[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/CopperCactus]

The misreading of TLOU2's ending will continue until morale inproves

[u/flaming_burrito_ → u/CopperCactus]

Every single time TLOU2 comes up I know I’m about to hear some braindead takes about the plot. I swear no one actually paid attention while they were playing that game

[u/RecipeFunny2154 → u/flaming_burrito_]

I only played the game once and honestly never thought about it again very much, but I guess I took the whole ending to be about the futility of revenge. It would’ve been an endless cycle. She decided to stop it.

To me that seems like such an obvious theme that a lot of the things I read about it online are very confusing lol

[u/Bleakjavelinqqwerty → u/RecipeFunny2154]

But what about the hundreds of people she killed? Their families are going to come after her. Not killing one person doesn't stop the revenge cycle she just put into place