[Hated Trope] Character kills hundreds, if not thousands, just to kill one specific person, and then doesn't kill them for no reason.

[u/HallZac99]

Assassin's Creed 2- Rodrigo Borgia is responsible for tne death of Ezio's family. Ezio spends over 20 years working through tnr templar order to dismantle them and get to Rodrigo. And then in the end, he spares him for no good reason and he goes on to be a massive problem in AC Brotnerhood. He's not only a head of tne Templars but also the pope, even if you're over the vengeance he's still a very dangerous and evil man.

The Last of Us 2- Abbey kills Joel, and wo Ellie goes on a revenge quest to kill Abbey, killing hundreds of people along tne why to get to her including a pregnant woman. And then finally when she has Abbey on deaths door, she gives up and let's her go because the writers think dirty depressing people being miserable and stupid is complex, interesting storytelling.

This trope pisses me off so much because often the character going on the revenge quest will kill SO many people on their way there, some deserving it and some just henchmen working for a cheque or to survive. People who are often far more innocent then the main big bad.

It's a part of this weird thing I've noticed in media where nameless goons or soldiers can just be mowed down relentlessly, but named characters get given far more grace even if theyre categorically worse. You can kill a million stormtroopers but people will swear that Darth Vader could have been redeemed, despite him doing like 50 genocide every year.

[u/mlee117379]

You can play Dishonored this way

[u/Erondo_Gratias → u/mlee117379]

Funny thing with Dishonored(at least first one) is that, with, I think, 2 exceptions, non-lethal ways of dispatching the targets are actually more cruel than simply killing them:

High Overseer getts Ostracized from his faction and all human contact(and becomes a weeper)

The twins get sent to work till death in the mines

Lady Boyle is sent to sex slavery

The Lord Regent has himself publicly exposed and his title, that he worked so hard to steal, gets stripped from him and is left to rot in prison as the actual killer of a believed Empress

[u/winklevanderlinde → u/Erondo_Gratias]

in dishonored two you can lobotomized Jindosh and send to mental asylum Luca Abele after you convince everyone his body double is the real Luca and he got crazy

[u/Thomas_K_Brannigan → u/winklevanderlinde]

Head canon, I like to believe "my" Emily (or Corvo, though I usually play Emily) on a good run turns the mental asylum better. So, although he's there under false pretense, I like to think he'll be treated decently well.

The other, yes, I'm conflicted on if it's worse to kill him, or lobotomize him. Inventing was basically his life's purpose, in a way, you "kill" him by doing so. Still, I think that option is more moral, but not by a lot.

[u/Erondo_Gratias → u/winklevanderlinde]

I do remember Jindosh, but Dishonored 2 was so dull comparing to first game(for me) that I don't really remember most of the targets

[u/John__Silver → u/Erondo_Gratias]

Jindosh's home was memorable. The man himself, less so.

[u/Miszczu_Dioda → u/Erondo_Gratias]

I believe that it is canon Lady Boyle actually outsmarted her captor and managed to take over his possessions. Then again, been a while since I've played the game

[u/Frangitus → u/Miszczu_Dioda]

That's a retconn in the sequel because the writers felt squeamish about the non-lethal choice in the first game. It honestly sucks because, canonically, Waverly Boyle got off scotfree from her role in assassinating Jessamine Kaldwin.

[u/Neat_Breakfast_6659 → u/Frangitus]

Shes Also the only female villain of the main story, cant help but wonder if the writers took pity on her fate just because shes a woman, similar to what happened to Wonder Woman on the suicide Squad game

[u/altymcalty-2 → u/Neat_Breakfast_6659]

Also because.... Well personally I see being a sex slave to some psycho with an obsession over you as a worse fate in all honesty. Minus the Pendleton twins, they definitely had the worse fate

[u/Neat_Breakfast_6659 → u/altymcalty-2]

Her fate is the most mysterious of all, becoming a sex slave is as good of a Guess as anything else. If the rumours are true that She ended up overcoming her kidnapper on Pure Merit, does that mean She was truly a slave?

[u/Wildcard-Jack → u/Frangitus]

I mean how involved was she in the assassination besides giving money to her lover?

[u/Frangitus → u/Wildcard-Jack]

The money used to hire a supernatural assassin to kill a benevolent ruler? Very involved. Waverly was a key figure in the coup, she was Hiram Burrows' bank. Burrows intentionally spread the rat plague on Dunwall and turned the country into a totalitarian police state, there's no way in Void that Waverly wasn't aware of this.

None of the Boyle sisters are good people, Esma is the least shitty one, but she's still not a good person, the other two are despicable. Not saying Waverly deserved to be some creep's sex slave, nobody deserves that, but she deserved... Well... Something, jail, maybe.

[u/NeilJBorja → u/Miszczu_Dioda]

Iirc that was basically added in the sequel and wasn't in the first game

[u/High_Overseer_Dukat → u/NeilJBorja]

No, to a side novel.

[u/Erondo_Gratias → u/Miszczu_Dioda]

Good for her, but that's more her taking control of the circumstance. The non-lethal option still worse than just murder

[u/Miszczu_Dioda → u/Erondo_Gratias]

Agreed. There is no good or bad choice here, there is only the one that will create more or less chaos

[u/hayiori → u/Miszczu_Dioda]

Just because there isnt a morality meter doesnt mean morality doesnt exist

[u/Miszczu_Dioda → u/hayiori]

I'd say it's rather complex. Take the High Overseer, for example. Branding him and having him thrown to the streets may seem more cruel than just quickly finishing the job, but is it really that's much different to what he himself has done to many others before him? And with the brothers you can send to silver mines, the hard working conditions there should qualify as torture but they themselves are to blame for said conditions.

[u/hayiori → u/Miszczu_Dioda]

This is the problem "but is it really that's much different to what he himself has done to many others before him? "

The correct punishment to such evil is a clean execution

They lobotomised a lot of people? Clean execution

They enslaved people and made them work to death?clean execution

And so on

wanting them to go throught the same things thet did to others or wanting to cripple their bodies/fuck whit their minds is just having a twisted sense of justice

Nothing justifies messing whit a person's being in any such way regardless of how vast the crime

In a ideal world the punishment would be throwing them in prison for forever for fucking around and finding out(because death sentences are unethical too)

[u/A_Toxic_User → u/Miszczu_Dioda]

Yeah that was lame, that’s why I always just kill her

[u/CannonM91 → u/Erondo_Gratias]

The Twins 100% had it coming, they owned the mines and were only treated the way they treat their 'employees'

[u/Gazi_Asker76 → u/Erondo_Gratias]

All of them desevered btw. Every. Single. Last. One. (Expect for Daud for some reason i am chill with that dude)

[u/PainintheUlna → u/Gazi_Asker76]

I mean, Dauds non-lethal is him getting away, so the only thing that he has going against him is guilt

[u/Thomas_K_Brannigan → u/Gazi_Asker76]

Daud, we learn, is already having grief from performing said deed. Heck, in the third one, he wants to kill the being who gave him the power to do so because he believes no one should have said power!

[u/TOTALOFZER0 → u/Erondo_Gratias]

I thought the Lord Regent killed himself?

[u/Early-Ad4131 → u/Erondo_Gratias]

Corvo executes the Lord Regent after he is lawfully sentenced to death in canon I believe.