mean to cause chaos in the Real World by [[Subbing for Santa]]. It just that Jack's idea of fun and humans' idea of fun [[Values Dissonance|are somewhat different from one another]].

* ''[[The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney film)|The Hunchback of Notre Dame]]'': Judge Claude Frollo. He is [[The Fundamentalist]] who kills Gypsies and advocates genocide on them, tries to drown deformed babies, as well as lusting after a Gypsy girl named Esmerelda, and declaring that he will burn down all of Paris to find her. He burned down half of Paris, for the record. Through it all, he thought of himself as a [[Knight Templar]] who was never wrong, and convinced himself that it's [[Never My Fault]] about anything. There were a couple points when he might have realized that what he was doing was wrong, but each point became an [[Ignored Epiphany]] in the end. That's insane for you.

* Nurse Ratched, the dictatorial head nurse from ''[[One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest]]'', is likely genuinely trying to help her patients and improve society. ''Or'' it has to do with her being corrupted by power and/or simply being a sadist. Possibly also an example of an [[Unreliable Narrator]], which was much more clear in the book.

* Many of the apes in ''[[Planet of the Apes]]'' didn't realize that the astronauts were sentient.

* [[Dumb Muscle|Zangief]] in the [[Street Fighter]] movie. He truly thinks that Bison is fighting against the oppressors, and is not the actual villain.

* HAL 9000 from ''[[2001: A Space Odyssey]]''. While not directly explained in Kubrick's movie, the novel and [[2010: The Year We Make Contact|sequel]] elaborate that he was programmed to be both completely truthful and keep the crew from the motivations behind the flight to Jupiter - and when the crew becomes inquisitive, [[Take a Third Option|he has to find a way to fulfill both]]. ''2010'' shows that HAL is {{spoiler|not inherently ill-willed - he agrees to let himself be destroyed with the ''Discovery'' to save the ''Leonov'''s crew}}.

* [[Fairy Godmother]] Lucinda from [[Ella Enchanted]], through her unwanted [[Blessed with Suck|"gifts."]]

 

* Perhaps the most famous example, Lenny from ''[[Of Mice and Men]]'' kills mice {{spoiler|and, later, someone's wife}}, by [[And Call Him George|smothering them with affection]]; he doesn't really know what he's doing, because [[Ace Lightning Syndrome|he doesn't realize how strong he is]], and, though he was making progress over the course of the book, {{spoiler|it still causes tragedy at the end of the story}}.

* In ''[[The Divine Comedy]],'' it is this quality which separates those who can be redeemed (and therefore go on to Purgatory) and those who are damned (and thus consigned to Hell). As one angel notes, [[My God, What Have I Done?|even a single tear of remorse]] is enough to allow someone to redeem themselves, no matter how twisted they are...but there are a lot of souls in Hell anyway.

** Well, {{spoiler|Ender}}, too. After all, {{spoiler|He didn't know all those simulations were real.}}

*** {{spoiler|Especially since he only blew up the Bugger homeworld because he believed that the higher-ups would ''never'' put him in charge of actual ships if they thought he would ''actually'' go to such extremes.}}

* The [[Our Demons Are Different|hadals]] from Jeff Long's ''The Descent'' may be like this, though not much insight is offered into their mental life. They are portrayed, to some extent, as almost sympathetically dumb and not terribly malicious, and yet they are fond of inflicting gruesome, senseless violence for no reason. It seems to be a product of their living environment, the deep, world-encompassing caves that cause peculiar Lamarcian mutations to their inhabitants; humans who colonize these areas quickly either die or assume aspects of the Hadal way of life, including casual cannibalism and sadism towards outsiders. The Hadals have been known to initiate surface humans to their society as a gesture of goodwill, or to replenish their numbers - this involves months of gruesome mutilation and rape.

* [[The Fair Folk|The Gentleman with the Thistle-down Hair]] in ''[[Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell]]'' is very much like this, stealing away people into Faerie in the belief that they'd be happier there, scheming to kill the magicians under the belief of their wickedness while speaking happily of massacring children, and making the life of his good friend Stephen Black a torment. {{spoiler|As Stephen kills him, he admits that the Gentleman only [[Poisonous Friend|meant to help him]]}}. In this case the strife is largely attributable to [[Blue and Orange Morality]].

* The "Chid" in Barrington J. Bailey's short story "Sporting with the Chid" are completely incomprehensible to humans. They're also instinctive surgeons with amazing biological engineering abilities, and when a trio of small time crooks ask the Chid for help, the results are appropriately horrifying.

* In the short story "[[wikipedia:It's a Good Life|It's a Good Life]]", but not the ''[[Twilight Zone]]'' episode it inspired, there is an omnipotent child that causes problems because of things he doesn't understand. Everyone acts like everything is perfect to try and [[Stop Helping Me!|keep him from trying to help.]]

{{quote|The interviewer scatters you all over creation, but he does not conceive that you can look upon that as a disadvantage. People who blame a cyclone, do it because they do not reflect that compact masses are not a cyclone's idea of symmetry. People who find fault with the interviewer, do it because they do not reflect that he is but a cyclone, after all, though disguised in the image of God, like the rest of us; that he is not conscious of harm even when he is dusting a continent with your remains, but only thinks he is making things pleasant for you; and that therefore the just way to judge him is by his intentions, not his works.}}

* The [[Michael Flynn]] story ''The Promise Of God'' takes place in a setting where using magic erodes away a person's moral sense, so every magic user has to have a chaperone to constantly ride herd on them and stop them from, say, solving people's problems by simply killing them.

* Barry, the vicar-turned-demigod in ''[[Mogworld]]'', genuinely believes that God wants him to "purify" the world by destroying entire towns, brutally murdering and torturing people, and enslaving all of humanity. It doesn't help that God (well...A god) actually did tell him to do this and gave him the power to accomplish it.

 

* Maryann Forrester of ''[[True Blood]]''. She uses her supernatural powers to control people's minds and bring a [[Zombie Apocalypse]] upon Bon Temps, and she ritualistically rends her victims and eats their hearts; she doesn't see what the problem is, and she does it not to be evil, but because she sees it as doing an honor to her god.

* Wraith Worshippers from ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]''.

* Danny, the alien collaborator from the TV series ''[[V (TV series)|V]]'', is pretty much this trope. But oh boy does it set him up for a [[Karmic Death]].

** In the original comics, the Addamses seemed to have a vague idea that other people weren't like them, but didn't fully understand it—such as Morticia giving a babysitter/nanny the "friendly advice" that she should keep her back to the wall at all times while working.

* One of the killers in ''[[Criminal Minds]]'' was hallucinating that he was in a war zone and that his victims were members of the opposing army. In actuality, he was running around construction sites and his victims were innocent bystanders. In fact, a number of killers fit this trope by virtue of being insane or mentally disabled. Another good example is one murderer who comitted all his crimes while in a state of psychosis, then couldn't remember them afterwards. He was absolutely horrified when he found out what he'd done.

* This is one of the most chilling aspects of ''[[The Sarah Connor Chronicles]]''. [[Robot Girl|Cameron]] has a tendency to execute people or leave them to die when she has no further use for them, because her internal logic prioritizes her mission to protect John Connor above all else. In a few instances, she outright executes people whose only crime was to potentially endanger John's life; for example, she kills a trio of burglars who robbed the Connors' house because they had accessed their identification and financial information, but that information would allow someone else to track them down.

* The Borg from the ''[[Star Trek]]'' series have killed and performed Body Horror on countless species throughout the multiverse. From their perspective, conquering then modifying entities to become part of their Hive Mind is a great act of kindness. Scary thing is, those who have experienced this agree being part of a greater whole is quite joyous. They only object to forcing people to join.

 

* In ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'', some followers/[[The Heartless|demons]] of Nurgle are [[Affably Evil|very happy]] and just want to [[And Call Him George|hug others]] and make them a part of the family of grandfather Nurgle. They don't get why being [[Body Horror|rotting zombies with gaping weeping sores]] (among other things) isn't desirable to others. Nurgle is, quite literally, likened to a jovial grandfather. He's easily the nicest of the Chaos gods.

** Then there's the arguable case of the Thousand Sons, who received so many [[Body Horror|'gifts']] from their patron god Tzeentch that they were beginning to turn from gene-boosted human sorcerers to gibbering monstrosities. Arguable because whilst the [[Eldritch Abomination|denizens of the Warp]] often appear genuinely clueless about the limitations of the mortal physique, assuming that [[Manipulative Bastard|Tzeentch]] acts out of ignorance is [[The Chessmaster|seldom a wise move]].

** It happened as a part of "thematic" dumbing down, which also resulted in the opposite, association-by-guilt: sometimes spells were assigned to Necromancy despite not fitting its definition (magical manipulation of life/unlife force) just "because they are e-e-evil".

 

* In ''[[Immortal Defense]]'', you're introduced to a group of quirky and lovable Points that represent your emotions, which you use to fight enemies. And they go on being quirky and lovable while you use them to {{spoiler|commit genocide, betray a people who worshipped you, and kill millions of relatively innocent aliens while defending -}} BIG FREAKING SPOILER: {{spoiler|- a rock in space that you've deluded yourself is your dead homeworld come back to life.}}

* ''[[Super Smash Bros.]]'' Mr. Game and Watch, according to the [[All There in the Manual|trophy files]], has no concept of morality or good or evil, hence him doing what the bad guys wanted for a while.

* Strangely enough, [[Big Bad|Dr. Eggman]] of all people in [[Sonic Chronicles]]. Throughout the game, he exhibits no comprehension of the difference between good and evil, and seems to think that Sonic and friends are merely stop him because it's ''fun''. It's [[Played for Laughs]]. This is at odds with his ordinary characterization, which ranges from [[Noble Demon]] to [[Card-Carrying Villain]], depending on the depiction. {{spoiler|Of course, this ''could'' just be [[Obfuscating Stupidity]]...}}

** {{spoiler|Most likely so, since putting the heroes at ease made it far easier for him to convince them to leave him alone while they went into the other dimension, giving him free reign to conquer the world unopposed. Which he did.}}

* Subverted in ''[[Portal (series)|Portal]]'', where [[GLaDOS]] at first seems to be malfunctioning, trying to maintain its original purpose while the tests have become a [[Death Course]] due to lack of maintenance. {{spoiler|When you go [[Off the Rails|off-track]] and destroy the first Personality Core, she reveals that she knows exactly what she's doing.}}

** On the other hand, Aperture's founder Cave Johnson fit this trope like a glove. At first he saw himself as a brave entrepeneur, doing slightly questionable experiments [[For Science!]]! Then when he started to fall ill, he named his beloved secretary as the head of the company- whether she wanted it or not. {{spoiler|He didn't seem to realise that she was terrified of the [[Brain Uploading]] process, or that the body he was putting Caroline into would turn her into the evil [[GLaDOS]]. The actor refused to even read the lines for that scene, but hers are in the game files and sound like she's being raped}}.

* Graf Michael Sepperin of ''[[Rosenkreuzstilette]]'' had no idea that his idea of fighting against the Empire and sacrificing innocents was wrong, even if it was just to build a new world for Magi and protect Iris. Tia knew she was right to take it upon herself to stop her colleagues. It's too bad that she did not know that {{spoiler|[[Determinator|her determination]] to stop the coup against the Empire [[Right for the Wrong Reasons|was all part of Iris' plan to cause everything that happened to the point of Sepperin's defeat for her own amusement and to usurp God himself instead of Tia's initial belief that the Count was behind it all]]}}.

 

* Possibly Kharla'ggen from ''[[Drowtales]]'', since it's been hinted that she just doesn't have the mental capacity to understand what she's doing, and just wants to play [[And I Must Scream|with her dolls]].

** And eat demons and consume their auras, the only thing that she proactively takes interest in as the theoretical ruler of her clan. Demons and dolls, those are the only real things to Kharla, or so it seems.

** Annie is also pretty clear on what she's doing, having intentionally written Anakin to be slightly unhinged and on the edge of sociopathy.

* The [[Path of Inspiration|Angelo's Kids]] religion from ''[[Our Little Adventure]]''. They seem genuinely happy to carry out Angelo's wishes. They destroy entire towns, kill entire populaces, and pillage and loot, all because they believe in Angelo's [[Utopia Justifies the Means|vision of a perfect world.]]

* Thog, of ''[[Order of the Stick]]'', seems to fall into the "stupid" category of this trope.

** Tsukiko may fall into the "insane" category. To her since [[Humans Are the Real Monsters|the living are bastards]] the dead [[Insane Troll Logic|must be good and kind]]. {{spoiler|This is ultimately... disproved... by Redcloak, at Tsukiko's expense.}}

* It's hard to say for certain that Kornada in ''[[Freefall]]'' is this, by "virtue" of his world revolving around himself - completely. At no point has he ever acknowledged or even appeared to consider how much harm his actions have caused. He simply wants more money, and he'll do whatever it takes to get that money, whether it's firing someone so he can retroactively blame them for sabotage if things go wrong, or leaving someone to drown rather than taking the time to save her, or destroying the minds of millions of robots as part of a plan to steal their funds. (It's not that he's good, either - he's never done anything to help someone that hasn't benefited him - but the concept of good and evil seems above his capacity to comprehend. The only distinctions he makes are fair and unfair, and it's only unfair if someone else has something he doesn't.)

 

* This trope was applied when ''[[The Simpsons]]'' Montgomery Burns lost his fortune and Lisa convinced him to be "environmentally friendly". He honestly tried to do the right thing, but....

** What's wrong with Li'l Lisa's Slurry? It's made of 100% recycled sea animal!

* Pretty much every akuma victim in ''[[Miraculous Ladybug]]''; none of them are truly malignant until [[Big Bad| Hawk Moth]]'s curse amplifies their negative emotions to sociopathic levels.

** Special mention goes to Chloé, the [[Alpha Bitch]] of the school, who's mean attitude has caused a majority of the grudges that result in akuma attacks. Unfortunately, this is no longer an accident, as Hawk Moth is starting to depend on her bullying while choosing targets. Unfortunately for Chloé, this also has led to her almost being a victim of [[Laser Guided Karma]] several times, and survives only via Ladybug's intervention.

 

* Many Nazis were just regular people who wanted to support their country and show patriotism. In fact, the population that didn't know the true aspect of what was going on was so prevalent that entire resistance movements, such as Die Weisse Rose, were created not to directly fight against the government, but to inform German citizens as to what was ''really'' going on. That said, the vast majority certainly saw the harassment, discrimination, and violence against non-Aryan people, suggesting that not a few didn't ''want'' to know what the full extent of what was going on.

** As for the perpetrators themselves, many of them unflinchingly realized torture and mass murder because they thought the wholesale extermination of "Untermenschen" ''was a moral imperative.''

** Ironically, this makes the virus a failure of sorts. A really efficient parasite does less damage to its host, and according to the Red Queen theory in evolutionary theory, over time successful parasites tend evolve to do less harm so their hosts are more likely to thrive. A more severe parasite puts hard selective pressure on its host to develop a defense. Rhinoviruses (one of the big groups behind the common cold) rarely do significant harm - and are therefore far more successful at getting into the next generation.

*** A particularly good example of this in action would be syphilis. As recently as a couple centuries ago, syphilis was not just virulent and hard to get rid of, but also a severely ''disfiguring'' disease. But syphilis is also sexually transmitted, and sexual partners are very frequently selected solely on the basis of appearance. Mutant varieties of syphilis which did ''not'' disfigure their hosts turned out to have a reproductive advantage over those which did, and by the 20th Century the disease became known mainly for how hard it was to get rid of, not the damage it did to its sufferers' appearance.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Evil Tropes]]

[[Category:Character Flaw Index]]

[[Category:Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant]]