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  • Akame ga Kill!: This trope is why Esdeath is unable to make Tatsumi love her. Tatsumi tries to convince her to join the revolution because he doesn't like innocent people dying needlessly in war, but she rebukes this. She doesn't understand why this upsets him due to her own Social Darwinist beliefs, saying that the weak deserve to die and the strong are the ones who survive. Needless to say, Tatsumi makes it clear he will never love a woman who enjoys killing and would even start a new war to continue.
  • In the manga version of Battle Royale, Mitsuko Souma is captured by Tadakatsu, a baseball player, and Yuichiro, an otaku. While Tadakatsu is wary of her, Yuichiro is more sympathetic and makes the effort to talk to her. Having been abused and exploited by men for most of her life, Mitsuko assumes that Yuichiro's just trying to get into her knickers when he offers to untie her hands. However, she's surprised to discover that he's just going to give her a drink and has no ulterior motives, and is even more surprised when he takes a bullet from Tadakatsu to protect her.
  • Berserk: Happens often thanks to the massive amount of human sadists and hellspawn.
    • Early on when the Snake Baron is begging for mercy, Guts points out what a disgusting hypocrite he's being asking the baron (while torturing him) if he ever listened to cries of his victims or stopped when they begged for mercy.
    • The God Hand are so disconnected from morals that they were surprised and intrigued that Guts would cut off his hand to save Casca from being raped by Griffith, and shocked that a mere mortal would have the sheer willpower to get close enough to attack one of them without dying.
    • Griffith, plays with this trope towards the end of the Golden Age and after his resurrection; he is completely baffled as to why Guts would want to leave him and is even more confused at himself for throwing everything away for the loss of this "one soldier". In the Conviction Arc where he returned to the mortal plane, Griffith is concerned that his heart is beating when it comes to Guts and Casca, saying it "should be frozen over" note .
    • Rosine completely believes (with some good reason) that all adults are evil and children must be saved and protected (i.e turning them into demonic insect fairies) but Rosine also believes their society invites violence and has no issue with the turned-children killing each other and others. Rosine also misunderstands her beloved friend Jill and Guts, assumes Jill (not without reason) must be romantically/sexually attracted to Guts, fails to understand a father figure likely due to her own abusive step-father and seeks to kill Guts over it. Despite Guts having no attraction to Jill beyond fatherly care, when Guts was relentlessly attacking Rosine she broke out the What the Hell Are You? and asked why he hated her so much; Guts just alluded to the fact that she's one of the Apostles that butchered all his friends (The Band Of Hawk) before and during the Eclipse. Though Guts claimed she wouldn't remember, it's possible Rosine does realize at that moment since she has an Oh, Crap! look on her face, though it's probably more the thought of a human causing pain for an "elf".
    • Farnese (before her Heel–Face Turn) and Mozgus in the Conviction Arc are legitimately confused about Guts's desperate efforts to save Casca. Farnese, when interrogated by him, is baffled as to why Guts came to save the "Witch"; Mozgus is even worse, believing Casca must die to save the land from plague, and questions why Guts is stopping any and all attempts to have Casca burned at the stake. Both fail to understand that Guts might just care about the woman in question. Luca, for comparison, immediately picked up that Guts loves Casca the moment he desperately asked about her.
    • Emperor Ganishka automatically assumes upon meeting Guts that he must be an apostle.
  • Black Cat: Creed is the living embodiment of this, although it verges on "Insanity Cannot Comprehend Sanity" at times. Literally every problem in series was triggered by Creed's inability to process, or even understand, ordinary human feelings. Creed honestly can't understand why his murder of Saya would prevent Train from wanting to join him. Similarly, it leaves him unable to understand why his Bad Boss tendencies will lead to poor morale among his subordinates. Creed seems to see people as existing apart from one another and, as such, social cause and effect has almost no meaning for him, which only fuels his issues.
  • Black Clover:
    • Langris cannot for his life grasp why people would like his brother Finral over himself, unable to understand that being a superior mage doesn't translate to actual acceptance among others if you have a horrible personality. This is best showcased when he's baffled over how Finnes, who he recognizes as a kind soul, could see Finral as a better mage because of his friendly and outgoing demeanor when it's those traits that would appeal to her to start with.
    • Lucifero is equal parts baffled and infuriated when the humans fighting him simply won't give up in the face of his overwhelming power, no matter how many times he smashes their faces into the ground.
  • Played for tragedy in Black Lagoon when Creepy Child Gretel is so confused by Rock showing her genuine kindness and crying for her that she sexually proposes to Rock as thanks.
  • Bleach:
    • As a part of his Villain Decay down to Smug Snake, Sosuke Aizen gets hit with this by the end of his character arc. When Ichigo first confronts him, Aizen attempts to mess with his head by claiming Ichigo has no reason to hate him and is only fighting out of duty, even though he and Ichigo both know Aizen will murder everyone Ichigo knows and loves if he's not stopped. Later on, when Ichigo reappears, clearly looking like he Took a Level in Badass, Aizen assumes the new form is no threat at all because Ichigo changed in a way he hadn't predicted. It hits Aizen much harder in relation to Urahara, however; Aizen appears to be genuinely bewildered and outraged that Urahara, the only man he considers his intellectual equal, is not only content to sit idle rather than try to control the afterlife, but is also opposed to Aizen's attempts to do so.
    • Ulquiorra is a much straighter example. He outright states that he doesn't understand why Ichigo fights him, even though he's hopelessly outclassed. He's equally confused later when Ichigo refuses to finish a fight that his Inner Hollow started.
    • Yhwach unbalances Ichigo by revealing he is Ichigo's ancestor. Later, the Quincy blood Ichigo inherited from him causes Ichigo to instinctively attack the Soul King. Yhwach says it doesn't make sense that Ichigo still wants to oppose him.
  • A Certain Magical Index:
    • Shizuri Mugino gets attacked by an unnamed assailant who uses a Shape Shifter Guilt Trip against her. He says Love Is a Weakness and that her love for Shiage Hamazura and her guilt over killing Frenda Seivelun will weaken her enough for him to crush her. Instead, she massacres him. The assailant is shocked and asks how. Mugino says The Power of Love has made her stronger than ever before, and the assailant is baffled.
    • Leivinia Birdway can easily enter the mindset of politicians and master schemers like Aleister Crowley to predict their actions and motivations. However, Touma Kamijou's drive to help and protect others without expecting any reward or having any ulterior motives makes absolutely no sense to her. She eventually concludes that he is insane.
  • In Cyborg 009, 004 was faced with a fully robot duplicate of himself which was not only stronger and faster, but could perfectly predict his actions, until their battle knocked a bird's nest loose from a tree. The mere act of 004 diving to catch it was so unexpected to the robot that it was effectively a Logic Bomb and caused the robot to malfunction and shut down.
  • The Darkstalkers OVA had Bishamon suffer this when Donovan put himself at risk to save human bystanders during their fight.
  • In Death Note:
    • Light is established as this practically from the start. After he lays out his ultimate goal to Ryuk, the Shinigami points out that if Light successfully kills every evil person in the world, then the only one left will be Light himself. Light's messiah complex prevents him from getting what Ryuk is saying.
    • Mello had kidnapped and traumatized Sayu. Soichiro, Sayu and Light's father, had managed to get the Shinigami Eyes and get back the notebook. Light was expecting his father to write out Mello's name as soon as he saw his face but Soichiro simply threatened Mello, preferring to arrest him. Light couldn't understand why Soichiro would do that.
    • Used again with Mello and Light later on, after Mello kidnaps Takada. Mello is killed in ensuing events. Light, whose first loyalty is to his own survival, cannot conceive that someone like Mello would sacrifice himself for any reason and walks right into the trap convinced that Mello was just an idiot. Although not exactly hero and villain, this is clearly a case of selfishness cannot comprehend loyalty. It's worth noting that with other characters that are more clearly good guys, Light tends to have better success predicting their behavior — Near is an example — but, perhaps because Mello demonstrates a kindred disregard for human life early on, Light simply assumes that the other is driven by greed rather than revenge.
    • During the finale of the series, when Light has been outed as Kira, he expects Matsuda to side with him and demands he help and shoot the other members of the Task Force. While Matsuda did sympathize with Kira at first, he's more furious that Light not only led his own father, who Matsuda idolized, to his death at Mello's hands, but had the gall to disrespect his memory and call him a fool, and shoots Light five times in a rage.
  • This is a common Fatal Flaw amongst the villains of Digimon anime series.
    • An example where "Evil Misinterprets The Concept Of Good" occurs in Digimon Adventure, where Puppetmon is a Psychopathic Manchild who thinks having friends means having living toys that can be thrown out or killed whenever they fail you, annoy you, just for fun, or when you simply lose interest in them. Before he was killed by MetalGarurumon, Matt, who's the holder of the Crest of Friendship, tells him point-blank that Puppetmon doesn't understand what having friends means.
    • Digimon Adventure 02: In the final battle, BelialVamdemon uses his Mind Illusion to entrap the Chosen Children through illusions of their most inner desires, except for Daisuke who manages to resist it and free the others from his spell. Baffled that a mere boy manages to resist his Mind Illusion, Belial Vamdemon demands to know how it's possible that Daisuke doesn't have any insecurities or self-doubts for him to feed on. Daisuke answers that it isn't so much that he doesn't have them as he has the ability to handle them and resist the need for escapism because he has the love and support he knows that his friends and family will provide in times of need, giving in process Belial Vamdemon a Shut Up, Hannibal! speech that not only leaves the dark digimon speechless, but also unprepared for the Chosen Children's counter-attack.
    • Digimon Tamers:
      • The Devas and their master Zhuqiaomon believe that the relationship between the human tamers and their digimon partners that helps the digimon to evolve to higher levels aren't so much based on a symbiotic relationship of mutual love and respect as they're based on a parasitic relationship of subjugation and slavery, with the human as the master and the digimon as the slave. So they believe that by invading the real world and enslaving mankind; reversing their misinterpreting of that human/digimon bond, they'll gain the ability to evolve to enough strong levels to wage war against the Eviler than Thou D-Reaper. When they're defeated one by one, they're absolutely baffled that the tamers' digimon would actually remain by their tamers' side rather than join them in their conquest of Earth, believing to the end that they're the humans' obedient, broken-willed slaves rather as their friends.
      • The D-Reaper, being a Digital Abomination that lacks the kind of emotions that regular digimon possesses, has a hard time comprehending anything else beyond its programmed desire to delete all life, humans and digimon included, and when it does evolve enough sentience to understand love and friendship on a bare intellectual, shallow level, it considers those emotions as logical weaknesses that makes humans and digimon inferior to it. A memorable moment is when Juri's father confronts it to try to rescue her from the D-Reaper's clutches, it tries to analyze him in order to understand why a mere human would try to confront it head-on, only to hit a feedback loop due to fact that the concept of familial relationships is beyond its understanding.
      • Ruki, back when she was a semi-Starter Villain, shared the same flawed idea of human/digimon relationship that the Devas does and had Renamon killing and loading up countless digimon, believing that sheer strength and brute force would help Renamon evolve to higher levels. When she saw that Takato and Li managed to get their digimon to evolve to Adult level before her, despite them being less experienced than her, she was absolutely frustrated and impatient at Renamon and at herself. Only by starting to treat Renamon as an actual friend like Takato and Li do with their Digimon does Renamon manage to evolve to higher levels.
  • Dragon Ball:
    • During the 22nd World Martial Arts Tournament of the original Dragon Ball, no member of the Crane School gets why Jackie Chun, AKA a disguised Master Roshi, suddenly throws the tournament match with Tien. While the Crane Hermit attributes it to fear of a superior opponent, Tien at least understands there's more to it, and it's his desperate attempt to understand why Roshi did it that ultimately sparks his Heel–Face Turn.
    • During the 23rd Tournament, Master Shen still considers Goku and his friends Muten Roshi's students, despite Muten Roshi bluntly stating they stopped being his disciples when they surpassed him. Master Shen is a petty, rotten and manipulative bastard who regards his "students" as pawns, and it would never occur to him that Muten Roshi respects his students and stepped down willingly to let them follow their own path. Or Roshi's students show their respect for him by still wearing his School's uniforms.
    • In the Namek Saga of Dragon Ball Z, Goku offers to spare Captain Ginyu and Jeice despite outclassing both of them put together. This show of mercy confuses Ginyu both on principle, and because he thinks Goku is already a Super Saiyan and should therefore be completely ferocious.
    • Dragon Ball Z: Cooler's Revenge: The titular villain after giving Goku a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown decides to destroy the planet as Cooler believes like his younger brother (Frieza) that since he’s so powerful he gets to decide who lives and who dies. Goku after turning into a Super Saiyan and reviving a bird that fell to the ground thanks to Cooler’s destruction, points out that he is hurting people and destroying worlds who have done nothing to him or his family, Cooler of course can't understand what Goku is going on about saying the weak die and the strong survive. This becomes ironic when Goku immediately overpowers him.
    • Subverted in Dragon Ball Super: Broly. While Frieza is incapable of genuinely understanding love and compassion, he recalls how Goku’s original change into Super Saiyan and Unstoppable Rage was triggered by Krillin’s death, and thus understands as far as “Saiyans losing loved ones = Despair Event Horizon Super Mode”. He weaponizes this idea while spectating the fight with Broly’s father Paragus, chooses to kill Paragus with a Death Beam, and in an spout of hammy acting, alerts Broly to it while claiming that a stray energy blast killed Paragus. The scheme works, with Broly going One-Winged Angel in grief. That said, the plan still bites Frieza on the ass when Goku and Vegeta lure Broly to his location before warping away with Instant Transmission, leading to Frieza getting a very satisfying and karmic No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, which Frieza — who thought he could just use Broly as a tool against Goku and Vegeta — never considered would happen to him.
    • Played straight earlier in the same movie as Paragus is bemused at Cheelai’s disgusted anger over him using a Shock Collar on Broly, saying it’s none of her business how he treats his son. A flashback shows Paragus was also baffled and angry at his son playing with the alien monster Ba, saying it wasn’t training and therefore a waste of time while shooting Ba’s ear off, ruining Broly’s precious bond with the monster.
  • Fairy Tail:
    • Minerva is so dangerous partially because of how she inverts this. She fully recognizes how some fighters become more dangerous when motivated by The Power of Friendship, and plans to use it to devastating effect with Sting in the Grand Magic Tournament. Specifically, she keeps his Exceed friend Lector as a hostage, and has him hold back as an ace in the hole to defeat the injured Fairy Tail mages after they're done with the other teams. If Sting had succeeded, Saber Tooth would have won, but Sting's doubts, combined with the Heroic Resolve of Fairy Tail, results in Sting surrendering.
    • When Byro tries to kill Coco for treason, Lucy steps in to defend her. Byro asks why she would care about her, especially since Coco was from the enemy's side. Lucy replies, "I have to care about her, because you don't."
    • Invel chains Gray and Juvia together and forces them to fight to the death. He does not anticipate the two killing themselves so they won't harm the other. Juvia on the other hand did plan for this and created a spell that would save Gray by transferring her blood into him (from her POV it's a win-win: her beloved is safe and she gets to "live on" inside him). Fortunately for Juvia, Wendy arrives just in time to heal her.
    • Irene Belserion transforms Hisui into a mouse, fully expecting her father Toma to reject her for no longer being human. Irene becomes confused and angry when Toma says he will work to change her back, and even if he can't, he will always love her.
  • Fate/Prototype: Fragments of Sky Silver: In Paracelsus von Hohenheim's backstory, he was a Magus and a doctor who wanted to publish his work to the public and try to teach Muggles about magic, because he believed powers were a gift to help people and make them happy. The Mage's Association had him assassinated to stop him, but could not understand why he wanted to do that, even after they summoned his ghost to interrogate him. They assumed that he was trying to undermine them, and after he said he just wanted to help people, they declared him crazy.
  • Fist of the North Star:
    • In general most gangs, thugs and murderers legitimately don't understand why Kenshiro gets so angry over them hanging children, capturing women like cattle for sexual slavery, and killing old people. But they're certainly hypocritical enough to beg for mercy when Kenshiro hunts them down like dogs.
    • If Shin really knew and loved Yuria, he really wouldn't be surprised that she was Driven to Suicide by the cruelty and genocide he committed in the name of earning her love. It's revealed in a later episode (though earlier in chronological order, in Yuria Den) that he realized she was lost to him, after she survived her fall only to unconsciously call for Ken.
    • In the case of Raoh, he's so emotionally stunted by his drive to conquer the world that while he still gets brotherly love (hence one of the anime's most touching scenes), romantic love flies right over his head. As a result, he mistook his relationships with Reina and Yuria for ambition (Reina as a comrade in his ambition, Yuria as the source/prize of his ambition) instead of could-have-been-love. The sheer ignorance of Raoh's response, when he's subsequently frightened both by Kenshiro and by Fudou's children, wondering at the source of Kenshiro's power...
    • After Jackal's gang murdered an old lady that was taking care of a bunch of little children, Kenshiro swore that he would track, find, and kill all of them, and began to do just that. After finding a corpse of one of his comrades, a bandit said he didn't understand why Kenshiro was doing something he gained nothing with.
  • Fullmetal Alchemist: The homunculus Envy cannot comprehend the lighter aspects of human emotion. They (Envy is genderless) get baffled and frustrated by how so many former enemies are setting aside their differences and teaming up to defeat Father's forces. Envy unsuccessfully tries to remind the humans of how much they should hate each other. When Envy realizes that they envied humans' kindness and decency all along, they take their own life out of humiliation and despair.
    • Also the series' Big Bad, Father, seems completely unable to understand anything that can't be explained through Alchemical knowledge. Fitting, since he is himself a sentient bit of alchemical knowledge. Namely, he seems unable to comprehend the idea that human lives have value in themselves, as he sees them only as a potential resource. Even after being defeated by The Power of Love, he's dragged through the Gate asking Truth what he did wrong.
    • Shou Tucker is so sick in the head that he fails to understand why the Elric brothers are enraged at him for using his own five-year-old daughter and her dog to transmute a talking but primitive chimera suffering in pain from Tucker's own incompetence with bioalchemy, all for the sake of keeping his State Alchemist licensenote , even going so far as to claim that the brothers' attempt to resurrect their deceased mother via human transmutation is the exact same scenario, which fails miserably because the brothers were able to understand why transmuting humans is wrong from their experience whereas Tucker believes there's nothing wrong with toying with humans' lives and feels no remorse. When Tucker is later placed under house-arrest to have his State Alchemist license revoked, he spends most of that time bitterly wondering why "no-one is capable of understanding me".
  • Azami Nakiri of Food Wars!. He's so obsessed with his plan of establishing a world of gourmet as "revenge" for what happened to his idol Joichiro Saiba that he totally failed to realize that the latter was very much happy and content with a simple life of running his diner with his wife and son. Even when Joichiro's son Soma points this out during his Villainous Breakdown, he still refuses to accept it.
    • Similarly, Asahi Saiba, Joichiro's disciple, is so talented as a chef that he's never truly experienced failure. When Soma tries to explain to him that he's only gotten as far as he has by learning from his failures, Asahi starts deriding him, thinking that he doesn't need such things. Also, he wants to romance Erina for the sake of experiencing familial bonds, but doesn't realize that his approach is toxic and controlling, and most likely would have led to a miserable relationship for them both even without taking into account that they're half-siblings, being the son of Azami from a one-night stand..
  • Golden Kamuy: Ogata believes that deep down, everyone is as much of a sociopath as him and that even when people kill others, they only feign guilt. When met with morally upstanding people like his brother and Asirpa, who stick by their values and live by their code, he is led to try to corrupt them in an attempt to prove this viewpoint. When these attempts fail, he breaks down annoyed and tries to kill them out of a belief they shouldn't exist. Even when Asirpa accidentally shoots an arrow at his eye on accident and in self-defense, he is smiling because he believes he proved his point.
  • Over the years Gundam has shown a few examples of this:
    • In Mobile Suit Gundam, Gihren doesn't seem to understand why his sister Kycilia would be upset that he killed their father. He assumes she's joking when she pulls a gun on him and his final expression is one of pure shock, as he never predicted that she would kill him to avenge their father.
    • Katejina Loos from Mobile Suit Victory Gundam literally got sick since she couldn't comprehend Shakti's thoughts of ending the battle and preserving life.
    • Haman Khan from Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ descended into cynicism and nihilism well before the series began, which is why she can't understand why Judau refuses to join her. She tries several separate approaches to manipulate and seduce him to her side, but all fail.
    • Ultimately, Char Aznable at the end of Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack shows that he can't understand why Amuro keeps fighting to preserve Earth and the Federation noting that even the best of them has the potential to destroy everyone anyway. Amuro agrees that Humans Are Flawed, but that humans also have the potential to save people too, and his hope in people is what ultimately wins out in the end — his determination to save the people of Earth is so powerful that it reverses the effects of Earth's gravity outright on the remains of Axis.
    • Gilbert Durandal in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny is unable to process the fact that people will still have a second chance in life in spite of their worst qualities and why many people choose to oppose his Destiny Plan. It is made apparent in his final standoff against Kira, that without him and his Destiny Plan, mankind will continue to wage wars. Kira rebukes him that he is, and will always be prepared to fight for what he believes is right.
  • Holyland: This is one of King's flaws as mentioned in Chapter 172.
  • Naraku, from Inuyasha, privately expresses some confusion when Sango simply will not kill her little brother Kohaku, no matter what he makes him do. Another particularly despicable instance being when he claims the way the protagonists show mercy to a loyal underling whom he just sent on a suicide mission to take them out makes him sick. He is ultimately revealed to be an interesting subversion when Kagome points out that he is part-human and couldn't possibly have carried out his Manipulative Bastard antics if he didn't understand the meaning of human bonds. On the one hand, this manages to make him a great deal more terrifying as a villain than he would be if he simply didn't get goodness, since it means that he always knew exactly what his actions would do to the protagonists, but on the other hand revealed that his motivations had to go beyond mere lust for power. It is interesting that he was never really aware that the vestiges of humanity he tried so hard to get rid of were, in fact, as much of an asset to him as they were to the protagonist.
  • A unique case comes up in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable. After being discovered by Josuke and co., Yoshikage Kira hides and takes up the identity of Kosaku Kawajiri after killing the real Kosaku. While he finally gets the quiet life he always wanted, including a wife and son, he can't help but retain his serial killer habits. When his pretend wife Shinobu gets attacked by a Stand-using cat, Kira shows genuine concern for her outside of maintaining his facade, but rebuffs it as him making sure she won't draw attention to herself and by extension him.
  • During the Class Trip arc in Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, Kaguya's third eldest brother Unyo reveals that her maid/surrogate sister Hayasaka had been spying on her at the behest of their eldest brother Oko since the day they met, under the assumption that this would cause her to abandon them in disgust. Given that she had several months of Positive Friend Influence under her belt, she instead chose to forgive them, much to his confusion.
  • Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple:
    • Natsu Tanimoto came across as this after he was first revealed to be Hermit, the Fifth Fist of Ragnarok; he refused to believe that Kenichi's sense of right and justice was anything more than a facade. This was eventually justified by his Freudian Excuse (his adopted father was killed by his wife who pretended to love him just to get close to him for his money, and later Natsu himself was betrayed by an associate of the senior Tanimoto who pretended to be trustworthy just for the chance to off Natsu and get his fortune for himself), but after he realized that Kenichi really did believe in his own ideals, he pulled a sort-of Heel–Face Turn and is currently a Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
    • Played straighter with Silcardo Junazard, the "Demon Fist" of YAMI's One Shadow Nine Fists, much later on. He was bewildered that the kidnapped Miu, even in a state of brainwashed bloodlust that he'd previously implanted in her, tried to treat his fatal wound instead of pulling a sneak attack on Akira Hongo, the man who inflicted said wound, as Junazard had expected her to do.
  • Yokoya from Liar Game scoffs and mocks Nao's ideal of saving everyone in the game, including himself.
  • The Legend of Zelda (Akira Himekawa):
    • In the adaptation of The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, the Cubus Sister is shocked when Link and the fairies save Linebeck from her, despite having found out his past crime of abandoning his crew.
    • In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2016), King Bulblin is baffled that Ilia isn't leaping at the opportunity to become his queen after his impressive display of dominance (i.e. brutally mauling her crush, Link).
  • A lot of Eclipse infectees are really irked with Thoma's merciful behavior in Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force.
  • Kam from the Medabots anime refuses to recognize Medabots as sentient A.I.s, preferring to see them as machines for combat, and, by extension, fails to grasp that the Medaforce draws power from the bond that a Medabot forms with its owner.
  • In Muhyo and Roji, Goryo, who'd challenged the protagonists to a ghost exorcism competition, with the ownership of the protagonists' office on the line, recounts the story of the ghost they're dealing with, a Struggling Single Mother who went insane after her daughter died. Goryo finds it hilarious that the woman would be broken by the loss of one child when she could have "made another" much to Nana's horror.
  • My Hero Academia:
    • All For One, as The Sociopath, has this bad. Flashbacks to his past reveal that he never understood why his little brother would defy him since said brother had no hope of actually hurting him, and defaulted to his standard 'slap a quirk on it' method of manipulation, which resulted in the creation of One for All. In the present, he loses his rematch against All Might when he tries to be a Hope Crusher by revealing All Might's weakness to the crowd- only for them to cheer him on regardless, with All for One leaving himself wide open for All Might's Heroic Second Wind. His fight against Star and Stripe is made a Pyrrhic Victory when he fails to anticipate that she'd make a Heroic Sacrifice to cripple him.
    • His protegé Tomura Shigaraki had a plan to kidnap Bakugou and try and recruit him for the League of Villains, thinking that his Jerkass attitude made him better suited as a villain than a hero. He fails to realize that Bakugou may be a Hero with an F in Good, but the operative word there is still Hero. Bakugou pretty much spells the trope out to Shigaraki.
    • Endeavor is a Nominal Hero rather than a villain, but he definitely has a hard time understanding some of the big picture parts of being a hero. It's shown that he doesn't really get why All Might was the Symbol of Peace or why people loved him for it. When All Might strains himself after a battle that cost him his powers to reassure the civilian onlookers, Endeavor looks thoroughly confused, though this could be more at the sudden transformation regarding All Might's true form, especially given he looked up to him. Even after he comes to appreciate the importance of providing peace of mind to the people, he admits to All Might he has no idea how to do that.
    • Downplayed and played for laughs ("Jerkass cannot understand good") with Todoroki theorizing that Izuku Midoriya is All Might's secret son, because with Endeavor putting him through Training from Hell, Todoroki just cannot understand (at least at first) that All Might would become someone's mentor without an ulterior motive - or at least, one as awful as Endeavor's.
    • Similarly downplayed but more dramatic with Bakugou's borderline Irrational Hatred of Midoriya, stemming from the fact that Izuku once tried to help him stand after falling on a stream when they were kids. Ten years of unrelenting bullying stemmed from the fact that Bakugou just cannot accept that Deku was not looking down at him at that moment. When he finally accepts this was not the case, it's after a lot and Character Development.
    • Dabi, upon revealing himself as the thought-dead Touya Todoroki, wonders why Izuku is defending Endeavor after he'd just revealed what Endeavor had done to him in the past. Izuku already knew about that, but he's also aware that Endeavor is The Atoner at that point and respects his drive to be better than his past, while Dabi has fully fallen to his own obsession with revenge.
  • Naruto:
    • Gaara, back when he was an Ax-Crazy Serial Killer who honestly thought his purpose in life was to kill people. When Guy stopped him from killing a beaten and defenseless Lee, he had no idea why Guy protected someone who "failed". We actually saw his world-view (represented by images of his childhood) shattering. Nor did he understand how Naruto could keep pushing himself so hard in their final fight, hard enough that even when both of them were utterly exhausted, Gaara was flat on his back but Naruto was crawling on his chest to fight him, because that was the only way to save Sakura and his friends. He only quit when Sasuke showed up and told him Sakura was safe. Naruto got Gaara just fine, though; he knew exactly what Gaara had been through and explained to him that it was finding friends like them that saved him from the dark, angry place Gaara was in himself. Worth noting is that Gaara takes this to heart and while he never quite loses the creepy vibe he gives off, he proves to be just as loyal to his friends and family as Naruto himself.
    • As Sasuke falls deeper into darkness, he admits a couple times that he has no clue why his old teammates are still going to such lengths to get him back on their side. Whether it's out of his obsession-born apathy or a low opinion of himself depends on which point in the story we're talking about.
  • One Piece:
    • Crocodile is completely confused and pissed about how and why Luffy is still fighting him despite having been stabbed though the shoulder with a poisoned blade, wanting to know where Luffy is drawing his strength from.
    • In Luffy's backstory, the nobility of Goa Kingdom concoct a plan to impress the Celestial Dragons, the highest world nobility, by removing all the trash piled just outside the city walls and cleaning the place up. They plan to do this by setting the trash on fire, with no regard whatsoever for the hundreds of poor and impoverished who make that area their home. Upon discovering this, a noble boy, Sabo, is shocked and horrified. This is made worse when he realizes that not only did the majority of his fellow nobles know what is happening, but they do not see why he would be so horrified by it.note 
    • CP9 don't understand why the crew went so far to rescue Robin from them and the World Government and label them as "crazy". Jabra and Kaku (the latter is anime-only) claim to Sanji and Zoro respectively it's stupid for them to care so much about a "doomed woman", angering both of them and turning the previously difficult fights into cake walks. Spandam especially is so deranged that he believes that bringing in a innocent woman (Robin) to Marine Headquarters to have her tortured for secrets of the ancient weapons and then killed will make him a "hero", and he even yells gleefully multiple times that he is a hero as he drags Robin towards the Gate Of Justice before an actual hero like Usopp shoots him down.
    • Shiryu doesn't see the problem in butchering prisoners (or as he puts it "human trash") whenever he likes.
    • Caesar Clown has no morality when it comes to developing weapons of mass destruction despite the pleas of his fellow scientists, claiming there will always be buyers like Akainu who would appreciate his work. Played with in some unusual ways though, in that by the Totto Land arc, he's been roped into performing heroic actions by the main characters and demonstrates that he does understand why people do good. He just really hates having to do good things for other people.
    • The Vinsmoke family, Sanji's father and siblings, are the rulers of the organization and mobile nation Germa 66. They view their status as their birthright and anybody below them exists to serve them to the point of expecting their soldiers to serve as willing human shields at their command. This leaves them perplexed when the White Sheep of their family is a man who would gladly cook for commoners or even animals and treats their servants like human beings (i.e. not beating the shit of innocent women because she made some food they didn't like). Yet even Reiju, the eldest child and the only one among them who shows anything like empathy or concern that isn't Moral Myopia, is confused at her brother's loyalty to the father figure who showed him genuine compassion.
    • Later, when Sanji rescues him from Big Mom, Judge is flabbergasted as to why he'd do so. Sanji coldly tells him that his mentor Zeff (who has far more right to be called his father than Judge does) would never forgive someone who left his blood kin to die (as part of a larger "The Reason You Suck" Speech.)
      • Judge also asks Luffy why he would go so far for someone like Sanji, reiterating what he believes makes said individual a failure, as mentioned above. Luffy isn't offended, saying that those are Sanji's best qualities.
    • Pudding also has a major Freak Out when Sanji compliments her third eye as not a single person had ever said anything nice about it and she learned to hate it along with herself. Pudding assumes during the wedding battle Sanji is tricking her like she did to him, but Sanji just states she is deluding herself.
    • When Oden learned how the Kurozumi Family was unjustly persecuted for the actions of Kurozumi Orochi's grandfather and how they were hunted down and terrorized with unreasonable violence and unfairly killed as sinners simply for being blood-related to his grandfather, he was in shock. However, when Orochi showed Oden a room of hundreds of hostages, Oden became furious and clashed with Kaido. To stop them from destroying the castle, Orochi came up with a deal to blackmail Oden. If Oden danced naked in the Flower Capital once a week, the hostages Orochi has taken, as well as the citizens of Wano, would be spared. Orochi and Kaido also promised to leave Wano in five years. Believing in the deal, Oden left the castle and a few hours later, he started dancing naked in the streets of the Flower Capital. He did this once a week, causing the people of Wano to lose faith and respect for him. Unknown to the people of Wano, the same person who they ridiculed had sacrificed his own honor and reputation just to save and protect them. Oden made this choice to avoid involving innocent people in a battle and resolve Orochi's tyranny peacefully, while making amends to the Kurozumi clan as well. Unfortunately, Orochi never intended to respect the deal, mocking Oden for sacrificing his honor so easily because, unlike him, Orochi doesn't consider other people's lives worth saving.
  • Pokémon: The Series:
    • In the Diamond and Pearl arc this is the reason why Paul could not raise Chimchar to his full potential; as he thought making friends with his Pokémon was a waste of time. This came back to bite him in the ass when Ash raised said Chimchar into an Infernape and beat him in the Pokémon league.
    • An earlier example was with Damien in the early Kanto saga. Even though he treated his Charmander like crap and left it to die in the rain, he still expected it to wait for him to come get it and welcome him back with open arms. Cue Charmander defecting to Ash and roasting Damien.
    • In Best Wishes 2 Episode N's Grand Finale, Colress and Ghetsis are astonished at the fact that Ash's Pikachu and Reshiram freed themselves from the Pokémon Control Machine under their own power, and don't understand how they could. They are so awestruck at how their plans failed that it sends them both into a Villainous Breakdown.
  • Pretty Cure
    • In Futari wa Pretty Cure Splash★Star, Lord Akudaikahn is so utterly unable to understand anything but his own thirst for destruction that he has a Villainous Breakdown and goes completely insane when the Heel–Face Turn-ed Michiru and Kaoru reveal to him that, in fact, he did commit a good deed, by giving them life.
    • HuGtto! Pretty Cure: Bicine, one of the employees of the Dark Tomorrow Company, is completely incapable of figuring out why anyone would bother moving forward even when faced with overwhelming despair. Episode 47 has him getting double-dosed with this, confused as to why Charalit, Papple, Daigan and Traum would bother fighting for a brighter future despite being adults (where most people would assume that it's too late for them to fix things), before finally reaching the Despair Event Horizon upon seeing Ristoru, whom he considered his only friend ever since Harry defected, undergo a Heel–Face Turn right before his very eyes.
  • Serves as a pivotal point in Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Kyubey can't understand why there's such an emotional impact of losing one person when there are seven billion people. Although Kyuubey isn't evil per se, he just has a goal that the main cast disagrees with when they learn the truth. Ironically, he is beaten when Madoka uses her wish as a Heroic Sacrifice to save all other magical girls from his scheme; Kyubey doesn't see this coming because he thought humans were too selfish and focused on individuals to do such a thing.
  • Queen Millennia:
    • Larela just doesn't understand that being a space tyrant and treating others like animals doesn't make her likable. She keeps offering Hajime things he'd like in exchange for his freedom and is confused why he'd rather starve in protest.
    • Similarly, Larela hasn't considered that sending Queens Millennia to live on Earth for 1000 years and then taking them away has a risk of making them disloyal.
  • Rain: When Reygul asks Rain why he fights, Rain says it's to protect the people he wants to protect. Reygul explicitly says he cannot comprehend that; specifically, he can't understand why someone as powerful as Rain doesn't have more ambitious goals. Made more ironic when Reygul's brother chastises him for abandoning his duties as the guardian of their homeland in favor of world conquest. Reygul is supposed to be doing what Rain is doing.
  • Being a deconstruction of the Fighting Series Played for Laughs, Ramen Fighter Miki deconstructs this trope with Megumi: given her self-hatred, she considers herself as a Card-Carrying Villain, but she is only a School Yard Bully All Grown Up who cannot understand why she has to help anyone or why anyone would want to be her friend… because her definition of friend is "Someone who I can manipulate to defeat Miki". She cannot understand why Kayahara Sensei would want to be her friend, nor that Idiot Hero Kankuro would want to help her in her quest.
  • Rosario + Vampire:
    • When Tsukune, about to be executed, asks that he spare the other members of the Newspaper Club, Kuyou is genuinely surprised that he would make such a selfless request despite facing execution. In general, Kuyou openly derides the very idea of human/monster co-existence as ridiculous at best and sickening at worst.
    • Kiria is completely taken aback when Kurumu chooses to save Moka's life despite the two being rivals for Tsukune's love, as he genuinely believed that Kurumu would just let Moka die; as Kurumu points out to him, just because she's competing with Moka for Tsukune does not mean that she hates Moka or wants her dead.
  • Rurouni Kenshin:
    • Kanryu Takeda does not understand why the heroes are trying to rescue Megumi even though there is no reward waiting for them. He is even more bewildered that they refuse to take his bribes.
    • In a filler episode involving sumo wrestlers, the villain gets confused why Kenshin and the others are saving his victims when they do not have anything to gain from it.
    • A more tragic example with Seta Soujiro, though it's more a case of willful denial — he was only able to deal with killing by completely entrenching himself in Shishio's philosophy. The mere idea of Kenshin's opposing philosophy to protect the weak enrages him, eventually driving him into a full-on breakdown.
  • Kurokawa in Sabikui Bisco berates Milo and calls him a fool for devoting his time and medical expertise toward helping the poor at his own expense rather than working for him and earning a decent government salary.
  • In the Ten Commandments saga of The Seven Deadly Sins, Gowther seems unable to understand the concept of humilitynote ; he tries to shock Escanor into a Heroic BSoD by making him relive every event in his past he feels guilty about, but Escanor is unfazed, because he's already accepted the truth of what he did and so Gowther showed him nothing he didn't already know. This miscalculation leads to Gowther losing the battle...and being further surprised when Escanor shows him mercy.
  • Tao En/Yuan in Shaman King, who refuses to believe that you can trust anyone due to the way his ancestors were persecuted for their shaman powers. This is crucial to his defeat — he's more powerful than any of the main characters at that point, but watching The Power of Friendship trump self-preservation destroys his focus.
  • A Silent Voice,
    • Of all the bullies who bullied the deaf girl Nishimiya, only Kawai the Class Representative doesn't understand why the others felt remorse for bullying her, nor does she understand why she should feel remorse herself.
    • There’s also Ueno who in her jealousy couldn’t understand why her crush Ishida is now so attracted to Nishimiya when he bullied her in the past. She rationalises it as Ishida being a sucker for weak, quiet pitiable girls like Nishimiya. Additionally she perceives Nishimiya herself as a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing, thinking she’s just using her disability to fool people into thinking she’s a nice girl, when in actuality Nishimiya really is just that compassionate.
  • Slayers:
    • This is the reason that Dark Star merges with his mortal enemy Vorfeed to become an entity to destroy all universes and then rebuild them into a world where the two of them would not need to fight each other anymore.
    • In the manga, Knight of the Aqua Lord, the Big Bad of that season took the power of a god and went insane.
  • Soul Eater: In the anime, Asura is defeated because he can't understand why Maka keeps fighting despite being clearly outmatched. His inability to understand the concept of bravery and dedication confuses him, allowing Maka to land a fatal blow.
  • Sword Art Online:
    • Sugou Nobuyuki, the Big Bad of the Fairy Dance arc, thinks that Kirito will be too afraid to enter Alfheim Online to attempt a rescue of his kidnapped wife and and gloats about this to said wife in order to demoralize her. Not only is Kirito more than strong enough to dive headfirst into the game on the off chance he can save Asuna, she is well aware of that, and hearing that Kirito knows she's in danger is enough to keep her going for a little while longer. She herself lampshades this, saying that if Sugou had any understanding of love, he would have lied and said Kirito was dead.
    • In the War of the Underworld Arc, Leafa arrives in the Underworld and encounters Lilpilin, an orc, whom she treats no differently than any other human despite most humans in the Underworld hating orcs and treating them like pigs. Dee Eye Ell, a human Dark Mage in service of Emperor Vecta of the Dark Territory, begins draining Leafa's life, and when Lilpilin objects, forces him to strip naked. Lilpilin, enraged, defies his programming as a Fluctlight to attack Dee Eye Ell, cutting off her legs and forcing her to release Leafa. Dee Eye Ell, enraged, turns on Lilpilin and tries to kill him, only for Leafa to cut off her arms. Dee Eye Ell is shocked that a human would cut another human to save a "pig," but Leafa declares that she's cutting down evil to save a person before finishing off Dee Eye Ell.
  • The Anti-Spiral's speech to Nia in the final episode of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann would indicate that it doesn't understand why humanity continues to fight against the impossible odds it faces: "Your actions are baffling, Irregular. Why do you resist us so?" After it asserts that it could permanently suppress humanity if it knew what the source of their determination was, Nia then lampshades the trope, stating that the Anti-Spiral cannot possibly understand and that it should stop trying. Unfazed, the Anti-Spiral states that it doesn't need to understand, it just needs to know.
  • Tokyo Ghoul: Kureo Mado cannot understand that the ghoul Hinami Fueguchi is a genuinely kind-hearted and innocent girl, who refuses to kill Mado and avenge her parents because revenge means nothing to her. The concept of a ghoul that is not completely evil is utterly abhorrent to him. Mado proceeds to attempt to murder Hinami and Touka until it gets him killed.
  • Trigun: Knives, being something of a Psychopathic Manchild, doesn't understand why his twin brother Vash would choose to side with the humans over himself, when the humans (in Knives' eyes) are nothing more than parasites who leech the lives of Plants (from whom Knives and Vash were born). Knives has a particularly massive Freak Out when Vash dares to shoot him, unable to cope with the idea of Vash being willingly kill his own brother to protect humans. Knives also couldn’t comprehend why Vash loved Rem (their adoptive mother) so much and why he was so distraught at her Heroic Sacrifice, saying he only planned to keep Rem around as “a pet” because Vash was so attached to her.
  • Tweeny Witches: Sigma pulls a Batman Gambit against Arusu and her group to bring Grande the True Book of Spells, manipulating them into believing that Arusu and Sheila are going to die of "deadly grey" in 24 hours unless Eva makes an "antidote" with a flower at the end of the cave and a spell on the book. He thinks that Eva's incompetence means that she'd give up trying to reach the end of the cave through warlock soldiers, only for Sheila to point out that her courage and kindness keeps her going no matter what. While he knows saving Eva would earn Sheila's trust, his belief that Sheila still believes in herself alone much like him leaves him bewildered when she throws herself alongside Arusu trying to save Eva from falling over the end of the cave.
  • Kuruku from Osamu Tezuka's Unico started out as an ordinary puppet, but was mistreated by his owners and thrown away. After years of loneliness, he was reborn due to his intense hatred for humanity and everybody else. Unico being the All-Loving Hero, feels genuinely sorry for him and tries his hardest not to attack or hurt him. Unfortunately for Unico, he's forced to attack Kuruku by stabbing him when he's seconds away from killing him. After Unico apologizes to him when realizing he severely hurt him, Kuruku is extremely confused and enraged over Unico's apology. As the eponoymous unicorn tells him how strongly he sympathizes him over years of loneliness and filled with intense hatred for everything. Kuruku gets weak and screams at Unico for telling him "He's lonely" and "Needs a friend". When Unico insists on becoming Kuruku's Only Friend, he gets frightened and believes nobody could become his friend. Unico is surprised and sad over his response by telling him that "Anyone can have a friend" while comforting him during his final moments.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh!:
    • Yu-Gi-Oh!: During the Death-T arc, when Yugi and his pals are trapped in the Death T-3 room, which involves giant blocks falling and attempting to crush them, Kaiba firmly believes that everyone only cares about themselves most of all and at least one of Yugi's group will betray the others to save themselves. Honda/Tristan proves him wrong when he is pinned by the jacket between two blocks, helping Yugi escape and remaining behind.
    • Yu-Gi-Oh!: Seto Kaiba is a proudly self-proclaimed loner, and his disdain for everyone else and self-imposed obsessive rivalry with Yugi are no secret. When Kaiba is forced into a tag team duel with Yugi as his partner, he spends the majority of the duel refusing to work together and insisting he doesn't need Yugi's help. Then a pivotal moment comes and their opponent has to choose between defeating (and killing) Yugi or destroying Kaiba's beloved Blue Eyes White Dragon, and Kaiba taunts the Rare Hunter about being too afraid to attack his dragon. Their opponent takes the bait, assumes Kaiba is trying to save himself and his dragon, and destroys Kaiba's Blue Eyes instead, never considering for a second that Kaiba wanted to save Yugi.
    • Yu-Gi-Oh! GX:
      • Giese Hunt assumes that the reason why Johan uses the Crystal Beast cards is because he seeks its ace card, Rainbow Dragon, to sell for profit, which is what Giese seeks it for. Johan angrily retorts that the Crystal Beast cards have a bond with and chose him as their master, and even if he found Rainbow Dragon, he would only treat it as another friend.
      • Edo Phoenix is the designated and self-proclaimed Anti-Hero, so he confuses even himself when he makes a Heroic Sacrifice trying to save Ekou, someone he just met who should mean nothing to him.
    • In Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds, Jose doesn't understand why Crow would lose on purpose just to give Yusei a fighting chance in their tag-team duel.
    • In Yu-Gi-Oh! SEVENS the previous Arc Villain Yuuou Goha notices his 4 siblings are being unusually nice to him after he spent the last 15 episodes plotting to oust them from their family's shared position as President of Goha Corporation and make himself the sole President of the company. He walks in on them diligently cleaning their spaceship home and they outright refuse to let him help even though he insists on it and then finds that his schedule is completely clear for the entire day. He can't understand why they're being so nice to him after everything he's done and assumes they must be plotting something. Yuuou isn't entirely unreasonable to think this, and in fact if not for the utmost importance Japanese society places on family Yuuou would likely come across as being Easily Forgiven. Turns out they were throwing him a surprise birthday party, and Yuuou didn't even realize it was his birthday until it was pointed out to him by Gakuto and Romin (who were both invited to the party and were tasked with keeping Yuuou occupied away from home while his siblings made preparations).


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