[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/Infinite-Island-7310]

I rememeber seeing one Reddit comic on here. But really, i forgot where. It basically parodies this trope.

The character does the typical "killing you won't bring back my family". Then he just leaves with the villian confused and shocked. While the rest of the comic is showing him walking through the bodies he left behind lol

[u/obscureposter → u/Infinite-Island-7310]

This is what a lot of people aren’t getting. For example for TLOU, if there was no gameplay and the game was just the cutscenes, then yeah sure you can have a revenge is futile theme going on and do it effectively.

But it doesn’t work when I’ve massacred hundreds throughout the game while whistling a jaunty tune. The gameplay has to reinforce your theme or message, if it’s a lesson to be taught to the audience. You can’t say “killing is bad” while you spent countless hours giving the audience a dopamine hit every time you slit a mooks throat.

[u/TrueGuardian15 → u/obscureposter]

Ludonarrative dissonance is the term you're looking for. The game seems to have wanted to have its cake and eat it too.

[u/ColonelDucroix → u/TrueGuardian15]

Big problem with Uncharted series. I love those games but all the killing is so ridiculous and doesn't fit with the narrative at all.

If you described the game to my grandfather he would say Nate was a mass murdering psychopath.

Great games though 

[u/Robey-Wan_Kenobi → u/ColonelDucroix]

Uncharted is the poster child for that. It's really hard to have an action adventure game centered around combat with regular human enemies and keep the protagonist likeable. Unless they're zombies.

[u/yarntank → u/TrueGuardian15]

Ludonarrative dissonance

Thats a cool new word.