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Genocide Backfire: Difference between revisions
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'''Goku:''' You haven't figured it out yet? I'm a proud Saiyan who calls Earth home, and I'm here to defeat you. I am the warrior you've heard of in legend, pure of heart and awakened by fury. That's what I am. I AM THE SUPER SAIYAN, SON GOKU!|''[[Dragon Ball Kai (Anime)|Dragon Ball Kai]]''}}
A type of [[Villain Ball]], and subtrope of [[Laser
Here's the deal: you're the [[Evil Overlord]]. You're in charge and like it. But something's been nagging you. You're worried that one day you might lose your position by force. Furthermore, it looks like there's good reason, 'cause there's a prophecy involving someone from "[[Throwaway Country|Insert Name Here-istan]]" who's going to take you out.
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This trope is when the bad guys [[Designated Hero|(or the supposed good guys)]] commit a massive atrocity to achieve some goal, only to not completely succeed, and the resulting incompleteness comes back to bite them in the ass.
It often involves a prophecy, and this is the villains' attempt to "[[Screw Destiny]]". [[Self
This typically means murdering hundreds of people to kill a single child, who will inevitably escape -- see [[Nice Job Breaking It, Herod]]. Sometimes, the evil overlord might [[Karma Houdini|live out his life successfully]], but his descendants [[Sins of Our Fathers|pay the price]].
There are two main variants:
# The first is that [[Self
# The second is that [[Genocide Dilemma|the victimized people pose a threat]] and this is a means to deal with said threat.
A third, less common type involves the overlord's minions, being [[Even Evil Has Standards|not that evil]], decide that this is a [[Moral Event Horizon]] they will not cross and [[Heel Face Turn|their boss is too evil to work for]].
Expect the survivor to benefit from [[What Measure Is a Non Unique]], using his heritage and tragedy to fuel the coming [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] (or the even more tragic [[Cycle of Revenge]]). [[Sister Trope]] to [[Nice Job Breaking It, Herod]], with which it can overlap when the motivation behind the Genocide is finding and killing particular individuals.
It is sometimes called the "Dandelion of Doom" or "Dandelion effect," per the expression: "If you kick a dandelion, you spread its seeds." Just as this is an ineffective way to remove weeds from a lawn, it is an ineffective measure to remove potential threats to one's rule.
Please, let's not involve [[Real Life]] in this.
{{examples
== Anime and Manga ==
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* In the comic version of ''[[Wanted]]'', the [[Big Bad]] Mister Rictus ''deliberately'' invokes this trope, though on a much smaller scale. After murdering an entire family, he leaves a single child alive, banking on the chance that he will grow up to try and take revenge on him. Yes, Mister Rictus really is ''that'' bored and crazy.
* The ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog (Comic Book)|Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' series had this for its Endgame storyline: Dr. Robotnik uses the Ultimate Annihilator to erase Knothole from existance in front of Sonic. A combination of Snively's backstabbing, a mini nuke and Sonic's own two fists ensures that Knothole is restored and Robotnik's done away with permanently.
* An interesting variant in one ''[[Sandman]]'' story, it's implied that Despair organises the destruction of Krypton, but decides to leave [[The Last of His Kind|a single Kryptonian alive]], assuming that he will spend his entire life mourning his lost world in despair. That Kryptonian grew up to be [[Superman|Earth's greatest hero, and a symbol of hope to billions of people]], so [[Nice Job Fixing It, Villain]].
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* A variant with a twist in ''[[Lexx]]''; the Divine Shadow orders the destruction of the Brunnen-G homeworld in order to thwart a prediction that the last of their race would destroy him. He actually completely succeeds in wiping out the entire planetary population, but decides, with his victory accomplished, to [[Tempting Fate|mock the prophecy]] by turning several of the corpses into an [[Idiot Ball|undead immortal killing machines]] under his control. Centuries later, the last of said corpses ends up regaining his memories, killing him, and bringing down the entire Divine Order.
* In ''[[The Chronicles of Riddick]]'', the Lord Marshall of the Necromongers tries to wipe out the Furyan race, due to a prophecy that a Furyan would kill him. He misses (at least) two of them; the titular Riddick is one of them.
* In ''[[The Dark Crystal]]'', there's a prophecy that a Gelfling will undo the damage to the Dark Crystal, ending the reign of the Skeksis, so of course they go off on a Gelfling killing spree. One of the Skeksis himself, (pretending to be friendly) says "[[Self
* In ''[[Tron Legacy (Film)|Tron Legacy]]'', {{spoiler|1=Clu kills off all the ISOs, [[Artificial Brilliance|emergent]] programs that Kevin sees as a miracle but Clu sees as "imperfect". By the end of the movie, Clu wants to exit the Grid in the worst way, but he gets [[Heroic Sacrifice|re-merged with Kevin]] while Quorra, the [[Last of His Kind|last ISO, rescued by Kevin]], escapes the grid to the real world with Kevin's son Sam.}} Not quite a genocide backfire since {{spoiler|Quorra didn't land the fatal blow, but Quorra got to leave the Grid while Clu did not.}}
* ''[[Star Wars]]'', of course. They didn't kill Anakin and Padmé's children. Nor did they kill Obi-Wan. They didn't even kill Leia when they killed all the other Alderaanians. This did not work out well for Palpatine.
** It's not genocide, but the Jedi invoke a version of this trope themselves. For thousands of years, Jedi were trained from infancy in order to avoid the complications and risks (for force users) of emotional relationships and personal attachments. Then along comes the potential prophesied child and they decide that, this one time, because of the circumstances and the [[Dying Wish]] of Qui-Gon Jinn, they'll take in this little emotionally battered former-slave child (abruptly taking him from his mother who he is never allowed to see again). That one came back to bite them in the ass. HARD.
** This seems to be a cycle in the expanded universe: Jedi vs Sith war ensues, the Jedi win, the Sith are exterminated. The few Sith survivors hide and refound the Order in secret, then they attack the Jedi again, win and the Jedi are exterminated. The few surviving Jedi hide and refound the order in secret and counter attack the Sith. Lather, rinse, repeat. Apparently nobody noticed yet that, whenever Jedi or Sith are almost wiped out, [[Came Back Strong|they return much stronger]].
* Occurs in ''[[Kung Fu Panda 2]]'', overlapping with [[Nice Job Breaking It, Herod]]; [[Big Bad|Lord Shen]] is told a prophecy that he will be defeated by a 'warrior of black and white', and decides that the correct way to respond to this is to commit panda genocide. Played with later on when Shen first meets [[The Hero|Po]], and is a little surprised to find that said panda had no idea what he had done.
** Slightly subverted at the end, which shows {{spoiler|a hidden panda village in the North with Po's father among the survivors}}.
* In ''[[The Scorpion King]]'', the titular protagonist was one of the few survivors of Memnon's genocide of the Akkadian people. Shortly after the beginning of the film, he ends up being the sole remaining member of his people. Turns out, he is the one who was prophesized to take Memnon down.
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* In C.S. Friedman's ''[[Coldfire Trilogy]]'', the immortal and extremely narcissistic [[Magnificent Bastard]] character of the series left one of his children alive when he slaughtered his family to make a pact with a demon. Over the next thousand years he would occasionally go back and murder all of his descendants, again except one. He was vain enough that he had to leave alive the one descendant who looked the most like him. Of course, {{spoiler|this bit him in the ass when the survivor of the last generation played a key role in the Patriarch's scheme to destroy him.}}
** Not quite. His descendants were free to live without being troubled, provided they ''never ever'' laid claim to his title as the Neocount of Merentha. If any of the male descendants did so, then The Hunter would again lay waste to his entire family, save one.
* In Jacqueline Carey's ''The Sundering'', the [[Anti
* It's implied that Garoth Ursuul of [[The Night Angel Trilogy]] commits genocide often enough that he actually has a ''list of rules'', among them is "You will always miss one." This is never shown to actually come back to haunt any Ursuuls in the book, however.
* Happens lots of times in [[David Weber|David Weber's]] [[Empire From the Ashes]], as the [[Omnicidal Maniac|omnicidal]] Achuultani, themselves a last remnant from a campaign of genocide by a hostile power in their own galaxy, have ''nearly'' wiped out humanity several times. We now have [[That's No Moon|planetoid dreadnoughts]] whose ''[[Misapplied Phlebotinum|star drives]]'' can [[Remember When You Blew Up a Sun|cause supernovae]] when used too close to a star, and each has combat capability equivalent to [[Zerg Rush|hundreds of thousands]] of Achuultani ships. Oh yes, and [[Shame If Something Happened|we know where they live]].
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* In ''[[Guild Wars]]: Prophecies'', the White Mantle ritually identifies the Chosen and then [[Human Sacrifice|sacrifices them to their gods]]; discovering this is what drives the [[Player Character]] to turn on the Mantle. Then the [[Player Character]] is revealed to also be Chosen...
* The Lombaxes and Cragamites in ''[[Ratchet and Clank]] Future: Tools of Destruction''. The Lombaxes sealed the [[Always Chaotic Evil]] Cragamites in [[Another Dimension]], save for one Cragamite child they took pity on. This lone Cragamite, Emperor Percival Tachyon, then raised an army and wiped out the Lombaxes [[Don't You Dare Pity Me|for daring to pity him]]. But he missed Ratchet, who proceeds to trap him in [[Another Dimension]] with the rest of his mad race.
* Played with in the ''[[Metroid]]'' series. ''Metroid 2: Return of Samus'' has Samus tasked with exterminating the Metroids on their home planet of SR388; the game ends with Samus sparing a single hatchling, which has imprinted on her. ''Super Metroid'' starts off with scientists studying the larval Metroid making the discovery that the Metroids have abilities that could be used for the good of galactic civilization, right before the Space Pirates massacre the researchers and abduct the larva so they can build another Metroid army; the next time Samus encounters the larva, it's grown to horrendous proportions and almost kills Samus before it recognizes her. Then, during the final battle, it performs a [[Tear Jerker|truly heartbreaking]] [[Heroic Sacrifice]], saving Samus from Mother Brain's onslaught and giving her the unstoppable Hyper Beam weapon. (Then ''Metroid Fusion'' reveals that the Metroids on SR388 were keeping an even more dangerous threat in check, which is [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|another trope entirely...]])
** Samus herself is portrayed as the sole survivor of a Space Pirate attack on the mining colony of K-2L. Who would have thought that cute, 3-year-old girl would come back to bite them in the ass so hard.
* [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|Iosa the Invincible]] of ''[[Iji (Video Game)|Iji]]'' had her homeworld [[Earthshattering Kaboom|Alpha Struck]] by the Tasen. She didn't take that very well.
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* The third variant occurs in the ''[[Age of Empires III (Video Game)|Age of Empires III]]: The Warchiefs''. Chayton Black has some moral reservations about killing women and children just to help the gold rush along, so he defects to the Sioux he was ordered to kill. This ends badly for Billy Holme.
* A fairly straightforward case in ''[[Bayonetta]]'': the [[Big Bad]] {{spoiler|Father Balder}}, the last Lumen Sage, began the Witch Hunts against the Umbra Witches (in which the titular heroine is a member of) more or less [[For the Evulz]]. Naturally, Bayonetta stops this plot.
* In the ''[[Prince of Persia|Forgotten Sands]]'' variant for the PSP - there are four different games on different consoles under that title - an ifrit hears of a prophecy stating that a lonely hero with royal blood will kill him, so he starts assassinating people who are part of Persia's royal family. The Prince of Persia, upset over the deaths of his cousins, then tracks down and kills the ifrit. [[Self
* [[Metal Gear Solid 2]] does a subverted variation: The Patriots had Dead Cell liquidated (IE, most of its members killed off) for terrorist attacks it apparently committed. In actuality, the Dead Cell unit was actually framed for the Terrorist activities by the Patriots (in other words, it was actually the Patriots who did terrorist attacks on its own country), and more importantly, they deliberately allowed some survivors to exist in Dead Cell specifically to get them angered enough to attempt to challenge them and more importantly further use them in the S3 plan.
* In ''[[Dragon Quest II (Video Game)|Dragon Quest II]]'', Hargon kills everyone in Moonbrook, but [[Baleful Polymorph|turns the princess into a dog]] rather than kill her.
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