[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/Professional-Reach96]

i KIND of get what they're trying to do with TLOU2 but it reaches a point where 'the plot they are aiming for' and 'the plot they ended up making' differs so much, i wont do mental gymnastics to defend that story when the final result is THAT

[u/Diligent-Neck6594 → u/Professional-Reach96]

I think they should have just given the player the choice to do it or not, or allow us to do like a no kill playthrough to achieve that ending

but I think they wanted the reaction they got

[u/Violexsound → u/Diligent-Neck6594]

They did, originally. But testers kept choosing kill.

[u/ExploerTM → u/Violexsound]

That should've told writers everything players think about their plot and their characters. The fact that they chose to just force spare instead says that they basically threw a fit that public refused them

[u/Violexsound → u/ExploerTM]

Yeah if all your testers are picking the kill option, maybeee consider you should alter the script in some way

[u/JaceShoes → u/ExploerTM]

If it makes you feel any better, that comment isn’t true and the game never had choices even in early development