Evil Cannot Comprehend Good / Fan Works

Evil Cannot Comprehend Good in Fan Works.

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Crossovers

• Invoked in Adventures of a Super Family when Lex Luthor muses that he’ll try and claim the Green Lantern ring for himself if he has another chance to attack Superwoman, incapable of acknowledging that the ring chooses a bearer for qualities that Luthor could never possess.
• All For Luz:
  • Seemingly played straight then chillingly subverted with All For One in regards to why Luz doesn't like the idea of taking other people's Quirk's.
  • In chapter 29, judging from his tone, All For One doesn't seem to quite understand why Luz would feel guilty about brutally killing several people in self-defence or to avenge her murdered loved ones, as he believes that there's nothing wrong with doing that.
• Avenger Goddess:
  • The Red Skull clearly demonstrates this when he initially learns of Diana's appearance in the war; despite the fact that she was clearly fighting alongside Captain America, Schmidt is certain that he can win this "goddess" to his side by offering her power, incapable of comprehending the idea that she might not want that.
  • Paula von Gunther is genuinely incapable of understanding why Wonder Woman would object to the death of Howard Stark, the last of her old allies from the Second World War and a man Diana considered a brother; Diana explicitly tells Paula that if she has to ask why Diana would care if a particular mortal died, no answer she can give would make Paula understand.
  • Ares makes it clear that he believes Diana will inevitably serve him as she is nothing but Zeus's weapon against him while he's the master of all weapons, unable to comprehend how her humanity will drive her to oppose him.
  • While Circe certainly understands that Diana cares for mortals, she doesn't seem to understand why, or just how much she cares, and seems to assume that Diana will stop caring as much once she chooses a Domain.
  • Circe assumes that Diana’s only helping Thor in order to seduce him and lay claim to Asgard by means of a shared child. She's genuinely confused when Diana refutes this.
• Avenger of Steel:
  • Lorelei is utterly incapable of comprehending the idea that Kal-El would help humans rather than try to rule them. From the moment she first hears of him, she assumes he's made himself The King Of Earth, and filters everything she learns of him through that lens.
  • On a more minor level, when Superman confronts Fisk about the consequences of breaking his deal with the Hand, Fisk initially assumes that Superman is threatening Vanessa before the Man of Steel clarifies that he wouldn't do that and is just making sure Fisk understands the situation.
• Avengers: Infinite Wars;
  • While Wanda acts in defence of her new allies after she arrives on Dathomir, many of her opponents questions why she would do this when she doesn't immediately gain anything from it, unable to truly understand the heroism that motivates her and the other Avengers.
  • At one point, when Sidious and Dooku discuss the buffer against Ultron the Confederacy have received, Palpatine explicitly questions why the Avengers would aid the Confederacy, unable to understand why the fear of Ultron would prompt such an action.
  • On a more personal level, Palpatine has privately reflected that he finds the very concept of the Avengers offensive, unable to understand why beings with such power, including an actual god, would "waste" that power protecting those who should be beneath them. Early on, he also believed that the Avengers and the Republic would "inevitably" come into conflict as the heroes of Earth learnt more about this new culture, the Sith's focus on absolutes leaving Palpatine unable to conceive of the idea that the Avengers could dislike certain aspects of their allies' culture but still wish to aid their allies as they draw a distinction between the Republic being flawed and the Republic being "bad".
  • When Asajj learns that her half-brother Peter Quill was and is still willing to completely remove his Celestial power, she's left completely unable to understand why he would ever want to do that. Growing up amongst the power hungry Nightsisters and the Sith, Ventress has always strived for more power, and to hear that her brother would rather sacrifice the cosmic power he was born with is simply something Ventress is unable to comprehend.
• The Boys: Real Justice:
  • The Deep is desperately trying to join the Justice League by connecting to Aquaman, even though the King of Atlantis is repulsed by him being a serial rapist who abuses humans and sea life alike and is barely cordial to him. At the same time, multiple people, including the Flash's Rogues, point out that the League is never going to accept a sex offender. It's only after Aquaman tells him off that The Deep finally gets the message.
  • Butcher is more of a hardened vigilante than straight-up evil, but he believes Superman is another Fake Ultimate Hero like Homelander.
  • Much like Lex Luthor, Homelander refuses to believe someone as powerful and as beloved as Superman would ever pretend to be a nonpowered human.
• The Bridge (MLP):
  • The Big Bad Bagan has a Villainous Breakdown at one point, unable to understand why Godzilla Junior and the other Kaiju would choose to defend Equestria.
  • Grand King Ghidorah demands to know why Godzilla Junior is a hero despite having "no destiny" (almost all the other heroic Kaiju were designed or chosen for the role, while Godzilla is just a random dinosaur mutated by radiation). Ghidorah is infuriated when Godzilla says he simply chose to be a hero.
  • The Windigoes invert this to a horrific degree. They are able to get Sci-Twi and Wallflower to work for them by pretending to be benevolent spirits, and use truths and outright lies to claim that their tasks are in fact meant to save their world from destruction. In short, they basically manipulate the two girls' decency for their own awful gains.
  • Completely averted with the Dark Hunters. Since they can be more accurately described as mercenaries, they have a good appreciation of things like teamwork and camaraderie . One of the reasons they realize that Princess Twilight wasn't the one who stole Sonata's necklace was her willingness to surrender herself to them to protect her friends. Nobody who would sacrifice herself to protect her friends could ever do something so horrible.
• The Chaotic Masters: Or more accurately, evil that doesn't have standards can't comprehend evil that does — Daolon Wong is dumbfounded by the other attendees at Roulette's auction of magical artifacts counteracting his spiteful attempts to outbid Jade for a Palisman, not understanding why they'd want to help a child at all, let alone one aligned with good.
• Child of the Storm: At the climax of the side story Unfinished Business, the story's Big Bad Nimue enacts her plan to supercharge the world's magic in order to return it to a primordial state where magic users openly rule over Muggles. To her shock, she realizes that the majority of the world's magic users are fighting against her efforts, leaving her baffled as to why they're not sharing in her vision, even when it's explained to her that they're fighting to protect the people they love.
• In Children of Time, this trope is Averted, Defied, and Discussed. This is what makes Professor Moriarty an even more dangerous opponent than he was in the Sherlockian Canon—he even goes so far as to mock Holmes for not having studied the affairs of the heart.
• Code Prime: Suzaku, who isn't really evil but has been getting steadily more villainous as of late, believes that all violence is pointless and believes that the Black Knights and Autobots opposing Britannia is because they’re evil or misguided. He's legitimately thrown for a loop when Optimus makes it clear he opposes Megatron because the latter is an evil tyrant that can’t be reasoned with and only seeks power for himself.
• While the Volturi may be charitably described as having control issues rather than being outright evil, in the Twilight/Heroes crossover Dark Days, Aro and Caius are clearly confused when Peter Petrelli states that he isn't interested in the power he'd gain if he was turned into a vampire because he feels he's powerful enough, the two Volturi exchanging a glance that affirms they don't understand that reasoning.
• The youma Beneda in The Dark Lords of Nerima is a downplayed example of this. An attack on the Senshi at the start of the story went very wrong, forcing her to team up with the Nerima Wrecking Crew and string them along the best she can. Later after Ryouga is grievously injured protecting her from Sailor Mars, Beneda's masquerade breaks and she begins screaming at her allies, protesting that she'd been lying the whole time and wondering aloud why someone would go out of their way to protect an enemy of their entire species. Eventually she realizes that time spent with those who genuinely cared about her was worth more than any amount of time spent cowering in her superiors' shadows, and her Heel–Face Turn starts to take shape.
  • The Sequel, The Dark Lords Ascendant has another downplayed example in Kazuo Tanizaki. While he has taken great pains to study his opponents and can seemingly use their good nature against them, he shows time and again that he doesn't actually understand it, particularly the Heroic Sacrifice, willingly risking injury or death for the benefit of another, which might as well be an utterly alien concept to him. Tanizaki himself is the exact opposite, willing to sacrifice the entire planet for his own benefit.
• Defenders of the Universe: Most of the higher ranks in the Galra Empire really can't understand why Lotor is so merciful towards the races they conquer. Many even laugh at how he lets the planets rule over themselves rather than enforce marshal law on them.
• In The Difference One Man Can Make, the Small Council immediately assumes the new King-Beyond-The-Wall is taking his sweet time until he can launch an invasion on the Seven Kingdoms and think it would be possible to ally with him by offering him a good wedding proposal for his children and riches. Almost no one takes in account the possibility of the Witch King being very happy to stay in the True North and being less than eager to tie himself or his people to the game of thrones.
• Invoked in the Doctor Who/Underworld (2003) crossover Doctor in the Underworld when Marcus feeds on the Doctor, as he suffers a psychological breakdown while experiencing the Doctor's memories because he can’t emotionally cope with the scale of loss that the Doctor has experienced during his lives and the emotions that accompanied it.
• In the Encanto/The Cuphead Show! crossover Doorway to Inkwell Isles, the Devil has no idea exactly why Isabela is refusing to marry him, even though he kidnapped her, is holding her against her will, clearly treats her more like an object than an actual person and has zero problems casually threatening her and her family. Even when Henchman suggests that if he tried just being nice to her, he might have more success, the Devil brushes him off.
• Empathy:
  • Smek is flabbergasted by the heroes being willing to keep fighting the Gorg, even when it's clear they can't win.
  • The Gorg himself can't understand why Baymax is willing to provide him with medical aid after beating him.
• Equestria Girls: A Fairly Odd Friendship:
  • After manipulating Timmy into a Rage Breaking Point that has him attack Tad and Chad and then lash out at his friends when they intervene, the Dazzlings expect their friendship to be ruined, thus isolating him completely. Then to their shock, his friends immediately forgive him.
  • The Dazzlings' plan to blackmail Timmy falls apart because they believe Timmy would only care about magic, not Cosmo and Wanda's well-being. They are taken aback when he’s willing to lose his fairies if it means saving them.
• Fate/Parallel Fantasia: False Caster manages to defeat Gilgamesh by Breaking one of her own Noble Phantasms. In his final moments, Gilgamesh says he can't believe she did that, as he would never willingly destroy one of his treasures. When she says she cares about the world more than mere treasure, he just gets more confused.
• In the One Piece/Steven Universe crossover A Gem in the Rough, Crocodile does not see the world in terms of good and evil, so a person like Steven completely baffles him.
• Grim Tales from Down Below: HIM is upset when his daughter betrayed him but not at the betrayal itself, but the reason for Mimi's betrayal is for the lover of her friend. Him even said that if she betrayed him for petty reasons, he would've been proud.
• In Guardians, Wizards, and Kung-Fu Fighters, Hak Foo can’t understand why Jackie remains so humble despite being possibly the greatest fighter alive, when he himself has worked so hard to earn that title and the recognition that comes with it. It's part of why he hates Jackie so much.
• In the Danny Phantom and Teen Titans fanfic called Haunted Destiny, the evil ghost Valara doesn't decides to kill off innocent people so that Danny can have more time for her. She doesn't understand why he refuses to return her love after learning this.
• Infinity Crisis:
  • As he witnesses Thanos's armies and his own forces attack New York, the Red Skull claims that he now 'understands' the American dream to stay in power whatever the cost, with Rogers affirming that Shmidt doesn't understand that America is about it’s people rather than its government.
  • Obviously, Thanos can't grasp why people are so upset with how he's brought "balance" to the universe by wiping out half the population and that the heroes should just accept his "gift." Superman calls him on this trait with this speech;
    "The problem with people like you, Thanos? You assume everyone else is as greedy and twisted as you are. You can never conceive anyone would care enough to fix the problems by any means but the extreme. And as long as men like you are around... people like me are there to stop them."
  • The spin-off of Distant Cousins has Lex Luthor showing this in spades. Not only does Lex believe that The Dusting was something Superman did so that he could later solve it, but he’s unable to comprehend the idea that not only did Kara tell Lena her identity of her own accord, but that Cat Grant spent years knowing Kara's secret and never shared it because she prized Supergirl's continued ability to help people over getting the headlines for a week or so by revealing her secret. Most significantly, even when he knows that Kara Danvers is Supergirl and the cousin of Clark Kent and Superman, he is still incapable of comprehending the idea that Clark and Superman are the same person, assuming that Superman just has Kara pose as Clark's cousin for another level of security. Lena notes how Lex just can’t accept someone of Superman's power would pose as a regular human being rather than use that power to rule.
    • It's also noted how Lex continues to think Superman and Supergirl are trying to "prove their superiority" to humans rather than helping others.
  • Invoked in Sins, Sirens and Strife, when Amora the Enchantress sees Jane Foster wielding Mjolnir, as she immediately assumes that Jane is wielding Mjolnir because Thor isn't worthy of it, rather than realizing that Thor lets Jane use the hammer because of his respect and affection for her even though he’s still worthy of the weapon himself.
• Justice League of Equestria:
  • Mare of Steel:
    • During the final fight of the first arc, General Zod expresses confusion as to why Rainbow Dash/Supermare would settle for being Equestria's hero, when as a Kryptonian she could rule as a god.
    • In the second arc, Brainiac is a being that runs completely on logic, and is thus thrown for a loop when Rainbow Dash takes a third option, based entirely on emotion, to escape a Sadistic Choice that, logically, should have been escape proof.
  • In The Princess of Themyscria, Ares seems absolutely baffled when Diana decides to keep fighting him to protect the mortal realm from his attempts at a Forever War, when he can't see anything of worth to protect.
• In Kage, Miranda is completely baffled when Tracker lets Jade get nice with Sniffer after Jade gave the hound some of her food. Since she considers Tracker to be an even bigger monster than herself, she can't believe he would be civil with Jade simply because of that, and the only way she can explain it to herself is by assuming that Jade used some kind of spell. She's still convinced Jade is using magic when the spider-girl sees her playing with Sniffer in the next chapter.
  • In the Recursive Fanfiction Shadows over Meridian, Jade's terms for her alliance with Phobos includes him restoring Miranda and Cedric to their true forms and giving them over to her custody, wherein she intends to help set them up with new lives after defeating Elyon and the Guardians. When the two of them demand to know why she'd go out of her way to help them, they're both baffled when she says that she just felt sorry for them, unable to grasp that she doesn't have an ulterior motive.
• In The Last Connor, Skynet can’t understand why Pops would protect Newt when his original programming to protect Sarah Connor has become irrelevant, incapable of acknowledging that Pops' concern for certain humans now goes beyond his programming.
• The Last Son:
  • Magneto, Doctor Doom, Sebastian Shaw, General Zod, and Apocalypse cannot understand why Superman does not use his powers to conquer the world.
  • Darkseid, as usual. It comes with the territory of being the God of Evil and all.
• Lost in Camelot
  • Kilgharrah may not be outright evil, but he still defines Bo and Morgana according to his own perceptions rather than acknowledging them as good people who might make mistakes, such as regarding Morgana telling the Witchfinder about Gaius as an act of deliberate malice rather than desperate fear.
  • Likewise, even when Morgause is trying to be friendly to Morgana, she judges Morgana's relationship with Merlin based solely on what she can see of his physical presence, rather than consider how Morgana might be drawn to Merlin on a personal level.
  • In the sequel The Lost Kingdom, while Uther is a comparatively lighter shade of evil than most, he still assumes that the only reason Arthur is upset at Gwaine leaving Camelot is because the two men were having a sexual relationship, rather than realise that Arthur is angry that a good man like Gwaine has been banished for no valid reason.
• In A Loud Among Demons, Loona is genuinely baffled how Lincoln is such a Nice Guy with little-to-no history of committing misdeeds in his life. Justified, as Loona is a hellborn demon working for an assassination company whose co-workers are all terrible people to various levels. Lincoln's kindness also eventually starts to rub off on Loona, who begins to see the kid as a little brother of sorts.
• The Many Dates of Danny Fenton:
  • Cree Lincoln could not understand why Danny was nice to a little kid or why he cares when he saw her beating on kids. Justified because it's implied that the Teens and Kids were/are in a secret war and Cree Lincoln's hatred for kids was considered a normal thing.
  • Dash Baxter, though more of a Jerkass than evil, doesn't understand why the girls Danny dates, including the very attractive ones, aren't interested in him or ditching their date when he bullies Danny.
  • Even after she's arrested, judged, and sentenced to life in prison for her horrifying treatment of children, Vicky still can't understand what's the big deal about bullying some twerps.
  • A recurring theme within the story and its many sequels is that many of the more shallow characters can't seem to understand that the reason Danny is so incredibly successful with his dates is because he treats all of the girls with dignity and respect instead of with thinly-veiled lust.
• Wesker in My Little Wesker can't understand why these ponies act so friendly and trusting to everyone they meet, after he's stuck there as a pony. At first, he's paranoid that it's all an act to gain his trust, but then concludes that these ponies are too stupid for malice.
• The Night Unfurls: Perhaps unsurprisingly, a majority of the Black Dogs, as well as several traitors who chose to join their cause, play this trope straight.
  • Vault assumes that Kyril's reason for breaking Olga and Chloe out of prison is because he wants the two for himself, when in reality, he does that for the sake of completing his mission of bringing Olga to Ken. Heck, his ambition of creating a Sex Empire is built on the assumption that All Men Are Perverts, so any man would follow him for the prospect that they can all "live like kings", never mind that it is repeatedly shown throughout the story that there are men who disagree and hence resist his regime. The introduction of Token Good Teammate Boris and three Black Dog defectors in the remastered version further proves that not every Black Dog is willing to support Vault's ambition.
  • In a similar vein, when Kyril walked into a scene of several Black Dog mercs molesting Chloe, they assumed that either he wants to join in with them, or he wants her for himself. In fact, he wants to take her to Olga because she asked him to, and that he needed their cooperation for their journey to the South to be less difficult.
  • Beasley is flabbergasted that Kyril would ruin his plans by siding with "weak-willed women".
  • Shamuhaza finds Kyril's persistence to intentionally limit himself via retaining his humanity misguided, believing that the Eldritch Truth is ripe for the taking. The fanfic has made it clear that he is tampering with knowledge he does not understand.
  • There's also Morgan in the remastered version, who thinks that Kyril wants to engage in a Cock Fight with him over Grace, after witnessing how the stranger in the grey coat pulls her in closer to him. Moments ago, Anna asked Kyril to help Grace, who is being harassed by Morgan. He devised a ploy to deliberately rile Morgan up and get his attention, not only to defend her, but also root him out as a traitor.
• The Red Dragon's Saber: Raynare cannot understand why anybody as powerful as Artoria and not connected to House Gremory would want to help Asia and "that worthless loser" Issei.
• In Ring of Fire, when Hiccup and Toothless talk with Galadriel about her theories as to how they came to Middle-Earth, she speculates that it was part of Sauron's campaign to draw all evil things to him for his war, with Galadriel explicitly stating that Sauron could never have imagined that Toothless would not want to be a monster and give in to the dragons' 'natural' desire for gold.
• In Say It Thrice, Lydia's Evil Aunt Melinda seems completely incapable of understanding that not everyone shares her views on ghosts. At the end of the story, as she's being arrested for trying to kill Lydia (for siding against her), she seems completely baffled as to why, as she sees it as having been justified in the fulfillment of her goals.
• In the Harry Potter/Marvel Cinematic Universe crossover Strange Potter, it's observed more than once that the reason Snape rejects Harry's attempts at peace is that he thinks Harry wants Snape to basically bow down to him and give him special attention, when Harry would be satisfied if Snape just stopped treating him like garbage and acted like he was just a regular student.
• This is a recurring element of the fic A Supe of a Man, which adds Clark Kent to the universe of The Boys (2019), his adoption facilitated by his aunt Mary (Martha's sister) who works as a lawyer for Vought, in exchange for Mary sponsoring Clark in the superhero program. Due to the cynical world of The Boys, many people often see Clark's good guy nature as a complete fabrication.
  • While Mary isn't outright "evil" herself, when Clark first witnesses the kind of chaos and destruction other supes cause when he attends a party with a friend and an orphanage is nearly destroyed because Clark's friend and another supe were high on drugs, Mary casually informs Clark that everyone at Vought basically takes it for granted that the heroes will get up to that kind of thing and she's been assuming Clark's just doing the same and dealing with it on his own. Naturally, Clark is horrified at the realization of what the system is really like, and is swiftly reassured by his father that his parents both know Clark would never do such things.
  • Mary is also confused about why Martha and Kent don't take any of the money Clark gets for themselves.
  • When Clark starts dating Lois Lane, nearly everyone at Vought assumes he's just buttering her up to paint him in a flattering light rather than realize that Clark is everything Lois says he is.
  • Stillwell assumes Clark's anger over A-Train's manslaughter is just him grandstanding for the sake of his image rather than genuine outrage over an innocent civilian's death.
  • When Clark tries to tell Homelander about his worries about Supes being in the military, Homelander laughs off these concerns as Superman playing up his public image.
• Super RWBY Sisters: Both Cinder and Emerald don't understand why Peach and Esdeath (respectively) are nice to them even though they are enemies.
• Yellow Diamond in Close Encounters of the Gem Kind, part of the There Was Once an Avenger From Krypton series, can't understand why someone would bother to create Voltron to defend the universe because in her eyes, creating it is a waste of Quintessence that she feels could be used for conquest and colonizing worlds.
• A Triangle in the Stars: Bill suffers from this for the grand majority of this story. He often calls Steven, the Good, an enigma, which comes as a shock to him. Even after he figures it out. Read: "is told".
• Worm: More Than Meets the Eye: Confirmed to be why Regent abandoned Bitch. His nasty upbringing by Heartbreaker trained him to believe that it was every man for himself and so when Lung, an opponent the Undersiders couldn't possibly face, showed up, he basically put the 'I don't have to outrun the bear, I only have to outrun you' joke in practice. He tripped up Matrix (who was trying to help them) in order to escape, thinking that Grue and Tattletale would be doing the same thing. Instead, they saw what he'd done as a betrayal of the team, and when he came back, made it very clear that he was unwelcome.
  • When Saint captured Taylor, he immediately demanded the self-destruct codes for every single one of her creations. A nonplussed Taylor told him she'd never programmed anything like that, causing him to turn violent, screaming there was no way the PRT would have allowed her to deploy unchained Artificial Intelligences.

Aladdin

• In Opposites Destroy, the group face a threat in the form of Djinn, a genie of the necklace who sought to use his powers to rule humans rather than serve them. Although Djinn is able to manipulate his latest master into freeing him of all the usual genie limitations while allowing him to retain full power (as opposed to Genie being freed and 'downgraded' to "semi-phenomenal, nearly cosmic powers" after Aladdin set him free), he is ultimately defeated thanks to the aid of the Mukhtar and Fasir, who observe that Genie is still more powerful than Djinn because he has friends who will never allow him to fight alone.

Animorphs

• In Animorphs Redux, this is arguably invoked with David and the Yeerks, as characters note that both David and the Yeerks can’t comprehend the idea that their enemies will keep fighting even against hopeless odds. There is a more specific example of this in David's dynamic with Melissa Chapman, the new seventh Animorph, as David felt that Melissa should "sympathize" with him just because they were both once the "new kid" on the team, unable to acknowledge the differences between them as Melissa is more willing to become part of the group where David wanted to make it all about himself.

Avatar: The Last Airbender

• In The Stalking Zuko Series, Bato gives a passionate speech defending his romance for Ming, a Fire Nation prison guard, saying that the fact that they're from different nations doesn't matter as long as they love each other. Hahn, the misogynistic prospective son-in-law of the chief of the Northern Water Tribe, asks Bato if he's aware that he "can fuck her and leave her," clearly having no idea that Bato doesn't treat women as horribly as he does.

Battlestar Galactica (2003)

• In Did I Make the Most of Loving You?, Zarek in particular demonstrates this; not only does he assume that Roslin seduced Adama to secure her own power rather than recognise that they genuinely love each other, but he talks about how he and Adama were no different beyond Adama having a uniform, ignoring the lines he crossed in his quest for power that Adama would never have considered.

Bleach

• It happens on a lesser scale in Bleach: Fan Works. Vanilla River, an In-Universe fanfic writer who likes demonizing Orihime to ship Rukia and Ichigo together, cannot understand why Orihime would say, in response, that she wants to get together with Ichigo, but does not hate Rukia, the one she would consider to be her main rival.

Danny Phantom

• In one story of the Facing the Future Series, Maddie gives an epic speech to Vlad how he is incapable of love. However, Vlad just shrugs it off.

The DCU

• In the Man of Steel fanfiction Daughter of Fire and Steel, the Black Zero crew do not understand why Kal-El is keeping his existence a secret instead of taking over the world. Kara is the only who figures out that her cousin obviously wants to rule over nobody.
  Dev-Em: I've tapped into their global networking grid but I haven't found anything on Kal-El. Not a single mention of him dating back to the time he should have landed on this planet.
  Dru-Zod: There has to be something. Someone with his kind of strength and abilities would have not gone unnoticed.
  Tor-An: Maybe the signal didn't come from him.
  Faora Hu-Ul: Or maybe he's in hiding.
  Aethyr: Why would he hide? With his abilities he should be ruling over this world.
  Kara Zor-El: Unless he truly is like his father then he wouldn't feel he has the right to.
  [annoyed glares]
• Kara of Rokyn presents a "Evil Cannot Comprehend Good Is Not Soft". Nasthalthia Luthor believes Supergirl saved her uncle's life once upon a time because she is a stupid, little miss goody two-shoes, when the truth is that she didn't want Lex to escape his life imprisonment via a quick death.

Digimon

• In Digimon Adventure 02: The Story We Never Told, Oikawa cannot wrap his head around the selflessness of the Digidestined, seeing them as fools for not understanding his vision.

Disney Animated Canon

• In Hope for the Heartless, the Horned King is brought back to life by the Fates and given a seemingly absurd Redemption Quest: he must under eighteen months earn a human's love, or else he'll be trapped forever inside the Black Cauldron. At first he's not interested in trying to reach for something he, a hideous warlord and scary mass-murderer, can't possibly achieve, but then he takes a prisoner to keep his return a secret. Said prisoner, Avalina, surprises him numerous times with her extraordinarily strong aura of Life, purity, and ability to hold on to her ideals despite every bad thing that happens to her (because of him or otherwise). The most astonishing thing for the lich is that over the months they spend together in his castle, the girl is able to let go of her fear of him, pity his sad existence, and call him her friend. Also, he hasn't had a heart for centuries, so he hasn't felt positive emotions for a long time. When Avalina causes them in him with her beautiful piano playing and aura, he struggles to recognize them.
  • Creeper, the Horned King's goblin lackey, has for his entire life served his abusive master, having to endure the lich's chokings and his soldiers' bullying, becoming a self-serving coward in order to survive. He's confused when Avalina begs for the Horned King to spare him despite the fact that the goblin caused a bad bruise on the girl's face while she was at her weakest. The air of kindness Avalina brings in is quite alien for Creeper initially, along with his master's growing kindness towards Avalina.

Doctor Who

• In Not Better, Just Different, Davros attempts to taunt the Doctor with the idea that his companions are just as 'dispensable' to him as Earth is to the Daleks' current plan for the reality bomb, unable to comprehend that the Doctor sees each of his companions as special and unique in their own way, each one with their own strengths and quirks, rather than regarding them all as identical followers.
• In Protect and Survive, the Seventh Doctor faces a future incarnation of himself who has destroyed human history in order to prevent himself travelling with humans, the future Doctor believing that human compassion weakened him so that he didn't stop the Daleks before the Time War destroyed Gallifrey. Although the Thirteenth Doctor believes that he has accounted for every trick Seven might pull to stop him, Seven realizes that he can prevent Thirteen's plan by killing himself, deducing that Thirteen is so warped and insane that he's incapable of comprehending the notion of such a sacrifice.

Downton Abbey

• Downplayed as Thomas is hardly evil, but in Halo Effect, he doesn't fully understand the concept of kindness for its own sake. He thinks he needs to blackmail Anna into doing what she considers to be pretty normal friendly favor (pretending to walk out with him on a "double date" so he can spend time with his boyfriend)^note This is more or less a crime by the standards of the time, but Anna at least thinks it's no big deal, and when William's mother is dying and he needs Thomas to cover his shifts for the next day or two, Thomas agrees if William will stay up late to let him back into the house since he wants to extend his half day before he has to work double. Bates finds it rather galling that Thomas expects William to stay up half the night while his mother is dying, but Thomas's logic is that William's train doesn't leave until morning, and given the worry on his mind he's not likely to sleep a wink anyway, so it's not really a big inconvenience for him. Anna privately points out to Bates that although it looks weird, she thinks Thomas is actually trying to be nice.
  Bates: Making William sit up all night waiting for him, while his mother’s dying, and he’s out carousing…
  Anna: About that. I’m not entirely sure that he didn’t think, in some way, that that was helpful.
  Bates: How?
  Anna: You know William was worried about leaving us all in the lurch, and Thomas especially. Mr. Carson practically had to order him to go.
  Bates: William is very conscientious, yes. And don’t tell me Thomas won’t be holding it over his head before Mrs. Mason is cold in the ground.
  Anna: Well, that’s the point. I think what he was trying to say is that William would have paid off the debt up front, and not to worry about it.
  Bates: Wouldn’t it be a lot simpler not to call it a debt in the first place? If he really wanted to help.
  Anna: I’m not sure he entirely understands... That the rest of us aren’t keeping score all the time.

Dragon Ball Z

• In A Glad Day, Jeice is perplexed as to why Bulma doesn't hate the Saiyans and wonders why she didn't use her great intelligence to destroy them.

The Fairly OddParents!

• In Never Had a Friend Like Me, Norm has trouble dealing with Amanda initially because he's never met an unselfish human who didn't immediately try to waste all three wishes.

Fate/stay night

• Fate/Harem Antics: Angelica Ainsworth is more amoral than evil, but she is completely confused when Shirou Emiya says he wants to use his powers to save people.

Frozen (2013)

• Many Prince Hans redemption fics such as A Marriage Of Convenience and All's Fair in Love and War are rife with this and the What Is This Thing You Call "Love"? tropes, as he's been abused and ignored by his family since childhood, causing him to crave the personal glory he never received. Due to this, he initially thinks Love Is a Weakness, assume it's a Crapsack World where only competition matters, and will be baffled on how the sisters found happiness even after 13 years of separation while he remains miserable. Taking a level in kindness is what's needed for him to realize that Love Redeems and there's more to things in life than just being obsessed with power. Having been used to hatred for so long and as compassion of any kind is alien to him, Hans's redemption makes him realize how this made him an enemy of the heroes. Sometimes, he even gets a Silly Rabbit, Cynicism Is for Losers! speech from the heroes. Given his backstory, he's never met too many nice people in his life.

Gargoyles

• The AU fic An Alternate Life depicts a world where the Manhattan Clan and Demona are all human and Elisa is the last gargoyle survivor of Wyvern. In this reality, Dominique Destine abandoned her daughter Angela in a group home while Goliath was away after he joined the army following 9/11, and Goliath only even learned Angela existed when she contacted him as a teenager. When Dominique attempts to claim that she did that for Angela and questions where Goliath’s belief in forgiveness is when dealing with her, Goliath counters that to deserve forgiveness someone must understand what they did that was so wrong in the first place, and Dominique still doesn’t understand why her actions hurt Angela, whereas he has no problem treating Elisa as an ally because she has acted to protect Angela and other innocents even though she isn’t human.

Harry Potter

• In The Chosen Six, while it may be a bit extreme to consider Petunia "evil", it’s explicitly noted that she never realised that Lily didn't consider herself "better" than Petunia just because she and her son were magical and Petunia and Dudley weren't, to the extent that Petunia regards Dudley having magic as a sign that she's "beaten" her sister.
• Even if he's more a Well-Intentioned Extremist than an evil person, in Don't look back in Anger Dumbledore chooses to not warn Lupin, Harry or any other member of the Order about Voldemort's plan to kidnap Luna. His reason? He thinks that Harry, who can project his soul out of his body, will follow her and then come back to tell them where Voldemort's base is. Hermione knows that Harry will not leave her and will die with Luna before that. Dumbledore just doesn't understand that because he didn't see nothing wrong in risking only one life (Luna) to end the war, even if that life is a child. It's Lampshade Hanging by the author, who says that Dumbledore is unable to make an emotional connection because he had never been a parent and can't understand that every parent in his office would die before sacrifice his or her own child. After the Dark Lord is vanquished, Dumbledore is fired from his job of Headmaster and no one, even his brother, wants to have anything to do with him because a person who can leave kids to die will never be able to work in a school.
• In Ginny Weasley: Double Life, Simora is another hypnosis-capable snake like Milikan, but he and others like him cannot understand why Milikan would keep Ginny as a servant rather than eat her or make her a permanent slave (which would involve taking her from her family).
• In The Power of Seven, during the holidays, the Death Eaters attempt to 'infiltrate' Harry's harem by setting up a scenario where Pansy Parkinson will be 'rescued' from an apparent torture session and then present her as willing to betray her family as they believe Harry is "dominated by his lusts for the flesh" and will be willing to screw her just because she's attractive. The harem observe that the Death Eaters are clearly incapable of even comprehending the idea that Harry is only having sex with girls he genuinely cares about rather than having sex with any willing girl, to the extent that they assume the only thing the harem are doing with each other is having sex rather than actually making plans. When Pansy tries to infiltrate the group, she can't fathom why six women would throw away their reputations to have sex with one wizard, both because she's unaware of the ritual and because she can't understand that the girls all love Harry and enjoy having sex with him.
• In Return to Prince Manor Jarillion assumes mental control over Harry and Draco and commands them to kill Snape. Problem is:
  Jarillion might be a master of compulsion, and his love of discord second to none, but one thing he had never understood and that was how the ties of blood and love bound one another, a love so powerful that even the best spell of obedience could not compel Harry to destroy Severus.

Hellaverse

• Owl's Hell That Ends Well: Striker is revealed to be well-aware that Stolas' long-lost daughter Octavia has been secretly adopted by an imp named Blitzo, but he thinks that Blitzo did it purely so he could use her as a weapon with which to usurp the rest of her kind himself: in actuality, Blitzo adopted Octavia and has kept her around purely out of compassion and love after he found her on her own. When Blitzo rejects Striker's offer of an alliance against Hell's nobility like in canon, Striker thinks Blitzo is just being egomaniacal: the cowboy half-imp honestly can't imagine that Blitzo genuinely cares about Octavia as his own daughter.

How to Train Your Dragon

• A good description of Dagur's attitude in Heir and Pride, as he tries to make Hiccup train dragons for the Berserkers but ignores all of Hiccup's advice that he won't get anywhere by letting Hiccup calm the dragons and then trying to beat them until they submit.
• A Thing of Vikings: While not exactly evil, this tends to be the undoing for the enemies of Berk. They refuse to believe that Berk won't use dragons for conquest despite repeated evidence that both Chief Stoick and his heir Hiccup have no interest in conquest. They also fail to grasp the idea that Stoick and Hiccup only want to help others because it is the right thing to do and not because they have some hidden agenda. Word of God is that part of the reason for this is that they're so used to dealing with people who are power-hungry conquerors that they simply don't have any life-experience that would let them recognize that Berk's leadership is different. As a result, they end up fighting Berk and losing.

The Hunger Games

• In Some Semblance of Meaning, Amber just cannot seem to understand why Obsidian would be so "dysfunctional" as to care about others and want to protect innocent "weaklings." And she views love as a foreign concept.
• Valkyrie on Fire: When Glimmer had a breakdown over what she did during the Bloodbath of the 74th Games, the Capitol broadcast it for all to see. Madge Undersee speculates that they intended everyone to see Glimmer was weak; however, Madge instead took it as a sign that Glimmer wasn't the traditional ruthless Career, but a human being, convincing Madge that Glimmer could be trusted.

Jackie Chan Adventures

• Queen of All Oni:
  • Uncle lampshades this as one of Daolon Wong's traits in his "The Reason You Suck" Speech to the dark chi wizard, saying that Wong knows friendship and teamwork exist, but cannot understand them.
  • Ikazuki subtly shows he has a shade of this as well: he shows open disdain for human nobility, and can't seem to understand why Tohru still cares for Jade.
  • Drago has this as well, as Karasu points out in their fight. Because Shendu was such a horrible father to Drago, the young dragon views offspring as an investment, and is unable to understand why the Matriarch chose Karasu, an elite warrior, to watch her daughter, and why Jade (AKA the Matriarch) cares about the ones she loves.
  • During their fight in the Hall of Ice, Jackie saves Hebi from a potential Disney Villain Death. Afterwards, she's utterly baffled as to why he did that, especially since she had previously just tried to kill him.
• This shows up in Webwork a few times:
  • Jade can't seem to wrap her head around why her family and friends aren't happy about the changes in her life.
  • The Mexican crime boss known as the Old Colonel admits to this, stating that while he knows that the J-Team won't allow any harm to come to him out of a sense of morality, and is counting on it, he just can't understand why.
  • Tarantula is infuriated by the fact that Jade has standards, and can't seem to get why someone with Jade's power isn't actively killing people and the like, as she uses her transformation as an excuse to act out her darker impulses.

Kingdom Hearts

• A Match Made In Hell: Although he believes he could beat Oberon, Yen Sid willingly gives up all of his power and sends all of his magic and knowledge away to avoid damaging the universe in the battle. Oberon can't understand why he'd give up his power; Yen Sid explains: "As an old friend of mine once said, if you strike me down I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."

Kung Fu Panda

• The Vow: When Lord Shen's crime of massacring a village of pandas is exposed in the midst of his wedding with Lady Lianne, he confesses it to his parents without shame, for he had intended to tell them that anyway. He honestly expects his parents to be proud of him for preventing his prophesied demise at the hands of the "Warrior of Black and White" and ignore the murdered innocents, so his loved ones' resulting horror and the banishment he receives as his punishment are a complete bolt from the blue for him.

The Legend of Zelda

• Parallel Legends: Vaati doesn't understand why Princess Zelda will not return his affections, even after he points out the current incarnation of Link doesn't seem to love her. Unfortunately, he just becomes a bigger Stalker with a Crush to the point of kidnapping her and giving her a Forceful Kiss and only makes himself more undesirable.

Marvel Cinematic Universe

• In born of hell('s kitchen), this is Kilgrave all over; not only does he force Jessica to sign away all rights to her own child (Jessica was in the final month of her pregnancy when Kilgrave met her), but it's noted that he never bothered to explain that the baby had been safely adopted after he ordered her to have a caesarean because that would require Kilgrave to understand why Jessica found the loss so distressing in the first place.
• If I Could Start Again:
  • While General Ross is never entirely outright "evil", his attempt to convince Steve Rogers to work with him focuses on emphasising the potential power a refined Super-Soldier-Serum could give Ross and his men, where Steve always wanted to just do the right thing rather than beat up his enemies.
  • While Hela appreciates the gift that her family gives her in the form of Malekith (an outlet to channel her aggression), she doesn’t believe they are doing it for any other reason than to spite her.
• Invoked in Once Lost Now Found for various characters;
  • When Tony discovers the file explaining how his son, Tony Junior, became Peter Parker. Obadiah Stane had planned to abduct TJ and Jenny (Tony's then-lover and Peter's mother) and then stage their deaths to make it look like Tony at least arranged for their disappearances, but Stane underestimated Jenny's determination to protect her son. As a result, Jenny was killed during the invasion, at a time when Tony was known to be at a meeting and before Stane could plant any evidence that Tony was responsible for anything, preventing the planned frame from being practical.
  • When Peter meets Quentin Beck while on a tour of Stark Industries, Beck suggests that the drones and BARF could be used to basically create the illusion that the Avengers are dealing with a threat when they’re actually relaxing elsewhere, the older man showing no sign that he understands why the Avengers would never do such a thing.
• A Real Chance sees a new timeline being created when Wanda Maximoff and Peter Parker meet in London as she's searching for the Darkhold after the fight with Mysterio, a warning from the Watcher and a run-in with the TVA inspiring Wanda to abandon her plans to search the multiverse for new versions of her children and instead ensure that Spider-Man's identity isn't exposed. A concluding scene shows He Who Remains observe that timeline at the moment of his death and muse that Peter's identity will be exposed eventually, forcing everyone but Wanda to lose all memory of him, satisfied that Wanda will eventually be left alone as "usual". However, the closing narrative observes that He Who Remains cannot understand how Nexus Beings like the Scarlet Witch can resist such visions, particularly with someone real to be there for them, suggesting that Wanda will be better than He believes just because he can't understand the benefit of such positive emotional support.
• In Spider-Man: Finding Home, while Jessica Jones is cynical rather than evil, she expresses very vocal confusion at how Peter Parker and Kate Bishop can have such a healthy relationship that Peter doesn't mind Kate being in his apartment without his permission (she's discreetly leaving him food) and Kate has no concerns about Peter bringing an unknown woman to his apartment when he had every reason to believe Kate wouldn't be there (Jessica had accused Peter/Spider-Man of theft and Peter had to show her he didn't have the stolen goods in his rooms).
• Stars Will Light the Way depicts a version of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness where Wanda was explicitly possessed by Chthon rather than suffering a mental breakdown on her own. At one point, Chthon muses that he can't understand why Wanda is content to know that her children are safe in another world, believing that Wanda should be willing to do anything to get what she wants rather than accept that her children already have a loving mother.
• What If...Multiverse of Madness: Clea Cut depicts a reality where Wanda chose not to attack America Chavez after events led to her meeting Peter Parker after the global memory-wipe, the two becoming friends and reminding each other what they stand for as Avengers. When Clea comes to Earth (claiming she "just" wants to kill America to stop future incursions), she dismisses the idea that Wanda is that close to Peter simple because the two aren't having sex, Clea musing that all she'd have to do is kill Peter and Wanda would return to her past course of action, ignoring how Wanda may have genuinely moved past this and is seeking to atone.

Mega Man

• In Mega Man: Defender of the Human Race, goodness disgusts the Stardroid Terra, and he doesn't really understand it to begin with.

Merlin (2008)

• In The Sorcerer's Bride, Morgause's defeat is brought about because she assumed that she could easily win Morgana to her side by simply revealing her identity as Morgana's sister, underestimating Morgana's more long-standing affection for Merlin, Gwen and Arthur despite learning the full extent of Uther's misguided vendetta against magic.

Miraculous Ladybug

• Chloé's Lament: Chloé assumes that Marinette must be a Secretly Selfish Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who's just as self-absorbed as her and simply better at hiding her true nature. When she Wishes to retcon reality and switch places with her, she expects that Marinette will abuse her position as the Mayor's daughter just like she did and become a social pariah, while Chloé herself gets to become Ladybug and have all the friends, fame and adulation she rightly deserves. Instead, she finds that Marinette remains just as thoughtful and kind as ever, while Chloé remained an Entitled Bitch... one without the protection her father's position once afforded her.
  • One of Chloé's biggest Villainous Breakdowns comes when she attempts to humiliate Marinette during the hat-making contest, only for her plans to completely fail because Marinette didn't enter. Why? Because Marinette wanted to avoid even the possible perception that she was taking advantage of her connection to the Agrestes in any way, shape or form. Since Chloé abused her father's status all the time in the original reality, she's completely incapable of wrapping her mind around why Marinette wouldn't want to do that, culminating in a bizarre rant where she accuses her of being lazy for not exploiting her status.
• In the Dad Villain AU, Gabriel devoted his Wish to Revenge by Proxy, rewriting reality so that the magical backlash from Emelie using the broken Peacock Pin would be redirected towards Ladybug and her loved ones. When he's confronted by the new Butterfly holder, he arrogantly assumes that Viceroy just wants to make his own Wish, outright bragging about what he did without considering the fact that Viceroy might be more interested in vengeance than power. Note that he's gloating while Viceroy is holding him up by his neck.
  Gabriel: I'm sure I know what you want — you want a miracle wish to bring someone back, to save someone, to change your past in a permanent way. All you have to do is find the guardian of the Miraculous and take the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous—
  Viceroy: I already know all about that, Hawkmoth.
  Gabriel: Then maybe you're more interested in the specifics of my wish? I had to be careful you know, and you'll have to be too, if you want to change the past. You could easily make a "monkey's paw" mistake. All I had to do was wish for anyone Ladybug loved to suffer the effects of my wife's broken Miraculous. She's from a dead timeline, as you can guess, but you'll find those pesky guardians are well worth the bitter revenge I gave to them. You'll have your run-ins with "heroes" too, when you forge your fate. I suggest you release me and we can set up an accord— (notices Adrien staring at him in utter horror) ...why are you looking at me like th- (gets slammed face-first into the floor)
• A New Leaf: As part of an effort to repair her relationships, Marinette gives up her emnity towards Lila and starts trying to befriend her. Lila genuinely can't comprehend the idea that Marinette is being no-strings-attached nice to her and thinks it's part of a scheme of some kind.
• Scarlet Lady: Chloé gets this constantly as she doesn’t understand the natural consequences of her actions. Why does Chat Noir hate her for constantly calling him her 'sidekick' and treating him like crap? Why is Adrien so resistant to her hanging off his arm all the time? Why is Sabrina growing so distant after she got her father fired?

Mortal Kombat

• Mortal Kombat: Desperation: Dark Raiden cannot understand why his former allies don't share his view on destroying Outworld and the Netherrealm, or that they wouldn't support his actions. In fact, they are alienated at his tyranny and the atrocities he committed so far, and some even refuse to join his side, knowing how thoroughly despicable and abusive he is towards his own henchmen after he Came Back Wrong.
  • He also believes that Scorpion defected from him because of a lack of willpower, but it was actually his own ruthlessness and sadism that caused the former revenant to lose faith in the evil god. And while he may have threatened to condemn Takeda and Jacqui Briggs to a Fate Worse than Death if Hanzo decided to defect, he also didn't anticipate the Shirai Ryu leader voluntarily defecting to the side of good due to his threats. Hanzo was already dissatisfied with Raiden's brutality towards the Lin Kuei and Cassie Cage.
  • He also thought that torturing Sub-Zero and Cassie to near-death and ransacking Li Mei's village would weaken his enemies' self-confidence, not realizing it only increased their resolve to go after him.
  • While he's aware that some of his henchmen do not like his methods, he's totally unaware that they're actually plotting to defect from him.

My Hero Academia

• Words May Hurt: Thanks to how his Barbaric Bullying was allowed at Aldera Middle School, Katsuki legitimately doesn't understand why U.A. punishes him for his misconduct during their first training exercise. At best, he thinks the problem is that Tenya was badly injured by the explosions he unleashed, when he was trying to hurt Izuku instead. He also doesn't understand why telling them that he only used potentially lethal force because 'Deku' was involved doesn't absolve him.

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

• Aftermath of the Games:
  • Midnight Sparkle appears before Sci-Twi in her nightmares, and psychotically tortures the people that have given Sci-Twi the most misery ^note Principal Cinch for blackmailing her, Fleur for mercilessly bullying her, and Berry Punch for killing her parents in a drunk driving accident, and can't believe Sci-Twi wouldn't enjoy seeing her tormentors suffer and die.
  • In "Interlude I", this is part of the reason why the original Starlight Glimmer pulled a Redemption Rejection. She saw Twilight's genuine offer of friendship as a lie and thought that it was a trick to let her guard down long enough for Twilight to arrest her.
  • Shortly her defeat, Sunset was stunned when Granny Smith offered her a home despite mistreating her granddaughters, and broke down in tears when Fluttershy tried to cheer her up, incredulous that someone she bullied for so long would try to help her emotionally.
  • Adagio is completely baffled by Steven Magnet giving her a ride and travel money free of charge, with no ulterior motive, and thinks he's secretly a Changeling agent. Of course, she had always used her powers to get what she wanted, so no strings attached charity would stun her.
• In Bride of Discord, Discord is initially confused as to why Fluttershy is still sulking about the loss of her friends and freedom, instead of being happy that she is with someone that can give her literally any possession or comfort she ever wanted with snap of his claw, not getting that no material possession or comfort is equal to her very freedom and the ponies she loves. It also takes him awhile to realize that it is rather hard to woo somepony, he is keeping imprisoned away from everything she cares about, regardless of any comforts he can provide her. Though he does slowly grow out of this.
• In the Chaos Verse (a spin off of the Pony POV Series), the Big Bad is shown to suffer from this: Nightmare Phobia is able to manipulate and feed off of ponies' fears, but she doesn't understand how they're able to fight those fears and break free of her control.
• Castling Cozy Glow: Twilight Sparkle, under Sweetie Bell's request, reluctantly, but earnestly releases Cozy Glow with the intent to try to reform her. With Sweetie Bell, Rarity, and later Rumble also trying to help. Cozy Glow's first assumption upon Twilight releasing her, is that she only did it to rub her fate in her face, before reimprisoning her like she would have done. And she initially doesn't buy that Twilight or Rarity would sincerely want to help her, unless Twilight felt she had something to get out of it in the long run. While she writes off Sweetie Bell as just naïve. She also doesn't understand why the thought of losing them when she's finally able to get back to her evil schemes is starting to weigh on her mind...
• The Elements of Friendship: In Book IS (1.5), Trixie is convinced that Twilight must have spread word of her being a fraud to all of Equestria, because that's what she would have done. Later, when Sunflower takes the spell meant for Babs, Trixie is utterly baffled, as it's something she would never do herself.
• The Ending of the End - Love and Tolerance Edition: By the time they take Canterlot, the trio of villains have accepted the fact that they don't want their "alliance" to just be temporary anymore. But Cozy Glow and Chrysalis struggle to understand why they seem to think of each other as more than useful tools. Tirek seems to understand it better, but his hurt feelings over Scorpan's past betrayal makes him reluctant to embrace friendship. Chrysalis eventually realizes it, but stubbornly refuses to admit it even to herself. While Cozy embraces it… in her own somewhat twisted way.
• Getting Back on Your Hooves' Big Bad, Checker Monarch (Trixie's sister), has this problem—specifically, she's so far miscalculated how much Trixie's friends care about her and how willing they are to forgive her. Justified as, according to Word of God, she's based on real life sociopaths, who, by definition, are unable to understand concepts such as compassion and empathy.
  • In the sequel Tarnished Diamonds, after the previous story's Big Bad, Checker Monarch, told Diamond Tiara she was just like her as a filly, then had her schemes exposed, Diamond is trying to change, not wanting to turn out like Checker, especially since she loves her family and doesn't want to become someone who would torture them. The thing is, while she's had a Heel Realization, she doesn't yet get why bullying the CMC is wrong (though she is trying to repress her desire to do so).
• The Immortal Game is notable in that every single villain in the story has this problem, to varying degrees. The only one who is close to understanding how the heroes think is Nihilus, who has access to all of Twilight's memories, and even she underestimates them in the end.
• Loved and Lost, an extended retelling of "A Canterlot Wedding", has several examples.
  • Prince Jewelius manipulates Twilight Sparkle and Canterlot's citizens to turn against the princesses, Shining Armor and Twilight's friends, making them hated pariahs and himself Equestria's respected king. He afterwards goes to great lengths to maintain the general hatred felt toward the heroes who're blamed for letting the disastrous Changeling invasion happen. However, after Celestia manages to trigger forgiveness in Twilight and everypony else with the highly remorseful apology speech she makes at her own hanging, Jewelius is outraged when Twilight and everypony else gradually stop holding a grudge against the disgraced heroes, consider reconciling with them, and protest against Jewelius when he wants to focus on hunting the heroes down and completely ignore the renewed threat of the Changelings. When all the heroes — who've reconciled with each other — corner Jewelius in the final battle, he tries to bargain for his life by offering to reorganize the wedding so that Twilight can be the best mare and the rest of the Mane Six bridesmaids, failing to realize that all of them are past letting themselves be sidetracked by such things again.
  • Queen Chrysalis is given more depth to her canon inability to understand love. Even though she's unable to drain love from Jewelius, she accepts him as her villainous sweetheart and partner in conquering Equestria. When he double-crosses her during the invasion, she's genuinely surprised, and when she later questions his reasons for his betrayal, he mocks her for really believing he'd allow by his side such a "despicable animal".
  • Shining Armor's bitter and sadistic rival Commander Hildread believes too much in using extreme brutality to ensure order and security. As Shining Armor states in his "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Hildread, it was because of this that she was unfit to serve in the Royal Guard and was expelled by him.
• In Nightmares Are Tragic, this is one of the biggest weaknesses of the Nightshadows. The one possessing Luna in general comprehends neither her code of honor nor her fundamental morality (which lead her to increasingly rebel against its control), and he in particular fails to grasp that she still loves the memory of her husband Dusk Skyshine from her earlier Aspect as Moondreamer. When Luna discovers that Twilight Sparkle is a reincarnation of Dusk, her resultant emotions give her the strength to begin Fighting from the Inside against the Nightshadow.
• The Nuptialverse:
  • In Metamorphosis, Queen Chrysalis is shown to not understand why Twilight still fought for her mentor, her brother, and her friends, even after they outright abandoned her, or how Cadence could continue to love a stallion that let her down.
  • Olive Branch, the Big Bad of Families, refuses to believe that anyone as powerful as the Princesses is as selfless as they appear.
    • A minor example, but Olive Branch also cannot fathom why most citizens still support Princess Celestia despite letting the Changeling Invasion happen.
  • A flashback to Sunset Shimmer's foalhood reveals that Celestia had her look into a magic mirror that shows the viewer their deepest desires. For Sunset, it was becoming an Alicorn and ruling solely over Equestria, and she seemed rather confused when this unsettled Celestia.
  • Celestia discusses this trope with Fluttershy in Direction and explains it to her truly evil beings deny seeing anything good in the world, because they are unable to grasp that others aren't as self-centered as they are.
  • When Trixie is gathering individuals for her Villain Team-Up, the mad showmare can't understand why Gilda immediately wouldn't jump at the chance to get revenge on Rainbow Dash.
    • After being freed from the Alicorn Amulet, Trixie's cellmate Olive Branch laughs at the idea that she would feel remorse over what she's done..
  • In her second appearance, Chrysalis didn't expect for the Mane Five to get over their guilt in the course of one year.
• Pony POV Series:
  • Discord has this problem, and it's even outright mentioned at one point by Twilight as being his Fatal Flaw. Celestia also mentions in the Origins Arc that Discord was completely incapable of truly comprehending love and is the only one of his family who had this problem, including his two Eldritch Abomination parents, Havoc and Entropy. Notably, Word of God confirmed that Entropy, despite being an Omnicidal Maniac by job description, comprehended it, and yet Discord can't. Discord knows this himself, but has simply chosen to ignore it and continue his sick games.
  • In the Dark World Twilight Tragedy is left baffled by Apple Pie being able to laugh at one of Discord's jokes after having a large number of her friends murdered right in front of her. So she assumes the form of an Earth Pony filly named Half Light Dawn to ask her herself. She discovers that pretty much all of Apple Pie's reasons for doing so are the polar opposite of everything she believes, but are none the less logical without conflicting with hers. This ends up awakening her old emotions and memories and sending her into a Villainous BSoD that results in her Heel–Face Turn.
  • Discord is such an extreme example of this that even his own acts of compassion baffle him. In the Epilogue timeline, Equestria is invaded by aliens. Discord travels to the heart of the alien empire to prank their leader...and discovers a dying and sick old man on life support. Discord is filled with pity at the sight and gives the old man a day of perfect health. When Discord returns home he goes on a tirade because he doesn't understand why he felt so sorry for the man.
  • Dark World offers another example in the Valeyard, who views working with others as a weakness and fails to understand why the heroes won't give up fighting. The former leads to his defeat, as it's the heroes working together that brings about his defeat.
  • Nightmare Eclipse/Paradox is incapable of believing Discord could actually have good in him. She also is at a loss to explain how a previous iteration of Trixie obtained Alicornification and was able to leave a Wound That Will Not Heal on her.
  • Chrysalis assumes the reason why Prince Blueblood refuses to run away from her is because he's stupid and completely lacks the survival instinct. In reality, he genuinely cares about Cadence and Celestia and was trying to help them, and he was also helping the civilians evacuate.
  • This trope is why Queen Chrysalis' Alicornification turns out differently than she planned. Chrysalis only saw divinity as being power and considered her Sociopathy as nature. As a result, the Elements of Harmony giving her a heart to complete her and make her fit the mold of an Alicorn takes her by surprise and results in a mental breakdown. Cadence calls her out on this thinking and the Interviewers even lampshade this trope:
    Unicorn Interviewer: That's the biggest irony of them all. Those that seek Godhood without knowing what it truly means. Those like Chrysalis... they only see the vague outline, not the complete whole. They see power, and that's it... And Chrysalis is now seeing the price of divinity. Discord is the only God with no compassion for life at all, and even he had an innate capacity for it he buried over the eons... Even the End of All Things includes an End of All Suffering...
• RainbowDoubleDash's Lunaverse:
  • In Carrot Top Season, the Flim Flam Brothers try to blackmail Carrot Top by infesting Sweet Apple Acres with a devastating weed and threatening to tell everypony they did it on her instructions, anticipating that nopony would believe her innocence due to their rivalry. They had never considered that Carrot Top would have already helped the Apples in stopping the infestation, since the idea of helping an enemy is completely alien to them.
  • The Big Bad of Secret of Andalantis can’t understand why Lyra would help the seaponies and merponies, since she's not one of them.
  • Vicereine Puissance, an incredibly evil and unpleasant old pony who judges everything largely by material value, states she doesn't believe unconditional love exists, how it works (the clue's sort of in the name), or even why anyone would want it.
  • The Nameless Whisper, from The Hero of Oaton, is angered and baffled when despite everything everyone comes together, including an estranged brother and sister, and refuse to give in to the Hate Plague it's generating.
• Somewhat Downplayed in The Young Six as Comet Trail isn't necessarily evil, but he was quite shocked, confused and furious that his childhood friend, Sandbar has Ocellus, a changeling as his girlfriend. His anger only grows when Sandbar decides to continue being with his new friends instead of going with his old friend.

Naruto

• Naru-Hina Chronicles: Tayuya has a hard time understanding why Mina is willing to help her even though they're supposed to be enemies.
• True Potential: After being saved by Naruto, Dosu has a hard time understanding that the blond genin didn't do that in exchange for some form of payment.
• your move, instigator (draw your weapon and hold your tongue):
  • Danzo takes an interest in Sakura and her teammates as Team 14 endures, and tries to sway them to his side. He becomes incredibly frustrated at how easily she dismisses his claims that they're "unifying the shinobi world," unable to understand how she sees right past his grandiose claims or why she responds that "You can't unite the shinobi world if you're fighting everyone, silly."
  • He also doesn't get that one of the reasons why Team 14 is becoming so influential is that they're effectively a constant reminder to those around them that Konoha is sending Child Soldiers out to fight. As well as the fact that their status as Morality Pets is only heightened as all the other young shinobi are killed off, leaving them as the Sole Survivors of the 'early graduates' and the young clan heirs as the only other children under the age of ten left in the village.

Neon Genesis Evangelion

• A Crown of Stars: Winthrop and Jinnai ruled the post-Third Impact world with an iron fist and used Asuka like their plaything for three years. Neither of them is capable of understanding why Asuka would choose a nice, understanding and caring person like Shinji over two blood-thirsty tyrants and virtual rapists or why she would turn against them; so they tell themselves Asuka’s just a traitorous slut because they can’t think of another reason.
• Once More With Feeling (Crazy-88): Trying to find a way to bring Shinji under SEELE's control, his grandfather tried to talk him into living with him. Shinji turned down his grandfather's offer because he also abandoned him... and the elder Ikari didn't understand why Shinji had a trouble with that.
  "Three thousand, five hundred and forty nine"
  At least Keel and his Grandfather had the decency to glance at each other in confusion for a second, before turning back to face him.
  "I'm sorry Shinji? I don't understand-"
  "Three thousand, five hundred and forty nine" he repeated, biting off each word with a knife like edge as he stared across the table at the uncomprehending men. "It's the number of days since my Father sent me off to live with my uncle. It also happens to be the number of days since anyone from the rest of my extended family bothered to so much as acknowledge that I even existed."
  The look on his Grandfather's face more than anything else dragged Shinji back from the edge. He appeared utterly confused at his response, befuddled even, and it suddenly hit Shinji that they simply didn't understand.

Nineteen Eighty-Four

• In And the Party Died, O'Brien is face-to-face with an unusually brave dissident, who was arrested for having a homosexual affair. O'Brien brings the guy to Room 101, where he is subjected to his worst fear: electricity. The walls and door of the room are electrified, and he will die unless he betrays his lover and accepts Big Brother. The dissident, to O'Brien's horror, overcomes his fear and walks right into the electric fence rather than betray his lover, because his love was that much stronger. O'Brien is so shocked to see someone defy his games out of love that he suffers a Villainous Breakdown.

Pokémon

• In Pokémon Reset Bloodlines:
  • Paul is more of a Jerkass rival than an actual villain, but in his first direct battle against Ash, he mockingly refers to Misty and Iris as Ash's "cheerleaders". Ash replies that he considers them his friends and someone like Paul wouldn't understand why some people enjoy the company of others.
  • The youngest of the seven brothers cannot understand why Gligarman found him and his brothers killing their mother when she was down to be horrifying, and is equally baffled by his one good brother who escaped with help of a Pokemon or why Professor Oak worked to make the world a better place.

Real-Person Fic

• Sort of, in The Keys Stand Alone: The Soft World, if you accept that the four are the only "good goods" on C'hou. Everyone else is simply baffled by their refusal to kill or even harm things, to the point where the Circle decides it's safer to depower and lock them up rather than let them continue behaving the way they do; they're worried that the four might try to take over the organization. Which completely misunderstands their motives, even though they explicitly say all they want to do is bring the Black Tower down as quickly as possible and go home. No one can quite believe this.

RWBY

• A Rabbit Among Wolves: Though not exactly evil, Ilia and her fellow White Fang members see Jaune's genuinely pleasant nature and charity as a form of manipulation. Considering he (technically) killed and usurped Adam, it is hard to blame them for being nervous.

Sailor Moon

• In a Sailor Moon Crystal drabble fic, Kunzite wonders why the Senshi continue to fight even though their master is dead. The idea that they might oppose the Dark Kingdom because they want to—not because Sailor Moon ordered them to—never crosses his mind. Neither does the idea that murder is wrong ^note although, to be fair, he was brainwashed into serving the Big Bad.

The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System: Ren Zha Fanpai Zijiu Xitong

• Another Time, Another Place, Another Story: Chen Baozhai genuinely believes she can seduce Shen Yuan and become his girlfriend in spite of him being friends with her ex-boyfriend, whose life and reputation she's actively trying to ruin. When he shows nothing but disgust towards her, she concludes Liu Qingge is slandering her rather than Shen Yuan wanting nothing to do with her out of loyalty and care for Liu Qingge.

A Song of Ice and Fire

• A Better Fate shows Littlefinger being so sure of Sansa's loyalties he doesn't hesitate to order a trial for Jon Snow, intending to destroy the last obstacle to have the girl. He never thought Sansa would feel disgusted rather than flattered by his behaviour towards her, even if he's the one to have protected her, and he was so confident she would hate Jon for being an insult towards Lady Stark's memory he forgot to take in account that Sansa would be desperate to keep her last blood relative safe after losing her entire family.

Sonic the Hedgehog

• In Sonic X: Dark Chaos, Allysion is such a depraved fundamentalist sociopath that she doesn't understand how Sonic could be a potential ally. Maledict suffers this too to a lesser extent, as he is utterly baffled that Sonic is fighting him despite Sonic being his "son". Also becomes a plot point in Episode 74; when Cosmo forgives Tsali for the things he did to her and her people, the resulting literal Logic Bomb in his programming causes him to do a Heel–Face Turn.

Splatoon

• Inkopolis Chaos:
  • Lieutenant Obsidian simply doesn’t understand anything good in the story. For example, she finds it absolutely hilarious that an inkling is dating an octoling due to her sheer racism, and fails to understand why the octolings such as Ruby are deserting Octo Valley. To this end, she sees Dylan as weak for his refusal to find and kill his own sister. She also makes a homophobic remark at Jade when she comforts Katelin after she used a blender to intentionally activate her PTSD. And yet, despite all this, she still sees herself as the hero and everyone else as evil.
  • In Blakeson's final moments, even though Sylvia spares him and offers him a new life away from everyone else, he simply doesn't understand that she is only trying to help him escape Octo Valley's tyrannical scheme, and instead tries to kill Sylvia.

Star Wars

• Child, No One is Ever Told What Would Have Happened features Palpatine misunderstanding the people he's dealing with when a chain of misunderstandings led to Anakin leaving the Jedi Order because he spent years assuming he was still "officially" a slave. After Anakin becomes reacquainted with Padme before the Clone Wars, he runs into Palpatine while accompanying her to political functions, with Anakin's policy of tactfully agreeing with others until he can get away leading to Palpatine assuming Anakin is angry at the Jedi and shares his dismissive attitude towards the idea that the clones count as people.
• In Eros Turannos, while Palpatine often manages to inspire doubt in Padme over the extent of her ‘influence’ on Vader, the Emperor is still incapable of acknowledging even the idea that Padme might have any kind of influence on Vader at all.
• Palpatine in I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For has no idea how to be welcome among Wookies, remarking that it requires some "bizarre qualifications that seem to shift depending on the day." The only real qualification is respecting them and their laws, but considering Palpatine views them as uncivilized animals, it's not surprising he can't figure it out.

Stargate-verse

• What You Already Know series: Comes up on a few occasions after Daniel Jackson develops psychic powers, but demonstrated most particularly when Daniel confronts Senator Kinsey; Kinsey may have blown up Daniel’s house and sent an assassin to try and kill him because he's afraid of what Daniel might discover about his own plans, but Daniel isn’t the kind of person who would respond in kind, even if he does blow up most of Kinsey’s vintage cars to make a point.

Sword Art Online

• I Will Not Bow series:
  • In Blazing Revolution chapter 49, Yamato mocks Ren to his face for being unable to bring himself to shoot him, declaring him weak. Ren retorts that it's not that he's weak, it's that he refuses to stoop to his level.
  • Noboru abandons Alice and the others to save his own skin early in I Will Not Bow, and when they meet back up and Alice tells him off, he honestly doesn't seem to understand why Alice would be disgusted with him and want nothing more to do with him. It's even more pronounced in Blazing Revolution, where he can't understand why Alice would choose Ren over him, or be willing to endure so much pain for him. Alice outright spells it out for him in chapter 90:
    Alice: Someone like you wouldn't understand. You wouldn't understand what it's like to truly be in love. To be willing to give up everything for someone.

Total Drama

• Unbreakable Red Silken Thread: When Heather is taking out her frustrations, anger, and pain on Cody after learning the truth about her parents' marriage, the only thing she is able to notice is how he isn't reacting the way her parents and previous boyfriends have in the past.

Transformers

• In Pondering, Pondering, Makeshift takes Optimus' place in the Autobot base in order to gather information, and is taken aback by how friendly everyone is to each other, by how nobody asks for permission before leaving the base, and by how non-submissive Ratchet is in his relationship with the Prime.

Turning Red

• In Turning Red: Secrets of the Panda, Jason, during his "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Xia and Mei, calls out the latter for using her red panda transformation ability to entertain others as opposed to using it like a weapon as intended, not understanding how Mei could be so fun and kind.

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