Board 8 > Best of the Trope Season 2: Day 177 - Evil Cripple

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Best of the Trope!

Here are the rules. Each day, I will post a trope from TV Tropes, and each poster can name up to three examples of that trope. Whichever nomination gets the most mentions wins! Posters may also name as many Honourable Mentions as they like, but they are purely optional and will not count towards the running score. You may look at the TV Tropes page for that day's trope for examples, but you do not have to pick all your examples from the page. You can nominate whatever examples you like, as long as they qualify for the trope. Each trope will last around 24 hours before the next one goes up.

Posters may also nominate any tropes they wish to see come up during the series. This is optional, and you don't have to do it every day, or at all. Tropes will be randomly selected from the list each day, except for some occasions where I will pick a thematically appropriate trope that may or may not be on the list.

Here's the list of previous tropes, so if you wish to nominate some tropes, check on here that it wasn't previously done. http://board8.wikia.com/wiki/Best_of_the_Trope

One True Love
Disc-One Nuke
Beef Gate
Lampshade Hanging
Difficult, but Awesome
Tier-Induced Scrappy
That One Level
Breather Level
Game-Breaker
Broken Base
Cliffhanger
Cruel and Unusual Death
Squishy Wizard
Magic Knight
Anti-Climax Boss
Torch the Franchise and Run
Lights Off, Somebody Dies
Grand Finale

The winner of yesterday's trope, Launcher of a Thousand Ships, was Nightwing (DC Comics), who got 2 votes.

Previous Winners: Day 151 Onwards
Despair Event Horizon - John Wick's dog is killed (John Wick)
A**hole Victim - Joffrey Baratheon (Game of Thrones)
Crutch Character - Marcus (Fire Emblem 7)
Your Soul is Mine - Maximillian Pegasus (Yu-Gi-Oh!) / Shang Tsung (Mortal Kombat) / Dementor's Kiss (Harry Potter)
Pop-Cultured Badass - Deadpool
Acquitted Too Late - Tom Robinson (To Kill a Mockingbird)
Lightning Bruiser - The Flash (DC Comics) / Bob Barker (Happy Gilmore)
Me's a Crowd - Naruto / Multiple Man (X-Men)
A Taste of Power - Samus (Metroid Series)
Shrinking Violet - Violet (The Incredibles)
Stone Wall - Shuckle (Pokemon)
One Scene Wonder - The Black Knight (Monty Python and the Holy Grail)
Magikarp Power - Magikarp (Pokemon) / Pawn (Chess)
Joke Character - Pichu (Super Smash Bros Melee) / Dan Hibiki (Street Fighter)
Lethal Joke Character - L-Block (GameFAQs Contests)
Stupid Statement Dance Mix - They're Taking the Hobbits to Isengard / All Your Base
Giant Space Flea from Nowhere - Necron (Final Fantasy IX)
Roaring Rampage of Revenge - The Punisher (Marvel Comics) / John Wick / The Bride (Kill Bill)
Glass Cannon (Redux) - Tracer (Overwatch) / Hypno Disc (Robot Wars) / Nightmare (Battlebots)
Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome - Marie (The Bourne Supremacy)
Even the Girls Want Her - Lana Kane (Archer)
Even the Guys Want Him - Gaston (Beauty and the Beast) / Big Boss (Metal Gear Solid)
Mighty Glacier - Tohru (Jackie Chan Adventures)
Breather Boss - Morpha (Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time) / Gi Nattak (Final Fantasy VII)
Big Bad Friend - Big Smoke (Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas)

Today's trope is Evil Cripple. Here is the link: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilCripple

An Evil Cripple is a villain or generally morally perturbed character who also suffers a debilitating physical condition, often taking the form of paralysis requiring the use of a wheelchair. The Evil Cripple doubles as the Genius Cripple a lot, providing an intellectual threat to compensate for their physical frailty. Alternatively, the Evil Cripple can become a physical threat if they use futuristic enhancements to overcome their disability, such as replacing missing or defective limbs with super-strong Powered Armor or cybernetic parts.

There are a variety of reasons this trope exists.

The first is rooted in eugenics-based ideas linking disability or other physical deformities with a "natural" predisposition towards madness, criminality, vice, etc. The Rule of Symbolism is often at work here, since a "crippled" body can be used to represent a "crippled" soul and indeed, a disabled villain is usually put in contrast to a morally upright and physically "perfect" hero. Whether consciously on the part of the writer or not, this can reinforce cultural ideas of disability making a person inherently inferior or negative, much in the same way the Sissy Villain or Depraved Homosexual associate sexual and gender nonconformity with evil.

In some stories, especially those featuring superheroes, the contrast between a hero with super strength and a villain who is physically handicapped and instead relies on his brainpower plays on the archetype of brain vs. brawn. It also provides a buffer against the standard "solution" of punching the bad guy out since the hero would look pretty low hitting a cripple compared to an able-bodied villain. These stories also tend to feature a Freudian Excuse in the villain's backgroundeither trauma from an accident, or, if they were born disabled, envy of the able-bodied, that is the cause of their hatred for the world.

TL,DR: A disabled villain.

Nominations:
Hector Salamanca (Breaking Bad)
Mrs Peacock (The X-Files)
The Egg (Count Duckula)

Does COMPLEX MOTIVES count? he is not listed as an example and he is not really disabled..but rather pretending to be
But it's still the first thing that came to my mind
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Dale the Whale (Monk)
Mrs Peacock (The X-Files)
Ma Gnucci (The Punisher)
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Mr. Glass (Unbreakable)
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Legato Bluesummers (Trigun Maximum)

(for reference for those anime only fans confused, in the manga, Knives breaks Legato's spine early in the series because he was pissed that Legato hired the Gung Ho Guns to attack Vash, so Legato had to be carried around in an iron maiden like device until the end of the series when he learns how to use his powers on his own body in order to move on his own again)
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Captain Hook
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Declan Gage (Law & Order: Criminal Intent)
Dale the Whale (Monk)
Clifford DeVoe AKA The Thinker (The Flash)

HM:
Mr. Potter (Its a Wonderful Life)
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TomNook posted...

Mr. Glass (Unbreakable)

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JeffreyRaze posted...

TomNook posted...

Mr. Glass (Unbreakable)

GavsEvans123 posted...

Hector Salamanca (Breaking Bad)

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Bran the Broken

Okay fine, characters that aren't evil in my head canon alone:

Mr. Glass (Unbreakable)
Howard Clifford (Detective Pikachu)
Dr. Loveless (Wild Wild West)
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Rankings so far:
Mr. Glass (Unbreakable) - 4 votes
Mrs Peacock (The X-Files) - 2 votes
Dale the Whale (Monk) - 2 votes
Hector Salamanca (Breaking Bad) - 2 votes
The Egg (Count Duckula)
COMPLEX MOTIVES
Ma Gnucci (The Punisher)
Legato Bluesummers (Trigun Maximum)
Captain Hook (Peter Pan)
Declan Gage (Law & Order: Criminal Intent)
Clifford DeVoe AKA The Thinker (The Flash)
Howard Clifford (Detective Pikachu)
Dr. Loveless (Wild Wild West)

Does Madam Dronya from Labyrinth of Refrain: coven of dusk count? She is the main character but she most definitely is not "good" (She has a wooden leg so she is a cripple)

Its not listed on the evil cripple page but it IS listed on the page for the video game.
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Sand dan Glokta (The First Law)
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GenesisSaga posted...

Bran the Broken

Okay fine, characters that aren't evil in my head canon alone:

Haha, was going to post this.
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