People say karma is a… well… you know. But sometimes, it’s as beautiful and delicious as it is (fictionally) violent, from seeing a Nazi’s face melt in Raiders of the Lost Ark to watching smug characters like Littlefinger in Game of Thrones get what’s coming to them by way of a blade.
The stories we tell on big and small screens are varied, but one of their most important jobs is delivering the audience buckets of soul-cleansing catharsis – that juicy moment when viewers want to shout, “They got what they deserved!” No doubt karma caught up with these despicable characters, but it’s up to you to decide which jerks got their karma in the most sadistically satisfying ways.
Warning: spoilers ahead (but every single one is sweet satisfaction)!
Commodus – ‘Gladiator’
Photo: Universal Pictures
F*cked Around: Long before he became a thumbs-down internet meme, Commodus usurped the throne of Emperor Marcus Aurelius after some good old patricide – he didn’t like his father’s choice of General Maximus Meridius as his successor.
The famously jealous and insecure Commodus ordered the execution of Maximus’s family, but even that wasn’t enough for the “please love me” Emperor, who insisted on facing Maximus in the Colosseum – but only after imprisoning him and secretly shanking him in the ribs.
Found Out: Shanks aside, Maximus – a champion of the people in direct opposition to the derided Commodus, who climbed to his position over a pile of corpses – manages to best Commodus in combat. The legacies of the two are revealed when Maximus disarms Commodus and the Emperor’s own men refuse to fetch him a new sword. You reap what you sow, and Commodus reaps getting stabbed in the neck to the sound of Maximus’s adoring crowd.
Stormfront – ‘The Boys’
Photo: Amazon Prime
F*cked Around: In the TV series The Boys, Stormfront commits one of the worst “got what they deserved” sins anyone can, on-screen or off: she’s a Nazi. Like the alt-right website she’s named for, Stormfront (secretly 100-year-old Reich member Klara Risinger) uses her place as a Seven team member to promote white supremacy. It’s a pastime she enjoys partaking in – most notably demonstrated when she joyously annihilates an entire apartment building of Black tenants while chasing down a minor villain.
Found Out: Much of Stormfront’s white supremist agenda lies in further radicalizing the evil Homelander, which adds an extra layer of “oomph” when she’s unceremoniously eye-lasered into oblivion by his tiny son, Ryan, fresh off a royal butt-whooping from Starlight, Kimiko, and Maeve.
Delphine LaLaurie – ‘American Horror Story: Coven’
Photo: FX Network
F*cked Around: Kathy Bates cements her position as the “comeuppance queen” as the only actor with two spots on this list. In American Horror Story, Madame Delphine LaLaurie (Bates) hits the three-in-a-row karma jackpot: she’s a racist, a mass murderer, and a filthy capitalist (not to mention being just plain snooty).
She owns enslaved people in 19th-century New Orleans, which is bad enough, but she also elaborately tortures them. When they expire, she peddles their pancreases in a trendy beauty balm.
Found Out: Delphine commits a classic oopsie: never torture the lover of a voodoo queen, because that queen – in this case Marie Laveau – will take some gnarly revenge. She gives Delphine a faux love potion and forces her to witness her family hanged from the balcony, but it gets even better! That potion actually made Delphine immortal, which might not be so bad except Marie buries her in an unmarked grave for all eternity.\
Adrian Griffen – ‘The Invisible Man’ (2020)
Photo: Universal Pictures
F*cked Around: The underseen 2020 rendition of The Invisible Man takes a classically creepy tale and cranks it up to uncomfortable levels, mostly thanks to titular invisible guy, Adrian Griffin. He habitually abused his partner, Cecilia Kass, and got away with it sans consequence thanks to his privileged position as a wealthy, golden boy inventor.
However, that wasn’t enough for Adrian, who faked his own death and donned the invisibility suit he created to torment and gaslight Cecilia the way no one has ever been gaslighted before.
Found Out: After invisible Adrian ruins Cecilia’s life, career prospects, reputation, and mental health, he caps it off by framing her for her sister’s murder and revealing that he tampered with her birth control (she’s recently pregnant). But Cecilia’s vengeance is sweet as she tricks the epically smug invisible man into complacency, gets an on-record confession out of him, then dons an invisibility suit herself to make it look like he slit his own throat.
Norman Stansfield – ‘Léon: The Professional’
Photo: Columbia Pictures
F*cked Around: Even Gary Oldman’s charm can’t save the world’s most sadistic narc from karma. As a DEA agent, Norman Stansfield loves three things: Beethoven, stealing drugs from the dealers he’s in cahoots with, and terminating their families along the way. It’s all fun and cocaine until he orphans a young girl who happens to foster a special friendship with the best hitman in New York City.
Found Out: That girl, Mathilda Lando, insists on getting training from hitman Léon so she can take revenge herself, and she sure gives it the old college try! However, when she finds herself outclassed by Norman (fair play, as a 12-year-old), Léon saves the day by handing him a pin and revealing that he’s strapped to a vest full of grenades. When your last word is simply “sh*t,” karma might just be coming for you.
Gemma Teller Morrow – ‘Sons of Anarchy’
Photo: FX Network
F*cked Around: Gemma’s situation is a little more complex than many on-screen characters who got what they deserved. Like Queen Gertrude, the Hamlet character who inspired her, Gemma is the partner of powerful men, has a twisted relationship with her son, and will go to any length to nurture familial power.
She endured tumultuous marriages to two SAMCRO presidents, abuse by husband Clay Morrow, sexual assault, and the death of a child, but even with all that baggage, it’s hard to excuse her murdering her own daughter-in-law, Tara Knowles.
Found Out: In this case, comeuppance is a little more layered than a celebratory cathartic bloodbath. Gemma’s son Jax shoots her dead upon discovering she’s responsible for the demise of his wife, Tara, after a long-held grudge. Interestingly, the act plays out with quiet acceptance between mother and son, rather than a wild rampage of revenge.
Dean Armitage – ‘Get Out’
Photo: Universal Pictures
F*cked Around: On a list packed with white supremacists who got their just desserts, Dean Armitage still cranks the devious creepiness up to 11. In one of the wildest plots in horror history, he lures unsuspecting Black individuals – in this case, his daughter Rose’s boyfriend, Chris Washington – to his estate, where he uses a combo of hypnosis and neurosurgery to transplant aging (and wealthy) white brains into able young Black bodies.
Found Out: Just as Get Out‘s plot horrifically literalizes the commodification of Black bodies, Dean’s karmic downfall packs a succulent symbolic punch. Not only has Chris avoided hypnosis by stuffing his ears with cotton, but he impales Dean with – of all things – one of his own hunting trophies.
Ramsay Bolton – ‘Game of Thrones’
Photo: HBO
F*cked Around: Few sagas do sadism like Game of Thrones (much of which was sanitized for HBO compared to the books), and Lord Ramsay Bolton is among the most deplorable sadists in the lineup. Not just a serial rapist and serial murderer, he revels in hunting humans for sport and torturing his prey in deeply psychological ways until their minds are goop. He makes good on what Joffrey only threatened when he rapes Sansa on their wedding night – and there’s the whole “burning down Winterfell” thing, too.
Found Out: Karma comes old-school as Jon Snow, who, after defeating Ramsay’s army, straight-up punches him until his face looks like raspberry jam. Even better, Ramsay is kept alive to be eaten by his own dogs, as Sansa soaks up his screams like music to her ears.
Joffrey Baratheon – ‘Game of Thrones’
Photo: HBO
F*cked Around: In the pantheon of smug characters, the 18th king Joffrey (Joffrey Baratheon) takes the Iron Throne. In a reign that’s as petulant as it is amoral, his list of crimes starts with the pivotal execution of Ned Stark, then essentially rubbing daughter Sansa Stark’s nose into Ned’s head on a pike.
Much of Joffrey’s most despicable behavior centers on Sansa, whom he orders beaten to keep his own hands clean and threatens to rape on their wedding night. Then again, let’s not forget that he built his kingdom on mass murder.
Found Out: While some Game of Thrones fans argue it would’ve been most satisfying to see Sansa deliver Joffrey’s death blow, karma caught up with the little snot by way of poison from Olenna Tyrell and Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish. In this case, Joffrey’s detractors were simply glad he got what he deserved, no matter who got the licks in.
Annie Wilkes – ‘Misery’
Photo: Columbia Pictures
F*cked Around: Long before the days of creepily sliding into someone’s text messages, or sending Twitch streamers thousands of dollars just to be “nice,” there were old-school obsessive fans – and Misery‘s Annie Wilkes (ironically, a nurse!) was among the worst.
In the 1990 film rendition of Stephen King’s book, stalker Annie kidnaps her idol – King stand-in and author Paul Sheldon, who suffered a car accident – and devolves into madness upon learning he plans to write her favorite character into the grave. She smashes his ankles with a sledgehammer, keeps him drugged and bedridden, and forces him to re-write his book, her way.
Found Out: As expected from King, Annie’s karma is literary poetic justice, and in more ways than one. In the movie, it’s ultimately severe head trauma that does Annie in during a final brawl with Paul – but not before he burns the forced manuscript and shoves it down her “No. 1 fan” throat.
