Basic Trope: A character who takes the law into his own hands to ensure justice.
- Straight: Alex, a regular citizen, decides to go out his way to beat up criminals.
- Exaggerated: Alex goes on his way to kill any murderer, torturer, or rapist he can find.
- Downplayed: Alex becomes a Bully Hunter to beat up those who bully others.
- Justified:
- The legal system has no effective methods to deal with criminals who continue to run amok. Alex felt that something needed to be done.
- The legal system is overtly corrupt and criminals regularly get off through bribery or through calling in favors. Thus Alex can not rely upon them and he is unwilling to stand by and let heinous crimes go unpunished.
- The criminals in question victimized Alex, so for him It's Personal.
- Inverted:
- Subverted: It turns out that Alex doesn't care about justice and only beats up criminals for the thrill of it.
- Double Subverted: He gets a thrill out of it because Smiting Evil Feels Good.
- Parodied: Alex hunts down people with unpaid tickets and mugs them for their owed payment.
- Unparodied: Alex works for the city budget office. He mugs people with overdue tickets and uses the money to supplement programs he feels are underfunded.
- Zig Zagged: Alex initially decides to begin hunting criminals but decides to pursue a career as a police officer instead. However, when someone he arrests gets Off on a Technicality, he decides to begin exacting his own form of justice as planned, using his connections on the force to track down targets and avoid getting arrested.
- Averted: Alex doesn't take the law on his own hands.
- Enforced: "Badass Antiheroes seem popular these days. Think you could write one, like say, a guy who hunts criminals in his spare time?"
- Lampshaded: "I'm no cop, but I'm bringing you guys to justice."
- Invoked: "The police doesn't seem to care about catching those assholes, so it's time someone does the job for them."
- Exploited: Someone begins framing people he wants dead so that Alex will kill them.
- Defied: Alex chooses not to be a vigilante knowing that he'll end up in trouble with the police.
- Discussed: "Hey, has anyone seen Alex? I haven't seen him since I told him about that bank robbery on the news."
- Conversed: "Does anyone wonder how vigilante heroes in movies are always super effective at catching criminals? And why don't the police ever do anything?"
- Implied: Alex expresses annoyance about criminals getting Off on a Technicality. Later, a news broadcast mentions several of these criminals turning up dead or going missing.
- Deconstructed:
- Alex's vigilantism makes him feared by the criminals and citizens alike, and he is put on the wanted list by the police who thinks he's more dangerous than the criminals he's killed.
- Alex's vigilantism turns him into an obsessed Knight Templar.
- Alex becomes increasingly violent and sadistic the more he fights off criminals, making his motives less about justice and more about the pleasure of killing people.
- Alex ends up killing criminals that have atoned, so petty that they don't exactly deserve death and are just trying to survive, were the only thing keeping a certain neighbourhood safe, a vital informant/ally for law enforcement, or are even friends with Alice's allies and heroes of their own right. This results in Alex being hated by regular civilians, his former friends and law enforcement, and the criminal underworld!
- Alex's vigilantism is just a symptom of a lack of trust in the rule of law in his society, caused in large part by corruption and ineffectiveness in the justice system. No matter how many criminals Alex his society is still breaking down.
- Alex's lack of faith in the criminal justice institution is brought to a head when he launches an ill-thought-out mission to assassinate a criminal who is already in jail and awaiting trial, as he's certain that should the man go to court, he will be let off.
- Falsely accused individuals start pleading guilty because innocent or not, if they get off, they'll be targeted by Alex in the belief they escaped justice.
- Reconstructed:
- Alex learns to target only those who truly deserve punishment and cannot be reached by legal means. He also doesn't care about the criminal underworld going after him because he was planning to go after them anyway.
- The police try to go after Alex but find witnesses refuse to testify against him. When he is finally captured and tried thousands of people gather at the courthouse and city hall demanding his pardon, which the government grants out of fear of sparking a rebellion. This wake-up call allows reformers to gain power in government and to root out corruption and incompetency in the police department.
- All of those informants, anti-heroes and "friends of the community" were still criminals and people, in a lesser degree than the big sharks of the setting yeah, but still, were getting hurt to some degree by their little peccadilloes that the heroes were letting slide either because of ignorance or Skewed Priorities. Someone still has to look out for the little guy.
- Played For Laughs: Alex goes around pelting various criminals with water balloons.
- Played For Drama: Many people killed by Alex turn out to be innocent. His lack of investigation experience leads him to miss details that prove that they couldn't possibly be guilty.
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