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Then Let Me Be Evil: Difference between revisions

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Then Let Me Be Evil (view source)

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== Literature ==
 
* The titular Outcast of ''[[Redwall]]'' has elements of this. A foundling infant from one of the [[Always Chaotic Evil]] vermin races is raised in the Abbey and grows to be quite the troublemaker as a child. Even so, he is treated with little more than suspicion and [[Fantastic Racism|prejudice]] by most of the local populace, and rarely, if ever, given the benefit of the doubt, even for his motivations ([[No Good Deed Goes Unpunished|backfired attempts to do good are still punished without consideration]]). Ultimately, the message boils down to him still being responsible for making his own immoral choices; but he at least got more sympathy than any other vermin character when one considers what a slim "chance" the Redwallers ever gave him.
** Not to mention that his surrogate mother, who never gave up on him, ultimately decides he was entirely evil all along after he dies saving her life (his only real successful good action). Depriving him of even [[Redemption Equals Death]].
** ''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn''. It's actuallynot betterquite thanas simple as that --he Huck isn't ''fed up'' with being treated as wicked;, he justbut has a low opinion of himself, buteven though later has been encouraged by the widow etc. to believe he has the potential to be a 'good boy' and live within the rules and be taken care of. But in the end he faces the moral quandary of being 'good' or keeping faith with Jim, and finds himself unable to countenance the former if it is exclusive of the latter. He believes he's 'bad' because he's [[To Be Lawful or Good|defying the rules and will be punished]] , because he's coping with higher morality on an emotional level but completely lacks the vocabulary to deal with it mentally. Mostly he accepts that there's not going to be a reward actually worth the trouble for anything he does, so may as well [Chaotic Good|do whatever he feels right] or [Chaotic Neutral|whatever suits his needs at the moment].▼
* [[Huckleberry Finn]], sick of being treated as a "wicked" boy who will never amount to anything, eventually declares "All right, I'll ''go'' to hell!" and "take[s] up wickedness" by... [[Values Dissonance|helping a man escape from slavery]]. (Well, ''he'' thought he was doing something bad, anyway.)
* ''[[Frankenstein]]'' abandoned his newly-made monster in disgust, and everyone else who ever saw the monster reacted with horror. Is it any wonder he became [[Ax Crazy]]?▼
▲** It's actually better than that--he isn't fed up with being treated as wicked; he just has a low opinion of himself but has been encouraged by the widow etc. to believe he has the potential to be a 'good boy' and live within the rules and be taken care of. But in the end he faces the moral quandary of being 'good' or keeping faith with Jim, and finds himself unable to countenance the former if it is exclusive of the latter. He believes he's 'bad' because he's [[To Be Lawful or Good|defying the rules and will be punished]] , because he's coping with higher morality on an emotional level but completely lacks the vocabulary to deal with it mentally.
▲* [[Frankenstein]] abandoned his newly-made monster in disgust, and everyone else who ever saw the monster reacted with horror. Is it any wonder he became [[Ax Crazy]]?
** He became marvelously eloquent first, though. Just from overhearing someone read aloud. Nineteenth century writers believed books could do ''anything''.
*** It didn't hurt that the family was also teaching a runaway Arabian noblewoman English. [http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=SheFran.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public∂=17&division=div1 No, really.]
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* The titular ''[[Space Brat]]'', Blork, from Bruce Coville's series. He was labelled as a brat soon after [[Bizarre Alien Biology|hatching from his egg]], all due to his having a piece of shell stuck behind his antenna. Since then, he was the [[Boy Who Cried Wolf]], and constantly marked as an easy person to stick the blame on. After putting up with it for a while, he winds up throwing a temper tantrum at how unfair it all was, which was ''unheard of'' for his species. Which then gives him a very easy out for whenever he gets blamed for something from then on, leading to this trope.
* [[The Dresden Files|Harry Dresden]] gets villains pointing this out to him, and, once or twice, almost considers it. But he's too stubbornly good to be evil, though [[Jumping Off the Slippery Slope]] is occasionally a concern
* While it's hardly the only factor, this is oneOne of the main reasons why Jaime Lannister in ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'' became the cynical and amoral monster he is at the start of the series:, while hardly the only factor. The entire kingdom [[Never Live It Down|looked down on him]] for [[The Oathbreaker|breaking his oath]] and killing [[The Caligula|the Mad King]] [[Complete Monster|Aerys]], giving him the mocking name of Kingslayer and an undeserved reputation as a scheming, treacherous backstabber- even though Aerys was about to have all of King's Landing (the capitol city, with a population of about 500,000 people) burned down out of spite. After years of being called a monster for what he rightly considers his "finest act," it's not hard to see why he eventually became one. {{spoiler|Recently, it seems like he might finally be [[Heel Face Turn|turning his life back around]], eschewing his family's toxic influence and taking a newfound pride in his honor as a knight.}}
** {{spoiler|Jaime's younger brother Tyrion}} seems to be heading down this road too.
* ''Prince of Lies'' <ref>[[Forgotten Realms]] novel by James Lowder</ref> got a twist of this when the new [[Religion of Evil]] disrupts the [[Pragmatic Villainy|usual style]] of Zhentarim and bites itself in the butt with enthusiastic help of {{spoiler|Zhents' former allies}}.
{{quote|'''{{spoiler|Orcish general}}''': Priests say we're monsters, so we fight on side of monsters.}}
 
== Live Action TV ==
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