Good Is Not Soft: Difference between revisions

== Literature ==

* Frodo Baggins in ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]''. Sam begins to despair of Frodo's constant mercy toward the (in Sam's eyes) explicitly untrustworthy Gollum -- until Frodo explicitly threatens to kill Gollum if he betrays them.

* Another Tolkien example in ''[[The Children of Húrin|The Children of Hurin]]'': when Túrin gets hospitality from his mother's kinswoman, the long-suffering Aerin, he tells her that she is a true friend but has a soft heart. Later, when the Easterlings attack her hall for revenge after Túrin has left, Aerin [[Taking You with Me|sets fire to the building and perishes with her enemies]].

* [[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.

* The page quote above comes from the ''Discworld'' novel ''[[Discworld/Men At Arms|Men At Arms]]''. Later in the novel (and in other Discworld novels featuring the City Watch), recurring character Carrot Ironfoundersson proves that he fits the trope very well indeed.

* 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.

== [[Live Action TV]] ==

* [[CSI: Miami|Horatio Caine]] is genuinely caring of crime victims. He's not so pleasant with those who committed the crimes.

* Compared to other Starfleet captains, [[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|Benjamin Sisko]] was quite willing to do things like poison a planet or participate in a murder conspiracy for the greater good.

* [[Kamen Rider Amazon]] defeated his enemies not with fancy moves and cool weapons and kaboom endings to the fight, but by ''ripping'' the [[Monster of the Week]] apart with his bare claws and teeth and the serrated edges of his gloves. However, if you don't happen to be an evil monster, he's the nicest guy you'll ever meet. He's a [[Friend to All Children]], [[Friend to All Living Things]], and so forth. He once even saved a monster from being executed by his bosses for failing to defeat him! That monster became an ally for most of the rest of the series.

* [[Mass Effect|Commander Shepard]], as a [[Neutral Good|Para]][[The Messiah|gon]], could be named after the trope. S\he really is genuinely nice, caring, loving, and willing to [[Pistol Whip]] someone who's crossed the [[Moral Event Horizon]] or beat down some [[Jerkass]], or help kill a [[Complete Monster]] in cold blood. [[Papa Wolf|And don't EVER hurt his]]/[[Mama Bear|her crew and friends.]] [[Berserk Button|It will probably be the]] [[Badass|last mistake]] [[Oh Crap|you ever make.]]

** The moment that perhaps cements this more than anything else in many fan's eyes is the ending to Overlord, where a scientist forced {{spoiler|his autistic brother}} to communicate with the Geth, in the most barbaric way, then pleads with Shepard to allow it to continue. The bad option is to allow it but [[Even Evil Has Standards|break his jaw and show disgust over his actions]]. The good one however is for Shepard to take {{spoiler|David}} to refuge, dodge shots fired at him/her, optionally [[Pistol Whip|smash the scientist's face in]] and threaten to kill him.

** Another example comes up in [[Tear Jerker|I Remember Me.]] If Shepard has the Colonist background s\he was attacked and nearly taken by Batarian slavers when s\he was [[Dangerous Sixteenth Birthday|sixteen.]] Because this becomes common knowledge Shepard is asked to talk to a girl who was taken by slavers and is [[Driven to Suicide]]. The paragon ending has Shepard [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|save her,]] then the officer who asked for help despairs the point in fighting if they can't even keep little girl safe.

** The is one of the two times that Shepard, paragon Shepard, is absolutely furious.

** A renegade Shepard, on the other hand, is a good demonstration of the sister trope, [[Good Is Not Nice]], in that renegade Shepard can be a real [[Jerkass]] yet no matter how bad s\he can be Shepard is still trying to save the galaxy.

** In ''Lair of the Shadow Broker'', the special Paragon solution to dealing with a hostage situation is to have Shepard do a [[Badass Boast]] calling out either the Paragon or Renegade choices for two of the most extreme actions in the previous game and saying that the hostage taker had better have a better plan than hoping a hostage will deter you. Although the ''intent'' was to intimidate the hostage taker into letting their guard down so Liara could free the hostage, there's a strong implication that if it had really come to that, Shepard wasn't bluffing.

** A full list for just Shepard showing how [[Good Is Not Soft]] would take all day, but here's his\her reaction to criticism for sacrifices made to save the council.

* [[Tekken|Jun Kazama]] is [[The Chosen One]] and pure as the driven snow. This does not mean however she isn't devilishly effective in a fight, possess a series of powerful moves...brutal even, or in no shape to [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?|punch out Cthulhu.]] Or go all [[Mama Bear]]. Or as the latest game suggests go downright demonic in the pursuit of good.

* Mariko "Spirit" Tanaka of ''[[Wing Commander (video game)|Wing Commander]]'' is the nicest, kindest, gentlest creature in the series. Then she goes kamikaze on a Kilrathi held space station her fiancé is on.