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Heroes have moral standards, villains exploit that. Villains have no concept of loyalty, heroes abuse that. Flaw Exploitation is the action of either a Hero, Villain, or even Innocent Bystander to take advantage of the inherent flaws (or to be more charitable, character) of their opponent in order to win.
This is similar to the Hero Ball and Villain Ball in that both deal with the inherent limits heroes and villains have or place on themselves, but differs in that the former deals with the two tripping themselves up, whereas Flaw Exploitation is someone else doing so. Neither the hero nor the villain need to make mistakes for Flaw Exploitation to occur, just act in character.
A Smug Snake abusing a hero's Lawful Good morality to avoid getting punched in the face would count. Said hero being Lawful Stupid wouldn't. A villain's henchmen being talked into doing a Mook Face Turn in the face of their bosses' policy on failure would count, but a villain doing a Revealing Coverup wouldn't.
Exploiting an opponent's character and flaws is a tactic as old as time and Truth In Television. There's a deeper level to this in literature. In some settings this means that evil is fundamentally flawed and incapable of long term gains, since a competent hero can use its very nature to defeat it. On the other hand, a clever villain can make a hero set for destruction because his ethical code and a moral dilemma are in opposition, creating a Tragic Hero.
It's worth noting that neither the hero or villain would see the flaws exploited as, well, flaws, but as character traits. Character traits of such importance you cease to be a Knight In Shining Armor or a stylish Card Carrying Villain if you change them. If they do recognize them as weaknesses that can be abused, they'd all the same see them as inherent to being good/evil and necessary. If they don't, say "Hello Anti Hero and Anti Villain!"
When used against a hero, will often lead to The Sadistic Choice. The Manipulative Bastard finds this easy as breathing. The Fettered is a type of character that can frequently find their self-imposed limits exploited - and by contrast, one of the reasons The Unfettered is so terrifying is that it's nearly impossible to do this to him.
Examples
Anime
- Most villains will do this by snatching some completely random Innocent Bystander off the street to use as a hostage, because the hero just can't Shoot The Hostage, no matter how many million lives are at stake. Bonus points if it's a woman, a child, or for the 4X multiplier, a little girl.
- How is a little girl different from a little boy? Sure, there exists the idea that killing women is somehow worse than killing men, but this troper has yet to hear an example of this double standard being applied to children. In other words, males are only good to go if they're grown.
- In the Bount Arc of Bleach, Yoshi takes a hostage and pulls off an astounding 8X Multiplier during her battle against Rukia — by grabbing a little girl who is holding an infant child in her arms... a truly max-powered Dog Kicking, that.
- 16X multiplier surely?
- Only if the baby that the girl was holding was female.
- In Hellsing, the first villain that appears tries this with a policewoman. Alucard asks the girl if she's a virgin (in the manga) or if she'll go with him (in the anime). He then shoots her right through the chest to kill the vampire. When the mission is over, he turns her into a vampire. Alucard is not exactly a Knight In Shining Armor (except literally, in volume 8).
- Near in Death Note takes advantage of Light's impossible, blinding pride (and his poor choice of a Knight Templar for a disciple).
- Unquestioning loyalty to anybody who gains the title of Kira is also a rather serious flaw, and it gets exploited from here to Hades.
- In Katekyo Hitman Reborn, during Tsuna's fight with Mukuro, the fight between them is prolonged much longer due to Mukuro's dirty fighting tactics that completely exploit Tsuna's kind-hearted nature. (Tactics that include taking over Tsuna's friends' bodies to fight him, making it difficult for Tsuna to defeat them without harming their bodies, and pretending to surrender only to attack Tsuna's back when Tsuna decides to spare him, etc.)
Film
- Darth Sidious/Emperor Palpatine of Star Wars is the master. He creates a rebellion based on real anger people have with the central government, exploits Amidala's anger at the Republic to get the Chancellor out of the way, and exploits the Senate's fear of rebellion to give him dictatorial power. He exploits Anakin's ego and fear of losing loved ones to tempt him to the Dark Side, exploits the Jedi's aloofness to sow distrust. He exploits the Rebellion's desire to get in a killing blow on him personally by luring them to the second Death Star for an ambush, and nearly manages to exploit Luke's concern for his friends to tempt him as well. His one mistake was forgetting that he'd originally exploited Anakin's fear and anger at losing loved ones, so killing Anakin's son...
- Who, of course, exploited Vader's feelings to turn him against Palpatine. Not consciously (he went to try and rescue Vader, not kill Palpatine, according to the EU, so standard disclaimers).
- In Superman II, General Zod realizes Superman's weakness is that he cares for the humans he's protecting. Zod and his minions start attacking and endangering the people of Metropolis. Superman finally realizes that fighting his enemies in the middle of the city is endangering innocent lives and takes off.
- Averted in Speed. Shoot the hostage.
Live Action TV
- Kivas Fajo uses this against Data in the Star Trek The Next Generation episode The Most Toys, while Data has a disruptor weapon pointed at him, convinced that Data will not fire it because he's programmed with a "fundamental respect for all life, and an inhibition against harming living beings". Subverted in that Data does actually prepare to shoot, reasoning that killing Fajo would save more lives in the long run, and would have done so if he hadn't been beamed out of there in the nick of time. He then tells a near-lie to his commanding officer about it; he suggests that the disruptor may have discharged due to the transport. He never says that this is what happened, only that it is a possible explanation ;)
Fajo:If only you could feel rage over Varria's death... If only you could feel the need for revenge, then maybe you could fire. But you're...just an android. You can't feel anything, can you? It's just another interesting, intellectual puzzle for you—another of life's curiosities.
Literature
- A good example of this is Harry Potter. Half of Harry's triumphs come from the fact that Voldemort has no concept of loyalty to his men; thus, many of them will abandon him the moment there's something better to be loyal to. Dumbledore turned Draco Malfoy in book six, and his father and mother switched sides (his mother being the more important of them) pretty much at a drop of a hat, because a choice between an uncaring vindictive bastard who would likely kill them for their past failures or the life of her son wasn't a hard choice.
- Flipping it right around for another good example: half of Voldemort's triumphs come from the fact that Harry has an especially fierce sense of loyalty, and thus will go to any lengths to help his friends. It's even lampshaded in Book 5, when Hermione points out to Harry that he's got a "saving people thing", and raises the possibility that Voldemort could be deliberately taking advantage of that. He is.
- Voldemort's problem isn't that he doesn't appreciate true loyalty. He does. He rewards his two most loyal servants, Bellatrix and Severus Snape with his greatest trust. His problem is that he's terrible at creating loyalty. Bellatrix was loyal due to her obsession over Voldemort. Severus was loyal due to a seeming brotherhood with him, through similar shared childhood experiences. Up until Voldemort tries to kill Lily Potter. Then all loyalty goes out the window. At no time does he do anything that a reasonable person would find inspiring of real loyalty. He seems to want people to feel loyalty towards someone who's a raving sociopath and is incapable of returning that loyalty.
- Sauron in The Lord Of The Rings is defeated because he was incapable of imagining that someone who could wield the One Ring wouldn't want to, and instead send it away to be destroyed. Thanks to The Palantir Ploy, Gandalf convinced him Aragorn had the Ring and was headed towards him to buy enough time for Frodo to destroy it.
- Subverted in Feet Of Clay. A trio of thieves discovers that the bar they're trying to rob is populated entirely by off-duty members of the Watch. They take hostage a pretty blonde woman, figuring that the others will let them go free as they [The Watch] won't want to risk injuring her. Fortunately, depending on your point of view, she's a werewolf—and a cop—and she can take care of herself.
- Kellhus in Second Apocalypse exploits the flaws of everyone around him. In most cases, this flaw is religion, but he also exploits love several times. His morals aren't exactly in line with the rest of the world.
- This is par for the course in A Song of Ice and Fire. Littlefinger is especially good at Flaw Exploitation, playing on the weaknesses and foibles of pretty much everybody; Eddard Stark (honor), Lysa Arryn (obsessive love), Robert Baratheon (impatience with the mundane issues of running a kingdom), Joffrey Baratheon (wanton cruelty), Tywin Lannister (pride)... and so many, many more.
- At the Superhero School Whateley Academy in the Whateley Universe, there are Combat Finals at the end of the Fall 2006 term. In one chapter of Joe Gunnarson's Call the Thunder, Diamondback finds herself teamed with the Supervillain Hekate, who everyone in the entire school knows will backstab Diamondback first chance she gets (and who is much more powerful magically than Diamondback). Diamond lays a very cunning Batman Gambit that only works if Hekate shafts her as soon as she gets the chance. Hekate grabs the Villain Ball for everything she's worth, leading to a very satisfying demonstration of this trope.
- In the Redwall series, badgers are known to be fiercely (perhaps feverishly) dedicated to Justice and Good in general. Salamandastron has the Big Bad acknowledge this outright:
Ferahgo: I've dealt with big badgers before. Oh, they're fierce fighters, sure enough, but they lack cunning and suffer from silly little things, like honor and conscience.
- Later in the story, the villains capture a pair of the Badger Lord's finest fighters and have fun messing with him over what they want for their hostages before making an impossible demand for the entire mountain fortress. They even give the badger a couple days to give his answer, knowing full well they plan to kill their hostages before the time elapses.
- Fortunately for the two hostages, the series is prone to softening the consequences of such difficult choices, and they end up surviving anyway. Partially this is because hares are invariably awesome in a pinch.
Video Games
Western Animation
- In The Spectacular Spider Man, Doctor Octopus pegs Spider-Man as "weak" because he's obliged to save Innocent Bystanders. Ock then grabs a nearby damsel and uses her in a Hostage For Mc Guffin ploy to get Spider-Man to fork over some desirable Applied Phlebotinum.
- An early episode of the 80s Transformers cartoon has Megatron executing a plan to teleport Cybertron (the Transformers' homeworld) into Earth orbit, the presence of which would disrupt Earth's gravity and ultimately destroy the planet. The Autobots try to stop him, but when Optimus finally does prevent Megatron from pressing the button to complete the teleport, Megatron gloats, and insists that Optimus will be the one to push the button — because if he doesn't, the teleport will fail, destroying Cybertron in the process. Optimus, true to form, reluctantly pushes the button, rather than let his homeworld perish. (Which is kind of opposite of other characterization he's had since, where he would sacrifice the rest of his species if it means the Decepticons would not be able to threaten any other sentients ever again.)
- In an earlier episode, Megatron goads Optimus into a one-on-one duel in which the loser's faction will exile themselves forever, knowing the Autobot leader's sense of honor would never allow him to refuse a chance to end their war peacefully. Naturally, he cheats during the competition, but at least he was just Genre Savvy enough to send troops into the Autobot base to disable their computer and prevent the deception from being noticed (and he would've gotten away with it, too, were it not for those meddling Dinobots...).
- Dr. Drakken is known to have exploited KimPossible's teenager flaws, like making Kim disappear if she's too embarrassed or sending in a perfect boyfriend for Kim to fall in love with because she thought that Ron was way below her league.
- Shego takes over the world by exploiting the major flaw that Kim Possible is nowhere near as effective without her sidekick Ron Stoppable, Shego splits them up by offering Ron's mother a new job in Norway.
- Danny Phantom has Manipulative Bastard Vlad who constantly pulls this on Danny, usually by making him his personal Xanatos Sucker. Danny however, does the same thing against him, too! One example is in "Maternal Instincts" where Danny tricked Vlad by using his desire for the boy as his son. Calling him "new dad", Danny slaps a Power Nullifier on him, then proceeds to beat the crap outta him.
- Technus also used Danny's emotions to keep him busy or enraged in one episode while he worked on his ultimate plan.
Webcomics
- Subverted mightily in Antihero For Hire, where Shadehawk fully is greatly disappointed
 to learn a room full of unaffiliated villains did not in fact fight over their treasure at all, though it's immediately Double Subverted as they fight over killing him.
- During the Sluggy Freelance arc "Aylee" Leono is defeated because the same Fantastic Racism that drove him to wipe out humanity means he never suspects a member of his own species would betray him.
- Happens a number of times in Order Of The Stick...
- Vaarsuvius resolves a Spot The Imposter situation by offending the Evil Twin's Pride and zapping the one that takes offense.
- More recently, V's own Pride has been exploited by fiends aware that he would rather rent out his soul for the power to do things himself than rely on others to accomplish the same thing without obligation.
Theater
- In The Pirates of Penzance, the titular pirates won't hurt orphans. Everyone seems to know this and use it to escape from them, even Modern Major General Stanley.
- That's just the best known one. The entire play is about this trope. For example: Fredric's loyalty (by the pirates), the pirate's patriotism (by the police), Fredric's naivete (by Ruth), Stanley's patriotism (by the pirates)
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