Discussion Main / OmniscientMoralityLicense

What a mess.

• Urahara Kisuke in Bleach, who doubles as an Unwitting Instigator of Doom in a lot of these cases:
  • He hid the Hogyoku within Rukia, causing her to lose her powers and prompting the Soul Society to mark her for incarceration on the grounds of abandoning her post. It was Aizen who ordered her execution under the guise of transferring her powers to a human, but either way, Ichigo decides to swoop in to save her. He's Easily Forgiven by Ichigo after apologizing for it.
  • He tells Orihime that she has no place fighting the Arrancar because of her Actual Pacifist tendencies, in an attempt to prevent Aizen from noticing her abilities. This backfires because Aizen had already noticed Orihime's powers and had Ulquiorra ambush her while traveling from the Soul Society to the real world after training with Rukia. He forces her to leave with him for Hueco Mundo, and it quickly leads to her friends attempting to rescue her. It forced Yamamoto to send a rescue party for the rescue party, which halves the strength of the Gotei 13 and allows Aizen to enter the real world. The only reason it didn't fail utterly was because Urahara developed a countermeasure for the last part.
• Light from Death Note believes he has this. Since he's a perfect and brilliant person, only he can choose who dies and who lives based on how they've lived their lives. Of course this crosses into A God I Am territory as the story progresses.
• Charles, Schneizel and Lelouch from Code Geass seem to believe they have this. Both of them have the belief that what they're doing is completely justified and will turn out well. What they're doing is, in order, a) killing and enslaving entire nations for the sake of a "world free of lies", b) destroy civilization so that he can stop war by using threat of force, and c) make everyone suffer so much that when they stop suffering, everyone will be happy and peaceful for an indefinite period of time. Charles and Schneizel suffer Lelouch's wrath for their actions. Lelouch, as the protagonist, succeeds through methods that are not entirely explained to us. The end result of Lelouch's actions is treated as a good thing, but it's far too easy to draw parallels between Lelouch's previous actions and Charles' and Schneizel's actions, especially considering Lelouch's plan involved becoming the world's worst tyrant. At the same time, said course is in large part a death wish for Lelouch when he has seemingly lost everything, without following a more straightforward plan to liberate the Numbers from Britannia that was finally starting to gain traction via an international body.
  • Lelouch veers in and out several times during the story. First he claims to be out for justice, and justifies hijacking the rebellion in Area 11 by claiming that they'll gain their freedom in return for unwittingly helping him get vengeance on the Royal Family; he doesn't actually consider the negative impact his actions will have on other people until his good friend and possible love interest loses a parent as a direct result of his actions. He gets better after a while, recognizing that he's doing it for more than just Nunnally and trying to genuinely become The Hero he claimed to be after talking to Suzaku in R2, then everything just goes completely wrong for him, prompting the plan explained in the post above. And this isn't even getting into Suzaku's belief system: While the basic premise is straightforward and sympathetic, a careful look and an understanding of his mental state make it clear that he's just trying to justify his own suicidal tendencies and need to repent. He almost never considers that the other side may have a point, disregards the opposition's reasoning for the rebellion by simply dismissing their means as "contemptible", and paints them in an evil light based on his own past mistakes and anger. It only becomes more apparent (and extreme) following a a horrible tragedy which he blames on Lelouch (he's technically right, but not for the reasons he thinks), and he takes a leap off the edge during R2, justifying his (arguably much worse actions) in the name of "peace" under the belief that his actions were forgiveable because they were technically under The Empire's authority.
    • And at the risk of making the above Wall of Text longer, suffice to say that a great many viewpoint characters engage in this at some point or another. Several of the Royal siblings to Lelouch and Nunnally believe themselves in the right for their treatment of the Japanese based not only on their Father's Might Makes Right worldview, but also because they blame the Japanese for the apparent deaths of the above-mentioned siblings, seeing nothing wrong with paying evil unto (apparent) evil. And of course the Black Knights saw their actions near the end of R2 as just, although they were acting relatively reasonably based on the info they had, (and Emperor Lelouch didn't really try to explain things when the inevitable showdown occurred).
• Akihiko Kayaba from Sword Art Online experiments on a perfect virtual reality by trapping 10,000 people in a place where if they killed in-geme, they also die in real life; and then he actively disguises himself into a guild leader to lead them to their doom with an implied hope that The Chosen One would emerge and "break the system". Not only that he's Easily Forgiven for all his miserable deeds, but he returns at the season finale as a Spirit Advisor. In the sequel, he is literary considered a respectful father of VRMMORPG by the main characters. Granted, it helps that he was never really an asshole about it, helped them out at several points, and often came across as the Lesser of Two Evils when facing off against the newest Big Bad.

This trope is when a characted does something morally questionable because he knows in advance that the result will be beneficial. Knows. What this trope is not is a character that does morally questionable things despite being a good guy (Pragmatic Antihero), someone who does questionable things in pursuit of noble goals (Well Itentioned Extremist) someone who merely thinks he's a good guy (Knight Templar), someone who thinks he's allowed to do whatever the hell he wants (A God Am I) or whose questionable actions are merely overlooked by the narrative (Designated Hero). Some form of actual prediction is necessary, not just a guess. Don't slap it on any character who is really smart and has a plan.

Harry Potter: " He also sincerely liked Harry, and honestly regretted the hell the poor kid would have to go through.]]"

DD loves DD. DD likes Grindlewald. DD resents Ariana. Those were the only emotions that DD evah felt. DD switched off emotional reaction to everybody else, they were all puppets to be manipulated.

Pulled this

• When the new boss rolls in, Jane's Omniscient Morality License in The Mentalist is stated outright: "You're golden for anything short of murder." Lisbon, however, is not, and it is made perfectly clear that if Jane does anything illegal, Lisbon will take the heat.

Maybe I'm misreading it, but that doesn't seem to be this at all.