Basic Trope: A villain who is evil due to terrible circumstances and/or choices that drove them to villainy.
- Straight:
- Dr. Psychosis is a Mad Scientist and Serial-Killer Killer who became evil after his family was murdered.
- Dr. Psychosis is a Dr. Jerk who is out to destroy someone, in revenge, due to being responsible for an incident that turned him into a super-villainous megalomaniac.
- Exaggerated:
- Dr. Psychosis is a Fallen Hero who becomes an Omnicidal Maniac after his country is conquered and his people massacred by the nation he seeks to destroy.
- Dr. Psychosis feels he had been controlled his whole life, like he has no freedom. Now it's his turn to control the world.
- Downplayed: Dr. Psychosis is an Affably Evil Playful Hacker and a Dirty Cop who robs banks because all the public and private investors withdrew funding from his projects.
- Justified: Dr. Psychosis' victims are terrible people who have wronged him, so he is driven to do evil things to them.
- Inverted:
- Subverted:
- Dr. Psychosis still kills people regardless of whether they have wronged him or not.
- Dr. Psychosis is offered forgiveness from Bob and does a Heel–Face Turn.
- Dr. Psychosis has an Ignored Epiphany, rejecting any guilt or fault he may feel.
- Dr. Psychosis eventually makes a Heel–Face Turn, and becomes The Atoner.
- Evil Is Petty
- Double Subverted:
- Dr. Psychosis is also killing innocent people because he wants people to hate him enough to want to kill him as he can't live with himself.
- Dr. Psychosis' redemption is temporary and he soon goes back to killing people because he thinks that his methods of justice are better, even if they are evil.
- Dr. Psychosis has been in denial about his feelings of guilt and eventually regrets his actions.
- Dr. Psychosis suffers another tragic circumstance, causing him to turn back to his life of evil.
- Parodied: Dr. Psychosis is an exterminator who wants to stop the giant-mutant-radioactive-killer-cockroaches from outer space, but thinks he does not deserve redemption.
- Zig-Zagged: Heel–Face Revolving Door.
- Averted:
- There is nothing sympathetic or tragic about Dr. Psychosis' actions.
- There are no villains.
- Generic Doomsday Villain
- Enforced: The executives issue a mandate to the writers, instructing them to make the villains more sympathetic to the viewers under the belief that they can attract viewership.
- Lampshaded: "Dr. Psychosis may be a villain, but the world has wronged him in so many ways that I can't hate him for it."
- Invoked: "Those jerks called me mad, but I'll show them who's mad!"
- Exploited: Anti-Hero Steel Blood keeps reminding Dr. Psychosis about his past to push him over the edge.
- Defied: "I don't care whether Dr. Psychosis' victims are assholes or whether he knows he's wrong. He's still evil and needs to be stopped."
- Discussed: "I know Dr. Psychosis is evil and all, but come on, if I lived a life like he did I'm sure I'd turn evil too."
- Conversed: "Wow, that Mad Scientist guy sure has gone through some crap in his life."
- Implied: Dr. Psychosis never speaks of his past, but his actions show he's fighting out of desperation, not just For the Evulz.
- Deconstructed: Dr. Psychosis lets his past get the better of him and ultimately starts to go insane and forget what he was fighting for in the first place.
- Reconstructed: Dr. Psychosis eventually manages to put his goals before his emotions and regains his sanity.
- Played for Laughs: "What was that, Steel? I couldn't hear you over the sound of my troubled past."
- Played for Drama: After the heroes defeat Dr. Psychosis, they regret having had to do so.
Back to Tragic Villain.
