Bad Powers, Bad People/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A character has evil powers, ergo they will be evil.

  • Straight: Bob can reanimate the dead, so he becomes a villain
  • Exaggerated: Bob's power source is the pain of tormented kittens. He is an Omnicidal Maniac.
  • Justified: Bob's power has some arbitrary rule so that it can only be used for evil purposes, and he must use them regularly or he will die.
  • Inverted: Bad Powers, Good People or Good Powers, Bad People
  • Subverted: Bob uses his zombie army to protect the innocent.
  • Double Subverted: The innocents aren't really innocents, but turn out to be villains. Bob was aware of that all the time.
  • Parodied: Bob finds a book about practical jokes. He bursts into an Evil Laugh.
  • Zig Zagged: Bob is a user of the Heel Face Revolving Door, who uses his powers for good or for evil, depending on his mood.
  • Averted:
  • Enforced: Bob has satanic powers. The Christian Moral Guardians would never allow him to not be a villain.
  • Lampshaded: Alice wonders why nice guy Bob became a dick the moment he became able to raise zombies.
  • Invoked: A Super Empowering villain gives random people evil powers expecting that they will fight the good guys for him.
  • Exploited: People with powers having an "evil vibe" to them are monitored by the good guys, so that they can react immediately when they turn evil.
  • Defied: Despite having the power to raise zombies, Bob is still determined to remain as good and heroic a person as possible, often helping out at orphanages whenever he can.
  • Discussed: "Just because Bob was born with necromantic powers doesn't mean that he is a bad guy. Give him a chance."
  • Conversed: "No way! I've never read a story where the necromancer isn't the bad guy."
  • Played For Laughs: Bob is constantly using his evil powers to do evil things, but when people call him out, he plays the Fantastic Racism card, accusing them of discrimination.
  • Played For Drama: Society notices that evil people almost always have a certain type of powers. Therefore, any individual found with a power potentially evil is incarcerated immediately, if not killed outright. This causes many super-powered beings to rise up against the government, further perpetuating the belief that bad powers make bad people.

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