Tropescilloscope: Black and Gray Morality

Evil villain, flawed hero. (read more at tvtropes.org)

More Tropes Video Credits Award-Bait Song Even Evil Has Loved Ones Rule of Funny Blonde, Brunette, Redhead Cool Car Accidental Misnaming Tempting Fate Bolivian Army Ending And I Must Scream Romantic False Lead Heel Realization Red Shirt Foregone Conclusion Credits Gag Hero Antagonist Red Eyes, Take Warning Better to Die than Be Killed Silence Is Golden Sci-Fi Horror Vacation Films Developing Doomed Characters Public Domain Feature Films Call-Forward British Films Brick Joke Neck Lift Fantasy Films Foreshadowing Due to the Dead Closed Circle Mooks Naïve Newcomer Kubrick Stare Made of Iron Mistaken for Gay Central Theme Villain Opening Scene Evil Plan My God, What Have I Done? Hollywood Darkness Narrator Artistic License – Law Chiaroscuro Ungrateful Bastard Horror Films Death of a Child I Just Shot Marvin in the Face Framing Device No Ending Heel–Face Turn Bond One-Liner The Brute Ax-Crazy Five-Man Band Say My Name Heterosexual Life-Partners As the Good Book Says... A.I. Is a Crapshoot Your Cheating Heart Retcon Immune to Bullets Driven to Suicide Bilingual Bonus Cowboy Cop Sadistic Choice All Men Are Perverts Beware the Nice Ones Freeze-Frame Bonus Stalker with a Crush Extreme Doormat Psycho for Hire Bi the Way Funny Foreigner Getting Crap Past the Radar Mood Whiplash Dirty Cop Dark Is Not Evil Ship Tease Major Injury Underreaction Evil Laugh Danny Peary Cult Movies List Ms. Fanservice After the End Informed Ability Death Glare Pre-Mortem One-Liner Obstructive Bureaucrat Market-Based Title Death Seeker Properly Paranoid Happily Married Almost Kiss Villain Song Nice Job Breaking It, Hero! Exactly What It Says on the Tin Despair Event Horizon Expy Fish out of Water Chase Scene Heroes Want Redheads Arranged Marriage No Celebrities Were Harmed Smoking Is Cool Death by Irony Pretty in Mink Advertised Extra Too Dumb to Live Obviously Evil Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds The Quiet One Disney Death Plot Hole Those Wacky Nazis A Date with Rosie Palms Animated Credits Opening The Smart Guy Dumb Blonde Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism Every Car Is a Pinto You Killed My Father Rule of Cool Science Fiction Films Gender Flip You Have Failed Me Star-Crossed Lovers Evil vs. Evil Attempted Rape Fun with Acronyms Country Matters Costume Porn Mad Scientist Love Triangle Historical-Domain Character Refuge in Audacity Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas Even Evil Has Standards Riddle for the Ages Australian Movies Does This Remind You of Anything? Rated M for Manly Ripped from the Headlines Dramedy The Big Guy Film Noir Re-Cut Sacrificial Lion Girl-on-Girl Is Hot Why Don't You Just Shoot Him? Armor-Piercing Question Older Than They Look Only Known by Their Nickname Loads and Loads of Characters Ambiguous Ending Destination Defenestration Real Life Writes the Plot Abusive Parents Decoy Protagonist Posthumous Character Fanservice Conspicuous CG Comically Missing the Point Suddenly SHOUTING! Villain Ball Jerk with a Heart of Gold Outrun the Fireball Scare Chord Crazy Jealous Guy Affably Evil Moment Killer Eldritch Abomination Darkest Hour Epic Movie Why Did It Have to Be Snakes? Police are Useless Humans Are Bastards Establishing Character Moment Works Set in World War II Age Lift Bad Boss Antagonist Title Pay Evil unto Evil Damsel in Distress Bitch in Sheep's Clothing Guile Hero Disappeared Dad Evil Is Hammy Improvised Weapon Brainless Beauty Stylistic Suck Deconstruction The Load Leaning on the Fourth Wall Defiant to the End Corpsing Belligerent Sexual Tension Overprotective Dad In the Back Diabolus ex Machina Guns Akimbo The Hero A God Am I The Dragon Unusually Uninteresting Sight Not Even Bothering with the Accent The Hero Dies Adaptation Expansion No Antagonist True Companions Bait-and-Switch Tap on the Head Mugging the Monster Parental Substitute Bloodier and Gorier Bald of Evil Drives Like Crazy Spell My Name with an "S" You Have Got to Be Kidding Me! Big Applesauce Unusual Euphemism Adaptational Villainy It's Personal Animal Title Index Ominous Latin Chanting Black Comedy Rape The Film of the Book Mr. Exposition Meaningful Echo Stock Footage Kill 'em All Evil Is Petty Friend to All Children Product Placement From Nobody to Nightmare Dirty Coward An Arm and a Leg My Greatest Failure Defrosting Ice Queen N-Word Privileges Line-of-Sight Name Bottomless Magazines "The Reason You Suck" Speech Fainting Drill Sergeant Nasty Beauty Is Never Tarnished Disproportionate Retribution Deal with the Devil Not So Stoic Parental Neglect Hell Is That Noise Actually Pretty Funny Eiffel Tower Effect The Stinger Sinister Minister Self-Deprecation Author Avatar BFG Cassandra Truth Fake Shemp The '90s Playing Gertrude As You Know Big Bad Setting Update Superhero Breaking the Fourth Wall Never Found the Body Hong Kong Films La Résistance Shower Scene Reality Has No Subtitles One-Man Army Bittersweet Ending Token Minority Dramatic Irony Laser-Guided Karma The Starscream Adaptation Name Change Artistic License – Physics Shell-Shocked Veteran Really Gets Around Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique Break the Cutie Once More, with Clarity! Famous Last Words The Alleged Car Index of Film Westerns Here We Go Again! Deliberately Monochrome No-Sell Dark and Troubled Past Noodle Incident Laughing Mad Mighty Whitey Love at First Sight Black and Gray Morality Green-Eyed Monster Anti-Hero Cool Guns Demoted to Extra Light Is Not Good Action Genre Pet the Dog The Musical Epic Fail Whole Plot Reference Manipulative Bastard The Atoner Creative Closing Credits Rousing Speech Ghost Fiction Kill It with Fire Gory Discretion Shot Beta Couple Recap / RiffTrax aka: Riff Trax Movies The Vamp Christmas Movies Index The Mafia Double-Meaning Title Cain and Abel Unresolved Sexual Tension Cruel and Unusual Death Would Hurt a Child Freudian Excuse Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep" Interrupted Suicide Same Language Dub The Mole My Beloved Smother Black Comedy Canadian Movies Dies Wide Open Evil Sounds Deep Punctuated! For! Emphasis! Loophole Abuse Agony of the Feet Dressing as the Enemy Leave the Camera Running Roaring Rampage of Revenge Mystery and Detective Films folderlabel Lock and Load Montage Badass Grandpa Took a Level in Jerkass Brutal Honesty Early Installment Weirdness I Have Your Wife NO INDOOR VOICE Screw This, I'm Outta Here! Bowdlerise Jump Scare Combat Pragmatist Jerkass Has a Point Action Girl Serial Killer Historical Villain Upgrade Mundane Made Awesome One Steve Limit Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking Captain Obvious The Alcoholic Eureka Moment Wounded Gazelle Gambit Cool Old Lady Extremely Short Timespan The Stoner Taking the Bullet Japanese Films Stealth Hi/Bye Betty and Veronica Gold Digger Canon Foreigner Calling the Old Man Out Contrived Coincidence Nice Guy Dropped a Bridge on Him The Sociopath Rule of Three Domestic Abuse Undying Loyalty Apocalypse How Dull Surprise Scenery Porn All Girls Want Bad Boys Match Cut Psychopathic Manchild Unreliable Narrator Final Girl Toilet Humour aka: Toilet Humor Zombie Stories Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene Deliberate Values Dissonance Offscreen Teleportation Aluminum Christmas Trees Small Name, Big Ego Shoot the Shaggy Dog Curb-Stomp Battle Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass Hypocrite All There in the Manual Running Gag Death by Adaptation Sexy Discretion Shot Adaptation Distillation Slasher Movie Bloodless Carnage Karmic Death Vampire Fiction World of Ham Genre Throwback Back from the Dead The '80s Rule of Symbolism Broken Pedestal Those Two Bad Guys Morality Pet Screw the Money, I Have Rules! Dramatic Gun Cock What You Are in the Dark Vomit Discretion Shot Rich Bitch Blood Knight Naked People Are Funny It Can Think Pragmatic Villainy The Chick Call-Back Large Ham Did Not Get the Girl Sports Stories Implacable Man Rewatch Bonus Karma Houdini Batman Gambit Your Head A-Splode Only in It for the Money Meaningful Name Eye Scream Abhorrent Admirer Captain Ersatz Cluster F-Bomb Impaled with Extreme Prejudice Meet Cute Leitmotif Black Best Friend Eyepatch of Power Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right! Well-Intentioned Extremist Villain Protagonist Black Dude Dies First The Great Depression Skewed Priorities And the Adventure Continues In Name Only Rape as Drama Creator Cameo Hair-Trigger Temper Film Noir Index Maybe Ever After Hoist by His Own Petard Shipper on Deck Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Trailer Awesome, but Impractical Adorkable Trailers Always Spoil Visual Pun Random Events Plot As Long as It Sounds Foreign Based on a True Story Stuff Blowing Up Cloudcuckoolander Retirony Monumental Damage Spiteful Spit Dogged Nice Guy Race Against the Clock Not Quite Dead Kids Are Cruel Pretty Little Headshots Artistic License – Gun Safety Vitriolic Best Buds Big Bad Duumvirate Becoming the Mask Coming-of-Age Story Pimped-Out Dress Jitter Cam Children Are Innocent This Is Gonna Suck Blackmail Victoria's Secret Compartment Colour-Coded for Your Convenience aka: Color Coded For Your Convenience Affectionate Parody The Dog Bites Back All Just a Dream Babies Ever After Flipping the Bird The Un-Reveal Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome Camera Abuse O.O.C. Is Serious Business The '70s Reality Ensues It Will Never Catch On Body Horror Hope Spot "Well Done, Son!" Guy No Name Given Fat Bastard Amoral Attorney Kick the Dog Blood from the Mouth The Bully The Dreaded Put on a Bus Fan Disservice Darker and Edgier The Un-Favourite aka: The Un Favorite Adults Are Useless The X of Y Casting Gag Ascended Extra Bring My Brown Pants Killed Mid-Sentence Big Damn Heroes Wicked Cultured Reckless Gun Usage Horror Comedy Be Careful What You Wish For He Knows Too Much Translation Convention Police Brutality Earn Your Happy Ending Left the Background Music On Heroic Sacrifice Flashback Worthy Opponent Ugly Guy, Hot Wife Amusing Injuries Get Out! The Cavalry For Want of a Nail Totally Radical Badass Bookworm Overly Long Gag Action Prologue MacGuffin timeperiod Exact Words Expository Hairstyle Change Insult Backfire Alas, Poor Villain For the Evulz Bavarian Fire Drill Manic Pixie Dream Girl Super Strength Sir Swears-a-Lot Word of God Punny Name Creepy Child Our Vampires Are Different Heroic BSoD Corrupt Corporate Executive Depraved Bisexual Face Death with Dignity Bland-Name Product Fiery Redhead Evil Brit Determinator Neck Snap Needs Wiki Magic Love Cold-Blooded Torture Anyone Can Die From Bad to Worse Yandere Smug Snake Truth in Television Genre Savvy Enemy Mine Demonic Possession Precision F-Strike Non-Indicative Name Intergenerational Friendship Chekhov's Gunman Scary Black Man Evil-Detecting Dog You Have Outlived Your Usefulness Artistic License – Geography Suspiciously Specific Denial Very Loosely Based on a True Story Shout-Out Curse Cut Short Alliterative Name Animal Motifs The Smurfette Principle No-Holds-Barred Beatdown Auto Erotica The Ace Artistic License – Biology The Lancer The '60s Fanservice Extra How We Got Here Screw the Rules, I Have Money! Anachronic Order Dwindling Party Character Development Rasputinian Death Bullying a Dragon Ironic Echo Disney Villain Death Grey and Gray Morality Only a Flesh Wound Soft Glass Anguished Declaration of Love Never Trust a Trailer Revenge Parental Incest Failed a Spot Check The Power of Love Sanity Slippage Card-Carrying Villain Spiritual Successor Only Sane Man Shown Their Work Recycled IN SPACE! May–December Romance Adaptational Badass Off with His Head! Celebrity Paradox Groin Attack Twist Ending Made of Explodium Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday Never Trust a Trailer aka: Trailers Always Lie Anachronism Stew Jerkass Mama Bear Sequel Escalation Wrong Genre Savvy Blatant Lies Bad "Bad Acting" Soundtrack Dissonance Mr. Fanservice And Starring She Cleans Up Nicely Hooker with a Heart of Gold Unwitting Instigator of Doom Determinator aka: The Determinator Slap-Slap-Kiss Beard of Evil Faux Affably Evil Meaningful Background Event Insistent Terminology Obfuscating Stupidity Adaptation Dye-Job An Aesop Have a Gay Old Time Deadpan Snarker Historical In-Joke 20 Minutes into the Future Suspiciously Similar Substitute Pyrrhic Victory Missing Mom Novelization Woman in White Fourth Date Marriage Martial Arts Movie Romantic Comedy Russian Films Composite Character All for Nothing Off-into-the-Distance Ending Let's Get Dangerous! Jerk Jock The Oner Disguised in Drag Alpha Bitch Time Skip Spared by the Adaptation Vomit Indiscretion Shot Politically Incorrect Villain Redshirt Army Department of Redundancy Department The Ditz Tagline Paper-Thin Disguise German Films Crazy-Prepared No Good Deed Goes Unpunished There Is No Kill Like Overkill Catch-Phrase Toplessness from the Back Real Life Dutch Angle What Happened to the Mouse? Intrepid Reporter Parental Abandonment Throwing Your Sword Always Works Drugs Are Bad Facial Horror Half the Man He Used to Be Evil Cannot Comprehend Good Scenery Gorn Actor Allusion Serious Business Gainax Ending Pre-Asskicking One-Liner Historical Hero Upgrade The Bad Guy Wins Irony Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold Idiot Ball Bury Your Gays Homage Red Oni, Blue Oni Adult Fear A Father to His Men Femme Fatale Slashed Throat Silent Movie Adaptational Heroism Make It Look Like an Accident He Who Fights Monsters Greater-Scope Villain Bunny-Ears Lawyer Bond Villain Stupidity Married to the Job Gilligan Cut Up to Eleven '80s Hair Cat Scare Reality Is Unrealistic Arch-Enemy Military and Warfare Films Show Within a Show Handicapped Badass Eagleland Crucified Hero Shot Big Brother Instinct Book-Ends Honor Before Reason Adaptational Attractiveness Straight Gay Dual Wielding Anti-Villain Arc Words Wretched Hive Artistic License – Military Authority Equals Asskicking Our Zombies Are Different Take a Third Option Double Entendre Instant Death Bullet Mercy Kill Hypocritical Humor All There in the Script Badass in a Nice Suit Improbable Weapon User Oh, Crap! Author Appeal Aside Glance "Shaggy Dog" Story Slasher Smile Stepford Smiler Lighter and Softer Catapult Nightmare Drowning My Sorrows Boom, Headshot! The Place Sassy Black Woman I Want My Beloved to Be Happy Pun aka: Incredibly Lame Pun Nothing Is Scarier Retired Badass Together in Death Big Eater Ass Shove Cool Old Guy Fire-Forged Friends Chekhov's Skill The '50s In Medias Res Papa Wolf Logo Joke Daylight Horror Ambiguous Disorder The Stoic Men Are the Expendable Gender War Is Hell Berserk Button Punch-Clock Villain Improbable Aiming Skills Italian Films Fatal Flaw I'm a Humanitarian The Lost Lenore Improbable Infant Survival aka: Infant Immortality Chekhov's Gun Shut Up, Hannibal! Offscreen Moment of Awesome Butt-Monkey Hidden Depths Red Right Hand "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue Faking the Dead Roger Ebert: Great Movies List Artistic License – History Spanner in the Works Crapsack World Car Fu The Remake Biopic Deus ex Machina Bound and Gagged Storming the Castle Downer Ending Poor Communication Kills Action Survivor Does Not Like Shoes The Voiceless Title Drop Documentary Badass Longcoat Easily Forgiven Not Using the "Z" Word Asshole Victim Take That! An Axe to Grind Nice Hat Air-Vent Passageway Dirty Old Man Plucky Comic Relief Fingore Only One Name Red Herring Would Hit a Girl Big Fancy House Camp Gay Music Stories Brother–Sister Incest Unspoken Plan Guarantee Four-Temperament Ensemble B-Movie Taking You with Me Bloody Hilarious Big "NO!" Early-Bird Cameo Took a Level in Badass Motor Mouth Gorn No OSHA Compliance Lampshade Hanging Imagine Spot Fatal Family Photo Hate Sink I Did What I Had to Do Mexican Standoff Villain with Good Publicity Manchild Chuck Cunningham Syndrome Aww, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other The Ghost Film Series French Films Annoying Younger Sibling Villainous Breakdown Fate Worse than Death Sequel Hook Good Is Not Nice Foil Cool Shades The Cameo Knight Templar Stealth Pun Shirtless Scene Redemption Equals Death Sealed Evil in a Can Dissonant Serenity As Himself Room Full of Crazy Thriller Everyone Has Standards Henpecked Husband Tranquil Fury Not What It Looks Like Continuity Nod Gone Horribly Right The Faceless Face–Heel Turn Mythology Gag Pragmatic Adaptation Psychological Thriller Didn't Think This Through Protagonist Title Funny Background Event Broken Aesop Never My Fault Big-Bad Ensemble More Dakka Frame-Up Badass Boast Wham Shot The End... Or Is It? Dark Action Girl Humiliation Conga Chewing the Scenery It's All About Me Broken Bird Fantastic Racism Peek-a-Boo Corpse Not So Above It All Death by Sex Insane Troll Logic A Minor Kidroduction Race Lift The Reveal Sole Survivor The Casanova Last-Name Basis Evil Counterpart Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane Malevolent Masked Men Ambiguously Gay Hollywood Law I Need a Freaking Drink Adapted Out Kick the Son of a Bitch Break the Haughty Gratuitous English Nice Job Fixing It, Villain! Important Haircut Male Gaze Empathic Environment What the Hell, Hero? Those Two Guys Distracted by the Sexy Dark Reprise Not So Different Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping Mind Screw Daddy's Girl Badass Normal Television Movie Index Accidental Murder Hero of Another Story Dying Moment of Awesome Bare Your Midriff She's Got Legs Reasonable Authority Figure Woman Scorned Covers Always Lie Knife Nut Cat Fight Bar Brawl Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy One-Word Title Madness Mantra Man on Fire Male Frontal Nudity The Chessmaster Names to Run Away from Really Fast Training Montage Grievous Bottley Harm "Awesome McCool" Name Ragtag Bunch of Misfits Manly Tears Genre Shift Wham Line