"Friend or Idol?" Decision: Difference between revisions

* Terry Pratchett subverts this in his ''[[Discworld]]'' novel ''[[Discworld/Thief of Time|Thief of Time]]'', where Lu-Tze, after injuring himself, yells at his apprentice Lobsang to choose the Idol (stopping the "perfect clock" that will cause all of time to come to a halt) over the Friend (the injured Lu-Tze). The fact he even hesitates in saving the world for Lu-Tze's sake prompts Susan Sto Helit to call him a "hero"... in a tone that implies it's synonymous with "idiot".

* In the first book in ''[[The Dark Tower]]'' series, the Man in Black forces Roland to either save Jake from certain death, and never again catch up to him, or let Jake die, and gain the information he needs to continue his quest for the Dark Tower. Roland chooses to {{spoiler|let Jake fall}}, establishing his character for the rest of the series.

* In the short story ''If You Can Fill the Unforgiving Minute'' by David Andreissen (David Poyer), an teenage human is representing the Earth in a marathon race against an alien teen. When the alien is injured during the race, the human must make a choice: continue running and win the race, or help the alien and lose. He decides to help the alien and loses. Afterwards, he is told that the aliens consider honor to be more important than winning and that as far as they're concerned, he won the race.

** ... thereby proving that they are an alien race, utterly different from humanity.

* The Halloween episode of ''[[Pinky and The Brain]]'' has Brain give up not only the world domination he's been magically granted, but the ''possibility of trying to take it over again in the future'' (a big deal to someone whose entire purpose in the world revolves around trying to [[Take Over the World]]) to save Pinky's soul from <s>Hell</s> Hades. {{spoiler|Fortunately for Brain, there's a problem with the original contract, and Pinky is let off the hook anyway.}}

* [[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]; Zuko has a choice between going after the Avatar, whose capture would restore his honour, or saving his uncle Iroh who has been imprisoned by the Earth Kingdom. After much agonizing, he choices Iroh.

* ''[[Adventure Time]]'': Finn, Jake, and four Hot Dog Knights go into a labyrinth searching for wishes, the first two hoping to get [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|a psychic double-head war elephant]]. Jake stretches his body to have a lifeline back to the start and by the time they get a chance for a wish each two of the hot dogs had died and Jake was dying from overstretching himself. Finn was hoping to use his wish to bring Jake back to life while Jake wished for the elephant, but then the two hot dogs and Jake [[Wasteful Wishing|wished for a box, to blow up (he meant to get big but that didn't matter), and for a sandwich, respectively.]] Faced with deciding whether to save his friend or get what they came for, Finn {{spoiler|[[Subverted Trope|wishes for the elephant]], by Jake's suggestion, [[Take a Third Option|then convinces the elephant to use ITS wish to revive everyone then fly out of there]] to the [[Jackass Genie|Labyrinth guardian's great frustration.]]}}

* A rather odd variation was used in [[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'s season, ''Back to the Sewers''. As the goal of that season was to {{spoiler|save Splinter from being lost in cyberspace}} the [[MacGuffin]] actually ''was'' {{spoiler|a friend (to say the least)}}. The episode "Hacking Stockman" featured a "Friend or Idol?" Decision in the sense that Donatello was forced to choose between the data bits he'd been tracking for the entirety of the episode and saving his brothers... which, naturally, made it a difficult decision. {{spoiler|Hint: everyone's still alive and well at the end of the episode}}

[[Category:Moral Dilemma]]

[[Category:Friend Or Idol Decision]]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Friend or Idol? Decision}}