Moral Event Horizon / Tales Series

Moral Event Horizon in the Tales series.

• Tales of Destiny
  • Miktran, whilst possessing Hugo, officially crosses the line when he sends Leon to fight Stahn and the others in the mine, resulting in Leon's death.
  • He crosses it much sooner in the remake in Leon's story, either by repeatedly taunting Leon about how weak and powerless he is for obeying him for Marian's sake, or beating his son into a five day coma after Leon hears Marian tried to commit suicide for his sake.
• Tales of Symphonia:
  • Magnius crosses it within the first ten seconds of his introduction when he snaps the neck of some random NPC in Palmacosta for forgetting to address him as "Lord" Magnius, before trying to hang Cacao in front of her daughter Chocolat because Chocolat refused to sell gels to his henchmen.
  • Kvar performed cruel experiments on the humans at his Ranch, one of them being Anna, Lloyd's mother and was responsible for her turning into a monster, forcing his father to kill her and leaving Lloyd an orphan.
  • Forcystus crosses it when he transforms Marble into an exbelua, purely to punish Lloyd and Genis, who by the way are seventeen and twelve, respectively, and killing some innocent civilians in Iselia because they violated the treaty. Later when he is encountered again, he is so enraged when he realizes Kratos has betrayed his boss that he tries to kill Chocolat, for no other reason than he hates humans.
  • Rodyle was working alongside Kvar in the human experiments, double-crossed Magnius by falsely claiming there was an order to eliminate the Chosen, and then when the party corners him in his Human Ranch, he responds by flooding the entire thing to drown all the captive humans there to spite Lloyd and co and prevent them getting to the Mana Canon, and just because he dies he manages to press the self-destruct button just to take them down with him, forcing Botta to make a Heroic Sacrifice to stop him.
  • Vharley transforms Alicia into a monster when the exsphere experiment fails, returning her to her lover as an Exbelua and forcing him to Mercy Kill her, before nonchalantly moving onto another member of her family who responded positively to the experimentation process, totally uncaring that it will eventually kill her as well.
  • Remiel crosses it when he makes Colette into Martel's vessel with no remorse, or care that he is essentially erasing her from existence, and that everything the party learned was all a lie. It is satisfying to see the bastard get the death by Kratos he deserves.
  • The Pope crossed it pre-story when he decreed all half-elves who break the law are to be punished by death, then you find out his daughter is a half-elf, and he specifically says he initially opposed the anti half-elf laws but became disturbed over how Kate never seems to age.
• Tales of Legendia:
  • Maurits crossed it with his plan to wipe out all the Orerines in an oceanic cataclysm, and his manipulation of Shirley in order to make this work, including allowing Fenimore, a close friend of hers, to die.
  • As if he wasn't already unlikable, Walter had crossed it too. Not for allowing Fenimore to die (he actually wanted to save her, but Maurits stopped him so that her death could be the trigger for Shirley's awakening), but because despite seeing who the true culprits were, he instead chooses to blame Senel and the group for what happened, even trying to twist the situation to make it seem that Senel had always hated Shirley and the Ferines, and all because he couldn't stand the fact that Shirley had preferred the Orerines Senel's company over his. ^note It's never mentioned nor implied anywhere that Walter actually had feelings for Shirley, just that he only treated her as a higher authority and that he didn't like Senel, so while his resentment towards him could stem from Fantastic Racism, it also leans more to Irrational Hatred at certain places. It can also be because Walter was raised for the sole purpose of being the bodyguard for the Merines, but since Shirley already sees a bodyguard-like figure in her "brother" Senel, that and something more, Walter now has no point in existing, as long as Senel is around that is.
  • Also, Solon just keeps crossing it in Jay's character quest.
• Grand Maestro Mohs from Tales of the Abyss crosses the line hard. First, he manipulates two nations into igniting a bloody, pointless war, knowing full well that the losses would be through the roof, just because a prophecy of questionable legitimacy said this might bring prosperity to his own nation. This is only the tip of the iceberg, though, as we later learn that he kidnapped Anise's parents, and threatened to have them killed if she didn't act as The Mole to the party. The absolute worst thing he did, however, was forcing Anise to deliver her close friend Ion to him so he could murder him right in front of her. Oh, and Arietta, a member of the Quirky Miniboss Squad and another close friend of Ion and Anise, witnesses this as well and goes batshit insane because of it, forcing the party to kill her. Mohs doesn't care at all about this.
  • While not as reprehensible, the Big Bad Van Grants crosses this himself by using Luke — someone who truly looked up to him, by the way — to destroy Akzeriuth. And then he abandons him with a You Have Outlived Your Usefulness Speech. It gets worse; as a replica, Luke is actually seven and sees Van as his Parental Substitute, which Van knows very well as he influenced him to think that way. And all so he could use him as a living nuke.
    • He then goes on to massacre an entire town to stop the heroes from interfering with his plans. Not to mention he is responsible for millions of deaths even before that. But the massacre of innocents is particularly vile as it's also a MEH for his subordinates, Legretta in particular.
  • An offscreen moment that's used to set up another character's backstory: it turns out that the destruction of the island of Hod was ordered by Karl VI, Emperor Peony's father, after he learned that Kimlasca intended to invade the island. This would simultaneously devastate the Kimlascan army, keep the valuable fomicry labs on the island out of their hands, and framing Kimlasca for the destruction served to very effectively squash anti-war sentiment on the home front. And all it cost was thousands of the lives of his own people. Said incident is the moment that propels Van into becoming the Big Bad as well, as he was the one used to destroy the island via hooking him up into a machine to produce an artificial, incomplete hyperresonance. He was eleven at the time.
• The Tales series is known for having sympathetic villains, so it's kind of shocking that Tales of Vesperia has some of the most vile, inhuman villains in the series.
  • First there is Ragou. The very first thing we learn about him is that he demands cripplingly high taxes from the people, and abducts the children of those unable to pay. Doesn't seem so bad, right? Well, then you learn that not only does he kill the kids, he feeds some of the corpses to monsters and sells the rest in the black market. And his reason for doing this? He was bored.
    • Not to mention that the people of Capua Nor can't pay their taxes because Ragou is using a blastia to control the weather, making it impossible for them to take their ships onto the water, and he's ordered that any ship in the harbor be fired on if they try to go out to sea. Plus there's the fact that he tells the townspeople that they'll "never have to worry about taxes again" if they can obtain the horn of a monster roaming the countryside. Said monster is Ragou's pet, and he forces the people to hunt it, knowing that it will probably kill them, for his own amusement.
  • And then there's Cumore. Was there ever Cumore. At first, he only seems like a Smug Snake, but then he tells Leblanc right to his face that the Schwann Brigade is weak for showing mercy. Some time later, we discover that he has forced the people of Heliord in brutal labor camps very similar to WW2 labor camps. All this is topped off when it's discovered that he's sent countless people on a literal suicide mission, including one of his own men because he didn't load a prisoner wagon fast enough.
  • Alexei is responsible for most (but not all) of the previous two's actions. That alone makes him pretty evil, but then he orchestrates an attack on Nordopolica and has Flynn, Harry Whitehorse (The Don's son), and the Hunting Blades take the fall. This leads to one major Guild leader being turned into a monster that the party has to kill, Flynn and his brigade shamed, and tensions in the Guild Union rising to a boiling point, leading to the Don committing honorable suicide in order to both save Harry and prevent a civil war. Oh, and then we learn that he resurrected Raven against his will and forced him to be his slave/errand boy. And then, as the icing of a very vile cake, he forces Raven to kidnap Estelle, and then proceeds to Mind Rape her to such a point that he'd give Neon Genesis Evangelion a run for its money, and the Mind Rape was so horrible that Estelle eventually lost complete control of her body (but not her mind), essentially making her a puppet for Alexei to control? Vesperia pulled no punches in regards to pure evil villains.
  • Many people found it hard to forgive the Hunting Blades (especially Clint and Tison) when they assaulted Nordopolica to kill Belius just because she is an Entelexeia.
• Tales of Hearts: Clinoseraph traps Lithia in his artificial Spiria Nexus and makes her watch the day of the Calcification of Quartz over and over. Though when Lithia does escape, she's no worse for wear due to already having so much regret.
• Tales of Graces:
  • Emeraude ripped out Lambda's soul for the sake of researching his "true form". You bitch.
  • Cedric as well. He repeatedly tried to murder his twelve-year-old nephew.
• Tales of Xillia: Gilland. He takes a little too much joy in watching innocent people dissolve into mana during his experiments to increase the Lance of Kresnik's efficiency. He crosses it even before then on Milla's path when he has an innocent woman killed while showcasing the hex fields and exploding anklets.
• Tales of Berseria:
  • In-Universe. Velvet believes that Artorius crossed that line after he betrayed her and sacrificed her brother. Seres, the malak reincarnation of her sister, also agrees. Out of universe, this instance ends up being double subverted because while Laphicet consented to the sacrifice, Artorius betrays his wishes by sending Velvet into the pit to become a therion, dooming her to a harsh existence that her little brother would never want her to go through.
  • Dungeon EX reveals that the problems caused by malevolence are due to someone crossing it. Turns out, the entire system of malevolence is all a curse by The Seraphs of the Heavenly Realm who didn't want humans and malakin to coexist. Why? To win a meaningless bet. Basically, these Seraphs made a bet that humans and malakhim (who are Seraphs that chose to live with humans) couldn't coexist. And from the way it's described, rhe Seraphs of the Heavenly Realm either were going to lose the bet or already had lost, then implemented the curse anyway because they were mad that they lost. The initial success between both races fell apart due to this curse. The malak distanced themselves from humanity, while humans with resonance were nearly wiped out and humanity nearly forgot about the malakhim. The cycle of Innominat suppressing the world to reset the balance began in order to stop the malevolence from wiping out the planet. It's equal parts cruel and selfish that the Seraphs were proven wrong, then implemented their plan anyways.