Even Evil Has Loved Ones / Live-Action TV

Examples of Even Evil Has Loved Ones in Live-Action TV.

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• 24:
  • Many of the terrorists have family members who can be used against them, particularly when their love of those people is greater than their loyalty to the mission. For example, Jack breaks the initial Big Bad of Season 2 by pretending to kill his family, and Dina Araz of Season 4 cooperates with CTU to guarantee the welfare of her son (while pointing out that if he dies, she doesn't care whether the US gets nuked.
  • Double-subverted with Marie Warner from Season 2: (in that she did love someone, but it didn't affect her behaviour towards him).
    Marie: I killed Reza... and I loved him. What makes you think I'd care for you or Dad?
  • Subverted with Ramon and Hector Salazar. Jack doesn't bother threatening one to break the other because he knows it won't work.
• In The 100, Bellamy infiltrates Mount Weather by killing a guard and taking his uniform and key card, only to run into the pre-school aged son of the guard he just killed. Bellamy does not take this encounter well.
• 666 Park Avenue: Gavin and Olivia are absolutely devoted to each other, and they both loved their daughter.
• The Adventures of Shirley Holmes: Molly Hardy is Shirley's nemesis and quite the manipulative Magnificent Bastard, but when she learns that her horse has to be put to sleep it's the first and only time we see her cry.
• Alias: Arvin Sloane cares deeply about his wife, Emily; later, he bonds with his daughter (from a different woman), Nadia. He also genuinely cares about Sydney for the most part as a daughter, and cares when someone threatens her no matter what she thinks of him. Sark also expresses some emotion after Lauren's death.
• Alien Nation:
  • The Purist leader who plots genocide against Newcomers expresses genuine affection for her followers, with this being mutual. She is moved by them giving her a surprise birthday cake, and gives warm thanks over it. This makes it all the creepier when she intersperses this with continued remarks on the genocide plot.
  • The female commander of the Overseers looks sad when Ahpossno (her subordinate) dies.
• Andor: In "The Eye" Commandant Beehaz is hardly a nice man, but he still cares for his wife and son, despite not treating them very well. When the Rebels hold them at gunpoint, he cooperates with their plan.
• Angel:
  • The Femme Fatale Lilah occasionally alludes to her mother, who seems to be senile and living in a nursing home:
    Lilah: Is everything alright? Are they taking care of you? — No, mom, this is Lilah. You called Lilah. Do you need anything? Do you need money? — No — Mom, I can't come over. I'm in Los Angeles. You know that. — Don't cry. Mom, please, stop it.
  • Lindsey is wooed by Darla, to the point of confessing he wouldn't "mind" if she were the one to kill him. Darla choosing Angel (his Arch-Enemy) over him made made him snap and go Unstoppable Rage running Angel repeatedly over with his truck and wailing on him with a sledgehammer. He also loves Eve in season five, though not as much as he loved Darla.
  • Holland is an utterly vile Corrupt Corporate Executive who as Angel learns actually went to Hell after Darla and Drusilla killed him. But his homelife is by comparison much more sanguine as he loves his wife Catherine.
  • Eve did genuinely love Lindsey, when Angel informs her of his death in finale while Wolfram Hart collapses, she refuses to escape and lets herself get crushed to death.
  • While he's dealing with the news that Buffy has died (again), Angel winds up staking a female vampire whose boyfriend undergoes a Dangerous Forbidden Technique in the hopes of killing Angel before dying himself. Angel feels like his months of brooding pale in comparison to such complete devotion.
• Babylon 5:
  • Bester tries to play this card with Garibaldi in an early appearance, portraying himself as just a misunderstood family man. Garibaldi isn't having any of it. Later, it comes out that Bester really does have a true love: his mistress, a rogue telepath who ends up being abducted by the Shadows to become part of a Shadow vessel's Wetware CPU. Bester does not handle this well.
    Bester: Your war is now my war.
  • While Londo Molari's level of "evil" is largely dependent on which scheme he's embroiled in at the moment, and he's willing to lie to anyone and cheat every system in the book to get what he wants, it's clear that he cares for at least two people. Vir, for all the grief he's given, is a close friend and confidant as well as his eventual successor as ambassador. The other is his one true love (coincidentally, not one of his three insufferable wives) Lady Adira, for whom he goes FAR out of his way to please and who genuinely loves him in return. Considering the conniving, amoral people that make up the Centauri government, it doesn't end well for her.
• Borgia: A complete exploration of this trope. Borgia could be renamed Even Evil Has Loved Ones: The Show.
• The Borgias:
  • Rodrigo Borgia may be, essentially, the pope as a mob boss, but he loves his children. To a fault, in fact. His physical affection for his mistresses is a bit more changeable, but it's clear that he cares deeply for both Vanozza (the mother of his children) and Giulia (his current lover).
  • His son Cesare, on the other hand, has an arc in Season 2 that amounts to him hating his brother, ruining his already shaky relationship with his father, and alienating his mother. However, his adoration for his sister Lucrezia will probably never waver (even though it drives him to do some pretty terrible things).
  • Cesare's brother Juan, however, has no such compelling qualities. The only sympathy he ever elicits is the physical pain kind, after contracting VD from sleeping with too many whores.
  • In an antagonistic subversion, (she isn't 'evil' per se, it's more her avaricious brother, but she is still on the 'bad' side of the series by opposing the Borgia papal states) Catherine Sforda cares deeply for her only son, but even more deeply for her people. When she is besieged by Juan Borgia and he tortures and threatens to kill her son if she does not lower the gates, she is at first conflicted, and wavers between surrendering and fighting while receiving counsel from her lieutenants. In the end she memorably hikes her skirt at Juan and defiantly tells him she may lose her son but she can always have another, and he has far more to lose by going through with the act than she does. Her son seems to both despise and respect her for this as their love for one another cools, but does not dissipate entirely.
• The Boys (2019):
  • A driving factor that keeps Homelander under control is his love for Madelyn Stillwell. Granted it's an utterly disturbing kind of love riddled with Incest Subtext (her as a mother-figure, not as his actual bio-mom) and him lusting for her breast milk since he's such a complete and utter Psychopathic Manchild, but it's still love. After she pushes her luck too far and hits his Berserk Button of lying to him one too many times, he murders her in the season finale, but it's shown to deeply disturb him. He makes a point of saving her child seemingly only for her sake, and ends up having Doppelganger take her form to coo over him until he gets it out of his system. Unsurprisingly, with her gone, he takes a swan dive off the slippery slope he was already sliding down.
  • "The Bloody Doors" reveals that, by some miracle of God, Stormfront isn't completely heartless, at least to a degree. She reveals to Homelander she was Frederick Vought's wife and had a daughter named Chloe with him, whom she deeply misses. Stormfront feels all alone now that everyone she cared for is dead. She also expresses her love for Homelander, as the superhuman they always hoped for.
  • Homelander also shows genuine love and care for his only son Ryan, despite him being a Child Of Rape, and a substantial portion of his storyline in Season 2 is devoted to his clumsy but wholeheartedly sincere attempts to bond with him. When Ryan choices to go with Billy instead of him during the finale, Homelander in response has a look on his face of genuine agony, worse than physical blow he could ever receive.
  • Vought CEO Stan Edgar is revealed to be the adoptive father of Mole in Charge Victoria Neuman, and acts as a loving father and grandfather when he's not cleaning up Homelander's messes. After Homelander convinces her to betray him, he actually expresses pride in her for playing him like a fiddle.
• Breaking Bad: A recurring theme. Walter himself is a villain precisely because he has loved ones. The Salamanca family is seemingly completely devoid of any morality at all beyond devotion to family. Mike will kill anyone without batting an eyelash but is a doting grandfather. Todd Alquist, a child-murdering psychopath, is also a loving nephew for his uncle Jack, who is a neo-Nazi gang leader and a father figure to him. Even Lydia worries less about actually dying than that her daughter will think she abandoned her if she just disappears.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • If you hurt the Mayor or Faith, expect the other to come looking for you. The Mayor also loved his late wife Edna May.
  • Spike genuinely loved and cared for Drusilla, in stark contrast to Angelus, Darla, and Drusilla herself. Indeed his Establishing Character Moment has him instantly switch from threatening his future mooks to worrying about whether Drusilla is cold after she had wandered into the room.
    • Drusilla loved Spike and Angel, if not with the same level of devotion that Spike had for her. Drusilla herself said it best.
      Drusilla: We can, you know. [Vampires] can love very well, if not wisely.
    • Angelus, however, is completely incapable of love; despite him and Darla being passionately evil together , they both have ditched each other or ratted the other out at times in the past, just so one of them doesn't get killed, leaving the other to face the wrath of their pursuers. Angel, on the other hand, clearly loved Darla. As a human, it terrifies her — as a vampire, it sickens her.
    • Actually Played With concerning Darla, directly after her second death and resurrection as a vampire in Angel Season 2, she actually still retains some of the feelings she had for Angel as a human. This is seen when when she and Drusilla are gathering Mooks, Drusilla The Empath notices Angel (who’s in disguise spying on them)'s presence and alerts Darla who immediately loses her Femme Fatale swagger and searches for him, saying "Angel?" (rather than "Angelus" like before) and when Drusilla says "He remembers when you were warm" Darla (clearly upset) yells at Dru to shut up. She goes back to hating him after he sets her on fire but she still sleeps with him hoping to bring Angelus back but is left disappointed.
    • Played straight in Angel Season 3 Darla begins to genuinely love her and Angel's unborn son Connor, due to Connor's humanity affecting her soulless body as he grows inside her. In fact Darla is terrified knowing when she gives birth to Connor, she'll stop loving her son and will try to eat him. This never comes to pass as unable to enter labor normally she stakes herself so that Connor won't suffocate inside her,
  • The Master viewed his particular high-ranking minions like Darla, Collin and Luke, as his "children", and nearly loses the will to carry out his plans after Darla is staked.
  • Vampire Willow loved Vampire Xander. When she runs into the real deal and mistakes him for her world's version, she hugs him and jubilantly exclaims, "Xander! You're alive!"
  • The vampire Lyle Gorch seemed to genuinely care about his brother Tector and his wife Candy.
• Burn Notice:
  • It's acknowledged that even the worst of scum have people they care about and will go to great lengths to protect or avenge. It's part of the reason why Michael and company try to avoid killing people, even the worst kinds, themselves to avoid being on the wrong end of a Roaring Rampage of Revenge...though they're not above setting up events so that other bad guys do the job for them.
  • One episode has Michael do this: Brennan the arms dealer is back for revenge, and he's holding Michael's brother hostage to get him to do his bidding. Michael is forced to comply, all the while surreptitiously contacting Sam and Fiona to try and find something they can use to make Brennan release his grip. In the end, Michael strings together the clues they find and figures out Brennan's weak point: he bluffs Brennan into thinking he's got an assassin positioned in Europe to kill his beloved daughter. Brennan is skeptical that Michael, a "boy scout" type, would do such an awful thing, but he's not willing to take the chance and leaves.
• Charmed (1998): Zig-Zagging Trope: Cole mentions that evil cannot love, yet he himself has some evil inside him and has loved Phoebe. There are also demons and darklighters that have fallen in love with mortals.
• Chuck: Volkoff shows some hints of really loving his daughter Vivian. It's not mutual. He also has a loving mother, although since his personality was re-written, he doesn't know about her.
• The City Hunter: Each of The Five have family and loved ones they want to think well of them, the best example being Kim Shik-Jong, who opts to attempt suicide rather than drag his son down as well.
• Colony:
  • Snyder is a self-serving weasel, but he loves his daughter.
  • Detective Burke is revealed to have a family, happily singing "We'll Meet Again" with his daughter while his wife watches as they visit him in the hospital where he's recovering after Will stabbed him. He tells them they'll be going on a vacation after they're told they have to evacuate.
  • The Red Berets are also motivated to let Snyder and the Bowman family leave after they're told they'll be left behind with their families when the rendition of LA takes place.
• The Company You Keep: Charlie comments how at least they know Daphne is human after he finds that she has a photo of her mother (while pregnant with her) in her belongings. It's also learned she's so loyal to Maguire as he's her father. Both of them are ruthless gangsters.
• Counterpart (2018): Baldwin is a ruthless hitwoman, but genuinely loves her girlfriend Greta.
• Criminal Minds:
  • In one episode called "Parasite", a conman who uses romance as one of his main weapons to trick people out of their money suffers a psychotic break. He may have been a cheating murderer at that point, but he did genuinely care about the safety of his wife and son. This same episode also made this a Deconstructed Trope; the profile notes that he cared for his family because he saw them as extensions of himself and his own achievements, rather than independent people with real feelings.
  • In "Moose", Elias is a prolific serial killer, who's trained others to kill online. He has a wife and two daughters who Elias appears to genuinely care for though.
• Deadly Class:
  • Mr. Lin, who runs a school for assassins, went on a rampage against his family's killers in the past. He clearly also loves his wife and daughter deeply in the present.
  • El Alma Del Diablo, a vicious cartel boss, swears vengeance on his son Chico's killer with equal fervor.
• Dexter: A lot of the killers are shown to have families and friends they care about.
  • Dexter Morgan says he has no feelings, but grows quite attached to his family and some of his coworkers, and has other romantic relationships later in the series.
  • The Ice Truck Killer is revealed to be Dexter's brother, reached out to him so they could reunite, and wants them to kill Debra together. Dexter can't do it because he loves Deb, and tearfully kills Brian.
  • Miguel Prado loved his brothers, and is particularly broken up about Oscar's death. When Dexter tells Miguel that he's responsible right before garroting him, he is particularly enraged.
  • Subverted Trope with Trinity. Dexter discovers to his surprise that he is a dedicated family man and a pillar of the community, but it's later revealed that Arthur terrorized his family, and all but completely ignores his oldest daughter. However, Trinity also plays it straight with his late sister who he practically worships, though this is undermined by the rather unsettling undertones of his feelings towards her.
  • Also subverted with Jordan Chase, who is hinted to care somewhat for Emily, the woman he had his friends gang-rape years before, but ultimately has zero compunctions about murdering her when he has no use for her anymore.
  • Travis Marshal is shown to have a deep bond with his sister, but she ends up killed by his evil personality.
  • Ukrainian crime lord Isaak Sirko pursues Dexter for killing his friend Viktor, also his gay lover.
  • The revival series, Dexter: New Blood, gives us Kurt Caldwell the Runaway Killer, who did genuinely love his son Matt and goes on a vendetta against Dexter after realising that he killed him.
• Dinosaurs: B.P. Richfield runs the Wesayso Corporation with an iron fist and frequently insults and threatens his employees, but it is shown in the episode "Hungry for Love" that he cares deeply about his daughter Wendy, to the point that he'd eat every boyfriend that broke up with her.
• Doctor Who:
  • Despite capturing and torturing him on multiple occasions, the Master does seem to have some genuine affection for the Doctor, never killing him despite having several opportunities to do so, asking him to rule the universe together when he doesn't have any logical need to, and even tearfully reminiscing about their past together.
  • "Aliens of London"/"World War Three": The Slitheen, an alien crime family who we see mourning each other even while they're trying to irradiate/blow up Earth.
    • In Sequel Episode "Boom Town", the last surviving Slitheen is shown to still mourn her family even as she plots to escape Earth by destroying it.
  • "Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood": After the Family's downfall and subjection to Fates Worse than Death, Son of Mine, a Psychopathic Manchild devoid of mercy to others, expresses the hope that the Doctor's yearly visits to Sister of Mine mean he might eventually decide to release her from her mirror prison.
  • "Partners in Crime": Miss Foster seems to consider the baby Adipose she creates from unwitting humans her children, even though she's their nanny. Her employers don't feel the same way.
  • "Cold Blood": While Restac is a General Ripper obsessed with "protecting" the Silurians from the humans even if it means exterminating everyone on the Earth's surface, her grief when she sees the body of her sister Alaya is very real.
• Downton Abbey: One of the series' main villains is Lady's Maid Sarah O'Brien, a cold, stern, morally defective woman who shows herself to be capable of a variety of petty, manipulative and downright deadly actions as the series has progressed. However, in series 3, her nephew Alfred Nugent arrives at Downton — a bumbling naïve character who O'Brien manages to blag a job and defends to the hilt, despite his clear lack of experience. Her sense of family duty towards Alfred is the defining factor that causes a huge rift between herself and her previous partner-in-crime, the scheming footman Thomas Barrow.
• The Dukes of Hazzard:
  • Boss Hogg may take his wife, Lulu, for granted and he is often annoyed at her constantly being his moral conscience, but he loves her dearly and would be devastated if something happened to her (as it nearly did in the Season 6 opener "Lulu's Gone Away").
  • Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane also dearly loves his brother-in-law (Boss) and his sister (Lulu), despite his antagonistic, Affably Evil ways.
• Elementary: Sebastian Moran, a paid hitman that is sent to jail and starts to help Sherlock find his boss Moriarty who he felt sent him up the river. Moriarty managed to send one final message to Moran by sending a coded message to Sherlock that only he could decode. Moran claims to be unable to read the message, that it is gibberish. Later that night Sherlock figures out the key and decodes the message: "MORAN YOU NEVER TOLD ME YOU HAD A SISTER. SHE DIES OR YOU DO. YOUR CHOICE. M". By the time Sherlock has notified the jail Moran had already bashed his own skull in.
• Bishop Brennan from Father Ted is a foul-tempered, violent, corrupt priest who apparently makes a habit of violating his vows of celibacy, which has resulted in a son by one of his mistresses. On the other hand, he seems to care about the said mistress and son as a family, to the extent that he does something as stupid as keeping a home video of himself and them playing on the beach together.
• Firefly: Token Evil Teammate Jayne, a greedy mercenary, is revealed in "The Message" to have a mother and little brother (the latter of which is implied to be Delicate and Sickly) that he sends part of his earnings to. His mother sends him back The Hat.
• The Flash (2014):
  • Pre-Heel–Face Turn Leonard Snart/Captain Cold and his sister Lisa Snart/Golden Glider clearly love and look out for each other, with Lisa even claiming "Lenny" practically raised her growing up. Averted with their father Lewis Snart, who was not only confirmed to be an Abusive Parent to Lisa and more than likely Leonard to some extent, but in his debut puts a bomb in Lisa's head just to strong arm Captain Cold into aiding him in his latest job and is killed by his son, after losing said leverage.
  • Mark Mardon / Weather Wizard raised his younger brother Clyde Mardon and his main motivation in his debut was to avenge said younger brother, who was killed by Joe in the pilot.
  • Subverted with James Jesse / The Trickster I and his son long lost son Axel Walker / The Trickster II. At first James seems to genuinely care about his son, who wanted nothing more than to be like him, but later episodes show that James was just using him that one scheme in their debut and doesn't actually give a damn about him.
  • Downplayed with "Dr. Wells" Professor Eobard Thawne / The Reverse-Flash, despite the fact that he is ultimately using everyone on Team Flash and is more than willing to kill them if they become a liability, he does sincerely admit that he has grown fond of them and even tells Cisco in the timeline that was erased the first time Barry went back in time that he had shown him what it was like to have a son... before killing him to protect his plans.
  • Earth 2 Caitlyn Snow/Killer Frost and Ronnie Raymond/Deathstorm are shown to still love each other like their Earth 1 counterparts, despite otherwise being completely evil super villains.
• Flashpoint: In this Canadian drama show, one episode has a drug lord begging the man holding a gun to his fellow drug lord... and brother.
• The Following: This trope is this show's bread and butter.
  • While Joe Carroll's love for Claire and Ryan was twisted in many ways, his love for Joey and Mandy was more kind.
  • The Gray family quite clearly cared for one another.
  • Theo Noble went rampant after Ryan Hardy murdered his adopted sister. As he said to Gwen during her kidnapping: "Penny was my only family, and I loved her unconditionally."
  • Everything that Emma did for Joe was born from affection.
  • Daisy Locke almost got killed because she wouldn't leave Kyle's side.
  • Arthur Strauss clearly was heartwarmed when Theo told him: "You're like a father to me."
  • Duncan Banks seemed to care about Strauss' wellbeing, and also later wished to start a friendship with Theo.
  • Paul Torres was quite standoff-ish when he started living alongside Claire and Jacob, due to him feeling that Jacob had pushed him away for Claire.
  • Lily Gray was in love with Joe Carroll in the beginning of the series, but such feelings disappeared when he ran away from her and showed no sympathy to her plights.
  • Mark clearly loved Daisy and Kyle previous to him confirming that the two were working against him. However, these feelings come back after Daisy comes back to help him.
  • Julia was insanely heartbroken after seeing that Micah had abused his power/not followed his own teachings in relation to Korban.
• A French Village: Müller, despite torturing suspects and acting otherwise ruthless, seems to genuinely love Hortense. However, then he's willing to torture her so Daniel will talk, making it possibly subverted. From his attitude though he may not view it as contradictory, just a part of his job.
• Game of Thrones: Several characters are only redeemed from being complete monsters by this trope.
  • The machiavellian Cersei Lannister is strongly motivated by a desire to protect her children and twin brother, whom she deeply loves, though all of this could have a narcissistic quality to it. Her rocky relationships with her own loved ones provides a lot of drama for her character throughout the series.
  • Likewise, Jaime is very much in love with Cersei and his nefarious ambush of Ned in the streets is motivated by his fury that his brother had been abducted, not to mention he's the only member of his immediate family who doesn't blame Tyrion for the death of their mother Joanna Lannister. Despite not approving of Joffrey's rudeness and general attitude, he loves him enough to shove several people out of his way and rush to his side, desperately trying to help him. Tragically (sort of), it doesn't work. Furthermore, though he's not really close to them (as he had to pretend to be their 'uncle' for most of their lives), he does care about Myrcella and Tommen.
  • Tywin Lannister frequently seems incapable of expressing affection and empathy for any living thing besides his son Jaime. Tywin even shows physical affection in the only scene they share before the war and is very anguished later by the captivity of his son.
  • After doing nothing but humiliating and arguing with Theon, Yara Greyjoy shows genuine affection for her little brother when she urges him to abandon his prize before it drags him to his death. their relationship has its ups and downs throughout the rest of the show.
  • Littlefinger declares that his involvement in Joffrey's death was revenge for the death of Catelyn. The amount of truth in this is left ambiguous.
  • Joffrey worships his "father" and is devastated when he dies. A bard learned the hard way that it is a bad idea to make fun of the late King Robert.
  • While Aerys was an evil bastard to everyone, he was a Doting Parent to Viserys, and sent him and his mother, whom Aerys abused, off to Dragonstone after Rhaegar died to keep him safe. Seeing how Aerys planned on burning the entire city of King's Landing, it's a huge Pet the Dog moment for him, since he kept Rhaegar's wife and children to force the Martell family to help, which led to their deaths by Gregor Clegane's hands.
• General and I: Played with. Chancellor Zhang is a treacherous plotter who forced his daughter to marry Sima Hong against her wishes, but at the same time he does care for her. He's clearly devastated when she refuses to escape the palace after his plans go wrong.
• The Gifted (2017): Dr. Campbell took care of his brother, who had cystic fibrosis. This apparently was why he got into genetics, hoping to find cures for such diseases. However, even then he viewed mutants as a threat and that they were also a "disease" to be "cured".
• Glee: Sue Sylvester's genuine affection for her sister.
• The Good Wife: "Waiting for the Knock" has one of Lockhart/Gardner's major clients, drug dealer Lemond Bishop, under threat of arrest by the FBI. He's more worried about what happens to his son if he goes to jail than jail itself.
• Gotham: Being a Live-Action Batman show, this is to be expected from most of the main villains.
  • Probably most outstanding is Oswald Cobblepot/the Penguin, who is genuinely devoted to both his parents, takes the mute orphan Martin under his wing and is even landed in Arkham for him, and forms a Villainous Friendship with Ed Nygma/the Riddler in Season 2, to the point that Oswald takes a grenade for Nygma.
  • Mr. Freeze's Start of Darkness is still born from his desire to save his wife.
  • Perhaps most bizarrely, Jeremiah Valeska/the Joker is the most devoted to Bruce Wayne the character's ever been, being motivated almost entirely by a desire to be noticed and appreciated by Bruce. In the series finale, he even compares Bruce leaving to having the one thing he cares about ripped away.
• Hannibal: In the series finale, it's made crystal clear that Hannibal indeed is in love with Will. Despite having his freedom, Hannibal decides to help Will kill Dolarhyde, aka the Red Dragon, even at the risk of his own life. Considering how narcissistic and self-serving Hannibal is, this is a massive feat unto itself.
• In Healer, the villain Moon-Shik spends about half his time trying to prevent his brother from exposing The Elder to the world and his own crimes to his wife, and the other half convincing The Elder that the heroes are no threat. When called on this, he admits that, yes, they are a threat—to him, as if anything happens to them, he will be destroyed and therefore useless to the Elder's plans. When his wife and brother leave him for good, he breaks down emotionally and is left a pathetic shadow of himself.
• Hightown: Frankie Cuevas Sr. runs a drug syndicate and orders murders from prison. He also loves his girlfriend, son and cousin though (the latter being his lieutenant too). Later he gets another girlfriend, Rachel, who absolutely adores him. She's devastated when he gets murdered.
• Homicide: Life on the Street:
  • In "All Through the House", a federal witness against a drug dealer is murdered by being burned alive. Russert and Lewis investigate, and discover the killer was the drug dealer's wife, who didn't want her family to be split apart.
  • The villain of "Thrill of the Kill" chooses to turn himself in when his twin brother is mistaken for him and arrested in his place.
• House of Anubis: Victor Rodenmaar, despite having had antagonized and pushed Sarah Frobisher-Smythe towards revealing a secret she didn't know, the two were very close childhood friends and he reacted with genuine grief when she died. He also reacts very strongly when anyone mention his deceased father in a negative light.
• Imposters: The only person we see whom the Doctor genuinely appears to care for is his disabled, elderly father, who he cares for and lives in his house. From what his father says, he didn't do it for any gain, which is the only time that's ever shown from him.
• Intergalactic: Tula is a vicious, bloodthirsty criminal, who genuinely loves and cares for Genevieve, her daughter (the feeling is mutual-they're partners in crime).
• Interview with the Vampire (2022):
  • Lestat de Lioncourt is a malevolent vampire who cherishes his mother, his First Love Nicolas and his Second Love Louis de Pointe du Lac.
  • The sadistic vampire Claudia genuinely loves her adoptive father Louis, as well as her maker Lestat before his extremely harsh Tough Love parenting destroyed the bond they once shared. Claudia also seems to want to find and form relationships with more vampires.
• In the Dark: Ruthless drug dealer Josiah has a wife and two kids he clearly loves, whom the cartel targets along with him for destroying their heroin (so the cops wouldn't find it).
• Justified: The rural Kentucky villains provide numerous examples of this trope.
  • In Season 1, former drug kingpin Bo Crowder deeply cares about his son Boyd and, after getting out of jail, wants him to join him in rebuilding his criminal empire over Harlan County. Unfortunately for him, Boyd has become something of a Vigilante Man and wants nothing to do with said enterprises, which builds friction between the two of them, even going so far as to blow up a drug shipment of Bo which prompts Bo to massacre Boyd's followers. Despite this, Bo is more disappointed than angry Boyd refuses to join up with him and never actually attempts to kill him, despite being perfectly willing to murder others for much less.
  • In Season 2, Mags Bennett used her three sons as henchmen and showed great warmth toward her adopted daughter, Loretta. After the deaths of Coover and Doyle, Mags killed herself by drinking poisoned moonshine.
  • In Season 3, Boyd's newly-revived criminal enterprise includes his cousin Johnny and his girlfriend Ava, to whom he is very loyal.
  • Also in Season 3, Detroit mob lieutenant Robert Quarles has a wife and children back home. Quarles makes a point of talking to his son on the phone and mailing him postcards during his exile in Kentucky. Later in the season, however, as Quarles' schemes unravel and he plunges deeper into Oxycontin addiction, he ignores phone calls from his family. After the Detroit mob cuts ties with Quarles, Duffy suggests that Quarles go home. Quarles says that he has nowhere to go, suggesting that things may not be rosy at home.
• Journey to the West (1996) have this trope as a running theme:
  • The White Bone Demoness receives a bit of Adaptational Nice Guy from the novels, where her quest to abduct and devour Sanzhang is for her to gain a mortal body and satisfy her human lover with an heir.
  • The Chechi Kingdom Arc have the villains being a trio of demonic brothers, consisting of the Tiger, Deer and Goat demons. Wukong managed to outsmart and kill the first two, only to be (seemingly) defeated by the third; at which point the Goat Demon then declares he will have Sanzhang and the other Pilgrims executed to honor his dead brothers. But then Wukong reveals himself to be Not Quite Dead.
  • The Ginseng fruit devils may be carnivorous flesh-eating monsters, but they genuinely love their elderly mother, inviting her to feast on the flesh of Sanzhang because she loves human flesh more than any other meat. When Wukong kills her in combat the Devils are furious and vows to make Wukong suffer for it. The lead devil, Golden Horn, even said aloud that they may be monsters, but they still have mothers!
  • The Arc Villain, Long-Armed Ape, has an Unholy Matrimony with the Snake Demoness. When Wukong kills him in battle, the Snake Demoness completely loses it and spends the entire rest of the season antagonizing Wukong and the pilgrims to avenge his death; when she realized the Long-Armed Ape had actually moved on from his vendetta, she then decide to follow him and reform.
  • The Rhino Demon who cursed Wuji Kingdom into an endless drought and made himself their new Emperor actually installs his son as a prince, allowing his child to live a life of luxury with him. When his misdeeds caught up on him, the gods then sentences the Rhino Demon to menial labour by digging a river with his bare hands for the next 30 years, only for his son to beg the gods to punish him instead. The gods obliged, allowing them to take turns and spend 15 years each in their labour.
• The King Loves: Wang Jeon is a complete jerk and is scheming to overthrow Won and take his place, but he still cares for his little sister Dan.
• Law & Order: In the first-season episode "The Secret Sharers": The victim was a drug dealer and paroled rapist who was believed to have been murdered in retaliation for raping the murderer's girlfriend. His parole officer said that he was one step over a slug. Yet he regularly gave money to support his young daughter. One of the detectives said, "Hey, you think he's crap? I think he's crap!...but he had a little girl who thought he was Mister Rogers."
• Law & Order: Criminal Intent: One villain was a con artist who had a mark's son murdered just to advance his scheme to defraud her. However, he did deeply care for one other person besides himself: his partner. Goren would exploit his desperation not to hurt her to force a confession from him:
  Eames: True love. Probably his only redeeming trait.
  • In a later episode, Nichols and Eames deduce that a German terrorist's accomplice, ostensibly his daughter, is actually a child he kidnapped and raised as his own after killing her parents. At first they assume it was just the means to an end, but after seeing them interact, Nichols realizes he genuinely does have parental feelings towards her. In the end, he's willing to renounce his entire cause to save her life.
    Daughter: You're lying! You're just trying to save me!
    Suspect: Yes, I am! I am, because you matter to me more.
    Daughter: Than the revolution? Than everything you've ever said to me?
    Suspect: Yes. It's just words. Words. I think the world is right. I think that there are things that are more important.
• Legend of the Seeker: A D'Haran captain in "Deception", who's used magical weapons of mass destruction to massacre entire villages and praises Richard's willingness (disguised as a D'Haran) to do the same, is shown bringing food from army supplies against regulations to his family, whom he obviously loves.
• Legends of Tomorrow: Damien Darhk's daughter, Nora, returns from Arrow all grown up and very evil. It's repeatedly made clear that Damien will do absolutely anything for Nora. At one point, she is dying, and Ray offers to cure her in exchange for the MacGuffin; he doesn't even get a chance to finish the ultimatum before Damien tosses the MacGuffin over and waits for Ray to cure her. It's also revealed that while Damien was always an evil bastard, the specific reason he wants to take over the world is because he wants to be able to give it to her. Even handing her over to a demon was intended to give her the same sort of magical power he himself is so fond of. When he discovers that the demon will kill her in the process of its resurrection, he teams up with the Legends and ends up taking her place, sacrificing himself. In Season 5, he's brought back as an Encore by Astra to spread chaos through history, but rather than hold up his end of the deal tracks Nora down to make sure she's okay; after Nora (who's since had a Heel–Face Turn) has a chance to air her grievances with him, they reconcile and he walks her down the aisle at her wedding with Ray.
• Liar (2017): Andrew may be a serial rapist, but he genuinely loves his son Luke, and is always concerned with his wellbeing.
• Logan's Run: In "Capture", James Borden, who is hunting Logan and Francis, accidentally shoots his beloved wife Irene, who is hunting Jessica. Borden is devastated when she dies in his arms and blames the Sandmen.
• In Lost, the main (sort-of) villain Ben Linus goes Papa Wolf on Keamy after he kills his daughter; fortunately for the protagonists, this starts him off on his Heel–Face Turn.
• NCIS: Rene Benoit, aka La Grenouille, The Chessmaster target of the entire preceding season's Long Game sting operation, is the father of Jeanne Benoit. Also Ari Haswari, who was Ziva's half-brother. And then Ari's half-brother, Sergei Mishnev, who targets Gibbs to avenge Ari's death.
• The Night Agent:
  • Twisted as she is, Ellen is fully and passionately in love with Dale, and he loves her the same way. She goes utterly berserk after he's killed.
  • Farr is genuinely friends with President Michelle Travers which is why Redfield and Wick concealed their plan to assassinate her because they know it's a line Farr wouldn't cross. She turns on them to stop this after learning about it.
  • Ashley Redfield loved his late wife, and one of his daughters drowning was devastating to him. This is exploited by the Metro bomber who takes his other daughter Maddie as a hostage. He nearly confesses to being behind the bombing to get her back.
  • Colin Worley, the Metro bomber, seeks to avenge the death of his twin brother who was eliminated by the conspiracy.
• The Night Manager: Roper shows genuine affection for his son, which also seems to be the only person Roper's got unselfish feelings for. Pine realizes this, and uses it to get into Roper's circle through rescuing the boy from a staged kidnapping.
• Nirvana in Fire: Marquis Xie is an evil nutcase willing to murder everyone at Jingrui's birthday party, but has just as obviously developed some kind of twisted but genuine love for his family, as seen in his and his wife's moving and passionate discussion after the fallout of the aforementioned party. He just won't let a little thing like love get in the way of his ambitions.
• Nos4a 2: Manx turns out to have a daughter named Millie whom he clearly loves in his own twisted way, while she loves him in return (Millie's also evil, so this counts for her as well).
• NUMB3RS: Dwayne Carter started being a spy to get money for his son and when he thinks Colby is another spy, he tries to keep his secret.
• Once Upon a Time:
  • Regina/The Evil Queen loves her adopted son, Henry, and also her father (who was also named Henry). Her Start of Darkness spiral was also started off by seeing her fiance getting killed before her eyes by her own mother.
  • Mr. Gold/Rumplestiltskin cares deeply for his love, Belle, and also his son, Baelfire. (He created the curse in an attempt to find the latter in the Land Without Magic.)
  • Captain Hook also loved Milah, and was devastated when she was killed which lead to his revenge quest against Rumple.
  • And despite everything, it's revealed that Cora genuinely loved her daughter, Regina.
  • The Dark Curse, which is the curse Rumplestiltskin created to find Baelfire and is considered darkest magic in the show, is based on this trope. One of the ingredients for enacting it is the heart of the person you love most.
• Only Murders in the Building: Teddy Dimas is a grave robber and black market dealer who has no problem threatening people, including completely innocent bystanders, with death if they or their loved ones get in his way, and is overall a vicious, unethical person. However, he truly loves his son Theo, and does whatever he feels he must to protect him. He's not a great parent, being domineering and incredibly critical, but the love is clearly there. When their relationship fractures in Season Two, not least because of Teddy's controlling and poisonous influence on his son's life, he's heartbroken.
• Outlander: Captain Jonathan "Black Jack" Randall is a sadist who delights in physically and emotionally traumatizing others through rape and torture. Jamie and Claire Fraser, the main targets of his sadistic obsession who flinch at the mere mention of his name, are stunned to discover how tender and caring he is with his sickly younger brother Alex. Randall's even willing to trade military secrets to make sure Alex gets medical treatment. But just in case they think he's capable of a Heel–Face Turn, he makes sure to clarify how much he enjoyed raping and torturing Jamie and declares that he'd do it again if given the chance.
• Power Rangers
  • Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: For all their insults and arguments, Rita and Zedd truly did come to love one another, to the point that Zedd even tried to shield Rita from Zordon's Final Solution in Power Rangers in Space. Rita and Rito also have a caring, playful sibling relationship, and as hard as he is on them, it's obvious that Master Vile cares for his children on some level.
  • Power Rangers Time Force: Ransik, the Big Bad, genuinely loved his daughter Nadira despite being a mutant terrorist. This is what causes him to be one of the very few Power Rangers' main villains to find redemption. Even better, it's Redemption Earns Life. For the record, Ransik was winning his final battle against the Power Rangers. He was delivering a Curb-Stomp Battle such as had never seen before in the entire franchise when he realized that he wounded his own daughter in the crossfire. He immediately surrendered to prevent her from being hurt further.
  • Power Rangers Turbo: Well, there must be SOME reason Divatox keeps Elgar around.
  • Power Rangers Zeo: King Mondo and Queen Machina are both loving parents of Prince Sprocket, despite their mechanical nature. Their eldest son Prince Gasket and his wife Archerina are completely devoted to one another, but this puts Gasket at odds with Mondo since Archerina is the daughter of one of Mondo's old rivals.
• Preacher (2016): Ruthless gangster though he may be, Viktor seems to genuinely love his daughter and Tulip even so.
• The Prisoner: This turns out to be a big part of Number Two's motivation in the remake. Two loves his coma-stricken wife. Too bad she's secretly the real Number One. Her coma is powering the Village (which is actually a Dream Land) and it will be destroyed if she ever wakes up for longer than a day.
• Prodigal Son: Despite being a sociopathic Serial Killer, Martin Whitly legitimately loves his ex-wife and children. Threats against them are the one thing guaranteed to piss him off.
• Revolution:
  • In "The Plague Dogs", Ray Kinsey loved his daughter Lilah more than anything else. But then, she stepped on a nail, got tetanus, and he could only watch helplessly as she died. Even worse was the fact that they had medicine, but raiders had taken it all away. Ever since then, he lost his sanity, trained a whole group of attack dogs, and will not be kind to any trespassers.
  • General Sebastian Monroe, despite being the big bad guy, does have loved ones. He was quite broken up over the deaths of his family, as "Nobody's Fault But Mine" shows in a flashback. He latched on to Miles, but it turned into a borderline erotic obsession. In the episode "Home", he was able to form enough of a connection to his old girlfriend Emma that he was quite upset over her death. That, and finding out that she gave birth to his son and sent him away to somewhere else left a strong impression on him. By "The Dark Tower", he is on the run from Tom Neville's coup and he will have plenty of time to try to locate his son.
• Robin Hood: The Big Bad has a sister whom he loves very dearly.
• Salem: Anne is the apple of her father's eye-his cold-blooded, murderous, eye. He even gives her an amulet that has anti-witch magic to protect her from members of his coven, though she just thinks it's a pretty necklace.
• The Shield:
  • One of Vic's most consistent redeeming qualities is his genuine love for his children. He's neglectful towards them, but feels guilt for it and does his best to see that they're provided for, particularly his autistic sons.
  • Brutally subverted by Armadillo. Vic attempts to blackmail him by threatening to have his imprisoned brother killed, only for Armadillo to have him stabbed to ensure he can't be used as leverage against him.
• Smallville: Lana is this for Lex Luthor in Seasons 5 and 6, when he is already evil... not that anyone knows that.
• The Sopranos:
  • Tony Soprano is a Villain Protagonist through and through and over the course of the series, discards nearly every virtue that he seemingly started with. However, the one redeeming quality he carries to the end is his adoration of his two children and, while rough around the edges, he tries his absolute best to be a much better parent to them than his mother and father were to him and keep them as far away from his business as possible.
  • John "Johnny Sack" Sacramoni is just as conniving, manipulative, cruel, and ruthless as most of his fellow mobsters, but he has a genuine and deep love for both his wife Ginny and his two daughters. Johnny is notably one of the few completely faithful husbands in the entire cast, and he proves very willing to defend his wife's honor at cost of everything else.
  • Phil Leotardo is by far the most vicious, hateful, and openly sadistic mobster in the show on a show full of them. Nonetheless, he's a genuine family man who has a good relationship with his brother and grandchildren. When his brother is killed in front of him, Phil vows extremely violent and torturous retribution on his murderer and is furious when his revenge is snatched from him (by Tony killing him first). It's possibly Phil's only redeeming factor.
• Squid Game:
  • After The Reveal that the Front Man is actually Jun-ho's missing brother In-ho, it becomes clear that this is the case for him. The scene where he confronts Jun-ho is the only time he takes off his mask, allowing the audience to see him as a real human being for once, as well as keep him from hiding his emotions like he usually does, and when he aims his gun as Jun-ho, he's visibly shaking, unlike other occasions where he aims straight and without remorse.
  • Even after The Reveal that Oh Il-Nam is the mastermind of the Deadly Game, the way he talks about his family seems to imply that he genuinely cares about them.
• Stargate SG-1:
  • Played with in "Deadman Switch". Bounty Hunter Aris Boch claims that he's working for the Goa'uld System Lord Sokar in order to possibly trade a particularly valuable target for the freedom of his family. His target, a Tok'ra operative, reveals that Boch has no family. Then it turns out Boch is a Punch-Clock Villain who hates the Goa'uld just as much as our heroes, and Teal'c convinces him to fake his own death to allow SG-1 and the Tok'ra to escape.
  • Despite being Always Chaotic Evil, some of the Goa'uld actually seem quite fond of each other (Apophis really seems to care for his wife, Amonet, and son, Klorel). Given their roots in mythology, lots of family relationships are far less loving. At the same time, Apophis did not much care about his brother Ra, using Ra's death as an opportunity to muscle in on his territory. He also has no qualms about killing Ra's son Heru-ur, his own nephew.
  • Adria is an interesting example. She's the Dark Messiah of the Ori in the tenth season and she's just as ruthless and villainous as one might expect given that pedigree. However, she does retain an affection for her mother, though it never quite becomes her downfall as Vala hoped.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
  • Gul Dukat has a half-Bajoran daughter, Tora Ziyal. He gives up his career, reputation, and marriage when he decides to live with her rather than murder her as he'd originally intended—however, his love for her is not strong enough to overcome his ambitions, and he's manipulative towards her as much as anyone else, with the goal of ensuring her love and trying to attain Kira through her. He goes (more) insane with grief when she is killed.
  • Cardassians in general are subject to this trope, as Cardassians are generally polite, considerate and loyal. It's just that they also happen to be loyal to a power-hungry fascist government. In one instance, we see a Torture Technician being visited by his daughter while he is at work, and offering her kindly fatherly advice on how to care for her pet. Right in front of the man the father is currently tasked with breaking.
    • A subplot in the novel Star Trek: Ship of the Line has Picard being sent back to Cardassia Prime to confront Gul Madred. Madred is glad to see Picard back and is looking forward to finally breaking him. Then comes in Worf with Madred's daughter (now grown) and a sphere that has a countdown timer. Picard reveals that the Klingons use this to test their courage. On the count of 0, deadly nerve gas is released by the sphere. Madred relents and agrees to help Picard liberate POW camps. Then his daughter reveals that she was the one who contacted the Federation and asked for their help. Turns out her visit to "Daddy's work" during Picard's "interrogation" has resulted in a Heel–Face Turn. Even more crushed, Madred even gives Picard ships to move the prisoners. Everything Kozara does in the novel is to make up for the dishonor of his defeat at the hands of Morgan Bateson and the USS Bozeman during Kirk's time in order to restore his son's honor. However, when he's beaten by Bateson yet again, he realizes there's no shame in losing to a better man. He also realizes that his son is a brat who only cares about himself. Bateson offers to tell the Klingon High Command that Kozara fought bravely.
• Star Trek: Discovery:
  • L'Rell, though a ruthless villain, definitely has loved ones.
    • She seems to genuinely care about her crewmates on the Ship of the Dead, risking herself to protect Voq and swearing dire vengeance on Kol when it turned out that he'd had many of the others killed.
    • She and Voq were lovers, so she's understandably upset when she initially can't get Voq's personality to emerge from Tyler and he rejects her.
    • In Season 2, she threatens to cut Georgiou's throat when Georgiou asks if she's able to kill Tyler to save her chancellorship.
    • She also swears to kill the head of House Kor when he kidnaps her son to try and force her to abdicate.
    • Also in Season 2, she immediately recoils in horror when Tyler/Voq tells her that her touch feels like a violation.
    • She clearly loves her son, threatening to disembowel Kol-Sha if he hurts him. L'rell sends him off to a safe haven so he can be protected.
  • Emperor Georgiou is the ruler of the Mirror Universe, the ruthless Terran Empire, and is every bit as bloodthirsty, conniving, and self-centered as that implies. However, she adopted her universe's Burnham, raising her as her own and misses her terribly. When she first meets our Burnham (who at the time is masquerading as her Terran counterpart), she's shocked when she refers to her by her first name... because, as she says with a noticeable tremble in her voice, her Burnham always called her Mother. Even after finding out the truth, she develops an attachment to our Burnham. She knows it's not the same woman she raised, but she can't help but view her as a Replacement Goldfish, even being unable to kill her because of it.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation: In an interesting use of the trope, one of the liberated Borg drones goes absolutely apeshit when his comrade, Torsus, is killed.
• Supernatural:
  • Seems to love playing with this trope. In some cases, the monsters are monsters BECAUSE of what happened to their loved ones previously at the hands of other monsters or hunters, and some actually form close-knit "families".
  • In "Two Minutes to Midnight", Pestilence is hinted to have some affection for the demon accompanying him when he hugs her. He also cares a great deal about his brothers, the other horsemen.
  • Azazel reveals that his Co-Dragons Meg and Tom are his children^note Whether this means literally or not is unknown and is furious when Tom is killed and Meg is sent back to Hell. Subverted by Tom when he tests the Colt on Meg without batting an eye. Meg on the other hand seemed shocked that her "brother" would do that to her.
  • Lucifer wants to wipe out all humanity and the demons who serve him and turn the Earth into his own pristine Paradise. He does show affection for angels though, especially his three direct brothers, the other archangels. He begs his younger brother Gabriel not to turn against him and is brought to the verge of crying when he has to kill him. His reunion with Michael is filled with mutual regret over what happened in the past and Lucifer again tries to convince his older brother to stop fighting him. Gabriel and Michael both point out that he loves himself even more and his actions are little more than a petty temper tantrum against God for creating humans, but his affection for his brothers does appear genuine.
  • Subverted by the demon Crowley. He had a son, Gavin, who they were sure could be used as leverage against him. Turns out they both despise each other. Crowley proclaims he couldn't care less what they did to Gavin and that he would even relish the idea of them tormenting his soul. His son then gets him back by betraying the location of Crowley's bones in the hopes they could burn them.
  • But double subverted in a later episode, when Crowley does decide to take on the role of a caring father for Gavin, and tries to figure out how he may help his Fish out of Temporal Water son find a place in the world.
• Survivors: Dr. James Whitaker, a biochemist leading research into the virus, is the second season's main antagonist who uses increasingly unethical practices (i.e. human guinea pigs with no consent) in doing so. However, he's also desperate to protect his wife and son, whom he's kept secure within the research facility (violating protocol).
• Tehran: Faraz is a brutal, devoted agent of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and also utterly dedicated to his wife, who he loves dearly, though his duty comes first.
• Terra Nova: From Boelyn's point of view prior to Lucas Taylor taking over Terra Nova, Nathaniel Taylor fits this trope:
  Boelyn: Taylor's a complete bastard, and then some... but he loves his son. He'd sooner slit his own throat than hurt Lucas.
• True Blood: No matter how vile, depraved and generally awful any given entity (supernatural or mortal) may be, they tend to have at least one person whom they truly, deeply love. Even the likes of Russell Edgington had his beloved Talbot.
• Underbelly is kind of Even Evil Has Loved Ones: the series, where Mario and Graham mourn Gangitano's murder, then Jason mourns his brother Mark, then Andrew mourns killing his best mate Dino, then Graham mourns losing his two sons, then Mick mourns Graham, Roberta mourns Andrew, Zara mourns Lew, and those are just some of the highlights from the first season.
• Veronica Mars: Aaron Echolls physically abuses his son Logan, cheats on his wife, and murdered a teenage girl that he slept with after she threatened to tell on him, but he cares a great deal about his adopted daughter Trina. Enough to unleash a severe beating on her abusive boyfriend when he finds out what the guy did to her.
• The Walking Dead (2010):
  • Merle is a racist, borderline sociopathic Jerkass, but he seems to genuinely loves his brother.
  • The Governor is a megalomaniacal proto-warlord, but he loved his daughter, which is why he keeps her locked in a closet after she becomes a Walker.
• Warehouse 13: H.G Wells — even after 110 years, the only thing she genuinely cares and mourns for is her daughter, Christina.
• Why Women Kill:
  • Rita is quite a ruthless women, but she genuinely does care for Isabel. It turns out they're cousins.
  • Alma grows increasingly evil while the series progresses, but still loved her daughter and husband, although she starts to treat both worse.
• Witchblade: Tommy Gallo, the Starter Villain for the series, is a mafia hitman who kills Sara's partner in the pilot. In a much later episode a completely Ax-Crazy criminal enters town and starts to wipe out all the other gangs one by one. Gallo is horrified that one of those killed was his nephew, since he promised his sister that he'd look after him.
• Wynonna Earp eventually reveals that this trope is the cause of the Earp Curse: because Wyatt Earp killed the Stone Witch's sons, her demon husband laid the curse on Wyatt and all his descendants.
• The X-Files:
  • In the ever-confusing plot surrounding Samantha Mulder and whatever became of her, at one point it is said that the Big Bad, CSM, rescued Samantha from her captors and raised her as his own. She points out that he was a caring and loving father.
  • For that matter, CSM's "complicated" relationship with Mulder makes more sense when it's revealed that he is quite possibly Mulder's biological father.
    • His son Jeffrey Spender, on the other hand, appears to receive far less regard, ending with CSM permanently disfiguring him.
• Young Dracula:
  • Ingrid is excited to become evil incarnate by joining with her blood mirror self, but draws the line when it suggests she kill her boyfriend Will and decides to run off.
  • He won't admit it, but the Count still has feelings for his ex-wife Magda. He does sometimes show that he cares for Vlad as well.
• Zero (2021): Rico, the Cuban criminal who's the leader of the violent gang terrorizing the Barrio for a greedy developer, is also a family man with a wife and daughter who he clearly loves. Mr. Ricci, who hired him, is Anna's father and also shows obvious love for her.

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