Paying evil unto evil in western animation TV.
- Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Anytime Meatwad gets his revenge on Master Shake counts as this. Whilst he can get pretty disturbing about it, it's kinda hard to feel sorry for Shake given the crap he puts Meatwad through.
- On Avatar: The Last Airbender, Katara uses this logic to defend her theft of a Waterbending scroll: "Stealing is wrong... unless it's from pirates." Toph later uses the same rationale for cheating in a crooked gambling game: "Hey, I only cheated because he was cheating. I cheated a cheater. What's wrong with that?" The kids never learn any aesop contradicting this.
- This was also implied to be what Katara used to justify the use of Bloodbending — a technique explicitly played up to be terrible and bad and ultimate evil yadda yadda yadda — on a Fire Nation soldier because she thought he was the one who murdered her mother in cold blood. Only it wasn't him it turns out. Oops.
- The episode which introduced bloodbending itself actually plays with this trope. The definitely-evil waterbender who created the technique forces Katara to learn it despite her hesitation about the moral consequences:
Katara: I don't know if I want that kind of power...
Hama: The choice is not yours. The power exists... and it's your duty to use the gifts you've been given to win this war. Katara, they tried to wipe us out, our entire culture...your mother! - Regarding "The Southern Raiders", Katara hunts down Yon Rha initially intending to kill him. She does not do so, but only because she decides he is a detestable, pathetic piece of work who is Not Worth Killing.
- Similarly, in The Legend of Korra, "The Revelation" episode shows Amon Debending the Leaders of the gangs in the city. These people have used their bending to make the people fear them, and he's giving them what they deserve. Ultimately though, this is a subversion, as he's willing to take the bending away from anyone for having it, regardless of whether they're good or evil. He debent the gangsters first so more people would see him as the good guy and follow him.
- This was also implied to be what Katara used to justify the use of Bloodbending — a technique explicitly played up to be terrible and bad and ultimate evil yadda yadda yadda — on a Fire Nation soldier because she thought he was the one who murdered her mother in cold blood. Only it wasn't him it turns out. Oops.
- Batman: The Animated Series: Frequently, Poison Ivy'll give people who harm the environment with brutal (and often disproportionate) punishments. The most horrifying example is in "Eternal Youth", where she doses business owners whose companies have harmed the environment with a toxin that leaves them trapped as petrified, sentient trees.
- In the Courage the Cowardly Dog episode "The Shadow of Courage", a nasty old rich guy has just fired his butler for saying he can't just buy the moon. Then the old man has a heart attack, and the butler just walks away whistling jauntily instead of answering his pleas for help, leaving his former employer for dead.
- Danny Phantom sometimes got a What the Hell, Hero? or "Not So Different" Remark for messing with the bullies in his school with his ghost powers. This rarely lasted more than an episode. The first of these amounting to a B-plot aesop about judging people. The ghost of the week showed up while Danny was getting his revenge on the Jock/Bully Dash, and jumps to the conclusion that Danny is the bully, irresponsibly using his powers to torment an undeserving victim. Ghost proceeds to expel Danny to a Ghost Zone area with the main plot being Danny trying to escape, while the B-plot had Possessed!Danny subtly using his powers to help and befriend Dash, who didn't act so terrible while this was going on.
- In The Fairly OddParents!, Timmy eventually wishes Vicky was young enough for him to be her babysitter so he could get his revenge, doing the exact same kind of things she did to him to her. Now if Vicky had actually been the same person she was as an adult, it'd have been well deserved... but it feels awful because she's at an age where she wasn't evil and is just a poor five-year-old girl. This further backfires when Vicky gets Cosmo and Wanda due to how bad Timmy made her feel and uses them to take her own revenge on him. Ultimately, Timmy learns his Aesop and decides, before returning her to normal, to give her a great day.
- Mr. Pickles features an evil dog that brutally murders or captures and tortures bad people.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In "Putting Your Hoof Down", the episode involves Fluttershy smacking a bunch of jerkass ponies who attempted to take advantage of or abuse her. This is subverted in that Fluttershy's collision with the jerkass ponies she came across is considered a very bad thing. Her neighbors might have been unfair to her, yes. But her desire to get her assertiveness and her eagerness to fight back with others who push her around is portrayed as alarming nonetheless. Also, fans are expected to understand that her Unstoppable Rage is extremely disproportionate and results in her playing some serious Jerkass Ball.
- However, there does seem to be some trace of this trope present. Her sticking up against Mr. Greenhooves is considered understandable while the sticking of the mailpony in the mailbox is not.
- In The Owl House, after centuries of ruling over the Boiling Isles with an iron fist, nearly committing genocide, and outright killing both Luz and Hunter on screen (though it didn't stick for either of them), Belos is defeated, and tries to trick Luz one last time before the boiling rain comes down to melt him. He practically begs her to help him, followed by him shouting that if she doesn't help, she'll be just as bad as the witches he hates so much. Luz just stands there and watches him melt into a rotting puddle, before Eda, Raine and King walk over to stomp on his remains until he's truly dead.
- The Powerpuff Girls (1998): In the episode "Gettin' Twiggy with It," when Mitch Mitchelson is allowed to take Twiggy, the class pet hamster, home for the weekend only to cruelly torture her; this leads to Twiggy getting mutated by radioactive waste after Mitch flushes her down the toilet, after which she promptly goes after Mitch for revenge. Having known that he would mistreat Twiggy and personally been there when he flushed her, the girls are so disgusted with Mitch that they're fully prepared to just let Twiggy eat him, even catching him and trying to personally throw him to her. When Mitch begs them for mercy, however, they opt instead to place him in a giant hamster wheel and have Twiggy chase him in an endless cycle.
- Matrix, from the third and fourth seasons of ReBoot, tends towards this. Immediately after his age-up, he was a Type IV Anti-Hero who believed that all viruses should be eradicated. Later in the season, he cooled down a bit, even sparing Megabyte's life at the end. However, it turned out to be a bad thing to spare him at all, given how he took over the Mainframe in the cliffhanger finale.
- The Simpsons seems considerably fond of this trope. "22 Short Films About Springfield" ends with a grown man Nelson made fun of pulling down Nelson's pants, ordering him to walk down the street with his pants down, telling everyone on the street that now is their chance to make fun of Nelson, and everyone in town pointing and laughing at him at the same time. And then Bart and Milhouse pour ketchup and mustard on Nelson's face. Although you can't really say they are doing it to punish Nelson or out of a sense of feeling morally superior to him. Just before that, they had been pouring ketchup and mustard on passing cars.
- South Park has a few regarding Cartman:
- Wendy beats the tar out of Cartman for mocking breast cancer. This has been one of the few times that Cartman actually gets a real punishment for many things he has done in his life.
- Full circle example in "Scott Tenorman Must Die" in which Cartman is bullied mercilessly by Eight Grader Scott Tenorman, leading him to take revenge to a very macabre level. To put it lightly, Cartman tricked Scott into eating his parents in the form of a bowl of chili. All because Cartman just wanted his $16.12.
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars:
- In "Unfinished Business", Anakin Skywalker's slow slide towards the Dark Side is demonstrated by him torturing and then killing Separatist Admiral Trench, while responding to a comment from him about how Jedi are supposed to be "noble" by claiming that he no longer has any such weaknesses. It's both chilling to behold, and also cathartic since Trench is a ruthless commander who was prepared to totally destroy Anaxes with a bomb in order to ensure a Separatist victory.
- In "Escape From Kadavo", during their raid on a Zygerrian slave camp, Anakin slaughters any guards who get in his way, Obi-Wan effectively lets Rex murder the camp's overseer in cold blood, and Plo Koon finally destroys the place with a Republic air strike that kills any of the remaining Zygerrians inside. Given that the Zygerrians built their entire society off the enslavement and torture of sapient beings, literally no tears are shed for them.
- In the Steven Universe episode "Bismuth", Steven accidentally releases Bismuth, a Gem who was kept bubbled in the pocket dimension in Lion's mane. Bismuth seems friendly, and as the Crystal Gems' Ultimate Blacksmith provides a few upgrades to the team's equipment. But then Steven learns why Bismuth was bubbled in the first place: Bismuth wanted to use her new secret weapon, the Breaking Point, to shatter the Diamond Authority and anyone loyal to them. Since shattering is a Fate Worse than Death to Gems, Rose Quartz was against it, and the two came to blows. When Steven is naturally against the Breaking Point as well, Bismuth snaps and attacks him.
- Miss Martian in season 2 of Young Justice (2010) gains a disturbing habit of mind raping her opponents to gain information, leaving them catatonic. While she justifies herself with this logic, it becomes harder to defend once it's revealed she tried to do something similar to her boyfriend Superboy, in order to make him forget that he had a problem with her behavior. And it proceeds to bite her in the ass hard in 2x10 when she lobotomizes Aqualad for killing Artemis, and in the process finds out that he is a mole who faked Artemis' death to bring her undercover with him. She mindraped one of her closest friends and most likely doomed Artemis' cover as well. Cue Heroic BSoD.
