Honor Before Reason/Anime and Manga: Difference between revisions

* The entirety of the qualified regulars (except for Parakewl) in ''[[Tower of God]]'' one by one decide to help Baam and Lahel take the Guardian's test, even though they've known each other only for a month and expected to fight each other, and even though that specific test is harder than the usual course. Special mention goes to {{spoiler|Hatsu, who is the most immediate and most vocal proponent of supporting Baam, and Koon, who by pretending to be against it riles most up to follow Hatsu.}}

* One of the main defining characteristics of [[Captain Harlock]], no matter which of the [[Continuity Snarl|many, many different versions]] you recognize. His [[Establishing Character Moment]] for the very first episode of the first anime is coming to Earth to visit a little girl's birthday party like he promised... despite being considered Public Enemy #1 by [[Vichy Earth|the corrupt government]].

* In ''[[Inuyasha]]'', Inu-Yasha himself is a good example of this. Kajinbo comes and tries to kill him at the night he's in human form (he's greatly weakened and not used to fighting while in this form). The logical choice would be letting his friends take over the business. His opponent insults him, says that it's pathetic to hide by women and children.

{{quote| '''Shippo:''' Inu-Yasha, don't let yourself be lured!<br />

* Son Goku's seemingly illogical and insane [[Friend to All Living Things|unconditional love for life]] and his ability to forgive '''anyone''' has allowed him to turn the dozens of monsters, madmen, and murderers that he has fought throughout the ''[[Dragonball Z]]'' saga (with the unfortunate exception of Frieza, Dr. Gero and Cell) into heroes.

** Another infamous example is when Goku gives Cell a Senzu bean to fully heal himself so that he can fight Goku's son Gohan at full strength. He was confident in his son's strength and he is partially impaired by his Saiyan genes. What he did to Frieza on the other hand...

** 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.

*** And the fact that Zeon ''gassed his home colony in front of him during the first week of the gas'' doesn't change his mind about this. They're a reason why people laughed in his face when talking about this.

** Then there's Char Aznable in ''[[Chars Counterattack]]'', who purposefully leaked the specs for the cutting-edge Psycoframe system, knowing that Amuro would get it and have it built into his next Gundam. The reason he did this was because he thought there would be no point in defeating Amuro if he and Amuro weren't evenly-matched in the battle.

** In ''Endless Waltz'', Zechs, Noin, and the Wing boys also do this. After they defeat hundreds of enemy mobile suits without killing a single soldier, Quatre comments that if they were fighting to kill, they could have blown through the Mariemeia Army far more easily, but then there would have been no point to their intervention.

*** Especially pronounced in the second season where he and Setsuna are duelling over an ocean. Setsuna's Gundam malfunctions in the middle of the fight and Graham leaves him be because he can't see any value in defeating a disabled opponent.

* In the [[Noblesse]] manwah, [http://www.mangafox.com/manga/noblesse/v03/c189/27.html one of the noble vampires proceeds to cut himself because Frankenstein "unfairly received a wound.]

* ''[[Ranma One Half]]'' would be considerably less funny [[Pillars of Moral Character|without this]]. It also would've been much much shorter.

** This can actually be considered an element of Ranma's fighting style; whenever challenged to one of the various [[Martial Arts and Crafts]], he always has to [[Beat Them At Their Own Game]], even if he has only a minimum amount of time to pick up the rules and despite the fact he's usually going against a champion of that style. During the Martial Arts Dining arc; despite the fact Ranma is clearly starving, s/he insists that s/he will only eat what s/he ''earns'' from the table/arena. In the anime, at least, s/he even goes so far as to turn down Akane when she offers her fiancé some smuggled food. This almost results in Ranma losing the contest when his/her frantic efforts at both fighting and thinking up counters burn out what little energy s/he has left.

** Well, he ''does'' [[Taking a Third Option|kiss her.]]

* Negi Springfield of ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]!'', in spite of being a talented young warrior, is so kind-hearted he even offered mercy to a Demon Lord ''who destroyed his village and crippled his sister.'' His kindness and merciful nature has almost cost him his life on more than one occasion.

* 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.

* In a somewhat unusual example, Suzaku from ''[[Code Geass]]'' displays shades of this trope. Unusual since many consider him to be a ''villain'', because the main character is a [[Necessarily Evil]] [[Anti-Hero]] violently rebelling against [[The Empire]] that Suzaku has joined to attempt to induce legitimate social change.

** 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]].

** In [[Digimon Tamers]], this a definite, if not lampshaded, character trait of Ryo Akiyama.

* Subverted in (of all shows) ''[[Transformers Armada]]''. Faced with the choice of leaving his friend, Wheeljack, trapped in an inferno and going for help, or staying with him to the end, Hot Shot goes with the former. The decision is later regretted, out of both reasonable, genuine guilt, and the fact that Wheeljack survived, and did not...[[Best Served Cold|take abandonment very well]].

** Actually, he went to get help, the other two autobots he found wouldn't let him rush back.

* 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.}}

** Oh no, it was very clear that {{spoiler|Vash chose to pull the trigger. That was the whole point of Legato's plot -- he only used his powers to keep Vash from saving Meryl and Milly directly, forcing him to ''choose'' of his own will to pull the trigger. He could have chosen to let them die, instead he chose to kill Legato. It's fiendishly brilliant.}}

** Sai Saici had a different version of this in his rematch with Domon. Even with his Gundam getting [[Curb Stomp Battle|thrashed]] by Domon, he still kept fighting. It took the intervention of Neo-China's Emperor to prevent Sai Saici's death.

* [[Lampshade Hanging]]: Both protagonist and antagonist fall victim to this line of thinking in ''[[Claymore]]''. An awakened being {{spoiler|Ophelia}} puts all of her vulnerable, human portions at her tail and challenges Claire to cut through the awakened being's body using her dangerous "Flash Sword" technique. As Claire begins the test of mettle, {{spoiler|Ophelia}} thinks to herself, "The fool, she could've just ignored me and aimed right for my tail." {{spoiler|Ophelia}} seems to slightly realize that she too is guilty of honor before reason since she agreed to put all of her vulnerable parts in one easy to target place. As she continues to berate Claire's foolishness, {{spoiler|Ophelia}} thinks to herself, "Wait, who am I talking about?"

** Sanji also straight up used this trope when, against the advice from his crewmates, gave food to starving and obviously evil pirates who then immediately attacked him. Sanji then said that he stood by his decision.

*** Because he {{spoiler|starved almost to death as a kid}} starving is something he literally does not wish on his worst enemy. No exceptions.

* [[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.

* 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.]]

* Red from ''[[Pokémon Special]]'' is subject to this as part of his firm belief that it's not a victory if your opponent is at a disadvantage. This has led to a few minor [[What an Idiot!]] moments, but even though this series is [[Darker and Edgier|grittier]] than the anime, it's still an idealistic shonen, so it rarely bites him in the butt.

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

** As long as the antagonists from Yami/YOMI are concerned, this is not so much "Honor Before Reason" as much as it is their, as they call it, "pride as martial artists". They want to prove that ''their'' way of doing martial arts is the only proper way. If you want to prove that your kung-fu is better, than you have to defeat the enemy by using kung-fu, otherwise you haven't proven anything.

* In ''[[Hajime no Ippo]]'', World Champion David Eagle is unwilling to exploit Takamuras bleeding wound by targeting it, possibly giving him a TKO win. Any normal boxer would have done so, and Takamura himself does without hestitation. However, this also has to do with Eagle wanting to fight his opponent on the same level, in order to push himself further.

* Rock Lee of ''[[Naruto]]'' nearly destroys his own life to defend his Nindo. Fortunately, {{spoiler|there were [[Healing Hands]] available}}.

* Jin from ''[[Samurai Champloo]]''. A running plot-line of the series is the fact that his fellow disciples are trying to avenge the death of their master by killing Jin. Actually {{spoiler|Jin's Master was forced to kill Jin during the night by the [[Big Bad]] because of Jin's defiance against turning their samurai school into an assassin school/guild. Jin merely killed him in self-defense. If Jin simply told the others this, it would save him a lot of trouble. It would also disgrace the name of their master and school so he takes full blame.}}

** 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.

** In one episode, Judai is dueling someone who is using a game show deck (his cards force the opponent to answer questions correctly or else lose their monsters and take damage). For the final question, Judai remembers that his opponent gave the answer to it earlier that day. The opponent goes [[Oh Crap]], but Judai says he won't answer because it wouldn't be fair, and takes the damage. Sure, Judai wins anyway, but it was still pretty dumb, considering the [[Brainwashed|consequences]] if he had lost to a member of the Society of Light.

* Great General of Darkness of [[Great Mazinger]] is this. He lives to bring his people to a better life have a battle against Tetsuya, who have become his mutual [[Worthy Opponent]].