Cruel Mercy: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"I want him to live a long life alone with his cowardice."''|'''Westley''', ''[[The Princess Bride (
Some work towards crushing their opponents. The sadistic ones prefer to just step back and watch them suffer. This is "[[Cruel Mercy]]" - sparing one's enemy (or, in some examples, even actively keeping them alive) as a punishment rather than a reward.
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Heroes rarely kill their enemies: they either practice [[Thou Shalt Not Kill]] or have a [[The Heart|moral friend]] remind them "[[If You Kill Him You Will Be Just Like Him]]" if they ever get too tempted. Ho hum. However, some heroes are creative. Much like a torturer using a [[Cool and Unusual Punishment]], the hero does [[Forgiveness|forgive]] the villain, or at least spare his life, but does so in a poetic yet cruel way.
Villains will also do this. If they are [[Revenge
There is no typical [[Cruel Mercy]], each is tailored to the person for maximum effect. However, there are a few repeating variations. Simply letting someone live once defeated is itself cruel, especially if he believes [[Might Makes Right]] and [[Asskicking Equals Authority]], and now that he isn't the strongest his self esteem is shot. Similarly, some villains suffer because [[Good Hurts Evil]] and [[Evil Cannot Comprehend Good]], so the hero's mercy is a kind of [[Brown Note]]. For others, the hero may force them into a mundane life where they suffer a daily [[Humiliation Conga]]. And sometimes, if the villain is too dangerous to let free, he is trapped in an [[Tailor-Made Prison]] along with the people he hates most in the world, or with a view of something he despises or upsets him...
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Thus is [[Karma]] served. May or may not coincide with [[Disproportionate Retribution]]. And [[Fate Worse Than Death]], of course.
Compare [[Villain's Dying Grace]]. Contrast [[Do
{{examples}}
== Anime & Manga ==
* In ''[[
** Most of these villains go on to live somewhat-successful, less villainous lives and redeem themselves.
** That's the authors reasons for sparing them. In universe Luffy goes all out and it's only because the villains are tough enough to survive Luffy beating the daylights out of them that they wind up surviving. Luffy won't finish off a defeated but still living opponent but when he fights he attacks with lethal force.
* In ''[[Dragonball Z]]'', Goku planned to do this with Frieza when the latter ceased to pose a threat to him near the end of their battle on Namek. "Live with the shock. Keep it bottled up inside you, silently." Later, after Frieza lost his limbs, Goku told him to drift about in space and contemplate his defeat. It didn't work either time: the ''reason'' he lost his limbs is because he [[Hoist
** This can seem all the crueler when you figure that Goku could have ''expected'' Freeza to do either of those, especially the second. (After all, Raditz once begged for his life as well.) The more one thinks about it the more one sees it as [[Fridge Brilliance|Goku setting him up one more time to be knocked down]].
* Happens to Ritsuko in episode 23 of [[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]. After revealing the secrets of the Terminal Dogma and of Rei and the Dummy Plug System to Shinji and Misato, Ritsuko {{spoiler|realises that Gendo used her, and destroys Rei's clones. She then breaks down into tears, inviting Misato to shoot her, saying that she welcomes death. Misato refuses, saying that Ritsuko is a fool for saying so}}.
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** And also qualifies as an [[Incredibly Lame Pun]] on the villain's name, when you think about it ...
* Jesse Custer of ''[[Preacher (Comic Book)]]'' gives up killing with his Word powers, but his alternative punishments for enemies generally turn out even worse for them.
** What? He kills plenty of people. Killed {{spoiler|Si}} just by [[Compelling Voice|ordering him to die]], commanded a bunch of racist rednecks {{spoiler|and Jody, though it didn't take}} to '''[[Kill It
**** {{spoiler|He later felt bad about that and mind wiped him of the experience}}.
*** The point being he '''''stopped''' killing via the word,'' and did so fairly early in the series; the last example, the massacre of Grail Soldiers, is that last time Jesse does this, and it's between a quarter and a third of the way through the series, if I recall correctly.
* Similar to Cap, [[Superman]] seems to do this to Lex Luthor on an almost daily basis without even trying. Apparently, Lexi's ego is so enormous that having a man more powerful than him, who uses his might out of genuine altruism and refuses to work for him is so [[Evil Cannot Comprehend Good|incomprehensible]] that it galls him like nothing else ever could.
* In one [[Spider
* [[Ghost Rider]] actually has this trope as one of his powers. His [[Mind Rape|Penance Stare]] does no physical damage, but forces his opponent to feel every single bit of pain or evil they infliced on others. Most recover, but have something to think about for the rest of their lives.
* This is what Cyclops decides to do to Kaga, the [[Evil Cripple|crippled]] [[Genius Cripple|evil genius]] [[Big Bad]] of [[X
* In ''New X-Men'', Emma Frost, upon catching Kimura trying to assassinate [[Morality Pet|X-23]], proceeds to explain to the nigh-invulnerable villain exactly why she acts the way she does, essentially [[Hannibal Lecture|giving her psychiatric therapy]], pointing out that she only does what she does to X-23 because of her [[Dark and Troubled Past|childhood]] before erasing her one and only happy memory and then sending her off with the psychically implanted suggestion of hunting down her employers.
* In the 2010 ''[[Wolverine]]- Mr. X'' one-shot, [[The Fighting Narcissist|the]] [[Ax Crazy|titular]] [[Combat Clairvoyance|villain]], having lost once before to the titular hero, trains obsessively for months to prepare himself to counter Wolverine's berserker rage, then lures Wolverine into a fight. But Wolverine refuses to let him trigger his rage and ultimately refuses to fight him at all, realizing that leaving Mr. X forever wondering [[Who Would Win]] will cause him more torment than simply defeating him.
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* In ''[[American Vampire]]'', infamous outlaw-turned-vampire Skinner Sweet attends the book signing of a writer who was there back when Sweet was turned, and has since made a fortune from his one novel, a fictionalized account of the outlaw's story. Sweet exits the event, leaving behind a note saying "You are old and I am young for eternity. So I let you live to suffer and die. Why not? What better revenge is there than that?"
* In a flashback in ''[[Planetary]]''#7, [[Captain Ersatz|Jack]] [[John Constantine|Carter]] happens to run into an [[Invisible]] man, who explains that he's "this year's Herod", a [[Punch Clock Villain]] sent by the government to kill a pregnant local prostitute just in case she's carrying the second coming. Disgusted, Carter does a seemingly ineffectual spell and walks away. When the Herod goes to continue his mission, he finds he's been trapped on that street corner in an invisible forcefield only a few feet in diameter. For the rest of his life.
* [[Playing
* Towards the end of ''[[Nikolai Dante]]'', {{spoiler|Arkady/Dmitri}} has both Jena and Nikolai kidnapped, and says he'll stop torturing Nikolai to death if Jena marries him.
* ''[[The Sandman]]''.
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== [[Fan Fiction]] ==
* In ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5363164/1/The_Noble_Nine_A_Kill_BillEsque_Tale_of_Revenge The Noble Nine:] A [[Kill Bill]]Esque Tale of Revenge'', [[Chrono Trigger
* Some fan fiction views [[The Messiah|Aang's]] [[Thou Shalt Not Kill|mercy]] on [[Big Bad|Ozai]] from the ''[[
* [[The Girl Who Lived|Rose Potter]] takes the ''Harry Potter'' example mentioned further down and ramps up the 'cruel' factor by about a thousand percent. Harry persuades Sirius and Lupin to spare Pettigrew because he doesn't think James would want them to become murderers (and to help prove Sirius's innocence). Rose, OTOH, describes in rather ghoulish detail how much worse than death life in Azkaban will be for him, and ''this isn't even the creepiest thing she does''.
* In the Deep Space Nine Fanfic, ''The First Tile,'' a bereaved Trill father whose daughter's death was ordered by the planetary government hopes the monarch has a ''long'' life in prison.
{{quote| ''"I'm glad he will spend the rest of his life in a prison, eating meager food, surrounded by cold walls, performing the same kind of labor many Unjoined spend their entire working lives doing. I don't want him to get out. I want him to spend the rest of his life remembering what he did to our world, and when he dies, I hope that even the wind forsakes him. I say that as a father, in the name of every other parent who will, or * has* faced the same truth."''}}
* In ''[[
* [http://www.fanfiction.net/u/485015/Mr_Evil Mr. Evil's] [[Original Character]] Fredi Heat sees this method as worse than just killing them. Despite having no qualms about brutally killing someone that looks at him wrong (did I mention he is a "good guy"), he always sees it more cruel to take someone in alive rather than dead. As he quotes "'Alive' just means you can still breath on your own".
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* The Bride does this to Elle Driver at the end of their fight in ''[[Kill Bill]] Volume 2'' after she {{spoiler|snatches out her remaining eye and crushes it underfoot}}, leaving her stuck in the narrow-halled trailer with a poisonous snake while she's thrashing about in a literal and figurative blind panic -- all in the middle of the desert. She was toast.<ref>Although there have been talks of a sequel where Elle and Sophie train Vernita's daughter Nikki to get revenge on The Bride, so...</ref>
** She also "spares" Sofie Fatale...after chopping off both her arms during her interrogation and hurling her down a hill, just so that she can deliver a message to Bill.
* Westley [[To the Pain|threatens to do this]] in ''[[The Princess Bride (
* In ''[[
{{quote| '''Mal''': "I ain't gonna kill you. Hell, I'm going to grant your greatest wish - I'm going to show you a world without sin."}}
* ''[[
** For a bit of perspective on how big an insult this was historically: To live peacefully or die anywhere but on the field of combat was an enormous shame for Spartan warriors; those who died of old age didn't even get gravestones.
* In ''[[The Karate Kid]] Part II'', Mr. Miyagi tells Daniel that he let John Kreese live (after inducing Kreese to break both of his hands, delivering an [[Ironic Echo]] of Kreese's own words, and embarrassing him with a nose grab) because for a man as twisted as him, living is a worse punishment than dying.
* In the recent Burton adaptation of ''[[Alice in Wonderland (
* Invoked and then subverted in John Ford's ''My Darling Clementine''. After the O.K. Corral gunfight, Wyatt Earp tells Old Man Clanton (whose sons have just been killed in the fight, and who had earlier killed Earp's brother James) that he's not going to kill him: "I hope you'll live a hundred years, so you'll feel just a little of what my pa's gonna feel." Then he tells him to get on his horse and get out of town. As Clanton is departing, however, he suddenly turns to shoot Earp, and Earp's brother Wyatt shoots and kills him.
* In ''Shenandoah'', [[Jimmy Stewart]]'s character confronts the young Confederate soldier who's just shot and killed one of his sons after mistaking him for a Union soldier, telling him he hopes he lives a long life and has many children so that he can come to feel about them the way that Stewart does. "And then, when a man comes along and kills one of them..." he starts, before he's overcome with emotion and walks away.
* ''[[
* Near the end of ''[[The Departed]]'', Costigan finally captures Sullivan, [[The Mole]] inside the police force. Sullivan begins trying to threaten and intimidate Costigan, then begins [[Villainous Breakdown|breaking down into tears]] and pleading with Costigan to "Just kill me". Costigan refuses, saying "I ''am'' killing you", meaning that he's intent on bringing Sullivan up on charges, thus ruining his life and forcing him to live through and experience everything that will result from that. Immediately afterwards {{spoiler|Costigan is killed, and a couple scenes later, after getting away with everything, Sullivan receives a rather painless death.}}
* The ending of ''Hard To Kill'' features [[Steven Seagal|Steven Seagal's]] attempt at this trope. After roughing up the villain ''anyway'', he tells him "Death is far too merciful a fate for you. So what I'm going to do is put you in prison. A nice petite white boy like you in a federal penitentiary... now let me just put it this way: [[Prison Rape|I don't think you'll be able to remain anal-retentive for very long]]."
** He does much the same thing to the [[Big Bad]] of ''Fire Down Below'', disabling his enemy with one shot instead of killing him, for much the same reasons as the above flick. No one ever accused Steven Seagal movies of an abundance of originality.
* As mentioned in the above quote, the title character of ''[[Star Trek II:
* In ''[[Training Day]]'', Ethan Hawke's character leaves Denzel Washington's character alive after their final confrontation. It might seem merciful, but Denzel owes a very large debt to the Mafiya, and Ethan took the money he was going to use to pay them off. {{spoiler|He doesn't last long.}}
* In ''[[
* In [[Bent]], Max convinces the guards in the concentration camp to let him and Horst have a better, safer job than the other people. Taking rocks from one side of the room, and putting them in a neat pile on the other side of the room. They then have to repeat this task over and over, all day, every day. Eventually they both start going insane from this psychological torture, and start dreaming about piling rocks even in their sleep.
* The ending of the original ''[[Cape Fear]]'' (the remake has Cady suffer a [[Karmic Death]] instead):
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* At the beginning of [[Hocus Pocus]], Winnifred Sanderson punishes Thackery by transforming him into an immortal housecat.
{{quote| '''Winnie''': His punishment will not be to die...but to live forever with his guilt.}}
* In the end of ''[[Ever After (
* In the biopic film ''[[Elizabeth]]'', the titular queen has Wolsingham expose the catholic plots to assassinate her, culminating in her ex-lover Lord Robert Dudley being exposed as one of the conspirators after she previously rejected him. He knows he is destined for execution as a traitor to the crown and begs for it, but Elizabeth decides: "I rather think to let you live; to remind me of how close I came to being weak."
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* In the end of Thomas Sniegoski's ''Fallen'' series, the [[The Chosen One|hero]], Aaron [[What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?|forgives]] [[Our Angels Are Different|Verchiel]], causing him to go back to heaven. Since [[Knight Templar|Verchiel]] has spent the last few millenia [[Nice Job Breaking It, Herod|systematically wiping out various angelic offspring]], allowing eldritch abominations to thrive on Earth by ignoring his job, and [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|generally being a douche]], the welcoming reception is NOT pretty.
* A Battle Sister in the ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' novel ''The Bleeding Chalice'' refers to the villainous version of this trope: Chaos troops sparing Imperial soldiers because they'll suffer more that way, after she was spared by the "traitor" Sarpedon (who was actually sparing her because he was a good guy at heart(s) and admired her determination).
** In Trooper Caffran's [[Day in The Limelight]] in ''[[
* Frodo in ''The [[Lord of the Rings]]'' does this to Saruman. Or so Saruman alleges.
* At the end of ''[[Robin Hobb|Fool's Fate]]'', the {{spoiler|Pale Woman's}} prophecies have all been thwarted and her power destroyed. She screams at Fitz to kill her, saying that her visions told her this would happen if she failed. Fitz responds that they are not in her vision of the future but his, and that she dies slowly, alone. {{spoiler|She does.}}
* This is advocated in [[
** This scripture is a metaphor for smelting, where coal would be underneath, as well as heaped on top of ore, removing impurities, and softening it. The bible isn't endorsing cruelty, but reinforcing the whole "love your enemy," idea.
*** It still doesn't sound too pleasant for the ore.
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** In a later [[Miles Vorkosigan]] novel, ''Memory'', his boss/mentor Illyan's biochip was sabotaged {{spoiler|by one of Illyan's subordinates and friends,}} which nearly drove him insane to the point where he begged for a clean death. After they ferret out the culprit, Miles wonders if the man will commit suicide now that he's been caught, and asks Illyan if he would want to [[Leave Behind a Pistol|allow that]].
{{quote| '''Illyan''': Dying's easy. Living's hard. Let the son of a bitch stand his court-martial. Every last eternal minute of it.}}
* In ''[[Les Misérables (
{{quote| ''[[Don't You Dare Pity Me!|I'll spit his pity right back in his face!]] There is nothing on earth that we share! It is either Valjean or Javert! How can I now allow this man to hold dominion over me?''}}
* Done in ''[[
* In the third book ''[[Harry Potter]]'' convinced his godfather Sirius not to kill the bastard who had framed Sirius for serial homicide and condemned him to a decade of horrible imprisonment, so they could instead lock him in the same nightmarish prison Sirius had been locked in, where foul, joy-draining demons would slowly drive him into madness and death. Aww, he's such a nice boy!
** This was partly so they could prove that Sirius was innocent, though. Naturally, it backfired, but it wasn't all about vengeance, per se . . .
* Attempted by Lysa Arryn in ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]''. When her prisoner, Tyrion Lannister, wins his [[Combat
* In a 1941 Theodore Sturgeon short story [[Shottle Bop]], a seer-of-ghosts sees a ghostly couple in an endless feedback loop, repeating a conversation, summed up as follows: "If we kill ourselves, we're sure to be together.... forever.... just like this." "Will we, Tommy?" "I promise.... just like this."
* In ''Day Watch'' (second book of the ''[[Night Watch]]'' series) a group of Dark Others is convicted of a serious crime and given the option between two fates: execution by hanging (as opposed to the more severe [[Fate Worse Than Death|dematerialisation]]) or being allowed to live in return for never using their powers again and living a normal human lifespan. When they choose the latter option, Gesar (head of the Light One delegation) is asked if he has any opinion, and he reluctantly recommends that their sentence be commuted to permission to perform extremely minor magic, which is granted. One of the Day Watch witnesses notes that, in the long term, this is even crueler than being killed or having no magic at all, as using incredibly weak spells will act as a constant reminder of the power they truly have but can never use.
* In ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'', Rand, who [[Wouldn't Hit a Girl|cannot bring himself to have a woman executed]], decides that {{spoiler|Lady Colavaere, who usurped the throne of Cairhien and murdered opposants}} is to be sent to the smallest farm she possesses, and to live off it. {{spoiler|She hangs herself}}.
* Somewhat subverted by [[Terry Pratchett]] in ''[[Discworld
** Featured a lot in the [[
** The Elf Queen ''tries'' this on Granny Weatherwax in ''[[Discworld
** In ''[[Discworld
*** The whole philosophy runs like this: if you kill your foe, your foe is dead and that's that. If you ''beat'' your foe, but let them live, then your foe is beat and knows they've been beat, and they'll know it for the rest of their life, and there's no point in beating a foe if they won't be around to know they've been beat afterward.
* In ''[[Dune]]: House Harkonnen'', Duke Leto invokes this trope on a man who was involved with the death of Leto's son (and is very remorseful about it, to the point that he is considering suicide):
{{quote| '''Leto:''' I sentence you... to ''live''.}}
* In the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]], when Boba Fett escapes from the sarlacc's stomach, he considers killing it, but leaves. The sarlacc asks him why, and he says that leaving it alone in the desert, immobile and depending on creatures falling into its mouth every few years for food, will be a more fitting revenge.
* ''[[I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream]]'' is very, very much about this: The antagonist is an insane, sentient supercomputer who has brutally murdered the entire population of Earth, save for five people he keeps indefinitely alive inside his own systems and tortures for his own amusement. {{spoiler|And when four of these five people find a way out, the supercomputer punishes the remaining survivor [[And I Must Scream|by turning him into a slug-like thing]].}} The computer game adaptation expands on the supercomputer's motivations, by explaining that in becoming sentient, he was driven mad by only being able to use his vast intellect to kill others.
* After Mr. Wickham runs off with Lydia in ''[[Pride and Prejudice And Zombies]]'', Mr. Darcy tracks them down and bribes Wickham into marrying Lydia and going into the priesthood on the condition that Darcy gets to beat the crap out of Wickham. The punishment is threefold: Wickham is trapped for life with the most annoying person in the entire P&P&Z universe, he has to give up gambling and seducing women, and he can't run away from any of this because he can't move under his own power. Considering that the Bennett family probably would have just killed him, this punishment is somewhat more fitting.
* In one of the ''[[Horrible Histories]]'' books, Terry Deary writes an account of Lambert Simnel, a peasant boy who was chosen to be the figurehead of a rebellion against Henry VII because he resembled the Earl of Warwick. Henry crushed the rebellion and made Simnel one of his servants in a display of [[Pragmatic Villainy]]. In Deary's account, Simnel is left shellshocked by watching the rebels being slaughtered, and writes: 'Cruel Henry had the real Earl of Warwick put to death, but cruellest of all, he sentenced me to live'.
* Used in one of the ''[[John Carter of Mars]]'' books. A minor bad guy has just been caught rigging a duel to put John Carter at a disadvantage, and the jeddak orders said bad guy to duel Carter. Carter simply carves an X in the guy's face, then disarms him and declares that he's satisfied because living with that scar is a [[Fate Worse Than Death]].
* [[The Scarlet Pimpernel (
* In Roger Zelazny's ''[[Forever After]]'', Gar Quithnick uses a nerve strike on a deposed villain that will kill him the instant he holds himself superior to another person, although he can still live a long life of humility.
* God in [[Stephen King]]'s ''[[
{{quote| "You said 'God is cruel' the way a person who's lived his whole life on Tahiti might say 'Snow is cold.' You knew, but you didn't understand. Do you know how cruel your God can be, David? How fantastically cruel? Sometimes he makes us live."}}
* {{spoiler|Lanre}} in ''[[The Name of the Wind]]'' lets {{spoiler|Selitos}} live after destroying all they hold dear. And in the sequel, what Kvothe does to {{spoiler|The fake Edema Ruh}} is this, but Kvothe didn't let him live, just prolonged how long he'd hold on by a few DAYS. Do not mess with him.
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'''The Doctor''': Good men don't need rules. Today is not the day to find out why I have so many.<br />
'''Madame Kovarian''': Give the order. Give the order, Colonel Runaway. }}
* A ''[[Law
* Fred attempted this in ''[[
** Angel himself spent many years as a soulless vampire committing countless atrocities including killing everyone in his village including his own sister. After torturing and killing the favorite daughter of a tribe of Kalderash Gypsies, [[Gypsy Curse|they curse him]] by restoring his human soul, thus afflicting him with a conscience and condemning him to an eternity of remorse for the crimes he has committed.
** Later, Connor locked Angel in a steel coffin and dropping him in the sea, knowing that he would not die, but starve and [[Go Mad From the Isolation|go mad]].
* D'Hoffryn pulls one of these on Anya in an episode of [[Buffy]]. Overwhelmed with guilt over slaughtering a fraternity for a vengeance wish, Anya begs D'Hoffryn to undo it. He tells her the price is the life of a vengeance demon; to atone for her actions, she is all too happy to accept death. He then {{spoiler|summons Anya's friend Halfrek and kills her instead.}}
{{quote| '''D'Hoffryn''': Haven't I taught you anything, Anya? Never go for the kill when you can go for the pain.}}
* In ''[[Star Trek:
** One could argue that forcing Cyrano Jones to pick up every single tribble on K-7 (a task estimated by Spock to take 17.9 ''years'') is a form of Cruel Mercy on Kirk's part. Especially when you consider there's nothing to stop the tribbles breeding...
** A [[Crowning Moment of Funny]] in one ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
** Letting captured Klingons live is probably the worst humiliation you can visit upon them. In the third Trek movie, the one remaining crew member of the Klingon ship gets the Enterprise crew to promise to kill him instead of keeping him captive. Later, Kirk orders them to lock him up. When the Klingon shouts, "But you said you would kill me!", Kirk responds: [[I Lied|"I lied"]].
** Cultural differences resulted in Cruel Mercy to Worf's brother Kurn in the ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
** In the Next Generation episode "Too Short A Season", a now-aged admiral returns to negotiate with a hostage-taker he had previously betrayed years ago--the terrorist wanted weapons, but the admiral gave them to both him and his enemies to preserve the balance. The admiral is taking illegal drugs that make him de-age, but eventually cause incredible pain and death. When they finally meet, the terrorist initially wants to kill the admiral with one of his own smuggled weapons for poetic justice, but then decides a better revenge is to leave him to live in the pain caused by his drugs.
* In the second season of ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'', Hiro {{spoiler|[[Buried Alive|buries Adam Monroe alive]] after his plan to wipe out humanity with a virus is thwarted. What makes it worse is that due to Adam's healing ability, [[And I Must Scream|he would be trapped in that coffin forever]].}} [[Beware the Nice Ones]] indeed.
** In the fifth season, {{spoiler|Peter and Hiro don't kill Samuel Sullivan. They reveal his crimes to his fellow super carnies and teleport them away, taking away Samuel's surrogate family and powers in one stroke. Samuel has a [[Villainous Breakdown]] as he stumbles around the empty carnival, alone and powerless.}}
* Subverted and lampshaded, in the final season of ''[[The Shield]]'': midway through the season, popular supporting cast character Ronnie Gardocki gives a speach about how killing turncoat murderer Shane Vendrell would be too merciful and would be more content with him rotting in jail for the rest of his life. The irony fairy strikes Ronnie at the end of the series as he is arrested and facing possibly spending the rest of his life in jail. A nasty bit of subversion, given that Ronnie survived countless injuries that would have killed lesser mauve/red-shirt characters over the course of the series, let alone him being the only subordinate of Vic Mackey's to survive the end of the series alive.
** Vic Mackey's final fate as well could be described as "cruel mercy"; made to face the fact that he turned his protégé into a man who murdered his pregnant wife and young son, forced to watch his most loyal friend arrested (with his betrayal of Ronnie shoved into both men's faces for added "fuck-you"-ness), and then ordered out of the police precinct, now knowing that every one of his sins are now public knowledge amongst the rank and file police officers who used to look to Vic as the precinct's resident Alpha Male.
*** It's even worse than that. Vic Mackey got his wish: he was given immunity for his numerous and varied crimes, and got a nice cushy contract working for ICE to boot. However, Agent Murray, in her capacity as Mackey's [[Literal Genie]], tells him that he's not going to be out on the street busting skulls like he used to; he's going to be sitting at his desk, with its sterile surroundings and bad lighting, doing ''paperwork'' for his entire tenure. Noncompliance means dissolution of his immunity agreement, and off he'll go to prison. And once said tenure is over, he'll be kicked out and never be allowed to work in law enforcement again. Some familiar with Mackey's character would see this as his own personal hell. This is open to interpretation, however, as the last scene of the series is Vic strapping on his pistol and heading out into the night, suggesting that he will somehow find a way to continue being who and what he is.
* In ''[[Robin Hood (TV series)|Robin Hood]]'', Robin spares Gisborne's life after he has {{spoiler|killed Marian, the woman they both loved, and Robin's wife}}. Gisborne begs Robin to end his life; instead Robin spares him and forces him to live with his guilt (though by the next episode Guy is terrorising the village of Locksley and ends up killing the [[Replacement Scrappy|new regular's]] kid brother, so letting him live probably wasn't such a good idea after all).
* Played with in ''[[
{{quote| '''Mal''': I bet. It would be humiliating, having to lie there while the better man refuses to spill your blood. Mercy is the mark of a great man. * stab* Guess I'm just a good man. * stab* Well, I'm alright. * throws down his sword and walks away from his more-wounded-than-necessary opponent* }}
* ''[[Blake's Seven|Blakes Seven]]'': Towards the end of Season 2, Blake calmly refuses to kill his nemesis Travis, now a crippled fugitive. Considering what happens in the season finale, this turns out to be a pretty major head against wall moment, something both Jenna ''and'' Travis point out in the scene itself.
* A villainous example is seen in the ''[[Merlin (
* There's a particularly vicious example in La Reina del Sur where Teresa, a drug trafficker in Spain, captures and tortures one of her many enemies, a French heroin trafficker who also uses the drug to keep women high and under his control in his brothel. She has him savagely beat with a bat to the point where his spinal cord is damaged beyond repair, yet she leaves him alive so that he can "drag himself at the feet of others like the animal that he is," as Teresa stated (she had major issues against someone using drugs to force women into prostitution). He is killed in the following episode for telling the cops about it, though.
* In ''[[
** Scorpius: {{spoiler|I condemn you John Crichton... to live. So that your thirst for unfulfilled revenge will consume you! Goodbye.}}
* ''[[True Blood]]''. Eric wanted to leave Russell in the sun to burn, until he had a vision of Godric and decided to spare Russell. By burrying him in concrete the following night.
* Used quite often on ''[[Burn Notice]]''. Though some of his opponents do get killed as a result of Michael Weston's machinations, just as often they are left alive, in the burning wreckage of their lives, holding the match as the police sirens close in.
* Hotch explicitly cites this idea on ''[[
* The perp in the ''[[
* On ''[[
* Parodied in ''[[Blackadder Goes Forth]]''. Blackadder and Baldrick crash behind German lines and are captured during World War I. The Red Baron tells them that rather than have them shot, they're going to be sent to a convent to teach home economics to girls. "For a man of action such as yourself, the humiliation will be unbearable!" The punishment doesn't seem like such a bad thing to Blackadder.
* Gus Fring from ''[[Breaking Bad]]'' does this to Hector Salamanca, keeping him alive and visiting him every time he kills someone related to Salamanca. Made worse by the fact that Salamanca can only move his finger.
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** Even worse, [[Values Dissonance|in Shakespeare's time]], this would have been considered a ''happy ending.'' The Jew gets to be saved, right? It was not until much later that productions started to focus on the negative consequences of converting.
** Worth noting that the contemporary parallel play, ''The Jew of Malta'', involves the eponymous Jew dying by being boiled in a pot of oil. * shrug* [[Fate Worse Than Death]] versus [[Cruel and Unusual Death]]...
* In [[Shakespeare]]'s ''[[
** Depending on how you interupt it, the [[Big Bad]] Angelo suffers this as well. The Duke doesn't have him killed, but forces him to wed a wife he didn't want and live after being revealed publically for his crimes. His original plan was to have him marry her and then be killed, but ultimately changes his mind.
* Yet another Shakespeare example: In ''[[Romeo and Juliet]]'', after being sentenced to exile instead of death, Romeo, in his usual [[Emo Teen]] manner, declares exile to be a [[Fate Worse Than Death]] because it means separation from Juilet, and threatens to kill himself. Friar Lawrence, in the play's longest speech, proceeds to [[What the Hell, Hero?|chew him out]] over all the [[Wangst|Wangsting]] he's been doing.
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== Tabletop Games ==
* A common habit among the Infernal [[
== Video Games ==
* In the trailer for ''[[
* In the 'normal' ending of ''[[Disgaea 3 Absence of Justice]]'', after defeating {{spoiler|Super Hero Aurum}}, who orchestrated everything that happened in the game, the defeated boss asks Mao to kill him. Mao refuses, and instead drags {{spoiler|Aurum}} home to his lab to 'experiment' on him, presumably to unlock the secret of his [[One-Winged Angel]] transformation. You see him briefly during the credit-roll, and he looks... decidedly uncomfortable. Particularly amusing in that {{spoiler|Aurum}} THOUGHT he was performing a [[Xanatos Gambit]] - if he had defeated Mao, he would have been famous and revered throughout the world as the hero who slew The Overlord, and if he lost, he got the glorious death he'd always wanted... shame it didn't work out that way, huh?
** Subverted in the [[Disgaea Hour of Darkness
** [[
* In ''[[
* Near the end of ''[[Dragon Quest VIII]]'', Angelo saves {{spoiler|Marcello}} from a [[Disney Villain Death]]. Given that he had just given a massive [["The Reason You Suck" Speech]] to a crowded amphitheater that veered into [[Evil Gloating]], then was possessed by [[Satan|Rhapthrone]] and resurrected the demon's body in front of said crowd, leaving his ambition, reputation and ''everything'' he'd spent his entire life working for in tatters... yeah, death would've been kinder. Getting saved by the {{spoiler|half-brother}} he despised was just another kick in the side at that point.
* In ''[[Starcraft]]'', Kerrigan exhibits this on Zeratul after he kills his Matriarch who demonstrated that she was Kerri's thrall.
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* The end of the last mission in ''[[Nintendo Wars|Advance Wars: Dual Strike]]'' has something like this. If the player chooses Yes when [[Totally Radical|Jake]] has to kill [[Big Bad|Von Bolt]], Jake is handed a gun from Hawke, who would have shot him himself if Jake couldn't bring himself to. Jake doesn't hesitate, and shoots Von Bolt's chair, which was what was about to revive the Grand Bolt the good guys defeated earlier. When asked by Von Bolt why he didn't kill him, Jake stated that he didn't want him dead while everyone else cleaned up his mess.
{{quote| '''Jake''': Welcome to natural selection, chump!}}
* In ''[[Fallout: New Vegas]]'', Cass' companion quest involves taking revenge on two groups of people who wiped out her caravan. Cass initially wants to take a direct, violent approach, but you can instead offer to uncover evidence of the conspiracy and pass it along to the NCR. Though Cass is initially disappointed, she'll decide that the NCR's legal procedures will do more harm to her enemies than a faceful of buckshot ever could.
** Once you pop {{spoiler|Mr. House}} out of his life-support chamber, you'll have three options for how to deal with him - simply killing him, setting his equipment to electrocute him, or putting him back inside but cutting him off from the rest of his systems. The last choice is considered the worst, since exposure to outside microbes will [[And I Must Scream|leave him to slowly die over the course of a year, trapped in a coffin-sized canister and unable to do anything but watch while you dismantle everything he's accomplished]].
** At the end of the ''Honest Hearts'' DLC, you'll get to help decide what the vengeful Joshua Graham does with his enemy, White Legs warchief Salt-Upon-Wounds, after crushing the rest of his tribe. Graham is all too happy to execute the tribal for his crimes (which include butchering Graham's hometown), but if your Speech skill is high enough you can exorcise his inner demons and bring some measure of peace to his soul by convincing him to let Salt-Upon-Wounds go. The ending narration reveals that despite their leader's survival, the White Legs never recover from their defeat, abandoning him and leaving him a sad, pathetic wreck of a man.
** It's easy to overlook, but if you read the terminals left at the H&H Tools building and pay attention to the game's backstory, you can see that Mr. House did this. He was cheated out of the family hardware business by his half-brother, but [[Start My Own|started his own]] robotics company and became one of the most powerful industrialists on the planet. House all but took over Pre-War Vegas and dismantled the company that was his birthright on the stock market... except for that last store on the outskirts of Las Vegas, so that his half-brother would be around to see how successful House was. From the building's log entries, it's clear the experience drove him quite mad.
** According to Mr. House, sparing General Oliver in an Independent Vegas ending either with House or you in charge counts as this. He will be forced to go back west humiliated and empty-handed as a scapegoat for leading thousands of soldiers to die in an unpopular war with his chance at a political career nonexistent. House even calculates a probability of him even committing suicide from it all.
* Near the end of ''[[Star Wars: Bounty Hunter]]'', Jango Fett faces down his arch-nemesis, Montross. Aside from doggedly attempting to kill Fett and steal bounties from him, Montross was personally responsible for the deaths of both Fett's foster figure and a later mother figure. After Fett beats Montross in their final duel, the defeated man gasps that he deserves a better death than this. So Fett leaves him alive, ignoring his pleas that Jango finish him, and Montross is subsequently given the extremely ignominious death of being torn apart by feral cultists.
* Subverted in ''[[Dawn of War]]: Dark Crusade'': Eliphas the Inheritor is confronted by a daemon who blows off his attempts to place the blame on his followers but instead of torturing him in [[Warhammer 40000
{{quote| '''Eliphas:''' [[Oh Crap|No]]! I will NOT go to the [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|Basilica of Torment]] again!<br />
'''Daemon:''' The Basilica is reserved for those who may redeem themselves. [[You Have Failed Me|You will have no such opportunity]]. }}
* In ''[[
** [[The Mole]] did not cause Archangel's scars - at least not directly - since Archangel was hit by a missile from an attack aircraft. Paragon Shepard, who is an extreme [[Magnetic Hero]] who inspires others to do what's right, convinces Archangel with a mix of this trope and reminding Archangel that, though a [[Cowboy Cop]] turned [[Vigilante Man]], he's still a good man. Alien. Whatever. Avoiding the Mole's death is always a Paragon act.
** Aside from this, there was an instance in the [[Mass Effect 1]] DLC ''Bring Down the Sky" that allowed something similar. If you opt to let some hostages die in order to capture batarian terrorist Balak, you can either kill him outright or spare him. Doing the latter means taking him to the planet he'd tried to destroy to stand trial...which, incidentally, was where the hostages came from.
* Near the end of the first ''[[
* In ''[[
** To add insult to injury Rodrigo had the Piece of Eden and the Vault refused to open for him, only when Ezio used it did the Vault finally open. This cements the fact that Rodrigo was not the messiah that he thought he was. Furthermore in Brotherhood Rodrigo's reign as Pope is regulated more or less to being a figure head while his son proclaims himself new leader of Rome. To top it all of is that when Rodrigo's own son kills him, in order to prevent his position as Pope from influencing opposition to his cause, Ezio is the one that comforts him in death to showcase how the revenge he had harbored in his heart for all those years was long gone. Killing people was no longer personal for Ezio anymore but simply a matter of the greater good, even enemies deserve respect.
* In ''[[
* ''[[Dragon Age]]'' itself allows you to do this to several characters, to include Sten (though the option is less about outright killing him, and more about leaving him in his cage to die later), Jowan, Zevran (who enters into a "service contract" with you afterwards), and {{spoiler|Loghain, in exchange for him serving you and the Grey Wardens, no less}}. There are other potential instances, such as {{spoiler|Branka}}, though the cruelness of them comes down to YMMV.
* In ''[[Alpha Protocol]]'' Mike has the option to spare whoever the final boss turns out to be, knowing they'll be dragged through courtroom after courtroom for the rest of their lives, watching while their empire crumbles.
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== Webcomics ==
* Horribly/Hilariously [[Subverted Trope]] in ''[[
{{quote| '''Nick:''' Your place sounds darker, sir.<br />
'''Kevyn:''' It has the advantage of being legal. }}
* Thaco in ''[[
{{quote| '''Complains''': "You fought {{spoiler|the Goblinslayer}}? Did you kill him?"<br />
'''Thaco''': "No. I destroyed him." }}
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== Web Original ==
* ''[[Ink City]]'': [[Aeon Flux|Trevor]] pulls this on [[Pokémon
* [[Chakona Space]]: Allen Fesler's character, Neal Foster has pulled this off a few times.
== Western Animation ==
* Explicitly invoked in the ''[[
* Optimus Prime refuses to kill [[Big Bad]] Megatron, {{spoiler|who had just caused the deaths of one of his soldiers minutes before}}, during the finale of ''[[Transformers Animated]]'', telling him, "That would be the easy way out, Megatron. ''You don't deserve it''." Instead he destroys Megatron's weapon and drags him back to Cybertron to face justice in chains, humiliated.
* A ''[[G.I. Joe]]'' skit from ''[[Robot Chicken]]'' has a new member joining the Joes. He has a [[Minored in Asskicking|doctorate]] and is [[Cold Sniper|extremely skilled with a sniper rifle]], but due to a small accident [[Never Live It Down|he is given a humiliating code name and not respected]]. He later [[Face Heel Turn|joins Cobra]] and [[Beware the Nice Ones|kills all but one of the Joes with his aformentioned sniper rifle]]. What does he do when Duke yells to sky to kill him with his team?
{{quote| ''"No. No, you live with it."''}}
* One of the most memorable aspects of the ''[[
** Azula pulls this on herself during her [[Villainous Breakdown]]. She hallucinates her mother, and this follows, completely breaking her world view.
{{quote| '''Ursa''': I think you're confused. All your life, you've used fear to control people like your friends Mai and Ty Lee.<br />
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** Katara does this to the man who killed her mother. {{spoiler|After finding out how horrible his life is, she decides to spare him so he can continue to endure it.}}
* In ''[[King of the Hill]]'', Peggy confronts Cotton on his deathbed to [[Calling the Old Man Out|Call The Old Man Out]] after years of verbal abuse from him. She takes a hint from one of the page quotes above by saying she hopes he will never die, so that he may live forever in the hell that he has created for himself. Cotton, ever the spiteful one, puts on his [[Troll|cool face]] and dies immediately afterwards.
* In "The Dragons' Graveyard," the darkest episode of ''[[Dungeons and Dragons (
* [[The Starscream|Grimian]], a member of the Vandals in ''[[Hot Wheels Battle Force 5]]'', overthrows [[Big Bad|Captain Kalus]] but instead of killing him, spares his life so he may live in shame. When Kalus returns and defeats him, he [[Ironic Echo|tells him the exact same thing]] and [[Kicked Upstairs|promotes him to his second in command]] so Grimian can live in his shadow. {{spoiler|After Grimian sells out the Vandals to the Red Sentients, Kalus and Grimian have a final battle, ending with Kalus' victory. After destroying Grimian's car, he banishes Grimian instead of killing him, once more prefering the traitor live in shame rather than die in battle like a warrior.}}
** While he doesn't see it as such, {{spoiler|Zemerik, under the control of the [[Cult|Alpha-Code]], forgiving Krytus is seen at this by Krytus. Krytus had just finally got his revenge on Zemerik for betraying him, but forgiving him, Zemerik also rendered Krytus' revenge meaningless.}}
* Discord from ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
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