Moral Event Horizon / Shin Megami Tensei

Examples of villains crossing the Moral Event Horizon in the Shin Megami Tensei franchise. Uniquely, this is one of the few franchises that routinely offer the protagonist a chance to cross the horizon, even in the Lighter and Softer Persona series.

Shin Megami Tensei series

• Shin Megami Tensei II: We have the master plan of the Archangels and fake YHVH: putting everyone in the city they rule into an And I Must Scream state so it will be easier to control them. Once that doesn't work and the Archangels are killed, the real YHVH proceeds to attempt mass genocide: in the Law ending, he orders Satan to nuke what is left of the world from orbit, and in the Chaos ending, he attempts to set off a nuke underneath Tokyo. The real YHVH, however, has a Freudian Excuse according to Word of God, but the Archangels are just crazy.
• Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne:
  • Every Reason-holder has one clear moment where they cross the line in pursuit of their goals. These also serve as examples for the protagonist too, as agreeing to support one of them during these moments (an option you'll only have if you expressed support for them already) will lock you out of all endings besides theirs and True Demon.
    • For Isamu, it's helping him sacrifice Hijiri at the Amala Temple.
    • For Chiaki, it's supporting her massacre of the Manikins at Mifunashiro, which leads to you personally killing Futomimi, one of the most sympathetic characters in the story, instead of fighting the Archangels.
    • For Hikawa, it's refusing to intervene in his killing of your teacher Takao.
  • Alongside Chiaki above, The Yosuga faction massacring the Manikins at Mifunashiro makes it clear what kind of atrocities the Reason holders are willing to commit for the sake of their world, and that you should probably think of finding an alternative instead of helping them if you don't want to be a full-on Villain Protagonist.
• Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey:
  • Jack's Squad crosses it when they set up a lab to mutilate and "fuse" demons in their own violent and flawed way, and prove they—Captain Jack included—are well beyond it when they try to fuse a human (Jimenez) with a demon (Bugaboo).
  • Mastema is revealed in the Chaos route to have been morally bankrupt a long time ago, but his current plan to make Zelenin his pawn and start a World of Silence in order to transcend angelhood started very soon after the two met in Bootes. It's just not revealed that he crossed the Horizon until Horologium 5F on the Chaos route.
  • Ryan crosses it when he kills the skeleton crew watching over the remains of Jack's Squad.
  • The protagonist has two potential points of no return:
    • In the original release, murdering Gore and allowing Zelenin or Jimenez to brainwash the entire crew is the moment where the protagonist irrevocably discards his humanity and betrays everyone to the angels or demons.
    • Redux adds one possible chance to turn back from your evil path... or commit permanently. If the Law or Chaos-aligned protagonist refuses to aid Alex and instead kills her in combat, this marks the moment where you have irreversibly damned humanity.
• Pretty much every antagonist in Shin Megami Tensei IV crosses it at one point or another:
  • General consensus is that Tayama's is the worst of the lot. He'd actually already crossed it before the game even began, but we don't learn precisely what he did until about halfway in. He distributes a drug called Red Pills to Tokyo's demon population to keep them from eating humans, and it's ultimately discovered that they're made from human brains; specifically, the brains of people who have been raised since childhood to produce the drug and who are given all the accommodations of livestock. Notably, every single character in the know about this, whether Law, Neutral, or Chaos, is grossed out by Tayama's actions.
  • The Archangels cross when they order the execution of everyone who has read the books distributed by Lilith. It might seem like Necessarily Evil at first since the books turned those who read them into bloodthirsty demons, but Lilith reveals that they do no such thing; they're ordinary books that present an alternative to the classist system that the people of Mikado live in, and the people's newly-awakened rage at said system is what initiates the transformation. Bonus points when it's revealed in the DLC that the demonic transformation was the intentional result of genetic engineering that the Archangels ordered.
  • You can make Flynn do this by helping the White Put Them All Out of My Misery in the Bad Ending.
• Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse
  • Tamagami, Japan's Minister of Defense, crossed it in the backstory by experimenting on humans to create the National Defense Divinities with the ultimate goal of summoning Izanami to destroy and recreate Japan in his image, and then Body Surfing into the body of a wrongly-accused woman to cheat death.
  • In-universe, almost the entire cast thinks Nanashi has crossed it if you agree with Dagda's plan to recreate the universe with Nanashi as the Creator God, resulting in you having to battle and kill most of your former allies. Dagda himself crosses it by attempting to push through with his plans and trying to kill you if you refuse him. Conversely, Dagda considers Danu herself to have crossed it on the Bonds route when she creates a new version of him that fits her ideals more when the original turns against the group.
  • A likely case on the Massacre route, as Nanashi is likely killing Fujiwara and Skins now that his past life—Akira—isn't holding him back. Dagda even tells you to hold nothing back.
  • The game firmly puts a previous villain across this after numerous failed attempts to save this villain: YHVH, whose excuse was revealed to be Going Mad from Isolation. He not only posed as the Great Will throughout the entire franchise, forcing it to intervene through humanity but also had Satan start and perpetuate the Forever War through the Archangels/Merkabah and Lucifer, who turns out to be a fake.

Persona series

• Persona 2:
  • Ginji Sasaki crossed it in Innocent Sin when he planted bombs all across Aoba Park, disregarding the large number of casualties that could result from the explosion. If that wasn't enough, he definitely cemented his crossing by draining the Ideal Energy of Lisa's friends out of spite, reducing them to lifeless husks.
  • There are various times where Tatsuya Sudou/King Leo has crossed the line. Was it when he set one of his minions on fire until he got burnt to a crisp for failing him? Or was it when he planted bombs all over the city full of innocent people, and later did so? Or was it when he set the Aerospace Museum that was currently being visited by a group of elementary school children on fire? He likely first crossed it all those years ago when he started the fire at Alaya Shrine and tried to murder a young Maya and Tatsuya there.
  • In Innocent Sin, Okamura takes a nosedive across the horizon when she murders Maya with the Spear of Longinus so that the prophecies of In Lak'ech may be fulfilled. Up to killing everyone down on Earth.
• Persona 3:
  • Takaya crosses this by trying to kill Ken, an elementary schooler, when Ken claims to be the Mission Control for S.E.E.S., resulting in Shinjiro dying while protecting Ken.
  • The experiments that resulted in the creation of the twelve Shadows, the Dark Hour and Strega are essentially this for everyone involved except for Yukari's father (who tried to stop it), especially Ikutsuki, who still wants to destroy the world and tries to sacrifice S.E.E.S. once they've outlived their usefulness.
• Persona 4:
  • Adachi crosses it when he pushed Saki in the TV, since unlike the case with Mayumi, he knew full well that she would die there.
  • Even worse, in Golden, if you make enough progress in Adachi's Social Link, when you figure him out to be the culprit near the end of the game, you're given the option to keep your suspicions to yourself, thus ensuring the bad ending. The game takes it one step further than that afterwards, though: on the day before you leave, you're given the option to talk with Adachi one last time and tell him you know he did it, but that you're on his side. When you tell him this, he'll bring you the threatening letter he wrote shortly before Nanako was kidnapped, along with a lighter, and give you the opportunity to burn it, destroying the one piece of evidence that fingers him. Even the game tells you that this is a monstrous betrayal of your friends and everything you worked to accomplish over the year. Just to twist the knife in further, Adachi blackmails you after the deed is done.
  • Mitsuo crossed it upon murdering Morooka, all so he could get the attention and credit as the killer.
• Persona 5: Fitting to the Darker and Edgier tone, this time the villains do not play around.
  • The motivation of the starting Phantom Thieves of Hearts is that they were victims of a teacher's MEH. In fact, most of the villains crossing the MEH is the reason why they're being targeted in the first place.
  • The Rabid Cop who was interrogating Joker in the beginning of the game crossed it when he beat the crap out of Joker. This includes grinding his foot on his head and forcibly injecting him with truth serums (which ends up wrecking his memory enough to interfere with his recollection of events to Sae). He then proceeds to threaten to break Joker's leg if he refuses to sign a False Confession, and should you refuse, he makes good on that threat.
  • Kamoshida did a lot of terrible things, including causing Ryuji's Career-Ending Injury, spreading rumours of his home life (thereby provoking Ryuji into punching him and using that as an excuse to get the track team shut down just to make the volleyball club stand out more) and of Joker's record (thus turning him into a social pariah), and also harassing Ann but Joker and Ryuji are initially reluctant to change his heart when they learn it could kill him. However after Shiho attempts suicide due to what was implied to be him raping her out of spite for Ann refusing to sleep with him, they no longer care if stealing his treasure would kill him - they just want him to face justice.
  • Madarame crossed this when he reveals that he allowed Yusuke's mother to die, all so he could claim the painting she had made as a memento for her son as his own work. This confirmed that he was no legend using his pupils to stave off artist's block, nor an initially dedicated artisan who lost his way for the price of fame, but rather a truly irredeemable con artist with zero credibility running a callous grift from the very beginning off the back of a mother's love. While they're gathering intel on him, the Phantom Thieves are also told that Madarame's emotional abuse of his students was so intense that at least one of his students was Driven to Suicide — with the implication being that Yusuke could do the same if the abuse isn't dealt with.
  • Kaneshiro crosses the line when his Shadow taunts Makoto with how he plans to sell her and her sister into sexual slavery, a threat he makes good on if you fail the deadline for his palace. While the last part is a Truth Serum induced hallucination, it is also fully in character for Kaneshiro and it’s clear it would’ve happened if Joker actually failed to steal his treasure on time.
  • If Kunikazu Okumura did not cross it when he was implied to be a client of the Black Mask who had his competitors assassinated via mental shutdowns, or his lack of regard for the welfare of his employees, he definitely crossed it with the horrible treatment of his daughter. Despite knowing that Haru's fiance is a Domestic Abuser, his Shadow makes it explicit that he doesn't care, and that he would even encourage such behavior as long as it benefited him. His Shadow truly demonstrates he can and will cross it in Royal where at the end of his Shadow’s boss fight, he orders Cognitive Haru to suicide bomb the thieves, showing that he’s willing to throw his own daughter to the wolves to save his own hide.
  • Black Mask crossed this when he murdered Joker in the bad endings (something he attempts in the good ending route, but he fails due to being tricked into killing a body double), but he would have crossed the line before the series began when he murdered Futaba's mother. As a hitman working for the main villain, the Black Mask was also involved in literally every mental shutdown and psychotic breakdown that takes place during or before the game, likely causing dozens, if not hundreds, of people to be driven mad, seriously injured or killed over the two-year period he was active.
  • Shido has so many Kick the Dog moments it's hard to list all of them, but the biggest one is not only causing Futaba's mother's death, he also created a fake suicide note to make it look like Futaba's mother hated her and blamed Futaba for her death, in front of the rest of her relatives. While his crimes usually have the purpose of covering his own tracks to reap the benefits or a case of You Have Outlived Your Usefulness, the fact that he deliberately chose to ruin the life of a girl he orphaned just shows how needlessly cruel he is.
  • Maruki of all people may cross it if the player misses the deadline to the Palace. Maruki will put Joker to sleep for the rest of his life, has his friends forget him, and blocks him from the Velvet Room. Maruki rationalizes it by saying that demanding a decision was causing Joker pain. Maruki was a Reality Warper and could have easily pushed Joker into the Lotus-Eater Machine against his will, just like how Maruki put Joker's friends to live in an illusion of their idealized wishes early in the third semester, but Maruki instead chose to give the And I Must Scream fate for Joker.
  • Joker himself can cross it in one of the game’s bad endings. After exposing Yaldabaoth's treachery, he can accept the false god's deal to restore the real world but without the free will, betraying the Velvet Room and his teammates who are possibly still Ret-Gone, the implication being he either just Stopped Caring or he was a manipulative jerk all along. Later on, the Protagonist displays a sinister smirk, indicating whatever goodwill within him was already gone.
• Persona 5 Strikers:
  • Konoe's father crossed it when he killed his wife for her money. Then he careens even further past it by trying to kill his own son afterwards.
  • In-Universe, Konoe himself crosses this at least in Zenkichi's eyes when he arranges for Zenkichi's daughter Akane to become a Monarch in order to lure the Phantom Thieves into a trap and dispose of them. In actuality, Konoe gets away from this in the eyes of the audience because he knows literally nothing about Akane until Zenkichi comes to arrest him.
  • Jyun Owada crossed it before the game started, by killing Zenkichi's wife while driving drunk. He then blames it on his secretary and had him commit suicide. After that he asked his boss Shido to threaten Zenkichi and Akane if he tries to investigate it further.
• Persona 5: The Day Breakers: Kazuya crosses it when it's revealed that he's been physically abusing his younger brother, simply as a way of venting his stress. After this, the only sort of redemption possible for him is to steal his heart so that he actually feels the guilt and faces his punishment for his crimes.

Other works

• Devil Survivor: Yuzu's 8th Day plays with this: when the heroes escape the lockdown, the angels descend from on high to kill them and take over humanity as punishment for failing its trial. In response, the party whips out their demons and start killing the angels in self-defense. At this point, Metatron appears before them and basically tells them that God has declared humanity beyond saving and has abandoned them to the demons, essentially condemning the whole damn human race as having crossed the Moral Event Horizon: not only did they fail their trial, they're refusing to take responsibility for it and killing angels who are trying to shepherd a race that can't take care of itself. The 'playing-with' comes from the fact that the forces of heaven, like Metatron, are not so heroic themselves. In fact, they're the closest thing the game has for the driving villains, and even though Metatron makes a pretty good point about the actions of the heroes being petulant and irresponsible, as Atsuro points out, they're being entirely unreasonable in their demands.
• Digital Devil Story: Nakajima's sympathy only lasts for the beginning few chapters, before his brutal means of killing and lack of pity make him far more dangerous than the common school bullies he's getting revenge on. If his needlessly cruel executions of Kondo and Kyoko didn't land him here, his killing of the affable Professor Iida and coercing Ohara into having highly questionable sex with Loki did.
• Digital Devil Saga: Even after all they went through, the heroes are still disgusted by Earth eating his teammates for strength in the second game.