Honor Before Reason/Anime and Manga: Difference between revisions

*** What he did for Frieza was more of Compassion Before Reason. Frieza was begging for mercy after being [[Hoist By His Own Petard|done in by his own attack]], appealing to Goku's sense of decency through the Super Saiyajin Anger. Goku relented due to mercy, giving Frieza only enough ki to float...which he squandered with an attack against the very man who saved him because his pride couldn't take defeat against an 'inferior monkey'.

** The whole scene near the end of the Buu arc where Goku is refusing to throw the Genki Dama because Vegeta's in the way must qualify for this. He's holding back an attack with enough power to destroy the final [[Big Bad]] because it would kill Vegeta too. Forget that not throwing the attack would doom the entire universe ''including'' that one person he's trying to spare.

** In the sequel series he takes this to ridiculous levels, allowing himself to be defeated losing his mecha and seriously risking his own death rather than allow his side to wipe out an enemy force instead they try to outrun and only disable and shoot near misses. He also refuses to hold a grudge and kill enemy pilot Shinn Asuka when the guy has nearly killed him and killed countless pilots on his side and it's clear the man as a very nasty vendetta against him.

** Played equally straight, previously, with Shiro Amada of ''[[The 08th MS Team]]'', who believed in killing only as an absolute last resort, despite being the commander of a mobile suit unit.

** He tends to show mercy when he perceives an unvoiced [[If I Wanted You Dead]] subtext -- he's just painfully ready to see those. He also benefits more from showing mercy than he would from finishing enemies of the week off. For example, the Demon Lord (who was just a summoned lackey anyway) dropped on its way back home the second hint so far that the village massacre did no truly ''permanent'' harm to anybody... except emotionally, if Negi ''let'' it...

* In ''[[Super Dimension Fortress Macross]]''/''[[Robotech]]'' Millia insists that Max shoot to disable Zentradi battlepods to simply put them out of action instead of simply killing them to show that the Terrans are serious about wanting peace. Even though this could be seen as completely insane considering the Zentradi finally decided to fight full out to destroy the ship, Hikaru Ichijo learns what his wingmates are doing and joins this act of mercy along with other pilots despite the dire situation. As it turns out, that gesture saves the ship because the many of the Zentrani forces, already becoming enthralled with Terran culture, learn what about the Humans' mercy and decide to mutiny throughout the fleet to stop the fight. Commander Breetai is horrified at that unprecedented insubordination and ordered an immediate ceasefire in direct violation of his orders.

** He's really more of a [[Hero Antagonist]].

* Digimon has a few examples:

** In [[Digimon Adventure 02]] there are two cases of this: Cody, who suffered an [[Heroic BSOD]] for ''lying'', and for a while considered himself worthless to the point of not being willing to be the one chosen to escape from a underwater base in order to save the others. The D-3 chosen children also showed the troupe when it came to the point of having to kill an actual digimon, which wasn't a problem for the [[Digimon Adventure|previous chosen]].

* Tendō Rushuna in ''[[Grenadier]]'' specifically fights to "remove an enemy's will to fight" [[Thou Shalt Not Kill|without killing]], or if possible, without hurting them at all.

* In ''[[Vinland Saga]]'' it's more of a case of vengeance over reason, with Thorfinn risking life and limb to protect the man he wants to kill.

** The latter incident is similar to one time in the first season when Nanoha intervened against Lindy's orders to help Fate seal the six Jewel Seeds in the ocean, rather than wait until she was exhausted and vulnerable afterward to capture her, even giving her half the seeds. Thankfully, Fate had not collected enough seeds for her mother to reach Al-Hazard.

* Despite the carnage that inevitably occurs around him, and his superhuman skill with a gun, Vash the Stampede from ''[[Trigun]]'' is absolutely determined never to kill anyone. This puts him in increasingly tighter positions as the series progresses, {{spoiler|until he has to choose between killing a villain with his own gun or allowing his friends to be killed. He shoots. Or maybe the villain forced Vash to shoot him with his mind control powers. It's plausible that he would rather just force Vash to kill him than see Vash maintain his no killing rule (even though it would have caused Vash great suffering from guilt). Vash himself might not even know which happened.}} Fortunately, Vash is practically the platonic ideal of [[Improbable Aiming Skills]], and even towards the end, there's very little death that could have been resolved by him shooting to kill, {{spoiler|unless you count him not killing Knives a long time ago.}}

* ''[[Bleach]]'':

** [[The Hero|Ichigo]] believes in fighting his way. He won't let his hollow get in the way of that, even if disadvantages him to do so. His hollow taking over allowed him to not only survive Byakuya's killing blow, but to gain the upper hand and badly wound Byakuya. Upon regaining control, Ichigo apologised to Byakuya and asked if they could start the fight over. It was the first time Byakuya realised Ichigo had a lot more honour to him than he'd realised and, fortunately for Ichigo, he agreed.

** Kenpachi deliberately weakens himself in battle simply to ensure he can carry out his battle philosophy: to have as much fun in a fight as possible. He used to add bells to his hair so his opponent could hear him coming. He wears an eyepatch that not only limits his vision but which also sucks up his reiatsu, forcing him to fight with limited power. He'll even let his opponent take a free strike against him just to see if his opponent is strong enough to injure him.

** Ikkaku has vowed to fight and die under Kenpachi's command. To this end he'll even throw a fight to avoid revealing how powerful he really is, just in case the truth puts him under pressure to work towards becoming a captain of another squad. Called out on this by Iba who told him he's not as expendable as he thinks he is, he should be working to get stronger, and he should never put personal pride before his shinigami duty.

* [[Action Girl|2nd Lt.]] [[Pumpkin Scissors|Alice L. Malvin]] has made it her mission to help people and to repair the damage done to her nation by the recent war. This means that she will not hesitate to call out ''anyone'' who she sees as contributing to or aggravating that damage, up to and including [[The Emperor]] of her own country, regardless of how capable they might be of physically or politically squashing her like a bug.

* Naja of ''[[World Destruction]]'' is guilty of this on several occasions, most notably when he and Lia escape from a sand submersible working together with the World Destruction Committee. After surfacing and reaching land, he has the chance to arrest them on the spot, but opts to let them go (much to Lia's frustration). After all, they had a deal.

** Josuke Higashikata is the poster child of this trope. In a series where [[Anyone Can Die]] he holds the distinction of having not killed a single human, despite the deaths of people around him, including his grandfather early on! Of course, that's just [[Technical Pacifist|not taking their life...]]

** In the Part 7, Steel Ball Run, Ringo Roadagain is determined to make sure that not only is he aware of everything that could play a role in a duel; he wants his opponent to be likewise aware. There's actually a good reason for this--those duels are to help purify his spirit of uncertainty. If neither side has an advantage (and before you ask, although Mandom's good at [[Groundhog Day Loop|saving Ringo's neck,]] it gives his opponent the same capacity to avoid Ringo's attacks), then he can be sure that his victories were genuinely deserved.

* Tenma in ''[[Monster (Anime)|Monster]]'', although he distinctly cares about the "right thing" rather than any type of personal honor.

* Theoretically this can also be applied to the Dai-Gurren team in ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]'' because they tend to put ''[[[Hot Blooded]] everything]]'' [[Idiot Hero|before]] [[Rule of Cool|reason]]. Viral especially. Its why he can [[Beyond the Impossible|break physical laws and do the impossible.]]

** Dia also shows shades of this, wanting to stop Team Galactic even though he's just a kid.

* ''[[Kenichi the Mightiest Disciple]]''. The series oozes this: even the antagonists, none of whom are even remotely nice people, will abide by the rules of martial arts--which is to say, even though they all want the main character either dead or on their side, none of them will go ahead and kill him, despite having many chances to do so. The title character himself, meanwhile, has a strict set of beliefs that he ''will not break,'' regardless of how much sense they make to others. It's completely [[Badass|awesome,]] of course.

* In the original version of episode 2 of ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh]]'', Pegasus points out that Yugi could have won at one point. Yugi explains that he couldn't let the match end while his monster was under Pegasus' control. Pegasus calls him a fool.

** In the virtual world arc, Johnson was caught cheating by Noah and Joey would have won by default. However, Joey insisted on finishing the duel. Never mind the fact that a. Joey already had a huge disadvantage (no cards in his hand and no monsters on the field. And more importantly b. they were dueling for their lifes as the loser would be trapped in the virtual world forever. [[Lampshade Hanging|Even Yugi and Tea wondered what Joey was thinking.]]

** Though in a way, this ''can'' qualify as reasonable. Catching a legendary Pokemon in such a weakened state creates the very real possibility of ending up with a Pokemon well beyond your ability to control once its healed, and taking advantage of its moment of weakness sounds like a fantastic way of ruining any goodwill you had just earned from it.

* ''[[Yu Yu Hakusho (Manga)|Yu Yu Hakusho]]'': [[The Lancer|Kazuma]] [[Rated M for Manly|Kuwabara]] is pretty much the embodiment of this trope. He [[Hot Blooded|loudly]] declines his teammates' offers to keep him from dying, insisting that men fight their own battles, and later, after whupping a kid who nearly killed him and his [[Muggle]] friends, Kuwabara opts to save the kid's life by dragging not only his unconscious body, but the body all three of his friends to a hospital despite sustaining heavy injuries himself.