Characters
[Loved Trope] The villain orchestrates such a "below the belt" psychological plot-twist to the hero that even you have to step back and say "Wow thats just cruel".
Dr who - The Master- On a ship, on the horizon of a black hole, where 30 minutes on one side of the ship could equal YEARS on the other side. The Master and hospital crew subject the Doctors companion Bill to Cyber-conversion against her will, turning her into a Mondasian Cyberman over a prolonged 10-year period while the Twelfth Doctor tries to reach her.
Spiderman Brand New Day - Jean Grey - SPOILERS Jean Grey posses Peters former Girlfriend MJ knowing that Peter can no longer sense her possessing other people. She uses this knowledge to act as if a kiss from MJ has broken a spell cast by Dr Strange which caused everyone to forget him. Peter breaks down crying his eyes out having gone through a traumatic series of events and finally thinking that one of the very few people that he thinks the world of finally remembers who he is. Only for Jean Grey to taunt him and reveal it was her inside all along.
Oldboy - Woo-jin - Dae-su was kidnapped and locked in a small hotel room for 15 years without knowing why. Instead of just killing Dae-su, Woo-jin orchestrates an elaborate, decade-long psychological trap. He releases Dae-su and manipulates circumstances so that Dae-su falls deeply in love with a young woman called Mi-do. At the climax, Woo-jin reveals the devastating truth: Mi-do is actually Dae-su's long-lost daughter
Having him die via his own Joker Jr killing him (and thus preventing Joker from successfully getting Batman to break his no kill rule) with his own gag weapon meant to kill Batman and his last words being the exact opposite of getting the last laugh was such a great way for the writers to end that version of the character
Terry vs. Joker might be my favorite moment of the DCAU. It’s such a fantastic synthesis of the Batman and Joker mythos with the DCAU’s own additions to it, and shows Terry finally growing into his own as Batman by just being himself.
This is a reference to Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare where the Queen of the Goths is unknowingly fed the heads of her last remaining sons via pie.
Fun fact about this episode: I saw it when I was like 6 or 7 because my mom figured South Park was a show for children without actually watching it herself. When I saw this episode the ending scared me so bad it took until I was an adult to actually watch South Park again.
No fucking way lol I was just going to comment how I had a similar experience watching this episode when I was way too young and it made me almost throw up. I don’t think I’ve purposefully watched it since then come to think of it
Same but my mom told me I wasn't allowed to watch it because she KNEW and I did anyway when she wasn't in the room with me. She wore big acrylic nails just like the one poking out of the chili and I was traumatized AF and never did something sneaky behind her back again.
Iirc that's the point from where Cartman goes from a bratty, extremely annoying and racist kid(which is already pretty bad) to a monster that would make Hitler proud.
Watching this live was one of the most devastating reveals me and my friends had ever seen. After we were done freaking out, we talked about that was must have been what it was like for our parents to go see Solent Green for the first time.
A lot of the vaults have some fucked up social or psychological experiment tied to them, but Vault 11 takes the cake. Residents were told that the computer controlling everything including the life support of the vault required one of the residents to be sacrificed once a year, otherwise everyone inside would be killed. This led to elections being run to select the sacrifice, which, in turn, led to neighbors spying and blackmailing each other, voting blocs being formed and lots of backstabbing. Eventually, when only 5 residents remained, they finally refused to sacrifice anyone, at which point, the whole thing was revealed to be an experiment on human ethics and by not murdering anyone, they had passed the test and were free to go.
IIRC the Enclave's goal was to travel to Mars and start over again there, seeing no hope in salvaging a ruined Earth after the inevitable nuclear war with China, but because NASA had been shut down for decades at that point (hyperisolationism) they had no research group suitable for testing the scenarios that could come up during a months-long trip to Mars or the resulting colony. In steps Vault-Tec, available to run those tests in the cruelest and most direct way imaginable.
Need to make sure you've got the cures for all known and theoretical human diseases ready for the trip? Use a vault!
Need to understand how former drug addicts would handle re-exposure to study control procedures? Use a vault!
Need to learn what the breaking point is for regular civilians when subjected to abusive or incompetent authority? Use a vault!
Need to develop a fast-growing food crop for use in hydroponic farms? Use a vault!
Need to find out what long-term low-grade radiation exposure does to people in case the ship's reactor leaks? Use a vault!
The people in the vaults don't matter, only the knowledge gained from the experiments on them to be used by the Enclave. At the end of they day, the vaults were never meant to save anyone.
This led to elections being run to select the sacrifice, which, in turn, led to neighbors spying and blackmailing each other, voting blocs being formed and lots of backstabbing. Eventually, when only 5 residents remained, they finally refused to sacrifice anyone
This isn't quite what happened. The residents were told that they had to sacrifice someone, and they did do so through a democratic vote and formed parties and such. However, the reason every died is a lot worse.
The leader of the largest and most powerful bloc, the Justice Bloc, blackmailed Katherine Stone into having sex with him, high ranking members of the bloc, and all of their friends in order to prevent her husband, Nate, from being nominated. She complied, and they nominated him anyway.
As a result she begun murdering several high ranking members of the bloc, expecting to be caught, before being jailed and admitting to it. Once elected, she changed the selection process to be completely random and decided entirely by the Vault's computer. This resulted in a civil war as the parties collapsed (due to not having a vote anymore) until only 5 people were left alive (at which point they refused to offer a sacrifice) only to be told that they were heroes for choosing not to turn to violence and being let free (at which point 4 of the remaining 5 then committed suicide).
The exact phrasing/tone of the "congrats" at the end was like a knife too. It congratulated them for having proven that Americans were too moral to sacrifice someone to save their own skin, let them know there was no real point to any of the deaths. Plus the slow reveal of the story, where it starts with the skeletons and posters telling you to vote for a philanderer and crook for overseer...
That congrats was worse since it's heavily implied that Vault Tec thought no one would be sacrificed or at worst, it would stop quick, instead of becoming a brutal institution with corrupt power blocs.
Oh I felt the complete opposite.
Vault-Tec is highly manipulative and sadistic. I've always thought they 100% knew many many people were going to die in that vault, and their message was to simply twist the knife and provide them with some level of plausible deniability to their intentions.
Was it suicide? There's only one pistol on the ground if I remember rightly. I always thought that Katherine killed the other four before leaving for whatever fate the wasteland held for her.
In the audio log at the door you hear 5 voices (4 male, 1 female).
Male voice 1 says that they shouldn't do something, the female voice says that she can't continue on after what happened. Male voice 2 says that they should hurry up with it and male voice 3 says he'll go first. Male voice 1 begs them to stop before 4 gunshots ring out. He sighs and you hear a pistol fall to the floor without firing. The audio log ends.
Fallout has a bunch, but I think one of the cruelest was Vault 95.
It was full of people who were alcoholics and drug addicts before the war, and some support staff to help them through detox and therapy. Being a dry vault, they had no problem getting and staying sober. All of their lives improved because of it, and they settled into their new, happier lives in the vault.
Then, 5 years after the war, a hidden door opened in one of the rooms. Inside the secret room was a huge supply of alcohol and chems. Many of the residents immediately relapsed, and they all began fighting over the remaining supplies. This lead to bloody conflicts. Eventually, all of the residents killed each other.
I still think vault 77 is specifically the cruelest.
Designed to lock one dude in there alone forever. He's only know as the Puppet Man.
Dude went completely crazy from the isolation, after like a year or two found the crate with the puppets.
He ended up giving the puppets personas to cope with being alone.
One puppet murders another puppet one night, and tells the guy he's an accomplice. "Killer" puppet tells dude he's an accomplice, another puppet is going to kill them in revenge, and they have to leave.
They dip, he gets caught by slavers, and he tells them the puppet with him is a murdered and will kill them, too. Dude slaughters a whole camp of slavers with his puppet and disappears into who the fuck knows where.
You can find his vault suit with special stats on it, and a recording of the last survivor of the slaver camp losing his fuckin mind that the puppet man is going to come back for him.
Poor puppet guy deserved better. Can't imagine mentally breaking that badly all alone.
I mean fair I feel like even a lifelong sober person would abuse that shit after being locked in a vault for 5 years. Which makes it even more fucked up. Just another pointless vault experiment
No, it's got to be Vault 19 (edit: vault 11). Sacrificing an overseer each year created politcal unrest where factions tried to pin electoral victory on everyone else. It came with sex scandals, corruption, and even murder. When some of the last remaining vault dwellers stood up to the machine, the last dwellers killed the others and himself out if pure disgust.
The ending to Fallout 1 could also be mentioned although the Overseer isn't exactly a villian who directly planned you to never return (kind of).
Vault 19 was the vault that had the paranoia experiment where the residents all went crazy because the vault scientists living in the walls played high pitched noises, made the lights blink in code randomly, and ran chems through the ventilation system. Full subliminal messaging psychosis.
Vault 11 is the vault where they were to "elect" an overseer, and that person would be killed. In that experiment the vault residents were told they need to make a sacrifice annually or they would all die, so they decided to run "elections" for the position of overseer and that person would get killed. The main gimmick was that when the population just decided to not make a sacrifice, the experiment would end. Nobody ever actually had to die. There were like 5 left that all committed suicide at the front door to the vault because they couldn't live with the guilt.
Vault 11 is awesome because that suicide note from the last few residents is at the front entrance, so you get to experience pretty much the whole timeline of the experiment in reverse chronological order as you explore it.
Joker from The Dark Knight giving Batman only enough time and the choice to save either Harvey Dent or Rachel and then telling him the wrong location so that when he went for Rachel he found Dent.
And then he admits it at the end. "I think you and I are destined to do this forever".
It was a huge shame that Heath Ledger passed away and the Joker was just gone in the third movie. He wouldn't have been the main villain again but probably could have played some pretty interesting role.
Also, you need to see it from Harvey’s perspective. He assumes Batman and the police will go for Rachel considering her close friendships with Batman (Bruce Wayne) and Jim Gordon, and he wants Rachel to be saved.
When he sees Batman storm into the room, he immediately screams “NO! WHY DID YOU COME FOR ME?!” completely unaware it was because the Joker deceived Batman. He makes the assumption that the GCPD chose to save one of the city’s most successful attorneys over a woman who they probably considered dispensable.
And then, later he learns that the GCPD were partially responsible for Rachel’s death, since detectives Anna Ramirez and Michael Wuertz were actually on Maroni’s payroll, and thus were working for the Joker. Only Wuertz would pay the price for this, as he chooses to spare Ramirez’s life.
Iconic example of this in Samurai Jack season one. The main hero journeys across the desert with a warrior woman, who has also been victimised by the big bad Aku.
They journey together for ages, fight enemies, and slowly bond and get close with one another.
Only for SIKE she was actually Aku the whole time fucking with him!
Couldn’t stop thinking about this ep for weeks after.
I remember Jack falling to his knees vowing to kill Aku in the most hate filled tone I ever heard from him. I genuinely think that was the worst thing Aku ever did to him. To get him companionship, someone he could relate to on such a personal level after being alone for so long. Only to realize hes fallen for his enemy. I think id have a stroke from how angry Id get
Giles arrives home to a trial of romantic symbols (can't recall off the top of my head but I think there was a note and a path of rose petals, might have been some clothing as well...) leading to his bedroom only to find the body of his girlfriend in bed with her neck snapped.
absolutely! And we know by that point he's been stalking and fucking with Buffy specifically. But he's always been capable of turning it up a notch and then taking it absolutely to hell. Like my guy was going to plunge the entire world into a hellscape just for the kicks... he doesn't even necessarily have a plan for how that could go poorly for him. he doesn't really care he just wants to fuck with these people. In the most terrifying way possible if he can. He's probably my favorite villain across the whole series just because of the terror that can be evoked by somebody you loved becoming someone else that is dangerous to you.
also I totally credit that show for like giving me some of the language to explain some stuff that was happening to me when I was like 16 years old. I had somebody that I thought was my friend who sexually assaulted me and then it was so hard for me to understand that a friend could do that would do that.... That it took me years to fully process it and then finally get away from that person forever. It was incredible that around that time I was rewatching the series in totality and finally saw the larger metaphor that was being talked about.
Snow essentially opening the doors for the rebels to rescue Peeta, Annie, and Johanna. He KNEW what the rebels were planning and let them in. When he and Katniss speak, he tells her he knows all about the rescue mission before cutting the camera feed. It leaves Katniss thinking she just lost two of the most important people in her life only for her to be thrilled when she gets them back. This is quickly taken away when it's revealed Peeta has been hijacked and almost kills Katniss, destroying her trust and morale once again.
I still remember watching this scene in the theatre and being legit scared of Snow here. The hunger games were for practical reasons. This was personal.
"My function is to 'keep Summer safe', not 'keep Summer being, like, totally stoked about, like, the general vibe, and stuff'. That's you. That's how you talk."
Which is funny because the car is based off his dead wife, brain pattern and all.
So the car being a sociopath kinda implies that his dead wife was also somewhat like that...which really explains Beth. Beth is 100% a fucking sociopath as well.
This scene was the perfect blend of horrifying and hilarious. That the entire b plot of that episode simply hinges on people staying away from Rick's car makes it even more amusing to me.
Charlie not only turning down a rich girl who genuinely liked him, but caustically belittling her in front of her friends and family.
Oh. Yeah, I know. Okay? I was using you. That's why I kissed you in front of the Waitress. That's why I banged you a bunch of times, just to make the Waitress jealous. Amazing. You slept with me almost instantly. And by the way, a quality woman doesn't do that. She doesn't say yes right away. She says no to a man, for years, like 10 years. That's what a real woman does, OK? You know what you were acting like? A stupid little rich slut. And that's all that you are.
Dennis even comments that against his predictions, Charlie "had the cruelest intentions" all along of the entire ensemble.
Basically Dee was seeing this male stripper who called Dee his “Rock bottom.” And feeling insulted, decided to track down this dudes estranged daughter, sets up a situation where neither party knows the other is present and he gives her a lap dance before Dee turns the lights on and utterly horrifies them both
Lap dance undersells it. Dee turned the lights on as the stripper stuck his barely covered junk an inch away from his daughter’s mouth, in front of all of her friends.
When Frank was in a coma, lol, nah, he wasn't actually in a coma. He was hiding just off-screen watching the Gang hold an emotional vigil over a cake convincingly fashioned to look like Frank slowly dying in a hospital bed. All because nobody wanted to watch his new favorite show with him: "Is It Cake?"
Edit: I think I replied to the wrong comment. I'm not going to fix it though. Oops.
She manipulated the man into stripping (and then some more) in front of his daughter before turning the lights back on to expose the situation and humiliate him
When the hyper advanced Qu invaded the Milky Way to give out "gifts" to humanity by wildly mutating and evolving them to their wills some fared far worse than others. A faction of humanity repelled the Qu invasion twice before finally falling, particularly impressive given the tech gap. As punishment, the Qu turned them into The Colonials. Masses of flesh with at least 1 eye and 1 all purpose orifice for mating, eating, and shitting. These masses of what were once human were used as giant filters to process Qu waste.
The fucked up part of it all? The Colonials were some of the unlucky few products of the Qu left with their sentience. Meaning not only are they aware of basically eating poop for 40 million years, they remember just how far they had fallen.
They didn't give up though. They started what was basically a selective breeding program, strategically mating with each other, identifying and propogating mutations which could be beneficial to getting out of their situation. Through the sheer willpower of generations spanning millions of years, they evolved themselves into the Modular People, a species of speciallized "cells" that can basically attach to each other Power Rangers mecha style to form creatures far more powerful than their human ancestors, eventually becoming a spacefaring civilization again and one of the member species of the Second Human Empire.
It is on Amazon and a PDF copy can be download for free from the author. I believe and new version is in the works planned to expand on the ideas of the OG
John Doe (Se7en). The serial killer, John Doe has surrendered but promises two more bodies to complete his seven deadly sins masterpiece. He has a box delivered to the desert, where he is being held by detectives David Mills and William Somerset.
Inside the box is the severed head of Mills' pregnant wife, Tracy. Doe reveals he tried to play "husband" with her, failed out of "Envy," and expects Mills to kill him in "Wrath."
John Doe: She begged for her life...
William Somerset: Shut up!
John Doe: She begged for her life and...
William Somerset: Shut up!
John Doe: She begged for her life, and the life of the baby inside her.
The thing that annoyed me the most about this episode is that Simm's Master was revealed to be reappearing 3 MONTHS BEFORE THE EPISODE EVEN AIRED. LIKE WHY BBC. WHY FUMBLE.
Titus Andronicus (both the play and the movie) has so many of these.
Tamora, a Goth queen who is captured by the Romans, has her eldest son sacrificed by Roman general Titus to avenge the deaths of some of his own sons during the conquest of her tribe. However, Tamora then seduces the Roman Emperor and rises to power, before orchestrating a cruel revenge upon Titus:
-Tamora's other two sons ambush Titus' daughter Lavinia and her betrothed, murdering him before raping Lavinia and cutting out her tongue
-two of Titus' remaining sons are framed for the fiancee's murder. Tamora sends an envoy to Titus, telling him his sons will be released if he cuts off his own hand and sends it to her. Titus does so...and later on, his very dead sons are returned to him. along with his severed hand.
In vengeance, Titus feigns madness (though it's questionable on whether or not he is actually going mad), before capturing both of Tamora's remaining sons, murdering them and baking them into a pie. He then holds a fancy banquet for the Emperor and Tamora...and, at the banquet, after mercy-killing his own daughter in front of his guests, reveals to Tamora that she has just eaten her own sons. Almost everyone dies in the ensuing battle.
Titus Andronicus is a bloody mess of a play, and it inspired the Scott Tenorman episode of South Park.
Fun fact about this line, in the movies it's changed to "I'm not a comic book villain" in the original it's different. Just a fun change for different mediums.
Edit: I can't believe my most popular comment on Reddit is from my intense knowledge of Alan moores work😭 this is my favorite comic. I'm so glad over a thousand of you are appreciating my dumb little fact. It made my day
In the books superhero comics aren’t popular since superheroes are real. Moore talks about this. Sci-Fi isn’t popular due to Dr. Manhattan and his effect on the culture. Stories are more in the direction of adventures tales and fantasy.
Honestly, that is a pretty Moore thing, "wait, my worldbuilding must have consequences on all levels, let's painstakingly think about all of them so my story is well-woven"
I had exactly the same thought. "Really? He's gonna monologue the whole scheme after all of the commentary on superheroes?" And then it turns out they had already lost (?)
We hear repeatedly in the comics that's he's the world's smartest man. But we don't necessarily see much of that as our protagonists slowly close in. Until the rug pull right at the end where a godlike being is rendered powerless in the face of a clever scheme. And we suddenly find out Ozy was 3 steps ahead the whole time after all. It's an impressive payoff to all that build up.
Friend of mine recommended this when I was typing the post but I hadnt read it so didn't feel comfortable putting it. I should really give it a read 🤲🏻
The Joker swapping Rachel and Harvey’s addresses in The Dark Knight. Batman rushes to save Rachel and finds Harvey instead. He doesn’t just lose her; the Joker makes him think he’s about to save her right up until he opens the door. That’s fucking vicious.
Calling Sweeney Todd a hero might be a stretch, but this still applies.
Basically, we find out that not only that Sweeney's wife, Lucy, was still alive and actually the Beggar Woman, and he'd just inadvertently killed her, but that Mrs Lovett knew the whole time. I especially love how the revival OBC does it: Annaleigh Ashford's version of Lovett believes her own bullshit up until the very end, and Josh Groban's Sweeney's reaction to finding out he'd killed Lucy is so fucking guttural and heartbreaking.
In the Big Hero 6 tv show, the season 1 villain secretly puts augmented reality contact lenses on the main characters' eyes, causing them to hallucinate their individual worst fears. Except for Hiro. He just makes Hiro see visions of his dead brother walking around, eventually luring him in to a confrontation.
Ooh, I got one where the good guys do it to the villain! In The Dragon Prince, the character of Claudia (pictured) has been on a pretty dark path, where she allied herself with the bad guy. Something to note about her is that she has some abandonment issues, as her mother, Lissa, left her and her family when Claudia was young. The good guys, in a bid to turn Claudia back to their side, decide to... uhm... checks notes
Have one member of their cast and illusion and pretend to be her mom, who hasn't been in contact with her kids for more than a decade. Yeah.
The one thing about Woo-jin that really stuck with me is Dae Su begs him to not tell her the truth.. and he agrees not to. I always interpreted that he agreed purely out of spite, almost like his way of not stooping to Dae Su's level by sharing that with her
Nolan asking "and what were they doing with their meaningless lives?" was such a fuck you both to all the people who just died because of him and to Mark. I dont think ive ever been this mad at a villain's words for a while.
And some people still think he deserved to be forgiven just because he said "im sorry"
Dude thank you! Nobody seemed to remember that except for me when we left the theater. This movie also irritated me because it approached serious topics of consent and bodily autonomy-concerning Jean’s powers as well as the decision Peter made to have his friends memories erased-but then seems to tell the audience that actually it’s totally ok to violate these boundaries if you like, really really feel like you need to in order to get what you want. It’s kinda bullshit.
Because it's Jean, a couple of movies from now, they're going to be fighting her. In my opinion, it's a good idea to establish that she has dark tendencies right off the bat.
More like this. Originally he was introduced as a telepath named Amahl Farouk (picture you posted) that fought with Professor X and died physically, but his consciousness lived on as a psychic parasite that hops bodies and possesses people.
Later that got retconned into him being a primordial psychic entity that was always a reflection of the collective dark side of human consciousness.
He was the main villain of the show Legion if you're interested in seeing more of him.
Silmarillion - Morgoth captures Hurin and instead of killing him, puts him on a mountaintop and enhances his senses. This is so that Hurin can see Morgoth's curse on his family with his son and daughter marrying each other unknowingly and eventually both committing suicide. Morgoth finally release Hurin after the death of his children and years of suffering, but not out of pity, instead using Hurin to accomplish more evil (finding Gondolin, causing people to fight each other), and Hurin ultimately commits suicide.
Honorable mention since dio doesn't do it to Jonathan but to a random woman, he tells her that he and his undead minions will spare her and her baby if she turns into his ghoul, after turning she immediately eats her own baby and dio knew it would happen and chose to proceed with it for his own amusement - source is Jojo's bizarre adventure
Iirc he saw Woojin fucking his sister in a greenhouse, told his buddy, his buddy spread the news as a rumor, Woojin's sister was bullied, she killed herself
I think he wanted Dae-su to feel what he felt. To fall in love with your family.
I think to him, knowing Dae-su will forever live with the fact that he fell in love and fucked his own daughter and being no longer able to speak is all he wanted, so he's done.
And he doesnt even stick around to enjoy the suffering
He does, he just doesn't enjoy it. It didn't bring his sister back, nor does it bring him any solace, and he realises all he did was make Dae-su experience the same suffering she did.
That was one change in the remake I found interesting. Not the stupid family incest stuff with the bad guy's dad. Interesting that Joe was a drunk asshole who admitted I told half of Evergreen.
Oh Dae-su casually mentioned something he saw to one person.
Correct. I think it makes the reveal more of a gut-punch to realize that Dae-su's entire "crime" was mentioning something offhandedly that he did not even think was important.
Threatening to blow up a peaceful planet to press its leader for information is bad enough. Going through with it, after she gave you information, is stupefyingly evil.
While Leia did give Tarkin the wrong planet, he only knew this after he already destroyed Alderann. As far as he knew, he destroyed 4 billions innocents for a glorified weapons test.
The Count of Montecristo is kickstarted by this trope. He gets sent to prison for years by two men who envy his position and wife respectively. Two other men had several chances to prevent him from going to prison but don’t due to petty reasons
I'm going to show the world what a psycho you are, Nathan. I'm going to show your daughter what a psycho you are. And I'm going to manipulate her into pulling the trigger that ends your life, wearing the dress of her mother we both loved so much.
She became a sentient oil creature that can take on different forms and travel through time and space. She ended up doing this with her gf who is also sentient oil so overall she was happy.
Yes, generally. At least with the Borg, advanced microsurgery can remove implants. Not much anyone can do when your brain is removed and placed into a Cyberman.
And you don't even really know why. I mean you can kind of piece together that he always wanted power and was especially ready to do anything to escape his existence as a half dead wretch. But you don't really know how it all works, wether the process of ascending makes you psychopathic or wether that was just always his personality, wether you're required to be evil or if they just enjoy that stuff...
Yeah. We see another character be given one of the creepy wish eggs later in the story. Some king who'd been handing citizens over to demons. He finally gets offered a chance to ascend in exchange for sacrificing his daughter. He chooses not to (and is killed). Complete rotten bastard, but he loved his daughter enough to give up everything instead of sacrificing her.
its column a and column b with Griffith. Its made pretty clear through the golden arc that Griffith considers guts and the band of the hawk his property and goes full toddler if i cant have them noone can. Its an ego fueled toddler rampage. This is further cemented with more recent manga chapters where griffith set up his little utopia to worship him as a god showing hes not really changed he just only really care about what is directly his
Back in the 90s run of Green Lantern Comics, the new Green Lantern Kyle Rayner was rebuilding his relationship with his ex-girlfriend Alex and she was helping him train and understand his powers. This was right until a shadowy agency sends Major Force (archenemy of Captain Atom) to get Kyle's ring. Major Force then proceeds to follow Alex to her home, strangle her and then he stuffs her into her fridge for Kyle to find.
One of the most hated characters in Warhammer Old World (for being a whiny little shit).
He has plenty of unnecessarily cruel actions, e.g. he invited rival vampires to his castle under the pretext of diplomacy, executed them, burned their bodies, and then used their ashes to help forge the steel of his armor.
The worst though is probably him backing stabbing everyone during the End Times by literally backstabbing Gelt and ruining the ritual that would prevent the end of the world. Why would he do this you might ask? Because he felt slighted and spiteful and figured a world not centered on him wasn't worth keeping around even if he had to die too.
Even when people do nice things for him Mannfred has to find a way to backstab them.
Lumian Lee from Circle of Inevitably (the sequel to Lord of the Mysteries)
Lumian starts off his "adventure" trapped in a loop, caused by a failed ritual by his fellow villagers to harness the power of a God governing fate. The ritual misfires, and an Angel of Inevitably gets sealed in his body, granting him some access to manipulate fate, but mostly taunting him about how all his efforts are meaningless, and his actions have no real influence to change anything from their predetermined path. He struggles, gets physiotherapy for all he endured inside the loop, infiltrate multiple criminal organizations to gain power, all in order to find a way to resurrect his sister. During one arcs climax, the seal over the angel gets broken, and his group of friend prepare for the worst. But instead of the mighty Angel of Inevitably, he is greeted by the Angel of Mischief, who stole the identity of the beforementioned angel, got sealed inside him, and now upon getting freed, he took out a sheet of paper. Then he proceded to recount everything that happened so far in the story, with explanation and reasoning on how and why things should be happening to him. In the end, he offers the next step to Lumian, telling him it's already arranged, he just needs to accept. Every hardship AND every positive interaction that happened so far, including the destruction of his village and the death of his sister was part of the plan.Then Lumian, understandbly furious, leaves to fulfil his part in order to save his friends. The angel drops the paper. It's blank.
Romeo, from Lies of P. In life he was Carlo’s (Geppetto’s son) best friend and essentially the brother he never had. After Carlo’s death Geppetto became incredibly depressed and went to insane lengths to try and bring his son back. In the process he kidnapped Romeo after Romeo had been kidnapped by Arlecchino, forcing him to essentially become a scapegoat for the following disaster and for really no reason other than cruelty. He would later be killed by the player who was ignorant to Geppetto’s meddling
Worse part is that that was the GOOD option, if Frontman hadn't suggested it the VIPs would have kept insisting to have her thrown off the jumprope bridge.
Dishonored has the protagonist do this to the villains. Almost all of the non-lethal ways (which are canon) to remove a target prey on their deepest fears e.g. rendering a genius mentally disabled via electroshock, selling nobles into slavery in their own mines.
Lady Boyle's probably takes the cake since it was so fucked up even the devs retconned it because they felt uncomfortable. Essentially, you need to take out Boyle, who is so wealthy she's single-handedly funding the main villain's government. You can kill her...or agree to help her boyfriend, who wants to run away with her until this whole thing blows over. If you knock her out and bring her to him, he reveals that he's not her boyfriend, but her stalker, and he plans to imprison her in his basement forever.
The writers later had it so Boyle killed her kidnapper and quietly retired from politics, but it's still pretty fucked up.
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u/EverythingHurts365 10d ago
Batman Beyond: Joker — The joker turning Tim Drake into young joker and ultimately planting his consciousness into him
https://giphy.com/gifs/PL4Wn2DK10RWg