History Main / AboveGoodandEvil

really man whats wioth this family friendlieness crap

->''The man who is to be great is the one who can be the most solitary, the most hidden, the most deviant, the man beyond good and evil, lord of his virtues, a man lavishly endowed with will-- this is precisely what greatness is to be called: it is able to be as much a totality as something multi-faceted, as wide as it is full.''
-->--'''Nietzsche'''

A character justifies his actions by declaring that he or his objectives are more important than petty considerations about good and evil. Such distinctions are for lesser beings, not for him. He often terms them [[GoodIsOldFashioned antiquated]] or [[SillyRabbitIdealismIsForKids childish]]. He may go on to question WhatIsEvil?

Generally a sign of the {{Ubermensch}}, TheUnfettered or the NietzscheWannabe -- or any of the above combined with the CompleteMonster. Also common in thoughtful [[ItsAllAboutMe extreme narcissists]].

The exact objectives of this character differ widely. Sometimes it is power, othertimes knowledge. In all cases their willingness to do anything to get there is absolute. Expect a character holding to this philosophy to suffer from LaserGuidedKarma. When suffering payback, the character never excuses the wrong done to them under the same principle.

A signature trait of EldritchAbomination with its BlueAndOrangeMorality, thus very common in CosmicHorrorStory. AGodAmI can produce this.

In practice, Above Good And Evil usually ends up meaning evil. Sometimes very evil indeed -- but with lofty sounding excuses. You do not generally find a pacifist character using this one.

Compare BadIsGoodAndGoodIsBad. Villains whose strong point is not logic will sometimes use both tropes.

(Not to be confused with "BeyondGoodAndEvil" the game or the book by FriedrichNietzsche. [[hottip:*:While he did speak of going "beyond good and evil," his conception of what that meant is quite different from what we usually see; to put it quite bluntly, the way "beyond good and evil" has been taken in wider culture is at best TheThemeParkVersion.]])
----
!!Examples

[[AC:{{Anime}} and {{Manga}}]]
* Huey Laforet from ''{{Baccano}}'' is this trope via his several hundred year ForScience ambition. Everyone and everything in this world, including his own daughter, is nothing more than components of a grand experiment- ethics be damned. Even amongst his peers he is considered the creepiest of the lot. Go look at the show's and character entries to see [[BeyondTheImpossible just what that means.]]
* The Lord of Nightmares from the ''{{Slayers}}'' continuity is AboveGoodAndEvil, and creator of both. She represents the primal chaos from which all things emerge, and can side with creation just as easily as with destruction. Most people are only aware of her destructive side, and consider her the Dark Lord above the Dark Lords.

[[AC:ComicBooks]]
* Galactus, foe of the ''FantasticFour'', is a PlanetEater who often uses this justification; he (and other [[ThePowersThatBe Cosmic Beings]] of the MarvelUniverse) claim that he will one day do something that ''more'' than makes up for the uncounted trillions of deaths he causes, which sort of falls under TakeOurWordForIt, since you'd have to wait ''billions'' of years to find out what that is. Which is even more in ComicBookTime. Also, Galactus's death would lead to the end of the universe.\\
\\
Galactus will at the end of the current universe provide the energy for the next universes big bang while the Phoenix shapes it. He also holds the embodiment of destruction, Abraxas at bay, who when released caused the unseen destruction of most of the multiverse. This was, however, {{retcon}}ned.\\
\\
Galactus has always been treated not as a villain, but as a force of nature who really is above good and evil and takes no pleasure in consuming worlds.
* Roque Ja from ''{{Bone}}'' holds the "There is no good and evil, there is only power" philosophy. Unlike most others, he is actually neutral; he works for the bad guys for pay, but will turn on them if they insult him and he lets the heroes go so that they can defeat the Locust at the end.
* Dr. Manhattan from ''{{Watchmen}}'' expresses this attitude. He just did not care about humanity anymore, [[spoiler: until Laurie showed him that the complexity and drama of human existence.]]
* ''NewGods'': Darkseid.

[[AC:{{Film}}]]
* The Cenobites in the ''{{Hellraiser}}'' movies make this sort of argument when someone calls them demons. "There is no good or evil, only flesh." They also claim they would be "Demons to some, Angels to others," depending on your perspective. In the first and second movies Pinhead, who acts as their voice, explains that they only appear when somebody desires to summon them. They're scary, and torture people, but they only come when called. It's just what they do.\\
\\
Later movies tend to just make them straight-up demons, instead of otherworldly beings with alien perspectives. Falling into BlueAndOrangeMorality, they like being tortured, and consider it 'good'.

[[AC:{{Literature}}]]
* In {{Graham McNeill}}'s ''{{Warhammer 40000}} HorusHeresy'' novel ''False Gods'', Magnus the Red is determined to study the warp and gain power, because
-->''Notions of good and evil fell by the wayside next to such power as dwelled in the warp, for they were [[GoodIsOldFashioned the antiquated concepts]] of a religious society, long cast aside.''
* In CSLewis's ''[[{{Narnia}} The Magician's Nephew]]'', when Diggory scorns Uncle Andrew for breaking a [[LastRequest deathbed]] [[ThePromise promise]], Uncle Andrew scorns such things as fitting for boys but not him. Jadis talks in the same language about using the [[DoomsdayDevice Deplorable]] [[ApocalypseHow Word]]:
-->''Men like me who possess hidden wisdom, are freed from common rules just as we are cut off from common pleasures. Ours, my boy, is a [[LonelyAtTheTop high and lonely]] destiny.''
* [[spoiler:Professor Quirrel]] in ''HarryPotterAndThePhilosophersStone''
-->''Lord Voldemort showed me the truth. There is no good and evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it.''
* In JamesSwallow's ''{{Warhammer 40000}} BloodAngels'' novel ''Deus Sanguinius'', the triumph of the Chaos forces in [[spoiler:Arkio]] is shown when he declares
-->''There is no right and wrong, no black and white. Only the strong. . . and the weak.''
* In RobertAntonWilson's and Robert Shea's ''TheIlluminatusTrilogy'', the Dealy Lama remarks that, "The reason I have lived so outrageously long is that I don't give a fuck for Good and Evil." In his case he's actually a pretty nice guy. He's just seen what happens when people get too taken with those concepts. [[spoiler:And he invented them to begin with, 30,000 years ago, and got really disappointed when people misused them.]]
* In one ''{{Warhammer}}'' novel (part of the ''Konrad Trilogy''), the wizard Litzenreich explains that Chaos is no more good or evil than fire is.
* Rhynn and Kwll are two elder gods in MichaelMoorcock's ''Corum'' series. They claim to be above the divine squabbling, and are actually unbound by the Cosmic Balance. [[spoiler:''By the end of the series, Corum gets Kwll to slaughter the entire pantheon of Chaos. Then, for good measure, Kwll decides to off all the Law gods too.'']]
* In the ''StarWars'' [[StarWarsExpandedUniverse Expanded Universe]], there's actually an entire Jedi heresy built around the idea that the dark side doesn't exist. It turned out to be a Sith lie, though.
* ''{{Discworld}}''
** In ''Discworld/CarpeJugulum'', the sophisticated modern vampires claim good and evil are just two ways of looking at the same thing. In the next book, ''Discworld/TheFifthElephant'', there's a CallBack in Vimes' internal monologue:
--> ''Vimes had heard that good and evil were just two ways of looking at the same thing - or, at least, so said people traditionally considered under the category of "evil".''
** In ''Discworld/MakingMoney'', a professor performing a necromatic rite (an insorcism, which make a dead professor happy and keep him out of their hair), [[BringThemAround argues with his students]] that [[WhatIsEvil who can say what is right and wrong]]? When they still argue, he offers to give them all A's. Whereupon one sees that it goes beyond mundane definitions of good and evil, in service of a higher truth.
* In Susan Kay's ''Phantom'', Erik loses all sense of good and evil after realizing how easy it was to kill his Gypsy captor, and regards murder as just another art to master.
* The ''{{Children of the Lamp}}'' series features the Tree of Logic, proximity to which will eliminate all senses of good and evil from a djinn (possibly a {{Muggle}}, but it's never fully explained). It's used in order to judge better, but it also eliminates all kindness, making the affected person a jerk.
* In [[{{Ptitlewo6dni8e}} Dorothy L. Sayers]]' ''Whose Body?'', LordPeterWimsey find this attitude a clue to the murderer.
-->''He likes crime. In that criminology book of his he gloats over a hardened murderer. I've read it, and I've seen the admiration simply glaring out between the lines whenever he writes about a callous and successful criminal. He reserves his contempt for the victims or the penitents or the men who lose their heads and get found out. His heroes are Edmond de la Pommerais, who persuaded his mistress into becoming an accessory to her own murder, and George Joseph Smith of Brides-in-a-bath fame, who could make passionate love to his wife in the night and carry out his plot to murder her in the morning. After all, he thinks conscience is a sort of vermiform appendix. Chop it out and you'll feel all the better.''
* [[OmnicidalManiac Ruin]] of ''{{Mistborn}}'' is like this, claiming that good and evil have nothing to do with him, his counterpart Preservation, or his reason for wanting to destroy the world (it's not out of malice- it's because destroying worlds is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin what he ''does'']].) [[ExtraordinarilyEmpoweredGirl Vin]] disagrees. ''[[{{Understatement}} Strongly]].''
* GKChesterton's ''TheManWhoWasThursday'':
-->''"First of all, what is it really all about? What is it you object to? You want to abolish Government?"\\
"To abolish God!" said Gregory, opening the eyes of a fanatic. "We do not only want to upset a few despotisms and police regulations; that sort of anarchism does exist, but it is a mere branch of the Nonconformists. We dig deeper and we blow you higher. We wish to deny all those arbitrary distinctions of vice and virtue, honour and treachery, upon which mere rebels base themselves. The silly sentimentalists of the French Revolution talked of the Rights of Man! We hate Rights as we hate Wrongs. We have abolished Right and Wrong."\\
"And Right and Left," said Syme with a simple eagerness, "I hope you will abolish them too. They are much more troublesome to me." ''
* The Dark Court in Wicked lovely, as stated by Irial. Unusual in that they actually ARE above good and evil, due to BlueAndOrangeMorality.
-->'''Irial''': "We are what we are, Niall. Neither as good nor as evil as others paint us, and what we are doesn't change what we truly feel, only how free we are to follow those feelings"
* In JohnCWright's ''The Phoenix Exultant'', the Nothing agent declares it is above good and evil.
* In NeilGaiman's ''{{Neverwhere}}'', [[spoiler:Islington]] is so far beyond good and evil that he couldn't find it with a telescope on a clear night.

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]
* ''{{Charmed}}'' had a group called Avatars with this philosophy. They are actually closer to the TrueNeutral variety, though.
* In ''{{Doctor Who}}'', John Lumic justifies his illegal [[spoiler:creation of the Cybermen]] with "I am governed by greater laws, old friend. The right of a man to survive."
* Gary Mitchell from the second ''[[StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Star Trek]]'' pilot follows the AGodAmI variety of this: "Morals are for men, not gods." Kirk points out moments later that his own actions don't fit the definition of God quite so much as Lucifer, and that in fact Gary Mitchell is behaving as one would expect a Fallen human being to behave given free rein.
* Q in ''StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' has some kind of point to make generally but it doesn't make sense in any conventional morality, and he imposes his tests on Picard mainly because he can. He is another who trends towards [[TrueNeutral True Neutrality]].
* One of the German episodes of MontyPython used this as a throwaway joke line in a sketch:
-->'''Waiter:''' Good day, madam. Good day, sir.
-->'''Man:''' We want to eat, please.
-->'''Waiter:''' Wonderful! A thousand welcomes to the Golden Post.
-->'''Man:''' Ah. We hear that this is a restaurant that's typical of Bavaria and full of local colour.
-->'''Waiter:''' Indeed, sir. This is truly a typical Bavarian restaurant. The food, the wine, above all the ''service'', is traditional ''beyond good and evil''!
* In {{Fringe}}, during the episode Amber 31422, [[AlternateUniverse the other Walter Bishop]], [[AlternateUniverseReedRichardsIsAwesome the inventor of the titular substance and U.S. Secretary of Defense]], says to [[AlternateUniverse Broyles]]: "Nature doesn't recognize good and evil, Philip. Nature only recognizes [[OrderVersusChaos balance and imbalance]]. I intend to restore balance to our world. [[WellIntentionedExtremist Whatever it takes]]."

[[AC:{{RealLife}}]]
* A variety of real life religions or theological traditions are built on this sort of spiritual power, including:
** {{Hinduism}} -- In TheBaghavadGita, all good and evil is part of a great game going on within the being of one greater deity.
** {{Buddhism}} -- Good and Evil are among the illusions with which we wrestle, both distracting us from achieving Nirvana.
** Some strains of {{UsefulNotes/Deism}} and {{UsefulNotes/Pantheism}}, especially including {{UsefulNotes/Pandeism}} (where our Universe is a sort of experiment in generating all sorts of experiences).

[[AC:{{Videogames}}]]
* ''[[TheElderScrolls The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind]]'' had the Daedra being cast as divine beings whose actions were driven by concepts far too alien to reasonably compare to straight-up Good or Evil. In practice, however, they come across as more like ChaoticNeutral. It does not help that death is a temporary inconvenience to ''them''.
* In ''SlyCooper'', the Contessa says this about herself. Sly points out that saying that is not going to make him give the {{MacGuffin}}.
* In the second ''{{Knights of the Old Republic}}'' there is Kreia. She insists that the Dark and Light Side are merely manners of perceiving the Force and that a true master walks a balance of the two. Much like Jolee, however, she too leans more heavily towards one school of thought: The Sith. She constantly urges the player to allow suffering to continue as it will help the survivors become stronger. In the end [[spoiler: she returns to her Sith origins and becomes the final BigBad]].
* In ''{{The King of Fighters}}'' ''Maximum Impact 2'', BigBad Jivatma invokes this trope in the Pre-Final Battle one-liner if you fight him with Kim Kaphwan:
--> ''I do not wish to be bound by notions of justice and evil.''
* The villain in the second ''GabrielKnight'' game says that he is above such silly distinctions such as good and evil, and that man should just embrace his animal instincts.
* In ''FinalFantasyX'', Yu Yevon is described as this. He may have started off evil, but now he only exists to summon Sin.

[[AC:WebComics]]
* BobAndGeorge [[http://www.bobandgeorge.com/archives/020723 After he blows up the fortress]]
-->'''George''': Uh -- is that a good thing or a bad thing?\\
'''Bob''': Oh, you and your moral sense of right and wrong. When will you realize you're above all that?\\
'''George''': Are you trying to recruit me to the ways of evil again?\\
'''Bob''': Maybe.\\
'''George''': Leave me alone.

[[AC:WebOriginal]]
* The Warlord, from the ''GlobalGuardiansPBEMUniverse'', is a [[TimeTravel traveler from the future]] who came back to the present because he was bored. He didn't like the way things were going in his time, and he changes historical events at a whim. He considers himself "beyond" such petty concerns as right and wrong.

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]
* Wan Shi Tong, the knowledge spirit from ''[=~Avatar: The Last Airbender~=]'' lands on the TrueNeutral [[TechnicalPacifist (technical) pacifist]] side. He didn't care that the Gaang was looking for knowledge to stop the Fire Nation from destroying the world. To him, one war was the same as the other and the sides and reasons didn't matter. All that mattered to him was collecting knowledge and keeping that knowledge from falling into the "wrong" hands (read: anyone who actually wanted to ''use'' said knowledge). He went so far as trying to trap them in the hidden library once he discovered Sokka trying to smuggle out info on when the Day of the Black Sun would occur.\\
\\
The Gaang tried to argue with him based on their having good intentions and a desire only to protect people. Not gonna work on someone like this. They should have tried to argue that he has a responsibility for the damage already done by those who have used his knowledge. By allowing some people to access his library, Wan Shi Tong is at least partially responsible for how that knowledge was used (ie almost destroying the entire balance of the world). An argument along those lines might have swayed him to help them or even just let them leave before sinking the library.
* ''[[Series/{{X-Men}} X-Men: The Animated Series]]'' -- in the appropriately-named "Beyond Good and Evil" four-parter, Apocalypse declares he is "not malevolent. I simply ''am''." Eventually, after nearly destroying the world more than once, he starts to wonder if they actually have a point about the whole "malevolent" thing. He goes right back to destruction after that, though.
* The NightmareFuel-suffused "The Mysterious Stranger" from ''{{The Adventures of Mark Twain}}'' has [[{{Satan}} the eponymous Stranger]] say, "I can do no wrong, for I do not know what it is."
* A mad scientist supervillain in ''Mighty Max''. He turns his de/evolutionary ray gun on himself to increase his [[EvolutionaryLevels evolutionary level]] (which is an example of DidNotDoTheResearch). The first time, he turned into a large brained psychic. When he returns for another episode, he turns it on himself again and turns into a multicolored orb of "pure thought". He uses it a third time and starts babbling about "ultimate knowledge" and "beautiful music" before flying off. Wise fowl-man Virgil proclaims that he has "evolved beyond primitive ideas of good and evil", which is funny considering Virgil is firmly on the "good" side.
----

** Some strains of {{Deism}} and {{Pantheism}}, especially including {{Pandeism}} (where our Universe is a sort of experiment in generating all sorts of experiences).

** {{Hinduism}} -- In the Bhagavad Gita, all good and evil is part of a great game going on within the being of one greater deity.

[[AC:{{Reallife}}]]

* In the second ''{{Knights of the Old Republic}}'' there is Kreia. She insists that the Dark and Light Side are merely manners of perceiving the Force and that a true master walks a balance of the two. Much like Jolee, however, she too leans more heavily towards one school of thought: The Sith. She is a Darwinist and constantly urges the player to allow suffering to continue as it will help the survivors become stronger. In the end [[spoiler: she returns to her Sith origins and becomes the final BigBad]].

* {{Discworld}}

* Galactus, foe of the ''FantasticFour'', is a PlanetEater who often uses this justification; he (and other [[ThePowersThatBe Cosmic Beings]] of the MarvelUniverse) claim that he will one day do something that ''more'' than makes up for the uncounted trillions of deaths he causes, which sort of falls under TakeOurWordForIt, since you'd have to wait ''billions'' of years to find out what that is. Which is even more in ComicBookTime. Also, Galactus's death would lead to the end of the universe.
** ''Galactus'' will at the end of the current universe provide the energy for the next universes big bang while the Phoenix shapes it. He also holds the embodiment of destruction, Abraxas at bay, who when released caused the unseen destruction of most of the multiverse. This was, however, {{retcon}}ned.
*** And in "Earth X" he is merely a device to keep the Celestials from overpopulating the universe. That's not exactly canon, though.
** Galactus has always been treated not as a villain, but as a force of nature who really ''is'' above good and evil and takes no pleasure in consuming worlds.
* Rock Jaw (sorry, Roque Ja) from ''{{Bone}}'' holds the "There is no good and evil, there is only power" philosophy. Unlike most others, he is actually neutral; he works for the bad guys for pay, but will turn on them if they insult him and he lets the heroes go so that they can defeat the Locust at the end.
* Dr. Manhattan from ''{{Watchmen}}'' sort of falls into this category, although his arguments aren't moralistic in nature, but defeatist.
** Oh, he's not defeatist. He just didn't care about humanity anymore, [[spoiler: until Laurie showed him that the complexity and drama of human existence.]]
* [[NewGods Darkseid]] ''is''.
** I'm not sure you can ENJOY causing pain and suffering as much as Darkseid does and still lay claim to this.

* The Cenobites in the ''{{Hellraiser}}'' movies make this sort of argument when someone calls them demons. "There is no good or evil, only flesh." They also claim they would be "Demons to some, Angels to others," depending on your perspective.
** Specifically, in the first and second movies Pinhead, who acts as their voice, explains that they only appear when somebody desires to summon them. They're scary, and torture people, but they only come when called. It's just what they do.
** Sadly, later movies tend to just make them straight-up demons, instead of otherworldly beings with alien perspectives.
** And, falling into BlueAndOrangeMorality, they LIKE being tortured, and consider it 'good'.

* In RobertAntonWilson's and Robert Shea's ''TheIlluminatusTrilogy'', the Dealy Lama remarks that, "The reason I have lived so outrageously long is that I don't give a fuck for Good and Evil."
** In his case he's actually a pretty nice guy. He's just seen what happens when people get too taken with those concepts. [[spoiler:And he invented them to begin with, 30,000 years ago, and got really disappointed when people misused them.]]
* In one ''{{Warhammer}}'' novel (part of the ''Konrad Trilogy''), the wizard Litzenreich explains that Chaos is no more good or evil than fire is. This being [[CrapsackWorld an original Games Workshop setting]]...yeah, he's pretty much wrong about that one.
** As always, it sort of depends on your definition of evil - Chaos correlates with the emotions, good and bad, of sentient creatures, and without one there can't be other, so arguments could be made that the existence of Chaos is better than its absence, even if you must constantly fight it off.
*** The issue isn't so much that emotion feeds Chaos and Chaos is required for emotion. It's more that they left a great big door open in the world so Chaos can come out and screw with everyone, which is not necessary. As far as interacting with people goes Chaos' "good side" is an InformedAbility. In practice, they basically just mutate and rape people to death.

* {{Discworld}}: In ''Discworld/CarpeJugulum'', the sophisticated modern vampires claim good and evil are just two ways of looking at the same thing. In the next book, ''Discworld/TheFifthElephant'', there's a CallBack in Vimes' internal monologue:

** In all justice it can be legitimately argued that nobody is being hurt, indeed all concerned are ''benefitting'' from said rite.

* Gary Mitchell from the second ''[[StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Star Trek]]'' pilot follows the AGodAmI variety of this:
-->''Morals are for men, not gods.''
** Kirk points out moments later that his own actions don't fit the definition of God quite so much as Lucifer, and that in fact Gary Mitchell is behaving as one would expect a Fallen human being to behave given free rein.
* Q in [[StarTrekTheNextGeneration TNG]] has some kind of point to make generally but it doesn't make sense in any conventional morality, and he imposes his tests on Picard mainly because he can. He is another who trends towards [[TrueNeutral True Neutrality]].

--->'''Waiter:''' Good day, madam. Good day, sir.
--->'''Man:''' We want to eat, please.
--->'''Waiter:''' Wonderful! A thousand welcomes to the Golden Post.
--->'''Man:''' Ah. We hear that this is a restaurant that's typical of Bavaria and full of local colour.
--->'''Waiter:''' Indeed, sir. This is truly a typical Bavarian restaurant. The food, the wine, above all the ''service'', is traditional ''beyond good and evil''!

* ''TheElderScrolls III'' had the Daedra being cast as divine beings whose actions were driven by concepts far too alien to reasonably compare to straight-up Good or Evil. In practice, however, they come across as more like ChaoticNeutral.
** And once you understand their rules (death being a temporary inconvenience to them, for starters), a lot of their actions make more sense and they're not all that different from everyday mortals.
* In ''SlyCooper'', the Contessa says this about herself. Sly points out that saying that isn't going to make him give the {{MacGuffin}}.
* The first ''{{Knights of the Old Republic}}'' has Jolee Bindo, an old hermit with a lightsaber and Force powers. He was one of the Jedi once, trained the woman he loved in their arts, and was betrayed by her during Exar Kun's Sith wars; later the Jedi forgave him and he rejected them to wander the galaxy and exile himself on Kashyyyk. He tells the player character that he's seen his share of the light and the dark and both extremes annoy him, and the portrait of his morality scale puts him exactly in the middle. Once, he tells another party member that if Darth Malak wins this war, the galaxy is in for a couple of rough centuries, but it will right itself again, eventually. Everyone feels that their era is the most pivotal one, and it's just not true. He speaks out against needless cruelty and the rejection of love with equal sincerity, but when push comes to shove he [[DefaultToGood stands with the Jedi]].
** However, it could be argued that Jolee is concerned with what is right or wrong (and therefore good or evil), just not with the usual Jedi equivalents, the Light and the Dark Side.

** Though supposedly part of the cut content that never made it into the game since it was [[ExecutiveMeddling rushed out the door]] allowed for an ending where you could avoid that.
*** Why would you want to? The sharp stabbing pains in the back get old ''really'' quickly.

* Wan Shi Tong, the knowledge spirit from ''[=~Avatar: The Last Airbender~=]'' lands on the TrueNeutral [[TechnicalPacifist (technical) pacifist]] side. He didn't care that the Gaang was looking for knowledge to stop the Fire Nation from destroying the world. To him, one war was the same as the other and the sides and reasons didn't matter. All that mattered to him was collecting knowledge and keeping that knowledge from falling into the "wrong" hands (read: anyone who actually wanted to ''use'' said knowledge). He went so far as trying to trap them in the hidden library once he discovered Sokka trying to smuggle out info on when the Day of the Black Sun would occur.
** The Gaang tried to argue with him based on their having good intentions and a desire only to protect people. Not gonna work on someone like this. They should have tried to argue that he has a responsibility for the damage already done by those who have used his knowledge. By allowing some people to access his library, Wan Shi Tong is at least partially responsible for how that knowledge was used (ie almost destroying the entire balance of the world). An argument along those lines might have swayed him to help them or even just let them leave BEFORE sinking the library.
* [[XMen Apocalypse]] declares in the appropriately-named "Beyond Good and Evil" four-parter of ''[[Series/{{X-Men}} X-Men: The Animated Series]]'' that he is "not malevolent. I simply ''am''."
** Eventually, after nearly destroying the world more than once, he starts to wonder if they actually have a point about the whole "malevolent" thing. He goes right back to destruction after that, though.

<<|CharacterizationTropes|>>
<<|EvilTropes|>>
<<|GoodnessTropes|>>

A character's argument for his side or actions declares that he, or what he is dealing with, is more important than petty considerations about good and evil. Which may be good enough for lesser beings, but not for him. He often terms them [[GoodIsOldFashioned antiquated]] or [[SillyRabbitIdealismIsForKids childish]]. (Anyway, WhatIsEvil?)

Generally a sign of the {{Ubermensch}}, TheUnfettered or the NietzscheWannabe -- or any of the above combined with the CompleteMonster.

Also commonly found in the more philosophical and thoughtful forms of ItsAllAboutMe. In which case, do not expect the contempt to last after the character finds that ''he's'' been wronged. Even if the character does not waver in these circumstances, LaserGuidedKarma is commonplace.

Sometimes the character is not so much after raw power as knowledge. This can be (marginally) better, but their willingness to do anything to obtain knowledge is absolute.

In practice, "beyond good and evil" usually ends up meaning "evil (as in beyond the MoralEventHorizon), but with lofty sounding excuses". VERY VERY rarely a pacifist TrueNeutral character will use this to explain this is why they don't fight, because they see everything is in shades of grey, usually Old Masters and the like - "grey" [[StarWars Jedi]] (the rare force users who balance their study between Light and Dark) have used it at least once, and that's in a work where the lines between Good and Evil (and the Light and Dark sides of the Force) are very clearly drawn most of the time.

Do not confuse with the video game "BeyondGoodAndEvil". Also, do not confuse it with the philosophical book by FriedrichNietzsche. While he did speak of going "beyond good and evil," his conception of what that meant is quite different from what we usually see; to put it quite bluntly, the way "beyond good and evil" has been taken in wider culture is at best TheThemeParkVersion.

* Galactus, foe of the ''FantasticFour'', is a PlanetEater who often uses this justification; he (and other [[ThePowersThatBe Cosmic Beings]] of the MarvelUniverse) claim that he will one day do something that ''more'' than makes up for the uncounted trillions of deaths he causes, which sort of falls under TakeOurWordForIt, since you'd have to wait ''billions'' of years to find out what that is. Which is even more in ComicBookTime. Also, Galactus' death would lead to the end of the universe.

* One of the German episodes of MontyPython used this as a throway joke line in a sketch:

** The Gaang tried to argue with him based on their having good intentions and a desire only to protect people. Not gonna work on someone like this. They should have tried to argue that he has a responsibility for the damage already done by those who have used his knowledge. By allowing some people to access his library, Wan Shi Tong is at least partially responsible for how that knowledge was used (ie almost destroying the entire balance of the world). An arguement along those lines might have swayed him to help them or even just let them leave BEFORE sinking the library.

'''Bob''': Maybe\\
'''George''': Leave me alone

--->Irial: "We are what we are, Niall. Neither as good nor as evil as others paint us, and what we are doesn't change what we truly feel, only how free we are to follow those feelings"

->''The man who is to be great is the one who can be the most solitary, the most hidden, the most deviant, the man beyond good and evil, lord of his virtues, a man lavishly endowed with will-- this is precisely what greatness is to be called: it is able to be as much a totality as something multi-faceted, as wide as it is full.''\\
--'''Nietzsche'''

In practice, "beyond good and evil" usually ends up meaning "evil, but with lofty sounding excuses". VERY VERY rarely a pacifist TrueNeutral character will use this to explain this is why they don't fight, because they see everything is in shades of grey, usually Old Masters and the like - "grey" [[StarWars Jedi]] (the rare force users who balance their study between Light and Dark) have used it at least once, and that's in a work where the lines between Good and Evil (and the Light and Dark sides of the Force) are very clearly drawn most of the time.

** A good-sized segment of the fandom would argue that the novels in which [[NewJediOrder Vergere's]] philosophy is considered heresy is actually DisContinuity.
*** Though ironically Vergere herself is ''not'' an example of this trope. She rejects the notion of an external DarkSide, but she clearly believes in some form of ''morality'' anyway, one that she's come up with herself by adapting Vong, Jedi, [[spoiler: and Sith]] ideas.
**** Vergere also didn't subscribe to the "Potentium heresy" of "there is no Dark Side, only the Light Side". As she saw it, there's no Dark Side, and there's no Light Side either. To her, the Force is TrueNeutral, having no "sides" and no preference for Jedi or Sith. Or at least that was the case [[spoiler:before the ill-conceived retcon that Vergere was really a Sith, though fans can still take comfort in the fact that this revelation came from a single extremely unreliable source]]. Either way, her philosophy is far outside the mainstream of Jedi beliefs.
** It's largely a matter of a series attempting to go a new direction with its philosophical underpinnings, hitting a backlash, and then furiously making an [=~Author's Saving Throw~=] to retcon their previous changes.
*** It's not entirely dissimilar from Buddhism, which teaches that becoming too attached to anything in this world will prevent you from achieving Nirvana. Including the TEACHINGS OF BUDDHISM. This is the meaning of the old "If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha" saying that gets butchered all over the place. There's a subtext to Nietzsche that is also along these lines; the Ubermensch doesn't have to bother with good and evil because he's ABOVE the petty temptations that would drive lesser men to evil. Hence, if the Ubermensch murders someone or cheats on his wife or raises up a dark empire and oppresses millions, he's got a REALLY, REALLY GOOD reason for it. And has likely exhausted all other options already. We're all familiar with the concept of WellIntentionedExtremist so we can at least agree that being too good is just as bad as not being good at all.

--->'''Waiter:''' Indeed, sir. This is truly a typical Bavarian restaurant. The food, the wine, above all the ''service'', is traditional beyond good and evil!

--->'''Waiter:''' Indeed, sir. This is truly a typical Bavarian restaurant. The food, the wine, above all the --->service, is traditional beyond good and evil!