Offstage Villainy: Difference between revisions

This goes hand in hand with [[Villains Act, Heroes React]] quite often. May result in a [[Spanner in Thethe Works]] for either side, depending on the outcome.

{{examples|Examples}}

* ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima (Manga)|Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' has this in spades in-story, concerning Evangeline. She has a 600 year long history of evil and bloodshed resulting a 6 million dollar bounty and essentially acting as the boogeyman of the magic world (eat your peas, or Evangeline will come and eat you). Despite all of this, she only does a few villainous things on-screen: sucking blood from students and attacking Negi. Other than that, she regularly helps out the heroes, going so far as to train them and let them use her magical resort for vacation. It's even hinted that her evil reputation is an exaggeration, and that she acted the part so that people would leave her alone. She still constantly tries to [[Noble Demon|claim she's evil]], but everyone who actually knows her claims that [[Anti -Villain|she's not that bad]].

* In ''[[One Piece (Manga)|One Piece]]'', Trafalgar Law, aka The Surgeon of Death, gets hit with this trope. Thus far we have seen him act very calm, insightful, reserved, and {{spoiler|healing Luffy.}} None of that screams villainy. It might be played with; between how he acts and the reason for the bounties on Luffy and Zoro, he might be similarly wanted for actions that are, at the very least, justifiable. In which case, the offscreen behavior that is villainous is only towards the corrupt World Government (or a misunderstanding). {{spoiler|And now that he's a Warlord of the Sea, his darker side is being hinted at once again. How did he become one? By removing the hearts of 100 pirates and sending them to the world government.}}

* Any of the villains in ''[[Pokémon (Animeanime)|Pokémon]]'' are a lot more effective when not sharing screen-time with the heroes.

* Douglas Milroy explored this (and the [[Designated Hero]]) in [https://web.archive.org/web/20101124035823/http://jabootu.net/?p=530 his review] of ''[[The Beast (Film)|The Beast]]'':

{{quote| "In one fell swoop the movie has its would-be hero mocking and yelling at an essentially innocent villain. If a large number of truly despicable actions by Graves had been shown, perhaps we could accept our hero calling him names, or mocking his education. As it is, how many actual representations of villainy by Graves do we see or hear about: one. Raines and Marcus are discussing the position of harbor master, when Rains says "Schuyler Graves has expanded its scope. It's got a lot of people angry around here". And that, oh my Brothers, is it. Based upon that, we are to take him as a villain."}}

* ''[[Repo the Genetic Opera|Repo! The Genetic Opera]]'' has Luigi and Pavi, brothers stated to be a murderer and a rapist, respectively. While we see Luigi stab several people to death, all the girls we see with Pavi are quite willing. This could be because while violence is always fun, it's ''really'' hard to joke about rape.

** It's arguable that we do at least see the results of the [[Offstage Villainy]]--itVillainy—it's hard to imagine Pavi's flesh masks came from willing donors. Plus the first time he meets Shilo, he's creepy to the point of Luigi actually trying to rescue her from him. ''Luigi!''

* Frank Miller for most of ''[[High Noon]]''. The hero Kane threw him in prison for unspecified charges before the start of the film, but Miller gets pardoned and decides to take revenge on Kane. Kane runs around town insisting that Miller is a menace to them all, but people refuse to stand with him. Some even sympathize with Miller and insist that Kane is trying to drag them into a personal feud. When Miller finally arrives, he sports some [[Good Scars, Evil Scars|evil scars]] to prove his villainy, but he still doesn't do anything except go after Kane.

* Mr. Blonde in ''[[Reservoir Dogs]]'', at least for the first half or so. We ''hear'' that he's a psycho, sure, we ''hear'' that he shot a bunch of civilians, but whenever we actually ''see'' him, he's calm and cool and affable. The only evidence we have for his villainy is the word of Mr.'s Pink and White. Then [[Cold -Blooded Torture|the ear scene]] [[Moral Event Horizon|happens]].

* The library scene in ''[[Star Trek: Insurrection]]'' really goes out of its way to make [[Big Bad|the Son'a]] unlikeable, with records of conquering and enslaving worlds, drug dealing, and possessing illegal weapons. [[Horrible Judge of Character|It makes the Federation look really stupid to have ever turned to them.]]

* ''The Goblin Reservation'', a sci-fi novel by Clifford D. Simak, takes this to the greatest extreme ever seen, with a single remark about rumors of atrocities, combined with [[Beauty Equals Goodness|a hideous appearance]], is enough to condemn the entire species of the Wheelers as [[Always ChaoticExclusively Evil]].

* One of the most common complaints about the ''[[The Inheritance Cycle]]'' is that for the longest time the reader was never actually shown [[Evil Overlord]] [[Big Bad|Galbatorix]] [[The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything|doing anything particularly evil]] to the people of Alagaesia other than raising taxes and fighting the Varden rebels, neither of which are inherently particularly heinous. Indeed, it's acknowledged by Eragon at one point that most of the people of the Empire get along perfectly well under his rule. Just the fact that he successfully overthrew the [[The Order|Dragon Riders]] seems to be enough justification for the war waged by the [[La Résistance|Varden]], the elves, and the dwarves in the series. This is despite the fact that the Dragon Riders were stated to have been corrupt and fighting each other anyway, meaning that Galby's crime was...winning. [[AuthorsAuthor's Saving Throw|Rather belatedly]] he was given some unquestionably villainous actions, such as in ''Brisingr'' (the third book) where it's stated that {{spoiler|he enslaved the souls of the dragons he killed, and magically enslaves many of his soldiers}}. Though by this time a sizeable chunk of the reader base had started [[Rooting for Thethe Empire]].

* A common trait of villains in ''[[Septimus Heap (Literature)|Septimus Heap]]'' is that most of their evil deeds are never shown, just discussed or narrated.

* This was a problem faced by the writers of ''[[Star Trek]] [[Deep Space Nine]]'' with the villain [[Big Bad|Gul Dukat]] in the first few seasons. He was, in essence, a [[A Nazi Byby Any Other Name|space nazi]] who directly oversaw the slave labour camps of the Bajoran people for years, and was by all accounts [[Bad Boss|not a good employer]]. By the time the series begins however the Bajorans are free, and Gul Dukat comes across as a witty, intelligent (but admittedly egotistical), three dimensional [[Anti -Villain]], despite the characters (more or less correctly) insisting that he's Satan's bastard offspring.

* On ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'', Noah "HRG" Bennet spent 17 years personally participating in the kidnapping, experimentation and mind-wiping of people with special abilities. He also lied to his family the entire time (for their own protection, but still putting them in danger without their knowledge or consent). However, this mostly took place ''before'' the pilot episode. This, plus the fact that Bennet was frequently shown onscreen being a [[Papa Wolf]] to Claire, caused many fans to be unsympathetic when his family (especially Claire) reacted with revulsion and horror to the revelations about his not-so-distant past.

* ''[[Jabless Adventure (Video Game)|Jabless Adventure]]'' pushes this to the point of parody. The final boss of the game is King Squid, who [[Card -Carrying Villain|readily identifies himself as a villain]] and boasts that Jables is too late to stop his evil scheme. However, until the pre-boss-fight cutscene, there is literally no mention or foreshadowing of King Squid or his evil plan--untilplan—until the boss fight, Jables doesn't even know the game ''has'' a villain.

* This happens a lot in video games, since the hero is usually the [[Player Character]], we don't see a whole lot of the villain's actual villainy--thoughvillainy—though we will usually see the fallout of such--unlesssuch—unless either the heroes are there to witness it, or the game opts to show a cutscene.

* Other than the fact that he created a game company despite already owning a game reviewing magazine, participating in a Scooby-Doo ripoff, and being unable to see Skull (which apparently only happens to the "extremely self-centered"), we are forever kept in the dark why the ''[[Pv PPvP]]'' crew, especially Cole, hates Max Powers. Especially considering practically EVERYONE in the magazine has done far worse things. Laid out quite nicely [https://web.archive.org/web/20140723024710/http://www.websnark.com/archives/2004/10/because_i_keep.html here].

** And later on, Max ''can'' see Skull, though it's not clear why he couldn't before.

* [[Evil Diva (Webcomicwebcomic)|Evil Diva]] [https://web.archive.org/web/20110629190529/http://www.evildivacomics.com/?p=938 is freaked out by sitting on a human]. [[Satan|The Big Guy]] tells her she wouldn't think so if she knew what he did to get there.

** [[Narbonic|Helen Narbon]] regularly calls herself evil, but tends to come off as a [[Noble Demon]]. Only the [[All There in the Manual|supplemental materials]] make it clear that she's killed innocents [[For Science!]].

* Magneto, in the 1990s ''[[X-Men (Animationanimation)|X-Men]]'' animated series, is consistently presented as the heroes' [[Arch Enemy]], especially in the intro. However, it's only in his first few appearances (and the last episode) that he is actually doing evil and acting at odds with the X-Men. In every other appearance, he is just trying to find a peaceful place for mutants to live, and ends up working with the X-Men [[Enemy Mine|against a greater evil]].