Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse / Video Games

Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse in Video Games.

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• Abyss Crossing: The Dark Astra Mona wants to destroy and remake the world because he and his sister were killed by slave traders. However, the party points out that in the present, slavery is illegal and that he's just taking out his rage on unrelated people. He acknowledges this to some extent and agrees to an unsteady truce, but only if the party agrees to prevent such atrocities from occuring again.
• Arknights:
  • About halfway through the Reunion arc, Amiya expresses this sentiment toward Mephisto without even knowing his past, making it clear that whatever happened to him in the past (which, as Chapters 7 and 8 would reveal, were pretty horrific), it does not justify the pain and suffering he inflicts on others.
  • Played Straight with Skullshatterer - he fights against Lungmen and Rhodes Island because the former oppresses the Infected while the latter Defends Against Their Own Kind and aids Lungmen in fighting Reunion. Amiya points out that Reunion sacked an entire city and that their actions are detrimental to the cause of the Infected as a whole.
• Batman: Arkham Knight: Batman and Nightwing both sympathize with Killer Croc when they learn that Warden Ranken was brutally experimenting on him inside the Iron Heights airship, but they still have to bring him to justice for the innocent people he killed in his breakout. The trope is later reconstructed, as while Killer Croc must still pay for his crimes, Batman reassures him that Ranken isn't off the hook either and will pay for what he did to him as well. He makes good on his promise, imprisoning Ranken next to Croc for extra karma.
• It's revealed in BlazBlue: Central Fiction that Takehaya-Susano'o-no-Mikoto, known in the present as Yuuki Terumi, was created to serve as a lifeless tool of Master Unit: Amaterasu before realizing that he had no free will. He escaped and plans to achieve "true freedom" by destroying the current world and replacing it with one of his own. Because of all the hell he put them through and the fact that the world he wants would be a dystopia, the heroes have no sympathy for him. Then again, it's not like he wants their sympathy, as their hatred for him is what keeps him alive and anchored to the world.
• Celestial Hearts: Lilith explains that she spent nearly a century with no will of her own and was forced to watch as she couldn't control her own body. Even after gaining full control of herself, she absorbs the lifeforce of many people and threatens to crash the continent of Belume, all because she's jealous that Helen was born free. The party calls her out on how petty her motivation is. Even Sylvie, who despises humans, considers this an act of Misplaced Retribution against the people of Belume.
• Corpse Party (PC-98): After hearing the tragic backstory of Shinozaki, Ayumi's reaction changes if the player is on a route where Yoshiki has died. While she certainly feels a degree of sympathy that Shinozaki, she snaps at her still being at fault for Yoshiki dying.
  Why? THANKS TO YOU, ONE OF MY FRIENDS IS DEAD! I'm sorry you suffered, but you're a terrible monster! YOU MURDERER!
• This is a recurring theme in the Dark Parables series. Many of the games' Big Bads, including the Snow Queen, Amelia and Geppetto, the Sky King, and Belladonna, are Omnicidal Maniacs that seek to transform, punish, or otherwise destroy as many people as possible; ultimately, their motivation is revealed to be the grief and anger caused by some incident or mistreatment in the past. It's mostly commonly a dead beloved spouse or hurt child that sparks their rage, although a few (like the Wolf Queen also long to be special and feel envious regarding other people's good luck. The Fairytale Detective is often sympathetic to their problems, but is equally quick to point out that the villains don't have the right to punish countless innocents to soothe their own pain.
• Dead Rising: Carlito Keyes instigated the Willamette zombie outbreak, killing and zombifying thousands of innocents and paving the course for thousands more to die as the series continues thanks to planting dozens of infected children elsewhere, because he hates Americans for what the US government did to his hometown of Santa Cabeza in accidentally causing the original zombie outbreak during their experiments to produce more beef and ended up wiping the village off the map in the resulting cover-up. Frank West, while sympathetic to an extent to the point he tells him he'll reveal the government cover-up, also rightfully points out that doesn't give Carlito the right to intentionally start an outbreak amongst people who didn't even know about this.
• Destiny 2: Enperor Calus, the Hedonistic emperor of The Cabal, initially comes off as being a greedy pleasure seeker, but otherwise appears harmless. Season of the Haunted, however, has him Jumping Off the Slippery Slope and striving to become a Disciple of the Witness. Said season also finally elaborates in detail on his backstory, and reveals that he was a Puppet King in the previous Cabal regime that had virtually no freedom of his own, with his negative traits being forged from a desire to never face that situation again. His daughter, Caiatl, does not see that as an excuse for what he is done, particularly after it is revealed that he viewed her as a Morality Pet before she was born. When this is brought up, she points out that while Calus may regret the consequences of his actions, he doesn't try to change for the better to fix them.
• Dragalia Lost: Victor tells Robelle off for breaking the code against harming innocents as it brought shame to the comrades he (Robelle) sought to avenge. Victor then proceeds to slay him for the murders.
• Dragon Quest V: Prince Harry is a spoiled, jerkass brat because his mother passed away and was replaced by the Queen Consort, who is more interested in caring for her own son than for him. Of course, as the main character's father points out, Harry's father, unlike his stepmother, does care about him, and would be terribly upset if anything happened to him.
• Dying Light: Rais had a younger brother, who always advocated for peace when Rais himself would speak of war. He is described as the only person Rais ever loved, and whose death was one of the reasons why Rais went off the deep end. That being said, the survivor who tells Crane of this openly says that his brother's demise does not excuse the atrocities Rais commits.
• Elohim Eternal: The Babel Code:
  • Joshwa initially treats Ruthia like crap for being Cainite, to the point of insisting that she be tied up when the party has to sleep. Ruthia sympathizes with him for losing his father to war, but Beyoz, who lost his mother in the same war, believes that this is no excuse for his antagonistic behavior.
  • Anat lost her lover to the Kosmokraters, who manipulated her fellow Cainites to kill Cain and Avram's entourage. However, the party doesn't believe this justifies all her transgressions against the Idinites and Cainites in her quest for revenge, and that even if the Kosmokraters started the Forever War, she still bears responsibility for the choices she made. They also point out that her callousness towards all life makes her no better than the Kosmokraters that she wants to kill.
• In The Evil Within, Ruvik attempts to invoke Freudian Excuse by showing Sebastian memories from his past. Such memories include a group of villagers burning down Ruvik's barn, unaware that he and his sister were still inside. This resulted in Ruvik's physical deformities and the Heroic Sacrifice of his sister. Ruvik's father also locked him away and lied to his mother that he was killed alongside his sister. However, Sebastian doesn't buy any of it. Considering everything Ruvik did following such incidents, including killing his innocent mother, Sebastian makes it clear that Ruvik brought all his subsequent problems on himself.
• At the end of Far Cry 4, Big Bad Pagan Min explains his Freudian Excuse, and then he himself admits that he was just using his infant daughter's murder and Ajay's mother fleeing to the United States to get as far away from him as she could after she killed her husband who murdered their daughter as an excuse to do whatever the hell he wanted to do. He further implies then that Ajay has done something similar in using his mission to honor his deceased mother, to which Ajay has no rebuttal.
  • Amita and Sabal, the Golden Path's two co-leaders, are of this opinion towards Dr. Noore Najjar, one of Pagan's Dragons. Noore runs the Shannath Arena and is responsible for distributing Pagan's drugs and sex slaves, but she only works for Pagan because he's holding her husband and two sons captive and she's trying to earn their freedom. ^note  And then Ajay learns that Pagan had Noore's family killed years ago and had his other Dragon, Paul Harmon, trick her into thinking they were still alive. Neither Amita nor Sabal show any sympathy towards Noore for this: as far as they're concerned, she's just another obstacle for the Golden Path to remove to get rid of Pagan Min. (And Amita and Sabal rarely agree with one another.) For what it's worth, Noore seems to agree with them: if Ajay refuses to shoot her the last time he meets up with her at Shannath, but tells her that her family are dead, she realizes that the atrocities she carried out were All for Nothing, rejects Ajay's offer for her to escape punishment for it, and kills herself then and there.
• Fake Happy End: Red, one of the monsters in the tower, was once a human who ventured up the tower with Karin, but eventually found that both of them became invisible to normal people. Karin wanted to stop climbing the tower, but Red forced her to keep going. At some point, Karin abandoned her and Red barely reached the top of the tower, only to die and transform into a monster. Red tries to use Karin's guilt to manipulate her into going to the top of the tower alone, despite the danger. Aeri points out that Red's circumstances are tragic, but that's no excuse for using emotional blackmail on Karin, especially when she forced Karin to accompany her in the first place.
• Final Fantasy XIV
  • In the expansion Shadowbringers, the Ascians are revealed to be the last survivors of a highly advanced race known only as the Ancients, which wielded creation magic that was limited only by their imagination. Eventually, something caused the Ancients to lose control of this magic, turning their fears and nightmares into reality, and half their race sacrificed themselves to create the first primal, Zodiark, who saved them from annihilation. Half of the surviving Ancients feared his power, however, so they sacrificed themselves to create Hydaelyn. In the ensuing struggle, she wounded Zodiark so badly that it literally broke reality; this created the Source (where XIV primarily takes place) and its thirteen "reflections" (alternate versions of the Source, like the First where Shadowbringers takes place). Everything the Ascians have done— every manipulation, every death, every Calamity, every Rejoining— has all been in the name of rebuilding their world. During the final confrontation with Emet-Selch, he rants at length about all the pain and suffering he and his people endured, how Hydaelyn is a hypocrite that stole everything from them, the literal millennia worth of emotional baggage he's had to carry, how much he's had to sacrifice for the Ascians' survival, and how everyone does nothing but demonize them as pure evil when the only thing they've ever wanted is to go home. Unforunately, it's precisely because of the Ascians' methods that the Scions of the Seventh Dawn have no choice but to oppose them; they understand completely where Emet-Selch is coming from and agree that he has every right to be angry and bitter about all he's lost, but they point out that it doesn't justify murdering entire worlds just to get his back and it never will, and that even if those untold numbers of people on the Source and reflections are inferior beings in the eyes of the Ascians, they're still fully sentient beings with the basic right to exist.
  • In the expansion Endwalker, Alphinaud and Alisaie understand that Quintus van Cinna, Legatus of the Ist Legion of the Garlean Empire, has a reason to be upset at the idea of getting help from one's enemies, especially after past misdeeds on the Garlean people years in the past. They also call him out on his stubborn refusal to accept help, and that he's basically making things worse for those he swore to protect. This stubbornness winds up being his Fatal Flaw, as well. Quintus uses what little supplies he has left on a last desperate gamble, despite the Eorzeans not only being willing to give the Garleans supplies, but outright telling him so. Instead, it's revealed that the reinforcements he wants simply aren't coming, his troops have been basically wiped out, and he turned down an offer that would do nothing but benefit him out of misplaced pride. The guilt and anguish over this decision causes Quintus to be Driven to Suicide. All of this is done while the narrative makes it clear that Alphinaud and Alisaie's initial assessment of Quintus was correct; the characters argue that while his situation is sympathetic, Quintus was actively making things worse through a fatal case of Honor Before Reason, and it doesn't justify letting people freeze or starve to death.
• Fire Emblem:
  • In Fire Emblem Fates, Laslow is shocked to hear about Peri killing her servants, and asks if she has any idea what the people close to her victims feel like when losing a loved one. After hearing her backstory - that her mother was murdered by a servant, and she ended up killing other servants who reminded her of the murderer - Laslow regrets saying that Peri doesn't understand the feeling of losing someone she loves, but insists that she think about that before she kills someone.
  • The remake of Fire Emblem Gaiden, Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, introduces Fernand, a member of the Deliverance with extremely classist views. He disapproves of Clive having commoners like Forsyth and Python in the army, and ultimately leaves the organization (later defecting to Rigel) over Clive appointing Alm as the Deliverance's leader. In The Rise of the Deliverance campaign, it's revealed that he became this way after peasants killed his father, stepmother, and half-siblings. His friends - Clive, Clair, and Mathilda - sympathize with his feelings over the tragedy, but don't approve of his attitude, much less him changing allegiance.
  • Fire Emblem: Three Houses:
    • Miklan, as the eldest son of Margrave Gautier, would have become heir to House Gautier, but he wasn't born with a crest (thereby preventing him from wielding his family's Ancestral Weapon, the Lance of Ruin) so his younger brother Sylvain was made heir instead. As a result, he became jealous enough of Sylvain to try to kill him on multiple occasions, and grew up into a murderous thief who stole the Lance of Ruin, which turned him into a monster when he tried to wield it. Sylvain understands why his brother's circumstances are unfortunate, but considers him a terrible person who ultimately deserved to die, even if Sylvain isn't happy about it.
    • Dimitri is traumatized by the Tragedy of Duscur, which resulted in the death of his father, his stepmother, his Childhood Friend Glenn, and led to people from Duscur being persecuted. Dimitri grows up feeling as though he's haunted by the ghosts who died, and that they want him to avenge them by killing the perpetrator, whom he erroneously concludes to be Edelgard. Dimitri becomes consumed by his desire for revenge after the Time Skip, much to the detriment of his nation, with the results varying based on the route- he dies on all routes besides Azure Moon, in which he comes to his senses and wins the war. While the characters understand his goals, especially since Edelgard ends up as his enemy in all routes, they realize that his quest for vengeance brings nothing but harm to himself and his people.
  • Fire Emblem Engage
    • Zig-zagged when it comes to Yunaka. In Citrinne's supports with Yunaka, she realizes that Yunaka has been asking about an assembly of Brodian nobles and confronts her with knowledge of Yunaka's past as an assassin. As Yunaka tells of how she'd been abandoned by her parents and taken in by an assassin who'd taught her his trade, Citrinne listens, but remarks that, "There's tragedy to your tale, but you've earned no sympathy." However, upon learning that Yunaka had to Mercy Kill the assassin when he fell ill, she becomes more sympathetic, and after realizing that Yunaka wanted to help other orphans, Citrinne apologizes and offers her support.
    • It turns out that the reason behind Sombron's atrocities was to reunite with the Emblem of Foundations, which had been his only companion after being exiled from his homeworld. Alear and Veyle call him out on that, noting that it doesn't justify what he did in pursuit of that goal, including treating his children as expendable pawns.

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• In Ghost of Tsushima, in Masako's side quest, it's revealed that the traitor who orchestrated the deaths of her family was her own sister Hana who blamed Masako for "betraying" them by arranging her marriage to an abusive husband when Hana wanted to marry Adachi who had fallen for Masako instead and robbed Hana the chance of living the life that Masako had. When confronted by Masako, they insisted they suffered more than her because of that. Masako pointed out that there had been no way for her to control who Adachi would marry or for her to know that Hana's husband was abusive.
  Masako: None of that is my fault.
• God of War (PS4) explains the villainy and cruelty of Magni and Modi as stemming from the abuse they suffered at the hands of their father, Thor. Atreus sympathizes with them but Kratos dismisses it, saying that the two are adults now and no longer have that excuse. Considering in the previous series Kratos blamed a large number of his troubles on his father Zeus even as he murdered anything and everything in his way for revenge, he's had plenty of experience with that kind of thinking.
  • That said, his sheer disgust toward Thor's abuse, which Kratos expresses during their first battle, shows he does have some sympathy toward their plight, particularly Modi's, though this happens after his Character Development in between both games
• Grand Theft Auto V:
  • The De Santa family has this as a theme, Michael's mid-life crisis is a result of trying to use his past to excuse his current behaviour and justify what he does, only for his therapist to tell him that he should take responsibility for his own actions and not try to justify them to himself. His son, Jimmy De Santa, blames his own behaviour on Michael and berates him at every opportunity. When the family is separated for a while, Jimmy is the first to return to Michael and decide to turn his life around because he realises he can't keep blaming Michael for his own problems.
  • Trevor Philips had a deeply troubled childhood plagued with parental abuse. However, while he certainly complains about the emotional scars it left, he never tries to use it to justify his behavior, and anyone who tries to do it on his behalf gets shot down. For example, Michael's wife Amanda points out that she's known multiple people (including herself) who had terrible childhoods, but Trevor's the only psycho among them.
• Scott Shelby in Heavy Rain saw his twin brother drown while their drunk father did nothing to help. Decades after the event, they haven't gotten over their brother's death and they want to find a father who would do anything to save their son. They come up with the idea of kidnapping young boys and putting them in a well that fills up with water whenever it rains and their fathers have to go through brutal trials to find clues to the whereabouts of their sons. Dozens of children have died and it's possible for Ethan Mars's son to suffer the same fate if you don't reach him in time. The villain gets called out for their behavior by saying that just because they had a traumatic childhood doesn't mean that other children should suffer for it.
• Hero King Quest: Peacemaker Prologue: A dark elf NPC points out that Dark Lord Spidergland discriminates against non-dark elves due to a rebellion from the goblinoids. However, Spiderweb still declares her sister to be in the wrong for being fixated in the past and using the past as an excuse for racism.
• Injustice:
  • Many on Batman's side call out Regime Superman, stating that while what The Joker did to him was horrible, namely tricking him into killing his wife Lois Lane and nuking Metropolis, it still doesn't absolve him of the evil deeds he committed as the High Councilor. They state that the bad events that affected him doesn't mean that he should vent it out on others. Likewise, Regime Superman's allies (Wonder Woman, Cyborg, Robin, and Black Adam) get the same treatment from the Insurgency in the sequel. Regime Superman and his allies react negatively to such criticism.
  • As stated, the reason Captain Cold teamed up with Gorilla Grodd in Injustice 2 and is so willing to let civilians die is that the Regime executed his fellow Rogues, especially his sister. However, while his beef with the Regime for killing his sister is legitimate, Wonder Woman points out that Cold was the one who got his sister into supervillainy in the first place and that Superman wouldn't have killed her if he hadn't.
  • The events that led to Cheetah becoming what she is were of her own making, but she constantly blames Wonder Woman for her new form. She gets called out on this by Wonder Woman and Atrocitus in Injustice 2.
  • Black Lightning chides Black Manta for using his father's death to justify his villainy and his actions against the Regime in Injustice 2.
• In a Light Side ending for Knights of the Old Republic, when Malak is defeated, he questions what would have happened to him, had Revan not led him to the Dark Side in the first place. In one of the response options, while apologizing for starting Marak down said path, the Player Character points out that it was Malak himself who chose to continue down the Dark path. Malak admits there is truth in what the Player Character says and that he alone must accept responsibility for his fate.
• The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker:
  • Ganondorf reveals that his people, the Gerudo, spent their lives in a harsh desert, where burning and freezing winds brutally killed nearly everyone. By contrast, Hyrule was a lush, green paradise with a gentle blowing breeze that brought life to whatever it touched. While Ganondorf originally coveted Hyrule in the name of saving the Gerudo, he eventually fell to a pure lust for power and wanted the kingdom for his own selfish sake. Interestingly, Ganondorf himself all but states that his once-noble intentions don't excuse his actions, showing a remarkable depth of self-awareness that ties into his Older and Wiser personality in this game. Unfortunately, said self-awareness isn't enough to release the centuries-old envy in his heart, and he still tries to fulfill his evil goals anyway.
  • One sidequest in the second half of the game involves Mila, a Spoiled Brat who was kidnapped and brought to the Forsaken Fortress by the Helmaroc King. Though she's rescued by Tetra's pirate crew, they demand a huge reward from Mila's wealthy father, which leaves them both penniless. At night, Mila tries breaking into the safe in Zunari's shop, which Link can prevent by catching her in the act. She explains how difficult it's been becoming poor and having her entire life upended, and while Link is sympathetic, he also points out that her bad circumstances don't give her the right to become a thief. Mila ultimately agrees with him and declares that she will not make excuses for herself any longer.
• Lie of Caelum: The Underground Bandits were once Karsandan immigrants seeking Souen citizenship, but they turned to terrorism in response to constant racism against them. Ridal Laufel states that despite their tragic pasts, this is no excuse for harming innocents and that they could have used their talents more productively and legitimately.
• Life Is Strange: Discussed and defied, Max calls Chloe out on her selfishness but Chloe rejects it and Max can back down. Chloe blames her father for abandoning her when he was killed in a car accident and Chloe also blames her mother for sending him out in the first place. Max does rewind time and save Chloe's father but discovers that a car accident is a fixed point in Chloe's life. If Chloe's dad doesn't die in the crash then Chloe will suffer a car accident instead and become severely immobilized and left breathing with the assistance of a tube. Whether Chloe absorbs this lesson is determined by player decisions.
  Max: Chloe, you can't keep blaming me and everybody for everything wrong in your life. It's so not fair.
  Chloe: I gotta blame somebody. Otherwise it's all my fault. Fuck that.
  Max: (Determinant) Grow up. God, you are not the only one in Arcadia Bay with problems. Kate Marsh almost...
  Chloe: Yes, Kate Marsh almost killed herself. Such sad. Okay? That doesn't make me feel any better about my fucked up life, get it?
• At the end of Live A Live, after defeating the final boss, Oersted is overcome with guilt over his actions. While most of the heroes offer varying levels of sympathy, if Akira is the chosen hero then he'll give an angry speech about how while everyone goes through bad things, it doesn't give them the right to take it out on others and that the villain chose to see the worst in humanity. For his part, Oersted concedes that he succumbed to his grief on his own and has no one to blame but himself.
• In Mass Effect 2, Morinth blames her succubus-esque Serial Killer nature on having been born an Ardat-Yakshi (an asari genetic defect where melding is both addictive to the Ardat-Yakshi and fatal to their partner), and having to flee Asari authorities, who would have executed her. Her mother Samara does admit that this gives her Tragic Villain elements but also points out that she squandered any sympathy points she might have by embracing her condition and becoming a Serial Killer, while her sisters Falare and Rila (also Ardat-Yakshi) chose the option of being Locked Away in a Monastery, and both grew up normal and well-adjusted. She also expresses pride in Morinth for not accepting her fate, either, calling her "the smartest and bravest" of her daughters.
• In Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, a codec conversation between Raiden and Kevin about the Desperado known as Monsoon sees the two of them discuss Monsoon's backstory, in particular the fact that he was forced to grow up in Cambodia during the reign of the mass-murdering Khmer Rouge regime. While Raiden (despite being a killer) feels bad for Monsoon (having known what it's like to grow up in a horrific war-torn nation and experience death first-hand as a child), Kevin says that while he also feels bad for Monsoon, plenty of other Cambodians had to endure it and yet they didn't become nihilistic and social-Darwinist sociopaths who wanted to start a international conflict. To be fair, Raiden agrees with him.
  Raiden: Yeah, I'm sure that's what gave him his whole survival-of-the-fittest worldview... Just one long series of traumatic events...
  Kevin: Well, directly or otherwise, the Khmer Rouge messed up a whole lotta lives... But all of their victims didn't start thinking like Monsoon. People have to stop the cycle of violence somewhere... Stop the bad meme, I guess you could say. Course that's easy for me to say, having grown up in a nice, stable First World country...
  Raiden: Nah, I get it. Growing up in bad circumstances... It's no excuse for the crimes you commit.
• Mortal Kombat 11 has several examples:
  • At this point, the Revenants are those that died at the end of Mortal Kombat 9 who were brainwashed to serve Quan Chi and Shinnok. By the end of Mortal Kombat X, only Jax, Sub-Zero, and Scorpion were freed, with the others just spouting out hateful comments to their opponents when they had to fight, but were otherwise empty husks. Then when they take over the Netherrealm, they go to war with Earthrealm (where most of them were born), kill Sonya, and act like Evil Is Petty childish psychos. At this point, everyone has lost sympathy for them since they're not brainwashed anymore, and even their past selves call their revenant selves out on this.
  • Past Jax admits that his future self has suffered, but he tells him it's no excuse to betray his unit and his family to side with Kronika.
  • Frost's rationale for roboticizing herself, re-creating the Cyber Lin Kuei, and allying with Kronika is that she hates her former mentor Sub-Zero for "abandoning" her and refusing to make her the grandmaster of the Lin Kuei, but the entire cast sees it otherwise. Sub-Zero even deduces that she's only using this as a way to piggyback off of Kronika, something which is validated in her arcade ending. Not that they're saints to begin with, but even some of the villains such as Shao Kahn, Noob Saibot, and Kano chide her for using this as an excuse and ignore her demands to be made leader of their respective organizations, showing that everyone, including Kronika herself, hate Frost's guts.
• Mortal Kombat 1 (a time-altered Soft Reboot of the Mortal Kombat franchise) features a new incarnation of former Big Bad Shang Tsung — rather than being a mighty, godly Sorcerous Overlord who stole souls, this version is a mortal born into destitution who made his living as a Snake Oil Salesman before learning about his past incarnation and given an opportunity to reclaim his past glory. Despite having a marginally more sympathetic backstory, Shang Tsung is still a faux-charming, insufferably smug, and selfish monster, so nobody buys his backstory as a justification for his behavior at all. Liu Kang — the guy who was responsible for rewriting Shang Tsung's origin — deliberately gave him an unremarkable life in an effort to humble him and sway him into a path for an honest and fulfilled life, positing that Shang Tsung's new beggared existence was entirely his own fault as he simply couldn't help using his charm and talents into being a swindling conman who enjoys the suffering of others.
• My Child Lebensborn acknowledges that the hostility towards Lebensborn children is born out of anger at Norway's past occupation by Nazi Germany, but that hostility is never treated as anything but unjustified cruelty.

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• Night in the Woods: At the end of the game, once The Heavy has been defeated, almost all main characters show a hint of sadness for them. Mentioning that they were driven by a desperate desire of saving the town they lived in and that they said to not enjoy the things they did. Angus is the one to call out that they shouldn't pity them. The Cult of the Black Goat had, unnecessarily and in an act of desperation, sacrificed homeless and the ones that people "wouldn't miss" in order to ask an Eldritch Abomination to save their town, and Angus feels no sympathy for, among them, having sacrificed their friend Casey.
• No One Lives Forever: Cate gives Baroness Felicity Dumas what for over her excuse, scoldingly saying she's simply a petty bully who's decided to take out her suffering (enduring a troubled childhood after losing her father to suicide, following a scandal which caused her and her mother to be ostracized by the high society they belonged to) on innocent people when she could have done great things in spite of a hard life like Cate did, but just didn't have the strength to make the right choices.
• Octopath Traveler:
  • The first boss of Olberic's story is Gaston, a former member of the band of sellswords to which Erhardt belonged, who ended up becoming a bandit after the group disbanded and he found that he was only good at swinging a sword. Olberic points out that Gaston could have used a sword to protect the people rather than steal from them, to which Gaston replies by saying that honest work takes more wits than he has, and he felt he had no choice. Olberic replies, "Choice or no, you must answer for your crimes." Gaston surrenders and turns over a new leaf.
  • The first boss of H'aanit's story is the Ghisarma, a ferocious beast that was acting so violent because it was driven out of its old home by another beast. However, H'aanit doesn't believe it justifies its actions and points out that it could have learned to live in its new home without taking out its anger and pain on creatures that weren't responsible for its plight.
• Oxenfree: The Sunken are the ghosts of people who were teleported to another dimension when the submarine they were in was destroyed and eventually lost a sense of self and sanity. Alex acknowledges this is terrible and even tries to help them get over it, but very firmly states that it won't justify what they have done to her friends, or their attempt to take over their bodies. It's implied that The Sunken agree with what Alex is saying, but are so desperate for their plans to succeed that they don't care about the morality of their actions anymore.
  Alex: That is no excuse!
  The Sunken: It's the only excuse you're going to get.
• Pathfinder: Kingmaker: Your Player Character can get Chaotic Goodinvoked points by telling the Stag Lord that his abusive father doesn't excuse the crimes he's committed.
• Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous: Your Hellknight companion Regill succinctly dismisses Joran Vhane's efforts to excuse his brother Staunton making a Face–Heel Turn against the Mendevian Crusades. To Regill, no matter what was done to a man to make him betray his own people, he's still ultimately responsible for his own actions.
  Joran Vhane: Of course, he's done things in the past, but the crusaders just never cut him any slack. He tried for a decade to atone for what he did, then two decades, then three. Half a century. And still they treated him like dirt. So my brother lashed out. He did a bad thing, sure, but who wouldn't in his place? He's not made of stone or copper, even if he is a dwarf. That crazy eyeless hag with horns—she got into his head. Demons are like that, you know, they can tempt. Among the crusaders, my brother was the lowest of the low, but here he commands power and respect. And he doesn't think of the cost. Hah!
  Regill: Every betrayer has their own sob story to excuse their actions. And each one thinks they are different from the rest, that they alone should be understood and shown mercy. I'm sick of hearing it.
• In Persona 4: Arena Ultimax, it turns out the game's Big Bad, Sho Minazuki, is the victim of experiments that the Kirijo Group performed on him. In the P4 side, Mitsuru Kirijo sympathizes with him, but says that his past doesn't give him license to hurt others; he is an enemy who must be defeated and face justice for his crimes. Yu Narukami doesn't argue with this assertion despite wanting to save Sho.
• Persona 5 investigates this trope.
  • Several of the targets of the Phantom Thieves claim in their Motive Rants that whatever they did wasn't really their fault; society made them gain distorted desires and create Palaces. Even The Heavy for The Conspiracy, known to the Phantom Thieves as "Black Mask", blames how society treated them for being an illegitimate child and having big-time Bastard Angst for his father (Japanese culture has this be a much more serious issue than in the West and his mother committed suicide, leading for him to be bounced around foster homes). The Phantom Thieves always hold the belief that this never excuses the actions of their targets, especially if one recalls how badly society has treated the Thieves themselves. None of the Thieves chose to shrug their shoulders, blame someone else, and make the world worse; they're fighting to make it better.
  • Kaneshiro especially stands out, considering how flabbergasted the party is that his desire for "a place to belong" led him to become a Yakuza boss who blackmails high schoolers with drug money. Makoto, who was in danger of being sold into sex slavery, venomously tells Kaneshiro that he'll have a place to "belong" for the rest of his life: in prison.
  • However, the Thieves still acknowledge society's role in screwing up people, and even acknowledge how they could've ended up like Black Mask had they not met the Player Character and become Phantom Thieves in the first place. In fact, the entire exploration serves as the basis for the Final Boss. Mementos is the collective Palace of the population of Tokyo. Representing the Sin of Sloth, it examines how people are willing to ignore atrocities and inadvertently screw themselves over trying to get by. They're willing to give up freedom for someone else to handle the big problems they may have created. A literal prison of their own creation, but one they're willing to remain in out of the promise of safety and order. This is a very particular problem given how societal order and knowing your place are massive cultural pillars in Japanese society. The Big Bad himself was formed from the peoples' warped desire for a stabilizing force and was such a threat that it took out Big Good Igor. It also empowered the protagonist as part of a twisted game, just to see if he would break from all his experiences, with the other player being the Traitor Goro Akechi (who was granted his power two years sooner to ensure he would not meet up with anyone who could help him). Ultimately, the game could end in different ways. The Bad Ending has the heroes choosing to forsake the people and join up with the villain, remaining as Phantom Thieves and becoming shadow rulers of Tokyo, heavily implying that they turn Knight Templar since they see society and people as incapable of taking care of themselves without them. The true ending has the protagonist reinforce their faith in humanity and give the people of Tokyo back their freedom and the responsibility entailing with it.
  • This trope also comes up in Ryuji's Confidant. One of his greatest regrets was how, after Kamoshida had abused and overtrained the track team and spread rumors about Ryuji's home life, Ryuji punched Kamoshida, causing him to break his leg in “self-defense” and shut down the track team in retaliation. During Ryuji's Confidant, one of Ryuji's former teammates, Nakaoka, angrily tells Ryuji that everyone was putting up with Kamoshida's abuse for the sake of the team, and Ryuji's efforts wasted all their hard work, a point Ryuji agrees with. Later on, Ryuji learns that Takeishi, another former teammate, trusted Yamauchi (the new track coach, who's almost as bad as Kamoshida) out of the belief that Yamauchi would help Takeishi get into his father's alma mater. Ryuji tells Takeishi that he should live for himself, and asks if being proud of himself requires him to betray others.
• Persona 5 Strikers is a sequel to Persona 5, which sees the Phantom Thieves reinforce this belief, albeit from a different direction.
  • Rather than face off against a Palace Ruler that's an unredeemable Hate Sink, the Monarchs in Strikers are each presented as a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds for one reason or another. While many of the Monarchs have had a truly bad lot in life, the Thieves call them out on their behavior after defeating their Shadows by saying a bad life doesn't justify making the world a worse place, and especially not when several of the Monarchs are robbing the dreams of innocent people, most of whom had nothing to do with whatever hurt them. The Thieves even point out that such behavior has made the Monarchs no better than the people who ruined their lives.
  • Akane Hasegawa, Zenkichi's daughter, has had a difficult life, with her mother hit and killed by a car and her father rarely spending time with her. The Phantom Thieves sympathize with her, especially Makoto, who had a similar childhood, but they also make it clear that this does not justify lashing out at Zenkichi or hating him.
  • On the other hand, Zenkichi was hit with this trope as well. After explaining to Akane that he was ultimately blackmailled into not arresting Owada for his wife's murder, Akane wasn't satisfied with this excuse as she points out that Zenkichi left the family of a falsely-accused secretary with guilt and shame over a crime they didn't commit. That being said, Akane was Brainwashed and Crazy at that time, and Zenkichi ends up admitting that he messed up and resolves to do better.
• Prayer of the Faithless: When Aeyr yells at Trill for relying too much on the concept of a clan and tells her to leave, Luke calls out Aeyr for his insensitivity to her plight. He then points out that although Aeyr was ostracized by the Asalans, the latter's antisocial behavior is also a major factor for his lack of bonds. In the Tired route, Aeyr admits that it's hypocritical of him to demand acceptance from others without also giving them a chance in return.
• Pyre: If the Reader talks with Volfred about the previous Nightwings, he'll mention that what caused the group's fallout was that one of their members, motivated by her past traumas and anger, betrayed them. Volfred says that years later reflecting on her actions, he has come to pity her, though he clearly states that her past, while sad, does not make what she did right or acceptable.
• Resident Evil
  • Resident Evil 6: Carla Radames's actions are motivated by the fact that Simmons turned her into a clone of Ada Wong and essentially destroyed her original self, all for his own Retargeted Lust. However, it's made clear that this doesn't come close to justifying her numerous heinous acts throughout the game, which result in the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people and the destruction of at least three major cities across the world, all for the sake of what amounts to petty revenge against one person; Ada herself states outright that while she can understand why Carla did what she did, she does not condone her actions.
  • Resident Evil Village: Heisenberg and Miranda try and convince Ethan of their plights (being kidnapped and experimented on as a child by an uncaring mother figure just to help her recreate her actual child, and losing her daughter to the Spanish Flu and becoming immortal without her, respectively), but Ethan and the narrative never give them an inch because of the hundreds if not thousands of innocent people they experimented on, and kidnapping Ethan's own daughter. Ethan responds to all of their rants with annoyed disinterest or raw hostility.

S-W

• Section 8: Prejudice: General Salvador, the primary villain of the game, is a man who just followed orders to exterminate any alien species the US Empire encountered on inhabitable worlds, and is now trying to take revenge on the Empire for it. During the final cutscene protagonist Alex Corde acknowledges that what the Empire did was reprehensible, but "killing millions more isn't the answer!"
• Spider-Man (PS4): Dr. Octopus was once a good scientist who wanted to help people (as well as himself) but was betrayed by Osborn, and now wants revenge on him instead. He blames everything on Osborn for betraying him and led Peter to believe that it was the tentacles' A.I. making him evil. After leading Peter to believe that Otto only thought that Peter was Spider-Man's assistant, he finally reveals in the climactic battle that he was never fooled and knew all along that Peter and Spider-Man were the same people. In actuality, Otto was always in control of his actions and the A.I. simply removed his inhibition. Otto's vengeful drive, his sociopathic outlook on life were traits that he had internalised and the abuse of his tentacles was something he had always desired to do. The loss of his inhibition from the A.I. simply gave him a stronger will to do so than he had originally. Especially since Otto shows no remorse for what he's done, how he's tried to kill Peter despite their history together, and how he genuinely believes the civilian fatalities are acceptable losses as long as Osborn suffers more than he did. Peter, finally realizing that who he thought was his friend and mentor was actually an evil person who deliberately infected others with a dangerous disease, drops the special treatment and defeats him after a brutal fight.
  Otto: You should be on my side!
  Peter: I WAS!
• Super Robot Wars: In any games crossing over with Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, this trope is usually how the good guys prevent Kira Yamato from falling into Heroic BSoD due to Rau Le Creuset's Breaking Speech about how Humans Are the Real Monsters. They stated that while Rau might have a bad past, it doesn't excuse the multitude of his psychotic, genocidal actions as the result, so if there's someone who needs to pay for their sins, it's not humans, it's just Rau and his extremely close-minded way of thinking. Every time this happens, Kira ends up agreeing with the good guys and they proceeded to shoot down Rau without being affected with his speech, meaning that it's considered like utter bullshit while shooting him in the face.
• Tales Series:
  • In Tales of Symphonia, just before the Final Boss fight against him, Lord Yggdrasill details about how he was a victim of Fantastic Racism, and how his plan to make everyone into lifeless beings will make everyone equal. The player's party tears into this line of thinking, saying that not only will this plan not work, but the bad guy has also done things far worse in the name of his goal, including rounding up humans for lethal experiments in ranches and dooming two worlds to destruction. Zelos in particular - who himself has a list of Freudian Excuses a mile long - gives the villain the harshest rebuke of the party.
    Zelos: You don't get to act like you're the victim here. It doesn't even come close to justifying all the things you've done.
  • Also from Symphonia, Governor-General Dorr collaborates with the Desians while pretending to resist them, because the Desians killed his father for resisting and turned his wife into an Exbelua monster. Lloyd sympathizes with him but calls him out on selfishly betraying his people, saying any one of them could have suffered his wife's fate.
  • In Tales of the Abyss, Luke fon Fabre is a Spoiled Brat who puts the "Ass" in Ambassador. He constantly whines and complains to the rest of the party, who keep telling him to grow up. The only time Luke had any sort of genuine moral dilemma is when he had to kill someone for the first time (even though it was in self-defense). Then comes the Wham Episode, where the town of Akzeriuth sinks into the qlipoth and the entire town is wiped off the map. While that was due to Luke being manipulated by Van, Luke could have said something or clued in the party as to what Van was doing, but simply chose not to. As such, Luke finally admits that he's acted selfishly this entire time, that he doesn't deserve redemption for what he did, and he has no excuse for his spoiled behavior or what happened. He gets an Important Haircut, mellows out considerably, and finally becomes someone whom the party genuinely respects.
  • In Tales of Vesperia, toward the end of the game, the party hears about Duke's backstory. He and Elucifur, an Entelexia, fought alongside humanity against the anti-humanity Entelexia, only for the Empire to betray and kill Elucifur in order to obtain his Apatheia to make more Blastia. Raven and Judith sympathize with Duke, both being people heavily affected by said war, but Yuri points out that it doesn't justify Duke's plan to sacrifice humanity to destroy the Adephagos and that he needs to be stopped.
  • In Tales of Berseria, this gets discussed quite a bit to serve the contrasting mindsets of Anti-Hero Velvet and Anti-Villain Artorius. Whereas Velvet openly acknowledges that she's a "monster" who has no excuse for killing people in the name of revenge and has a mental breakdown when she learns the person she's trying to avenge, her little brother, was a willing sacrifice, meaning she can't even claim her revenge is justified, Artorius believes that he is righteous and knows what's best for the world. Artorius goes forward with his plan of Emotion Suppression after his wife and unborn child both died on the same Scarlet Night, filling him with hatred and deciding that all emotion needed to be suppressed for the sake of stopping the daemonblight. Once Velvet and her party learn this, they admit they can see why Artorius is acting the way he is. However, they also say that his plan is still insane, it doesn't justify all he's done in the name of his goal, and that he needs to be stopped at all costs.
• Theia - The Crimson Eclipse:
  • Downplayed in that Seth never becomes a villain, but he abandons his duty as a Vanguard after his brother Aiment is killed on his watch and isolates himself from his friends and family. Martia points out that despite the pain he went through, by abruptly leaving the Vanguards, he didn't help his teammates cope with their own grief when they needed him the most.
  • The leader of the Scarlet Wyrms, Jormungandr, is Brandon Ferneth, who worked with Lannfer Risan to find a way to turn real Scarlet Wyrm venom into an energy source and a miracle drug. The drug turned out to grant immortality to humans, but at the cost of turning them into radioactive monsters, which Brandon learned the hard way when he tried to use the drug to extend his life, on Lannfer's suggestion. As a result, Brandon turned into a suffering, radioactive mutant whose presence ended up killing his wife and daughter through radiation poisoning. When he tried to sue the company, he lost because Risan Health used their wealth to game the legal system. Nion acknowledges that Risan Health did him wrong, but also points out that Brandon sacrificed many uninvolved people and even his own granddaughter Rose just to destroy the company, therefore eliminating any chance for sympathy.
  • The Varzan duo in the Scarlet Wyrms, Shiva and Asura, are obsessed with avenging the Marut Clan by killing Rudra. Carver points out that while it's tragic that their clan was annihilated by Rudra in the latter's Orihalcon-induced frenzy, they never made any effort to rebuild the clan and instead focused solely on revenge against Rudra, to the point where they were willing to have their own people die in Orihalcon experiments, albeit voluntarily.
• World of Warcraft: During Garrosh's duel with Thrall, Thrall tells Garrosh that he failed the Horde during his destructive reign as Warchief. Garrosh responds by telling him that Thrall had made him, a man with no experience in leadership, the Horde's Warchief during a severe crisis that he wasn't equipped to deal with, and that it was Thrall who failed him. When Thrall has Garrosh in his death grip, Garrosh states that Thrall was responsible for making him into who he was. Thrall responds by telling him he had chosen his own destiny and then kills him. Interestingly enough, Garrosh had previously mocked Thrall as a poor excuse of a Warchief and was glad to have replaced him.

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