Villainous BSOD: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

'''A:''' The kind that gives villains [[A Worldwide Punomenon|a heart to attack.]] }}

 

== [[Film]] ==

* The ''[[Ghost Rider (film)|Ghost Rider]]'' movie fits this trope, since the [[Big Bad]] was soulless (and thus immune to GR's Penance Stare) until the movie's climax.

* In ''[[The Neverending Story (film)|The Neverending Story]] II'', Bastian beats [[Anthropomorphic Personification|The Emptiness]] by wishing she had a heart. The result is that she is filled, and as she realizes what she's done/is doing, she weeps [[Swiss Army Tears|a single tear]] that [[Puff of Logic|undoes her]].

* The Operative from ''[[Serenity]]'', when shown what the Alliance did at Miranda.

'''The Operative:''' You won't. There is nothing left to see. }}

* ''[[Watchmen (film)|Watchmen]]'' (''specifically'' the film): {{spoiler|Ozymandias appears to be going through one of these the last time he's seen on camera. He lets Nite Owl beat the hell out of him, without even the slightest move to fight back this time, and then wanders over to watch the others leave while staring into space, stoop-shouldered and weak-looking. It's a bit complicated, given that his mass murder actually saved the world from a greater threat, but unlike in the comic, he can't just calmly meditate on his utopia, and in the sped-up footage showing New York being rebuilt, it's possible to pick out Veidt Enterprises building equipment taking care of things.}}

** A hideously dark version in Age of Darkness. A failed [[Care Bear Stare]] attempts to {{spoiler|turn Kharn of the World Eaters back to the loyalist side. It fails when Kharn realises this, but the important thing is that the loyalist Thousand Son who tried knows that Kharn will now always live with the knowledge that siding with Horus (and Chaos) was wrong and that he could have willingly turned back. The loyal Thousand Son briefly wonders what effect this will have on Kharn in the future before dying. 10,000 years later and Kharn is well known for being psychopathically angry (even for a World Eater) and, most interestingly, perfectly willing to slaughter his own comrades...}}

* Much of ''[[Death Star]]'''s cast go through a [[Heel Realization]] by the time [[Earthshattering Kaboom|Alderaan is destroyed]], and most of them go on to [[Defector From Decadence|defect]]. Tenn Graneet, the head gunner on the [[Death Star]], didn't, but he found that pulling the trigger brought him misery beyond his ugliest dreams. At the Battle of Yavin, the superlaser actually was ready to fire, but he stalled desperately until Luke's proton torpedoes hit home.

* In ''[[Crime and Punishment]]'', [[Manipulative Bastard|Svidrigailov]] has a [[Heel Realization]], [[Pet the Dog|gives his money to charity]] and {{spoiler|becomes unhinged and commits suicide in public.}}

* In ''[[The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara]]'', Grianne Ohmsford, aka the Ilse Witch touches the Sword of Shannara, which forces her to accept the truth about herself--namely that she's a manipulative, backstabbing bitch who has built her entire life on a lie. She ends up going comatose from the shock, and doesn't recover until near the end of the final book.

* ''[[Ghost Rider]]'''s "Penance Stare." Especially notable when he used it on freakin' [[Planet Eater|Galactus]] in the ''[[Fantastic Four]]'' cartoon.

* ''[[The Powerpuff Girls]]''' nemesis, Mojo Jojo, has one after realizing that {{spoiler|while he was still The Professor's lab assisstant, he inadvertently created the Powerpuff Girls}}.

* Demona from ''[[Gargoyles]]'' goes through a very temporary one at the end of the four-part "City of Stone" when [[The Hero|Goliath]] and [[The Fair Folk|the Weird Sisters]] force her to realize that all of her [[Freudian Excuse|Freudian Excuses]] were ultimately the results of her own actions, whether overly suspicious or outright evil. The shock is enough to make her reveal the access code that will foil her own evil plan. [[Ignored Epiphany|Despite reverting back to evil form and denying her fault in anything right afterward]], many consider it a [[Tear Jerker]].

** The [[Tear Jerker]] element becomes [[Fridge Horror]] in the context of the later episodes of the series and comics: she never willingly works with someone else. For all that she reverts to previous opinions, she never recovers from her BSOD.

* In ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'', most villains never quite get the point; Zhao, for example goes to his death without compromising, but Azula's [[Villainous Breakdown]] appears to contain a little of this. [[Anti-Villain]] [[Heel Face Turn|Zuko]] never quite goes into BSOD, since he has gradual [[Character Development]] instead, although his [[Battle in the Center of the Mind]] [[Vision Quest]] sort of resembled this.