Any Torment You Can Walk Away From: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

A normal person would be annoyed, upset, angry or downright furious at having gone through a near-death experience, having nearly gone to jail unfairly (or actually done some time there unfairly), nearly losing, or actually losing, their worldly possessions, loved ones, reputation, and so on, and so forth.

 

Not so with characters in movies, anime, TV, some books, and so on, that get exposed to such dangers by a villain, by fate or even by the heroes themselves. As far as they are concerned, "All is well that ends well" is a saying to be followed utterly if they leave any experience with their health intact (or recoverable), to the point of not even minding the long hours of risk, pain, heart-wrenching pressure and emotional distress, along with possible property, reputation, love-life, and other kinds of damage, reversible or not, inflicted by the Villain, the [[Hanging Judge]], and so on. They, rather, simply focus on how fine and dandy it is that they escaped their ordeal physically (never emotionally, sometimes socially) unscathed (or, depending on the show, not TOO beaten up or not too dead). This is frequent with secondary characters or unnamed ones: The show won't include them dying or anything too irreversible, but the near complete destruction of their property, loved ones or reputation is treated as an afterthought, and it's not uncommon to see them reacting very calmly to it.

 

 

{{examples}}

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* When ''[[Bleach]]'' character Uryuu Ishida, uses his hollow bait to start a Hollow-hunt-off with Ichigo in the middle of a city. Many people get injured (but mindwiped) and secondary characters get very shaken up, but he is accepted as a friend shortly thereafter by the main cast. Of course, they had known him for a while as a student and it had been an accident (he had only expected a few, not the hundreds that came), but still...

 

== [[Literature]] ==

** Subverted in Shakespeare's ''[[Twelfth Night]]'': at the end of the comedy, Malvolio, abused and humiliated, announces his intention to have his just revenge upon his persecutors, striking a discordant note in the middle of an otherwise happy ending to the action.

* [[The Bible]]: The Book of Job is basically this... losing your kids is fine and dandy, as long as you get new ones later, right? [[Broken Aesop|Right???]]

** Holmes becomes a much worse friend after coming back from the dead; before that, despite being thoroughly annoying as a housemate, he was a reasonably pleasant comrade who clearly valued his friend-and-colleague and certainly never forced Watson to do anything. The really impressive thing with Watson from the start is that his self-esteem appears to be under no threat one way or the other from hanging around with an insufferable know-it-all.

* ''Breaking Dawn'', the last book in the ''[[Twilight (novel)|Twilight]]'' series, has an immense amount of this in the closing chapters.

** The last line of the entire series is "All was well." Granted, it ''is'' 19 years later, but still.

* In the [[Brother Cadfael]] mystery ''The Confession of Brother Haluin'', the monk of the title is so overjoyed to discover that his youthful love and their child are both alive, rather than eighteen years dead thanks to an abortifacient he sent the girl, that he never spares a thought for the 'woman scorned' who lied to him all those years ago, even to forgive her. She simply doesn't count and neither do his years of grief and torment. Of course he ''is'' a monk.

* Brutally subverted in Guus Kuiper's '''Polleke'' series. In one book, Polleke is lured into a car by a man, and quickly realises he is a child molester. She can escape before anything bad happens, but she is still devastated by the encounter, holing herself up in her room for days, and fearing physical contact with her (male) friend.

 

* Pick an innocent freed, or one whose conviction was reversed, in a procedural drama, any innocent.

** Subverted in the television series ''[[Life]]'', whose protagonist, freed after twelve years in prison on overturned murder charges, shows the lasting social and psychological effects of his incarceration.

* Quoted verbatim in ''[[Babylon 5]]'' by Londo Molari at the end of the episode Deathwalker. Never mind an Vorlon ship just appeared out of nowhere, vaporized another in what normally would be an act of war and casually renders half the episode pointless. {{spoiler|Her getting killed might not have been optimum, but anything that upset the Narn was a good thing as far as Londo was concerned.}}

** Not to mention that in doing so, the Vorlons had just foiled this [[Expy]] of Dr. Josef Mengele's scheme to throw the various civilizations into murderous chaos, killing each other for the chance of immortality

{{quote|'''Simon:''' You've had the Alliance on you. Criminals and savages... Half the people on this ship have been shot or wounded -- including yourself -- and you're harboring known fugitives.

'''Mal:''' We're still flying.

* Even after fighting [[Super Villain|supervillains]], facing impending death, and [[Save the World|saving the world]], ''[[Kim Possible]]'' and co. go back home (or to their [[Local Hangout]]) and everything's okay. Even after their town was smashed up in an [[Alien Invasion]].

 

* It's partially [[Justified Trope|justified]] in that if you're in a spot where you'd say "All's well that ends well", then you are most likely in a situation that, for the most part, can't be reversed or fixed. Not that you need to be all hunky-dory about it, but refusal to accept the reality of the situation can lead to some real problems. Obviously, that refusal has lead to major advances in science, politics and people's lives. But most mostly, well, shit happens.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Happiness Tropes]]

[[Category:Improbable Behavior Tropes]]

[[Category:Universal Tropes]]