My God, What Have I Done?

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"The awful daring of a moment's surrender
which an age of prudence can never retract."

—T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land

A misguided character comes to realize that his actions have caused incredible damage, physical pain, emotional pain, or even loss of life. What usually follows is the character uttering some variation on the trope title, optionally accompanied by Tears of Remorse and/or a Thousand-Yard Stare.

The character, usually an Anti-Villain or Tragic Hero, comes to this realization after the damage has been done. Sometimes this damage is irreparable; a loved one may be killed in the crossfire, for instance. The character may also discover too late that that which he longs to destroy and that which he wants to protect are, in fact, one and the same.

Usually delivered dramatically, sometimes, well, over-the-top. A villain might utter this line if they're about to take the Last Second Chance. Or a hero after being freed from The Virus, being Brainwashed and Crazy, or a Super-Powered Evil Side.

Sometimes followed by Must Make Amends.

Compare These Hands Have Killed, which can occur even the first time the character has killed, even justifiably.

Comic Books[]

Uncanny X-Men #150 gives Magneto a moment of this when he nearly kills Kitty Pryde in anger; he realizes he's becoming just like the Nazis that killed his family, and—for a span of almost a decade's worth of issues, at least—reconsiders his villainous career.
- In Astonishing X Men, the team is attacked by one of the giant Sentinels that murdered the population of Genosha. Kitty defeats it by kicking it up to full sentience. Suddenly capable of comprehending what mass murder is, with a machine's ability to actually evaluate all those deaths individually rather than just as a vague statistic, it suffers a Villainous BSOD and flies away in horrified remorse.
In his origin in Amazing Fantasy #15, Spider-Man has a classic one - Tears of Remorse and all - when he recognizes the burglar who murdered his uncle as the criminal he allowed to escape a page earlier.
In Ultimate Spider-Man, Norman Osborn accidentally kills his son while in his crazy goblin form. When he changes back he has one of these and asks a nearby SHIELD Agent to kill him.
Batman: This trope is discussed by Bluebird and her brother Cullen when Punchline claims to feel remorse for her actions when awaiting trial for her crimes. Bluebird notes that regardless of whether she feels remorse or not, she needs to answer for what she did. It turns out to be a subversion because it turns out Punchline is refusing completely to own up to what she did and that her claims of remorse are completely fake.
JLA #15, the final issue of "Rock of Ages": In a Crowning Moment of Awesome, in order to stop The Joker, who has the title reality-warping artifact, from wreaking colossal global havoc, the Martian Manhunter uses his telepathic powers to make the Joker temporarily sane. The Joker says "What have I been doing with my life?... I've been insane... Oh my god. What have I done?" It doesn't last.
The Old Man Logan storyline in the Wolverine comic is set in an alternate Marvel future in which the villains teamed up and successfully annihilated nearly all the superheroes. In a flashback, we see how the X-Men were done in: Wolverine and Jubilee are doing monitor duty when dozens of supervillains break in, intent on killing everybody. Wolverine meets all of them with deadly force in the inimitable Wolverine style. Just after he offs the last one — Bullseye — he turns into a dying Jubilee. Mysterio had set up an illusion, and Wolverine has just murdered all the X-Men, along with the mutant schoolchildren and staff.
This is Magog's reaction in Kingdom Come after he accidentally causes the destruction of Kansas.
It's Science With Dr Radium contained an "Ask Dr Radium" section on the fan mail page. One reader wrote in, asking "My God, What have I done?" Dr. Radium replied, "Um, you haven't given me much to go on. All I can tell you is that I've alerted the authorities, and hopefully they'll arrive soon."
Main character Matty Roth has this reaction in DMZ when he orders his private security force to chase and kill a group of soldiers who just gave him a crippling beatdown, (despite pleas not to do this) and he hears that his security people killed a group of Innocent Bystanders instead.
In Runaways, though in a very light manner: after Chase nearly gets Killed Off for Real because of drowning, when the team storms the Marine Vivarium, and Molly and Karolina argue about which way was correct to resurrect him. Fortunately, Gert followed Molly's advice, leaving Karolina pondering about what she nearly caused. Though that lasts about 2 seconds (Angst? What Angst? ?).
During Final Crisis, when Superman and Mandrakk have their first battle, Zillo Valla tries to give Supes advice from the sidelines. Mandrakk kills her to shut her up, then realizes in horror who she was: his former lover. However, after a second of grief, he blames Superman for his mistake and keeps attacking.
Prickly City: Electing Kevin, the Lost Bunny of the Apocalypse, to the Senate.

GOOD LORD, WHAT HAVE WE DONE?

In the first issue of Crystar Crystal Warrior. when Moltar has been manipulated into stabbing his brother Crystar and (wrongly) believes he has killed him, he cries "WHAT HAVE I DONE?" A few scenes later, when his actions lead to him and his followers being turned into monsters (as they will remain for the rest of the series), he has a single Beat Panel of blank horror as it all sinks in... and then composes himself and loudly embraces this fate, for the benefit of his followers if nothing else. Moltar remains a rather reluctant Big Bad through the whole series' run, deeply unhappy about what his actions have made him.
In Invincible, the titular character reacts this way after accepting An Offer You Can't Refuse, even though it was the only way to avoid an Earthshattering Kaboom. So when he says the trope's title out loud, the character making the offer responds "You have saved the lives of every living thing on this planet".

Machinima[]

Freeman's Mind gives us this line during Half Life's 'Resonance Cascade Incident':

Freeman: "Oh no, this is not good! This is a bad experiment! We are bad people! Why did we usher forth the green apocalypse!?"

In Clear Skies 3, Hausmann does this during the final battle and surrenders rather than see more of his people killed.

Theater[]

In Arthur Miller's All My Sons, protagonist Joe Keller knowingly sold defective aircraft parts to the Army during WWII, leading to the deaths of several pilots, but escaped punishment by pinning it on his partner. He'd succeeded in rationalizing it away by persuading himself that he did it for his family, but those rationalizations start to collapse in Act II when his younger son (who'd been a captain in the war) finds out and reacts in horror. He still manages to vociferously defend himself in Act III, however, until his son's fiancée produces a letter showing that his older son, presumed missing in the war, actually killed himself out of shame when Keller was initially accused. He says he'll go with his son to the police station, goes inside (offstage) to get his coat, and we hear a gun fire.
The Wizard of Oz has one at the end of Act 2 in Wicked when Glinda confronts him with the fact that the Wicked Witch he has successfully ordered murdered was actually his daughter.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street: Sweeney Todd has one towards the end of the show upon realising he's just unknowingly killed his wife.
In Jesus Christ Superstar, Judas comes to this realization after he has given Jesus up to the high priests and seen him brutally flogged.
Oedipus Rex, when Oedipus realizes he...did exactly what fate expected him to do. Which makes this trope Older Than Feudalism.
Antigone, when Creon has condemned his niece to death and driven her to suicide, which causes his son to commit suicide, which causes his wife to commit suicide. This is made worse by the fact that he had already gone back on his decision to kill her before he knew of her death.
In The Trachiniae, after Deianira sees the effect of her "love potion" (a centaur's hydra-poisoned blood, actually) on the scrap of cloth she used to smear Herakles' garment with, she starts to realize what is really going on and begins freaking out. When her son Hyllus arrives to blame her for killing dear old dad in the most painful way possible, she really loses it.
Jean Valjean's soliloquy after being saved by the Bishop in the musical adaptation of Les Misérables begins with almost exactly this line. "What have I done, sweet Jesus what have I done? Become a thief in the night, become a dog on the run? Have I fallen so far, and is the hour so late, that nothing remains but the cry of my hate?" Valjean goes on to explain that after a lifetime of being convinced that he was worthless and the world pitiless, he has met a man who is truly good and selfless, and robbed him, to receive no punishment.
- A rather more poignant example comes from Javert's life being saved by Valjean. The cognitive dissonance of being saved by a person he previously thought to be a felon, and a cold-blooded criminal, is too much for him to live with.

Web Originals[]

Chrome Cobra in the Metro City Chronicles gets one after beating up a temporarily insane Shapeshifting comrade.

She flew back, bounced on the roof once, went over the side of the building bonelessly. Yelped when she hit the pavement in the alley. Yelped like a wounded puppy.

Oran from Broken Saints says this after he attacks his childhood friend Hassan in a cabin fever-induced madness.
This has a tendency to crop up in Survival of the Fittest, usually when a 'hero' character kills somebody. An example of this is Julie Mikan after killing Owen Fontaine, going into a Heroic BSOD simultaneously at the relisation that she has actually ended somebody's life.
Slightly subverted in the Gaia Online plot: 247 says the line after killing 013, but before he knows the full consequences of his action.
- Played a bit more straight when the Jerkass Corrupt Corporate Executive William F. Drink finally sees the mass chaos for himself and realizes he should have listened to his son all those years ago about the chemical byproduct that trapped the ghosts in their graves and drove them insane.
In Dragonball Z Abridged, Dr. Briefs yells "WHAT HAS SCIENCE DONE??" after Goku blasts himself into space on a ship Dr. Briefs built.
- King Kai gets one too, after realizing that sending Goku home has resulted in him being all alone again. When Bubbles, Gregory and Bojack try to comfort him, he tells them to shut up.
In Doctor Horribles Sing Along Blog, Villain Protagonist Dr. Horrible has one of these moments as he kneels over the body of his would-be Love Interest, Penny, the innocent victim of his exploding Death Ray. The closing song, "Everything You Ever", is both a celebration of his triumphant victory and a dirge for his lost hope.
The Nostalgia Critic is pretty broken up about shooting his childhood icon, Mary Poppins, when she didn't explain all the Plot Holes in Quest for Camelot.
- He looked crushed in Kickassia right after he accidentally shoots Santa Christ.
She'd never admit it verbally, but The Nostalgia Chick draped her dead BFF's Star Trek shirt over a nearby chair in guilty memorial of the Kirk vs. Picard fight that got her killed.
Avatar: The Abridged Series- When Sokka rails against the Inventor, saying he's a traitor TO SCIENCE! because he is responsible for all of the "Steampunk Nonsense" in the Avatar world, the Inventor tries to defend his claim, saying that steampunk stuff could work and runs on scientific principles. Sokka cuts him off again, mentioning steam-powered jetskis. This leads to the Inventor having a Heroic BSOD while saying the trope word for word at the "horror" he has perpetrated against the world.
Ayla from the Whateley Universe has a bad case of this when after fighting a demon and being taken away, held and questioned by the anti-mutant police, he discovers that the MCO really do send mutants away to be dissected, studied and killed. Given that Ayla used to be Trevor Goodkind, a member of one of the world's richest and most powerful families, and that in some years he donated more to the MCO than some countries, he was indirectly sponsoring the murder of innocents. While a lot of his friends tell him that it's not his fault and he couldn't have known, the principal tells him that even though sponsoring a legal organisation isn't illegal, by her estimate, the MCO are guilty of 90% of the disappearances, and what happened to the other 10% of the children is probably even worse.
Played for Laughs in the "Cake" segment of the first asdfmovie.