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Straight Edge Evil: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|"Whether you like it or not you are all part of my crusade! And I will fill the void with straight edge!"|''Cm Punk, WWE Smackdown''}}
A sister trope or sub-trope of [[Pure Is Not Good]], this is when a villain lives a temperate and orderly lifestyle, [[Straight Edge|free of drugs, tobacco, alcohol, illicit sex and other such vices]]. Such a villain will probably be [[Lawful Evil]] and keep to a schedule.
Often a trait of a [[Knight Templar]]. See also [[Villainous Valour]], [[Evil Virtues]] and [[Family Values Villain]]. Compare [[Smug Straight Edge]] and [[Even Evil Has Standards]].
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* Light from ''[[Death Note]]''. His disciple Mikami also leads a fairly healthy lifestyle, up to and including a gym membership.
* Claude "Torch" Weaver from ''[[Black Lagoon]]'' is the series who doesn't cuss or drink. He also [[Pyromaniac|enjoys setting things on fire]], one of those things having been {{spoiler|''his wife''}}.
* Jirou from ''[[Kamisama Kiss]].'' [[Hilarity Ensues]] when he starts falling for the heroine Nanami, leading to a [[Sex Is Evil and I Am Horny]] situation.
== [[Comic Books]] ==
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== [[Film]] ==
* ''[[Thunderball]]'': Vargas, [[The Dragon]] of [[Big Bad]] Emilio Largo.
{{quote|'''Largo''': Vargas does not drink. Does not smoke. Does not make love. }}
* Frank Lucas in ''[[American Gangster]]'' refuses to live the ostentatious lifestyle of his peers. Justified, in that this helps him avoid police attention. In fact, the one time when he lives up to the gangster stereotype, wearing [[Fur and Loathing|a flashy fur coat]] that his wife got him, ultimately leads to Ritchie noticing him and his subsequent downfall.
* Doyle Lonegan from ''[[The Sting]].'' Either celibate or [[Ambiguously Gay]], a sober country-club-member banking gentleman whose only vice is poker {{spoiler|...and he cheats. Also, his real money comes from his numbers racket, and he won't hesitate to murder anyone who cons him out of a single payment from a single runner on a single day of it.}}
* Harry Powell in ''[[The Night of the Hunter]]'', he usually kills the women he finds sexually attractive
== [[Literature]] ==
* Most mystery stories have this; the villain would be fairly obvious otherwise.
* [[Harry Potter/Characters|Dolores Umbridge]] in ''[[Harry Potter]]''. For that matter, the corruption in the ministry (which Umbridge embodies) can be considered this, when they put order and peace over good and justice.
* Mal'akh of ''[[The Lost Symbol]]'' overcame a lifetime of drugs and debauchery with the intent of making himself {{spoiler|the perfect sacrifice to complete a ritual that he believes will turn him into}} [[A God Am I|a god]].
* Several [[Dean Koontz]] villains fit this to a T, the better to conceal their true monstrous nature and seem normal and orderly to the world. When darkness falls and the possibility of being caught is null, however, all bets are off for what they will do.
** The sadistic and arbitrary serial killer in Dean Koontz's ''Intensity'' always keeps his word, has a well-ordered and scrubbed clean house, and even paid for his purchases made at a gas-station after killing the attendant...because he is a killer, not a thief.
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== [[Live-Action TV]] ==
* Dexter, of, well, ''[[Dexter]]''. Although the main reason he engages in clean living is due to the Code of Harry: It's his way of avoiding drawing attention to himself, his way of hiding in plain sight.
** Trinity also qualifies, since he's not shown engaging in any "vices" other than domestic abuse and serial murder.
* The Mayor from ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' doesn't drink and gets extremely cross with people who swear (even if they are demons). He also gently turns down the advances from his [[Tyke Bomb]], making her a surrogate daughter instead. His idea of fun time is going out for frozen yogurt. And he wants to kill the entire town to become an immortal snake demon.
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* Gus on ''[[Breaking Bad]]'' is very friendly and well-mannered, has a cordial relationship with local law enforcement, and owns a chain of chicken restaurants and the largest methamphetamine operation in the Southwest.
** While he makes his fortune distributing drugs, he has nothing but contempt for the users. Being dependable and professional are his primary values, and junkies are known for neither.
* Servalan from [[Blake's
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* [[Warhammer 40000]] has Lelith Hesperax, the head of the [[Evil Counterpart|Dark]] [[Our Elves Are Different|Eldar]] [[Blood Sport|Wych Cult of Strife]]. [[Dark Action Girl|Wyches]] are essentially the gladiators of the Dark Eldar, and their leaders (the Succubi / Archites) use the most advanced [[Phlebotinum Pills|combat drugs]], [[Poisoned Weapons|poison]] or [[Magic From Technology|arcane wargear]] in the setting to dart around and kill anything before it can as much as look at them. In contrast, Lelith comes with two knives, blades in hear hair, and just enough cloth on her so you can't really say she's naked. And not [[Chainsaw Good|chain]] or [[Energy Weapon|power]] knives, either - just regular mono-edged knives which she is so good with, she treats as power weapons. In short, she uses none of the "crutches" other wyches do, and yet is, by far, the fastest, most skilled, and, what wyches value almost as much as winning, the most [[Lady of War|stylish]] of them all.
** The Word Bearers worship all four Chaos Gods and support the other branches of the Chaos Space Marines on the principle that they all serve Chaos in their own way. The Word Bearers do have a problem with the way the Emperor's Children and other Slaanesh worshipers being too self-indulgent and decadent.
== [[Professional Wrestling]] ==
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* Malvolio from ''[[Twelfth Night]]'' could be an example of this. Although he may not be portrayed as evil necessarily, he is certainly a villain, one who is power hungry, mocking, and oppressive to the members of Olivia's household.
{{quote|'''Sir Toby''': Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, that there will be no more cakes and ale?}}
* The "precise" (Jacobean for "puritanical") Angelo in ''[[Measure for Measure]]'' is another example; his first action as regent of Vienna is to resurrect a law that makes extramarital sex a capital offense, and when he issues a [[Scarpia Ultimatum]] to the sister of a man condemned under this law, it's because he finds her ''virtue'' a turn-on (she's a novice in a convent).
* Shakespeare also invokes this trope in dialogue when he has the title character in ''[[Julius Caesar (theatre)|Julius Caesar]]'' remark that he prefers "men...that are fat, / Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights," and that Cassius is clearly untrustworthy because he "loves no plays" and "hears no music." Whether Cassius actually counts as an example is [[Your Mileage May Vary|a matter of interpretation]].
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** Hitler LOVED children and dogs, and in a pure way. Both children and dogs are obedient, which is what he likes the best.
** Although his late-life cocktail of drugs might seem to disqualify him, these were, as with [[Elvis Presley|Elvis]], prescribed to him by crappy doctors. Believe it or not, nobody at the time knew exactly what methamphetamine did or how nasty of a drug it was.
** The exact nature of Hitler's sexuality is heavily debated by historians. The US government compiled a psychological profile (the first of its kind) on Hitler during the war, which accurately predicted that he'd fight to the end and ultimately commit suicide rather than surrender. Even this profile, however, states that it is difficult to determine exactly what Hitler's sex life was like, as they just had unverifiable scraps of rumor to go on, often contradictory. During the early years of the Nazi party in Weimar Germany, several German newspapers ran exposes on his bizarre personal life, but Hitler had his goons kill them, then hunt down and destroy every copy they could find. Nonetheless based on these scattered reports, the psychological profile concluded that there was certainly ''something'' unusual about Hitler's sex life. Other parts of the report based on more public information concluded that Hitler met most of the medical criteria for some form of Psycopathy (utterly manipulative, incapable of remorse, unable to mentally accept personal fault for anything, etc.). One of the major hallmarks of Psychopathy is extreme sexual perversion and obsession, not so much the actual pleasure but in the transgressive nature of it. On the other hand, there were other reports that he was very squeamish about women. The psychological profile therefore offered the tentative conclusion that while Hitler was embarrassed about sex and maintained a public facade, there might be some substantiation to the rumors that when he was having sex with a woman, he'd engage in...er...various dominance-based "excrement play" type activities.
* Roman society considered a man who did not drink to be evil because he was unwilling to risk [[In Vino Veritas|revealing his motives when under the influence]]. [[Gaius Julius Caesar|Caesar]] got a lot of flak from his rivals, particularly [[Cicero]], for refusing to drink heavily even once in a while.
** Apparently it's considered rude in Japan to not go drinking with your coworkers after work. By not getting drunk, you're refusing to open a vulnerability to them, which is important to ensure loyalty to the group. If you can't be blackmailed, it's too easy for you to betray the company.
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