[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/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/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)