Moral Event Horizon / Web Original

Moral Event Horizon in Web Original.

---

• AlternateHistory.com:
  • In The Anglo/American – Nazi War, Acting Fuhrer Himmler crosses this when he issues Order 571, which has German forces destroy several culturally-significant cities, thousands of years of irreplaceable history, in preference to allowing the Allies to have them. This includes a thorough destruction of Paris, which is televised to Britain. Modern historians in this universe compare the Nazis' actions to a jealous, bitter ex-spouse squirreling away some assets and then ruining everything they can get their fingers on.
  • How Silent Fall the Cherry Blossoms: The titular Operation Cherry Blossoms at Night serves as Imperial Japan's MEH. Through horrific experiments performed on humans, they develop a strain of Bubonic Plague which is then dropped on the United States by the air force. Hundreds are killed by the operation, which triggers destructive rioting all over America.
  • The Fire Never Dies:
    • General Joe Huffington (formerly head of the Indiana KKK) crosses this when he responds to the assassination of General Carleton (his superior) by a black woman with an order to treat all African-Americans as enemy combatants, in effect ordering the Army of the Ohio to carry out genocide. The resultant massacres prompt the Red Army to go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge, complete with using chemical weapons, wiping out the Army of the Ohio (and liberating western Kentucky and Tennessee) within weeks.
    • William Joseph Simmons, founder and head of the Klan, crosses this when he launches a military coup against Vice-President Marshall after Marshall takes advantage of President Wilson's stroke to begin surrender talks. He even murders General Pershing to ensure that no one is in a position to stop him. In so doing, Simmons only prolongs the Whites' inevitable defeat and brings about the destruction of Washington itself.
  • Icarus Falls:
    • Exactly when Leonid Brezhnev crosses it is unclear: if not when he assassinates Mao and nukes China over a border dispute, then during the Soviet Civil War when he gives the order to launch Russia's nuclear arsenal at all rebel-held cities, shooting all who object.
    • Lin Biao crosses it with his order to use every Weapon of Mass Destruction at his disposal against the Nationalist rebels, including poison gas and anthrax, and sending waves of Child Soldiers armed with knives to the front lines to remedy his manpower shortage.
    • The Paladin group unleash a bio-weapon against the Soviet Union's crops, plunging Russia into famine, and nuke Mecca, killing thousands.
    • Sanjay Gandhi orchestrates an attack on the Indian Parliament by Hindu nationalists in which moderate politicians are massacred by the dozen, giving him an excuse to crack down on India's Sikhs.
  • In New Deal Coalition Retained, the Warsaw Pact finally cross it during World War 3 with their flagrant use of chemical weapons throughout the war. In-Universe, those in the Middle East view them as having crossed it with the Darbandikhan chemical massacre, when Iranian forces bombard Darbandikhan with chemical shells and kill thousands of Kurds, having already begun sending them to concentration camps. Meanwhile, the Western Allies believe they crossed it with the Great Raid on Athens, the worst war crime since World War 2. Three Soviet air squadrons drop sarin bombs on Athens, Piraeus, Sparta, Corinth and Kalamatra rather than wait for them to surrender, leading to around 14, 0000 deaths and crushing Greece's resistance.
  • In Reds!: A Revolutionary Timeline, MacArthur's counterrevolution, which included letting Klansmen run wild across the South, and assassinating Huey Long, and the Louisiana State Legislature, all because the Communists won a fair election. In-universe, this is what triggers the Second American Revolution.
  • In Rumsfeldia:Fear and Loathing in the Decade of Tears, the sequel to Fear, Loathing and Gumbo on the Campaign Trail '72, it is hard to know when Donald Rumsfeld sails over the line, but there are some things: killing/disappearing political opponents, using voting fraud to win the 1984 election, ripping all forms of worker's rights and environmental regulation, giving military aid to Magnus Malan. But the worst moment is when Liberty Legions are ordered to kill wounded soldiers so as to not pay for their welfare.
  • Weber's Germany: The Veterinarian Totalitarian: Weber, Heydrich and the rest of the Third Reich cross it with the TTL version of the Final Solution. Rather than sending undesirables to camps as in OTL, they deport them to African colonies to be enslaved and gradually worked to death. As if that weren't enough, they also begin a gradual sterilisation program to ensure that the targeted groups end with this generation. Heydrich in particular sends slaves to work near a volcanic lake, where the fumes asphyxiate them.
  • A World of Laughter, a World of Tears: In the eyes of the African American community is when white racists brutally murder Ernest Green of the Little Rock Nine. After that, the nonviolent Civil Rights Movement collapses, and black Americans start engaging in terrorism. Another line is when the Florida police commit a massacre against the black community in Tampa. Even the Soviet Union thought the Florida State Government should be prosecuted for war crimes.
  • Twilight Of The Red Tsar: Joseph Stalin was already over the line, OTL. But he goes even further than OTL when he begins his own Holocaust of the Soviet Jews, which later expands into a Baltic Holocaust. And then he completely obliterates the People's Republic of China in war, unleashing biological weapons and nuclear bombs.
  • Zhirinovsky's Russian Empire: Vladimir Zhirinosvky and the UIS jump around horizon several times, with genocide, political repression, and international thuggery. But the specific moment when the world community realized how insane Mad Vlad was when he sent a letter to Helmut Kohl, proposing a joint Nazi-style invasion of Poland, followed by locking Poles in concentration camps, and later organizing attacks on the German, Israeli and Polish embassies.
• Atop the Fourth Wall:
  • Mechakara firmly crossed it when he tried to drive Linkara to suicide (and it was not Played for Laughs), by making him think he was the father of the child who was turned into his magic gun.
  • Holokara pulled an extreme Face–Heel Turn and drove over the horizon in a single move, when he threatened to kill '90s Kid if he ever interrupted the show again. Definitely not Played for Laughs.
  • Later, he threatens to maim Harvey Finevoice when Harvey calls him out for threatening to kill '90s Kid. Specifically, he casually threatens to crush the singer's vocal chords.
  • Lord Vyce crosses over when he Mind Rapes NIMUE, forcing Linkara to delete her. At this point, we can pretty much drop the "Anti" part of Anti-Villain.
    NIMUE: You are evil Vyce. You are cruel and unjust.
  • And even if there was a shred of decency left for Vyce, since it turns out the Entity was still alive and he was being Properly Paranoid, he irredeemably crosses the line again when he tried to pull the Earth into a dimensional portal, thinking the Entity's Villainous BSoD was another trick.
• Bad Creepy Pasta:
  • The gang discuss this trope in their riff of Jeff the Killer Vs. Michael Myers, when Jeff the Killer and Jane the Killer start making out, despite being mortal enemies. Jacob points out that it seems very unlikely that Jane would have been able to even forgive Jeff for killing her friends and family and lighting her on fire back in Jane The Killer: The Real Story, let alone make out with him. They even reference the term "Moral Event Horizion"! ^note (Then again, due to the lack of a firm Jeff The Killer canon, it's possible the author of Jeff the Killer Vs. Michael Myers never read Jane The Killer: The Real Story, but still...)
• Bennett the Sage goes into discussion about this in his End of Evangelion review, in regards to the opening minutes. He discusses how it can make an effective Anti-Hero, but in Shinji's case it was just... well let's have Shinji describe it.
  Shinji: I'm so fucked up.
• Dino Attack RPG:
  • In an interesting case, Rotor somehow crossed his moral event horizon and actually managed to return. Exactly when it happened is debatable, whether it was his Kangaroo Court or later the fact that he tortured a child via No-Holds-Barred Beatdown. Either way they both seemed to show that he was irredeemable... at least until he got his act together during the final battle.
  • Michelle Glados's intentions to kill everyone For Science!.
  • The team is fighting for their lives in a Final Battle, and Snake deserts them to save his own skin. That's bad enough, but then he actually pauses in the middle of his escape, sees a Dino Attack agent who was already badly wounded, kicks the agent while he's down because that agent supposedly stole stuff from him in the past, and then leaves said agent to die alone in the streets of a Mutant Dino-infested city. What the Hell, Hero?
• Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog has an odd example, as the 'hero' of the story passes his before the villain does. Furthermore, he is responsible for the villain's MEH. Captain Hammer's is viewed by many as bragging to Billy that he is going to sleep with Penny solely because he knows Billy has a crush on her. However, if this doesn't qualify, his decision to use the Death Ray on Dr. Horrible in a room full of innocent people definitely does. This results in Penny's death, which tips Billy over the edge.
• Due to the Grey-and-Gray Morality on the Dream SMP, it is very difficult to reach a consensus on who and when a character has crossed the Line, but there are a couple of characters who are typically considered to have crossed the MEH and become irredeemable canon-wise.
  • Jschlatt crossed it when he ordered Tubbo's Public Execution (who was around 16 at the time) for being The Mole for Pogtopia during the Manburg Festival, despite everyone else in attendance, including his own cabinet and (however briefly) the executioner himself, objecting and voicing alternatives such as imprisoning him. And for bonus points, Schlatt made Tubbo organize the Manburg Festival, i.e. unknowingly plan his own execution, which is something that Tubbo himself acknowledges later on.
  • Although Dream is the Big Bad of the roleplay overall, his intentions can still be argued to be at least somewhat well-intentioned and understandable throughout the first season. But then, in Season 2, he abused, psychologically tortured and gaslighted Tommy during his Exile from L'Manburg (which he manipulated into occurring), which alone pushes him close to the edge... and then when he found Tommy's secret stash of items in a hidden chest, he blows it up and drives Tommy to the brink of suicide, easily skydiving off the slippery slope and cementing his crossing of the MEH on his way down.
• Eddsworld has Tord, the beloved Norwegian Gun Nut, finally come back after 8 long years of absence, and what does he do? Blow up Edd's house, almost kill Tom, kills Jon, and punches Matt in the face.
• In Escape the Night, some of the guests cross the line. Mostly by speaking ill of the dead, which is usually a sign they don’t have the groups best interests at heart.
  • Glo Zell claims to be protecting the group when she turns everyone against Justine, but her callous mocking of her after she dies and trying to shift the blame to Joey makes it clear that she only got rid of them because of Greed rather then being the Well-Intentioned Extremist she claims herself to be.
  • Matt didn’t cross it when he murdered Sierra, which was purely accidental. He did cross it when he used her death to mock Lele and Eva and later tries to cheat in a challenge against his Only Friend Timothy.
  • DeStorm definitely crossed the line when he mocked Lauren’s death in front of Alex, just to Kick the Dog. He continues to do this after seeing how much it affects Alex’ mental state, mostly for sadistic pleasure.
  • Nikita crosses it when she shoots Manny out of self-preservation. Sure, it was a Sadistic Choice and felt terrible about it, but her lack of hesitation when pulling the trigger made fans think she cried more out of self-pity then anything else.
    • Nikita may have crossed the line when she manipulated Roi into pulling a Heroic Sacrifice and then called him a ‘weak link’ afterwards.
• In Farce of the Three Kingdoms, Zhuge Liang does careful math to work out how many evil deeds he can fit in without crossing it. Then again, he calculates this immediately after burning thirty thousand people alive, which he thinks is not over the line. His math may be off.
• Alex in Marble Hornets was always a bit unhinged. Breaking Tim's leg, refusing to tell Jay anything, lying to everyone he knows. But the line was crossed in Entry #49 when he murdered an innocent man just checking to see if he's okay, believing it was Jay following him. He then has The Operator dispose of the body. No hope now. Entry #51 reveals he's been doing it for years, even back when he was making the original Marble Hornets movie. Even then, Alex's motivation was questionable, due to the possibility of The Operator being around his entire childhood. However, Hoodie/ToTheArk really went Jumping Off the Slippery Slope in Entry #61, where he sabotages Tim's medication and causes him to revert back into Masky. Damn.
  • Later entries paint a new light on Hoodie's situation, and reveal that he is stealing Tim's meds not because he wants to hurt Tim, but because he needs it just as much as Tim does, and must resort to stealing. This guy is just as vurnerable to The Operator as the others.
• In Minecraft With Gadget, Inspector Gadget crossed it when he shot and killed Mike Matei with a laser just for trying to talk.
• The Music Video Show has the host being told he killed his parents. in the last episodes of season 2. The screams heard in the last episode of season 1 MAY be the sounds of his parents screaming while they're being killed as opposed to people screaming because it 's the end of the world.
• In the New Dawn Academy-verse, there are truly many depraved villains, but none of them cross the line like these loons:
  • Grahf Mordes, sacrificing his family for power. What really sealed it was his reaction to their screams and cries of "Why?" He merely laughed.
  • Qord was pretty insane before, but what made it really, really clear he was utterly morally repugnant was his teleporting in a young police officer just out of academy and telling an assembly of young magic users to torture the officer to death as they see fit, when he is viewed by the magic users as a teacher. What sealed the deal in this case is when the cop, in a nod to Reservoir Dogs, says he has a family waiting for him at home, Qord tells him that makes it all the better. Even the other Esoterica Higher Ups were sickened. Yes, even Zenobia.
• The Nostalgia Chick: Parodied in-universe by Dark Nella Saga. The Chick only realizes Dark Nella is evil when she finds that Minnesota's big ball of twine has been destroyed. Oh no!
• Orion's Arm: The leaders of the extinct alien species HIE-156-CZE (commonly called the Jesters), a species known for cruel jokes and deadly pranks, crossed it when they traveled to an alien planet in suspended animation, disguised themselves as the local civilization's gods, forced the aliens to perform painful and humiliating acts for their own amusement while sending footage back to their home planet to entertain their people, and then wiped out the entire civilization via Colony Drop when they were done. Even in-universe, the few A.I.s they had created decided this was unforgivable, and wiped out the entire Jester civilization, viewing them as a threat to other intelligent species. However, because this incident was recorded by the Muuh, an alien species known for blending fact and fiction in their historical records, whether this incident actually happened as described is a Riddle for the Ages.
• William Shaw in Paperwalls crossed this when he raped his daughter Cameron, and kept finding new moral event horizons to cross.
• The mysterious mage of The Questport Chronicles jumps straight across when he destroys Questport. To make matters worse, the heroes still aren't sure why he did it.
• SCP Foundation:
  • Invoked with 1459, a machine whose sole purpose is for its user to come up with cruel and twisted ways to kill a puppy, with the only reward being a cookie of a variety the user usually hates. The machine even lampshades this at the end of each "game":
    "Yeah, you're totally going to hell for this. Play again?"
  • SCP-531-D crossed this by using his Reality Warper powers to rape several of the female staff. He rationalizes that it wasn't rape because they all said yes, but Clef reminds him that his powers made it so they had no choice but to say yes. Needless to say, this is ultimately what led to him getting terminated.
  • The unnamed Jerkass who ruined poor SCP-1481 crossed it by wishing him into becoming an "alcoholic j-j-j-junkie tweaker crackhead" For the Evulz and making sure that the wish could never be reversed.
  • Dr. Paris Kiran, a researcher involved with SCP-3017, crosses it when she burns down a house full of innocent people simply because she wanted to "punish" 3017 after she was affected by 3017's infohazard.
  • The Scarlet King crosses it by raping a goddess named Sanna to death, which would end up creating SCP-231. If that didn’t do it, devouring his own siblings certainly would have.
  • SCP-953 crosses it by convincing a mother to cook and eat her own child.

• Various villains in Survival of the Fittest cross this line at some point:
  • Cody Jenson was already a dick before, but after his rape and murder of Madelaine Shirohara, followed by killing Amanda Jones while trying to kill Sidney Crosby, the SOTF community in general rallied behind Adam Dodd, whose True Companions the two girls were part of, to kill him.
  • Adam Reeves manages to cross this line in his very first appearance, after raping Maxie Dasai.
  • After killing 5 people, Reiko Ishida still managed to cross this line after killing defenseless girl and only living friend, Carol Burke, after Carol said she wasn't as strong as she thought she was. Disproportionate Retribution much?
    • It also turns out to be an in-universe example; When Reiko comes across her girlfriend Sarah Xu and attempts to get on the escape boat with her, she is denied access to the boat by STAR, who then proceeds to use, among other things, the above incident for a reason why. It results in Sarah and Reiko being separated. Ouch.
  • Maxwell Lombardi strangling Augustus MacDougal, shooting Harold Fisher, and gloating to the cameras that there was more where that came from. Which there was.
  • Alex White crosses the line with his slow, torturous killing of Rosa Fiametta.
  • Aaron Hughes crosses it, but most agree that leaving Tom Guthrie to die at the hands of Nick Reid and then claiming he died to protect the group very early on in the game was quite cruel and confirmed the character to be a Manipulative Bastard in most handlers' eyes.
  • Marvia Jones in SOTF-TV managed to cross it in her first in-game appearance, when she comes across a traumatized Nate Chauncey. She then proceeds to give her ecstasy (which she tells her is a headache pill) and take advantage of her sexually. It culminates it her calling Nate a whore for accepting her advances, beating her up, and stealing most of her supplies, including her clothes.
• There Will Be Brawl:
  • Of all people, Princess Zelda crossed this when she stabbed Link in the back just as he was making a Heel–Face Turn, then in the next episode revealed that she had been working with Gannondorf the whole time. Not even attempting to take the bullet for Link redeemed her, really.
  • Wario. He orchestrated a Pikmin Bomb to take out Red (the only indisputably good character in the series, got his mentally challenged brother to deliver the bomb, and then tried to pay Red's girlfriend off with money (and that was a lie; he had planned to kill her too).
  • Kirby crosses this in the backstory when he gruesomely murders Daisy.
• Throughout To Boldly Flee, the Executor is a sleazy, manipulative, creepy Bad Boss and Magnificent Bastard, but he is hammy. But then he tortures a helpless Luke (one of the youngest members of the site) with his electricity powers and you wants him to die painfully. Thankfully he does.
• Ultra Fast Pony
  • Twilight murdering Pinkie Pie, simply because she annoyed her, before blasting away all her clones and just keeping the last one as her replacement, is either this or Crosses the Line Twice.
  • Spitfire abandoning her own daughter for ten years, while telling her husband she was dead, only to bring her back, just to make Rainbow Dash jealous.
  • Also, Rarity murdered babies to get material for a fashion show.
• We Are Our Avatars:
  • Carter/Catherine doesn't just cross this after becoming a Team Rocket member, s/he leaps directly over it, starts running, and never looks back. This eventually leads to his getting kicked off the team and re-defecting to the rest of the group.
  • Duo mentions an incident with Slur involving seven planets being destroyed, he notes that 5 of those planets may not have been infected with Evil Energy in the first place, and that Slur may have done it just because she could.
  • Cyber Amy(A.K.A. Amy being fused with her father Deviot's soul) rapes Black Mage.
  • Deviot revived Kasei. Worked out till Saturn's version of Him decided to give Kasei his power back.
• Whateley Universe:
  • Mad Scientist Emil Hammond quickly demonstrates that despite his claims that he works For Science!, his real motivation is sadism. For that matter, the Goodkind family pretty much crossed their MEH right at the start, by handing Trevor over to Hammond to be experimented on in the first place.
  • Don Sebastiano and Hekate had already crossed their Moral Event Horizon before the series even began, when they mentally enslaved Cavalier and Skybolt and used the mystery about why the two former would-be heroes were suddenly sycophants of such obvious villains to terrify their opponents and push their way to the top of the school's social pecking order. Just how deep they had gone is only fully revealed when Hekate tried to trap Fey in the same manner. Hekate, in particular, was found to have practiced Human Sacrifice on several occasions, killing children to offer their souls to demons. Don Sebastiano, meanwhile, gleefully used both Skybolt and Cavalier as sex toys and punching bags whenever it amused him to do so.
• Coil from Worm was established as a villain from the get-go, what with him planning to take over Brockton Bay for no other reason than his own ego. What really pushes him across the line, though, is when he kidnaps a twelve-year-old girl with precognitive powers so he can use them to aid his plan, drugging her heavily to keep her complacent and forcing her to use her power despite knowing that it causes her great pain.
• In the Yogscast playthrough of Minecraft, this has come up a number of times despite the Black Comedy.
  • From Shadow of Israphel:
    • The titular antagonist crossed the line either when he destroyed the Yogcave or when he zombified Granny_Bacon, forcing Lewis Brindley and Simon Lane to put her down, later bombing her funeral. The latter is often cited by fans as his point of no return.
    • Jock_Fireblast crosses the line when he burns down Mistral City.
    • Skylord_Vitali murdering his comrades in increasingly brutal, gruesome and nightmarish ways also counts, all for the sake of power.
    • King_Finbar crossed the line when he zombified his own subjects, even those loyal to him.
  • From Sjin's Feed the World series, eventual Knight of Cerebus Strawfingers is revealed to have crossed the line through Cerebus Retcon, when it turns out he murdered Abel's parents.
  • The YogLabs series by and large revolves around a Mad Scientist group experimenting, but there are nevertheless some particularly horrendous moments that are taken deadly seriously.
    • Gozencrantz and Rildenstern cross the line when they murder Simon's master clone in an effort to take over Yoglabs.
    • As of "Block Gun Mod", Lewis appears to have crossed the line by ordering Simon to blow up a village of Testificates with the weaponry from the titular mod. The tone of his voice implies that unlike previous efforts, the villagers are sentient and it isn't just a simulation like before. This causes Simon to blow up a large chunk of the lab and try to free some trapped commandos that were insane, though he gets himself and most of the hostages killed in the attempt. Due to the cloning system, Simon doesn't remember this.
  • In Duncan and Kim's series Flux Buddies 2.0 Lalnable Hector crosses the line by murdering all of Duncan and Kim's Chocobos bloodily for no reason.
• One of the heavier and least pleasant Watch Mojo to watch tied with the Animated Films page by presenting the 10 worst things that Disney villains have done, with misdeeds that range from domestic abuse to attempted infanticide to mass-murder.

---