History Main / EvilMalthusian

* In ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'', [[SinisterMinister Praetor Amalthus]], despite [[MeaningfulName his name,]] is an [[InvertedTrope inversion]] of the way this trope usually plays out, in that his EvilPlan involves ''causing'' a Malthusian Trap situation rather than solving one, [[spoiler: by preventing Blades from becoming new Titans and depriving Alrest of the landmass and resources needed to sustain its population. In truth, Amalthus is this trope's bigger, badder cousin: an OmnicidalManiac, and doesn't care if humanity goes extinct quickly at the hands of his Aegis [[TheHeavy Malos]], or slowly due to running out of land and fighting each other over the scraps. He only cares that humanity ''dies'' while he lords over them.]]

* In ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'', [[SinisterMinister Praetor Amalthus]], despite [[MeaningfulName his name,]] only [[PlayingWithATrope plays with this trope]], in that his EvilPlan involves ''[[InvokedTrope causing]]'' a Malthusian Trap situation rather than solving one, [[spoiler: by preventing Blades from becoming new Titans and depriving Alrest of the landmass and resources needed to sustain its population. In truth, Amalthus is this trope's bigger, badder cousin: an OmnicidalManiac, and doesn't care if humanity goes extinct quickly at the hands of his Aegis [[TheHeavy Malos]], or slowly due to running out of land and fighting each other over the scraps. He only cares that humanity ''dies'' while he lords over them.]]

* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'' gives us the [[MeaningfulName aptly-named]] [[SinisterMinister Praetor Amalthus]], who takes this trope one step further by actively ''[[InvokedTrope causing]]'' a Malthusian trap situation [[spoiler:by preventing Blades from becoming Titans, depriving Alrest of landmass needed to sustain its population]].

* ''Manga/FrankenFran'': Inverted, as an evil organization is aiming to ''cause'' overpopulation and so accelerate mankind's downfall by opening hospitals, increasing hygiene in developing countries, etc.

* ''ComicBook/{{Batman}}'': This is recurring villain Ra's al Ghul's main motivation. He's [[Really700YearsOld been around for centuries]] thanks to the life-restoring power of chemical baths called Lazarus Pits; in that time, he's come to view humanity as a pestilence (in one notable moment, he calls the human race "six billion short-sighted parasites") that's destroying all of Earth's resources. Many of his schemes involve a mass culling of the population to restore balance to the world, and it's clear that he doesn't care how many people have to die for that goal to be achieved: "If nine hundred and ninety-nine must perish for everyone who lives, ''so be it!''"

* Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse: Thanos, the BigBad of the Infinity Saga. In his backstory, his homeworld, Titan, faced an overpopulation crisis, with the leaders desperately seeking a solution. Thanos proposed that half of the planet's population be killed off, with who lived and who died being determined strictly by random chance. [[EveryoneHasStandards Understandably]], the leaders of Titan were aghast with Thanos's solution and adamantly refused to implement it; however, no effective alternative was found, and the crisis continued to grow in severity, which probably wasn't helped by Titan's axial tilt somehow being thrown out of whack, resulting in devastation and ecological disaster ''far'' beyond the scope of merely growing population. This tragedy fuels Thanos's relentless desire to "balance the universe" by killing half of all lifeforms on all worlds -- no more, no less, selected randomly -- [[NotSoWellIntentionedExtremist allegedly in order to spare the universe as a whole from suffering the apocalyptic fate his home faced and succumbed to]], and he seeks the Infinity Stones simply because [[RealityWarper they are the most efficient means of accomplishing his goal]]. However, according to WordOfGod, he was more concerned with proving himself right than actually helping the universe, which is why he doesn't just take the simpler solution of doubling the resources [[Film/AvengersEndgame and goes ballistic when the Avengers try to undo it]]. In fact, his plan affected plant and animal life too, effectively halving the resources he claimed he was trying to preserve and causing massive ecological damage. He's called the [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Mad Titan]] for a reason.
* Film/ThePurgeUniverse: The titular Purge is an annual event instituted by the ruling class supposedly to let American citizens work through their violent and deviant urges in the space of a single night but was actually designed as a KillThePoor population control scheme.
* ''Film/TheRookies'': The villains of the 2019 spy film are an eco-terrorist group who intends to cleanse the earth of overpopulation. Getting their hands on a green virus which can [[{{Transflormation}} transform humans into plants]], the BigBad intends to unleash the virus on major cities worldwide to replace human life with plants, and in fact managed to release a sample of the virus in New York.

* ''Film/{{ZPG}} (Zero Population Growth)'': The World Federation controls the future CrapsackWorld where no children are allowed to be born at all to reduce the population for 30 years, and kills any families that defy them.

* ''Literature/TouristSeason'': In Creator/CarlHiaasen's novel, the BigBad is committing terrorist acts (kidnapping people and feeding them to crocodiles, setting bombs off) because he feels too many tourists are coming to Florida and destroying the environment, so [[WellIntentionedExtremist he's trying to stop that from happening]]. Brian Keyes, the hero and a former colleague, calls him "the last of the Malthusians, to which the BigBad replies, "Hell, Malthus only ''dreamed'' a nightmare like Interstate 95. [[PrecisionFStrike He never had to drive the fucking thing]]"
* ''The Winnowing'': Creator/IsaacAsimov's ShortStory describes a global food shortage that the World Food Council intends to remedy by poisoning the most famine-struck areas -- all of them comfortably distant from their own homes -- with a biological agent that would kill 70% of the population at random. Their high-minded platitudes about "[[TheScourgeOfGod the finger of God]]" selecting the victims [[OhCrap evaporate]] when the scientist they coerced into assisting reveals that [[OriginalPositionFallacy he added the agent to the sandwiches they've just eaten]].[[note]]And when someone on the Council points out that he also ate some of the same sandwiches, he (effectively) replies "Yes - and the agent was matched to my DNA, so I'll almost certainly die. Everyone else will be random." He was willing to die to prove his point.[[/note]]
* In Creator/AnneMcCaffrey's ''Literature/PegasusInFlight'', the [[TheFederation United World]] makes it so their citizens can have a maximum of two children, after which one must be sterilized. If one avoids getting the operation, any excess children are not euthanized but must be sterilized and are prioritized in conscription to work on the Padrugoi Space Station. These rules were relaxed and later removed at the end of the trilogy after the space program spearheaded by the construction of Padrugoi made extrastellar colonization practical, which resolved the resource crunch justifying it.

* ''Series/AlexRider2020'': Dr. Grief, while primarily a white supremacist out to TakeOverTheWorld and bring back Apartheid, also gives a lecture advocating for solving overpopulation via mass-culling. He claims it's just a thought experiment, but Alex himself is sure Grief is legitimately plotting to put this into action.
* ''Series/GeneralHospital'': A 2023 storyline had Victor Cassadine (brother of MadScientist Mikkos Cassadine, who tried to freeze the world in 1981) argue that overpopulation was threatening the planet, so he traveled to his family's secret lair in Greenland to retrieve a special toxin stored there that, if released, would kill the majority of the world's population (and basically leave his family in charge). He was foiled when a team of the show's regulars (including Laura, who'd previously helped stop Mikkos) went to Greenland on a rescue mission to save several people that Victor had taken with him against their will, with Victor dying in an airstrike on his anchored yacht.
* ''Series/HeroesReborn'': The BigBad Erica Kravid is a woman who wants to prevent the heroes from stopping an extinction-level event so that her chosen few can survive. At one point she quotes Thomas Malthus as part of a MotiveRant.
* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'': [[Recap/StarTrekS1E13TheConscienceOfTheKing "The Conscience of the King"]] gives us Kodos, Governor of Tarsus, also known as Kodos the Executioner. He killed half the population of the planet when a famine was threatening starvation, little knowing that relief ships were en route. James Kirk was one of a handful of people who saw Kodos in person and could identify him.
* ''Series/{{Utopia}}'': The bad guys are trying to do exactly this, with an artificial disease and a fake vaccine that will cause sterility.

* ''Theatre/{{Urinetown}}'': In a dystopian future where everyone [[DystopianEdict has to pay to go to the bathroom due to a worldwide water shortage]] (with the penalty for breaking the laws being banishment to Urinetown [[spoiler:a.k.a. ReleasedToElsewhere]]), Caldwell B. Cladwell, CEO of the company that [[BathroomControl controls said bathrooms]], gleefully institutes draconian laws that exploit the most needy. Cladwell insists the laws are NecessarilyEvil to prevent the drought from getting worse, though his way of enforcement lines the pockets of his rich and powerful friends [[spoiler:and kills multiple poor, desperate citizens for just trying to pee]], weakening this argument. [[spoiler:Despite this, the ending actually paints Cladwell as TheExtremistIsRight -- after his daughter and the rebellion assassinate Cladwell and loosen the restrictions, the water supply gets polluted and dries up, slowly killing all of the surviving characters. TheNarrator even leads the cast in a chant of "Hail, Malthus!" to end the show, just to drive the point home.]]

* ''VideoGame/HouseOfTheDead II'': Caleb Goldman believes that the best way to combat overpopulation and protect the Earth is to cause a ZombieApocalypse. Unfortunately, by the events of the third game, the creatures that Goldman unleashed to perform a culling of humans ended up turning the earth into a barren wasteland.

* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'': The game gives us the [[MeaningfulName aptly-named]] [[SinisterMinister Praetor Amalthus]], who takes this trope one step further by actively ''[[InvokedTrope causing]]'' a Malthusian trap situation [[spoiler:by preventing Blades from becoming Titans, depriving Alrest of landmass needed to sustain its population.]]

* ''Webcomic/WhiteDarkLife'': In the role plays, Malthus and his organization, the Light Demons, fit this trope to a T, as [[GaiasVengeance they seek to kill off most of the sapient population in order to halt sapient-induced ecological damage]] (and, as their leader's name would imply, they also believe that they are acting as a bulwark against an otherwise-inevitable [[OverpopulationCrisis Malthusian Catastrophe]]). However, in practice, they spend much of their time trying to kill off the Heroes' League, particularly Legault Dawn, Arthur Calibur, and [[RevengeByProxy their girlfriends/wives, siblings, parents, and cousins]], due to Legault and Arthur having humiliated him and crippled the Light Demons several years ago; Malthus continues to hold a fierce grudge and [[DisproportionateRetribution is determined to utterly ruin their lives]] in addition to killing them. Malthus is also notable for himself and his direct subordinates, the Chi Trinity -- Persephone, Lamarck, and Teresa -- being among the only evil characters in the setting with HolyHandGrenade abilities (though in their case, they channel [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII Mako]] rather than holy power); as a result, they are an extreme threat to [[FriendlyNeighborhoodVampire Lily Natchralli]], Legault's LoveInterest.

[[folder:Web Original]]
* ''Website/SCPFoundation:'' In the End of Death canon, the Foundation's attempt to contain an anomaly that manifests as a torturous afterlife, where people feel their own bodies decaying as their soul remains trapped in their corpus, results in TheDeathOfDeath and all creatures with a brain attaining CompleteImmortality. In an attempt to prevent the global population of humans and animals from exploding, they use [[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-3287 SCP-3287]], a gaseous agent that renders any animal that it comes into contact with completely infertile. Despite this, another tale in the canon describes the sky as '90% bugs', calling its effectiveness into question.

* ''WesternAnimation/HazbinHotel'': Subverted with Adam and the Exorcists. Hell is suffering an overpopulation crisis, so every year Heaven sends down an army of exorcist angels to slaughter a chunk of the sinners dwelling there. Charlie, Princess of Hell, comes up with an alternative plan to build a hotel at which sinners can be rehabilitated and sent to Heaven. But when she tries to discuss the plan with Adam, leader of the Exorcists, not only does he shoot it down, but he quashes any suggestion that the Exorcists have good intentions in mind by revealing that they enjoy killing sinners, implying the exterminations are less about population control and [[NotSoWellIntentionedExtremist more of an excuse for him to sadistically kill as many "bad people" as he wants without consequences]]. Needless to say, Charlie has to find a way to stop Adam's evil agenda.

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* In Creator/AnneMcCaffrey's ''Literature/PegasusInFlight'', the [[TheFederation United World]] makes it so their citizens can have a maximum of two children, after which one must be sterilized. If one avoids getting the operation, any excess children are not euthanized but must be sterilized and are prioritized in conscription to work on the Padrugoi Space Station.

* In Creator/AnneMcCaffrey's ''Literature/PegasusInFlight'', one can have a maximum of two children, after which one must be sterilized. If one avoids getting the operation, any excess children are not euthanized but must be sterilized.*

* In "Creator/Anne McCaffery"'s "Series/Pegasus in Flight", one can have a maximum of two children, after which one must be sterilized. If one avoids getting the operation, any excess children are not euthanized but must be sterilized.*

* ''ComicBook/{{Batman}}'': This is recurring villain Ra's al Ghul's main motivation. He's [[Really700YearsOld been around for centuries]] thanks to the life-restoring power of chemical baths called Lazarus Pits; in that time, he's come to view humanity as a pestilence (in one notable moment, he calls the human race "six billion short-sighted parasites") that's destroying all of Earth's resources. Many of his schemes involve a mass culling of the population to restore balance to the world, and it's clear that he doesn't care how many people have to die for that goal to be achieved: "If nine hundred and ninety-nine must perish for every one who lives, ''so be it!''"

* ''Literature/RainbowSix'': Malthusian logic is mixed with an AnimalWrongsGroup to form the Horizon Corporation conspiracy, which plots to spread a modified Ebola Virus and kill near all of the human race, while a "chosen few" get to enjoy the fruits of a recovering nature. Naturally, they're all just a bunch of egotistical wealthy {{Hypocrite}}s who, in their hearts, just want to drive their gas-guzzling Humvees and hunt rhinos without worrying about the long-term consequences -- there'll still be fewer running cars and endangered species, see?

* In "Creator/Anne McCaffery"'s "Series/Pegasus in Flight", one can have a maximum ofctwo children, after which one must be sterilized. If one avoids getting the operation, any excess children are not euthanized, but must be sterilized.*

Compare EcoTerrorist (which such a villain may be), TheNeedsOfTheMany, PoliticallyIncorrectVillain, UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans, AMillionIsAStatistic, TotalitarianUtilitarian, and BrokenSystemDogmatist. SisterTrope to TheSocialDarwinist, who similarly may use dubiously moral means to promote the survival of the "fittest" humans.

* ''Series/AlexRider'': Dr. Grief, while primarily a white supremacist out to TakeOverTheWorld and bring back Apartheid, also gives a lecture advocating for solving overpopulation via mass-culling. He claims it's just a thought experiment, but Alex himself is sure Grief is legitimately plotting to put this into action.

* ''Film/{{ZPG}} (Zero Population Growth)": The World Federation controls the future CrapsackWorld where no children are allowed to be born at all to reduce the population for 30 years, and kills any families that defy them.

* ''Film/{{ZPG}} (Zero Population Growth)": A future CrapsackWorld where no children are allowed to be born at all to reduce the population for 30 years.

* ''The Winnowing'': Creator/IsaacAsimov's ShortStory describes a global food shortage that the World Food Council intends to remedy by poisoning the most famine-struck areas--all of them comfortably distant from their own homes -- with a biological agent that would kill 70% of the population at random. Their high-minded platitudes about "[[TheScourgeOfGod the finger of God]]" selecting the victims [[OhCrap evaporate]] when the scientist they coerced into assisting reveals that [[OriginalPositionFallacy he added the agent to the sandwiches they've just eaten]].[[note]]And when someone on the Council points out that he also ate some of the same sandwiches, he (effectively) replies "Yes - and the agent was matched to my DNA, so I'll almost certainly die. Everyone else will be random." He was willing to die to prove his point.[[/note]]

* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'': The game gives us the [[MeaningfulName aptly-named]] [[SinisterMinister Praetor Amalthus]], who takes this trope one step further by actively ''[[InvokedTrope causing]]'' a Malthusian trap situation [[spoiler: by preventing Blades from becoming Titans, depriving Alrest of landmass needed to sustain its population.]]

Malthusianism is a theory developed by English economist Thomas Malthus that, loosely summarized, claims population growth tends to surpass the resource supply, leading to an OverpopulationCrisis, unless the population is checked or reduced. The Evil Malthusian is a particular kind of villain who wants to avert such a crisis, [[WellIntentionedExtremist by any means necessary]].

* ''Film/{{ZPG}}'': (Zero Population Growth). A future CrapsackWorld where no children are allowed to be born at all.

* ''VideoGame/{{Hydrophobia}}'': The terrorist villains actually call themselves the Malthusians and engage in mass murder to supposedly cull the population. Their slogan, "Save the world. Kill yourself" summarizes their logic. To make things extra ironic, the remake, ''Hydrophobia Prophecy'', shows them trying to turn water-purifying nanomachines into a DepopulationBomb because if they didn't double down on their philosophy, humanity would have succeeded in supporting its current numbers.