Basic Trope: Doing bad things to bad people is okay.
- Straight: Emperor Evulz viciously beats up Bob's best friend Charlie, so Bob decides to beat up Evulz's right-hand man General Dracone.
- Exaggerated:
- Emperor Evulz kills Bob's friends and family, so Bob kills every one of Evulz's servants. Thus, he is celebrated as the most virtuous hero.
- Emperor Evulz kills Bob's friends and family, so Bob kidnaps Evulz's daughter, ties Evulz up, and kills her in front of Evulz.
- Emperor Evulz knocks Bob over at the movie theater, so Bob knocks emperor Evulz over at the Grand Canyon.
- Emperor Evulz is a space pirate who attacks Bob. Bob takes revenge by destroying Evulz's home planet whose sole crime is being the place Evulz was born.
- Downplayed:
- Emperor Evulz called Bob a "Big, Stupid Doodoo-Head", so Bob calls Emperor Evulz a "pants-wetting scaredy-cat".
- Executive Evulz avoided punishment when his factory poisoned Bob's family, so Bob gets revenge by becoming an attorney and backing frivolous lawsuits against Evulz's company.
- Doing mean things to mean people is somewhat okay.
- Justified:
- Bob wanted to see how Evulz would feel if someone did the same evil things he did.
- Bob wants to set an example for anyone who wishes to commit the same magnitude of evildoing.
- Evulz is only vulnerable in a state of extreme emotional and physical pain.
- Evulz is literally unable to understand anything that doesn't involve violence or cruelty in some form, so Bob attacks Dracone to make him understand in his own language.
- Inverted:
- Emperor Evulz attacks everyone indiscriminately because no one attends his birthday party. But Bob, the sole individual who actually gets punched in the face by Evulz, happens to be an obnoxious asshole, so nobody minds what Evulz did anyway.
- Doing good things to good people is not okay!
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
- The Farmer and the Viper
- Turn the Other Cheek
- Emperor Evulz kills Bob simply because he's good.
- Subverted:
- Emperor Evulz has done evil to Bob, but while Bob is tempted to take revenge, he decides to Turn the Other Cheek.
- Evulz does evil to Bob, so Bob does evil to Evulz. This is portrayed as a bad thing.
- When Evulz's daughter is brutally killed by Bob, Bob has a "My God, What Have I Done?" moment when Evulz calls him out.
- Bob shoots one of Evulz's associates after Evulz had his friend Charlie killed, only it turns out Bob was just trying to rob someone to supply his drug habit, and the fact they were evil was pure dumb luck.
- Double Subverted:
- ...minutes later, Bob intentionally causes Evulz to get burned alive which is something he has done to innocents.
- It’s portrayed as a bad thing because Bob assaulted General Dracone who had nothing to do with the situation. If Bob assaulted Emperor Evulz, it would be portrayed as okay.
- ...except Evulz's daughter was an Asshole Victim as evil as Evulz, Bob has to kill them both so he can stop their atrocities.
- Bob only made it look like a random robbery in hopes that Evulz and his minions won't realize he's on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
- Parodied: Evulz has committed the heinous crime of stealing a pencil from Bob's friends, so Bob decides to get even by stealing Dracone's pencil.
- Zig Zagged: Sometimes doing bad things to bad people is okay and other times it isn't.
- Averted: Doing bad things to bad people is never encouraged.
- Enforced: "Let's teach kids that it's okay to do evil things to evil people!"
- Lampshaded:
- "Now you know what it's like to have your friends beaten, Evulz!"
- "How could you do that to Evulz? You're just as bad as he is!"
- Invoked:
- "Go ahead, Bob! Get even with me if it makes you feel any better!"
- Evulz kidnaps Bob and takes him to his lair. Bob finds himself utterly speechless when Evulz then says, "You know what you think I deserve? Do it. Give it to me. I deserve it." Bob initially suspects this to be an attempt to bring him down to Evulz's level, but this turns out not to be the case.
- Exploited:
- Evulz sees this mentality in Bob and starts attacking others more frequently to slowly goad Bob into a violent killer whom no one would later protect.
- Bob is a Sociopathic Hero who's looking for an excuse to kill someone, but to avoid making himself appear as evil, he decides to go after the villains.
- Defied: "I'm not going to lower myself into getting even with Evulz. That would be following his example."
- Discussed: "How could Bob do such a thing like that to an evil person like Evulz?"
- Conversed: "Gosh, the fans have such a problem with Bob attacking Evulz. I've would've done the same thing if I was Bob."
- Implied: Evulz kills Charlie, so Bob then sighs, grabs a shotgun, before heading off into the shadows. We are not shown on what Bob did to Evulz, but if you pause during the scene where Bob gets his funeral clothes to mourn over Charlie’s death, you can see Evulz’s Evil Overlord helmet but now with cracks, blood stains on it, and a huge hole dented in it, in Bob’s closet. Bonus points for the fact that Evulz is never spoken of again in the series at all.
- Deconstructed:
- Bob realizes that getting even with Evulz isn't enough to satisfy him, so he decides to maim and torture him ten times worse than what Evulz has done. He becomes considerably more sadistic than Evulz has ever been.
- Bob has successfully exacted his revenge on Evulz, but it doesn't give him the satisfaction he hoped for.
- Despite the crimes committed by Evulz, Bob ends up scaring away his loved ones because he's a monster, and brings the law down on him since he still committed a crime.
- Bob knows this isn't a lawful thing to do, but does it anyway because he's desperate for Evulz to get SOME kind of payback.
- Cycle of Revenge
- Revenge Is Not Justice
- Reconstructed:
- Bob learns not to go overboard in revenge and gives the villain the appropriate punishment that matches their crime. Or if he shuns revenge, Bob comes up with a method in punishing villains: sparing them in the cruelest and most ironic way possible.
- He eventually ignores the feeling and comes to the conclusion that revenge was Worth It.
- Bob decides that doing it for revenge is wrong. Making sure karma catches up with Emperor Evulz and his minions, however...
Back to Pay Evil unto Evil
