Would Hurt a Child: Difference between revisions

But sometimes, some people just don't agree with that. Or just don't care. And, they ''do'' hurt children, sometimes even kill them, in defiance of the rule of [[Infant Immortality]]. Indeed, the fact of harming a completely harmless and defenseless human being that is a child usually comes off as the [[Moral Event Horizon|ultimate act of villainy]] and it takes a [[Complete Monster|very specially evil]] character to do this.

 

 

In Western works, this trope is rare and almost always done off-panel when played straight (read: when the violence towards the child isn't being [[Big Damn Heroes|stopped in the nick of time]] and causes actual damage). In Japanese fiction, child brutality is more common.

* ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro ni]]'' has 9-year-old Maria Ushiromiya regularly killed off alongside the rest of the cast. While the first four times were relatively nice ({{spoiler|explosion, explosion}}, strangulation, poison), the fifth time was a gaping neck wound, and the sixth was brutal decapitation. She keeps coming back to life due to a [[Groundhog Day Loop]].

** Maria's mother, Rosa, also physically beats her.

** Another straighter example, especially notable for featuring an adult woman, is when Rina attempts to strangle Rena after beating her up.

** Shion also brutally beats up Satoko for being too clingy to Satoshi, until Rika and Rena pull a [[Go Through Me]], and then she gets [[Punched Across the Room]] by a ''very'' pissed off Satoshi. While Satoko ''was'' extremely dependent on Satoshi, it's still no excuse for Shion almost killing a little girl in the middle of a Yandere tantrum.

* ''[[Black Butler]]'': The villains of the [[Circus of Fear]] arc. This is especially yurk because the actual folks are pretty nice, but they ''know'' what their 'father' is doing with the kids they kidnap for him.

* In ''[[Naruto]]'', Nagato kills every person associated with Hanzo, including Hanzo's children and the children of Hanzo's loyalists, after Nagato wrestles control of Amegakure from Hanzo. Nagato, however, seemed indifferent to their deaths, as they were his precaution to quell any possible rebellion over his leadership in the future.

** {{spoiler|Tobi}} took a baby {{spoiler|Naruto}} hostage, nearly spearing him with a kunai and ''blowing him up'' in the process.

* In ''[[Ginga Densetsu Weed]]'', Thunder and Lector, the Doberman Pinscher assassins for Hougen, threaten to kill Teru if his father didn't kill Kyoshiro. It was also kinda personal, since Kyoshiro was the one who tore off Teru's father's ear.

* In the second season of ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh ARC-V]]'', Yuya starts to think Declan qualifies, as he's forcing his younger brother Riley to compete in the Friendship Cup, something that has Riley terrified. (The [[World Half Empty]] setting of this season is the Synchro Dimension; Yuya has learned that being eliminated from this laughably named Friendship Cup means being sentenced to life of slave labor). However, Yuya has [[Subverted Trope| misinterpreted the cause of Riley's fear]]; he's afraid he might ''win'' his match against Senji, his next opponent, [[Because You Were Nice to Me| who had befriended him and offered him donuts.]]

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

* In ''[[The Raid]]'', one of the SWAT troopers shoots a young lookout in an attempt to stop him blowing their cover. Unfortunately, it fails.

* From ''[[Dick Tracy]]'': Steve the Tramp certainly would, but he finds out quickly that Tracy does ''not'' like guys who beat up kids. Nor is Steve very good at standing up to someone who can fight back, it seems.

 

== [[Literature]] ==

* [[Darren Shan]] [[The Demonata|just]] ''[[City Trilogy|loves]]'' this trope.

* Many of the villains of the ''[[Redwall]]'' series are like this, the most notable being Slagar the Cruel, who kidnaps children and sells them into slavery, not hesitating to abuse and torment them along the way, often just [[For the Evulz]]. And of course there's the guy that he's selling them to, Malkariss, who keeps hundreds of children as slaves in his underground kingdom, ruthlessly abusing and overworking them for the rest of their lives. Vilaya the Sable Quean also does a similar thing when she is [[Genre Savvy]] enough to kidnap the Redwallers' children as ransom for the Abbey. She takes it a step further when she mercilessly kills one of them with her poisoned knife and threatens to do the same to the rest of them if they don't behave. Then there's Razzid Wearet, who makes it a point that he enjoys ''eating'' children. Cluny the Scourge also makes a passing thought about eating some young rabbits that he sees. And minor villain Warpclaw threatens to and almost kills a baby shrew. Mokkan also gives a viable threat about killing a baby mouse. One of Tsarmina's captains suggests torturing a pair of young hedgehogs for information. Ferahgo the Assassin sentences two infant badgers to death by freezing winter conditions. And Swartt Sixclaw- You know what, let's just say that any and every villain in this series would hurt and/or kill and/or eat a child.

 

== [[Live-Action TV]] ==

** Ditto [[Postal]], at least until you pop in some unofficial mods for either series.

* An entire side mission of ''[[Drakengard]]'' features [[Anti-Hero]] Caim slaughtering child-soldiers with about as much gusto as he slaughters everything else, i.e. [[Blood Knight|a lot]]. The children run away and scream for their mothers as you cut them down, while Leonard and Red [[You Bastard|calls you a monster for it]]. And then there's that [[Eats Babies|child-eating]] Elf cannibal he travels around with, not to mention that Leonard was originally a ''pedophile'' in the Japanese version... Yeah, ''Drakengard'' doesn't like children a whole lot.

* The plot behind ''[[Heavy Rain]]'' centers around a serial killer that targets boys from the ages of 8-13. {{spoiler|It makes replaying the Suicide Baby chapter much worse once you know who the killer is...}}

* [[Kingdom Hearts|Sora]], a teenager, has no problems with fighting [[The Nightmare Before Christmas|Lock, Shock, and Barrel]].