History FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse / AnimeAndManga

* ''Anime/DeathNote'': In the final scenes of the series, Light Yagami delivers a MotiveRant as he is finally against the wall about how he did all he did ForJustice, but Near tells him that a truly sane person who had gotten his hands on a [[ArtifactOfDoom Death Note]] would have not used it at all, or stopped once he discovered [[MyGodYouAreSerious that thing really kills people]], but Light as "Kira" carried on for years and murdered hundreds to create a very false peace. Near dismisses Light as merely a SerialKiller with a god complex.

** While usurper Shogun of Wano Kurozumi Orochi had without a doubt a tragic backstory, it doesn't excuse or justify anything that he did. Everything that he ever did was unjustified, from using Oden and Yasuie and stealing their money even though they were supporting him, from hiring Kaido, to taking over Wano and kidnapping hundreds of innocent citizens, to executing people, to torturing Oden for 5 years and causing his death by boiling him alive in oil for an hour which is an immensely painful way to go, to turning Wano into a wasteland for 20 years and causing every citizen to suffer by starving them and feeding the tested fake smiles to the people of Ebisu town, to his obsession over Komurasaki/Hiyori, to killing Yasuie, to attempting to murder literal children; the list goes on. The amount of crimes Orochi has committed makes him a irredeemable scumbag, especially when we consider that he's also a dirty, perverted, and ungrateful coward who always hides behind others, feels no remorse for any of his actions, and uses his childhood to justify the suffering of an entire country.

** In the Galuna Island arc, Lyon is trying to release [[SealedEvilinaCan Deloria]] who his master, [[MentorOccupationalHazard Ur]] gave her life to seal away so he can prove himself strong enough to defeat it; the process of doing this causes a lot of collateral damage. After hearing Lyon explain his goal, how does Natsu respond?:

* In ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'', ''Gendo Ikari'' of all people is ''finally'' hit with this in End of Evangelion when [[spoiler:Instrumentality occurs and he is confronted by a vision of his wife.]] Gendo confesses that his inability to be a parent to Shinji was because he felt that he deserved love from no one, and thought he would only cause pain to Shinji if he didn't abandon him to live with an apathetic guardian. [[spoiler:Yui, while not spiteful, gently questions this reasoning. Rei and Kaworu join in and add their own two cents: Gendo simply ran away from his son and closed his heart off from others like a coward. He could have forged strong relationships with the people around him and moved on from Yui's death.]] Gendo weakly agrees that he was nothing but a coward and deserved to die for his sins.

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** Anime-only: During her lifetime, Pakura, known as the Hero of Sunagakure, was considered a part of negotiations with Kirigakure, according to Suna's higher ups. Sent to Kirigakure as an ambassador, she was assassinated in an ambush orchestrated by Kiri and Suna as part of the negociations. Upon being reincarnated by Kabuto, unlike several reincarnated people who fought against their own will — such as Itachi, Nagato and Asuma for example — Pakura willingly killed any enemy shinobi in her path, justifying it by saying that she needed to vent her anger since those who killed her were long dead since. She gets especially pissed upon seeing her student Maki working with Ruka, a Kiri ninja, planning on killing the latter. Maki, while sympathetic, points out that Ruka and Pakura's victims have nothing to do with her death. However, her speech fell on deaf ears, and Pakura only spares them because she saw in their fight how much [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes her student]] and [[PassingTheTorch the new generation]] as a whole improved.
** Upon hearing [[spoiler:Obito's]] life story, Naruto, despite realizing their similarities, argues that it doesn't justify what he's done, and insists that [[spoiler:Obito]] should be punished for his crimes. [[spoiler:Obito ultimately achieves RedemptionEqualsDeath as the closest thing. Granted, he also attempts to pull a Nagato by using the Rinnegan's ultimate technique (at the cost of his life) to bring everyone who was recently killed back to life. Unfortunately, he ends up circumvented by Madara and unable to do so]].

** Downplayed for one spoilerific example. [[spoiler: After Aoyama is revealed to be [[TheMole the U.A. Traitor]], Invisible Girl gives him an angry WhatTheHellHero speech over how his actions have caused so much tragedy and destruction over the past year because he was secretly feeding All for One and his allies information, saying that the country is in chaos and couldn't understand how Aoyama had the nerve to be in the same classroom and sleep in the same dorm as them, a sentiment that [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone doesn't go past him]]. On the other hand, Midoriya was able to recognize that, because Aoyama was born Quirkless and his parents brought him to All for One in a moment of desperation, he was eventually TrappedInVillainy since All for One could kill his parents if he ever disobeyed, [[YouHaveFailedMe something that All for One has done many times before]]. He then points out that despite working under All for One, Aoyama saved Bakugo and Tokoyami during the training camp. Yes, Aoyama was a mole, but he was [[TheAtoner very regretful of what he was made to do]], and Midoriya tells him that [[MeaningfulEcho he can still be a hero]].]]

** [[spoiler: In the movie "Hell Verse", Ichigo delivers this to Kokuto, who turns out to be the movie's true villain. As Kokuto had confessed to Ichigo earlier, the reason he's in Hell is because of his own actions; when Kokuto was alive, he had a younger sister. His sister was murdered, and Kokuto murdered her murderers, causing him to be sent to Hell after his death. He tells Ichigo how vengeance made him feel better, but only temporarily. In the movie proper, Kokuto's goal is to escape Hell at any cost, even if that means turning the World of the Living into a living hell. Ichigo won't have any of it, calling out Kokuto for not taking any responsibility for his actions and for trying to vent his anger and agony on innocent people.]]

* ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventurePhantomBlood'': When Dio Brando is exposed for poisoning his adoptive father, George Joestar, he tries to bring up his past with his abusive biological father to gain sympathy from his adoptive brother, Jonathan. Speedwagon, who came from a similar background of poverty and abuse, immediately shoots him down, stating that he can smell Dio's malice and that the latter [[EnfantTerrible was evil since birth]]. It doesn't help that Dio was looking for an opportunity to stab Jonathan while shedding CrocodileTears. This actually proves to be a crucial piece of character development for Dio: prior to then he had inwardly tried to excuse his actions as stemming from his troubled childhood, reasoning that the Joestars were just rich snobs who deserved his hatred, his grand plan was merely to kill them and steal their fortune, and never really thinking of himself as a bad person and that he was only doing what anyone else in his situation would do. It's only after it's spelled out for him that Dio realizes Speedwagon's assessment was ''completely right'', at which point he becomes willing to discard his own humanity and [[CardCarryingVillain fully embraces being evil]], no longer even pretending to justify his crimes.

** [[spoiler: In the movie "Hell Verse", Ichigo delivers this to Kokuto, who turns out to be the movie's true villain. As Kokuto had confessed to Ichigo earlier, the reason he's in Hell is because of his own actions; when Kokuto was alive, he had a younger sister. His siter was murdered, and Kokuto murdered her murderers, causing him to be sent to Hell after his death. He tells Ichigo how vengeance made him feel better, but only temporarily. In the movie proper, Kokuto's goal is to escape Hell at any cost, even if that means turning the World of the Living into a living hell. Ichigo won't have any of it, calling out Kokuto for not taking any responsibility for his actions and for trying to vent his anger and agony on innocent people.]]

* ''Manga/BlackLagoon'': Revy, the ''Lagoon'' crew's nihilistic gunslinger with a HairTriggerTemper, once blames the way she is now on her rough childhood (she was raped by a police officer and then killed her abusive father when he didn't care). Rock, a Japanese salaryman who joined the crew after being hung out to dry by his superiors, finally gets fed up with this attitude and accuses her of wallowing in self-pity, which puts a serious crack in her shell.

** In the filler New Captain Arc [[spoiler: Ichigo displays NoSympathy for Shusuke Amagai's pursuit of revenge for his father's death, angrily refering to his justitications as "self-centered garbage" and calling him out for hurting innocent people like Rurichiyo as part of of his scheme.]]

* ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex'': Touma Kamijou has this attitude towards his foes' DarkAndTroubledPast and excuses in general, acknowledging that what happened to them sucks and even sympathizing to an extent, but also calling them out on using that as an excuse to hurt others [[YouCouldHaveUsedYourPowersForGood instead of trying to make the world a better place to ensure it doesn't happen to other people]].

* ''Anime/IsekaiQuartet'': PlayedForLaughs. After [[LightNovel/SagaOfTanyaTheEvil Tanya's]] explosive loss of temper, most of her troops are left reeling, with Warren having passed out again. She chastises them for lacking mental discipline, before [[LightNovel/ReZero Subaru]] points out that they simply know how scary she is. She concedes to this, then yells that it's no excuse and kicks Warren awake anyway.

* Sophia in ''LightNovel/SoImASpiderSoWhat'' was reincarnated as a vampire against her will after having been an very unpopular and ugly girl in her past life. Her new body's instincts tell her to suck blood, create more vampires, fight against the strong and be contemptuous of humans and demons, which are basically just food for her. It's not her ''choice'' that she wants to do these things. However, it ''is'' her choice to choose to do them and there is no biological imperative forcing her to do so since she can survive without sucking blood. Her nasty attitude is also based on her past life, but given that she's very popular and attractive in ''this'' one it doesn't serve as much of an excuse. When this is made clear to her she admits it's not a good excuse, but this in turn just helps fuel her already high self loathing. The same basic situation is also implied for Wrath and Shiraori, the two people she is closest to, but it's never directly spelled out for them in the same way as it is for Sophia.
* In ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline'', Grimlock, the culprit behind the murder of Griselda in "A Murder Case in the Area" hired Laughing Coffin to kill his wife because he was disturbed by how much more confident and assertive she'd become in the game, and was afraid of her divorcing them if they got back to the real world. Kirito and Asuna do not sympathize, with Kirito expressing disbelief that Grimlock would do something so terrible for those reasons, and Asuna goes as far as to say that Grimlock never truly loved Griselda.
* ''LightNovel/TheTestamentOfSisterNewDevil'': The Hero Clan has it out for Basara Tojo and repeatedly call him out over the Brynhildr incident which resulted in the deaths of many friends and family. Takashi is the biggest offender, constantly angsting over how much he's lost and Basara's so-called betrayal. Mio, getting fed up of hearing the same thing for the umpteenth time, angrily lays everything straight to Takashi and points out that Basara went through the same tragedy he did but instead of wallowing in his anger and self-pity he tries to make himself a better man from it and so Takashi has absolutely no room to complain -- and that came from someone who watched her foster parents get ''[[YouKilledMyFather murdered]]''.

* ''LightNovel/TrappedInADatingSimTheWorldOfOtomeGamesIsToughForMobs'': The Crown Prince of the Holfort Kingdom, Julius wishes he was [[RebelPrince anything but]]. He pines for a simple life free of the restrictions and demands of the Royal Court, which he sees his fiancée [[NobleBigot Angelica]] as the embodiment of. This leads him to eventually throw a vicious TheReasonYouSuckSpeech at her in front of a massive audience and without a shred of sympathy, completely dismissing her feelings and driving her to tears. Everyone who learns of this agrees that while his annoyance of [[LovingAShadow being loved as the Crown Prince]] is understandable, what he did to Angelica was completely out of line. [[AllLovingHero Olivia]] even outright states that she ''hates'' Julius for making Angelica cry (which is ironic considering that Angelica would be antagonistic towards Olivia under normal circumstances but wound up becoming her [[PseudoRomanticFriendship best friend]] afterwards).
* ''LightNovel/UndefeatedBahamutChronicle'':

** This really hits its peak with Dabi when he finally reveals his identity and motivations. [[spoiler:Toya Todoroki genuinely believes that he has the moral high ground over his abusive father Endeavor (granted, he also admits that he is messed up beyond belief), due to the physical and emotional abuse he was put through, and that utterly broke him. This "moral high ground" has motivated him to go so far as to not only willing murder innocent people who have nothing to do with said grudge, but even put the other members of his family at risk simply because [[RevengeByProxy their deaths would tear at Endeavor even more]] (not even mentioning how Toya's own apparent death already haunted Endeavor), plus there's his desire to destabilize and destroy public hope in heroes for his own satisfaction and to destroy Endeavor's reputation. However, Midoriya rescues Shoto from him and states that Endeavor [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone acknowledges his mistakes]] and [[TheAtoner is trying to make up for them]], rather than ignoring them, making it clear he gives no sympathy to someone who still lives in the past like Toya (at the very least not if they go as far as Toya considering his particular situations).]]

* ''Literature/IfItsForMyDaughterIdEvenDefeatADemonLord'': During Latina's second day of school, her teacher spots Latina’s horn under her ribbon, physically attacks her and begins spewing anti-demon hatred, trying to turn the other students against Latina. While the students defend Latina from the teacher, she is traumatized so badly from it that she breaks off her remaining horn and nearly bleeds to death. When Dale learns what happened, he goes to the temple priestess of the school who explains that the teacher's behavior was due to her family being killed by demons. Dale points out that it doesn't excuse calling a small child an abomination, and threatens to use legal power on the temple if they attempt to cover it up (as the same thing had happened with other schools because the nun isn't just anti-demon, she's [[FantasticRacism anti-anything-that-isn't-human as well]] and often just got transferred to another school). The priestess is forced to comply, and has the teacher fired and defrocked.

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* ''LightNovel/IfItsForMyDaughterIdEvenDefeatADemonLord'': During Latina's second day of school, her teacher spots Latina’s horn under her ribbon, physically attacks her and begins spewing anti-demon hatred, trying to turn the other students against Latina. While the students defend Latina from the teacher, she is traumatized so badly from it that she breaks off her remaining horn and nearly bleeds to death. When Dale learns what happened, he goes to the temple priestess of the school who explains that the teacher's behavior was due to her family being killed by demons. Dale points out that it doesn't excuse calling a small child an abomination, and threatens to use legal power on the temple if they attempt to cover it up (as the same thing had happened with other schools because the nun isn't just anti-demon, she's [[FantasticRacism anti-anything-that-isn't-human as well]] and often just got transferred to another school). The priestess is forced to comply, and has the teacher fired and defrocked.

* ''Manga/OnePiece'': In the Dressrosa arc, Donquixote Doflamingo claims to Monkey D. Luffy and Trafalgar Law -both of whom have had tragic pasts, especially the latter- that the misery they may have dealt with in their lives is nothing compared to his, and we soon see that he did have a horrific backstory, in which, after his father gave up their family's nobility to live like normal people, they were persecuted simply for being former World Nobles, Doffy's mother died in squalor, and he, his father, and his younger brother Rocinante were horrifically tortured. However, Rocinante himself calls Doffy -who murdered their father in a fit of rage- a monster and can't fathom how their parents gave birth to someone like him, speculating that his brother was simply born evil. Considering that 1) it was Doffy's fault they were outed as former World Nobles in the first place because he was acting like a SpoiledBrat, 2) Roci went through the same horrors and turned out to be a compassionate, altruistic man, and 3) Doffy went on to later murder Roci as well, it's hard to disagree with the latter's assessment.

* Sophia in ''LightNovel/SoImASpiderSoWhat'' was reincarnated as a vampire against her will after having been an very unpopular and ugly girl in her past life. Her new body's instincts tell her to suck blood, create more vampires, fight against the strong and be contemptuous of humans and demons, which are basically just food for her. It's not her ''choice'' that she wants to do these things. However, it ''is'' her choice to choose to do them and she there is no biological imperative forcing her to do so since she can survive without sucking blood. Her nasty attitude is also based on her past life, but given that she's very popular and attractive in ''this'' one it doesn't serve as much of an excuse. When this is made clear to her she admits it's not a good excuse, but this in turn just helps fuel her already high self loathing. The same basic situation is also implied for Wrath and Shiraori, the two people she is closest to, but it's never directly spelled out for them in the same way as it is for Sophia.

* In ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'', Ichigo admits to not paying close attention to Uryu's story about why he hates Soul Reapers (Quincies and Soul Reapers were enemies, Uryu's grandfather wanted them to make peace, but the Soul Reapers killed him), but points out that, whatever it is, cannot possibly justify endangering Karakura Town by baiting Hollows to it just to prove himself better than Ichigo. He suggests that they instead work together to fix the mess, and a humbled Uryu agrees and becomes one of Ichigo's allies from then on.

** A lot of the villains have absolutely terrible backstories as a result of falling through the cracks of the Japanese hero system... not that it justifies many of them being violent serial killers or willing and knowing associates of such. Himiko's blood-based Quirk was seen as disgusting and she was forced to suppress it, Twice's self-duplication Quirk combined with being a petty criminal resulted in him being a paranoid wreck, Dabi's fire Quirk is so powerful that he can't control it and hurts everyone including himself [[spoiler:plus his own issues with Endeavor's abusive parenting]], and Tomura [[spoiler:accidentally killed his entire family when his Quirk first activated because of his abusive father]]. The heroes always react with a speech along the lines of "That's terrible, and hopefully we can fix the system to prevent things like that from happening again... after we stop you from killing people." Chapter 342 brings the theme back with Midoriya and Uraraka chatting about how they want to be capable of acknowledging and empathizing with the feelings of the villains like Toga and Tomura, but they will still fight and stop them as long as they're villains. The manga makes a case that empathy and recognizing a bad person's humanity is necessary to fix the underlying issues that caused villain to become evil in the first place.