Omniscient Morality License: Difference between revisions

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** Curiously, although he's also from the future and is accompanied by a floating repository of 21st century history, Booster Gold doesn't.

* [[Knight Templar|Lucien Draay]] in the ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]]'' comics thinks he has one of these, and acts accordingly (to be fair to Lucien, his mother and closest friends are all absurdly powerful seers, so he has reason to believe this). Unfortunately, he interpreted everything they said through the lens of his [[Treacherous Advisor]], who {{spoiler|was really a Sith Acolyte working to bring it down from within and used Lucien as a convenient pawn to accomplish this. Lucien's response to learning he's been had could basically be described as: [[Villainous Breakdown]], [[Villainous BSOD]], [[Heel Face Turn]].}}

* Marvel's Odin pulls this a lot. He repeatedly screws with ''[[Thor]]'' in every way he can come up with, usually as a pretense to teaching Thor some greater lesson. The entire reason Thor is on Earth in the first place is because Odin thought it would build character. Probably his worst offense is the massacre of an entire sentient species to create the creature Mangog. His only defense is the fact that he is Odin the All-Father, creator of humanity, and therefore answers to no one. (Except for when he does, because ''Thor'' comics suffer the same continuity problems as everything else)

** In respect for Mangog' the race in question invaded Asgard after brutally conquering numerous galaxies. Odin's actions were in defense of his realm and punishment of a a vile race. Odin eventually restored the race to life after the entire species reformed.

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* {{spoiler|Callum}} of ''Raised by Wolves'' has one thanks to his {{spoiler|precognitive powers}}, and he uses it to justify {{spoiler|putting the heroine through an absolutely ''hellish'' couple of months, including her being beaten to within an inch of her life by an angry werewolf.}} In fairness to him, {{spoiler|nearly everyone involved ''does'' come out of it having lost nothing and gained something.}} The only casualties are {{spoiler|Ali and Casey's marriage}} and the [[Big Bad]], who [[Complete Monster|totally deserved it.]]

** It's not so easy to take his side in the sequel, {{spoiler|which ends up as a heartbreaking [[Shaggy Dog Story]] due to the [[Big Bad]]'s [[Evil Plan]].}} He sees it all coming, but does absolutely nothing about it except for sending Bryn a [[It May Help You on Your Quest|cryptic gift]] with the implied message to [[Figure It Out For Yourself]]. {{spoiler|She doesn't, and later [[Calling the Old Man Out|Calls The Old Man Out]] for not warning her in more direct terms.}}

* ''[[The Silmarillion]]'': Subverted with the Valar. [[God|Eru]] gave them almost absolute authority (their authority over Elves and Men, particularly the latter, is a bit of a grey area) over the world, but they lack the "omniscient" part. The Valar can and do make mistakes in pursuit of a greater good, despite (and sometimes ''because'') of their good intentions. The narrative implies that many of their actions (such as bringing the Elves to Aman, or giving Númenor and extended life to the Edain) were entirely the wrong thing to do, even if they were motivated by the best intentions. Some of their other actions (such as releasing Melkor, or sending the Istari to Middle Earth) also had bad results due to lack of foresight ([[Good Cannot Comprehend Evil|or an inability to understand how good things can become evil]]). Arguably played straight with Eru himself for giving the Valar authority over Eä even while withholding certain information from them.

** There is also the implication that Eru WANTED these mistakes to be made because the whole point of the world he made was to inspire the next great song and conflict somehow just makes things more interesting (never mind that its also bloody miserable)

* The title character in the ''[[Realm of the Elderlings]]'' book ''Golden Fool'' argues that, despite their obvious threat and fickle behavior, dragons must be saved from extinction. He/She makes the case that without another powerful influence to counterbalance them, [[And Man Grew Proud|Humanity will become uncontrollable and destroy itself]].

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== Tabletop Games ==

* In ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'', there's really no morality to speak of anywhere, but the Eldar are very fond of acting like this trope is in effect. Of course, it helps that they can see the future...

* There's an interesting case in ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]'' : The [[Lizard Folk|Lizardmen]] tend to lay claim to possess such a morality license, but not because they see themselves as almighty, all-knowing rulers - instead they see themselves as the chosen instruments of the [[Precursors|Old Ones]] (who are essentially the creators of the world) and therefore any discovery of a sacred plaque means that the instructions are to be carried out to the letter. [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|Whether this means helping to save your army at a specific place and time or shifting entire continents and dooming entire species/races is up to the instructions on the plaque in question.]]

* Some interpretations of the [[Ravenloft]] setting's Dark Powers invoke this trope, depicting them as harsh but well-intentioned judges who consign the multiverse's foulest villains to [[The Punishment]]. Too bad for innocent bystanders living in the domains which confine said villains, because they're left at the mercy of the punished, as are the poor saps who get dragged into the game-setting by the Mists.

* Urza, in ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'', had this regarding the Phyrexian invasion. The results of this ranged from creating an entire race [[Not So Different|who were basically nicer-looking versions of the Phyrexians]] to recruiting a treacherous murderer onto a strike team so the guy would shank some of his allies and Urza could justify using his life energy to arm the mission's bomb payload.

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== Video Games ==

* ''[[Half-Life]]'s mysterious G-Man.

* In the ''[[Golden Sun]]'' games, {{spoiler|the Wise One does this to the entire group at the end of The Lost Age by sending a three-headed dragon to stop them, and only after they defeat it do they learn that said dragon was actually Isaac's father and Felix and Jenna's parents, and are on the verge of dying as a result. But upon restoring the powers of Alchemy with the last Elemental Star, the three adults are healed miraculously. It's later revealed that the Wise One did this to test their virtue and dedication, so as to make sure that the power of Alchemy would not be misused (like they had been in the past) if they were revived.}}

** The Wise One kind of dropped the ball there, since {{spoiler|committing patricide}} probably tests as much for sociopathy as it does for virtue or dedication. If not more.

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'''Fa'lina:''' Well that too! But that comes with semi-omnipotence also! }}

* Despite being [[The Hero]] (or, some would argue, the [[Designated Hero]]), ''[[Dominic Deegan]]: Oracle for Hire'''s eponymous main character has often invoked this trope to justify his morally questionable or just plain ridiculous methods of defeating the villain, especially after his [[Power Creep, Power Seep|Power Creep]] starts setting in after the Storm of Souls arc.

** He got called out on it after the Snowsong arc with the Supergreg silliness, and made to do community service, for solving a problem by manipulating everybody. He could have solved it conventionally, but that would have damaged his ability to [[Save the Villain]].

*** Most of the time he's actually pretty straightforward about his moving-people-around-the-board ploys; given his ability to confront problems that exist anywhere besides the psychoplanes almost always consists of 'knowing more than anyone else' and 'communicating with people,' he ''has'' to do his part by networking.

** Rillian the Necromancer has it much worse. The part where he followed Dominic and Luna around on their vacation in disguise, putting them through tests and ready to kill Dominic if he 'failed' and his mind broke stands out particularly: worked out great, possibly necessary, appalling in principle.

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* One of the students at ''[[PS238]]'' has an ability that can best be described as hypercognition, an ability to form connections and make deductions that completely ignore quantum uncertainty and chaos theory. This leads to doing no small amount of questionable acts.

** Tom Davidson, who can [[Time Travel]], has much the same deal going on.

* Sarda the Sage from ''[[8-Bit Theater ~~(Webcomic)~~|8-bit Theater]]'' subverts this trope, with White Mage convinced he's operating under this license while the "Light" Warriors know damn well he hates them (and now they even know why).

* Sarda the Sage from ''[[8-Bit Theater|8-bit Theater]]'' subverts this trope, with White Mage convinced he's operating under this license while the "Light" Warriors know damn well he hates them (and now they even know why).

* The Great Bird Conspiracy of [[Kevin and Kell]], in addition to manipulating the inner workings of government and other institutions, carried out a long-running plan to prevent society from destroying itself by establishing computers to run it. In order to accomplish it, they abduct Vin, Fenton and Ray and have them work for Microtalon when they find out too much about it, and cause Lindesfarne to believe that her boyfriend Fenton is dead. While the people in question are eventually returned [[Laser-Guided Amnesia|with their memories of their time at Microtalon wiped]] this caused a considerable amount of anguish for the cast. Not to mention the fact that the birds [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|were responsible for making all these species intelligent in the first place]].

* ''[[Misfile]]'' features a clever subversion with [[God]] himself, who is all-knowing and yet apparently allows his angelic underlings to get away with errors. However, the twist (which is implied) is that God knows that these errors, such as the titular misfile, result in more actual good than harm, making him one hell of a [[The Chessmaster|chessmaster]]...