Basic Trope: A villain (or a cruel Anti-Hero) who is convinced that their actions are righteous.
- Straight: High Priestess Alice, the Big Bad, thinks that she is The Hero, eliminating crime by killing any criminals regardless of whether or not they were justified.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice orders the genocide of several nations but still sees herself as the Messiah.
- Tautological Templar.
- Downplayed:
- Alice considers herself someone who has to do evil deeds for the greater good.
- Alice is a Well-Intentioned Extremist who thinks she's a Pragmatic Hero.
- Alice simply isn't cut out for heroism.
- Alice thinks she’s being Cruel to Be Kind, but in reality, is being Innocently Insensitive.
- Justified:
- The heroes of the past were way too soft on the criminals, and Alice felt that she has to make up for that.
- It's a Crapsack World where fascist policies are necessary for civilization and overall happiness.
- Alice suffers from Black-and-White Insanity.
- Alice is doing right by her culture's standards, which are extremely messed up from an outsider's perspective.
- The villains in this story are so evil that Alice is justified in using extreme measures.
- Alice used to be evil and is overcompensating in trying to be a hero.
- The villains have taken advantage of her compassion and mercy too many times. Alice will not be fooled again.
- Alice is simply a bad person who is very good at convincing herself otherwise.
- Inverted:
- Alice is genuinely good, but is good to a fault and doesn't do enough to stop the spread of evil.
- Alice is a Noble Demon, who does good deeds whilst having a villainous reputation.
- Alice is an Ideal Hero who thinks their actions are wrong and evil.
- Alice is a proud villain who sucks at being evil.
- Alice is seen as villain by the heroes but she doesn’t intentionally do anything bad, only her intentions are contrast to the heroes.
- Subverted:
- Alice is built up as a Knight Templar, but that seems to just be because of a smear campaign from her enemies.
- The Heroes are actually from a terrifying Stepford Suburbia suffering from Moral Myopia and Slave to PR. Alice's evil deeds were, actually, to knock down a man who tried to kidnap a teenage mother to "make an example against irresponsibility"...
- Alice is a cynical opportunist who plays on people's fears and prejudices in order to gain power.
- At the time, Alice seems to throw Disproportionate Retribution out like Mardi Gras beads, but later on the heroes realize that the stakes were high enough to vindicate Alice's actions (at least partially) since anything was better than the alternative. Horrible, yes, but also the only way.
- Alice only uses the worst solution when she absolutely has to: for example, when one of her men is infected with a virus that will turn him into a horrific monster, Alice puts him down simply because there's no other option: The Virus has no cure.
- Alice is an Ax-Crazy murderer who doesn't actually care about the law; she only kills criminals because it is more "acceptable" than killing innocents.
- Double Subverted:
- ...those enemies only scratched the surface. She's ten times worse than even they thought.
- ...and then she shoots the teenage mother for getting pregnant as a teenager.
- She starts Becoming the Mask.
- Only it then turns that there was a second way to solve the problem and that this one didn't come with a body count, making Alice look more like a Lawful Stupid Blood Knight who simply never considered a nonviolent approach.
- Parodied:
- Alice slaughters people for disobeying the slightest rules - going to bed too late, eating too much candy, etc. Expect a Mattress-Tag Gag.
- Alice locks people into concentration camps for failing trivial grammatical mistakes.
- Alice kicks a puppy and acts surprised when nobody thanks her for saving the day.
- Zig Zagged: Alice's enemies were making up the fact that she was a Knight Templar. But they weren't, and they were in the wrong. Or were they?
- Averted:
- Alice does not think that she is in the right nor is extremely brutal, but is apathetic and Only in It for the Money (or whatever else she can gain from it).
- Alice is a genuinely good person (albeit not being nice).
- Alice is a Card-Carrying Villain.
- Enforced: "Hmm...we need another madman - one that is different from the other psychopaths. How about we make Alice a self-righteous twit?"
- Lampshaded:
- "Evil will only beget evil. Therefore, I must extinguish it... all of it".
- "You wanna see evil, witch hunter? Look in the damn mirror."
- "The scariest bad guys tend to be the ones who believe they're actually the heroes."
- Invoked: A Greater-Scope Villain, whether that be Abusive Precursors, a God of Evil or Religion of Evil raise her to be this way.
- Exploited: Manipulative Bastard Emperor Evulz pretends to be a Well-Intentioned Extremist who genuinely agrees with her cause. He uses this trust to have her target everyone who opposes him.
- Defied: Alice fears that she may become one of these in time, and has a strict personal code of behavior, or a pact with another to take her down should she go too far, while still being relentless in her pursuit of evil.
- Discussed: "Ever since Alice came around, crime's way down!" "Yeah, but lethal stabbings are up 500%!"
- Conversed: "There is nothing more dangerous than a person who thinks that they are doing the right thing whilst slaughtering villages. Now, they are the madmen".
- Deconstructed:
- Despite the brutal ways Alice uses to "clean house", it becomes clear that Alice's ways start to get some results. The crime ratings drop down in record speed, either because the criminals are dead or are afraid that Alice will get them next and so stop being one while they still have the chance. The "heroes" find out that they can't fight Alice since her campaigns had earned her the people's overwhelming support.
- Or the opposite happens, and crime level skyrockets, because the people believe that "they might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb."
Since All Crimes Are Equal for Alice, they're going to be jailed/executed anyway, no matter what they did, so they might as well really do something worth getting arrested for. Alice tries to bring down justice but eventually ends up killing everybody. One of her personal guards then asks what she's going to do next, and Alice doesn't quite know what to do. Depending on her sanity, she may just try killing her guards for their (completely imaginary) "crimes", or she may go through a Villainous Breakdown.
- Or the opposite happens, and crime level skyrockets, because the people believe that "they might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb."
- Alice's parents raised her up hoping to instill a strict sense of justice. However, she ended up growing up arrogant and unable to see her own flaws while judging others based on their flaws.
- Despite the brutal ways Alice uses to "clean house", it becomes clear that Alice's ways start to get some results. The crime ratings drop down in record speed, either because the criminals are dead or are afraid that Alice will get them next and so stop being one while they still have the chance. The "heroes" find out that they can't fight Alice since her campaigns had earned her the people's overwhelming support.
- Reconstructed:
- But if Alice’s actions really were vindicated after all, then that means the heroes can use Alice to maintain order in their society.
- ...But later, when confronted by her own flaws (perhaps in a dramatic "Shut Up, Hannibal!!" speech from The Hero), she sees them in herself and acknowledges that she must also die... once she's finished with every other evil person in the world.
- Played For Laughs: Alice is claiming how outright noble she is while committing some action that is so horrible it’s hilarious.
- Played for Drama: Alice's sheer fanaticism and devotion to her cause makes her a particularly frightening foe since it leads her to commit reprehensibly evil crimes to achieve her goals, so much to the point where if she ever fully realizes the suffering she causes, she will either be crushed by the gravity of her crimes and deem herself too sinful to live, or embrace her heinousness and continue to commit them.
- Played for Horror: Alice devolves into a complete Tautological Templar who is essentially immune to all attempts at reason.
Back to the Knight Templar page to be PURIFIED!
