Sympathetic Murderer: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

Sometimes, in a mystery, or a [[Police Procedural|Police]] or [[Law Procedural]], the writers will have a criminal who is intentionally sympathetic to the audience; sometimes to amplify the drama, sometimes to make the problem a true moral dilemma, and sometimes just because the story is [[Ripped from the Headlines]], and the sympathetic part is necessary to get to the Headline in question.

See also [[Manslaughter Provocation]], and [[Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain]] for those who put the "pathetic" in "sympathetic".

If the character was introduced and fleshed out ''before'' he was revealed to be a murderer, it's [[Sympathetic Murder Backstory|Sympathetic Murder Backstory.]]

 

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* ''[[Case Closed]]'' seems to like having the murderer be a genuinely nice person put into an unfortunate circumstance, and the victim be such a complete [[Jerkass]] that you don't mind their death. One episode even has a staged kidnapping where {{spoiler|the "victim" didn't mind being kidnapped, and hugged the kidnapper over ''her own dad''.}} Harsh.

** Another case involved a man who was in a relationship with an old friend who didn't want to commit, so he broke up with her. Years later, he got engaged to another woman. The first woman returns and has gone full psycho bitch. She's threatening to send photos of them while they were dating and pass them off as if he were cheating. {{spoiler|Too bad both of them happened to be friends of Kogoro Mouri, who is genuienly hurt at the killer's betrayal of his trust and friendship.}}

** Another one involves a girl who fell into the wrong crowd and was indirectly involved in a big theft that resulted in the suicide of the person who was burglarized. This caused her to hit the [[Moral Event Horizon]] and she decided the crowd was terrible, so she went back to school. {{spoiler|However, the leader of the gang came back into her life and blackmailed her. All she wanted was to get him out of her life and put that part behind her, so she decided to end it by threatening him away with a knife instead of paying him off. The blackmailer then attacked her and she stabbed him in the struggle.}} Granted, this wasn't exactly ''pre-meditated'' and she ''did'' do it in self defense, but after the [[Jerkass Victim]], very few people would have not felt sorry for her. {{spoiler|Even though she ''did'' have an [[Idiot Ball]] and ''threatened'' to kill him - still won't get her off the legal hook.}}

* ''Gokuaku no Hana'' ("Flower of Carnage") does this with none other than Jagi of ''[[Fist of the North Star]]'' infamy...sort of. Mildly subverted by itself, as that sympathy will be for who he ''was''.

* In ''[[Cowboy Bebop]]'', Alyssa's boyfriend, Rint, in "Ganymede Elegy" shot and killed a loan shark during a scuffle with the loan shark's muscle to protect Alyssa. Jet implies at the end that he might get off on manslaughter or imperfect self-defence.

* D's animals in ''[[Pet Shop of Horrors]]''.

* Happens quite often in [[Diabolik]], with many of his victims being worse criminals than him that happened to have crossed him.

** The story ''The Sweet Death'' has a very strange example: the victim had survived an attempted murder at the hands of his cheating wife and her lover but was so crippled that he could only blink, so, when he accidentally met Diabolik, he asked to be mercy-killed and avenged. After securing the loot, Diabolik killed him and framed his wife and her lover in a way they'd get sentenced to death and executed.

 

== [[Film]] ==

* How about a sympathetic [[Serial Killer]]? How about two? Now make them your [[Beneath Suspicion|sweet kindly old aunts]]. You have the plot of ''[[Arsenic and Old Lace]]''.

* The film [[Red Dragon]] plays up the book's depiction of Francis Dolarhyde as someone who is not so much a man who does not enjoy his serial killing as a Dissociative Identity Disorder (multiple personalities)-riddled individual whose alternate personality bullies him into committing his atrocities. For the most part, at least.

** Dolarhyde is only sympathetic if the titular dragon was really an alternate personality and not just a personification of his homicidal urges. The ending really suggests that the whole [[Villain Decay|deceleration]] of his violent impulses, culminating in {{spoiler|his [[Heroic Sacrifice]] to spare Reba}}, was really Dolarhyde {{spoiler|[[Large Ham|hamming it up]] as part of his [[Batman Gambit]] to kill Will's family}}.

* The titular serial killer of ''[[Mr. Brooks]]'' is a massive example, this trope being the focus of the entire film.

* The {{spoiler|actual}} murderer in ''[[Gosford Park]]''.

* The mentally unstable George Loomis (Joseph Cotten) from the 1953 film ''Niagara''. His wife (Marilyn Monroe) and her lover are plotting his murder (after, it is implied, deliberately driving him mad), {{spoiler|but the plot backfires and Loomis kills the lover in self-defence. Later, he vengefully murders his wife, and is overcome with remorse. At the end of the film, while trapped with an innocent girl in a boat hurtling toward the edge of [[Niagara Falls]], he helps her climb safely out onto a rock before falling to his death over the edge, possibly making this an example of [[Redemption Equals Death]].}}

* Carl Lee Hailey in [[A Time to Kill]] (and the book it's based on, naturally), so very much.

 

== [[Literature]] ==

** In the [[Miss Marple]] short story "The Companion", the victim was a rich relative of the killer, whose family needed the money to cover medical expenses.

** In the [[Hercule Poirot]] short story "Dead Man's Mirror", the murderer was {{spoiler|the long-forgotten biological mother of the victim's adopted daughter, and had killed to protect her.}}

** ''Murder on the Orient Express'': {{spoiler|the murderers end up getting away with it after Poirot figures out their crime. It helps that Casetti had very much duped the system into ''not'' putting him on the death row for the Daisy Armstrong nightmare, and the conspirators were rectifying that distortion}}.

** ''Curtain'': {{spoiler|''Poirot himself'' kills Stephen Norton, in order to prevent him from continuing his string of murders-by-proxy. A string which nearly turned '''''Hastings''''' into one of Norton's dupes. After killing Norton, Poirot [[No Place for Me There|lets himself die]] by not taking his medication.}}

** Actually, he isn't a good example. While his intended victim was [[Asshole Victim|a greedy old hag]], during the murder, he was spotted. He panicked and killed her mentally retarded younger sister, who was pregnant. Also, his reasons for murder in the first place were [[Nietzsche Wannabe|anything but sympathetic]].

* [[Sherlock Holmes]] had to deal with a few of these.

** ''A Study In Scarlet''. The victims had been responsible for an [[Arranged Marriage]] that involved kidnapping the bride, killing her father in the process. Her true love had finally tracked them down and killed them.

** In the short story "The Adventure of the Devil's Foot", the first set of crimes is avenged by one of these.

** In the short story "The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge", the actual victim was a would-be Sympathetic Murderer who was killed by his target (an ex-dictator who had killed the victim's father, among others). It is strongly implied that more successful Sympathetic Murderers caught up with the target in the end.

* Disturbing as it may be, one cannot help but feel at least a little pity for the two killers described in Truman Capote's ''In Cold Blood''.

* The Monster in ''[[Frankenstein]]'', by way of [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge|crimes of]] [[Parental Abandonment|justifiable]] passion.

* The eponymous protagonist in ''Dolores Claiborne'' by [[Stephen King]], a long-suffering wife of an abusive relationship. However, what pushed her over the brink wasn't her husband's treatment of her, it was his treatment of their children (emotional abuse of one son, sexual abuse of their daughter, and cleaning out the college savings accounts Dolores had worked long and hard to build up).

* John Kelly (later Clark) could be seen as one during his [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] in ''Without Remorse''.

* ''[[In Death]]'': the murderer in ''Witness In Death'' turns out to be this. The victim was a [[Complete Monster]] in a number of ways. What pushed her into murdering him was the fact that he deliberately had sex with their daughter, crowed about it, and threatened to have a threesome composed of him, her, and their daughter. If you do not consider her sympathetic by the end of it, then you have to be a [[Complete Monster]] yourself.

** The murderer's first kill (that of the [[Complete Monster]]) gets full sympathy points. However, her ''second'' kill (that of a blackmailer who found out about her first crime) comes off as more cold-blooded and self-serving, and therefore less sympathetic.

 

== [[Live Action TV]] ==

 

** In one episode, the aging actress who committed the murder has six months to live due to a brain tumor that also leads to her forgetting she committed the crime.

** A rather meta episode featured none other than [[William Shatner]] as the star of an ''anti-Columbo''-like [[Show Within a Show|Show Within The Show]]. At the start, he talks about how his show makes the murderer sympathetic in some episodes. Lo and behold, the Shatner character then becomes a sympathetic murderer.

** The killer from "Haunted", a previously non-violent man who had a psychotic break as a result of newly-unlocked memories of childhood trauma that he simply couldn't cope with.

** Megan Kane, the high-class escort who killed some of her obscenely-rich clients who refused to pay one red cent in child support.

* ''[[CSI]]'' loves this trope. A few notable ones:

** ''You've Got Male'': An ex-con visits a woman he met via email while in prison, her sister shows up and taunts her over this, the two of them get into a fight, and the sister accidentally kills her. The sister then tells the convict that she'll blame him; thinking that no one would believe him he kills her out of desperation to avoid going back to jail.

'''Grissom''': A guy like me. }}

*** [[Fridge Brilliance|Notably]], he wouldn't have been caught if he hadn't committed the second murder.

*** Her mother later on when she kills her husband who loudly tries to take the blame for killing her son. She even acknowledges that all this could have been avoided if she'd been a better mother so her daughter could feel like she could trust her.

*** The guy from the B-plot of the above was also sympathetic, especially when it turned out the murder was a [[Deadly Prank]].

*** From the same series, there's the perp from "Prey": the victim is a stalker who has already caused one of his victims to commit suicide. The perp is another victim whom the law did very little to protect (a few restraining orders, the violations of which only got the stalker a few days in jail) and had even changed her name and moved to another city to escape, only for him to follow her. Feeling that she had no option other than killing herself or be killed, she finally killed him. The team feels pretty sympathetic towards her (even Mac, who. in an earlier episode. has shown disgust to a rape victim who killed rapists aquitted on technicalities) and Hawkes even mentions to her that since she only left circumstantial evidence (the woman took a class that Stella taught), it will be very hard for her to be convicted.

** There was also the guy who ordered a crime that unexpectedly led to the murder of a housekeeper, but {{spoiler|he'd done it as part of a [[Batman Gambit]] to make his ex-wife fall in love and get married again so that he wouldn't have to pay alimony anymore, and had planned the crime for what he'd thought was the housekeeper's night off. What's more, his plan ''worked''.}}

* At least one killer in ''[[Numb3rs]]'', particularly one who caused domino-effect killings (he shoots at Gang A, who retaliates against Gang B, who retaliates ''back'', people get caught in the crossfire...repeat until about 150 people are dead) after his young son was murdered by gangsters. By the time the crew catches up with him, he is very clearly insane.

** Also, {{spoiler|Agent Lee was forced to become [[The Mole]] by a terrorist information broker, who kidnapped her daughter. She gunned down Agent Langer and frames him for her crimes; but several members of the main cast feel they would've done the same in the same situation.}}

** "Blackout": a woman tries to seduce her 13 year old grandson, after sexually abusing her son since he was 13. Her daughter (and the boy's mother) finds out. Her mother has been emotionally abusing her for years. After berating her daughter for being ugly, the victim threatens that she still has power over her grandson, and the daughter drowns her.

** "Justice": a serial date rapist avoids punishment in 1982. The younger brother of one of the victims (who witnessed his sister's rape) follows the victims when they confront the rapist. They leave a gun at the scene. The brother picks it up and shoots the rapist.

* Stacey Slater in ''[[Eastenders]]'' in the climax of the "Who killed Archie?" storyline. Considering what a [[Complete Monster]] Archie Mitchell was, one can be forgiven for saying [[Karmic Death|he deserved it]]. Especially after he ''[[Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil|raped Stacey while she was still suffering from bipolar disorder]]''.

* The title character of ''[[Dexter]]'' is one, a serial killer whose homicidal tendency was channeled by a [[Genre Savvy]] stepfather so he only kills [[Asshole Victim|very bad people.]]

** Except, of course, later in the season, a flashback reveals that {{spoiler|the man in question was a drug dealer and was going to be killed by Division anyway}}.

* ''[[Rizzoli and Isles]]'' features a woman who killed two guys and attempted to kill another during the Boston marathon. {{spoiler|She did it because they had gang-raped her big sister when the sister was fifteen, then bought their way out of prosecution, and the sister had killed herself a few years later, and Dad had a heart attack from the stress.}}

** Barry Hyde, who was responsible for the death of his wife, who was trying to drown their son at the time, and [[Asshole Victim|Josh West]], who was blackmailing him over the first one.

* A fair number of the guilty defendants on ''[[The Practice]]'', especially the ones who either committed vigilante killings or were insane at the time of their crimes.

 

== [[Music]] ==

== [[Theatre]] ==

* Katerina in Shostakovich's opera ''Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District'', who kills her abusive father-in-law and husband.

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

** In the first game, {{spoiler|Yanni Yogi, who killed the man who [[Asshole Victim|ruined his life fifteen years ago by convincing him to plead insanity.]]}}

** In the second game, {{spoiler|Acro, a [[Wheelchair Woobie|paraplegic]] who wanted to get back at Regina for crippling him and putting his brother into a deep coma, but ended up killing her father (and his father-figure) Mr. Berry by accident. At the end of the trial, he even breaks down crying.}}

*** {{spoiler|Also, Regina, while an extreme [[Cloudcuckoolander]], was 15 or 16 when it happened. That ought to be more than old enough to comprehend the gravity of the situation.}}

*** {{spoiler|Which explains why Mr. Berry went in her stead; he probably realized that his extreme sheltering of her from the nastier aspects of existence was what made it so difficult for her to sense the gravity of the situation. In other words, ''he's intentionally getting Acro to kill the one who caused Regina's ignorance in the first place--'''Mr. Berry himself'''.''}}

* Alma, from [[First Encounter Assault Recon]]. The only reason she can even be considered an antagonist is the whole "constantly melting people to death" and "going to [[Omnicidal Maniac|kill the world]]" thing.

* [[Silent Hill 2]] has {{spoiler|James, the protagonist, who killed his wife}}. In an unusual variant, both the murderer ''and'' the victim are very sympathetic. There is also Angela, who killed her sexually abusive father.

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Murder Tropes]]

[[Category:Crime and Punishment Tropes]]