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alt title(s): Raped The Dog; Rape The Dog
Once he crosses that red line, there's no turning back.

This [Sun article] is a story about Ian Huntley practising witchcraft in his prison cell. And when I read that, I thought, "What is the point of that story", right? 'Cos I, like most of us here, made my mind up about Ian Huntley when he killed those children.
Russell Brand at The Secret Policeman's Ball

An "event horizon" is the boundary around a black hole which once crossed, there is no escape. The Moral Event Horizon is the metaphorical embodiment of this concept on a good/evil axis. Once a character reaches the event horizon, any lingering hope that the villain can be redeemed from his evil, that he may have some sort of Freudian Excuse are dashed to bits like so many rocks against the shoreline. They. Are. Evil. Period. They felt no remorse for what they did. From this point on the tone of the character has changed, often along with the story itself. To the question "can they possibly be redeemed after having engaged in such a monstrous act?" The answer is a resounding no.

A character may be evil, but if their actions are supported by their past history they can't pass the horizon because they do it every day. An Evil Overlord named "The Conqueror" sends an army off to conquer a city... well duh! An assassin killing a Red Shirt is to be expected, each kill is a guard against Informed Ability. A million people died? That's just a statistic. A guy wants to take over the world? But of course! It's a fantasy movie. The truth is, nearly every story has an antagonist with a chance to Kick The Dog.

What makes this trope different is that it breaks apart that realm of comfortable villainy. Doing so demonstrates that this evil character was not following some sort of personal professional code, that something about them is now lost. A Noble Demon ceases to be noble. The Jerkass becomes a total bastard. The Gentleman Thief loses his gentlemanliness, the Classy Cat Burglar her class, and Woobie Destroyer Of Worlds drops the Woobie part. It establishes that there is no line that this villain will not cross- and before we thought there were lines.

Note that where exactly this point is defined is dependent internally on the values exhibited by a work. A more down to earth work featuring a Well Done Son Guy and a Noble Bigot will have its morality torched by a cruel father withholding what last bit of love he may have had in his heart. By contrast, a more epic work with people dying every other scene requires something quite genocidal and senseless to reach into this territory.

A good litmus test is that if you still think a villain potentially redeemable, they have not yet crossed the horizon. If you feel that the event is merely more evidence they are an Anti Villain, they have not crossed the horizon. That doesn't mean we still don't enjoy them as a villain, because sometimes Evil Is Cool and it makes for the best foes to do battle with the hero. But still, beware of Draco In Leather Pants, who has fans that will try and justify every evil action they do.

Now this is a complicated trope, one that is likely to not be portrayed quite the same way from story to story. Because of this complexity there might still be some examples of characters who have legitimately crossed the line and are eventually redeemed somewhere down the line. But in these rare cases the method of redemption has to be an equally dramatic action, usually being that Redemption Equals Death.

If it is not acknowledged as evil and the audience feels that it should have been, then that is not a moral event horizon but would fall under Moral Dissonance. Likewise, this trope cannot be played for laughs (except in parodies of famous uses of this trope) and the status quo can never truly go back to the way it was before.

The polar opposite is being a Designated Hero, where your actions, no matter how abhorrent, are all treated as entirely right and justified by the plotline.

Not to be confused with Event Horizon, a scary film.

Contrast with Even Evil Has Standards.

Examples

Spoilers ahead! Proceed at your own risk.

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