History YMMV / Shooter

* OneSceneWonder: The elderly firearms expert. Not only does he fill in a lingering plot hole, but ''every line he says'' is in turns quotable, meaningful, and hilarious. Being played by [[Film/TheRightStuff Levon]] [[Music/TheBand Helm]] also helps.

** Aside from the dog, take your choice: The bad guys ''annihilate an entire African village'' just to make an example of what will happen if any village protests the placing of an oil duct (they didn't asked to place the pipe, were rebuked, and killed them all-''they just killed them all, period''), assassinate ''a native archbishop'' [[spoiler:who was going to present evidence of this action]], and were planning to pull the same tactics on [[spoiler:Central America]] before Swagger kills them all. ''And this is only what we see onscreen''.

!!The SharedUniverse of the original Stephen Hunter novels

* AcceptablePoliticalTargets: In ''Game of Snipers'' Donald Trump is viewed this way. The authorities only refer to him by his secret service code name of MOGUL throughout the novel to try and avoid remembering just whose life it is their trying to save and re-emphasize how it's their professional duty to stop the assassin. The villains plan even depends upon the fact that Trump's ego will make him try to show up Obama at a charity event.
* EnsembleDarkhorse:
** Von Drehle the MajorlyAwesome, anti-Nazi German paratrooper commander in ''Sniper’s Honor.''
** SimpleCountryLawyer Sam Vincent.
** [[HistoricalDomainCharacter Homer Van Meter’s]] CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass appearance in ‘’G-Man’’ is a nice addition to the mobsters.
** Bob Lee’s FriendlySniper allies from some of the later books, Chuck [=McKenzie=] and Nikolai Stronski.
** From “The Day Before Midnight”, the TunnelKing’s Walls and Phuong.
** HandicappedBadass and TragicVillain Lon Scott.
** Earl’s DreamTeam of historical shootist {{Expy}} characters in ''Pale Horse Coming.''
* GeniusBonus: A lot of the firearms lore in the book. For instance, when the first book talks about some of Lon Scott's used bullets [[spoiler:The date and caliber of them indicate it was Scott who killed JFK, which is confirmed in a later book.]]
* JerkassWoobie:
** Lon Scott. The man is a sniper who kills an Archbishop and [[spoiler:JFK]] but he’s spent most of his life in a wheelchair after his own father shot him in a hunting accident (and later committed suicide) and in ''The Third Bullet'' is shown being goaded into [[spoiler:Killing Kennedy despite strong attempts to resist with an appeal about how the war in Vietnam Kennedy is starting will put more men in wheelchairs like him, only for that killing to be AllForNothing.]]
** Walls in ''The Day Before Midnight'' is a pimp and drug dealer whose initially reluctant to help save the world, but he is a ShellShockedVeteran who lost his brother to gang violence, put up with a lot of racism when he came back from Vietnam and gets a redemption arc of sorts.
* MagnificentBastard:
** Hugh Meachum is a CIA black ops specialist who oversaw the assassination of [[spoiler: John F Kennedy]] in the name of stopping the Vietnam War. Having concocted the plan to do so on the fly, Meachum displays great ingenuity in tactics, charisma in persuading his accomplices and nobility in lamenting pointless deaths caused by his assassin. Desiring to stop the spread of Communism after America does enters the Vietnam War, Meachum becomes involved in increasingly ruthless murders, as he builds up resources and even fakes his own death when the government catches on to him. After settling into his new identity, he draws his enemies in with leaked fake conspiracy theories, observing who goes to investigate them. A man of (some) honor who values his men and respects Bob Lee, Meachum even dies confessing his worst betrayals, refusing to die with them kept secret.
** Anto Grogan from ''I, Sniper'' is a brutal ex-SAS sniper turned contract killer who plots a series of murders to mask his actual target, throwing investigators off his trail for most of the novel. When Swagger arrives in disguise, Grogan feigns being fooled and gives false information to send Bob Lee on a chase implicating innocent parties. Kidnapping Bob Lee to torture him as he closes in on him, Grogan attempts to rationalize his client's actions with apparent conviction, shows some admiration for Bob Lee's refusal to crack, and meets his end boldly facing Bob Lee in a final SniperDuel.
** In ''G-Man,'' Braxton and Rawley Grumley are a pair of SouthernFriedGenius {{bounty hunter}}s hired to find an antique machine gun. They expertly track Swagger and Nick's progress as they also pursue the gun and become good at ferreting out useful information ahead of the two heroes. The Grumley brothers have a reputation for resorting to brutal methods in pursuit of a quarry, but find themselves admiring Swagger due to his status as a war hero and resolve to use non-fatal tactics to overpower him and take the machine gun. When Swagger and Nick capture them, they walk away with the machine gun, their freedom, and no hard feelings on either side by offering Swagger what he really wants (the truth about his grandfather, which they discovered during their investigation). They even state that they were planning to give Swagger that information anyway (anonymously) if they managed to beat him.
* MoralEventHorizon:
** Chronologically, Frenchy Short gets one in ''Havana'' when he finally decides to set up his MoralityPet Earl Swagger to be killed after having previously saved his life even after going bad. In terms of order of appearance, he crosses it in his first book, ''The Second Saladin'' with the reveal that he sold out his protege to be tortured (quite horrifically) with a blowtorch by the KGB in order to force him to sell out a camp of mujahideen (including women and children) they proceed to bomb who the Soviets ''already knew the location of'' thanks to Frenchy just to cover his tracks and make it look like the leak didn’t come from him.
** In ''Pale Horse Coming'' The Doctor becomes a lot harder to see as a TokenGoodTeammate with the reveal that he gave his pregnant wife syphilis (a bad enough case to kill the baby and leave her infertile) due to an extramarital affair and rather than confess the truth, hired several men to rape her so that she’d think that she got syphilis from the rapists. The fact that his initial attempts to find a cure for the disease as atonement instead cause him to start developing it into a weapon don't help.
** Hollis Etheridge and his father Harry in “Black Light” with the reveal that [[spoiler:Not only did Hollis rape and murder a little girl, but they specifically made sure to frame a black person for it.]]
** In ''The Day Before Midnight'' despite his plans to cause WWIII and kill millions, Pashin is still a bit of a WellIntentionedExtremist who feels that war is inevitable and that it makes sense to launch it in terms which will reduce the number of people who die (at least on his side). Then it turns out that he drugged and raped the wife of the scientist who designed the missile silo (and the man who will be trying to keep him out) just to feel like he’d gotten inside the man’s head. The fact that he’s casually prepared for his own nephew to be collateral damage of the plot (due to being in the blast radius of a second nuclear bomb he’s planted) just emphasizes how rotten the guy is.
** Hugh Meachum remains a WellIntentionedExtremist and TragicVillain throughout ''Point of Impact'' and ''The Third Bullet'' right until the reveal that [[spoiler:he deliberately set up his accomplices (one of whom was his own cousin) to be killed in order to keep them from ever talking. Plus he’s become a drug-running mob boss since faking his death]]
** In ''Havana'' Frankie is a bit of a LaughablyEvil ButtMonkey until he oversees the killing of the HookerWithAHeartOfGold helping Earl, which involves a lot of EyeScream.
** In ''Sniper’s Honor'' Groedl gets this, combined with some BaitTheDog at the end of his first chapter when he prioritizes train space to taking Jews to concentration camps over evacuating wounded German soldiers.

* CompleteMonster: Col. Isaac Johnson and [[CorruptPolitician Sen. Charles F. Meachum]] are the [[BigBadDuumvirate leaders]] of an oil consortium that will do anything to further its own ends. Johnson and Meachum order a US military operation [[spoiler:to slaughter a small village of 400 people in Eritrea, so they could build a pipeline on their land. They didn't even bother asking them to move, simply killing them so the next village they target would move without question]]. Later, Johnson contacts former Gunnery Sergeant [[TheProtagonist Bob Lee Swagger]] and states he needs his help to foil a plot to assassinate the President. This is a ruse; Johnson and Meachum assassinate the archbishop of Ethiopia, [[spoiler:who was going to tell the President of their genocidal actions]], and [[FrameUp frame Swagger for this]]. Johnson tries to have one of his men kill Swagger, but he escapes; [[BadBoss Johnson later kills this would-be assassin later to cover his tracks]]. An FBI agent named Agent Nick Memphis begins to piece things together and investigate the possibility that Swagger is innocent, so Johnson and Meachum send some goons to kidnap him and kill him in a way that makes it look like suicide, before Swagger saves him. Meachum and Johnson try to force Swagger out of hiding by kidnapping Sarah Fenn, the widow of his best friend who died in a mission. Johnson and Meachum even plot later to eventually repeat their actions on [[spoiler:a group of Ecuadorian locals]].

* CompleteMonster: Colonel Isaac Johnson and [[CorruptPolitician Senator Charles F. Meachum]] are the [[BigBadDuumvirate leaders]] of an oil consortium that will do anything to further its own ends. Johnson and Meachum order a US military operation [[spoiler:to slaughter a small village of 400 people in Eritrea, so they could build a pipeline on their land. They didn't even bother asking them to move, simply killing them so the next village they target would move without question]]. Later, Johnson contacts former Gunnery Sergeant [[TheProtagonist Bob Lee Swagger]] and states he needs his help to foil a plot to assassinate the President. This is a ruse; Johnson and Meachum assassinate the archbishop of Ethiopia, [[spoiler:who was going to tell the President of their genocidal actions]], and [[FrameUp frame Swagger for this]]. Johnson tries to have one of his men kill Swagger, but he escapes; [[BadBoss Johnson later kills this would-be assassin later to cover his tracks]]. An FBI agent named Agent Nick Memphis begins to piece things together and investigate the possibility that Swagger is innocent, so Johnson and Meachum send some goons to kidnap him and kill him in a way that makes it look like suicide, before Swagger saves him. Meachum and Johnson try to force Swagger out of hiding by kidnapping Sarah Fenn, the widow of his best friend who died in a mission. Johnson and Meachum even plot later to eventually repeat their actions on [[spoiler:a group of Ecuadorian locals]].

* HarsherInHindsight: The MoralEventHorizon crossing that started the plot? ''TruthInTelevision'' as of [[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/world/africa/in-scramble-for-land-oxfam-says-ugandans-were-pushed-out.html?_r=4&scp=3&sq=uganda&st=cse 2011]]... [[FreakierThanFiction except]] it wasn't for an oil pipeline like in the movie - it was for '''[[GreenAesop carbon credits!]]'''

** Aside from the dog, take your choice: The bad guys ''annihilate an entire African village'' just to make an example of what will happen if any village protests the placing of an oil duct (they didn't asked to place the pipe, were rebuked, and killed them all-''they just killed them all, period''), kill assassinate ''a native archbishop'' [[spoiler:who was going to present evidence of this action]], and were planning to pull the same tactics on [[spoiler:Central America]] before Swagger kills them all. ''And this is only what we see onscreen''.

** Aside from the dog, take your choice: The bad guys ''annihilate an entire African village'' just to make an example of what will happen if any village protests the placing of an oil duct (they didn't asked to place the pipe, were rebuked, and killed them all-''they just killed them all, period''), kill an ''archbishop'' [[spoiler:who was going to present evidence of this action]], and were planning to pull the same tactics on [[spoiler:Central America]] before Swagger kills them all. ''And this is only what we see onscreen''.

** Aside from the dog, take your choice: The bad guys ''annihilate an entire African village'' just to make an example of what will happen if any village protests the placing of an oil duct (they didn't asked to place the pipe, were rebuked, and killed them all-''they just killed them all, period''), kill an ''archbishop'' that was going to present evidence of this action, and were planning to pull the same tactics on Central America before Swagger kills them all. ''And this is only what we see on screen''.

* MoralEventHorizon: Bob mentions at one point that the bad guys even shot his ''dog''. Presumably, it was that one guy who had a problem with it earlier.
** In ''Point of Impact'', [[spoiler:just about everyone agrees that Colonel Shreck, [=RamDyne=], and anyone else present lost their "we make the hard choices" credentials when they massacred a small village to make their point to El Salvadoran guerrillas.]]

* CompleteMonster: Colonel Isaac Johnson and [[CorruptPolitician Senator Charles F. Meachum]] are the [[BigBadDuumvirate leaders]] of an oil consortium that will do anything to further its own ends. Johnson and Meachum order a US military operation [[spoiler:to slaughter a small village of 400 people in Eritrea, so they could build a pipeline on their land. They didn't even bother asking them to move, simply killing them so the next village they target would move without question]]. Later, Johnson contacts former Gunnery Sergeant [[TheProtagonist Bob Lee Swagger]] and states he needs his help to foil a plot to assassinate the President. This is a ruse; Johnson and Meachum assassinate the archbishop of Ethiopia, [[spoiler:who was going to tell the President of their genocidal actions]], and [[FrameUp frame Swagger for this]]. Johnson tries to have one of his men kill Swagger, but he escapes; [[BadBoss Johnson later kills this would-be assassin later to cover his tracks]]. An FBI agent named Agent Nick Memphis begins to piece things together and investigate the possibility that Swagger is innocent, so Johnson and Meachum send some goons to kidnap him and kill him in a way that makes it look like suicide, before Swagger saves him. Meachum and Johnson try to force Swagger out of hiding by kidnapping Sarah Fenn, the widow of his best friend who died in a mission. Johnson and Meachum even plot later to eventually repeat their actions on [[spoiler:a group of Ecuadorian locals]]]].

* CompleteMonster: Col. Isaac Johnson and [[CorruptPolitician Sen. Charles F. Meachum]] are the [[BigBadDuumvirate leaders]] of an oil consortium that will do anything to further its own ends. Johnson and Meachum order a US military operation to slaughter a small village of 400 people in Eritrea, so they could build a pipeline on their land. They didn't even bother asking them to move, simply killing them so the next village they target would move without question. Later, Johnson contacts former Gunnery Sergeant [[TheProtagonist Bob Lee Swagger]] and states he needs his help to foil a plot to assassinate the President. This is a ruse; Johnson and Meachum assassinate the archbishop of Ethiopia, [[spoiler:who was going to tell the President of their genocidal actions, and [[FrameUp frame Swagger for this]]. Johnson tries to have one of his men kill Swagger, but he escapes; [[BadBoss Johnson later kills this would-be assassin later to cover his tracks]]. An FBI agent named Agent Nick Memphis begins to piece things together and investigate the possibility that Swagger is innocent, so Johnson and Meachum send some goons to kidnap him and kill him in a way that makes it look like suicide, before Swagger saves him. Meachum and Johnson try to force Swagger out of hiding by kidnapping Sarah Fenn, the widow of his best friend who died in a mission. Johnson and Meachum even plot later to eventually repeat their actions on a group of Ecuadorian locals]].

* CompleteMonster: Col. Isaac Johnson and [[CorruptPolitician Sen. Charles F. Meachum]] are the [[BigBadDuumvirate leaders]] of an oil consortium that will do anything to further its own ends. Johnson and Meachum order a US military operation to slaughter a small village of 400 people in Eritrea, so they could build a pipeline on their land. They didn't even bother asking them to move, simply killing them so the next village they target would move without question. Later, Johnson contacts former Gunnery Sergeant [[TheProtagonist Bob Lee Swagger]] and states he needs his help to foil a plot to assassinate the President. This is a ruse; Johnson and Meachum assassinate the archbishop of Ethiopia [[spoiler:who was going to tell the President of their genocidal actions, and [[FrameUp frame Swagger for this]]. Johnson tries to have one of his men kill Swagger, but he escapes; [[BadBoss Johnson later kills this would-be assassin later to cover his tracks]]. An FBI agent named Agent Nick Memphis begins to piece things together and investigate the possibility that Swagger is innocent, so Johnson and Meachum send some goons to kidnap him and kill him in a way that makes it look like suicide, before Swagger saves him. Meachum and Johnson try to force Swagger out of hiding by kidnapping Sarah Fenn, the widow of his best friend who died in a mission. Johnson and Meachum even plot later to eventually repeat their actions on a group of Ecuadorian locals]].

* CompleteMonster: Col. Isaac Johnson and [[CorruptPolitician Sen. Charles F. Meachum]] are the [[BigBadDuumvirate leaders]] of an oil consortium that will do anything to further its own ends. Johnson and Meachum order a US military operation to slaughter a small village of 400 people in Eritrea, so they could build a pipeline on their land. They didn't even bother asking them to move, simply killing them so the next village they target would move without question. Later, Johnson contacts former Gunnery Sergeant [[TheProtagonist Bob Lee Swagger]] and states he needs his help to foil a plot to assassinate the President. This is a ruse; Johnson and Meachum assassinate the archbishop of Ethiopia who was going to tell the President of their genocidal actions, and [[FrameUp frame Swagger for this]]. Johnson tries to have one of his men kill Swagger, but he escapes; [[BadBoss Johnson later kills this would-be assassin later to cover his tracks]]. An FBI agent named Agent Nick Memphis begins to piece things together and investigate the possibility that Swagger is innocent, so Johnson and Meachum send some goons to kidnap him and kill him in a way that makes it look like suicide, before Swagger saves him. Meachum and Johnson try to force Swagger out of hiding by kidnapping Sarah Fenn, the widow of his best friend who died in a mission. Johnson and Meachum even plot later to eventually repeat their actions on a group of Ecuadorian locals.

!!The 2007 film:

!!The 2016 series:

** In ''Sniper’s Honor'' Groedl gets this, combined with some BaitTheDog at the end of his first chapter when he prioritizes train space to taking Jews to concentration camps over evacuating wounded German soldiers.

** In ''Pale Horse Coming'' The Doctor becomes a lot harder to see as a TokenGoodTeammate with the reveal that he gave his pregnant wife syphilis (a bad enough case to kill the baby and leave her infertile) due to an extramarital affair and rather than confess the truth, hired several men to rape her so that she’d think that she got syphilis from the rapists. The fact that his initial attempts to find a cure for the disease as atonement instead cause him to start developing it into a weapon don’t help.

** Hugh Meachum, specifically with the reveal of his complicated plan to [[spoiler:Kill JFK]] in a failed attempt to stop the Vietnam war in ‘’The Third Bullet.’’
** Anto Grogan in ‘’I, Sniper’’ committed a series of contract killings with a lot of cold, yet CrazyPrepared precision into setting up a FallGuy. When being investigated he pretends to voluntarily give the authorities all of the information that they would need for a completely unrelated reason and he does some pretty intense mind games with Bob Lee while he’s a prisoner.

** Von Drehle the MajorlyAwesome, anti-Nazi German paratrooper commander in ‘’Sniper’s Honor’’.

** Earl’s DreamTeam of historical shootist {{Expy}} characters in ‘’Pale Horse Coming.’’

** Lon Scott. The man is a sniper who kills an Archbishop and [[spoiler:JFK]] but he’s spent most of his life in a wheelchair after his own father shot him in a hunting accident (and later committed suicide) and in ‘’The Third Bullet’’ is shown being goaded into [[spoiler:Killing Kennedy despite strong attempts to resist with an appeal about how the war in Vietnam Kennedy is starting will put more men in wheelchairs like him, only for that killing to be AllForNothing.]]
** Walls in ‘’The Day Before Midnight’’ is a pimp and drug dealer whose initially reluctant to help save the world, but he is a ShellShockedVeteran who lost his brother to gang violence, put up with a lot of racism when he came back from Vietnam and gets a redemption arc of sorts.

** Chronologically, Frenchy Short gets one in ‘’Havana’’ when he finally decides to set up his MoralityPet Earl Swagger to be killed after having previously saved his life even after going bad. In terms of order of appearance, he crosses it in his first book, ‘’The Second Saladin’’ with the reveal that he sold out his protege to be tortured (quite horrifically) with a blowtorch by the KGB in order to force him to sell out a camp of mujahideen (including women and children) they proceed to bomb who the Soviets ''already knew the location of'' thanks to Frenchy just to cover his tracks and make it look like the leak didn’t come from him.
** In ‘’Pale Horse Coming’’ The Doctor becomes a lot harder to see as a TokenGoodTeammate with the reveal that he gave his pregnant wife syphilis (a bad enough case to kill the baby and leave her infertile) due to an extramarital affair and rather than confess the truth, hired several men to rape her so that she’d think that she got syphilis from the rapists. The fact that his initial attempts to find a cure for the disease as atonement instead cause him to start developing it into a weapon don’t help.

** In ‘’The Day Before Midnight’’ despite his plans to cause WWIII and kill millions, Pashin is still a bit of a WellIntentionedExtremist who feels that war is inevitable and that it makes sense to launch it in terms which will reduce the number of people who die (at least on his side). Then it turns out that he drugged and raped the wife of the scientist who designed the missile silo (and the man who will be trying to keep him out) just to feel like he’d gotten inside the man’s head. The fact that he’s casually prepared for his own nephew to be collateral damage of the plot (due to being in the blast radius of a second nuclear bomb he’s planted) just emphasizes how rotten the guy is.
** Hugh Meachum remains a WellIntentionedExtremist and TragicVillain throughout ‘’Point of Impact’’ and ‘’The Third Bullet’’ right until the reveal that [[spoiler:he deliberately set up his accomplices (one of whom was his own cousin) to be killed in order to keep them from ever talking. Plus he’s become a drug-running mob boss since faking his death]]
** In ‘’Havana’’ Frankie is a bit of a LaughablyEvil ButtMonkey until he oversees the killing of the HookerWithAHeartOfGold helping Earl, which involves a lot of EyeScream.
** In ‘’Sniper’s Honor’’ Groedl gets this, combined with some BaitTheDog at the end of his first chapter when he prioritizes train space to taking Jews to concentration camps over evacuating wounded German soldiers.

* AcceptableTargets: In ''Game of Snipers'' Donald Trump is viewed this way. The authorities only refer to him by his secret service code name of MOGUL throughout the novel to try and avoid remembering just whose life it is their trying to save and re-emphasize how it's their professional duty to stop the assassin. The villains plan even depends upon the fact that Trump's ego will make him try to show up Obama at a charity event.