Tragic Villain/Playing With
Basic Trope: A villain who is completely aware of their evil, but knows it's too late for redemption.
- Straight: Marty is a serial killer who wants to stop murdering people, but thinks he does not deserve redemption.
- Justified: Marty's victims are Asshole Victims who have wronged him, so he is driven to do evil things to those victims.
- Exaggerated: Marty is a genocidal maniac who was screwed over by the nation he seeks to destroy.
- Parodied: Marty is a pest controller who wants to stop murdering cockroaches, but thinks he does not deserve redemption.
- Subverted: Marty still kills people regardless of whether they have wronged him or not.
- Marty is offered forgiveness by The Hero, and does a Heel Face Turn.
- Double Subverted: Marty is also killing innocents because he wants people to hate him enough to want to kill him, since he can't live with himself.
- Marty's redemption is temporary, and, soon, he goes back to killing people because he thinks that his methods of justice are better than the heroes, even if his methods are evil.
- Averted: There is nothing sympathetic or tragic about Marty's actions.
- Inverted: Karma Houdini
- Deconstructed: ???
- Reconstructed: ???
- Zig Zagged: Heel Face Revolving Door
- Enforced: The author wants to make their villain more sympathetic to the viewers.
- Lampshaded: "Marty may be a villain, but the world has wronged him in so many ways that I can't hate him for it."
- Invoked: ???
- Defied: "I don't care whether Marty's victims are assholes or whether he knows he is wrong. He is still a bad guy, and he must be stopped!"
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
Back to Tragic Villain