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** ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption2'': Dutch is a deconstruction of the JustLikeRobinHood character archetype. Whether or not he was EvilAllAlong is left open to interpretation, since his gang in its early days only robbed from the rich. However, by the events of ''II'', he’s so obsessed with playing the hero that he’s got delusions of grandeur and makes terrible decisions, leading to the gang disintegrating. Turns out he just can’t stop being a criminal, no matter how noble he thinks he intentions are. He gets damn near every member of the gang killed for it ([[spoiler:every active member at the beginning of ''II'' is dead by the end of ''I'' and they lost two right before ''II'']]), including himself.
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** ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption2'': The ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption'' games deconstructs several archetypes:
*** John is a deconstruction of the ActionDad, since while he is certainly a badass these qualities keep him from being a good parent to John. He's incredibly impulsive with a shoot first, think later attitude that caused numerous problems in Jack's life, has nothing in common with Jack due to his more violent childhood, being so comfortable around violence naturally disturbs Jack, and overall he is very bad at communicating what he means to Jack who often believes the worst possible interpretation of what he says.
*** In ''[=RDR2=]'' Dutch is a deconstruction of the JustLikeRobinHood character archetype. Whether or not he was EvilAllAlong is left open to interpretation, since his gang in its early days only robbed from the rich. However, by the events of ''II'', he’s so obsessed with playing the hero that he’s got delusions of grandeur and makes terrible decisions, leading to the gang disintegrating. Turns out he just can’t stop being a criminal, no matter how noble he thinks he intentions are. He gets damn near every member of the gang killed for it ([[spoiler:every active member at the beginning of ''II'' is dead by the end of ''I'' and they lost two right before ''II'']]), including himself.
*** John is a deconstruction of the ActionDad, since while he is certainly a badass these qualities keep him from being a good parent to John. He's incredibly impulsive with a shoot first, think later attitude that caused numerous problems in Jack's life, has nothing in common with Jack due to his more violent childhood, being so comfortable around violence naturally disturbs Jack, and overall he is very bad at communicating what he means to Jack who often believes the worst possible interpretation of what he says.
*** In ''[=RDR2=]'' Dutch is a deconstruction of the JustLikeRobinHood character archetype. Whether or not he was EvilAllAlong is left open to interpretation, since his gang in its early days only robbed from the rich. However, by the events of ''II'', he’s so obsessed with playing the hero that he’s got delusions of grandeur and makes terrible decisions, leading to the gang disintegrating. Turns out he just can’t stop being a criminal, no matter how noble he thinks he intentions are. He gets damn near every member of the gang killed for it ([[spoiler:every active member at the beginning of ''II'' is dead by the end of ''I'' and they lost two right before ''II'']]), including himself.
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*** Arthur Morgan of the VillainProtagonist from your typical WideOpenSandbox. Once again, Creator/RockstarGames shows us, as in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV'' and ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'', how depressing the life of our VillainProtagonist could be from their respective context. Sure, he may not have had a choice in the beginning, but his acceptance of being the [[ThenLetMeBeEvil "bad guy"]] leaves him feeling pretty shitty about himself. Reading his journal reveals that he is also under a lot of stress and that he feels that he can't help prevent everything from spiraling out of control. After he finds out [[spoiler:he's dying, then he's wracked with guilt; desperate to make what amends he can, having realized that all he's done has not been worth it. The final nail in the coffin is if the player chooses to help John and has good karma, his last words will be [[RedemptionEqualsDeath "I tried. In the end... I did."]]]] Arthur may be a killing machine with over dozens, perhaps hundreds of kills to his name, but the game goes to great lengths to detail how toxic and harmful living a life of constant conflict is for anybody. Even if you're [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential a particularly nasty player]], never at any point is Arthur's lifestyle treated as something awesome. As a result, he [[spoiler:dies]] as he lived: fighting petty, pathetic criminals who are worse than him.
*** Like [[spoiler:John, he's one of an ActionDad. How do you balance between a loving, long-distance relationship with your girlfriend and her son, and an unpredictable criminal lifestyle in the 1800's? [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome You don't]]]].
*** Like [[spoiler:John, he's one of an ActionDad. How do you balance between a loving, long-distance relationship with your girlfriend and her son, and an unpredictable criminal lifestyle in the 1800's? [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome You don't]]]].
to:
*** Arthur Morgan of the VillainProtagonist from your typical WideOpenSandbox. Once again, Creator/RockstarGames shows us, as in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV'' and ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'', how depressing the life of our VillainProtagonist could be from their respective context. Sure, he may not have had a choice in the beginning, but his acceptance of being the [[ThenLetMeBeEvil "bad guy"]] leaves him feeling pretty shitty about himself. Reading his journal reveals that he is also under a lot of stress and that he feels that he can't help prevent everything from spiraling out of control. After he finds out [[spoiler:he's dying, then he's wracked with guilt; desperate to make what amends he can, having realized that all he's done has not been worth it. The final nail in the coffin is if the player chooses to help John and has good karma, his last words will be [[RedemptionEqualsDeath "I tried. In the end... I did."]]]] Arthur may be a killing machine with over dozens, perhaps hundreds of kills to his name, but the game goes to great lengths to detail how toxic and harmful living a life of constant conflict is for anybody. Even if you're [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential a particularly nasty player]], never at any point is Arthur's lifestyle treated as something awesome. As a result, he [[spoiler:dies]] as he lived: fighting petty, pathetic criminals who are worse than him.
*** Likehim. And like [[spoiler:John, he's one of an ActionDad. How do you balance between a loving, long-distance relationship with your girlfriend and her son, and an unpredictable criminal lifestyle in the 1800's? 1890's? [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome You don't]]]].don't]]]].
*** Jack at the end of the first game [[spoiler:becomes pretty much becomes a classic Western protagonist due to being a [[TheDrifter wandering]] [[TheGunslinger gunslinger]] with [[TheAloner no friends]] and a [[DarkAndTroubledPast tragic past]]. In free roam players can have Jack travel across the US and Mexico helping people and hunting criminals as a bounty hunter, further showing his similarities to characters from this genre. The deconstruction comes from the fact that players get to see exactly what could turn someone into this type of character and how unfulfilling it is, as well as how anyone choosing to be this would have to be a DeathSeeker with severe depression]].
*** Like
*** Jack at the end of the first game [[spoiler:becomes pretty much becomes a classic Western protagonist due to being a [[TheDrifter wandering]] [[TheGunslinger gunslinger]] with [[TheAloner no friends]] and a [[DarkAndTroubledPast tragic past]]. In free roam players can have Jack travel across the US and Mexico helping people and hunting criminals as a bounty hunter, further showing his similarities to characters from this genre. The deconstruction comes from the fact that players get to see exactly what could turn someone into this type of character and how unfulfilling it is, as well as how anyone choosing to be this would have to be a DeathSeeker with severe depression]].
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* The Prince from ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersia2008'' is a deconstruction of the LoveableRogue AntiHero. These types of characters can be charming and at times heroic, while being perfectly capable of developing genuine feelings towards allies. But despite all of that, these characters are at their core thieves who only tend to do the right thing because they are forced into a situation where that's the only option, and regardless of any heroics they are often motivated by selfish desires. [[spoiler:Despite risking his life to trap Ahriman with Erika, he can't accept her HeroicSacrifice because of his feelings for her and chooses to free Ahriman in return for Erika's life, dooming the world in the process.]]
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[[folder:A]]
* ''VideoGame/AgeOfEmpiresII'' is nothing short of ''brutal'' towards the idea of the WorkingClassHero for the Ivaylo campaign in the Definite Edition. In a classic fairytale, the valiant swineherd fighting for the peasantry's rights gets to topple the tyrant, marry the empress and ruling instead, right... But for Ivaylo, the corrupt nobility '''loathed''' him for having the gall to rise against his betters, immediately jumping on the first opportunity to usurp him and exile his pregnant wife. And when the poor guy tried to gain support in order to retake the kingdom, the people whom he needs to address are connected through politics and blood to his enemies and ultimately murder him.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:B]]
* ''VideoGame/AgeOfEmpiresII'' is nothing short of ''brutal'' towards the idea of the WorkingClassHero for the Ivaylo campaign in the Definite Edition. In a classic fairytale, the valiant swineherd fighting for the peasantry's rights gets to topple the tyrant, marry the empress and ruling instead, right... But for Ivaylo, the corrupt nobility '''loathed''' him for having the gall to rise against his betters, immediately jumping on the first opportunity to usurp him and exile his pregnant wife. And when the poor guy tried to gain support in order to retake the kingdom, the people whom he needs to address are connected through politics and blood to his enemies and ultimately murder him.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:B]]
* ''VideoGame/BendyAndTheInkMachine'' deconstructs TheWonka through [[MrAltDisney Joey Drew]]. His insistence on using the titular device put a strain on the animation department, who had to suffer through pipe bursts, loud noises and constant interruptions, as well as the finances (and may have possibly driven the company accountant Grant Cohen to insanity). This, combined with Joey's [[BadBoss other]] [[AllTakeAndNoGive issues]] and a simple decline in Bendy's popularity, ended up speeding up the downfall of the studio.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:C]]
[[folder:C]]
* ''VideoGame/Cyberpunk2077'' deconstructs the edgy, uncompromising, unnaturally cool badass in the form of Johnny Silverhand; when he was alive, Johnny was a hardass who didn't take shit from anyone, casually pissed off everybody he met, and refused to back down from his fight against the corrupt corporations that rule the world, even when it involved literally dropping a nuke on Night City. As a direct result of his toxic actions, Johnny's remaining fans are aging manchildren who worship him as a god [[RevolutionariesWhoDontDoAnything but don't actually take up his fight themselves]], and his body is buried under a featureless slab of concrete in the middle of a derelict oilfield because all his "friends" wanted was to forget the asshole they were forced to prop up. It takes the entire game for Johnny, now a VirtualGhost sharing V's brain, [[JerkassRealization to realize how miserable and self-absorbed he was]], but it hits hard and can turn him into TheAtoner.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:D]]
* As for being a game about deconstructing DungeonCrawler tropes, ''VideoGame/DarkestDungeon'' gives a few examples when certain classes go through the DespairEventHorizon:
** The Hellion begins to showcase what happens when TheBerserker cracks; she either goes from being a BloodKnight to AxCrazy and begins downright scaring her companions with her brutality instead of supporting them, shows that behind all her bravado that she is as scared witless as the rest, or she uses her blood lust toward SelfHarm tendencies and actively challenges her opponents to try and hurt her, putting herself at great risk while doing so.
** The Jester becomes one for the PluckyComicRelief, as he is the class that normally gives stress heals with song and jokes. If he undergoes afflictions like Abusive or Hopeless, he starts using his jokes to spite the rest of the group, or [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness straight up stops trying to be funny]] and ask them if they ''really'' thought that the mission was going to go well. Otherwise, his jokes simply become [[DudeNotFunny too dark]] and he begins to worsen the situation instead of lighting it up. Naturally, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero this starts to cause stress as opposed to healing it]].
[[/folder]]
[[folder:D]]
* As for being a game about deconstructing DungeonCrawler tropes, ''VideoGame/DarkestDungeon'' gives a few examples when certain classes go through the DespairEventHorizon:
** The Hellion begins to showcase what happens when TheBerserker cracks; she either goes from being a BloodKnight to AxCrazy and begins downright scaring her companions with her brutality instead of supporting them, shows that behind all her bravado that she is as scared witless as the rest, or she uses her blood lust toward SelfHarm tendencies and actively challenges her opponents to try and hurt her, putting herself at great risk while doing so.
** The Jester becomes one for the PluckyComicRelief, as he is the class that normally gives stress heals with song and jokes. If he undergoes afflictions like Abusive or Hopeless, he starts using his jokes to spite the rest of the group, or [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness straight up stops trying to be funny]] and ask them if they ''really'' thought that the mission was going to go well. Otherwise, his jokes simply become [[DudeNotFunny too dark]] and he begins to worsen the situation instead of lighting it up. Naturally, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero this starts to cause stress as opposed to healing it]].
* Isaac Clarke from the ''Franchise/DeadSpace'' series shows what would really happen if a BadassNormal were suddenly forced to fight {{Eldritch Abomination}}s all the time. By the end of the series, Isaac is a certifiable badass, able to take on Necromorph and human targets alike with only his engineering skills, unique weaponry, and fast thinking; he's even brought out of "retirement" in the third game because he knows the most about the Necromorphs out of every human in existence, and he even ends up [[spoiler:killing a freaking moon]] in the finale. He's also a traumatized, broken, ''wreck'' of a person who inherently distrusts everyone around him out of sheer paranoia, is willing to do absolutely anything to come away alive, and can barely tell the difference between reality and his own hallucinations; he may come away from the series alive, but that's all that can really be said for him considering how broken he is by that point.
* ''VideoGame/DeathStranding'':
** [[PlayerCharacter Sam]] deconstructs a typical IWorkAlone protagonist. Sam's unwillingness to engage with other people comes not from looking down on them, but due to his crippling fear and social anxiety stemming from a lonely childhood and [[spoiler:a tragic accident that costed him his wife and unborn child]]. While he manages to overcome [[spoiler:his [[DoesntLikeBeingTouched fear of touch]] at the end of the game, he still decides to leave the friends he made throughout his journey behind and come back to living as essentially a hermit, because making a few friends didn't magically cure his social phobia.]]
** He also deconstructs the common video game ActionHero protagonist. While Sam crosses dangerous terrain and fights with enemies, he doesn't find it ''fun'', and instead you can often see him falling down on all fours and heaving after an enemy encounter. While he's strong like an ox, he has the kind of strength and body type a [[WorkingClassHero physical laborer]] has, not the one an action hero would. He's also incredibly sensitive emotionally, frequently shown crying in fear, pain or stress and bonds with his [=BB=] almost immidiately. It's also shown quite overtly that his job exhausts him and he can't just go on forever without rest. His skin is covered with cuts and bruises, and he often complains about being tired or in pain.
* Urizen in ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry5'' is a deconstruction of the GenericDoomsdayVillain. He appears to be a brutal monster [[AmbitionIsEvil seeking power for power's sake]], which ends up being his FatalFlaw. Apart from seeking power, he doesn't have any motivation, and this eventually ensures that [[DemonSlayer Dante]] defeats him. Dante points out that just fighting for the sake of something, like defending his friends from Urizen, makes him more powerful than Urizen himself could ever be. And the reason Urizen's so single-mindedly obsessed with power? [[spoiler:He's the demon half of Dante's antagonistic brother Vergil separated from his human half, with all his power hunger, but none of his humanizing qualities, like Vergil's love for his family, and because Urizen doesn't have any idea what he's going to do with his power apart from gain more of it, he's basically a mindless brute.]] Additionally, [[spoiler:by separating his human and demon halves into two separate beings, Vergil is slowly killing both of them, which is why Urizen has to keep himself alive by coating himself in the bark of the [[WorldTree Qliphoth tree]]. So he's not just a GenericDoomsdayVillain, he's a DarkLordOnLifeSupport.]]
* In ''VideoGame/DevilSurvivor'', Yuzu Tanikawa is a deconstruction of the everygirl OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent hero seen in many a JRPG. When everything goes to shit and she gets magical powers to survive the lockdown, she doesn't step up to the plate and become a hero - she can barely cope with the horror, and spends most of the week lamenting how she just wants everything to go back to normal. She also doesn't have any coherent plan to solve the crisis beyond "run as far away as possible", and following her advice [[spoiler:leads you to the worst ending short of the NonstandardGameOver]].
* The ''VideoGame/{{Deponia}}'' series takes the behavioral traits of your average adventure game protagonist: [[KleptomaniacHero rampant theft]] and regular screwing over of random people for their own benefit, and gives them to NominalHero Rufus, who's exactly the kind of selfish, unlikable sociopath you'd expect to have them.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:E]]
** [[PlayerCharacter Sam]] deconstructs a typical IWorkAlone protagonist. Sam's unwillingness to engage with other people comes not from looking down on them, but due to his crippling fear and social anxiety stemming from a lonely childhood and [[spoiler:a tragic accident that costed him his wife and unborn child]]. While he manages to overcome [[spoiler:his [[DoesntLikeBeingTouched fear of touch]] at the end of the game, he still decides to leave the friends he made throughout his journey behind and come back to living as essentially a hermit, because making a few friends didn't magically cure his social phobia.]]
** He also deconstructs the common video game ActionHero protagonist. While Sam crosses dangerous terrain and fights with enemies, he doesn't find it ''fun'', and instead you can often see him falling down on all fours and heaving after an enemy encounter. While he's strong like an ox, he has the kind of strength and body type a [[WorkingClassHero physical laborer]] has, not the one an action hero would. He's also incredibly sensitive emotionally, frequently shown crying in fear, pain or stress and bonds with his [=BB=] almost immidiately. It's also shown quite overtly that his job exhausts him and he can't just go on forever without rest. His skin is covered with cuts and bruises, and he often complains about being tired or in pain.
* Urizen in ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry5'' is a deconstruction of the GenericDoomsdayVillain. He appears to be a brutal monster [[AmbitionIsEvil seeking power for power's sake]], which ends up being his FatalFlaw. Apart from seeking power, he doesn't have any motivation, and this eventually ensures that [[DemonSlayer Dante]] defeats him. Dante points out that just fighting for the sake of something, like defending his friends from Urizen, makes him more powerful than Urizen himself could ever be. And the reason Urizen's so single-mindedly obsessed with power? [[spoiler:He's the demon half of Dante's antagonistic brother Vergil separated from his human half, with all his power hunger, but none of his humanizing qualities, like Vergil's love for his family, and because Urizen doesn't have any idea what he's going to do with his power apart from gain more of it, he's basically a mindless brute.]] Additionally, [[spoiler:by separating his human and demon halves into two separate beings, Vergil is slowly killing both of them, which is why Urizen has to keep himself alive by coating himself in the bark of the [[WorldTree Qliphoth tree]]. So he's not just a GenericDoomsdayVillain, he's a DarkLordOnLifeSupport.]]
* In ''VideoGame/DevilSurvivor'', Yuzu Tanikawa is a deconstruction of the everygirl OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent hero seen in many a JRPG. When everything goes to shit and she gets magical powers to survive the lockdown, she doesn't step up to the plate and become a hero - she can barely cope with the horror, and spends most of the week lamenting how she just wants everything to go back to normal. She also doesn't have any coherent plan to solve the crisis beyond "run as far away as possible", and following her advice [[spoiler:leads you to the worst ending short of the NonstandardGameOver]].
* The ''VideoGame/{{Deponia}}'' series takes the behavioral traits of your average adventure game protagonist: [[KleptomaniacHero rampant theft]] and regular screwing over of random people for their own benefit, and gives them to NominalHero Rufus, who's exactly the kind of selfish, unlikable sociopath you'd expect to have them.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:E]]
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* ''VideoGame/Fallout1'' deconstructs the IdiotHero. You can reduce your INT to 3 and play as a character who is mentally stunted. It leads to some of the funniest dialogue in the game, but locks you out of most of the game's sidequests (most people recognize you as the imbecile you are and don't give you the time of day), and the few sidequests you can do often end with you [[NiceJobBreakingItHero screwing people over in your poorly-conceived attempts to "help" them]].
* ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'': Ulysses is a deconstruction of TheFatalist. [[spoiler: Ulysses has seen and experienced the worst of it: he is the sole surviving member of the Twisted Hairs, is a former member of The Legion, he was the one who discovered Hoover Dam and indirectly caused the first battle for Hoover Dam, caused the deaths of countless people by telling Elijah about the Sierra Madre, militarizing the White Legs, and through his actions at the Big Mountain Research Facility. Ulysses has dwelled on these thoughts long enough to believe that he knows what's best for everyone as Ulysses has become so disillusioned with the war that he plans to set off a series of nukes so they can destroy both the NCR and Caesar's Legion. Despite the Courier telling him that he can't predict the future and can't guarantee that whatever comes after the NCR and The Legion will be the better option. Ulysses believes that everything happened for a reason because of the Courier, they got the package and they chose to deliver it, resulting in the destruction of the Divide, even though the Courier had no way of knowing that delivering their package would initiate the destruction of a settlement. Ulysses's belief that he's ahead of the curve and belief that knows what's best for everyone ultimately shows that he's just a deeply troubled man who's overwhelmed with guilt and lashing out over the senselessness of his hardships, not understanding that he is driving himself mad by believing that everything happened for a reason.]]
* ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'': Ulysses is a deconstruction of TheFatalist. [[spoiler: Ulysses has seen and experienced the worst of it: he is the sole surviving member of the Twisted Hairs, is a former member of The Legion, he was the one who discovered Hoover Dam and indirectly caused the first battle for Hoover Dam, caused the deaths of countless people by telling Elijah about the Sierra Madre, militarizing the White Legs, and through his actions at the Big Mountain Research Facility. Ulysses has dwelled on these thoughts long enough to believe that he knows what's best for everyone as Ulysses has become so disillusioned with the war that he plans to set off a series of nukes so they can destroy both the NCR and Caesar's Legion. Despite the Courier telling him that he can't predict the future and can't guarantee that whatever comes after the NCR and The Legion will be the better option. Ulysses believes that everything happened for a reason because of the Courier, they got the package and they chose to deliver it, resulting in the destruction of the Divide, even though the Courier had no way of knowing that delivering their package would initiate the destruction of a settlement. Ulysses's belief that he's ahead of the curve and belief that knows what's best for everyone ultimately shows that he's just a deeply troubled man who's overwhelmed with guilt and lashing out over the senselessness of his hardships, not understanding that he is driving himself mad by believing that everything happened for a reason.]]
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[[/folder]]
[[folder:F]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}:
** ''VideoGame/Fallout1'' deconstructs the IdiotHero. You can reduce your INT to 3 and play as a character who is mentally stunted. It leads to some of the funniest dialogue in the game, but locks you out of most of the game's sidequests (most people recognize you as the imbecile you are and don't give you the time of day), and the few sidequests you can do often end with you [[NiceJobBreakingItHero screwing people over in your poorly-conceived attempts to "help" them]].
* ** ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'': Ulysses is a deconstruction of TheFatalist. [[spoiler: Ulysses has seen and experienced the worst of it: he is the sole surviving member of the Twisted Hairs, is a former member of The Legion, he was the one who discovered Hoover Dam and indirectly caused the first battle for Hoover Dam, caused the deaths of countless people by telling Elijah about the Sierra Madre, militarizing the White Legs, and through his actions at the Big Mountain Research Facility. Ulysses has dwelled on these thoughts long enough to believe that he knows what's best for everyone as Ulysses has become so disillusioned with the war that he plans to set off a series of nukes so they can destroy both the NCR and Caesar's Legion. Despite the Courier telling him that he can't predict the future and can't guarantee that whatever comes after the NCR and The Legion will be the better option. Ulysses believes that everything happened for a reason because of the Courier, they got the package and they chose to deliver it, resulting in the destruction of the Divide, even though the Courier had no way of knowing that delivering their package would initiate the destruction of a settlement. Ulysses's belief that he's ahead of the curve and belief that knows what's best for everyone ultimately shows that he's just a deeply troubled man who's overwhelmed with guilt and lashing out over the senselessness of his hardships, not understanding that he is driving himself mad by believing that everything happened for a reason.]]
* ''VideoGame/FarCry4'':
** The game attacks the idea of having a MoralityPet makes a person "good". De Pleur uses his genuine love for his daughter as a ground of sanity while working as a brutal TortureTechnician. As long as he concentrates on her as an innocent, he can bury all his wrongdoings and call himself a good guy.
** It also explores the concept of TheMessiah and how it does more harm than good. Throughout the game, many characters, including Ajay, Mohan, Bhandra and Pagan Min, are seen and elevated to this status but they can be used, abused and downright manipulated to cause others to commit horrible atrocities in their name.
** Any group that styles itself as LaResistance should ''not'' be immediately considered heroic and supported regardless of context. Ajay sees [[spoiler: the horrific results of Golden Path taking power in Kyrat, as Sabal's side becomes consumed with religious fanaticism and purges while Amita's side becomes a narco-state conscripting child soldiers.]]
*** To a lesser extent, Mohan's resistance group started as [[spoiler: a bunch of religious extremists who were more concerned with archaic traditions than the people's wellbeing.]] Mohan was also perfectly fine with [[spoiler: murdering the innocent infant daughter of his enemy out of a jealous rage.]]
** Co-leaders of the Golden Path Sabal and Amita are RedOniBlueOni. Sabal wants to preserve the traditions of Kyrat while Amita wants to create a brighter future for Kyrat. Sabal can be cold and harsh to civilians but is AFatherToHisMen while Amita is more passionate about helping civilians but has a WeHaveReserves mindset. Unfortunately, they don't realize that they need each other in order to balance the other's views but mutually hate the other person, to the point of being willing to [[spoiler: assassinate the other to gain total leadership]]. In the ending, [[spoiler: regardless who becomes the sole leader of the Golden Path, either Sabal or Amita shows traits of extremism without anyone to stop them.]]
[[folder:F]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}:
** ''VideoGame/Fallout1'' deconstructs the IdiotHero. You can reduce your INT to 3 and play as a character who is mentally stunted. It leads to some of the funniest dialogue in the game, but locks you out of most of the game's sidequests (most people recognize you as the imbecile you are and don't give you the time of day), and the few sidequests you can do often end with you [[NiceJobBreakingItHero screwing people over in your poorly-conceived attempts to "help" them]].
* ''VideoGame/FarCry4'':
** The game attacks the idea of having a MoralityPet makes a person "good". De Pleur uses his genuine love for his daughter as a ground of sanity while working as a brutal TortureTechnician. As long as he concentrates on her as an innocent, he can bury all his wrongdoings and call himself a good guy.
** It also explores the concept of TheMessiah and how it does more harm than good. Throughout the game, many characters, including Ajay, Mohan, Bhandra and Pagan Min, are seen and elevated to this status but they can be used, abused and downright manipulated to cause others to commit horrible atrocities in their name.
** Any group that styles itself as LaResistance should ''not'' be immediately considered heroic and supported regardless of context. Ajay sees [[spoiler: the horrific results of Golden Path taking power in Kyrat, as Sabal's side becomes consumed with religious fanaticism and purges while Amita's side becomes a narco-state conscripting child soldiers.]]
*** To a lesser extent, Mohan's resistance group started as [[spoiler: a bunch of religious extremists who were more concerned with archaic traditions than the people's wellbeing.]] Mohan was also perfectly fine with [[spoiler: murdering the innocent infant daughter of his enemy out of a jealous rage.]]
** Co-leaders of the Golden Path Sabal and Amita are RedOniBlueOni. Sabal wants to preserve the traditions of Kyrat while Amita wants to create a brighter future for Kyrat. Sabal can be cold and harsh to civilians but is AFatherToHisMen while Amita is more passionate about helping civilians but has a WeHaveReserves mindset. Unfortunately, they don't realize that they need each other in order to balance the other's views but mutually hate the other person, to the point of being willing to [[spoiler: assassinate the other to gain total leadership]]. In the ending, [[spoiler: regardless who becomes the sole leader of the Golden Path, either Sabal or Amita shows traits of extremism without anyone to stop them.]]
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* Creator/RockstarGames likes to do this:
** ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV'': Niko Bellic of the VillainProtagonist from the GTA series. Sure, [[TragicVillain he may not have had a choice in the beginning]], but his acceptance of being a ProfessionalKiller leaves him feeling pretty miserable about himself. He also criticizes the idea behind the previous GTA protagonists. The game points out that all you'd get if you were a lone, anonymous hitman working for but unaffiliated to any part of the criminal underworld in a place like Liberty City is a whole load of suffering and the deaths of your loved ones. In so doing, the game manages to subvert DamnItFeelsGoodToBeAGangster in the darkest, most depressing way possible.
** ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'' deconstructs the mindset of GTA characters with its three protagonists:
*** Franklin represents a new ''GTA'' protagonist, one who is trying to improve his lot in life. In Franklin's case, he works to achieve this by leaving behind the gang-banger culture he grew up in and rolling with professional criminals, first a [[HonestJohnsDealership morally bankrupt used car dealer]], and then the bank robber Michael who earns him far bigger scores than he used to.
*** Michael represents the ''GTA'' protagonist who "won". He has it made and can comfortably retire, but has found life after crime to be boring and wants desperately to get back in "the game".
*** Trevor is representative of the ''GTA'' protagonist who eschews story missions in favor of doing whatever he likes: VideoGameCrueltyPotential incarnate. At the same time, though, he never really accomplishes anything: his best-laid plans fail spectacularly, and the only real successes he sees are when he teams up with Michael and Franklin. Personality-wise, he's also an utterly repulsive human being, living in a filthy trailer in the desert and destroying the lives of everyone around him with his antisocial behavior.
*** Together, the three protagonists deconstruct the mythology behind several GTA protagonists, as well as the idea behind easy money. Outside of the heists, very few missions offer satisfying rewards, showing how petty, self-destructive and selfish anyone would have to be to behave like a GTA protagonist, along with how ultimately depressing the lifestyle itself is. Eventually, this game does this, showing that getting into this lifestyle will either bring you nothing but pain for years and destroy all your dreams (in the case of Michael) or leave you LonelyAtTheTop (in the case of Franklin in the non-Deathwish endings). On the other hand, Trevor's life is shown to be pretty depressing all around, and he only finds enjoyment in it because he's too unhinged to care. The mission "Mrs. Philips" is a reminder of how depressing his life really is behind his ComedicSociopathy and {{Cloudcuckoolander}} behavior. That said, all three protagonists can end up with all of their problems solved, ridiculously rich, and with no real repercussions to their actions... '''only''' due to the fact [[TookAThirdOption that they decide to work for themselves instead of cutting deals with anybody else to survive]]. Throughout the game, working for petty, pathetic criminals is a thankless and penniless affair. Every job they do for someone else ends with them being ambushed or betrayed. This is highlighted in the non-Deathwish endings where the survivors are cast aside as pawns and their clients get the far better end of the deal. Deathwish, which ends up the canonical ending, has them finally realize that there's no winning from constantly chasing score after score and that they have to get out while they're ahead, as well as tie up loose ends and ingratiate themselves to the remaining players enough in the process by getting rid of problematic assholes to be spared and left in peace.
** ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption2'': Dutch is a deconstruction of the JustLikeRobinHood character archetype. Whether or not he was EvilAllAlong is left open to interpretation, since his gang in its early days only robbed from the rich. However, by the events of ''II'', he’s so obsessed with playing the hero that he’s got delusions of grandeur and makes terrible decisions, leading to the gang disintegrating. Turns out he just can’t stop being a criminal, no matter how noble he thinks he intentions are. He gets damn near every member of the gang killed for it ([[spoiler:every active member at the beginning of ''II'' is dead by the end of ''I'' and they lost two right before ''II'']]), including himself.
*** In ''[=RDR1=]'', there is Luisa who is a WideEyedIdealist. She is a well-meaning young woman who lost her family and wants her country to be freed from the tyrannical government and for her people to live freely. Unfortunately she is painfully blind to all of the rebel leader Reyes's blatant faults and she doesn't realize that Reyes is as morally bankrupt as the tyrant she seeks to overthrow. Despite being an otherwise intelligent person, Luisa genuinely believes Reyes loves her and is going to marry her when in actuality, Reyes doesn't even remember her name. She also has trouble understanding why John is NotInThisForYourRevolution, as finding his former gang members and saving his family is his top priority. John also points out to Luisa that things don't really change, people will continue to kill people, another corrupt government will take its place and people won't be truly free. In the end, John was right, [[spoiler: Luisa is killed, foolishly giving her life to save Reyes who quickly forgets about her]] and Reyes soon proves he is no better than the tyrannical president he overthrew.
*** For ''[=RDR2=]'' we have Sadie Adler, who becomes one of the typical ActionGirl. Her violent nature is a consequence of some serious emotional trauma (it's heavily implied that the O'Driscolls raped her after killing her husband), with [[spoiler:the terminally-ill]] Arthur Morgan outright stating that he and Sadie are "more ghosts than people." It eventually reaches the point that she tells [[spoiler:John in the epilogue]] that she seeks out dangerous situations because she ''[[DeathSeeker wants to die]]''. [[spoiler:She gets a bit better by the final mission and end credits, where she decides to leave for South America and find some measure of peace.]]
*** Arthur Morgan of the VillainProtagonist from your typical WideOpenSandbox. Once again, Creator/RockstarGames shows us, as in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV'' and ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'', how depressing the life of our VillainProtagonist could be from their respective context. Sure, he may not have had a choice in the beginning, but his acceptance of being the [[ThenLetMeBeEvil "bad guy"]] leaves him feeling pretty shitty about himself. Reading his journal reveals that he is also under a lot of stress and that he feels that he can't help prevent everything from spiraling out of control. After he finds out [[spoiler:he's dying, then he's wracked with guilt; desperate to make what amends he can, having realized that all he's done has not been worth it. The final nail in the coffin is if the player chooses to help John and has good karma, his last words will be [[RedemptionEqualsDeath "I tried. In the end... I did."]]]] Arthur may be a killing machine with over dozens, perhaps hundreds of kills to his name, but the game goes to great lengths to detail how toxic and harmful living a life of constant conflict is for anybody. Even if you're [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential a particularly nasty player]], never at any point is Arthur's lifestyle treated as something awesome. As a result, he [[spoiler:dies]] as he lived: fighting petty, pathetic criminals who are worse than him.
*** Like [[spoiler:John, he's one of an ActionDad. How do you balance between a loving, long-distance relationship with your girlfriend and her son, and an unpredictable criminal lifestyle in the 1800's? [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome You don't]]]].
* ''VideoGame/UnderNightInBirth'':
** [[BigBad Hilda]] is the deconstruction of the FemmeFatale. Everyone doesn't deny that she has a lot of sex appeal and every word she speaks sounds like an orgasm. However, she's too [[BrainlessBeauty dumb]] to use her sexiness to her advantage, is also AxCrazy and [[UngratefulBitch quite the bitch]], and tries it so often everyone around her becomes used to it, so no one would want to do anything for her. The only one she manages to seduce is Hyde Kido, [[HormoneAddledTeenager which isn't much of an accomplishment]].
** Nanase deconstructs the violent {{Tsundere}} girls who quickly jump to conclusions that have overrun anime and games for years. Having been rescued from a Void by Hyde, Nanase developed a huge crush on him, but responded to that by chasing him across the city claiming he had done something perverted to her because she thought In-Birth powers were transmitted through sex. Instead of being endearing or having heartwarming moments with her dere side, she only causes trouble for Hyde by making his female friends believe he actually did molest her, and when the misunderstanding is cleared up, it's clear they have little patience left for her. It's still PlayedForLaughs, but her multitude of negative traits land her solidly in JokeCharacter territory.
** Phonon, or rather Yoshiko, deconstructs the cute young {{Chuunibyou}} girl character. Unlike typical examples of this, where the girl is kind and harmless but sometimes needs to be pulled back to reality, Phonon's delusions are strong enough to make her a physically violent {{Jerkass}} who is so into her made up identity and worried about being seen as normal that she went into the Hollow Night specifically to gain superpowers and make herself look cooler. Everyone else sees her as a moody teenager who thinks she's smarter than she actually is, and some are worried that she'll become the next Hilda.
** ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV'': Niko Bellic of the VillainProtagonist from the GTA series. Sure, [[TragicVillain he may not have had a choice in the beginning]], but his acceptance of being a ProfessionalKiller leaves him feeling pretty miserable about himself. He also criticizes the idea behind the previous GTA protagonists. The game points out that all you'd get if you were a lone, anonymous hitman working for but unaffiliated to any part of the criminal underworld in a place like Liberty City is a whole load of suffering and the deaths of your loved ones. In so doing, the game manages to subvert DamnItFeelsGoodToBeAGangster in the darkest, most depressing way possible.
** ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'' deconstructs the mindset of GTA characters with its three protagonists:
*** Franklin represents a new ''GTA'' protagonist, one who is trying to improve his lot in life. In Franklin's case, he works to achieve this by leaving behind the gang-banger culture he grew up in and rolling with professional criminals, first a [[HonestJohnsDealership morally bankrupt used car dealer]], and then the bank robber Michael who earns him far bigger scores than he used to.
*** Michael represents the ''GTA'' protagonist who "won". He has it made and can comfortably retire, but has found life after crime to be boring and wants desperately to get back in "the game".
*** Trevor is representative of the ''GTA'' protagonist who eschews story missions in favor of doing whatever he likes: VideoGameCrueltyPotential incarnate. At the same time, though, he never really accomplishes anything: his best-laid plans fail spectacularly, and the only real successes he sees are when he teams up with Michael and Franklin. Personality-wise, he's also an utterly repulsive human being, living in a filthy trailer in the desert and destroying the lives of everyone around him with his antisocial behavior.
*** Together, the three protagonists deconstruct the mythology behind several GTA protagonists, as well as the idea behind easy money. Outside of the heists, very few missions offer satisfying rewards, showing how petty, self-destructive and selfish anyone would have to be to behave like a GTA protagonist, along with how ultimately depressing the lifestyle itself is. Eventually, this game does this, showing that getting into this lifestyle will either bring you nothing but pain for years and destroy all your dreams (in the case of Michael) or leave you LonelyAtTheTop (in the case of Franklin in the non-Deathwish endings). On the other hand, Trevor's life is shown to be pretty depressing all around, and he only finds enjoyment in it because he's too unhinged to care. The mission "Mrs. Philips" is a reminder of how depressing his life really is behind his ComedicSociopathy and {{Cloudcuckoolander}} behavior. That said, all three protagonists can end up with all of their problems solved, ridiculously rich, and with no real repercussions to their actions... '''only''' due to the fact [[TookAThirdOption that they decide to work for themselves instead of cutting deals with anybody else to survive]]. Throughout the game, working for petty, pathetic criminals is a thankless and penniless affair. Every job they do for someone else ends with them being ambushed or betrayed. This is highlighted in the non-Deathwish endings where the survivors are cast aside as pawns and their clients get the far better end of the deal. Deathwish, which ends up the canonical ending, has them finally realize that there's no winning from constantly chasing score after score and that they have to get out while they're ahead, as well as tie up loose ends and ingratiate themselves to the remaining players enough in the process by getting rid of problematic assholes to be spared and left in peace.
** ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption2'': Dutch is a deconstruction of the JustLikeRobinHood character archetype. Whether or not he was EvilAllAlong is left open to interpretation, since his gang in its early days only robbed from the rich. However, by the events of ''II'', he’s so obsessed with playing the hero that he’s got delusions of grandeur and makes terrible decisions, leading to the gang disintegrating. Turns out he just can’t stop being a criminal, no matter how noble he thinks he intentions are. He gets damn near every member of the gang killed for it ([[spoiler:every active member at the beginning of ''II'' is dead by the end of ''I'' and they lost two right before ''II'']]), including himself.
*** In ''[=RDR1=]'', there is Luisa who is a WideEyedIdealist. She is a well-meaning young woman who lost her family and wants her country to be freed from the tyrannical government and for her people to live freely. Unfortunately she is painfully blind to all of the rebel leader Reyes's blatant faults and she doesn't realize that Reyes is as morally bankrupt as the tyrant she seeks to overthrow. Despite being an otherwise intelligent person, Luisa genuinely believes Reyes loves her and is going to marry her when in actuality, Reyes doesn't even remember her name. She also has trouble understanding why John is NotInThisForYourRevolution, as finding his former gang members and saving his family is his top priority. John also points out to Luisa that things don't really change, people will continue to kill people, another corrupt government will take its place and people won't be truly free. In the end, John was right, [[spoiler: Luisa is killed, foolishly giving her life to save Reyes who quickly forgets about her]] and Reyes soon proves he is no better than the tyrannical president he overthrew.
*** For ''[=RDR2=]'' we have Sadie Adler, who becomes one of the typical ActionGirl. Her violent nature is a consequence of some serious emotional trauma (it's heavily implied that the O'Driscolls raped her after killing her husband), with [[spoiler:the terminally-ill]] Arthur Morgan outright stating that he and Sadie are "more ghosts than people." It eventually reaches the point that she tells [[spoiler:John in the epilogue]] that she seeks out dangerous situations because she ''[[DeathSeeker wants to die]]''. [[spoiler:She gets a bit better by the final mission and end credits, where she decides to leave for South America and find some measure of peace.]]
*** Arthur Morgan of the VillainProtagonist from your typical WideOpenSandbox. Once again, Creator/RockstarGames shows us, as in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV'' and ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'', how depressing the life of our VillainProtagonist could be from their respective context. Sure, he may not have had a choice in the beginning, but his acceptance of being the [[ThenLetMeBeEvil "bad guy"]] leaves him feeling pretty shitty about himself. Reading his journal reveals that he is also under a lot of stress and that he feels that he can't help prevent everything from spiraling out of control. After he finds out [[spoiler:he's dying, then he's wracked with guilt; desperate to make what amends he can, having realized that all he's done has not been worth it. The final nail in the coffin is if the player chooses to help John and has good karma, his last words will be [[RedemptionEqualsDeath "I tried. In the end... I did."]]]] Arthur may be a killing machine with over dozens, perhaps hundreds of kills to his name, but the game goes to great lengths to detail how toxic and harmful living a life of constant conflict is for anybody. Even if you're [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential a particularly nasty player]], never at any point is Arthur's lifestyle treated as something awesome. As a result, he [[spoiler:dies]] as he lived: fighting petty, pathetic criminals who are worse than him.
*** Like [[spoiler:John, he's one of an ActionDad. How do you balance between a loving, long-distance relationship with your girlfriend and her son, and an unpredictable criminal lifestyle in the 1800's? [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome You don't]]]].
* ''VideoGame/UnderNightInBirth'':
** [[BigBad Hilda]] is the deconstruction of the FemmeFatale. Everyone doesn't deny that she has a lot of sex appeal and every word she speaks sounds like an orgasm. However, she's too [[BrainlessBeauty dumb]] to use her sexiness to her advantage, is also AxCrazy and [[UngratefulBitch quite the bitch]], and tries it so often everyone around her becomes used to it, so no one would want to do anything for her. The only one she manages to seduce is Hyde Kido, [[HormoneAddledTeenager which isn't much of an accomplishment]].
** Nanase deconstructs the violent {{Tsundere}} girls who quickly jump to conclusions that have overrun anime and games for years. Having been rescued from a Void by Hyde, Nanase developed a huge crush on him, but responded to that by chasing him across the city claiming he had done something perverted to her because she thought In-Birth powers were transmitted through sex. Instead of being endearing or having heartwarming moments with her dere side, she only causes trouble for Hyde by making his female friends believe he actually did molest her, and when the misunderstanding is cleared up, it's clear they have little patience left for her. It's still PlayedForLaughs, but her multitude of negative traits land her solidly in JokeCharacter territory.
** Phonon, or rather Yoshiko, deconstructs the cute young {{Chuunibyou}} girl character. Unlike typical examples of this, where the girl is kind and harmless but sometimes needs to be pulled back to reality, Phonon's delusions are strong enough to make her a physically violent {{Jerkass}} who is so into her made up identity and worried about being seen as normal that she went into the Hollow Night specifically to gain superpowers and make herself look cooler. Everyone else sees her as a moody teenager who thinks she's smarter than she actually is, and some are worried that she'll become the next Hilda.
to:
[[/folder]]
[[folder:G]]
*Creator/RockstarGames likes to do this:
** ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV'': Niko Bellic of the VillainProtagonist from the GTA series. Sure, [[TragicVillain he may not have had a choice in the beginning]], but his acceptance of being a ProfessionalKiller leaves him feeling pretty miserable about himself. He also criticizes the idea behind the previous GTA protagonists. The game points out that all you'd get if you were a lone, anonymous hitman working for but unaffiliated to any part of the criminal underworld in a place like Liberty City is a whole load of suffering and the deaths of your loved ones. In so doing, the game manages to subvert DamnItFeelsGoodToBeAGangster in the darkest, most depressing way possible.
** ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV''''VideoGame/GhostOfTsushima'' deconstructs the mindset idea of GTA characters with its three protagonists:
*** Franklin representsHonorBeforeReason, a new ''GTA'' protagonist, one who is trying to improve his lot in life. In Franklin's case, he works to achieve this trope embodied by leaving behind the gang-banger culture he grew up in and rolling with professional criminals, first a [[HonestJohnsDealership morally bankrupt used car dealer]], and then the bank robber Michael who earns him far bigger scores no-one more than he used to.
*** Michael representsLord Shimura, [[PlayerCharacter Jin Sakai's]] uncle. Lord Shimura trained Jin to follow the ''GTA'' protagonist who "won". He has it made and can comfortably retire, but has found life after crime to be boring and wants desperately to get back in "the game".
*** Trevor is representativehonourable ways of the ''GTA'' protagonist who eschews story missions in favor of doing whatever he likes: VideoGameCrueltyPotential incarnate. At samurai ever since childhood, and serves as a ReasonableAuthorityFigure towards Jin, but that doesn't change the same time, though, fact that he never really accomplishes anything: his best-laid plans fail spectacularly, and the only real successes he sees are when he teams is an inflexible adherent to a worldview that doesn't line up with Michael the harsh realities of war against the CombatPragmatist Mongols. Even when the Mongols adjust their tactics to get the better of the rigid samurai, and Franklin. Personality-wise, he's also an utterly repulsive human being, living in a filthy trailer in Jin adjusts his own tactics to counter them, Lord Shimura stubbornly refuses to fight the desert Mongols any other way than his own, and destroying it costs the lives of everyone around him with his antisocial behavior.
*** Together, the three protagonists deconstruct the mythology behind several GTA protagonists, as well as the idea behind easy money. Outsidecountless soldiers. Additionally, DeliberateValuesDissonance creeps into Lord Shimura's motivations: part of the heists, very few missions offer satisfying rewards, showing how petty, self-destructive and selfish anyone would have to be to behave like a GTA protagonist, along with how ultimately depressing the lifestyle itself is. Eventually, this game does this, showing reason why he admonishes Jin's CombatPragmatist ways is that getting into this lifestyle he fears that Jin will either bring you nothing but pain for years and destroy all your dreams (in the case of Michael) or leave you LonelyAtTheTop (in the case of Franklin in the non-Deathwish endings). On the other hand, Trevor's life is shown to be pretty depressing all around, and he only finds enjoyment in it because he's too unhinged to care. The mission "Mrs. Philips" is a reminder of how depressing his life really is behind his ComedicSociopathy and {{Cloudcuckoolander}} behavior. That said, all three protagonists can end up with all teaching the common people of their problems solved, ridiculously rich, Tsushima not to be reliant on the samurai nobility to defend them, and with no real repercussions to their actions... '''only''' due to such things could incite them into rebelling and overthrowing the fact [[TookAThirdOption caste system that they decide to work for themselves instead Lord Shimura sits on top of. Because of cutting deals with anybody else to survive]]. Throughout the game, working for petty, pathetic criminals is a thankless and penniless affair. Every job they do for someone else ends with them being ambushed or betrayed. This is highlighted in the non-Deathwish endings where the survivors are cast aside as pawns and their clients get the far better end of the deal. Deathwish, which this, Lord Shimura ends up the canonical ending, has them finally realize that there's no winning from constantly chasing score after score and that they have becoming a BrokenPedestal to get out while they're ahead, as well as tie up loose ends and ingratiate themselves to the remaining players enough in the process by getting rid of problematic assholes to be spared and left in peace.
his nephew.
**''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption2'': Dutch There is a deconstruction of the JustLikeRobinHood another character archetype. Whether or not he was EvilAllAlong is left open to interpretation, since his gang in its early days only robbed from the rich. However, deconstructed by the events of ''II'', he’s so obsessed game: the perfectionist SinkOrSwimMentor who puts his students through TrainingFromHell. That character is Sensei Sadonobu Ishikawa, a man unpopular with playing Tsushima's nobility because of his unrelentingly high standards for accepting students- standards most students couldn't fulfill in his eyes. He appears progressive for taking the hero that he’s got delusions of grandeur and makes terrible decisions, leading to the gang disintegrating. Turns out he just can’t stop being commoner Tomoe as a criminal, no matter how noble he thinks he intentions are. He gets damn near every member of the gang killed for it ([[spoiler:every active member at the beginning of ''II'' is dead by the end of ''I'' and they lost two right before ''II'']]), including himself.
*** In ''[=RDR1=]'', there is Luisa who is a WideEyedIdealist. She is a well-meaning young woman who lost her family and wants her country to be freed from the tyrannical government and for her people to live freely. Unfortunatelystudent, but she is painfully blind to all of the rebel leader Reyes's blatant faults and she doesn't realize that Reyes is as morally bankrupt as the tyrant she seeks to overthrow. Despite being an otherwise intelligent person, Luisa genuinely believes Reyes loves her and is going to marry her when in actuality, Reyes doesn't even remember her name. She also has trouble understanding why John is NotInThisForYourRevolution, as finding his former gang members and saving his family is his top priority. John also points out to Luisa that things don't really change, people will continue to kill people, another corrupt government will take its place and people won't be truly free. In the end, John was right, [[spoiler: Luisa is killed, foolishly giving her life to save Reyes who quickly forgets about her]] and Reyes soon proves he is no better than the tyrannical president he overthrew.
*** For ''[=RDR2=]'' wedidn't have Sadie Adler, who becomes one of the typical ActionGirl. Her violent nature is a consequence of some serious emotional trauma (it's heavily implied that the O'Driscolls raped her after killing her husband), with [[spoiler:the terminally-ill]] Arthur Morgan outright stating that he psychological durability to get through Ishikawa's training, and Sadie are "more ghosts than people." It eventually reaches the point that [[APupilOfMineUntilHeTurnedToEvil she tells [[spoiler:John in the epilogue]] that she seeks out dangerous situations because she ''[[DeathSeeker wants to die]]''. [[spoiler:She gets a bit better by the final mission and end credits, where she decides to leave for South America and find some measure of peace.]]
*** Arthur Morgan of the VillainProtagonist from your typical WideOpenSandbox. Once again, Creator/RockstarGames shows us, as in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV'' and ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'', how depressing the life of our VillainProtagonist could be from their respective context. Sure, he may not have had a choice in the beginning, but his acceptance of being the [[ThenLetMeBeEvil "bad guy"]] leaves him feeling pretty shitty about himself. Reading his journal reveals that he is also under a lot of stress and that he feels that he can't help prevent everything from spiraling out of control. After he finds out [[spoiler:he's dying, then he's wrackedended up going evil]]. Ultimately, all Ishikawa ended up producing with guilt; desperate to make what amends he can, having realized that all he's done has not been worth it. The final nail in his high-minded perfectionism was a useful [[LesCollaborateurs ally for the coffin is if the player chooses to help John Mongols]] and has good karma, his last words will be [[RedemptionEqualsDeath "I tried. In the end... I did."]]]] Arthur may be a killing machine with over dozens, perhaps hundreds of kills to his name, but the game goes to great lengths to detail how toxic and harmful living a life of constant conflict is for anybody. Even if you're [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential a particularly nasty player]], never at any point is Arthur's lifestyle treated as something awesome. As a result, he [[spoiler:dies]] as he lived: fighting petty, pathetic criminals who are worse than him.
*** Like [[spoiler:John, he's one of an ActionDad. How do you balance between a loving, long-distance relationship with your girlfriend and her son, and an unpredictable criminal lifestyle in the 1800's? [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome You don't]]]].
* ''VideoGame/UnderNightInBirth'':
** [[BigBad Hilda]] is the deconstruction of the FemmeFatale. Everyone doesn't deny that she has a lot of sex appeal and every word she speaks sounds like an orgasm. However, she's too [[BrainlessBeauty dumb]] to use her sexiness to her advantage, is also AxCrazy and [[UngratefulBitch quite the bitch]], and tries it so often everyone around her becomes used to it, so no one would want to do anything for her. The only one she manages to seduce is Hyde Kido, [[HormoneAddledTeenager which isn't much of an accomplishment]].
** Nanase deconstructs the violent {{Tsundere}} girls who quickly jump to conclusions that have overrun anime and games for years. Having been rescued from a Void by Hyde, Nanase developed a huge crush on him, but responded to that by chasing him across the city claiming he had done something perverted to her because she thought In-Birth powers were transmitted through sex. Instead of being endearing or having heartwarming moments with her dere side, she only causes trouble for Hyde by making his female friends believe he actually did molest her, and when the misunderstanding is cleared up, it's clear they have little patience left for her. It's still PlayedForLaughs, but her multitude of negative traits land her solidly in JokeCharacter territory.
** Phonon, or rather Yoshiko, deconstructs the cute young {{Chuunibyou}} girl character. Unlike typical examples of this, where the girl is kind and harmless but sometimes needs to be pulled back to reality, Phonon's delusions are strong enough to make her a physically violent {{Jerkass}} who is so into her made up identity and worried about being seen as normal that she went into the Hollow Night specifically to gain superpowers and make herself look cooler. Everyone else sees her as a moody teenager who thinks she's smarter than she actually is, and some are worried that she'll become the next Hilda.cynical, temperamental hermit.
[[folder:G]]
*
** ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV'': Niko Bellic of the VillainProtagonist from the GTA series. Sure, [[TragicVillain he may not have had a choice in the beginning]], but his acceptance of being a ProfessionalKiller leaves him feeling pretty miserable about himself. He also criticizes the idea behind the previous GTA protagonists. The game points out that all you'd get if you were a lone, anonymous hitman working for but unaffiliated to any part of the criminal underworld in a place like Liberty City is a whole load of suffering and the deaths of your loved ones. In so doing, the game manages to subvert DamnItFeelsGoodToBeAGangster in the darkest, most depressing way possible.
** ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV''
*** Franklin represents
*** Michael represents
*** Trevor is representative
*** Together, the three protagonists deconstruct the mythology behind several GTA protagonists, as well as the idea behind easy money. Outside
**
*** In ''[=RDR1=]'', there is Luisa who is a WideEyedIdealist. She is a well-meaning young woman who lost her family and wants her country to be freed from the tyrannical government and for her people to live freely. Unfortunately
*** For ''[=RDR2=]'' we
*** Arthur Morgan of the VillainProtagonist from your typical WideOpenSandbox. Once again, Creator/RockstarGames shows us, as in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV'' and ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'', how depressing the life of our VillainProtagonist could be from their respective context. Sure, he may not have had a choice in the beginning, but his acceptance of being the [[ThenLetMeBeEvil "bad guy"]] leaves him feeling pretty shitty about himself. Reading his journal reveals that he is also under a lot of stress and that he feels that he can't help prevent everything from spiraling out of control. After he finds out [[spoiler:he's dying, then he's wracked
*** Like [[spoiler:John, he's one of an ActionDad. How do you balance between a loving, long-distance relationship with your girlfriend and her son, and an unpredictable criminal lifestyle in the 1800's? [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome You don't]]]].
* ''VideoGame/UnderNightInBirth'':
** [[BigBad Hilda]] is the deconstruction of the FemmeFatale. Everyone doesn't deny that she has a lot of sex appeal and every word she speaks sounds like an orgasm. However, she's too [[BrainlessBeauty dumb]] to use her sexiness to her advantage, is also AxCrazy and [[UngratefulBitch quite the bitch]], and tries it so often everyone around her becomes used to it, so no one would want to do anything for her. The only one she manages to seduce is Hyde Kido, [[HormoneAddledTeenager which isn't much of an accomplishment]].
** Nanase deconstructs the violent {{Tsundere}} girls who quickly jump to conclusions that have overrun anime and games for years. Having been rescued from a Void by Hyde, Nanase developed a huge crush on him, but responded to that by chasing him across the city claiming he had done something perverted to her because she thought In-Birth powers were transmitted through sex. Instead of being endearing or having heartwarming moments with her dere side, she only causes trouble for Hyde by making his female friends believe he actually did molest her, and when the misunderstanding is cleared up, it's clear they have little patience left for her. It's still PlayedForLaughs, but her multitude of negative traits land her solidly in JokeCharacter territory.
** Phonon, or rather Yoshiko, deconstructs the cute young {{Chuunibyou}} girl character. Unlike typical examples of this, where the girl is kind and harmless but sometimes needs to be pulled back to reality, Phonon's delusions are strong enough to make her a physically violent {{Jerkass}} who is so into her made up identity and worried about being seen as normal that she went into the Hollow Night specifically to gain superpowers and make herself look cooler. Everyone else sees her as a moody teenager who thinks she's smarter than she actually is, and some are worried that she'll become the next Hilda.
Changed line(s) 92,110 (click to see context) from:
* ''VideoGame/TheLastSovereign'' delivers a rather brutal deconstruction of the JRPG hero with Kai. A young man [[HeroesPreferSwords skilled in swordsmanship]] [[TheChosenOne selected to save the world]]... a shame that he is an obnoxious asshole who [[ItsAllAboutMe treats his own allies with contempt]], seems more interested [[ExtremeOmnisexual in sexual conquests]], and ultimately [[DecoyProtagonist gets himself ignominiously killed]].
* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'':
** KidHero is deconstructed through Zelda and Link in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime''. While Zelda was clever and knowledgeable, her plan to protect Hyrule [[NiceJobBreakingItHero unintentionally ended up helping the villain]] because she didn't know as much as she thought she did. While the nine year old Link managed an impressive kill count, Ganondorf painfully establishes that Link is still not strong enough in a FinalBossPreview. The kids thought they could be heroes and save the day (perfectly understandable kid behavior) but they did not have the maturity or understanding to be heroes yet and the consequences were severe. Zelda acknowledges this after the time skip and it is perhaps why the Master Sword waited for Link to grow up first before letting him wield it, as he was simply a child and not strong enough to defeat Ganondorf at that point.
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'' deconstructed TheChosenOne in the backstory. Hyrule was inspired by the legend of the [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Hero of Time]] and [[HoldingOutForAHero relied heavily on a hero]] to spontaneously appear in their time of need to save them. But when Ganon returned without a Link to oppose him, the people of Hyrule are unable to defend themselves and the gods flooded the land to stop Ganon from taking over. The Link in this story has no connection or relation to the older heroes and must earn his status as a hero through his own initiative.
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'' also takes apart TheChosenOne and the struggles one would have to face to live up to the expectations. Both Zelda and Link [[spoiler:face immense pressures from family and civilians to protect the kingdom from destruction due to a prophecy, dedicating their entire lives to this single cause and when they failed and Hyrule is in ruins, they suffered resentment from some of the surviving races even a hundred years later.]]
*** [[HeroicMime Link]] [[spoiler:felt it was necessary to hide all emotion, and constantly maintained a cold and stoic front, to cope with the huge amount of responsibility he were given and keep from cracking under the pressure. He even [[HeroicMime refused to speak too much]], out of fear of saying anything unbecoming of the Chosen One. All of which made him feel very alone]].
*** Zelda was [[spoiler:severely admonished by her family for her inability to summon her divine power to seal Ganon without any guidance from anyone to learn ''how'' to do so, leading to frustration, self-loathing and self-doubt. Her family dismissed any interest in other activities, and fractured the relationship between them. When Calamity Ganon returned and Zelda was unable to use her powers, her father and the other Champions were killed and the entire kingdom was destroyed, she blamed herself for failure despite doing everything she could.]]
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTearsOfTheKingdom'' deconstructs both the BloodKnight and ChallengeSeeker; [[spoiler: For Ganondorf, it isn't enough to just win. He has to test his might against a worthy foe so his victory can truly feel complete. When Rauru tells him that Link will one day defeat him, Ganondorf replies that he looks forward to meeting him. But when he encounters Link in the present day and manages to both shatter the Master Sword and ravage his arm, Ganondorf is utterly disappointed and dismisses Link as a worthy adversary. This massive ego ultimately becomes his downfall as by not taking Link seriously enough, it allows Link to regain his strength, defeat his servants plaguing Hyrule, and awaken the new sages to bring the fight to Ganondorf personally. When Link proves powerful enough to actually be a threat, Ganondorf has a ''massive'' VillainousBreakdown and decides to swallow his Secret Stone and transform into a [[ClippedWingAngel dragon]], fully aware [[DeathOfPersonality that this will cost him his mind]], simply because he can't fathom the idea that he might actually ''lose''.]]
* ''VideoGame/LiveALive'' has [[spoiler:Oersted, the hero of the Middle Ages chapter. He's introduced as a fairly stock HighFantasy protagonist - a KnightInShiningArmor who sets out to slay the evil Demon King and win the fair Princess Alethea's hand in marriage. However, he is backstabbed by his best friend Streibough and tricked into committing regicide, leading to the entire kingdom turning on him in an instant. When he manages to confront the traitor and gut him, Alethea does ''not'' help him clear his name and become his bride - instead, she declares her love for Streibough and commits suicide. This causes Oersted to suffer a FreakOut and pull a FaceHeelTurn, declaring war on all of reality.]]
* ''VideoGame/MetalGear'':
** The series as a whole deconstructs the most basic Archetype in Hollywood: the badass ActionHero who blows bad guys to hell and gets the girl. Rather than being a hardcore larger than life hero, Solid Snake ends up becoming a traumatized mess of a man in response to the hell he's put through throughout his adventures. And, while several women do show some interest in him, the closest he comes to being in any sort of long-term relationship is [[HomoeroticSubtext with Otacon]], while the one woman who had the closest connection to him eventually gets frustrated with him and they end up as friends.
** Big Boss, who Solid Snake is a clone of, takes the deconstruction even further. While we initially meet Snake as a seasoned soldier, Big Boss's first mission turns him from being a WideEyedIdealist with PatrioticFervor into a ShellShockedVeteran who felt that he became an UnwittingPawn to the government when the mission's true nature was revealed to him -- a petty political affair carried out to kill an innocent soldier (who served as his mentor) and ensure that the United States made off with a fortune. As such, he left the United States to start his own private military company that became involved with increasingly morally-questionable operations, which eventually led to him [[HeroWithBadPublicity being branded as a terrorist]] in spite of the fact that his actions successfully prevented nuclear war. After his base of operations was destroyed for the first time, he became a shell of a man that decided [[ThenLetMeBeEvil to embrace his role as a war criminal]] as long as it meant he could create a Heaven for soldiers like himself -- which, of course, would come at the cost of making the rest of the world a living Hell for everyone else. Interestingly enough, this would retroactively make Solid Snake a {{Reconstruction}} of this archetype: while he's still an emotional wreck, he serves as a KnightInSourArmor that still chooses to fight with the government because he believes that it's the right thing to do, even if BeingGoodSucks, instead of pursuing his own selfish and ultimately self-destructive goals like Big Boss.
** [[AntiVillain The Boss]] from ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'' deconstructs [[spoiler:the HeroAntagonist and the FakeDefector]], [[TragicVillain in the most heartbreaking way possible]]. [[spoiler:It all turns out at the end of the game that The Boss was a double agent sent by the US Government to infiltrate Volgin's unit and acquire The Philosopher's Legacy; when this plan went sour after Volgin used a nuclear weapon on Russian soil, to prove its innocence and avert WorldWarIII, the US Government had to [[HeroWithBadPublicity declare The Boss a rogue agent and pin the nuclear attack on her]], and ''she knowingly goes along with this plan because it's for the good of her country''. In the end she dies by the hand of her student, going down in history as a traitor and a war criminal on both sides of the Cold War, and worst of all the sheer callousness of how she was used and discarded is what causes Big Boss to become disillusioned by governments and gradually become the BigBad of the series.]]
* As for being a game about deconstructing DungeonCrawler tropes, ''VideoGame/DarkestDungeon'' gives a few examples when certain classes go through the DespairEventHorizon:
** The Hellion begins to showcase what happens when TheBerserker cracks; she either goes from being a BloodKnight to AxCrazy and begins downright scaring her companions with her brutality instead of supporting them, shows that behind all her bravado that she is as scared witless as the rest, or she uses her blood lust toward SelfHarm tendencies and actively challenges her opponents to try and hurt her, putting herself at great risk while doing so.
** The Jester becomes one for the PluckyComicRelief, as he is the class that normally gives stress heals with song and jokes. If he undergoes afflictions like Abusive or Hopeless, he starts using his jokes to spite the rest of the group, or [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness straight up stops trying to be funny]] and ask them if they ''really'' thought that the mission was going to go well. Otherwise, his jokes simply become [[DudeNotFunny too dark]] and he begins to worsen the situation instead of lighting it up. Naturally, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero this starts to cause stress as opposed to healing it]].
* The ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'' franchise has a couple examples:
** ''VideoGame/SonicLostWorld'' deconstructs Sonic's LeeroyJenkins tendencies and OneDimensionalThinking. As if to parallel his bullet like speed, Sonic kind of has a one-track, arrogant mind, and when he sets his mind on a goal, he will not rest until it is carried out, and this can make him do some very impulsive, foolhardy stuff. ''Lost World'' shows just how this type of mindset can backfire. Sonic impulsively kicks away Eggman's Cacophonic Conch, and allows the Deadly Six to rebel against Eggman. They use Eggman's Extractor machine to drain the world of its energy, and nearly kill Amy and Knuckles. [[spoiler:It happens again later in the game where Sonic's recklessness causes Tails to be captured and nearly turned into a robot.]]
** [[TheDragon Infinite]] from ''VideoGame/SonicForces'' is a deconstruction of the {{Sadist}} and DarkerAndEdgier archetypes. Infinite is extremely dangerous, but his constant need to relish in the pain and suffering of others screws him and Eggman over on several occasions, such as letting Sonic live when he could have easily finished him off, or [[spoiler:killing the Avatar's teammates but sparing the Avatar, an act that would inspire the Avatar to become stronger and ultimately be the one to foil Eggman's plan to incinerate the Resistance with a virtual sun. His motives also turn out to be due to him being little more than TheBully, reveling in pain to support his own wrecked confidence after Shadow killed his squad and [[CurbStompBattle handily beat him]]]].
* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'':
** KidHero is deconstructed through Zelda and Link in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime''. While Zelda was clever and knowledgeable, her plan to protect Hyrule [[NiceJobBreakingItHero unintentionally ended up helping the villain]] because she didn't know as much as she thought she did. While the nine year old Link managed an impressive kill count, Ganondorf painfully establishes that Link is still not strong enough in a FinalBossPreview. The kids thought they could be heroes and save the day (perfectly understandable kid behavior) but they did not have the maturity or understanding to be heroes yet and the consequences were severe. Zelda acknowledges this after the time skip and it is perhaps why the Master Sword waited for Link to grow up first before letting him wield it, as he was simply a child and not strong enough to defeat Ganondorf at that point.
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'' deconstructed TheChosenOne in the backstory. Hyrule was inspired by the legend of the [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Hero of Time]] and [[HoldingOutForAHero relied heavily on a hero]] to spontaneously appear in their time of need to save them. But when Ganon returned without a Link to oppose him, the people of Hyrule are unable to defend themselves and the gods flooded the land to stop Ganon from taking over. The Link in this story has no connection or relation to the older heroes and must earn his status as a hero through his own initiative.
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'' also takes apart TheChosenOne and the struggles one would have to face to live up to the expectations. Both Zelda and Link [[spoiler:face immense pressures from family and civilians to protect the kingdom from destruction due to a prophecy, dedicating their entire lives to this single cause and when they failed and Hyrule is in ruins, they suffered resentment from some of the surviving races even a hundred years later.]]
*** [[HeroicMime Link]] [[spoiler:felt it was necessary to hide all emotion, and constantly maintained a cold and stoic front, to cope with the huge amount of responsibility he were given and keep from cracking under the pressure. He even [[HeroicMime refused to speak too much]], out of fear of saying anything unbecoming of the Chosen One. All of which made him feel very alone]].
*** Zelda was [[spoiler:severely admonished by her family for her inability to summon her divine power to seal Ganon without any guidance from anyone to learn ''how'' to do so, leading to frustration, self-loathing and self-doubt. Her family dismissed any interest in other activities, and fractured the relationship between them. When Calamity Ganon returned and Zelda was unable to use her powers, her father and the other Champions were killed and the entire kingdom was destroyed, she blamed herself for failure despite doing everything she could.]]
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTearsOfTheKingdom'' deconstructs both the BloodKnight and ChallengeSeeker; [[spoiler: For Ganondorf, it isn't enough to just win. He has to test his might against a worthy foe so his victory can truly feel complete. When Rauru tells him that Link will one day defeat him, Ganondorf replies that he looks forward to meeting him. But when he encounters Link in the present day and manages to both shatter the Master Sword and ravage his arm, Ganondorf is utterly disappointed and dismisses Link as a worthy adversary. This massive ego ultimately becomes his downfall as by not taking Link seriously enough, it allows Link to regain his strength, defeat his servants plaguing Hyrule, and awaken the new sages to bring the fight to Ganondorf personally. When Link proves powerful enough to actually be a threat, Ganondorf has a ''massive'' VillainousBreakdown and decides to swallow his Secret Stone and transform into a [[ClippedWingAngel dragon]], fully aware [[DeathOfPersonality that this will cost him his mind]], simply because he can't fathom the idea that he might actually ''lose''.]]
* ''VideoGame/LiveALive'' has [[spoiler:Oersted, the hero of the Middle Ages chapter. He's introduced as a fairly stock HighFantasy protagonist - a KnightInShiningArmor who sets out to slay the evil Demon King and win the fair Princess Alethea's hand in marriage. However, he is backstabbed by his best friend Streibough and tricked into committing regicide, leading to the entire kingdom turning on him in an instant. When he manages to confront the traitor and gut him, Alethea does ''not'' help him clear his name and become his bride - instead, she declares her love for Streibough and commits suicide. This causes Oersted to suffer a FreakOut and pull a FaceHeelTurn, declaring war on all of reality.]]
* ''VideoGame/MetalGear'':
** The series as a whole deconstructs the most basic Archetype in Hollywood: the badass ActionHero who blows bad guys to hell and gets the girl. Rather than being a hardcore larger than life hero, Solid Snake ends up becoming a traumatized mess of a man in response to the hell he's put through throughout his adventures. And, while several women do show some interest in him, the closest he comes to being in any sort of long-term relationship is [[HomoeroticSubtext with Otacon]], while the one woman who had the closest connection to him eventually gets frustrated with him and they end up as friends.
** Big Boss, who Solid Snake is a clone of, takes the deconstruction even further. While we initially meet Snake as a seasoned soldier, Big Boss's first mission turns him from being a WideEyedIdealist with PatrioticFervor into a ShellShockedVeteran who felt that he became an UnwittingPawn to the government when the mission's true nature was revealed to him -- a petty political affair carried out to kill an innocent soldier (who served as his mentor) and ensure that the United States made off with a fortune. As such, he left the United States to start his own private military company that became involved with increasingly morally-questionable operations, which eventually led to him [[HeroWithBadPublicity being branded as a terrorist]] in spite of the fact that his actions successfully prevented nuclear war. After his base of operations was destroyed for the first time, he became a shell of a man that decided [[ThenLetMeBeEvil to embrace his role as a war criminal]] as long as it meant he could create a Heaven for soldiers like himself -- which, of course, would come at the cost of making the rest of the world a living Hell for everyone else. Interestingly enough, this would retroactively make Solid Snake a {{Reconstruction}} of this archetype: while he's still an emotional wreck, he serves as a KnightInSourArmor that still chooses to fight with the government because he believes that it's the right thing to do, even if BeingGoodSucks, instead of pursuing his own selfish and ultimately self-destructive goals like Big Boss.
** [[AntiVillain The Boss]] from ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'' deconstructs [[spoiler:the HeroAntagonist and the FakeDefector]], [[TragicVillain in the most heartbreaking way possible]]. [[spoiler:It all turns out at the end of the game that The Boss was a double agent sent by the US Government to infiltrate Volgin's unit and acquire The Philosopher's Legacy; when this plan went sour after Volgin used a nuclear weapon on Russian soil, to prove its innocence and avert WorldWarIII, the US Government had to [[HeroWithBadPublicity declare The Boss a rogue agent and pin the nuclear attack on her]], and ''she knowingly goes along with this plan because it's for the good of her country''. In the end she dies by the hand of her student, going down in history as a traitor and a war criminal on both sides of the Cold War, and worst of all the sheer callousness of how she was used and discarded is what causes Big Boss to become disillusioned by governments and gradually become the BigBad of the series.]]
* As for being a game about deconstructing DungeonCrawler tropes, ''VideoGame/DarkestDungeon'' gives a few examples when certain classes go through the DespairEventHorizon:
** The Hellion begins to showcase what happens when TheBerserker cracks; she either goes from being a BloodKnight to AxCrazy and begins downright scaring her companions with her brutality instead of supporting them, shows that behind all her bravado that she is as scared witless as the rest, or she uses her blood lust toward SelfHarm tendencies and actively challenges her opponents to try and hurt her, putting herself at great risk while doing so.
** The Jester becomes one for the PluckyComicRelief, as he is the class that normally gives stress heals with song and jokes. If he undergoes afflictions like Abusive or Hopeless, he starts using his jokes to spite the rest of the group, or [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness straight up stops trying to be funny]] and ask them if they ''really'' thought that the mission was going to go well. Otherwise, his jokes simply become [[DudeNotFunny too dark]] and he begins to worsen the situation instead of lighting it up. Naturally, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero this starts to cause stress as opposed to healing it]].
* The ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'' franchise has a couple examples:
** ''VideoGame/SonicLostWorld'' deconstructs Sonic's LeeroyJenkins tendencies and OneDimensionalThinking. As if to parallel his bullet like speed, Sonic kind of has a one-track, arrogant mind, and when he sets his mind on a goal, he will not rest until it is carried out, and this can make him do some very impulsive, foolhardy stuff. ''Lost World'' shows just how this type of mindset can backfire. Sonic impulsively kicks away Eggman's Cacophonic Conch, and allows the Deadly Six to rebel against Eggman. They use Eggman's Extractor machine to drain the world of its energy, and nearly kill Amy and Knuckles. [[spoiler:It happens again later in the game where Sonic's recklessness causes Tails to be captured and nearly turned into a robot.]]
** [[TheDragon Infinite]] from ''VideoGame/SonicForces'' is a deconstruction of the {{Sadist}} and DarkerAndEdgier archetypes. Infinite is extremely dangerous, but his constant need to relish in the pain and suffering of others screws him and Eggman over on several occasions, such as letting Sonic live when he could have easily finished him off, or [[spoiler:killing the Avatar's teammates but sparing the Avatar, an act that would inspire the Avatar to become stronger and ultimately be the one to foil Eggman's plan to incinerate the Resistance with a virtual sun. His motives also turn out to be due to him being little more than TheBully, reveling in pain to support his own wrecked confidence after Shadow killed his squad and [[CurbStompBattle handily beat him]]]].
to:
* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'':
** KidHero is deconstructed through Zelda and Link in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime''. While Zelda was clever and knowledgeable, her plan to protect Hyrule [[NiceJobBreakingItHero unintentionally ended up helping the villain]] because she didn't know as much as she thought she did. While the nine year old Link managed an impressive kill count, Ganondorf painfully establishes that Link is still not strong enough in a FinalBossPreview. The kids thought they could be heroes and save the day (perfectly understandable kid behavior) but they did not have the maturity or understanding to be heroes yet and the consequences were severe. Zelda acknowledges this after the time skip and it is perhaps why the Master Sword waited for Link to grow up first before letting him wield it, as he was simply a child and not strong enough to defeat Ganondorf at that point.
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'' deconstructed TheChosenOne in the backstory. Hyrule was inspired by the legend of the [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Hero of Time]] and [[HoldingOutForAHero relied heavily on a hero]] to spontaneously appear in their time of need to save them. But when Ganon returned without a Link to oppose him, the people of Hyrule are unable to defend themselves and the gods flooded the land to stop Ganon from taking over. The Link in this story has no connection or relation to the older heroes and must earn his status as a hero through his own initiative.
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'' also takes apart TheChosenOne and the struggles one would have to face to live up to the expectations. Both Zelda and Link [[spoiler:face immense pressures from family and civilians to protect the kingdom from destruction due to a prophecy, dedicating their entire lives to this single cause and when they failed and Hyrule is in ruins, they suffered resentment from some of the surviving races even a hundred years later.]]
*** [[HeroicMime Link]] [[spoiler:felt it was necessary to hide all emotion, and constantly maintained a cold and stoic front, to cope with the huge amount of responsibility he were given and keep from cracking under the pressure. He even [[HeroicMime refused to speak too much]], out of fear of saying anything unbecoming of the Chosen One. All of which made him feel very alone]].
*** Zelda was [[spoiler:severely admonished by her family for her inability to summon her divine power to seal Ganon without any guidance from anyone to learn ''how'' to do so, leading to frustration, self-loathing and self-doubt. Her family dismissed any interest in other activities, and fractured the relationship between them. When Calamity Ganon returned and Zelda was unable to use her powers, her father and the other Champions were killed and the entire kingdom was destroyed, she blamed herself for failure despite doing everything she could.]]
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTearsOfTheKingdom'' deconstructs both the BloodKnight and ChallengeSeeker; [[spoiler: For Ganondorf, it isn't enough to just win. He has to test his might against a worthy foe so his victory can truly feel complete. When Rauru tells him that Link will one day defeat him, Ganondorf replies that he looks forward to meeting him. But when he encounters Link in the present day and manages to both shatter the Master Sword and ravage his arm, Ganondorf is utterly disappointed and dismisses Link as a worthy adversary. This massive ego ultimately becomes his downfall as by not taking Link seriously enough, it allows Link to regain his strength, defeat his servants plaguing Hyrule, and awaken the new sages to bring the fight to Ganondorf personally. When Link proves powerful enough to actually be a threat, Ganondorf has a ''massive'' VillainousBreakdown and decides to swallow his Secret Stone and transform into a [[ClippedWingAngel dragon]], fully aware [[DeathOfPersonality that this will cost him his mind]], simply because he can't fathom the idea that he might actually ''lose''.]]
* ''VideoGame/LiveALive'' has [[spoiler:Oersted, the hero of the Middle Ages chapter. He's introduced as a fairly stock HighFantasy protagonist - a KnightInShiningArmor who sets out to slay the evil Demon King and win the fair Princess Alethea's hand in marriage. However, he is backstabbed by his best friend Streibough and tricked into committing regicide, leading to the entire kingdom turning on him in an instant. When he manages to confront the traitor and gut him, Alethea does ''not'' help him clear his name and become his bride - instead, she declares her love for Streibough and commits suicide. This causes Oersted to suffer a FreakOut and pull a FaceHeelTurn, declaring war on all of reality.]]
* ''VideoGame/MetalGear'':
** The series as a whole deconstructs the most basic Archetype in Hollywood: the badass ActionHero who blows bad guys to hell and gets the girl. Rather than being a hardcore larger than life hero, Solid Snake ends up becoming a traumatized mess of a man in response to the hell he's put through throughout his adventures. And, while several women do show some interest in him, the closest he comes to being in any sort of long-term relationship is [[HomoeroticSubtext with Otacon]], while the one woman who had the closest connection to him eventually gets frustrated with him and they end up as friends.
** Big Boss, who Solid Snake is a clone of, takes the deconstruction even further. While we initially meet Snake as a seasoned soldier, Big Boss's first mission turns him from being a WideEyedIdealist with PatrioticFervor into a ShellShockedVeteran who felt that he became an UnwittingPawn to the government when the mission's true nature was revealed to him -- a petty political affair carried out to kill an innocent soldier (who served as his mentor) and ensure that the United States made off with a fortune. As such, he left the United States to start his own private military company that became involved with increasingly morally-questionable operations, which eventually led to him [[HeroWithBadPublicity being branded as a terrorist]] in spite of the fact that his actions successfully prevented nuclear war. After his base of operations was destroyed for the first time, he became a shell of a man that decided [[ThenLetMeBeEvil to embrace his role as a war criminal]] as long as it meant he could create a Heaven for soldiers like himself -- which, of course, would come at the cost of making the rest of the world a living Hell for everyone else. Interestingly enough, this would retroactively make Solid Snake a {{Reconstruction}} of this archetype: while he's still an emotional wreck, he serves as a KnightInSourArmor that still chooses to fight with the government because he believes that it's the right thing to do, even if BeingGoodSucks, instead of pursuing his own selfish and ultimately self-destructive goals like Big Boss.
** [[AntiVillain The Boss]] from ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'' deconstructs [[spoiler:the HeroAntagonist and the FakeDefector]], [[TragicVillain in the most heartbreaking way possible]]. [[spoiler:It all turns out at the end of the game that The Boss was a double agent sent by the US Government to infiltrate Volgin's unit and acquire The Philosopher's Legacy; when this plan went sour after Volgin used a nuclear weapon on Russian soil, to prove its innocence and avert WorldWarIII, the US Government had to [[HeroWithBadPublicity declare The Boss a rogue agent and pin the nuclear attack on her]], and ''she knowingly goes along with this plan because it's for the good of her country''. In the end she dies by the hand of her student, going down in history as a traitor and a war criminal on both sides of the Cold War, and worst of all the sheer callousness of how she was used and discarded is what causes Big Boss to become disillusioned by governments and gradually become the BigBad of the series.]]
* As for being a game about deconstructing DungeonCrawler tropes, ''VideoGame/DarkestDungeon'' gives a few examples when certain classes go through the DespairEventHorizon:
** The Hellion begins to showcase what happens when TheBerserker cracks; she either goes from being a BloodKnight to AxCrazy and begins downright scaring her companions with her brutality instead of supporting them, shows that behind all her bravado that she is as scared witless as the rest, or she uses her blood lust toward SelfHarm tendencies and actively challenges her opponents to try and hurt her, putting herself at great risk while doing so.
** The Jester becomes one for the PluckyComicRelief, as he is the class that normally gives stress heals with song and jokes. If he undergoes afflictions like Abusive or Hopeless, he starts using his jokes to spite the rest of the group, or [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness straight up stops trying to be funny]] and ask them if they ''really'' thought that the mission was going to go well. Otherwise, his jokes simply become [[DudeNotFunny too dark]] and he begins to worsen the situation instead of lighting it up. Naturally, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero this starts to cause stress as opposed to healing it]].
* The ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'' franchise has a couple examples:
** ''VideoGame/SonicLostWorld'' deconstructs Sonic's LeeroyJenkins tendencies and OneDimensionalThinking. As if to parallel his bullet like speed, Sonic kind of has a one-track, arrogant mind, and when he sets his mind on a goal, he will not rest until it is carried out, and this can make him do some very impulsive, foolhardy stuff. ''Lost World'' shows just how this type of mindset can backfire. Sonic impulsively kicks away Eggman's Cacophonic Conch, and allows the Deadly Six to rebel against Eggman. They use Eggman's Extractor machine to drain the world of its energy, and nearly kill Amy and Knuckles. [[spoiler:It happens again later in the game where Sonic's recklessness causes Tails to be captured and nearly turned into a robot.]]
** [[TheDragon Infinite]] from ''VideoGame/SonicForces'' is a deconstruction of the {{Sadist}} and DarkerAndEdgier archetypes. Infinite is extremely dangerous, but his constant need to relish in the pain and suffering of others screws him and Eggman over on several occasions, such as letting Sonic live when he could have easily finished him off, or [[spoiler:killing the Avatar's teammates but sparing the Avatar, an act that would inspire the Avatar to become stronger and ultimately be the one to foil Eggman's plan to incinerate the Resistance with a virtual sun. His motives also turn out to be due to him being little more than TheBully, reveling in pain to support his own wrecked confidence after Shadow killed his squad and [[CurbStompBattle handily beat him]]]].
[[folder:H]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:I]]
* ''VideoGame/InjusticeGodsAmongUs'':
** The MonsterClown trope is deconstructed in an alternate version of ComicBook/TheJoker. While known to be LaughablyEvil, his jokes are not funny as they're full of references to [[ForTheEvulz spreading anarchy]] and [[StrawNihilist nihilism]], on top of being responsible for the chaos in the Injustice-verse. The sheer horror of his misdeeds [[EvenEvilHasStandards prompts revulsion]] even in other villains in this game and [[VideoGame/Injustice2 its sequel]]. Even Harley Quinn (who is usually depicted as his lover) doesn't like him [[HeelFaceTurn after]] realizing how his actions have made the Injustice-verse miserable by causing Superman's heel turn posthumously. Joker's rants about society's "inner ugliness" and [[EvilCannotComprehendGood assumptions]] that others are [[NotSoDifferentRemark just as bad]] as him reveal how insane and messed-up he truly is.
** Shazam deconstructs WideEyedIdealist as his idealism and naive belief that Superman is right by virtue of being Superman allows Shazam to become a mindless follower of the New Regime. Luthor even calls him out of it, saying no good comes from blind hero worship. [[spoiler: And once Shazam finally does call Superman out for his extremism, Superman kills him in cold blood.]]
** Flash and Shazam are the {{Token Good Teammate}}s of the Regime who aren't involved with the Regime's more atrocious actions but they are deluding themselves into believing that those actions are for the good of the world. However, there is only so much they could be in denial about and it becomes impossible to ignore Regime!Superman's VillainousBreakdown and how he decides to raze cities down and invade parallel universes. In particular, Flash does a HeelFaceTurn once [[spoiler: Superman murders Shazam, who is a ''teenager'' at oldest]] as it was so cruel that even someone like Flash could not support Superman after that.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:J]]
[[folder:I]]
* ''VideoGame/InjusticeGodsAmongUs'':
** The MonsterClown trope is deconstructed in an alternate version of ComicBook/TheJoker. While known to be LaughablyEvil, his jokes are not funny as they're full of references to [[ForTheEvulz spreading anarchy]] and [[StrawNihilist nihilism]], on top of being responsible for the chaos in the Injustice-verse. The sheer horror of his misdeeds [[EvenEvilHasStandards prompts revulsion]] even in other villains in this game and [[VideoGame/Injustice2 its sequel]]. Even Harley Quinn (who is usually depicted as his lover) doesn't like him [[HeelFaceTurn after]] realizing how his actions have made the Injustice-verse miserable by causing Superman's heel turn posthumously. Joker's rants about society's "inner ugliness" and [[EvilCannotComprehendGood assumptions]] that others are [[NotSoDifferentRemark just as bad]] as him reveal how insane and messed-up he truly is.
** Shazam deconstructs WideEyedIdealist as his idealism and naive belief that Superman is right by virtue of being Superman allows Shazam to become a mindless follower of the New Regime. Luthor even calls him out of it, saying no good comes from blind hero worship. [[spoiler: And once Shazam finally does call Superman out for his extremism, Superman kills him in cold blood.]]
** Flash and Shazam are the {{Token Good Teammate}}s of the Regime who aren't involved with the Regime's more atrocious actions but they are deluding themselves into believing that those actions are for the good of the world. However, there is only so much they could be in denial about and it becomes impossible to ignore Regime!Superman's VillainousBreakdown and how he decides to raze cities down and invade parallel universes. In particular, Flash does a HeelFaceTurn once [[spoiler: Superman murders Shazam, who is a ''teenager'' at oldest]] as it was so cruel that even someone like Flash could not support Superman after that.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:J]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:K]]
* ''Videogame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicIITheSithLords'' is a DeconstructorFleet of Franchise/StarWars. As such, the character archetypes are also deconstructed:
** Darth Nihilus deconstructs the Darth Vader [[{{Expy}} Expies]] common in ''Star Wars'' media. What do you get when you focus on Darth Vader's armor and coolness more than the character in question? An empty but powerful husk with no personality or motivation except a desire to destroy everything, just like Darth Nihilus.
** Darth Sion also deconstructs Vader, but goes in the opposite direction by taking away Vader's armor and coolness factor, showing just how miserable it is to actually be in Vader's position: Sion is a twisted, disfigured man in constant agony from his numerous injuries and is forever subservient to much more powerful Sith Lords that he hates.
** Hanharr deconstructs the Wookie [[IOweYouMyLife life debt]]. After being MadeASlave and learning the concept of slavery, Hanharr concluded that the life debt tradition was a form of slavery and went mad. He now hunts the person he owes a life debt to to be free from it, despite said person never once asking anything of him through the debt.
** Kreia deconstructs damn near ''everything'' in the [=GFFA=], in her role as mentor. The reality is that she's pretty much been playing you all along. She fully admits she's a fallen Jedi and an outcast Sith out to stop her former students and (possibly) break the Force itself by using Exile as a means to an end.
** Atton? We all know the loveable Scoundrel type has to have done some illegal and immoral things to survive, but those actions are often glossed over or never described in detail. Atton is one deeply fucked up individual who started as a Republic soldier, stayed loyal to Revan (becoming a Sith-aligned TortureTechnician), had a ''very'' [[MageKiller large body count of Jedi]], and ran to save his own skin after his last victim revealed that he was an untrained Sensitive and would be on the other end of his own torture devices once his superiors figured it out. He put a lot of effort into getting very drunk and living on the fringes to both forget what he was and to hide what he is.
--->'''Atton''': ''I haven't known who I am for years.''
** Mical the Diciple: a pure HairOfGoldHeartOfGold Jedi fanboy who has a fawning admiration of the Order, right? Nope. He's a JadedWashout who was taken from his birth family too young to remember them, raised in an enclave, and then tossed out to fend for himself when he came of age. He didn't do anything wrong or fail his trials; there just weren't enough Knights or Masters to train him after Revan and Malak took half the Knights with them. Listening to what he has to say about the Jedi, there's a lot of DamnedByFaintPraise.
** Atris. Jedi Master, dresses all in white. Refused to go to war. Sat on the High Council. She must be the BigGood, right? HaHaHaNo She viewed ''herself'' that way, certainly, setting up the structure of a new academy with herself as Grandmaster now that the Order was wiped out. But tellingly? There are no students. She's a batshit insane PrinciplesZealot and it's implied that she lured most of the surviving Jedi to Katarr where Nihilus could kill them and she could start the Order anew in her own image.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:L]]
[[folder:K]]
* ''Videogame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicIITheSithLords'' is a DeconstructorFleet of Franchise/StarWars. As such, the character archetypes are also deconstructed:
** Darth Nihilus deconstructs the Darth Vader [[{{Expy}} Expies]] common in ''Star Wars'' media. What do you get when you focus on Darth Vader's armor and coolness more than the character in question? An empty but powerful husk with no personality or motivation except a desire to destroy everything, just like Darth Nihilus.
** Darth Sion also deconstructs Vader, but goes in the opposite direction by taking away Vader's armor and coolness factor, showing just how miserable it is to actually be in Vader's position: Sion is a twisted, disfigured man in constant agony from his numerous injuries and is forever subservient to much more powerful Sith Lords that he hates.
** Hanharr deconstructs the Wookie [[IOweYouMyLife life debt]]. After being MadeASlave and learning the concept of slavery, Hanharr concluded that the life debt tradition was a form of slavery and went mad. He now hunts the person he owes a life debt to to be free from it, despite said person never once asking anything of him through the debt.
** Kreia deconstructs damn near ''everything'' in the [=GFFA=], in her role as mentor. The reality is that she's pretty much been playing you all along. She fully admits she's a fallen Jedi and an outcast Sith out to stop her former students and (possibly) break the Force itself by using Exile as a means to an end.
** Atton? We all know the loveable Scoundrel type has to have done some illegal and immoral things to survive, but those actions are often glossed over or never described in detail. Atton is one deeply fucked up individual who started as a Republic soldier, stayed loyal to Revan (becoming a Sith-aligned TortureTechnician), had a ''very'' [[MageKiller large body count of Jedi]], and ran to save his own skin after his last victim revealed that he was an untrained Sensitive and would be on the other end of his own torture devices once his superiors figured it out. He put a lot of effort into getting very drunk and living on the fringes to both forget what he was and to hide what he is.
--->'''Atton''': ''I haven't known who I am for years.''
** Mical the Diciple: a pure HairOfGoldHeartOfGold Jedi fanboy who has a fawning admiration of the Order, right? Nope. He's a JadedWashout who was taken from his birth family too young to remember them, raised in an enclave, and then tossed out to fend for himself when he came of age. He didn't do anything wrong or fail his trials; there just weren't enough Knights or Masters to train him after Revan and Malak took half the Knights with them. Listening to what he has to say about the Jedi, there's a lot of DamnedByFaintPraise.
** Atris. Jedi Master, dresses all in white. Refused to go to war. Sat on the High Council. She must be the BigGood, right? HaHaHaNo She viewed ''herself'' that way, certainly, setting up the structure of a new academy with herself as Grandmaster now that the Order was wiped out. But tellingly? There are no students. She's a batshit insane PrinciplesZealot and it's implied that she lured most of the surviving Jedi to Katarr where Nihilus could kill them and she could start the Order anew in her own image.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:L]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Lisa}}'' deconstructs DamselInDistress, LivingMacGuffin, MysteriousWaif, and GenderRarityValue through Buddy. She is the last girl in the world, Brad finds her as a baby and raises her while having no idea who she is or where she came from, and she gets kidnapped by a gang led by a scary guy wearing a skull mask. Throughout the entire second game, she’s sought after by everyone, and even [[spoiler:[[AbusiveParents her own adoptive father]] Brad]] doesn't respect her individuality -- in fact, [[spoiler:his obsessive desire to protect her, as with many waifs, [[UnwantedRescue drives her away]] when she sees all the [[KickTheDog horrible]] [[WhatMeasureIsAMook things]] [[VillainProtagonist he]] does in pursuit of her]]. The third game, which stars her, shows exactly what kind of mental effect might be inflicted on a girl who is treated as little more than a trophy or a plot device -- [[spoiler:she ''[[FaceHeelTurn snaps]]'' and goes on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge against the world, [[KillAllHumans killing off every last human and leader she can find]] intending to conquer Olathe while fully embracing the [[MisanthropeSupreme twisted philosophy]] of her birth father Dr. Yado, who set everything up]]. Ironically, [[spoiler:Rando, the aeformentoned gang leader who was initially portrayed as the BigBad is the ''only person'' who treated Buddy with respect ([[ExtremeDoormat possibly too much]])]].
* In ''VideoGame/LittleNightmares'', despite their skittish behavior, the Nomes are the only [[NiceGuy friendly and docile creatures]] in the Maw and they try to make friends with other inhabitants. Unfortunately, residing in [[EldritchLocation the Maw]], they are often killed by the other inhabitants for being nice. In fact, they are not even safe from [[spoiler:the protagonist Six]] who then eats a Nome after [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished it offers the former some food]].
* ''VideoGame/LiveALive'' has [[spoiler:Oersted, the hero of the Middle Ages chapter. He's introduced as a fairly stock HighFantasy protagonist - a KnightInShiningArmor who sets out to slay the evil Demon King and win the fair Princess Alethea's hand in marriage. However, he is backstabbed by his best friend Streibough and tricked into committing regicide, leading to the entire kingdom turning on him in an instant. When he manages to confront the traitor and gut him, Alethea does ''not'' help him clear his name and become his bride - instead, she declares her love for Streibough and commits suicide. This causes Oersted to suffer a FreakOut and pull a FaceHeelTurn, declaring war on all of reality.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:M]]
* In ''VideoGame/LittleNightmares'', despite their skittish behavior, the Nomes are the only [[NiceGuy friendly and docile creatures]] in the Maw and they try to make friends with other inhabitants. Unfortunately, residing in [[EldritchLocation the Maw]], they are often killed by the other inhabitants for being nice. In fact, they are not even safe from [[spoiler:the protagonist Six]] who then eats a Nome after [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished it offers the former some food]].
* ''VideoGame/LiveALive'' has [[spoiler:Oersted, the hero of the Middle Ages chapter. He's introduced as a fairly stock HighFantasy protagonist - a KnightInShiningArmor who sets out to slay the evil Demon King and win the fair Princess Alethea's hand in marriage. However, he is backstabbed by his best friend Streibough and tricked into committing regicide, leading to the entire kingdom turning on him in an instant. When he manages to confront the traitor and gut him, Alethea does ''not'' help him clear his name and become his bride - instead, she declares her love for Streibough and commits suicide. This causes Oersted to suffer a FreakOut and pull a FaceHeelTurn, declaring war on all of reality.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:M]]
Changed line(s) 117,136 (click to see context) from:
* Cassius Bright from ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsInTheSky'' deconstructs OneManArmy, MemeticBadass and RetiredBadass. Cassius almost single-handedly saved Liberl from Erebonia's invasion in the 100 Days War, and his achievements as a Bracer are so great he's treated like an in-universe GodModeSue. The main plot of the first ''Sky'' game hinges on one question: ''what happens when someone like that retires?'' In short, the game's antagonist is a former protege of Cassius who saw him as the one thing holding the country together. When he left the army, he felt Liberl was defenceless against foreign powers. So he became a WellIntentionedExtremist, starting a coup d'etat and making deals with a shady secret society to obtain a piece of dangerous ancient technology. When Cassius returns, he literally beats it into his former student that, for all his achievements, he's just ''one man'', and treating him like the one thing that held the army together is incredibly dangerous for the country's future. Cassius is forced ''out'' of retirement in order to clear up this mess.
* Rean Schwarzer from ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel'' deconstructs a few archetypes:
** He has a tendency to sacrifice himself for someone else's sake, even if it brings him a lot of harm. This is at first played for {{Fanservice}} when he gets a [[ThanksForTheMammaries face full of boobs]] from Alisa after trying to save her from a TrapDoor but this isn't explored till the second chapter where he [[TakingTheBullet jumps right in]] to take a hit for Jusis and Machias who were bickering while the monster isn't dead which results in harming his dominant sword hand. Jusis has to call him out on his MartyrWithoutACause tendencies.
** Being TheChosenOne to pilot a SuperRobot sounds good and all but when the country that he's in forces him to fight against a country that he doesn't have any reason to fight against and yet still has to go to reduce the bloodshed from citizens and soldiers alike, this ends up making him a miserable man. As a bonus, he's also a national hero, giving him no escape from the responsibilities of being one. That's not even starting on some of his students who don't like him mainly because he participated in conquering their countries and homeland at the start of ''Cold Steel III''.
** His SuperpoweredEvilSide is a big deconstruction on how to master and control the powers especially when the source of those powers, his heart, [[spoiler:doesn't even belong to him but from him but from his father who gave him his heart. And said father is also the BigBad who can control him at will.]] Several times people have told him to master those powers except said people have no idea of what they're even talking about, [[spoiler:making him lose his powers at the worst possible moments when it gets too powerful for him to control.]]
** He's the first character onscreen to [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu kill off]] one of the goddess Aidios' seven guardians who are guarding her treasures, the Sept-Terrion. This ends up being a bad idea because the guardian he killed is the only reason why the curse of Erebonia hasn't spread all over the Erebonian empire and beyond. And as a side bonus, he winds up with an amnesia by ''Cold Steel IV''.
* ''VideoGame/TheWalkingDead'' deconstructs TheLoad in Season 1's Ben Paul. He makes everything worse off for Lee and co. after joining them, but ''knows it'', and after one fuck-up too many for his comfort [[DeathSeeker ends up becoming passively suicidal]].
* ''VideoGame/{{Lisa}}'' deconstructs DamselInDistress, LivingMacGuffin, MysteriousWaif, and GenderRarityValue through Buddy. She is the last girl in the world, Brad finds her as a baby and raises her while having no idea who she is or where she came from, and she gets kidnapped by a gang led by a scary guy wearing a skull mask. Throughout the entire second game, she’s sought after by everyone, and even [[spoiler:[[AbusiveParents her own adoptive father]] Brad]] doesn't respect her individuality -- in fact, [[spoiler:his obsessive desire to protect her, as with many waifs, [[UnwantedRescue drives her away]] when she sees all the [[KickTheDog horrible]] [[WhatMeasureIsAMook things]] [[VillainProtagonist he]] does in pursuit of her]]. The third game, which stars her, shows exactly what kind of mental effect might be inflicted on a girl who is treated as little more than a trophy or a plot device -- [[spoiler:she ''[[FaceHeelTurn snaps]]'' and goes on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge against the world, [[KillAllHumans killing off every last human and leader she can find]] intending to conquer Olathe while fully embracing the [[MisanthropeSupreme twisted philosophy]] of her birth father Dr. Yado, who set everything up]]. Ironically, [[spoiler:Rando, the aeformentoned gang leader who was initially portrayed as the BigBad is the ''only person'' who treated Buddy with respect ([[ExtremeDoormat possibly too much]])]].
* In ''VideoGame/LittleNightmares'', despite their skittish behavior, the Nomes are the only [[NiceGuy friendly and docile creatures]] in the Maw and they try to make friends with other inhabitants. Unfortunately, residing in [[EldritchLocation the Maw]], they are often killed by the other inhabitants for being nice. In fact, they are not even safe from [[spoiler:the protagonist Six]] who then eats a Nome after [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished it offers the former some food]].
* ''VideoGame/UntilDawn'':
** Jessica acts like a ProudBeauty but reveals to Mike that she has a lot of self-esteem issues and insecurities over her looks. She plays up her confident sexpot act because it's what people expect of her.
** Emily is an AlphaBitch but similar to Jessica, it's implied she is actually very insecure and is afraid of failure and her self-centered and rude behaviour is a mask to hide it.
** Hannah is a HopelessSuitor towards Mike despite knowing he is already dating someone else and the few romance tests she took indicated that they were incompatible. She continues to openly pine for him. Her friends notice this and pull a prank on her because of it, leading to dire consequences for Hannah and everyone else.
* ''VideoGame/{{Yakuza}}'' is in many ways a deconstruction of the romantic and idealized view of the {{Yakuza}}. Kiryu is a prime example of the romantic yakuza, a powerful and noble figure who uses his outsider status and capacity to do the socially unacceptable to protect the common people against brutal thugs and overbearing powers-that-be, and shows a lot of this attitude too. The games are mostly about what happens when this ideal runs headfirst into the realities of organized crime in the 21st century.
* ''VideoGame/BendyAndTheInkMachine'' deconstructs TheWonka through [[MrAltDisney Joey Drew]]. His insistence on using the titular device put a strain on the animation department, who had to suffer through pipe bursts, loud noises and constant interruptions, as well as the finances (and may have possibly driven the company accountant Grant Cohen to insanity). This, combined with Joey's [[BadBoss other]] [[AllTakeAndNoGive issues]] and a simple decline in Bendy's popularity, ended up speeding up the downfall of the studio.
* The ''VideoGame/{{Deponia}}'' series takes the behavioral traits of your average adventure game protagonist: [[KleptomaniacHero rampant theft]] and regular screwing over of random people for their own benefit, and gives them to NominalHero Rufus, who's exactly the kind of selfish, unlikable sociopath you'd expect to have them.
* ''VideoGame/InjusticeGodsAmongUs'':
** The MonsterClown trope is deconstructed in an alternate version of ComicBook/TheJoker. While known to be LaughablyEvil, his jokes are not funny as they're full of references to [[ForTheEvulz spreading anarchy]] and [[StrawNihilist nihilism]], on top of being responsible for the chaos in the Injustice-verse. The sheer horror of his misdeeds [[EvenEvilHasStandards prompts revulsion]] even in other villains in this game and [[VideoGame/Injustice2 its sequel]]. Even Harley Quinn (who is usually depicted as his lover) doesn't like him [[HeelFaceTurn after]] realizing how his actions have made the Injustice-verse miserable by causing Superman's heel turn posthumously. Joker's rants about society's "inner ugliness" and [[EvilCannotComprehendGood assumptions]] that others are [[NotSoDifferentRemark just as bad]] as him reveal how insane and messed-up he truly is.
** Shazam deconstructs WideEyedIdealist as his idealism and naive belief that Superman is right by virtue of being Superman allows Shazam to become a mindless follower of the New Regime. Luthor even calls him out of it, saying no good comes from blind hero worship. [[spoiler: And once Shazam finally does call Superman out for his extremism, Superman kills him in cold blood.]]
** Flash and Shazam are the {{Token Good Teammate}}s of the Regime who aren't involved with the Regime's more atrocious actions but they are deluding themselves into believing that those actions are for the good of the world. However, there is only so much they could be in denial about and it becomes impossible to ignore Regime!Superman's VillainousBreakdown and how he decides to raze cities down and invade parallel universes. In particular, Flash does a HeelFaceTurn once [[spoiler: Superman murders Shazam, who is a ''teenager'' at oldest]] as it was so cruel that even someone like Flash could not support Superman after that.
* Rean Schwarzer from ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel'' deconstructs a few archetypes:
** He has a tendency to sacrifice himself for someone else's sake, even if it brings him a lot of harm. This is at first played for {{Fanservice}} when he gets a [[ThanksForTheMammaries face full of boobs]] from Alisa after trying to save her from a TrapDoor but this isn't explored till the second chapter where he [[TakingTheBullet jumps right in]] to take a hit for Jusis and Machias who were bickering while the monster isn't dead which results in harming his dominant sword hand. Jusis has to call him out on his MartyrWithoutACause tendencies.
** Being TheChosenOne to pilot a SuperRobot sounds good and all but when the country that he's in forces him to fight against a country that he doesn't have any reason to fight against and yet still has to go to reduce the bloodshed from citizens and soldiers alike, this ends up making him a miserable man. As a bonus, he's also a national hero, giving him no escape from the responsibilities of being one. That's not even starting on some of his students who don't like him mainly because he participated in conquering their countries and homeland at the start of ''Cold Steel III''.
** His SuperpoweredEvilSide is a big deconstruction on how to master and control the powers especially when the source of those powers, his heart, [[spoiler:doesn't even belong to him but from him but from his father who gave him his heart. And said father is also the BigBad who can control him at will.]] Several times people have told him to master those powers except said people have no idea of what they're even talking about, [[spoiler:making him lose his powers at the worst possible moments when it gets too powerful for him to control.]]
** He's the first character onscreen to [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu kill off]] one of the goddess Aidios' seven guardians who are guarding her treasures, the Sept-Terrion. This ends up being a bad idea because the guardian he killed is the only reason why the curse of Erebonia hasn't spread all over the Erebonian empire and beyond. And as a side bonus, he winds up with an amnesia by ''Cold Steel IV''.
* ''VideoGame/TheWalkingDead'' deconstructs TheLoad in Season 1's Ben Paul. He makes everything worse off for Lee and co. after joining them, but ''knows it'', and after one fuck-up too many for his comfort [[DeathSeeker ends up becoming passively suicidal]].
* ''VideoGame/{{Lisa}}'' deconstructs DamselInDistress, LivingMacGuffin, MysteriousWaif, and GenderRarityValue through Buddy. She is the last girl in the world, Brad finds her as a baby and raises her while having no idea who she is or where she came from, and she gets kidnapped by a gang led by a scary guy wearing a skull mask. Throughout the entire second game, she’s sought after by everyone, and even [[spoiler:[[AbusiveParents her own adoptive father]] Brad]] doesn't respect her individuality -- in fact, [[spoiler:his obsessive desire to protect her, as with many waifs, [[UnwantedRescue drives her away]] when she sees all the [[KickTheDog horrible]] [[WhatMeasureIsAMook things]] [[VillainProtagonist he]] does in pursuit of her]]. The third game, which stars her, shows exactly what kind of mental effect might be inflicted on a girl who is treated as little more than a trophy or a plot device -- [[spoiler:she ''[[FaceHeelTurn snaps]]'' and goes on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge against the world, [[KillAllHumans killing off every last human and leader she can find]] intending to conquer Olathe while fully embracing the [[MisanthropeSupreme twisted philosophy]] of her birth father Dr. Yado, who set everything up]]. Ironically, [[spoiler:Rando, the aeformentoned gang leader who was initially portrayed as the BigBad is the ''only person'' who treated Buddy with respect ([[ExtremeDoormat possibly too much]])]].
* In ''VideoGame/LittleNightmares'', despite their skittish behavior, the Nomes are the only [[NiceGuy friendly and docile creatures]] in the Maw and they try to make friends with other inhabitants. Unfortunately, residing in [[EldritchLocation the Maw]], they are often killed by the other inhabitants for being nice. In fact, they are not even safe from [[spoiler:the protagonist Six]] who then eats a Nome after [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished it offers the former some food]].
* ''VideoGame/UntilDawn'':
** Jessica acts like a ProudBeauty but reveals to Mike that she has a lot of self-esteem issues and insecurities over her looks. She plays up her confident sexpot act because it's what people expect of her.
** Emily is an AlphaBitch but similar to Jessica, it's implied she is actually very insecure and is afraid of failure and her self-centered and rude behaviour is a mask to hide it.
** Hannah is a HopelessSuitor towards Mike despite knowing he is already dating someone else and the few romance tests she took indicated that they were incompatible. She continues to openly pine for him. Her friends notice this and pull a prank on her because of it, leading to dire consequences for Hannah and everyone else.
* ''VideoGame/{{Yakuza}}'' is in many ways a deconstruction of the romantic and idealized view of the {{Yakuza}}. Kiryu is a prime example of the romantic yakuza, a powerful and noble figure who uses his outsider status and capacity to do the socially unacceptable to protect the common people against brutal thugs and overbearing powers-that-be, and shows a lot of this attitude too. The games are mostly about what happens when this ideal runs headfirst into the realities of organized crime in the 21st century.
* ''VideoGame/BendyAndTheInkMachine'' deconstructs TheWonka through [[MrAltDisney Joey Drew]]. His insistence on using the titular device put a strain on the animation department, who had to suffer through pipe bursts, loud noises and constant interruptions, as well as the finances (and may have possibly driven the company accountant Grant Cohen to insanity). This, combined with Joey's [[BadBoss other]] [[AllTakeAndNoGive issues]] and a simple decline in Bendy's popularity, ended up speeding up the downfall of the studio.
* The ''VideoGame/{{Deponia}}'' series takes the behavioral traits of your average adventure game protagonist: [[KleptomaniacHero rampant theft]] and regular screwing over of random people for their own benefit, and gives them to NominalHero Rufus, who's exactly the kind of selfish, unlikable sociopath you'd expect to have them.
* ''VideoGame/InjusticeGodsAmongUs'':
** The MonsterClown trope is deconstructed in an alternate version of ComicBook/TheJoker. While known to be LaughablyEvil, his jokes are not funny as they're full of references to [[ForTheEvulz spreading anarchy]] and [[StrawNihilist nihilism]], on top of being responsible for the chaos in the Injustice-verse. The sheer horror of his misdeeds [[EvenEvilHasStandards prompts revulsion]] even in other villains in this game and [[VideoGame/Injustice2 its sequel]]. Even Harley Quinn (who is usually depicted as his lover) doesn't like him [[HeelFaceTurn after]] realizing how his actions have made the Injustice-verse miserable by causing Superman's heel turn posthumously. Joker's rants about society's "inner ugliness" and [[EvilCannotComprehendGood assumptions]] that others are [[NotSoDifferentRemark just as bad]] as him reveal how insane and messed-up he truly is.
** Shazam deconstructs WideEyedIdealist as his idealism and naive belief that Superman is right by virtue of being Superman allows Shazam to become a mindless follower of the New Regime. Luthor even calls him out of it, saying no good comes from blind hero worship. [[spoiler: And once Shazam finally does call Superman out for his extremism, Superman kills him in cold blood.]]
** Flash and Shazam are the {{Token Good Teammate}}s of the Regime who aren't involved with the Regime's more atrocious actions but they are deluding themselves into believing that those actions are for the good of the world. However, there is only so much they could be in denial about and it becomes impossible to ignore Regime!Superman's VillainousBreakdown and how he decides to raze cities down and invade parallel universes. In particular, Flash does a HeelFaceTurn once [[spoiler: Superman murders Shazam, who is a ''teenager'' at oldest]] as it was so cruel that even someone like Flash could not support Superman after that.
to:
* Cassius Bright from ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsInTheSky'' ''VideoGame/MetalGear'':
** The series as a whole deconstructsOneManArmy, MemeticBadass the most basic Archetype in Hollywood: the badass ActionHero who blows bad guys to hell and RetiredBadass. Cassius almost single-handedly saved Liberl from Erebonia's invasion in gets the 100 Days War, and his achievements as girl. Rather than being a Bracer are so great hardcore larger than life hero, Solid Snake ends up becoming a traumatized mess of a man in response to the hell he's treated like an in-universe GodModeSue. The main plot of put through throughout his adventures. And, while several women do show some interest in him, the first ''Sky'' game hinges on one question: ''what happens when someone like that retires?'' In short, the game's antagonist closest he comes to being in any sort of long-term relationship is a former protege of Cassius who saw him as the one thing holding the country together. When he left the army, he felt Liberl was defenceless against foreign powers. So he became a WellIntentionedExtremist, starting a coup d'etat and making deals [[HomoeroticSubtext with a shady secret society to obtain a piece of dangerous ancient technology. When Cassius returns, he literally beats it into his former student that, for all his achievements, he's just ''one man'', and treating him like the one thing that held the army together is incredibly dangerous for the country's future. Cassius is forced ''out'' of retirement in order to clear up this mess.
* Rean Schwarzer from ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel'' deconstructs a few archetypes:
** He has a tendency to sacrifice himself for someone else's sake, even if it brings him a lot of harm. This is at first played for {{Fanservice}} when he gets a [[ThanksForTheMammaries face full of boobs]] from Alisa after trying to save her from a TrapDoor but this isn't explored till the second chapter where he [[TakingTheBullet jumps right in]] to take a hit for Jusis and Machias who were bickeringOtacon]], while the monster isn't dead which results in harming his dominant sword hand. Jusis has one woman who had the closest connection to call him out on his MartyrWithoutACause tendencies.
** Being TheChosenOne to pilot a SuperRobot sounds goodeventually gets frustrated with him and all but when the country that he's in forces him to fight against a country that he doesn't have any reason to fight against and yet still has to go to reduce the bloodshed from citizens and soldiers alike, this ends they end up making him a miserable man. As a bonus, he's also a national hero, giving him no escape from the responsibilities of being one. That's not even starting on some of his students as friends.
** Big Boss, whodon't like him mainly because he participated in conquering their countries and homeland at the start of ''Cold Steel III''.
** His SuperpoweredEvilSideSolid Snake is a big clone of, takes the deconstruction on how even further. While we initially meet Snake as a seasoned soldier, Big Boss's first mission turns him from being a WideEyedIdealist with PatrioticFervor into a ShellShockedVeteran who felt that he became an UnwittingPawn to master and control the powers especially government when the source of those powers, his heart, [[spoiler:doesn't even belong mission's true nature was revealed to him but -- a petty political affair carried out to kill an innocent soldier (who served as his mentor) and ensure that the United States made off with a fortune. As such, he left the United States to start his own private military company that became involved with increasingly morally-questionable operations, which eventually led to him [[HeroWithBadPublicity being branded as a terrorist]] in spite of the fact that his actions successfully prevented nuclear war. After his base of operations was destroyed for the first time, he became a shell of a man that decided [[ThenLetMeBeEvil to embrace his role as a war criminal]] as long as it meant he could create a Heaven for soldiers like himself -- which, of course, would come at the cost of making the rest of the world a living Hell for everyone else. Interestingly enough, this would retroactively make Solid Snake a {{Reconstruction}} of this archetype: while he's still an emotional wreck, he serves as a KnightInSourArmor that still chooses to fight with the government because he believes that it's the right thing to do, even if BeingGoodSucks, instead of pursuing his own selfish and ultimately self-destructive goals like Big Boss.
** [[AntiVillain The Boss]] fromhim but from his father who gave him his heart. And said father ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'' deconstructs [[spoiler:the HeroAntagonist and the FakeDefector]], [[TragicVillain in the most heartbreaking way possible]]. [[spoiler:It all turns out at the end of the game that The Boss was a double agent sent by the US Government to infiltrate Volgin's unit and acquire The Philosopher's Legacy; when this plan went sour after Volgin used a nuclear weapon on Russian soil, to prove its innocence and avert WorldWarIII, the US Government had to [[HeroWithBadPublicity declare The Boss a rogue agent and pin the nuclear attack on her]], and ''she knowingly goes along with this plan because it's for the good of her country''. In the end she dies by the hand of her student, going down in history as a traitor and a war criminal on both sides of the Cold War, and worst of all the sheer callousness of how she was used and discarded is also what causes Big Boss to become disillusioned by governments and gradually become the BigBad who can control him at will.]] Several times people have told him to master those powers except said people have no idea of what they're even talking about, [[spoiler:making him lose his powers at the worst possible moments when it gets too powerful for him to control.series.]]
** He's the first character onscreen to [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu kill off]] one of the goddess Aidios' seven guardians who are guarding her treasures, the Sept-Terrion. This ends up being a bad idea because the guardian he killed is the only reason why the curse of Erebonia hasn't spread all over the Erebonian empire and beyond. And as a side bonus, he winds up with an amnesia by ''Cold Steel IV''.
* ''VideoGame/TheWalkingDead'' deconstructs TheLoad in Season 1's Ben Paul. He makes everything worse off for Lee and co. after joining them, but ''knows it'', and after one fuck-up too many for his comfort [[DeathSeeker ends up becoming passively suicidal]].
* ''VideoGame/{{Lisa}}'' deconstructs DamselInDistress, LivingMacGuffin, MysteriousWaif, and GenderRarityValue through Buddy. She is the last girl in the world, Brad finds her as a baby and raises her while having no idea who she is or where she came from, and she gets kidnapped by a gang led by a scary guy wearing a skull mask. Throughout the entire second game, she’s sought after by everyone, and even [[spoiler:[[AbusiveParents her own adoptive father]] Brad]] doesn't respect her individuality -- in fact, [[spoiler:his obsessive desire to protect her, as with many waifs, [[UnwantedRescue drives her away]] when she sees all the [[KickTheDog horrible]] [[WhatMeasureIsAMook things]] [[VillainProtagonist he]] does in pursuit of her]]. The third game, which stars her, shows exactly what kind of mental effect might be inflicted on a girl who is treated as little more than a trophy or a plot device -- [[spoiler:she ''[[FaceHeelTurn snaps]]'' and goes on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge against the world, [[KillAllHumans killing off every last human and leader she can find]] intending to conquer Olathe while fully embracing the [[MisanthropeSupreme twisted philosophy]] of her birth father Dr. Yado, who set everything up]]. Ironically, [[spoiler:Rando, the aeformentoned gang leader who was initially portrayed as the BigBad is the ''only person'' who treated Buddy with respect ([[ExtremeDoormat possibly too much]])]].
* In ''VideoGame/LittleNightmares'', despite their skittish behavior, the Nomes are the only [[NiceGuy friendly and docile creatures]] in the Maw and they try to make friends with other inhabitants. Unfortunately, residing in [[EldritchLocation the Maw]], they are often killed by the other inhabitants for being nice. In fact, they are not even safe from [[spoiler:the protagonist Six]] who then eats a Nome after [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished it offers the former some food]].
* ''VideoGame/UntilDawn'':
** Jessica acts like a ProudBeauty but reveals to Mike that she has a lot of self-esteem issues and insecurities over her looks. She plays up her confident sexpot act because it's what people expect of her.
** Emily is an AlphaBitch but similar to Jessica, it's implied she is actually very insecure and is afraid of failure and her self-centered and rude behaviour is a mask to hide it.
** Hannah is a HopelessSuitor towards Mike despite knowing he is already dating someone else and the few romance tests she took indicated that they were incompatible. She continues to openly pine for him. Her friends notice this and pull a prank on her because of it, leading to dire consequences for Hannah and everyone else.
* ''VideoGame/{{Yakuza}}'' is in many ways a deconstruction of the romantic and idealized view of the {{Yakuza}}. Kiryu is a prime example of the romantic yakuza, a powerful and noble figure who uses his outsider status and capacity to do the socially unacceptable to protect the common people against brutal thugs and overbearing powers-that-be, and shows a lot of this attitude too. The games are mostly about what happens when this ideal runs headfirst into the realities of organized crime in the 21st century.
* ''VideoGame/BendyAndTheInkMachine'' deconstructs TheWonka through [[MrAltDisney Joey Drew]]. His insistence on using the titular device put a strain on the animation department, who had to suffer through pipe bursts, loud noises and constant interruptions, as well as the finances (and may have possibly driven the company accountant Grant Cohen to insanity). This, combined with Joey's [[BadBoss other]] [[AllTakeAndNoGive issues]] and a simple decline in Bendy's popularity, ended up speeding up the downfall of the studio.
* The ''VideoGame/{{Deponia}}'' series takes the behavioral traits of your average adventure game protagonist: [[KleptomaniacHero rampant theft]] and regular screwing over of random people for their own benefit, and gives them to NominalHero Rufus, who's exactly the kind of selfish, unlikable sociopath you'd expect to have them.
* ''VideoGame/InjusticeGodsAmongUs'':
** The MonsterClown trope is deconstructed in an alternate version of ComicBook/TheJoker. While known to be LaughablyEvil, his jokes are not funny as they're full of references to [[ForTheEvulz spreading anarchy]] and [[StrawNihilist nihilism]], on top of being responsible for the chaos in the Injustice-verse. The sheer horror of his misdeeds [[EvenEvilHasStandards prompts revulsion]] even in other villains in this game and [[VideoGame/Injustice2 its sequel]]. Even Harley Quinn (who is usually depicted as his lover) doesn't like him [[HeelFaceTurn after]] realizing how his actions have made the Injustice-verse miserable by causing Superman's heel turn posthumously. Joker's rants about society's "inner ugliness" and [[EvilCannotComprehendGood assumptions]] that others are [[NotSoDifferentRemark just as bad]] as him reveal how insane and messed-up he truly is.
** Shazam deconstructs WideEyedIdealist as his idealism and naive belief that Superman is right by virtue of being Superman allows Shazam to become a mindless follower of the New Regime. Luthor even calls him out of it, saying no good comes from blind hero worship. [[spoiler: And once Shazam finally does call Superman out for his extremism, Superman kills him in cold blood.]]
** Flash and Shazam are the {{Token Good Teammate}}s of the Regime who aren't involved with the Regime's more atrocious actions but they are deluding themselves into believing that those actions are for the good of the world. However, there is only so much they could be in denial about and it becomes impossible to ignore Regime!Superman's VillainousBreakdown and how he decides to raze cities down and invade parallel universes. In particular, Flash does a HeelFaceTurn once [[spoiler: Superman murders Shazam, who is a ''teenager'' at oldest]] as it was so cruel that even someone like Flash could not support Superman after that.[[/folder]]
[[folder:N]]
** The series as a whole deconstructs
* Rean Schwarzer from ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel'' deconstructs a few archetypes:
** He has a tendency to sacrifice himself for someone else's sake, even if it brings him a lot of harm. This is at first played for {{Fanservice}} when he gets a [[ThanksForTheMammaries face full of boobs]] from Alisa after trying to save her from a TrapDoor but this isn't explored till the second chapter where he [[TakingTheBullet jumps right in]] to take a hit for Jusis and Machias who were bickering
** Being TheChosenOne to pilot a SuperRobot sounds good
** Big Boss, who
** His SuperpoweredEvilSide
** [[AntiVillain The Boss]] from
* ''VideoGame/TheWalkingDead'' deconstructs TheLoad in Season 1's Ben Paul. He makes everything worse off for Lee and co. after joining them, but ''knows it'', and after one fuck-up too many for his comfort [[DeathSeeker ends up becoming passively suicidal]].
* ''VideoGame/{{Lisa}}'' deconstructs DamselInDistress, LivingMacGuffin, MysteriousWaif, and GenderRarityValue through Buddy. She is the last girl in the world, Brad finds her as a baby and raises her while having no idea who she is or where she came from, and she gets kidnapped by a gang led by a scary guy wearing a skull mask. Throughout the entire second game, she’s sought after by everyone, and even [[spoiler:[[AbusiveParents her own adoptive father]] Brad]] doesn't respect her individuality -- in fact, [[spoiler:his obsessive desire to protect her, as with many waifs, [[UnwantedRescue drives her away]] when she sees all the [[KickTheDog horrible]] [[WhatMeasureIsAMook things]] [[VillainProtagonist he]] does in pursuit of her]]. The third game, which stars her, shows exactly what kind of mental effect might be inflicted on a girl who is treated as little more than a trophy or a plot device -- [[spoiler:she ''[[FaceHeelTurn snaps]]'' and goes on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge against the world, [[KillAllHumans killing off every last human and leader she can find]] intending to conquer Olathe while fully embracing the [[MisanthropeSupreme twisted philosophy]] of her birth father Dr. Yado, who set everything up]]. Ironically, [[spoiler:Rando, the aeformentoned gang leader who was initially portrayed as the BigBad is the ''only person'' who treated Buddy with respect ([[ExtremeDoormat possibly too much]])]].
* In ''VideoGame/LittleNightmares'', despite their skittish behavior, the Nomes are the only [[NiceGuy friendly and docile creatures]] in the Maw and they try to make friends with other inhabitants. Unfortunately, residing in [[EldritchLocation the Maw]], they are often killed by the other inhabitants for being nice. In fact, they are not even safe from [[spoiler:the protagonist Six]] who then eats a Nome after [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished it offers the former some food]].
* ''VideoGame/UntilDawn'':
** Jessica acts like a ProudBeauty but reveals to Mike that she has a lot of self-esteem issues and insecurities over her looks. She plays up her confident sexpot act because it's what people expect of her.
** Emily is an AlphaBitch but similar to Jessica, it's implied she is actually very insecure and is afraid of failure and her self-centered and rude behaviour is a mask to hide it.
** Hannah is a HopelessSuitor towards Mike despite knowing he is already dating someone else and the few romance tests she took indicated that they were incompatible. She continues to openly pine for him. Her friends notice this and pull a prank on her because of it, leading to dire consequences for Hannah and everyone else.
* ''VideoGame/{{Yakuza}}'' is in many ways a deconstruction of the romantic and idealized view of the {{Yakuza}}. Kiryu is a prime example of the romantic yakuza, a powerful and noble figure who uses his outsider status and capacity to do the socially unacceptable to protect the common people against brutal thugs and overbearing powers-that-be, and shows a lot of this attitude too. The games are mostly about what happens when this ideal runs headfirst into the realities of organized crime in the 21st century.
* ''VideoGame/BendyAndTheInkMachine'' deconstructs TheWonka through [[MrAltDisney Joey Drew]]. His insistence on using the titular device put a strain on the animation department, who had to suffer through pipe bursts, loud noises and constant interruptions, as well as the finances (and may have possibly driven the company accountant Grant Cohen to insanity). This, combined with Joey's [[BadBoss other]] [[AllTakeAndNoGive issues]] and a simple decline in Bendy's popularity, ended up speeding up the downfall of the studio.
* The ''VideoGame/{{Deponia}}'' series takes the behavioral traits of your average adventure game protagonist: [[KleptomaniacHero rampant theft]] and regular screwing over of random people for their own benefit, and gives them to NominalHero Rufus, who's exactly the kind of selfish, unlikable sociopath you'd expect to have them.
* ''VideoGame/InjusticeGodsAmongUs'':
** The MonsterClown trope is deconstructed in an alternate version of ComicBook/TheJoker. While known to be LaughablyEvil, his jokes are not funny as they're full of references to [[ForTheEvulz spreading anarchy]] and [[StrawNihilist nihilism]], on top of being responsible for the chaos in the Injustice-verse. The sheer horror of his misdeeds [[EvenEvilHasStandards prompts revulsion]] even in other villains in this game and [[VideoGame/Injustice2 its sequel]]. Even Harley Quinn (who is usually depicted as his lover) doesn't like him [[HeelFaceTurn after]] realizing how his actions have made the Injustice-verse miserable by causing Superman's heel turn posthumously. Joker's rants about society's "inner ugliness" and [[EvilCannotComprehendGood assumptions]] that others are [[NotSoDifferentRemark just as bad]] as him reveal how insane and messed-up he truly is.
** Shazam deconstructs WideEyedIdealist as his idealism and naive belief that Superman is right by virtue of being Superman allows Shazam to become a mindless follower of the New Regime. Luthor even calls him out of it, saying no good comes from blind hero worship. [[spoiler: And once Shazam finally does call Superman out for his extremism, Superman kills him in cold blood.]]
** Flash and Shazam are the {{Token Good Teammate}}s of the Regime who aren't involved with the Regime's more atrocious actions but they are deluding themselves into believing that those actions are for the good of the world. However, there is only so much they could be in denial about and it becomes impossible to ignore Regime!Superman's VillainousBreakdown and how he decides to raze cities down and invade parallel universes. In particular, Flash does a HeelFaceTurn once [[spoiler: Superman murders Shazam, who is a ''teenager'' at oldest]] as it was so cruel that even someone like Flash could not support Superman after that.
[[folder:N]]
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* ''VideoGame/{{Shantae}}'' deconstructs MayorPain through Mayor Scuttlebutt. Like most characters in this trope, he makes several boneheaded moves throughout the series. ''Unlike'' these characters, however, his actions don't go away as StatusQuoIsGod is not around to save him. Due to him not wanting to risk fighting both Risky Boots and Ammo Baron, he sells the town to the latter, letting him press assault charges against Shantae and get her placed under house arrest, and later trying to turn the town into a base to attack the Sequin Land Palace from. Him deciding to replace Shantae on a whim with Holly Lingerbean leads to the town getting their memories wiped and nearly eaten by a sandworm. His constant firing of Shantae for random reasons leads to her having some ''serious'' self-esteem problems. Because of all these reasons, he gets little to no respect from any of the townsfolk and a few even wonder why he still has his job in the first place. Case in point, in ''Risky's Revenge'', after Shantae is fired, he tries to launch a smear campaign against her, but literally ''no one'' in town buys into what he says.
* Urizen in ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry5'' is a deconstruction of the GenericDoomsdayVillain. He appears to be a brutal monster [[AmbitionIsEvil seeking power for power's sake]], which ends up being his FatalFlaw. Apart from seeking power, he doesn't have any motivation, and this eventually ensures that [[DemonSlayer Dante]] defeats him. Dante points out that just fighting for the sake of something, like defending his friends from Urizen, makes him more powerful than Urizen himself could ever be. And the reason Urizen's so single-mindedly obsessed with power? [[spoiler:He's the demon half of Dante's antagonistic brother Vergil separated from his human half, with all his power hunger, but none of his humanizing qualities, like Vergil's love for his family, and because Urizen doesn't have any idea what he's going to do with his power apart from gain more of it, he's basically a mindless brute.]] Additionally, [[spoiler:by separating his human and demon halves into two separate beings, Vergil is slowly killing both of them, which is why Urizen has to keep himself alive by coating himself in the bark of the [[WorldTree Qliphoth tree]]. So he's not just a GenericDoomsdayVillain, he's a DarkLordOnLifeSupport.]]
* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'': Mythra deconstructs {{Tsundere}}. While she appears a textbook example of the trope, it's shown from the start that her prickly attitude makes her very hard to get along with, and results in her being TheFriendNobodyLikes to the party for a while. Later revelations imply that her cold demeanor stems from severe self-loathing ([[spoiler:and outright DeathSeeker tendencies]]) over being a living WeaponOfMassDestruction who was responsible for a lot of deaths 500 years ago. She feels she's pushing others away for their own good, because they'd be better off not being associated with someone like her. Notably, she constructed her gentler alternate personality Pyra to basically say everything she wishes she could herself; several times, when Mythra should be apologizing, she switches to Pyra and makes her do it.
* ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}'': Id deconstructs SuperpoweredEvilSide. After spending most of the game being treated as the evil dark side of Fei that emerges when Fei is stressed, its revealed that in truth, Id was a second personality created by the original Fei, called The Coward, to be forced to bear all the negative experiences and memories of their childhood due to his abusive parents. Between that, being blamed for their mother's death, and having become akin to a ChildSoldier against their will, Id came to see destruction as the only good things in his life, and would resurface to fulfill the only things he knows how to do. When Fei, the player character and third personality, works to get this all settled, Id learns that The Coward was hiding the truth from him: that their mother died saving their lives, and had unknowingly been possessed by Miang, TheHeavy for the game. Id was never the evil side of Fei, instead being essentially a scapegoat for negative memories. In the end, Id remerges with Fei after Fei forces The Coward to share the truth, and Id realizes how wrong he was.
* Isaac Clarke from the ''Franchise/DeadSpace'' series shows what would really happen if a BadassNormal were suddenly forced to fight {{Eldritch Abomination}}s all the time. By the end of the series, Isaac is a certifiable badass, able to take on Necromorph and human targets alike with only his engineering skills, unique weaponry, and fast thinking; he's even brought out of "retirement" in the third game because he knows the most about the Necromorphs out of every human in existence, and he even ends up [[spoiler:killing a freaking moon]] in the finale. He's also a traumatized, broken, ''wreck'' of a person who inherently distrusts everyone around him out of sheer paranoia, is willing to do absolutely anything to come away alive, and can barely tell the difference between reality and his own hallucinations; he may come away from the series alive, but that's all that can really be said for him considering how broken he is by that point.
* ''VideoGame/AgeOfEmpiresII'' is nothing short of ''brutal'' towards the idea of the WorkingClassHero for the Ivaylo campaign in the Definite Edition. In a classic fairytale, the valiant swineherd fighting for the peasantry's rights gets to topple the tyrant, marry the empress and ruling instead, right... But for Ivaylo, the corrupt nobility '''loathed''' him for having the gall to rise against his betters, immediately jumping on the first opportunity to usurp him and exile his pregnant wife. And when the poor guy tried to gain support in order to retake the kingdom, the people whom he needs to address are connected through politics and blood to his enemies and ultimately murder him.
* ''VideoGame/{{Wandersong}}'': Audrey Redheart is a deconstruction of the typical RPG hero. [[spoiler:Much of her character can be easily compared to that of a human player going through a video game in the sense that, while she's doing heroic things such as defeating monsters and saving people, she doesn't care at all for the people she saves, using unnecessary force to get her way. During the end of the game, she even refers to the Nightmare King as the "FinalBoss" that she must kill, when it's clear that he is a TragicMonster who could possibly be saved.]]
* ''VideoGame/Cyberpunk2077'' deconstructs the edgy, uncompromising, unnaturally cool badass in the form of Johnny Silverhand; when he was alive, Johnny was a hardass who didn't take shit from anyone, casually pissed off everybody he met, and refused to back down from his fight against the corrupt corporations that rule the world, even when it involved literally dropping a nuke on Night City. As a direct result of his toxic actions, Johnny's remaining fans are aging manchildren who worship him as a god [[RevolutionariesWhoDontDoAnything but don't actually take up his fight themselves]], and his body is buried under a featureless slab of concrete in the middle of a derelict oilfield because all his "friends" wanted was to forget the asshole they were forced to prop up. It takes the entire game for Johnny, now a VirtualGhost sharing V's brain, [[JerkassRealization to realize how miserable and self-absorbed he was]], but it hits hard and can turn him into TheAtoner.
* ''VideoGame/GhostOfTsushima'' deconstructs the idea of HonorBeforeReason, a trope embodied by no-one more than Lord Shimura, [[PlayerCharacter Jin Sakai's]] uncle. Lord Shimura trained Jin to follow the honourable ways of the samurai ever since childhood, and serves as a ReasonableAuthorityFigure towards Jin, but that doesn't change the fact that he is an inflexible adherent to a worldview that doesn't line up with the harsh realities of war against the CombatPragmatist Mongols. Even when the Mongols adjust their tactics to get the better of the rigid samurai, and Jin adjusts his own tactics to counter them, Lord Shimura stubbornly refuses to fight the Mongols any other way than his own, and it costs the lives of countless soldiers. Additionally, DeliberateValuesDissonance creeps into Lord Shimura's motivations: part of the reason why he admonishes Jin's CombatPragmatist ways is that he fears that Jin will end up teaching the common people of Tsushima not to be reliant on the samurai nobility to defend them, and such things could incite them into rebelling and overthrowing the caste system that Lord Shimura sits on top of. Because of this, Lord Shimura ends up becoming a BrokenPedestal to his nephew.
** There is another character deconstructed by the game: the perfectionist SinkOrSwimMentor who puts his students through TrainingFromHell. That character is Sensei Sadonobu Ishikawa, a man unpopular with Tsushima's nobility because of his unrelentingly high standards for accepting students- standards most students couldn't fulfill in his eyes. He appears progressive for taking the commoner Tomoe as a student, but she didn't have the psychological durability to get through Ishikawa's training, and eventually [[APupilOfMineUntilHeTurnedToEvil she ended up going evil]]. Ultimately, all Ishikawa ended up producing with his high-minded perfectionism was a useful [[LesCollaborateurs ally for the Mongols]] and a cynical, temperamental hermit.
* ''VideoGame/DeathStranding'':
** [[PlayerCharacter Sam]] deconstructs a typical IWorkAlone protagonist. Sam's unwillingness to engage with other people comes not from looking down on them, but due to his crippling fear and social anxiety stemming from a lonely childhood and [[spoiler:a tragic accident that costed him his wife and unborn child]]. While he manages to overcome [[spoiler:his [[DoesntLikeBeingTouched fear of touch]] at the end of the game, he still decides to leave the friends he made throughout his journey behind and come back to living as essentially a hermit, because making a few friends didn't magically cure his social phobia.]]
** He also deconstructs the common video game ActionHero protagonist. While Sam crosses dangerous terrain and fights with enemies, he doesn't find it ''fun'', and instead you can often see him falling down on all fours and heaving after an enemy encounter. While he's strong like an ox, he has the kind of strength and body type a [[WorkingClassHero physical laborer]] has, not the one an action hero would. He's also incredibly sensitive emotionally, frequently shown crying in fear, pain or stress and bonds with his [=BB=] almost immidiately. It's also shown quite overtly that his job exhausts him and he can't just go on forever without rest. His skin is covered with cuts and bruises, and he often complains about being tired or in pain.
* ''VideoGame/FarCry4'':
** The game attacks the idea of having a MoralityPet makes a person "good". De Pleur uses his genuine love for his daughter as a ground of sanity while working as a brutal TortureTechnician. As long as he concentrates on her as an innocent, he can bury all his wrongdoings and call himself a good guy.
** It also explores the concept of TheMessiah and how it does more harm than good. Throughout the game, many characters, including Ajay, Mohan, Bhandra and Pagan Min, are seen and elevated to this status but they can be used, abused and downright manipulated to cause others to commit horrible atrocities in their name.
** Any group that styles itself as LaResistance should ''not'' be immediately considered heroic and supported regardless of context. Ajay sees [[spoiler: the horrific results of Golden Path taking power in Kyrat, as Sabal's side becomes consumed with religious fanaticism and purges while Amita's side becomes a narco-state conscripting child soldiers.]]
*** To a lesser extent, Mohan's resistance group started as [[spoiler: a bunch of religious extremists who were more concerned with archaic traditions than the people's wellbeing.]] Mohan was also perfectly fine with [[spoiler: murdering the innocent infant daughter of his enemy out of a jealous rage.]]
** Co-leaders of the Golden Path Sabal and Amita are RedOniBlueOni. Sabal wants to preserve the traditions of Kyrat while Amita wants to create a brighter future for Kyrat. Sabal can be cold and harsh to civilians but is AFatherToHisMen while Amita is more passionate about helping civilians but has a WeHaveReserves mindset. Unfortunately, they don't realize that they need each other in order to balance the other's views but mutually hate the other person, to the point of being willing to [[spoiler: assassinate the other to gain total leadership]]. In the ending, [[spoiler: regardless who becomes the sole leader of the Golden Path, either Sabal or Amita shows traits of extremism without anyone to stop them.]]
* Urizen in ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry5'' is a deconstruction of the GenericDoomsdayVillain. He appears to be a brutal monster [[AmbitionIsEvil seeking power for power's sake]], which ends up being his FatalFlaw. Apart from seeking power, he doesn't have any motivation, and this eventually ensures that [[DemonSlayer Dante]] defeats him. Dante points out that just fighting for the sake of something, like defending his friends from Urizen, makes him more powerful than Urizen himself could ever be. And the reason Urizen's so single-mindedly obsessed with power? [[spoiler:He's the demon half of Dante's antagonistic brother Vergil separated from his human half, with all his power hunger, but none of his humanizing qualities, like Vergil's love for his family, and because Urizen doesn't have any idea what he's going to do with his power apart from gain more of it, he's basically a mindless brute.]] Additionally, [[spoiler:by separating his human and demon halves into two separate beings, Vergil is slowly killing both of them, which is why Urizen has to keep himself alive by coating himself in the bark of the [[WorldTree Qliphoth tree]]. So he's not just a GenericDoomsdayVillain, he's a DarkLordOnLifeSupport.]]
* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'': Mythra deconstructs {{Tsundere}}. While she appears a textbook example of the trope, it's shown from the start that her prickly attitude makes her very hard to get along with, and results in her being TheFriendNobodyLikes to the party for a while. Later revelations imply that her cold demeanor stems from severe self-loathing ([[spoiler:and outright DeathSeeker tendencies]]) over being a living WeaponOfMassDestruction who was responsible for a lot of deaths 500 years ago. She feels she's pushing others away for their own good, because they'd be better off not being associated with someone like her. Notably, she constructed her gentler alternate personality Pyra to basically say everything she wishes she could herself; several times, when Mythra should be apologizing, she switches to Pyra and makes her do it.
* ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}'': Id deconstructs SuperpoweredEvilSide. After spending most of the game being treated as the evil dark side of Fei that emerges when Fei is stressed, its revealed that in truth, Id was a second personality created by the original Fei, called The Coward, to be forced to bear all the negative experiences and memories of their childhood due to his abusive parents. Between that, being blamed for their mother's death, and having become akin to a ChildSoldier against their will, Id came to see destruction as the only good things in his life, and would resurface to fulfill the only things he knows how to do. When Fei, the player character and third personality, works to get this all settled, Id learns that The Coward was hiding the truth from him: that their mother died saving their lives, and had unknowingly been possessed by Miang, TheHeavy for the game. Id was never the evil side of Fei, instead being essentially a scapegoat for negative memories. In the end, Id remerges with Fei after Fei forces The Coward to share the truth, and Id realizes how wrong he was.
* Isaac Clarke from the ''Franchise/DeadSpace'' series shows what would really happen if a BadassNormal were suddenly forced to fight {{Eldritch Abomination}}s all the time. By the end of the series, Isaac is a certifiable badass, able to take on Necromorph and human targets alike with only his engineering skills, unique weaponry, and fast thinking; he's even brought out of "retirement" in the third game because he knows the most about the Necromorphs out of every human in existence, and he even ends up [[spoiler:killing a freaking moon]] in the finale. He's also a traumatized, broken, ''wreck'' of a person who inherently distrusts everyone around him out of sheer paranoia, is willing to do absolutely anything to come away alive, and can barely tell the difference between reality and his own hallucinations; he may come away from the series alive, but that's all that can really be said for him considering how broken he is by that point.
* ''VideoGame/AgeOfEmpiresII'' is nothing short of ''brutal'' towards the idea of the WorkingClassHero for the Ivaylo campaign in the Definite Edition. In a classic fairytale, the valiant swineherd fighting for the peasantry's rights gets to topple the tyrant, marry the empress and ruling instead, right... But for Ivaylo, the corrupt nobility '''loathed''' him for having the gall to rise against his betters, immediately jumping on the first opportunity to usurp him and exile his pregnant wife. And when the poor guy tried to gain support in order to retake the kingdom, the people whom he needs to address are connected through politics and blood to his enemies and ultimately murder him.
* ''VideoGame/{{Wandersong}}'': Audrey Redheart is a deconstruction of the typical RPG hero. [[spoiler:Much of her character can be easily compared to that of a human player going through a video game in the sense that, while she's doing heroic things such as defeating monsters and saving people, she doesn't care at all for the people she saves, using unnecessary force to get her way. During the end of the game, she even refers to the Nightmare King as the "FinalBoss" that she must kill, when it's clear that he is a TragicMonster who could possibly be saved.]]
* ''VideoGame/Cyberpunk2077'' deconstructs the edgy, uncompromising, unnaturally cool badass in the form of Johnny Silverhand; when he was alive, Johnny was a hardass who didn't take shit from anyone, casually pissed off everybody he met, and refused to back down from his fight against the corrupt corporations that rule the world, even when it involved literally dropping a nuke on Night City. As a direct result of his toxic actions, Johnny's remaining fans are aging manchildren who worship him as a god [[RevolutionariesWhoDontDoAnything but don't actually take up his fight themselves]], and his body is buried under a featureless slab of concrete in the middle of a derelict oilfield because all his "friends" wanted was to forget the asshole they were forced to prop up. It takes the entire game for Johnny, now a VirtualGhost sharing V's brain, [[JerkassRealization to realize how miserable and self-absorbed he was]], but it hits hard and can turn him into TheAtoner.
* ''VideoGame/GhostOfTsushima'' deconstructs the idea of HonorBeforeReason, a trope embodied by no-one more than Lord Shimura, [[PlayerCharacter Jin Sakai's]] uncle. Lord Shimura trained Jin to follow the honourable ways of the samurai ever since childhood, and serves as a ReasonableAuthorityFigure towards Jin, but that doesn't change the fact that he is an inflexible adherent to a worldview that doesn't line up with the harsh realities of war against the CombatPragmatist Mongols. Even when the Mongols adjust their tactics to get the better of the rigid samurai, and Jin adjusts his own tactics to counter them, Lord Shimura stubbornly refuses to fight the Mongols any other way than his own, and it costs the lives of countless soldiers. Additionally, DeliberateValuesDissonance creeps into Lord Shimura's motivations: part of the reason why he admonishes Jin's CombatPragmatist ways is that he fears that Jin will end up teaching the common people of Tsushima not to be reliant on the samurai nobility to defend them, and such things could incite them into rebelling and overthrowing the caste system that Lord Shimura sits on top of. Because of this, Lord Shimura ends up becoming a BrokenPedestal to his nephew.
** There is another character deconstructed by the game: the perfectionist SinkOrSwimMentor who puts his students through TrainingFromHell. That character is Sensei Sadonobu Ishikawa, a man unpopular with Tsushima's nobility because of his unrelentingly high standards for accepting students- standards most students couldn't fulfill in his eyes. He appears progressive for taking the commoner Tomoe as a student, but she didn't have the psychological durability to get through Ishikawa's training, and eventually [[APupilOfMineUntilHeTurnedToEvil she ended up going evil]]. Ultimately, all Ishikawa ended up producing with his high-minded perfectionism was a useful [[LesCollaborateurs ally for the Mongols]] and a cynical, temperamental hermit.
* ''VideoGame/DeathStranding'':
** [[PlayerCharacter Sam]] deconstructs a typical IWorkAlone protagonist. Sam's unwillingness to engage with other people comes not from looking down on them, but due to his crippling fear and social anxiety stemming from a lonely childhood and [[spoiler:a tragic accident that costed him his wife and unborn child]]. While he manages to overcome [[spoiler:his [[DoesntLikeBeingTouched fear of touch]] at the end of the game, he still decides to leave the friends he made throughout his journey behind and come back to living as essentially a hermit, because making a few friends didn't magically cure his social phobia.]]
** He also deconstructs the common video game ActionHero protagonist. While Sam crosses dangerous terrain and fights with enemies, he doesn't find it ''fun'', and instead you can often see him falling down on all fours and heaving after an enemy encounter. While he's strong like an ox, he has the kind of strength and body type a [[WorkingClassHero physical laborer]] has, not the one an action hero would. He's also incredibly sensitive emotionally, frequently shown crying in fear, pain or stress and bonds with his [=BB=] almost immidiately. It's also shown quite overtly that his job exhausts him and he can't just go on forever without rest. His skin is covered with cuts and bruises, and he often complains about being tired or in pain.
* ''VideoGame/FarCry4'':
** The game attacks the idea of having a MoralityPet makes a person "good". De Pleur uses his genuine love for his daughter as a ground of sanity while working as a brutal TortureTechnician. As long as he concentrates on her as an innocent, he can bury all his wrongdoings and call himself a good guy.
** It also explores the concept of TheMessiah and how it does more harm than good. Throughout the game, many characters, including Ajay, Mohan, Bhandra and Pagan Min, are seen and elevated to this status but they can be used, abused and downright manipulated to cause others to commit horrible atrocities in their name.
** Any group that styles itself as LaResistance should ''not'' be immediately considered heroic and supported regardless of context. Ajay sees [[spoiler: the horrific results of Golden Path taking power in Kyrat, as Sabal's side becomes consumed with religious fanaticism and purges while Amita's side becomes a narco-state conscripting child soldiers.]]
*** To a lesser extent, Mohan's resistance group started as [[spoiler: a bunch of religious extremists who were more concerned with archaic traditions than the people's wellbeing.]] Mohan was also perfectly fine with [[spoiler: murdering the innocent infant daughter of his enemy out of a jealous rage.]]
** Co-leaders of the Golden Path Sabal and Amita are RedOniBlueOni. Sabal wants to preserve the traditions of Kyrat while Amita wants to create a brighter future for Kyrat. Sabal can be cold and harsh to civilians but is AFatherToHisMen while Amita is more passionate about helping civilians but has a WeHaveReserves mindset. Unfortunately, they don't realize that they need each other in order to balance the other's views but mutually hate the other person, to the point of being willing to [[spoiler: assassinate the other to gain total leadership]]. In the ending, [[spoiler: regardless who becomes the sole leader of the Golden Path, either Sabal or Amita shows traits of extremism without anyone to stop them.]]
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* Urizen in ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry5'' is a deconstruction of the GenericDoomsdayVillain. He appears to be a brutal monster [[AmbitionIsEvil seeking power for power's sake]], which ends up being his FatalFlaw. Apart from seeking power, he doesn't have any motivation, and this eventually ensures that [[DemonSlayer Dante]] defeats him. Dante points out that just fighting for the sake of something, like defending his friends from Urizen, makes him more powerful than Urizen himself could ever be. And the reason Urizen's so single-mindedly obsessed with power? [[spoiler:He's the demon half of Dante's antagonistic brother Vergil separated from his human half, with all his power hunger, but none of his humanizing qualities, like Vergil's love for his family, and because Urizen doesn't have any idea what he's going to do with his power apart from gain more of it, he's basically a mindless brute.]] Additionally, [[spoiler:by separating his human and demon halves into two separate beings, Vergil is slowly killing both of them, which is why Urizen has to keep himself alive by coating himself in the bark of the [[WorldTree Qliphoth tree]]. So he's not just a GenericDoomsdayVillain, he's a DarkLordOnLifeSupport.]]
* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'': Mythra deconstructs {{Tsundere}}. While she appears a textbook example of the trope, it's shown from the start that her prickly attitude makes her very hard to get along with, and results in her being TheFriendNobodyLikes to the party for a while. Later revelations imply that her cold demeanor stems from severe self-loathing ([[spoiler:and outright DeathSeeker tendencies]]) over being a living WeaponOfMassDestruction who was responsible for a lot of deaths 500 years ago. She feels she's pushing others away for their own good, because they'd be better off not being associated with someone like her. Notably, she constructed her gentler alternate personality Pyra to basically say everything she wishes she could herself; several times, when Mythra should be apologizing, she switches to Pyra and makes her do it.
* ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}'': Id deconstructs SuperpoweredEvilSide. After spending most of the game being treated as the evil dark side of Fei that emerges when Fei is stressed, its revealed that in truth, Id was a second personality created by the original Fei, called The Coward, to be forced to bear all the negative experiences and memories of their childhood due to his abusive parents. Between that, being blamed for their mother's death, and having become akin to a ChildSoldier against their will, Id came to see destruction as the only good things in his life, and would resurface to fulfill the only things he knows how to do. When Fei, the player character and third personality, works to get this all settled, Id learns that The Coward was hiding the truth from him: that their mother died saving their lives, and had unknowingly been possessed by Miang, TheHeavy for the game. Id was never the evil side of Fei, instead being essentially a scapegoat for negative memories. In the end, Id remerges with Fei after Fei forces The Coward to share the truth, and Id realizes how wrong he was.
* Isaac Clarke from the ''Franchise/DeadSpace'' series shows what would really happen if a BadassNormal were suddenly forced to fight {{Eldritch Abomination}}s all the time. By the end of the series, Isaac is a certifiable badass, able to take on Necromorph and human targets alike with only his engineering skills, unique weaponry, and fast thinking; he's even brought out of "retirement" in the third game because he knows the most about the Necromorphs out of every human in existence, and he even ends up [[spoiler:killing a freaking moon]] in the finale. He's also a traumatized, broken, ''wreck'' of a person who inherently distrusts everyone around him out of sheer paranoia, is willing to do absolutely anything to come away alive, and can barely tell the difference between reality and his own hallucinations; he may come away from the series alive, but that's all that can really be said for him considering how broken he is by that point.
* ''VideoGame/AgeOfEmpiresII'' is nothing short of ''brutal'' towards the idea of the WorkingClassHero for the Ivaylo campaign in the Definite Edition. In a classic fairytale, the valiant swineherd fighting for the peasantry's rights gets to topple the tyrant, marry the empress and ruling instead, right... But for Ivaylo, the corrupt nobility '''loathed''' him for having the gall to rise against his betters, immediately jumping on the first opportunity to usurp him and exile his pregnant wife. And when the poor guy tried to gain support in order to retake the kingdom, the people whom he needs to address are connected through politics and blood to his enemies and ultimately murder him.
* ''VideoGame/{{Wandersong}}'': Audrey Redheart is a deconstruction of the typical RPG hero. [[spoiler:Much of her character can be easily compared to that of a human player going through a video game in the sense that, while she's doing heroic things such as defeating monsters and saving people, she doesn't care at all for the people she saves, using unnecessary force to get her way. During the end of the game, she even refers to the Nightmare King as the "FinalBoss" that she must kill, when it's clear that he is a TragicMonster who could possibly be saved.]]
* ''VideoGame/Cyberpunk2077'' deconstructs the edgy, uncompromising, unnaturally cool badass in the form of Johnny Silverhand; when he was alive, Johnny was a hardass who didn't take shit from anyone, casually pissed off everybody he met, and refused to back down from his fight against the corrupt corporations that rule the world, even when it involved literally dropping a nuke on Night City. As a direct result of his toxic actions, Johnny's remaining fans are aging manchildren who worship him as a god [[RevolutionariesWhoDontDoAnything but don't actually take up his fight themselves]], and his body is buried under a featureless slab of concrete in the middle of a derelict oilfield because all his "friends" wanted was to forget the asshole they were forced to prop up. It takes the entire game for Johnny, now a VirtualGhost sharing V's brain, [[JerkassRealization to realize how miserable and self-absorbed he was]], but it hits hard and can turn him into TheAtoner.
* ''VideoGame/GhostOfTsushima'' deconstructs the idea of HonorBeforeReason, a trope embodied by no-one more than Lord Shimura, [[PlayerCharacter Jin Sakai's]] uncle. Lord Shimura trained Jin to follow the honourable ways of the samurai ever since childhood, and serves as a ReasonableAuthorityFigure towards Jin, but that doesn't change the fact that he is an inflexible adherent to a worldview that doesn't line up with the harsh realities of war against the CombatPragmatist Mongols. Even when the Mongols adjust their tactics to get the better of the rigid samurai, and Jin adjusts his own tactics to counter them, Lord Shimura stubbornly refuses to fight the Mongols any other way than his own, and it costs the lives of countless soldiers. Additionally, DeliberateValuesDissonance creeps into Lord Shimura's motivations: part of the reason why he admonishes Jin's CombatPragmatist ways is that he fears that Jin will end up teaching the common people of Tsushima not to be reliant on the samurai nobility to defend them, and such things could incite them into rebelling and overthrowing the caste system that Lord Shimura sits on top of. Because of this, Lord Shimura ends up becoming a BrokenPedestal to his nephew.
** There is another character deconstructed by the game: the perfectionist SinkOrSwimMentor who puts his students through TrainingFromHell. That character is Sensei Sadonobu Ishikawa, a man unpopular with Tsushima's nobility because of his unrelentingly high standards for accepting students- standards most students couldn't fulfill in his eyes. He appears progressive for taking the commoner Tomoe as a student, but she didn't have the psychological durability to get through Ishikawa's training, and eventually [[APupilOfMineUntilHeTurnedToEvil she ended up going evil]]. Ultimately, all Ishikawa ended up producing with his high-minded perfectionism was a useful [[LesCollaborateurs ally for the Mongols]] and a cynical, temperamental hermit.
* ''VideoGame/DeathStranding'':
** [[PlayerCharacter Sam]] deconstructs a typical IWorkAlone protagonist. Sam's unwillingness to engage with other people comes not from looking down on them, but due to his crippling fear and social anxiety stemming from a lonely childhood and [[spoiler:a tragic accident that costed him his wife and unborn child]]. While he manages to overcome [[spoiler:his [[DoesntLikeBeingTouched fear of touch]] at the end of the game, he still decides to leave the friends he made throughout his journey behind and come back to living as essentially a hermit, because making a few friends didn't magically cure his social phobia.]]
** He also deconstructs the common video game ActionHero protagonist. While Sam crosses dangerous terrain and fights with enemies, he doesn't find it ''fun'', and instead you can often see him falling down on all fours and heaving after an enemy encounter. While he's strong like an ox, he has the kind of strength and body type a [[WorkingClassHero physical laborer]] has, not the one an action hero would. He's also incredibly sensitive emotionally, frequently shown crying in fear, pain or stress and bonds with his [=BB=] almost immidiately. It's also shown quite overtly that his job exhausts him and he can't just go on forever without rest. His skin is covered with cuts and bruises, and he often complains about being tired or in pain.
* ''VideoGame/FarCry4'':
** The game attacks the idea of having a MoralityPet makes a person "good". De Pleur uses his genuine love for his daughter as a ground of sanity while working as a brutal TortureTechnician. As long as he concentrates on her as an innocent, he can bury all his wrongdoings and call himself a good guy.
** It also explores the concept of TheMessiah and how it does more harm than good. Throughout the game, many characters, including Ajay, Mohan, Bhandra and Pagan Min, are seen and elevated to this status but they can be used, abused and downright manipulated to cause others to commit horrible atrocities in their name.
** Any group that styles itself as LaResistance should ''not'' be immediately considered heroic and supported regardless of context. Ajay sees [[spoiler: the horrific results of Golden Path taking power in Kyrat, as Sabal's side becomes consumed with religious fanaticism and purges while Amita's side becomes a narco-state conscripting child soldiers.]]
*** To a lesser extent, Mohan's resistance group started as [[spoiler: a bunch of religious extremists who were more concerned with archaic traditions than the people's wellbeing.]] Mohan was also perfectly fine with [[spoiler: murdering the innocent infant daughter of his enemy out of a jealous rage.]]
** Co-leaders of the Golden Path Sabal and Amita are RedOniBlueOni. Sabal wants to preserve the traditions of Kyrat while Amita wants to create a brighter future for Kyrat. Sabal can be cold and harsh to civilians but is AFatherToHisMen while Amita is more passionate about helping civilians but has a WeHaveReserves mindset. Unfortunately, they don't realize that they need each other in order to balance the other's views but mutually hate the other person, to the point of being willing to [[spoiler: assassinate the other to gain total leadership]]. In the ending, [[spoiler: regardless who becomes the sole leader of the Golden Path, either Sabal or Amita shows traits of extremism without anyone to stop them.]]
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* Emperor Nefarious from ''VideoGame/RatchetAndClankRiftApart'' deconstructs the InvincibleVillain. He's a version of Nefarious from a dimension where Ratchet and Clank's counterparts, Rivet and Kit, didn't meet until recently. With nothing to substantially stop him, he easily conquered his universe and crushed all who opposed him, but finds himself feeling hollow on the eve of his ultimate victory. As Dr Nefarious points out, since Emperor Nefarious has always equated happiness with success, by achieving absolute victory he has nothing left to achieve, so his life feels empty and devoid of meaning. Also, because he's known nothing but victory his entire life, he's incredibly arrogant and cannot fathom the possibility that he can actually lose. So during the final boss fight, as Ratchet and the heroes bring down his mech suit and decimate his army, giving him his first taste of true failure, Emperor Nefarious completely loses his mind and ultimately attempts to destroy all of reality in a fit of childish rage, all because his fragile ego simply cannot handle the prospect of defeat.
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* Emperor Nefarious from ''VideoGame/RatchetAndClankRiftApart'' deconstructs the InvincibleVillain. He's a version of Nefarious from a dimension where Ratchet and Clank's counterparts, Rivet and Kit, didn't meet until recently. With nothing to substantially stop him, he easily conquered his universe and crushed all who opposed him, but finds himself feeling hollow on the eve of his ultimate victory. As Dr Nefarious points out, since Emperor Nefarious has always equated happiness with success, by achieving absolute victory he has nothing left to achieve, so his life feels empty and devoid of meaning. Also, because he's known nothing but victory his entire life, he's incredibly arrogant and cannot fathom the possibility that he can actually lose. So during the final boss fight, as Ratchet and the heroes bring down his mech suit and decimate his army, giving him his first taste of true failure, Emperor Nefarious completely loses his mind and ultimately attempts to destroy all of reality in a fit of childish rage, all because his fragile ego simply cannot handle the prospect of defeat.
* Creator/RockstarGames likes to do this:
** ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV'': Niko Bellic of the VillainProtagonist from the GTA series. Sure, [[TragicVillain he may not have had a choice in the beginning]], but his acceptance of being a ProfessionalKiller leaves him feeling pretty miserable about himself. He also criticizes the idea behind the previous GTA protagonists. The game points out that all you'd get if you were a lone, anonymous hitman working for but unaffiliated to any part of the criminal underworld in a place like Liberty City is a whole load of suffering and the deaths of your loved ones. In so doing, the game manages to subvert DamnItFeelsGoodToBeAGangster in the darkest, most depressing way possible.
** ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'' deconstructs the mindset of GTA characters with its three protagonists:
*** Franklin represents a new ''GTA'' protagonist, one who is trying to improve his lot in life. In Franklin's case, he works to achieve this by leaving behind the gang-banger culture he grew up in and rolling with professional criminals, first a [[HonestJohnsDealership morally bankrupt used car dealer]], and then the bank robber Michael who earns him far bigger scores than he used to.
*** Michael represents the ''GTA'' protagonist who "won". He has it made and can comfortably retire, but has found life after crime to be boring and wants desperately to get back in "the game".
*** Trevor is representative of the ''GTA'' protagonist who eschews story missions in favor of doing whatever he likes: VideoGameCrueltyPotential incarnate. At the same time, though, he never really accomplishes anything: his best-laid plans fail spectacularly, and the only real successes he sees are when he teams up with Michael and Franklin. Personality-wise, he's also an utterly repulsive human being, living in a filthy trailer in the desert and destroying the lives of everyone around him with his antisocial behavior.
*** Together, the three protagonists deconstruct the mythology behind several GTA protagonists, as well as the idea behind easy money. Outside of the heists, very few missions offer satisfying rewards, showing how petty, self-destructive and selfish anyone would have to be to behave like a GTA protagonist, along with how ultimately depressing the lifestyle itself is. Eventually, this game does this, showing that getting into this lifestyle will either bring you nothing but pain for years and destroy all your dreams (in the case of Michael) or leave you LonelyAtTheTop (in the case of Franklin in the non-Deathwish endings). On the other hand, Trevor's life is shown to be pretty depressing all around, and he only finds enjoyment in it because he's too unhinged to care. The mission "Mrs. Philips" is a reminder of how depressing his life really is behind his ComedicSociopathy and {{Cloudcuckoolander}} behavior. That said, all three protagonists can end up with all of their problems solved, ridiculously rich, and with no real repercussions to their actions... '''only''' due to the fact [[TookAThirdOption that they decide to work for themselves instead of cutting deals with anybody else to survive]]. Throughout the game, working for petty, pathetic criminals is a thankless and penniless affair. Every job they do for someone else ends with them being ambushed or betrayed. This is highlighted in the non-Deathwish endings where the survivors are cast aside as pawns and their clients get the far better end of the deal. Deathwish, which ends up the canonical ending, has them finally realize that there's no winning from constantly chasing score after score and that they have to get out while they're ahead, as well as tie up loose ends and ingratiate themselves to the remaining players enough in the process by getting rid of problematic assholes to be spared and left in peace.
** ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption2'': Dutch is a deconstruction of the JustLikeRobinHood character archetype. Whether or not he was EvilAllAlong is left open to interpretation, since his gang in its early days only robbed from the rich. However, by the events of ''II'', he’s so obsessed with playing the hero that he’s got delusions of grandeur and makes terrible decisions, leading to the gang disintegrating. Turns out he just can’t stop being a criminal, no matter how noble he thinks he intentions are. He gets damn near every member of the gang killed for it ([[spoiler:every active member at the beginning of ''II'' is dead by the end of ''I'' and they lost two right before ''II'']]), including himself.
*** In ''[=RDR1=]'', there is Luisa who is a WideEyedIdealist. She is a well-meaning young woman who lost her family and wants her country to be freed from the tyrannical government and for her people to live freely. Unfortunately she is painfully blind to all of the rebel leader Reyes's blatant faults and she doesn't realize that Reyes is as morally bankrupt as the tyrant she seeks to overthrow. Despite being an otherwise intelligent person, Luisa genuinely believes Reyes loves her and is going to marry her when in actuality, Reyes doesn't even remember her name. She also has trouble understanding why John is NotInThisForYourRevolution, as finding his former gang members and saving his family is his top priority. John also points out to Luisa that things don't really change, people will continue to kill people, another corrupt government will take its place and people won't be truly free. In the end, John was right, [[spoiler: Luisa is killed, foolishly giving her life to save Reyes who quickly forgets about her]] and Reyes soon proves he is no better than the tyrannical president he overthrew.
*** For ''[=RDR2=]'' we have Sadie Adler, who becomes one of the typical ActionGirl. Her violent nature is a consequence of some serious emotional trauma (it's heavily implied that the O'Driscolls raped her after killing her husband), with [[spoiler:the terminally-ill]] Arthur Morgan outright stating that he and Sadie are "more ghosts than people." It eventually reaches the point that she tells [[spoiler:John in the epilogue]] that she seeks out dangerous situations because she ''[[DeathSeeker wants to die]]''. [[spoiler:She gets a bit better by the final mission and end credits, where she decides to leave for South America and find some measure of peace.]]
*** Arthur Morgan of the VillainProtagonist from your typical WideOpenSandbox. Once again, Creator/RockstarGames shows us, as in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV'' and ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'', how depressing the life of our VillainProtagonist could be from their respective context. Sure, he may not have had a choice in the beginning, but his acceptance of being the [[ThenLetMeBeEvil "bad guy"]] leaves him feeling pretty shitty about himself. Reading his journal reveals that he is also under a lot of stress and that he feels that he can't help prevent everything from spiraling out of control. After he finds out [[spoiler:he's dying, then he's wracked with guilt; desperate to make what amends he can, having realized that all he's done has not been worth it. The final nail in the coffin is if the player chooses to help John and has good karma, his last words will be [[RedemptionEqualsDeath "I tried. In the end... I did."]]]] Arthur may be a killing machine with over dozens, perhaps hundreds of kills to his name, but the game goes to great lengths to detail how toxic and harmful living a life of constant conflict is for anybody. Even if you're [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential a particularly nasty player]], never at any point is Arthur's lifestyle treated as something awesome. As a result, he [[spoiler:dies]] as he lived: fighting petty, pathetic criminals who are worse than him.
*** Like [[spoiler:John, he's one of an ActionDad. How do you balance between a loving, long-distance relationship with your girlfriend and her son, and an unpredictable criminal lifestyle in the 1800's? [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome You don't]]]].
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* Emperor Nefarious from ''VideoGame/RatchetAndClankRiftApart'' deconstructs the InvincibleVillain. He's a version of Nefarious from a dimension where Ratchet and Clank's counterparts, Rivet and Kit, didn't meet until recently. With nothing to substantially stop him, he easily conquered his universe and crushed all who opposed him, but finds himself feeling hollow on the eve of his ultimate victory. As Dr Nefarious points out, since Emperor Nefarious has always equated happiness with success, by achieving absolute victory he has nothing left to achieve, so his life feels empty and devoid of meaning. Also, because he's known nothing but victory his entire life, he's incredibly arrogant and cannot fathom the possibility that he can actually lose. So during the final boss fight, as Ratchet and the heroes bring down his mech suit and decimate his army, giving him his first taste of true failure, Emperor Nefarious completely loses his mind and ultimately attempts to destroy all of reality in a fit of childish rage, all because his fragile ego simply cannot handle the prospect of defeat.
* Creator/RockstarGames likes to do this:
** ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV'': Niko Bellic of the VillainProtagonist from the GTA series. Sure, [[TragicVillain he may not have had a choice in the beginning]], but his acceptance of being a ProfessionalKiller leaves him feeling pretty miserable about himself. He also criticizes the idea behind the previous GTA protagonists. The game points out that all you'd get if you were a lone, anonymous hitman working for but unaffiliated to any part of the criminal underworld in a place like Liberty City is a whole load of suffering and the deaths of your loved ones. In so doing, the game manages to subvert DamnItFeelsGoodToBeAGangster in the darkest, most depressing way possible.
** ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'' deconstructs the mindset of GTA characters with its three protagonists:
*** Franklin represents a new ''GTA'' protagonist, one who is trying to improve his lot in life. In Franklin's case, he works to achieve this by leaving behind the gang-banger culture he grew up in and rolling with professional criminals, first a [[HonestJohnsDealership morally bankrupt used car dealer]], and then the bank robber Michael who earns him far bigger scores than he used to.
*** Michael represents the ''GTA'' protagonist who "won". He has it made and can comfortably retire, but has found life after crime to be boring and wants desperately to get back in "the game".
*** Trevor is representative of the ''GTA'' protagonist who eschews story missions in favor of doing whatever he likes: VideoGameCrueltyPotential incarnate. At the same time, though, he never really accomplishes anything: his best-laid plans fail spectacularly, and the only real successes he sees are when he teams up with Michael and Franklin. Personality-wise, he's also an utterly repulsive human being, living in a filthy trailer in the desert and destroying the lives of everyone around him with his antisocial behavior.
*** Together, the three protagonists deconstruct the mythology behind several GTA protagonists, as well as the idea behind easy money. Outside of the heists, very few missions offer satisfying rewards, showing how petty, self-destructive and selfish anyone would have to be to behave like a GTA protagonist, along with how ultimately depressing the lifestyle itself is. Eventually, this game does this, showing that getting into this lifestyle will either bring you nothing but pain for years and destroy all your dreams (in the case of Michael) or leave you LonelyAtTheTop (in the case of Franklin in the non-Deathwish endings). On the other hand, Trevor's life is shown to be pretty depressing all around, and he only finds enjoyment in it because he's too unhinged to care. The mission "Mrs. Philips" is a reminder of how depressing his life really is behind his ComedicSociopathy and {{Cloudcuckoolander}} behavior. That said, all three protagonists can end up with all of their problems solved, ridiculously rich, and with no real repercussions to their actions... '''only''' due to the fact [[TookAThirdOption that they decide to work for themselves instead of cutting deals with anybody else to survive]]. Throughout the game, working for petty, pathetic criminals is a thankless and penniless affair. Every job they do for someone else ends with them being ambushed or betrayed. This is highlighted in the non-Deathwish endings where the survivors are cast aside as pawns and their clients get the far better end of the deal. Deathwish, which ends up the canonical ending, has them finally realize that there's no winning from constantly chasing score after score and that they have to get out while they're ahead, as well as tie up loose ends and ingratiate themselves to the remaining players enough in the process by getting rid of problematic assholes to be spared and left in peace.
** ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption2'': Dutch is a deconstruction of the JustLikeRobinHood character archetype. Whether or not he was EvilAllAlong is left open to interpretation, since his gang in its early days only robbed from the rich. However, by the events of ''II'', he’s so obsessed with playing the hero that he’s got delusions of grandeur and makes terrible decisions, leading to the gang disintegrating. Turns out he just can’t stop being a criminal, no matter how noble he thinks he intentions are. He gets damn near every member of the gang killed for it ([[spoiler:every active member at the beginning of ''II'' is dead by the end of ''I'' and they lost two right before ''II'']]), including himself.
*** In ''[=RDR1=]'', there is Luisa who is a WideEyedIdealist. She is a well-meaning young woman who lost her family and wants her country to be freed from the tyrannical government and for her people to live freely. Unfortunately she is painfully blind to all of the rebel leader Reyes's blatant faults and she doesn't realize that Reyes is as morally bankrupt as the tyrant she seeks to overthrow. Despite being an otherwise intelligent person, Luisa genuinely believes Reyes loves her and is going to marry her when in actuality, Reyes doesn't even remember her name. She also has trouble understanding why John is NotInThisForYourRevolution, as finding his former gang members and saving his family is his top priority. John also points out to Luisa that things don't really change, people will continue to kill people, another corrupt government will take its place and people won't be truly free. In the end, John was right, [[spoiler: Luisa is killed, foolishly giving her life to save Reyes who quickly forgets about her]] and Reyes soon proves he is no better than the tyrannical president he overthrew.
*** For ''[=RDR2=]'' we have Sadie Adler, who becomes one of the typical ActionGirl. Her violent nature is a consequence of some serious emotional trauma (it's heavily implied that the O'Driscolls raped her after killing her husband), with [[spoiler:the terminally-ill]] Arthur Morgan outright stating that he and Sadie are "more ghosts than people." It eventually reaches the point that she tells [[spoiler:John in the epilogue]] that she seeks out dangerous situations because she ''[[DeathSeeker wants to die]]''. [[spoiler:She gets a bit better by the final mission and end credits, where she decides to leave for South America and find some measure of peace.]]
*** Arthur Morgan of the VillainProtagonist from your typical WideOpenSandbox. Once again, Creator/RockstarGames shows us, as in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV'' and ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'', how depressing the life of our VillainProtagonist could be from their respective context. Sure, he may not have had a choice in the beginning, but his acceptance of being the [[ThenLetMeBeEvil "bad guy"]] leaves him feeling pretty shitty about himself. Reading his journal reveals that he is also under a lot of stress and that he feels that he can't help prevent everything from spiraling out of control. After he finds out [[spoiler:he's dying, then he's wracked with guilt; desperate to make what amends he can, having realized that all he's done has not been worth it. The final nail in the coffin is if the player chooses to help John and has good karma, his last words will be [[RedemptionEqualsDeath "I tried. In the end... I did."]]]] Arthur may be a killing machine with over dozens, perhaps hundreds of kills to his name, but the game goes to great lengths to detail how toxic and harmful living a life of constant conflict is for anybody. Even if you're [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential a particularly nasty player]], never at any point is Arthur's lifestyle treated as something awesome. As a result, he [[spoiler:dies]] as he lived: fighting petty, pathetic criminals who are worse than him.
*** Like [[spoiler:John, he's one of an ActionDad. How do you balance between a loving, long-distance relationship with your girlfriend and her son, and an unpredictable criminal lifestyle in the 1800's? [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome You don't]]]].
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* ''Videogame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicIITheSithLords'' is a DeconstructorFleet of Franchise/StarWars. As such, the character archetypes are also deconstructed:
** Darth Nihilus deconstructs the Darth Vader [[{{Expy}} Expies]] common in ''Star Wars'' media. What do you get when you focus on Darth Vader's armor and coolness more than the character in question? An empty but powerful husk with no personality or motivation except a desire to destroy everything, just like Darth Nihilus.
** Darth Sion also deconstructs Vader, but goes in the opposite direction by taking away Vader's armor and coolness factor, showing just how miserable it is to actually be in Vader's position: Sion is a twisted, disfigured man in constant agony from his numerous injuries and is forever subservient to much more powerful Sith Lords that he hates.
** Hanharr deconstructs the Wookie [[IOweYouMyLife life debt]]. After being MadeASlave and learning the concept of slavery, Hanharr concluded that the life debt tradition was a form of slavery and went mad. He now hunts the person he owes a life debt to to be free from it, despite said person never once asking anything of him through the debt.
** Kreia deconstructs damn near ''everything'' in the [=GFFA=], in her role as mentor. The reality is that she's pretty much been playing you all along. She fully admits she's a fallen Jedi and an outcast Sith out to stop her former students and (possibly) break the Force itself by using Exile as a means to an end.
** Atton? We all know the loveable Scoundrel type has to have done some illegal and immoral things to survive, but those actions are often glossed over or never described in detail. Atton is one deeply fucked up individual who started as a Republic soldier, stayed loyal to Revan (becoming a Sith-aligned TortureTechnician), had a ''very'' [[MageKiller large body count of Jedi]], and ran to save his own skin after his last victim revealed that he was an untrained Sensitive and would be on the other end of his own torture devices once his superiors figured it out. He put a lot of effort into getting very drunk and living on the fringes to both forget what he was and to hide what he is.
--->'''Atton''': ''I haven't known who I am for years.''
** Mical the Diciple: a pure HairOfGoldHeartOfGold Jedi fanboy who has a fawning admiration of the Order, right? Nope. He's a JadedWashout who was taken from his birth family too young to remember them, raised in an enclave, and then tossed out to fend for himself when he came of age. He didn't do anything wrong or fail his trials; there just weren't enough Knights or Masters to train him after Revan and Malak took half the Knights with them. Listening to what he has to say about the Jedi, there's a lot of DamnedByFaintPraise.
** Atris. Jedi Master, dresses all in white. Refused to go to war. Sat on the High Council. She must be the BigGood, right? HaHaHaNo She viewed ''herself'' that way, certainly, setting up the structure of a new academy with herself as Grandmaster now that the Order was wiped out. But tellingly? There are no students. She's a batshit insane PrinciplesZealot and it's implied that she lured most of the surviving Jedi to Katarr where Nihilus could kill them and she could start the Order anew in her own image.
* In ''VideoGame/DevilSurvivor'', Yuzu Tanikawa is a deconstruction of the everygirl OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent hero seen in many a JRPG. When everything goes to shit and she gets magical powers to survive the lockdown, she doesn't step up to the plate and become a hero - she can barely cope with the horror, and spends most of the week lamenting how she just wants everything to go back to normal. She also doesn't have any coherent plan to solve the crisis beyond "run as far away as possible", and following her advice [[spoiler:leads you to the worst ending short of the NonstandardGameOver]].
** Darth Nihilus deconstructs the Darth Vader [[{{Expy}} Expies]] common in ''Star Wars'' media. What do you get when you focus on Darth Vader's armor and coolness more than the character in question? An empty but powerful husk with no personality or motivation except a desire to destroy everything, just like Darth Nihilus.
** Darth Sion also deconstructs Vader, but goes in the opposite direction by taking away Vader's armor and coolness factor, showing just how miserable it is to actually be in Vader's position: Sion is a twisted, disfigured man in constant agony from his numerous injuries and is forever subservient to much more powerful Sith Lords that he hates.
** Hanharr deconstructs the Wookie [[IOweYouMyLife life debt]]. After being MadeASlave and learning the concept of slavery, Hanharr concluded that the life debt tradition was a form of slavery and went mad. He now hunts the person he owes a life debt to to be free from it, despite said person never once asking anything of him through the debt.
** Kreia deconstructs damn near ''everything'' in the [=GFFA=], in her role as mentor. The reality is that she's pretty much been playing you all along. She fully admits she's a fallen Jedi and an outcast Sith out to stop her former students and (possibly) break the Force itself by using Exile as a means to an end.
** Atton? We all know the loveable Scoundrel type has to have done some illegal and immoral things to survive, but those actions are often glossed over or never described in detail. Atton is one deeply fucked up individual who started as a Republic soldier, stayed loyal to Revan (becoming a Sith-aligned TortureTechnician), had a ''very'' [[MageKiller large body count of Jedi]], and ran to save his own skin after his last victim revealed that he was an untrained Sensitive and would be on the other end of his own torture devices once his superiors figured it out. He put a lot of effort into getting very drunk and living on the fringes to both forget what he was and to hide what he is.
--->'''Atton''': ''I haven't known who I am for years.''
** Mical the Diciple: a pure HairOfGoldHeartOfGold Jedi fanboy who has a fawning admiration of the Order, right? Nope. He's a JadedWashout who was taken from his birth family too young to remember them, raised in an enclave, and then tossed out to fend for himself when he came of age. He didn't do anything wrong or fail his trials; there just weren't enough Knights or Masters to train him after Revan and Malak took half the Knights with them. Listening to what he has to say about the Jedi, there's a lot of DamnedByFaintPraise.
** Atris. Jedi Master, dresses all in white. Refused to go to war. Sat on the High Council. She must be the BigGood, right? HaHaHaNo She viewed ''herself'' that way, certainly, setting up the structure of a new academy with herself as Grandmaster now that the Order was wiped out. But tellingly? There are no students. She's a batshit insane PrinciplesZealot and it's implied that she lured most of the surviving Jedi to Katarr where Nihilus could kill them and she could start the Order anew in her own image.
* In ''VideoGame/DevilSurvivor'', Yuzu Tanikawa is a deconstruction of the everygirl OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent hero seen in many a JRPG. When everything goes to shit and she gets magical powers to survive the lockdown, she doesn't step up to the plate and become a hero - she can barely cope with the horror, and spends most of the week lamenting how she just wants everything to go back to normal. She also doesn't have any coherent plan to solve the crisis beyond "run as far away as possible", and following her advice [[spoiler:leads you to the worst ending short of the NonstandardGameOver]].
to:
* ''Videogame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicIITheSithLords'' is a DeconstructorFleet of Franchise/StarWars. As such, the character archetypes are also deconstructed:
** Darth Nihilus''VideoGame/{{Shantae}}'' deconstructs MayorPain through Mayor Scuttlebutt. Like most characters in this trope, he makes several boneheaded moves throughout the Darth Vader [[{{Expy}} Expies]] common in ''Star Wars'' media. What do you series. ''Unlike'' these characters, however, his actions don't go away as StatusQuoIsGod is not around to save him. Due to him not wanting to risk fighting both Risky Boots and Ammo Baron, he sells the town to the latter, letting him press assault charges against Shantae and get when you focus on Darth Vader's armor her placed under house arrest, and coolness more than later trying to turn the character in question? An empty but powerful husk town into a base to attack the Sequin Land Palace from. Him deciding to replace Shantae on a whim with Holly Lingerbean leads to the town getting their memories wiped and nearly eaten by a sandworm. His constant firing of Shantae for random reasons leads to her having some ''serious'' self-esteem problems. Because of all these reasons, he gets little to no personality or motivation except respect from any of the townsfolk and a desire few even wonder why he still has his job in the first place. Case in point, in ''Risky's Revenge'', after Shantae is fired, he tries to destroy everything, just like Darth Nihilus.
launch a smear campaign against her, but literally ''no one'' in town buys into what he says.
* The ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'' franchise has a couple examples:
**Darth Sion also ''VideoGame/SonicLostWorld'' deconstructs Vader, but goes in the opposite direction by taking away Vader's armor Sonic's LeeroyJenkins tendencies and coolness factor, showing OneDimensionalThinking. As if to parallel his bullet like speed, Sonic kind of has a one-track, arrogant mind, and when he sets his mind on a goal, he will not rest until it is carried out, and this can make him do some very impulsive, foolhardy stuff. ''Lost World'' shows just how miserable it is to actually be in Vader's position: Sion is a twisted, disfigured man in constant agony from his numerous injuries this type of mindset can backfire. Sonic impulsively kicks away Eggman's Cacophonic Conch, and is forever subservient to much more powerful Sith Lords that he hates.
** Hanharr deconstructsallows the Wookie [[IOweYouMyLife life debt]]. After being MadeASlave Deadly Six to rebel against Eggman. They use Eggman's Extractor machine to drain the world of its energy, and learning the concept of slavery, Hanharr concluded that the life debt tradition was a form of slavery nearly kill Amy and went mad. He now hunts the person he owes a life debt to to be free from it, despite said person never once asking anything of him through the debt.
** Kreia deconstructs damn near ''everything''Knuckles. [[spoiler:It happens again later in the [=GFFA=], in her role as mentor. The reality is that she's pretty much been playing you all along. She fully admits she's a fallen Jedi and an outcast Sith out to stop her former students and (possibly) break the Force itself by using Exile as a means to an end.
** Atton? We all know the loveable Scoundrel type has to have done some illegal and immoral things to survive, but those actions are often glossed over or never described in detail. Atton is one deeply fucked up individual who started as a Republic soldier, stayed loyal to Revan (becoming a Sith-aligned TortureTechnician), had a ''very'' [[MageKiller large body count of Jedi]], and ran to save his own skin after his last victim revealed that he was an untrained Sensitive and would be on the other end of his own torture devices once his superiors figured it out. He put a lot of effort into getting very drunk and living on the fringes to both forget what he was and to hide what he is.
--->'''Atton''': ''I haven't known who I am for years.''
** Mical the Diciple: a pure HairOfGoldHeartOfGold Jedi fanboy who has a fawning admiration of the Order, right? Nope. He's a JadedWashout who was taken from his birth family too young to remember them, raised in an enclave, and then tossed out to fend for himself when he came of age. He didn't do anything wrong or fail his trials; there just weren't enough Knights or Masters to train him after Revan and Malak took half the Knights with them. Listening to what he has to say about the Jedi, there's a lot of DamnedByFaintPraise.
** Atris. Jedi Master, dresses all in white. Refused to go to war. Sat on the High Council. She must be the BigGood, right? HaHaHaNo She viewed ''herself'' that way, certainly, setting up the structure of a new academy with herself as Grandmaster now that the Order was wiped out. But tellingly? There are no students. She's a batshit insane PrinciplesZealot and it's implied that she lured most of the surviving Jedi to Katarrgame where Nihilus could kill them Sonic's recklessness causes Tails to be captured and she could start the Order anew in her own image.
* In ''VideoGame/DevilSurvivor'', Yuzu Tanikawanearly turned into a robot.]]
** [[TheDragon Infinite]] from ''VideoGame/SonicForces'' is a deconstruction of theeverygirl OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent hero seen in many a JRPG. When everything goes to shit {{Sadist}} and she gets magical powers DarkerAndEdgier archetypes. Infinite is extremely dangerous, but his constant need to survive relish in the lockdown, she doesn't step up to pain and suffering of others screws him and Eggman over on several occasions, such as letting Sonic live when he could have easily finished him off, or [[spoiler:killing the plate and Avatar's teammates but sparing the Avatar, an act that would inspire the Avatar to become a hero - she can barely cope with stronger and ultimately be the horror, and spends most of the week lamenting how she just wants everything one to go back to normal. She also doesn't have any coherent foil Eggman's plan to solve incinerate the crisis beyond "run as far away as possible", Resistance with a virtual sun. His motives also turn out to be due to him being little more than TheBully, reveling in pain to support his own wrecked confidence after Shadow killed his squad and following her advice [[spoiler:leads you to the worst ending short of the NonstandardGameOver]].[[CurbStompBattle handily beat him]]]].
** Darth Nihilus
* The ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'' franchise has a couple examples:
**
** Hanharr deconstructs
** Kreia deconstructs damn near ''everything''
** Atton? We all know the loveable Scoundrel type has to have done some illegal and immoral things to survive, but those actions are often glossed over or never described in detail. Atton is one deeply fucked up individual who started as a Republic soldier, stayed loyal to Revan (becoming a Sith-aligned TortureTechnician), had a ''very'' [[MageKiller large body count of Jedi]], and ran to save his own skin after his last victim revealed that he was an untrained Sensitive and would be on the other end of his own torture devices once his superiors figured it out. He put a lot of effort into getting very drunk and living on the fringes to both forget what he was and to hide what he is.
--->'''Atton''': ''I haven't known who I am for years.''
** Mical the Diciple: a pure HairOfGoldHeartOfGold Jedi fanboy who has a fawning admiration of the Order, right? Nope. He's a JadedWashout who was taken from his birth family too young to remember them, raised in an enclave, and then tossed out to fend for himself when he came of age. He didn't do anything wrong or fail his trials; there just weren't enough Knights or Masters to train him after Revan and Malak took half the Knights with them. Listening to what he has to say about the Jedi, there's a lot of DamnedByFaintPraise.
** Atris. Jedi Master, dresses all in white. Refused to go to war. Sat on the High Council. She must be the BigGood, right? HaHaHaNo She viewed ''herself'' that way, certainly, setting up the structure of a new academy with herself as Grandmaster now that the Order was wiped out. But tellingly? There are no students. She's a batshit insane PrinciplesZealot and it's implied that she lured most of the surviving Jedi to Katarr
* In ''VideoGame/DevilSurvivor'', Yuzu Tanikawa
** [[TheDragon Infinite]] from ''VideoGame/SonicForces'' is a deconstruction of the
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* ''VideoGame/TheLastSovereign'' delivers a rather brutal deconstruction of the JRPG hero with Kai. A young man [[HeroesPreferSwords skilled in swordsmanship]] [[TheChosenOne selected to save the world]]... a shame that he is an obnoxious asshole who [[ItsAllAboutMe treats his own allies with contempt]], seems more interested [[ExtremeOmnisexual in sexual conquests]], and ultimately [[DecoyProtagonist gets himself ignominiously killed]].
* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'':
** KidHero is deconstructed through Zelda and Link in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime''. While Zelda was clever and knowledgeable, her plan to protect Hyrule [[NiceJobBreakingItHero unintentionally ended up helping the villain]] because she didn't know as much as she thought she did. While the nine year old Link managed an impressive kill count, Ganondorf painfully establishes that Link is still not strong enough in a FinalBossPreview. The kids thought they could be heroes and save the day (perfectly understandable kid behavior) but they did not have the maturity or understanding to be heroes yet and the consequences were severe. Zelda acknowledges this after the time skip and it is perhaps why the Master Sword waited for Link to grow up first before letting him wield it, as he was simply a child and not strong enough to defeat Ganondorf at that point.
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'' deconstructed TheChosenOne in the backstory. Hyrule was inspired by the legend of the [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Hero of Time]] and [[HoldingOutForAHero relied heavily on a hero]] to spontaneously appear in their time of need to save them. But when Ganon returned without a Link to oppose him, the people of Hyrule are unable to defend themselves and the gods flooded the land to stop Ganon from taking over. The Link in this story has no connection or relation to the older heroes and must earn his status as a hero through his own initiative.
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'' also takes apart TheChosenOne and the struggles one would have to face to live up to the expectations. Both Zelda and Link [[spoiler:face immense pressures from family and civilians to protect the kingdom from destruction due to a prophecy, dedicating their entire lives to this single cause and when they failed and Hyrule is in ruins, they suffered resentment from some of the surviving races even a hundred years later.]]
*** [[HeroicMime Link]] [[spoiler:felt it was necessary to hide all emotion, and constantly maintained a cold and stoic front, to cope with the huge amount of responsibility he were given and keep from cracking under the pressure. He even [[HeroicMime refused to speak too much]], out of fear of saying anything unbecoming of the Chosen One. All of which made him feel very alone]].
*** Zelda was [[spoiler:severely admonished by her family for her inability to summon her divine power to seal Ganon without any guidance from anyone to learn ''how'' to do so, leading to frustration, self-loathing and self-doubt. Her family dismissed any interest in other activities, and fractured the relationship between them. When Calamity Ganon returned and Zelda was unable to use her powers, her father and the other Champions were killed and the entire kingdom was destroyed, she blamed herself for failure despite doing everything she could.]]
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTearsOfTheKingdom'' deconstructs both the BloodKnight and ChallengeSeeker; [[spoiler: For Ganondorf, it isn't enough to just win. He has to test his might against a worthy foe so his victory can truly feel complete. When Rauru tells him that Link will one day defeat him, Ganondorf replies that he looks forward to meeting him. But when he encounters Link in the present day and manages to both shatter the Master Sword and ravage his arm, Ganondorf is utterly disappointed and dismisses Link as a worthy adversary. This massive ego ultimately becomes his downfall as by not taking Link seriously enough, it allows Link to regain his strength, defeat his servants plaguing Hyrule, and awaken the new sages to bring the fight to Ganondorf personally. When Link proves powerful enough to actually be a threat, Ganondorf has a ''massive'' VillainousBreakdown and decides to swallow his Secret Stone and transform into a [[ClippedWingAngel dragon]], fully aware [[DeathOfPersonality that this will cost him his mind]], simply because he can't fathom the idea that he might actually ''lose''.]]
* ''VideoGame/TheWalkingDead'' deconstructs TheLoad in Season 1's Ben Paul. He makes everything worse off for Lee and co. after joining them, but ''knows it'', and after one fuck-up too many for his comfort [[DeathSeeker ends up becoming passively suicidal]].
* ''VideoGame/TrailsSeries'':
** Cassius Bright from ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsInTheSky'' deconstructs OneManArmy, MemeticBadass and RetiredBadass. Cassius almost single-handedly saved Liberl from Erebonia's invasion in the 100 Days War, and his achievements as a Bracer are so great he's treated like an in-universe GodModeSue. The main plot of the first ''Sky'' game hinges on one question: ''what happens when someone like that retires?'' In short, the game's antagonist is a former protege of Cassius who saw him as the one thing holding the country together. When he left the army, he felt Liberl was defenceless against foreign powers. So he became a WellIntentionedExtremist, starting a coup d'etat and making deals with a shady secret society to obtain a piece of dangerous ancient technology. When Cassius returns, he literally beats it into his former student that, for all his achievements, he's just ''one man'', and treating him like the one thing that held the army together is incredibly dangerous for the country's future. Cassius is forced ''out'' of retirement in order to clear up this mess.
** Rean Schwarzer from ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel'' deconstructs a few archetypes:
*** He has a tendency to sacrifice himself for someone else's sake, even if it brings him a lot of harm. This is at first played for {{Fanservice}} when he gets a [[ThanksForTheMammaries face full of boobs]] from Alisa after trying to save her from a TrapDoor but this isn't explored till the second chapter where he [[TakingTheBullet jumps right in]] to take a hit for Jusis and Machias who were bickering while the monster isn't dead which results in harming his dominant sword hand. Jusis has to call him out on his MartyrWithoutACause tendencies.
*** Being TheChosenOne to pilot a SuperRobot sounds good and all but when the country that he's in forces him to fight against a country that he doesn't have any reason to fight against and yet still has to go to reduce the bloodshed from citizens and soldiers alike, this ends up making him a miserable man. As a bonus, he's also a national hero, giving him no escape from the responsibilities of being one. That's not even starting on some of his students who don't like him mainly because he participated in conquering their countries and homeland at the start of ''Cold Steel III''.
*** His SuperpoweredEvilSide is a big deconstruction on how to master and control the powers especially when the source of those powers, his heart, [[spoiler:doesn't even belong to him but from him but from his father who gave him his heart. And said father is also the BigBad who can control him at will.]] Several times people have told him to master those powers except said people have no idea of what they're even talking about, [[spoiler:making him lose his powers at the worst possible moments when it gets too powerful for him to control.]]
*** He's the first character onscreen to [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu kill off]] one of the goddess Aidios' seven guardians who are guarding her treasures, the Sept-Terrion. This ends up being a bad idea because the guardian he killed is the only reason why the curse of Erebonia hasn't spread all over the Erebonian empire and beyond. And as a side bonus, he winds up with an amnesia by ''Cold Steel IV''.
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[[folder:U]]
* ''VideoGame/UnderNightInBirth'':
** [[BigBad Hilda]] is the deconstruction of the FemmeFatale. Everyone doesn't deny that she has a lot of sex appeal and every word she speaks sounds like an orgasm. However, she's too [[BrainlessBeauty dumb]] to use her sexiness to her advantage, is also AxCrazy and [[UngratefulBitch quite the bitch]], and tries it so often everyone around her becomes used to it, so no one would want to do anything for her. The only one she manages to seduce is Hyde Kido, [[HormoneAddledTeenager which isn't much of an accomplishment]].
** Nanase deconstructs the violent {{Tsundere}} girls who quickly jump to conclusions that have overrun anime and games for years. Having been rescued from a Void by Hyde, Nanase developed a huge crush on him, but responded to that by chasing him across the city claiming he had done something perverted to her because she thought In-Birth powers were transmitted through sex. Instead of being endearing or having heartwarming moments with her dere side, she only causes trouble for Hyde by making his female friends believe he actually did molest her, and when the misunderstanding is cleared up, it's clear they have little patience left for her. It's still PlayedForLaughs, but her multitude of negative traits land her solidly in JokeCharacter territory.
** Phonon, or rather Yoshiko, deconstructs the cute young {{Chuunibyou}} girl character. Unlike typical examples of this, where the girl is kind and harmless but sometimes needs to be pulled back to reality, Phonon's delusions are strong enough to make her a physically violent {{Jerkass}} who is so into her made up identity and worried about being seen as normal that she went into the Hollow Night specifically to gain superpowers and make herself look cooler. Everyone else sees her as a moody teenager who thinks she's smarter than she actually is, and some are worried that she'll become the next Hilda.
* ''VideoGame/UntilDawn'':
** Jessica acts like a ProudBeauty but reveals to Mike that she has a lot of self-esteem issues and insecurities over her looks. She plays up her confident sexpot act because it's what people expect of her.
** Emily is an AlphaBitch but similar to Jessica, it's implied she is actually very insecure and is afraid of failure and her self-centered and rude behaviour is a mask to hide it.
** Hannah is a HopelessSuitor towards Mike despite knowing he is already dating someone else and the few romance tests she took indicated that they were incompatible. She continues to openly pine for him. Her friends notice this and pull a prank on her because of it, leading to dire consequences for Hannah and everyone else.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:W]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Wandersong}}'': Audrey Redheart is a deconstruction of the typical RPG hero. [[spoiler:Much of her character can be easily compared to that of a human player going through a video game in the sense that, while she's doing heroic things such as defeating monsters and saving people, she doesn't care at all for the people she saves, using unnecessary force to get her way. During the end of the game, she even refers to the Nightmare King as the "FinalBoss" that she must kill, when it's clear that he is a TragicMonster who could possibly be saved.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:X]]
* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'': Mythra deconstructs {{Tsundere}}. While she appears a textbook example of the trope, it's shown from the start that her prickly attitude makes her very hard to get along with, and results in her being TheFriendNobodyLikes to the party for a while. Later revelations imply that her cold demeanor stems from severe self-loathing ([[spoiler:and outright DeathSeeker tendencies]]) over being a living WeaponOfMassDestruction who was responsible for a lot of deaths 500 years ago. She feels she's pushing others away for their own good, because they'd be better off not being associated with someone like her. Notably, she constructed her gentler alternate personality Pyra to basically say everything she wishes she could herself; several times, when Mythra should be apologizing, she switches to Pyra and makes her do it.
* ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}'': Id deconstructs SuperpoweredEvilSide. After spending most of the game being treated as the evil dark side of Fei that emerges when Fei is stressed, its revealed that in truth, Id was a second personality created by the original Fei, called The Coward, to be forced to bear all the negative experiences and memories of their childhood due to his abusive parents. Between that, being blamed for their mother's death, and having become akin to a ChildSoldier against their will, Id came to see destruction as the only good things in his life, and would resurface to fulfill the only things he knows how to do. When Fei, the player character and third personality, works to get this all settled, Id learns that The Coward was hiding the truth from him: that their mother died saving their lives, and had unknowingly been possessed by Miang, TheHeavy for the game. Id was never the evil side of Fei, instead being essentially a scapegoat for negative memories. In the end, Id remerges with Fei after Fei forces The Coward to share the truth, and Id realizes how wrong he was.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Y]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Yakuza}}'' is in many ways a deconstruction of the romantic and idealized view of the {{Yakuza}}. Kiryu is a prime example of the romantic yakuza, a powerful and noble figure who uses his outsider status and capacity to do the socially unacceptable to protect the common people against brutal thugs and overbearing powers-that-be, and shows a lot of this attitude too. The games are mostly about what happens when this ideal runs headfirst into the realities of organized crime in the 21st century.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:T]]
* ''VideoGame/TheLastSovereign'' delivers a rather brutal deconstruction of the JRPG hero with Kai. A young man [[HeroesPreferSwords skilled in swordsmanship]] [[TheChosenOne selected to save the world]]... a shame that he is an obnoxious asshole who [[ItsAllAboutMe treats his own allies with contempt]], seems more interested [[ExtremeOmnisexual in sexual conquests]], and ultimately [[DecoyProtagonist gets himself ignominiously killed]].
* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'':
** KidHero is deconstructed through Zelda and Link in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime''. While Zelda was clever and knowledgeable, her plan to protect Hyrule [[NiceJobBreakingItHero unintentionally ended up helping the villain]] because she didn't know as much as she thought she did. While the nine year old Link managed an impressive kill count, Ganondorf painfully establishes that Link is still not strong enough in a FinalBossPreview. The kids thought they could be heroes and save the day (perfectly understandable kid behavior) but they did not have the maturity or understanding to be heroes yet and the consequences were severe. Zelda acknowledges this after the time skip and it is perhaps why the Master Sword waited for Link to grow up first before letting him wield it, as he was simply a child and not strong enough to defeat Ganondorf at that point.
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'' deconstructed TheChosenOne in the backstory. Hyrule was inspired by the legend of the [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Hero of Time]] and [[HoldingOutForAHero relied heavily on a hero]] to spontaneously appear in their time of need to save them. But when Ganon returned without a Link to oppose him, the people of Hyrule are unable to defend themselves and the gods flooded the land to stop Ganon from taking over. The Link in this story has no connection or relation to the older heroes and must earn his status as a hero through his own initiative.
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'' also takes apart TheChosenOne and the struggles one would have to face to live up to the expectations. Both Zelda and Link [[spoiler:face immense pressures from family and civilians to protect the kingdom from destruction due to a prophecy, dedicating their entire lives to this single cause and when they failed and Hyrule is in ruins, they suffered resentment from some of the surviving races even a hundred years later.]]
*** [[HeroicMime Link]] [[spoiler:felt it was necessary to hide all emotion, and constantly maintained a cold and stoic front, to cope with the huge amount of responsibility he were given and keep from cracking under the pressure. He even [[HeroicMime refused to speak too much]], out of fear of saying anything unbecoming of the Chosen One. All of which made him feel very alone]].
*** Zelda was [[spoiler:severely admonished by her family for her inability to summon her divine power to seal Ganon without any guidance from anyone to learn ''how'' to do so, leading to frustration, self-loathing and self-doubt. Her family dismissed any interest in other activities, and fractured the relationship between them. When Calamity Ganon returned and Zelda was unable to use her powers, her father and the other Champions were killed and the entire kingdom was destroyed, she blamed herself for failure despite doing everything she could.]]
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTearsOfTheKingdom'' deconstructs both the BloodKnight and ChallengeSeeker; [[spoiler: For Ganondorf, it isn't enough to just win. He has to test his might against a worthy foe so his victory can truly feel complete. When Rauru tells him that Link will one day defeat him, Ganondorf replies that he looks forward to meeting him. But when he encounters Link in the present day and manages to both shatter the Master Sword and ravage his arm, Ganondorf is utterly disappointed and dismisses Link as a worthy adversary. This massive ego ultimately becomes his downfall as by not taking Link seriously enough, it allows Link to regain his strength, defeat his servants plaguing Hyrule, and awaken the new sages to bring the fight to Ganondorf personally. When Link proves powerful enough to actually be a threat, Ganondorf has a ''massive'' VillainousBreakdown and decides to swallow his Secret Stone and transform into a [[ClippedWingAngel dragon]], fully aware [[DeathOfPersonality that this will cost him his mind]], simply because he can't fathom the idea that he might actually ''lose''.]]
* ''VideoGame/TheWalkingDead'' deconstructs TheLoad in Season 1's Ben Paul. He makes everything worse off for Lee and co. after joining them, but ''knows it'', and after one fuck-up too many for his comfort [[DeathSeeker ends up becoming passively suicidal]].
* ''VideoGame/TrailsSeries'':
** Cassius Bright from ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsInTheSky'' deconstructs OneManArmy, MemeticBadass and RetiredBadass. Cassius almost single-handedly saved Liberl from Erebonia's invasion in the 100 Days War, and his achievements as a Bracer are so great he's treated like an in-universe GodModeSue. The main plot of the first ''Sky'' game hinges on one question: ''what happens when someone like that retires?'' In short, the game's antagonist is a former protege of Cassius who saw him as the one thing holding the country together. When he left the army, he felt Liberl was defenceless against foreign powers. So he became a WellIntentionedExtremist, starting a coup d'etat and making deals with a shady secret society to obtain a piece of dangerous ancient technology. When Cassius returns, he literally beats it into his former student that, for all his achievements, he's just ''one man'', and treating him like the one thing that held the army together is incredibly dangerous for the country's future. Cassius is forced ''out'' of retirement in order to clear up this mess.
** Rean Schwarzer from ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel'' deconstructs a few archetypes:
*** He has a tendency to sacrifice himself for someone else's sake, even if it brings him a lot of harm. This is at first played for {{Fanservice}} when he gets a [[ThanksForTheMammaries face full of boobs]] from Alisa after trying to save her from a TrapDoor but this isn't explored till the second chapter where he [[TakingTheBullet jumps right in]] to take a hit for Jusis and Machias who were bickering while the monster isn't dead which results in harming his dominant sword hand. Jusis has to call him out on his MartyrWithoutACause tendencies.
*** Being TheChosenOne to pilot a SuperRobot sounds good and all but when the country that he's in forces him to fight against a country that he doesn't have any reason to fight against and yet still has to go to reduce the bloodshed from citizens and soldiers alike, this ends up making him a miserable man. As a bonus, he's also a national hero, giving him no escape from the responsibilities of being one. That's not even starting on some of his students who don't like him mainly because he participated in conquering their countries and homeland at the start of ''Cold Steel III''.
*** His SuperpoweredEvilSide is a big deconstruction on how to master and control the powers especially when the source of those powers, his heart, [[spoiler:doesn't even belong to him but from him but from his father who gave him his heart. And said father is also the BigBad who can control him at will.]] Several times people have told him to master those powers except said people have no idea of what they're even talking about, [[spoiler:making him lose his powers at the worst possible moments when it gets too powerful for him to control.]]
*** He's the first character onscreen to [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu kill off]] one of the goddess Aidios' seven guardians who are guarding her treasures, the Sept-Terrion. This ends up being a bad idea because the guardian he killed is the only reason why the curse of Erebonia hasn't spread all over the Erebonian empire and beyond. And as a side bonus, he winds up with an amnesia by ''Cold Steel IV''.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:U]]
* ''VideoGame/UnderNightInBirth'':
** [[BigBad Hilda]] is the deconstruction of the FemmeFatale. Everyone doesn't deny that she has a lot of sex appeal and every word she speaks sounds like an orgasm. However, she's too [[BrainlessBeauty dumb]] to use her sexiness to her advantage, is also AxCrazy and [[UngratefulBitch quite the bitch]], and tries it so often everyone around her becomes used to it, so no one would want to do anything for her. The only one she manages to seduce is Hyde Kido, [[HormoneAddledTeenager which isn't much of an accomplishment]].
** Nanase deconstructs the violent {{Tsundere}} girls who quickly jump to conclusions that have overrun anime and games for years. Having been rescued from a Void by Hyde, Nanase developed a huge crush on him, but responded to that by chasing him across the city claiming he had done something perverted to her because she thought In-Birth powers were transmitted through sex. Instead of being endearing or having heartwarming moments with her dere side, she only causes trouble for Hyde by making his female friends believe he actually did molest her, and when the misunderstanding is cleared up, it's clear they have little patience left for her. It's still PlayedForLaughs, but her multitude of negative traits land her solidly in JokeCharacter territory.
** Phonon, or rather Yoshiko, deconstructs the cute young {{Chuunibyou}} girl character. Unlike typical examples of this, where the girl is kind and harmless but sometimes needs to be pulled back to reality, Phonon's delusions are strong enough to make her a physically violent {{Jerkass}} who is so into her made up identity and worried about being seen as normal that she went into the Hollow Night specifically to gain superpowers and make herself look cooler. Everyone else sees her as a moody teenager who thinks she's smarter than she actually is, and some are worried that she'll become the next Hilda.
* ''VideoGame/UntilDawn'':
** Jessica acts like a ProudBeauty but reveals to Mike that she has a lot of self-esteem issues and insecurities over her looks. She plays up her confident sexpot act because it's what people expect of her.
** Emily is an AlphaBitch but similar to Jessica, it's implied she is actually very insecure and is afraid of failure and her self-centered and rude behaviour is a mask to hide it.
** Hannah is a HopelessSuitor towards Mike despite knowing he is already dating someone else and the few romance tests she took indicated that they were incompatible. She continues to openly pine for him. Her friends notice this and pull a prank on her because of it, leading to dire consequences for Hannah and everyone else.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:W]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Wandersong}}'': Audrey Redheart is a deconstruction of the typical RPG hero. [[spoiler:Much of her character can be easily compared to that of a human player going through a video game in the sense that, while she's doing heroic things such as defeating monsters and saving people, she doesn't care at all for the people she saves, using unnecessary force to get her way. During the end of the game, she even refers to the Nightmare King as the "FinalBoss" that she must kill, when it's clear that he is a TragicMonster who could possibly be saved.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:X]]
* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'': Mythra deconstructs {{Tsundere}}. While she appears a textbook example of the trope, it's shown from the start that her prickly attitude makes her very hard to get along with, and results in her being TheFriendNobodyLikes to the party for a while. Later revelations imply that her cold demeanor stems from severe self-loathing ([[spoiler:and outright DeathSeeker tendencies]]) over being a living WeaponOfMassDestruction who was responsible for a lot of deaths 500 years ago. She feels she's pushing others away for their own good, because they'd be better off not being associated with someone like her. Notably, she constructed her gentler alternate personality Pyra to basically say everything she wishes she could herself; several times, when Mythra should be apologizing, she switches to Pyra and makes her do it.
* ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}'': Id deconstructs SuperpoweredEvilSide. After spending most of the game being treated as the evil dark side of Fei that emerges when Fei is stressed, its revealed that in truth, Id was a second personality created by the original Fei, called The Coward, to be forced to bear all the negative experiences and memories of their childhood due to his abusive parents. Between that, being blamed for their mother's death, and having become akin to a ChildSoldier against their will, Id came to see destruction as the only good things in his life, and would resurface to fulfill the only things he knows how to do. When Fei, the player character and third personality, works to get this all settled, Id learns that The Coward was hiding the truth from him: that their mother died saving their lives, and had unknowingly been possessed by Miang, TheHeavy for the game. Id was never the evil side of Fei, instead being essentially a scapegoat for negative memories. In the end, Id remerges with Fei after Fei forces The Coward to share the truth, and Id realizes how wrong he was.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Y]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Yakuza}}'' is in many ways a deconstruction of the romantic and idealized view of the {{Yakuza}}. Kiryu is a prime example of the romantic yakuza, a powerful and noble figure who uses his outsider status and capacity to do the socially unacceptable to protect the common people against brutal thugs and overbearing powers-that-be, and shows a lot of this attitude too. The games are mostly about what happens when this ideal runs headfirst into the realities of organized crime in the 21st century.
[[/folder]]
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*** Gale is something of a deconstruction of the "high intelligence, low wisdom" character. These are usually AbsentMindedProfessor-types, whose lack of common sense is played for laughs. Gale's arc, on the other hand, shows ''exactly'' what happens when you have enough brains to build a nuclear reactor in your basement, and not enough common sense to not do it again after your first one turned your neighborhood into a glowing crater.
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*** Gale is something of a deconstruction of the "high intelligence, low wisdom" character. These are usually AbsentMindedProfessor-types, whose lack of common sense is played for laughs. Gale's arc, on the other hand, shows ''exactly'' what happens when you have enough brains to build a nuclear reactor in your basement, and not enough common sense to not do it again after your first one turned your neighborhood into a glowing crater. If the player points this out and convinces him to not make the same mistake again, he'll finally realize that he's too shortsighted for his own good.
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**** Wyll's are also examines the concept of the HeroicSacrifice. Many characters make sacrifices, but very few are actually shown living with the consequences of those actions. Wyll, however, sacrificed his soul in order to save Baldur's Gate, and Mizora ensures he lives with the consequences of it every day.
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*** Together, the three protagonists deconstruct the mythology behind several GTA protagonists, as well as the idea behind easy money. Outside of the heists, very few missions offer satisfying rewards, showing how petty, self-destructive and selfish anyone would have to be to behave like a GTA protagonist, along with how ultimately depressing the lifestyle itself is. Eventually, this game does this, showing that getting into this lifestyle will either bring you nothing but pain for years and destroy all your dreams (in the case of Michael) or leave you LonelyAtTheTop (in the case of Franklin in the non-Deathwish endings). On the other hand, Trevor's life is shown to be pretty depressing all around, and he only finds enjoyment in it because he's too unhinged to care. The mission "Mrs. Philips" is a reminder of how depressing his life really is behind his ComedicSociopathy and {{Cloudcuckoolander}} behavior. That said, all three protagonists can end up with all of their problems solved, ridiculously rich, and with no real repercussions to their actions... '''only''' due to the fact [[TookAThirdOption that they decide to work for themselves instead of cutting deals with anybody else to survive]]. Throughout the game, working for petty, pathetic criminals is a thankless and penniless affair. Every job they do for someone else ends with them being ambushed or betrayed. This is highlighted in the non-Deathwish endings where the survivors are cast aside as pawns and their clients get the far better end of the deal.
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*** Together, the three protagonists deconstruct the mythology behind several GTA protagonists, as well as the idea behind easy money. Outside of the heists, very few missions offer satisfying rewards, showing how petty, self-destructive and selfish anyone would have to be to behave like a GTA protagonist, along with how ultimately depressing the lifestyle itself is. Eventually, this game does this, showing that getting into this lifestyle will either bring you nothing but pain for years and destroy all your dreams (in the case of Michael) or leave you LonelyAtTheTop (in the case of Franklin in the non-Deathwish endings). On the other hand, Trevor's life is shown to be pretty depressing all around, and he only finds enjoyment in it because he's too unhinged to care. The mission "Mrs. Philips" is a reminder of how depressing his life really is behind his ComedicSociopathy and {{Cloudcuckoolander}} behavior. That said, all three protagonists can end up with all of their problems solved, ridiculously rich, and with no real repercussions to their actions... '''only''' due to the fact [[TookAThirdOption that they decide to work for themselves instead of cutting deals with anybody else to survive]]. Throughout the game, working for petty, pathetic criminals is a thankless and penniless affair. Every job they do for someone else ends with them being ambushed or betrayed. This is highlighted in the non-Deathwish endings where the survivors are cast aside as pawns and their clients get the far better end of the deal. Deathwish, which ends up the canonical ending, has them finally realize that there's no winning from constantly chasing score after score and that they have to get out while they're ahead, as well as tie up loose ends and ingratiate themselves to the remaining players enough in the process by getting rid of problematic assholes to be spared and left in peace.
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To say that Brad never loved Buddy is just false. He did plenty of mistakes overall, but he cared about her.
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* ''VideoGame/{{Lisa}}'' deconstructs DamselInDistress, LivingMacGuffin, MysteriousWaif, and GenderRarityValue through Buddy. She is the last girl in the world, Brad finds her as a baby and raises her while having no idea who she is or where she came from, and she gets kidnapped by a gang led by a scary guy wearing a skull mask. Throughout the entire second game, she’s sought after by everyone, and even [[spoiler:[[AbusiveParents her own adoptive father]] Brad]] doesn't respect her individuality -- in fact, [[spoiler:his obsessive desire to protect her, as with many waifs, [[UnwantedRescue drives her away]] when she sees all the [[KickTheDog horrible]] [[WhatMeasureIsAMook things]] [[VillainProtagonist he]] does in pursuit of her]]. The third game, which stars her, shows exactly what kind of mental effect might be inflicted on a girl who is treated as little more than a trophy or a plot device -- [[spoiler:she ''[[FaceHeelTurn snaps]]'' and goes on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge against the world, [[KillAllHumans killing off every last human and leader she can find]] intending to conquer Olathe while fully embracing the [[MisanthropeSupreme twisted philosophy]] of her birth father Dr. Yado, who set everything up]]. Ironically, [[spoiler:Rando, the aeformentoned gang leader who was initially portrayed as the BigBad is the ''only person'' who treated Buddy with love ([[ExtremeDoormat possibly too much]])]].
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* ''VideoGame/{{Lisa}}'' deconstructs DamselInDistress, LivingMacGuffin, MysteriousWaif, and GenderRarityValue through Buddy. She is the last girl in the world, Brad finds her as a baby and raises her while having no idea who she is or where she came from, and she gets kidnapped by a gang led by a scary guy wearing a skull mask. Throughout the entire second game, she’s sought after by everyone, and even [[spoiler:[[AbusiveParents her own adoptive father]] Brad]] doesn't respect her individuality -- in fact, [[spoiler:his obsessive desire to protect her, as with many waifs, [[UnwantedRescue drives her away]] when she sees all the [[KickTheDog horrible]] [[WhatMeasureIsAMook things]] [[VillainProtagonist he]] does in pursuit of her]]. The third game, which stars her, shows exactly what kind of mental effect might be inflicted on a girl who is treated as little more than a trophy or a plot device -- [[spoiler:she ''[[FaceHeelTurn snaps]]'' and goes on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge against the world, [[KillAllHumans killing off every last human and leader she can find]] intending to conquer Olathe while fully embracing the [[MisanthropeSupreme twisted philosophy]] of her birth father Dr. Yado, who set everything up]]. Ironically, [[spoiler:Rando, the aeformentoned gang leader who was initially portrayed as the BigBad is the ''only person'' who treated Buddy with love respect ([[ExtremeDoormat possibly too much]])]].
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** Karlach deconstructs ThePollyanna and the {{Manchild}}. Karlach's upbeat cheerfulness is very endearing, but it comes from a very dark place. Karlach is effectively a former ChildSoldier who spent her formative years bashing skulls on the streets of Baldur's Gate or and cleaving demons in Avernus, and simply wasn't given the time to have a childhood and grow into an emotionally mature person. She is varyingly chipper and upbeat and horrifyingly violent because those are the tools to process her emotions that she has.
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** Karlach deconstructs ThePollyanna and the {{Manchild}}. Karlach's upbeat cheerfulness is very endearing, but it comes from a very dark place. Karlach is effectively a former ChildSoldier who spent her formative years bashing skulls on the streets of Baldur's Gate or and cleaving demons in Avernus, and simply wasn't given the time to have a childhood and grow into an emotionally mature person. She is varyingly chipper and upbeat and horrifyingly violent because those are the tools to process her emotions that she has.
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** Wyll deconstructs BadPowersGoodPeople, simply by asking the question if the bad powers were worth it. While Wyll is a genuine hero in every sense, the source of his powers is not, and she uses her influence over him to make it more and more difficult for him to maintain his moral code and force him into situations to which there is no good answer. Wyll is forced to make sacrifices and compromises that he hates, but can't get out of, until both the player and he start wondering if gaining those powers in the first place was worth it.
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** Wyll deconstructs BadPowersGoodPeople, simply by asking the question if the bad powers were worth it. While Wyll is a genuine hero in every sense, the source of his powers is not, and she uses her influence over him to make it more and more difficult for him to maintain his moral code and force him into situations to which there is no good answer. Wyll is forced to make sacrifices and compromises that he hates, but can't get out of, until both the player and he start wondering if gaining those powers in the first place was worth it.
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*** Lae'zel is a deconstruction of the ProudWarriorRaceGirl. The githyanki are a proud, dogmatic and fiercely militaristic and xenophobic race (effectively interdimensional fascists via HeWhoFightsMonsters), and Lae'zel is deeply invested into their culture. This means that she struggles with any insinuations that her culture isn't perfect and actually begins to experience cognitive dissonance when she realizes that in spite of everything she has done, most of her peers would like to kill her for having the audacity to be infected with a mind flayer parasite, even when they have the tools to get it out. In the end, you can convince her to abandon the hypocritical and destructive Githyanki culture, only to leave her directionless and lost. Cultures that encourage rigid conformity and martial prowess above all else don't tend to do well in creating independent thinkers and people who can function outside that context, no matter how awe-inspiring their prowess is.
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*** Asterion is a deconstruction of TheCasanova. While he is seductive and sexual, he was never permitted to be so for his own sake, but rather to feed his master's desires (which would make the marquis De Sade go pale), and no sticks to it because he doesn't really have a personality beyond the seducer his master created. Asterion is terrified of emotional intimacy and will shut the player character down fast and hard if they try to push their relationship along.
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*** Asterion Astarion is a deconstruction of TheCasanova. While he is seductive and sexual, he was never permitted to be so for his own sake, but rather to feed his master's desires (which would make the marquis De Sade go pale), and no now sticks to it because he doesn't really have a personality beyond the seducer his master created. Asterion Astarion is terrified of emotional intimacy and will shut the player character down fast and hard if they try to push their relationship along.
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* ''VideoGame/{{Yakuza}}'' is in many ways a deconstruction of the romantic and idealized view of the {{Yakuza}}. Kiryu is a prime example of the romantic yakuza, a powerful and noble figure who protects the common people against brutal thugs and overbearing powers-that-be, and shows a lot of this attitude too. The games are mostly about what happens when this ideal runs headfirst into the realities of organized crime in the 21st century.
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* ''VideoGame/{{Yakuza}}'' is in many ways a deconstruction of the romantic and idealized view of the {{Yakuza}}. Kiryu is a prime example of the romantic yakuza, a powerful and noble figure who protects uses his outsider status and capacity to do the socially unacceptable to protect the common people against brutal thugs and overbearing powers-that-be, and shows a lot of this attitude too. The games are mostly about what happens when this ideal runs headfirst into the realities of organized crime in the 21st century.
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*** Gale is something of a deconstruction of the "high intelligence, low wisdom" character. These are usually AbsentMindedProfessor-types, whose lack of common sense is played for laughs. Gale's arc, on the other hnd, shows ''exactly'' what happens when you have enough brains to build a nuclear reactor in your basement, and not enough common sense to not do it again after your first one turned your neighborhood into a clowing crater.
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*** Gale is something of a deconstruction of the "high intelligence, low wisdom" character. These are usually AbsentMindedProfessor-types, whose lack of common sense is played for laughs. Gale's arc, on the other hnd, hand, shows ''exactly'' what happens when you have enough brains to build a nuclear reactor in your basement, and not enough common sense to not do it again after your first one turned your neighborhood into a clowing crater.glowing crater.
*** Asterion is a deconstruction of TheCasanova. While he is seductive and sexual, he was never permitted to be so for his own sake, but rather to feed his master's desires (which would make the marquis De Sade go pale), and no sticks to it because he doesn't really have a personality beyond the seducer his master created. Asterion is terrified of emotional intimacy and will shut the player character down fast and hard if they try to push their relationship along.
*** Asterion is a deconstruction of TheCasanova. While he is seductive and sexual, he was never permitted to be so for his own sake, but rather to feed his master's desires (which would make the marquis De Sade go pale), and no sticks to it because he doesn't really have a personality beyond the seducer his master created. Asterion is terrified of emotional intimacy and will shut the player character down fast and hard if they try to push their relationship along.
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** ''VideoGame/BaldursGateIII'' continues the trend.
*** Gale is something of a deconstruction of the "high intelligence, low wisdom" character. These are usually AbsentMindedProfessor-types, whose lack of common sense is played for laughs. Gale's arc, on the other hnd, shows ''exactly'' what happens when you have enough brains to build a nuclear reactor in your basement, and not enough common sense to not do it again after your first one turned your neighborhood into a clowing crater.
*** Gale is something of a deconstruction of the "high intelligence, low wisdom" character. These are usually AbsentMindedProfessor-types, whose lack of common sense is played for laughs. Gale's arc, on the other hnd, shows ''exactly'' what happens when you have enough brains to build a nuclear reactor in your basement, and not enough common sense to not do it again after your first one turned your neighborhood into a clowing crater.
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Hurting Hero is a disambiguation
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* ''VideoGame/{{Shantae}}'' deconstructs MayorPain through Mayor Scuttlebutt. Like most characters in this trope, he makes several boneheaded moves throughout the series. ''Unlike'' these characters, however, his actions don't go away as StatusQuoIsGod is not around to save him. Due to him not wanting to risk fighting both Risky Boots and Ammo Baron, he sells the town to the latter, letting him press assault charges against Shantae and get her placed under house arrest, and later trying to turn the town into a base to attack the Sequin Land Palace from. Him deciding to replace Shantae on a whim with Holly Lingerbean leads to the town getting their memories wiped and nearly eaten by a sandworm. His constant firing of Shantae for random reasons leads to her having some ''serious'' [[HurtingHero self-esteem problems]]. Because of all these reasons, he gets little to no respect from any of the townsfolk and a few even wonder why he still has his job in the first place. Case in point, in ''Risky's Revenge'', after Shantae is fired, he tries to launch a smear campaign against her, but literally ''no one'' in town buys into what he says.
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* ''VideoGame/{{Shantae}}'' deconstructs MayorPain through Mayor Scuttlebutt. Like most characters in this trope, he makes several boneheaded moves throughout the series. ''Unlike'' these characters, however, his actions don't go away as StatusQuoIsGod is not around to save him. Due to him not wanting to risk fighting both Risky Boots and Ammo Baron, he sells the town to the latter, letting him press assault charges against Shantae and get her placed under house arrest, and later trying to turn the town into a base to attack the Sequin Land Palace from. Him deciding to replace Shantae on a whim with Holly Lingerbean leads to the town getting their memories wiped and nearly eaten by a sandworm. His constant firing of Shantae for random reasons leads to her having some ''serious'' [[HurtingHero self-esteem problems]].problems. Because of all these reasons, he gets little to no respect from any of the townsfolk and a few even wonder why he still has his job in the first place. Case in point, in ''Risky's Revenge'', after Shantae is fired, he tries to launch a smear campaign against her, but literally ''no one'' in town buys into what he says.
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The trope has been disambiguated.
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* ''VideoGame/TheLastSovereign'' delivers a rather brutal deconstruction of the JRPG hero with Kai. A young man [[HeroesPreferSwords skilled in swordsmanship]] [[TheChosenOne selected to save the world]]... a shame that he is an obnoxious asshole who [[ItsAllAboutMe treats his own allies with contempt]], seems more interested [[AnythingThatMoves in sexual conquests]], and ultimately [[DecoyProtagonist gets himself ignominiously killed]].
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* ''VideoGame/TheLastSovereign'' delivers a rather brutal deconstruction of the JRPG hero with Kai. A young man [[HeroesPreferSwords skilled in swordsmanship]] [[TheChosenOne selected to save the world]]... a shame that he is an obnoxious asshole who [[ItsAllAboutMe treats his own allies with contempt]], seems more interested [[AnythingThatMoves [[ExtremeOmnisexual in sexual conquests]], and ultimately [[DecoyProtagonist gets himself ignominiously killed]].
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** Darth Sion also deconstructs Vader, but goes in the opposite direction by taking away Vader's armor and coolness factor. Sion shows just how miserable it would be if you were in Vader's position. He's a twisted, disfigured man in constant agony from his numerous injuries and is forever subservient to much more powerful Sith Lords that he hates.
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** Darth Sion also deconstructs Vader, but goes in the opposite direction by taking away Vader's armor and coolness factor. Sion shows factor, showing just how miserable it would is to actually be if you were in Vader's position. He's position: Sion is a twisted, disfigured man in constant agony from his numerous injuries and is forever subservient to much more powerful Sith Lords that he hates.
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** Kratos is a deconstruction of the classical Greek hero and Spartan archetypes: a person who is defined by using his physical strength to do whatever he wants, seeks revenge for any affront, has a "MightMakesRight" morality and [[spoiler:has divine parentage]] is less likely to be a paragon and more likely to be a violent psychopath hellbent on killing his enemies, consequences be damned. Critically, he lacks a key component of classic Greek heroes and Spartans: they should never commit ''hubris'' and think themselves above the gods, or they face divine punishment. Kratos shows what happens when they '''''don't care''''' by [[spoiler: killing all the gods and destroying his world]]. ''VideoGame/GodOfWarPS4'' goes further, showing how Kratos' violent past and upbringing still haunts him and hampers his ability to function as a father. His internalization of Greek values versus Norse values drives a wedge between him and his more emotional son, Atreus. While he ''does'' genuinely want to atone for his past, he also still doesn't fully understand how his selfishness and inability to recognize the consequences of his actions continue to plague his behavior. Overcoming his flaws and his own violent tendencies is ''essential'' if he's going to make sure Atreus doesn't go down the same path he did.
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** Kratos is a deconstruction of the classical Greek hero and Spartan archetypes: a person who is defined by using his physical strength to do whatever he wants, seeks revenge for any affront, has a "MightMakesRight" morality and [[spoiler:has divine parentage]] is less likely to be a paragon and more likely to be a violent psychopath hellbent on killing his enemies, consequences be damned. Critically, he lacks a key component of classic Greek heroes and Spartans: they should never commit ''hubris'' and think themselves above the gods, or they face divine punishment. Kratos shows what happens when they '''''don't care''''' by [[spoiler: killing all the gods and destroying his world]]. ''VideoGame/GodOfWarPS4'' goes further, further by having him deconstruct the SternTeacher and SinkOrSwimFatherhood, showing how Kratos' violent past and upbringing still haunts him and hampers his ability to function as a father. His internalization of Greek values versus Norse values drives a wedge between him and his more emotional son, Atreus. While he ''does'' genuinely want to atone for his past, he also still doesn't fully understand how his selfishness and inability to recognize the consequences of his actions continue to plague his behavior. Overcoming his flaws and his own violent tendencies is ''essential'' if he's going to make sure Atreus doesn't go down the same path he did.did.
** This franchise's portrayal of Zeus takes his character from the original Greek myths (as well as his role as he TopGod of his pantheon), cranks up all his negative aspects, and explores his character from there. Though initially presented as a benevolent if benign ally to Kratos, it becomes more apparent as the games progresses that Zeus is trapped by an intense fear of losing his throne, especially to his children--and this fear is completely justified. Given that Zeus himself overthrew his father Cronos, and Cronos overthrew ''his'' father Ouranos, it's natural for Zeus to assume that someday one of his children would do the same (which is exactly his reasoning for the death of the Titan Metis in Myth/ClassicalMythology). His paranoia over losing his throne causes him to act out of fear, leading to Kratos declaring war upon Olympus, eventually [[spoiler:leading to the destruction of all of Greece and the end of his reign]]. Even with the reveal that [[spoiler:Zeus was infected by the evils of Pandora's Box]], it's likely that [[spoiler:the evils had merely exacerbated the fear and paranoia that was already there]].
** This franchise's portrayal of Zeus takes his character from the original Greek myths (as well as his role as he TopGod of his pantheon), cranks up all his negative aspects, and explores his character from there. Though initially presented as a benevolent if benign ally to Kratos, it becomes more apparent as the games progresses that Zeus is trapped by an intense fear of losing his throne, especially to his children--and this fear is completely justified. Given that Zeus himself overthrew his father Cronos, and Cronos overthrew ''his'' father Ouranos, it's natural for Zeus to assume that someday one of his children would do the same (which is exactly his reasoning for the death of the Titan Metis in Myth/ClassicalMythology). His paranoia over losing his throne causes him to act out of fear, leading to Kratos declaring war upon Olympus, eventually [[spoiler:leading to the destruction of all of Greece and the end of his reign]]. Even with the reveal that [[spoiler:Zeus was infected by the evils of Pandora's Box]], it's likely that [[spoiler:the evils had merely exacerbated the fear and paranoia that was already there]].
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** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTearsOfTheKingdom'' deconstructs both the BloodKnight and ChallengeSeeker; [[spoiler: For Ganondorf, it isn't enough to just win. He has to test his might against a worthy foe so his victory can truly feel complete. When Rauru tells him that Link will one day defeat him, Ganondorf replies that he looks forward to meeting him. But when he encounters Link in the present day and manages to both shatter the Master Sword and ravage his arm, Ganondorf is utterly disappointed and dismisses Link as a worthy adversary. This massive ego ultimately becomes his downfall as by not taking Link seriously enough, it allows Link to regain his strength, defeat his servants plaguing Hyrule, and awaken the new sages to bring the fight to Ganondorf personally. When Link proves powerful enough to actually be a threat, Ganondorf has a ''massive'' VillainousBreakdown and decides to swallow his Secret Stone and transform into a [[ClippedWingAngel dragon]], fully aware [[DeathOfPersonality that this will cost him his mind]], simply because he can't fathom the idea that he might actually ''lose''.]]
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*** Garrick is a typical SpoonyBard. He labors under the belief that he is awesome because he is a bard, that all women are powerless before his charms, and that all his employers are fundamentally decent people. He is spectacularly wrong on all counts.
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*** Garrick is a typical SpoonyBard.QuirkyBard. He labors under the belief that he is awesome because he is a bard, that all women are powerless before his charms, and that all his employers are fundamentally decent people. He is spectacularly wrong on all counts.
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* ''DeconstructedCharacterArchetype/{{Pokemon}}''
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* ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon''
** The villains, Team Skull, deconstruct KidHero. They are made up of teenagers who have failed the Island Challenge. This gives them severe self-esteem issues and means many of them have become homeless because they are ashamed to return home; they are forced to turn to crime precisely because they can not return to society.
** [[spoiler:Lusamine]] deconstructs a typical Pokémon protagonist. She wants to [[GottaCatchThemAll acquire all Pokémon]], much like how the protagonist may capture all Pokémon for the Pokedex. When a new, unidentified Pokémon appears, she becomes obsessed with having it. When the heroes call her cruel for treating her Pokémon like exhibits or trophies after seeing her [[spoiler:collection of cryogenically frozen Pokémon]], she counters that the heroes have likely caught a bunch of Pokémon solely for the sake of having them and have ignored said Pokémon since.
*** In perhaps a grand moment of {{Irony}}, the game also introduces a feature allowing your PC Pokemon to partake in fun activities like harvest berries, train, relax, mine and so on, allowing you to subvert what [[spoiler:Lusamine]] does. The guy who runs it, Mohn, is a little eccentric, but loves Pokemon. He's [[spoiler:Lusamine's husband and Lillie and Gladion's father who ended up being sucked into a portal before arriving in Poke Pelago and losing his memories. His disappearance was what led to Lusamine's StartOfDarkness in the first place.]]
** Mimikyu deconstructs the Pika-clone. Pika-clones are made to be a regional knock-off of [[SeriesMascot Pikachu]] to ride off its popularity. Mimikyu does just that. It creates its own knock-off costume of Pikachu to ride off its popularity only because it's an EldritchAbomination [[IJustWantToBeLoved that wants someone to be its Trainer.]]
* ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'' has three.
** First, there's Hop, who deconstructs Hau before him. Sure, he's happy-go-lucky just like Hau, he starts his adventure alongside you just like Hau, and he has a relative that's a major influence in his home region, [[RuleOfThree just like Hau]][[note]]Hala for Hau, Leon for Hop.[[/note]]. However, unlike Hau who was just there for the ride, Hop genuinely wants to better himself as a Pokémon Trainer, [[AlwaysSomeoneBetter and his constant losses actually get to him.]] This becomes most evident when [[spoiler:he loses to Bede and ditches his Wooloo and Corvisquire for two battles in a row, with the second battle involving a Trevenant and a Heatmor, indicating that he's serious about beating the player. After the post-game, he decides that instead of being a Trainer, he'll work to become a Professor.]]
** Meanwhile, Bede can be seen as a deconstruction of the {{Jerkass}} rival, specifically [[VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue Blue]]. Yeah, he's a cocky ass whose comeuppance you would likely enjoy giving personally, but some of it might stem from the fact that [[spoiler: he's an orphan and had no one to care for him. Thus, when Rose took him in and sponsored him for the Gym Challenge, he gained a bit of a superiority complex unaware or unwilling to be aware of the fact that Rose sees him as expendable. After he gets disqualified, he can best be described as a shell of who he was before. When Opal takes him in, his personality does a complete 180. Sure, he's still overconfident in his skills, but it's the sort of overconfidence that might be more reminiscent of [[VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl Barry]] than Blue.]]
** While Leon is probably the most active Champion in the series, he still follows the series' trend of the champions being [[ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything largely hands-off]] when it comes to certain regional threats. He was so hyper-focused on retaining his title that he ignores [[spoiler: Chairman Rose's pleas of the potential tragedy in Galar]], which would end up being the catalyst for the latter's FaceHeelTurn.
* In ''VideoGame/DetectivePikachu'', the titular Pikachu is a deconstruction of how Pikachu are portrayed, being cynical and sarcastic rather than cheerful and playful, due to being frustrated over nobody but TheHero being able to understand his PokemonSpeak.
** The villains, Team Skull, deconstruct KidHero. They are made up of teenagers who have failed the Island Challenge. This gives them severe self-esteem issues and means many of them have become homeless because they are ashamed to return home; they are forced to turn to crime precisely because they can not return to society.
** [[spoiler:Lusamine]] deconstructs a typical Pokémon protagonist. She wants to [[GottaCatchThemAll acquire all Pokémon]], much like how the protagonist may capture all Pokémon for the Pokedex. When a new, unidentified Pokémon appears, she becomes obsessed with having it. When the heroes call her cruel for treating her Pokémon like exhibits or trophies after seeing her [[spoiler:collection of cryogenically frozen Pokémon]], she counters that the heroes have likely caught a bunch of Pokémon solely for the sake of having them and have ignored said Pokémon since.
*** In perhaps a grand moment of {{Irony}}, the game also introduces a feature allowing your PC Pokemon to partake in fun activities like harvest berries, train, relax, mine and so on, allowing you to subvert what [[spoiler:Lusamine]] does. The guy who runs it, Mohn, is a little eccentric, but loves Pokemon. He's [[spoiler:Lusamine's husband and Lillie and Gladion's father who ended up being sucked into a portal before arriving in Poke Pelago and losing his memories. His disappearance was what led to Lusamine's StartOfDarkness in the first place.]]
** Mimikyu deconstructs the Pika-clone. Pika-clones are made to be a regional knock-off of [[SeriesMascot Pikachu]] to ride off its popularity. Mimikyu does just that. It creates its own knock-off costume of Pikachu to ride off its popularity only because it's an EldritchAbomination [[IJustWantToBeLoved that wants someone to be its Trainer.]]
* ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'' has three.
** First, there's Hop, who deconstructs Hau before him. Sure, he's happy-go-lucky just like Hau, he starts his adventure alongside you just like Hau, and he has a relative that's a major influence in his home region, [[RuleOfThree just like Hau]][[note]]Hala for Hau, Leon for Hop.[[/note]]. However, unlike Hau who was just there for the ride, Hop genuinely wants to better himself as a Pokémon Trainer, [[AlwaysSomeoneBetter and his constant losses actually get to him.]] This becomes most evident when [[spoiler:he loses to Bede and ditches his Wooloo and Corvisquire for two battles in a row, with the second battle involving a Trevenant and a Heatmor, indicating that he's serious about beating the player. After the post-game, he decides that instead of being a Trainer, he'll work to become a Professor.]]
** Meanwhile, Bede can be seen as a deconstruction of the {{Jerkass}} rival, specifically [[VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue Blue]]. Yeah, he's a cocky ass whose comeuppance you would likely enjoy giving personally, but some of it might stem from the fact that [[spoiler: he's an orphan and had no one to care for him. Thus, when Rose took him in and sponsored him for the Gym Challenge, he gained a bit of a superiority complex unaware or unwilling to be aware of the fact that Rose sees him as expendable. After he gets disqualified, he can best be described as a shell of who he was before. When Opal takes him in, his personality does a complete 180. Sure, he's still overconfident in his skills, but it's the sort of overconfidence that might be more reminiscent of [[VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl Barry]] than Blue.]]
** While Leon is probably the most active Champion in the series, he still follows the series' trend of the champions being [[ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything largely hands-off]] when it comes to certain regional threats. He was so hyper-focused on retaining his title that he ignores [[spoiler: Chairman Rose's pleas of the potential tragedy in Galar]], which would end up being the catalyst for the latter's FaceHeelTurn.
* In ''VideoGame/DetectivePikachu'', the titular Pikachu is a deconstruction of how Pikachu are portrayed, being cynical and sarcastic rather than cheerful and playful, due to being frustrated over nobody but TheHero being able to understand his PokemonSpeak.
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** Noelle fills the archetype of the [[ShrikingViolet timid]] healer girl that the protagonist needs to help, though unlike the typical example she's not a LoveInterest for said protagonist (her crush is squarely on [[TheBigGuy Susie]]). That's about as far as the differences go normally, and her arc in Chapter 2 is appropriately about her learning to stand up for herself. However, during the "Weird Route", [[spoiler:the player instead exploits Noelle's timid nature through gaslighting and intimidation, teaching her to use her ice magic to freeze every enemy she comes across. While other examples of Noelle's archetype would show some [[SilkHidingSteel hidden strength]] and resist said manipulation, Noelle's low willpower and lack of a strong moral core leave her [[ExtremeDoormat unable to say no to the player's orders]], allowing them to slowly corrupt her into a emotionally distant killer.]]
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** Noelle fills the archetype of the [[ShrikingViolet [[ShrinkingViolet timid]] healer girl that the protagonist needs to help, though unlike the typical example she's not a LoveInterest for said protagonist (her crush is squarely on [[TheBigGuy Susie]]). That's about as far as the differences go normally, and her arc in Chapter 2 is appropriately about her learning to stand up for herself. However, during the "Weird Route", [[spoiler:the player instead exploits Noelle's timid nature through gaslighting and intimidation, teaching her to use her ice magic to freeze every enemy she comes across. While other examples of Noelle's archetype would show some [[SilkHidingSteel hidden strength]] and resist said manipulation, Noelle's low willpower and lack of a strong moral core leave her [[ExtremeDoormat unable to say no to the player's orders]], allowing them to slowly corrupt her into a emotionally distant killer.]]
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Someone else might rewrite it all sooner or later, hopefully
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* ''VideoGame/{{Deltarune}}'' has Kris, a TokenHuman living in a peaceful town of monsters who seems to have been made to be an AudienceSurrogate for the player to interact with the game's world... except soon it becomes clear that Kris has their own personality, history, and motives separate from the player and will frequently tear out their SOUL at night to temporarily escape from the player's control to carry out [[AmbiguouslyEvil whatever the hell they desire to, yet put themselves back under the player's control after they're done]] because being controlled somehow "benefits" them. On several occasions, if the player makes Kris say something that they didn't want to say or if they do something they didn't want to do, they will sound confused or will become disturbed respectively.
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* Given [[DeconstructorFleet the nature]] of [[VideoGame/{{Undertale}} its predecessor]], ''VideoGame/{{Deltarune}}'' predictably has Kris, a couple examples:
** Kris is a TokenHuman living in a peaceful town of monsters who seems to have been made to be an AudienceSurrogate for the player to interact with the game's world... except soon it becomes clear that Kris has their own personality, history, and motives separate from the player and will frequently tear out their SOUL at night to temporarily escape from the player's control to carry out [[AmbiguouslyEvil whatever the hell they desire to, yet put themselves back under the player's control after they'redone]] done]], because being controlled somehow "benefits" them. On several occasions, if the player makes Kris say something that they didn't want to say or if they do something they didn't want to do, they will sound confused or will become disturbed respectively. If the player [[OffTheRails diverges from the main story]] and finishes the "Weird Route" in Chapter 2, Susie and Ralsei will see that Kris appears visibly distressed due to [[spoiler:how the player used them to corrupt their friend Noelle into GainingTheWillToKill even their classmate Berdly, along with coercing her into an abusive relationship with Kris to do so]].
** Noelle fills the archetype of the [[ShrikingViolet timid]] healer girl that the protagonist needs to help, though unlike the typical example she's not a LoveInterest for said protagonist (her crush is squarely on [[TheBigGuy Susie]]). That's about as far as the differences go normally, and her arc in Chapter 2 is appropriately about her learning to stand up for herself. However, during the "Weird Route", [[spoiler:the player instead exploits Noelle's timid nature through gaslighting and intimidation, teaching her to use her ice magic to freeze every enemy she comes across. While other examples of Noelle's archetype would show some [[SilkHidingSteel hidden strength]] and resist said manipulation, Noelle's low willpower and lack of a strong moral core leave her [[ExtremeDoormat unable to say no to the player's orders]], allowing them to slowly corrupt her into a emotionally distant killer.]]
** Kris is a TokenHuman living in a peaceful town of monsters who seems to have been made to be an AudienceSurrogate for the player to interact with the game's world... except soon it becomes clear that Kris has their own personality, history, and motives separate from the player and will frequently tear out their SOUL at night to temporarily escape from the player's control to carry out [[AmbiguouslyEvil whatever the hell they desire to, yet put themselves back under the player's control after they're
** Noelle fills the archetype of the [[ShrikingViolet timid]] healer girl that the protagonist needs to help, though unlike the typical example she's not a LoveInterest for said protagonist (her crush is squarely on [[TheBigGuy Susie]]). That's about as far as the differences go normally, and her arc in Chapter 2 is appropriately about her learning to stand up for herself. However, during the "Weird Route", [[spoiler:the player instead exploits Noelle's timid nature through gaslighting and intimidation, teaching her to use her ice magic to freeze every enemy she comes across. While other examples of Noelle's archetype would show some [[SilkHidingSteel hidden strength]] and resist said manipulation, Noelle's low willpower and lack of a strong moral core leave her [[ExtremeDoormat unable to say no to the player's orders]], allowing them to slowly corrupt her into a emotionally distant killer.]]
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** [[BigBad Hilda]] is the deconstruction of the FemmeFatale. Everyone doesn't deny that she has a lot of sex appeal and every word she speaks sounds like an orgasm. However, she's too [[BrainlessBeauty dumb]] to use her sexiness to her advantage, is also AxCrazy and [[UngratefulBitch quite the bitch]] and tries it so often everyone around her becomes used to it, so no one would want to do anything for her. The only one she manages to seduce is Hyde Kido, [[HormoneAddledTeenager which isn't much of an accomplishment]].
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** [[BigBad Hilda]] is the deconstruction of the FemmeFatale. Everyone doesn't deny that she has a lot of sex appeal and every word she speaks sounds like an orgasm. However, she's too [[BrainlessBeauty dumb]] to use her sexiness to her advantage, is also AxCrazy and [[UngratefulBitch quite the bitch]] bitch]], and tries it so often everyone around her becomes used to it, so no one would want to do anything for her. The only one she manages to seduce is Hyde Kido, [[HormoneAddledTeenager which isn't much of an accomplishment]].
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** [[BigBad Hilda]] is the deconstruction of the FemmeFatale. Everyone doesn't deny that she has a lot of sex appeal and every word she speaks sounds like an orgasm. However, she's too [[BrainlessBeauty dumb]] to use her sexiness to her advantage and she's also AxCrazy and [[UngratefulBitch quite the bitch]], so no one would want to do anything for her. The only one she manages to seduce is Hyde Kido, [[HormoneAddledTeenager which isn't much of an accomplishment]].
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** [[BigBad Hilda]] is the deconstruction of the FemmeFatale. Everyone doesn't deny that she has a lot of sex appeal and every word she speaks sounds like an orgasm. However, she's too [[BrainlessBeauty dumb]] to use her sexiness to her advantage and she's advantage, is also AxCrazy and [[UngratefulBitch quite the bitch]], bitch]] and tries it so often everyone around her becomes used to it, so no one would want to do anything for her. The only one she manages to seduce is Hyde Kido, [[HormoneAddledTeenager which isn't much of an accomplishment]].
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** ''VideoGame/GodOfWarRagnarok'': Thor is a deconstruction of the DrunkenMaster. Thor was always imagined to be fond of drink and he famously (and unknowingly) drank a 3rd of the ocean in a contest against Utgard-Loki in Norse mythology. [[spoiler: His drinking habits were written at that point to show that Thor is a man of the people who bonds with them by sharing stories and sharing a drink at the bar. In the game, however, Thor's love of alcohol is actually a sign of a major character flaw and it was just a way for Odin to keep Thor under his thumb as he drunkenly kills people whenever Odin orders him to. By the time of ''Ragnarok'', it is shown that Thor is actually a deeply troubled man who's struggling to better himself for the sake of his wife and daughter after realizing how badly alcohol has dominated his life and how horrible a person he was when he was drunk. Thor now understands that his father sees him as nothing more than a vicious lapdog after enduring Odin's comments while sober, Thor caused the death of Modi, his own son, by being violently drunk. After Thor slaughtered the giants and drove the survivors into hiding, he reflected on his actions and realized that he killed them for no reason and chooses to blame himself instead of standing up to Odin. When he's shown drunkenly fighting in a bar brawl, it's all fun and games to him until he realizes how badly he's upset and let down Thrud by relapsing into alcoholism in a moment of weakness after 3-4 years of sobriety and forced her and Sif to take care of him.]]
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** ''VideoGame/GodOfWarRagnarok'': Thor is a deconstruction of the DrunkenMaster. Thor was always imagined to be fond of drink and he famously (and unknowingly) drank a 3rd of the ocean in a contest against Utgard-Loki in Norse mythology. [[spoiler: His drinking habits were written at that point to show that Thor is a man of the people who bonds with them by sharing stories and sharing a drink at the bar. In the game, however, Thor's love of alcohol is actually a sign of a major character flaw and it was just a way for Odin to keep Thor under his thumb as he drunkenly kills people whenever Odin orders him to. By the time of ''Ragnarok'', it is shown that Thor is actually a deeply troubled man who's struggling to better himself for the sake of his wife and daughter after realizing how badly alcohol has dominated his life and how horrible a person he was when he was drunk. Thor now understands that his father sees him as nothing more than a vicious lapdog after enduring Odin's comments while sober, he abused his children, and Thor caused the death of Modi, his own son, by being violently drunk. After Thor slaughtered the giants and drove the survivors into hiding, he reflected on his actions and realized that he killed them for no reason and chooses to blame himself instead of standing up to Odin. When he's shown drunkenly fighting in a bar brawl, it's all fun and games to him until he realizes how badly he's upset and let down Thrud by relapsing into alcoholism in a moment of weakness after 3-4 years of sobriety and forced her and Sif to take care of him.]]
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Bit surface level and it doesn't properly explain why he is what he is.
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** ''VideoGame/GodOfWarRagnarok'': Thor is a deconstruction of the DrunkenMaster. Thor was always imagined to be fond of drink and he famously (and unknowingly) drank a 3rd of the ocean in a contest against Utgard-Loki in Norse mythology. [[spoiler: His drinking habits were written at that point to show that Thor is a man of the people who bonds with them by sharing stories and sharing a drink at the bar. In the game, however, Thor's love of alcohol is actually a sign of a major character flaw and shows that Thor is actually a deeply troubled man who's struggling to better himself for the sake of his wife and daughter. Thor's struggling to live with the fact that his father sees him as nothing more than a vicious lapdog, he's outlived his sons and caused the death of Modi by being violently drunk, and he slaughtered the giants for no other reason than because Odin told him to and because he wants Odin's approval for once in his life. When he's shown drunkenly fighting in a bar brawl, it's all fun and games to him until he realizes how badly he's upset and let down Thrud by relapsing into alcoholism in a moment of weakness after 3-4 years of sobriety and by forcing her to take care of him.]]
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** ''VideoGame/GodOfWarRagnarok'': Thor is a deconstruction of the DrunkenMaster. Thor was always imagined to be fond of drink and he famously (and unknowingly) drank a 3rd of the ocean in a contest against Utgard-Loki in Norse mythology. [[spoiler: His drinking habits were written at that point to show that Thor is a man of the people who bonds with them by sharing stories and sharing a drink at the bar. In the game, however, Thor's love of alcohol is actually a sign of a major character flaw and shows it was just a way for Odin to keep Thor under his thumb as he drunkenly kills people whenever Odin orders him to. By the time of ''Ragnarok'', it is shown that Thor is actually a deeply troubled man who's struggling to better himself for the sake of his wife and daughter. Thor's struggling to live with the fact daughter after realizing how badly alcohol has dominated his life and how horrible a person he was when he was drunk. Thor now understands that his father sees him as nothing more than a vicious lapdog, he's outlived his sons and lapdog after enduring Odin's comments while sober, Thor caused the death of Modi Modi, his own son, by being violently drunk, and he drunk. After Thor slaughtered the giants and drove the survivors into hiding, he reflected on his actions and realized that he killed them for no other reason than because Odin told him to and because he wants Odin's approval for once in his life. chooses to blame himself instead of standing up to Odin. When he's shown drunkenly fighting in a bar brawl, it's all fun and games to him until he realizes how badly he's upset and let down Thrud by relapsing into alcoholism in a moment of weakness after 3-4 years of sobriety and by forcing forced her and Sif to take care of him.]]
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* Mythra in ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'' deconstructs {{Tsundere}}. While she appears a textbook example of the trope, it's shown from the start that her prickly attitude makes her very hard to get along with, and results in her being TheFriendNobodyLikes to the party for a while. Later revelations imply that her cold demeanor stems from severe self-loathing ([[spoiler:and outright DeathSeeker tendencies]]) over being a living WeaponOfMassDestruction who was responsible for a lot of deaths 500 years ago. She feels she's pushing others away for their own good, because they'd be better off not being associated with someone like her.
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* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'': Mythra in ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'' deconstructs {{Tsundere}}. While she appears a textbook example of the trope, it's shown from the start that her prickly attitude makes her very hard to get along with, and results in her being TheFriendNobodyLikes to the party for a while. Later revelations imply that her cold demeanor stems from severe self-loathing ([[spoiler:and outright DeathSeeker tendencies]]) over being a living WeaponOfMassDestruction who was responsible for a lot of deaths 500 years ago. She feels she's pushing others away for their own good, because they'd be better off not being associated with someone like her. Notably, she constructed her gentler alternate personality Pyra to basically say everything she wishes she could herself; several times, when Mythra should be apologizing, she switches to Pyra and makes her do it.
