Then Let Me Be Evil: Difference between revisions

** In recent chapters, {{spoiler|Gaara's father, the 4th Kazekage, has been brought [[Back From the Dead]]...and revealed that Yashamaru never believed a word of his [[Hannibal Lecture]]. He only told Gaara that nobody ever loved him, and that even his own mother hated him, because they thought the shock would make him easier to kill, an order given only because they thought he was too unstable because of the demon placed within him. When the Kazekage sees all that his son has accomplished in spite of all this, [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|he tells him that both Yashamaru and his mother always loved him, that he's sorry for ruining his life, and that he's never been prouder of him and should have had the faith in him that his mother did.]]}}

*** It was always obvious to a disinterested observer that either some really bad writing had taken place, or {{spoiler|Yashamaru didn't completely believe what he was saying, but the Confetti Zombie explanation is equally inconsistent with the actual material, since an actual assassination attempt by the kid's primary caretaker ought to have involved poisoned food, and he kept up the delivery even as he died--though that last at least may have been to soften the kid up for the suicide bomb.}} So maybe it ''was'' bad writing. Oh well.

**** {{spoiler|Also he wanted to test him to see if ,after that,he could contain his hatred,which would prove that he was of no danger of releasing the Shukaku demon.By ordering,or allowing him to use poison he would blow his son's last chance of proving him wrong by containing his hatred.}}

* As a child Lucy from ''[[Elfen Lied]]'' is [[Humans Are Bastards|bullied / persecuted mercilessly]] for being a [[Always Chaotic Evil|Diclonius]], a [[Bullying a Dragon|horned]], [[Mugging the Monster|superpowered]] girl who may one day destroy the human race... [[Self-Fulfilling Prophecy|Yeah. Nice going there.]]

* Played with by Lelouch of ''[[Code Geass]]'', especially towards the end after things pretty much entirely go south for him. He pretty much says this after {{spoiler|the death of Euphemia.}}

** Pretty much his entire mindset when he begins his scheming. He is willing to commit evil if it means taking out greater evil in so doing. Ultimately, he plays it to the hilt {{spoiler|and allows himself to become the most despised person in the world...so that the world would focus all their hatred on him...so that his death would remove that hatred and provide a chance for the world to rebuild more positively.}}

* [[Trigun]]'s Livio seems to have reached this point due to the confluence of a [[Super-Powered Evil Side]] that got him rejected everywhere and...uh...torturous retooling at the hands of a [[Murder, Inc.]]. It took {{spoiler|murdering his childhood friend repeatedly as he [[Explosive Overclocking|burned his body out regenerating the damage]] while giving him a [[Shut UP, Hannibal]] for a volume and a half to get him to [[Heel Face Turn]] again. And then Wolfwood was dead, and Livio and Vash ate spaghetti.}}

* During the climax of ''[[Devilman Lady]],'' Asuka has transformed into a godlike being, brainwashing most of the world into loving her. Meanwhile, protagonist Jun has been cast into a giant (possibly metaphorical) pit, but she manages to rally her strength and declares that if Asuka is "God," then Jun will become the Devil to destroy her!

* In the Mexican comic [[Memin]] (about a poor Black boy) a story had some bullies convince him that Black people never go to Heaven, no matter how good they are (claiming that the fact there are no pictures of Black angels proves it). Memin is so angry that he swears that if he's going to Hell, he'll rule it by being the most evil kid in the world! (of course, being a preteen his idea of evil acts are things like disrespecting his mother.) His friends hatch a plan to reform him by painting one of the angels in a Church (with the clergy's permission) Black and then show it to him. It worked.

* During a visit to Hell, [[Knightfall|Bane]] of the ''[[Secret Six]]'' discovered that despite being a [[Noble Demon]] (at least what he thought was one) he was still damned. He figures that since he's beyond redemption anyway, he might as well stop trying to be a half-assed antihero and embraces villainy. First order of business? Settle the score with [[Batman]] once and for all.

 

== Fanfiction ==

== Film ==

 

* [[Megamind]]'s reason for being a villain.

{{quote| '''Megamind:''' "No matter how hard I tried, I was always [[All of the Other Reindeer|the last one picked.]] The screw-up. The bad boy. [...] Then it hit me: if I was the "bad boy", then I was going to be ''the baddest boy of them all!"''}}

* In ''[[The Prince of Egypt]],'' Ramsees is portrayed more as a [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds]] than anything, but grows more bitter towards his former brother as [http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=-tVTEyuCKn4 the plagues] destroy his kingdom.

{{quote| "''Then let my heart be hardened,''<br />

== Live Action TV ==

 

* Adam Wilson from ''The Young and the Restless'' has ended up invoking this trope. It's hard to escape the fact that, before he came to Genoa City, Adam was relatively moral and well-adjusted. It was only after prolonged exposure to the chronic backstabbing and underhanded business dealings of the city that he started his horrific revenge plan -- and even at the end of that, he lapses into a [[My God, What Have I Done?]] moment and tries to reform. Then even ''this'' is completely undercut when the Newmans and Abbotts confront him in the cabin and treat him like a [[Complete Monster]], even though they don't have any idea what he did -- not to mention how hollow their moral superiority sounds, considering all the crimes ''they've'' committed in the past, which Adam and later DA Owen Pomerantz call them out on.

* [[Deep Space Nine]] featured an episode in the second-to-last season where Gul Dukat tries to convince Sisko (and himself) that they really were friends all along and that he has always been misunderstood as merely an [[Anti-Hero]], not a true villain. Eventually, with some subtle goading from Sisko to drop his facade, Dukat realizes that he has always been a villain and decides to embrace his role by destroying Bajor and everything Sisko cares about.

** A variation also occurs in the episode where Sisko goes after the traitor Eddington. He realizes that Eddington sees himself as a hero fighting for a noble cause and decides that he has to embrace his role as the villain in Eddington's mind in order to beat him. He eventually engineers a situation that plays to Eddington's nobler instincts, forcing him to turn himself in to stop Sisko's villainy.

*** To be clear, his villainy consisted of poisoning a Maquis planet in such a way that humans couldn't live there (but Cardassians could), essentially just balancing out the nearby world Eddington had just poisoned to Cardassians but not humans, and then threatening to do so to every Maquis settlement he could find.

* A major theme in ''[[Smallville]]''. [[Lex Luthor]] makes several efforts to do good and often helps Clark and others save the world, but several characters- especially Clark's parents, no less- treat him with suspicion at best because he is the son of local [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]] Lionel Luthor, who himself had been trying to mold his son into another ruthless [[Magnificent Bastard]] (whilst simultaneously letting Lex know [["Well Done, Son" Guy|just how much of a disapointment he was).]] The latter stuff really had put the seed of evil in Lex's heart- [[Green Arrow|Oliver Queen]] knew Lex at school and saw him beat up his best friend (though Oliver had been a bit of a dick to both of them, mind), and a horrified Lionel covered up the fact that as a boy Lex had murdered his own baby brother {{spoiler|though it turned out, Lex only took the fall for his mom, who wanted to spare the child Lex's horrible childhood}}. There is a lot of tension between Lex's natural bad side and his desire to genuinely do good getting screwed over; he is particularly annoyed that Clark, his best (and only) friend, is obviously hiding stuff from him- Clark, for his part, has thought about revealing his secret to Lex but has been dissuaded by, amongst other things, hallucinations, that make it seem like a bad idea. Not helped by the fact that the two of them are aware of a prophecy about a mortal man fighting a godlike alien and Lex believing that to [[Beware the Superman]] might actually be sensible; after all, how can anyone be trusted with that much power?

** Several episodes are devoted to Lex's own internal struggle. One such story inverts [[A Christmas Carol]]- Lex, having been shot at Christmas, meets the ghost of his mother who shows him what happens if he changes his ways: he has a loving and happy marriage with Lana and is finally treated like a friend and family member by the Kents; Clark holds no grudge about the two of them marrying either and is happy for them and remains his best friend. Then Lana gets seriously ill and Lex can't afford it, so he goes back to his dad to ask him to help...and is promptly brushed off, meaning Lana (and their baby) both die because Lex gave up his money and his wicked father's fortune. When he wakes up, Lex decides that money and power are the only things that really matter in life, because then you can protect the people you love.

 

* This is the ending of [[Tripod]]'s song "Suicide Bomber"--the falsely accused bomber is awaiting release after [[Being Tortured Makes You Evil|repeated torture]], and is already planning to blow up a bus.

{{quote| "Sorry y'all, I tried to be a nice dude, fuckin' human intelligence made me wanna fight too/And that's ironic, isn't it? The fact that human indifference made a robot turn evil and villainous/Fuck it, I'm engaging a plan to kill Hank Pym/ Ask me if I'm one of those nice robots, I'm not him."}}

 

== Table Top Games ==

 

*** And a step below ''that'' is the path of Centimani, the Refinement of Flux. Flux is a force of dissolution and mutation, and the Centimani themselves are focused on monstrosity rather than rebirth. Prometheans on this path have not only given up on trying to be good, they've given up on trying to be anything resembling a human.

 

I am determined to prove a villain<br />

And hate the idle pleasures of these days." }}

{{quote| ''Alright, enough! So be it!''<br />

''So be it then...''<br />

''No good deed''<br />

''Will I do again!'' }}

{{quote| '''Shrek:''' ''"I'm gonna be what they want<br />

I'm gonna be what they say<br />

* The most commonly-accepted interpretation of Sorceress Ultimecia's motivations in ''[[Final Fantasy VIII]]'' is that she was [[Bullying a Dragon|discriminated against and persecuted]] by a society conditioned to assume that any sorceress runs the risk of snapping and trying to take over the world, until - shockingly enough - she snapped and decided to become the evil sorceress that history reviled.

* {{spoiler|[[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds|Oersted]]}} from ''[[Live a Live]]''.

* In ''[[Icewind Dale]]'' ''2'', the twin [[Big Bad|Big Bads]] Isair and Madae were treated as embodiments of evil their entire lives because they were cambions -- half devil, half elf. After a lifetime of this treatment, with a cruel prank involving cakes baked with holy water as the final straw, they decided they might as well act like embodiments of evil. Iselore the [[Big Good]] remembers that he warned their foster mother (the only person who ever loved them) that "they are forged in evil and only evil can come from them" and sadly wonders if he helped make it true.

** This also sums up why so many Circle mages turn to [[Blood Magic]]; they spend their whole lives effectively at the mercy of the templars, who tell them that the abilities they were born with are sinful and hold the threat of [[Fate Worse Than Death|being made Tranquil]] over their heads, so what do they have to lose by dealing with demons? {{spoiler|First Enchanter Orsino does this in the endgame - even if you sided with him.}}

* Since the Jedi of [[Knights of the Old Republic]] considered any of their members who went off to defend the Republic against the Mandalorians as fallen (see their shoddy treatment of Exile, who ''did'' return only to get [[Reformed but Rejected]] fron the Council), the fact that Revan went and became Dark Lord of the Sith is a cross of this and [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]].

 

 

* Redcloak of ''[[Order of the Stick]]'' has this trait in his more sympathetic moments, most of which are in the prequel book ''Start of Darkness''. As a member of the [[Always Chaotic Evil]] goblin race, if a "good" character murders him, any other goblins, or even any baby goblins for any reason, this is not treated as an "evil" act, even though the whole reason goblins are evil in the first place is supposedly because they murder without provocation. His example is particularly notable, as at one point he has a [[Heel Realization]] -- about the way he mistreats other goblins. He never seriously considers the idea that he's giving humans any less than they deserve.

* In ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]],'' Molly the Monster briefly [http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20061014.html considers this, early on:]

{{quote| "'F-Freak?' He shot at me just for what I look like? Yeah? W-Well, if they want a monster, maybe I'll just give them one! Like Shelley's Frankenstein Monster, if I cannot give love to the world, then i will give it ''wrath!'' I'll... I'll... Aw, who am I kidding? I haven't got any wrath! Oh Dr. Poule, what am I going to do? ''Sob!"''}}

== Web Original ==

 

** Even then he was something of a [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] who thought that he can fix the world by ruling. {{spoiler|However, when his [[Morality Chain]] Penny dies in the end, he had nothing keeping him from becoming a true supervillain.}}

 

== Western Animation ==

 

** Subverted in that most of this was Harley assuming people were acting like this to her - a dress she bought still had the tags, so the security guard was trying to take them off for her. She thought he was accusing her of stealing the dress, so she took a generals daughter hostage and ran.

** Oswald Cobblepot (a.k.a. [[The Penguin]]) could put up with Batman [[Reformed but Rejected|not believing he actually reformed]], but Veronica Vreeland shouldn't have used him for a pig at a pig party.

* The Bowler Hat Guy from ''[[Meet the Robinsons]]'' tries to use this as his [[Freudian Excuse]]. {{spoiler|In actuality, all of his isolation and misery were ''self-inflicted.''}}

* Mojo Jojo in ''[[The Powerpuff Girls]] Rule.'' When he becomes ruler of all, he uses his new power to make things right and pleasant. It becomes suddenly boring to him, so he reverts to villainy at the end.