Basic Trope: A character voluntarily takes all blame to save others, and no one else knows it.
- Straight: A noble Anti-Hero discovers a cosmic threat to the mankind, becomes a vicious God-Emperor to prepare the world for it, and is finally killed by La Résistance, knowing that they are now strong enough to fight back whatever he foresaw. They just think they've deposed a brutal tyrant.
- Exaggerated: The Big Bad ruthlessly pursues and exterminates anyone who suspects there's good in him, just to maintain the impression that he is a monster.
- Downplayed: ???
- Justified: The World Is Not Ready for the knowledge of whatever the "Big Bad" has foreseen, hence it must remain a secret.
- Inverted: The Big Bad justifies his actions as Necessarily Evil to all his victims before he makes them such.
- Subverted:
- La Résistance realize that the evil emperor they've just killed must have been trying to protect them from whatever and resurrect him. It turns out, he has never given a shit about them and proceeds to Take Over the World again...
- The Big Bad skillfully fakes his own death, living to an old age in peace, enjoying the world that he saved.
- Just before going down, the Big Bad gives a My Brilliant Evil Plan speech to the entire world, explaining why he has been so evil until now.
- Double Subverted:
- The resurrected Big Bad only takes over the world again in order to complete his real plan of saving humanity that was interrupted by the resistance earlier. He then dies once more.
- The Big Bad experiences this new world under the radar for long enough that he decides he has succeeded and has nowhere else to go, promptly dying for real.
- The emperor made a recording of the aforementioned speech, but had a change of heart and decided that he could live with being hated if it meant the new world would be less prone to infighting. The recording is found in his trashed lair after he is already long dead.
- Parodied: A Wide-Eyed Idealist with a wrong idea about his fellow humans' intelligence attempts repeatedly to pass off as a great villain and get himself killed for a noble goal. They just laugh it off.
- Zig Zagged: The Big Bad is an eternally reincarnating scheming deity whose goals are so confusing, everybody and their mother have different opinions on whether he is really saving humanity or just having his villainous fun.
- Averted: The good guy explains the danger to his friends and they change the world together.
- Enforced: An Affably Evil Big Bad becomes unexpectedly popular and is retconned by the executives to give him a secret noble goal.
- Lampshaded: "What are you, some kind of Jesus wannabe? 'Forgive them, for they know not what they do'?"
- Invoked: "I want them to hate me for what I do now. The more they hate me, the closer I come to saving them."
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: La Résistance realize in the nick of time what the Big Bad is planning and Take a Third Option, saving both him and the world.
- Discussed: "He is so blatantly evil, it's almost as if he was acting out a villain... OH SHI-"
- Conversed: "This is going to be one of those endings where we find out that schmuck we just killed was actually saving the world, making us... Murderers?
- Deconstructed:
- The Big Bad is killed but La Résistance starts fighting among themselves right afterwards and when shit hits the fan, they are all obliterated.
- A character is scapegoated and sacrificed, only for the sacrificers to learn that the problem still exists because it was their fault all along. Meaning they killed someone for no reason and the scapegoat only went along with it because they were either indoctrinated, couldn't stop the blame game, or the scapegoat wanted to die for what they thought was a noble cause.
- Everyone is right to be mad at the scapegoat but they unfairly blame the scapegoat for things that weren't their fault. Convincing the scapegoat to back out, find a way to undo their sacrifice, or call out the sacrificers for what they're prepared to do to pass the blame.
- Reconstructed: After beginning to fight amongst themselves, La Résistance realizes the need for a Big Bad to fight against and become it.
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