Basic Trope: Santa Claus has either gone bad or has a villainous impostor or rival.
- Straight: Santa Claus gives harsh punishments for those he deems naughty and is likely to harm you even if you're on his nice list.
- Exaggerated: Santabomination
- Downplayed:
- Santa Claus doesn't do anything evil, but he is kind of a Jerkass.
- Santa Claus still likes to something evil or amoral, but he is a friendly person if you know him.
- A Mall Santa is an absolute Jerkass.
- Justified:
- The stress of delivering presents to all the world's children once a year without getting anything in return has caused Santa Claus to snap.
- The villain impersonates Santa Claus because he knows that no one would suspect Jolly Old St. Nick to be a bad egg.
- Inverted: The Krampus is a benign entity rather than a boogeyman who punishes naughty children on Christmas.
- Subverted:
- Santa Claus threatens to torture a naughty kid until he begs for mercy, but reveals that his threat was only to motivate the child to be better behaved.
- Santa Claus has an extremely unnerving appearance, but turns out to be Creepy Good and just as benevolent as people say.
- Double Subverted: The next time the kid slips up and does something bad, Santa kills him.
- Parodied: The evil Santa's misdeeds amount to Poke the Poodle at best, doing things like giving children presents that contain letters with juvenile insults and eating all the popcorn strings used to decorate the Christmas trees.
- Zig Zagged: It varies whether Santa Claus is benevolent or mean and whether or not the evil Santa is the real deal or an impostor.
- Averted: Santa Claus is depicted as his traditionally friendly and good-natured self and no one tries to impersonate him.
- Enforced: "We need a good villain for our Christmas special, and what would be more appropriate than a villainous Santa Claus?"
- Lampshaded: "With this kind of Santa, being on his naughty list may as well be a death warrant".
- Invoked: A villain impersonates Santa to ruin his reputation.
- Exploited: Parents tell stories of a malevolent Santa to scare their kids out of misbehaving.
- Defied:
- Santa never lets anything get to him and strives to always be good so he can set an example for the kids he delivers presents to.
- When the idea of impersonating Santa comes up, the crooks refuse, drawing the line at ruining the reputation of such a charitable and respected person.
- Discussed: "Ever notice how creepy it is when Jolly Old St. Nick isn't all that jolly?"
- Conversed: "It creeps me out when they decide to depict Santa as a bad guy. Even if it is a deterrent toward children misbehaving, how does it not occur to the creators that it'd have the potential side effect of traumatizing the kids for life?"
- Implied: Santa shows no signs of being malevolent, but it is made perfectly clear that no one wants to be on the naughty list.
- Deconstructed: Because of the evil version of Santa, people feel pressured to cancel Christmas so that the evil Santa can't cause any harm.
- Reconstructed: Everyone has their fears assuaged by the notion that the real Santa wouldn't just ignore a villainous impostor and would do what he can to stop him.
- Played For Laughs: Santa Claus laughs evilly after telling children that they have been naughty.
- Played For Drama: The evil Santa has caused a lot of serious damage to society, like orphaning children and conversely murdering kids in front of their parents.
Back to Bad Santa. Let's hope you didn't make the naughty list this year!
