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Playing With / Horns of Villainy

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Basic Trope: Evil characters have horns.

  • Straight: Diablo is a Card-Carrying Villain with goat-like horns on his head.
  • Exaggerated: Diablo has horns on his head, spine, and forearms.
  • Downplayed:
    • Diablo is a Jerkass.
    • Diablo has horns, but they're easy to miss.
  • Justified:
  • Inverted: Diablo is a Nice Guy.
  • Subverted: Diablo explains that he's misunderstood. Everyone assumes him to be evil because of his horns.
  • Double Subverted: ...This is a Wounded Gazelle Gambit. Diablo was evil all along.
  • Parodied:
    • Diablo, the ultimate source of evil, has horns that embed into the ground and span a small continent.
    • Diablo commits evil specifically for the horns.
  • Zig Zagged: Horns are an indicator of spirituality. While this is generally seen as a virtue, there's good and bad people on both ends of the spectrum.
  • Averted: Horns, if present, do not correspond to good or evil.
  • Enforced: Diablo's franchise is Merchandise-Driven, and horns are a good indicator of his villainy on store shelves.
  • Lampshaded: "Man, I love these horns! Make me look satanic and stuff."
  • Invoked: Diablo gives his followers horns as an Initiation Ceremony. Once they go through with this, it's a lot harder to back out.
  • Exploited: Diablo uses horn length as an indicator of who will cooperate with him.
  • Defied: Diablo retires horns from the Initiation Ceremony, as it makes it harder to act as The Mole.
  • Discussed: "Watch out for Diablo. He likes to hide out, but his horns are a dead giveaway."
  • Conversed: "I don't get Diablo's design. Goats are perfectly nice creatures. Can't he have a mosquito motif instead?
  • Implied:
    • Diablo is unambiguously evil. Curiously, we never see him without his hat on.
    • Diablo is shown to have horns. While he's never confirmed as evil, there's clearly More than Meets the Eye.
  • Deconstructed: Diablo's horns are a dead giveaway of his identity, making it hard to manipulate anyone.
  • Reconstructed: Diablo wears disguises, or acts anonymously through Social Media.

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