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Infernal Background

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Infernal Background (trope)
"Oh, puh-leez. I have no soul."

"The roaring fire behind her... made her glow, as if she'd been sent from hell."
Wax

When a character is plotting something wicked, flames often appear in the background. The fire often comes out of nowhere, although the character may actually stand in front of a burning object for the same effect. Either way, it is simply meant for dramatic effect. The use of this trope can vary on the Sliding Scale of Silliness vs. Seriousness: it can be used in a serious way, to make a character seem legitimately intimidating, or it can be used in a silly way, due to its somewhat over-the-top nature.

The character may do an Evil Laugh while the flames appear.

Sub-Trope of Evil Is Burning Hot.

Compare Background Halo (that is, the evil variant involving horns), Battle Amongst the Flames, Climactic Volcano Backdrop, Fireball Eyeballs, Out of the Inferno, and Devilish Hair Horns. Contrast Holy Backlight.

Not to be confused with having demonic ancestry.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • The Daichis - Earth's Defense Family:
    • In episode 7 when Ejima is contemplating Dai's complicated family life as to why he is late for school, she envisions Dai as an aged-up delinquent that is surrounded by a fiery background.
    • In episode 11, when Dai and Seiko (who are both on the same screen at the same time) are holding their Earth Defense cards to get ready for transforming, a fiery background is behind them.
  • Seen in a few episodes of Tamagotchi!.
    • In episode 7b, Furawatchi sees a flower that represents passion and instantly absorbs that personality trait, with the scene accompanied by flames in the background.
    • In episode 94a, flames appear behind an angry Hell Queen and Devil Memetchi when they find out Hapichamatchi set up Devil Memetchi by blaming her when a slice of cake goes missing.
    • In a later episode, flames appear behind Himespetchi when she gets angry.

    Asian Animation 
  • Fun Alliance: A background of flames shows up behind the waiter and the other restaurant employee in episode 6 before Thunder Mouse gets beaten up, Thunder Mouse being unable to pay for his food.
  • In Happy Friends, Big M. getting mad at Little M. tends to be accompanied by flames in the background.
  • In the Lamput episode "Martial Art", Lamput notices his popcorn has been destroyed and gets mad at Specs Doc and Skinny Doc for it. Both the hero from the martial arts film he had been watching in the theater auditorium and a bunch of flames appear as he shrieks at them.
  • In Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf, flames often appear behind Wolnie whenever she gets angry at Wolffy.
  • In the Simple Samosa episode "Meethi Masi", when Samosa is finally sick of his aunt and cousins constantly being an annoyance to him, he gets angry and proclaims he's going to find a way to drive them out. As this happens, a flame can be seen behind him.

    Fan Works 

    Film — Animated 

    Film — Live-Action 
  • Black Panther: Wakanda Forever: Downplayed. When Killmonger is speaking to Shuri in the ancestral plane, manipulating her into becoming vengeful and wrathful like him, pillars of fire rise up one by one in the room and in the area outside. They don't completely fill the background, but they do get more prominent as the scene goes on. Considering that an evil man in the spiritual realm is manipulating someone, the Satanic imagery is very clear.
  • Invoked in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein during the Monster's Then Let Me Be Evil moment. After unwittingly scaring away a family and concluding that he really is a monster, he burns down their house. The scene ends with a shot of him, with his back to the burning house, and vowing to get revenge on Victor.
  • In the 1995 film adaptation of Othello, there is a dramatic scene with Iago, where he monologues to the audience about his evil plan while standing over a chessboard, and a fire is burning in the background.

    Literature 

    Live-Action TV 
  • In Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Captain Holt's late nemesis Deputy Chief Wuntch sends him a videotape of her where she has a roaring fireplace as a background. Amy wonders when Wuntch recorded the video, and Rosa snarks that judging from the flames around her, it's probably a livestream.

    Video Games 

    Web Original 
  • The Music Freaks: In the episode "KARMA", flames appear behind Zoey after she finds out that Lia leaked the audio of Jake bad-mouthing the music club behind their backs, ruining her plans to Blackmail Jake.
  • Object Overload: A fiery background appears around Pumpkin when he is explaining to Toothy's alliance how horrifying he thinks he is.
  • Rooster Teeth Animated Adventures: The background turns fiery here when Gavin discusses going on a rampage during a lucid dream, and here when Mad King Ryan explains why it doesn't matter if he recaptured the original Edgar the Cow after Michael freed him.
  • Sword Art Online Abridged: In Episode 15, Sugou threatens Kirito to Asuna's face, which causes her to deliver an extremely vicious threat wherein she threatens to give him a Cruel and Unusual Death. Sugou remarks that the Narrative Profanity Filter he has in place as admin is doing Asuna no favors, which is followed by a shot of a very angry Asuna with Red Eyes, Take Warning set to a backdrop of flames and screams. This intimidates Sugou into having a minor Villainous Breakdown, followed by Asuna doing one of her usual attempts to escape her Cardboard Prison while giving the guards an offscreen Mook Horror Show the moment Sugou blinks and lets his guard down.
  • Supermarioglitchy4's Super Mario 64 Bloopers: In "THE BOOTLEG DIMENSION", a fiery background appears behind Professor E. Gadd when he warns Mario not to touch his malfunctioning Portal Picture that leads to the titular world.

    Western Animation 
  • BoJack Horseman: "Time's Arrow" does this with Joseph Sugarman when he's implicitly threatening to lobotomize his daughter. Complete with his horse ears curving like the devil's horns.
  • In the Gravity Falls first season finale "Gideon Rises", Stan is depicted as wearing a devil costume with a flaming background in a news report.
  • In Kaeloo, when Mr. Cat gets really angry, the background behind him sometimes bursts into flames.
  • The Loud House:
    • In the episode "Toads and Tiaras", Lincoln has Lola's twin sister Lana fill in for her at a pageant while Lola's out with an injury. When Lola finds out, she is absolutely livid, leading to a scene where the background briefly turns into a raging fire behind her.
    • In "Butterfly Effect", Lincoln's Imagine Spot of Lisa getting angry with him over wrecking her experiments has flames appear behind her.
  • Invoked in The Owl House when Gwendolyn threatens a group of gremlins that scammed her, using her mastery of beast keeping magic to command a swarm of fire bees they were using as a campfire to erupt into an inferno behind her for intimidation purposes.
  • Rugrats: In "What the Big People Do", Tommy and Chuckie have a Fantasy Sequence about being grown up and going to work. All goes well until they are called into The Boss' office. On the way, Chuckie tells Tommy about how his dad is always afraid that his boss will fire him. Both Tommy and Chuckie take that to mean they're going to get charred. The boss turns out to be Angelica, with her ponytails turned up to look like devil horns, sitting in a big chair in front of a window that looks out on a blazing inferno. On either side of her desk is a bronze Reptar statue that shoots flames from its mouth.
  • She-Ra and the Princesses of Power:
    • In "Fractures", Glimmer is standing before a roaring fireplace when she confines Adora and Bow to the castle.
    • In "Mer-Mysteries", Hordak is shown standing on a rock formation with flames behind him, having just destroyed Salineas.
  • Samurai Jack: The interior of Aku's fortress has walls of flame, in both Jack's time and the Bad Future where Aku rules.
  • The Simpsons: During Bart's infamous Imagine Spot of Homer graphically melting, the background outside the car window becomes that of Hell.
  • Parodied in SpongeBob SquarePants. Spongebob claims that Krabby Patties are "good for your soul", causing him to gain a halo, wings, and a Holy Backlight as a Cherubic Choir plays in the background. Squidward retorts by saying he has no soul, causing a fiery background to appear, complete with an Evil Laugh. This surprises Squidward, and the background suddenly disappears when he looks around in shock.
  • Total Drama:
    • In "No Pain, No Game", Eva makes a surprise return to the show. Strong as ever and incredibly angry about getting voted off in the first place, her return is accentuated by an infernal background and ominous latin chanting.
    • Gwen's plea for the Villainous Vultures to work as a team in "Heroes vs. Villains" is met with deceitful agreement. As Heather, Jo, Duncan, Scott, Alejandro, and Lightning enter the confessional to voice their real thoughts, a Split-Screen Reaction shows all of them laughing evilly against a backdrop of fire.
    • Flamethrowers are part of the obstacle course in "The Obsta-Kill Course". After Mal throws a tire at Alejandro to prevent him from warning Gwen about Mal, two flamethrowers just so happen to shoot up on either side of the secret villain.
    • As the demonic Mal dummy in "Sundae Muddy Sundae" rises up to laugh at Mike's efforts to stop him, a close-up with flames in the background and in the dummy's eyes occurs when Mal states that he'll never be defeated.

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Bloo doll

Bloo's attempt to leave is hindered by Madame Foster poking him through a doll.

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