History Main / OffStageVillainy

* Douglas Milroy explored this (and the {{designated hero}}) in [[http://jabootu.net/?p=530 his review]] of ''Film/TheBeast'':
-->"In one fell swoop the movie has its would-be hero mocking and yelling at an essentially innocent villain. If a large number of truly despicable actions by Graves had been shown, perhaps we could accept our hero calling him names, or mocking his education. As it is, how many actual representations of villainy by Graves do we see or hear about: one. Raines and Marcus are discussing the position of harbor master, when Rains says "Schuyler Graves has expanded its scope. It's got a lot of people angry around here". And that, oh my Brothers, is it. Based upon that, we are to take him as a villain."
* ''Film/RepoTheGeneticOpera'' has Luigi and Pavi, brothers stated to be a murderer and a rapist, respectively. While we see Luigi stab several people to death, all the girls we see with Pavi are quite willing. This could be because while violence is always fun, it's ''really'' hard to joke about rape.
* Frank Miller for most of ''Film/HighNoon''. The hero Kane threw him in prison for unspecified charges before the start of the film, but Miller gets pardoned and decides to take revenge on Kane. Kane runs around town insisting that Miller is a menace to them all, but people refuse to stand with him. Some even sympathize with Miller and insist that Kane is trying to drag them into a personal feud. When Miller finally arrives, he sports some [[GoodScarsEvilScars evil scars]] to prove his villainy, but he still doesn't do anything except go after Kane.

* Mr. Blonde in ''Film/ReservoirDogs'', at least for the first half or so. We ''hear'' that he's a psycho, sure, we ''hear'' that he shot a bunch of civilians, but whenever we actually ''see'' him, he's calm and cool and affable. The only evidence we have for his villainy is the word of Mr.'s Pink and White. Then [[ColdBloodedTorture the ear scene]] [[MoralEventHorizon happens]].
* In ''{{Film/Serenity}}'', The Operative doesn't know where Serenity went to hide, so he has ''every place'' they've hidden in the past bombed to bits. The crew only finds this out when they try to contact all of them.
* The library scene in ''Film/StarTrekInsurrection'' really goes out of its way to make [[BigBad the Son'a]] unlikeable, with records of conquering and enslaving worlds, drug dealing, and possessing illegal weapons. [[HorribleJudgeOfCharacter It makes the Federation look really stupid to have ever turned to them.]]
* In ''Film/DraculaUntold'', the Elder Vampire makes Vlad admit that he butchered not hundreds, but ''thousands'' of innocents, but since it would be hard to root for him, we see him actually ''doing'' none of it.
* ''Film/LordOfWar'': When Andre Jr. is introduced, Yuri notes internally that this son of an African dictator is a psychopathic murderer, rapist, and cannibal. Though he does end up shooting at civilians, none of Jr.'s most heinous crimes are shown.
* ''Film/ThePhantomMenace'': After the Trade Federation invades Naboo, we keep being told that the people are suffering under the occupation and that the death toll is rising. The thing is, we never actually ''see'' any of the Nabooan citizens suffer, which makes the whole thing look more like GunboatDiplomacy (albeit by a megacorp wilfully manipulated by a Sith lord) than a whole planet being "subjected to slavery and death". Qui-Gon suspects it's a lie to trick them into giving away their position when they hear it, and it doesn't profit them in any way. The Federation are explicitly unhappy about landing troops at all.

* ''Film/WereNoAngels'' (1989): Ned and Jim are escaped convicts who presumably did ''something'' to end up in jail, but nothing about their past crimes is mentioned, and they only commit a few petty crimes over the course of the film.

* ''Film/MonstersBall'': Lawrence must have committed some ''very'' serious crimes to be on DeathRow, but his character is introduced mere days before his execution, which shifts the focus to how his wife and son will have to deal with his death.

* In ''Film/ConAir'', Garland Greene is presented as one of the most horrific and prolific serial killers who ever lived, and is certainly feared by the other criminals, but all his crimes occurred before his introduction. He boasts of killing a little girl and wearing her face as a GenuineHumanHide, [[spoiler:yet he thankfully refrains from killing a girl he runs into. The end rather implies that he's gone good, but with his past crimes this still makes him an ''extreme'' KarmaHoudini.]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' [[RealityWarper Discord's]] original rule is only mentioned in passing as "an eternal state of unrest and unhappiness," his stained glass window shows him ''[[WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids dangling ponies over flames]]'' and he himself refers to an afternoon of reducing the world to [[WorldGoneMad complete chaos]] as only "his first changes." One must wonder exactly how horrific his original rule must have been, compared to the evil, but still ''mostly'' humorous and silly actions he's shown inflicting onscreen. Given that Discord's very nature is so chaotic, it is possible that the scope of his evilness would vary dramatically depending on how he feels on any given day.
* In the 2018 reboot of ''WesternAnimation/SheRaAndThePrincessesOfPower'', Hordak is the founder and leader of the Horde, but the first three seasons show him [[OrcusOnHisThrone ruling from the shadows]] in the Fright Zone. His initial conquests upon arriving on Etheria, during which he would have taken an active role, are not shown on screen. In season 4, Hordak takes to the battlefield and leads his troops personally. Viewers see a few shots of Hordak [[spoiler:firing on the Salineas Sea Gate and the Sea Elf Village with his arm cannon]], but most of his siege takes place offscreen. Hordak also remarks that [[spoiler:Entrapta]] is the only princess who has not yet faced him in combat, which implies that he has done battle with several princesses offscreen.

Compare and contrast GoryDiscretionShot and RapeDiscretionShot, which may overlap with this, as well as DesignatedVillain and ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything, where the "villain(s)" don't actually do anything truly bad, either on-screen or off.

Compare and contrast GoryDiscretionShot and RapeDiscretionShot, which may overlap with this, and DesignatedVillain, where the "villain" doesn't actually do anything truly bad, either on-screen or off.

* In ''Manga/OnePiece'', Trafalgar Law, aka The Surgeon of Death, gets hit with this trope. Thus far, we have seen him act very calm, insightful, reserved, and [[spoiler:healing Luffy]]. None of that screams villainy. It might be played with; between how he acts and the reason for the bounties on Luffy and Zoro, he might be similarly wanted for actions that are, at the very least, justifiable. In which case, the offscreen behavior that is villainous is only towards the corrupt World Government (or a misunderstanding). [[spoiler:And now that he's a Warlord of the Sea, his darker side is being hinted at once again. How did he become one? By removing the hearts of 100 pirates and sending them to the World Government.]]

** In general, if a pirate is not meant to be a villain (like the Supernovas, or the similarly notorious Super Rookies introduced in the Dressrosa arc), his more unpleasant traits will be kept offscreen.

* The oni in most versions of the ''Literature/{{Momotaro}}'' folktale are ''said'' to be evil, but are never seen doing anything evil on-screen. At its worst, the titular character is just a [[DesignatedHero murderous bandit]] who plunders others for wealth.

* The oni in most versions of ''Literature/{{Momotaro}}'' folktale are ''said'' to be evil, but are never seen doing anything evil on-screen. At its worst, the titular character is just a [[DesignatedHero murderous bandit]] who plunders others for wealth.

* Any of the villains in ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' are a lot more effective when not sharing screen-time with the heroes. Notably, Team Rocket were originally billed as ruthless and effective gangsters, and the larger organization still seems to be that offscreen, but almost all of their schemes that are actually ''shown'' tend to end in failure before anyone is hurt.

* [[TheWarOfEarthlyAggression The United Earth Directorate]] in ''VideoGame/StarCraft''. Canonically, they are a ruthless dictatorship who abolished cultural ethnicity and religion on Earth, banished 400 million humans to space for being considered "undesirable", and came to the Koprulu Sector with the intention of enslaving or eradicating the Zerg and Protoss. Unfortunately, [[AllThereInTheManual very little of this is actually shown in-game]], and all we get to see in their ''Brood War'' campaign is them trying to enslave the Zerg (who at this point were AlwaysChaoticEvil) and [[PayEvilUntoEvil beating the crap out of Arcturus Mengsk, one of the most reviled characters in the franchise]]. This has caused plenty of fans to [[RootingForTheEmpire root for them]], and not understand why the heroic characters chose to form an EnemyMine with the much more ObviouslyEvil [[DarkActionGirl Sarah Kerrigan]] to fight them.

** For Turles, he had conquered several planets using the Tree of Might, resulting in the deaths of those inhabitants if there were any. While we see the effects that the Tree of Might has on Earth, we do ''not'' see the effects of the Tree of Might on the other planets that Turles had conquered.

** For Turles, he had conquered several planets using the Tree of Might, resulting in the deaths of those inhabitants if there were any. While we see the effects that the Tree of Might has on Earth, we do ''not'' the effects of the other planets that Turles had conquered.

** Lord Slug is one of the worst examples of this when it came to these films, he had invaded multiple planets so that he could terrafreeze them and turn them into parts of his Planet Cruiser, and tries to do the same thing to earth. We don't see the former, we only see what the terrafreezing effect has on Earth, that's all.

* ''Manga/DragonballZ:'' Unfortunately, this is what befalls most villains in the movies as their worst actions are left completely off-screen, making them come off as simple, one-off, GenericDoomsdayVillains that the heroes must defeat. The worst offenders of this are [[Anime/DragonBallZTheTreeOfMight Turles]], [[Anime/DragonBallZLordSlug Lord Slug]] and [[Anime/DragonBallZBojackUnbound Bojack]].

* ''[[LightNovel/IsItWrongToTryToPickUpGirlsInADungeon DanMachi]]: VideoGame/MemoriaFreese'': [[spoiler:Baldo from the ''Nightmare Academia'' event proclaims to have feasted on the flesh and blood of people he killed, but that was only mentioned prior to his boss fight]].

* [[TheWarOfEarthlyAggression The United Earth Directorate]] in ''VideoGame/StarCraft''. Canonically, they are a ruthless dictatorship who abolished cultural ethnicity and religion on Earth, banished 400 millions human in space for being considered "undesirable" and came to the Koprulu Sector with the intention of enslaving or eradicating the Zerg and Protoss. Unfortunately, [[AllThereInTheManual very little of this is actually shown in-game]], and all we get to see in their ''Brood War'' campaign is them trying to enslave the Zerg (who at this point were AlwaysChaoticEvil) and [[KickTheSonOfABitch beating the crap out of Arcturus Mengsk, one of the most reviled characters in the franchise]]. This has caused plenty of fans to [[RootingForTheEmpire root for them]], and not understand why the heroic characters chose to form an EnemyMine with the much more ObviouslyEvil [[DarkActionGirl Sarah Kerrigan]] to fight them.

* Madarame, Kaneshiro and Okumura are still touted as despicable people in ''VideoGame/Persona5'', but their worst crimes are only mentioned in-passing by other characters and there's no proof in the real world that convinces us that they are capable of such actions. For example, the worst thing we do see Madarame do is to pull a MurderByInaction on Yusuke's mom and create forgeries of her painting, but there's no proof that he had driven pupils to suicide other than testimonies from Nakanohara. Compare this to Kamoshida who explicitly leaves multiple students in bandages after the volleyball rally and one victim visibly jumping off the school roof after presumably being molested.

* While Lt. Burning is one of the more decent and level-headed characters among the MilitaryMaverick cast of ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam0083StardustMemory'', one of the sourcebooks depicting various scenes of the OAV characters' during the time frame of the original ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'' implies that he raped a female POW towards the end of the One Year War.