Destroying the Innocent

Destroying the Innocent is an event where a villain destroys another character's "innocence." These villains are known as Destroyers of Innocence. An evildoer becomes a "Destroyer of Innocence" when they harm, injure or even kill a friendly, defenseless or an innocent character. Destroying the Innocent is an event that invokes great feelings of anger and hatred by the public and marks a crossing at Moral Event Horizon. Like Moral Event Horizon, acts of destroying the innocence can also insult/disturbed/disgusted more sympathetic villain that witness this event as well.

A destroyer of innocence often does not have qualities of redemption due to the fact that they are not above destroying the innocence of some innocent person. Some evildoers who created this kind of cataclysmic event in their own universe are often Complete Monsters, but not all of them are necessarily Complete Monsters, unless if they have reached a new heinous standard in their universe. It is not surprising that performing act of destroying the innocent (particularly if done for the first time) invokes great feelings of anger and hatred by the public. It is more than often that in the end, the perpetrator eventually reduced into a doomed soul as comeuppance/price of their actions. Quite often, those whose innocence get destroyed may turn evil themselves, kill the villain in revenge, or worse, became their subordinate.

Destroying the Innocent is the opposite of Defending the Innocent.

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT: TO QUALIFY AS ACT OF "DESTROYING THE INNOCENT" AND DIFFERENTIATE FROM A TYPICAL CROSSING OF THE MORAL EVENT HORIZON, THE VILLAINS' ACT MUST HAVE EITHER: Acts where villains destroy their own innocence instead of the heroes' are not to be counted as one- that goes under Moral Event Horizon. Also, if the act of destroying the innocence were not done out of malice and the perpetrator was a good guy, it would go for Tragic Mistake instead.
 * Tortured the hero, either physically or mentally, sometimes mentally breaking a hero/another character.
 * Killed many innocent people includes heroes themselves.
 * Destroyed entire environments/cities/planets/realities, especially if the said damage is intended to be irreversible.
 * Forced the heroes to watch innocent people died at their hands, no matter whether they are those whom they care about or worse, their own allies that disgusted by their actions and their own family.
 * Raped women or children for sport or other motives.
 * Turned another innocent character to the "dark side", creating either Evil vs. Evil scenario (where the victim would become an anti-hero/ruthless villain who fights against the perpetrator) or ended up became the slave/pawn of perpetrator themselves.

Anime and Manga

 * Akame Ga Kill!
 * Wild Hunt: This organization's true purpose was in reality to purge many innocent lives as much as they can as means to satisfy Honest's sadistic hunger for humanity's pain which destroyed the innocence of those who survived their killing spree.
 * Champ: Brutally destroyed many children's innocence by raping them before butchering them like a cattle.
 * Date A Live:
 * Sir Issac Ray Peram Westcott: Being the darkest DAL villain, Issac Westcott had committed several horrendous crimes, and an infamous example of this is causing two spirits' inverse. He ordered Ellen Mira Mathers to stab Shido in front of Tohka Yatogami and tormented Nia Honjou for five years to make them Inverted. In the eyes of Issac's former friend, Elliot Woodman, Spirits are the beings who needed to know love so that they could be saved, and what Issac did could be considered as crimes to break their innocence and their wish to be accepted by the world by making them savage monsters for the world to see.
 * Hotshot TV Producer: He tried to sexually entice Miku, however, Miku refused to accept the situation and left the place and never spoke to the Producer again. After that, the Producer spread false news about Miku, the news was so outrageous that all fans of Miku were leaving her one by one. And in a final attack, he made Miku contracting a disease that made her lose her voice, as well as also lost her singing career. The case Miku was so horrible, which made Miku thoughts of suicide after she lost everything. The Producer is also the responsible for making her have hatred of men, and he often regarded as one of the worst villains in Date A Live.
 * Phantom: When she gave Spirits' powers to Kotori Itsuka and made her burn down a part of Tengu City and so also was responsible for making Origami kill her own parents.
 * Digimon
 * Beelzemon: When Leomon told Beelzemon that to have power is not to be strong and it’s not worth hurting the children, Beelzemon violently murdered him and absorbed his data, leaving Jeri in tears.
 * Dragon Ball
 * General White: Threatened to kill the Village Elder and almost killed Goku where his reign of terror has already traumatized all inhabitants of the Elder's Village. This resulted in provoking #8 who killed him.
 * Van Zant from Dragon Ball Z: Killed several innocent people and almost killed Mr. Satan and Bee, this resulted in Evil Buu's birth and their own death. This action later revealed turned him into a doomed soul as when Earth restored and all lifeforms inside it revived, he remained dead.
 * Tomoo and his gang from Elfen Lied: Destroying Lucy's innocence, they bullied Lucy for fun & brutally killing her pet puppy on purpose by forcing her to watch without any remorse. They are also responsible for turning Lucy into a murderous psychopath. But the worst is, they would've developed into a murderous psychopath themselves had Lucy not killed them. They are a famous example of a "Destroyer of Innocence".
 * Fullmetal Alchemist
 * Father: Sacrificed the more than 1 000 000 inhabitants of Xerxes, leaving Van Hohenheim to be the last of his kind.
 * King Bradley and Solf J. Kimblee: Destroyed a young warrior monk's innocence alongside other Ishvalans during the Ishvalan Rebellion, thus turning the young warrior monk into a ruthless serial killer bent on revenge.
 * Scar: Killed Winry Rockbell's parents even though they saved his life, leading Winry to try to shoot him after finding out the truth.
 * Naruto
 * Itachi Uchiha: Destroyed his younger brother's innocence by forcing him to watch how he killed the whole Uchiha Clan via Tsukuyomi. Though later revealed that Itachi only did so to encourage Sasuke to kill him in order to keep Uchiha Clan's name from ruined as the said clan planned to usurp Konoha, the damage that he has done on Sasuke's innocence was too great to the point that Sasuke turned to the dark side and became a figure that Itachi does not want him to be.
 * One Piece
 * World Government: the organization is corrupted entity, particularly through the pitiless application of absolute justice, the brutal suppression of researching the Void Century and the depravity of the aristocratic World Nobles. By that, their actions tend to be secretly based on corruption or questionable motives. They hide the truth or ignore the rights of the people, with many individuals using justice to further their own aims.
 * The government and royal families of Flevance discovered that Amber Lead is toxic but they choose not to inform of its dark nature to the country, this only worsened when the former spread lies about the disease being contagious, leading a massacre of the entire citizens, this caused Law to become bitter, resentful, and vituperative towards the world when he was kid as not only his parents and sister died, but his friends too, only the royal families survived with the assistance of the government.
 * A buster call was destroying Ohara because they accused the scholars of trying to recover the Ancient Weapons and spread lies around the world when in reality they never cared about it. The World Government used that excuse to hide the fact that the scholars of Ohara were researching the Void Century. Nico Robin was the only survivor of Ohara and was hated by the brainwashed world, who believed that she would kill them all, they even fabricated the story about her destroying six buster ships while in truth Jaguar D. Saul destroyed them. Nico Robin grew up hating the government and as a result of her childhood, she became manipulative and distrustful that she associated with multiple organizations to hide.
 * Once Homing forfeited his and his family's status as World Nobles, they were hunted down by the public given their hatred, and when he begged the government to take his wife and two sons back to the Holyand, they coldly rejected his pleads, this resulted his firstborn son, Doflamingo, to become hateful and bitter against the world that he shot his own father, whom he blamed for taking away his wealth and privilege, to regain his status as a World Noble using his head.
 * Damian from Pokémon: Abused his own Charmander and eventually disown and left it due to him deemed it weak, which led the said Charmander eventually adopted by Ash. How bad the damage he has done on Charmander's innocence was revealed once it evolved into Charmeleon: After evolved into Charmeleon, Charmander began to grow distant from Ash, scorning all of its former friends and seeking power alone. Worse, it unknowingly becomes like Damien who mistreated him, and the damage of Charmander's innocence can only undone once Ash's selfless act to save it from freezing reminded it with the latter's kindness.
 * The Raven from Princess Tutu: Abused his 'daughter' Princess Kraehe.
 * Medusa Gorgon from Soul Eater: Abusing Crona during her/his childhood and turned her/his into a "living weapon". She even mocks Spirit who berates her for this, further confirming that her heinous act was due to her incapability to understand love. This was one of many reasons why he considered by many to be the more horrifying threat than Asura.
 * Aya Tokoyogi from Strike the Blood: Destroyed her own daughter's innocence right before killing her.
 * Tokyo Ghoul series:
 * Kureo Mado from Tokyo Ghoul: He had brutally killed and murdered countless ghouls all to get revenge for the one who killed his wife. He had killed Asaki and Ryouko Fueguchi and used their kagunes as weapons. He also tried to kill their daughter Hinami and he used the Quinque that was made form her mother's kagune and almost killed both Hinami and Touka.
 * Like Mado himself, C.C.G., the very organization that Mado affiliated with, though duty was for keeping ghouls from harming humans, proved to be too genocidal in nature as their action was mainly involving killing-spree against all ghouls in existence until none of them left. Worse, they did so without seeing their morality and in the process, destroyed the innocence of many ghouls that turned out not evil and survive their massacre. It is one of the reasons why Ayato Kirishimajoined Aogiri Tree to wage war against them.
 * Although, the massacre that they did were mostly because it is their job. A few of them, whom more malicious and sadistic like actually more sympathetic because they lost their loved one by far more malevolent ghoul and it made them mad and far extreme that ghoul that tormented them: In fact, Mado's own sadism on Hinami actually because he still releasing his anger on every ghoul until he eventually met One-Eyed Owl whom responsible for murdering his wife.
 * Yakumo Oomori: Yakumo was infamous for his brutality and had killed countless innocent civilians before. He had terrorized the Fueguchi family and almost killed Asaki and had kidnapped Ken Kaneki and tortured him for ten days. He had Kaneki completely embrace his ghoul side and it ironically led to his downfall.
 * How Yakumo's torture on Kaneki led to his own downfall was because he unknowingly hardened Kaneki' resolve to protect the others, something which explained how his torture backfires with Kaneki suddenly become more ruthless and willing to use his ghoul powers more: In fact, before being tortured, Kaneki was too helpless and weak-willed to take more ruthless decision to use his ghoul powers to protect the others due to troubled by his newfound ghoul traits.
 * Yami Marik from Yu-Gi-Oh!: He destroyed Marik's innocence when he took Marik over for the first time when he was a child and murdered Marik's father (sent him to the Shadow Realm in the 4Kids dub.).

Comics

 * Batman
 * Joe Chill: Murdered Bruce Wayne's parents.
 * Tony Zucco: Murdered Dick Grayson's parents.
 * Dennis Carradine from Spiderman: Murdered Peter Parker's Uncle Ben, kickstarting his becoming into Spiderman.

Animation

 * Robert Callaghan aka Yokai from Big Hero 6: Destroyed Hiro Hamada's innocence when the latter finally sees that behind the mask was Robert Callaghan, whom he has admired deeply in the past. He then tells him that the death of his brother is Tadashi's fault for trying to save him, much to Hiro's murderous rage.
 * Tai Lung from Kung Fu Panda: Cruelly destroyed his own innocence by attacking Shifu all for the sake of the Dragon Scroll, by mercilessly smashing him aside, even when Shifu lowered his kick out of care for him. After his imprisonment, Shifu becomes a cold and harsh teacher, secretly remorseful over how he made Tai Lung to be.
 * Lord Shen from Kung Fu Panda 2: Destroyed Po's innocence alongside other pandas during his genocidal crusade against pandas, which led many people believed that Po is the last of his kind until it's revealed that Po's father, along with a handful few of pandas survived the massacre.
 * Judge Hopkins from ParaNorman: He and other judges have Aggie Prenderghast executed out of fear of her unusual powers even though she never harmed anyone, turning Aggie into an angry ghost bent on revenge.
 * 2nd Dimension Heinz Doofenshmirtz from Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension: Defeated his nemesis 2nd Perry the Platypus and transformed him into a ruthless cyborg dubbed Platyborg.
 * Shan Yu from Mulan: Sadistically murdered an entire population of a small town and then burnt it down. Was even implied to have killed a child, shown when a small doll was found by the Chinese army.
 * Judge Doom from Who Framed Roger Rabbit: Murdered an adorable toon shoe using his creation the Dip, and tried to do so to Roger and Jessica Rabbit.
 * Judge Claude Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame: This despicable fanatic has done plenty of horrid actions that would certainly destroy one's innocence for sure. For starters, he killed a young gypsy and then tried to kill an infant Quasimodo simply because he was hideous. He then raised the infant, but only ever because of his own fear of damnation and not actual sympathy. He then abused Quasimodo and made him believe the world is a dark and cruel place, and thus locked him inside a bell tower for 20 years.
 * Madam Mim from The Sword in the Stone:

Live-Action

 * Koba from Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: Devastates his own kind's innocence by set their own colony ablaze and framing the humans for it.
 * Two-Face: Murdered Dick Grayson's parents by shooting down the tightrope they were walking on.
 * Joker: Murdered Bruce Wayne's parents before the movie began.
 * Clarence Darby: Raped and murdered Clyde Shelton's wife and daughter and caused Shelton to become a deadly vigilant by killing a majority of the Justice Department in Philadelphia and even brutally killing Darby himself.
 * Eli Damaskinos: Has destroyed his *own son's innocence by turned him into Alpha Reaper out of his ambition for vampire kind's ascension, and also arrogantly mocked his own daughter for berating him.
 * Laserbeak from the Transformers: Dark of the Moon: He killed possibly hundreds of innocent people, before and after the Chicago battle, and he possibly killed a whole family of a NASA engineer when Laserbeak tricked his daughter into letting him inside. Laserbeak takes sadistic pleasure from destroying innocents.
 * Sentinel Prime and Dylan Gould from: Aside inevitably/posthumously caused mankind and Autobots enemies via their actions in devastating Chicago and kills many people in the said city, both have posthumously destroyed James Savoy's innocence, turning him into a vengeful member of Cemetery Wind that hellbent in the destruction of all Cybertronian on Earth.
 * Mr. Underwood: While it is implied that Freddy Krueger was never 100% normal, Mr. Underwood's abuse of him, combined with bullying from other orphans, contributed to Freddy going down the path of evil.
 * Godzilla: Everytime Godzilla intentionally destroyed cities, it's inevitable that survivors of his rampage would have their innocence destroyed. But the only thing Godzilla destroyed anyone's innocent outright was in 1954 film where he rampages in retaliation for Hydrogen bomb test that killed his family and scarred him, and in Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah: Giant Monster All Out Attack where he was revived by tormented souls who killed by Japanese soldiers during Pacific War.
 * Jurassic Park
 * Indominus Rex: Brutally killed an innocent Ankylosaurus while attacking Zach and Gray Mitchell in their Gyrosphere. She also would've undoubtedly destroyed the innocence of all who did manage to survive her rampage across Isla Nublar and her destruction of Jurassic World.
 * Indoraptor: Destroyed Maisie Lockwood's innocence several times, by playing with her hair from within his cage to frighten her and reaching out toward her while cornering her in her bedroom, taking twisted pleasure in the fear and despair he was causing her. By the end of the film, Maisie is outright traumatized by the Indoraptor's repeated attempts on her life.

Literature

 * Harry Potter
 * Lord Voldemort:  He has started committing various acts of destroying the innocence even from his own childhood that ultimately made his name became the greatest taboo in Harry Potter series. Even Dumbledore not only pointed out that by doing so (includes creating Horcruxes), Voldemort has gone beyond usual evil and caused many people to stand up against him even from his own followers.
 * Bellatrix Lestrange: Has gleefully tortured Neville's parents into insanity, traumatizing him in process.
 * Fenrir Greyback: As an unrecognizable werewolf, he turned the young Prof. Lupin into a werewolf.
 * Yeerks: The faction of this race has infamously destroyed countless lives' innocence during their campaign in world domination. Though being defeated by Animorphs and also Andalite forces, this was not without the enormous losses, includes deaths of Tom and Rachel which destroyed Tobias and Jake's innocence.

Live-Action TV

 * Chris Hargensen from Carrie: She and her group tormented Carrie White constantly, causing Carrie to take revenge on her and her friends.
 * Madame Kovarian: She destroyed the innocence of Melody Pond (AKA River Song) when she conditioned her from the time she was an infant to become a psychopathic assassin with the sole purpose to kill the Doctor. By extension, it can be considered that she destroyed Amy's innocence too when she kidnapped and experimented on her at Demon's Run.
 * Ra's al Ghul (Arrow): He destroyed Oliver Queen's innocence when he brainwashed him into becoming Al Sah Him in exchange for his sister's resurrection.
 * Tywin Lannister: He destroyed the innocence of all three of his children due to the years of psychological abuse he inflicted on them, thus making him directly responsible for making all three of them who they are (Jaime and Cersei specifically.) By extension, this also makes him responsible for making his grandson, Joffrey Baratheon, who he is too.
 * Azazel: He destroyed Sam Winchester's innocence (as well as the innocence of the other special children, and by extension, he destroyed Dean's innocence as well) when he injected Sam with demon blood when he was a baby, thus resulting in his special powers (and setting in motion much of the plot of Seasons 1 & 2.) Even in death, he still considered as the notorious demon that feared by Winchesters more than other dangerous antagonists that they faced.

Videogames

 * Rogue Isles from City of Villains: This is their entire purpose. Lord Recluse has set up a trial by fire, eat or be eaten, style of society there with the grand goal of manufacturing villains from ordinary or even previously good-hearted people.
 * In City of Heroes/Villains Going Rogue the society of Praetoira was introduced and with it Mother Mayhem. Mother uses her Seer Network to detect blossoming psychics, abducts them, sticks them in isolation, telepathically torture them until their old lives and values are meaningless to them before finally psychically enslaving them to her will.
 * Ganondorf: Destroys Link's innocence countless times in all his incarnations, most notably in The Wind Waker, where Link is living peaceably on Outset Island and then his sister is kidnapped by the Helmaroc King working for Ganondorf, and then in Twilight Princess when Ganondorf orders Colin, Beth and other children kidnapped, and Link is suddenly thrown into a dark world of political conflict.
 * Joker from Injustice: Gods Among Us: Destroyed Superman's innocence and turned him to the side of evil by manipulating him to kill Lois Lane and his unborn child, activating a bomb to destroy Metropolis with the detonator in Lois' heart to activate once her heart stops beating.
 * Yuuki Terumi from BlazBlue: Destroyed Ragna's innocence by kidnapping his sister when they were children.
 * The Killer: Destroyed the innocence of the 5 children he murdered, turning them into ghosts who would kill any security guard they came across and eventually led the Killer to his own gruesome demise.
 * Alex Mercer: Inevitably destroyed James Heller's innocent side when he cthe auses death of Heller's family when he caused the second outbreak in New York.
 * Lucifer (Dante's Inferno): He destroyed Beatrice's innocence when he convinces her to eat the Forbidden Fruit, turning her into a succubus. The purpose of this act was believed to be turned her against Dante, but when Dante undo this by cleanse her soul and later confront Lucifer in Cocytus, it's revealed that Lucifer's true goal in doing so was to challenge Dante further as well as free himself from his prison.
 * Ridley from Metroid: Destroyed Samus Aran's innocence during his invasion in planet K-2L by killing her mother as well as the rest of humans on the said planet when she was 3, presumably leaving her as the sole survivor.
 * Ozwell E. Spencer: Sadistically destroyed Lisa Trevor's innocence by turning her into a monster that gave birth to G-Virus inside her and killed her parents just as means to prevent his research to be a God.
 * Kessler: Usurped First Sons organization and left Alden to die at Warren District, resulting in the kid becoming a supervillain after Ray Sphere's explosion. He also causes Trish's death in his sadistic choice on the hero Cole whether Cole chooses to save doctors first or merely focused on saving her instead. The latter case, however, proved to be done reluctantly due to the fact that Kessler is actually Cole's alternate future self.
 * Super Paper Mario
 * Blumiere's father: He is implied to have threatened Timpani to stay away from his kind, causing her to nearly break up with his son. When his heartbroken son confronted over the disappearance of his love, he reveals to Blumiere that he banished Timpani from their home dimension as punishment for daring to marry one of his kind, ultimately turning Blumiere to the nihilistic Count Bleck.
 * Count Bleck and Dimentio: Have killed countless lives by destroying multiple universes.

Western Animation

 * Avatar: The Last Airbender/The Legend of Korra:
 * Sozin: Wiped out the Air Nomads, leaving Avatar Aang to be the last of his kind.
 * Ozai: Destroyed the innocence of all two of his children due to the years of psychological abuse he inflicted on them, thus making him directly responsible for making all two of them who they are.
 * Yon Rha: Killed the mother of Sokka and Katara, leading the latter to eventually seek revenge on him.
 * Yakone: Forced Noatak and Tarrlok to learn Bloodbending and later bloodbend each other in order to make them his instruments of revenge on the Avatar and Republic City.
 * 2nd Dimension Charlene Doofenshmirtz from Tales from the Resistance: Back to the 2nd Dimension: During her husband's reign, she captured 25 of O.W.C.A. agents and turned them into ruthless cyborgs to serve for the Doofenshmirtz family.
 * Joker (DC Animated Universe): Brainwashed Tim Drake (whom taking Robin mantle at the moment) into Joker Junior. Worse, in events of Batman Beyond, it was revealed that he has uses Tim Drake as his vessel for his soul (or specifically his consciousness) via chip that contains his memory within Tim's head, turned him into another Joker.
 * Eddy (Ed, Edd, n Eddy): Eddy destroyed Jimmy's innocence in the episode "Ed in a Halfshell" (though in a less serious way) when he taught Jimmy "everything he knows"; before the episode, Jimmy was, for the most part, harmless, but after that episode, Jimmy becomes a conniving schemer (this is most prevalent in the two-part episode "If It Smells like an Ed", where he orchestrates a very elaborate plan for revenge by framing the Eds for things they didn't do as revenge after Eddy gave him a wedgie in front of the entire Cul-de-Sac.)
 * Shredder (2012 TMNT): Shredder destroyed Hamato Yoshi's innocence by killing (by accident) Tang Shen and took his daughter Miwa.
 * Captain Gutt: attempts to kill Manny's family just for revenge, stating that Manny took everything he had, and the evil ape intended to do just the same.
 * Mal: During Total drama All-stars, he harms many contestant but his worst action was in the finale, where he tried to break Zoey by telling her that Mike was gone. Later he also tried to drown her.
 * Lola Loud (The Loud House): In the episode Sound of Silence, she killed Lana's pet frog, Seymour (off-screen), for distracting her while putting on her makeup in a flashback.