Moral Event Horizon/Western Animation

"Abe: Take the art if you want, just don't hurt the boy!

Burns: I'd rather do both."

- The Simpsons, "Curse of the Flying Hellfish"

"Burns: Don't kill me.
 * The Simpsons has "Curse of the Flying Hellfish," where it's revealed that Mr. Burns and Abe Simpson are the two surviving members of their unit from World War 2, and that the last surviving member would get a case of old paintings stolen from German homes during the war. When Burns tries to have Abe killed, Bart convinces Abe to get the case instead of letting Burns get it. When they actually arrive at the location of the case, Burns shows up too and takes the paintings at gunpoint. When Bart calls Burns a coward and an embarrassment to the name Hellfish, Burns points the gun at Bart's head. Abe says Burns can take the paintings so long as he does not hurt the boy. Burns says he would rather do both, and then kicks Bart into the empty case hard enough to send the case falling into the water, and then boats away saying "so long, Sarge, see you at the reunion in November!" In other words, Burns attempts to drown a child, (even though he could have taken the art without doing so) for no apparent reason other than that the child insulted him. Furthermore, Burns gets away with said murder attempts too. And when Abe corners Burns...

Abe: I ain't gonna kill ya. That'd be cowardly. Monty Burns cowardly."

"Freeze: Perhaps the surrogate son? (points freezegun at Tim Drake) No. Better the surrogate father. (freezes Alfred)"
 * Also, in an earlier The Simpsons episode, "Crepes of Wrath," Bart is treated like a slave by two mean winemakers in France. At first, this is amusing as we see Bart get what's coming to him for his brattiness. However, it fades when you see Bart sleeping with nothing so much as a blanket after reading a letter from his mother as the abuse he is suffering begins to sink in. When the winemakers finally force Bart to drink wine doctored with antifreeze, putting him in real danger of being killed or blinded, the louts sail over the moral line and all your sympathy goes to the boy, which makes his eventual escape and revenge all so sweet.
 * Sideshow Bob in all of his appearences tried to kill Bart, but he finally crossed the line when he.
 * The Preschool Teacher's treatment of Bart, as seen in "Lisa's Sax". THIS IS THE REASON why Bart is Bart today. What makes it worse is that Bart was just five years old and her actions made Bart actually consider suicide. Until the "Boys of the Bummer" this was probably the worst line crossing moment in the series.
 * None of these actions compare to what entire population of Springfield did to Bart in "Boys of the Bummer". It is THE WORST Moral Event Horizon crossing in the series and it makes other crossing the line moments in the series look harmless. They cruelly treated Bart simply over a lousy baseball game and even after Bart tried to commit suicide they didn't stop abusing him. They almost crossed Complete Monster territory and only narrowly averted it because they apologised to Bart and Marge called them out on their cruelty. Despite that they shown regret for it (or maybe perhaps of it), it is the most evil Moral Event Horizon in the entire series.
 * Some could also argue that Homer's Flanderization into a Jerk Ass was sealed in "Kidney Trouble". Grandpa has a LOT of water at a "Old West" attraction. While he is desperate for a restroom, Homer refuses to stop, so he can get home for "F. Muarry Abraham". So, Abes kidneys pop, and he needs a kidney from his son. Homer seems willing to relent, but then he learns that, with his booze intake, his other kidney will go. So, just as he is about to go under, he learns that with one kidney, he won't be able to "drink himself stupid", so he flees. He then goes onto a ship of lost souls. EVEN THE SOULS THINK WHAT HE DID WAS WRONG. He goes back and almost goes under again. But... he flees. Again. He gets into
 * From the episode "Postcards from the Wedge", Bart decides to manipulate Homer's newfound strictness and Marge's caring eye to try and seperate them. Why? To get off of homework. While it's probably not the WORST behavior he has committed, Lisa declaring that he is "now officially a sociopath" may seal this as a Moral Event Horizon.
 * Your Mileage May Vary, but what Bart did in "Homer The Father" was one of his worse actions. Bart wants to get a mini-bike, but Homer refuses to give him one. What does Bart decide to do?, thus   just to get some stupid mini-bike. However, after Homer buys Bart a mini-bike, Bart feels bad about what he did. This was so bad that Bart felt bad about doing it, but he only felt remorse when Homer bought him a mini-bike, not because Bart realized that he put his own country in danger.
 * South Park: Cartman went over in the chili incident, with his Evil Plan against Scott Tenorman. He's done lots of evil things since, varying in their badness, but this was pretty much where most viewers decided that it was no longer in-character for him to perform an act of selflessness, and many others decided that he is and always will be a complete and utter sociopath.
 * An example of crossing the horizon without being a Complete Monster is Butters' parents in "Jared Has Aides". After they both beat their son at the same time (and from the sounds of it, the event was pretty savage), it was generally agreed that they are, while not certifiably evil, not good parents. This opinion didn't change even after the episode "My Future Self And Me" when they promised never to beat him again.
 * Danny Phantom played it oddly straight with Danny's alternate future. The whole "Dark Danny creation" scene was horrific and it horrified even Vlad, which really says something. Also see Dark Danny's first appearance where he apparently kills multiple people on screen. Ax Crazy, indeed.
 * Vlad got his own crossing of the Moral Event Horizon when he treated Danielle as less than human.
 * Return of the Joker gives the Clown Prince of Crime a rather infamous line-crossing moment:
 * The Batman has their version of the Joker cross the line.
 * Even for the Joker, the events of Return of the Joker was extreme. He was already dangerous and psychopathic, but the very nature of how he did it turned him into someone that had to be destroyed as far as DCAU is concerned. Not even Harley Quinn gets a get out free card after even helping with that.
 * Even Mark Hamill who had been voicing the Joker for years at this point, felt uncomfortable with the role this time.
 * Long before that, there was his serial murder spree (complete with victim photos) using laughing gas in one of the earlier Gotham Knights episodes.
 * In Season 4 of Winx Club, Ogron, the leader of the Sorcerers of the Black Circle, recently got to this dreaded point of no return. This single act caused, and marked the point where the Sorcerors of the Black Circle sunk to a low no other Winx Club villain ever reached.
 * The Trix also cross the line several times. Darcy crosses it when she attempts to murder Musa for liking the same guy (who incidentally, Darcy didn't really love but at best viewed him as a boy toy), Icy crosses it when she tries to murder Bloom's parents in a twisted Batman Gambit designed to weaken her (which works) before cruelly revealing her true origins and joining her sisters in a needless No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on Bloom before taking her powers, and Stormy crosses it when she tries to murder Musa's father just because Musa beat her with a raindance.
 * While the Shredder has always been the closest thing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) has to a Complete Monster, his personal Moral Event Horizon comes in the episode "Mission of Gravity", when he orders his lieutenants to steal the Triceraton engine holding the city of Beijing aloft miles above the earth, despite the fact that doing so would naturally doom the millions trapped within it. It was possible to remove the engine without killing anyone, but he didn't care.
 * In an example of crossing the Moral Event Horizon without becoming a Complete Monster, when Leonardo saves Karai from falling her to her death, she stabs him from behind with his own katana when he would have let her go in the spaceship anyway. This is one of the things that leads him to tell her she is just as bad as the Shredder. It can be argued that every decent thing she did after that was just self-preservation.
 * Timmy Turner's parents from The Fairly Odd Parents pretty much cross this as the series continues. They go from busy and clueless to extremely negligent parents.
 * It's a similar thing with Vicky. She's always been portrayed as an antagonist, but in the beginnings of the series she was just an annoying, bossy babysitter that wanted nothing to do with Timmy. She's grown into a totally sadistic psychopath since then.
 * Phineas and Ferb: If Doofenshmirtz's parents (who forced him to stand outside for hours on end with no food, never were at his birthday parties, possibly caused him to smell like pork, disowned him and forced him to live with ocelots, ignored him in favor of their second son and a dog, forced him to wear dresses, and never let him watch music videos. Ironically, they seem to have ruined everything except Christmas) seem to have crossed this line already. Some fans consider them monsters already. It's gotten to the point where being raised by ocelots is seen by some fans as an improvement. Unfortunately, he ended up coming back to his parents, probably...
 * You forgot not being there for his birth.
 * Oh wait, I forgot the Take That given to the Moral Guardians in Phineas And Ferb's Quantum Boogaloo: In "Phineas and Ferb's Quantum Boogaloo", the Knight Templar Moral Guardians outlaw all fun and creativity. While that could be fairly easily chalked up to being Well-Intentioned Extremist, stuffing their own children into tiny capsules until adulthood is just plain sickening, no matter what the intent. That just ain't right, man.
 * Doof's Alternate Dimension counterpart in the movie did this as well. It was bad enough he transformed his version of Perry into a cyborg soldier, but when he took over his version of the tri-state area, he transformed it into a dystopia controlled by robots, then he really got there when he tried to feed Phineas, Ferb, Perry, Candace, and his own dimensional counterpart to a monster called a Goozim. Thankfully, the fact that he was just as quirky and ultimately redeemable as the other Doofensmirtz kept him from entering Complete Monster territory.
 * While very rare on Kim Possible, it could be said that Drakken crossed a minimal one when he created a synthodrone to mess with Kim's feelings.
 * Monkey Fist played it even straighter in the fourth season. Attempting to murder and/or kidnap a child is bad enough, but he made a Deal with the Devil, or rather, a demonic monkey being in order to command it. Some could say that his Taken for Granite death was well deserved.
 * In the first season finale of Avatar: The Last Airbender, Admiral Zhao crosses this when he  It hadn't even done anything to him: he wanted to make a name for himself so that he would be remembered by history forever, but as Iroh told him, "History isn't always kind to its subjects."
 * Azula  in the season 2 finale is either her Moral Event Horizon, her Moment of Awesome, or both. On the one hand, she'd be stupid not to do it, since this is an important battle in a war and all. On the other hand, the sadistic pleasure she took in it was...rather unnecessary. But then again, it IS Azula.
 * Fire Lord Ozai started at this and just kept running. After his son disrespected one of his generals in the war room, he burned his face and sent him on a Snipe Hunt. When Zuko mouthed off to him years later, he tried to kill him with lightning. Still, villains have been redeemed from worse. What truly defines him as a Complete Monster is his utter excitement at carrying out his plan in the finale, which is to
 * He gets one of these moments earlier in the finale, too. Azula had been completely loyal to him, and even helped him think up his current plan by suggesting burning the Earth Kingdom land to end a revolt (which he ) He then rewards her by promoting her to Fire Lord... right before promoting himself to Phoenix King, rendering the position of Fire Lord entirely powerless. It's entirely clear that he intended this to be an as-cruel-as-possible You Have Outlived Your Usefulness. She gets the position she's always wanted... and is rendered completely impotent for it.
 * Moral Event Horizon crossing seems to have been a family trait since Sozin's day: Sozin, and Azulon would only allow Ozai to become the heir if  . Zuko could have easily become just like that if it weren't for the guidance of Iroh.
 * And let's not forget Long Feng, the Earth Kingdom's Evil Chancellor, who
 * Hama has every reason to be sympathetic: she was stolen from her tribe, kept locked up in a prison that took every precaution to prevent her from bending, and kept there for decades. In fact, she uses this information to garner Katara's sympathy, then reveals that she escaped by bending the blood in the bodies of the guards, and is now using this same power to herd innocent civilians to a mountain where she keeps them prisoner out of blind revenge. And then she tries to forcibly teach Katara the technique, and sends her into an Heroic BSOD by using her bloodbending power to manipulate Aang and Sokka into fighting a panicking Katara. She serves as a reminder that even the most innocent people in a war can become no better than those who persecute them if pushed far enough.
 * In Sequel Series The Legend of Korra, episode "When Extremes Meet", Councilman Tarrlok crosses it when he captures civilian nonbenders on Equalist suspicions, arrests the new Team Avatar for trying to help them, and to top all off, bloodbends Korra and has her exiled from Republic City.
 * Dr. Rockso, hitherto one of the most popular characters in Metalocalypse, crossed this when he stole the Christmas presents Toki got for everyone, hocked them for cocaine money, then received a handjob on live television while bragging about his drug addiction, and getting Karma Houdinied because Toki experienced Diabolus Ex Machina before he could beat up Dr. Rockso.
 * At the end of the second season of Re Boot, Megabyte and Hexidecimal team up with Bob to stop the Web Creature invasion. However, near the end of the episode Megabyte launches Bob into the Web and takes over Mainframe.
 * That's not really the Moral Event Horizon for Megabyte, since he didn't kill Bob. The real moment for Megabyte is when he  simply for amusement.
 * Peter Griffin from Family Guy, according to some people, went from lovable oafish jerk, to cruel sociopathic douche bag either when he  or when.
 * Bertram tries to prevent Stewie's existence by going back in time and killing his ancestor, Leonardo DaVinci. This is bad, because Stewie When Stewie warns him of this, he decides to kill DaVinci anyway. If it wasn't for, Bertram
 * In the episode "Be Careful What you Fish For", Stewie shows Brian what horrible conditions the preschool is in (kids gambling, a dead body, and a pedophile abducting a child to name a few) and asks him to talk to Emily, the teacher about it. When Brian sees her, he instantly is attracted to her and decides to date her instead. Brain then makes excuses on why the teacher isn't that bad while he ignores what Stewie has to endure in the preschool. Things get more questionable when Stewie comes home with his arm out of its socket because Emily pulled on it too hard when she pulled Stewie for back talking to her.Brian then tries to shut Stewie up when he tries to tell Lois what is going on. In the end, Brian does call the cops on Emily, but only because she had a boyfriend already.
 * It is uncertain when Mr. Krabs crossed the Moral Event Horizon, but at least 3 moments are potential candidates for this. The first is feeding his customers pure grease purely for profit. Second is exploiting Plankton's fear of whales by dressing as his daughter, Pearl, and threatening to eat him. He harassed Plankton so much, he was literally suicidal afterwards. Third is when Gary swallowed a kitchen magnet and could attract coins, so Krabs dragged him around town, continuously injuring Gary with the bombardment of magnetically attracted coins, all the while stealing from people. Finally, when we saw how injured Gary had became, Krabs didn't care and said he looked fine and went to attract a wave of coins before Spongebob arrived.
 * In the pre-Seasonal Rot episodes, he might have crossed it in "Jellyfish Hunter" where he tricked Spongebob into catching jellyfish for him, and proceeded to extract their jelly from them in a cruel, painful way. Unlike most later episodes though, he recieves his comeuppance for this.
 * Don't forget "Patty Caper" when he tried to frame Spongebob for stealing a $1.99 secret ingredient. However, likewise, at least in that episode he recieved a comeuppance.
 * All this pales in comparison to Plankton stealing King Neptune's crown and framing Mr. Krabs in The Movie. If you think what Krabs did post-Seasonal Rot mitigates the effects Plankton's actions had on you (likely to be the case if you saw the post-Seasonal Rot episodes before you saw The Movie; in the pre-Seasonal Rot, Krabs never attempted to have Plankton killed), then you won't be feeling sorry for Plankton any longer when he takes over Bikini Bottom, turning it into a hellhole. If you saw that before seeing any of the Seasonal Rot, you'd most likely side with Krabs from the start of the rot. See the Animated Film section for details.
 * An example from the Seasonal Rot era itself would be the sale of Squidward to repo men.
 * The Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy series for the last few minutes of it,  crossed this when he began to mercilessly beat the shit out of , and freely admit he's always done this to him.
 * Some - if not all - of the many things that the Justice Lords (counterparts of the Justice League) did in A Better World. Lord Green Lantern when attacking League Lantern attempted to stab in League Lantern's neck for his first move. Not trying to disarm him or to knock him out. He chose to go immediately for the kill. From the DVD commentary, the writers did that on purpose so that it showed that the Justice Lords while having good intentions, they ultimately are truly villains who deserve to be defeated.
 * In the same episode, Lord Superman had Flash by the neck with Flash trying to appeal to any remaining good in him. Also, keep in mind that  However, Lord Superman coolly told him that "one more won't hurt", that this universe's Flash's death was just another means to an end. This contrasts him with the more-redeemable Lord Batman, who is visibly horrified when he thinks Flash's heart has stopped.
 * The true Start of Darkness is probably when
 * A minor villain John Dee in the episode "Only A Dream", where he "operated" on his wife in her dreams, torturing her until she died of fright, shortly after he had found out that she was planning to leave him for another man.
 * Orm tried to kill his brother's infant son. His brother did not take it well. At all.
 * In Total Drama World Tour, Blaineley already crossed the Moral Event Horizon when sending Bridgette agianst her will (and presumably while knocked out) to Siberia just to get out of doing a world tour and she ends up caught in a monstrous blizzard, a black bear who ends up nearly mauling her to death and one really angry Blainley fan. To refrain Geoff from losing his mind, he showed embarrassing clips of Blaineley making her look bad.
 * In The Cleveland Show, after Rallo almost drowns and blackmails Cleveland for it, Cleveland dunks Rallo's head in the pool twice just so Rallo would stop bossing him around.
 * Although he's not nearly as bad as Cleveland or Peter, Stan from American Dad has had his own share of event horizon crossing. Although this is primarily early on, as Stan has upgraded to Jerk with a Heart of Gold after a while. This is somewhat ironic, as Stan was originally made to be a contemptible jerk, but eventually became a little more benign...albeit ignorant and lacking in foresight. Peter and Cleveland on the other hand, started out as well meaning buffoons but ended up becoming horrible people.
 * Peter's most notable MEH is when he admits that he physically abused Chris and Meg all the time when they were infants when Meg eventually revealed that they had accidentally given Stewie a head injury. If he got caught, he'd blame it on Lois.
 * Vilgax in Ben 10, after getting a valuable crystal, murders the entire planet for no reason. They weren't doing any harm to him, he fired on the planet for no reason other than to test just how powerful the crystal is, and shows no regrets.
 * In Ultimate Alien, Aggregor did this onscreen by  However, he could be considered to have already crossed it when
 * Defying Villain Decay, Zombozo crosses this by
 * Colonel Rozum imprisoning 775 aliens in a horrible underground prison for over five decades, many of whom likely did nothing wrong. Prisoner 775 for example was exiled to Earth by an alien tyrant who he was trying to save his planet from. He told Rozum this, multiple times and they didn't listen. The only thing keeping this guy from being a Complete Monster is his love for his family.
 * Prisoner 775 himself has one. Once he escapes, he intends to exact his revenge against Rozum. A viewer might not condone it, but could certainly understand his reasoning for revenge against just Rozum. Problem is, 775's targets expand to Rozum's whole family. They had absolutely nothing to do with his captivity, and he knows it. He just wants to kill them to make Rozum suffer. This may have been an intentional crossing of this on his part, as in the end
 * Word of God comments made online actually seem to indicate that
 * Captain Nemesis crosses the line in "To Catch a Falling Star"
 * As of the second episode of the second season, Archer has  Even Archer himself feels bad about it, if it has any permanent damaging side effects.
 * Murdoc constantly teetered on the line between Jerkass and Complete Monster, but he finally crossed it when he kidnapped and imprisoned 2D. It wouldn't be quite so bad if not for all the horrific undertones of the drugging, incarceration and physical abuse. Granted, 2D was never the bravest or keenest individual, but he was always pretty harmless. Murdoc's brutality and the constant isolation have all but broken the singer, and it's around that point that Murdoc bridged the Moral Event Horizon.
 * Clay Puppington crossed the line in "Nature part 2" the moment he shot Orel, his own son, in the leg. How does he feel about it? No regret. Even if there are two episodes showing of how did he become the bad father to be, there is no sympathy.
 * Though he had previously been sympathetic, Mr. Freeze crossed the line when, even after his wife's life has been saved during the events of Sub-Zero, he decides to take his anger out on other people by destroying what they love since he feels he can't go back to her. Though his behavior up to this point had been petty and cruel, this really seals the deal:
 * Though he had previously been sympathetic, Mr. Freeze crossed the line when, even after his wife's life has been saved during the events of Sub-Zero, he decides to take his anger out on other people by destroying what they love since he feels he can't go back to her. Though his behavior up to this point had been petty and cruel, this really seals the deal:


 * X-Men: Evolution had one for most of the villains:
 * Avalanche tried to kill Kitty in their first episode after an episode of emotional manipulation, and possibly killed hundreds of students when he destroyed the school. It took a whole season, if not more, to have him portrayed in a somewhat more sympathetic way;
 * Pietro had his when he had a train derailed for the purpose of pretending to save people, and upon finding out that if they fail hundreds will die, including himself, he runs away and leaves those trapped, and potentially the entire town, to die. And keep in mind that he knew his Brotherhood friends and his sister were there, and he left them there anyway;
 * Toad stole Kurt's image inducer -- not that bad, until you remember that he purposely chose to do it while Kurt was meeting with his girlfriend Amanda's parents, ruining his chance at making them like him.
 * Magneto had it when he had his own daughter Wanda mindraped, just so she'd stay away from him. Said mindrape took place via replacing her memories of him abandoning her in a mental insitution, which is what made her become a Dark Magical Girl in the first place, into loving memories that made her forget his abuse;
 * Mystique when she tried to kill the New Recruits, for literally no reason other than them being unable to fight Magneto. And she did it again via kidnapping Scott, stealing his Power Limiter aka his ruby quartz glasses, and leaving him stranded in the middle of nowhere
 * Apocalypse's was the plot of the finale: To turn everyone into mutants, knowing that most would die in the process due to the nature of it.
 * In My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic, in part one of the "Return Of Harmony" two-parter, Discord had already been dog-kicking when he was manipulating the mane cast into not trusting each other, but at least that was primarily through persuasion., on the other hand, was even worse. If by part two you're still clinging to the idea that Discord hasn't crossed this, odds are will probably destroy any semblence of morality you might still see in him.
 * Cadence crossed this by
 * And this after letting an Twilight think
 * In WITCH, you have a number of villains, but one who could easily stand out is Nerissa. Where Prince Phobos was already a Smug Snake, Nerissa started out as a normal woman, no, Guardian. But, she got a little too attached to the Heart of Candracar and was forced to hand it over to her dear friend Cassidy. When Cassidy refused to return it, Nerissa struck her down in a fit of anger. She would spend the next generation plotting Phobos' downfall so she can take over, armed with as many Hearts as possible, going on a dog-kicking spree "for the good of the universe".
 * In Transformers Prime, Megatron and then gloats about it. He was only attacking Bumblebee at first and may not have known, but when he found out what he'd really done, his reaction takes away any fragment of good left in him.
 * An earlier episode has Arcee avert this. She ends up having Starscream on the ground begging for mercy after a fight and then prepares to murder Starscream as an act of venegence. However when she sees that Bumblebee is seeing this she realizes her mistake and lets Starscream go.
 * In the third season of Jem, Eric Raymond crossed it when he destroyed the master tapes to the music of Jacqui Benton, Jerrica's mother. Keep in mind that instead of meeting either Eric's demands (either one million dollars for the tapes or controlling interest in Starlight Music), Jerrica asked that Eric just return them, hoping that there was still some shred of humanity left in him...
 * The Misfits crossed it in The Fan, where they cause poor Jerrica to have a *serious* mental breakdown.
 * In Star Wars: The Clone Wars a Zygeerian slaver wants makes sure Obi-Wan obeys his command,
 * Though he isn't no where as near to the Devil in The Bible, The Red Guy crosses this in one of the episodes in which Chicken wanted to get a job, and worked for him. The only catch was
 * Futurama: Zapp Brannigan is a grade-A Jerkass, putting himself above others and commanding suicide missions. However, some may argue that he crossed the line in The Beast With a Billion Backs. Kif dies as a result of trying to go against the Dimensional portal Yivo. After hiding in a shack with Amy and Leela, Zapp begins "reminiscing" about Kif. Zapp then SLEEPS WITH AMY. So, yeah, the jerk literally used a widow's husband's death.... to get laid.
 * In Thundercats 2011, the act that cements Mumm-Ra's evil happened in the backstory to create the metal needed to forge the Sword of Plundaar. It even acted as one in-universe. This heinous act convinced Leo that Mumm-Ra was not the visionary bringer of order to the universe that Leo thought he was but a monster that needed to be stopped.