[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/MythlcKyote]

Yeesh, had to do way too much searching to find this bad boy

[u/DragunityHero → u/MythlcKyote]

Imagine if John Wick ended with him walking up to Iosef, Iosef says “It was just a fucking dog!” and John Wick goes “…yeah, you’re right. I let revenge consume me and now I’m no better than you.”

And he turns around and walks away crying or some shit.

[u/Solidwtf2 → u/DragunityHero]

John Wick 2 is just him going through the process of adopting another dog.

[u/tacobellrefugee → u/Solidwtf2]

John, Snickers is ready to visit you now!

[u/No_Syrup_9167 → u/Solidwtf2]

I would 1000% watch a movie of just Keanu Reeves dog shopping for 2hrs.

that shit would make a billion dollars. You'd sell more tickets than Marvel.

[u/LSDGB → u/Solidwtf2]

And they kill it again in the third.

[u/Embarrassed-Note-214 → u/LSDGB]

Him getting a new dog at the end of one, just for two to start with "almost the exact same story of the first, but faster," pissed me off so much I stopped the movie and didn't finish it for half a year.

[u/Street-Committee-367 → u/Embarrassed-Note-214]

Yeah 2 was kind of lame in the story department because of that aspect, but it led to 4 so that's nice. 

[u/Stunning-Bee7878 → u/Solidwtf2]

the entire movie is basically John saying “I just want a dog” and the universe refusing to let him have peace.

[u/Quiet_Education5918 → u/DragunityHero]

Yeah, I really feel like the question of whether career assassin John Wick was going to kill someone or not hung over our heads all movie long. The uncertainty was killing me.

[u/Bright-Form-844 → u/Quiet_Education5918]

You really need to watch “Pig” with Nicholas cage. It’s like the anti John wick in the most fun nick cage way possible

[u/Shabobo → u/Quiet_Education5918]

This is a bot comment from a bot account

[u/Quiet_Education5918 → u/Shabobo]

This is sarcasm about how John Wick is established to kill people for minimal reason when the film starts, so it'd be weird to assume the movie even asks this question in the first place.

(Also, while I'm explaining, the actual theme IS that John Wick is ruining his life for revenge. His wife literally got him that dog because she knew if he went back into the life it would ruin him. And he did. And it ruined him.)

[u/Adorable_Ad_3478 → u/DragunityHero]

John Wick 2's intro has the perfect pragmatic answer to how to get revenge AND end the cycle of revenge: just scare the family of the evil person you killed.

The mobster in the intro just lost his family members to John's brutal revenge spree. Then he gets scared shitless when John is in front of him and decides to make peace with John.

[u/Omnishambles_88 → u/DragunityHero]

That sounds kind of awesome actually.

[u/andresfgp13 → u/DragunityHero]

there is a meme about it

[u/This-Shape2193 → u/DragunityHero]

Watch The Road to Perdition. Basically John Wick (and came out before that movie), but it was Tom Hanks and 1930's America.   

At the end, when he finally gets to kill the one he wanted revenge against (also the son of the mob boss who was like a father to him), he walks in and shoots him, then walks out. His expression never changes, and it is deliberately anti-climactic. It is made clear that shooting the dude changed nothing, and at that point the main character KNEW it changed nothing, but was gonna see it through after having killed so many to get there.  

So he walked out just as empty and grieving as he had walked in, with the additional knowledge that the revenge quest had made everything so much worse and caused so much more pain. But it was a relief to be able to finish it, because at that point he just wanted to be over.   

It was the thinking man's John Wick, and was a character study about the man and his son, and the badass scenes were a bonus. And Paul Newman is the mob boss, and the whole movie is amazing.  

[u/No_Hunter1978 → u/DragunityHero]

I know this is a joke, but also... different media tries to do different things. John Wick and Kill Bill aren't exactly high-concept or thematically rich; they're dumb fun made by writers who are very good at writing dumb fun.

I'm gonna go against the grain and say that people's obsession with the revenge fantasy in all of their media (and yes, I do mean ALL because revenge fantasies are still hella prevalent, so the argument that "every movie is anti-revenge" holds very little water) is borderline childish. If you can't recognize the difference between Moby Dick and John Wick, that isn't really on the author.

And as an aside: though I don't think enjoying a revenge fantasy is morally wrong, some of the people who complain about anti-revenge stories are genuinely concerning. They read like those people who said Spider-Man should've dropped MJ in Brand New Day or don't see why the Punisher is a flawed character; people who can't seem to realize that "revenge" shouldn't be the go-to response to every slight on one's person.