In Love with the Mark: Difference between revisions

Love has a way of sniping even the coldest heart, and against all sanity and better judgement the [[Hitman Withwith a Heart|hitman grows a heart.]] Maybe in the process of casing the target he (usually a he) may discover she's just an [[Innocent Bystander]] who [[Killed to Uphold Thethe Masquerade|saw too much]], and his [[Badass Creed]] emphatically says to [[Never Hurt an Innocent]]. Then again, it may just be plain old [[Love Redeems|messy love]] sprouting as some ineffable quality of the target strikes a long dormant chord in his heart. Of course, maybe they just have ''[[Sex Face Turn|really good sex.]]''

At first he'll make increasingly implausible excuses to his superiors at the [[Murder, Inc.|assassin's guild]] to [[Even Evil Has Loved Ones|justify not killing]] his [[Love Interest]], even [[I Was Just Passing Through|protecting her from rival hitmen]] until ultimately they decide he's gone rogue and put a [[Contract Onon the Hitman]]. Interestingly, whenever this happens the hitman was usually going to be betrayed anyway either by the client or his organization, and [[Heel Face Turn|the defection]] quite literally [[Redemption Earns Life|saves his life.]]

Another [[Moral Dilemma]] facing the [[Hitman Withwith a Heart]] is just what exactly to do vis-a-vis his [[What Measure Is a Mook?|former colleagues]] and innocents. Now that he's essentially done a [[Gender Flip|Gender Flipped]] [[High Heel Face Turn]] into at least being an [[Anti-Hero]], he can't just kill anyone he pleases. The [[Love Interest]] usually insists on [[Morality Chain|holding him to a more moral standard]], and only killing those who attack them or betrayed them.

* Rethink your definition of "love", and you have Seishirou Sakurazuka from ''[[Tokyo Babylon (Manga)|Tokyo Babylon]]'' and ''[[X 1999 (Mangamanga)|X 1999]]''.

* ''[[Crying Freeman (Manga)|Crying Freeman]]'' has Emu Hino, who saw Yoh Hinomura for the first time right after he murdered one of his targets. She was singled out for death... but she and Yoh fell in love and ran away together.

* Rolo in ''[[Code Geass (Anime)|Code Geass]]'' develops a strong, genuine affection for Lelouch Lamperouge while [[Becoming the Mask|posing as his younger brother to monitor him]] and saves his ass ({{spoiler|[[Heroic Sacrifice|which kills him]]}}).

* Ironically played with in ''[[Rurouni Kenshin (Anime)|Rurouni Kenshin]]''. [[Career Killer|Assassin]] Kenshin and Tomoe fall in love with each other. However, {{spoiler|the mark is Kenshin, not Tomoe, who is a spy for Kenshin's [[Genre Savvy]] enemies, who intended to invoke this trope on purpose in order to use her as a hostage and lure Kenshin into a trap.}}

* In ''[[Risky Safety (Anime)|Risky Safety]],'' the ''oni'' woman Kade was sent to assassinate one of the Momotaro men. He sensed her attack, blocked it...and then they saw each others' faces and fell in love. [[Star-Crossed Lovers|Much to their respective armies' dismay.]]

* One episode of ''[[Noir (Animeanime)|Noir]]'' has Kirika befriending a target. {{spoiler|She kills him anyway}}.

* ''[[El Cazador Dede Lala Bruja]]'' has an episode where Nadie and Elis meet a husband and wife running a restaurant. Turns out that the husband was originally hired to kill the woman, but fell in love with and married her instead.

* The somewhat, um, '[[Memetic Mutation|infamous]]' ''[[Warhammer 40000 (Tabletop Game)|Warhammer 40000]]: [[Dawn of War]]'' fanfiction "Love Can Bloom".

* ''[[Aeon Flux (Animation)|Aeon Flux]]''. It's a [[Justified Trope]] because {{spoiler|[[Reincarnation Romance|they were lovers in a past life.]]}}

* ''[[Mr. and Mrs. Smith]]'' inverts this. The two characters fall in love and get married, neither knowing the other is a secret agent, and then later, they're instructed by their respective organizations to kill each other.

* This occurs off-camera in the movie ''[[Conspiracy Theory (Filmfilm)|Conspiracy Theory]]''

* Subverted in ''[[Red Eye (Filmfilm)|Red Eye]]''. Jackson Rippner develops a [[Villainous Crush]] on his target Lisa but he continues to go through with his mission.

* Cole (Belthazar) from ''[[Charmed (TV)|Charmed]]'' was originally sent to kill Phoebe (and her sisters) but ends up falling in love with her.

* This is the origin story for Christopher Chance, the ''[[Human Target]]'', including the [[Innocent Bystander]] who saw too much, former colleagues, and the [[Contract Onon the Hitman]]. {{spoiler|Unfortunately, it ends badly for the love interest, who dies before the end of the episode.}}

* {{spoiler|River Song}} from [[Steven Moffat]]'s run of ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'': {{spoiler|she fell in love with the Doctor, despite having been kidnapped as an infant, raised and trained specifically to destroy him. In their first meeting from her perspective, she came very close to killing him permanently, but ended up sacrificing her remaining regenerations to save him. In the end, her "owners" resort to just grabbing her and sticking her in an automated suit. And she ''still'' finds a way to not shoot him}}.

* On ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)|Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'', Spike, who shows up in Sunnydale to kill Buffy, ends up falling in love with her.

* In ''[[Dragon Age (Video Game)|Dragon Age]]'', Zevran is a potential romance option if you spare him after his failed assassination attempt. Justified because it's just business to him and his employers will kill him for failing his mission no matter what he does, so he has no ill will against you.

* Visas Marr in ''[[Knights of the Old Republic (Videovideo Gamegame)|Knights of the Old Republic]] 2'' joins your party after failing to assassinate you. She is a possible love interest for a male character (though the Handmaiden becomes inordinately jealous).

* Played with in ''[[Mass Effect 2 (Video Game)|Mass Effect 2]]'': Thane fell in love with the woman that blocked his shot on the Mark. According to Thane she didn't even know his target, and this had a profound affect on him, eventually tracking her down and marrying her.

* In ''[[Fire Emblem the Sacred Stones (Video Game)|Fire Emblem the Sacred Stones]]'', Joshua meets Natasha and attempts to flirt with her; she runs off, keenly aware of the bounty on her head as a [[Defector From Decadence]]. When they meet up later, he flips a coin and tells her to call it in order to determine whether he kills her or not. Note that she is a cleric who is bound by oath not to indulge in vices such as gambling (though this ''is'' an understandable excuse). They get married if they achieve an A support.

** And from Blazing Sword (7), we've got Jaffar and Nino. A catch here is that they're both assassins in the organization now run by the [[Big Bad]]-- and are sent to assassinate the Prince of Bern, Zephiel (a hit put out by the Prince's [[Kick the Dog|Fox-kicking]] Bastard of a Father). However, the organization can't exactly get away with killing someone that important... so [[Evil Matriarch|So]][[Complete Monster|nia]] order [[Defrosting Ice Queen|the up-to-that-point completely heartless]] [[Tyke Bomb|Jaffar]] to kill ''her own daughter'' [[Token Mini-Moe|Nino]] as a second target, apparently unaware that [[Florence Nightingale Effect|Nino had actually saved Jaffar's life in the recent past]]. Needless to say, that didn't go over well in more ways than 1. Ultimately, this leads to a double [[Heel Face Turn]] and if they get an A-Support, they'll end up married (Although, [[Doomed Byby Canon|neither lives much longer after the game, sadly]].)

* The backstory of Kasuga from ''[[Sengoku Basara (Video Game)|Sengoku Basara]]'' reveals that she fell in [[Love At First Sight]] with Uesugi Kenshin, the man she was supposed to assassinate and promptly underwent a [[Heel Face Turn]] for, and has been serving as his bodyguard ever since.

* A rather twisted version of this trope appears in ''[[Metal Gear Solid (Video Game)|Metal Gear Solid]]'', in which Sniper Wolf is known for becoming so obsessed with her targets that she falls in love with them... right before she kills them anyway.

* In ''[[The Order of the Stick (Webcomic)|Order of the Stick]]'s'', the half-orc ninja Therkla is ordered by Lord Kubota to kill Elan (in order to get at Hinjo, for whom Elan is currently working as a bodyguard). Therkla instead develops a crush on Elan, defects, and is ultimately [[Redemption Equals Death|killed]] by [[You Have Failed Me|Lord Kubota]]. Elan is unable to prevent this, and takes it kind of hard.

* Something like this is used in ''[[The Zeta Project (Animation)|The Zeta Project]]'', but it's not romantic love. Zeta is a literal emotionless robot who is designed to infiltrate and eliminate targets without their being aware of the deception. However, after impersonating a man for months, Zeta bonds with the family and develops a heart. Deciding he doesn't want to deny the man a chance to see his daughter grow up (or indeed hurt any living thing again), he abandons the mission and goes on the run. This kicks off the main plot.