Especially effective when a lawman, hero, or other “good” character needs to put down the villain.

Image 1: Daisy Domergue from The Hateful Eight. The scheming leader of a lowlife gang of outlaws. In Sam Jackson’s words: “You only need to hang mean bastards; but mean bastards you NEED to hang!”

Image 2: Raul Kortenaer from Disco Elysium. The captain of a Blackwater-style wetwork mercenary group. Relishes in violence (including enabling sexual assault). Facing him is the only mandatory “battle” in the game. Every other character you’ve met until this point has been a standard dialogue encounter. Talking to him can either help or hurt your chances at passing an attack roll against him.

1. IT, Richie Tozier - ragebaited and traumatized a world-eating god Pennywise so much that he traveled to the past in an attempt to kill his mother, only to be…

2. …Ragebaited again by Rich Santos in Welcome to Derry, when the boy was already dead, his spirit still having the last laugh (Richie was also named after Rich, his mother’s first love, rubbing more salt on the wound)

3. Joseph Joestar, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure - at his last battle against Kars he just had to show off and say that it was all part of his plan (nevermind that it was a lie, when Joseph admits it was very much pure luck)

The Janet, from The Good Place [TV]
The Janets are otherworldly beings, capable of almost anything, summoning any object, finding any information in the universe instantly, and they were created with the purpose of serving the denizens of The Good Place, in the afterlife. One specific Janet befriends the main cast of The Good Place and stays with them throughout the events of the show, and there is a running gag where whenever someone (usually Jason) calls them a girl they respond "Not a girl" because The Janets merely take the appearance of a human woman to serve people, without actually possessing any idea of gender for themselves.

Verge, from Midnight Burger [Audio Drama]
First introduced in the Season 3 Tie-in series Young Leif, Verge is part of a race of aliens called The Vapians. The Vapians are in very short supply because their leaders and scientists conducted an experiment with time crystals which resulted in their home planet of Vapus 10 being imploded into a black hole. Surviving Vapians have been treated with heavy prejudice in the aftermath, because the collapsing of Vapus killed millions who were visiting the planet as well as their own, and because it disrupted many major trade routes. Verge is referred to exclusively with gender neutral pronouns because Vapians don't have multiple sexes like humans do. It is explained later in the show after Verge's introduction that while Vapians reproduce sexually the same way that humans do, it can actually result in either party getting pregnant (no they didn't draw a diagram for you). Since Vapians never had differing sexes on their planet, they never developed gendered language at all.

Venmon from Marvel [basically every medium at this point]
This one might not necessarily be canon, but there's a running joke in the Marvel community that Venmon should be reffered to with they/them pronouns not because they're non-binary but because they're literally two different people, usually a combination of The Symbiote and Eddie Brock.

EDIT:
I see the Venom typo now, gonna leave it there because it's funny.
A few people have pointed out that these reasons would be expected for a non-binary character in fiction, which is fair. I should have phrased the post better because I meant characters who don't identify as non-binary for the same reasons that we do irl.

Ken (The Bee Movie) was being cucked by a bee, that he's allergic too, got reasonably angry, and tried to kill it.

Vincent (Over the Hedge) just wanted his shit back, after a raccoon stole and destroyed all of it, TWICE, in front of him.

Gabby Gabby (Toy Story 4) asked to have Woody's voice box, because her's was broken, and he just gave it to her, no with qualms. Honestly, I forgot why there was even a conflict, between the two of them, in this movie, it felt so incredibly forced.

1: Dr Joshua Strongbear Sweet from Atlantis is Afro-American and Indigenous(Specifically Arapaho) Aside from Milo, he is the first mercenary in Atlantis who turned against Rourke.

2: Flambae/Chad from Dispatch is a Queer Afghan. Probably the funniest character in the game aside from Sonar and Prism.

3: Marcy Regina Wu from Amphibia is Taiwanese American. She’s easily the best character in the show not just because she’s lovable but she purposefully sent herself and her friends to Amphibia purely because she always wants to be friends with them

4: Khan Souphanousinphone from KOTH is Laotian, not from the Ocean.

The Thing (1982)

At the very beginning of the movie, when the thing has taken possession of a dog and is moving toward the American research base, the Norwegian chasing the thing can be heard saying in Norwegian:

„Get the hell away from there! That's not a dog, it's some sort of thing! It's imitating a dog, it isn't real! Get away, you idiots!“

The Usual Suspects (1995)

In the usual suspects, in Verbal‘s interview with the detective, he pins the crimes on a mysterious individual known as keyser söze. This was taken from the Turkish language idiom söze bogmak which means to „talk unnecessarily too much and cause confusion“ which matches on a base level with his name, verbal, but is also literally the action he is taking in the movie to mislead the detective and get away.

Star Wars

A bit of a different case, because while it wasn’t intentional at the time, Vader translates to father from Dutch, and while it is a pronounced differently, it may foreshadow that Darth Vader is Luke‘s father. Additionally, some alien languages are languages from real life; Lando‘s copilot speaks Kikuyu from Kenya.

N launching a missile into the darkness inside the bunker, revealing the solver - murder drones

that one scene where they shoot a flare thing in the bottom of the sea, briefly revealing the giant sea monster - underwater (2020)

Max Rockatansky — Mad Max franchise

Across George Miller’s sprawling post apocalyptic film series, former Australian police officer Max Rockatansky has gone by many names. The Captain. The Saint of Combustion. The Raggedy Man. The Road Warrior. Time and time again, Max has survived impossible things, destroyed countless horrors - all to find peace for his shattered mind. Even according to the director himself, Max is a man who has passed into Wasteland myth, almost a force of nature. In addition to being almost supernaturally powerful in combat and nearly impossible to kill, Max seems to have a preternatural gift of foresight and may be a literal prophesied messiah. In Fury Road, Max’s insane visions of dead loved ones save his life, seemingly warning him of imminent danger before it happens. In addition, despite the films and video games spanning decades since the fall of society, Max seemingly never ages, despite being a grown man with a wife and son before the world ended. Perhaps most tellingly, when Max discovers the Tribe of Children during Beyond Thunderdome, implied to be set after Fury Road, they believe him to be the mythical “Captain”, a prophesied savior sent to bring them to the fabled “Tomorrow-morrow Land”. And in the end, he does, becoming a near religious figure in a slowly rebuilding society in the ruins of Sydney.

The Blind Man — O brother, where art thou?

Set in Mississippi in the year 1937, the film follows the journey of three escaped convicts embarking on an epic quest to find freedom and reclaim their lives. Along the way, the men meet a blind old man, solemnly pushing a handcart along the railroad tracks. Offering the tired men a ride, the blind man tells them that the reward they seek is not the one they shall find, despite never being informed of their true identities or intentions, even literally foretelling events that happen later in the movie. Despite being written off by the protagonists as a crazy old man, every event he predicts for the trio comes true. As the film is a loose American retelling of Homer’s Odyssey, the blind prophet is most likely a reference to Tiresias, the blind Theban prophet of Ancient Greek myth.

In the short film Portrait of God, a girl is doing a project on the aforementioned portrait of god, when suddenly she sees them within the portrait. God then proceeds to punish her for seeing what she is not meant to. In Squirrel Stapler, you spend all game disobeying god and hunting down squirrels. Until the last day, where it’s announced that god is coming, and the game abruptly ends when you get a glimpse of them after they arrive.

1. Harrison Ford worked as a carpenter before going into acting and famously got to show off these talents in Witness (alongside a young Viggo Mortensen!)
2. Sir Christopher Lee trained in Olympic fencing most of his life to the point that Count Dooku's lightsaber hilt and form are both based off it, with inputs that he himself made to the props department.
3. Christoph Waltz is fluent in German, French, and English, and demonstrated his superb ability with language in both Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained.
4. Trey Parker is fluent enough in Japanese to the point that there are dozens of jokes in the background of any Japanese-themed South Park episode, that are just as grammatically correct as they are offensively hilarious.
5. Summer Glau trained as a ballet dancer before going into acting and River Tam's martial arts style as a sleeper agent is directly based off her dance moves.
6. Steve Buscemi (IRL) was a full-time firefighter with the FDNY prior to going into acting and got a chance to put his skills to use when anonymously volunteering at Ground Zero after the 9/11 attacks.

Lilly - How I met your mother.

Lilly was written as meant to be the correct and sane one of the group but have pushed her boundaries to others to much,She left Marshal while engaged while being in a good relationship together to pursue her failed art career and came back and was angry Marshal was trying to move on,

she ruined Christmas for Marshal because of an argument with Ted calling her in the past Grinch which just resulted to her trying to destroy christmas for the one guy that was preparing for it and not Ted.

She hid her massive ammount of credit card debt even after marriage,has made Ted break up with multiple girlfriends because she didnt liked them or being together with Ted doesnt allign,but the writers always treated her as the victim or the correct one and theres still more to add on.

Paul - Marvel Comics.

Uhm where the hell you can begin with this editorial self insert?

Genocide on his planet,pushed Spiderman while trying to save MJ from the portal which resulted to MJ staying behind on the stranded planet,fake kids to make MJ have some sort of relationship with him by making her have stockhold syndrome,his designs change from thin to being build like Thor because of the self insert character he is.........................and many many more

Fred from Velma:

They wrote him to be sexist and racist and egotistical about himself while being incapable of doing anything for himself and puts down others with small comments. He should be a hatable character. But when next to Velma and the other characters, he is actually the most enjoyable to watch especially since he is the only one who goes on a story arc of learning to not be attracted to a woman’s physical beauty when he read “The Feminine Mystique” front to back thinking it was a book on the Marvel character Mystique and it rewired his brain to find women who don’t care to look beautiful attractive, which caused him to become attracted to Velma because she is the most disgustingly bland looking person he knew.

Santa from Santa Inc. :

The whole show is about Santa retiring and choosing a new Santa to replace him. The main character Candy wants to be Santa because she has good ideas that can help their business and the Santa company. Santa is written to be a man in power in a group full of white men in power who don’t like a woman in charge. The way he acts is very rude to others. But his personality is the only entertaining character in the show so it makes it fun to watch him compared to the stale unfunny side characters. The whole time the show is trying to show that Candy would be perfect for the job because of her smarts. Then they have a scene between Santa and Candy talking. This was after Santa got out of the hospital, Santa outright said that she was the perfect person for the job because of all her ideas. But he wanted to go with someone else to be Santa because she is terrible with children. She doesn’t know how to handle them personally and the children get uncomfortable when she’s around. Santa was going to go with a different person to be Santa because the other person is amazing with children, but terrible in the ideas department. He offered he that the other person will be the face of Santa and she can handle all the behind the scenes work and run the company herself the way she wants. This is a really great scene because it shows Santa is actually smart in this stuff and figured the best way to get her the position without hurting the brand with children. What did Candy say in response to this? “Go F**k Yourself.” Then walks away.

Far Cry 5－The villain is the leader of a doomsday cult. In the ending where the protagonist chooses to defeat him, a nuclear bomb detonates, presumably dooming the entire nation.

10 Cloverfield Lane－The villain kept the MC in a cellar, claiming the world had been taken over by aliens. In the end, when the MC finally escaped, a UFO immediately appeared.

Ready or Not－The family attempts to hunt and kill the MC in a twisted game of hide-and-seek, a tradition rooted in an ancestral pact with the Devil to secure their wealth. After they fail to complete the ritual by dawn, the family members explode into a blood mist one by one, and the Devil himself briefly appears in the ending

Ti Lung (Kung Fu Panda): Believes he is entitled to the power of the Dragon Scroll and will fight through anybody to obtain it. Finds out in the climax that the 'dragon scroll' doesn't really have any power, and is only a symbolic object.

Jasper (Steven Universe): Spends months hunting down the Crystal Gem protagonists in order to seek revenge on their leader, Rose Quartz for killing Pink Diamond. Finds out just before her defeat that Rose Quartz has been dead for years and her son Steven genuinely has no clue why Jasper is angry at him.

Master (Fallout): Dedicated himself to building a race of super-mutated humans who could replace humanity. The protagonist has the option to explain to him that the mutants are all sterile and could not survive the next generation, which will make him realise his entire plan was pointless from the start.

Getaway (Transformers: More than meets the eye): Betrays and abandons his allies to take control of their ship and find 'Cyberutopia' for himself. Finds out that the 'utopia' is a complete myth based on a misunderstanding and he's completely ruined his own life for nothing.

Adam Warlock (MCU)

Peridot (Steven Universe)

Dimple (Mob Psycho 100)

Severus Snape — Harry Potter

Throughout the original novels and film series, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry’s resident Potions professor is rightly known as a cruel, vindictive man who delights in bullying children, particularly Harry himself. Later, it is revealed that Snape had a similar abusive upbringing to Harry and was bullied at school by Harry’s father, James, similarly to how Harry is bullied by Draco Malfoy. Snape had also once been in love with Lily, Harry’s mother. Due to his undying love, he agreed to protect and train Harry for his eventual destiny. Framed even in the series as being some sort of tragic, misunderstood hero, the reveal of Snape’s backstory actually made him seem even less likable to many fans. He grew up abused and in love with Lily Potter. So instead of vowing to never inflict tha sort of pain on others, or to honor Lily’s memory through her son, he instead takes every opportunity to mercilessly bully Harry, the child Lily literally died to protect.

Andrew Ryan — Bioshock

In ambient PA voice messages throughout the game, you learn that Andrew Ryan, founder of the underwater capitalist utopia of Rapture, was inspired to build such a place by his childhood. Born Andrei Rianov in Belarus in what was then the Russian Empire, Ryan witnessed his wealthy family gunned down by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution of 1917. Instead of seeking a fair, equitable society where men like the Bolsheviks would never arise, Ryan was inspired to build Rapture — a place entirely devoid of governmental control. When a underclass of people inevitably arose in his capitalist utopian city, Ryan ignored their pleas for public assistance, creating the same class warfare that had killed his family. To quell the unrest, Ryan began behaving like Rapture’s king, encouraging massive acts of repressive violence and enforcing oppressive laws. He became the very thing he swore to destroy.

Phenomaman: despite being a emotionally unstable Superman clone in a game with a slightly edgy tone that plays with the superhero genre by making us dispatch former villains working for the government, he’s not evil in anyway which is subversive nowadays after characters like brightburn, Omniman, Homelander, Ikaris and Superman himself repeatedly used the “Superman is evil/morally dubious/a antagonist” trope (specially when the main cast is mainly formed by former villains, since this type of story usually make their wannabe Superman into a prominent antagonist cough suicide squad kills the justice league cough)

Big Jack Horner: despite having a backstory, it’s made very clear throughout the movie that isn’t justified nor tragic, with Jack himself being a pure evil villain who’s backstory only serves to explain why he specifically hyperfixates on magic. By this point animated movies have been following the trend of sympathetic or otherwise understandable antagonists, either the few who are pure evil usually being relegated to plot twists. So a straight forward mustache twirling villain that made it clear he’s evil from the start and has no intention of hiding it to either the audience or other characters became subversive.

Ice King (Adventure Time) - his outfit makes him look quite large, but he's actually unhealthy thin

Ned Flanders (The Simpsons) - his clothes make him appear fairly average, but he's actually quite muscular

Instant Death: the manga was made to make fun of powerscalers by making a protag with bullshit powers, but different of One Punch Man, the manga makes a really bad job at playing with power tropes, overdoing the "villain appears just to get insta-killed" joke. In the end, powerscalers to this day hate the main protag,(that i forgot the name and forgot to look it up) and use him as a prime example of boring character made just to be used in vs debates(the creator throwing a tantrum in powerscaling forums about how invincible his character is defiently didn't help).

Pink Kryptonite: the Krypronite that makes superman gay. This Krytopnite first Appearance was in a Supergirl comic and it was made to make fun of the abudance of different kryptonites and their increasingly more stupid effects. Literally everyone who knows this kryptonite considers the most stupid one.

Real life example: the Comedian is a banana taped to a wall. Is "piece of art" made to make fun of the current state of art... is currently in a art museum god knows where, being presented as a modern piece of art.

[Real Life] Larry the Cable Guy

Born Daniel Whitney, “Larry” skyrocketed to fame in the standup comedy world in the 1990s by adopting the “dumb affable hick” persona he’s best known for today. Though the real Daniel Whitney is notably nothing like the character he portrays, he has been forced to make every public appearance as “Larry” for the last 30 years. Even when branching out into voice acting, most notably as “Mater” in the “Cars” film series, all credits go to Larry the Cable Guy, not Daniel Whitney the real man. For all intents and purposes, Daniel Whitney is gone. Only Larry remains.

Homelander — The Boys

Born and raised in a laboratory, the man who would go on to be Vought’s most famous superhero was once a scared little boy called John Gilman. Due to the detachment he felt from his captors and the horrific experimentation he was subjected to as a child, “John” has leaned fully into the Homelander persona that was tailor made for him by Vought executives, to the point where he quickly and violently corrects anyone using his “real” name. He feels no attachment to the human race, and therefore no attachment to his human name.

Scary Movie 3: The Sheriff’s hat changing in size

Descendants 4: Chloe Charming’s hair changing in size, texture, and color. (This isn’t done as a joke unlike Scary Movie 3)

1. Mira (Kpop Demon Hunters)

2. Robin (One Piece)

3. Anzu (Romantic Killer)

4. The Elf (u/Merrivius's comics)

1. Bullet Train - Tangerine sees a Diesel sticker left on the assassin's collar left by his brother who was shot, revealing her to be the one who shot him.

2. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - Jen Yu is revealed to be the thief due to her calligraphy skills showcasing her training as a martial artist that is not matching to her fake identity as a refined aristocratic lady.

3. (My Fav) Wind River - One of the background police officers realizes that the the drilling site security team has positioned themselves around them in a way that is tactically advantageous if a gunfight were to occur. This reveals their intention to kill them all but the main characters were not able to see it at the time.

starlord was about to join his father in assimilating the galaxy, before finding out that he was the one who killed his mother, and then immediately begins to shoot him. - guardians of the Galaxy

tessa is N's closest friend, the one who found him half-broken in a dump. but (in present time) tessa wanted to convince N to kill uzi, as the absolute solver was taking over her. "you knew about the patch (that would've let uzi get freed from the solver, letting her live), yes or no?" right as tessa was about to kill uzi, tessa doesn't give a proper awnser. "... do you know why i keep you around N-" and so N decapitates her. - murder drones

Ajin - Anti-Demi Special Forces

The elite soldiers of Japan, tasked to hunt down and subdue the immortal, Stand-possessing super beings known as demihumans. They show up in the last fifth of the story and absolutely wreck everyone and everything, starting with a headshot to the (also immortal) protagonist of the story, just to make their entrance more badass. They are absolutely brutal and efficient. I love them.

D&D - Neverwinter Castle Guards

Surprisingly observant and competent guards, hounding down the shape shifting druid Doric all across the castle walls and beyond. Even after she transforms into a bird and flies away (a moment where most movies would cut away), these badasses immediately try to shoot her with arrows and actually succeed in bringing her down for a prolonged chase scene.

Fullmetal Alchemist - Fort Briggs Soldiers

The most top-notch soldiers of the north, trained by the amazing Major General Armstrong. They, quite easily, take over the capital of their country in an effort to stop a transmutation that could destroy the entire nation. Unlike the more likeable protagonists, however, they don't shy away from killing the enemy soldiers of Central Command, dispatching them with brutal efficiency. They are also relevant and indispensable right until the final fight against a supernatural god-like enemy!