Childhood Excuse (73-111)
1. Monkey Beach
- Pedophile Priest: Ran the residential school. At least one character, Josh, was definitely molested by one. Although this is not treated as a Freudian Excuse for what he did to Karaoke at all.
2. The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes! – HYDRA
- Freudian Excuse: Read Good Scars, Evil Scars below.
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: She has a scar on the hidden side of her face. It's strongly hinted it was a superhero who did this to her, resulting in her hate of them and subsequent villainy.
3. Comic Books
- The Goddamn Batman. No explanations necessary.
- Cassandra Cain was raised by an assassin to be the perfect killer. She was abused in ways that would make Tywin Lannister disgusted. She has a background that would work perfectly as a Freudian Excuse for a mass murderer. But instead of being a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds, she continues to be possibly the most morally upright member of the Bat-Family. Despite her Hero Worship of Bruce, she makes it clear that it is not him that she is really loyal to, but the justice that he represents. She is nothing but kind, strong-willed, and utterly devoted to Thou Shalt Not Kill. That kind of strength of will, that moral courage, in spite of her horrible past, is why Cassandra is tied with Wally West for my favorite DC character.
- Freudian Excuse: Deacon’s acts as a good person are largely because he doesn’t want to fall to greed and die like his father. As he puts it, he grew up with the signs of greed and recognized this in Victor.
Broly will be revealed as the subject of genetic tinkering.
Giving more of an explanation to his power, it'll be revealed that Paragus has been using Frieza's technology/lost Saiyan tech to alter Broly to become more powerful. Broly is the descendant of the Legendary Super Saiyan, and Paragus has been tinkering with his genes to make him the ultimate Saiyan. Following the above theory that Broly will be a Tragic Villain, his insanity will be down to being treated as a weapon his whole life and experimented on for a destiny he never asked for. His hatred for Goku will instead be because he hates how Goku had a happy life and got strong, while he was brutally modified. It'd also be somewhat of a contrast to both Frieza and Cell, as both were the result of winning the genetic lotttery(Frieza being a mutant freak and Cell a mishmash of the most powerful soldiers), but while they're card-carrying villains Broly will have good reason to be pissed at the world and wants to hurt people because he wants to get back at the world that hurt him.- Jossed.
- Freudian Excuse: It's eventually revealed that the reason why he hates Canadians and Europeans is that he comes from a timeline where Canadians and Europeans were occupying and oppressing the USA, and he grew up under the occupation.
- It also explains why he is so over-protective with Keira. Because one of the occupiers killed his wife there.
7. Dragalia Lost Recruitable Adventurers Shadow
- Freudian Excuse: His lack of social skills comes from the fact that he was raised by mercenaries, and therefore was never taught any particular degree of politeness or how to behave and he gave them gifts of fiend flesh.
- The Seductress
- Femme Fatale whose cynical, manipulative nature stems from a rough childhood.
9. Alvin and the Chipmunks: Live-Action
- Freudian Excuse: His dad left him which is why he behaves badly.
10-11. Cruella
- Adaptational Sympathy: In 101 Dalmatians, Cruella de Vil is an insane, evil fashionista who simply wants to skin dalmatian puppies to make fur coats and she is an outright Hate Sink. In the film, Cruella has a legitimate Freudian Excuse for why she hates the Dalmatians: her birth mother Baroness von Hellman ordered them to kill her real mother. Furthermore, she doesn't skin the Dalmatians or even hate them at all and eventually adopts them while giving two of their pups to Roger and Anita.
- Faux Shadow: The Dalmatians knocking Cruella's mother off a cliff is set up as a sort of Freudian Excuse for her to explain why she wants to kill them in future. However, once she figures out the Baroness deliberately murdered her, she shifts all the blame to her and shows no ill will towards them, even adopting the three Dalmatians towards the end.
12. SiIvaGunner
- Freudian Excuse: Chip the Ripper murdered Mr. Own's entire family, which is the root cause for his immense hatred of all mashups.
13-14. The Owl House S2E5 "Through the Looking Glass Ruins"
- Freudian Excuse:
- Bria and her friends are jerks because apparently Glandus is a school with "the strongest rules over the weak" attitude.
- Gav's issues stem from his father not giving him any attention. However, it's mostly Played for Laughs, especially after he falls for a blatantly fake illusion of his dad telling him that he's proud of him.
15. Pondovadia
- Freudian Excuse: It's heavily implied he's more perverted than the rest of the cast because he was molested by a teacher, and this is a coping method.
16. Marvel Comics: Captain Marvel - Enemies
- Freudian Excuse: She was abused by her female caretaker when she was a child and suffered from bullying and ridicule at school and at work. Having died as collateral damage from Carol Danvers' battle against the Nuclear-Man, revived and then turned into a superpowered being against her will, as well as her own biases against superheroes, defined her current mindset and personality.
- Freudian Excuse: At the very end of the second film, Arkin says to the Collector that his father must've fucked him up pretty bad. It's strongly implied that he was the child who survived the horrible events at the museum mentioned in the news bulletin.
18-19. The Ren & Stimpy Show
- Freudian Excuse:
- He explains his tendency to be violent with "the first sensation I felt in my life was unspeakable pain. From then on, I wanted to inflict the pain on others!". He was referring to a doctor who slapped him on the buttocks right after the carriage.
- His life growing up was anything but sane; one scene shows Ren's father intending to give Ren a pistol to kill a frog with, but his mother quickly intervenes....and passes Ren a chainsaw instead
20. Straw Feminist
- Justified:
- Alice had an upbringing in which she was treated horribly by her Straw Misogynist family (even her mother was a Female Misogynist), which made her opinion of men in general very negative.
- Abusive Parents:
- Judith herself isn't the best mom, or human being, ever. Considering how both Charlie and Alan seem to suffer from a Freudian Excuse and possibly Oedipus Complex, one can easily deduce Judith is not much better than Evelyn. Seeing strange men in front of her underage son? Check. Verbally abusing him and his father? Check. Gold Digger and Hypocrite? Check, Check, Check.
22. Cherry Falls
- Freudian Excuse: Loralee beat Leonard throughout his childhood, resulting in him becoming the Ax-Crazy and mommy issues ridden killer that he is now.
23-25. The Lost Village
- Freudian Excuse:
- Valkana spends a lot of time looking for Yottsun after the latter goes missing. Though he doesn't seem happy about it, he tells Koharun about being blamed for something he didn't do when writing a program for a big company, and doesn't want the others to suspect he's in any way responsible for Yottsun's disappearance.
- Lovepon's preoccupation with execution and torture as the answer to any (real or perceived) wrongdoing, and her generally fragile mental state, stem from the fact that she and her mother were abused by a nasty monk due Lovepon's father leaving them with massive debts.
- Hayato's Control Freak nature is due to his parents being abusive and controlling towards him, often beating him and locking him in the attic for not acting like they wanted him to.
26. Real Women Don't Wear Dresses
- Jessie Kaye (JK Kennadi Brink on Sparkle to distinguish her from Jessie McKay of Team Australia) is a diva despising wrestler. Her issue's that she had an unhappy, fat childhood and saw the same type of people who passed her up then continuing to do so in her profession of choice.
27-29. Shallow Hal
Hal Larson (Black) is a single guy with an unsatisfying dating life, due to the fact that — having been unconsciously traumatized by his father's death at age nine — he is one of the shallowest men in the world. Until one day when, trapped in an elevator with self-help guru Tony Robbins, he is unknowingly hypnotized so that, every time he meets someone new from that point onward, he will see their "inner beauty" instead of their real appearance. He meets a woman named Rosemary Shanahan (Paltrow) who, to him, looks like a beautiful, skinny woman because of her great inner beauty. In reality, however, she's extremely fat.
- Freudian Excuse:
- Hal is shallow because of his father's dying words about appearance.
- Mauricio is shallow because of his vestigial tail, which shames him into avoiding meaningful relationships.
30. Terrifier
- Freudian Excuse: Possibly. The way Art looks at the woman when she asks him if he's ever felt a mother's touch certainly makes it seem like he might have some mommy issues, which would explain why he loves torturing and murdering women so much.
31. 61*
- Freudian Excuse: The reason Mickey parties so hard is because all the men in his family (including his father, grandfather, and uncles) died before the age of 45. He figures the same thing will happen to him so he might as well live it up while he can.note
32-33. Hot in Cleveland
- Freudian Excuse: She says that she can't marry a man who doesn't make a lot of money since her parents argued a lot about money, and she never wanted that to be a problem. she also is very vain and obsessed with her looks because she was fat when she was a child and got bullied by the other children. The reason for her obsession of winning an Emmy or a Tony or an Oscar, comes from the fact that her mother constantly criticized her and her father considered her a looser, her father also flirted and slept with several of her friends which also caused her lot of emotional suffering.
- Freudian Excuse: Between getting knocked up and abandoned by her boyfriend Simon when she was a teenager and her fiancé Kyle leaving her at the alter, Joy's cynicism towards men isn't exactly unearned.
- Missing Mom: His mother ran out on the rest of the family. It could have been a Freudian Excuse if he wasn't such a Jerkass.
35-37. Ultimate X-Men (2001)
- Freudian Excuse: Marvel Girl and others come to recognize that it's not surprising that Wolverine is as cynical and violent as he is after the torture and exploitation he endured in Weapon X.
- Dark and Troubled Past: He apparently had some dealings with Nathaniel Essex before. He also alludes to experience with sexual assault in purported sanctuaries and is thus absolutely distrusting of any goodwill offers for food and shelter. He's willing to fend for himself on the streets over it.
- Freudian Excuse: Magneto killed his little sister when he blew up the Brooklyn Bridge during the Ultimate War story. Arcade would just as soon take it out on Magneto personally, but with the latter locked away for life (at the time), he takes it out on other mutants instead.
38. The Super Mario Adventures Crossover Clash Cutieverse Villains
- Freudian Excuse: Her entire reason for hating opera is because her parents died at an opera concert.
39-40. Bondage Is Bad
- In Fifty Shades of Grey, Christian's obsession with BDSM is tied mostly to the fact that he is a damaged, traumatized individual with aggression issues. This stems from mommy issues and his much older girlfriend raping him and making him her sub when he was a teenager. He's naturally "cured" of it at the end.
- In Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh, Therese coerces Curtis into coming to a BDSM club with her and then repeatedly has kinky sex with him. While Curtis enjoys it (albeit with a small Freudian Excuse), Therese herself is a totally psycho stalker.
41. Tropes A to C
- Cuteness Proximity:
- In his infancy, Liam's mother became distracted by a platypus this way and caused his stroller to roll down a hill, leading to his hate towards platypuses. Later, the docents at the botanical garden are distracted by Perry in the same way.
42-43. Mike & Molly
%%* Dysfunctional Family: Both Mike and Molly's families. And they both wonder why they have weight issues...
- Freudian Excuse: Starting in Season 5, we get to learn more about Peggy's background and why she's so angry and bitter. She was abused and neglected as a child while her sister was spoiled. She ran away with a man who she thought was the love of her life but separated with him for reasons unknown and ended up marrying Mike's father, who abandoned her to live with a stripper and left her to raise Mike on her own.
44. Gravity Falls – The Author
- Freudian Excuse: Ford's unhealthy self-isolationism and Mad Scientist habits are born of him being mercilessly mocked as a child for his six-fingered hands, with these negative traits only getting worse and worse over time due to him losing his two closest friends (his brother and Fiddleford, respectively).
- Freudian Excuse: Chihiro Tanaka's aggressiveness, vindictiveness and rude behaviour is later explained as the result of growing up without a mother.
- Parental Abandonment: The Freudian Excuse of Sulejmani is that his parents sold him off as a Child Soldier.
47. South Park S 20 E 5 Douche And A Danish
- Freudian Excuse: DildoSchwaggins thinks there's a deeper reason why Gerald got into trolling. DildoSchwaggins' own excuse is he was bullied as a child over his mother being a little person. Fridge Brilliance kicks in when you realize that him choosing to name himself based on a famous hobbit is a way of coping with that.
- Lucille actually inches toward this in season 4 due to an implied Freudian Excuse from her Abusive Parents. She also finally starts to realize that her children actually do hate her, or just don't care.
49. Gravity Falls S2 E3 "The Golf War"
- Freudian Excuse: Pacifica's parents are stage parents with little interest in helping their child develop or even supporting her in competitions.
50. Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans – Tekkadan
- Freudian Excuse: Hush's animosity towards Mikazuki is rooted in the fact that his best friend and "big brother" failed the Alaya-Vijnana surgery and became depressed paraplegic as a result. His last words to Hush was telling him about how there was a kid (Mikazuki) who successfully went under the knife three times and how he was useless by comparison.
- Freudian Excuse: "They ask me why I'm bringing a baby into battle... I didn't learn parenting, my daddy was a planet!"
52. Everyone's Brand New and Improved Killing Game Semester
- Freudian Excuse: Idabashi's murder attempt is a direct result of his poor upbringing to be a Despair-fighting supreme leader.
- Ted Dekker's Christian suspense novel (and later movie) Thr3e is about a young man tormented by a serial killer that decides to make him his next victim. He's aided by an old childhood friend and an FBI agent whose brother was one of the victims. It later turns out that both the "killer" and the childhood friend are alternate personalities of the main character, caused by the abuse his adoptive mother put him through as a child. In fact, the "evil" side of his personality isn't the same serial killer that killed the agent's brother at all—the main character heard about the murders and his other personality started to copy them.
- Freudian Excuse: His entire family was murdered by the Cult of Zebulun, and he was raised by Orrum to become the lunatic he has now become.
- Justified:
- Zod is a sadistic misogynist in real life, and it's reflected in the bedroom; the same Freudian Excuse for his evil ways is responsible for his not understanding romantic relationships. Alice and Bob are embarrassed to bring up their fantasies to each other because they're worried what the other will think.
56. iCarly (2021) S1E2 "iHate Carly"
- Freudian Excuse: The reason why Justin has been attacking Carly is because when he was a boy, he submitted a clip for the original iCarly web show of him reciting a poem he wrote. The clip was rejected and Justin had held a grudge ever since.
57. Ted Lasso S2 E05 "Rainbow"
- Face–Heel Turn: Nate starts his here. He feels he's not getting enough respect from a random restaurant, nor from Ted over his attempt to be the Big Dog. He's also stung that he doesn't get a coffee maker as he's not a player on the team. He's already shown signs of Small Name, Big Ego, being rather vicious with people he sees as beneath him, but now we see his relationship with his father... and a rather disturbing scene where he psychs himself up in the restaurant bathroom before getting the table he wants.
- Freudian Excuse: Sgt. Olga's hatred of the Jews stems from her early childhood, where her once-wealthy family was ruined by her father's unscrupulous business partner. Her mother subsequently died of pneumonia and her father became a shell of his former self. Olga's older siblings claimed it was because the business partner was Jewish that he was evil, which warped the fragile young child into the monster Olga became. The business partner later became Olga's first experiment in necromancy.
59. DieBuster
- Freudian Excuse: Her hatred of those who see the Topless as capable of doing anything stems from her being unable to use her Topless powers to save her crush's life as a child.
60. Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue...
>Roses are red
Pumpkins are orange
I wish I had
A great big borange
— MAD, a final one from the Quiz Show parody, when Charles gives a Freudian Excuse about being unable to impress his father through poetry. In the next panel, his father starts on another, but is told to shut up.
61. The Clique
- Freudian Excuse: It's occasionally implied that several characters have one. Alicia’s parents are hinted at as encouraging to get plastic surgery for her boobs and the other Pretty Committee members seem to be victims of parental neglect. They do whatever they want while their parents fail to realize what’s going on.
62. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: Recurring Characters
- Freudian Excuse: After learning that the McPoyles have only bred with other members of the family for a thousand years, is it any wonder why so many of them turn out so messed up?
63. Maniac (2018)
- Freudian Excuse: Mantleray invented a mind-bending drug treatment to try and cure mental illness without therapy, because his abusive mother is a famous therapist. He even admits it, but also considers it necessary for him to get where he is now.
64. Live-Action TV
- Veronica Mars:
- A season and a half later, the Big Bad Cassidy Casablancas leaps to his death after having his crimes and Freudian Excuse (sexual abuse which he was trying desperately to keep secret) made public.
- Freudian Excuse: It's Evangelion, so naturally. In addition to the pre-established characters, we get Lyn who mercy-killed his mother when he was a child. What makes it worse is that he seems to have, at the time, known what he was doing in spite of his very young age, but his mother begged him to. His father never let him live it down and now hates him for it. So does, Lyn, for that matter.
66. Arrowverse: Legends - Current Members
- Abusive Parents: He and his father do not have the best relationship. According to Nate, it stems from his old man's Freudian Excuse for growing up with a Disappeared Dad. Downplayed in that his father is strict and demanding, but not outright abusive.
67. Friendship Is Magic: Lord Tirek
- Freudian Excuse: Discord implies that the reason Tirek takes magic from ponies is because he uses the power he gains from it to compensate for the fact that he was never able to earn approval from his dad, King Vorak.
68. The Pop Arena
- In his video for You Can't Do That on Television:
- In the same episode, he calls out Roger Price for his "boys will be boys mentality" (Allowing Playboy magazines around the young actors and allowing peep holes through the girls dressing rooms), as well punishing young male actors by forcing them to wear dresses because of his own experiences.
69. The Sopranos: DiMeo Crime Family
- Freudian Excuse: Hinted at. It's hard to imagine a character like Ralph not having mommy issues.
70-71. Good Is Not Nice
- Elphaba in Wicked. She's a vocal champion for Animal rights (as in, magic talking Animals who are victims of Fantastic Racism), intelligent, and one of the only people willing to stand up to the Wizard and fight his oppressive regime—but she's also abrasive, sarcastic, contemptuous of virtually everyone around her, stubborn, and generally unpleasant. At least some of this is a Freudian Excuse because of her green skin—she deliberately pushes everyone away so they won't have the opportunity to bully or pity her.
- Weiss Schnee of RWBY is a metaphorical and literal Ice Queen and Academic Alpha Bitch who has bigoted opinions on Faunus (with a good Freudian Excuse thrown in though) and generally speaks to others with a snarky, derisive tone. She's still one of the good guys, however, and she's not quite nice yet but she's getting there.
- Freudian Excuse: Being neglected by his father and seen as his "least favorite son" despite being an only child, it's no wonder Sonny's not exactly sane.
- Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Miyabi. Yes, his mother died and his dad withdrew from the family after her death; that is understandable. However, Miyabi also has friends that are always there for him, and a sister whose Number One concern has always been his well being. Plus he's the lead singer of a band with said friends that is very popular and is heading for mainstream stardom. Yet he treats these same friends like dirt, treats his fans with contempt (especially poor Eizo), and is a total bully towards the school faculty and other students. He bullies Yumi just for being at the wrong place at the wrong time and her slight resemblance to his mother, and then ends up falling for her, which he tries to deal with by leading another girl on and toying with her feelings (Yayoi may be nuts, but no girl deserves that), nearly getting Yumi killed as well as resulting in Yayoi's own Death by Childbirth, leaving her father (who is Miyabi's manager and mentor) utterly devastated. And aside from not only never receiving any real punishment for his actions, he's forgiven by everyone who continue to hold him up as a good person for his musical talent and Freudian Excuse. While Emi did take steps to mitigate this by giving Miyabi some Character Development, for some readers, it's way too little, way too late.
Zero Context (22-111)
- Expect a killer with the Freudian Excuse to choose victims who remind him of his parents, like the Criminal Mind Games killer of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, as well as Fin's step-son.
2-3. Deltarune
- Author's Saving Throw: The game does much to address issues audiences had with
- The game is also less condemning of violence against foes with zero redeeming qualities to them. The King outright exploits the characters in a Pacifist Run by claiming to have a Freudian Excuse and being willing to talk it out after his battle, only to sneak attack the characters after he tricks Ralsei into healing him. Ultimately, he doesn't pull a Heel–Face Turn; either he's overthrown by Lancer and his subjects and thrown into the dungeon, or Ralsei realizes the King had tired himself out and uses the Pacify spell to tranquilize him, depending on whether you made a "kill" on regular encounters.
- Draco in Leather Pants: At least one person speculates that King has more of a Freudian Excuse than he lets on, even if there are practically no notable redeeming qualities of his. This would end up becoming Hilarious in Hindsight come the release of Chapter 2, which actually does give him some very minor redeeming qualities and some genuinely funny dialogue with Queen.
- Eve masqueraded as Lena's loyal assistant for months before pulling a gun on her at Lex's request. There is no question this should make her the scary one. Except when Lena kidnaps her, keeps her locked in her lab, starts threatening her, not for revenge or because it's useful or for her own protection but because she's become paranoid after too many betrayals and has become obsessed with finding out why Eve did it. Lena brutally rejects Eve's Freudian Excuse, and when a genuinely remorseful Eve forgoes an occasion to escape, apologizes, and expresses the wish to be better, Lena twists this as a justification to use her nanites to do Brainwashing for the Greater Good, essentially turning the horrified Eve into a slave and host for her IA assistant Hope.
- Goth: Jocelyn, the daughter of a college friend of the kids' mom, is that rarer form found in fiction, a Gloomy Goth who doesn't have a Freudian Excuse or other tragic reasoning behind her tastes but just happens to be this way—though she is Played for Laughs a bit, albeit more as part of the overall Culture Clash and Heidi's reactions to her than by being a black sheep. That said, it's implied she is doing it as something of a rebellion against her real-estate agent mother, and Heidi later says she's just a fashion victim. In any case, her presence in the book does give Heidi an outlet to try and (futilely) escape the time-slips when she adopts Jocelyn's look, and it also makes for a number of fun moments when Chad accidentally mistakes either Jocelyn or Heidi for a ghost.
- Freudian Excuse: He blames all of his worldly problems on Jeremy, because Jeremy "stole" what was rightfully Bran's. Which isn't true, and Jeremy lampshades just how ridiculous a thing that is to say regardless.Jeremy: Not to belabor the obvious, but I am a thief. In fact, I'm the best thief in the world. And you're not.
- Alternative Character Interpretation
- Yuri gives his Freudian Excuse to Asuka in episode 123, though given the fact that he was trolling her the whole episode, it's possible that he merely made up his backstory just to evoke sympathy from her.
8. The Heather Wells Mysteries
Other:
- Detective Canavan's discussion on the killer Howard Chen, which essentially says that there are a lot of people who suffer in this world and they don't become murderers, telling Heather to feel no pity. Also tells Heather to wash her hands, since they probably have gunpowder residue from her shooting Howard.
9. Black Clover
- After Licht tells Yami his tragic backstory, Yami gives him his own origin story in order to show that he doesn't give a hoot about the villain's Freudian Excuse. The ending pretty much amounts to "I beat the crap out of those who gave me problems, and became the boss of my own group."
10. Bondage Is Bad
- In Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh, Therese coerces Curtis into coming to a BDSM club with her and then repeatedly has kinky sex with him. While Curtis enjoys it (albeit with a small Freudian Excuse), Therese herself is a totally psycho stalker.
Compare Do Well, But Not Perfect; The Complainer Is Always Wrong; and Too Qualified to Apply. A common Freudian Excuse for The Un-Favourite.
- Freudian Excuse: Marston's hatred for the Aborigines stems from the death of his parents.
13. Heel–Face Turn
- In The Bridge, it happens several times.
- Moonbeam Glimmer's Freudian Excuse put her on the path of a fear mongering antagonist to Godzilla Junior, convinced he would turn on Equestria and lead to catastrophe. After finding out they aren't so different and Junior forgives her for her actions, she stops.
14. Webcomics
- Penny and Aggie. One strip has the Girl Posse being farcically evaile as they plan to use a target's unannounced homosexuality against her. In the next strip the psychotic one is making a false lesbian rape accusation when the worst the posse had done before was a Party Scheduling Gambit. In the next strip she turns out to have no idea of how people speak as she gives her assailant lines that would be at home in a 1950s Scare 'Em Straight flick. In the next strip the accusation snaps back into plausibility, and she implies body parts that women don't have before starting to tear up...
15-16. Depraved Homosexual
On the other hand, for some people it is enough. For decades, this was the only role gays could play in mainstream media, and it still crops up uncomfortably often. Frequently the villain will be the only homosexual in the story. Now there will be a Freudian Excuse or they be played sympathetically - a kind of Author's Saving Throw against criticism.%% Claggart in Herman Melville's Billy Budd. It's his Freudian Excuse.
17. Rejected Apology
- Elena of Avalor: In Season 3, when Esteban's alliance with Shuriki is revealed, he attempts to apologize to everyone, but Elena and their grandmother tell him to screw off with his apologies and excuses since his actions led to the deaths of Elena's parents and Avalor suffering under Shuriki's tyrannical regime for over four decades. In "Dreamcatcher", when Esteban desperately begs for a chance to make things right between them, Elena tells him point-blank that there's nothing he can do to fix this and he's no longer her family; this is what pushes Esteban into a full Face–Heel Turn.
- Elena of Avalor: As much as he may fear the wrath of anyone else, Esteban is his own worst enemy. He's responsible for part of the show's tragic backstory (that is, the assassinations of his aunt and uncle, otherwise known as the queen and king, as well as a 41-year-long tyrannical regime over his people), and though he claims he wants to take responsibility for his actions, he often weasels out at the last minute (like hiding his betrayal from his surviving family members) or tries to do so when the damage is already done. When his secret is finally exposed in Season 3, he begs for mercy and attempts to claim Freudian Excuse, which no one buys. Even when he gets the tamer sentence of being exiled to a remote island, he instead opts to break out the day before he can be transported and teams up with a group of powerful & dangerous criminals to protect himself, which kills any remaining sympathy anyone still had for him. Although he rationalizes his Enemy Mine as necessary to defend himself from the wrath of his family, Elena eventually bluntly tells him that he neither has a family or home to return to and that he's Beyond Redemption, after which he stops trying to seek her forgiveness and tries to be truly evil. To quote some foreshadowing from a mostly unrelated episode, "He did this to himself."
19. Out Damned Spot
- Bad To the Bone: The 1997 TV movie had an example that eerily echoes Macbeth. Francesca ("Frankie") Wells (Kristy Swanson) is a Fille Fatale (she is 19, but often behaves as if she is several years younger) who has killed her own mother in order to get her hands on the family inheritance and then talked her younger brother into killing her latest boyfriend so that they can take over the nightclub the boyfriend owns. Both are eventually arrested and charged with the murders, but Frankie jumps bail, gives herself a false name, and eventually winds up living on a seacoast villa with a rich man she has seduced. She spends one morning swimming in the ocean. The rich man sees her coming in from the surf and mentions that he once heard that the ocean is supposed to wash all one's sins away. In a splendid display of dramatic irony, Frankie tells him that, unfortunately, that isn't the case. A subtle yet effective Cry for the Devil, especially given Frankie's Woobie-ish backstory.
20. Sonic the Hedgehog - One-Shot Characters
- Freudian Excuse: Revealing his relationship with Maria
21. Gankutsuou
%%* Freudian Excuse
22. The Sopranos: DiMeo Crime Family
- The Sociopath: One of the best examples that gave us the series. He is petty, cruel, sadistic, cunning and ruthless. Out of all the sociopaths on the show, he may be one of the few who actually qualifies as a psychopath, for he almost never demonstrates attachment, empathy, or real moral standards. The only possible exceptions could be his two Pet the Dog moments mentioned before, but this was likely him trying to keep a civilian out of his business in the first case, and to ingratiate himself with Junior in the second. Even highly sociopathic characters like Phil Leotardo and Ralph Cifaretto have demonstrated genuine grief or remorse over others (Phil to his brother; Ralphie to his son). Furthermore, he has no apparent Freudian Excuse for his behavior, unlike others on the show. He is also lacking (relative to other prominent sociopaths such as Ralph, Paulie and Phil) in personal charisma, thus perhaps making him the most unlikeable to the audience of any major character.
Adulthood Excuse (9-111)
1. Blood Rage
- Freudian Excuse: Along with Todd escaping the asylum, Maddy announcing she is going to marry Brad also seemingly causes Terry to snap.
2. Alvin and the Chipmunks: Live-Action
- Freudian Excuse: His girlfriend dumps him over his fandom for the Chipmunks, which is part of why he hates them.
3. Spider Man The Animated Series S 01 E 02 The Sting Of The Scorpion
- Freudian Excuse:
- Jameson provides one for his hatred of Spider-Man. He hates people who wear masks because a mask protected his wife's killer from being identified, making them feel like they're above the law.
4-5. Mega Man Star Force: Pegasus, Leo, and Dragon
- Freudian Excuse: His former boss pretended to befriend him only to steal his invention and pass it off as his own, causing Tom to lose faith in people. Naturally, he's suspicious of his new boss, Aaron, taking an interest in his work.
- Freudian Excuse: The constant attempts on his life, and Gemini's manipulations caused him to become paranoid and mistrusting.
- Freudian Excuse: Exeller seemed to have a crush on a second-class Highest named Laura. However, Laura died shortly after they started dating (while it's unknown why, it's implied All-Father put a curse on Exeller that would kill anyone he'd bond with, and that he did it For the Evulz; while third-class Highests are not allowed to have romantic relationships, Exeller is not a third-class Highest, but rather a Zero-class). This caused Exeller to team up with Exetior in order to make All-Father pay for what he did to Laura.
7. Going Postal
- Parodied in the MADtv sketch "Postal Workers Gone Postal". Two postal workers decide to have their murderous rampage on the same day, but of course they don't want to share. They argue about who gets to go on a killing spree, which has the more traumatic past, and which person each of them gets to kill. Then a third guy who was planning the same thing walks in. When a fourth guy walks in, they ask him why he hates being a postman, but he turns out to be a robber. They use their guns to arrest him and are hailed as heroes, and the government makes firearms mandatory for all postal workers.
- The Chronicles of Taras
gives a kind of this (the trigger being a malfunctioning Slurpee Machine) as the reason why Taras Jacobs went on a rampage and killed an entire SWAT Team before permanently disabling the negotiations officer and carving the word 'LIAR' into his chest after he tried to set her up for capture.
8-9. No Time to Die
- Freudian Excuse: His grudge against Blofeld stems from the latter being responsible for his family's death by Mr. White. In retaliation, Safin kills off Madeleine's mother. He has all members of Spectre killed and gets his revenge against Blofeld by proxy by tricking 007 into infecting the man with nanobots.
- Gender-Inverted Trope: He represents the Rare Male Example of the Silk Hiding Steel and More Deadly Than the Male. Like most vengeful female villains, he also has Freudian Excuse of being nearly murdered and abused by a psychopath (Blofeld) who irreparably damaged his life and goes after him and people like him (SPECTRE). Like the first trope mentioned, he is also shown to be very elegant and graceful but is shown to be capable of putting up a fight and as for the second trope mentioned here, he is even shown to be very deadlier, vicious and cunning than the previous main villains of the Craig era (Le Chiffre, Dominic Greene, Raoul Silva and Blofeld) and even manages to cause the death of James Bond.
Other (7-111)
Regardless of the specifics, the reason for the A.I. being evil will almost always be connected to the fact that it is in fact an A.I. An A.I. will almost never be given the sort of Freudian Excuse that would work just as easily with a human villain, for example, such as having a Dark and Troubled Past.
2. Spider Man The Animated Series S 01 E 02 The Sting Of The Scorpion
- Freudian Excuse:
- After a lifetime of mockery, Gargan is very sensitive about being insulted.
3. One Piece: Wano - Kozuki Clan And Allies
- Freudian Excuse: His cynical views towards Wano as a country stems from the fact that Lord Oden was killed by Kaido during the latter's invasion and that many of Oden's supporters died after an attempt to kill Kaido.
4. Literature
- It's perhaps inevitable that the Star Wars Expanded Universe be chockfull of alien species whose cultures cling closely to the stereotype of Planet of Hats, especially when they play minor or relatively minor roles - and all too often, the particular stereotype is that they're all criminals, barbarians, or savage warriors. The writers do try to justify this by often giving the species a plausible Freudian Excuse: they're ignorant (such as the Noghri, who serve the Empire because they're superstitious primitives and don't know any better), it's part of their culture (the Rodians had to become ruthless bounty hunters to survive the predators on their homeworld), or they're just horribly misguided (the Trandoshans, whose goddess they worship promises to reward them in the afterlife for committing murders and certain other atrocities). A particularly tragic case were the ancient Sith, who suffered from a genetic mutation that predisposed them toward the Dark Side of the Force. But there's no justification for the vile Hutts: while their extreme arrogance can be chalked up to their mythical beliefs (according to their mythology, they are literally gods), nothing could ever excuse their incredible sexual perversity and cruelty, even to the point that the suffering of other creatures is their primary form of entertainment. Not all Hutts are sadistic, and a few are willing to stay out of the Hutt crime syndicates (though mostly out of pragmatism or apathy), but trusting a Hutt is still only something you should ever do if you have some kind of power over them.
5. Parody Sue
- Garou is the latest addition to the series' array of Parody Sues, but is unique in that he's a Parody
Villain Sue...Played for Drama. Like the "overpowered" kind of Villain Sue, he's a godlike, handsome martial artist known as the Hero Killer who seems to nearly invincible, toying with heroes who barely get near his Super Weight, which increases every fight, and has a ruthlessly intelligent mind that he does not actually use for scheming at all, only outwitting his opponents. Like the "sympathetic" kind, he has a regular Tear Jerker of a Freudian Excuse that justifies all the things he does under the ideology of being one side of the Balance of Good and Evil...because he really didn't do that many bad things to begin with. As Saitama forces him to realize, the very reason he wants to be the Evil side is that he desperately wants the Good side to rise and stop him, uniting humanity and stopping any other children from going what he went through. A desire that, as it turns out, makes his reputation as an overpowered villain somewhat fraudulent-he's genuinely powerful, but has racked up a (human) body count of precisely zero, thus explaining why the heroes he fights somehow manage to always survive (he honestly wants them to live), and while he has killed members of the Monster Association, it wasn't to increase his Villain Cred but to stop them from killing innocents. Ultimately, Garou is what would happen if a Villain Sue was actually as sympathetic as the writer wants the reader to think he is — i.e., a hero in denial that he is a hero.
- Freudian Excuse: Can you really dislike them if they’re simply doing what they believe is best for Winnie?
7. Tiny Toon Adventures Minor Characters
- Freudian Excuse: Stanley losing a Schloskar to Bugs in 1958 and feeling that no one appreciates his talent drives his actions in "Who Bopped Bugs Bunny?".
