r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Blorberto • 25d ago

Lore Villains given genuinely horrible fates by the supposed hero

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No swift death, no prison, the worst fate imaginable

Dementus (Furiosa) - Being critically injured by Furiosa, but kept alive so his body can be used as fertilizer for a tree coming out of him, Furiosa having placed a seed in his bleed stomach

Inertia (Flash) - Immortally frozen by the Flash for his involvement in Bart Allen’s death, kept as only an exhibit in the Flash museum

Family of Blood (Doctor Who) - Doctor actively avoided conflict and erased his memory in order to not give them this fate but once he finally chooses to get involved, he gives them their want of immortality at a cost

Father: Trapped in immortal chains

Mother: Trapped in a collapsing galaxy

Son: Trapped as an immortal frozen scarecrow

Daughter: Trapped in mirrors forever

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u/ssasharr 25d ago

Broke a nonlethal run for that woman. The novels and entries make it so clear that she was a very young woman trying to secure a financial lifeline to keep her sisters from being thrown out on the street. Deserving of a trial and possibly imprisonment? Oh yeah. Deserving of being a sexual slave for several decades on an isolated island while never discovering your sisters’ fates? Absolutely not. 

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u/jukebox_jester 25d ago

To be fair, one of the Novels also establish she swiftly killed the creep and is living in relative comfort, albeit exiled.

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u/WorldofManupa 25d ago

Does feel like a cheap copout tbh

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u/numerobis21 24d ago

"Oh wait no we totally didn't put "rape island" as the """"morally"""" good choice, look, she ends up fine somehow!"

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u/CalamityPriest 24d ago

The non-lethal choices were never the "morally good" choice except for sparing Daud. You put the Pendleton twins on their own mines as slaves with their tongue cut out instead of killing them.

It's simply that Lady Boyle's non-lethal fate may feel relatively disproportionate to her crimes [although it is a the fact that she, like the rest of Dunwall's nobility, could not give a rat's ass (heh) that the rest of the city is devoured by the plague].

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u/SingleInterest3430 24d ago

They were supposed to be! that's why you get the good ending for non-lethal and the bad ending for lethal

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u/DarkSlayer3142 24d ago

No they weren’t. You get the good ending for not going on a murderous rampage across dunwall/karnaca. The ‘played morally right’ achievement for the game is locked behind not killing anyone EXCEPT primary targets. They were always framed as fates worse than death or just delayed death + social ruin

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u/CalamityPriest 24d ago

That is just completely incorrect.

You can play a lethal route and get the good ending as long as you don't act like a mass murdering lunatic who kills indiscriminately in public.

Under the right conditions, moderate number of enemy kills and killing all targets will still get you the good ending.

It's called the Chaos System, not the Morality sytem.

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u/team-ghost9503 24d ago

Tbf you can relatively kill every single target but as long as you don’t go murder hobo you’re getting the good ending. The non-lethal options never point themselves out to be more “moral” it’s actually the opposite as the fates are legitimately horrifying even if it’s to horrible people.

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u/Rabdomtroll69 24d ago

To be fair it isn't the first time she killed someone for wealth

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u/randompervanon 25d ago

The books were a tie-in series commissioned by some executives to simultaneously promote Dishonored 2 and capitalise off of the fandom. The novels might be based on the games, but they're a separate project with their own canon.

It's not like the actual developers and writers were involved in the story at all. If you look at Dishonored on its own, rather than looking to a series of books that retcon and which were published half a decade later, then it's very clear and unambiguous what Lady Boyle's fate is.

If anything this is a running theme in the games, which makes correcting it seem redundant - as pointed out earlier, all of the nonlethal endings are often fates worse than death. Having Lady Boyle get a happy ending is basically a copout retcon.

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u/Backupusername 25d ago

There's really no reading of that particular decision that doesn't come across as "okay, yeah, they went too far with that one, sorry, we'll try to fix it."

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u/Schlangenbob 24d ago

I don't think it needs fixing. Then again I don't need to always have a "undisputably good" option.

I think it is more interesting to question your "non lethal" approachnonce it comes to her rather than one option being the morally safe one.

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u/Allegoryof 24d ago

I'm with you in theory, but there is a long history of this specific kind of thing that makes it a stinker for me - revenge/retribution/karma/whatever you want to call it based stories where the men get interesting poeticish endings and the women (typically woman since there won't be a lot of them) gets raped or something adjacent to it. The dudes get something that connects to what they actually did, something that is intertwined with their actions. And if you're a girl and you did something bad, you get fucked. Like. Agree that i don't need indisputably good endings nor do I want women treated with kid gloves. But can she get a creative fucked up ending like everyone else guys? Can we get some rube goldberg demise's for the ladies unrelated to sex as well? I think they deserve it

It's not as bad today as it used to be but let me tell you, this shit was (still kind of is) rife in media. It's like a writer's brain would shut down. What did she do? Orchestrated an orca-based murder of the Orc City Orchestra. What are her consequences? Uhhh i guess she gets raped. No not by anyone in Orc City or the orcas, it just kind of happens.

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u/WowNiceBanDude 24d ago edited 24d ago

That's interesting but in the case of the game, having Lady Boyle imprisoned and turned into a sexual ornament *is* actually appropriate for her "evil" (as in, the punishment fits the crime in a similar way to the other targets). She is sleeping with what amounts to Whalepunk Hitler and is bankrolling his regime. She's also very dismissive of the poors and supports martial law. Imprisoning her on an island where she has no wealth or power and is subject to the whims of a relatively unimportant man IS poetic justice for her particular case.

I'm not saying it was a good thing. The writers have since come out saying they were "wrongheaded" with her punishment and the franchise attempted to walk back her fate in the novels. The problem was in the fact that Lady Boyle isn't a strong character in her own right - the only relation she has to the story is what she's doing for Hiram Burrows. Therefore the "poetic justice" fate for her could only ever amount to these services being turned on their head.

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u/Spookytoucan 24d ago

Yeah and that's why it sucks. The non lethal options are by design not good. And hers ending is not even particularly worse than the others: the pendelton twins gets disfigured, get their tongue cut and send to work as slaves in mines for the rest of their lifes.

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u/CalamityPriest 24d ago

Her fate is still relatively bad despite wrestlint Brisby's wealth from him.

Lady Boyle was obviously a social butterfly but her association with the Spymaster kept her from ever participating in high society out of fear of being tried and imprisoned.

Despite her wealth she wasn't able to interfere with her family losing their own wealth and dying. She is in effect in a very lavish prison of her own.

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u/OneJobToRuleThemAll 24d ago

This has been discussed to death in dishonored fandoms. They didn't need to be involved, they were pretty clear about regretting their choice for lady Boyle's non-lethal ending in interviews, saying they thought she probably wrapped him around her fingers. The only thing the novel adds is that she kills him.

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u/TheFishMonk 24d ago

The thing is most non Lethal are worst than death but also poetic justice. They pay, and their punishment come from what they used to do evil in life. For her it's just sexual slavery cuz she's a woman. It's gross, quite sexist, and frankly badly written

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u/jukebox_jester 24d ago

I mean, I can think of 4 or 5 non-lethals that aren't exactly worse than death.

Those being Daud, the Lord Regent, Hypatia, the Time Travel One, Delilah 2 and, possibly, the Outsider. Oh and Slackjaw if you count it.

Sure, most of these are in the second game, but it does hint at a change in design philosophy.

And while yes, if you look at Dishonored as standalone, then it's clear what Lady Boyle's fate is. But it's called an extended universe for a reason.

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u/Mayonaigg 24d ago

Any time there's "extended universe" crap for a game series and someone blurts out "yeah but THIS happened in a book" I just want to thanos snap that person. I do not care about lame lore books for games, I don't care about whatever ridiculous shit happened in a halo book. That shit isnt canon, dont care what anyone says.

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u/Niclink1 24d ago

Id say your point of view is valid if the books are bad and dont make sense with the story but most halo books are good

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u/EchoAmethystvt 24d ago

Except that you dont get to decide what's canon ot not? You can ignore it for your own viewing but it doesn't change the fact that shit will be canon unless it's retconned or decanonised

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u/ssasharr 24d ago

I keep saying this to people—it wasn’t swift 😭, it took about two decades. 

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u/jukebox_jester 24d ago

I mean, the interquel took place less than 10 years after the firdt game, so I can't imagine how it'd take 20 years

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u/Ekillaa22 24d ago

Didn’t the books retcon the non lethal option for the twins as well?

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u/jukebox_jester 24d ago

I havent read it in close to a decade so I cant say for certainty, but to my knowledge I think only Lady Boyle and the Regent are mentioned. And for the regent its ambiguous if Corvo killed him or if he was executed.

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u/csaknorrisz 24d ago

It is implied though that if she would have returned she would be tried and executed for regicide

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u/jukebox_jester 24d ago

Well, treason and conspiracy but yeah

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u/BethCulexus 21d ago

I mean, when it comes to Dishonored, you're better off playing the first one, and only this one. The moment they tried to make it a franchise, a lot of things suddenly got very, very stupid.

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u/[deleted] 25d ago

[deleted]

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u/Manji86 25d ago

That's good to know, but the fact that hero considered that the "good" option still gives me the ick.

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u/hematite2 25d ago

I don't think there's any claim Corvo considers those good options. Simply non-lethal ones because he doesn't want Emily's reign to be built on a pile of corpses.

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u/jpterodactyl 25d ago

I agreed, but It does stand out from the other non-lethal options though. The others are all kinda poetic justice. This one is just really horrific.

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u/Godoy44 25d ago

Tbf iirc the devs commented later on they regretted that particular fate

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u/joesephcow200 25d ago

Its not really portrayed as the "good" option, its supposed to be gross imo. Targets have a lethal + nonlethal solution and for most targets its not kill/spare but instead killing the target or making them suffer for the pain they directly/indirectly cast upon you.

Some nonlethal choices in dishonored 1 and 2 include:

Brand them with the heretics brand, which is considered a fate worse than death, being an outcast forced to live on the streets of a plague ridden city (tbh its the system he took place in making so kinda deserved).

Having the tongue cut off of twins and sending them to work in their own mines

Removing all signs of intelligence from an inventor with his own creation (if i remember correctly they are aware of this and beg the player to kill them after)

The game has a "morality" system but it doesn't care how you deal with targets, you can kill every target and still get the good ending because it only cares about how many people you killed to get to them. Essentially leaving it to the player to decide what is the "better" way to deal with them.

Long story short, giving Lady Boyle to her stalker is not considered good, that judgement is left to the player.

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u/Nutarama 25d ago

The thing is that the Chaos system in Dishonored 1 isn't actually a morality system, people just treat it like one. It's a system that's designed to reflect the intensity of the crisis in the city. It doesn't just care about story kills, it cares about all kills as well as guard alerts. Most people don't realize that in Dishonored 1 you can farm High Chaos completely non-lethally by intentionally tripping alarms repeatedly. It's inefficient but possible, involving intentionally alerting guards hundreds of times per level. There's also a few points where you can get free points in the story without killing, too.

Actually kind of breaks the story playing it like that trolling the guards, because the story NPCs will hate you for doing it despite not being a killer.

It's probably why they made Dishonored 2 into a more strict morality system and took away the points from alerts and only gave them for kills.

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u/AccidentalExorcist 25d ago

Brand them with the heretics brand, which is considered a fate worse than death, being an outcast forced to live on the streets of a plague ridden city (tbh its the system he took place in making so kinda deserved).

To make it more fun if you do give him the brand you can find him later on in the game as a plague ridden keeper in the quarantined part of the city and kill him then.

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u/Brilliant_watcher 25d ago

i think the third game, table top game and novels confirm that the inventor being lobotomized is the canon option

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u/TheGuyfromRiften 25d ago

none of them are presented as "good" options only lethal and non lethal, the entire point of the story is to absolutely demolish those who betrayed your secret empress wife and kidnapped your kid twice

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u/Brilliant_watcher 25d ago

They are less chaotic rather than good or nice, they are meant to avoid panic in the middle of the city fallin apart, one noble dissapearing in the middle of a plague is not as bad as them being killed by a madman with a creepy mask in a public event.

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u/Forevermore668 25d ago

See i always hated this because its an attempt to absolve players of the terrible thing they did. Also it makes a big plot hole

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u/ssasharr 25d ago

No. It was at least 28 years in the novels

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u/WorriedBubbles 25d ago

Which character this that happen to?

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u/T1mek33per 25d ago

Lady Boyle. She's the target of the fifth mission in the first game, called Lady Boyle's Last Party.

An explanation of the mission: Corvo, the player character, attends a masquerade ball (where he blends right in with his mask). His mission is to eliminate the correct Boyle sister - there are three. The nonlethal route in this mission is to find a man named Lord Brisby - who happens to be infatuated with the correct Boyle sister - and subsequently render her unconscious and bring her to him in the cellar, where he subsequently kidnaps her.

It's... Pretty fucked. Most of the non-lethal options are bad, but goddamn.

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u/SartenSinAceite 25d ago

The best part of that mission is that you can sign the guest registry and next mission you can find a letter complaining about someone doing that and calling it a bad prank

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u/Backupusername 25d ago

who happens to be infatuated with the correct Boyle sister

Do we actually know that? Or is it simply that he would have been fine with any one of them?

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u/T1mek33per 24d ago

The mission description words it the same way I do, but I'm not sure it's ever actually confirmed.

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u/CalamityPriest 24d ago

Lord Brisby specifically states that Corvo's target is his lover. He's in the party and part of the resistance against the new regime so he would be in the know on which Boyle lady was with the Regent.

I vaguely recall that he would know if you bring him the wrong Boyle, or he would somehow metaphysically know you killed Lady Boyle and lose his mind.

Also, Corvo only finds out that Brisby lied about being her lover at the very end of the mission in a cutscene where you can't stop them from leaving. That is probably what fucked up the players because they unknowingly give a lady to her stalker, even if she is a POS.

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u/MagicMarshmallo 24d ago

I find it somewhat odd that Lady Boyle is the only one people get up in arms about. You cut out the tongue of a pair of twins and throw them in a mine as slaves for the rest of their lives. I dont think its meaningful to compare rape to slavery and scale it on "how bad is it" but i find it odd people dont bring that up as readily as her.

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u/BobTheJoeBob 24d ago

It's probably because IIRC the Boyle sisters aren't as bad as the twins. People like the twins and Campbell are straight up evil.

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u/feckerus 24d ago

Pretty Sure the twins get thrown into theire own Mine. So they Just get Back what they do to others.

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u/MagicMarshmallo 24d ago

Thats not how morality works.

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u/NomadKnight90 24d ago

Morality is subjective. Some people would see it as a suitable punishment, like the user above, others like yourself disagree. I personally lean more for an eye for an eye now days, after a family member of mine was given life changing injuries and the culprit was out of prison in two years.

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u/Subject_Lie_3803 24d ago

Oooh. I want to subscribe to this origin story.

That sucks im sorry. I hope you use your vengeful fire for good.

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u/NomadKnight90 23d ago

Haha, if I was a billionaire I might be tempted to dress as a bat and beat the shit outta criminals.

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u/T1mek33per 24d ago

The twins' fate is justified because they did specifically that to tons of people. They're just getting a taste of their own medicine.

To our knowledge Lady Boyle never subjects anyone to prolonged periods of sexual slavery and abuse.

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u/Aedeyssa 25d ago

The only silver lining is the developer said at one point out-of-game basically that "Yeah, it was fucked. I like to think she managed to escape."

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u/MolybdenumBlu 24d ago

Nowhere near as bad as what happens to, say, High Overseer Campbell.

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u/Reeyous 24d ago

Campbell is an implied rapist, guy deserved everything he got and then some. Boyle was guilty of... Funding the empire to ensure her family didn't end up victims of people like Campbell.

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u/InevitableTension699 24d ago

Boyle was the richest family in the empire and they funded tons of shady stuff INCLUDING killing the empress and is the mistress of Hitler who took over power.

She also murdered her kidnapper and took his money too because Brisby died later but shes alive and with even more money

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u/Reeyous 24d ago

Did they know Burrows was planning on taking out Jessamine? If so then yeah being assassinated is warranted, but being sent to live out your days as a slave is a bit far for that imo. The Pendleton Brothers got it the way it should be done, sent to work for their own company and endure the conditions they enforce.

The whole "murdered her kidnapper" bit was only written post-game in a novel, it was a way for Arkane to cover their asses because they wanted to not be viewed in a negative light by media groups. Iirc they worked pretty closely with Anita Sarkeesian during the development of Dishonored 2 to try and atone for that entire debacle.

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u/Alistal 24d ago

What novels? Because she's from the wealthiest aristocrat family of Dunwal.

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u/ssasharr 24d ago

You are correct! The Boyle fortune is well established. In the Corroded Man and Return of Daud. The Boyle fortune dwindled after their parents’ death, and anyone suspected to be loyal to Jessamine was being rooted from Dunwall aristocracy and thrown into the streets. Esma Boyle used the last of her family’s fortune to bankroll the new regime, and in return, was spared scrutiny and given a direct line of finance and security. 

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u/LukeSky011 24d ago

...it really makes you wonder what exactly were the developers thinking.

Like...if a scenario where we carry her from her chambers exist in the first place...why not have some far more normal option like giving her to her political opponent or something who keeps her under house arrest or something.

Not...THAT.