History Main / VillainyDiscretionShot

** The implication made in the anime is that the captain in question was a justice-loving man who was apparently an idol of Tosen's.
*** [[AllThereInTheManual A databook]] finally reveals that the former captain was a lazy, battle-hungry jerk, so presumably most of the other Shinigami weren't that broken up about it.
*** So really, [[NotSoDifferent nothing changed]]

* In the ''Manga/MaiOtome'' manga, Nagi is said to have started wars in the past over minor slights. He's quite the JerkAss in his panel time, but he seems to be portrayed as the ''least evil'' version of Nagi, particularly when he [[spoiler:sacrifices himself to save Manshiro]].

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[[quoteright:350:[[Film/RevengeOfTheSith https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/discretion_4165.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Guess what he's [[WouldHurtAChild about to do]]. (And no, he's not about to [[ComicallyMissingThePoint teach them a trick]].)]]

* Shan Yu from ''WesternAnimation/{{Mulan}}'' is established as a blood thirsty warlord who loves to kill people, but not one of his killings is shown on screen -- just the aftermath of one of his raids on a village and the bodies of Shang's father and his soldiers. He does, however, order his men to kill one of two Imperial scouts just ForTheEvulz, which is very brutal by Disney standards.
-->'''Shan Yu:''' How many men does it take to deliver a message?\\
'''Hun Archer:''' (''draws bow'') One.

* In Disney's ''Disney/TheGreatMouseDetective'', a lyric in the VillainSong goes "Worse than the widows and orphans you drowned!"
* Shan Yu from ''Disney/{{Mulan}}'' is established as a blood thirsty warlord who loves to kill people, but not one of his killings is shown on screen -- just the aftermath of one of his raids on a village and the bodies of Shang's father and his soldiers. He does, however, order his men to kill one of two Imperial scouts just ForTheEvulz, which is very brutal by Disney standards.

* Anakin's massacre of the Sand People in ''Franchise/StarWars: Film/AttackOfTheClones'' is disturbingly rarely reflected upon (Palpatine briefly mentions it near the beginning of ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'', but that's all). This is particularly troubling as this behavior would seem much more indicative of ties to the Dark Side than the petulant behavior on which the film spends more time. None of the Jedi know, and it turns out not to be very relevant at all. Even Padme, to whom he confesses the act, doesn't seem too distressed by it. [[spoiler: [[WouldHurtAChild His slaughter of Yoda's younglings, on the other hand...]]]]
** It's discussed in much more detail in the Creator/MattStover {{novelization}}: the point is made that Anakin was totally out of control, killing the Sand People out of blind rage. His murders in Ep III are cold blooded and premeditated.

Compare and contrast with BaitTheDog; the only difference between this trope and that one is that we actually get to see the KickTheDog moment, which causes us to reconsider our sympathy for the character.

Happens a lot in comedy: nobody cares about or bothers to refer back to all the people SamAndMax have directly or indirectly killed, or have been implied to have killed.

* ''ComicBook/LuckyLuke'': Used with many of the desperadoes Lucky Luke encounters in order to explain their notoriety. If rumours are to be believed Phil de Fer, the original Dalton gang, Joss Jamon and most specifically Pat Poker and Billy the Kid have quite a remarkable body count. In Billy's case it is said that many of his victims were fellow criminals and Luke himself calls him worse than the Daltons (the new ones at least).

* In [[FanFic/TheCATverse the [=CATverse=]]], Jonathan Crane is a multiple murderer who is prone to extremely DisproportionateRetribution and has experimented on innocent civilians. While the stories make a point not to sugar-coat his personality or his behavior, his more violent actions are generally not dwelled on, and he has both a [[FreudianExcuse truly nasty childhood]] and sympathetic moments with his henchgirls. His henchgirls are more AffablyEvil than anything else and are presented as likeable characters, but are still party to kidnapping, torture, and murder. There is one major exception to this - in ''Small World'', Crane commits a graphic murder and tortures a child multiple times, his mother and sister respectively, even disturbing his henchgirls.

* Anakin's massacre of the Sand People in ''Franchise/StarWars: Film/AttackOfTheClones'' is disturbingly rarely reflected upon (Palpatine briefly mentions it near the beginning of ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'', but that's all). This is particularly troubling as this behavior would seem much more indicative of ties to the Dark Side than the petulant behavior which the film spends more time on. None of the Jedi know, and it turns out not to be very relevant at all. [[spoiler: [[WouldHurtAChild His slaughter of Yoda's younglings, on the other hand...]]]]

* In ''Film/KingOfNewYork'', it's understood that, yes, the VillainProtagonist ''is'' a drug lord and, yes, he does sell nickel backs of coke and smack all over Harlem, but it's a purely intellectual understanding. We never see any of his men hand over any drugs to shaking addicts jonesing for a fix.

* From ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', Garak used to be a member of the Obsidian Order, the Cardassians version of secret police. Considering what perfectly normal citizens will cheerfully do in the name of Cardassia (one notable Cardassian torturer had his daughter at 'work', while still behaving like a kind and loving father), the exact details of what a member of the Order gets up to is best left unmentioned. If he wasn't such a MagnificentBastard and on the side of the Federation (and he's only working with the Federation because he detests [[spoiler:what the Dominion has done to his beloved Cardassia]]), he'd be a villain. Noteworthy is the time when Garak responds to a dream of Bashir's where he was the enemy. "Are you saying that after all these lunches we've had together you still don't trust me? There may be hope for you yet."
** Notably ''averted'' in the episode "The Die is Cast", when the audience does get to see Garak interrogate and torture [[spoiler: Odo]]. In this case, the resolution of the torture session involves Garak desperately pleading with the subject to give him something, ''anything'', so he can justify stopping. The look of relief and horror on his face when it finally ends shows he's far less comfortable with cold-blooded torture than he used to be. Later episodes firmly establish he's still the resident dog-kicker (and quite good at it), but only [[IDidWhatIHadToDo when it's absolutely necessary]].

** Used as the basis for an infamous LetsPlay, ''LetsPlay/TheTerribleSecretOfAnimalCrossing'', in which Nook ''literally'' enslaves the narrator [[spoiler:for [[BodyHorror unspeakable purposes]]]]. Most of the other portrayals of Nook either fall into his MERELY being an autocratic slum lord, mob kingpin, and black marketeer (the rest usually paint him as the nicest landlord you will ever have).

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheLionGuard'' Return Of The Roar, Kion's friends state that Janja and his hyena pack have killed enough of the gazelle they're attacking to feed them for months and they're still attacking, despite this statement there are no dead gazelle anywhere to be seen.

* While Belkar Bitterleaf, the TokenEvilTeammate of ''Webcomic/ThdOrderOfTheStick'' has done and proposed plenty of evil things on-panel (mostly the occasional [[MurderIsTheBestSolution casual murder]] of innocent civilians and city guards, and [[BloodKnight taking a worrying amount of joy in combat]]), his worst crimes have been out-of-sight. Roy is informed by the CelestialBureaucracy that their files measure his morality on a chart labelled in "kilonazis", currently ranking somewhere shy of "a hypothetical offspring of Cruella de Vil and Sauron". We're also told, however, that Roy and the rest of the party have been a stabilising influence, and indeed the worst of his actions happened before the comic began (for example, past affiliation with slavers, and the mass killing of fifteen unarmed people in a BarBrawl that he didn't even consider unreasonable.)

* In the first ''Film/{{Batman}}'' movie, only minimal attention is actually paid to the ''dozens'' of people Joker has killed.

** Ambiguous ending?

** Used as the basis for an infamous LetsPlay, ''TheTerribleSecretOfAnimalCrossing'', in which Nook ''literally'' enslaves the narrator [[spoiler:for [[BodyHorror unspeakable purposes]]]]. Most of the other portrayals of Nook either fall into his MERELY being an autocratic slum lord, mob kingpin, and black marketeer (the rest usually paint him as the nicest landlord you will ever have).

* Main/LuckyLuke: Used with many of the desperadoes Lucky Luke encounters in order to explain their notoriety. If rumours are to be believed Phil de Fer, the original Dalton gang, Joss Jamon and most specifically Pat Poker and Billy the Kid have quite a remarkable body count. In Billy's case it is said that many of his victims were fellow criminals and Luke himself calls him worse than the Daltons (the new ones at least).

When a character is explicitly known (but not often actually ''shown'') to have committed acts that would otherwise lead to a MoralEventHorizon moment, but who are either discreetly downplayed or conveniently not discussed. This is both to avoid scaring the audience and, presumably, to allow people to continue to like these characters (in a genuine way, not the "so deranged it's interesting" way) without being seen as a monster.

'''Loretta:''' So you take me for what I am - a psychopathic, schizophrenic, serial killing FemmeFatale?\\

* Justified in ''LayerCake''; the protagonist is a cocaine dealer responsible for getting an awful lot of product out onto the streets; but he himself finds the end result of his work to be distasteful, and deliberately steers clear of cocaine users. A more sympathetic example than most, as he it's implied that because of this he's making plans to leave the business behind him.

* In ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'', [[spoiler:Anakin begins to strangle a defiant Poggle the Lesser using the Force. The rest of the interrogation is never seen, but when Anakin comes back to the other Jedi with important information, they pointedly wonder just what Anakin did to get their uncooperative prisoner to talk.]] Keep in mind that so far, the series has distinctly avoided Anakin's dark side.

** In ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'', [[spoiler:Anakin begins to strangle a defiant Poggle the Lesser using the Force. The rest of the interrogation is never seen, but when Anakin comes back to the other Jedi with important information, they pointedly wonder just what Anakin did to get their uncooperative prisoner to talk.]] Keep in mind that so far, the series has distinctly avoided Anakin's dark side.

* [[BloodKnight Kenpachi]] gets a textbook one in ''Manga/{{Bleach}}''. It's stated that instead of going through the normal political channels to become a squad Captain, he challenged and [[AsskickingEqualsAuthority killed an existing captain]] in front of 200 witness. While this is supposed to add to his {{Badass}} legend, the fact that we don't know anything about the victim or the particulars of the fight could have very well have made this a [[BaitTheDog seriously disturbing]] KickTheDog moment.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'' has Dr Venture's [[ForScience Joycan]], PoweredByAForsakenChild (though it isn't stated whether Venture killed the orphan or merely acquired the heart after he/she died of something else).

* A variant occurs in the Bogart/Bacall noir film, ''Film/KeyLargo''. Bacall's character, one of several people being held by the evil gangster in her own hotel, is being menaced by the gangster. He seems to actually notice for the first time how attractive she is, and so leans forward, bringing his lips to her ear... Cut to their silhouettes on the wall, his lips moving but with no words audible, background music rising--suddenly, she snaps, and slaps him across the face. We never know what was said, of course, but obviously it must've been horrible, and the viewer is basically free to set the perversion meter at just past their own tolerance level.