Moral Event Horizon in And Then There Were None.
This is what all the guests' crimes are
- Emily Brent is the one fans vilify the most for her crime. Agatha Christie possibly knew about this and made her even more horrifying in the play by giving her a monologue where she admits she completely and totally broke poor Beatrice down by more or less implying she's a slut whom no one will ever take in and that the father of her child would never dream of marrying her. Even Vera Claythorne is horrified, and that's saying something, considering what she did. Interestingly enough, fans don't give her as hard of a time as they do Miss Brent, as she is mildly sympathetic, but of course, not everyone feels the same way.
- And then there's Philip Lombard, who is something of an Anti-Hero in the book regardless of what he did. The Russian film version, however, changes that. He ceases to be even a semi-likable character when he rapes an already mentally unstable Vera Claythorne, and it is subtly implied that this plays a part in her breakdown at the end.
- There's also the BBC adaptation, in which rather than stealing all their provisions from the tribe and causing them to starve to death, he shot them all to death out of pure racism.
- Lombard's moral event horizon is subverted in the original black & white movie, in which it is revealed that he is not Lombard but a friend of his impersonating him after the real Lombard recently committed suicide.
- Anthony Marston killed two kids by running them down in his car, which is terrible enough but still an accident. But when confronted about it, he complains about how terrible it was that he lost his license. In fact it was his insistence to keep driving recklessly uncaring that it could happen again that seals him as a monster. Wargrave himself admits he killed him first because of his lack of shame or belief that he did anything wrong, and thus he wouldn't break down like the other guests.
- Rogers withheld medicine from his dying employer and bullied his wife to go along with it, so that they could inherit her fortune. It's not quite Murder by Inaction when you are supposed to take care of someone and intercept a person's attempts to save the endangered person. He's even more unsympathetic in the 2015 BBC adaptation where he smothers her with a pillow instead of merely withholding medicine from her and strikes his wife when she objects to his actions.
- One of the most sympathetic examples of someone who crossed it is General MacArthur, who felt betrayed by his wife's affair with his best friend and in anger sent him on a death mission in the Great War. He was devastated by his guilt years later, also because his Uriah Gambit made a second, unintended victim — his wife, who died of a broken heart after said gambit went off. The 2015 version instead has the general shoot him in the back.
- On the other end of the spectrum, one of the least likable crossings was William Blore's, who was on the payroll of gangsters and took his promotion by framing and having sentenced for life an innocent party, who ended up dying in prison.
- The 2015 version changes it to beating a man to death for being gay.
- Dr. Armstrong ended up killing a patient due to operating on her while intoxicated. Even if he did feel remorseful, he shouldn't have been anywhere near the hospital after drinking. One has to wonder why he wasn't fired after the operation.
- Judge Wargrave willingly and knowingly sent an innocent man to the gallows after manipulating the jury into finding him guilty. Subverted, as the man actually was guilty, he'd convinced the jury of his innocence until Wargrave intervened.
- In fact, Seton's crime is a Moral Event Horizon in-universe. That old lady trusted him with her life.
- Vera Claythorne crossed it when she tricks the kid who was her charge into swimming too far from the shore, knowing full well that he would drown, so that the kid's uncle (and her lover) could inherit (except of course in the adaptations in which she's innocent.)
