History Main / OffstageVillainy

* In ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' [[RealityWarper Discord's]] original rule is only mentioned in passing as "an eternal state of unrest and unhappiness," his stained glass window shows him ''[[WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids dangling ponies over flames]]'' and he himself refers to an afternoon of reducing the world to [[WorldGoneMad complete chaos]] as only "his first changes." One must wonder exactly how horrific his original rule must have been, compared to the evil, but still ''mostly'' humorous and silly actions he's shown inflicting onscreen. Given that Discord's very nature is so chaotic, it is possible that the scope of his evilness would vary dramatically depending on how he feels on any given day.
* In the 2018 reboot of ''WesternAnimation/SheRaAndThePrincessesOfPower'', Hordak is the founder and leader of the Horde, but the first three seasons show him [[OrcusOnHisThrone ruling from the shadows]] in the Fright Zone. His initial conquests upon arriving on Etheria, during which he would have taken an active role, are not shown on screen. In season 4, Hordak takes to the battlefield and leads his troops personally. Viewers see a few shots of Hordak [[spoiler:firing on the Salineas Sea Gate and the Sea Elf Village with his arm cannon]], but most of his siege takes place offscreen. Hordak also remarks that [[spoiler:Entrapta]] is the only princess who has not yet faced him in combat, which implies that he has done battle with several princesses offscreen.

Compare and contrast GoryDiscretionShot and RapeDiscretionShot, which may overlap with this, as well as DesignatedVillain and ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything, where the "villain(s)" don't actually do anything truly bad, either on-screen or off.

Compare and contrast GoryDiscretionShot and RapeDiscretionShot, which may overlap with this, and DesignatedVillain, where the "villain" doesn't actually do anything truly bad, either on-screen or off.

* In ''Manga/OnePiece'', Trafalgar Law, aka The Surgeon of Death, gets hit with this trope. Thus far, we have seen him act very calm, insightful, reserved, and [[spoiler:healing Luffy]]. None of that screams villainy. It might be played with; between how he acts and the reason for the bounties on Luffy and Zoro, he might be similarly wanted for actions that are, at the very least, justifiable. In which case, the offscreen behavior that is villainous is only towards the corrupt World Government (or a misunderstanding). [[spoiler:And now that he's a Warlord of the Sea, his darker side is being hinted at once again. How did he become one? By removing the hearts of 100 pirates and sending them to the World Government.]]

** In general, if a pirate is not meant to be a villain (like the Supernovas, or the similarly notorious Super Rookies introduced in the Dressrosa arc), his more unpleasant traits will be kept offscreen.

* The oni in most versions of the ''Literature/{{Momotaro}}'' folktale are ''said'' to be evil, but are never seen doing anything evil on-screen. At its worst, the titular character is just a [[DesignatedHero murderous bandit]] who plunders others for wealth.

* The oni in most versions of ''Literature/{{Momotaro}}'' folktale are ''said'' to be evil, but are never seen doing anything evil on-screen. At its worst, the titular character is just a [[DesignatedHero murderous bandit]] who plunders others for wealth.

* Any of the villains in ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' are a lot more effective when not sharing screen-time with the heroes. Notably, Team Rocket were originally billed as ruthless and effective gangsters, and the larger organization still seems to be that offscreen, but almost all of their schemes that are actually ''shown'' tend to end in failure before anyone is hurt.

* [[TheWarOfEarthlyAggression The United Earth Directorate]] in ''VideoGame/StarCraft''. Canonically, they are a ruthless dictatorship who abolished cultural ethnicity and religion on Earth, banished 400 million humans to space for being considered "undesirable", and came to the Koprulu Sector with the intention of enslaving or eradicating the Zerg and Protoss. Unfortunately, [[AllThereInTheManual very little of this is actually shown in-game]], and all we get to see in their ''Brood War'' campaign is them trying to enslave the Zerg (who at this point were AlwaysChaoticEvil) and [[PayEvilUntoEvil beating the crap out of Arcturus Mengsk, one of the most reviled characters in the franchise]]. This has caused plenty of fans to [[RootingForTheEmpire root for them]], and not understand why the heroic characters chose to form an EnemyMine with the much more ObviouslyEvil [[DarkActionGirl Sarah Kerrigan]] to fight them.

** For Turles, he had conquered several planets using the Tree of Might, resulting in the deaths of those inhabitants if there were any. While we see the effects that the Tree of Might has on Earth, we do ''not'' see the effects of the Tree of Might on the other planets that Turles had conquered.

** For Turles, he had conquered several planets using the Tree of Might, resulting in the deaths of those inhabitants if there were any. While we see the effects that the Tree of Might has on Earth, we do ''not'' the effects of the other planets that Turles had conquered.

** Lord Slug is one of the worst examples of this when it came to these films, he had invaded multiple planets so that he could terrafreeze them and turn them into parts of his Planet Cruiser, and tries to do the same thing to earth. We don't see the former, we only see what the terrafreezing effect has on Earth, that's all.

* ''Manga/DragonballZ:'' Unfortunately, this is what befalls most villains in the movies as their worst actions are left completely off-screen, making them come off as simple, one-off, GenericDoomsdayVillains that the heroes must defeat. The worst offenders of this are [[Anime/DragonBallZTheTreeOfMight Turles]], [[Anime/DragonBallZLordSlug Lord Slug]] and [[Anime/DragonBallZBojackUnbound Bojack]].

* ''[[LightNovel/IsItWrongToTryToPickUpGirlsInADungeon DanMachi]]: VideoGame/MemoriaFreese'': [[spoiler:Baldo from the ''Nightmare Academia'' event proclaims to have feasted on the flesh and blood of people he killed, but that was only mentioned prior to his boss fight]].

* [[TheWarOfEarthlyAggression The United Earth Directorate]] in ''VideoGame/StarCraft''. Canonically, they are a ruthless dictatorship who abolished cultural ethnicity and religion on Earth, banished 400 millions human in space for being considered "undesirable" and came to the Koprulu Sector with the intention of enslaving or eradicating the Zerg and Protoss. Unfortunately, [[AllThereInTheManual very little of this is actually shown in-game]], and all we get to see in their ''Brood War'' campaign is them trying to enslave the Zerg (who at this point were AlwaysChaoticEvil) and [[KickTheSonOfABitch beating the crap out of Arcturus Mengsk, one of the most reviled characters in the franchise]]. This has caused plenty of fans to [[RootingForTheEmpire root for them]], and not understand why the heroic characters chose to form an EnemyMine with the much more ObviouslyEvil [[DarkActionGirl Sarah Kerrigan]] to fight them.

* Madarame, Kaneshiro and Okumura are still touted as despicable people in ''VideoGame/Persona5'', but their worst crimes are only mentioned in-passing by other characters and there's no proof in the real world that convinces us that they are capable of such actions. For example, the worst thing we do see Madarame do is to pull a MurderByInaction on Yusuke's mom and create forgeries of her painting, but there's no proof that he had driven pupils to suicide other than testimonies from Nakanohara. Compare this to Kamoshida who explicitly leaves multiple students in bandages after the volleyball rally and one victim visibly jumping off the school roof after presumably being molested.

* While Lt. Burning is one of the more decent and level-headed characters among the MilitaryMaverick cast of ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam0083StardustMemory'', one of the sourcebooks depicting various scenes of the OAV characters' during the time frame of the original ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'' implies that he raped a female POW towards the end of the One Year War.