Moral Event Horizon/Web Comics

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You can scroll down this page to find out what he did. If you want to, that is.

• In Grim Tales from Down Below, Mandy masterminds 9/11, Operation Freedom, Hurricane Katrina and Crash 38 in an attempt to win Grim's affections.. Hot damn.
  • It's that last part that really seals it. Hitherto, one could argue that Mandy was just doing a job when she was substituting for Grim that day. Going overboard, but still just being Death. But to find out that she's just doing it to impress her crush? MEH is a go.
    • It should also be noted that - despite the controversy - when Bleedman held a poll over whether or not to take down the page showing this crossing of the MEH, fans voted to keep it up.
  • It's been shown that Grim caused most of the tragedies of history. Collecting the souls of the dead is one thing, but engineering tragedy and suffering is quite another. If he's responsible for the holocaust, that puts him far over the horizon as well
    • Though it should also be noted that Grim is The Grim Reaper and most likely is required to do such things, possibly putting his actions under Blue and Orange Morality.
• It's debated on the forums, but Syphile from Drowtales started as a Jerkass with slight hints of Jerk with a Heart of Gold, but then she left Ariel in a room with her pet cat for a week with no provisions for the calls of nature, resulting in Fuzzy becoming very sick with Ariel unable to do anything about it. When Syphile came back and saw what had happened she blamed Ariel and took that cat away, and then when the cat bit her she slammed his head against the wall and killed him. To top it off, when Ariel was understandably upset about this Syphile beat her to make her stop crying. Earlier versions of the story had portrayed Syphile somewhat sympathetically (possibly unintentionally) but this act cemented her as a total bitch in many people's minds.
  • Quain'tana crossed it for many people at the realization that she had ordered her own daughter raped in an attempt to conceive an heir and then stole the baby Mel managed to have with Zhor on top of the many, many horrible things she's done to her other children, but those particular moments seemed particularly callous and cruel compared to the others.
    • And now we have this. Now we as the audience know that her paranoia and distrust of Mel is actually not unjustified since she's literally in bed with the enemy, but breaking your own daughter's arms? That's way too much. Even worse in that she originally wanted Lulianne, one of the few people Mel can call a friend, to do it, but later did the deed herself. At least Syphile attacked her with the express intent to kill, making her death more justifiable.
  • And of course the biggest and undisputed moment in the series happened in the backstory during the Nidraa'chal War, when Snadhya'rune, Sarv'swati and Zala'ess Vel'Sharen orchestrated the entire war and the deaths and forceful demonification of hundreds if not thousands of people in order to kill their mother Val'Sharess Diva'ratrika by sealing her in her own throne room until she died, and frame their sister Sil'lice and force her into exile. And while a case could be made for Well-Intentioned Extremist, Snadhya'rune was sent even further beyond the horizon at the revelation that she's deliberately given faulty demonic seeds to many of her followers that will slowly kill them within 25 to 50 years until only a few of her choosing are left. It's not a matter of if it's going to catch up them as when since the plot is starting to fall down around them.
• In Scary Go Round, former Designated Hero Rachel Dukakis-Monteforte's psychopathic jealousy of universally popular heroine Shelley Winters finally drives her to arrange Shelley's death via biker gang. The author confirms her crossing of the M.O.E. by having her sell her soul to the devil and skip town. When she returns a few years later, it's only to have a bridge dropped on her.
• In User:Mr Death's now finished Something!, largely a retelling of Mega Man X 4 and Mega Man X 5, Double, who had been established as a villain, but had mainly been the butt of jokes, ended up crossing the line in the eyes of the comic's readership when it was revealed he was the one who sent Iris to her Plotline Death. The incident changed the outlook, in general, from "I can't wait to see the fight with him" to "Sonuvabitch needs to die."
• Admiral Blake in Terinu. Supervising Terinu's arrest and detention in a biological research lab? Decidedly unpleasant. Arranging for his daughter Leeza to be fired from her job and forcing her into being the boy's guardian after she rescues him from said facility? Definitely not good. Having Leeza arrested and order Terinu's assassination to cover up a centuries old act of genocide? The readers were howling for his blood.
• Subverted, after a fashion, in Sluggy Freelance when Aylee has a Face Heel Turn, and attacks the Main Characters' Halloween party. She doesn't actually kill anyone, but she makes it perfectly clear that she could, taunts Riff at how helpless he was at protecting anyone, and threatens to do it for real if he meddles in her affairs again. The subversion comes when we find out that this wasn't actually Aylee, but an evil clone instead, which couldn't cross the Moral Event Horizon since it was a Complete Monster right from the beginning.
  • Played straight by Dr. Schlock when he orders the murder of Feng in front of Oasis to try and get her to cooperate. And it can't be blamed on the Fate Spider either, as it is revealed by him that if Feng had not been manipulated into going there then Schlock would have ordered Kusari to murder Ms. Zalia in front of her own daughter instead. He basically went from an affable, Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain (or possibly Anti-Villain) who was always on the run to the Big Bad of the strip's Myth Arc. Murdering Feng just sealed the deal that he can never go back.
• In Gunnerkrigg Court, we got an example that was more subtle than most, but still important, in the flashback to the Court's early history. Dogged Nice Guy / Stalker with a Crush Diego reacts to his vehement rejection by Jeanne by nominating her as the sacrifice for a plan to "protect" the Court from the magical influences of Gillitie Wood. Even after that, he still had groups of people who insisted it was just a misguided plan to play hero, that he really didn't mean it, or even that Jeanne deserved it, until the next page went up, wherein Diego smiles at an unknowing Jeanne's fear of being sent down into the ravine. After that, even the people who'd previously defended him wanted him dead.
• Even after he'd pulled a heinous stunt like utterly humiliating Ally in front of the cancer patients she was a nurse for, Keith in Fans still had some Draco in Leather Pants status from the people who believed he was still just on his revenge kick for the mental torture Ally had put him through years ago. Then he murdered Rob, who was both in love with him and was his most fervent supporter, in cold blood for power. Any and all sympathy vanished, and the forum unanimously cheered for an asskicking at the least.
  • Said cheering grew all the louder when he followed it up by setting a kid with cancer on fire just for talking back to him.
• "Housepets" has Pete, a recently freed griffin with supernatural powers, who recently gave a former member of PETA a Karmic Transformation into a dog. This was seen as an interesting twist, and King, as he's now called, has become a fan favorite for being complicated, adorable and pretty much the Grumpy Bear of the cast. Except that on the conclusion of the Chrismas ark, Pete informed King that he has no intention of changing King back into a human. Horror ensued.
• Xykon in The Order of the Stick zombified his grandmother and several other people, then had them kill his parents. After that, he was your basic sterotypical villain, doing evil things for no other reason than he can. He didn't really have a Moral Event Horizon, because he was a evil horror who thinks morals or even a reason for what you do is for pussies, ever since he was born. Oh, you want to know what he did at the top of the page, right? A group of paladins were standing aginst him, ready to fight to the death, and he threw a super bouncy ball with a Symbol of Insanity enscribed on it, causing them to go mad and slaughter each other. Only a few of them didn't go insane, on virtue of not seeing the ball, and the only one of them that survived was paralyzed by Xykon, so he would be forced to watch him zombify his dead friends. To give you the full quote of what Xykon said: "I tell you, Ugly, nothing's funnier than false hope. You really thought you had a chance there for a second. I mean, sure, I could've just blasted you all from above with fire and lightning and such... but I've always felt that when it's really important, it's worth it to go that extra mile. Don't you agree?"
• Veithel of Juathuur thinks she is past that because she deserted the Juathuur, getting her master blinded in the process, and making everyone believe she was dead.
• Jack Noir of Homestuck has gone from Obstructive Bureaucrat right through One-Winged Angel and is currently tearing through Complete Monster territory. Listing all his atrocities would fill up a decent chunk of this page with spoiler text. Despite his murderous desires though, Bec's prototyping prevents him from killing Jade personally.
  • Fans debate quite a bit as to whether Vriska has crossed this or not. Some viewers believe that she gleefully swan-dived over the line back when she mind-controlled Tavros into jumping off a cliff and has only gone deeper since then, and some viewers think that she can still be redeemed. Given that she's easily the most divisive character in the series, this argument is not surprising.
    • And given that the author has said outright that Vriska's status is intentional and he does it to mess with the fanbase, it's equally unsurprising that he pulled an even more confusing possible-example with her later when she kills Tavros: she does something awful, then immediately goes into full-on Pet the Dog mode.
  • Eridan has the distinction of crossing the Moral Event Horizon AND the Despair Event Horizon at the same moment. Convinced that there's no hope left for the Trolls, he defects to join Jack Noir, killing Feferi, Kanaya, and his species' last chance for revival in the space of about two minutes. And in a good part, it's for a really petty reason: Feferi decided to not be his moirail anymore, due to being emotionally exhausted after having to keep him in check. (And for worse, Eridan fans (and specially his fangirls) bash Feferi and blame her for this!)
  • While Doc Scratch does work for the comic's Bigger Bad, Lord English, he always acted more Affably Evil. Then we saw how he treated Aradia's ancestor, the Handmaid. Nearly suffocating her, beating her with a broom, keeping her alive for the sole purpose of using her to make her home planet a Crapsack World, and finally, setting her up to be murdered by her successor. Yikes. And note that by the last point she had been asking for death for millennia, begging for her slavery to Lord English to end.
• Fuzzy Knights rather plays with this a bit. Hamaestra has been working on his plans for years, but thus far had remained at least a Technical Pacifist. He realizes that killing The Fuzz will be crossing the line, and spends a strip getting completely drunk as he contemplates whether to do it or not, despite seeming completely confident when confronting his enemies later. The author's commentary included his thoughts that a lot of villains probably have times like that.
• Ari from Panthera when he kills Valeska. He was considered a Well-Intentioned Extremist, upset over the death of his wife, until then, but now....
• In this Schlock Mercenary strip and the previous one, Petey discusses this trope with someone he prevented from crossing the line.
  • After taking a look via spy cams in Dr.Pau's facility Kathryn evaluates the new information:

Kathryn: Uuggh! Hmph. Well, the good news is that I can now start killing and not feel in the least bit guilty. The bad news is I'm not going to feel the least bit guilty about the killing I'm about to do.

• Debatably, Zola in Girl Genius had already crossed this by double-dealing and out-Eviling the Other, but after this it's not really a question of is she going to die, but whether death's enough.
• Kyle in Something Positive, here. Bad enough that he's a misandrist jerk, worse that he's cheating on a member of the cast, but what completely pushes him over the line is that he's bragging to a reforming Jerkass who would move heaven and earth to have the woman Kyle's discarding. His comeuppance delighted the bulk of the comic's notoriously Unpleasable Fanbase.
• While the Complete Monster protagonists of Suicide for Hire spend a lot of time on the far side of the Moral Event Horizon, many (if not most) of their clientele also cross that line...
  • Autumn, the Stalker with a Crush who tries to kill the girl her crush is taking to the dance, for example.
  • Or, in the "Ty and Rosaline" arc, Ty not only abuses his loving wife repeatedly, but drives her to contact Suicide for Hire...and, after her suicide, makes the fatal mistake of contacting them himself to arrange his suicide... and demonstrates a complete lack of interest for his wife's last message. They do...oh, don't they just!
• In General Protection Fault, Ki stood by her fiance Sam even as almost certainly true rumors of him cheating on her spread. When she decided to have sex with him, only to be unable to go through with it, he tried to rape her in a fit of rage. When he came to apologize, she told him that she would not be able to forgive him for that, and returned his engagement ring, breaking up with him in the process.
  • Nega-Nick is already an Evil Overlord who kills underlings for their failures, but the he is revealed asa Complete Monster when he tortures Nega-Ki, his accomplice in taking over the world, in front of Nick to force him to build Project Velociraptor so that he can use the MuTEX to escape, and once Nick caves in, threatens to torture a prisoner to death in front of him for every hour he wastes. Considering that external forces are preventing Nick from using Velociraptor, one has to wonder what would have happened if his friends hadn't shown up.
• Dellyn Goblinslayer from Goblins is a horrible bastard who tortures so-called "monstrous races" to get a better understanding of their biology and kill them more efficiently (at least, that's what he says, but he's a horribly sadistic monster), so he's well past that point when we meet him. However, he becomes this in the eyes of Minmax (who doesn't know about the rest of his horrific actions) when he admits to healing his "pet" Yuan-Ti after beating and raping her into negative HP. He ponders over what Dellyn says for a moment, then chucks the bastard through a window.
  • Kore is so far past the Moral Event Horizon in his FIRST APPEARANCE. He slaughters an entire bar of completely innocent orcs and what not simply for the fact they're existing. Then kills a dwarf child, who was adopted by one of the orcs, simply because he was WITH the Orcs. That's nothing compared to what he does to Chief...
    • From the audience's point of view, if a character in Goblins qualifies for Complete Monster status they'll have crossed the event horizon during or shortly after their first appearance. Kore by murdering the Dwarf child in cold blood, Dellyn by carving the word 'monster' in Fumbles' head with his knife during their first torture session. Psion-Minmax does this by telling Kin how he murdered her 817 times, and she remembers each of them thanks to the power of the Maze of Many, and how he intends to use the powers of the maze to wipe all all the characters currently inside completely from existence. Before killing her for the 818th time.
• In Captain SNES, Mother Brain crosses this when she shoves Duke into the Omega Gate, thereby introducing permanent death into a world that had extra lives, continues, and save points.
• One of the remarkable things about the writing in Errant Story is that many readers were still undecided about whether Ian's actions were evil when he started trying to genocide the entire Elven race, due to what they'd done to the Half-Elves. Others thought the genocide was definitely evil, but were sympathetic to his motives and wondered if he could be brought back to his senses. Ultimately it wasn't so much any one specific bad thing Ian did that showed he was beyond recovery, but this rant as his plans unraveled.
  • In story, many of the people who know Ian consider his attempted Suicide by Cop that destroyed an entire city his Moral Event Horizon.
• Jamie's mother from Khaos Komix crosses it when she forces Jamie (Who was at the time probably around 5/6) to wash himself in scalding hot water to cleanse himself for the crime of simple curiosity.
• Jack has a multitude of characters who've hurled themselves across the Moral Event Horizon.
  • Drip, embodiment of the Sin of Lust, likely hurled himself across it at some point in the backstory, as we know he was a murderer and rapist in life. Then he did...this. However, his first (chronologically speaking) crossing of the MEH would have to be when the Devil takes him back in time to murder his own parents. Not that he knows who they are, but given the sheer brutality in how he murders his father and handles his mother (WARNING, VERY NSFW), it almost doesn't matter.
  • The Vorshes stuck a living, conscious woman in an oven, cooked her, and ate her the first night they met.
• In Bonnie's Body, Bonnie crosses it when she callously eats and devours the entire Earth like an apple and doesn't care that her family and friends are on still on it. She remorselessly admits that she did to embrace full godhood and put her past behind her, selfishly throwing away her humanity in the process to gain the ultimate power and become the most powerful being in the universe. The gypsy Martha was so horrified by Bonnie's heinous acts that she now considers her nothing more than a greedy, gluttonous beast with a god complex bent on devouring all existence just to satisfy her ego and rule over everything as cosmic goddess.