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| - The villain approaches one of the good guys, often having captured them first. The good guy is then offered a deal: if he will help the villain by betraying his comrades, he will be amply rewarded with money, a high-ranking position in the villain's organization, or something else that would be attractive. He accepts the bargain, and keeps his end of it. Recurring problem for The Starscream, but a Defector From Decadence may face it too. The end result of this is not Traitor Shot, though a Traitor Shot may be involved long before the fact. Examples of Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves include:
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| abstract
| - The villain approaches one of the good guys, often having captured them first. The good guy is then offered a deal: if he will help the villain by betraying his comrades, he will be amply rewarded with money, a high-ranking position in the villain's organization, or something else that would be attractive. He accepts the bargain, and keeps his end of it. Of course, the villain has no intention of honoring his own part of the bargain. One reason is that no Card-Carrying Villain would want to share anything with a stooge who has outlived his usefulness. Another reason is that smart villains never trust a traitor, no matter which side he's working for -- they can never be sure that their double agent won't turn triple agent. So, the traitor gets the "reward" of being put to death or being reduced to menial slavery. Not such a pleasant outcome for him, is that? Frequently this is accompanied by a speech of withering contempt for treachery, which demonstrates that the villain is an honorable enemy or at least a Worthy Opponent to some degree. In a variation, the hero refuses to turn, and is rewarded and praised for his loyalty. Sometimes it happens in reverse, where the good guys are approached with an offer by a would-be Turncoat from the enemy, and invoke this trope to show their scorn for treachery -- before or without even using him or his information. This can be a prime source of Values Dissonance with works created or set in feudally organized cultures, where loyalty placed much, much higher in the hierarchy of virtues than in modern western society. In these cases, what seems to the reader like a straight Mook Face Turn will instead be met with an ostensibly deserved horrible fate. One frequent variation has the villain show the good guy that he has his wife, and offers to release her from his prison in exchange for his cooperation. When it comes time to reward the traitor, the villain slyly gives him False Reassurance that she has indeed been "released", and that now it is time for him to join her. In another variation, the villain (or in very old works, the hero, but this isn't done any more) is besieging a city or fortress. Someone leaves a side door (a sewer gate is a popular choice) open, and the bad guys storm in. But when the turncoat comes to the villain for his reward, he's promptly killed because that's what any traitor deserves. Can either mark the villain as a Complete Monster, or show that Even Evil Has Standards, depending on how it's played. The one persistent exception to this trope if the reason for being a traitor was to indulge in their malicious urges that would be allowed under the new regime. While Greed, pragmatism, or cowardice won't save you from this trope, for some reason the Evil Overlord tends to trust people who betray their comrades out of hatred or cynicism. Recurring problem for The Starscream, but a Defector From Decadence may face it too. The end result of this is not Traitor Shot, though a Traitor Shot may be involved long before the fact. Examples of Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves include:
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![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)