Goodness Exam

"If this man truly is Santa Claus, I challenge him to fulfill the most basic of Santa's duties, and give one gift to someone he loves."

— Santa Claus, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, "The Indict-Mare Before Christmas"

A hero challenges the villain — who is either claiming to have undergone a Heel–Face Turn or is disguised as a good guy — to perform a genuine act of heroism or good will.

For the sake of comedy, some of the tests are exceedingly simple, such as saying "please" and "thank you" or putting pocket change into a Santa's red charity bucket. If the villain is The Unapologetic, expect the test to be an Ordered Apology. In other cases, it's using their powers, knowledge, and/or resources for non-selfish reasons, like getting a cat out of a tree, helping an old lady across the street, or saving that same old lady from getting hit by a bus. The simpler the task, the funnier it is when the villain's evil impulses kick in and they Kick the Dog.

In other cases, it's a Secret Test of Character, done in such a manner that the villain would pass the test if doing the right thing came naturally to them and weren't just putting on a pantomime.

An extra layer can be added should the villain manage to fake their way into passing the test. They might Want a Prize for Basic Decency, demanding thanks or monetary compensation for what many would see as a thankless, but necessary good deed. In other cases, they'll blow it by doing something needless petty right after under the assumption that they're in the clear. Either way, their cover is blown and their A+ is changed to an F- in an instant.

When Good Hurts Evil, the Goodness Exam can make for an effective repellant, as the bad guy would either be physically incapable of passing the test or the cons will outweigh the pros when the attempt is made. In religious-themed works, this can go hand-in-hand with Holy Burns Evil, when the character is asked to handle an Artifact of Hope or Holy Hand Grenade, enter a place of worship, or say a prayer.

The Evil Counterpart to this trope is If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten!, where a character has to Kick the Dog (so to speak) as proof that they're as evil as they claim to be.

Super-Trope of Honest Axe, where it tests the character's honesty, and the Old Beggar Test, where their sense of charity is being tested by a beggar.

See also God Test, Hero with an F in Good, Only the Pure of Heart, Pet the Dog, and Villain Ball Magnet.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Transformers: Robots in Disguise: Played for Laughs in the episode "The Test". Scourge and the Decepticon Commandos claim that they want to defect to the Autobots (really, they want to get inside the Autobots' secret base so they can destroy it). The sceptical Autobots have them prove their goodness through tasks such as sweeping up leaves and directing traffic. It seems like they've passed the Autobots' tests until Sky-Byte, who isn't in on the ruse, shows up and attacks them for betraying Megatron. Scourge's flagrant disregard for humans caught in the crossfire is what finally tips off Optimus that they've been faking the whole thing.

Films — Animated

• Lilo & Stitch: Downplayed example. When the Grand Councilwoman first sees Stitch during Jumba's trial, she asks him to "show us that there is something inside you that is good". He responds with some (untranslated) filthy language that makes the entire chamber gasp.

Films — Live-Action

• The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland: When Elmo denies any resemblance to Huxley, the Queen of Trash's servants demand she make him prove it. She does so by having him blow a hundred raspberries in thirty seconds, which she calls the "Ultimate Challenge" because she thinks if he does that, he's technically "giving" her the raspberries and Huxley would never give anyone anything.

Literature

• In Cosmic Christmas, the angels led by Gabriel encounter Phlumar, a Fallen Angel who claims to want to return to Heaven's side. Skeptical of his claim, Gabriel urges him to join them in singing worship to God, which demons cannot do. Cornered in his lie, Phlumar sputters that he's forgotten the words, before giving up and attempting to attack.
• In The Year of the Rat, while Zhar serves as an assistant to the priest, a repentant thief comes to confess, and the priest, after listening to him, orders him to throw his jemmies into a growth of nettles, which the thief does. Zhar, being in truth the thief's not-so-repentant colleague, later picks the jemmies up despite the nettles' stings.

Live-Action TV

• The Good Place:
  • In "Janet and Michael", we see Michael stealing a Good Janet to help sell his neighborhood as a Good Place neighborhood. When asked why he didn't just use a Bad Janet in disguise, he demonstrates why by asking a Bad Janet to pretend to be a Good Janet and be helpful, resulting in her head melting.
  • Deconstructed in the episode "The Burrito". The gang manages to escape the Bad Place and makes it to the Judge's chambers and asks for a chance to earn their way into the Good Place postmortem by showing how they've progressed during their time in the fake Good Place, each of them given a test tailor-made to pick at their worst habits to prove that they've outgrown them. Because Gen is a True Neutral being with a limited understanding of humanity and its hardships, blissfully unaware that the point system itself is centuries out-of-date, her tests are too flawed to actually work.
    • Tahani has to walk down a hall without opening any of the doors, all of the rooms being people talking about her. While the test is as straightforward as it seems, Tahani fails by going into the room with her parents (who were the reasons she became a shallow socialite so desperate for other people's validation) where she has a heart-to-heart with them. While she manages to get a productive examination from the experience and it was the right thing to do for her, Gen fails her for it anyway because she wasn't supposed to open any of the doors.
    • Chidi has to choose between one of two hats (a brown and a grey hat). Because Chidi is The Ditherer who can't decide on the most basic things under the assumption that there is a moral weight to them, he wastes an hour and a half over it. While Gen points out the obvious that there is no "right" answer to picking one and that he's crazy for thinking otherwise, in Season 3 it's revealed that all decisions humans make, no matter how inconsequential, dock people points because of the unintended consequences inherent to a world as interconnected as 21st-century Earth is. So while Chidi is morally right to stress over every little decision according to the flawed system he is judged under, he still fails the test because the Judge is too ignorant of the problem to realize it.
    • Jason is left in a room with a game of Madden and he has to play against his favorite team the Jacksonville Jaguars. He immediately begins playing without even letting her finish and she leaves him to it. At the end, it's revealed that his test was a Secret Test of Character to test his impulse control and he failed for not considering the idea that he didn't have to play the game at all. On closer examination, even if Jason waited for Gen to explain the rules, she still set up the test that's basically "play the game against the Jags" and him playing the game at all is treated like a morally wrong act, making it come across as more Schmuck Bait than a true test of his moral worth.
    • Instead of being taken to a different room, Eleanor is told by Gen that she and Chidi both already passed and Tahani and Jason's tests are just their way of devising future tortures for them in the Bad Place. Having grown attached to her friends, Eleanor spends a while conflicted on whether or not to take the easy out or stay behind with her friends. By the end, she figures out that Eleanor was being put through a Secret Test of Character to test her selfishness and that the Chidi she was with was just a construct Gen made to test her. While she was the only one who passed Gen's test, she's still set to go to the Bad Place because she wanted to be tested as a group, something Gen calls out as being a bad idea. Ironically, she passes her test by being selfless, yet she's still set to be sent to the Bad Place because she made the selfless decision to stand with her doomed friends through thick and thin.
• In the animated The Late Show with Stephen Colbert Christmas special "The Indict-Mare Before Christmas", Donald Trump's latest plot involves stealing the magical jelly in Santa's belly (with the help of Elon Musk) and usurp Santa Claus' authority as the arbiter of naughty and nice to make Congress drop all charges against him. Just as the judge is about to rule him innocent, the real Santa insists that if Trump really is the new Santa Claus, he should do the most basic of tasks Santa does and give a gift to someone he loves (in this case, give a present to Eric Trump). Just as he's about to, Trump eats the present instead. This causes the jelly to reject him and return to the real Santa.
• Star Trek: The Short Trek "Ask Not" has a cadet entrusted with the custody of Captain Pike, who has been arrested for mutiny, while the base they're on is attacked by Tholians. During the short, Pike explains that he mutinied to rescue an endangered crew...on the ship where the cadet's husband is posted, and he can still pull off the rescue if she lets him go. When that fails, he moves to playing on her childhood trauma regarding the Tholians and finally threatening her career if she doesn't comply. She doesn't budge, and when he's satisfied that she will shoot him if he tries to leave, Pike admits the whole thing was a test; there is no attack and her husband is fine. In fact, she's being considered for the Enterprise, and he needed to know she was trustworthy under duress.
• Who Wants to Be a Superhero? hosted by comic book legend Stan Lee has contestants compete in various challenges to be deemed worthy of the "superhero" moniker. One particular contest was a footrace with obstacles, and one distraction: a bystander crying for help. Most of the entrants kept to the racecourse, but one contender departed the route to lend assistance. This act of kindness at the sacrifice of his own goals is declared "the mark of a true superhero" according to Lee.

Religion & Mythology

• In the hagiography of St. Symeon the Stylite, who became the first Christian ascetic to make his hermitage atop a pillar, there is a description of how other monks went to check if he did it out of humility or pride. They told him that it's a new and unheard-of form of asceticism and ordered him to get off the pillar, which he immediately agreed to do. This way, they learned he was humble and allowed him to remain on that pillar (which gave rise to an entire stylite tradition).
• Eastern Orthodox theologians in general advise that, should one see a spirit who looks benevolent, one should ask the latter to praise Christ and make a sign of the cross to make sure it's not an impostor.
  • The hagiography of St. Amphilochius of Iconium recounts how he was woken up three times by an angel who told him he is to become a bishop. Afraid that it was a demonic deception, Amphilochius, on the third time, offered him to pray together. He started to sing the Sanctus, and when he saw his visitor was singing it as well, he knew it was a good angel, calmed down and agreed to follow him to the church where he was to be ordained.
  • Fr. Konstantin Parkhomenko recounts in his published diaries about how he saw what looked like his recently-deceased relative in a dream. He eventually offered him to pray together, and the "relative" immediately grew hesitant (and then vanished as Fr. Konstantin started praying).

Web Video

• Parodied in the Smosh video "WORST ID PHOTO EVER!". A Running Gag is people calling Anthony a "puppy moolester", claiming that by petting a puppy without asking its permission first, that means he's "moolesting" it. One of the people calling him a "puppy moolester" is an ornery DMV lady who insists that he has to retake his driver's exam if he wants to change the picture on his ID, and she insists that he has to do it without "moolesting" a puppy she brought with her. He doesn't even make it out of the parking space before she fails him for petting it.

Western Animation

• Played with in the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy III". Spongebob and Patrick accidentally free Man Ray, one of Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy's greatest foes, from his icy tartar sauce prison. When he tries attacking them, they manage to pacify him with a tickle belt and agree to take it off if he learns how to be a good guy. They put him through various tests of basic Samaritan acts (returning a dropped wallet, helping Patrick carry something heavy, etc), but Patrick's general incompetence goads Man Ray into aggression at every turn. They decide to free him when he says "please" as the tickle belt renders him Helpless with Laughter, and he discovers that it had a Pavlovian effect on him, causing him to laugh uncontrollably whenever he tries doing something evil and forcing him to retire from villainy.

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