Basic Trope: A character has no qualms with harming the elderly.
- Straight: Joseph is seen mugging a 75 year old man with a Thompson submachine gun
for an exchange of $579 in his Establishing Character Moment. - Exaggerated:
- The elderly are the only people Joseph targets.
- Joseph horrifically murders a senior in such an inhumane way, rapes him, and eats him all to top it off just because he can.
- Joseph is an ageist who wishes to exterminate all seniors.
- Downplayed:
- Joseph beats up a 52 year old.
- Joseph engages in the Neglectful, Verbal, and Emotional/Psychological type of Elder Abuse. Not exactly physical abuse, but otherwise applies to the same implications of this trope.
- While Joseph would harm a senior, he would give a less painful death/hurt the elderly in a less painful manner than adults.
- Joseph dope slaps a Scatterbrained Senior for saying/doing something stupid.
- Joseph has a Black-and-White Morality mentality; He will treat the innocent/good seniors with kindness but will harm evil seniors.
- Joseph only attacks seniors from ages 50-57.
- Justified:
- The “senior” Joseph was attacking was evil.
- Joseph is a Complete Monster.
- The seniors in question are genuinely competent fighters, so refusing to fight back would be downright stupid.
- Joseph is an ageist.
- Alternatively Joseph is against ageism, and thinks that giving the elderly more preferable treatment is an example of it.
- Joseph hates everyone regardless of age.
- A long time ago when Joseph was a child, his dad kept abusing him both physically and verbally. Now when Joseph is finally getting his revenge on him, his dad had already grown into a senior.
- Joseph isn’t aware of the fact that you should be respectful to the elderly, so he doesn’t know whether attacking a senior is right or wrong at all.
- Joseph is engaging in Elder Abuse.
- Inverted:
- Subverted:
- 1.) Joseph is in a shootout, and is shown to have been willingly shooting an old man… With a Tranquilizer Gun to prevent him from being shot by someone else.
- 2.) The “Senior” turned out to be a robot disguised as one for Doctor Bob’s unknown purposes.
- 3.) Joseph kills an old man, albeit by accident.
- 4.) Joseph kills an old man, but only because he was Brainwashed and Crazy.
- Double Subverted:
- 1.) The tranq gun was poisoned.
- 1.) The dose turns out to be too much for a senior, or the old man dies because he’s allergic to the drug.
- 1.) But even if it was for a good purpose, shooting a senior with a tranquil gun still technically qualifies for this trope, albeit a downplayed example.
- 2.) It turns out Joseph had no way of knowing the old man was a robot, and just shot it because he wanted to.
- 2.) …And then we see him harming an actual senior later on within the story.
- 3.) He killed the old man by accident during his Roaring Rampage of Revenge against General Norton, an evil, 75 year old military general.
- 4.) Even when he’s not brainwashed, Joseph still Would Harm a Senior.
- Joseph mugs someone out of the blue, and then realizes it’s a senior whom he’s mugging… And then still shoots anyways all because the old man refused to pay him his Ninety bucks.
- Parodied: Joseph inflicts slapstick injuries on an old man.
- Zig-Zagged:
- (Continue from the second example of #1 of Double Subverted) But Joseph didn’t know this, so it’s ambigious on whether Joseph Would Harm a Senior, or not.
- Depending on the Writer, sometimes Joseph has no qualms with attacking the elderly, while at other times, he does.
- Averted: Malicious as he is, Joseph refuses to harm seniors.
- Enforced: “Joseph is a Hate Sink and intentionally killing seniors can serve as a Kick the Dog moment for him.”
- Lampshaded: “What the hell, did you just harm a fucking senior Joseph? You Heartless Bastard!”
- Invoked:
- Joseph is a Card-Carrying Villain who sets out to be as horrifically evil as possible even if it meant targeting the elderly, and refuses to have any qualms about doing so.
- An Evil Old Folk goads Joseph into attacking him.
- Exploited:
- Defied:
- See Averted.
- The Don of the mafia Joseph’s in, enforces a strict moral code, in which protects seniors from getting harmed by the clan members. (Robbing them is fair game, but using violence in any sort of way while doing so isn’t) Those who violate the said rules will be punished via ordered “dispatched” and be iced as a result.
- Discussed: “To make money in this Crapsack World, Alice you gotta steal from other people, and I will not hesitate to harm anyone who stands in the way of my thievery, be it women, children, and the elderly.”
- Conversed: “Have you ever noticed that nearly everytime Joseph is on-screen, human mortality starts skyrocketing, statistically speaking, and that he has no qualms with hurting anyone at all, even the elderly?”
- Implied: We see in a news report about Joseph’s new killing spree, that it took place in a bar, and we can see the corpse of an old man in the many piles of corpses.
- Deconstructed:
- Joseph is viewed In-Universe as a social pariah by society for daring to viciously assault a senior, and spends the rest of his days alone and hated.
- Joseph beats up General Norton, an Evil Old Folk, for his crimes. However due to being a senior, Norton can’t assault Joseph back with an equal amount of brutality. This leads to Norton indulging in Disproportionate Retribution/No Kill like Overkill in order to get even with Joseph. (Let’s just say ordering a squadron of 75 through 97 Professional Killer Elite Mooks to attack Joseph for example) Nice Job Breaking It, Hero.
- Reconstructed: Joseph is a Card-Carrying Villain who doesn’t care about, if not, enjoys, the hatred from society due to his evil deeds.
The Would Harm a Senior page doesn’t believe in respecting the elderly, and hurts people all the same.
