'''Basic Trope''': A reason in the childhood backstory of a villain (or otherwise unsympathetic character) that doesn't excuse their actions, but does explain why they act the way they do and gives them motivation for their actions.
* '''Straight''':
** Alice, a SerialKiller, kills people because she was [[AbusiveParents abused by her parents]] and [[KidsAreCruel bullied by classmates]] as a child.
** Alice is a {{Jerkass}}, because she lost her parents at age 10 and was bullied until she learned she would be left alone/respected by being a jerk, which has since then become her primary mode of interaction.
* '''Exaggerated''':
** Alice, an EvilOverlord StrawNihilist OmnicidalManiac, destroys planets and enslaves galaxies because her father was a sadistic pedophile who tortured and MindRaped (and [[ParentalIncest raped]]) her repeatedly since birth.
** Alice, an OmnicidalManiac, wipes out galaxies because [[TraumaCongaLine she lost her mother immediately after she was born, had suffered from an abusive father who abandoned her on the streets when she was only five, became homeless for her entire childhood, got sent to prison for a crime she didn’t commit or even witness as a teenager]], [[PrisonRape was raped repeatedly during her time in prison]], [[TraumaCongaLine and had her entire home planet destroyed with her as the only survivor]].
** Alice turns into a villain hell-bent into annihilating mankind [[DisproportionateRetribution because her goldfish died]] when Alice was 2.
** Kids who cry instantly become {{sociopath}}s.
** Alice has a specific backstory related to every evil act she does. [[KickTheDog she punts puppies because she nearly got mauled to death by some years ago]]. She's robbing the restaurant because one of the waiters bullied her in high school. She's destroying the universe because she got raped by God.
* '''Downplayed''':
** While nothing downright traumatizing ever happened to Alice, she grew up in an environment that didn't encourage positive growth. This indirectly affected her attitude growing up.
** Alice is a {{Jerkass}}, [[JerkJustifications because her parents were as well]].
** CynicismCatalyst.
* '''Justified''':
** {{Revenge}} that went SheWhoFightsMonsters. During her childhood, Alice saw that AdultsAreUseless and the law is too incompetent, giving her a desire to finally take justice into her own hands.
** After all, experiences, especially past traumas, can be groundwork on how we develop our ideas and philosophy in life.
** Alice lived in a CrapsackWorld, WretchedHive, or other such hellish MightMakesRight environment where NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished, and came to a reasonable and logical conclusion that ruthlessness, vengeance and SocialDarwinism are necessary for survival and [[AmbitionIsEvil self-improvement]].
** [[NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished Alice used to be punished for good behaviour, conditioning her that good behaviour is bad]].
** In social learning, children learn by imitation and they have the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron neurons]] to do so. Therefore, exposure to an abusive/violent caretaker will make them more likely to imitate abusive/violent behavior.
** [[SarcasmMode Suprisingly enough]], traumatic experiences can have a large impact on people's lives.
* '''Inverted''':
** Alice has no excuse; she kills people simply ForTheEvulz.
** Alice has a tragic past, but [[OpposeWhatYouSuffered used it as a motivation to help others]] as opposed to harming them.
** Alice's life has been easy and she knows nothing of suffering. In an effort to understand it, she inflicts it on others.
** Alice learnt to love bullying others, so as an adult she's [[SchoolyardBullyAllGrownUp a really unpleasant individual]].
** Alice spends her life helping elderly people, because an old guy saved her from drowning when Alice was a child.
** Alice has a tragic past, but instead of making her seem more sympathetic, it makes her current actions seem ''[[FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse worse]]''.
** Alice would have grown up to be a horrible, loathsome person, except she suffered a loss, humiliation or something else that got her to change direction onto a virtuous path.
** UpbringingMakesTheHero.
** PrivilegeMakesYouEvil
* '''Subverted''':
** Despite having a past that would qualify as a FreudianExcuse, Alice turned out to be a well-adjusted and functioning human being.
** Alice's story about her FreudianExcuse [[MultipleChoicePast regularly changes]], because she's [[UnreliableNarrator the goddamn]] [[ComicBook/TheJoker Joker]].
** [[FreudianExcuseDenial Alice laughs at the idea that she kills people because of her parents or that people should feel sorry for her because of it]].
** Alice's reaction to the past event is (sometimes hugely) DisproportionateRetribution, indicating that she was never all that right in the head.
** [[{{Seers}} Faye]] reveals that, in all possible timelines she can see, Alice would've grown up a villain, FreudianExcuse or not.
* '''Doubly Subverted''':
** Despite appearing well adjusted, her excuse eventually leads her to commit murder.
** She's a VillainWithGoodPublicity.
** One of her many excuses is revealed to be the truth.
** Alice's laughter is unconvincing, and she doth protest too much on the subject; even if she chooses not to acknowledge it, she still has issues with her past that inform her actions.
** Except later revelations make it not-so-disproportionate after all.
** The writers still try to play up the past event for sympathy.
* '''Parodied''':
** Alice routinely engages in mass murder and world conquest as an adult, because the expensive bike she got for her sixth birthday was blue and not red as she wanted (or some other similarly trivial, pathetic, and laughable excuse).
** Alice has to constantly shoo away {{fanboy}}s [[EvenTheGirlsWantHer and]] {{fangirl}}s trying to comfort her and help her come to terms with a DarkAndTroubledPast [[DracoInLeatherPants she never said she had in the first place]].
** Alice has an [[TraumaCongaLine absurdly long list of past traumas]], to the point that even her arch-enemy admits that [[VillainHasAPoint she does have some valid reasons for her villainy.]]
* '''Zig Zagged''': [[MultipleChoicePast Alice likes to give numerous excuses for her actions]], [[ComicBook/TheJoker obscuring which one is the true one]]. Does she just do it ForTheEvulz? Or is one of them true? Or none of them?
* '''Averted''':
** [[HiddenAgendaVillain Alice reveals nothing about her past to us; we know nothing one way or the other]].
** Alice's past was basically normal, and she does what she does either to further her agenda or just because she's a sadistic bastard.
** Alice simply is oblivious or used to her own {{Jerkass}}-behavior.
** Alice's DarkAndTroubledPast explains her motivations and methods, perhaps even how her personality and style of relating to others developed and solidified, but everyone ([[DontYouDarePityMe including Alice herself]]) agrees that it does '''''not''''' excuse her villainy.
** Alice does have a DarkAndTroubledPast but it has nothing to do with her becoming evil.
** GenericDoomsdayVillain
* '''Enforced''':
** "We can't have our [[FemalesAreMoreInnocent bad lady]] [[GenericDoomsdayVillain be evil]] [[ItAmusedMe just for]] [[ForTheEvulz the hell of it]]. [[RousseauWasRight Something must have happened to her to make her this way.]]"
** "We are bored with a {{Flat|Character}}, DesignatedVillain who [[ForTheEvulz do terrible things for no reason,]] let's add some depth!"
* '''Lampshaded''':"There must be something really terrible in her past to make her capable of this..."
* '''Invoked''': "I want to tell you in detail why I'm doing this to you... I want to make you ''[[JustForFun/{{Rickroll}} understand]]''..."
* '''Exploited''':
** [[WoundedGazelleGambit Alice uses her excuse to make heroes let their guards down]].
** A hero mocks Alice about her excuse, causing the latter to make a mistake in anger.
** [[VillainWithGoodPublicity Alice brings up her excuse to gain sympathy and a claim to moral high ground in order to get heroes off her back]].
** Alice brings up an event from her past to shame someone present, who was involved with that same event.
** Alice makes up a fake Freudian Excuse on the spot in a last-ditch effort to get the heroes to [[VillainExitStageLeft let her go]]. Some of them believe it, but [[TheSmartGuy Charlie]] [[OnlySaneMan isn't]] [[FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse fooled]].
* '''Defied''':
** "I cannot be reduced to a simple, trite motivation."
** [[FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse "No, Alice. Your excuse is merely a convenient way of fleeing responsibility."]]
** "Yeah, shit got done to my life. I guess that don't mean I should do shit to your guys' lives."
* '''Discussed''':
** "These guys always have some excuse..."
** "[[FauxAffablyEvil Heyyyy, don't blame me! I'm only a serial killer because... I dunno, my Mommy didn't buy me candy at the checkout line once? I dunno. Whatevs]]."
* '''Conversed''':
** "Do these writers think that having an awful childhood automatically makes you criminal or something?"
** "So Bob [[PaedoHunt molests children]] because he himself was molested as a child? Are the writers under the impression that sexual deviance is sexually transmitted?"
* '''Deconstructed''':
** FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse
** People with traumatizing childhoods are subjected to [[MercyKill euthanasia]] on the presumption that the trauma will lead them to becoming villains.
** The other characters not only reject Alice's Freudian Excuse, but [[KickThemWhileTheyAreDown use it against her out of spite]]. This response causes her to [[IceQueen keep her feelings to herself]], causing her mental health to diminish over time.
* '''Reconstructed''':
** [[TheAtoner Alice decides to look-up for psychological help to get through her flaws, and eventually learn how to move on.]]
** In real life, modern theories like operant conditioning and social learning can still explain the effectiveness of a "Freudian" Excuse, while it is shown that neglect does cause lasting brain damage. Who knows, from Alice's perspective she is simply doing her vile actions out of a perceived necessity that was conditioned via receiving punishment/violence for her altruistic behaviour, [[RousseauWasRight and is actually good in the inside]].
** The leader of the euthanasia project turns out to be doing this [[YouAreWhatYouHate because they suffered a tragic past at the hands of another villain with a tragic past]].
** Alice was almost subjected to the euthanasia as a child and [[NiceJobBreakingItHero it ends up worsening her trauma]].
** [[DefrostingIceQueen Alice]] only confides in the people she trusts, not (only) to gain an advantage but out of a sincere need for emotional catharsis.
* '''Implied''':
** RousseauWasRight, but Alice is definitely a villain.
** Alice is a villain with a traumatic past, but it's unknown if the latter caused the former.
** Some of Alice's comments imply she may have had a tragic past that drove her to villainy.
* '''Played For Laughs''':
** Alice brings up her sad past in the most {{melodrama}}tic way possible. Charles remarks: ''So that's why you're so {{emo|Teen}}!''
** Charles gives Alice a very long TheReasonYouSuckSpeech about how much he hates her because she killed many people. Then Alice just says "I had a bad childhood" and Charles replies "Oh sorry, I didn't know that. You're just misunderstood, then".
** Alice's backstory is ''so'' [[HilariouslyAbusiveChildhood cartoonishly warped]] and [[ClicheStorm over the top]] that it comes off as ''Literature/MommieDearest'' meets ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry''. No one - not [[BellisariosMaxim the audience]], [[NoSympathy the other characters]] or even ''[[AngstWhatAngst Alice herself]]'' takes it seriously, and [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment it's never mentioned again]].
* '''Played For Drama''': Alice is pushed to the edge by PTSD. She has trouble believing she could get any better and thinks she and nothing else has no hope. She's considering [[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds taking an entire universe with her as she self-terminates]] and our hero needs to convince her, by any means necessary, that it doesn't have to be.
* '''Plotted A Good Waste''': The author takes this to emphasize that a FreudianExcuse is an [[FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse excuse and an excuse only]]; they may inform Alice's actions in the present, but they in no way justify them. This is done to try to avert a DracoInLeatherPants scenario (regardless of whether it works, [[UnintentionallySympathetic and it usually doesn't]]).
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