Revenge Through Corruption

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Revenge Through Corruption is a variant on Revenge by Proxy and Sins of Our Fathers. Sins of Our Fathers refers to revenge against the descendants of someone that is dead or missing. Revenge by Proxy refers to revenge by harming someone important to the living person instead of taking the option of going directly after the target of revenge. Revenge Through Corruption can overlap either trope. What distinguishes this trope is the method of revenge. Instead of inflicting physical harm, the villain attacks the mind and soul. The intent is to get revenge on an enemy by making someone important to them evil, insane, under the control of the villain, hooked on drugs, or some other comparable effect. Victims may include friends, family, sidekicks, or even distant descendants.

A person that does this would probably be The Corrupter. See Face Monster Turn and Mind Manipulation for a handy list of techniques that can be used to accomplish such an end. Compare Raised by Orcs and We Used to Be Friends. Contrast Evil Parents Want Good Kids.


Examples of Revenge Through Corruption include:

Comic Books

  • Norman Osborn also seems to like this one.
  • And it also happened to Nick Fury's son Mikel.
  • Over at DC Comics, Wildcat's enemy the Yellow Wasp kidnapped his son in order to do this, but ironically wound up alienating his own child, who allegedly killed them both.
  • In Tom Strong, a Nazi villainess raises Tom's son—fathered without his consent or knowledge—as a racist psychopath. Even worse, it sticks.

Film

  • The Incredibles: After the Parrs foil his scheme with the Omnidroid, Syndrome kidnaps Jack-Jack Parr, intending to raise him as a future sidekick.
  • Subverted by Bill in Kill Bill, who kidnaps the child of his recent ex-lover and leaves her for dead only to give the child a perfectly happy, normal upbringing.
    • That's because the child is his.
  • Hook: Hook tries to punish Peter by turning Jack evil.
  • Played with in Sky High where the Big Bad plans to turn the heroes themselves into children again and raise them to be evil.
  • Tron: Legacy: Probably a factor in why Clu decided to twist Tron into Rinzler instead of just kill him outright.. It might also explain the "something special" in mind for Quorra.

Literature

  • Night Watch - Carcer toys with the idea of doing this to Vimes' younger self.
  • The Dresden Files - A Fallen Angel throws an Artifact of Doom where he knows the child of one of his enemies might pick it up. If the child were to pick it up, it would fall victim to Demonic Possession.
  • Harry Potter, Lupin says that he was turned into a werewolf by Fenrir Greyback, who had a feud with Lupin's father. Averted somewhat in that Lupin isn't evil unless he's actually a wolf.
    • It's stated by Lupin that Greyback is quite fond of kidnapping children after biting them, then raising them to hate normal humans, so it's likely he's played the trope completely straight in some cases.
  • The Hunger Games - the Capitol punishes the Districts by making their children killers (and praising them for it by turning them into celebrities!)
  • The Silver Chair - The Green Lady gets back at Narnia by brainwashing Prince Rilian.
  • Wuthering Heights - Part of Heathcliff's revenge on Hindley Earnshaw includes treating Hindley's son Hareton exactly the way Hindley treated Heathcliff in hopes of making Hareton grow up as twisted as Heathcliff himself.

Live-Action TV

  • Angel: Holtz gets revenge on Angelus for turning his daughter into a vampire by kidnapping Angel's son Connor and raising him to believe his father is evil.
  • Babylon 5: Centauri Emperor, who was being controlled by the Drakh through a Puppeteer Parasite, gave President Sheridan a gift intended for Sheridan's future offspring. The gift had another Puppeteer Parasite hidden within it.
  • Charmed had a rather interesting variation. Piper's son Wyatt from the future turned evil and wanted to take his toddler self and raise him(self) evil.
  • Invoked in Doctor Who series 6, the villains kidnap Amy and Rory's time-headed daughter when she's a baby with the intention of bringing her up to be a weapon effective against the Doctor. The success of this project is worryingly uncertain.
    • Well, at least as of the the last episode of Series 6, River Song seems to have pretty definitively decided she's not up for killing the Doctor, since she essentially ripped time to shreds in order to avoid having to do so.

Video Games

Western Animation

  • Adventure Time - "What is Life?" The Ice King tries to do this to Finn's Robot Buddy NEPTR.
  • Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker - The Joker kidnaps Tim Drake and turns him into a mini-Joker with the full intent of using him to torment Batman. He even implants a backup of his own personality on a magic micro chip implanted in Tim just so he can make a comeback forty years on.
  • Spider-Man: The Animated Series - Tombstone forms a streetgang of teenage thugs to help him steal tech for the Silvermane family and makes a point of recruiting the son of Robbie Robertson whom Tombstone blames for letting him get caught robbing a grocery store in their youth and taking the fall (starting him down a life of crime). When Robbie confronts him, Tombstone takes great pleasure in showing him the video feed of his son robbing the facility and leaving his fingerprints everywhere.
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