Troperville
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Do you understand, Kakarot? That's why I 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!
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. Is it any wonder they get Drunk On The Dark Side?
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. Usually pit against Being Good Sucks. May have a horrible hangover when Being Evil Sucks.
Examples
Anime and 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 how 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.
- Less than subtle my butt. It's downright explicitly stated that releasing yoma power is akin to the feeling of orgasm.
- 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.
- To some extent, Izayoi Aki from Yu-Gi-Oh 5D's. It's made abundantly clear the Black Rose Witch derives pleasure from... well... making people miserable and inflicting pain.
- 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."
- One of the grittier aspects of Ranma One Half is the very well-established presence of this trope. Ruthlessly amoral and self-centered characters like Nabiki Tendo and Happosai are almost always serene and upbeat, usually getting down only when things don't go their way (which doesn't happen to Nabiki). More moral and decent characters, such as Ranma Saotome & Ryoga Hibiki, on the other hand, tend to often be depressed as their conscience punishes him for the various ill-deeds they either perform or allow to happen. The best example are the Different As Night And Day twins Pink & Link; Pink is a sadist who gleefully poisons anyone she sees just for laughs, while Link is a noble altruist who considers it her duty to heal anyone her sister poisons — and because they are identical twins, is often beaten up by her charges, as they can't tell the difference. The easiest way to tell them apart? Pink is always smiling, Link is always frowning.
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."
- Army Of Darkness: "I may be bad, but I feel soooooo good."
- Ginger Snaps: "It's like touching yourself. You know every move. Right on the fucking dot. And after - see fucking fireworks ... supernovas. I'm a god damn force of nature. I feel like I could do ... just about anything."
Literature
- It's stated in the fifth and seventh Harry Potter books that one has to "mean it" when using an Unforgiveable Curse for it to work properly.
- Harry ends up using two of the Unforgivable Curses to great effect in the seventh book... not a good sign.
- There's a difference between enjoying the use of those curses and using them in a fit of rage in the case of the Cruciatus Curse or realizing it was necessary in the case of the Imperius Curse. In case you forgot, the only OTHER way the gang could have gotten into Gringotts was by murdering the guards and all the witnesses.
- 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.
- Which he then, some ten books later, actually does (for good reason).
- Also an aspect of the Discworld character Vimes, who regularly has to fight back his "inner beast" during the later books as to avoid slaughtering particularly despicable suspects/criminals. However, there are occasions when he decides to unleash it to great effect.
- 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.
Live Action TV
- The eponymous 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."
- George (a werewolf) has a great speech about this in Being Human.
Tabletop Games
- 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.
- Chaos in general for both Warhammer and Warhammer 40000 is this trope played ridiculously straight and horrifically subverted, acquiring a near-constant supply of recruits despite being Always Chaotic Evil due to the overwhelming, almost cathartic release it provides, but over time their actions and the fickle nature of Chaos itself dulls any sense of satisfaction until they must reach and exceed increasingly brutal extremes to feel anything at all.
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.
- Vampires also embrace this trope, especially Satsuki. Is possibly responsible for Shiki's issues with it.
- Sakura in Fate Stay Night.
- Kotomine Kirei, from the same game, is a particularly extreme example. Literally the only thing in the world that makes him feel fulfilled is the pain and suffering of his fellow human beings, whether he inflicted it or he's just observing it. To him, evil doesn't just feel good... it's the only thing that feels good.
- The PC game Dungeon Keeper immortalized this trope with the quote "Evil is Good."
- Sarah Kerrigan from Star Craft after being captured and mutated into the Queen of Blades by the Zerg.
- Queen Fay in Overlord II, after her corruption via the Overlord's Magic while attempting to perform a Heroic Sacrifice for her people by sacrificing her energy to power the Tower Heart and letting the Overlord drain her magic. As the process continues, she begins to accept that Evil Feels Good and embraces her Fallen Hero status.
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!
- Most alarmingly, Ron is an effective and successful vilain; making Doctor Drakken look sick, even on the blue one's best day. He certainly had Shego coming to heel; quite an achievment, and one that scared her into getting Dr D back.
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