History Main / HauntingTheGuilty

** In ''Theatre/{{Macbeth}}'', as a sign that his sanity is slipping, Macbeth is haunted by the ghost of Banquo during a feast. In some versions, Banquo has the same grisly and bloodied appearance as did when he was murdered...

* ''Series/{{Leverage}}'': "The Experimental Job" has Eliot allude to being haunted by the dead.
-->'''Eliot:'''What do you want to know? Names? Dates? Locations? (softly) You want to know what food was on their breath? Their eyes ? what color their eyes were? You want to know the last words they spoke? You want to know which ones deserved it. Or, better yet, the ones that didn't? Do you want to know which ones begged? Do you know why I remember these things?\\

** In the episode "Deaths-Head Revisited", an SS officer visits his old concentration camp, which has been turned into a museum, and he is led around by a former inmate, [[spoiler: until the officer realized he had killed the man back when the camp was operating. The victims of the war criminal pass judgement of insanity upon him.]]
** In the episode "The Thirty Fathom Grave", a Navy ship discovers the wreck of a U.S. submarine from World War II. One of the sailors, who was the only survivor of the sub's sinking, is on the Navy vessel and has blamed himself for the disaster ever since. He begins to break down, swearing that he sees the ghosts of men who died on the sub, who are beckoning him to join him. [[spoiler: He's ultimately so overwhelmed that he throws himself into the ocean and drowns.]]

[[quoteright:300:[[ComicBook/{{Superman}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/spmnghost.png]]]]

[[quoteright:350:[[VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dead_judgement_8.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Until a reckoning is due, the dead shall haunt you.]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'' episode "[[Recap/TheOwlHouseS3E2ForTheFuture For the Future]]", [[spoiler:Belos is haunted by the specter of his [[SiblingMurder murdered brother Caleb]] and the many Grimwalkers he's created from Caleb's remains. To drive the point home even further, Caleb perpetually has a bloodied dagger floating above his head. Belos isn't swayed in the slightest, even going so far as to [[BlamingTheVictim blame Caleb for his own death]].]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'' episode "[[Recap/TheOwlHouseS3E2ForTheFuture For the Future]]", [[spoiler:Belos is haunted by the specter of his [[SiblingMurder murdered brother Caleb]] and the many Grimwalkers he's created from Caleb's remains. To drive the point home even further, Caleb perpetually has a bloodied dagger floating above his head.]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'' episode "[[Recap/TheOwlHouseS3E2ForTheFuture For the Future]]", [[spoiler:Belos is haunted by the spectre of his murdered brother and the many Grimwalkers he's created from his remains. There's even a bloody dagger floating over his head.]]

* William Afton/Purple Guy, the main villain of the ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys'' series, is killed after the souls of the children he murdered come back to haunt him, getting him crushed inside a robotic suit.

* ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire'': The ''priori incantatem'' spell forces a wand to show an echo of its last spell. When performed on a wand that has cast the killing curse, an echo of the person killed will appear. [[spoiler:This is accidentally cast on Voldemort's wand when his and Harry's wands connect, allowing the echoes of those Voldemort has killed to begin to appear in reverse order: Cedric Diggory, Frank Bryce, Bertha Jorkins, and Harry's parents. While Voldemort shows no remorse, the echoes swarm Voldemort the moment Harry breaks the twin-core connection, giving Harry the chance to grab the portkey and escape.]]

--> '''Jubilee:''' You've killed people. You've killed so many, and...
--> '''Wolverine:''' Yeah. You wanna sit up some night and help me talk to all of 'em?
--> '''Jubilee:''' Oh. (Settles for a GroinAttack on both men.)

[[folder:FanFiction]]

--> '''Eliot:'''What do you want to know? Names? Dates? Locations? (softly) You want to know what food was on their breath? Their eyes ? what color their eyes were? You want to know the last words they spoke? You want to know which ones deserved it. Or, better yet, the ones that didn't? Do you want to know which ones begged? Do you know why I remember these things?
--> '''Interrogator:''' I don't know.\\

** In the episode "Deaths-Head Revisited", an SS officer visits his old concentration camp, turned into a museum, and he is led around by a former inmate, [[spoiler: until the officer realized he had killed the man back when the camp was operating. The victims of the war criminal pass judgement of insanity upon him.]]
** In the episode "The Thirty Fathom Grave", a Navy ship discovers the wreck of a U.S. submarine from World War II. One of the sailors, who was the only survivor of the sub's sinking, is on the Navy vessel, and has blamed himself for the disaster ever since. He begins to break down, swearing that he sees the ghosts of men who died on the sub, who are beckoning him to join him. [[spoiler: He's ultimately so overwhelmed that he throws himself into the ocean and drowns.]]

[[caption-width-right:350:Until a reckoning is due the dead shall haunt you]]

** In ''Theatre/JuliusCaesar, Brutus sees the ghost of Caesar, who he helped to kill, who ominously warns him of his fate in the upcoming battle.

** In Shakespeare's ''Theatre/RichardIII'', [[UsefulNotes/RichardIII King Richard]] has a dream, the night before the Battle of Bosworth Field, in which the ghosts of the people he killed (in the play, that is -- the real king wasn't actually guilty of all their deaths) tell him to "despair and die".

[[folder:LiveActionTV]]

--->'''Londo:''' My followers?
--->'''Elric:''' Your victims.

--> '''Interrogator:''' I don't know.
--> '''Eliot:''' You don't know? 'Cause I can't forget. So there's nothing you can do, no punishment you can hand out that's worse than what I live with every day. So, to answer your question, no. No, I haven't counted. I don't need to.

--> '''Scar:''' Even in death, his shadow looms over me. ''(suddenly cowering)'' There he is! No, there he is! And there!
--> '''Zazu:''' Calm yourself, sire! Or you'll get another one of your splitting headaches.
--> '''Scar:''' I AM PERFECTLY FINE!

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': In the episode "The Thirty Fathom Grave", a Navy ship discovers the wreck of a U.S. submarine from World War II. One of the sailors, who was the only survivor of the sub's sinking, is on the Navy vessel, and has blamed himself for the disaster ever since. He begins to break down, swearing that he sees the ghosts of men who died on the sub, who are beckoning him to join him. [[spoiler: He's ultimately so overwhelmed that he throws himself into the ocean and drowns.]]

* William Afton/Purple Guy, the main villain of the ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys'' series, is killed after the souls of the children he murdered come back and get him crushed inside a robotic suit.

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone'': In the episode ''The Thirty Fathom Grave'', a Navy ship discovers the wreck of a U.S. submarine from World War II. One of the sailors, who was the only survivor of the sub's sinking, is on the Navy vessel, and has blamed himself for the disaster ever since. He begins to break down, swearing that he sees the ghosts of men who died on the sub, who are beckoning him to join him.

Made famous by the haunting of Macbeth by Banquo, expect plenty of references to the play when this occurs, especially the bloody dagger Macbeth saw before he murdered his king Duncan.

[[folder:Films-Live action]]

* ''Literature/{{Matilda}}'': Invoked by Matilda, who uses her telekinesis and information from Miss Honey to make the superstitious Miss Trunchbull believe she is being haunted by Miss Honey's father, whom Matilda suspects Miss Trunchbull murdered. [[spoiler: It works, forcing Miss Trunchbull to flee and allowing Miss Honey to regain her father's house and fortune.]]

* ''Series/{{Castle}}'': Invoked in "Poof, You're Dead". [[spoiler: Castle and Beckett set up an interrogation with Christian Dahl to find out if he murdered Zalman Drake. He brushes off the questions and threatens to lawyer up... until he sees a spooky apparition of Zalman in the mirror behind Castle and Beckett. He freaks out and accidentally confesses to the murder, allowing Beckett to arrest him. The apparition was actually Zalman's twin brother Edmund, appearing through the two-way mirror standard in police interrogation rooms.]]

* ''Theatre/{{Anastasia}}'': Downplayed and discussed. The fictional Gleb was a young soldier when the Romanovs were killed, and while he did not pull the trigger, he let the assassinations happen and justified them as necessary for the revolution, while his father, who actually did the deed, died of shame. When faced with Anya [[DidAnastasiaSurvive claiming to be the lost princess Anastasia]], under orders to finish the job, Anya demands Gleb look into her face and see the faces of her dead family in hers, who appear in the background of the scene. [[spoiler: Gleb, out of guilt and a desire not to repeat his father's mistake, lets Anya go.]]

A character has killed a ''lot'' of people, and now they're literally haunted by their actions. The appearance of these ghostly victims is a sign of deeply troubled conscience and the loss of their sanity, often the dead are silent or gesturing towards them, and only the person they're haunting can see them. These visions can occur on multiple occasions plaguing the character until they met a similar fate or worse.If the character has had a chance to repent then this is the sign they're beyond salvation and what awaits them in the next life won't be peace but judgement.

[[/folder]]

* ''ComicBook/LesInnommables'': Subverted with Colonel Lychee, who dreams of the Chinese people he had thrown alive into locomotive furnaces during WW2... with a big happy grin on his face.

* At the end of ''Film/DrMabuseTheGambler'', Mabuse has accidentally trapped himself in a cellar his gang used to forge banknotes, with the police coming to get him. As he slips into madness, he hallucinates visions of various people that he either killed or [[DrivenToSuicide Drove to Suicide]] during the story.

* ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire'': The ''priori incantatem'' spell forces a wand to show an echo of its last spell. When performed on a wand that has cast the killing curse, an echo of the person killed will appear. [[spoiler:This is accidentally cast on Voldemort's wand when his and Harry's wands connect, allowing the echoes of those Voldemort has killed to begin to appear in reverse order: Cedric Diggory, Frank Bryce, Bertha Jorkins, and Harry's parents. While Voldemort shows no remorse, the echoes swarm Voldemort the moment Harry breaks the twin-core connection, giving Harry the chance to grab the portkey and escape.]]

* ''Series/{{Castle}}'': Invoked in "Poof, You're Dead". [[spoiler: Castle and Beckett set up an interrogation with Christian Dahl to find out if he murdered Zalman Drake. He brushes off the questions and threatens to lawyer up... until he sees a spooky apparition of Zalman in the mirror behind Castle and Beckett. He freaks out and accidentally confesses to the murder, allowing Beckett to arrest him. The apparition was actually Zalman's twin brother Edmund, appearing through the two-way mirror standard in police interrogation rooms.]]

* ''Series/BabylonFive'':
** {{Inverted}} in "[[Recap/BabylonFiveS01E21TheQualityOfMercy The Quality of Mercy]]". Talia Winters reads the mind of a convicted SerialKiller scheduled for DeathOfPersonality (so that the court can be sure the mindwipe worked) and has a vision of all the killer's victims. Rather than appear haunted by them, the killer tells her to join the choir.
** {{Discussed}} in "[[Recap/BabylonFiveS02E03TheGeometryOfShadows The Geometry of Shadows]]" when Londo asks the technomage Elric to foretell his future. Elric says he sees Londo's hand reaching out from the sky, and thousands of voices calling his name from below.
--->'''Londo:''' My followers?
--->'''Elric:''' Your victims.

* ''Theatre/TheLionKing'': "The Madness of King Scar" implies that Scar is haunted by his brother Mufasa, whom he secretly assassinated (though it's likely a hallucination of madness).
--> '''Scar:''' Even in death, his shadow looms over me. ''(suddenly cowering)'' There he is! No, there he is! And there!
--> '''Zazu:''' Calm yourself, sire! Or you'll get another one of your splitting headaches.
--> '''Scar:''' I AM PERFECTLY FINE!
* ''Theatre/{{Anastasia}}'': Downplayed and discussed. The fictional Gleb was a young soldier when the Romanovs were killed, and while he did not pull the trigger, he let the assassinations happen and justified them as necessary for the revolution, while his father, who actually did the deed, died of shame. When faced with Anya [[DidAnastasiaSurvive claiming to be the lost princess Anastasia]], under orders to finish the job, Anya demands Gleb look into her face and see the faces of her dead family in hers, who appear in the background of the scene. [[spoiler: Gleb, out of guilt and a desire not to repeat his father's mistake, lets Anya go.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'': The episode ''[[Recap/KingOfTheHillS6E21ReturningJapanese Returning Japanese]]'' has Cotton in a steam room where he hallucinates a group of undead Japanese soldiers that he killed during WWII about to attack him.

[[folder:Web Animation]]
* ''WebAnimation/PokemonRusty'': In "Ghost Tower", [[ChronicPetKiller Rusty]] goes to the Pokémon Tower and is confronted by the angry ghosts of all the Pokémon he's accidentally killed, including a Zubat he drowned by trying to Surf on its back, a Tentacool whose tentacles he plugged into an electrical socket, a Grimer he washed down the drain, and a horde of Bidoofs he crammed into a single Poké Ball. Unlike most examples of this trope, he does not feel guilty for their deaths at all, because he's a complete idiot.
-->'''Rusty''': You came back from beyond just to tell me that I shouldn't feel bad and that I should keep training!
-->'''Ghost Cubone''': No! Give up! Go home! You were born to work in a deli!
[[/folder]]

A character has killed a ''lot'' of people, and now they're literally haunted by their actions .The appearance of these ghostly victims is a sign of deeply troubled conscience and the loss of their sanity, often the dead are silent or gesturing towards them, and only the person they're haunting can see them. These visions can occur on multiple occasions plaguing the character until they met a similar fate or worse.If the character has had a chance to repent then this is the sign they're beyond salvation and what awaits them in the next life won't be peace but judgement.