Then Let Me Be Evil / Video Games

SPOILER WARNING: The nature of this trope means that spoilers abound. Tread carefully.

Then Let Me Be Evil moments in Video Games.

---

• Abyss Crossing: Jagon is a Gorgon who simply wanted to live in peace, but people feared her and tried to kill her. After taking in enough magical power, she snaps and petrifies the Stone Village, and intends to petrify anyone who gazes upon her so that they can't leak her location to the military.
• Caelar Argent in Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear is seen as a villain because she brings chaos and destruction in her wake as she leads the Shining Crusade. Caelar does regret the destruction she causes, but thinks it's ultimately For the Greater Good. In the end, it's revealed that she was duped by her Obviously Evil subordinate Hepheranan and is about to release the devil Belhifet into the world. Caelar, realizing this was all her doing, can give herself over as a blackguard into Belhifet's service, provided he kill Hepheranan first. As she puts it, she tried to do good and was utterly terrible at it, so it would be better to be evil, because at least she can wear that as a badge of honor.
• In Bug Fables, ever since the gang of seventeen ladybugs were caught raiding the aphid farms, Queen Elizant II banished the ladybug species from the Ant Kingdom, with only a few being accepted in, requiring special permits. Unfortunately, most ladybugs were not happy with her actions, and decided that, since they are all treated as outlaws, they will be outlaws, and became burglars — a deed that tarnished ladybugs' reputation even further than before.
• In Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, Gabriel Belmont became evil because destiny said he would become evil.
• In City of Heroes, Leonard "Frostfire" Calhoun (Yes, that is his real name) is explicitly stated to have "succumbed to a 'if you're going to treat me like a villain' mentality" after a botched attempt at vigilanteism. For this reason, Frostfire is one of the more sympathetic villains in the game, even delivering a crude Motive Rant when confronted. He even eventually tries to redeem himself.
• Can be invoked by the player in Civilization. Once the A.I. starts denouncing you, it is very hard to get back in their good books, even if all you did was refuse to roll over and die when they shot first. This can lead a player to decide to show the enemy civilizations what a real bloodthirsty warmonger actually looks like.
• In the backstory for the Hillbilly from Dead by Daylight, "Boy" had Abusive Parents that treated him even worse than the animals on the farm, and the police chief was in on the abuse. The Hillbilly was locked in a room for most of his life with only a TV for company running shows of heroes and children who had good parents, lamenting his tragic state. He decides to "become his own hero" by slaughtering his parents, the police, and the livestock when he eventually escapes.
• Invoked by Adam Jensen in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided when talking about an augmented-only ghetto.
  Adam: Treat people like animals long enough and they'll start acting like animals.
• The whole Dragon Age series has this with blood magic. Even though it can be used innocently, using only your own blood and powering all kinds of magic, it is always claimed to be evil magic fuelled through harming others and used to control minds. Since the slightest hint of innocent use is an immediate death sentence, those who get caught tend to go all-in on the evil due to having no other choice left.
  • In Dragon Age II, almost all of Kirkwall distrusts the qunari and their leader, the Arishok, due to the qunari's reputation for being heathen conquerors. While the Arishok is by no means a nice guy, he and the rest of the qunari just want to mind their own business and leave Kirkwall as soon as possible. However, after years of unprovoked attacks by those who expect him to act against them, the Arishok finally has enough and tries to conquer Kirkwall.
    The Arishok: Fixing your mess is not the demand of the Qun, and you should all be grateful!
  • This also sums up why so many Circle mages turn to Blood Magic; they spend their whole lives effectively at the mercy of the templars, who tell them that the abilities they were born with are sinful and hold the threat of being made Tranquil over their heads, so what do they have to lose by dealing with demons? First Enchanter Orsino does this in the endgame — even if you sided with him.
    • Spelled out in the web series Dragon Age: Redemption focused on several characters trying to stop an escaped qunari mage, or Saarebas ("dangerous thing" in qunari). The qunari treat their mages way worse than humans. They sew their mouths shut and force them to wear harnesses that dampen their magic and can be used to shock them into submission. After finally stopping and collaring the Saarebas, Tallis asks him why he tried to cast a dangerous spell. His response is that he has been told for so long that he's a thing of evil that the only thing he could think about doing after escaping is the most harm possible. However, not all Saarebas are like that.
  • Anders especially emphasizes this point as the reason the Circle of Magi simply doesn't work — when you imprison and terrify a person with supernatural powers for the entirety of their lives, does the fault lie with the prisoner for eventually snapping and trying to take everyone down with them, or the system that forces them into that corner with no room for compromise? Doesn't stop him from yelling at the mages who made deals or turn into abominations, but he saves most of his bile for the Chantry. Hence his "nuclear option" attack on the Chantry after all his other efforts have been shut down.
  • Orsino's Despair Event Horizon also has him come to this conclusion, when, after Meredith's templars have killed the rest of the mages in the Circle, he decides that if he's going to die, his name slandered as a blood mage for a crime he didn't commit, then he'll use the blood magic he'd previously condemned to take as many templars out with him as possible.
• You can deliberately invoke this in Dragon's Dogma. Once you confronted Duke Edmun after slaying Grigori the Dragon, he immediately brands you as a traitor, and every guard along with captain Maximilian would make an attempt to kill you on sight whenever you entered upper Gran Soren. If a traitor is what they wanted, then why not become one? Now, you have the option to teach them a lesson and kill everyone on sight, yes, everyone but the Duke. This is for crossing with the Arisen, who will soon become your god!
• Elden Ring: Once, a Great Caravan of merchants roamed the Lands Between. Suspicion grew between the merchants and the city-dwellers, and eventually the Great Caravan was (wrongfully) accused of heresy, and for punishment were rounded up and buried alive en-masse. In their despair at their fate, they decided to commit the worst heresy of all and summon the Frenzied Flame. In a (sadly) cut questline involving the merchant Kalé discovering the mass grave of his people, he even drops the line, "Well, if that's what they expect from us, then that's what they'll get from us!"
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: While most of the game portrays necromancers as evil because they are necromancers, there are a few implications in the Mages' Guild questline and a few related books that one reason Mannimarco's evil Order of the Black Worm have had such a success in infiltrating and poaching from the Guild after necromancy was banned within the Guild is that more than a few previously ethical Guild necromancers and associates took Hannibal Traven (the Arch-Mage of the Guild) at his word when he lost them their specialization and potentially livelihood by driving through a hard-line anti-necromancy policy that painted it as inherently evil and connected to Mannimarco (an ancient arch-enemy of the Guild).
    • Khajiit are often subjects of Fantastic Racism outside of Elsweyr, stereotyped as sneaky thieves, skooma addicts, liars, and generally troublemaking scum. And for the most part, that's actually true... but only because the stereotype exists in the first place, leaving the Khajiit with no other option but to be criminals in order to make a living since nobody will hire them for legitimate work.
  • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: At the beginning of the game, the Empire sentences you to execution simply because they've mistaken you for a Stormcloak. But after a dragon interrupts the execution and inadvertently lets you escape, you can then choose to join the Stormcloaks for real and lay waste to the Empire's presence in Skyrim. And if you also become part of the Dark Brotherhood, you can take it even further by assassinating the Emperor himself.
• Final Fantasy:
  • The most commonly-accepted interpretation of Sorceress Ultimecia's motivations in Final Fantasy VIII is that she was discriminated against and persecuted by a society conditioned to assume that any sorceress runs the risk of snapping and trying to take over the world, until — shockingly enough — she snapped and decided to become the evil sorceress that history reviled. Her speech in Deling very heavily alludes to this. As the game runs on a Stable Time Loop it's heavily implied Ultimecia was demonized as soon as she was discovered due to atrocities she would cause in the future in the past, therefore she had no chance to escape her fate aside from a 'Hail Mary' play to make time itself meaningless.
  • Invoked by Snow and Lightning in Final Fantasy XIII in order to scare civilians out of harm's way. Lightning toys with the idea after her sister is Taken for Granite and she herself is branded a l'Cie, which means everyone in the world will be hunting her down. She suggests making herself an enemy that they should really fear by destroying the chief god in the fal'Cie pantheon. Ultimately, she doesn't go through with it, the reaction being mainly one of grief and rage rather than reason. Snow later announces that he is a Pulse l'Cie "here to kill you all" and shoots a machine gun skyward in Palumpolum so that a crowd of citizens will clear the area, saving them from getting shot down or Purged by PSICOM.
  • Final Fantasy XIV features some of this in Stormblood:
    • Yotsuyu as providing one of the trope's quotes. Prior to becoming the Witch of Doma who gets off on suffering, she was put through familial abuse, married off to an abusive husband who treated her like shit, and then was sold into prostitution to pay off her husband's debts. In all? It provides a reason why she would happily turn against Doma and aid the empire. After her arc involving amnesia where she finally received kindness, she regained her memories but believed she was Beyond Redemption and didn't deserve it. How sympathetic this makes her is debated.
    • Fordola also demonstrates this as well. A flashback given via the Echo showcases that her father sided with the empire in order to give her a better future. However, we also see that the people of Gyr Abania despised her and her family as being traitors. This resulted in a traumatic scene wherein Fordola's father was stoned to death while the Garleans watched. She was then put through the horrible wringer trying to advance in the ranks of the Garlean army, especially with a viceroy like Zenos. Ala Mhigo saw her as a monster, Garlemald saw her as a savage, so she might as well become that person. But at the same time, the Warrior of Light and Lyse offered her a chance to be something besides it... and she took that chance.
  • Final Fantasy XV Episode Ardyn reveals that Ardyn Izunia a.k.a. Ardyn Lucis Caelum was fated to fill the Big Bad role to Noctis' The Hero in Bahamut's plans to bring balance to Eos. When Bahamut reveals this to Ardyn, he snaps and decides he might as well embrace the role of an evil bringer of darkness. The Dawn of the Future novel (an adaptation of the cancelled DLC episodes Aranea, Lunafreya, and Noctis) reveal an Alternate Continuity wherein he does his role too well, and Bahamut decides to resort to an alternate plan that eventually leads to Ardyn performing a Heel–Face Turn; in accepting his role as a villain, he would have directly caused his redemption as a hero.
• A minor character in the 'Completing The Mission' portion of the Henry Stickmin Series is Henry StickMAN, who turned to a life of crime due to constantly being mistaken for a criminal as a result of the other Henry's actions.
• In Icewind Dale 2, the twin Big Bads Isair and Madae were treated as embodiments of evil their entire lives because they were cambions — half devil, half elf. After a lifetime of this treatment, with a cruel prank involving cakes baked with holy water as the final straw, they decided they might as well act like embodiments of evil. Iselore the Big Good remembers that he warned their foster mother (the only person who ever loved them) that "they are forged in evil and only evil can come from them" and sadly wonders if he helped make it true.
• If you decide to take the villain route in InFAMOUS, Cole cites this as one of his reasons for slipping into selfish evil. The people already think he's a terrorist that blew up their city, and he has the powers to make them suffer, why not give them what they want? This is best exemplified at the end of the train mission, where even after saving their loved ones, the people still want Cole's blood, resulting in him zapping one of them to make them disperse. For reference, the good version of the same scene has them treat him like one of the family and marks his turn for the better in the public eye, so it mostly comes down to the reputation he builds in the interim.
• Since the Jedi of Knights of the Old Republic considered any of their members who went off to defend the Republic against the Mandalorians as fallen (see their shoddy treatment of the Exile, who did return to the Council only to be immediately banished), the fact that Revan went and became Dark Lord of the Sith is a cross of this and Nice Job Breaking It, Hero.
• Lie of Caelum: N'raijar and Kesteri's group of bandits used to be Karsandan immigrants seeking Souen citizenship, but they were persecuted because of rumors that they were terrorists. This leads to them becoming actual terrorists to get back at Souen.
• This is the backstory of Odio the Lord of Dark in Live A Live. Even after Oersted was tricked into killing the king and branded a demon, he figured he could still be a hero, so long as one person believed in him. When that one person committed suicide as a direct consequence of his actions, he took up the demon lord's title and role, spreading pain and misery across the universe.
• Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker: In the ending, Big Boss makes a speech about how the world will view MSF differently as time goes by; either as revolutionaries, dogs of war, or terrorists and he is willing to accept that role as a villain. Anyone who stuck with the series long enough will know this was how Outer Heaven was founded.
  • In some ways, you already are that villain, as you are spending the game kidnapping and converting members of the opposition, who may not know anything but their orders, to your line of thinking by unknown means. You also start to develop a weapon capable of launching a nuke anywhere on earth, and the whole premise is you making a military without borders down to the name, all in the name of some ideal state based on your character's view of their mentor's ideals. Just now your character has embraced it.
• Namm, the Elder Power of Justice from Nexus Clash, is so obsessed with winning the war against the demon lord Tlacolotl that many of his followers have expanded their possible battlefield targets from actual demons to anyone who doesn't have a high enough score on the Karma Meter, and sometimes all the way to anyone who isn't an angel. Namm's behavior is the single best thing that ever happened to Tlacolotl's recruitment, as many characters figure that if they're going to be hunted like demons, they may as well join them.
• Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous has poor Staunton Vhane. Early in the Crusades, he made a serious mistake that caused the loss of a key fortress and a powerful artifact. Rather than having him hanged as a traitor, the queen assigned him to the Condemned, a unit composed of convicted criminals. He spent the next 70 years trying to make the most of his second chance, but he was utterly reviled by the other crusaders and even the other Condemned. By the time the Fifth Crusade comes around he has nothing left but bitterness and hatred; tired of fighting the "traitor" label, he finally owns it and runs off with the demons. He knows that they're only using him again, but even so he'd rather be useful to someone than hang around with those who show him only scorn.
• In Persona 5, this trope is a soft example of the creation of the Phantom Thieves; all of the founding members and most of the later members join because they were wronged by society or a corrupt individual in untouchable situations of power, and after being pushed too far by someone who made a personal nemesis of them, they decide they'll become what the world sees them as. However, rather than take revenge on everyone, they instead focus on their personal grudges, before moving on to various corrupt high-notoriety figures.
  • The protagonist saves a woman from being assaulted by a man with extreme power and influence, who threatens her into making false testimony against him, earning him an arrest, criminal record, getting him put on probation and ruining any but the slightest hope of a bright future. When he's about to be slain by Kamoshida's shadow, he becomes a Phantom Thief at the goading of his persona Arsene, who encourages him to thrive in the shadows because of the way the world turned on him.
  • In particular, this is the argument made to Ryuji by Captain Kidd — that since Kamoshida has gone out of his way to make Ryuji's life a living hell (amongst other things), Ryuji should not expect to reconcile with Kamoshida in any way and instead focus his energies on taking the bastard down. Downplayed in that, while Ryuji agrees and does just that, he doesn't go to extremes to get the job done, and has good intentions for the work he does with the Phantom Thieves thereafter.
    "Since your name has been disgraced already, why not hoist the flag and wreak havoc...? The "other you" who exists within desires it thus... I am thou... thou art I... There is no turning back... The skull of rebellion is your flag henceforth!"
  • Goro Akechi fashions himself as a Hero of Justice even as he commits murder and brainwashing for the sake of revenge against his father, Shido. However, it is made clear that at some point, Akechi had a Heel Realization that he could have gotten revenge without becoming a murderer. But, because he can't handle that fact or that Joker is better than him, he buries it as he tries to kill the Phantom Thieves, no matter the cost. However, he does pull a Heroic Sacrifice, so he might have rejected this trope if given the chance.
• Radiant Arc: Kagan was once a Lounan who wanted to figure out a way to control the Morians. When his fellow humans rejected him as a madman, he joined the Morians to get revenge on humanity.
• A downplayed example in Risk of Rain 2 as the final boss, Mithrix, was already a Mad Scientist with a considerable Lack of Empathy and disregard for "pests." But when his brother imprisoned him on the moon, his sanity outright snaps and his envy leads to him to think Providence sealed him away because he cares about the lifeforms on the planet more than his own brother. A few lore entries show that he plans to target Earth as soon as he escapes and Kill All Humans just to spite his brother.
• SaGa Frontier: Asellus is the only Half-Mystic in the game due to being a human that got a blood transfusion by the lord of Mystics, Orlouge. Other Mystics, save a few that are her friends, shun her, while other humans are scared of her. In the Full Mystic ending, Asellus snaps, proceeds to overthrow Orlouge, becoming the new Lord of the Mystics... And a worse tyrant than Orlouge ever was.
• The lovable, kind Jack Frosts from the Shin Megami Tensei franchises occasionally, through self-discovery or negative experiences, realize they're a demon and decide to act like one, becoming the malevolent and extremely threatening Black Frost.
• In Skies of Arcadia, Ramirez's backstory involves a play on this trope. He came to Arcadia as a naive idealist with some lessons to learn from the school of hard knocks, but found one guy who seemed alright as a role-model/mentor. Sadly, he ended up getting played for a fool and humiliated when the guy turned out to be a dirtbag. So, he went on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge and gave up on his nice ideals. He was convinced that Humans Are Bastards was a universal truth and decided he might as well join them.
• In Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm, Kerrigan, recently de-infested and now aligned with the heroes, is actively trying to turn her back on her own potential to control the zerg, since she feels this might lead her back to her old self. Then, The Dominion attacks her allies, forcing her to take control of a feral zerg brood lest the Dominion shoot down her Love Interest, Raynor. She realizes during the fighting that she's at risk of giving in to her viciousness, and tries to curb herself. However, Raynor's ship never shows at the rendezvous and she overhears a news report that the Dominion captured and executed him before he could escape. (In fact, he was not executed, but is being held as a check against her attacking the Dominion.) She promptly declares bloody vengeance against the Dominion and Emperor Mengsk, actively seeking out zerg forces to command and becoming re-infested, after a fashion to increase her psychic power. Mengsk seems to realize that the whole mess is his fault (twice over; his betrayal got her infested in the first place!) when she kills him.
  Mengsk: I made you into a monster, Kerrigan.
  Kerrigan: You made us all into monsters.
• On a second playthrough of Sunless Skies, you can take a facet that gives you an affiliation bonus of your choice based on what you decide your relationship was with your predecessor. One such relationship invokes this trope by describing your character as being tainted by association with them, pushing you into a life of villainy.
  "Since you were already condemned, you decided that you might as well do something unquestionably worth condemning."
• Played with in Tales of Berseria. The heroes are an Anti-Hero Team, and several of them have no trouble identifying as Villain Protagonists.
  • Velvet bases her identity in this, knowing that her desire to kill Artorius is based on nothing more than a selfish desire for revenge, and that's before she learns he's become a Villain with Good Publicity that effectively controls the world. Velvet knows her motives are a PR nightmare, and isn't afraid to tell anyone who offers her aid that she fully intends to murder the Shepherd and has no plan beyond that. In fact, Velvet so completely thinks of herself as a vile, vicious, bloodthirsty monster that she'll often doctor the facts against herself — when recounting her escape from Titania, Velvet says she was freed by a rogue malak, and consumed her rescuer on the way out to awaken her powers. While this is true, Velvet leaves out that said malak was mortally wounded protecting Velvet from an attack, and begged to be consumed so her death would tangibly help. Velvet thinks her goals make her inherently unsympathetic, but when her full picture is finally made clear, an antagonistic teammate-by-circumstance completely loses any resolve to betray her, and Velvet has trouble understanding why.
  • Magilou self-identifies as a witch, and frequently says that she's going along with Velvet because she just has to see what happens. However, the glimpses of Magilou Beneath the Mask shows that she's a self-loathing cynic who believes the worst in people. Her backstory late-game reveals that she was exiled from the Abbey by failing a Secret Test of Character for showing too much attachment, which goes against the Abbey's vision of a world without emotion. Magilou thus decides that, if feeling emotion and rebelling against such ways of thinking makes her evil, then she will "live and die with evil as [her] mantra."
  • This way of thinking is ultimately what makes Eleanor turn her coat as well. She wholeheartedly believes the ideals the Abbey puts forth, even once she discovers the people in charge were using this doctrine as a smokescreen for a true plan they knew the public would never support. In the end, she chooses to invert God Before Dogma, happy to be branded a heretic in the name of perpetuating their benevolent mission statement instead of the Abbey's real goals.
• View from Below: The Crimson God was once Jesus, who tried to spread benevolent ideals, only to be crucified and treated as a blasphemer. Unlike the Jesus in the Bible, the Crimson God didn't forgive humanity for this, so he now wants to be the evil that humanity treated him as. He also tries to instill this mindset into his followers by convincing them to help him get back at the world that persecuted them.
• Watch_Dogs 2: The reason why Marcus Holloway becomes an outlaw hacker is because he was arrested for a crime he didn't commit, and was only arrested and punished because he "fit the profile", one that could have fit dozens of other people in the city. Because of this wrongful arrest, he is permanently tagged as a criminal, and whatever hopes he had for a bright future are ruined. He decides that if the system is going to treat him like a criminal, he will be a criminal who works to destroy the system that wronged him.
• Syanna, the older sister of Duchess Anna Henrietta from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and primary antagonist in the Blood and Wine expansion, is treated like a pariah by almost everyone during her childhood for being born with "The Curse of the Black Sun". Despite being a world where magic and curses are demonstrably real, there are strong implications that this curse is in reality a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, and that Syanna's villanous nature is more a result of how people treated her on the assumption that she was destined to become evil than from any cosmic force.

---