That seems to be an issue with how this trope is differentiated (or in this case, isn't differentiated) from sadism. Most of the examples on this page are actually examples of the latter—they do evil because they derive enjoyment from it, which suggests they shouldn't be on this page, since this trope is specifically about characters that do evil with no motivation whatsoever (unless there's some other criterion I'm missing).
Edited by YetAnother
Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: Which one is it?!
, started by Vree on Sep 14th 2010 at 5:50:10 PM
Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: Is there a reason for a RL section?, started by Deboss on Feb 20th 2011 at 1:07:44 AM
the Nerdytimes
I'm not sure if the Creator really fits. His lines seem to imply that he fails to understand why the protagonists are sickened by his actions. I'd rather put it into Blue-and-Orange Morality.
Krieg wasn't even the coolest villain of his own arc. He wasn't even the second-coolest villain of his own arc. Hide / Show Replies
Agreed. Or some other trope but not this. There's nothing about doing it for the sake of evil or doing evil for fun. I don't think the video example works at all. Watch slow dialogue for a what seems like minutes, only to find out it has nothing to do with this.
I don't know how to edit or remove video examples and when it's allowed, but if it was a regular example, I'd absolutely remove it.
Edited by VVK
Just a question, which is the idea of the word "Evulz" instead of "Evil"? Is it taken from some work, is it a combination of words, or did it just sound cool?
Ultimate Secret Wars Hide / Show Replies
Well, it sounds cool for sure.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
- From Trials and Tribulations, there's Dahlia Hawthorne, who committed a string of terrible murders. Most of her murders were designed to cover her own guilt, but she executes them in the cruelest way possible. For example, her first crime - in an attempt to get back at her father - was a staged kidnapping in which she was supposed to receive a giant uncut diamond as a ransom. Once she gets the diamond, she fakes her own death and gets her boyfriend - who assisted with the kidnapping plot - convicted of her murder. Why? It's never even stated that she wanted the diamond for herself. She's just crazy.
i disagree with the example of mephiles of sonic 06.
the reason he became an omnicidal maniac in my opinion is because solaris was used by soleanna.
he'd fit as an example of disproportionate retribution, and soleanna would fit as powered by a foresaken child...
but there's no "for the evulz" to be found here.
shadow was mistaken to call mephiles out on desiring nothing more than destruction.
This page needs some cleanup. It includes too many people who clearly act out of sadism (like Hans Landa or Mr. Blonde) which would fall into the It Amused Me category rather than For the Evulz.
Edited by Desperado
I'd say Josef Mengele is a Real Life example. His gruesome experiments clearly didn't come off as "Nazi science", given the Nazis themselves saw him as quack. Nothing in his background suggests he's doing this because of some bitterness in society. And the Nazis don't seem to regard him as following their scruples, implying he didn't do it because he buyed into the philosophy
The example of Broly from Dragon Ball Z doesn't need quite so much natter.
- Nah! He just destroys everything in his path because he´s the f*cking GOD of destruction incarnated (excerpt from his battle with Piccolo in Dragon Ball Z Budokai 3 in his DU mode, when the latter said he´s a "monster": "A monster??? No, you´re wrong...I AM A GOD!!!"). And he hates KAKAROT!!!
- He even destroyed Goku´s house (killing Chi-Chi/Milk in the process), beating the shit out of Krillin, Piccolo, Vegeta, Videl, Kid Trunks, Goten, Metal Cooler and Gohan through his gameplay, and finally the second time you play with him you can crush Goku, ruined the whole planet, and latter "Broly proceeded to lay waste to the universe", all in that fucking game
- In the "Dragon Ball Z: Taiketsu" for the GBA in his ending he just felt ashamed to share the same race with the others pathetics Saiyans he just defeated, thinking this while he destroyed the Earth without mercy
- No wonders why he has soooo many fans...
- In the "Dragon Ball Z: Taiketsu" for the GBA in his ending he just felt ashamed to share the same race with the others pathetics Saiyans he just defeated, thinking this while he destroyed the Earth without mercy
- He even destroyed Goku´s house (killing Chi-Chi/Milk in the process), beating the shit out of Krillin, Piccolo, Vegeta, Videl, Kid Trunks, Goten, Metal Cooler and Gohan through his gameplay, and finally the second time you play with him you can crush Goku, ruined the whole planet, and latter "Broly proceeded to lay waste to the universe", all in that fucking game
- Nah! He just destroys everything in his path because he´s the f*cking GOD of destruction incarnated (excerpt from his battle with Piccolo in Dragon Ball Z Budokai 3 in his DU mode, when the latter said he´s a "monster": "A monster??? No, you´re wrong...I AM A GOD!!!"). And he hates KAKAROT!!!
are we allowed to include Real Life examples, or is this another PC page?
Ted Bundy once took a bite out of a girl just to see what it felt like
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That's not a valid example, because he was just curious. He wasn't doing it for amusement or sadism.
Technically we're allowed to add Real Life examples here, but the section likely won't last too long because everyone here is super-paranoid about starting flame wars on the trope pages.
This one is currently listed under Real Life, but it's out of date:
Programmers who create viruses, worms, trojans and the like have, unlike crackers and spyware makers, absolutely no motivation for doing what they do. They don't steal information from you, they don't get money out of it, you never wronged them and they don't even get to see your reaction to the problems you're having. They're just doing it because that way they know that they made someone's life somewhere hell.
This was true of some of the earliest malware creators, back in the pre-Internet era when viruses were typically spread via floppy disks. But it doesn't really apply anymore. Today's malware writers are all doing it for money. It's an extortion scheme with two variations. In the first, you take someone's computer (or just their data) hostage and demand money to give it back. In the second, you install a back door on as many computers as possible and use them to carry out distributed denial-of-service attacks to crash an e-commerce website. Doing so can shut the site down for hours or days, costing the site's owner millions of dollars. Having proven that you can do this, you then demand that the site's owner pay you a much smaller amount to refrain from doing it again.
The people who used to create malware purely For the Evulz have moved on to other things. The Internet offers lots of other, much easier ways to wreak havoc and make people's lives miserable.
These examples are Zero Context Examples, and need more details.
- The Creepy Child Enfante Terrible titular character of The Good Son.
- John Ryder from The Hitcher.
- Hannibal Lecter, the quintessential psychopathic Serial Killer, at least in Silence Of The Lambs, Manhunter, and Red Dragon.
I must ask, why are villains who do stuff For the Evulz considered to be the most popular? Think about it. Hazama, Izaya, The Joker, Alex De Large, etc all have no real reason for doing evil, and are rather shallow in terms of motives abd personality (though Joker is an exception). Why are these considered examples of good villains as opposed to ones with interesting backstories or are just forces of unspeakable evil?
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Just so you know, this page is meant for discussion of the page itself, not the trope it describes. Fair question, though.
Evil is cool.
Edited by FelixMartinez Dimension Lord and a lover of cats.
Why does the trope have the cutesy name it has? So far as I can tell w/o reading the entire page item by item (but w/ a page search on "name") there is no reference to the Trope Namer.
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It's probably a reference to some long-forgotten Internet meme. Alternatively, Xtreme Kool Letterz.
I figured it out. It's a Just For Pun reference to the trope formerly called For the Lulz, where an amoral character's motivation is basically that he thought it would be fun(ny).
I think a more appropriate picture would be the Joker burning his giant stack of cash. If you want to change it back, feel free. But I think we can all agree the Joker pretty much embodies this trope.
Edited by irishladdie727
I don't know why some people keep censoring the "Real Life" sections, but I'm asking you to stop that. You may not like the idea that some people commit crimes like murder just because they think it's fun, but the amount of serial killer examples and expert opinions should prove to you that this is not just some kind of fringe theory, or people feeling the need to "bash" someone out of a personal grudge. If you disagree with some of the examples, you can individually modify or remove them, but killing the whole section is out of line.
You can certainly think what you like about that, but your personal opinion doesn't entitle you to simply remove a whole section of other people's work without even the slightest discussion. So please be reasonable, everyone.
[Edit] Ok, apparently this removal was moderator approved. Another bad decision in my opinion, but that's how it is.
Edited by Calvarez Hide / Show Replies
... I'd call it a bad call, as well. It's rare in real life, but it does, in fact, seem to happen. All evidence is that Brenda Ann Spencer opened fire on an elementary school simply because she was bored and it seemed like fun — her claims of deeper motivations are extremely dubious and have little or no supporting evidence.
"That's ridiculous. What would a walrus do with a magic bag?" Pokeamida
I have to agree. I don't know what the moderator behind the decision might have said, but the rationale in the page history for deleting the whole section is factually inaccurate.
Edited by Caswin
I removed a Real Life entry about "metalheads harassing anyone who isn't a metalhead, and then denying they did it." In doing so, I removed the entire "Real Life" subfolder, but as the metalhead entry was the only entry in said subfolder, I felt it would be better to have "Real Life" absent from the page as opposed to present but empty.
On the point of the metalhead entry itself, it seemed instigative of flamewars given that it's effectively stereotyping an entire fandom with a very broad brush.
Siggy boogy doog.
I don't think anybody in real life can accurately be called "evil". I don't think psychopaths are evil. I think they're amoral and selfish in the extreme. Is there much difference between the two in practice? No, which is why I think a lot of the examples fit better under It Amused Me. In fact, Mr. Blonde from Reservoir Dogs is listed under both.
It isn't a matter of whether or not a human being can be called "evil", but whether one can commit evil acts because they enjoy doing mean things to other people — as the saying goes, for the lulz. There are legitimate examples of that in plenty.
Then someone deleted the entire folder, claiming that it was nothing but a pathetic attempt to turn real people into Card Carrying Villains, which would be a valid reason to delete it if it were true, but it wasn't. (Actually, I've even run into a few of those, but the majority of examples had nothing to do with it. They were, however, fine examples that fit the trope description.)
Edited by Caswin
I think this trope needs a better name. Something like "Evil Is Fun", or something.
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This trope isn't about evil being fun, though. It's about being evil for no reason at all.
Removed these examples because there are other motives beyond simply being evil:
- The Scorpio Killer from Dirty Harry, who was based on the Real Life Zodiac Killer:
Harry Callahan: You know, you're crazy if you think you've heard the last of this guy. He's gonna kill again.
District Attorney Rothko: How do you know?
Harry Callahan: 'Cause he likes it.- That said, while the movie makes it clear that he gets a thrill out of killing for its own sake, he also has a more overt motive in demanding exorbitant sums of money.
- Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men. He wants the money, but literally anyone he meets is a potential victim. Another character mentions that this is because of some kind of indecipherable code of honor.
Chigurh is after the money, and he kills people because of his nihilistic code, not just because he enjoys it.
- Major Vic "Deak" Deakins (John Travolta) in Broken Arrow (1996, directed by John Woo). "Deak" crashes a stealth bomber to steal two nuclear weapons, detonates one just to get rid of his copilot and show the U.S. government he's "serious" in ransoming the other, kills his contact with his backers, and finally tries to nuke a city with himself "riding shotgun" on the nuke, resulting in this exchange with his (former) copilot;
Hale: You're out of your mind.Deakins: Yeah, ain't it cool?
Deakins is an evil psycho, but he's very specifically out for the money.
- Troll2.
What did Peter do... to the goblins?That's the point. Goblins don't need to justify their cruel acts. They're evil creatures.
- Well, maybe. But humans are also their source of nutrition.
If they eat humans for sustenance, then that's not an example of the trope.
- The Martians of Mars Attacks seem to have come to Earth strictly for a sadistic vacation.
The Martians are invading Earth.
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Scorpio, however, does do a few things that he cannot profit off of, such as basically condemning the girl he kidnaps to death BEFORE receiving the ransom money, which would count as the guy's Moral Event Horizon if he hadn't already done far worse.
Still, not arguing. He never really struck me as doing it For the Evulz either, for some reason...
I have to disagree with removing the Mars Attack example. Just because they are invading earth does not mean that they have a REASON for invading earth. The movie makes us think they do for a while, but later makes it quite clear that they were just pretending to have an excuse for what they intended to do anyways for the sheer joy of it. For these Martians it is about the killing, the destruction, the mayham, and most definately the evil, not the resources of the earth, enslavement of its people, getting the planet out of the way of some other plan, or some feigned insult. They're just dicks, that is one of the major reasons/ways that the movie is a comedy. So yes the Martians DO fit this trope.
Removed the comics example of the Prankster:
- Superman's enemy named The Prankster, often accused of being a poor man's Joker, also lives by this philosophy.
- Prankster: I'm the Prankster. I don't have any powers. I don't need any. I didn't expect to win.Toyman: Then why did you do it?Prankster: Because it gave me an audience again.
He does have a logical motivation, and it's right there in the example. He wants an audience because he wants attention. He used to host a kids' show, and he misses the limelight.
Josie FM
Not really important, but when I saw that page image of Agent Smith, at first I thought it was Enzyte Bob, and that it was there as a bit of self-demonstrating Nightmare Fuel.
Edited by OtherJoey
How is For the Evulz different from Sadism? In both cases, the person enjoys themselves at the expense of other people, right?
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