Serial Killer Killer: Difference between revisions

{{quote|'''Harry Morgan:''' "Son, there are people out there who do really bad things. Terrible people. And the police can't catch them all. Do you understand what I'm saying?"<br />

He would be, but instead of terrorizing the innocent, the [['''Serial Killer Killer]]''' terrorizes the guilty. He spends his life tracking down serial killers so he can give them justice. In short, he's a vigilante, who thinks himself divine justice incarnate. [[Bonus Points]] if he kills them in the same way they'd kill their own victims.

Distinct from [[He Who Fights Monsters]] because He Who Fights Monsters is more about good characters turning evil in the process of hunting evil, whereas this is more about someone who is evil, or crazy, or both from the outset.

Arguably, this guy can be [[Chaotic Good]] and be an [[Anti -Hero]], although he walks a VERY dangerous line to become the [[Knight Templar]] or, worse, a [[Complete Monster]].

A [[Sub -Trope]] of [[The Hunter]].

See also [[Vigilante Man]], [[Knight Templar]], [[Pay Evil Unto Evil]], [[Hunter of His Own Kind]], [[The Killer Becomes the Killed]], [[Nineties Anti -Hero]].

Compare and contrast with the similarly named [[Wife -Basher Basher]], and note that these two tropes more often than not overlap each other.

{{examples|Examples:}}

* Almost all of the Kiras of ''[[Death Note (Manga)|Death Note]]'' fall under this trope, with the exception of the one profit-driven [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]]. Most notably, the main character Light is a mix of [[Knight Templar]] and [[A God Am I]], believing he'll become the [[Catch Phrase|"god of the new world"]] by completely eradicating the world's criminals. True to the series' penchant of showing what happens to [[He Who Fights Monsters]], a good number of the Kiras [[Jumping Off the Slippery Slope|Jump Off The Slippery Slope]] into [[Knight Templar]] (such as Light himself) or just plain crazy (such as Mikami) territory.

* Cassie Hack in ''[[Hack Slash|Hack/Slash]]'' is a former [[Final Girl]] who becomes a slasher-hunter. In one of the later comics, she's even referred to by a talk radio host as the "SKK".

* [[Evil Counterpart|Venom]] from [[Spider -Man]] ([[Depending Onon the Writer]]).

* Ben O'Ryan in the film ''[[Suspect Zero (Film)|Suspect Zero]]''

* [[Agatha Christie (Creator)|Agatha Christie]]'s ''[[And Then There Were None (Literature)|And Then There Were None]]'': U.N. Owen. Except that most of his victims were ordinary murderers rather than serial killers.

* [[Philo Vance]] in ''The Bishop Murder Case''.

* Both Shiki and Fujino in ''[[Kara no Kyoukai:]]''. This is part of the reason why the part of the story where they fight is the only one where both agonists get out okay, more-or-less. (Well, that and the one where the antagonist has [[Mind Control]] to stop Shiki from attacking him...)

* The ''[[Dexter]]'' novels go a bit further than the show--notshow—not only do we have Dexter himself, {{spoiler|the two children he's raising are damaged in much the same way he is, and he's trying to teach them to be like him so as to prevent them from becoming [[Complete Monster|even worse]].}}

* Edward Cullen from ''[[Twilight (Literaturenovel)|The Twilight Saga]]'' spent a few years doing this during his "rebellious" phase against Carlisle's vegetarian vampirism philosophy.

* The murderer in the [[Wallander (TV)|Kurt Wallander]] novel ''The Fifth Woman'' turns out to be a rare female example of this trope.

* After [[Angel]] gets his soul back, Darla accuses him of being this when he tries to win her back. She says that while he ''has'' been killing, it's only been "murderers and rapists." Then she tried to make him [[If You're So Evil Eat This Kitten|kill a baby]] to prove himself.

* In the very first episode of ''[[Tales Fromfrom the Crypt]]'' "The Man Who Was Death" Niles Talbot is an executioner who was recently fired after the death penalty was abolished in his town. As a result, he goes on a killing spree, killing those who murdered people and escaped justice by various means of electrocution. However, eventually karma bites him in the ass when the tables are turned on him and he is executed using his preferred method just as it was reinstated.

* Madame Vastra, a Silurian living in Victorian London in ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'', ''eats'' [[Jack the Ripper]], apparently with Inspector Abberline's blessing.

* An episode of ''[[Law and Order Special Victims Unit]]'' has a woman deceive who can't handle that she killed a torturous murderer.

* Similarly, ''[[Mage: The Ascension (Tabletop Game)|Mage: The Ascension]]'' has the Tradition of the Euthanatos. The Euthanatos view existence as a continual cycle of death and rebirth -- "the Wheel" -- and—and those who unbalance the Wheel through atrocities must be dealt with so that things can be set right.

* Alex Mercer from ''[[Prototype (Videovideo Gamegame)|Prototype]]'' in a way. He kills thousands of comparatively blameless soldiers to get to their leaders, the ones responsible for the outbreak of the disease ravaging Manhattan, and kill ''them''. His reasoning, insofar as 'reason' factors into anything Alex does, seems to be that however many people ''he'' kills, his targets are responsible for both far more deaths and much uglier crimes. Of course, his conscience is still developing throughout the game, so at the beginning he was just a plain-old mass murderer.

* ''[[The Onion]]'' [https://web.archive.org/web/20100219075840/http://www.theonion.com/content/radio_news/series_of_serial_killer "Series Of Serial-Killer Killings Rocks Serial-Killer Community"]

* The ''[[Global Guardians PBEM Universe]]'' had The Confessor. The Confessor obsessively hunted down and murdered (usually in a very [[Karmic Death]]) other serial killers. When the heroes finally captured him, and one pointed out to the Confessor that he, himself, was a serial killer, The Confessor delivered the [[Hannibal Lecture]] to end all [[Hannibal Lecture|Hannibal Lectures]]s.

** The Dove was also a [[Serial Killer Killer]], but honestly thought he was the hero of his own story.

* ''Lots'' of protagonist vampires in fiction go through a [[Serial Killer Killer]] phase, deliberately preying upon only the guilty, before they swear off human victims entirely and embrace the [[Vampire Detective]] and/or [[Friendly Neighborhood Vampire]] tropes.