Basic Trope: A character who humanizes a villain or an anti heroic character.
- Straight: Alice humanizes Bob, who is a dark, gritty hero who seeks revenge on criminals.
- Exaggerated: Alice humanizes Bob, who happens to be a villain who is impossible to redeem.
- Downplayed:
- Alice manages to humanize a character who is asocial and indifferent to others.
- Bob has a good amount of moral agency, but Alice puts him back on track when faced with difficult choices.
- Alice can bring out Bob's better side, but it doesn't entirely spare her from his usual attitude.
- Alice isn't exactly a good person herself, but she manages to keep Bob from going too far.
- Justified:
- Bob is inspired by kind, virtuous Alice and aspires to be like her.
- Alice and Bob are in love and he tones down his villainous behavior so they can be together without complications.
- Alice is Bob's younger sister or daughter, and he cleans up his act to set an example for her and/or make her happy.
- Bob just likes Alice.
- Inverted:
- Subverted:
- Kick the Morality Pet
- It turns out that Bob is kind to Alice because he has a Hidden Heart of Gold, and Alice is actually the reason why he does bad things.
- Double Subverted:
- Bob apologises after he kicks the morality pet and vows never to do anything to hurt her again.
- Then it turns out that Bob only did bad things prior to meeting Alice, and he did them for really petty reasons. Doing fewer bad things and for Alice's sake is him practicing more restraint and/or trying to be Just Like Robin Hood.
- Parodied: Alice gives Bob a Dope Slap every time he threatens to kill someone. Which he does with remarkable frequency.
- Zig Zagged: ???
- Averted: Alice has no effect on Bob at all.
- Enforced: "We need a character who can make the Anti-Hero a more pleasant person."
- Lampshaded:Bob: If you all don't all shut up I'll stop this car and leave you all in the middle of nowhere!
Charles: …I'm guessing except Alice?
Bob: Except Alice. - Invoked: Alice purposely gets close to Bob in order to keep him from crossing a line.
- Exploited:
- Bob's enemies know of his affection for Alice, as well as his reputation as a badass Anti-Hero, and use this knowledge to tease him and get under his skin.
- Alice puts herself in harm's way, convincing the formerly-apathetic Bob to save the day.
- Defied: "Listen, toots, I'm not gonna let you change me for who I am. I change for nobody!"
- Discussed: "You ever notice how Bob seems to treat everyone like crap, yet he never yells at Alice?"
- Conversed: "I love these type of characters whose presence softens gruff, gritty heroes."
- Deconstructed:
- Bob cares about Alice a lot, but because of the Crapsack World they are living in he was forced to commit crueler things for her sake, which caused a wedge in their relationship.
- Just because Bob is nice to Alice, that doesn't negate the rest of his actions. However, because others know how kind he is to Alice, he is able to downplay actions that would otherwise cross the Moral Event Horizon by putting more emphasis on his relationship with Alice, effectively making him a Karma Houdini.
- Alternatively, the story and characters see his treatment of Alice as hypocrisy at best, since he's willing to hurt everything she may care about but doesn't care as long as she's safe and gives him her favor. Therefore, he's not actually being nice—he's just keeping her as a pet in the truest sense.
- Aware that Alice is the only person Bob cares for, his enemies kill her in order to get Revenge by Proxy. Predictably, Bob loses what little humanity he had left and becomes a Complete Monster in his quest for revenge.
- Reconstructed:
- Bob strives to rein in his darker impulses in an attempt to mend his relationship with Alice. It will take time and hard work, but he is prepared to make the effort for her sake.
- Bob uses Alice to excuse his darker actions, and while this works with many, it doesn't work with Alice. She doesn't like being a walking get-out-of-jail-free card and so she scolds him for his darker actions or uses some other Cool and Unusual Punishment.
- Bob's enemies realize that targeting Alice is quite literally the stupidest thing they could possibly do, and that for all the trouble Bob gives them all the time, Alice is the only thing in the world holding him back.
- Played For Laughs: Bob captures Alice, locks her in a cage, and treats her like a beloved pet hamster. Bob is too amused by Alice's hamster-like antics to do anything evil.
- Played For Drama: Alice is the only person Bob is remotely nice to or trusts. Once Alice is revealed to be The Mole, Bob is devastated by her betrayal, and goes on a depressed rampage which makes him a danger to himself and others.
Back to Morality Pet.
