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{{trope}}
{{quote|"''Hooray! The people whose names I know are saved!''"
|'''[[Spoony Bard|Elan]]''' (while [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0784.html an allosaurus] eats dozens of unnamed [[Mooks]])|''[[The Order of the Stick]]''}}
It's only natural for a writer to see things from the protagonists' [[Sympathetic POV|Sympathetic Point
But then sometimes this point of view seems to spread like an inkblot and color the way ''everything'' behaves and thinks. The work lapses into '''Protagonist-Centered Morality'''
Suppose, for example, there is a character who slaughters [[Innocent Bystander|innocent villagers]] by [[A Million Is a Statistic|the thousands]], but once helped save [[The Hero]]'s [[Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas|mother]] because of whatever motivation; [[The Hero]] will [[Easily Forgiven|easily forgive]] this guy, buy him a drink, and may even [[Sixth Ranger|invite them to join the team]]. Then there is another character who routinely saves orphans from burning buildings who once used his resultant fame to woo away the protagonist's [[Love Interest]]. They will be [[What Do You Mean It's Not Heinous?|an object of scorn]].
Now, this ''alone'' is just portraying a realistically flawed hero—the final piece of the puzzle is that the narrative is in on the myopia. There will be no warning signs that the protagonist is being unfair to the hero who saved all these people. No one [[What the Hell, Hero?|calls him out]] on how disrespectful he's being to the memory of thousands of the mass-murderer's victims. This will not come back to haunt him. [[The Lancer]] will offer to chip in on that free drink.
The protagonist is essentially acting as though, in certain respects, it really is [[It's All About Me|All About Him]], and the narrator [[Author Tract|might well]] [[
This may be a generator of both [[Designated Hero]]es and [[Designated Villain]]s, if the audience notices that the character is being judged only by a narrow section of their activities. Villains who supposedly "[[Heel Face Turn|redeem]]" themselves in this manner can be [[Karma Houdini]]s, although [[Redemption Equals Death|they don't have to be]]. Most fanfics and other stories featuring a [[Mary Sue]] tend to fall under this.
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{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* Several characters in ''[[Inuyasha]]'', most glaringly Koga. His wolf pack ate Rin's entire village and gleefully killed her when she tried escaping. But after kidnapping Kagome and a little mini arc, suddenly he's been turned into [[The Rival]] and no worse. When Koga kidnapped Kagome he was more than willing to let his pack eat Shippo, who is the demon equivalent of a seven year old, until Kagome refused to help him if they did. He [[Heel Face Turn|turned into]] [[The Atoner]] much later in the series, though he still maintained a [[Jerkass Facade]].
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** The manga (which came out first) averted it—defeat did not mean friendship there.
*** Probably because {{spoiler|he was murdered in the manga...}}
*** Marik at least had the excuse that he believed the Pharaoh was responsible for killing his father and enslaving his family (except in the 4Kids dub, [[Dub
* In the [[Broken Base|swirling maelstrom]] that is ''[[Gundam Seed Destiny]]'', this accusation is often leveled at Kira Yamato (the protagonist of the [[Gundam Seed|previous series]]) and his allies by the viewers who dislike them. Commonly cited references include the fact that they go shopping rather than helping try to stop the racist madman who's blowing away space colones with a [[Kill Sat]], or his ''outright saying'' that they only got involved in the conflict because of an assassination attempt and would have otherwise stayed [[Retired Badass]]es. All in all, this probably has more to do with inconsistent writing than any deliberate characterization (like most of ''Destiny'''s flaws).
** The story doesn't to try to depict Kira's actions as right or wrong though; in fact, whether you agree with the arguments or not, many points were pointed out to be flaws. Kira could be argued to just be another person, with his own sense of righteousness, his own selfishness, and his own flaws; he just happens to be the main character.
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** Essentially, Luffy and the Strawhats do not consider themselves heroes, they don't do things for the greater good. Luffy only cares about his friends, it just so happens that most of the time when he's helping a friend or one of his crew members, he's doing the greater good. They mention this several times in the Fishmen Island arc.
*** "Listen up! Heroes are people who share their booze with other people!! I wanna drink my booze!!"
** Not that Luffy won't make a [[Sudden Principled Stand]] now and then - clearly the act that cemented him as an enemy of the World Government was how he defied precident and gave [[Royal Brat| Saint Charloss]] the shellacking he had long-deserved during the Sabaody Archipelago Arc.
== [[Comic Books]] ==
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* Played for laughs by [[Sam and Max]]. They may or may not get the job done, and they may or may not use ethically questionable methods to do so, but they're the title characters, so whatever they do is just fine. This carries over into the video games as well.
== [[Fan
* In ''[[Christian Humber Reloaded]]'', Vash kills a hunter after a setting off a trap, which breaks on his leg without harming him, and we are apparently supposed to think this is acceptable (the hypocrisy of him doing this despite having set off the trap ''while hunting'' is lampshaded in Normalman's webcomic adaptation notes) . His actions get worse from there, including killing a girl and everyone related to her for reporting him to the police, and killing all 6 million people at the Super Bowl to show the cops what it means to fight him. The author treats most of Vash's killings as justified, and when the villains commit comparable or even lesser crimes, they're quickly killed, often by Vash himself.
* In the world of [[Cori Falls]]'s fanfiction, the quickest way to gauge whether or not someone's a good person is whether or not they agree with the morals of the protagonists. If you don't think Rex Raptor did the right thing or that Jessie and James's actions weren't justifiable, you're clearly a [[Complete Monster]].
* The ''[[X-Men:
* In the [[Indecisive Deconstruction]] fanfic known as ''Pokemon Revolution'', the premise is that a lab-escapee Eevee convinces other Pokémon that training is enslavement, then leads a revolution. This is all very well and good until the Pokémon army marches into Pewter City, kills the soldiers who try to stop them... ''and doesn't stop there'', slaughtering what is stated to be ''[[Moral Event Horizon|several hundred thousand]]'' civilians, who may or may not have even had anything to do with training. [[Nightmare Fuel|Consider that in terms of a real-life conflict]]...
* So much of this happens in ''[[Naruto Veangance Revelaitons]]''. If one of the villains rapes Sakura or one of the other girls, Ronan will step in (if he's not too busy masturbating if the rapist happens to be female), but nothing happens if Ronan rapes someone. Ronan can have sex with all the girls he wants, but when Sakura has sex with Naruto, it is considered an evil act and she has to ''cut off her vagina'' (However, later on, {{spoiler|Atni, one of Ronan's girlfriends, ends up with his son Ekaj}}). Ronan persecuting people who don't share his religion, sexuality or taste in music is portrayed as good, while the Council's doing so is portrayed as evil.
* Disturbingly common in the later works of [[Jared Ornstead]]; see his stories ''[[Partially Kissed Hero]]'', ''[[Chunin Exam Day]]'' and ''My Gilded Life'' for some good examples.
== [[Film]] ==
* ''[[John Q]]'' has this in spades. The protagonist's son needs a heart transplant but can't afford it. Clearly, the big bad insurance agent is evil for not paying for his son's surgery. So John holds an entire hospital emergency room hostage, threatens to kill people if his son doesn't get a heart, and causes terror. However, there are only so many hearts available for transplant in the world. By blackmailing others to get his son a heart, he stole it from someone else, effectively killing that person. Then his son had his heart transplanted last minute by a group unprepared for the surgery, which lowered the odds of the transplant working. So John gave his son a lower chance of success of surviving the surgery from the person he stole the heart from. Not to mention the whole holding people hostage, disrupting an emergency room, which nearly resulted in one person dying, due to lack of proper treatment. Not only did John's stunt waste thousands of dollars, his 'victory' will encourage more people to blackmail the government for organs, which will further destabilize things, and most likely lead to more senseless deaths when the next blackmail attempt doesn't go as well as John's. Meanwhile, the insurance agent and doctor that are presented as the bad guys point out that they can't go around helping every little kid when there aren't enough hearts to go around. When you have to triage lives anyways, to triage lives based off financial affordability makes sense when the only other option is going bankrupt from never being payed for your services, and no one getting help.
** The news media montage shown near the end basically states that John's actions does nothing to fix the medicare problem, and that he was extremely lucky things worked out. Despite that, John's eventual arrest shows that he doesn't get off
* Jonas from ''[[Twister]]''. He's the bad guy because he 'stole' the idea for Dorothy (even though it obviously wasn't patented and he helped invent it in the first place), got funding for his research, and was 'competing' with the heroes to launch his invention first. But the movie sets him up as evil because he's a jerk to the hero despite the fact that if he succeeded, his data could also save people from tornadoes as well.
** And let's not forget that Bill walks up and punches Jonas for no reason while Jonas is talking with reporters. And Jonas' "jerk-ness" is him snidely saying, "I really like your weather reports." Sarcastically complimenting Bill on the job that Bill voluntarily quit tornado chasing to take!
* Examined in the [[Romantic Comedy]] ''[[Ghost Town (film)|Ghost Town]]'', where [[
* When it comes to his protégé Mr. Orange, Mr. White from ''[[Reservoir Dogs]]'' has a definite case of Protagonist-Centered Morality. It is evident in the very first scene (White calls fellow thief Mr. Pink on his no-tipping policy, yet stays silent when Orange wants to follow suit), and then escalates in geometrical progression until the very end. Although in fairness, in the 'tipping' example one possible reason he stays silent is that Joe, who is everyone's boss and paying for the meal, immediately orders Orange to shut up and Pink to cough up a dollar for the time, thus settling the matter. Orange could also have been cracking a joke. It's certainly far from the most outrageous thing said in jest around that table so far, including Joe asking Blonde to shoot White.
* The biographical film ''[[Michael Collins]]'' depicts the morality of the IRA's [[Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters|terrorist/guerrilla war]] against the UK largely in terms of what side Collins is on. When Collins is for revolution, revolution is the answer; when Collins decides that the revolution is over and turns his forces against those who want to keep the war going, that's that. The movie tries to put a bit more ambiguity into all of this than most, but still.
* In the classic epic ''[[Ben-Hur]]'', the character of Quintus Arrius, a consul of the Roman Empire, is a slave-owning imperialist who does things like ordering galley slaves to row at ramming speed for sustained periods of time just to see what will happen. He's a bad guy, right? No, he's a good guy, because he treats the title character well and eventually adopts him as a son.
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* Sarah and Nick from ''[[Jurassic Park|The Lost World]]''. Granted, the team of mercenaries sent to capture the dinosaurs weren't using kid gloves, but the sabotage that the two of them did is directly or indirectly responsible for ''every human death in the film''. Even after the mercenaries save the two of them from death, Nick uses it as an opportunity to sabotage [[Great White Hunter|Rol]][[Only Sane Man|and]]'s gun. Apparently, killing a dinosaur is wrong even if it is rampaging through your camp, killing your men. And it wasn't as if nature was at stake. The dinosaurs were created in a lab and introduced in a time period that was unsuitable for them. The fact that they exist at all could be disastrous to the ecosystem. This was the entire point of the first movie and somehow, the filmmakers forgot all about that.
* In ''[[The Lord of the Rings (film)|The Lord of the Rings]]'', killing a diplomat during negotiations is apparently okay if you're a protagonist. To be fair, the Fellowship had already told the [[Mouth of Sauron]] they weren't there to negotiate, so he probably should've figured they were going to move on to [[Aggressive Negotiations]]. When Aragon killed him, he had already moved on to taunts and psychological warfare. By any reasonable metric, negotiations were over. By Tolkien's treatment of the same scene, the heroes drive off Sauron's diplomat ''just by staring at him''.
** Diplomatic niceties of behavior between warring nations is a mutual obligation and not a unilateral one. The standard penalty for refusing to honor ambassadors is the total severing of diplomatic relations, the standard penalty for killing an ambassador is war, and the standard penalty for not honoring an enemy's surrender is the enemy now being allowed to kill you out of hand even if ''you'' try to surrender. Since
** Although they did not kill the Mouth in the books, the 'negotiations were over' viewpoint is actually upheld by dialogue from the books:
:: '''The Mouth of Sauron:''' I am a herald and ambassador, and may not be assailed!
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** Many of Edward's and Jacob's actions were typical of an abusive relationship, but they were portrayed as being perfectly okay and even ''romantic.'' Edward stalks her and watches her sleep? It just shows how much he loves her! He breaks her car and has his sister kidnap her to keep her from visiting another boy? It just shows how much he cares about her! Jacob forcibly kisses Bella and [[Does This Remind You of Anything?|insists that she wanted him to but just won't admit it]]? Again, it just shows how much he loves her!
** The "good" vampires appear not to have thought of using their immeasurable powers to save people's lives; they're more content to repeat high school for the umpteenth time and play baseball, and seem to be happy with their brethren slaughtering innocent people as long as they leave Bella alone. And Bella herself doesn't lift a finger to help anyone even when she knows they're as good as vampire food.
* E. E. Smith's ''[[Lensman]]'' series exemplifies this. The actions of various protagonists are consistently applauded - including one
** Justified Trope: the entire plot of ''Lensman'' is one giant war story. Ethics in war is largely about target selection, not method. (Consider that almost every war crime on the books is ''not'' a war crime if done to enemy combatants, and that the 'crime' element only comes in when done to the wrong people.)
* ''[[Discworld]]''
** This [[Trope]] is examined in ''[[
** See also Susan's revised retelling of "Jack and the Beanstalk" in ''[[Hogfather]]''.
* ''[[The Hunger Games]]''. Katniss complains that the other tributes are out to kill her, but is just as quick to attack them, eventually preemptively. This is possibly justified by the premise of [[Deadly Game|the Hunger Games]] themselves, in which conventional morality is clearly out the window, but is then muddied when the story never stops to ask if survival is worth [[If You Kill Him You Will Be Just Like Him|becoming your enemy]] (or, frankly, even ''notices'' Katniss [[Jumping Off the Slippery Slope]]).
** May be a [[Justified Trope]] in this case, the entire series is narrated by Katniss in the first person, making it difficult for the narrative to condemn her objectively (she blames herself for lots of things anyway). There are definitely moments when other people call her out over her actions or tell her to suck it up and act responsibly instead of according to her own (often skewed) priorities.
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*** For that matter, Dawn could have ended the whole thing in the exact same way - by killing herself. Of course, she's fourteen, so it's much more understandable that she didn't.
**** We also expect children to take moral guidance from their adult guardians and role models when facing doubtful situations, and all of ''them'' had already chosen 'Dawn stays alive, even if that means risking the entire world' as their course of action, so Dawn can hardly be faulted for agreeing with them.
**** Dawn also has very little ''opportunity'' to kill herself after being captured by Glory—in the one scene where she is left alone for any length of time, there's nothing lying around nearby she could do the job with, and several guards immediately outside the door in a position to intervene the instant they hear anything suspicious. Even at the very end, at the top of the tower, when Dawn
*** Ultimately, Ben chooses to not only avoid dying, but to actively side with Glory, in the final episode. At this point Ben's death is well-deserved, although admittedly Giles did not ''know'' this at the time he made his decision to kill Ben.
** Another ''Buffy'' example in "Gone", where a social worker sent to look after Dawn sees legitimately suspicious activity. Buffy, who has turned invisible, sets things up to make it look like the social worker is insane in a way which could easily get her fired or sent to a mental institution. This is portrayed as a comedy routine and we are apparently supposed to feel sympathy with Buffy harassing an innocent person merely because she's frustrating a main character.
*** There is also the fact that the Scoobies do not know if Dawn is still the Key, and therefore have a compelling need to keep the girl who can possibly be used to end the world in their custody regardless of legal technicalities. And of course, there's no way they can possibly explain this to Social Services.
** Spike and Harmony are quite sympathetic in the latter series, mainly because they are both so ineffective as to be laughable, and because Spike is such a martyr for love. Meanwhile, Harmony is killing a whole bunch of people while Spike is completely unrepentant and cares so little for other's welfare that he helped a [[Big Bad]] bring on the end of the world at least once, and was selling weapons (demon eggs) - the sort which could kill entire cities - to the highest bidder.
** On the other hand, Buffy spends a lot of time beating up Spike. She may or may not have sexually assaulted him a few times, too, depending on your interpretation. Even if he is a bad guy (and might deserve at least some of it), it's a little jarring to watch and (given how the show never presents any of this as being wrong) feels like the show is advocating domestic violence (possibly even torture) [[
** Willow's [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] is forgiven fairly easily, even though (in-universe) it was really just luck and timing which prevented her from bringing about the apocalypse. She also flayed somebody to death.
*** Sorta lampshaded in the final season episode "The Killer In Me". I say "sorta" because it's pointed out by a bad guy who put a hex on her not for almost destroying the world but just because they're jealous.
{{quote|"She almost destroyed the world! And yet everyone keeps on loving her?"}}
**** To be fair, if the Scoobies threw out every member they had who'd almost destroyed the world, they'd have to axe at least half their membership. What a bunch, huh?
**** For that matter, at least two members of the Scoobies (Xander and Dawn) openly stated ''their own'' willingness to kill Warren, so they're hardly judging Willow by an inconsistent standard. The limits of their concern were largely about what psychological harm the use of black magic to perform murder would have to Willow, Warren's own life was irrelevant to them.
**** Elsewhere on this wiki there is a trope entry itemizing exactly how many members of the Scooby Gang are ''not'' guilty of at least one count of murder, attempted murder, or manslaughter. That list is exactly one name long: Dawn Summers. To judge Willow more harshly than they've judged themselves would make them total hypocrites here, so it's actually decent of them not to.
***** Two names: Tara is also innocent. Of course, she's dead by this point.
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== [[Music Video]]s ==
* In [[Michael Jackson]]'s short film ''Ghosts'', Jackson's hero (referred to in the credits as "Maestro") is a mysterious loner in a mansion who secretly tells children ghost stories and performs magic for them, and when one of them tells the adults of their town ("Normal Valley") about it, their mayor (also Jackson) leads a [[Torches and Pitchforks]] mob of the children's parents to run the "freak" out, warning they will hurt him "if we have to." Maestro proceeds to unleash a parade of horrors on the mob (including the kids) that is supposed to be all in good fun, yet climaxes in what amounts to the mayor's magical possession and torture. Maestro then tricks the mob into thinking he's killed himself when the mayor—and only the mayor—demands he leave, and then reappears and sends the mayor running through a window. Though leading an angry mob ''is'' an overreaction, it's hard not to sympathize with the mayor for being concerned that a strange person is not only meeting with kids but telling them to keep their meetings secret, and to see Maestro's behavior as unnecessarily cruel. The [[Reality Subtext]] of the video (this was after the first round of child molestation allegations against Jackson) makes matters worse. See also this [https://web.archive.org/web/20091005021351/http://dir.salon.com/story/ent/tv/diary/2001/10/31/jacko/index.html Salon article].
* [[Harry Potter]]: If you pay attention to the books, the narrator describes what happens only in Harry’s perspective. For example: After Colin Creevey has been pestering Harry, the narrator concedes that Draco Malfoy is doing a ''cruel but accurate'' interpretation of Colin manipulating a camera.
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* A major part of the background in [[Warhammer
** Also, Chaos being Chaos, at least half of them are [[Card-Carrying Villain]]s anyway, so if it was written from their perspective it would just be "Yeah, we're evil, [[Evil Feels Good|it's awesome and you should try it]]."
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** It will be interesting to see how this plays out if a future game occurs in the modern world. Will people react the same to assasins killing police officers and soldiers in the United States or Europe? Unless of course [[Double Standard|the game developers decide to make you desynchronize when you needlessly kill them when their not actively hunting you.]]
* ''[[Tales of Graces]]'': {{spoiler|Richard has been possessed and turned into a merciless psycho king. However, because Richard is a friend to the party, they can't just kill him before he ruins or ends anyone else's life. They need to save him!}}
* A major problem in ''[[Watch Dogs]] 2''. In retaliation for being marked a criminal by a [[Mega Corp]]'s AI, the protagonist... becomes an actual criminal. To clear his name he engages in the mass murder of dozens of innocent staffers and acts to destroy the system that was ''completely right about him.'' The subplot is even worse: For the heinous crime of having said Mega Corp's help in winning an election [[Critical Research Failure|for a congressional district that hasn't been seriously contested since its inception in 1975]] (No Republican has ever gotten within 10% of the winning Democrat and its typically lower), it's OK to break into his office and murder his staff. That's not even counting the game's sandbox allowing random, indiscriminate murder.
* ''[[Drakengard|Drakengard 3]]'' is what you would get if you took the cast of ''[[It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia]]'' and turned them into fantasy RPG characters. They're all a bunch of creeps with no morals whatsoever; the first thing the player sees the "hero" do is murder the narrator. For [[Broken Base|those who like this game]] (most [[So Okay It's Average|view it as mediocre]]), that's kind of what makes it entertaining, even if it is [[Loose Canon]].
=== [[Visual Novel]] ===
* In ''[[Fate/stay night
** You get to see things from the perspective of the protagonist, whose hypocrisy is constantly called trough the [[Visual Novel]], though.
* In the Good ending of ''[[Swan Song (visual novel)|Swan Song]]'', {{spoiler|Takuma is forgiven and left unpunished for [[Complete Monster|rape, murder, torture, necrophilia, you name it.]] In the normal ending he is the sole reason for the death of all the earthquake survivors.}}
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* In ''[[PvP (webcomic)|
* The protagonists of ''[[Kit N Kay Boodle]]'' are always right and everything they do is morally righteous and correct behavior, no matter what they're doing to whom, because their motives are supposedly pure and for the greater good. This includes {{spoiler|raping someone with the mind of a child, because she's a brat}}, and framing her lawyers for the crime when they try to rescue her.
* Miko Miyazaki from ''[[The Order of the Stick]]'' was intended to be an intentional exploration of this: A [[Lawful Good]] paladin and also one of the protagonists' main antagonists. She is shown to be ''slightly'' more reasonable as long as none of them are in the room with her. {{spoiler|Well, up until the point where she ends up killing an innocent old man over her own misgivings and continues to insist it was all according to some greater plan her gods had for her.}}
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* Lately, ''[[YU+ME: dream]]'' has this in spades, especially when it comes to {{spoiler|Lia}}. While she was [[Not Herself]] sort of when doing all of the terrible things she did, it was a bit jarring to see her {{spoiler|have a romantic reunion with Fiona while a child that she killed was still in the background of the scene.}} There are also no repercussions for her actions besides her feeling bad about it... which doesn't seem to be getting in the way of her life too much.
* Zii of ''[[Ménage à 3]]'' is constantly performing acts that could be considered sex crimes, and spends almost all her time switching between trying to get laid and stopping other people from getting laid. These are portrayed as harmless, happy exploits and every time she seems to go too far such as by seducing an internet troll's mother or a waitress it turns out she was right to do so (the mother's husband was cheating on her and she gave her the confidence to divorce him, the waitress was sexually unsatisfied by her boyfriend). Even the other roommates who she's devoted to sexually manipulating don't seem bothered by her.
* As someone over at [https://web.archive.org/web/20130326221939/http://badwebcomics.wikidot.com/forum/t-401426/the-worst-webcomic-creators#post-1293718 the BadWebcomicsWiki] put it, ''[[Sabrina Online]]'''s Zig Zag is able to do whatever she wants whenever she wants to whomever she wants with little to no consequence, from sexually harassing an employee to [[If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...|threatening said employee's boyfriend]] to stalking, harassing, and physically assaulting people for saying mean things about her on the internet.
* In ''[[Least I Could Do]]'', protagonist Rayne gets away with being insanely rude, selfish, insulting, etc. because, well, it's him. In earlier strips his friends would give back about as good as they got, but in more recent years Rayne is the only one allowed to look good in the end. The ''modus operandi'' of late involves Rayne doing something mean or selfish to his friends for 90% of the storyline, then taking the last 10% to do something that magically makes everyone forgive him, whether it's honestly nice or just him cleaning up the mess he got them into in the first place. Not helping matters at all is the fact that Rayne is pretty well an [[Author Avatar]] for Ryan Sohmer.
** The (rare) occasions when Rayne is actually called on his behaviour, and still the story goes out of its way to portray him as a good character, are particularly blatant. Usually, it's just a girl that complains about his jerk behaviour, but we never get to see anyone being genuinely upset at him. This usually goes as follows: Rayne says or does something insensitive, often when he is in a position of power (e.g. he's the boss), the person (usually attractive woman) complains about that, Rayne says something funny, the person is obviously more amused than angry now (judging by the wry smile - it's pretty much always a wry smile). One of the more extreme examples is this, however: at one point in the comic, Rayne finds a homeless orphan and starts using him as an ill-defined personal assistant/slave/plaything, often verging on abuse at the very least. At one point, he gets called out on it. His reaction is one of indignation, and he points out how he is saving the kid from a life on the street, and how he is actually the child's legal guardian. The accuser (an attractive woman, of course) backs down, saying something to the effect "I'm sorry for assuming the worst". The comic (and the accuser) completely ignores/forgets that such behaviour towards someone entirely dependent on you is still very much abusive, and the fact that you're paying money for someone's living doesn't render their basic dignity moot. If anything, the boy is in no position to protest for fear that he might actually have nothing to eat if he gets kicked out. Arguably, switching from the usual [[Comedic Sociopathy]] to a weak attempt at treating the situation realistic and justifying Rayne's behaviour makes it worse, by claiming the situation is a-OK rather than dismissing it as a comedic, unrealistic situation.
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== [[Web Original]] ==
* One interpretation of [[Hero Antagonist|Captain Hammer]] (the one that most people in-story believe, and most viewers refuse to believe) in ''[[
** [[All There in the Manual|Supplemental material]] shows that Captain Hammer has done worse things then what he shows in the movie, and his super-heroics are often shown as reckless (he stops a remote-controlled car at one point by removing the controller and letting it drive off out of control, and doesn't capture Dr. Horrible so he can continue taunting him). That said, in the original story itself, Hammer is just a [[Jerkass]], yet his comeuppance is self-inflicted and relatively minor, more befitting a [[Jerk Jock]] than a supervillain.
*** Wasn't the [[Angst Dissonance]] the whole point?
* ''[[Dominic Deegan]]''{{context}}
* ''[[RWBY]]'': Some detractors of the show have noticed that the narrative tends to gloss over the more morally questionable actions the main characters perform. Especially in the later volumes when they stole a Manta airship from the Atlesian Military just so that they can fly to Atlas together; or when they decided to keep secrets from General Ironwood despite the fact that they criticized Ozpin for keeping the ''exact same secrets'' from themselves just the previous volume. Also, when someone disagrees with Ruby, they tend to be depicted as being in the wrong or even portrayed as a villain, the most notable example being General Ironwood. While the morality of Ironwood's plans at the end of Volume 7 has been extensively discussed among the FNDM, the show proceeds to portray Ruby as being in the right when she protested Ironwood's plans and actively fought against him in order to see that his plan doesn't go through, when she doesn't have any alternatives herself and her actions directly put literally every single inhabitant of Atlas in grave danger.
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* On ''[[The Fairly
** A milder version can be seen in the episode "The Grass is always Greener". Timmy runs away to the circus and wishes he was the greatest performer in the world. All the other carnies become jealous of Timmy stealing their talents, although the pinman is happy to put up with it - until Timmy steals ''his'' talent. Granted, this is a subversion because {{spoiler|it was all a [[Massive Multiplayer Scam]] to convince Timmy to go back to his parents.}}
* Applied in a big way in the second ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003]]'' cartoon, as noted most obviously in the turtles' treatment of Karai, Hun, and the Shredder. While all three characters have led [[The Syndicate|crime syndicates]] and have ruined countless off-screen lives, the turtles' treatment of them varies wildly. The Shredder, as Hamato Yoshi's killer, becomes a kill-on-sight villain whenever he threatens the world. Hun, who is openly antagonistic against the turtles but has yet to do any real damage, is dealt with ambivalence—if he's killed, fine, but they won't go out of their way to do so. On the other hand, sometimes-ally Karai—who has tried to kill the turtles on more than one occasion and was perfectly willing to allow her father to commit interstellar genocide—wound up being invited to April and Casey's wedding after her help defeating an even bigger bad. Combined with the fact that "stopping the bad guys" sometimes means "committing genocide", it's hard not to conclude the the turtles, although unquestionably heroic at times, have also committed plenty of actions that would make people go "what the hell, hero?"
** [[To Be Lawful or Good| The Paladin's Dilemma]] may apply to this one.
* ''[[Aeon Flux]]'' deconstructs this ''constantly''. The pilot starts out as a normal "Superspy slaughters mooks" sequence, then slowly shifts its focus to the final thoughts and experiences of several drugged, bleeding guards dying on the floor. The episode "War" goes through no less than ''four'' protagonists in a matter of minutes.
* [[The Powerpuff Girls]] are often just as destructive as the villains they fight, which is almost never acknowledged because, well, they're the Powerpuff Girls. It is also hinted at times that the girls could potentially be a danger to the city of Townsville if pissed off, but again, this is seldom acknowledged by the Mayor, the Professor, or anyone else.
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*** Not to mention Rainbow once appeared as a guest at the girl's birthday party and seemed totally normal, further indicating it was the bleach that corrupted him, proving that Rainbow himself is not dangerous.
**** Which all probably ignores that the Powerpuff Girls beating him up even though it wasn't really his fault, he was harmless, and he apologized, was ''[[Don't Explain the Joke|meant as humorous]]''. The PPG are ''supposed'' to look like violent jerks in that episode... and probably in most other episodes where people complain of this trope. It's not that their general destructive tendencies are brushed over, ignored, or condoned, it's that these are meant to be part of the series' humor. Anyone who doesn't get this is clearly [[Completely Missing the Point]].
** A few episodes that might be considered grey areas were "Beat Your Greens" (as in, they defeated the Brocoloids by ''eating'' them; rather... disturbing, but given that these aliens had fast regenerative powers, it was the only option they could think of) and "Getting Twiggy With It" (tried to feed Mitch to Twiggy - most would agree he deserved it). Possibly the two worst things at least one of them did occured in "Moral Decay" (Buttercup purposely hunting down villains to knock their teeth out to give to the Tooth Fairy) and "A Very Special Blossom" (Blossom stealing golf clubs and ''framing Mojo for it'', [[What the Hell, Hero?]]) they were indeed punished for.
* ''[[SpongeBob SquarePants]]'' has this in spades. We are constantly supposed to side with Spongebob and Patrick over other people, such as in the "Bubble Buddy" episode where we're supposed to sympathise with Spongebob because people want to pop his "friend", despite them doing nothing but cause trouble the entire episode (such as keeping a very large amount of people waiting ''two hours to use the bathroom'' because Bubble Buddy was "using it" and making an unreasonably complicated order at the Krusty Krab).
** Bubble Buddy actually let a fish die. At least in the Mob's case, they didn't know Bubble Buddy was alive.
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{{quote|'''Rainbow Dash:''' There's no need to show off like that; that's ''my'' job.}}
** Also, Trixie's ''reaction'' to the 'heckling' is to throw out an open challenge to the audience that anything they could do she could do better (which means from that point on anything that anyone does to try and show Trixie up is entirely justified, as its being done at Trixie's express invitation), and then changes the rules of each contest halfway through so that Trixie always wins. So regardless of how the Mane Six behaved the final catastrophe is Trixie's fault—she not only chose to escalate a minor conflict out of all proportion when all she had to to defuse said conflict was ''nothing'', she then doubled-down on bad behavior by cheating. At this point Trixie's pretty much just eating her own bad karma, even if her opponents were not perfect saints.
* [[South Park|Eric Cartman]] combines this trope with [[Self-Serving Memory]], being convinced that he's always right and therefore anyone who disagrees with him is always wrong. The "Coon and Friends" multi-parter illustrates this perfectly; Cartman joins forces with ''freaking'' '''''[[Cthulhu Mythos|Cthulhu]]''''', gets him to kill hippies and [[Justin
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