Basic Trope: The Sociopath who fights for the good guys.
- Straight: Sam Sadist is an Anti-Hero who is incapable of empathising with others, nor does he care about his actions towards humanity as a whole. He is smug, prideful, hedonistic, manipulative, and exploitative. Nevertheless, he's fighting for the greater good alongside the heroes.
- Exaggerated: Sam Sadist is downright sociopathic to the point where he will kill anyone because he can, but is still considered a hero.
- Downplayed:
- Pay Evil unto Evil
- Sam Sadist is a rough and outright psychopathic at times but is truly friendly to his comrades unless you're his foe.....
- Sam Sadist is a Moral Sociopath.
- Good Is Not Nice
- Nominal Hero
- Justified:
- Sam only does good things because he needed some amusement.
- Sam is a Moral Pragmatist avoiding landing himself in prison for the rest of his life.
- Sam is a Well-Intentioned Extremist.
- Sam is out for some revenge against his enemies from the past. It's just a matter of personal importance to him.
- Good Is Not Nice
- Black-and-Gray Morality is in effect.
- Sam's sociopathy IS his good trait.
- Most of Sam's victims were huge Asshole Victims.
- Inverted:
- Subverted:
- Sam later drops the "hero" part and betrays his team to work for Nicholas Nefarious' crime ring.
- Sam has a Pet the Dog moment proving that he's actually does care, he's just a particularly cynical Knight in Sour Armor with a very dark sense of humor.
- On closer inspection, Sam is not prideful, hedonistic, or manipulative, which means he doesn't qualify for the "sociopathic" part of this trope.
- Double Subverted:
- Ultimately, it turns out that Sam was a Fake Defector and a mole who infiltrated Nick's crime ring to bring it down from the inside.
- One moment of being nice from Sam is about as rare as every single "extremely rare event" situation in pop culture happening at the exact same time. It’s not as reassuring as Sam thinks.
Bill Smith: How is it that the dudes of the BBC wrote it? Yeah, right: "You let one of them go, but that’s nothing new. Every now and then, a little victim’s spared because she smiled, because he’s got freckles, because they begged. And that’s how you live with yourself. That’s how you slaughter millions. Because once in a while, on a whim, if the wind’s in the right direction, you happen to be kind".- The fact that Sam Sadist is only a "sociopath" in the hyperbolic sense of the word is not really that reassuring to the general audience, considering how monstrously insensitive he is when he is not trying to kill you.
- Parodied: Heroic Comedic Sociopath.
- Zig Zagged: Sam is a Mood-Swinger. On a good day, he is an All-Loving Hero who gives sweets to kids and caresses little kittens; on a bad day, well...
- Averted:
- Sam is a hero with no sociopathic traits.
- Sam is a sociopathic villain and isn't going to have a Heel–Face Turn.
- Enforced: "How do we make it clear to audience that good guys ain't always the gentlest ones?"
- Lampshaded:
- "Tell me why is this guy on our side?"
- Upon being called out for something questionable, Sam answers with "Being a hero and being a good guy are two separate things."
- Invoked: When Bob is recruiting for his team, he intentionally recruits a sociopath because he needs someone to take care of the Dirty Business.
- Defied:
- Sam makes a genuine effort to become a better person.
- The first thing Saint Dinkleberry does right after hiring Sam is to Mind Rape some humanity into his brain. And for the inevitable "Sam gets 'fixed' and decides to seek revenge" situation, a little extra insurance in the form of a brain bomb wired to go off if/when it detects any sociopathic thoughts.
- The team refuses to hire Sam and make sure to blacklist him (from both hero and villain hiring agencies) until he gets a damn boost in his empathy rating.
- Exploited: Sam's teammates threaten to hand enemies over to him if they don't cooperate.
- Discussed: "You look like you're acting VERY empathic, Sam."
- Conversed: "This new guy on the team is so damn anti-social and proud of it. I bet he's the soon-to-be Sixth Ranger Traitor." "We'll have to wait for the next episode and see."
- Played For Laughs: Heroic Comedic Sociopath.
- Played For Drama: Sam's attitude and methods cause Bob to eventually snap at Sam and tell him to ditch his sociopath tendencies or Get Out!. This creates friction between the two as the team tries to deal with the Big Bad.
Back to Sociopathic Hero
