Sympathetic Murderer: Difference between revisions

The man was buried on the hill.''|'''The Tragically Hip''', "38 Years Old"}}

 

 

Note that the crime in question need not necessarily be murder; the title comes from the fact that, in these shows, the crime is [[Always Murder]].

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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== [[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.}}

* 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 (Film)|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.

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

 

** "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.

* ''[[Homicide Life On the Street]]'' featured a sympathetic teen who had snapped and killed the [[Jerk Jock]] who was bullying him. [[John Munch|Munch]] evidently identified with him.

* 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|Complete Monsters]] can be played for laughs (and are on that show), but sympathetic murderers can be even funnier.

* 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.]]

* In the ''[[House (TV)|House]]'' episode "The Tyrant", the team's Patient of the Week is the president of an African country who is planning to commit genocide. {{spoiler|After instinctively calling out a warning that saved the president's life from an assassination attempt, Dr. Chase decides that he can't morally save the man's life again and takes matters into his own hands by faking a blood test so the president would be misdiagnosed and given treatment that, given his actual condition, would kill him.}}

* The latest CW incarnation of ''[[Nikita (TV)|Nikita]]'' qualifies under this trope because the lead character, Nikita, is shown as sympathetic and is, in fact, supposed to be the hero of the series, yet, {{spoiler|in the first episode, shoots dead an innocent bystander in order to allow her mole to infiltrate Division, which is murder no matter what "ends justify the means" rationale may be applied to it.}}

** From [[Silent Hill 4]], we get an interesting example with {{spoiler|Walter Sullivan}}. Most, if not all, of the people he killed caused him some grievance before, but he doesn't hate them, it's just that {{spoiler|by killing them, he'll appease his goddess and be reunited with his mother.}}

* {{spoiler|The Origami Killer, aka Scott Shelby}}, from ''[[Heavy Rain]]'' is revealed to be this by the game's end.

** Although, in the Boss' defense, most of those murders were either self defense or revenge, with the exception of those caused by [[Gameplay and Story Segregation]], the people s/he killed deserved it. However, by the end, s/he is still a ''very'' bad person. {{spoiler|However, while s/he struck first against Maero [[Disproportionate Retribution|by disfiguring his face for insulting him/her]], [[Moral Event Horizon|what Maero did]] [[Tear Jerker|to Carlos]] [[Disproportionate Retribution|as revenge]] made the murders of Jessica (who [[Kick the Dog|taunted him/her about it]]), Matt (though Matt also tried to strangle him/her), and, finally, Maero quite understandable.}} As for the similar incident with the Ronin, it's easy to say that this was ''before'' the Boss became such a bastard.

*** Ironically, in that story arc, The Boss' cruelest moment was when s/he didn't kill someone. It was when s/he pointlessly burned and crippled Matt's hand with fireworks for no other reason than to send a message to Maero since he was Maero's best friend (he only did tattoos for the gang, nothing more).