Basic Trope: A character who enjoys the pain and suffering of others.
- Straight: Bob is a hired killer who, despite this not being ordered to do so, loves to terrorize his targets and watch them suffer and cry in agony for his own enjoyment before he kills them as instructed.
- Exaggerated:
- Ax-Crazy.
- Bob spends all his waking hours torturing people in unusual ways that he even dreams of doing it in his sleep, and he even keeps a diary where he describes the helplessness of his victims and their loud cries in great detail.
- Complete Monster
- Downplayed:
- The only torture Bob inflicts on others is of the Poke the Poodle variety: assaults them with a feather pillow, puts legos on all of the floor and makes them step on every one, etc.
- Bob acts based on his sadistic tendencies only once or twice but most of the time he keeps it in check.
- While Bob rarely seems to enjoy his cruel deeds, but they do seem do give him a sense of relief.
- Justified:
- Bob suffers from severe sociopathy and is mentally unstable.
- Bob had sadistic parents who forced him to be cruel like them.
- Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor
- Inverted:
- Emperor Evulz wants Alice to torture him.
- Bob loves affection.
- Bob is completely indifferent to the suffering he causes.
- Subverted:
- Bob is given the job of torturing Alice, but feels absolutely repulsed by his actions rather than gaining any pleasure from them.
- "What do you want to do with me? Why do you need all these tools?" "Relax, these are for show, you're safe with me..."
- Double Subverted: "...for now. When we're at the Emperor's palace, we'll have loooots of fun time together!"
- Parodied: Bob is a weak and inexperienced villain, but he really wants to to experience this sadistic pleasure other villains talk about, so for his first try, he decides to inflict pain upon... some dolls.
- Zig Zagged: Bob is so mentally unstable that sometimes he delights in terrorizing people, and sometimes he feels absolutely nothing.
- Averted: Emperor Evulz does not harm his captives, or at least doesn't like to do it.
- Enforced: "We need a way for Emperor Evulz to cross the Moral Event Horizon."
- Lampshaded: "Alice, if you're ever captured by Bob... don't get captured by Bob. Death will be far preferable to life in his hands."
- Invoked: "Now we're alone, and I happen to have this whip here."
- Exploited: Emperor Evulz promotes Bob to be his Torture Technician.
- Defied: Emperor Evulz is repulsed by the thought of torture, as Even Evil Has Standards.
- Discussed: "Diane, please, don't ask Bob out. He may like you, but who knows, maybe he does not keep his hobbies safe, sane, and consensual."
- Conversed: "Oh, again with the sexism - he's a sadist, she's a victim. It's like all men are brutes, and all women suffer because of men."
- Implied: One of Bob's minions notices that whenever Bob engages in torture, he always has a small smile on his face and his body language perks up in subtle ways.
- Deconstructed:
- In the grips of his twisted euphoria, Bob accidentally kills Alice. Knowing the penalty for failing Emperor Evulz, Bob takes one of the knives he used on Alice and ends his life.
- Bob realizes that he feels pleasure from killing and tormenting people. This horrifies him and prompts him to seek treatment for his sadism.
- Bob's love of tormenting his victims before killing them leaves him wide open when the cavalry arrives and promptly gives him the No-Holds-Barred Beatdown he deserves.
- Reconstructed: Evulz was amused by Bob's methods, so eventually, he hires Brad, who is not only as sadistic as Bob but is also instructed about not crossing limits of his victims, like in Alice's case.
Now that you know what a Sadist is, let's move on to the whips. Hehehehehehe!
