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Sympathetic Murderer: Difference between revisions
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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.]]
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{{examples}}
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== [[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 ''United States of Leland'' outraged many disability rights activists with its sympathetic portrayal of the murderer of an autistic child.
* In ''[[M]]'', it's a sympathetic ''child'' murderer.
** Actually, he's not that sympathetic. He ''tries'' to be sympathetic by pleading insanity, though. Although, the other criminals who catch him may be considered more sympathetic.
* 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}}.
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* 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]].}}
* The titular character from ''[[Psycho]]'' is a very deeply disturbed man, and the movie is directed in such a way as to elicit sympathy from the audience after he kills Marion. In the end, he becomes a figure of pity and is states to not really be responsible for his own actions.
* This trope was rather oddly zigzagged in [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0848551/ KillerKiller (2007)], in which the girl doing all the on-screen killing was actually not such a sympathetic character, but some of her [[Serial Killer]] victims managed to be, due in part to [[Protagonist-Centered Morality]]—which is not to say they weren't [[Asshole Victim|AssholeVictims]] or that viewers were going to be too sorry to see some of them die. Just to muddy the waters further, some of the victims' conversations about the various murders they'd committed were [[Played for Laughs]].
* Carl Lee Hailey in [[A Time to Kill]] (and the book it's based on, naturally), so very much.
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** 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.
* Elizabeth Bathory in ''[[Count and Countess]]''.
* Peter in ''Nineteen Minutes'' in which a bullied teenager has snapped and committed a school shooting, killing most of his bullies and critically wounding another.
== [[Live Action TV]] ==
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** 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.
** The woman in New Orleans who was raped and then got no justice for it, before she became a killer.
* ''[[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.
{{quote|'''Killer''': Who'd believe a guy like me?
'''Grissom''': A guy like me. }}
** An aversion from ''CSI'' appears in the episode ''Killer''. The episode shows the murderer, a bank robber who kills the former drug addict who ratted him out. He is portrayed somewhat sympathetically (it's noted that he never harmed anyone during a robbery and at the end of the episode {{spoiler|he even turns himself in so his wife doesn't lose custody of their daughter}}). However, at the very end, he ruefully asks Grissom "So where did I screw up?" Grissom then bluntly tells him, "You killed two people."
*** [[Fridge Brilliance|Notably]], he wouldn't have been caught if he hadn't committed the second murder.
** A teenage girl accidently kills her younger brother when he catches their uncle forcing himself on her (which results in a child) and threatens to tell their mom, as the unfavourite she knows her mom would sooner believe she'd forced herself on her uncle than the other way around.
*** 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.
** In the "Fare Game" episode of ''CSI: New York'', a chef is discovered to be the murderer of a millionaire who got her millions through multiple [[Frivolous Lawsuit]]s, of which he was one of the victims. After finally dragging himself out of bankruptcy, divorce, and a ruined life to try again working at a new restaurant and under a new name, she showed up at his new place with the intent of pulling the exact same scheme on his new boss, and he snapped, tracked her down, and killed her by letting her choke on one of the octopi served at the restaurant in an echo of the stunt she'd originally pulled as an excuse to sue him.
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** 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.}}
* Happened in [[Beverly Hills, 90210]] when {{spoiler|Valerie admitted to killing her father after he repeatedly raped her from the time she was 11}}.
* Done very often on ''[[Cold Case]]'', mostly when the victim is an [[Asshole Victim]]:
** "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.
** ''[[Cold Case]]'' even manages to pull this off when the victim is a saint. Often, the murder is shown to be an [[Accidental Murder]] and/or a crime of passion, committed in a moment of extreme emotional upset, leaving the killer [[My God, What Have I Done?|genuinely horrified by their actions.]]
* ''[[Homicide: Life
* 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 comedy show ''[[Murder Most Horrid]]'' had a fair number of these, because A. there kind of has to be a murder, given the title, but, B. it's a comedy. [[Complete Monster]]s can be played for laughs (and are on that show), but sympathetic murderers can be even funnier.
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** 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.
* Used every so often on ''[[Boston Legal]]'', such as the mother who killed the murderer of her daughter after he got off on a temporary insanity plea.
== [[Music]] ==
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*** {{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'''.''}}
** In the third game, {{spoiler|Godot only murdered Misty Fey (possessed by the spirit of [[Complete Monster]] Dahlia) to protect the little sister of the woman he'd loved. Afterwards, he continually directed the trial to make sure Phoenix eventually found him guilty. It's also implied that Misty went into the situation willing to die for her daughter.}}
* 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.
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[[Category:Murder Tropes]]
[[Category:Crime and Punishment Tropes]]
[[Category:This Index Has Had a Hard Life]]
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
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