Basic Trope: A character or characters reacting with intense disgust and/or disappointment when the villain reveals their motive.
- Straight: After a while of Motive Misidentification, the villain finally gets to do his Motive Rant and The Hero becomes dumbfounded at how petty and (by villainous standards) mundane the villain's goal is; like massacring thousands of people to reduce the amount of government paperwork.
- Exaggerated: The motive is not only incredibly small and petty, it is outright stupid (or will be seen as such by the characters and the audience, especially if the show tries to keep its stakes high): for example, a hostage situation on a McDonalds happening because someone wants the last McRib and Szechuan Sauce combo (not the last one that will ever be produced, but the last one that will be produced for the day).
- Downplayed:
- While the characters may be disappointed by the motive, it is more of an "awww, I thought that it would be something cooler!" kind of disappointment than the kind of intensity that is normal to this trope. That, or the characters just shrug off the pettiness of the motive and carry on without showing the usual reaction of this Trope.
- While the overall motive kind of resembles the one the hero has guessed, there is however a detail within the complete exhibition of the facts that makes the hero angry because it is Worse with Context; such as the fact the Big Bad really was looking forward to benefit from getting rid of certain people who held lands that would become more profitable in the upcoming months, but the murders are completely to blame on his idiot enforcer who, to put it bluntly, overstepped his bounds when asked to scare them away - but hey, they are out of the way anyway, so who was he to say no? The hero adds the fact that several people died at the hands of an idiot to the list of things worth slaying the villains over.
- The villain's own minions are confused that he wants to marry the princess instead of murdering her outright, but they go through with it anyway.
- Justified: Based on the threat of the villain and the amount of effort they put into accomplishing their plan, The Hero expected the villain's motive to be something serious.
- Inverted:
- The hero initially believes that the villain's motive is small and petty, like wishing to reduce paperwork, but the reality is much bigger; like, the villain is just the puppet for the Man Behind the Man, who wants to kill a million people so his Evil, Inc. can summon Cthulhu and use it as a weapon to Take Over the World. When the hero finds out about the motive, he is actually excited that a Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot and that the bigger crime is cool.
- The Accidental Hero doesn't really care about saving the world, he just wanted to reduce his amount of paperwork. The villain is very upset when he discovers this is why his schemes were foiled.
- Subverted:
- The motive only sounds disappointing in context, and once given, it's pretty big—such as the villain wanting the last Shechuan Sauce container (and thus having taken a McDonalds hostage) because it is the most important ingredient on a Post-Modern Magik spell that will cause a Zombie Apocalypse that he will use to Take Over the World.
- The villain's motives sound small and petty, but the villain by now has showcased himself to be such a massive threat that it doesn't really matters how stupid it sounds, it doesn't makes the man less horrible.
- The stupid demands and petty motives are actually proof that the Stupid Crooks telling them are not the ones in actual charge: they are just the fall guys, the chaff being tossed at the police while The Man Behind the Man, the one who truly had the resources, mental keenness and willpower to put together the plan is off somewhere else accomplishing his objective.
- Bill actually is satisfied that Arnold D. Mented is just a pyromaniac who wants a big boom. It's a nice change of pace from all the jerks who wish to express their dumb-ass beliefs via absurd world-conquering schemes.
- Double Subverted:
- And then it turns out that he will use his unstoppable zombie army to take over the world so he will have the necessary leverage to fulfill his life-long desire: to have Rose McGowan give him a blow-job (it's one of those times when "I wouldn't do it with you even if you were the last man on Earth" turned out to be a baaaaadddd choice of words).
- The heroes still manage to cause a distraction at an important moment or even trigger an Enemy Civil War by pointing out that this is the reason the villain has been going around committing atrocities.
- The Man Behind the Man is annihilated by the Stupid Crooks (or whoever managed to intercept him but couldn't stop him from wandering back to his minions) and the incredibly powerful MacGuffin that he was looking for falls in their possession. And even with this increase in threat level, they refuse to do something about their demands… namely, make them any less stupid.
- Of course, that opinion still holds for D. Mented's boss, Dr. Destructo.
- Parodied:
- The motive is only disappointing to the audience. To the heroes, Serious Business and Felony Misdemeanor make them react as seriously (or even more seriously) as the situation would probably demand. Or going the other way, the crime and motive may be incredibly serious, and yet the characters showcase a severe disappointment or even lack of care for it.
- Bob reveals, completely seriously, that he became a "monster" because Charlotte stopped bringing him cookies. Cut to Disturbed Doves across town as Alice incredulously screams, "COOKIES!?" And since Bob was kind of whiny and pathetic in the first place, it ruins any shred of respect Alice might have for him.
- Zig Zagged: The Big Bad wants to kill a million people to reduce the paperwork, but in reality he's a puppet for the true big bad, who wants to use the casualties for a spell that will wake up Chtulhu, who he will use to Take Over the World... and prove to his mother that the doctorate in Lovecraftian Literature that he spent 20 years getting is actually worth a damn. His mom is so amazed by the idea that she is willing to help him... so she will never have to deal with Los Angeles traffic ever again. The heroes act appropriately to each discovery.
- Averted: The show, as far back as its pilot episode, takes some time to mention that This Is Reality and motives don't really matter in a criminal investigation or in a legal prosecution—and because of this, all kinds of criminal motives appear on the show, and the cops do their job and (try to) act like they don't give a damn about them... which is something that Real Life cops are trained to do, actually.
- Enforced: Executive Meddling forces the writers to add a comedy episode to their high-stakes action drama series. Because having the Monster of the Week use lesser tactics than the ones used so far by the Arc Villain would immediately show their hand, that means that the heroes will, for this week, prevent the villain from nuking the City of Adventure off the face of the Earth... because people are not buying enough of his ice cream. Obviously, the biggest punchline of the episode will be to have every single member of the hero team (The Stoic, one and all) break their own rules and spend five minutes loudly berating the Monster of the Week for his absurd show of pettiness and how it's wasting their time (and, technically, the audience's).
- Lampshaded:
- "Haven't you guys noticed that every guy we've been dealing with recently is just a wacko with a grudge for... I don't know, someone who criticized his favorite restaurant... and too much time and money on his hands?"
- "Oh, please. You'd be disappointed no matter what the reason was. You're just upset I even did those things in the first place."
- Invoked: The hero just pretends to be disappointed by the motive, in order to force a Villainous Breakdown.
- Exploited: The villain decides to Confess to a Lesser Crime through his motive—if the heroes believe that he was doing something out of pettiness; he will probably be let go or treated less harshly.
- Defied:
- The hero doesn't acts dumbfounded, and the villain receives no pity from the hero. It is the fact that the villain went to such horrifying lengths for such a simple reason actually makes him more scary than those who want to Take Over the World because of a divine mandate or something equally "epic".
- In the face of how horrible the villain is, the heroes decide that handwaving the villain's motives as "he's nuts" will both help them keep their sanity... and will be a pretty good way to insult the villain.
- The heroes don't want to hear the motive—doesn't matters if it's petty or not, what matters is the crimes that the villain has done. If the villain still tries to tell them, they will tell the villain that he can shove the Motive Rant up his rear end.
- "Yeah, I killed him because I hated the fact he had better abs than I. Let me make an emphasis in the fact that I killed a man, in cold blood, and tried to kill you, you... meddling simpletons... when you tried to arrest me! And I killed a cop, and ran away, and took a family hostage and shot their dog with a spear gun to prove them I was fucking serious! And I joked about raping their corpses if they made me do it! I confess to being malicious, and the worst kind of malicious at that! Why the hell do you go all "uhhhh..." about my fucking motive, anyway?!?"
- Lord Killemall is The Dreaded, a Hero Killer and an Omnicidal Maniac. He is the most dangerous man the heroes have ever faced off against, and this dread remains even when they hear his (normally incredibly pathetic) Freudian Excuse. They even decide that it's probably not a good idea to question Lord Killemall's motive, in the interest of not wishing to find out what will happen if this makes him more driven to kill them all.
- Lord Killemall decides, as a first step in his campaign to conquer the world, to get a "proper" motive. Whether or not him deciding to seek a good motive also counts as a disappointing motive is better off discussed elsewhere.
- Discussed: "If it turns out Doctor Killberg took the mall hostage because he wanted to be first in line to the film premiere, I'm gonna be laughing so hard..."
- Implied: Doctor Killberg's motive for his misdeeds is not heard by the audience (at least at first) but the heroes' reaction to it is to get an utterly flabbergasted look on their face. Four scenes prior, they all agreed that if the Doctor's motive is "mama didn't loved me", they all would collectively roll their eyes in annoyance, so can at least we can count that off.
- Conversed: "You know what the worst kind of villains are? They are not the ones who want to conquer the world because they think they can make a Utopia on top of a mountain of corpses. It's not the ones
who wish to destroy the world just to watch it burn, either. It's not the ones who aim big. It's the ones that think small—the ones that will kill you if they owe you twenty-five cents, the ones that will destroy your life because you bought that limited-edition Dora The Explorer watch they wanted for their daughter, the ones that will kill you because it pays $5.00 an hour and covers their dental plan. You never see them coming because you always keep looking up at the skies, thinking that the guy who will frag you will be the guy with the big plans, with the big reasons... and so they hurt you, and you hear why, and you get a reality check." - Deconstructed: The discovery that so much horror was brought into existence by some idiot that couldn't figure out a best way to prove to his college professor that his thesis wasn't horsecrap doesn't really makes this man any more liked.
- Reconstructed: It really depends on the setup, but it's quite a good punchline no matter whether you're going for normal or Black Comedy.
- Played For Laughs: The Motive Rant scene starts off like any other Motive Rant scene does, with the sinister music on the background and the villain foaming at the mouth... up until he arrives to the big answer, to the part of the rant where he explains why he did it... and the reactions of everybody at how low-brow the reason for such villainy was is the punchline: the background music does a Record Needle Scratch, there is a Beat with Chirping Crickets, everybody shouts a Big "WHAT?!"...
- Played For Drama:
- The characters react to the Motive Rant and how low-brow the reason was, and it is not pretty: the Rage Breaking Point is reached, Cluster F-Bombs are yelled, the villain gets an Extreme Mêlée Revenge, and once people manage to cool down, the fact that all of this horror was done by such a petty man leads them to the Despair Event Horizon.
- Professor Killemall's reaction to Hiro's disappointment at hearing the motive for his crime is to try to kill Hiro in a rage, because he considers Hiro's reaction an unforgivable insult.
- Hiro reacts with disappointment at hearing Professor Killemall's reason for trying to murder himnote but unfortunately for Hiro he stands still one split second too long and that allows the Professor to run him through with his knife.
- Whatever ends up being Hiro's reaction to Professor Killemall's awful motive, it receives a "disappointed by the motive" reaction as well: "You're a registered hero, you have a sworn duty to protect the world, you don't get to stand there acting stupid and let people get hurt no matter if the guy hurting people just declared he is doing it because it's Black Friday."
- Hiro's reaction to the motive showcases that there is something wrong with him as a human being. If it is a "meh, whatever" approach, it probably means he's misanthropic (either naturally or became one over time). If it is roaring rage and desire to kill the doofus, it probable means he's got Explosive Personality Disorder. Regardless, Hiro's reaction is just not the one that someone "normal" would have under the current circumstances/revelations.
- Played For Horror:
- A man just tried to (or worse, succeeded in) kill fifty million people because he's beyond fed up with handling 401(k)s. There is something about such a discovery that inevitably leads to a bout of soul-shattering existential horror, no matter how short.
- An Exaggerated form of the Played For Drama: All of the villains had petty goals and had killed hundreds for their selfish desires. Hearing such horrible pettiness, the hero snaps, and concludes that Humans Are Bastards.
Ok, back to Disappointed by the Motive with you! Yeah, I just wanted to make a nice new page! What, did you thought I wanted to take over the Internet or something?
