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!"
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. In the Bountou 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.
- In Hellsing the first villain that appears tries this with a police woman, Alucard asks the girl if she a)Is a virgin (only in the manga) b)Will go with him (only in the anime). H 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 in volume 8... literally.
- Near eventually dismantles Light Yagami in Death Note by taking advantage of his impossible, blinding pride (and his poor choice of a Knight Templar for a disciple).
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.
Literature
- Kind of confusing who's the villain and who's the hero, but in The Pirates of Penzance, the titular pirates won't attack anyone who's an orphan (like them), and so everyone they capture lies and says they're orphans.
- 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 a lot of them will abandon him the moment there's something better to be loyal too. Dumbledore turned 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.
- Sauron in The Lord Of The Rings is defeated because he was incapable of imagining someone would want to destroy the One Ring. 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.
- Well, he was right. The Ring was destroyed by accident, not because Frodo wanted to.
- Not really. The crucial point was that Gandalf played on Sauron's paranoia to make him think Aragorn had the Ring and meant to use it. Sauron assumed that anyone sufficiently powerful to wield the Ring would naturally do so. The idea that all these powerful people - Gandalf, Elrond, Aragorn, Galadriel - might choose not to wield the Ring, instead sending it away to be destroyed, never entered his mind until it was too late.
- Subverted in one of the Discworld novels. A Mook discovers that he just tried to rob a bar that is currently populated by an entire shift of watchmen. Oops. So he takes a hostage, the pretty blonde woman, figuring they don't want to risk him injuring her. Fortunately (or not), she's a werewolf, and they end up having to save the Mook from her.
- 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.
Video Games
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.
- 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.
