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Moral Event Horizon

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Once they cross that red line, there's no turning back.

"Tarkin, if ever there was a shred of humanity in you or these twisted creatures of yours, it's dead now. You're at war with life itself. You are enemies of the universe... your Empire is doomed."
Princess Leia Organa (after Grand Moff Tarkin wipes out Alderaan), Star Wars Radio Dramas

The Moral Event Horizon is the deed that renders a villain irredeemable. Named after the event horizon of a black hole, it is no longer possible for a villain past the Moral Event Horizon to be redeemed. If they try to, it will be rejected, ignored, or otherwise prevented from succeeding. If they do redeem themselves, then they never actually crossed it in the first place.

Note the word irredeemable at the beginning of this article. It is a demonstration of permanent evil. This is the moment which confirms that this character will always be a bad person. The moment where you realize that it's simply not possible for them to cleanse themselves of their guilt. The moment any Freudian Excuse they may have loses all meaning. Their existence is a blight on humanity. They. Are. Evil.

The deed is characterized by the following aspects:

  • The evilness of the deed stands out in the story and the résumé of the character. It's likely to subvert or negate any (potential) redeeming or mitigating aspects they had prior.
  • The event is played seriously and is not negated through Negative Continuity or Black Comedy.
  • There is often a shift in the way the character is perceived by the narrative and other characters. If they weren't a villain or played seriously before, they are now.

When people decide in-universe that someone has crossed this line, the character in question is considered Beyond Redemption.

If you want to stay in the relativistic physics' picture of the (moral) event horizon, there is a trope that would be the equivalent of quantum physics' wave-mechanical tunneling (which is light getting "out" of a black hole without passing back over its event horizon) - Deliverance from Damnation - but the two tropes are just as difficult to reconcile with each other as their physics model counterparts are; and deliverance from damnation is very much the same actually impossible exception wave mechanical tunneling is.

The Good Counterpart to Moral Event Horizon is Heroes' Frontier Step, when a character commits a noble deed that firmly establishes that they are indeed heroic and even pure.

No Real Life Examples, Please! Whether or not a real person has crossed this line is way too debatable and controversial; we already have enough trouble with fictional characters.

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  • Abusive Offspring: Characters who are nasty towards their parents can cross this, as it's essentially spitting on one's upbringing for no good reason if the parents are particularly kind people. If the nastiness turns murderous, it's even more likely to cross the line.
  • Abusive Parents: Characters who abuse their children often cross this. Especially if this abuse turns sexual, deadly, or both.
  • And That's Terrible: When the writers feel the need to explicitly point out when this occurs.
  • Always Chaotic Evil: A race or group is treated, justifiably or not, as so innately evil that they're over the line by default.
  • Atrocity Montage: A montage depicting horrific events fold out such as crimes, accidents and disaster. If any character is responsible for it, then they cross the line.
  • Apocalypse How: Causing one of these (Or maybe even multiple of them) is a likely line crossing.
  • Bad Boss: Characters who abuse their subordinates often cross this.
  • Bad People Abuse Animals: Characters who abuse animals often cross this.
  • Bait the Dog: A villain sets up a moment that endears them to the audience, only to commit a deed to show how utterly despicable they are.
  • Beyond Redemption: When a character In-Universe crosses a line of evil that makes someone else give up trying to redeem them.
  • Black Widow & The Bluebeard: While abusing a spouse is bad enough, killing a succession of them is a major crossing.
  • Blaming the Victim: Blaming someone for the tragedies that happened to them is heinous.
  • Break the Cutie: Torturing and breaking down the innocent cutie is likely going to get someone on this trope depending on how severe it is. Or they can get The Cutie to cross it themselves.
    • Kill the Cutie: Actually killing them is even worse, and an almost guaranteed line crossing.
  • Bully Brutality: Bullies who go beyond giving their victims black eyes and wedgies by severely injuring them are line-crossers.
  • Bullying the Disabled: Ostracizing or mocking someone's disability is a sick act.
  • Card-Carrying Villain: Self-aware evil is irredeemable when it feels pride rather than shame.
  • Child Eater/Eats Babies: A villain who only targets defenseless children for the purpose of eating them often crosses the line by default, as it combines Would Hurt a Child and I'm a Humanitarian.
  • Cold-Blooded Torture: For obvious reasons, torture is nearly always over the line. It's very unlikely that a redeemable character would have the right mindset to go through with inflicting that much pain and suffering unto another person. There may be an exception if it's done to obtain vital information and/or if the "victim" really deserved it, but even then, it can easily be portrayed as crossing the line too.
  • Complete Monster: A character that's pure evil. Not everyone who crosses the Moral Event Horizon become this, but a Complete Monster has definitely crossed it — at least once.
  • Cop Killer: When a murderer demonstrates their lack of regard for morality by killing representatives of law and justice. May not be a line-crossing if the cop in question was an asshole who deserved punishment, though.
  • Crosses the Line Twice: When these actions are played for laughs.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: Inflicting painful and hideous deaths to your victims, especially innocent or sympathetic ones, is a line-crossing.
  • A Deadly Affair: When an affair turns into a crime scene. Victim(s) can vary.
  • Death of a Child: If a child or any prepubescent animal is shown to be explicitly murdered in an inhumane manner, this is all but guaranteed to royally piss off the audience at whoever did it, especially any Moral Guardian who happens to be watching the deed.
  • Defiled Forever: In a setting where Sex Is Evil and/or where Nature Adores a Virgin.
  • Desecrating the Dead: Mutilating a person's dead body is often a line-crosser, as respecting the dead is often seen as an important virtue.
  • Despair Event Horizon: Some characters who lose all hope can be more likely to cross the Moral Event Horizon. Driving someone else across the DEH can easily be a crossing of the Moral Event Horizon as well.
  • Designated Hero/Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Audiences think the characters deserved to be condemned, even if the author makes their actions justified or reasonable.
  • Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: Giving up an advantage just to hurt someone, while definitely stupid, petty, and pointless, can also be a line-crossing if it involves a truly heinous act due to the underlying thought process: they care less about winning and more about inflicting harm, and they're totally willing to throw away what was a guaranteed victory just to indulge in petty cruelty.
  • Dirty Cop / Killer Cop: Usually they often cross the line especially if they are deliberately aiding and abetting criminals as well as killing good cops that try to stop them, or are violent, hateful sadists who treat being a cop as carte blanche to maim and kill people and ruin their lives.
  • Dirty Coward: In some cases, characters who put their lives before others to the point that they don't care if others die or suffer are line-crossers.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: Sometimes, the retribution is disproportionate enough that it causes the person who committed it to cross the line, and often it does.
  • Dog-Kicking Excuse: Deliberately targeting bad people just because it presents a good excuse for doing something heinous to them is still crossing it because, at the end of the day, they really only cared about inflicting serious or fatal harm on someone and just needed a good excuse for doing it.
  • Domestic Abuse: Characters who abuse their families/spouses/lovers often cross this.
  • Driven to Madness: Deliberately driving someone insane can cross this, even moreso if it causes them to do suicide.
  • Earth-Shattering Kaboom: Destroying an entire planet is a major line-crossing.
  • Elder Abuse: Harming a senior is already often portrayed as a line-crossing, but deliberately targeting the elderly specifically can easily come across as even worse, especially if the abuser is supposed to be taking care of them.
  • Evil Feels Good: Being on The Dark Side after a Face–Heel Turn makes a character feel good committing evil deeds.
  • Evil Is Petty: Heinous, loathsome acts committed in response to petty and trifling slights (especially if they are imagined, or so infinitesimal that no one else would reasonably care after the first minute) are often a Moral Event Horizon because the act is both grossly disproportionate to the situation at hand and backed with a sense of self-righteousness.
  • Face–Heel Turn: A character on the side of good turns bad and allies with a villain (or group of villains) and is forever affiliated with them.
  • False Friend: Forming a friendship with another character, only to reveal at a later time that this "friendship" was all an act instigated for their own benefit, is often crossing the line.
  • False Rape Accusation: Accusing someone of such an unforgivable crime when you know they aren't guilty is an unforgivable act in itself.
  • The Farmer and the Viper: Rewarding selfless acts of kindness with wanton cruelty can absolutely be a line-crossing.
  • Family Extermination: The killing of entire families, especially the hero's loved ones, is a major crossing of the Moral Event Horizon.
  • Fate Worse than Death: If murder is a line-crossing, then doing something even worse than that to one's victims surely counts as well.
  • Faux Affably Evil: Many Affably Evil characters can become this when they cross the line.
  • Final Solution: Genocide, the act of wiping out an entire people, is one of the most monstrous acts that a person or a society can commit, and is a serious line-crossing.
  • Forced to Watch: Forcing someone to watch the torture or murder of those they care about is almost invariably a line-crossing.
  • For the Evulz: Many usually Kick the Dog for no reason than Evil Feels Good and to get a sick kick at others' expense.
  • Freudian Excuse: Villains are often the way they are because they were on the receiving end of someone crossing the line.
  • Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: When a villain’s sad past makes absolutely no impact on the villain having crossed the line.
  • Godzilla Threshold: Sometimes a situation becomes so desperate that even heroes must do the previously unthinkable or forbidden.
  • Guilt by Association Gag: Punishing someone for what someone else has done can be considered this due to how unfair it is.
  • Hate Crimes Are a Special Kind of Evil: Violent bigotry is treated as being especially awful.
  • Hate Sink: Characters meant to be wholeheartedly despised, especially those of the worst kind, have a tendency to cross the line to show that they are meant to be despised.
  • Heel–Face Door-Slam: A Heel–Face Turn and/or an apology is attempted, but for whatever reason(s) is rejected; in other words, it's too little, too late. Also, a villain who kills someone just as they are about to make a Heel–Face Turn often crosses this.
  • He Who Fights Monsters: He who seeks revenge against the villains should be wary, not to get so influenced by them that he crosses the line and becomes a villain himself.
  • Hero Killer: A villain, who kills or killed the heroes. Crosses the line if the hero was loved by the characters and the audience or sympathized with him.
  • Honor-Related Abuse: Characters who abuse their families/friends in the name of honor often cross this.
  • I Did What I Had to Do: When a character does something irredeemably in the name of the greater good (or, less favorably, believes that it was for the greater good) while being at least nominally aware of the gravity of their actions.
  • I Surrender, Suckers: Deceiving the opposing side into lowering their guard with a faux surrender is a disgustingly underhanded tactic, is considered a war crime, and is often crossing the line.
  • If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten!: One is made to cross the line to prove their character.
  • Ignored Epiphany: A villain or morally gray character has a brief moment of realizing how bad their actions are, only to shrug it off a few moments later, knowing how far they've fallen.
  • I'm a Humanitarian: Willingly eating another person is one of the greatest taboos in many cultures, and as such is considered unforgivable, as it involves killing people for one's own enjoyment and desecrating their corpse at the same time. This may be much more forgivable in survival scenarios, if one is unaware of what they're eating, or if they're from a culture where ritual cannibalism of the deceased is done out of respect.
  • Immortality Immorality: Villainous immortality seekers are frequent line-crossers, as they typically pursue monstrous or morally bankrupt means of achieving it, and once they become immortal (or if they have been immortal for a while), they are extremely likely to engage in significantly more heinous and depraved acts as time goes on.
  • I Reject Your Reality: A character who rejects an obvious truth so that they can still commit evil without guilt has crossed the line because they absolutely cannot be reasoned with or otherwise deterred from the acts they know are evil. Trying to convince them to stop is futile.
  • It Can Think: A subversion of Non-Malicious Monster, where a violent creature that seemed to be acting purely on instinct is revealed to have the mental capacity to comprehend the morality of its actions, retroactively making its past behavior much more heinous.
  • It Gets Easier: The idea that doing something immoral (like killing someone) once can be very emotionally difficult, but afterwards, doing that same thing again is easier. This can result in a character's first kill being portrayed as the sign that they've fallen into darkness, as now that they've done it once, they're not going to hesitate to do it again.
  • I've Come Too Far: When a character recognizes (or believes) that they have crossed the Moral Event Horizon and know that they don't have a chance of redemption anymore.
  • Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: A character skips over several progressively darker shades of gray and goes straight to crossing it.
  • Kangaroo Court: Deciding that the accused is guilty without any evidence can cross the line.
  • Karma Houdini Warranty: Most often given to those who have crossed it and gotten away with past deeds.
  • Karmic Death: If a character crosses the line, they're more likely to die in a fittingly nasty way related to the nature of their evil deeds.
  • Karmic Rape: Particularly evil characters may end up on the receiving end of rape, especially if their crimes are related to sex.
  • Kick the Dog: An act which serves no purpose other than to mark the character as evil, which frequently overlaps with this.
  • Kick Them While They Are Down: Is at the very least extremely dishonorable, and is usually outright murder if they kill the person.
  • Kick the Morality Pet: If Kicking The Dog wasn't enough, the evil character hurting the ones who brought out their inner humanity is worse - and, from a narrative standpoint, is a good way to cut off their most obvious path to redemption.
  • Kill the Poor: Killing those who are in poverty is a form of genocide, and therefore an obvious crossing.
  • Kinslaying Is a Special Kind of Evil: Murdering your own relatives is treated as heinous.
  • Knight Templar: One of the most frequent crossers, as they're too deluded to realize that they're in the wrong or believe that the outcome will vindicate them.
  • Lack of Empathy: Not inherently a line-crosser, but is the root of many a line-crossing; characters who don't care about other people's feelings can engage in vile acts without guilt or remorse.
  • Mind Control: Forcibly overriding another person's free will is often treated as one of the worst things you can do to someone; it might even be considered a Fate Worse than Death. Even Brainwashing for the Greater Good can come across as iffy, never mind it being done by a villain for selfish or evil purposes.
  • Mind Rape: Psychologically torturing someone into insanity is quite depraved.
  • Mocking the Mourner: Anyone who harasses the bereaved, especially over their loved one's death, is considered having crossed the line into this.
  • Monster Misogyny: A character or creature targeting defenseless women exclusively often crosses the line by default from doing so.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: The character will react with great remorse after they cross the Moral Event Horizon.
  • No Place for Me There: When a character who has crossed it or inevitably will is trying to create a better world, but does so knowing that there will be no place in that world for people who commit monstrous acts like them.
  • No Woman's Land: A race or group abuse women so they're over the line by default.
  • Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Lying about the horrible atrocities you committed as being for a good cause is a great method to cross the line.
  • Nuke 'em: If it's not a last resort, ordering the use of nuclear weaponry is very often portrayed as an irredeemably evil act, as such weapons cause indiscriminate destruction on such a massive scale that unless the Godzilla Threshold has been crossed, the results they bring would be viewed as a Pyrrhic Victory at best by anyone with a functioning moral compass.
  • Offing the Annoyance: Trying to murder someone because you feel annoyed with them is often crossing the line, because it's disproportionate and accompanied by a sense of self-righteousness.
  • Omnicidal Maniac: Trying to kill EVERYTHING almost certainly puts one past the line.
  • Once Done, Never Forgotten: Truly malignant variants can permanently taint a character's reputation and cement themselves to be as unforgivable as they could be by others.
  • Ordered to Die: Telling someone you have authority over to kill themselves. If a hero does this, it's hard to argue they're a "hero" any longer.
  • Post-Game Retaliation: Physically attacking a victor who won a competition fair and square can absolutely be a Moral Event Horizon, especially if it is a sucker punch, multi-person ambush, or when it involves weapons.
  • Post-Support Regret: When a Big Bad Friend crosses this, it results in a Broken Pedestal for their True Companions, making them regret befriending them and vouching for them against everyone who said they were no good.
  • Punished for Sympathy: In a cultural sense, a character showing sympathy for someone who has crossed it is considered just as bad as the line-crosser. That being said, this trope is also a good way of showing why a culture or world is corrupt beyond saving if a character is punished for sympathizing with a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds or someone who was wronged by the system in the first place.
  • Rage Against the Legal System: Criminals who are clearly guilty are usually met with utter contempt if they actively seek revenge against legal authorities for "unjustly" incarcerating them, because they feel no remorse for their actions that got them incarcerated and refuse to acknowledge that they did anything wrong.
  • Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Rape is easily considered to be among the most evil acts anyone can commit, as it often leaves the victim horribly traumatized (sometimes to the point where it's treated as a Fate Worse than Death) and, unlike other crimes such as murder and theft, has no possible justification that could make one sympathize with the aggressor: its sole purpose is always to satisfy the rapist's sick desires.
    • Human Traffickers: Since their entire business involves kidnapping young women and girls for the purpose of making them sex slaves, which combines the evils of both rape and slavery together.
    • Pædo Hunt: Sexual contact with a minor is treated as one of the vilest actions anyone can take, as it combines Would Hurt a Child and Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil.
      • Parental Incest: Child sexual abuse becomes even more disgusting when the perpetrator is also the victim's parent.
    • Post-Rape Taunt: It's one thing to rape, but boasting about it as well is an even bigger line-crosser.
    • Rape, Pillage, and Burn: Any one of those is crossing the line, doing them all at once on a large scale is an easy line-crosser.
    • Serial Rapist: Multiple rapes are much worse than a single one, as it establishes a behavioral pattern and a lack of regret, removing the already-feeble excuse that the assailant gave in to their urges in one moment of weakness.
  • Realism-Induced Horror: Realistically horrific acts are more likely to cross the line than fantastic ones.
  • Redemption Rejection: A character rejecting an offer to redeem himself is proof that he isn't willing to turn back from the line he crossed.
  • Reformed, but Rejected: Frequently befalls those who crossed the line if they try to atone. This may or may not be reasonable depending on their pre and post line-crossing actions.
  • Rejected Apology: Sometimes, a character's actions cross the line to the point where he isn't forgiven for them no matter how apologetic he is.
  • Revenge by Proxy: Exacting revenge on someone innocent, especially if it's done in order to hurt someone connected to the person who the avenger wants revenge on, is treated as this.
  • Revenge Is Not Justice: In some cases, characters who get revenge on those who wronged them can be labeled as line-crossers, especially if the law gets involved.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: A character in the middle of one of these very well may do something that strikes beyond the pale.
  • Ron the Death Eater: Works that arbitrarily villainize characters often have such characters crossing this line, or at the very least try to present them as having crossed it.
  • Sacred Hospitality: In some cultures, such as ancient Greece, violating the bond of trust between host and guest is considered one of the worst things a person can do. This may be subject to Values Dissonance nowadays, as hotels and faster means of transportation mean that spending a night in a stranger's house during travel (or letting a stranger stay at your place) is a rare occurrence and not something most people worry about.
  • Sadist: A character who enjoys the pain and suffering of others and enjoys inflicting as much of it as possible is a frequent line crosser.
  • Sentenced Without Trial: Some (not all) would argue that people who cross this line are so obviously guilty that putting them through a trial would be a waste of time. Alternatively, sentencing someone without letting them speak up or framing them for a crime they didn’t commit could be a MEH crossing in itself.
  • Serial Killer: Murdering multiple people as some sort of hobby can establish that the villain is especially sick and twisted, unless they're portrayed as a Serial-Killer Killer who only murders Asshole Victims that are even worse than themselves.
    • Spree Killer: They have a similar homicidal depravity as serial killers, but engage in their carnage much more publicly and quickly.
  • Shamed by a Mob: A large group of characters will show extreme disgust towards the one crossing the line. Conversely, a mob shaming someone runs the risk of crossing this if the shaming goes to the extremes.
  • Sink the Lifeboats: Attacking fleeing people who are no longer combatants is one of the most dishonorable and despicable things one can do.
  • Sins of Our Fathers: Can be considered this due to the family having no control over what the culprit has done.
  • Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: Slavery is considered as this, as it involves treating another person as subhuman, forcibly stripping them of their freedom for the benefit of the slaver. Applies first and foremost for the slave traders who start it and the politicians who perpetuate it, and not always for those raised in a slavery-based society if they aren't cruel to the slaves and genuinely believe that Happiness in Slavery is the norm.
  • Slowly Slipping Into Evil: One common slow approach to crossing the line.
  • Snuff Film: When someone intentionally kills someone and records it by themselves, usually For the Evulz. This makes the murder much more heinous, as it demonstrates that the perpetrator enjoys killing so much that they want to preserve the moment so they can relive it.
  • The Sociopath: One of the most frequent line-crossers, as a complete Lack of Empathy, overarching egotism and grandiosity, ability to feign social cues to such an extent that it appears genuine to regulars, and willingness to escalate their depravity when they've grown bored with garden-variety cruelty are a lethal combination.
  • Soiled City on a Hill: An entire location that has crossed the line.
  • Start of Darkness: A flashback or prequel that shows where they crossed the line.
  • Stupid Evil: Characters who act like this tend to cross the line with alarming regularity, as the behavior is inherently pointless and purposeless and they also very frequently escalate their behavior when they've grown bored with garden-variety cruelty.
  • Suicide Dare: Telling someone to kill themselves is a heartless act to say the least, and becomes outright monstrous if the person should actually go through with it.
  • Suicide is Shameful: Suicide is considered as this crossover by some cultures.
  • Team Killer: Killing one's own teammates is a reprehensible act.
  • Then Let Me Be Evil: Deeming someone as evil without having done anything evil, and after getting fed up they decide to become evil or at least act the part. If mistreated and abused for no reason their persecutors have ironically crossed the Moral Event Horizon themselves. Their first unambiguously villainous act may well be their Moral Event Horizon.
  • This Is Unforgivable!: An in-universe proclamation that the Moral Event Horizon has been crossed. See also This Means War!.
  • Tragic Mistake: The line is accidentally crossed. May or may not be irredeemable depending on how they handle it.
  • Tragic Villain: A character believes they've crossed the Moral Event Horizon, and has nothing left to do but continue to be evil despite regretting it.
  • Treachery Is a Special Kind of Evil: When betraying someone is considered to be crossing the line, especially if the betrayal was planned in advance.
  • The Unfettered: Willing to do whatever it takes to achieve their goals, even if it means crossing the line.
  • Video Game Cruelty Potential: Sometimes certain things the player can do will push their character over it.
  • War Crime Subverts Heroism: Soldiers crossing the line to show War Is Hell.
  • Where I Was Born and Razed: Destroying one's own homeland is a reprehensible act.
  • Widow Mistreatment: Treating a woman badly in a vulnerable situation like the death of her spouse is a good way to cross the line.
  • Would Harm a Senior: In many cultures, showing respect to the elderly is valued very highly, so hurting a senior citizen often crosses the line.
  • Would Hit a Girl: For a man, hurting an innocent woman may be considered as crossing the line.
  • Would Hurt a Child: Children are usually at the mercy of adults, so a grown-up abusing their power to injure someone much younger than them is almost always over the line, especially if said actions results in the child's death.
  • You Monster!: Characters will get called this, indicating that they've severely crossed the line.
  • Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: Bands of rebels (especially guerilla fighters) tend to be frequent crossers because in times of tyranny or occupation, you can't afford to not get your hands dirty, and the higher the stakes and the more powerful the opposition, the higher the chance of doing something truly heinous is. They may react to it with horror, resignation or, far less favorably, by setting it as a benchmark for future actions.
  • Zombify the Living: Subjecting people to a death far worse than normal death, by making them into undead, is a cruel deed.

    Contrast with 

noreallife


Example subpages:

Other examples:

    Comic Strips 
  • Crankshaft. The September 2013 plot arc has Crankshaft get even surlier than usual because a new co-worker is challenging his reign of smug, curmudgeonly idiot incompetence; his response is to try to 'scare' her into letting him be the festering asshole using his hard life as an excuse to be the antisocial clod he was born to be... by trying to run her over with his school bus.

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Jallianwala Bagh Massacre

Brigadier General Reginald Edward Harry Dyer oversees the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre.

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