http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheHeartless

"Nega-Scott" picture by ScarecrowArtist

Ansem, Seeker of Darkness, Kingdom Hearts "Don't bother, your voice can no longer reach him where he is. His heart belongs again to darkness! All worlds begin in darkness, and all so end. The heart is no different. Darkness sprouts within it, it grows, consumes it. Such is its nature. In the end, every heart returns to the darkness whence it came! You see, darkness is the heart's true essence."

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The Heartless are monsters born out of people's negative emotions, like a poltergeist. They can be a special case of Body Horror, but can also be a part of the victim's Soul Anatomy that has been separated from them, and like a ghost they may not have a physical body at all. This part of the soul may be all the animalistic desires without any of the compunctions ala Jekyll and Hyde or all the feelings of suffering, sadness and anger concentrated in one. They can be a convenient Monster of the Week for the right villain, since they are an unlimited resource; there always seem to be plenty of victims loaded with problems and angst for The Heartless to feed on. They also can have a self-propagating "zombie" effect.

The trouble for the heroes is that these are difficult to get rid of, especially if The Heartless still display an awareness of the world (usually, as a ruse of the Enigmatic Minion). If an established character becomes one of The Heartless, they may act as if they have undergone a FaceHeel Turn.

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The All-Loving Hero's power is usually to combat The Heartless, or even to heal them. The Anti-Hero or Well-Intentioned Extremist usually insists the victims are too far gone and should be offed before more people get hurt. Occasionally, a victim who is Fighting from the Inside can resist The Heartless' control.

Depending on the context, this trope is a subtrope of Abstract Apotheosis. This is because nearly every series that this trope is used in presents these critters as An Aesop about them being in everyone's hearts. Contrast/See also Made of Evil.

Obligatory Heart Drive link thrown in for good measure.

Not to be confused with the Let's Player of the same name, the film Heartless, or the single Heartless by Heart.

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Examples:

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Trope Namer

The Kingdom Hearts video games name the trope, with the manifestations of the darkness that exists in people's hearts; the darker the heart, the more powerful the resulting Heartless, which explains why Sora's Heartless turned out to be a Shadow (a lowly mook Big Bad, Xehanort, started his experiments on them and created the Emblem Heartless.

Big Bad, Xehanort, started his experiments on them and created the Emblem Heartless. The Unversed, which are the 'opposite of human life', are born from raw darkness. They apparently feed off of negative emotions, in a different way than the Heartless do. There's also Vanitas from the same game, who is the darkness from Ventus's heart, removed and made into a separate entity. The Unversed simply extend the process; each is a living incarnation of one of Vanitas's emotions, so, effectively, they are the Heartless of a Heartless (in terms of this trope's definition). Once Vanitas is merged back into Ven, however, they cease to be.

The Unversed simply extend the process; The Dream Eaters of Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance play it a bit differently. Dream Eaters are the naturally occurring manifestations of the Darkness that exists within Sleep and Dreams, and they are split into two kinds. Whereas Nightmares are bad and devour happy dreams, Spirits consume the Nightmares and act as helpful and friendly Mons.

Anime and Manga

Comic Books

Fan Works

In Part 2 Clash of the Elements, the trope namers themselves have appeared as of Chapter 21

Crowns of the Kingdom has the Dispirations, although it's not so much that they eat negative emotions as that they crave any thought pattern that might bring them closer to reality.

Hellsister Trilogy has Satan Girl: Supergirl's dark side's embodiment, born from her repressed dark desires and impulses. Supergirl: It happened some years ago, both in my time and yours. I was coming to your era to attend a Legion meeting. Just routine business, but the bylaws stated that a member had to attend a minimum number of meetings to keep her status, and I chose this one. And just after I popped into your time, I ran right into a chunk of Red Kryptonite.

Shrinking Violet: That's the stuff that always has crazy effects on Kryptonians. Makes 'em fat, or crazy, or giants, or gives 'em ant's heads, and like that.

Blok: Please continue, Kara.

Supergirl: All I knew at the time was that I had a fainting spell. While I was out, the real Red K effect came through. The thing... it... I was cloned! It cloned me, and the clone was, well, my evil side. My dark side. And it was just as real as... as real as me.

Her Inner Demons: The fic argues that Midnight Sparkle was the result of Human Twilight's feelings of alienation and bitterness.

Film

Literature

Live Action TV

Somewhat inverted in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, with regard to Angel/Angelus being basically two variations on the same character, with/without a soul.

Red Dwarf makes ample use of this trope in many episodes, such as: In one episode, the crew land on a moon that forms itself to mimic the mind of Rimmer, who is... all the worst traits of humanity. They are trapped, and decide to build up Rimmer's self-esteem in order to escape. This culminates in giving Rimmer a group hug. "Polymorph", which features a monster which feeds on emotions such as fear, guilt, rage, and vanity, and changes its shape in response to each person's inner demon in order to elicit these emotions. Rimmerworld, which is populated entirely by descendants of Rimmer who have weeded out any trace of bravery, kindness or loyalty, in favor of all of Rimmer's worst qualities. They're all named Rimmer. Legion, a "gestalt entity" comprised of the four crew members' combined consciousnesses. They defeat it by knocking themselves unconscious.

Doctor Who The Mara are parasitic beings of pure hate and rage that requires the fear of its victims to survive. As the Doctor learns from a mystic in its second appearance, "fear is the only poison". When forced to reveal itself, it looks like a rather pathetic giant carnival snake. The Valeyard is the Doctor's worst possible future self, created by the Time Lords to condemn him. In return, he would get the Doctor's body. He's so bad, he terrifies the Master, who once held the universe to ransom. The Dream Lord is more a Master of Illusion and personification of the Doctor's darkness and self-hatred than the Valeyard.

The Horrors from GARO.

In one episode of The Amazing Extraordinary Friends, Applied Phlebotinum splits the heroes into separate beings embodying their good and evil sides (although their 'evil' sides are selfish more than anything else).

The creature Armus from the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Skin of Evil describes himself as having come from a race of Titans who learned to physically manifest the dark part of their natures as a second skin, which they then discarded. Armus is the amalgamation of all of the discarded evil, or potential for evil, of a race. To say the least, he's a bit peeved about being left behind. An interesting example in that Armus is defeated by confronting him with that fact that he is less heartless than he first appears.

Ultraman 80 had a whole series of monsters created by negative emotional energy that was called "Minus Energy." Examples include: Hoe is considered the most iconic of the bunch and arguably presents the trope better than any other Minus Energy kaiju. The creature forms from despair and depression, constantly cries tears of explosive acid, and can breathe a beam of Minus Energy. He tends to reappear in other Ultra Series. Crescent, a dinosaur-bear kaiju, is the very first one and also 80's very first enemy. Delusion Ultraseven, an Evil Twin of Ultraseven that manifested from the anger of an Ultraseven-loving kid whose soccer game was ruined by 'bosozoku'' (Japanese bikers). Plazma and Minazma were the final ones to appear in the show and considered the most powerful Minus Energy monsters. While pretty strong on their own, their combined strength almost defeated 80 until Yullian transformed for the first time.

The Shadow (created as a side effect of the leyline Nexus under the manor), the Source (an Ultimate Evil bestowed on the Underworld's leader) and the Hollow (a parasitic entity Above Good and Evil which feeds on both forms of magic) from Charmed. Cole became host to each power once.

Tabletop Games

Video Games

Webcomics

The Order of the Stick: This is how vampires work, witnessing and being shaped by the darkest points of their host's life at the moment of their creation. High Priest of Hel : And that's who I am. Your worst day, personified.

work, witnessing and being shaped by the darkest points of their host's life at the moment of their creation. In Unsounded when people die their memories all remain in the khert, where devoid of a living mind to keep them unified they scatter, like calling to like, creating "ghosts" coagulated from many different people's worst experiences. Of course this does happen with other sorts of memories too. The First Silver monster Delicieu creates acts as a beacon to these negative ghosts, drawing them into the world in massive numbers, while Boo proves so full of good memories that the monster can't harm it.

Web Original

Western Animation