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Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: Difference between revisions
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So our once-spotless protagonist has just performed a bit of [[Dirty Business]]. Or worse, in a moment of weakness, they've done something [[Moral Dissonance|unambiguously wrong]], perhaps even [[Not So Different|lowering themselves to the level of the villain.]] Either way, their [[Fatal Flaw|character flaws]] have just been [[What You Are in The Dark|laid bare.]]
Sometimes the hero in question will be [[Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!|knocked back to their senses]] by [[What the Hell, Hero?|a stern admonishment from people they respect.]] What can be even more shocking, however, is [[Baddie Flattery|when they receive praise from a person they detest]]. [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|"Nice one,"]] cackles the evil villain, "and I thought ''I'' was the bad guy, here." At this point, the hero usually realizes that they must have [[My God, What Have I Done?|just done something horrible]] to warrant a compliment from their most hated adversary, though they may just brush the villain off with a [[Shut UP, Hannibal|quick retort.]]
This generally comes in one of two flavors: in one, the villain is [[Arson, Murder, and Admiration|genuinely impressed]] by the the unheroic deed and pays the hero an honest (if unwanted) compliment. This shows up more frequently in comedic works. In other, usually more serious cases, the villain's motive is to [[Deadpan Snarker|sarcastically mock]] the hero's [[Not So Different|claim to the moral high ground]], [[Manipulative Bastard|mess with the hero's head]], [[Flaw Exploitation|goad him]] into taking more actions he'll regret, or even [[Start of Darkness|set him up]] for an [[Moral Event Horizon|irreversible]] [[Jumping Off the Slippery Slope|fall]] to the [[Face Heel Turn|ways of evil]].
Essentially an [[Inverted Trope|inversion]] of [[What the Hell, Hero?]]. Sometimes part of a [[Breaking Lecture]] or a [[Not So Different]] speech. Can occasionally occur solely among protagonists, with an especially dark [[Anti
{{examples
== Anime & Manga ==
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** As mentioned, this trope can occasionally occur among protagonists. In a story of the ''Uncanny X-Men'' in the late eighties, Havok is disturbed at the growing ease he's feeling in killing bad guys to save innocents. After their recent battle, [[Wolverine]] congratulates him for not hesitating to kill, offering to shake his hand. Havok isn't exactly flattered that he is being congratulated by the patron saint of anti-heroes.
* In [[The DCU|DC]]'s [[Elseworld|Elseworlds]]' ''The Golden Age'', Al Pratt, The Atom, is among those stunned to learn that the would-be icon Dyna-Man, the former Dan The Dyna-Mite, is not at all who he seems. Pratt, who has never questioned the ever more sinister tone of the movement he's been in, is complimented by Dyna-Man, saying he would have made a perfect Nazi. Note that Pratt was a member of the [[Justice Society of America]] and had been actively fighting the Nazis in [[World War II]].
* In ''[[Preacher (Comic Book)]]'', Jody tells Jesse Custer that he's proud of him. Jesse seems less ashamed and more royally pissed.
== Fan Works ==
* In the ''[[Pony POV Series (Fanfic)|Pony POV Series]]'' Origins Arc, this happens several times with Discord being the one giving the praise. Being that Discord in this fic the hero in question {{spoiler|Princess Celestia}} knows he's a sadistic psychopath with no regard for life in any form and has already caused untold suffering for his own amusement, having ''him'' praise a hero normally results in a [[My God, What Have I Done?]] moment on their part.
* At the end of the first day of the trial in ''[[Turnabout Storm (Fanfic)|Turnabout Storm]]'', [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (Animation)|Trixie]], the prosecutor, is more than happy to agree with [[Ace Attorney (Visual Novel)|Phoenix's]] claims, and even offers him a ticket to her next performance. His response is [[Visible Silence|a silent stare]], the motive being that {{spoiler|[[Shoot the Dog|he just placed suspicion of the murder over Fluttershy]]}} as a desperate ploy to save Dash and get more time to investigate.
* According to Rufftoon on [[Deviant ART]], [http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/101/4/c/seal_of_approval_by_rufftoon-d4vvis4.jpg Zhao] [http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2he0wieVQ1rsbbifo1_500.jpg approves] of [[The Legend of Korra (Animation)|Korra]].
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{{quote| '''Batman:''' You wanted me. Here I am.<br />
'''The Joker:''' I wanted to see what you'd do. And you didn't disappoint! You let five people die! }}
** That's more of a [[What the Hell, Hero?]]. He's calling Bats out for letting people die, and then he says "Then you let {{spoiler|Dent take your place}}. Even for a guy like me, that's cold."
* At the climax of ''[[Star Wars|Return of the Jedi]]'', the Emperor grabs the [[Villain Ball]] as tightly as he can by congratulating and encouraging Luke each time he lets his anger take control of him, and each time Luke realizes that he is falling into the dark side and stops himself.
** Parodied in ''[[Irregular Webcomic]]'' [http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/462.html here].
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* ''[[A Series of Unfortunate Events]]'': both our protagonists and their arch villain are in dire straits. Sunny then proposes to set the building they are kept in on fire, despite the hundreds of people still being in it. Their past guardian Olaf then rejoices at Sunny's creativity: "it seems I've been a good educator after all!" Since he's spent the rest of the series killing their relatives, mistreating them and framing them for his own crimes in order to steal their fortune, putting them in that desperate situation in the first place and even allegedly killing their own parents by setting their house on fire... It has to be the most horrifying line of the whole series.
* Early on in the ''[[Animorphs (Literature)|Animorphs]]'' series, Marco saves an old man from a bunch of gangsters by morphing gorilla, and beating the snot out of the gangsters. Later, when everyone else starts giving Marco crap about it, Marco firmly sticks to his belief that he did the right thing. Then [[Blood Knight|Rachel]] agrees with him, and says (with conviction) that she also thinks Marco did the right thing. Marco quips, "Okay, now I ''know'' I did the wrong thing, if Rachel agrees with me." Rachel is not amused.
* Close to the end of ''[[The Magicians]]'', Quentin meets Emily Greenstreet, another magician who chose to leave magic behind. She congratulates him on doing so, blames everything that went wrong in their lives on magic -- including the death of Emily's boyfriend and {{spoiler|Alice's [[Heroic Sacrifice]]}} -- and accuses the same magicians that allow her a [[One
* ''[[Harry Potter (Literature)|Harry Potter]]''
** In the fifth book, Hermione starts questioning her own idea after Sirius supports it. Sirius is a good guy, but he's known to be dangerously impulsive at times.
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* Played for laughs on ''[[The Red Green Show]]''. On the rare occasions when Red does something that his nephew Harold is proud of him for, he's typically even more ashamed than he was in the first place.
* On an episode of ''[[Babylon 5]]'', Ivanova is trying to persuade a race of [[Social Darwinist|Social Darwinists]] to [http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/guide/034.html ally themselves] with Earth. When they stumble onto the station's "down below" slum, they assume it was deliberately planned in an effort to separate the "genetically inferior" humans from their superiors. [[It Got Worse|Then they start talking about implementing a similar system themselves.]] The look on the Jewish Ivanova's face is priceless.
* On the PETA episode of ''[[Penn and Teller Bullshit]]'', Rodney Coronado, a guy who fire-bombed several animal testing labs, [[Affably Evil|was polite and friendly in his response to Penn Jillette's call]]. This prompted Penn Jillette to remark, "cool guy, likes us, and likes our show. Too bad he's a [[Precision F
* Invoked in ''[[Parker Lewis Can't Lose]]'' when Parker is running for [[Student Council President]]. After he notices his opponent would actually be a better president than him, he makes it look like [[Dean Bitterman|Ms. Musso]] endorses him.
* When [[Boston Legal|Alan]] fears that he is sexist, Denny's deeply chauvanistic attempt at reassurance does not help one bit.
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== Sports ==
* [[Formula One|In the 2010 German GP]], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_German_Grand_Prix#Team_orders Felipe Massa was not-so-subtly told to give the victory to his team mate Fernando Alonso], who was better placed in the drivers' championship. Such blatant "team orders" are banned because they're a bit dickish. Under a barrage of criticism, Ferrari found a defender -- none other than Michael Schumacher, their legendary former driver. But he's famous for two things: winning lots and lots of races -- and playing very dirty to do so. In fact, this instance drew parallels to the 2002 Austrian GP, when Rubens Barrichello was ordered to let Schumacher past for the win.<ref>This is the incident that led to the team order ban in the first place.</ref> Congratulations, you have the blessing of the anthropomorphic personalization of "the ends justify the means".<br />However, [[Laser
== Video Games ==
* Compliments from HK-47 in the ''[[Knights of the Old Republic (Video Game)|Knights of the Old Republic]]'' games are generally a sign that the player character is falling to [[The Dark Side]], although whether the PC is startled back to a lighter path or genuinely takes the compliments as they are meant is up to the player.
* In the "Mind of Steel" [[Nonstandard Game Over|Bad End]] to ''[[Fate Stay Night]]'', {{spoiler|[[Not Quite the Right Thing|Shirou ends up choosing the needs of the many over the needs of the few]] by having his [[Love Interest]] Sakura, who is a [[Manchurian Agent]] for the [[Big Bad]] and has a [[Super
* ''[[Deus Ex (Video Game)|Deus Ex]]''
** Appears if you take a more trigger-happy approach to the early missions. Wiping out the terrorists in Castle Clinton or executing a surrendering terrorist leader will earn you the approval of Anna Navarre, your near-psychotic trigger-happy partner and the foot soldiers of UNATCO.
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* Though it's impossible to speak of the reactions of a practically [[Heroic Mime]] [[Player Character]], something like this is clearly aimed at in the Death Knight starting quests in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', trying to give the PC something approaching [[Character Development]] justifying their later [[Heel Face Turn]]. Once a hero, the Death Knight character now must ([[But Thou Must|really must]]) bow to the will of the [[Big Bad|Lich King]] and slaughter innocents. However, they are presumably shocked into remembering who they once were when they are asked to [[Kick the Wrong Dog|execute a prisoner who turns out to be someone they knew back in life]]. After this, their superior compliments them for their blood lust. It can be safely said this compliment is not meant to be taken as positively as it is given.
* In ''[[Ultima VII]]'', the [[Big Bad|Guardian]] will congratulate you heartily if you kill [[Big Good|Lord British]].
** If you do it with the [[Infinity
* In the video game for ''[[I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream]]'', [[Big Bad|A]][[AI Is a Crapshoot|M]] makes it clear that he considers Nimdok (who was a Nazi in the Holocaust) to be an inspiration. Nimdok is far from happy with this.
* If you ever see the text "[[Token Evil Teammate|Morrigan/Zevran]] approves" in ''[[Dragon Age Origins]]'' without having given them something shiny or flattered them in conversation, odds are good you just did something evil or immoral. There are some exceptions, but at a whole approval for these characters = evil. [[Heroic Comedic Sociopath|Shale]] and [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|Sten]] hold this true to a lesser degree.
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** [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0171.html Here] we find the comedic variant -- Roy is less than thrilled at Belkar's support for his plan to punish two minor villains, a father and his sorceress daughter, [[Cool and Unusual Punishment|simply by forcing them to spend family time together]].
** It appears again [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0405.html here], with Belkar earnestly complimenting [[The Chessmaster|Lord]] [[Obfuscating Stupidity|Shojo]] on the latter's {{spoiler|use of degrading tasks to manipulate the paladins under his command}}.
** Finally, in [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0596.html a more recent strip], Elan deliberately [[Invoked Trope|invokes]] the trope in the same manner, using an illusion of Belkar to sarcastically [[What the Hell, Hero?|call out]] Vaarsuvius {{spoiler|over the arbitrary killing of [[Smug Snake|Kubota]]}}.
** And [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0645.html here].
** Also, [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0190.html an inversion] happens when [[The Dragon|Redcloak]] is about to go scout a dangerous path and [[Minion With an F In Evil|the Monster in the Darkness]] compliments him on risking his own life instead of those of [[Fantastic Racism|the hobgoblin minions Redcloak hates]].
* In the [[Yet Another Christmas Carol]] [http://www.brawlinthefamily.com/?p=953 arc] of ''[[Brawl in The Family (Webcomic)|Brawl in The Family]]'', [[Jerkass|Wario]], playing Jacob Marley's role, compliments Mario's shift in personality (making him the story's Ebenezer Scrooge) over the years:
{{quote| '''Wario:''' Alright, so here's the scoop: after I kicked the bucket and you gained full control of the coin bank... You've become GREEDY, BITTER, and SELFISH! Well done!}}
* In an early [[Info Dump]] of ''[[Freefall (Webcomic)|Freefall]]'', it's mentioned that the planet was designed to have two moons. It already had one with a diameter of about 1500 km, and Earth's moon has a diameter of 3476 km, so someone decided that, to even it out, [[You Fail Physics Forever|they'd add a moon with a diameter of about 2000 km]].<ref>That damn [[Square
** [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1700/fc01698.htm Later]
* Marten tries to invoke this on Steve in ''[[Questionable Content]]''. It doesn't work.
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== Real Life ==
* Phocion, regarded as the most honest politician in Athens at about the time of Alexander the Great, was making a speech. When the listeners cheered, he supposedly paused and asked a friend, "Have I inadvertently said something evil?"
* After a [http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local-beat/Compton-Cookout-Creates-Campus-Uproar-84648212.html racist-themed party was thrown] by a fraternity of the University of California at San Diego, mocking black history month, opportunity has been seized by ''Jiggaboo Jones'', self-proclaimed [[N
* After Swedish pastor Åke Green was accused of homophobic hate speech and later acquitted, the Westboro Baptist Church proclaimed him a martyr and erected a monument to him. Green found it appalling, which led the WBC to deem him unworthy and take the monument down.
* Mary Whitehouse, patron saint of [[Moral Guardians]], wrote to the BBC praising ''[[The Goodies (TV)|The Goodies]]'' for its wholesome, family-friendly content. ([[What Do You Mean
* As a general rule of thumb, liberals that agree with a conservative pundit or conservatives that agree with a liberal pundit will have a case of this. [[Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment|That's all that needs to be said on the matter]].
* During most election cycles, controversial organizations and individuals will endorse mainstream candidates. It's usually a case of [[Enemy Mine]], but it still causes headaches for said candidates and their PR teams.
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[[Category:Admiration Tropes]]
[[Category:Your Approval Fills Me With Shame]]
[[Category:Trope]][[Category:Pages with comment tags]]
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