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Good Is Not Soft: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|''If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you're going to die. [[Just Between You and Me|So they'll talk.]] [[Evil Gloating|They'll gloat.]] They'll watch you squirm. They'll put off the moment of murder like another man will put off a good cigar. So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. [[I Did What I Had to Do|A good man will kill you with hardly a word.]]''|''[[Discworld]]''}}
The character isn't an [[Anti-Hero]], [[Vigilante Man]] or even portrayed as [[Good Is Not Nice]]. They are a genuinely friendly, sociable, caring person, always looking out for their friends and family and trying to do the right thing. Such a character would have to be compassionate to their enemies, right?
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* [[Future Badass|Future Trunks]] from ''[[Dragon Ball]] Z'' is a [[Nice Guy]] that is very polite, and values life having come from a [[Bad Future]] where all the Z-Fighters have died. However, he's a [[Combat Pragmatist]] who is very serious in battle aiming to kill his opponents and even willing to fight his own allies if the situation calls for it. Such as when his father Vegeta wanted to aid Semi-Perfect Cell to become perfect. Trunks warns Vegeta that he will blast him to stop Cell but Vegeta thinks Trunks is too soft to shoot at his own father. Trunks proves Vegeta WRONG.
* Luffy from ''[[One Piece]]''. He's generally an oblivious person with a good heart, but has shown quite capable of taking on anyone, even his friends, if he feels they've done wrong.
** The same can be said of the other Straw Hats, especially after the [[Time Skip]], with [[Mook Horror Show]]s becoming increasingly common. Robin in particular has pretty much earned her title of "Demon Child" (given by the World Government in an attempt to slander her, ironically) by slaughtering entire armies.
* Celty Sturluson is—underneath her fearsome reputation as the [[Headless Horseman|Headless Rider]] of Ikebukuro—easily the most sympathetic and benevolent figure in ''[[Durarara!!]]''. Nonetheless, her fearsomeness is fully justified whenever she's dealing with lowly street thugs.
* Saitama from ''[[One-Punch Man]]''. This guy has quite a long kill-count for someone on the side of good, although to be fair, most of the villains he kills [[Asshole Victim| are themselves mass-murderers.]]
* The protagonists of ''[[Blue Gender]]''. Yeah, the aliens are definitely evil, invading Earth [[To Serve Man| to chow on humans]], but the heroes fighting them (who ''really'' love their jobs) often seem like they're doing so with the intention of dissecting them before killing them. ''Far'' more blood and gore in this series occurs with the aliens on the receiving end.
== Comic Books ==
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* [[Superman]], having [[Super Strength]] and all, tries to exert the least amount of force he can to resolve a situation. Occasionally, he will use a bit more, even to the point of hurting a villain more than he has to.
* [[Spider-Man]] is an example in that he does want to help, being the [[Trope Namer]] for [[Comes Great Responsibility]]. That responsibility does not extend to his fighting style, which is fairly brutal. Some storylines revolve around him becoming more vicious, usually after donning the [[Super-Powered Evil Side|black suit]].
* Some members of the [[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]] fall into this category, those who are firmly idealistic or genuinely want to do good also use their mutant powers to shoot [[Eye Beams]] or [[Mind Rape]].
== Film ==
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* [[Star Wars]] plays with this trope, especially [[Return of the Jedi]] and [[The Hero|Luke Skywalker.]] For a film that showed the heroes as more [[Incorruptible Pure Pureness]], some viewers were surprised to see Luke using dark side powers like Force Choke. In this instance, it was used to demonstrate he was sliding towards [[The Dark Side]].
** The movies themselves never established that powers were determined by alignment. A force choke is just localized telekinesis, after all, and the heroes are ''never'' shy about killing mooks.
* The aliens in ''[[Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull]]'' aren't malevolent, they simply need their lost crewmember so they can open the portal to their own world. ''However'', they clearly know that they cannot let Spalko live with the forbidden knowledge she has gained, and what they do to her is, well... unpleasant.
== Literature ==
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* [[The Culture]] is a [[Mary Suetopia|hedonistic post-scarcity society]] whose citizens mostly live to entertain, educate and enlighten themselves and their peers and spread their beneficial lifestyle to others, but at the edge of their ethics are apocalyptically powerful starships and agents who will do any kind of dirty business to protect and expand the Culture's interests, and anyone who tries to harm them learns a fatally hard lesson in why it was a bad idea.
{{quote|"You might call them soft, because they're very reluctant to kill, and they might agree with you, but they're soft the way the ocean is soft, and, well; ask any sea captain how harmless and puny the ocean can be." }}
* The page quote above comes from the ''[[Discworld]]'' novel ''[[
* The Knights of the Cross of ''[[The Dresden Files]]'' are modern-day paladins who will do their best to persuade [[Demonic Possession]] collaborators and victims to escape the thrall. If they refuse, though, the Knights have absolutely no compunction against killing them.
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** One of the Doctors is explicitly described as this. The Ninth Doctor is a [[Good Is Not Nice]] [[Jerkass]] who thinks he is better than everyone else. The Tenth Doctor is the complete opposite, fascinated by humanity and its foibles, genuinely caring and nice, and anyone who threatens them dies, no mercy, no second chances.
* In the series four finale of ''[[Merlin (TV series)|Merlin]]'', the sweet, gentle, friendly Merlin carefully and deliberately murders Arthur's [[Evil Uncle]] Agravaine in cold blood. Okay, Agravaine ''had'' just drawn a knife on him, but a) Merlin could have easily dealt with the knife without harming the man holding it, and b) Agravaine had just discovered Merlin's secret, and Colin Morgan's performance makes it very clear that Agravaine wasn't leaving that cave alive.
* Leroy Jethro Gibbs from ''[[NCIS]]''. Thinking of threatening his family or his team? Bad idea. Gibbs was a Marine sniper. There is no mercy in a head shot from a mile away.
== Religion and Mythology ==
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* [[Myst|Atrus]] ''is'' this trope.
* Mike Haggar from ''[[Final Fight]]'' was the first mayor of Metro City who couldn't be bought by the Mad Gears, and ''also'' the first enemy who beat them to a pulp. Also true with his allies, Guy and Cody in the first game, Maki and Carlos in the second.
* [[Super Mario Bros.|Mario]] apparently has no qualms killing whatever enemy comes in his way during his missions. Depending on the player who controls him, he often goes as far as killing some [[The Goomba|hapless creature]] who just happens to cross his way, and which he could simply jump over instead. Understandable from the player's perspective - Mario gets ''points'' whenever he hurts or defeats an enemy.
** This also applies to many other platformers (or - more precisely - their protagonists), as their game strategy is often analogous. E.g. [[SuperTux|Tux]] is only slightly better, as he doesn't get rewarded with points for killing.
** Considering the way Mario is portrayed to treat his brother Luigi, it is questionable whether he is this trope or rather [[Good Is Not Nice]].
* ''Every'' fighter designated as "Good" in ''[[Mortal Kombat]]'', mostly Earthrealm warriors with a few defectors from Outworld. All are more than willing to brutally kill their foes and clearly lose no sleep over it. Kitana and Jade don't even deny their efficiency as assassins.
== Web Comics ==
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* [[Kim Possible]], a Disney character no less, is really caring and helpful, even more so as she matures. She has tried to reason with the villains at times, but most episode has her resorting to her fists to resolve problems.
* Optimus Prime of ''[[Transformers Prime]]'' is [[Ideal Hero|one of the nicest, most purely heroic characters imaginable]]. He's also a giant alien war-machine and willing to brutally kill an opponent who has proven irredeemable.
** If anyone needs convincing, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CDtf7Oyo2o just watch this commercial] for the toy line; [[Mook Horror Show| you do ''not'' want to be on the Decepticons' side here.]]
** This is a trait shared by many Autobots (and [[Beast Wars|Maximals]]) throughout the ''[[Transformers]]'' franchise, both figuratively and literally. Optimus just tends to embody it best.
** In the G1 cartoon, during a flashback to his first meeting with Megatron and being rebuilt into Optimus, there is a scene where he just blasts holes into 'con after 'con after 'con. In ''[[Transformers: The Movie]]'', Optimus literally runs over one Decepticon and blasts several others before he confronts Megatron.
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* [[Big Good|Princess Celestia]] of ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'' is a loving, understanding ruler who nevertheless sealed her [[Arch Enemy]] Discord in stone for at least a millennium, and Discord implied [[And I Must Scream|he was conscious the whole time]]. Celestia didn't lose any sleep over it because of [[Complete Monster|his personality]].
** She also banished her beloved [[More Than Mind Control]] affected sister to the moon for a thousand years, because she was trying to cause [[The Night That Never Ends]] which would've had omnicidal consequences and Celestia wasn't powerful enough to remove the corruption. That is firm leadership, ladies and gentlemen (though Celestia, by all appearances, ''did'' [[Tear Jerker|lose sleep]] over ''that'' decision).
* Ashi, from the fifth season of ''[[Samurai Jack]]''. Trained from birth to be a brutal, merciless killer, her [[Heel Face Turn]] changes her motives, but her methods remain mostly intact. This is proven when she obliterates an entire army with no hesitation or remorse to protect Jack, leaving only a few survivors.
* Witch Hazel from the [[Halloween Episode]] Disney short "Trick or Treat". Clearly not a very wicked witch (even if she looks like one) she's helping Huey, Dewey, and Louie get their candy from Donald, who plays some rather nasty tricks on them when they try to get treats. A noble goal, maybe, and at first, she only scares Donald, and he ''agrees'' to give them the candy. But then she calls him a "pushover", [[Nobody Calls Me Chicken|making Donald angry enough]] to lock the candy in a closet and then swallow the key. So, Hazel casts a spell on his feet, making Donald dance, and then back into a cactus, coughing up the key. ''Then'' Donald kicks it under the closet door, [[This Means War|and Hazel gets ''mad''.]] she intensifies the spell and makes Donald run a mile from his house and then run back in order break the door down. ''Very'' [[Disproportionate Retribution]] there, lady.
== Real Life ==
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]▼
[[Category:Goodness Tropes]]
[[Category:Morality Tropes]]
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