Troperville
Help us survive. All donations are anonymous on the wiki and unacknowledged, as we don't wish to create a hierarchy among Tropers.
Editing
Tools
Toys
|
|
|
|
Do you understand, Kakarot? That's why needed Babidi's magic. To awaken the evil in my heart. To set me free of these petty attachments. (smirks ) And I've got to say it feels pretty good.
It feels so good to be bad! So delicious to be a despicable cad! It's just so thrilling And so fulfilling To give somebody the worst time they've ever had! It feels so good to be bad!
— Red, All Dogs go to Heaven 2
The reason people take Psycho Serum.
No one understands Evil Is Cool better than the hero with a Superpowered Evil Side. Once their inner Hyde is unleashed, they become nearly invincible, all but immune to pain, and stronger and more powerful than all the Applied Phlebotinum and Training From Hell in the world could make them.
But the effect on their body is just a fringe benefit to the effect on their mind. Their conscience just shuts up. They're free to break all the rules, do anything they want. No more scruples, no morals, no inhibitors to hold them back from tearing their arch enemy to shreds. And it feels good.
For many a hero with a Split Personality, that's the scariest thing about their Unstoppable Rage or Enemy Within - realizing that, deep down, they like it...
Cue This Is Your Brain On Evil.
Counterpart to Good Feels Good.
Examples
Anime
- The anime/manga Claymore might have the most straightforward interpretation of this trope, as the Claymore warriors feel greater pleasure the further they utilise their demonic (yoma) powers. In fact, part of the reason why all Claymores are female, is due to the fact that male warriors are unable to suppress the need to transform all the way once they start using their yoma power, a less than subtle allusion to ejaculatory inevitability.
- In the Battle City arc of Yu Gi Oh, tombkeeper Marik Ishtar has another, psychotic evil personality (who is actually NOT another soul unlike with Yugi and Bakura) that is sealed by the consciousness of his half-brother Odion (Rishid in the original). When Odion is KO'd by The Winged Dragon of Ra, the evil Marik comes out. He remarks about how weak his other side is, and how scared he is of the dark. "But not me, I love the dark. It fills me with purpose!" Yami Marik gloats almost orgasmically. He then proceeds to show how insane he is by rendering Mai and Joey (Jonouchi) comatose after putting them through hideous torturous Dark Games.
- From the example above, Vegeta of the Dragon Ball Z fame allowed himself to become taken over by the evil wizard Babidi, in his Batman Gambit to be strong enough to defeat Goku, making this More Than Mind Control as opposed to Brainwashed And Crazy. He clearly could have had the will to resist Babidi's attempts, and later proved himself able to do so when he tried to give out his commands. However, Vegeta was merely interested in fighting Goku. He explained to Goku that he felt that his badassery was decaying after settling down, and forming a family, so witnessing the power of Babidi's magic, he became possessed on purpose...and was very pleased with the power boost.
- In the dub of Yu Yu Hakusho, the younger Toguro brother (a human turned into a demon for winning the Dark Tournament a long time ago) mentions that, while demonic energy is less powerful than human spirit energy, it "gives a much more pleasurable sensation when used."
Comic Books
- This trope was a staple of the Nineties Anti Hero genre (as well as their predecessors, notably Wolverine).
- Miss Misery of the comic book Sleeper was a villain who suffered from an interesting take on this - not only did being evil make her happier, healthier, more beautiful, and physically stronger, but being kind and unselfish was hazardous to her health. Back before she became a criminal, she was nice, ordinary, and extremely ill. Becoming amoral and hurting people elevated her health to the point of perfection. Once she fell in love with the main character, she started falling ill again.
Film
- This is the most prevalent theme of the film Spider-Man 3.
- Fight Club: "I look like you want to look, I fuck like you want to fuck, I am smart, capable and most importantly: I am free in every way that you are not."
Literature
- It's stated in the fifth and seventh Harry Potter books that one has to "mean it" and "feel good" about it when using an Unforgiveable Curse for it to work properly.
- What it says about The Hero and his friends that they're able to flawlessly execute one of the Unforgivable Curses in the seventh book is probably better to not think about.
- Harry ends up using two of the Unforgivable Curses to great effect in the seventh book...not a good sign.
- But to be fair, it's only Bellatrix who says this, and we don't know how reliable that information is.
- Barty Crouch as Mad-Eye Moody teaches this in the first real introduction of the curses. He states that the curses do require one to actually truly intend somebody to wind up dead, though never mentions anything about having to like them. Admittedly he'd ordinarily not be a very reliable source either, but there's not really any sign ever given that the things he taught were misleading. If you don't have to actually enjoy killing/pain/control to use the curse, then it makes sense for even the protagonists to be able to use them.
- This starts to happen to the main character of the Goosebumps book The Haunted Mask.
- Referenced in the Wheel Of Time, in Elyas' advice to Perrin concerning his axe: specifically, that he should keep it until chopping things up starts to feel good, at which point he should throw it as hard as he can and run the opposite direction.
Live Action TV
- The titular character of Angel has commented that he misses the "clarity" of having no morals. Angelus does seem to truly, deeply enjoy being infamously evil.
- Also mentioned on Buffy, where in one sixth season episode Spike encourages Buffy to do things his way, which will include all sorts of badness and mixing with evil creatures. "Try on my world. See how good it feels."
- Comically subverted immediately afterward when Spike's idea of evil is revealed to involve gambling kittens with a group of Ambiguously Evil demons.
- The Buffy series as a whole plays with this a lot really, mainly using Buffy and Willow.
- And Faith: "When are you gonna get this, B? Life for a Slayer is very simple: Want. Take. Have."
- The Dresden Files has black magic, vampires with addictive saliva, and, perhaps most obviously to the reader, the power of a hexenwulf, one of the many forms of werewolves.
- George (a werewolf) has a great speech about this in Being Human.
Tabletop Games
- Tabletop Games example: The World Of Darkness games explore this concept through their Karma Meter system, Morality. It's explicitly stated that maintaining a high Morality/Humanity/etc. is done by feeling remorse and horror at one's misdeeds. What causes it to degrade is reveling in one's power and enjoying the feeling.
- In the world of Mage: The Ascension, lower Wisdom can give the character access to greater powers at the cost of his sanity.
- In Vampire: The Requiem, a Vampire who loses too much of his Humanity becomes less able to avoid flying into a Frenzy of rage or terror. A big element of the game is balancing one's nature as a predator against maintaining control of one's humanity.
- Humanity also affects other things-your Humanity is actually the physical cap on the number of dice you can roll during daylight hours or while interacting socially with humans, because the lower your Humanity the deeper you slide into the Uncanny Valley.
- Half the reason that Renegade Marines in Warhammer 40000 exist. The other half being Chaos, which is The Corruption distilled.
Video Games
- When Shiki in the Tsukihime game taps into his Superpowered Evil Side, he discovers to his horror that killing feels really good, and that he apparently wants to kill very much. In one possible path, he's finally informed that his Evil Side never wants to kill humans, only monsters and demons. In one possible Bad Ending, his psyche is so badly broken that he decides he really is a serial killer, and goes out to be just that.
- The PC game Dungeon Keeper immortalized this trope with the quote "It's Good to be Bad"
- Actually, the game's tagline was "Evil is Good."
Web Comics
Web Original
- KateModern: Precious Blood, when the phrase "The Hymn of One is fun" is chillingly given a whole new meaning.
- Lenny Priestly in web RP Survival Of The Fittest is this trope with what seems to be intense commitment to his twin sister. At first he was reluctant to kill, dreading the fact that he would have to in order to get his sister off the island, but after killing Anna Vaan he realizes that killing gives him a feeling of power he's never had before, and becomes addicted to that rush to the point where he basically attacks anyone he sees without any provocation with the excuse that they're threatening his sister. His reasoning is that if he's going to die to get her off the island, he might as well have fun. Ironically, the sister he cares so much for has by now fully realized that her brother is insane.
Western Animation
- The episode of The Tick where Arthur gets Baron Violence's belt pastiches this storyline..
- Even Futurama gets in on this, as Bender's Transformation Trauma into a Werecar begins to feel pretty good.
- Vlad Plasmius often uses this reason when egging Danny into the dark side in Danny Phantom. Since this is part of Danny's Myth Arc, he goes through several episodes where he feels good using his powers for dubious reasons. Mind controlled or not, in "Control Freaks", Danny had himself a ball!
- Ron from Kim Possible is normally a bumbling, loser-type who frequently drops his pants (rumour has it that he is this way because he does not want to be better at life than Kim [not talking about the pants]), but the moment he turns evil all hell breaks loose. There's something about one screaming Booya-hahaHAHA!
|
|
