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• Straight: The hero hunts down the villain, saying this stock phrase.
• Exaggerated: The hero will hunt down anyone vaguely connected to a relative's murder.
  • The villain shows up at the hero's family reunion and kills everyone, and the hero swears vengeance for them all.
• Justified: The villain is untouchable by the law, so no-one else will stop him.
• Inverted: Avenging the Villain
  • Or, a father hunts down a villain who killed his son.
  • "Dad's not dead, and he's kinda pissed. Don't tell him I warned you, okay?"
  • The hero unknowingly killed his own father, and the villain is all too happy to deliver the news.
• Subverted: The hero finds out that the villain did not kill the hero's father. *
  No, I am your father.
• Double Subverted: The villain pretends he did not kill the hero's father, but is killed anyway because he was lying.
  • The Hero wanted to kill his father himself, but the villain got to it first, so now the hero feels he has to kill the villain.
  • Luke, I Am Your Father... but I also killed your mother.
• Parodied: Two families feud across several generations because of this trope, but have forgotten why it even began.
  • The hero is hunting the villain to revenge somebody who's only vaguely related to him. "You killed my father's cousin's mother's sister's daughter's son's third wife's roommate!"
  • The hero hunts the person who killed his goldfish.
  • The slight is even more comically petty: "You stole my sandwiches!"
• Deconstructed: The hero carries out his plan of revenge over the years, only to realize that If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him, or if the realization comes afterwards, My God, What Have I Done?.
  • The hero devotes his entire life to track the villain only to discover he died years ago of an unrelated cause. Realizing he has wasted his life for nothing, the hero suffers a mental breakdown and kills himself.
• Reconstructed: The hero gives up his quest for vengeance, and comes to peace with his loss, only to discover that the villain is a right bastard and really needs to be stopped regardless of his petty concerns. Thus, his want for vengeance is replaced by a want for justice.
• Zig Zagged: "You killed my father!" "No, I am your father!" "What, seriously?" "Yes. You see — *UGGH*!" "What, where'd that knife come from?!" "Me, and he's not your real father!" "How would you know?" "Because I KILLED YOUR FATHER!" "Meh, I never liked the old bastard anyway."
  • The Hero wants to kill the villan to avenge his father. Another person beats him to it though and kills the villan. It is later discovered that the man who killed the villan is the hero's long lost brother and he killed the villan to avenge their father.
• Averted: The hero's father is alive, or died of causes unrelated to the villain.
• Enforced: Death by Origin Story.
• Lampshaded: "You seem angry. Did I kill your parents, by any chance?"
  • "Oh, please. What is with you heroes and dead parents? I killed my father, too, and you don't see me whining about it."
• Invoked: The previous hero asks his son to avenge him.
• Defied: The villain makes sure to kill entire families.
  • The father tells the son not to bother avenging him.
• Discussed: "You really want this guy bad, don't you? What, did he kill your father or something?... Oh. I'm sorry."
• Conversed: "This is that part where the good guy tells the bad guy that he brought it all on himself by killing his father, right? OK, just checking."