Would Hurt a Child: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

 

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.

'''Important Note''': This trope is about '''adults physically hurting children''', fatally or not, be they related or not. '''The following are not examples''': slapping, butt-warming and general discipline from parents to their children (that's [[Don't Make Me Take My Belt Off]]), psychological/verbal abuse (very common but [[I Thought It Meant|not that trope]]), abduction (only applies if the child dies or gets effectively hurt), child on child violence (that's [[Kids Are Cruel]]), exploitation for profit (that is [[Financial Abuse]]). Violence to teenagers isn't an example either since teenagers are physically [[Truth in Television|stronger]] than children and lack the "completely defenseless" element, especially if [[Teens Are Monsters]]. However, teenagers harming children applies.

 

 

A subtrope of [[Kick the Dog]]. See also [[Child-Hater]], who hates kids but isn't necessarily physically abusive. Contrast [[Infant Immortality]] and [[Wouldn't Hurt a Child]]. Compare [[Kids Are Cruel]], [[Children Are Innocent]]. Related to [[Eats Babies]] and [[Child Eater]].

 

{{examples}}

* In ''[[Elfen Lied]]'', Bandou has no qualms about hitting and maiming little girls. Lucy herself murders a bunch. Some were [[Kids Are Cruel|horrible bastards]]. Others weren't.

* In ''[[Saint Seiya]]'', the Twelve Zodiac Temples Arc. Pegasus Seiya and Dragon Shiryu arrive to Cancer's Temple, and confront Cancer Gold Saint Deathkmask. The walls of said temple are covered by grim human faces, which are promptly explained to be the faces of the people Deathmask has killed in his battles. Seiya and Shiryu are horrorized when they realize that among those faces there are children faces. When they demand an explanation from Deathmask as to why he'd kill children, he simply states that he doesn't know how that happened, that they must have been killed along with his enemies without him realizing. Then, he calls those murders "valious but unimportant sacrifices".

** And so do his enemies, to be honest. {{spoiler|Poor little Sachiko and Miki's younger brother.}}

* ''[[Berserk]]'': To all Apostles, humans are food, toys or a combination of both. Children? They [[Eats Babies|eat babies]] so...

** There's also the Gung-Ho Gun Monev the Gale, where after the shootout some of the corpses laid about were children.

* Female example: In the manhwa ''[[Jackals]]'', Roxy bisects 7 year-old Giulio Montero in one blow. Notable in that she did it directly and with her own hands. Subverted in that the child is actually an [[Enfant Terrible]].

* The villains of ''[[Dragon Ball]]'' in all its incarnations, though the kids in question [[Cute Bruiser|can dish it back out as well]].

** And then we have ''Striker S'' aka the third season, where the villains {{spoiler|strap the six-year-old Vivio to an [[Artifact of Doom]] and torture her [[Powered by a Forsaken Child|to power it up]].}} Some didn't seem pleased, but they didn't do a lot to stop it either.

*** In [[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid]], after Nove's fight with [[Dark Magical Girl]] Einhart.

'''Nove''': Give me a break... I was beaten up quite badly too! It still hurts all over! }}

* ''[[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.

* Its predecessor, ''[[Higurashi no Naku Koro ni]]'', does this even more often. Although some instances are "simply" teen-on-teen, {{spoiler|almost every}} world ends with little [[Oracular Urchin|Rika]] being disemboweled by {{spoiler|Takano, who is an adult woman}}, and in one of the most gruesome arcs of the series, [[Yandere|Shion]] first does a full-blown crucifixion of [[Bratty Half-Pint|Satoko]], then stabs her repeatedly to death.

** 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.

** Actually, MANY Hollows of all kinds (mere Hollows, Arrancars, Espadas, etc.) show quite the delight in killing or harming children. We have Grand Fisher killing Ichigo's mother Masaki when in reality he was aiming to kill and eat a 9-year-old Ichigo, the first Hollow of the series targeting both Karin and Yuzu alongside {{spoiler|a still depowered}} Isshin, Shrieker using the soul of little Yuichi Shibata (who is around Karin and Yuzu's age) in a horribly cruel game of cat and mouse, Numb Chandelier infecting teenagers to force them beat up each other while threatening Tatsuki and Orihime with horrible tortures, young!Nel getting kicked around and almost killed by Dordoni ''and'' also being [[Forced to Watch]] as Nnoitra and Tesla torture Ichigo.

* ''[[Inuyasha]]'' has a few of these:

** Kouga, although we only see one direct example of this. He's introduced to the story having destroyed several human villages and in the process of destroying another village - [[Children Are Innocent|Rin's]] home, which is also [[Plucky Girl|Rin's]] introduction to the storyline. On his [[Kill'Em All|orders]], the wolves wipe out the entire village, including [[Killed Off for Real|Rin]]. After that, he's more interested in [[It's Personal|fighting Naraku]] and [[The Rival|winning Kagome's heart]] to target humans again. When [[Youkai|his people]] are revisited later on in the manga, the subject of them being human-killers is briefly mentioned although [[Would Be Rude to Say Genocide|not specifically in relation to Kouga's past]].

** [[Dark Action Girl|Kagura]] tries to be this, [[Anti-Villain|but fails.]] She kidnaps [[Children Are Innocent|Rin]] on Naraku's order but never lifts a finger against her otherwise, and even when Rin's in her presence again without [[Papa Wolf|Sesshoumaru]] around, she has [[I Was Just Passing Through|no interest in hurting her]]. She's ordered to protect Naraku's [[Enfante Terrible|baby]] and, despite [[Creepy Child|loathing it]], she does reluctantly look after it. [[The Starscream|Hakudoushi]] is far [[Complete Monster|crueller]] towards her than she ever is to him, and the detachment she appears to be closest to is [[Soul Power|Kanna]] [[Soul Jar|of all things]]. In the end, {{spoiler|she meets her death when [[Sadistic Choice|ordered]] to kill Kohaku - she [[Heroic Sacrifice|sacrifices]] herself to save his life}}.

* At first, [[Monster (manga)|Johan Liebert]] appears to be an aversion of this. [[Mind Rape|But then you find out that he just manipulates them into killing themselves.]] [[Sadistic Choice|And then he threatens to shoot an 8-10 year old boy in the head if Dr. Tenma doesn't shoot him first.]] [[Complete Monster|And he would definitely do it.]]

** And then of course there's the child he nearly manipulated into committing suicide by telling him his mother was in the [[Red Light District]] and sending him there with the thought that if no one claims him, he's unwanted and has no reason to live. [[Tear Jerker|The child is just about to jump off of a bridge when Tenma and Grimmer find him and convince him that he actually is wanted in the world.]] Easily one of Johan's most despicable acts in the entire series, which is really saying something.

* A nobleman shoots a [[Street Urchin]] to death in [[Rose of Versailles]], [[For the Evulz|just because he could]], despite the pleas of a teenage girl. Oscar then shoots him in the hand so he'll never be able to use weapons.

** And in-story, the {{spoiler|Raid of La Bastille}} started when a peasant boy got shot to death in front of his parents. For worse, it was almost by mistake since a dumbass soldier wanted to shoot the kid's ''father'' and got the shot wrong.

** Conan himself gets beaten up badly by one or another member of the Black Organization at least twice, specially by {{spoiler|Irish}} from the [[Non-Serial Movie|Non Serial Movies]]. Said attacker also has no qualms with [[Would Hit a Girl|hitting a teenaged girl like Ran.]]

* In the [[Axis Powers Hetalia]] movie, ''Paint it white'', one of the victims of {{spoiler|the Pict aliens}} is Sealand, a micro-nation who for all effects has the looks and the mindset of a 12-year-old boy. Subverted in the [[Hetalia Bloodbath 2010]], where {{spoiler|it ''looks'' like he'll be kidnapped... but he shows his [[Badass Adorable]] ID and applies [[Defeat Means Friendship]] to his attacker}}.

* The Homunculi of ''[[Busou Renkin]]'' liked to ''eat'' children, as their meat was more tender than adults. Tokiko was the ''only'' survivor of a homunculus attack on her grade school when she was 10.

* ''[[One Piece]]'' has Captain Morgan ordering a little girl be executed for seeing Zoro. Arlong and his treatment towards Nami, which started when she was as much 10; In a flashback he also {{spoiler|hits the slave girl Koala for smiling too much.}} Mr 1 and Miss Double Finger also attacks a young boy when he discovers that the king was framed by Baroque Works.

** There's also the Marines, who following the death of Gold Roger, searched islands he may have frequented and killed any babies born within nine months of his execution. {{spoiler|His lover Portgas D. Rouge [[Genre Savvy|knew they would do this]], and held Roger's child in her womb for 15 months [[Plucky Girl|through sheer]] [[Mama Bear|willpower]].}}

** {{spoiler|The Gorgon Sisters}} were sold into slavery and then tortured into borderline insanity by {{spoiler|the World Nobles}} when the eldest, {{spoiler|Boa Hancock}} was twelve years old.

** {{spoiler|Caesar Clown has no problem experimenting on little kids or getting them addicted to drugs so they won't run away.}}

* [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds|Maria]] from [[Witchblade (anime)|Witchblade]] has no problem with killing her teammates or the science institute trainees, due mostly to [[Ax Crazy|her own messed up childhood]] and not being much older herself. (They begin training at 12) She even attempts to kill [[Morality Pet|Rihoko]] out of jealousy for receiving more of her (biological) mother's love even though they'd never met. (Her mother treated Maria completely as an experiment her whole life instead)

** Other manga are keen to this too. For example in ''[[Pokémon Diamond and Pearl Adventure]]'' {{spoiler|Mitsumi}} is blackmailed into doing this to a 9 - 11 year old Hareta - forcing her powerful Pokemon to give both the kid and his Pokemon a [[No-Holds-Barred Beatdown]]. Other members of Team Galactic also don't mind beating on him.

* 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.

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

** That's the Ultimate Red Skull, who wasn't Johann Schmidt, but {{spoiler|Ultimate Cap's son}}. Not that the Earth-616 Red Skull is any less evil.

* [[The Joker]] has been known to do this, just ask Jason Todd...

*** Perhaps Joker's most notorious moment of this came during the "No Man's Land" mega-arc, where he plotted to kill all the newborns in Gotham City on New Year's Day, just so the Joker could destroy the already fragile spirit of Gotham's citizens.

** So has Two-Face. Ask ''all'' the Robins.

* The Scarlet Witch from ''[[The Avengers (Comic Book)|The Avengers]]'' stood in awe as Pandemonium deformed and grafted her children on his own arms.

* The child abductor in ''[[Watchmen (comics)|Watchmen]].''

* Carnage from [[Spider-Man]] no qualms about who he kills, children included. During his rampages, child corpses are often among the dead, and in his youth he torched an orphanage.

* Sabretooth from ''[[X-Men]]'' is known to attack, murder, and sometimes even eat children. In one issue, [[Deadpool]] is in a cabin with him and he opens a closet to find a little girl tied up. When he asks about this, Sabretooth replies that he's saving her for later.

 

* Reconstructed in ''[[The Incredibles]]''. Helen has to explain to Dash and Violet that yes, real villains would hurt a child. And they do. Then again, the kids can fight back...

** The other PG Pixar Film, ''[[Up]]'', has the villain send dogs to attack the kid there, and before he died, almost shot the kid as well. Pixar seems to tell people that villains WILL harm and kill children if they have the option.

* ''[[The Great Mouse Detective]]'': Ratigan is strongly claimed to have done this with drowning widows and orphans ''and'' trying to come up with something worse than that! Confirmed close to the end when he kicked Olivia off a large gear in Big Ben and she almost got crushed between two huge gears! Good thing Basil saved her before that happened!

* ''[[The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney film)|The Hunchback of Notre Dame]]'': Judge Claude Frollo, in the first few minutes of the film, kills a woman on-screen and on the front steps of the Notre Dame cathedral, because she was a Gypsy carrying what he thought was a bundle of stolen goods. When he found out that it wasn't that, but a baby that had some deformities, he declared "A monster!" and decided to throw the baby down a well! If the Arch-deacon hadn't intervened, Frollo ''would'' have done it!

 

== [[Film]] - Live Action ==

* [[Rare Female Example]] in ''[[The Crow]]: City Of Angels'': Kali, [[The Dragon]] to Judah Earl, kills Ashe's very young son without batting a lash.

* ''[[Evilenko]]'': The whole film revolves around this.

* Frank D'Amico in the final showdown of ''[[Kick-Ass (film)|Kick-Ass]]''.

** Also done to Hit Girl by her own father (of course, it was just training).

* The Penguin crosses the [[Moral Event Horizon]] in ''[[Batman Returns]]'' when he tries to have every firstborn son of Gotham City, including very young children and babies, kidnapped and drowned in the sewer as revenge for his parents having tried to do the same to him long ago for being different.

* From the ''[[Watchmen (film)|Watchmen]]'' movie, there's the child abductor the Rorschach kills, as in the comic version listed above, and also the Comedian, who gives us this line:

* In ''[[I, Claudius]]'', children get executed without so much as a blink. When reminded that it's against the law to execute a virgin, "Well, make sure they're not virgins when you kill them!"

* In [[Heroic Trio]], the [[Big Bad]] is kidnapping babies in order to raise an evil army. At one point, he pretty randomly kills a baby.

** Another scene involves an autopsy of one of the female victims. When examining her abdomen, they notice a strange stab wound. It turns out the Horseman also beheaded her ''fetus''.

* In [[Michael Jackson]]'s ''[[Moonwalker]]'' movie, the bad guy, Mr. Big, is pushing around and slapping a girl right in front of Michael simply to piss him off.

* In ''[[The Untold Tale]]'', the [[Complete Monster]] main character kills an entire family due to a money dispute. It would be one thing if the family only had one child but the filmmakers saw fit to give the husband and wife as many kids as possible.

* Mr. Goodkat in ''[[Lucky Number Slevin]]'' was brought in for one last job in New York City because nobody else, [[Even Evil Has Standards|not even the rest of the muscle]], [[Wouldn't Hurt a Child|would accept the assignment of killing a kid]]. {{spoiler|[[Subverted Trope|He could not do it, either]], and he wound up raising the child and helping him take revenge}}.

* Pretty much everyone evil in ''[[The Mummy Trilogy|The Mummy Returns]]'' is willing to harm or kill Alex. Ankh-Su-Namon threatens to put poisonous snakes in his bed and Lock-Nah actually does stab his hand and only misses because Alex is wearing [[MacGuffin|the bracelet of Anubis]]. He always manages to escape serious damage, but there's still plenty of evidence that evil does not have standards here.

* In the third ''[[The Omen|Omen]]'' movie, ''The Final Conflict'', a now-grown Damien (Sam Neill) gets his followers to kill all babies born on a certain date, in order to stave off the Messiah. These followers include Scouts ("We're here to do our good deed for the day") and a priest who drowns a baby (offscreen) during a baptism.

* Two-Face in ''[[The Dark Knight]]'' flips a coin to decide whether or not to shoot {{spoiler|Gordon}}'s son.

* ''[[Children of the Corn]]'': Of course said children have been brainwashed into thinking anyone over 19 should be killed. Burt and Vicky mostly attack the older children but the ending has a hilarious moment where they knock out a girl no older than eight (she was coming at them with a scythe).

'''Vicky:''' Let's send her a get-well card from Seattle. }}

* In the first ''[[Home Alone]]'' movie, Harry and Marv repeatedly threaten to kill Kevin, and would have managed it at the end if {{spoiler|Marley hadn't stopped them.}} In the second ''[[Home Alone]]'' movie, Harry has a gun at Kevin's head and is about to do him in once and for all (right before {{spoiler|the pigeon lady distracts the crooks by dousing them with birdseed and letting the pigeons do the rest}}).

* The Scorpio Killer from ''[[Dirty Harry]]'' shoots a young African boy in the face (offscreen).

** Not to mention holds a bus full of children hostage later in the movie.

* [[Cape Fear|Max Cady]] spends the entire movie plotting to rape a little girl, and he almost succeeds at the end.

* Jacinto in ''[[The Devil's Backbone]]'' threatens and harms the children of the orphanage. He threatens Carlos by cutting his cheek with a knife, and that's the least of his offenses. {{spoiler|He drowned an injured boy because he feared he will be blamed, and ultimately blows up the orphanage, killing some and injuring many children just to get to open a safe}}.

* The movie ''Eyewitness'' (or ''[[Market-Based Title|Sudden Terror]]'' in the US) is about a young boy (Mark "[[Oliver Twist]]" Lester) who witnesses an assassination, and the assassins will kill ''anyone'' in their path to get him - including our hero's friend Ann-Marie, a little girl around his age.

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

 

* Both Darken Rahl and Emperor Jangang in ''[[The Sword of Truth]]''.

* In ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'', you can pretty much assume that any villian will do this:

** Just to make this painfully apparent, the way he dies: he's half-drowned in a drain and then has his arm ripped off at the joint by a [[Monster Clown]].

* [[Rare Female Example]] occurs with [[Macbeth|Lady Macbeth]]. The violence is only implied, but at this point in the play, she seems perfectly capable of going through with it.

Have done to this. }}

* In ''[[Alex Rider]]'' [[Rare Female Example|Julia Rothman]] and other members of Scorpia have the majority of London school children injected with nano-capsules containing cyanide, and plan to dissolve the capsules if the UK government does not accede to an impossible request. Rothman herself also {{spoiler|has Alex injected- after not being able to watch his father's death in person, she wants to see the son's}}.

** In the first book, the mastermind's plan is to have a deadly disease released into every school in Britain.

* In the ''[[Warrior Cats]]'' series, there are a couple examples. Brokenstar insists on brutally training kits at too young an age, and actually fights them himself in training, killing them. Tigerstar kills Gorsepaw in ''The Darkest Hour'' for no other reason than to bring fear to WindClan. Darkstripe also attempts to kill Sorrelkit because she caught him meeting Blackfoot on their territory.

* [[Fate/Zero]]'s [[Complete Monster|Caster]], as shown in his [[Establishing Character Moment]], finds giving children [[Hope Spot|a moment of hope]] before siccing [[Eldritch Abomination|nightmarish monsters]] on them to be a fun pastime.

* [[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.

* [[Stardoc]]. Well, let's see: The Hsktskt {{spoiler|(or at least, [[My Species Doth Protest Too Much|many]] of them)}} are the obvious ones. {{spoiler|[[Yandere|Ktarka Zamlon Torin]]}} would have killed Fasala (who was about five at the time)—or at least left her to die—without a qualm; ''any'' {{spoiler|member of her adoptive clan}} was fair game. And then, there's what Joseph Grey Veil did to {{spoiler|the male clones}}.

 

* ''[[The Brady Bunch]]'': Humorously troped in "Bobby's Hero," where in a dream sequence, Jesse James shoots and kills Bobby's siblings (along with his parents and Alice) during a train robbery ... all to make the point that the famed outlaw was nothing more than a "mean, dirty killer."

* ''[[Starsky and Hutch (TV series)|Starsky and Hutch]]'': In the episode "The Crying Child", a teacher discovers that one of her young students has deep gashes on his back, and the titular duo starts to look for who had harmed the kid {{spoiler|and manage to find out it was the boy's own mother}}.

* ''[[Good Times]]'': Though little to none of the actual assaults were shown on-screen, the four-part 1977-1978 season opener, revolving around 10-year-old Penny Gordon (Janet Jackson's series acting debut) more than left no doubt she was struck. The vicious so-and-so who hit Penny was her own mother (Chip Fields), a single parent who took her frustrations out on the innocent girl. Several infamous scenes were shown, including Mrs. Gordon stalking her with a hot iron (the scene cuts before she places the iron on Penny) and Penny shrieking in pain because of a broken arm.

* ''[[Adam-12]]'': Several episodes dealing with child abuse; the assault itself would never be seen on camera. The most memorable child abuse-themed episode is "He ... He Was Trying to Kill Me" (from the spring of 1969), where a 6-year-old girl lets on to Reed that her mother hits her.

* In the backstory of ''[[The Mentalist]]'' [[Serial Killer]] Red John killed Patrick Jane's wife and daughter, just to take Jane down a peg.

* In the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' Christmas special, [[Yet Another Christmas Carol|'A Christmas Carol']], we watch Sardick hit his son Kazran. {{spoiler|This freudian excuse shows the Doctor that Kazran is not beyond redemption, and when he nearly does the same to his [[Time Travel|younger-self]], [[Future Me Scares Me|Kazran's horror]] brings about his [[Heel Face Turn]].}}

* ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' has an [[Anti-Hero]] example in Noah "HRG" Bennet, who is willing to shoot {{spoiler|Molly Walker, whom the Company is using as a human superhero-tracking system, in order to keep them from finding his own daughter Claire. He is only stopped by Mohinder holding him at gunpoint}}.

* ''[[Fringe]]'''s dear, loveable [[Mad Scientist]] Walter Bishop... experimented on children, occasionally frightening them to obtain results, and with often devastating consequences for them in adulthood; he also kidnapped his alternate-universe son and lied to him (for his own good, admittedly). Meanwhile, [[Wouldn't Hurt a Child|his ruthless alternate-universe counterpart, Walternate, absolutely refuses to experiment on children]] (though he apparently has few qualms about potentially lethal adult trials).

** Dexter also has the Season 6 episode when {{spoiler|Harrison is kidnapped.}}

* On ''[[Justified (TV series)|Justified]]'' 14-year old Lorretta is kidnapped and locked in the trunk of a car by a pedophile. In a later episode she is almost killed by Coover Bennett. A season later Dickie Bennett breaks into her house and it is clear he would hurt or even kill her to {{spoiler|get the millions that Mags Bennett left Loretta}}

 

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=944acfctdik Formula 86 by Razakel.] Allso Razakel's stage persona.

* In [[Monster Magnet]]'s "See You In Hell", the protagonist reveals himself to be driven towards killing himself and his significant other, by the voice of the infant they killed and dumped in a landfill.

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUmJDVRDRTQ&feature=feedu WHIP YO KIDS featuring Nice Peter by Yourfavoritemartian.] I'll punch a baby in the face just for cryin' on a plane.

 

== Mythology and Religion ==

** And God himself kills the firstborn sons of Egypt as one of the Seven Plagues, as well as David and Bathsheba's firstborn. Possibly others.

* Many [[Greek Mythology|Greek myths]] punish a parent by slaughtering their children.

 

* One of Bernie Mac's punchlines in his act was threatening to beat his kids "till the white meat shows".

* [[Denis Leary]], in a larger bit about celebrity entitlement, said that he was looking ''forward'' to beating the shit out of his kids.

 

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

*** Subverted in that Maya was 18 at the time, and hardly a child, but she often exudes a childlike naivete and innocence.

** {{spoiler|Kristoph Gavin}}'s attempted murder of a 12-year-old agoraphobic girl probably counts too.

* [[Return to Krondor]]. Oh, dear God. Brutally played straight. In the first chapter, a ten year old girl who is a thief and an orphan living in the streets truly does not want to go to The Order of the Yellow Shield, a group that owns an orphanage. That is because men who pretend to be members of The Order of the Yellow Shield lure kids like her to a sweatshop. At this sweatshop, they work the kids hard, hurt them, lock them up in cages, as well as giving them food that have live rats and squirmy things in it. She also says about how the bad children (i.e. kids who refuse to work or try to run away) just disappear and never come back. Investigating the sweatshop reveals that everything she said is true. You will find a cage with kids locked in it, and depending on your decisions, {{spoiler|you will find the bloody corpse of a child in one of the boxes next to the entrance door. James will be very unhappy with that discovery and refer to the owner of the sweatshop as a "child-killer".}} A camp of goblins sacrificed a boy, cutting him in two, and they were going to do the same to baby twin girls. Vampires killed and converted kids as well as adults to vampires. Ghouls are explicitly said to feast on human flesh - and that would include children. There is also a priest who is devoted to Sung the Pure named Father Roweland who is trying to help children recover from a fatal disease, but {{spoiler|he causes the fatal "disease". He actually killed a little boy with evil spells, and was going to do the same to a little girl with an evil amulet magically disguised as a good amulet, as well as evil spells.}} A woodcutter, his wife and child disappear, but {{spoiler|the woodcutter and his wife (not really his wife) sacrificed their child (not really his child) to try to power up a Nightstone. The Nightstone is found on a small skeleton, which could very well be the child's remains.}} Bear also used explosives to set an orphanage on fire while escaping Krondor - with the kids still in it.

* The ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' series draws the line at [[Video Game Cruelty Potential]] here - there are no children ever walking the streets of Liberty City, Vice City or San Andreas.

** 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...}}

** Anybody in the [[Kingdom Hearts]] universe can kill Sora (or, [[Never Say "Die"|"steal his heart"]], if you prefer) so he has to take ALL his opponents seriously, so it's all fair play. Most notably, the chick was downright [[Ax Crazy|insane]].

* The Human Noble origin in [[Dragon Age]] has your character find their sister in-law and young nephew dead during the attack on the castle. By this point it's clear the attackers don't care about hostages.

* Mars and his soldiers in ''[[Tales of Phantasia]]'' They kill everyone in [[Doomed Hometown|Toltus]], including Chester's little sister and a random girl whose corpse you can examine.

* {{spoiler|1=FunFrock}} in [[Little Big Adventure]] 2 initially uses kidnapped children in order to force the wizards to co-operate with his scheme. When Twinsen invades [[Very Definitely Final Dungeon|his lair]], he decides to drop the children into a volcano in order to make Twinsen cross the [[Despair Event Horizon]].

** Also, the [[Complete Monster|heartless bastard]] who put the girls in this situation is later killed by a big daddy after he slaps one of the little who was irritating him.

* ''[[Final Fantasy XIII]]'' has Hope Estheim - the youngest, most physically weak character in the game. That doesn't matter to anyone; he's a Pulse l'Cie, and therefore must die.

** And even before this, he and an entire town were put on a train, and promptly shot at by the military when they tried to escape.

* All the protagonists in the ''[[Mother]]'' series are children (so obviously, plenty of the enemies that battle them will be adults), but perhaps the most notable specific example of this trope is in ''EarthBound'' when a bunch of policemen beat up Ness ''just because he wants to leave his hometown.''

* [[Dragon Age]] is a rare game which lets a player character do this, as you can chose to murder Arl Eamon's son rather than try and help him. You might argue that it's a mercy-killing, but you're still killing a child.

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

*** Rich brings up a good point about dragon wyrmlings having stats and therefore indicting many PCs for slaughtering dragon children despite them being clearly sentient. The mother dragon's whole beef was with V killing her son.

* [[Knight Templar|Kore]] in ''[[Goblins]]'' murders a child in the first scene he appears in. The child in question is an orphan who's been [[Raised by Orcs]], and to Kore's twisted perception of good and evil, anyone who potentially has sympathy for the '[[Fantastic Racism|monstrous races]]' is guilty of evil through their passiveness.

* In ''[[Our Little Adventure]]'', [http://danielscreations.com/ola/comics/ep0299.html one Angelo's Kid lights a school on fire and thinks of the fleeing children, "Mmm, unarmored targets. That's pretty tempting."]

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'': Adult-on-child violence is rare ... except for instances where Homer chokes out Bart (usually when Bart says something he shouldn't and it gets Homer in trouble).

** Then again, the villains aren't exactly above hurting children either. Sideshow Bob has repeatedly attempted to kill Bart. Fat Tony has on several occasions had his crooks threaten Bart with violence up to and including murder. And of course, Burns provides the page image when he threatens Bart with a gun prior to attempting to drown him, and that's apart from repeatedly letting [[Angry Guard Dog|The Hounds]] loose on him.

* The [[Flanderized]] Peter Griffin from the later seasons of ''[[Family Guy]]'' frequently attacks and occasionally murders people, and children are no exception. He punched out a child because he felt he had to hit someone, blew up a children's hospital (killing many of them), killed his own infant son Peter Jr. when he couldn't get him to stop crying, and threw his toddler son Stewie (who was in a coma with heavily infected wounds) under his wife's car so it would look like an accident.

* Soundwave and Blackarachnia in ''[[Transformers Animated]]'' have threatened Sari. {{spoiler|The former even tried to make her own father murder her.}}

** He's also made a few attempts to [[Offing the Offspring|murder him]]. He was talked out of it the first time by his wife and the second time Zuko barely blocked his attempt in time and ran for it.

** The Boulder once felt conflicted about attacking a young, blind girl. The Boulder soon overcame his conflicted feelings and tried to bury her in a Rockalanche! The Boulder [[Curb Stomp Battle|got completely trashed in the ensuing fight]].

** This definitely be applied to Sozin. He ordered the deaths of Airbending children. Who were raised to be pacifists. ''[[What Do You Mean It's for Kids?|All of them.]]''

* ''[[Futurama]]'': "Parents, have you ever just tried turning the TV off, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"

* Roger of ''[[American Dad]]'' would ''kill'' a child (an ''infant'', actually). [[Disproportionate Retribution|For accidentally breaking a leg off of one of his collection of crystal spiders]].

* In ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'', the adult green dragon in "Owl's Well That Ends Well" tries to ''kill'' Spike after the latter enters his cave uninvited (not realizing it belonged to another dragon) and eats some of his gems.

* The Villians in ''[[Codename: Kids Next Door]]'' can be considered obvious examples, considering most of them are [[Child-Hater|Child Haters]]

* Both villain groups in ''[[Mon Suno]]'' are constantly stalking Chase Suno and his friends to the point of this.

** Queen Bee has no hesitation in placing the young boy Garfield under her thrall. If she wants, she can easily make him hurt himself. Even creepier, she acts affectionately (in a somewhat twisted manner) toward him while stating her threat.

* Tirac's thread to Scorpan in [[My Little Pony]] is "A head will roll. {{spoiler|His!" Meaning ''Spike''.}}

* In ''Thundercats2011'', Mumm-Ra and his army considers all surviving cats a threat, including kittens [[Wily Kat]] and [[Wily Kit]]. The task force consisting of Slithe, Kaynar, Sauro, and Kask is especially nasty in this regard.

 

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[[Category:Stock Phrases]]

[[Category:Double Standard]]

[[Category:No Real Life Examples, Please]]