Greed: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"They don't call me Greed for nothing. I want money. I want women, status, and power. I want everything this world's selling and eternity's topping the list!"''|'''[[Meaningful Name|Greed]]''', ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (Mangamanga)|Fullmetal Alchemist]]''}}

{{quote|More! More! More! More! More! More! MOAR! More! More! More! More! More! More! MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!|'''Mr. Krabs''', '''[[SpongebobSpongeBob SquarePants]]'''}}

May lead to [[Death Byby Materialism]]. [[Gold Fever]] is a [[Sub-Trope]]. Often goes hand in hand with [[Villainous Glutton|gluttony]]. Compare [[Lust]], which is desire for abstract concepts as opposed to material possessions. If a greedy character is featured in a musical, expect a [[Money Song]].

For the classic silent film on the subject, see ''[[Greed (Filmfilm)|Greed]]''.

* The third Kira in ''[[Death Note (Manga)|Death Note]]'' uses the notebook to kill off executives of rival companies along with criminals in order to make his own company expand and increase his salary.

* Greed from ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'', [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|as his name would imply]]. However, the positive qualities related to his sin are also inspected: He is so possessive over his minions that it crosses to being actual loyalty and caring. Even Greed himself eventually addresses the fact that while things like wanting money, food, power, etc. seem worlds apart from wanting to protect people, they're also still both forms of desire.

* [[Magic: theThe Gathering]] had [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=25642 a card named "Greed"] with flavor text that summed up the trope very succinctly.

* [[Carl Barks|Scrooge]] [[Don Rosa|McDuck]]. He may be a [[Noble Demon]] or just a [[Jerk Withwith a Heart of Gold]] [[Depending Onon the Writer]], but no matter how admirable his dedication to hard work and honesty is, Greed is always his defining [[Mr. Vice Guy|vice]].

* [[Cinderella (Literaturenovel)|Cinderella]]'s [[Wicked Stepmother]] is often depicted as wanting Cinderella's inheritance for her daughters' dowries.

* [[Hansel and Gretel (Literature)|Hansel and Gretel]]'s [[Wicked Stepmother]] begrudges her stepchildren their food and has them abandoned so they will not have to feed them. Although sometimes she has the excuse that there is a famine, in some variants, she just resents spending anything on them.

* ''[[Greed (Filmfilm)|Greed]]'' by Erich von Stroheim, a silent movie classic.

* The eponymous villain of ''[[Goldfinger (Film)|Goldfinger]]'', whose ultimate goal is to increase the value of his gold reserves by irradiating all the gold in Fort Knox.

* Cardinal Richelieu in ''[[The Three Musketeers (1993 (Filmfilm)|The Three Musketeers 1993]]''.

* Gordon Gecko in ''[[Wall Street (Film)|Wall Street]]'':

* Greed is the motivating factor in the lives of all three protagonists in ''[[The Good, the Bad Andand Thethe Ugly]]''. They want the Civil War gold, and they don't care what they have to do to get it. [[Complete Monster|Angel Eyes]], [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|The Bad]], is by far the worst about it. [[Only in It For Thethe Money|He's basically this vice in a coat and a cowboy hat]].

* Each of the villains in the [[Keys to Thethe Kingdom]] series represents a deadly sin, with Grim Tuesday representing greed. He takes it to rather ridiculous levels, in fact. He turns ''his entire kingdom'' into an open-pit mine and risks ''the destruction of the entire universe'' in order to obtain more stuff. And he already posseses the power to make anything out of Nothing and a building about the size of a small town filled entirely with treasure.

* In [[Peter S. Beagle]]'s ''[[The Last Unicorn (Literaturenovel)|The Last Unicorn]]'', while King Haggard explains that the reason he keeps {{spoiler|unicorns}} is that they are the only thing that makes him happy. Where it becomes greed is that his goal is to collect them all -- every {{spoiler|unicorn}} in the world.

* In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s ''The Hour of The Dragon'', a man offers to betray [[Conan the Barbarian]] for this.

* In the third chapter of ''[[Disgaea]]'', the main characters target someone specifically because they are rich and its the [[Everything's Better Withwith Penguins|prinny's]] pay day.

* Wario pretty much exemplifies this, in both the ''[[Wario Land (Video Game)|Wario Land]]'' and ''[[Wario Ware (Video Game)|Wario Ware]]'' series. His motivations for most of the game stories are pretty much to get as much money and treasure as he possibly can, doesn't really pay his 'staff' in [[Wario Ware (Video Game)|Wario Ware]], {{spoiler|ignores the captured damsel in ''Wario Land: Shake It'' for the infinite cash purse}} and manages to subvert the [[Honest Axe]] trope.

* Greed is basically the reason [[Star Fox (Video Gameseries)|Pigma Dengar]] is so repugnant. He sold out the people who were supposed to be his friends to Andross just for the money, and a reward is basically his only motivation for doing anything.

* Haley's opening motivation in ''[[The Order of the Stick (Webcomic)|Order of the Stick]]''. Then, we learn [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0131.html why].

* Vince, the [[Anthropomorphic Personification]] of Greed in ''[[Jack (Webcomicwebcomic)|Jack]]'', "earned" his position in Hell because he was an insane cult leader in life who always wanted more worshippers -- he got greedy for ''power''.

* Among the [[Umineko no Naku Koro Nini|Seven Stakes of Purgatory]], Greed is represented by a girl named Mammon, Ange's "closest friend" and the one who is serious about "taking {{spoiler|Sakutaro}} home".

* Mr. Krabs from [[SpongebobSpongeBob SquarePants]] is very greedy. He always gets angry when something happens to his money. In fact, in ''Jellyfish Hunter'', he got Spongebob to capture most of the jellyfish for their jelly. [[Moral Event Horizon|It turned out Mr. Krabs was processing and killing them in horrendous conditions in his factory]] and Spongebob was appalled when he found out.

* "A good candy taken in greed always turns sour." Greed is a recurring theme in conjunction with candy hunting on ''[[Codename: Kids Next Door]]''. Number 5's old-partner-now-rival Heinrich uncovered a tomb of candy but ignored the warning "Share not, and only taste asparagus," which sure enough happened when he refuses to share the candy. When a candy pirate named Black John didn't share the licorice he cut down on an island but hoarded "it all for himself," he and his crew were cursed by being pretty much turned into licorice [[Gargoyles]]. The [[Noodle Incident]] at Guatemala also turned out to be Heinrich performing a ritual to get perfect caramel that cursed him at the same time; the only way to break the curse is to share the caramel.

* In the [[Animated Music Video|animated video]] to [[Disturbed (Music)|Disturbed's]] version of ''[[Genesis (Musicband)|Land Of Confusion]]'', the giant fat man (called [[Fan Nickname|Big Daddy]] by many) is either an [[Anthropomorphic Personification]] of greed or big industry. When [[Mascot|The Guy]] kills him, he explodes, revealing that inside he was full of money and nothing else at all.

* In [[Powerpuff Girls]], Princess Morbucks is a [[Lonely Rich Kid]] from a family so wealthy, her allowance alone amounts to [[ImpossiblyFiction Cool Wealth500]]. However, after the [[Powerpuff Girls]] reject her application for membership, she decides to become a villain out of jealousy that she can't be a superhero too. Forgetting the fact that she could have just used her wealth to found a superhero group herself.

* ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (Animation)|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'': Dragons have greed as a racial weakness. The more they acquire, the larger they get, and the more they want. Spike ends up trapped in this loop in "The Secret of My Excess".