Basic Trope: Behind every horrible bitch, there's a man responsible for having made her that way.
- Straight: Marla only betrayed The Captain because she was manipulated by Evilo. When she saw how far he was willing to go, she did a High-Heel–Face Turn.
- Exaggerated:
- Marla jaywalked only because of Evilo's influence.
- All women are manipulated by all men.
- All the male villains are deranged psychopaths, while all the female villains are anti-villains who were coerced or manipulated.
- Downplayed:
- Marla commits crimes of her own free will, but is implied to have had an abusive father, though it is never directly shown.
- Marla is the only female member of the band of villains and is also the only Anti-Villain.
- Justified:
- Marla is not an actual woman, but a Robot Girl programmed by Evilo that broke free of her programming.
- Alternatively, Evilo just programmed Marla to live up to the stereotypes that he believes are associated with women, being sweet and innocent. This backfires horribly on him.
- Marla is not an actual woman, but a Robot Girl programmed by Evilo that broke free of her programming.
- Inverted:
- Lady Macbeth
- Marla is The Corrupter: she corrupts men and uses them to do horrible things for her own selfish goals.
- Subverted:
- It looks like Marla was an Unwitting Pawn of Evilo, but actually she knew exactly what she was doing.
- Marla was driven to evil by her abusive past...but the abuser was her Evil Matriarch.
- Marla was indeed tricked into evildoing but it turns out the manipulator is Evila, a total bitch with no excuse.
- Double Subverted:
- But she still didn't fully understand what she was getting herself into (or knew but didn’t want to) and does a High-Heel–Face Turn.
- But the Evil Matriarch only abused Marla because she herself was abused by her father.
- But Evila was actually Evilo in disguise.
- Parodied:
- Marla has no will of her own and just obeys the orders of the last male character who talked to her.
- Despite having enslaved entire planets and having their residents raped, Marla is completely forgiven of her actions by the heroes once she plays the victim card about how Evilo made her do everything.
- Zig Zagged: Marla keeps switching sides and nobody’s sure what to make of her. Her motivations and backstory also changes every time she talks about it.
- Averted:
- The female villains are equally as bad as the male villains.
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse.
- Enforced: "The Moral Guardians will complain if a woman is really bad, especially if we let the heroes hit her!"
- Lampshaded: "Captain, it is illogical to assume Marla is innocent on the basis of her gender."
- Invoked: Marla is a robot that is programmed to turn evil if a man mistreats her.
- Exploited: Marla, the resident Bitch in Sheep's Clothing, pretends to be an innocent woman being hit by an evil man.
- Implied: The series in which Marla appears has virtually no other named villainess of note aside from her, but the heroic ensemble she's up against has several women in it.
- Defied:
- "Too bad Marla, we don't do the "ovaries = special treatment" routine here. No matter what Evilo did to you, what you chose to do is still your own adult decision. You will get what's coming to you as an accomplice and henchwoman to him."
- "You think some guy has made me the way I am? Think again. I've always been a bitch and I enjoy every minute of being that way. I am the victim of no one, get it through your thick skull!"
- Discussed: "By God, we can't punish Marla for this! She's so sweet and innocent!" "But she has been working for Evilo. I am certain that this is possibly a ploy to lower our guards, as much as she's lowering yours, so that she can report back to Evilo and outplay us."
- Conversed: "Do you think Marla would be portrayed so sympathetically if she weren't female?"
- Deconstructed:
- Marla claims that she only did bad things because she was manipulated by Evilo. She goes free and commits the same crime again on her own, killing more people.
- Marla is actually quite offended by the mindset. She views it as misogynistic that people think she can't make her own decisions/ was horribly manipulated just because she chose evil.
- Marco is an Unwitting Pawn of Evila, but because he is male, he is rejected and persecuted by the heroes. Marco falls into a deep depression, believing himself to have crossed the Moral Event Horizon, and eventually commits suicide. Meanwhile, Evila is considered a victim of Marco, and so is Easily Forgiven and gets away scot-free.
- Reconstructed:
- Marla has a Freudian Excuse, but the heroes recognize that this doesn't mean she's not responsible for her actions.
- The heroes kill Marla but continue to blame Evilo for her Dark and Troubled Past.
- The heroes realize that females are not inherently better than males, and accept Marco like they did Marla.
- The heroes forgive Marco and let him escape to a new life but Evila suffers the full extent of justice and gets mercilessly executed, despite her pulling the gender card and a possibly fabricated Freudian Excuse in order to escape punishment.
Back to Females Are More Innocent
