Cry For The Devil / Live-Action TV

Cry for the Devil moments in Live-Action TV series.

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• From Arrow, Malcolm Merlyn recalling the night his wife died, and how he could do nothing but listen to her die on his voicemail, over and over.
• Babylon 5 has Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds Londo Mollari, the Centauri ambassador; collaborator with the Shadows, and personally responsible for millions of deaths all because he wanted the Centauri Republic to stand tall and proud again. He loses so much along the way including anyone he could have called friend and the love of his life, that it's impossible not to feel sorry for him.
• Glory from Buffy the Vampire Slayer got a moment like this, when she described what being in human form and going crazy was like for her (okay, technically, she wasn't talking about her, but the tone and body language made it kind of impossible not to figure out).
  "It's like you're in a crowded little dark room, all naked and ashamed... And there are things in the dark that want to hurt you because you're bad... Little pinching things, that go in your ears, and crawl on the inside of your skull... And you know that if the noise and the crawling would stop, then, you could remember the way out... But you never, ever will."
  • "The Prom" features someone who has summoned a bunch of demons to attack the high school senior prom. Buffy, determined to allow her friends one unspoiled moment in high school, corners the culprit and angrily demands to know why someone would want to destroy "the happiest night of the year". The culprit sneers that he has his reasons — and we're treated to a brief flashback of him shyly and politely asking a girl to go to the prom with him, only for the girl to cruelly reject him. This is played entirely for laughs.
    • The above scene can easily be read as a parody of many scenes earlier in the series that were legitimately this trope (like the poor kid in "Lie to Me") - we're set up to expect some deeply scarring, tragic scene, and what we get is fifteen seconds of, "Hey, want to go to the prom with me?" "Nope."
• Cobra Kai: Season 3 shows several flashbacks to John Kreese's experiences in Vietnam. While it is nowhere near enough to justify the callous, manipulative psychopath he became, watching a kind, upstanding young man go through trauma after trauma with no relief whatsoever will make you shed at least one tear, and maybe walk away with a bit more understanding.
• In the first season of Desperate Housewives, Miss Huber was nothing short of a blackmailing antagonist who everyone seemed to dislike. But as she is dying, her final thoughts were revealed to the audience as her life flashes before her eyes. A life of hoping for excitement, and romance, and adventure, and realizing she is about to die after having done nothing with her life.
  • The sixth season episode "Epiphany" does this for the Fairview Strangler, effectively turning them into a Tragic Villain by the end.
• Game of Thrones:
  • Cersei gets several of these moments and it's a credit to Lena Headey's acting abilities that she can make Cersei both despicable and pitiable.
    • In Season 1 she actually has a civil conversation with Robert, confessing that she loved him once and hoped their marriage would work out. When she asks if there was ever a chance for them, he bluntly replies "No". Robert asks how that makes her feel, prompting Cersei to smile sadly and say "It doesn't make me feel anything."
    • In Season 2, Cersei breaks down crying in front of Tyrion and confesses that even she is appalled by Joffrey's heinous actions, but she doesn't know how to rein him in. She says she thinks this is a punishment from the gods for her incestuous relationship with Jaime (one of the few things that makes her genuinely happy). Even Tyrion feels bad for Cersei and tries to comfort her, assuring her that her other children are both good people.
    • In Season 5, it becomes increasingly difficult to take much pleasure in Cersei's fall from grace, as she is so utterly broken by her imprisonment and torment. She is alone and terrified, begging to be allowed to see her son and resorting to drinking water off the dirty floor. Cersei also rightly points out to the High Sparrow that while she may be an adulteress, her own husband frequently cheated on her, emotionally neglected her and hit her. Her walk of atonement is horribly humiliating and despite her efforts to remain composed, by the end she's sobbing helplessly and can barely walk.
    • Cersei finding out Myrcella is dead. For all her flaws, she does genuinely love her daughter and never got to see her alive again after Season 2. In a monotone, she tells Jaime she doesn't know how Myrcella got to be so good and kind. She mentions that she used to think about how their dead mother's corpse looked, before finally bursting into tears and saying she now thinks about their daughter decomposing. It's also hard not to feel for her when she's barred from attending the funeral and has to get details from Tommen; she asks him if they put her body in a gold dress and comments that always looked pretty in that one.
    • During her torture of Ellaria and Tyene, Cersei's smugness slips a bit when she's talking about Myrcella. She describes how she tried to be a good mother to her because she herself lost her mother young. She then furiously demands to know why Ellaria took her daughter away from her, before quietly saying it doesn't matter anymore.
  • Viserys when he attempts to steal Daenerys' dragon eggs. He rants to Jorah about how since he was five years old, he's had the weight of the Targaryen dynasty on his shoulders and has never received true respect or devotion from anyone. The viewer is reminded that while Viserys is indeed an entitled asshole who brings a lot of his problems on himself, he's also a troubled young man who lost his home and nearly his entire family as a child, was forced to go on the run and care for his little sister alone. He isn't loved or wanted by anyone save for Dany, but his cruel treatment of her has even pushed her away, leaving him with no one.
  • Jaime gets a huge moment of this in Season 3, when he tells Brienne exactly why he became the Kingslayer. For nearly two decades, he's been ridiculed and looked upon with disdain by almost everyone for killing the Mad King, even though he was a murderous tyrant and it turns out Jaime did it to save thousands of people from being burned alive, sacrificing his reputation and dreams of being a Knight in Shining Armor in the process. It paints a very different perspective of him, marking the point where Brienne and many audience members came to view him in much more sympathetic light.
  • The Lannister army, since several soldiers are seen shaking in fear of a massive Dothraki horde and Daenerys riding Drogon. It's more poignant in the scene where Tyrion watches from a distance in horror as panicked Lannisters are being butchered like animals and slowly burning to death.
  • Despite the horrible things he's done, the way Petyr starts collapsing and crying as he begs for his life recalls that he was once just an innocent little boy who wanted to win the hand of the girl he loved, only to be humiliated, nearly killed, and then made a mockery of for years later. It's hard not to feel sympathy for the child he was, if not the man he became.
• Benjamin Linus from Lost. It starts with "The Man Behind the Curtain", but it isn't until "The Shape of Things to Come" that it really starts to look like he may not be as much of a villain as everybody thought.
• Literally, in the case of Lucifer Morningstar from Lucifer (2016). While he is confident, snarky and well-off economically, it is implied that his carefree, hedonistic lifestyle is a cover for his history of crippling, existential loneliness over the thousands of years of his existence. This can even be blamed on the scorn he receives from his angel kin, silence and abandonment from his omnipotent father and humanity's tendency to blame and demonize him for their own shortcomings.
• Marvel's Netflix universe:
  • Daredevil (2015): Wilson Fisk is depicted with a sympathetic backstory - having had an abusive alcoholic father that he killed to defend his mother. He also has a number of people he cares about, in the form of his Number Two James Wesley, and girlfriend Vanessa Marianna, with both of them causing him to have some positive character development. He's portrayed less as a ruthless gang boss and more as a curiously vulnerable and damaged man with a misguided vision and one hell of an anger management issue.
  • Jessica Jones (2015): Kilgrave is a complete creep and psychopath. But both Jessica and the audience feel just a little sympathy for him as it's revealed that his powers are the result of his parents subjecting him to extremely painful experiments as a kid to save his life (as he was born with a terminal brain disease). Not only that, but they at one point abandoned him while he was still a child after he started using his newly-manifested powers to punish them when he was upset. From then on he used his powers to compel strangers to feed, clothe, and protect him since his parents were not there to do it for him. Despite it likely being a manipulative bid for sympathy, Kilgrave defends his actions in an argument with Jessica of her having been held captive by him by claiming that the nature of his powers makes it impossible for him to determine if people do things for him because they want to, or because they are compelled to. Jessica herself even dresses down Kilgrave’s parents, telling them that he may have been a little monster child with a terrifying ability, but he was their son and they failed him by abandoning their responsibilities to teach him to be better.
  • Luke Cage (2016): In the episode where Cornell "Cottonmouth" Stokes is Killed Off for Real, we're treated to a series of flashbacks showing his childhood. It turns out that Cornell was once a gifted pianist who had dreams of going to Juilliard, and only ended up turning to crime because of his family's influence. The real kicker was when he was forced to shoot his uncle "Pistol" Pete Stokes, who cared the most for him out of anyone, and his hand were shaking the entire time he held the pistol.
• Once Upon a Time:
  • Rumpelstiltskin became the evil imp he is today because he wanted to protect his young son from being forced to fight in a war. It's later revealed that his wife ran off with another man and he'd even been abandoned by his own father.
  • Regina was previously a good-hearted young girl unfortunately raised by a cruel and ambitious mother. When the latter learned of her daughter's relationship with the stable boy, she killed him in front of her. What's worse is that Regina turned to dark magic in attempts to resurrect her lover.
  • The Snow Queen was born as Princess Ingrid and, although given powers over ice she feared, she had two sisters that vowed to stick by her. Until one day she accidentally killed one sister, and the other sealed her in an urn as a result. When she's set free, she's now an omnicidal maniac.
  • Ursula the sea witch was once a mermaid with a beautiful singing voice. Her mother had been killed by pirates and her father forced her to use her voice to wreck ships in revenge. After being betrayed one too many times by him - and Hook stealing her singing voice, she opted to transform herself into the tentacled monster she's better known as.
  • Regina's mother Cora got this treatment too, but to a lesser extent. She began as the poor daughter of a miller and gained a powerful marriage through luck. But she got the marriage at the cost of true love - and even removed her own heart to put the feelings to rest. What's more is that it's later revealed she had an illegitimate daughter that she abandoned to serve her own desires. Word of God says that if Cora had kept her heart within her, love for Regina could have redeemed her.
• By the end of Robin Hood, the Gisborne siblings, Guy and Isabella, are all but embracing death as an escape from their miserable lives. Before destroying each other, they share a moment in a jail cell in which Isabella sadly tells her brother: "You loved me once..." and he gives her a vial of poison to quicken her passing. Though she uses it to kill him instead, there is a moment toward the end of the episode in which she looks over his dead body with what looks like regret, and one recalls that, at the end of everything, they were still siblings and did, in fact, love each other long ago.
• Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace:
  • Xiyue is a despicable person, but it's hard not to feel sorry for her when she's poisoned by the person she supported and trusted.
  • Ruiji attempts to kill a pregnant woman, but she did it to avenge her own dead baby and is horrified to discover she targeted an innocent woman. It's hard not to feel sorry for her as well when she's happy to die so she can finally see her baby.
• Two similar examples from two TV Sci-Fi shows take a lone member of the Big Bad guys, capture him, and make you feel sorry for him. "I, Borg", from Star Trek, and "Dalek", from Doctor Who.
  • "I, Borg" and the later character 7 of 9 highlight the fact that every one of those unstoppable terrifying Borg drones is really another victim of the Collective with their freewill ripped away from them.
  • And speaking of Doctor Who, who can forget the Master? Tortured for centuries by an incessant drumbeat that no one else could hear, until "The End of Time", when it's revealed it was put there by the Time Lords when he was eight so they had a chance to escape the Time War.
  • In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, even Sisko - who knows what the casualty figures of the Cardassian occupation were, and has repeatedly seen the man at his worst - feels sorry for Dukat when his daughter Ziyal is killed, causing his sanity to snap like a guitar string and reduce him to a traumatised wreck.
  • Then from Doctor Who we have "Rusty", from the episode "Into the Dalek". We learn that the Dalek transport is more than just a way of getting around. It has circuitry built into it to actively suppress any thought or memory that would stray from the Dalek "ideal" instilled by Davros. "Rusty"'s transport was damaged, allowing him to view the birth of a star with the natural wonder it would ordinarily convey, prompting a Heel–Face Turn against his fellow Daleks. Then the Doctor repairs the transport, causing Rusty to revert to his old ways until companion Clara can reactivate the memory of the star's birth. Daleks don't have to be evil. Locked in their transports, they have little choice.
• The Spanish Princess: In the last episode, Margaret, Lady Mother of the King, discovers her son is dead, is humiliated at every turn, and finally disowned by Henry when he discovers her subterfuge.
• Succession: Logan Roy doesn’t have much in the way of redeemable traits, but it’s hard not to feel bad for him when you see his scar-riddled back. He’s awful to his children, but it’s clear that he’s suffered from abuse himself, and it’s quite easy to guess that this treatment played a role in his hardened, cold personality.
• A shape-shifter from the Supernatural episode "Monster Movie" gets this when he reveals how he was abused by his father and villagers, but he found refuge from the violence in old monster flicks that he re-enacted to a very serious degree (which involved killing people and kidnapping women).
  • A BIG one when Sam puts Crowley through a trial meant to change Crowley back into a human. It slowly begins to work as Crowley's human heart is being restored which is best shown in an outburst from Crowley:
    Crowley: I DESERVE TO BE LOVED! (quietly) I just want to be loved.
  • Followed by...
    Crowley: I just want to know what you confessed because, given my history, I want to know where I would even begin to find for forgiveness.
• Go back and watch the flashbacks of Bill's last moments as a human and first weeks as a vampire in seasons 1 and 3 of True Blood. This trope doesn't come into full effect till the characters Face–Heel Turn is completed in season 5, but going back after this reveals Lorena's true role as The Corrupter, as well as the character's sort of-dreary mindset/nature from the start.
  • Debbie Pelt is shown as a young, sweet impressionable teenager during some flashbacks in season 5. Really makes Alcide's grief over her violent death harder to swallow.
• Belial from Ultraman Geed is a spiteful and destructive conqueror... who is, deep down, just a bitter old man filled with sorrow and misplaced anger over being banished from his home and losing his family. He's trapped in an endless cycle of being resurrected and defeated over and over again, and he hates every minute of it. Geed comes to understand his feelings and pleads with Belial to just let it all go, but to no avail; Belial is too lost in his hate and resentment to admit his mistakes, and Geed is forced to destroy him permanently.
• The second episode of the first series of The Walking Dead ("Guts") has a brief scene where the characters stop to acknowledge the previous humanity of an otherwise random walker. Rick even finds out his name, Wayne Dunlap, from the contents of his wallet and vows to tell his family about what happened to him if he ever comes across them. This is markedly different to how zombies are treated from then on.
• The Hyde monster aka Tyler in Wednesday is a terrifying creature and perhaps even scarier, it openly admits to Wednesday about enjoying the terrible things he’s done. While the character should rightly be hated, at the same time, some pity is to it given by a lot of fans as it was forced into becoming a monster by Laurel Gates/Marilyn Thornhill, who used his grief and confusion over his mother’s death, which initially was something that left it quite understandably terrified at first. While it is a villain, it definitely has a lot of tragedy to its story.
• The X-Files episode "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man".

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