Line #43 MotiveDecay/WesternAnimation


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2	* ''WesternAnimation/AtomicBetty'': In her first appearance, Iciclia's main goal was to steal enough montegoberries to keep looking young and she was foiled. In her next appearances, she's only seen as young-looking and there's no mention of her dependency anymore.
3	* ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'': The Dai Li in were founded centuries ago by that time's Avatar to preserve the cultural heritage of the city of Ba Sing Se. However, by the time of the show, they've become a SecretPolice led by an EvilChancellor -- brainwashing dissidents, holding all the true power in the city, and hiding from the king the fact that, you know, they've been at war with the Fire Nation for a century. [[spoiler:Of course, they end up joining said enemy.]]
4	* ''WesternAnimation/TheAvengersEarthsMightiestHeroes'':
5	** Baron Zemo initially strives to kill ComicBook/CaptainAmerica, then extract a SuperSerum. This would not only help Zemo create powerful subordinates but also cure him of Virus X, which deformed Zemo after Cap stopped him from using it as a weapon against the Allies. Then the Enchantress (falsely) offers to help him TakeOverTheWorld, so he and she go round up a supervillain team, and Virus X never receives another mention.
6	** Kang the Conqueror comes to conquer 21st-century Earth so he can prevent a disaster that will destroy the world, including the empire he rules during the 40th century. After the Avengers put him in jail, he remains imprisoned for 31 episodes[[note]]30 if you treat "The Kang Dynasty" and "New Avengers" as episodes #19 and #49, respectively, instead of #18 and #49[[/note]], until the Council of Kangs helps him get rid of the Avengers. Kang proceeds to send troops from the 40th century to help him take over 21st-century Earth. FridgeLogic says that since Kang ''has'' troops in the 40th century, the Earth-shattering disaster must have been successfully prevented, and he doesn't have much of a reason to take over the world of the past anymore.
7	* Most villains in ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'', and to an extent [[Franchise/{{Batman}} the comics]], had genuine motives in their debut appearances, but the motivations for their later crimes were mostly "revenge on Batman"; to their defense, most of them were crazy.
8	** Batman actually brings this up himself with the Mad Hatter, who in his first appearance was a [[LoveMakesYouEvil love-lorn geek who used his mind-controlling inventions to try and force a woman to love him]]. In the episode "The Worry Men" he is simply using his inventions for personal financial gain. Batman tells him that he has become nothing more than a petty thief. Hatter refutes this, however, as he clarifies that this scheme is nothing more than his [[OneLastJob retirement job]] in order to have a TropicalEpilogue.
9	** [[Characters/DCAUPoisonIvy Poison Ivy]] at first started out as a WellIntentionedExtremist who killed those that she saw as a threat to plants. In "House & Garden," however, she admits this agenda wasn't at hand when [[spoiler:brainwashing and stealing DNA from Dr. Carlysle; she just wanted a family on her terms and money to support them.]] Later on, [[spoiler:her clone]] is fine with stealing ForTheLulz and brainwashing rich people to get their funds.
10	** Averted by the [[ScaryScarecrows Scarecrow]], who was always trying to carry out some twisted science experiment with the people of Gotham as his guinea pigs. When he did commit robbery and fraud, it was typically to obtain money to buy more chemicals to continue his "experiments".
11	** The worst example is probably Clayface, who started out with the goal of getting revenge on Roland Daggett for causing his transformation, and in his second appearance was motivated by trying to get back to normal, both of which are sympathetic motivations that make perfect sense. In ''The New Batman Adventures'', however, he had also become a petty thief. He returned in ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' and only joined Grodd's group because Grodd promised him a cure.
12	** Averted with the Clock King: In "The Clock King", his motivation was simple: to make Mayor Hill look inefficient, and then kill him. In "Time out of Joint", he still wants to do that (and destroy the new Judicial building). In the ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' episode "Task Force X", he works as a BoxedCrook, presumably to get on parole. And in a case of AllThereInTheManual, ''ComicBook/TheBatmanAdventures'' shows him [[spoiler: successfully rigging the mayoral election so that Hill would lose]]. Batman is no more than a nuisance to him.
13	** Firefly at first was just interested in forcing his old girlfriend to be with him. In his second appearance, which is little more than a cameo, he's committing arson to get insurance money. When Batman remarks on the sheer pettiness of this, Firefly bitterly grumbles out, "Chemicals are expensive." However, by the time of ''Justice League'', him no longer targeting Cassidy is justified as he's now in a StrongGirlSmartGuy dynamic with Volcana and it's more than likely Firefly sees Volcana as being a massive improvement over Cassidy.
14	** Based on the episode "Trial", an argument could be made that the Motive Decay was intentional, and was being used to support a major theme of the show: despite all attempts at a FreudianExcuse, these villains were simply terrible people who, under one gimmick or another, would be causing misery and suffering to others no matter what.
15	** Even Ra's al Ghul, whom Batman credits as having been his most dangerous adversary, gets hit with this. He's first introduced as a DiabolicalMastermind whose goal is to wipe out 90% of the human race to save the planet, with Batman defeating him and saving the entire world in an epic 2-parter. ''Every single one'' of his subsequent appearances involves some scheme of his to extend his life due to his Lazarus Pit-derived immortality beginning to wear off after so many years, and he never overtly makes another attempt at his original goal of destroying human civilization. The closest he came to returning to his goal was the "Near Apocalypse of '09", which required the whole League to stop and ended with Batman kicking his butt so hard, it took until ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'' for him to recover, but even then, that happened off-screen.
16	* Justified with the ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'' villain Shriek, whose motivation did indeed shift from "commit murder at Derek Powers' request so I can keep my job" to "get revenge on Batman", but it's understandable because [[spoiler: Batman made him go deaf]].
17	* ''WesternAnimation/Ben10'' villain [[MadScientist Dr. Animo]] was first introduced as a scientist whose motivation was stealing a prize that he thought he deserved. This is completely dropped in all his next appearances, where he is portrayed as a classic supervillain trying to either mutate or conquer the world (sometimes both).
18	** Inverted with Charmcaster, whose motivations in the original show didn't seem to go further than getting more power and rivalry with Gwen. ''WesternAnimation/Ben10UltimateAlien'' fleshed out her motivations by giving her a WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds backstory and revealing she actually was looking for more power to overthrow the tyrant who took over her home dimension and resurrect her father. After she accomplished the former and the latter proved impossible, she stopped being a villain and started going toward neutral.
19	*** Some argue she still suffered it in two ways: first that if those were her motives all along, they seriously decayed when she started [[DesignatedGirlFight fixating more on getting revenge on Gwen]] prior to those motives being revealed, and secondly that resurrecting her father wasn't really foreshadowed at all back when freeing her home dimension was established as her motivation, so it being a driving force for her [[{{Retcon}} came out of left field]].
20	** [[MonsterClown Zombozo]] was originally portrayed as an EmotionEater who fed on people's happiness. This is entirely dropped when he returns in ''[[WesternAnimation/Ben10UltimateAlien Ultimate Alien]]'', and replaced by him trying to take RevengeByProxy on Ben, which to some extent made sense (after all, Ben did ruin his business in his first appearance). Comes ''[[WesternAnimation/Ben10Omniverse Omniverse]]'', he is introduced as robbing a brain bank for no apparent reason. A later episode ''kinda'' rerails him by having him trying to restore his power by eating emotions again, only with fear instead of joy.
21	** [[EvilTwin Albedo]] was initially introduced with the simple goal to get Ben's Omnitrix so he could use it to free himself from his ShapeShifterModeLock and get his original form back, and, while he was rather psychotic in his methods, it was made clear he had no real evil intentions beyond it (in one episode, he manages to temporarily get his original form back, and was ready to just leave Earth without any further fight). In ''Omniverse'', he actually succeeds in his goal but is bitter toward Ben for all the things he went through in between, and now focuses on revenge, which is still a logical approach. But then he goes full-blown CartoonishSupervillainy and tries to absorb [[BigGood Azmuth]]'s intelligence to become the smartest being in the galaxy, [[FridgeLogic even though a major part of his personality was about trying to prove he was smarter than Azmuth already]]. His two next appearances have him work for [[BigBad Vilgax]] ([[TooDumbToLive even though Vilgax betrayed him last time they teamed up and does it again a second time]]), with at least one case where he had nothing to gain from such an alliance and the other where he just wanted to overthrow Azmuth as First Thinker of Galvan Prime.
22	* Vlad Masters/Plasmius in ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom'' starts out with a rather sympathetic backstory and an almost understandable motivation: Jack, through sheer idiocy, caused an accident that sent Vlad to the hospital for years, costing Vlad's chance at Maddie, who ended up marrying Jack. Later episodes started ignoring it; in an episode where Danny changes history to prevent Vlad's accident (giving him absolutely no motivation for turning evil), he ''still'' turns out evil for no apparent reason. One could argue it's really a matter of personality in that Vlad has an unhealthy means of obsession despite different time periods. It's implied Maddie still loves Jack (Past Maddie is giving loving eyes towards Jack) in the altered timeline while Vlad is hinted to be bitter even during his college years (he crosses his arms in frustration when Maddie doesn't pay attention to him). With Jack alive, it's motivation enough for Vlad to go completely apeshit to preserve his happy ending. In ''The Ultimate Enemy'', Vlad is shown as actually being a rather caring individual (willing to adopt Danny after he's orphaned, and willing to help rid him of his human sorrow for what appears to be purely altruistic reasons). So make of him what you will. His motives still decay over time, with less and less focus being on killing Jack and taking Maddie/Danny as his wife/son and more and more on just screwing with Danny and being his antagonist. At first, he was an antagonistic in a half "I'll train you" kind of way and in the end, he just went straight villain.
23	** It seems to be more of an inherent character trait. When he gets what he wants he's actually a rather good and kind guy. It's just that when he doesn't [[EntitledToHaveYou he's quick to turn to bitterness and hatred to TAKE what he wants]]. The longer he stews the more unhinged he gets (to the point of making holographic and cloned copies of Maddie/Danny to try to have those when it's clear he can't get the originals). Going with the above, in the altered timeline, he's rather normal and pleasant having both a fortune and the love of his life. But the moment he suspects things aren't quite going just his way he's quick to snap at people. It's just that in the main timeline, he never had Maddie so he's basically stuck in villain mode most of the time.
24	** Another addition to that is that Vlad gets so obsessed that he loses sight of the clear goal. At any point, Vlad could turn ghost and straight-up murder Jack, but he doesn't. He pines after Maddie even with Jack there. Some part of him believes that he is a monster and he is AffablyEvil most of the time. He isn't above begging and [[spoiler:poisoning Danny's friends to get his help when he's dying]], but he seems willing to be altruistic in certain situations. In ''The Ultimate Enemy'', Vlad loses his former best friend and his long-time love of his life and has their son, an orphaned Danny, show up at his door. Given that he wanted a child of his own and just got a HUGE slap in the face by fate by the deaths, it is arguable that his obsession and priorities imploded and died. The last nail in the coffin was having [[spoiler:Ghost Danny suck out his ghost form, combine with it, and straight-up murder Human Danny without a second thought]]. That would have destroyed his mind (Vlad never killed anyone himself and seeing someone die by his actions would leave him forever guilty). He hated his ghost, but he missed it when it was gone. So to sum this up, his ex-best-friend, the love of his life, and [[spoiler:their son/his adopted son]] are all killed and he lost his powers, his abilities to fight, and got to watch the whole world burn to ashes due to his mistakes. ''That...'' changes a man.
25	* ''WesternAnimation/DarkwingDuck'' averts this with most of its cartoonish supervillains, but with Bushroot it follows this trope to the hilt even though it does justify it. Bushroot started his life of villainy to get revenge on the scientists who mocked him and destroyed his inventions and any chance with the woman he longed for. Some of his solo acts are committed in line with his misunderstood lonely madman personality, such as trying to create sapient plants, but others are just plain supervillainy, like growing money to steal more money. The "growing money to steal more" plot of Bushroot's does still kind of fit with his misunderstood lonely madman motif, as he was using the money mostly to buy things for his plant friends. Whenever he's teamed up with the Fearsome Five, or just partnering with another villain, any good side goes away completely (which also does make sense if you think about it, as if he's now got a villain friend, he's not going to risk losing them by showing his softer side).
26	** Quackerjack, on a lower level, switches from trying to rebuild his toy empire/getting revenge on the toys/businesses who drove him out of business, to just wanting to commit random acts of crime. Then again, he's insane.
27	* ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'': The pixies, led by HP, were a race that wanted to [[LawfulEvil impose order]] on Fairy World and the Earth. Then, suddenly, in "Fairly [=OddBaby=]" they teamed up with the anti-fairies, despite the fact that they're [[AlwaysChaoticEvil the complete opposite of order]] and randomly want to [[OmnicidalManiac blow up the Earth]].
28	* In some episodes of the made-for-TV WesternAnimation/FelixTheCat cartoons, [[BigBadWannabe The Professor's]] goal to steal Felix's Magic Bag is superseded by other matters, be it due to bouts of sadism or his absentmindedness.
29	** For example, in "Into Outer Space", Professor traps Felix and has a clear shot at getting the Bag (despite admitting that it won't work for him) but instead he decides to launch Felix into outer space along with the bag for the heck of it.
30	** In "Felix's Gold Mine", Felix loses his Magic Bag when it falls off the pinnacle he's trapped on—Professor gets the bag, but he can't use it, so he ditches it and tries to use other means to reach the summit where Felix's mine is.
31	** In "The Vacation Mirage", he separates Felix from the Magic Bag, but instead of going after the bag, he spends the rest of the episode sadistically tormenting Felix with his barrage of realistic mirages.
32	* Macbeth from ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'' was an odd case - he only attacked the Gargoyles in his first appearance in an attempt to draw out the villainess Demona. By the end of that episode, the heroes had explained that she hated them too, which gave him no real motive to oppose them... yet every subsequent appearance found some excuse to feature him as an antagonist. First, he went after a set of magical scrolls (that turned out to be diaries) that the Gargs had anticipated ''Xanatos'' would try to steal. Not once, but twice, he fought them under the Weird Sisters' mind control -- with a third incident that turned out to be a decoy robot double built by Xanatos. In a World Tour appearance, they crossed paths without trading blows, parting on fairly amicable terms, but then he was opposing their friend King Arthur in an attempt to recover Excalibur. For two full seasons, he was a recurring villain, who never once had so much of an EnemyMine, despite having no specific reason to oppose the heroes.
33	** [[TheUnmasquedWorld After their cover was blown worldwide,]] he did get a cameo as a TV correspondent promoting friendly human-gargoyle relations -- kind of funny since the experiences he'd had that were shown to the audience were almost overwhelmingly negative! But he doesn't hold Demona against the gargs as a whole. In the [[ExpandedUniverse comic continuation]] he's becoming more of an ally.
34	** Villains in ''Gargoyles'' tend to be more complex than your standard "tie the girl to the railroad track" fare. After the "City of Stone" arc, Macbeth's only appearances as a ''true'' villain were under mind control. He actually did have a valid reason to at least try to obtain Excalibur- he fit the prophecy as well as Arthur Pendragon did. And the episode during the world tour would count as a non-antagonistic appearance of the character.
35	** Also, when he went after the scrolls it was because he believed them to be magical. He was probably going to use said magic to kill Demona (or himself since that was what he really wanted). He was only fighting the Gargoyles because they were in the way. Once he learns that the scrolls were diaries, he promptly gave them to the Gargoyles and lets them leave.
36	** Xanatos invoked this trope, only to subvert it; a plan to get revenge on the Gargoyles for getting in his way in the past turns out to be nothing but a smokescreen to get his lover sprung from prison. As he tells Fox, "[[RevengeBeforeReason Revenge, as they say, is a sucker's game]]." He firmly believes in leaving the past in the past and focusing on goals for the future, which in his case involve obtaining immortality, or sometimes just good old money and power.
37	** In the ''Goliath Chronicles'', The Quarrymen, an anti-gargoyles movement, are genuinely worried about Gargoyles being a threat in the first episode but then they start framing Gargoyles for crimes later on out of FantasticRacism.
38	* [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]] in ''WesternAnimation/HeManAndTheMastersOfTheUniverse2021''. Prince Keldor sought to claim the Power of Grayskull for himself so he could usurp his brother the King then conquer all of Eternia. After his first attempt left him cursed by the power of [[TheDarkSide Havoc]], he sought Grayskull as a hopeful cure for his Havoc affliction. In the end, when the Masters of the Universe prove too much to handle, Keldor ''embraces'' Havoc fully and is transformed into Skeletor. Now Skeletor dismisses the Power of Grayskull as inferior to Havoc and is out to ''destroy'' Grayskull while still trying to conquer Eternia.
39	* In ''WesternAnimation/JonnyQuestTheRealAdventures'', Ezekiel Rage was a former spy turned terrorist who was obsessed with getting revenge on the US government for abandoning him when he needed them the most, resulting in the deaths of his wife and daughter. In later appearances, he became the leader of a doomsday cult who was obsessed with wiping out humanity and stopped mentioning his wife and daughter.
40	* Dark Vegan of ''WesternAnimation/JohnnyTest'', in his first two appearances, was a KnightTemplar trying to destroy the Earth in order to maintain the Utopia of his home planet, but since ViewersAreMorons and can't know who to root for without the verbal equivalent of a bright neon light pointing to it, he was changed to just another [[CardCarryingVillain card-carrying]] GenericDoomsdayVillain obsessed with taking over the world and destroying Johnny for no real reason other than because BadIsGoodAndGoodIsBad. Interestingly, this happened at the same time he was altered from a genuine threat to life on Earth to a HarmlessVillain who spends most of his time eating toast.
41	* ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'': "Mathter and Fervent" presented us with The Mathter; he began by terrorizing Go City with vaporizing weapons because he was refused funding for his "unethical mathematical experiments". But after Kim and Hego beat up his flabby henchmen, he decides to make Ron (who has done nothing whatsoever at this point) his personal archenemy for no apparent reason in less than two minutes after they first meet. That's got to be some sort of record. He even goes to the extreme of erasing Ron's existence from [[EverythingIsOnline all the computer records]] and then tries to off Ron in person for good measure, resulting in Ron being zapped with a ray that turns him into an "Anti-Matter Boy" who disintegrates anything he touches. Wow. Talk about DisproportionateRetribution.
42	** Almost every episode that involved any of Team Go, and especially when in their own city, tended to fall hard into superhero world cliches. Just as ''Kim Possible'' was a show lampooning the spy genre, they had their own fun with the superhero ones with Team Go. For example, Kim and Ron pick out Hego as the manager of the Bueno Nacho within minutes (his ClarkKenting was weak). Having taken Ron as his arch was simply "how it's done, who am I to argue" and between the choice of Kim Possible, the super-strong Hego, and the pathetic sidekick, who would you want to choose as your enemy?
43	* Hiroshi Sato from ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' joins the Equalists because a group of firebending criminals killed his wife. He screams this at his daughter during a fight. Asami retorts that he doesn't even love his wife anymore, all he has is hatred. Hiroshi then moves to do what looks like killing his own daughter.
44	* At first, it seems Wile E. Coyote of ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' wants to eat the Roadrunner. Typical predator/prey relationship. But, some of the things Wile E. plans (poisoning, exploding, etc.) would make the Roadrunner inedible had they worked. At some point, his motivation became making that one single bird DEAD.
45	** Creator/ChuckJones would often quote George Santayana's definition of a fanatic - "someone who doubles his efforts while forgetting his aim" - in describing Wile E. and intentionally made most of the humor come from the fact that even though ''gravity'' is clearly against him at times, he never gets the message and gives up, or chases some other animal, or considers if Acme delivers hot meals.
46	** WesternAnimation/DaffyDuck suffers this in the cartoons where he's pitted against both WesternAnimation/BugsBunny and Elmer Fudd. Within minutes of the cartoon's beginning, Daffy's motive goes from just steering Elmer towards Bugs out of self-preservation to actively trying to see Bugs get blasted.
47	* In ''WesternAnimation/MastersOfTheUniverseRevelation'', the thing that makes [[spoiler:Evil-Lyn]] finally cut ties with Skeletor is the realization that he no longer has any goals beyond defeating He-Man in a climactic battle.
48	* Comes into play with Gorath and the Glorft's motives in ''WesternAnimation/MegasXLR''. The whole point with Gorath coming back into the past in the first place was so that he could retrieve Megas and go back to the future and finalize the conquest of humanity that had been mostly achieved when he left, but he jumps very cleanly into motive decay in the season 1 finale, where he resolves to destroy the Earth in the past.
49	-->'''Commander:''' But if you do that, we won't be able to go back.
50	-->'''Gorath:''' Then we won't go back!
51	* On ''WesternAnimation/{{Pearlie}}'', the titular fairy's evil cousin Saphira would frequently come up with schemes to undermine Pearlie's credibility and get her kicked out of the park (so she could take over). While this popped up occasionally as the series progressed, in later episodes her schemes were usually either attempting to show up/embarrass Pearlie, or get revenge on one of Pearlie's friends (usually Opal) for various trivial reasons.
52	* ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'':
53	** Inverted with Doof. In the first episode, [[Characters/PhineasAndFerbHeinzDoofenshmirtz Dr. Doofenshmirtz]] was a GenericDoomsdayVillain who [[LampshadeHanging openly admitted that he himself wasn't sure what his own motives were]]. From the second episode onward, his {{Evil Plan}}s are mostly motivated either as revenge for his HilariouslyAbusiveChildhood, DisproportionateRetribution for some minor annoyance, or occasionally just a lust for power. It's also implied that a lot of it is [[PsychopathicManchild just acting out to get attention.]]
54	** Non-villainous example with [[Characters/PhineasAndFerbCandaceFlynn Candace Flynn]]. Her initial desire to bust her brothers is because she wishes them to be normal and safe. Sometimes, however, her busting obsession comes to the level where Candace is just downright mean, trying to bust them even for crazy ideas that aren't at the level of danger, or going out of her way to yell at them before they've even done anything at all. Or, on at least one occasion, getting worked up because they ''weren't'' doing anything crazy, and insisting they did something so she could try to bust them for it.
55	* In ''WesternAnimation/ReBoot'' Megabyte went from conquest of Mainframe to personal revenge in season 4. He even [[LampshadeHanging admits it]] during a monologue right before the cliffhanger.
56	-->You're probably looking forward to one of my erudite speeches about me, [[{{Egopolis}} Megaframe]], the new viral dawn, et cetera et cetera. But I'm afraid I'm going to have to disappoint you. There is no grand scheme here. This is about revenge.
57	** [[spoiler:It later becomes a complete inversion, when he ultimately mentions his function right from the start was just to prey on sprites and destroy everything. It turns out he decayed his motive a long time ago and is finally getting down to business.]]
58	* The Floaty Heads in ''WesternAnimation/TheSecretShow'' parody this. ''Every single time they show up'' they want something different. It's not commented on in the show, but it is on the show's website.
59	* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons,'' Sideshow Bob's deadly vendetta against Bart is initially spurred by Bart foiling his plan to take over Krusty's show and getting him sent to jail in his first appearance and is theoretically refreshed every time he's jailed again. However, with Springfield Penitentiary increasingly becoming a CardboardPrison and Bob being cast as a FriendlyEnemy to the Simpsons as often as not, the reasoning behind his actions grows more tenuous as the show continues, eventually being treated more like a fixation of Bob's (one for which he's even received unsuccessful therapy) than the result of anything he truly suffered at Bart's hands: in Season 29's "Gone Boy" Bart flat-out asks him why he wants to kill a ten-year-old, [[ArmorPiercingQuestion a question he finds himself unable to answer]].
60	* Gargamel originally wanted to use ''Franchise/TheSmurfs'' to make gold (he's a capitalist after all) or capture them to finally get some respect in his life, as the Smurfs are thought by many to be mythical. For some reason, in later seasons, he simply wanted to capture/eat/destroy the Smurfs for no real reason other than they kept besting his last plan to get them. This was made fun of in ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken'' where he said he never was clear on his motive, and one episode of the actual series infamously lampshaded it with Gargamel saying "I don't want to eat them, I don't want to turn them into gold, all I want now is to DESTROY THEM!" [[Film/TheSmurfs The live-action films]] gave him a more legitimate motivation: his magic is fueled by blue essence, which he needs to extract from the Smurfs so he can become powerful enough to take over the world.
61	* ''WesternAnimation/TheSpectacularSpiderMan'':
62	** Sandman, like the Shocker and Beetle examples in comics, [[DefiedTrope makes sure not to fall into this]]. All he wants is to steal stuff and get rich, make his "big score," and makes this clear when offered the chance to get revenge against Spidey. In his final appearance, he gets pissed enough during combat to cause a lot more collateral damage than he intended, and when he realizes it, he helps Spider-Man rescue the civilians, saying he'd only been in the supervillain game for the bucks and never meant anything like that to happen.
63	* In ''WesternAnimation/SpiderManTheAnimatedSeries'', J. Jonah Jameson has a perfectly understandable and sympathetic reason for distrusting Spider-Man: his wife was killed by a masked assassin working for a mobster Jameson was about to expose, prompting him to start a crusade against people who wear masks and act above the law. However, when Mysterio first shows up, having done next to nothing to earn anyone's trust and wearing a mask himself, publicly announces that he's going to bring down Spider-Man... Jonah promptly lauds him as a hero. He's also the one responsible for creating The Scorpion, although he does regret it later.
64	* [[Characters/SpongeBobSquarePantsSheldonPlankton Sheldon Plankton]] from ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants''. Most of his plots in seasons 1-5 revolve around him wanting to steal the Krabby Patty formula to make his awful restaurant, the Chum Bucket, successful, to upstage his longtime business rival Krabs. Even when it wasn't ''directly'' about the formula, it still involved his restaurant and rivalry with Krabs: "Walking Small" had him trying to build an expansion to the Chum Bucket, and "20,000 Patties Under the Sea" had him start his own traveling restaurant to compete with Krabs. Starting with season 11, but most pronounced in 13, he's become a GenericDoomsdayVillain who only exists to cause chaos and do stereotypical "evil" stuff like shoot people with laser guns and destroy buildings, with no mention of the formula or Krabs. "Captain Pipsqueak" even establishes his "motives" as wanting to steal the formula to ''cause mayhem and take over the world'', when that was never his goal.
65	* ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'':
66	** Metallo's origin episode, in which he was transformed from John Corben into Metallo, showed him with vendettas against both Superman (who had sent him to prison in the three-part pilot) ''and'' Luthor (for [[BlessedWithSuck transferring his mind into the strong]] -- [[SenseLossSadness but numb]] -- [[{{Cyborg}} Metallo body]]). However, by his second appearance, the "vengeance against Luthor" angle has been dropped entirely, and in his fourth appearance, he even gets a girlfriend, despite the fact that his inability to feel anything at all when kissing a woman was one of the things that originally drove him nuts. His original motive does return in the video game ''Superman: Shadow of Apokolips'', which debuted in 2002. Recruited by a disguised Luthor and told to destroy Superman, Metallo defers and goes after Luthor himself.
67	** Volcana's origin episode established a backstory in which she was imprisoned by government agents to be indoctrinated and trained as a weapon. After escaping, she turned to crime to survive. Superman was sympathetic and set her up on a remote island where she could remain comfortably imprisoned (and safe from the government agents) with Supes occasionally visiting and bringing supplies. When she reappeared in ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'', she acted like a generic supervillain, making trouble for fun and profit (even in the wake of Superman's supposed death).
68	* Now admittedly ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'' was never the greatest at establishing concrete motives for its villains (with a few exceptions), but a particularly solid case of decay still exists in the form of Brother Blood. He starts out as your typical [[strike: power-mad]] supervillain ''pimp'', helped by the fact that he has psychic powers, but then degenerates into wiping-out-a-city-ForTheEvulz territory and his final EvilPlan involves--becoming exactly like Cyborg. Why? Because he's decided that Cyborg is simply the greatest thing since sliced bread, apparently, which winds up making Blood look rather pathetic.
69	** He does explain it quite clearly. He's obsessed with having complete control over his students with his psychic powers. Even though some like Bumblebee could resist him, they could still be overpowered if he directed his attention to them. Cyborg was the only person he'd ever met that was completely immune to his control, so as his arc went on, he became more and more obsessed with finding out what made Cyborg immune, and making more cyborgs was just semi-coincidental with the fact you can program totally obedient robots and he already had Cyborg's blueprints, so why not? The obsession with control is also intended to make him look pathetic as he keeps losing his calm demeanor when he raves about Cyborg's resistance.
70	* ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2003'' has the [[Characters/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2003TheShredder Utrom Shredder, Ch'rell]], go through this, albeit in a justified way. While he'd always been the Turtles' ArchEnemy who fought them many times throughout the first three seasons, his main goal had always been to leave Earth and get his revenge on the Utrom race as his ultimate endgame. At the end of the third season, Ch'rell gets frozen on an ice asteroid for a long time and by the time he appears again in ''WesternAnimation/TurtlesForever'', his Utrom revenge motive is thrown out the window and his focus is solely on killing the Turtles and all the other TMNT incarnations across the multi-verse. While the reasoning is not spelled out in full detail, it's obvious that his massive shift in his focus is due to peering into the multiverse and seeing that it was his destiny, along with all other Shredders, to be foiled by the Turtles repeatedly. And because it was the 2003 Turtles who had repeatedly defeated him, up to the point where he got imprisoned on an ice asteroid for years, it would make sense that he'd finally consider it [[ItsPersonal very personal with the Ninja Turtles]].
71	* It happened in the backstory ''WesternAnimation/TransformersEarthspark'' in regards to the Decepticons. Megatron's original goal was to create an equal and prosperous future for Cybertronians, abolishing the ideas of lower classes and making it so none would have to kneel before another. When the war moved to Earth, his meeting with Dot Malto gave him a change in perspective and caused him to realize that the Decepticons had devolved into conquering and destruction for its own sake. This would lead to him turning on the Decepticons and joining Optimus Prime.
72	* The Decepticons in general, and [[Characters/TransformersPrimeMegatron Megatron]] in particular, in ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime''. After a rousing return and a multi-episode arc in the introductory "Darkness Rising" mini-series in which he works to implement his dastardly plan and agenda - [[TheGoodGuysAlwaysWin but of course ultimately failing]] - they pretty much don't have anything better to do than float around on their spaceship being generically evil and just chasing after the things and opportunities the Autobots are going after.
73	** As part of the Aligned continuity, the Decepticons had decayed their motive a long time ago since ''VideoGame/TransformersWarForCybertron''. Originally meant to protest the stifling caste system and societal decay of Cybertron, millions of years of war caused them to lose sight of their goals and focus solely on conquest and Autobot destruction. At that point, CartoonishSupervillainy was the only place left to go. To Megatron's credit, [[spoiler:he did at least finally realize he was the bad guy and ended the Decepticons in the GrandFinale movie.]]
74	* ''WesternAnimation/TheZetaProject'': Krick, the bounty hunter from "Taffy Time". In that episode, he wanted to capture Zeta for the reward. His next appearance featured him chasing Zeta not for the reward (which he no longer cared about) but to exact vengeance for what happened to him in "Taffy Time".

Context MotiveDecay / WesternAnimation