History Main / MotiveRant

* The quote above comes from [[BigBad The Engineer]] in ''VideoGame/AmnesiaAMachineForPigs''. Combined with stellar voice acting, his speech is widely considered to be the best moment in the game, not to mention one of the most magnificent examples of this trope.

* In the movie version of ''[[Film/HarryPotter Goblet of Fire]]'', Barty Crouch Jr has one rather amusing flashback motive rant.
** Draco Malfoy has one of these in ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince Half-Blood Prince]]''
* Played straight - and highly effectively - by JackNicholson at the climax of ''AFewGoodMen''.
** This one does vary from the classic definition in that the actual confession comes at the end of the rant.

* John Doe, the murderer in ''{{Se7en}}'', gave a prime example of one to the detectives while in their car.

* Mugatu explodes into a motive rant at the end of ''{{Zoolander}}'' that accidentally presses Derek's BerserkButton by claiming that Derek "only has one look".

* In ''Film/TransformersDarkOfTheMoon'', [[spoiler Sentinel Prime's motivation for siding with the Decepticons]] is so that he can restore Cybertron to its former glory.

->''"[[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI I have stood knee deep in mud and bone, and filled my lungs with mustard gas]]. I have seen two brothers fall. I have lain with [[TheWarOnTerror holy wars]] and copulated with the [[UsefulNotes/AtomicBombingsOfHiroshimaAndNagasaki autumnal fallout]]. [[HistoryOfTheUSSR I have dug trenches for the refugees; I have murdered dissidents where the ground never thaws, and starved the masses into faith]]. [[TitleDrop A child's shadow]] [[UsefulNotes/AtomicBombingsOfHiroshimaAndNagasaki burnt into the brickwork.]] [[UsefulNotes/{{Cambodia}} A house of skulls in the jungle.]] The innocent, the innocent, Mandus, [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII trod and bled and gassed and starved and beaten and murdered and enslaved.]] [[spoiler:This is your coming century!]] They will eat them Mandus, they will make pigs of you all and they will bury their snouts into your ribs and they will eat your hearts!"''
-->'''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTQ3lZPOJ7Y The Engineer]]''', ''VideoGame/AmnesiaAMachineForPigs''

** Say what you will about Shepherd having crossed the MoralEventHorizon but after his simple but passionate statements about the sacrifices he has had to make you can no longer look at him using simple Black and White morality.

* Every ''LawAndOrder''. ''[[LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit SVU]]'' really stretched it when a ten-year-old had such a rant explaining his motivation (it was 'cause he saw it on TV, see). Like in ''Perry Mason'', the background music is often the cue.

-->'''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTQ3lZPOJ7Y The Engineer]]''', ''VideoGame/AmnesiaAMachineForPigs

A standard ingredient of TheSummation in any CopShow, PoliceProcedural, LawProcedural or MysteryOfTheWeek. After the detective has shown without doubt who the killer is, the killer will launch into a long, self-righteous (or remorseful) monologue explaining why exactly they did what they did. This both serves as confession and allows the writers to [[MrExposition explain]] how this solution to the mystery makes sense, even if it's often a ''"He called my mother a bad name, he deserved to die!"'' kind of sense. It's often the only way to make the perp's feelings obey the RuleOfPerception, since they must be hidden until the crime is solved.

* Parodied in ''ThatMitchellandWebbLook'' when the detective manipulates a woman into doing "the evil voice" and eventually an entire MotiveRant that ends in her suicide. He says that it's better this way, as he didn't have any other evidence and not all courts accept "the evil voice". He also accidentally provokes someone else into giving one, identical in tone to the first, except about not flushing the toilet instead of murder.

* The BigFinish audio play ''[[AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho Davros]]'' has a spectacular MotiveRant for the title character. Starts out as a menacing whisper, but at the end, [[PunctuatedForEmphasis well]]...

* Ganondorf was just jealous of Hyrule's wind in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker''.
** In a variant, though, there's he's not gloating. He's just - nostalgic? bitter? remorseful? detached? Take your pick.

The detective will often then give them a KirkSummation in response, followed by whatever phrase they use to indicate that they're being arrested. If the detective is feeling nasty he'll throw in the ReasonYouSuckSpeech.

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* The ''{{Rugrats}}'' episode "The Trial" has Angelica revealing that she did break Tommy's lamp after failing to pin it on Chuckie, Phil and/or Lil. It's a bit of KarmicRetribution as Angelica starts gloating that, even though she confessed, they couldn't do anything because they can't talk... forgetting that she ''can''. And Didi and Betty heard the whole thing.

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** Inverted in the episode "Duet"; a Cardassian identified as Gul Darheel, commander of Gallitep, one of the most horrific interment camps during the Cardassian occupation of Bajor, ranted at length about how he was a loyal Cardassian soldier and it was his patriotic duty and privilege to exterminate Bajorans. Toward the end of the episode Kira discovered that the prisoner was not Gul Darheel, but a file clerk at Gallitep, who over time grew sickened by what his people were doing to the Bajorans and assumed the late Darheel's identity to force his people to own up to what Cardassia did to Bajor.

* Parodied in ''ThatMitchellandWebbLook'' when the detective manipulates a woman into doing "the evil voice" and eventually an entire MotiveRant that ends in her suicide. He says that it's better this way, as he didn't have any other evidence and not all courts accept the "evil voice". He also accidentally provokes someone into giving one, identical in tone to the first, except about not flushing the toilet instead of murder.

** Shakespeare did this in ''Theatre/TheMerchantOfVenice'':

-->'''Shylock:''' To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies; and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.

** Almost; usually, it's the kids who reveal motive for him/her.

* While not a criminal, Danish comedian AndersMatthesen wins an award for being a role model, and throws a Motive Rant in the direction of the secretary of education (Bertel Haarder), who accused him of being an AntiHero: "Bertel, blow me! I'm not a fucking anti-hero. What are you talking about? Anti-hero, I don't know what the fuck you're thinking? I've always said, which the people who listen to be and have voted for me can confirm, that I believe that you shouldn't do drugs, you shouldn't waste your own time or other people's time, that you don't do violence and that you always do your fucking best, which I think a real role model should be doing"

* Take most ''SuperRobotWars''' [[BigBad Big Bads]], from [[MobileSuitGundamCharsCounterattack Char Aznable]] to [[SuperRobotWarsImpact Neue Regisseur]]. They usually have Motive Rant when they encouter each of your main characers in the last few missions. This mostly results in ShutUpHannibal.

The MotiveRant is the intended result of ThePerryMasonMethod. It's often part of a VillainousBreakdown. TheHero might respond by saying ShutUpHannibal.

* Every episode of ''Manga/DetectiveConan'' ends with a MotiveRant in which the culprit explains why did he or she do it. Sometimes countered by a motive rant from another person that completely destroys their motives and breaks the culprit completely.

* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'': Itachi gives his MotiveRant to Sasuke in episode 136 of Shippuden. [[spoiler: It's all lies, though.]]

* The villain of ''Literature/TheNameOfTheRose'' by Umberto Eco gets an extended MotiveRant, in which he explains in detail why he was willing to kill to keep [[spoiler:a lost Aristotlean book about laughter]] hidden.

**** Also subverted in another episode (where the overbearing nature of her husband causes a woman to kill two her children in a failed mass-suicide attempt) where Goren sucessfully caused the husband to break into a MotiveRant, but it ends up being all for naught because he never really did anything illegal.

** Possibly FridgeBrilliance at work, as a key premise of profiling is that serial offenders are ''really'' acting out their inner demons and insecurities, whatever superficial rationale they might layer on top of that. Any MotiveRant most perps would be capable of articulating is only their self-justification, not their motive.
** Assuming the profilers are doing their jobs, they'll have deduced the content of an offender's MotiveRant ''before'' they actually meet up with the perpetrator.

* Take most ''SuperRobotWars''' [[BigBad Big Bads]], from [[MobileSuitGundamCharsCounterattack Char Aznable]] to [[SuperRobotWarsImpact Neue Regisseur]]. They usually have MotiveRant when they encouter each of your main characers in the last few missions. This mostly results in ShutUpHannibal.

* At the ''BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' episode ''[[Recap/BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesTheClockKing The Clock King]]'' the eponymous villain subverts it when he explains to Mayor Hill that he ruined his life at his ButForMeItWasTuesday speech, but this is MotiveMisidentification. The real motive to kill Hill is because Hil AdviceBackfire made him[[spoiler: late for the first time in his life]]

* An interactive Canadian museum exhibit about forensic science challenges visitors to solve a young woman's murder. If you correctly determine who the killer is and what evidence proves it, you'll get to see the killer's MotiveRant. [[spoiler:It turns out the killer was the young woman's literature professor, who had plagiarized a novel written by a friend of the young woman's family and used the resulting success to build his academic career. When the young woman found out about it, she threatened to expose him, which would have ruined his career. She wouldn't stop hounding the professor, and he eventually became so desperate that he killed her to try and keep her quiet.]]
* While not a criminal, Danish comedian AndersMatthesen wins an award for being a role model, and throws a MotiveRant in the direction of the secretary of education (Bertel Haarder), who accused him of being an AntiHero: "Bertel, blow me! I'm not a fucking anti-hero. What are you talking about? Anti-hero, I don't know what the fuck you're thinking? I've always said, which the people who listen to be and have voted for me can confirm, that I believe that you shouldn't do drugs, you shouldn't waste your own time or other people's time, that you don't do violence and that you always do your fucking best, which I think a real role model should be doing"

* ''TheSimpsons'' [[MemeticMutation did it]]. In "Sideshow Bob Roberts", when Lisa insinuates that Bob is too stupid to have rigged an election and claims Bob's [[NoCelebritiesWereharmed Rush Limbaugh look-alike]] accomplice is the real brains of the operation, Bob flies into a rant about how he (and only he) had the brains to orchestrate everything, parodying the ''AFewGoodMen'' quote above. He is then promptly taken to jail for "all that stuff [he] did" with unusual expediency for the Springfield police.

* In {{Batman}} #650, [[spoiler: Jason Todd]] was furious that Batman thought his RoaringRampageOfRevenge was all about [[spoiler: Batman not saving him]].

* MassEffect has [[spoiler:[[TheDragon Saren]]]] explain, twice even, exactly why he's working with [[spoiler: the Reapers]]

* In the movie version of ''[[HarryPotter Goblet of Fire]]'', Barty Crouch Jr has one rather amusing flashback motive rant.
** Draco Malfoy has one of these in ''[[HarryPotter Half-Blood Prince]]''

* The killer in ''PerryMason'' almost always does the motive rant on the stand, after which all charges against Perry's client are dismissed. You can tell the exact instant the culprit will stop denying and begin the motive rant based on the music changing. It is so necessary to the formula for the motive rant to occur on the stand that you can identify the killer instantly when Mason reserves the right to recall a witness.

* At the end of ''RainbowSix: Vegas 2'', BigBad [[spoiler: Gabriel Nowak goes into a long-winded rant to his former teacher, Bishop, about why he chose to turn traitor, facilitate terrorist mass murder in Las Vegas, and steal government information to sell to the highest bidder. It was basically a rant about how he got screwed over for promotion, even though it was his own damn fault. Egotistically gloating about how he was going to destroy everyone Bishop cared about, he failed to realize that while he was ranting, Bishop had his gun drawn. Though Bishop was patient enough to wait for the rant to end, the player soon got a chance to shoot him and end the whole thing.]]

* The BigFinish audio play ''[[BigFinishDoctorWho Davros]]'' has a spectacular MotiveRant for the title character. Starts out as a menacing whisper, but at the end, [[PunctuatedForEmphasis well]]...

* [[spoiler:[[TheChessmaster Smerdyakov]]]] launches into one of these when he's finally questioned hard enough by one of the characters near the end of ''TheBrothersKaramazov''. He's not self-righteous or loony about it. He actually comes off as calm and collected, as if what he did is the most natural thing in the world. Given all the [[AuthorTract rants and profound conversations]] we've experienced thus far, he's almost justified.

* Happens once in ''RebuildOfEvangelion 2.0'': when Shinji almost trashes NERV HQ for an otherwise completely justified reason, Gendo explains why he's such a bastard: he believes that he can only achieve his desires if he's willing to sacrifice everything and use his own strength.

The detective will often then give them a ReasonYouSuckSpeech in response, followed by whatever phrase they use to indicate that they're being arrested.

Oh, and it doesn't matter if the character's a timid librarian, a jolly bartender, a butch farmhand, what-have-you, when they are revealed to be the killer they all [[VillainousBreakdown suddenly snap]] into the same cookie-cutter personality type: bitter, twisted loony.

In real life many people do confess to crimes and will happily talk about what they did even though all they should say [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc "I want to see my lawyer"]]