"Friend or Idol?" Decision: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

Or the hands of an automaton.|'''[[Futurama|Fry, "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings"]]'''}}

* Ahiru/Duck in ''[[Princess Tutu]]'' is given this sort of dilema at the end of the series when she finds out that the pendant that allows her to be a girl is {{spoiler|Mytho's final missing heart shard}}, meaning that she has to choose between saving the boy she loves ({{spoiler|who, to make it worse, has decided he's in love with [[Dark Magical Girl|another girl]], who just pulled an [[Heroic Sacrifice]] for ''him''}}) and [[To Become Human|her ability to be human]]. [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|The way this is resolved is one of the most touching moments in the series]].

* In ''[[Baccano]]!'' it's revealed in the 1933/The Slash arc that, once she informally hooks up with {{spoiler|Claire Stanfield}}, Chane's greatest fear is that she'll be forced to choose between him and her [[Battle Butler|loyalty to her father]] should Huey ever order her to kill him (particularly since {{spoiler|Claire}} is proving to be a serious [[Spanner in the Works]] of his more recent plans). {{spoiler|Claire}}'s response is exactly what you think it might be:

* In the ''[[Record of Lodoss War]]'' [[OVA]] there is a great example of this trope starring the villains. When Black Knight Ashram is given the chance to take the Scepter of Domination before the good guys can or save the life of dark elf Pirotess he {{spoiler|actually picks saving her over the scepter. She dies anyway, unfortunately.}}

* In ''[[Transformers Robots in Disguise]]'', the Autobots enter a race to find SkidZ, in which Megatron and Sky-Byte also enter. Megatron manages to trap the other Autobots under a rock, forcing SkidZ to choose between winning and saving his friends. {{spoiler|He manages to get both.}}

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

* In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s "[[The Servants of Bit Yakin|Jewels of Gwahlur]]", [[Conan the Barbarian]] faces it:

Conan did not hesitate, nor did he even glance toward the chest that held the wealth of an epoch.'' }}

* Kathi Peterson's ''Stone Traveler'' has Tag trapped in the past( 34 AD Meso America, to be exact), and his only way home is to use a blessed stone- which was stolen by the bad guys. when he is about to retrieve it, during a huge natural disaster explosion( storms, quakes,volcanoes, you name it) one of his friends, Rasha, falls through the ground. He only has time to save the stone or the girl( who isn't his love interest). He chooses to save her, meets Jesus, and gets a free ride home( turns out there was more than on magic stone.)

* In ''[[Power Rangers RPM]],'' a device that [[It Only Works Once|will only work once]] can be used to shut down {{spoiler|Dillon's brainwashed cyborg sister. Unfortunately, the [[Monster of the Week]] is too strong, and Dillon chooses to shut it down instead and save the city.}}

* In ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers]]'', Rita had created a special candle that, when completely melted, would rob Tommy of the Green Ranger powers. Since Tommy is unable to get it as it speeds up the process in his presence, Jason goes after it instead. However, the [[Monster of the Week]] appears and Tommy attempts to fight it alone. As Jason's close to getting it, Zack appears and tells Jason to forget it and save Tommy instead.

'''Zack:''' ''If we don't get to him in time, he'll lose his life!''. }}

** This time, there's no [[Take a Third Option|third option]] available, and while Tommy is saved, his powers aren't. This becomes Jason's [[My Greatest Failure|Greatest Failure]], in his mind.

* This trope seems to be the only thing that can make [[Fate/stay night|Shirou]] give up on his dream of being a superhero. {{spoiler|Of course, not just any friend. A [[Not Brainwashed|semi-possessed]] friend. That he loves. Plus Ilya ''and'' all his other friends, to judge by the bad end that results if you don't do this, which implies Shirou wins by killing every other Master.}} At the end of that route, though, {{spoiler|it's implied that may still be trying for his 'idol' here as he is still training in magic, especially his reality marble. But he'll always know he knowingly turned against that path and got about half of his town killed off and nearly destroyed the world.}}

** A straighter example is {{spoiler|Kotomine}} offering Saber the Grail... if she kills Shirou, already mostly dead. Unless you've done some ''very'' bad choices throughout the path and basically pissed her off at every juncture (Practically a [[Press X to Die]] affair), Saber declines.

* In ''[[Tales of Symphonia]]'', after breaking all the seals and thinking you finished the game you get a [[Your Princess Is in Another Castle]] moment at the Tower of Salvation when {{spoiler|you find out the purpose of the Worldregeneration Journey is for the Chosen to die.}} During that scene [[Idiot Hero]] Lloyd gets asked if {{spoiler|he'd rather have the entire world die than sacrifice one life to save it.}} He doesn't answer, but shortly afterward you learn in a skit that {{spoiler|for a moment he chose to save the world rather than the Chosen}}.

* ''[[Dino Crisis]]'': {{spoiler|Regina must choose between assisting a severely wounded Gail, her commanding officer, in completing their mission objective of capturing renegade scientist Dr. Kirk, causing Gail to die in the process; or force Gail to give up to the chase and leave the island with her and Rick, allowing Dr. Kirk to escape, thus ending the mission in failure. However, Regina can also [[Take a Third Option]] by leaving Gail with Rick and going after Dr. Kirk by herself, allowing her to complete the mission without Gail dying.}}