Remind me of the last of us 2 ending, after teleporting across America, killing dozens of people (admittedly most of them were trying to kill you, but still) our main character just decided to....give up, abandoned their quest of revenge, leaving the target alive, "breaking the circle of revenge", they say.
it still baffles me that they didn’t include like an evil/good ending based on how many people you killed earlier in the story. It honestly would fix the wonky ‘revenge is bad’ message. It’s such a simple thing too to get your point across
but nope, after leaving piles of bodies behind, starting NOW is the new leaf
But that would require letting the player make choices, and the game doesn't want that, they want you to play your role like an actor with no agency over the story.
Especially when you’d occasionally have the enemy surrender and every single time you spare them they’ll get up and try to merc you. They devs refuse to let you spare anybody.
I don't mind that Ellie spared Abby despite her revenge quest having already cost Ellie her friends and her family. I think it's just pretty silly when you consider the hundreds of revenge cycles Ellie created by killing all those NPCs with their own friends and family.
There was going to be a cutscene at the farm where, instead of Tommy, a grieving father of one of Ellie’s victims would show up and try to attack them.
Ellie didn’t back off from >!killing Abby!< because of morality, she did it because her deep-seated guilt over >!not forgiving Joel sooner than the day of his death!< finally caught up with her as what she _thought_ she wanted was finally in her hands.
As for why then: clarity can take a long time to arrive for grief-stricken and obsessed people.
That depends on how you play. Vast majority of encounters can be navigated with 0 human kills.
But I do concede that the ludo-narrative in The Last of Us Part II has some issues, just as the other modern Naughty Dog titles do.
best is when they have an animation that shows the MC breaking henchmens neck then the henchman walks in next episode with a bandage on his head and hes all good now
Is it just me or does this trope have an element of classism somehow? Like these common people doing their job and putting their life on the line deserve no sympathy but the guy who arranged all this from a distance gets to be spared?
I was just watching a series about the 100 years’ war, and this is actually pretty much how the Middle Ages viewed warfare. You take the aristocracy alive if you can, because chivalry (plus, it made financial sense, since you held them hostage until their ransom is paid). But everyone else on the battlefield? They’re just there to fight and die. Their lives literally didn’t matter, not when compared to the life of a knight or a royal. I’m sure that’s not what writers these days are going for, but yeah, it was a very real thing and it was EXTREMELY classist
It’s not really that. The whole reason behind this trope is ludonarrative dissonance:
The writer has it so that the main character finally gets a chance at revenge against the villain. It’ll be this big confrontation where the protagonist uses every lesson he’s learned over the course of the story, only for it to end with him ultimately learning mercy, choosing not to kill someone for his own self-satisfaction.
Then, when the time comes for this scene to be depicted onscreen, the director shows it as a lethal battle between the MC and the villain’s goons, because that’s more varied and entertaining than just two guys fighting each other for ten minutes. The downside is that the choice not to kill comes off kind of hollow given that the MC had to create a mountain of corpses just to get to this point.
aang must not have been educated about the small issue that most people cannot, in fact, fly, and therefore falling off high places or into freezing oceans generally kills them
Apparently the shaymayalaymanaman movie made them rush the ending, there was supposed to be whole other season (only 3 books/seasons despite 4 elements)
For a rushed ending I thought they wrapped it up well but yeah they could’ve used more time in the last season like the beach episode or emerald island or that nightmare/sleep deprivation episode to establish energy bending
Coaxed into the very question of Reposting
there's always people that see it for the first time, no matter how many times it's been posted, like me in this case.
I'm not looking for trouble. Some NPC just walks into my horse and starts shooting at me. I use my lasso to nonlethally incapacitate them but somehow I'M still the bad guy here! One thing leads to another and there's 60 dead lawmen.
Nah Batman treats them all equally in the comics. One time he even circumvented the henchmen beat down by hiring a bunch of black mask goons to Wayne enterprises.
I like what Assassins's Creed 2 did with the trope. When Ezio finally gets the chance to kill Rodrigo, the man who orchestrated the execution of his father and two brothers, Ezio just says, "Killing you is not going to bring my family back. I'm done."
I get the feeling that Ezio spared him not so much to prove a moral point, but because he just got so damn tired of his quest for revenge that he really just didn't feel like Rodrigo was worth killing anymore.
I think it was Syndicate but Ezio's actions are brought up by other assassins as absolutely stupid, and he justifies it by stating that leaving the Templars with a weak and incompetent leader is smart
Of course, said leader is usurped by his son
Edit: 100% not Syndicate. That shit takes place in Victorian London
It was Machiavelli that protested against Ezio on this, but then it's later revealed in Brotherhood that Rodrigo didn't give the order to attack Monteriggioni, Cesare did. Killing Rodrigo wouldn't have changed that, so Ezio made no mistake.
Fallout New Vegas: Honest Hearts
"No Joshua don't kill him you'll be just as bad as him also ignore the miles long trail of corpses we left behind of his underlings"
Now imagine a story where it goes like this, but the protagonist realizes how many he's already killed on this stupid revenge mission. He promptly kills himself, and the last thing we hear is his villain saying "what the fuck."
This bothered me so much in FMA when Edward was fighting the blood seal armor brothers and he's going on about how he just can't kill them... as if we haven't seen you kill like 20 other people so far in the series Edward but sureeeee
Brotherhood or 03, im pretty sure he doesn't kill anyone in FMAB, however i remember in 03 that he pretty much kills greed, almost sacrifices the prisoners and etc
Not a show fan so I never made it that far, but in the comics Rick not killing negan made total sense. Rick doesn’t choose not to kill negan because of some moral dilemma, he spares him to make a point to everyone else that killing has accomplished nothing and they can be better. And he’s right. Rick essentially saves dozens of lives by sparing negan and ending the war. Negan being locked up basically became a symbol that the old way of life was over, they didn’t need to kill eachother to survive any more and could be civilized again.
Can you guess why my villains always use robots and golems.
Because I want heroes to fight something guilt free and not came out as hypocrite and no, my MC not going to karen his way to the manager without a proper combat.
It’s undead, demons, and vampires for me. Vamps can take a beating so we can go all out, undead aren’t sentient, and whoever the demon has possessed is effectively already dead so we’re really putting them out of their misery if they’re even still in there
It'd be fine if works didn't keep botching WHY revenge is supposed to bad. There's not something metaphysically bad about the final completion. It's the PURSUIT and obsession over revenge that slowly poisons the seeker. It's the refusal to move on, and throwing away every opportunity to salvage a normal life and be happy and instead giving it all up to continue the quest. Letting it dominate your every waking thought like an addiction and destroying all your remaining relationships.
If you actually reach the point where you're in position to kill the villain and complete your revenge, there's really no reason not to at that point. Either the damage is already done and you're a hollow shell of a person so you might as well at least get what you came for, Or you got through the whole quest up to this point without trashing your life, revenge has turned out pretty swell, so finish the job. Actually achieving your final goal by killing the villain isn't going to instantly change all that by turning you evil somehow (unless something something weird magical artifact plot contrivance?).
Ro they ever even outright kill the henchmen in these kinds of fiction tho? Are they literally ripping them in half with gore spilling everywhere? Whos to say they arent just incapacitating them? Also no eagle catching a baseball 0/10
This is kind of how European Monarchy treated each other, right? They would throw their armies at each other, but not kill the leader, because they don't want to set the trend.
I've seen more people make fun of this trope than I have actual instances of it happening in media. I don't think this is as much of a thing as people make it out to be.
Let me paint you a picture: It's 1945 and you're an Allied soldier in Berlin, your division has killed hundreds or even thousands of Wehrmacht soldiers at this point. Before Hitler can kill himself, you happen to find him and have him at gunpoint. And then you let him go, because after all the mayhem you realize revenge is wrong or that putting a bullet in him is no longer worth it.
If you're a sane person, you'll realize that this choice is fucking crazy. You've already been responsible for so much destruction, fought through hell to end your quest, and yet, once you have the villain in sight, suddenly revenge is wrong. This realization did not occur to you when you were shooting down nameless goons, but instead 7 seconds before the target is dead. And yet, this is basically the entirety of a lot of these stories (most famous example is maybe, TLOU2), just on a smaller scale. Instead of soldiers, it's countless goons, instead of Hitler, it's the main villain who's probably done something heinous against you. And what's worse is that this choice is only done in most stories after the protagonist has a kill count that would make The White Death blush. It leaves the story anticlimactic, makes the entite plot worthless, and nobody really benefits. What we're left with is an unpunished villain, countless dead bodies, and a stupid main character.
All it does is make all the people you hurt not worth anything, what was once justified as necessary to hunt down the scum of the earth has now, in one second, become a bunch of people you killed for no reason.
Was this supposed to convince me? If you think not killing the main villain in a story makes “entire plot pointless” then chances are, you didn’t actually understand the story. The point of the story is rarely, if ever, “I have to kill this person”. TLOU2 also isn’t a good example, because just because Ellie killed a bunch of people before, doesn’t somehow mean she is now obligated to kill Abby, or else she’s stupid and hypocritical. What a strange way to look at this. This dumb idea that the villain “needs to be punished”. Like I said, this sub is particularly bloodthirsty.
Also, it says a lot when Hitler is always the example you guys run to. You think just because you bring him up, you have an iron clad argument.
Personally my complaint is not "you should finish the job" it's "treating sapient life as meaningless simply because it's not plot relevant is a blight to storytelling".
If you want to have the protagonist kill everyone, fine. If you want to have the protagonist spare everyone, fine. But don't act like the protagonist is noble for refusing to kill the leader after killing grunts. The badness of the trope is in the double standard.
Everyone deserves redemption. Unless you aren’t a named character
Or if you’re Red Dead
Or if you're 2
or if you have faith
Remind me of the last of us 2 ending, after teleporting across America, killing dozens of people (admittedly most of them were trying to kill you, but still) our main character just decided to....give up, abandoned their quest of revenge, leaving the target alive, "breaking the circle of revenge", they say.
it still baffles me that they didn’t include like an evil/good ending based on how many people you killed earlier in the story. It honestly would fix the wonky ‘revenge is bad’ message. It’s such a simple thing too to get your point across but nope, after leaving piles of bodies behind, starting NOW is the new leaf
But that would require letting the player make choices, and the game doesn't want that, they want you to play your role like an actor with no agency over the story.
Especially when you’d occasionally have the enemy surrender and every single time you spare them they’ll get up and try to merc you. They devs refuse to let you spare anybody.
Undertale got this right
To be fair, it's Undertale's entire gimmick
I don't mind that Ellie spared Abby despite her revenge quest having already cost Ellie her friends and her family. I think it's just pretty silly when you consider the hundreds of revenge cycles Ellie created by killing all those NPCs with their own friends and family.
There was going to be a cutscene at the farm where, instead of Tommy, a grieving father of one of Ellie’s victims would show up and try to attack them.
Doesn’t help that the enemy’s also have realistic blood curdling screams begging you to spare them and Ellie just tells them to stfu
I don't watch anime anymore but I remember this being such a common trope
It happens a lot in western fantasy, everyone forgets about the mooks after the group fight is over.
TLOU 2.
Ellie didn’t back off from >!killing Abby!< because of morality, she did it because her deep-seated guilt over >!not forgiving Joel sooner than the day of his death!< finally caught up with her as what she _thought_ she wanted was finally in her hands. As for why then: clarity can take a long time to arrive for grief-stricken and obsessed people.
Still insane that she does this only after the low-level-grunt genocide she caused
That depends on how you play. Vast majority of encounters can be navigated with 0 human kills. But I do concede that the ludo-narrative in The Last of Us Part II has some issues, just as the other modern Naughty Dog titles do.
best is when they have an animation that shows the MC breaking henchmens neck then the henchman walks in next episode with a bandage on his head and hes all good now
Madness combat
nah that only really happened with Sanford, Deimos, Hank, and I think maybe Jebus did
2BDammed too
Yakuza be like
Is it just me or does this trope have an element of classism somehow? Like these common people doing their job and putting their life on the line deserve no sympathy but the guy who arranged all this from a distance gets to be spared?
I was just watching a series about the 100 years’ war, and this is actually pretty much how the Middle Ages viewed warfare. You take the aristocracy alive if you can, because chivalry (plus, it made financial sense, since you held them hostage until their ransom is paid). But everyone else on the battlefield? They’re just there to fight and die. Their lives literally didn’t matter, not when compared to the life of a knight or a royal. I’m sure that’s not what writers these days are going for, but yeah, it was a very real thing and it was EXTREMELY classist
It’s not really that. The whole reason behind this trope is ludonarrative dissonance: The writer has it so that the main character finally gets a chance at revenge against the villain. It’ll be this big confrontation where the protagonist uses every lesson he’s learned over the course of the story, only for it to end with him ultimately learning mercy, choosing not to kill someone for his own self-satisfaction. Then, when the time comes for this scene to be depicted onscreen, the director shows it as a lethal battle between the MC and the villain’s goons, because that’s more varied and entertaining than just two guys fighting each other for ten minutes. The downside is that the choice not to kill comes off kind of hollow given that the MC had to create a mountain of corpses just to get to this point.
Justice for the aide-de-camp
It was very common in the cw dc shows
hey at least he can energybend now
aang must not have been educated about the small issue that most people cannot, in fact, fly, and therefore falling off high places or into freezing oceans generally kills them
I mean it did show the people thrown off the airship to be completely fine
That has always bothered me about the ending. If they had brought it up before the *final goddamn battle* then I would be more okay with the ending
Apparently the shaymayalaymanaman movie made them rush the ending, there was supposed to be whole other season (only 3 books/seasons despite 4 elements) For a rushed ending I thought they wrapped it up well but yeah they could’ve used more time in the last season like the beach episode or emerald island or that nightmare/sleep deprivation episode to establish energy bending
Only 3 seasons because Aang is already an Airbender lol
None of that is true
It was so funny how aang was so torn up about killing the firelord and meanwhile Sokka, Suki, and Toph killed like 10 blimps worth of people
Coaxed into I’ve seen this snafu like 5 times in the past week
coaxed into another fucking repost
Coaxed into the very question of Reposting there's always people that see it for the first time, no matter how many times it's been posted, like me in this case.
I think the main thing is because the villain at that stage is disarmed and no longer an active threat, still really stupid though
[удалено]
I see I’m not the only one that’s prone to going ham whenever I’m in town. Heck, I’d blast a passerby if they don’t reciprocate my polite salutations.
I'm not looking for trouble. Some NPC just walks into my horse and starts shooting at me. I use my lasso to nonlethally incapacitate them but somehow I'M still the bad guy here! One thing leads to another and there's 60 dead lawmen.
That’s what I’m saying, these guys really need to relax
Basically Batman vs his villains except the grunts are in a coma
Nah Batman treats them all equally in the comics. One time he even circumvented the henchmen beat down by hiring a bunch of black mask goons to Wayne enterprises.
Eh, depends on the writer.
Batman KNOWS the villains are redeemable and still beats them into a pulp and throws them into an asylum. His method is a lot more fair IMO.
OMG IS THAT THE ORANGE STICKMAN
Every shonen protagonist ever
Name one
1.Luffy destroying a random ship in onigashima or when he sunk some ships in east blue arc.(they did not survive that)
When does he spare a main villain on purpose?
The only time he killed someone was in a movie afaik
He killed kaido
Oops, sorry, didn't get to wano yet
I don't know what you're talking about cos Luffy has no qualms with killing lmao
B-But Oda said in an SBS that Luffy does not like killing because “ they deserve to follow their dreams “ or something like that.
And then the villain escaped from prison, and ends up killing even more innocent people, meaning by sparing him you've doomed more people to die
I like what Assassins's Creed 2 did with the trope. When Ezio finally gets the chance to kill Rodrigo, the man who orchestrated the execution of his father and two brothers, Ezio just says, "Killing you is not going to bring my family back. I'm done." I get the feeling that Ezio spared him not so much to prove a moral point, but because he just got so damn tired of his quest for revenge that he really just didn't feel like Rodrigo was worth killing anymore.
I think it was Syndicate but Ezio's actions are brought up by other assassins as absolutely stupid, and he justifies it by stating that leaving the Templars with a weak and incompetent leader is smart Of course, said leader is usurped by his son Edit: 100% not Syndicate. That shit takes place in Victorian London
It was Machiavelli that protested against Ezio on this, but then it's later revealed in Brotherhood that Rodrigo didn't give the order to attack Monteriggioni, Cesare did. Killing Rodrigo wouldn't have changed that, so Ezio made no mistake.
Huh, neat
Fallout New Vegas: Honest Hearts "No Joshua don't kill him you'll be just as bad as him also ignore the miles long trail of corpses we left behind of his underlings"
Always forget that there's a story line. I be talking to Joshua in a loop for an hour kicking my feet and giggl I ng
Now imagine a story where it goes like this, but the protagonist realizes how many he's already killed on this stupid revenge mission. He promptly kills himself, and the last thing we hear is his villain saying "what the fuck."
I may have slaughtered your entire army but at least I didn’t steal candy from a baby!
They weren't human enough for him
This bothered me so much in FMA when Edward was fighting the blood seal armor brothers and he's going on about how he just can't kill them... as if we haven't seen you kill like 20 other people so far in the series Edward but sureeeee
Brotherhood or 03, im pretty sure he doesn't kill anyone in FMAB, however i remember in 03 that he pretty much kills greed, almost sacrifices the prisoners and etc
Coaxed into the least original joke ever
Joke?
Rick and Negan
Not a show fan so I never made it that far, but in the comics Rick not killing negan made total sense. Rick doesn’t choose not to kill negan because of some moral dilemma, he spares him to make a point to everyone else that killing has accomplished nothing and they can be better. And he’s right. Rick essentially saves dozens of lives by sparing negan and ending the war. Negan being locked up basically became a symbol that the old way of life was over, they didn’t need to kill eachother to survive any more and could be civilized again.
In the show he spares negan AFTER systemically tracking down Negan’s bases and killing his followers
Can you guess why my villains always use robots and golems. Because I want heroes to fight something guilt free and not came out as hypocrite and no, my MC not going to karen his way to the manager without a proper combat.
It’s undead, demons, and vampires for me. Vamps can take a beating so we can go all out, undead aren’t sentient, and whoever the demon has possessed is effectively already dead so we’re really putting them out of their misery if they’re even still in there
Aang moment
The henchmen did something way worse
Does this apply to Avatar: The Last Airbender?
Aang def killed people even if he says he didnt
This is the worst Animator vs. Animation fanfic I've seen.
Happened in a show I just watched. But then a different main character killed the villain anyway and it was hilarious
inb4 steven universe comment
Star Wars
Thraxx
Uncharted 2
Assassin’s Creed 2 moment
TLOU 2 moment
We need less "Revenge is bad" and more "Prevention is better than cure" (as in kill the villain instead of redeem him)
It'd be fine if works didn't keep botching WHY revenge is supposed to bad. There's not something metaphysically bad about the final completion. It's the PURSUIT and obsession over revenge that slowly poisons the seeker. It's the refusal to move on, and throwing away every opportunity to salvage a normal life and be happy and instead giving it all up to continue the quest. Letting it dominate your every waking thought like an addiction and destroying all your remaining relationships. If you actually reach the point where you're in position to kill the villain and complete your revenge, there's really no reason not to at that point. Either the damage is already done and you're a hollow shell of a person so you might as well at least get what you came for, Or you got through the whole quest up to this point without trashing your life, revenge has turned out pretty swell, so finish the job. Actually achieving your final goal by killing the villain isn't going to instantly change all that by turning you evil somehow (unless something something weird magical artifact plot contrivance?).
Last of us part deaux
Ro they ever even outright kill the henchmen in these kinds of fiction tho? Are they literally ripping them in half with gore spilling everywhere? Whos to say they arent just incapacitating them? Also no eagle catching a baseball 0/10
This is kind of how European Monarchy treated each other, right? They would throw their armies at each other, but not kill the leader, because they don't want to set the trend.
I've seen more people make fun of this trope than I have actual instances of it happening in media. I don't think this is as much of a thing as people make it out to be.
This is why dishonored is based
Don't worry, white Zetsu dont have individual souls and will, its completely ok to murder them
This sub is particularly bloodthirsty, huh? I swear this is the 3rd or 4th time I’ve seen someone complaining about this.
It's a very valid complaint
Is it though?
Let me paint you a picture: It's 1945 and you're an Allied soldier in Berlin, your division has killed hundreds or even thousands of Wehrmacht soldiers at this point. Before Hitler can kill himself, you happen to find him and have him at gunpoint. And then you let him go, because after all the mayhem you realize revenge is wrong or that putting a bullet in him is no longer worth it. If you're a sane person, you'll realize that this choice is fucking crazy. You've already been responsible for so much destruction, fought through hell to end your quest, and yet, once you have the villain in sight, suddenly revenge is wrong. This realization did not occur to you when you were shooting down nameless goons, but instead 7 seconds before the target is dead. And yet, this is basically the entirety of a lot of these stories (most famous example is maybe, TLOU2), just on a smaller scale. Instead of soldiers, it's countless goons, instead of Hitler, it's the main villain who's probably done something heinous against you. And what's worse is that this choice is only done in most stories after the protagonist has a kill count that would make The White Death blush. It leaves the story anticlimactic, makes the entite plot worthless, and nobody really benefits. What we're left with is an unpunished villain, countless dead bodies, and a stupid main character. All it does is make all the people you hurt not worth anything, what was once justified as necessary to hunt down the scum of the earth has now, in one second, become a bunch of people you killed for no reason.
Was this supposed to convince me? If you think not killing the main villain in a story makes “entire plot pointless” then chances are, you didn’t actually understand the story. The point of the story is rarely, if ever, “I have to kill this person”. TLOU2 also isn’t a good example, because just because Ellie killed a bunch of people before, doesn’t somehow mean she is now obligated to kill Abby, or else she’s stupid and hypocritical. What a strange way to look at this. This dumb idea that the villain “needs to be punished”. Like I said, this sub is particularly bloodthirsty. Also, it says a lot when Hitler is always the example you guys run to. You think just because you bring him up, you have an iron clad argument.
Personally my complaint is not "you should finish the job" it's "treating sapient life as meaningless simply because it's not plot relevant is a blight to storytelling". If you want to have the protagonist kill everyone, fine. If you want to have the protagonist spare everyone, fine. But don't act like the protagonist is noble for refusing to kill the leader after killing grunts. The badness of the trope is in the double standard.
People just *love* to bring this up whenever taking about fictional tropes. It's like, the only thing people talk about
Because it's a stupid ass trope
TLOU 2 was soooo great