Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas / Literature

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• Al Capone Does My Shirts is about Alcatraz in 1935. The prison's staff and their families live in apartments on the island. The children of the staff are very excited one day when famous prisioner Al Capone's mother comes to visit him, and they speak to her briefly on the ferry. Later, when one of the kids writes a letter to Al Capone asking for a favor, he Invokes the trope by adding, "PS I like your mother very much."
  Piper: [reading] "I like your mother very much"?
  Moose: You got to say something about the guy's mother.
  Piper: Why?
  Moose: Because then he remembers he has one. And he knows we know her too. Makes him act better. It's The Mom Rule—all guys use it.
  Piper: This is Al Capone we're talking about. I don't think he'll fall for a cheap trick like that.
  Moose: I'm not taking it out.
• Andrea Vernon and the Corporation for UltraHuman Protection: Andrea uses this against a Boxed Crook. When he refuses to take a dangerous action that could save the world, Andrea calls up his mother, puts her on speaker, and tells her that she needs to come pick him up as if he's a misbehaving child at a school trip. She lambastes her son for being ungrateful, and manages to guilt him into saving the world.
• Artemis Fowl:
  • The title character may be a criminal mastermind, but he'll do anything — including giving up half of his loot or traveling to the past to save an extinct species — to make his mother Angeline healthy and happy again.
  • Butler invokes this in the first book when We Need a Distraction. He approaches a gang of hoodlums hanging about the area and taunts them relentlessly, capping it off with a sarcastic "your mothers must be so proud", which is what finally provokes them into a fight.
• The last word of the mad god Torak in The Belgariad is "Mother!" It's identified by Belgarath as a cry to the one thing in the universe Torak thought loved him. (Granted, as a god, Torak's mother is the universe — long story.) He was right — for a split second after Torak's death, everything stops, as the universe mourns her lost child.
• In Beowulf, the mortally wounded Grendel returns to his mother to die. Grendel's mother then takes up the vendetta against Beowulf.
• At one point in The Black Company series, Croaker and Lady are arguing about Dominator — former, believing in Grey-and-Gray Morality is trying to convince the latter that even he had to have a good side and uses this trope as one of the possibilities. Lady says he probably ripped his mother's throat with his bare hands.
• The Army of Helaman or Helamen's Stripling Warriors from The Book of Mormon are in fact heroic young men who learned righteousness from their mothers.
• In The Brothers Grimm's tale #50 ("The Devil And His Grandmother"), the Devil himself cares about his grandmother — and thus, the hero can outwit him.
• A Brother's Price inverts this trope. Some villainous sisters boast with having killed their elderly mothers in cold blood when said mothers started to become senile.
• The Charlie Parker Series has Jackie Garner and the Fulci brothers, thugs whose only real redeeming factor is their love for their mothers. Arguably, Louis also fits this trope, a hardened assassin whose love and respect for the women who raised him has led him to swear to never kill a woman.
• Mark Brandon "Chopper" Read wrote in his first book, Chopper: From the Inside, that the best way to find a criminal that didn't want to be found was either to wait outside their mother's house or to put her in hospital. They would always turn up because their love for their mums was so predictable.
• In John C. Wright's Chronicles of Chaos, the very stoic Ares only becomes angry when his mother Queen Basilios is slandered. At which point, he offers to break the speaker's kneecaps if they don't shut up.
• Downplayed in Crime and Punishment: at the beginning, Sympathetic Murderer Raskolnikov is very fond of his mother and sister, but, after his crime, he begins to feel uncomfortable around them and actually feels he is starting to hate them.
• In Ken Follett's A Dangerous Fortune, the death of Edward Pilaster (a minor villain and son of Evil Matriarch Augusta) receives the following commentary from the heroes:
  Hugh: He loved his mother.
  Maisie: Why do you say that?
  Hugh: It's the only good thing I can think of to say about him.
• In The Dead Zone, Greg Stillson might literally Kick the Dog, terrify teenagers and threaten bankers' families, he might eventually even bring about a nuclear holocaust, but he lived with and supported his mother until she died, and she was the only important woman in his life.
• In the Deepgate Codex, main villain Menoa's Start of Darkness was triggered when he was killed protecting his mother during his parents' war.
• Discworld:
  • Seen (to an extent) in Hogfather; the Lilywhite boys greatly respect their deceased mother, as much out of quivering fear as love. They turn on Mr. Teatime after he snaps and goes, "To blazes with your mam!".
  • Invoked unsuccessfully by Mrs Plinge in Maskerade, when she attempts to appeal to a gang of muggers by saying surely they have mothers. One replies that he did but he thinks he "must of et her". Granny Weatherwax is relieved by this, since it means she doesn't have to be nice.
• Paul Atreides in Dune. Even psychic demigod warlords love their mamas.
• Elmer in the novel Elmer Gantry is a self-absorbed sociopath and a religious huckster, who nevertheless speaks warmly of his mother. Part of the reason he became a minister at first is that he genuinely wanted to make her proud. Elmer admits to Sharon that she and his mother are the only women he's ever respected.
• In The Eyes of Kid Midas, sadistic schoolyard bully Bertram gets very angry if you insult his mother.
• A Frozen Heart, a Tie-In Novel for Frozen, shows Prince Hans genuinely caring about his mother.
• Gone with the Wind: Rhett and Scarlett are both very fond of their mothers, with the latter consistently being sad and ashamed that she isn't the kind of person her mother raised her to be. Scarlett is also very fond of Mammy, enough to be genuinely hurt at Mammy's blistering "The Reason You Suck" Speech regarding her plans to marry Rhett — this is after practically laughing at everyone else's disapproval.
• In Good Omens, Nanny Astoreth teaches about Vlad Drakula and Attila the Hun, but omits the points about Drakula always saying his prayers, or Attila being nice to his mother.
• In Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi, Jin Guangyao inters his mother in a temple built in her honour and builds a goddess statue modeled after her likeness. While planning to escape to Dongying, he tries to bring her remains along with him, a decision which ultimately leads to his death.
• In "The Hottest Guy in the World" by Damon Runyon, Big Jule goes back to New York — where the police are all after him for a long string of violent crimes — to visit his "maw".
• Harry Potter: Zigzagged with Voldemort. Though literally incapable of love, he had some reverence for his mother, but only for being a witch; he resents her for dying shortly after his birth. When one considers that he murdered his father and grandparents and framed his uncle for the crime, his attitude regarding his mother seems almost wholesome.
• How NOT to Write a Novel discourages the use of this trope, as it can come across as a cheap way to humanize a villain. The example they use to illustrate this involves a character reminiscing about his mother as he gleefully forces young girls into prostitution.
• The In Death series: Averted. A number of the murderers in the series murdered their mothers first.
• In the non-fiction novel Inside Delta Force, the ex-Delta operator Hanley explains an incident from the training where he received a strike against him by the evaluating shrink for being "uncooperative." The reason? He refused to complete the portion of the psych eval which asked selectees to complete the phrase "I love my mother but..." When questioned about this, Hanley replied, "I love my mother. No buts. Don't project your issues onto me." The strike was removed and Hanley went on to pass selection.
• The Juvie Three: DeAndre is a Soft-Spoken Sadist who seems very much capable of murder, but he and his mom have a close relationship (minus her dismay at his poor life choices).
• In The Last Don, Dante Clericuzio is a sadistic bastard who enjoys torture, murder, and rape, but he really loves his mother Rose Marie, and it is his love for her that leads him to murder his uncles and take over the empire of the Clericuzio.
• Clearly not the case with Left Behind Antichrist villain Nicolae Carpathia, as he and Viv Ivins had engineered Marilena Carpathia's death when he was no longer in need of his mother.
• Kalide in The Legendsong is quite devoted to his mother, although this is to be expected given that Coralyn is the one with the power and schemes. What is more surprising is the way that Tarsin puts up with her, despite knowing that she and his brother are plotting against him.
• The Inquisitor and powerful vampire Witeslaw in the Night Watch (Series) is mostly completely stoic and utterly ruthless, and in his first meeting with the protagonist, casually mentions that he's eaten children. However, in Twilight Watch, she shows a reluctance to interact with an elderly woman and to use the word mother. It's explained that as a young vampire, he lost control of himself and killed his mother, something which fills him with great shame.
• Peter Pan:
  "See," said Hook in answer to Smee's question, "that is a mother. What a lesson! The nest must have fallen into the water, but would the mother desert her eggs? No."
  There was a break in his voice, as if for a moment he recalled innocent days when — but he brushed away this weakness with his hook.
• A Practical Guide to Evil Akua Sahelian, main antagonist of the first three books and poster child for traditional villainy, will happily sacrifice entire cities or her closest allies for her goal to rule the continent, but she retains a soft spot for her father, to the point of nearly breaking down when he is taken hostage.
• Dong Zhuo in Romance of the Three Kingdoms is possibly the most vicious tyrant in the book. When he finds out he's going to ascend to emperor, one of the first people he tells is his mother.
• Guthrum the Unlucky from The Saxon Stories is a Viking warlord, a leader of The Great Heathen Army, who is quite willing to ruthlessly kill and then Rape, Pillage, and Burn in order to conquer England. He's also a hopeless Mama's Boy who pays bards to sing songs of his long-dead mother, breaks down into sobs upon hearing the songs, and wears one of her rib bones in his hair to have her with him always. He's also known to be a complete sucker for people complimenting his mother, and flattery of her can get him to do just about anything for you.
• In Second Apocalypse:
  • Xerius's mother Istriya is the only person he is not ready to execute at the first hint of a suspicion of possible treason. But then, Istriya is the person who made Xerius who he is, and they have a history of mother/son incest.
  • Anasurimbor Kelmomas is a Child Prodigy and an Enfant Terrible who is obsessed with being the only one to receive his mother's love, even if this means burning the whole world down.
• Scavenge the Stars: Romara is a ruthless crime boss, but she takes control of her father's criminal empire because he exiled and sold out her mother. Romara's plan is to try and find out what happened to her mother.
• In the third entry in The Sellswords by R. A. Salvatore, Artemis Entreri returns to his hometown of Memnon in Calimshan and butchers the corrupted priesthood of Selûne who made his life hell as a child. What sets him off is when he asks for a prayer for his mother's soul, and the high priest tries to exact payment for it.
• Septimus Heap: Simon Heap still cares about his mother while he's trying to kill his siblings.
• In the Sharpe series, the Drill Sergeant Nasty Obadiah Hakeswill keeps trying to kill Sharpe. He has a picture of his dead mother inside his hat. "Mother, spread your wings and lift me high!" is his catchphrase. He once justifies an act of rape by saying, "Mother, you always wanted me to be happy." His mother helped to save him from the gallows, so he does have a point.
• In Ship of the Line, the Klingon villain Kozara named his new heavy cruiser after his recently deceased mother.
• Fëanor, in The Silmarillion. Don't you dare thay Serindë. Also applies to Túrin. Insulting his mother, Morwen, is not a very good idea.
  • Of all Fëanor's sons, Maglor is closest to his mother Nerdanel. He's arguably one of the least nasty of the bunch, though.
• A Song of Ice and Fire:
  • Viserys Targaryen is a Momma's Boy, and her Death by Childbirth, delivering his baby sister Daenerys, is something that he never forgave her for. According to Daenerys, he only really went to the deep end after he was forced to sell Rhaella's crown to make ends meet.
  • Cersei Lannister has fond memories of her mother, and similarly hates her younger brother Tyrion because she died giving birth to him.
  • Cersei's eldest son, Joffrey, is as every bit psychopathic as her, because she raised him that way. The mother and son are almost like-minded, although Cersei has found herself struggling to steer Joffrey ever since he ascends as king.
• Star Wars Legends: Han Solo's cousin Thracken Sal-Solo was a greedy, power-hungry bigot who killed Corellia's leader, seized power, wanted to force planets into submission with a space station, was willing to kidnap, betray and even kill Han and the rest of the Solos...but he loved his mother, Tiion Sal-Solo, and was known to be violently protective of her.
• In the Carl Hiaasen novel Stormy Weather, mobster Ira Jackson goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the real estate agent who sold his mother a defective home and the roofing inspector who didn't do his job properly, after a hurricane destroys the property and kills Jackson's mother.
• The Tamuli has Scarpa calling for his mother as he is dying. Subverted in that he had her — and all his sisters — murdered before the start of the series.
• Thinner: Mobster Richie Ginelli adores his Italian mother and loves to keep her around.
• In The Three Hostages, when the villain learns that the heroes have discovered and captured the secret location where the third hostage was being held, overseen by the villain's mother, his first reaction is fear for his mother's safety, and only then concern for the failure of his plot and the security of his global criminal conspiracy.
• In the first Thursday Next book, The Eyre Affair, one of the main villain's dimwitted henchman wants a motorway services named for his mother as his part of the ransom. It's the only part of the ransom that is granted before the situation blows up.
• Lestat in Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles is a mother's boy. He adores Gabrielle, revels in being her favorite son, and still resents every second she's not paying attention to him. He also turns her into a vampire so he never has to live through her dying.
• After being shot in a duel with Pierre in War and Peace, Dolokhov goes delirious in the carriage towards the hospital, murmuring about how he can't die yet because his mother will be heartbroken.
• Female example: in the sequels to The Warded Man, Inevera is a Manipulative Bitch, Evil Sorceress and Lady Macbeth to a Knight Templar warlord, but she legitimately loves her mother, a humble basket merchant, and is even shown going to her for advice on occasion (Inevera, for the record, is a law unto herself and never takes advice from anyone — except her mom). Now, she hated her Father, on the other hand, which was in large part due to how he treated her mother and older brother (and she ended up exacting revenge on him for it).
• Warrior Cats:
  • Despite being a hammy bad guy, Hawkfrost loves his mother Sasha. In fact, he scolds the ThunderClan cats for chasing her and bids farewell to her when the Clans move.
  • A fan asked on Vicky Holmes' Facebook page, "Does Tigerstar love his mommy?" The answer was "Oh yes."
  • In Onestar's Confession, Darktail refers to his mother Smoke as the only cat he ever cared for, and he's now driven by a desire for revenge for her death.
• We Need to Talk About Kevin: Kevin is a sociopath who killed numerous classmates with a bow and arrows. One of the unanswered questions the story leaves is what Kevin's true feeling were concerning his parents. Despite seeming to have tried from infancy to make his mother, Eva, as miserable as possible, even if it hurt him too, many of his actions could be interpreted as a phenomenally twisted means of trying to bond with her in his own way. His relationship with his father is also quite difficult to fathom, as he hid his sociopathy from him and played the perfect son, and years later Eva still can't tell if Kevin was trying to hurt her by causing her husband to mistrust her when she tried to tell him that Kevin was seriously disturbed, or whether Kevin was trying to please his father by concealing what he truly was, or was actually showing some sort of respect for Eva by letting her see his true self. She is also unsure as to whether Kevin's reaction to his father being completely taken in by the charade was simple contempt for his stupidity or emotional pain that his father clearly loved the mask and never tried to look past it. The best example of this ambiguity is The Reveal that before he started the school shooting, he killed his father and his little sister (who hero-worshipped him,) while leaving his mother alive. Whether this was because he loved her more than them and so couldn't bear to kill her, or because he wanted her to live on and suffer, is unclear. The fact that Kevin is a Consummate Liar and Eva is an Unreliable Narrator makes it even more difficult to form conclusions.

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