Tragic Villain/Playing With

Basic Trope: A villain who is completely aware of their evil, but knows it's too late for redemption.

• Straight: Marty is a serial killer who wants to stop murdering people, but thinks he does not deserve redemption.
• Justified: Marty's victims are Asshole Victims who have wronged him, so he is driven to do evil things to those victims.
• Exaggerated: Marty is a genocidal maniac who was screwed over by the nation he seeks to destroy.
• Parodied: Marty is a pest controller who wants to stop murdering cockroaches, but thinks he does not deserve redemption.
• Subverted: Marty still kills people regardless of whether they have wronged him or not.
  • Marty is offered forgiveness by The Hero, and does a Heel Face Turn.
• Double Subverted: Marty is also killing innocents because he wants people to hate him enough to want to kill him, since he can't live with himself.
  • Marty's redemption is temporary, and, soon, he goes back to killing people because he thinks that his methods of justice are better than the heroes, even if his methods are evil.
• Averted: There is nothing sympathetic or tragic about Marty's actions.
• Inverted: Karma Houdini
• Deconstructed: ???
• Reconstructed: ???
• Zig Zagged: Heel Face Revolving Door
• Enforced: The author wants to make their villain more sympathetic to the viewers.
• Lampshaded: "Marty may be a villain, but the world has wronged him in so many ways that I can't hate him for it."
• Invoked: ???
• Defied: "I don't care whether Marty's victims are assholes or whether he knows he is wrong. He is still a bad guy, and he must be stopped!"
• Discussed: ???
• Conversed: ???

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