Even Evil Has Standards/Literature

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"I am evil, but I am not cruel to animals. There's a special Hell reserved for those who are."
 * In the HIVE Series about a school of evil villains, villians like Dr Nero disprove of needless violence when it comes to being evil.
 * Tom Walker in Washington Irving's story The Devil and Tom Walker is pretty much lacking in redeeming qualities, but when he first makes his Deal with the Devil and the Devil proposes that he serve him through the slave trade, Tom immediately refuses, saying he won't have anything to do with that. He then eagerly accepts the Devil's second proposal, which is that he become a ruthless Loan Shark who ruins the lives of those around him. It's been suggested that this might have been meant satirically toward the stereotypical Northern businessman, who like Tom, was a greedy, unscrupulous miser, but abhorred slavery.
 * The Mallorean has a deeply chilling example in the fourth book. Belgarion finds a prophecy written by Torak, the villain of the first series. It reveals exactly what Zandramas, the current Big Bad, is planning (in essence, creating a new god of darkness). At the end, Torak has added a personal message to Belgarion... which says, in part, "If you're reading this, you've already destroyed me. What is foretold in these pages is an abomination. Do not let it come to pass." As Belgarath notes, Torak was stunned out of his madness long enough to feel revulsion at what he foresaw.
 * Made even more disturbing by the fact that stopping Zandramas' plan could eventually force Belgarion to
 * A less serious example is the spies within Drasnia making it a point to not spy on Queen Porenn when she's breast feeding her baby. Naturally Porenn uses this time to talk with her chief spy in total privacy by dressing him as one of her maids.
 * Also in his Elenium novels, after being talked into helping the newly restored Queen officialy, Platime (who was the leader of all the criminals in the country) agrees so long as he's given a full pardon, when asked for what crimes, he admits to commiting every crime except barratry and treason, and the barratry was only because he didn't know what it was.
 * Barratry, treason and carnal knowledge of an animal, actually.
 * Terry Pratchett likes doing this in Discworld, especially with his Assassins' Guild. Like Leon, they do not accept contracts to "inhume" women or children, nor do they ever work for free, and they cannot accept contracts on someone who cannot defend himself (though "rich enough to hire bodyguards" qualifies as "capable of defending himself").
 * In Witches Abroad it's stated that Genua's branch of Assassins all left years ago because "some things sicken even jackals".
 * In Hogfather the head of the Ankh-Morpork branch is horrified by the excesses of Psychopathic Manchild Jonathan Teatime and frightened by his unpredictable actions. Teatime later hires a bunch of criminals who are also scared and repelled by him; they did kill people, but unlike Teatime, only when it was neccessary.
 * Fittingly for this trope, the scene that introduces Teatime notes that Lord Downey, leader of the Assassins Guild, does not have actual morals, but he does have standards. Teatime... doesn't.
 * In Guards Guards, the dragon is rather disturbed by Lupin Wonse's plan to use human psychology so that the citizens of Ankh-Morpork will begin to grow used to the idea of having to sacrifice young maidens to the dragon, and bluntly replies to Wonse that dragons "never burned and tortured and ripped one another apart and called it morality."
 * That is to say that dragons did burn and torture and rip one another apart, they just never called it a "good" thing or try to excuse it.
 * In Going Postal this is part of Moist's reason for going against Gilt. Admittedly, Moist is more of a Loveable Rogue to Gilt's Corrupt Corporate Executive.
 * Moist also abhors violence (not only the violence done to him, but doing any violence himself to try to prevent it being done to him, to the extent that he absolutely refuses to carry weapons of any kind) while Gilt has no qualms about having people brutally murdered right and left and employs a particularly terrifying killer to do it for him.
 * We also learn that Igors have a tradition (and rules about) making a break for it when The Marthter starts going off the deep end. You make sure the larder is full and everything is all tidy before you go, and it is, apparently, permissible (but not encouraged) to suggest that other, particularly likable servants might like to take a holiday in a different town right now. (Igors know that there's no percentage in being around when the pitchforks and torches come out.)
 * Also, with the Assassins' Guild: Sir Samuel Vimes asks one of their assassins, after having failed (for the nth time) to kill Vimes at his booby trapped home, why they just don't shoot him down in the street. The assassin is horrified, "Like a common criminal?"
 * Further to that, Vimes finds out in a later book that he's been taken off the register. Aside from being slightly disappointed at that at wondering if he can appeal, he reflects that the Assassins only take someone off the books if killing them would cause too much political chaos (Vetinari being the only other person they will not accept a contract on).
 * They seem to have found another use for him though,.
 * In Carpe Jugulum, the Magpyrs' Igor gets increasingly fed up with not only their lack of respect for vampiric tradition, but their condescending Social Darwinist attitude, complaining constantly that "the old marther" never went as far as the current bunch. This eventually drives him to side with the witches.
 * There's also the Thieves' Guild, which takes a very hostile attitude towards unlicensed theft. The Guild also requires thieves to stamp a receipt for the "customer", so the same people aren't hit too often or for too much.
 * In The Fifth Elephant, It's insinuated that even Serefine von Uberwald was horrified by some of the actions of her son Wolfgang, which included and
 * Thud! has Chrysophrase of the troll mob, who doesn't deal in drugs. Well, not any more. And not the bad drugs, the kind that kill their users or cause them to become psychotic. Commander Vimes isn't impressed. Also during that book, one of his goons makes the mistake of making an indirect threat toward Vimes's family ("He knows where I live." "Yeah, he does."). Later, Chrysophrase says the threat was not on his orders, and the offending goon has been...dealt with, and incidentally would Vimes like a rockery for his garden?
 * In Eric, Astfgl's attempts to run Hell like a corporation disgust even the other demons.
 * In the James Bond book and movie On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Marc-Ange Draco, head of the Unione Corse, the biggest European crime syndicate, is an okay guy because he doesn't traffic in drugs. Murder, extortion, protection rackets, female slavery, those are fine; but drugs? No. The real Unione Corse does deal in drugs.
 * It's stated in Good Omens that even demons find certain actions unthinkable, including using holy water on another demon. Ironically, Noble Demon Crowley is the one who crosses that line, though it's done to save his hide more than anything else. Later on, Crowley rejects the idea of tormenting Hastur by playing the tape he's trapped on in his Bentley until he becomes a Queen song (It Makes Sense in Context) because even a demon can only sink so far.
 * There was also an earlier scene where Crowley reminisces about how he found out about the Spanish Inquisition--he was in Spain at the time, and Hell gave him a commendation for it. When he saw them in action and realized humans had done it all by themselves without any influence from hell, he drank himself into a stupor.
 * Demons like Crowley also have this view about Satanists. Most of them (like the Sister Mary and the other nuns) are actually harmless--having been raised in the faith for generations they're basically like your average non-observant Christian, acting ordinary six days per week and then attending a token black sabbath without being particularly devout. Some Satanists, on the other hand, like the ones you sometimes hear about on the news...
 * In IT, bully Henry Bowers and his fellow gang members just barely allow Patrick Hocksetter to hang with them, even though he fucking terrifies them. Bowers eventually has enough and tells Hocksetter that he's quite well aware of the abandoned fridge that he kills animals with, which eventually leads to Hocksetter getting attacked and devoured by It.
 * Henry's cronies Victor Criss and "Belch" Huggins are fine with beating up smaller kids, but they are shocked when Henry tries to carve his name on Ben's stomach with a knife (though this maybe has more to do with them being afraid of getting in trouble than moral objections). Victor also has an internal monologue in which he's fine with putting fireworks in Mike's shoes, but using the powerful ones that could blow his feet off is going Too Far.
 * In Layer Cake, one of the gangster characters has a sex shop as a "legitimate front" and has a practice that if anyone asks for child pornography, he will arrange a covert meeting and then will beat them to within an inch of their life.
 * In the original Gaston Leroux novel The Phantom of the Opera, Christine expects the Phantom to rape her during her two abductions, but he actually has the decency to respect her privacy and honor. This after he has murdered a number of innocent people, especially via his penchant for hanging traps.
 * In Harry Potter, Sirius Black's evil, pureblood-maniac parents, who disowned Sirius (after he ran away) when he was sixteen, didn't join Voldemort because they thought he was going too far. Sirius's own brother, Regulus, did join Voldemort, but then turns against him.
 * Godelot Sr, writer of Magick Moste Evile, wouldn't touch the subject of Horcruxes. The notes in Tales of Beedle the Bard indicate that he was a Card-Carrying Villain.
 * Apparently, the Malfoys, even though they have established themselves as pure-blood fanatics and were initially supportive of Voldemort's cause, or at least cowed into supporting it, drew the line when Voldemort decided to try and have Draco Malfoy killed as his way of punishing Lucius for his failure in the raid of the Department of Mysteries, and eventually got so fed up, that as soon as Harry told Lucius and Narcissa that Draco is still alive in the seventh book, they deliberately lied to Voldemort about Harry Potter being dead and contributed quite a bit to Voldemort's downfall as a result.
 * This is Even Evil Has Loved Ones with a dose of Moral Myopia not Even Evil Has Standards. We never see anything to indicate that the Malfoys would give a rats ass about Voldemort murdering anyone elses children, in fact we know that they don't.
 * On a lesser scale, Harry's aunt Petunia was a close-minded bigot who considered all wizards (including her sister and nephew) abominations and mistreat Harry to no end; nevertheless, she still accepted him in her family in order to protect him from certain death, thus exposing her family to considerable danger, raised him as a normal-functioning child (aside from the aformentioned mistreatment) and never rejected him despite the incessant torrent of calamities that befell her family.
 * Voldemort hates the needless murder of pure-blood wizards. He also had one with Harry for sacrificing his friends in the battle of Hogwarts.
 * Terry Pratchett does this again in Nation, where even cannibals revile First Mate Cox.
 * Sam from Villains by Necessity could be a poster child for this trope. An assassin, who is explicitly stated by the text to be an agent of Evil, Sam still refuses to kill anybody who isn't his target while on an assignment. He also refuses to steal from his targets, and hates rapists so much that they are the one exception to the above no killing rule. Of course, this is in a book where the villains are the good guys, so it all works out rather well.
 * In Tales of the Bounty Hunters, an anthology in the Star Wars Expanded Universe, there's a Boba Fett story. Apparently Jabba gives Leia to the bounty hunter for the night, as a reward. Fett is disgusted by this, but doesn't send her back. He gives her the bed and stands near the door, and tells her that sex before marriage is immoral and Han Solo is evil for smuggling spice--spice, in Star Wars, being anything from a drug to a rare medicine to an unusual food additive. Leia calls him out on this--one, he's a bounty hunter, essentially assassinating people for the prices on their heads, and two, he's working for Jabba the Hutt, who does a lot worse. Fett says that morality does not enter into that, because what he does is legal. Leia doesn't press it.
 * This may be more Pragmatic Villainy. Think about it--would you like to get up close and personal with a well-established Action Girl who watched while you deep-froze their Love Interest for delivery to a crime lord who then spent a year using them as a wall ornament? Not to mention that Fett puts great stock in concealing his identity.
 * Retcon and Values Dissonance with a side of Fridge Brilliance: Mandalorian culture places a heavy emphasis on marriage, family, children, and staying battle-ready at all times. To rape someone means you might father a child that you neglect to raise as Mando'a, making you da'buir (no longer a father), which is an unforgivable sin to them.
 * In Allegiance, the heroic Mara Jade does not generally get on well with Darth Vader, who always suspects her of trying to replace him. Still, she's got a much rockier relationship with the Imperial Security Bureau, saying in the narration that she knows that they are a Necessary Evil, but there's all too much evil and not enough necessary. And they do go after a stormtrooper for refusing to kill unarmed civilians; plus, they try to kill her. At the end of the book, while they're trading warnings, Mara sees that Vader doesn't like the ISB either, though probably for very different reasons.
 * Kirtan Loor has a couple moments like this. He's petty, puffed up, and vindictive, but when Isard talks about how the Krytos plague will decimate the Sullustans to such an extent that it might be best if they set aside some breeding stock for when the plague has run its course, Loor is taken aback and feels uneasy. The narration says that while he does consider Sullustans to be inferior, talking about them like they're grain to be poisoned for rats, with some pristine kernels held back, is a bit much. He's also sickened in General Derricote's plague lab when he sees the disease working on test subjects, and orders what he assumes to be a stricken mother and child to be taken away and cured, although he does hastily tell the General that this is part of the plan to drain the New Republic's resources. Later he becomes the leader of a terrorism front that detonates speeders filled with explosives in health centers and public places, but when his new boss orders a school to be bombed, he's horrified. His new boss sardonically mocks him. Here he is, not wanting to kill children, and yet he's performing strikes to keep people away from health centers, meaning that the Krytos Plague, which doesn't spare the young, will be less impeded.
 * Though Loor's reaction in the Krytos lab may have been less about standards and more an in-universe example of Nausea Fuel. Krytos is really Squick.
 * Tahiri Veila chooses to offer Luke's son Ben sex in exchange for information rather than torturing him. Of course, either option is disturbing when you consider that he's just turned 14--but, knowing 14 year old boys, is surprisingly good psychology...
 * According to Mara Jade in I, Jedi, Darth Sidious "would have been ashamed to use such tactics" as Mind Rape illusions.
 * In Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming, the demon Azzie replies to a little girl who mentions using the model guillotine he brought her on puppies:

""What, Aratus, would you break the law of the Brotherhood, you dog?""
 * In the Alvin Maker books by Orson Scott Card there's a quick procession of these with the latest baddies. First is the rather vile riverboat captain, who would not stoop to killing innocent (white) children. He's killed by Mike Fink, who in turn finds that he can't bear to stand and watch while their mutual employer, William Harrison, massacres a village. Finally Harrison, the worst of the three, tells Calvin that while he might be a dirty scumbag, at least he never sold his own brother out.
 * Although it's implied Mike only left because the hex his mother left him protected him from the curse leveled on the perpetrators of the massacre.
 * John Ringo's Paladin of Shadows series has Mike Harmon, an ex-Navy SEAL who pushes the Anti-Hero needle waaaaay into the red. He fantasizes about raping and brutalizing young women, and deals with it by hiring underage prostitutes for BDSM and rough sex (followed by extravagant payment), and then finding the whoremongers behind the prostitutes and murdering them. After he's done with the prostitutes, he sometimes buys them outright. He flat-out admits that the reason he hates rapists and white slavers so much is that they torture women in a truly non-consensual way, which his conscience (barely) prevents him from doing.
 * In Mistborn, there are only two people Zane won't kill- Vin and his father. The former is because Vin's the one person the voices in Zane's head don't continually goad him to kill, while the latter is for no other reason than, in Zane's words, "a man shouldn't kill his father".
 * In the Haft Awrang book "Chain of Gold," one of the stories is that of a man who, overcome by lust, mounts a camel. This appalls even Iblis, who curses him.
 * In the Dale Brown novel Plan of Attack, Russian Army General Nikolai Stepashin, who sees nothing wrong with sneak nuclear bombings on North America, is disgusted by president Gryzlov's nuking of a Russian airbase to take out American infiltrators and the man's refusal to check for Russian survivors.
 * In Andrew Vachss's Burke book Strega, both Mama Wong, implied to be with The Triads and the Tongs, and some neo-Nazis express disapproval of child sex offenders. Burke himself, as well as his Badass Crew, are Type V Antiheroes (IV if you try real hard) who all have no problems with Pay Evil Unto Evil and breaking any number of laws in the process. Sexual crimes are right out, though.
 * In Rainbow Six, The Dragon Dmitriy Popov is a Renegade Russian former KGB intelligence offer who abets three terrorist attacks, including, commits two murders of his own during the story's length and has no qualms about stealing. Finding out the truth of the Big Bad's plan horrifies him enough that.
 * To a lesser extent: Clark and Ding are hardened special forces badasses. Clark in particular once, in another book in the series, went on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge where he carried out creatively vicious kills and Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique. Nevertheless, they consider the Curb Stomp Battle against the ecos so one-sided it's pure murder.
 * The Destroyer series of novels tells of the House of Sinanju, who have been assassins to the governments of the world for five thousand years. The current Master, Chiun, has been an assassin since childhood (and is over a hundred) and has perhaps half a million or so kills to his credit all done with his bare hands. But he kills child-killers and people who train children as terrorists without pay, since it's immoral to involve children in "the Games of Death".
 * "Gentleman" Johnny Marcone from The Dresden Files is a self-described professional monster. He directly controls all of the organized crime in Chicago and most of the police are fine with this as Marcone's desire to keep his house in order has actually resulted in crime going down since Marcone took over the mobs. He is shown to have a hand in numerous illegal and immoral enterprises... yet he draws the line at anything which exploits children and personally executes anyone he finds out has been dealing drugs to minors or pimping out children in his city.
 * In Robert E. Howard's Shadows in The Moonlight a Pirate attacks Conan the Barbarian after he had killed their captain. Fighting ensues:

""When we employed the Heart of Ahriman to bring a dead man back to life," Orastes said abruptly, "we did not weigh the consequences of tampering in the black dust of the past. The fault is mine, and the sin. We thought only of our four ambitions, forgetting what ambitions this man might himself have. And we have loosed a demon upon the earth, a fiend inexplicable to common humanity. I have plumbed deep in evil, but there is a limit to which I, or any man of my race and age, can go. "
 * In The Hour of the Dragon, Orastes realizes that bringing back Xaltotun was wrong.

"The Druids of his own isle of Erin had strange dark rites of worship, but nothing like this. Dark trees shut in this grim scene, lit by a single torch. Through the branches moaned an eerie night-wind. Cormac was alone among men of a strange race and he had just seen the heart of a man ripped from his still pulsing body."
 * In Robert E. Howard's Kull/Bran Mak Morn story "Kings of the Night", Cormac of Connacht contrasts Religions of Evil.

"Mr Stab: "There's only one monster here, and for once it isn't me.""
 * The Secret Histories series has Mr. Stab, a Jack the Ripper Expy who loves to carve up his victims. When he sees the torture the conspiracy group Manifest Destiny has inflicted on several magical beings they captured, even he is horrified.

""I dare the truth, Elaida," Egwene said quietly. "You are a coward and a tyrant. I'd name you Darkfriend as well, but I suspect that the Dark One would perhaps be embarrassed to associate with you.""
 * Flashman is, and admits he is, evil in many ways...but even he has lines he will not willingly cross.
 * "A scoundrel I may be, but I ain't an assassin, and you will comb my memoirs in vain for a mention of Flashy as First Murderer." (Flashman's response to a clear hint that, if all else fails to turn him aside, Flashman is to bump off . Later, he says nearly the same thing about a proposal to have him do in  )
 * The narrator in The Tell-Tale Heart when he refuses to kill the old man until he is awake "for it was not the old man who vexed me but his Evil Eye." (though granted his standards are insane.)
 * The Wheel of Time. Granted, it's not a moral standard...

"Don't worry, I don't harm family."
 * In Scorpia Rising, while Zeljan is discussing his Evil Plan with the rest of Scorpia, he calls Damian Cray a madman.
 * Earlier in the series, one of the senior members of Scorpia, Max Grendel, attempted to retire from the terrorist organisation, disturbed by the fact that they were developing a biological weapon that was designed to specifically target children.
 * In the novelization of Demolition Man Simon Phoenix is shocked that Cocteau had Associate Bob castrated to curb Bob's ambition. Phoenix is a murderous bastard, but taking a guy's balls just isn't right!
 * Taken Up to Eleven in Rumo and His Miraculous Adventures: The Demonocles positively thrive on The Sound of Screaming, prefer to eat prey alive, and will beat their friends to death over nothing and then blame them for it. How could any living creature do anything so cruel to another?
 * Even at his worst, Artemis Fowl II won't stand for mistreatment of the environment He also won't kill people. Lemurs, maybe, but not people. When Holly compares Artemis to the villain Jon Spiro, Artemis uses this fact as his defense.
 * In Gilded Latten Bones, Garrett ponders this trope when he asks Sarge and Puddle, two of assassin-for-hire Morley Dotes's criminal associates, about the doings of TunFaire's resurrection men, and both are repulsed by the notion of stealing dead bodies for necromantic research.
 * In Warrior Cats, there is one villain called Mapleshade who is so screwed up all the other villains are scared of her.
 * In The Pool of Fire Will is horrified by a German town in which criminals are given to the Tripods to be hunted for the crowd's amusement. He notes that in England executions are regarded as an unpleasant chore, not a sport.
 * In in the Gor series rape and slavery are fine. On the other hand raising a girl from infancy with no concept of the outside world, sexuality, violence, or even men and then raping her is still viewed as horrific. That it drives the girls insane and they have to be killed the next day is probably a contributing factor.
 * In the Honor Harrington novel In Enemy Hands, Citizen Captain Vladovich is so vicious he is unpopular even with other State Sec members.
 * Likewise, in Honor Among Enemies, even the crew of the PNS Vaubon is disgusted by the acts of pirates.
 * In the BattleTech novel 'Star Lord,' it's implied that there's rogue mercenary and pirate bands who turned down offers to work with an otherwise charismatic and surprisingly well heeled leader not unlike a Bandit King when they discovered he was a direct genetic descendant of the setting's greatest and most infamous Complete Monster looking to finish what his ancestor started. Bear in mind that these pirates are generally taking slaves, burning villages, and otherwise being barbaric...and they still don't want to be associated with this guy. Of course, some groups eventually did join his army, in a flat aversion of this trope.
 * In Death: An example of this occurred in Betrayal In Death. There was a trio of thieves named Naples, Gerade, and Hinrick. However, when Hinrick found out that Naples planned to have people working for Roarke murdered, he pulled out, greatly enraging Naples. Hinrick doesn't deal in murder, because he considers it rude.
 * Sven Hassel writes of soldiers in a penal battalion, some of the roughest, cruelest, most degraded men in the forces of The Third Reich...but sometimes they run across things done by the Nazis, or the Soviets, that repulse even these hardened, callous killers. When they get a chance to express their disapproval of such things in concrete form, it can get...messy.
 * Vince in Watchers is a ruthless killer, but he's also a rather considerate guy who has a code of honor and a clear sense of empathy for others. However, he is Bat Shit Crazy and his code is based on Blue and Orange Morality, so it really doesn't make him any less evil or any less terrifying.
 * Three witches from Christopher Moore's Fool admit being evil incarnate but they say to preffer staying away from politics - apparently even crushing toddler's skull is better than it.
 * Magnificent Bastard Long John Silver in Treasure Island may be a pirate, mutineer and murderer, but he draws the line at harming Jim Hawkins.
 * Septimus Heap:
 * Simon Heap, when he has shoot down Nicko with a ThunderFlash:

"''"You see here, Dutchy," he bawled, "mebby you think you'll wash his face with that, but you won't. A contract's a contract. We agreed to take out these trees and leave him for you to dispose of whatever way you please, provided you shut him up eternally on this deal. But I'll not see a tied man tormented by a fellow that he can lick up the ground with, loose, and that's flat. It raises my gorge to think what he'll get when we're gone, but you needn't think you're free to begin before. Don't you lay a hand on him while I'm here! What do you say, boys?"
 * In Darke, Linda decides to invoke You Said You Would Let Them Go on a pair of lovebirds after holding one hostage to make the other bring Jenna to her. The Witch Mother stops her because a witch must keep her Darke bargains, and Linda seems to be forgetting the Rules.
 * In The Hunger Games, residents of the Capitol have no problem with watching children as young as twelve murder each other for entertainment.
 * Whilst it is difficult to codify "evil" in a series with Grey and Gray Morality, a lot characters from A Song of Ice and Fire fit this trope, though it is frequently not a moral standard:
 * Lord Tywin Lannister of Casterly Rock will not shy away from monstrous acts, but he would prefer that they were done efficiently - his reaction upon seeing the corpse of Princess Rhaenys was to ask her killer why it took fifty sword thrusts to kill her when he could have simply smothered her.
 * Lord Roose Bolton of Dreadfort is the same - he is a horrific villain, but a pragmatic one.
 * The Guild of the Faceless Men will only kill their targets, not bystanders or even bodyguards.
 * The Ironborn hate slavery, although they have a very flimsy definition of it. Indentured servitude and forced prostitution: totally okay for them, but buying and selling people? NEVER!
 * Ser Jaime Lannister is, at least in the early part of the series, a pretty nasty fellow, but he was still known for this trope enough that the Starks ruled him out of the attempted assassination of Jon Arryn because it was felt Ser Jaime would look down on the use of poison.
 * He is also disgusted by Gregor Clegane's wanton sadism and the Red Wedding.
 * Bronn  would hurt a child. He'd want a decent price for it, though.
 * In Vorkosigan Saga one of the main industries of Jackson's Hole is making clone-slaves; including clones that allow rich men to achieve immortality by transplanting their brains and throwing away the old one, thus killing it's personality. Nearly everyone outlaws that. Of course on Jackson's Whole there isn't any law.
 * In Belisarius Series Narses practically lives this trope. He betrayed Empress Theodora who was practically his adopted daughter. But when told to assassinate the family of a Rajput chief, he refuses and almost becomes a hero.
 * In Gene Stratton Porter's Freckles, Black Jack has agreed that Wessner can kill Freckles, however he likes, once they are gone, but he objects to watches while Wessner torments him, especially since Freckles would beat him in a fair fight. Another man is angry that Wessner didn't just keep Freckles from seeing any of them.

"I say yes," growled one of McLean's latest deserters. "What's more, we're a pack of fools to risk the dirty work of silencing him. You had him face down and you on his back; why the hell didn't you cover his head and roll him into the bushes until we were gone? When I went into this, I didn't understand that he was to see all of us and that there was murder on the ticket. I'm not up to it. I don't mind lifting trees we came for, but I'm cursed if I want blood on my hands." ''"

"Troi : "You're not a rapist. A thief, yes. A killer as needed. But not a rapist.""
 * Parodied in the Ciaphas Cain novel Duty Calls. Cain considers the uniforms of the PDF so garish that even Slaaneshi cultists would find them distasteful.
 * This trope appears in Israeli poet Natan Alterman’s Summer Celebration, Miriam Helen asks notorious robber Misha Barkhasid to help her fight off Woldarski, the man she eloped with who threatened to ruin her face with acid if she doesn’t work as a prostitute for him. Barkhasid says that a man of honour can live on robbery, but not ‘will never live on the profits of a woman’s body’.
 * In the Star Trek: The Next Generation novel Imzadi, the Sindareen leader of a raid on Betazed has no qualms about theft, violence and killing if necessary but his captive Deanna Troi's empathic abilities tell her he won't rape her.