History Main / TheChainOfHarm

* This actually seems to happen in RealLife with cycles of abuse, though probably not to quite this extent. There's some suggestive evidence that it happens not only from individual to individual (such as abused people becoming abusers), but also across whole demographics (a slightly marginalized group's leadership and cultural attitudes "punching downward" against even more marginalized groups, such as racism, classism, speciesism, or sexism within a specific group, which can eventually filter down into individual abuse by the abused).
* Studies suggest that military, police, and [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs military police]] organizations with cultures of abuse tend to commit war crimes even when the top-level leadership tries to stop them. Two ''excellent'' examples are the Imperial Japanese Army and the Red Workers' and Peasants' Army (of the Soviet Union). Both had abusive cultures, with officers regularly beating their [=NCOs=] and [=NCOs=] beating the rank-and-file, and both committed numerous war crimes against civilians. However, there were notable differences and it is worth contrasting a contemporary organisation that committed war crimes ''without'' such a culture:
** The Red Army's leadership frowned upon and tried to curb war crimes, rape being the most common, and most of which were committed [[SoldiersAtTheRear by the less-disciplined non-combat/logistical arms, which employed most of the imprisoned criminals who volunteered for military service in return for reduced sentences during the war]]. War crimes were seen as a stain upon the Army's honor, and soldiers committing them could be and were punished wherever possible.
** The Imperial Japanese Army's leadership did not care about war crimes against civilians, including rape, and promoted war crimes against [=POW=]s, as they regarded the execution of a POW as a way to '[[ARealManIsAKiller toughen up]]' their soldiers. War crimes were seen as having no effect upon the Army's honor (all that mattered was victory or death), and soldiers committing them were never identified or punished.
** The German Army's leadership promoted most war crimes, particularly those which gave their forces practical advantages (such as the destruction of every community suspected to have given support to partisans) but disapproved of rape conducted without the use of condoms because of the risk posed by [=STD=]s. In their view, so-called "war crimes" were an insidious fiction propagated by Jews, communists, and liberals: warfare always had to be conducted with the most brutal means possible, and imposing artificial limitations upon one's ability to strike at the enemy was sheer foolishness. Ungentlemanly conduct regarding [=POW=]s or civilians of roughly comparable racial status, such as Scandinavians or Dutchmen, was frowned upon and both could be and was punished. While any and all conduct against [=POW=]s or civilians of (radically) lower racial status, such as Ukrainians or Kazakhs, was acceptable, some were punished for sexually assaulting racial inferiors without protection (because of the risk of [=STD=]s).
* The inverse of this (in terms of order) sometimes happens in spraying pesticide. Rats eat plenty of bugs, which then snakes eat plenty of, which birds like hawks eat. [[http://www.felid.org/activities/page_36.htm The hawks usually end up sterile]]. This is known as [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomagnification Biomagnification]] and has been known to happen with natural and spilled mercury in marine life as well, which has caused some scares for populations that eat a lot of fish.
* This trope is so common in the real-life military that the aphorism "Shit rolls downhill" sums it up quite nicely. The captain's problem is the lieutenant's problem is the platoon sergeant's problem and so on down to the private, who has no one to pass it off to. Expect this stock phrase to be used in many other organizations with a similar hierarchical structure.
** Which, depressingly, leaves the private with no release for all this stress, and they end up shooting themselves occasionally.
* OlderThanFeudalism: a [[TheScapegoat scapegoat]] was originally a literal goat that was sacrificed in order to soak up the blame for all those problems.
** It's also the reason that scapegoating in general exists — it's often far easier to take it out on an easy target than to actually try to deal with whatever has hurt you.

* This is one of the central themes in ''Music/TheWall''. The schoolmaster's wife hits and humiliates the schoolmaster; the schoolmaster hits and humiliates the kids he is supposed to educate; the kids take it out on the younger ones.
** This is made explicit in TheMovie: The schoolmaster is depicted as a puppet that the wife beats, causing it to strike the child.

A scenario: a man running a company is under a great deal of pressure from his superiors to produce the product faster. He's just been yelled at. Obviously, he can't talk back to his supervisor since he'd get fired, so what does he do? He chews out his normally best worker over something small. Well, the target man [[WouldNotHitAGirl doesn't want to be known as a guy who beats his wife]], so instead he shouts at her when something wrong happens. Because of this marital strife, she screams at her kid all the time. The kid, having no weaker human to take it out on, beats the family dog, which then bites the nearby cat. And so on. The strong attacks the weak, who turns around and gives similar treatment to the weaker, who then harms the next weaker in turn.

A scenario: a man running a company is under a great deal of pressure from his superiors to produce the product faster. He's just been yelled at. Obviously, he can't talk back to his supervisor since he'd get fired, so what does he do? He chews out his normally best worker over something small. Well, the target man [[WouldNotHitAGirl doesn't want to be known as a guy who beats his wife]], so instead he shouts at her when something wrong happens. Because of this marital strife, she screams at her kid all the time. The kid, having no weaker human to take it out on, beats the family dog, which bites the nearby cat. And so on. The strong harms the weak, who gives similar treatment to the weaker, who then harms the next weaker in turn.

A scenario: a man running a company is under a great deal of pressure from his superiors to produce the product faster. He's just been yelled at. Obviously, he can't talk back to his supervisor since he'd get fired, so what does he do? He yells at his normally best worker over something small. Well, the target man [[WouldNotHitAGirl doesn't want to be known as a guy who beats his wife]], so instead he shouts at her when something wrong happens. Because of this marital strife, she screams at her kid all the time. The kid, having no weaker human to take it out on, beats the family dog, which bites the nearby cat. And so on. The strong harms the weak, who gives similar treatment to the weaker, who then harms the next weaker in turn.

* ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'': There's a very good reason Tomura Shigaraki, formerly Tenko Shimura, is what he is today: his father Kotaro hated heroes due to his mother Nana, mentor of the future All Might and wielder of All for One, sent him into the foster system and [[DaddyHadAGoodReasonForAbandoningYou erased all records of their relationship]] to protect him after her husband was killed by a villain. So great was said hatred for heroes that he [[AbusiveParents regularly abused the then-5-year-old Tenko for wanting to become one.]] The rest of his family [[AccompliceByInaction being too afraid to stand up to Kotaro until it was too late]], when Tenko's Quirk, Decay, [[TraumaticSuperpowerAwakening awoke]], and resulted in their [[AccidentalMurder accidental deaths]] as he cried for help. How does Kotaro respond to Tenko crying to him for help? He [[TooDumbToLive throws a weed whacker at him]] in hopes of knocking him out, leading to Tenko killing him and becoming [[SelfMadeOrphan an orphan]]. Everyone he comes across on the streets is too spooked to approach with a helping hand. Everyone, that is, except for [[BigBad All for One]][[note]]And for extra irony, the killer of Tenko's grandmother Nana[[/note]]. And thus, one of the series' greatest villains is born.

* ''FanFic/ForgivenessIsTheAttributeOfTheStrong'': This trope dominates All for One's personal life. He was abused by a father with overly high expectations of him and a mother with Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (towards his brother) who liked to accuse him of being a monster. He had to take over protecting his brother when they were young, but when they'd grown up and his brother started to have a life away from All for One, All for One resorted to poisoning him much like their mother had done to stop him from leaving. [[spoiler: And later, when he had a child of his own, he [[DesignerBabies made sure]] said child was weak and quirkless to stop ''him'' from trying to leave, and when the child ([[TheHero Izuku]]) inevitably still ''did'' want to have a life outside of a GildedCage, All for One started poisoning ''him'' too.]] All for One's younger self, upon time traveling to the present and seeing how he turned out, is utterly horrified.

* In ''Series/{{MASH}}'', a chain of favors suddenly reverses into this when a favor is unfulfilled. It might be taken as people simply abandoning deals that Hawkeye is now unable to hold up his end of, but they're rather spiteful about it. Hot Lips tears up Klinger's discharge papers, Klinger takes his hair dryer back from Nurse Murphy, Murphy cruelly rejects Radar when he shows up for their date, Radar takes back the cake he procured for Frank's birthday party, Hot Lips announces she is going to file her report disparaging Henry to a general she slept with, Henry rescinds the pass to Tokyo for the dentist, who refuses to work on Sergeant Zale's tooth, who now won't replace Hawkeye's holey boots.

* ''VideoGame/OracleOfTao'' is the trope namer of this. Oddly enough, despite being given an explanation of this, it is not actually carried out in the game. Although it is referenced again in the PlayableEpilogue, the HeroAntagonist has to pick up the pieces.

-->-- ''[[Series/{{Blackadder}} Blackadder the Third]]'', "[[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/BlackadderS3E3NobAndNobility Nob and Nobility]]"

** Beautifully inverted in the climax. After being forgiven for her betrayal by her friends, Mei repays that debt by extending a hand of caring and understanding to her traumatized mother. That support gives Ming the inner strength she needs to apologize to ''her'' mother for losing control and scarring Wu so long ago.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/anger_transference_by_richard_sargent.jpeg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Hurt people hurt other people (and cats).]]

'''Blackadder:''' Nothing. You are last in God's great chain, Baldrick. Unless, of course, there's an earwig around here you'd like to victimize.
-->-- ''Series/{{Blackadder}} III''

# The scapegoat in question is often [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman not human]] and [[WhatMeasureIsANonCute an animal viewed as a pest]]. In the above example, this would probably continue on from the dog, to cat, ending with a rat being killed. It's worse if the animal has some productive use (such as rats clearing the street of insects) since their normal prey will now come along with a vengeance [[note]](provided there isn't another predator, like a frog)[[/note]].

# ''Occasionally'' the cycle can end with no one being killed and with the original abuser [[KarmaHoudini getting away with it]], but in these cases, there are usually no pets involved, and it's to [[PetTheDog demonstrate the character's virtue]] or make the character more sympathetic (for instance, instead of beating the dog, the boy goes to his room and cries). In these situations, the character who breaks the cycle is generally the protagonist. If the protagonist doesn't break the cycle (for instance, the boy is the main character but he ''does'' beat the dog), expect [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone them to feel guilty afterwards]].

* This becomes a major theme in the final story arc of ''Series/KamenRiderZeroOne''. We had long known that CorruptCorporateExecutive Amatsu Gai had manipulated an ArtificialIntelligence to turn it malicious in order to sabotage and take petty revenge on a business rival, leading to the creation of the robot terrorist cell [=MetsubouJinrai.net=]; and that Gai and [=MetsubouJinrai=] had both abused and ruined several other lives since. But now we learn that Gai had himself suffered ParentalAbuse as a child; and on the other end of the chain, [=MetsubouJinrai=]'s leader Horobi finally pisses off NiceGuy Aruto enough that the two start engaging in a mutual CycleOfRevenge. The final conflict of the series isn't having to defeat a BigBad, but trying to get Horobi and Aruto to break the chain of abuse before they spark a full-scale war.

Contrast to CycleOfRevenge, which directly targets the person causing harm, and CycleOfVirtue, where good deeds are perpetuated instead. Compare to RevengeByProxy, DelegationRelay, and TroubledAbuser. BreakingTheCycleOfBadParenting is an effort to {{avert|edTrope}} or {{def|iedTrope}}y this. If you were looking for examples of people using chains to harm others, see ChainPain.

* ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'': There's a very good reason Tomura Shigaraki, formerly Tenko Shimura, is what he is today: his father Kotaro hated heroes due to his mother Nana, mentor of the future All Might and wielder of All for One, sent him into the foster system and [[DaddyHadAGoodReasonForAbandoningYou erased all records of their relationship]] to protect him after her husband was killed by a villain. So great was said hatred for heroes that he [[AbusiveParents regularly abused the then 5 year old Tenko for wanting to become one.]] The rest of his family [[AccompliceByInaction being too afraid to stand up to Kotaro until it was too late]], when Tenko's Quirk, Decay, [[TraumaticSuperpowerAwakening awoke]], and resulted in their [[AccidentalMurder accidental deaths]] as he cried for help. How does Kotaro respond to Tenko crying to him for help? He [[TooDumbToLive throws a weed whacker at him]] in hopes of knocking him out, leading to Tenko killing him and becoming [[SelfMadeOrphan an orphan]]. Everyone he comes across on the streets is too spooked to approach with a helping hand. Everyone, that is, except for [[BigBad All for One]][[note]]And for extra irony, the killer of Tenko's grandmother Nana[[/note]]. And thus, one of the series' greatest villains is born.
* In the backstory of ''Manga/TokyoGhoul'', Ken Kaneki's mother worked herself to death trying to help his aunt, who [[TakingAdvantageOfGenerosity took advantage of her]] and used her to get extra stuff with zero regard to her well-being. It's revealed in '':re'' that [[spoiler:Kaneki's mother would take out her rage on him, physically beating him, and [[ParentalNeglect neglect his needs]] while telling him that it's better to be an ExtremeDoormat and take the pain than let others be hurt]].

* ''ComicStrip/{{Crabgrass}}'': [[https://www.gocomics.com/crabgrass/2021/04/28 In this comic]], after Janine tells Kyle to go do something, this makes him mad, so he pushes Kevin over. Angered, Kevin takes out his frustration on Krystal by ruining her tea party, which angers HER enough to kick over Kody's blocks, which angers Kody into pushing over Crumbs. Unlike his older siblings however, he immediately feels sorry for what he did and gives the toy a hug.

** Endgame also shows that [[spoiler:in the timeskip, Tony's had a five-year-old daughter and that despite all the lingering trauma of his life, he's shaped up and become a doting father. The implication seems to be that seeing Peter's tragic death at the end of Infinity War helped him finally succeed at BreakingTheCycleOfBadParenting, and devote himself entirely into being a dad. When Peter's life is restored at the end of the film, Tony runs forward and hugs him, showing a display of affection and sincerity he never was able to manage before]].

* In ''Series/{{MASH}}'', a chain of favors suddenly reverses into this when a favor is unfulfilled. It might be taken as people simply abandoning deals which Hawkeye is now unable to hold up his end of, but they're rather spiteful about it. Hot Lips tears up Klinger's discharge papers, Klinger takes his hair dryer back from Nurse Murphy, Murphy cruelly rejects Radar when he shows up for their date, Radar takes back the cake he procured for Frank's birthday party, Hot Lips announces she is going to file her report disparaging Henry to a general she slept with, Henry rescinds the pass to Tokyo for the dentist, who refuses to work on Sergeant Zale's tooth, who now won't replace Hawkeye's holey boots.

** This is made explicit in TheMovie: The schoolmaster is depicted as a puppet which the wife beats, causing it to strike the child.

* ''VideoGame/OracleOfTao'' is the trope namer of this. Oddly enough, despite being given an explanation of this, it is not actually carried out in the game. Although it is referenced again in the PlayableEpilogue, and the HeroAntagonist has to pick up the pieces.
* In ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption'', Abraham Reyes describes the sorry state of his country in a private conversation, and suggests that the apparent BigBad of his own struggle, Colonel Allende, is not actually fully responsible for everything that's happening. In sharp contrast to his rather vacuous public speeches, he says that the spiralling cruelty of government troops is a result of this trope. Unfortunately, this uncharacteristically reflective moment [[MoodWhiplash gets derailed rather suddenly]] when he compares it to "a father who beats his son, so his son [[{{Squick}} takes the dog outside and rapes it]]." [[PlayerCharacter Marston]] wondering why such a specific example might occur to Reyes puts something of a damper on any more meaningful discussion between them.

* Much of ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'' can be summarized as people abusing their power to hurt others, whether they know it or not. Most notably, the Gods' [[JerkassGod questionable treatment]] of Salem (who also already had to deal with having an {{Abusive Parent}}) is part of what motivates her to become the BigBad (the other reason being she went AxCrazy from TheCorruption), taking out her anger and hatred for [[WhoWantsToLiveForever her fate]] on [[OmnicidalManiac humanity]] and [[PsychoExGirlfriend her former lover]]. She initially claims that it's because [[MasterRace the new, magicless humans are inferior]], though after [[spoiler:Ozma]]'s betrayal, her reasoning shifts to destroying humanity because humanity is what matters most to [[spoiler:Ozma]] — it's the best way to hurt him. This also indicates she just wanted to hurt humanity in the first place because they were the only people outside of her family that she could vent out her frustrations on. Cue the in-fighting in humanity over how to stop Salem… otherwise known as the entire show.
** More immediately, Salem's [[AbusiveParent abusive mentorship]] of Cinder (who is based on Literature/{{Cinderella}} and is shown in Volume 8 to ''also'' hail from a background of abuse) clearly frightens and intimidates Cinder… who sees Salem as a rolemodel for empowerment and tries to emulate her, most noticeably on Emerald. Emerald is unable to realize her situation is abnormal and abusive because she doesn't have anything else to compare her current position to.

* ''Webcomic/TheWaterPhoenixKing'' posits an world where the chain of harm ''is a divine mandate''; the world's Karma system, Tamantha, is an artificial metaphysical construct created by a MadGod who believed in BlackAndWhiteInsanity. Every time someone breaks the rules, ''the entire world'' pays the price with curses and monsters, under the InsaneTrollLogic that the [[FantasticCasteSystem higher castes]] would see the curses ravaging their country and either [[IWillPunishYourFriendForYourFailure collectively punish the lower castes for their insubordination]], [[DisproportionateRetribution or suffer horrifying consequences for their actions]] [[AesopCollateralDamage along with thousands of innocent lower caste members]]. Naturally, [[ThenLetMeBeEvil people subject to this system develop a rebellious streak]], [[ViciousCycle which causes more monsters and disasters to show up, and so on]]. To show just how badly this system runs, the god who created Tamantha ''died moments after it started running'', and DisproportionateRetribution left the entire world in constant war until a human managed to commit deicide, which the system retaliated with by turning the planet into a CrapsackWorld. It's up to the anti-heroic protagonists to turn Tamantha into a smoldering ruin.

* The Horseman family from ''WesternAnimation/BoJackHorseman''. Joseph Sugarman made horribly abusive decisions, which lead to Beatrice being abusive and [=BoJack=] becoming a self-loathing mess who himself takes his struggles with feelings of UsefulNotes/{{depression}} and inadequacy out on others.

* ''WesternAnimation/SheRaAndThePrincessesOfPower'': The Horde is largely built on a structure of callousness, indifference, cruelty and suffering flowing down the chain. [[spoiler:Horde Prime]] callously discarded Hordak; Hordak maintains a similar indifference to [[YouHaveFailedMe any underling who fails him]]. Shadow Weaver, one such underling, then raises two children abusively; one, Adora, manages to find a way out of the toxic environment and becomes TheHero (albeit with a huge GuiltComplex), while the other, Catra, remains and continues to lash out at others and subjects Adora to sustained physical and emotional abuse after her defection. And even the reasonably functional ones, like Scorpia and Lonnie, who sat out most of that, don't have any objection to abusing [[ButtMonkey Kyle]].

* Near the end of ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverseFuture'', one of these is described as being the cause of ''everyone's'' suffering throughout ''Future'' and [[WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse the rest of]] [[WesternAnimation/StevenUniverseTheMovie the series.]] Specifically, [[spoiler:White Diamond has an ItsAllMyFault moment, and admits that being a BadBoss and domineering older family member towards both Yellow and Blue Diamond in turn lead to them being abusive towards Pink Diamond. Pink faking her shattering at the hands of "Rose Quartz" caused her to abandon Spinel, who takes it out on Steven and the Crystal Gems millennia later, and also left Pearl with some likely psychological trauma that followed her for almost as long until she was finally able to open up about it. This also lead Steven to develop C-PTSD, because of the trauma and pressure he was exposed throughout the original series and movie. All of this pain and suffering, along with the mistakes he made during the epilogue, ended up having him a spectacular meltdown, as he accidentally corrupts himself and transforms into a Kaiju-like rampaging monster.]]

* Studies suggest that military, police, and [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs military police]] organizations with cultures of abuse tend to commit war crimes even when the top-level leadership tries to stop them. Two ''excellent'' examples are the Imperial Japanese Army and the Red Workers' and Peasants' Army (of the Soviet Union). Both had abusive cultures, with officers regularly beating their [=NCOs=] and [=NCOs=] beating the rank-and-file, and both committed numerous war crimes against civilians. However, there were notable differences and it is worth contrasting a contemporary organisation which committed war crimes ''without'' such a culture:

* This trope is so common in the real-life military that the aphorism "Shit rolls downhill" sums it up quite nicely. The captain's problem is the lieutenant's problem is the platoon sergeant's problem and so on down to the private, who has no one to pass it off on to. Expect this stock phrase to be used in many other organizations with a similar hierarchical structure.

* OlderThanFeudalism: a [[TheScapegoat scapegoat]] was originally a literal goat which was sacrificed in order to soak up the blame for all those problems.

Contrast to CycleOfRevenge, which directly targets the person causing harm. Compare to RevengeByProxy, DelegationRelay, and TroubledAbuser. BreakingTheCycleOfBadParenting is an effort to {{avert|edTrope}} or {{def|iedTrope}}y this. If you were looking for examples of people using chains to harm others, see ChainPain.

A scenario: a man running a company is under a great deal of pressure from his superiors to produce the product faster. He's just been yelled at. Obviously, he can't talk back to his supervisor since he'd get fired, so what does he do? He yells at his normally best worker over something small. Well, the target man [[WouldNotHitAGirl doesn't want to be known as a guy who beats his wife]], so instead he shouts at her when something wrong happens. Because of the marital strife, she screams at her kid all the time. The child has no weaker human to take it out on, so the kid beats the family dog, which bites the nearby cat. And so on. The strong harms the weak, who gives similar treatment to the weaker, who in turn harms the next weaker.

This theory has a number of assumptions:

As a scenario, a man running a company is under a great deal of pressure from his superiors to produce the product faster. He's just been yelled at. Obviously, he can't talk back to his supervisor since he'd get fired, so what does he do? He yells at his normally best worker on something small. Well, the target man [[WouldNotHitAGirl doesn't want to be known as a guy who beats his wife]], so he shouts at her when something wrong happens. Because of the marital strife, she screams at her kid all the time. The child has no weaker human to take it out on, so the kid beats the family dog, which bites the nearby cat. And so on. The strong harms the weak, who gives similar treatment to the weaker, who in turn harms the next weaker.

* ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'': There's a very good reason Tomura Shigaraki, formerly Tenko Shimura, is what he is today: his father Kotaro hated heroes due to his mother Nana, mentor of the future All Might and wielder of All for One, sent him into the foster system and [[DaddyHadAGoodReasonForAbandoningYou erased all records of their relationship]] to protect him after her husband was killed by a villain. So great was said hatred for heroes that he [[AbusiveParents regularly abused the then 5 year old Tenko for wanting to become one.]] The rest of his family [[AccompliceByInaction being too afraid to stand up to Kotaro until it was too late]], when Tenko's Quirk, Decay, [[TraumaticSuperpowerAwakening awoke]], and resulted in their [[AccidentalMurder accidental deaths]] as he cried for help. How does Kotaro respond to Tenko crying to him for help? He [[DirtyCoward throws a weed whacker at him]] in hopes of knocking him out, leading to Tenko killing him and becoming [[SelfMadeOrphan an orphan]]. Everyone he comes across on the streets is too spooked to approach with a helping hand. Everyone, that is, except for [[BigBad All for One]][[note]]And for extra irony, the killer of Tenko's grandmother Nana[[/note]]. And thus, one of the series' greatest villains is born.

[[caption-width-right:350:Hurt people hurt people(and cats).]]

[[caption-width-right:350:Hurt people hurt people.]]

* The "Homer choking Bart" bit from ''TheSimpsons'' is hinted to be a generational thing. We've seen Abe choke Homer before (along with pretty severe verbal and emotional abuse, up to ''advising him to take rides from strangers'') and Abe is implied to have gotten it from his own father, and on and on.