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{{quote|Now that I look back, I realize that a life predicated on being obedient and taking orders is a very comfortable life indeed. Living in such a way reduces to a minimum one's own need to think. |''[[Nazi Germany|Adolf Eichmann]]''}}
 
Just Following Orders is a justification for morally questionable actions that a character may invoke when questioned about the rightness or necessity of such actions. This justification holds that the (bulk of the) responsibility for such actions falls upon those who make such decisions and give such orders within a (military) hierarchy; by extension, those who obey and act upon such orders cannot be held (entirely) accountable for their actions. Often invoked with the [[Stock Phrase|exact phrase]] "I was [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|Just Following Orders]]." Also known as the [[Nuremberg Defense]], this is the [[Stock Phrase]] motto/mantra/defense of the [[Punch Clock Villain]], as well as most bureaucrats ([[Obstructive Bureaucrat|obstructive]] or otherwise), [[Mooks]], and just about any of us during failures of nerve, nous, job security, heroic fortitude...
 
But we all expect everyone to be a saint. It ''seems'' justifiable if you put yourself in their shoes. If your life and/or your family's life was threatened if you disobeyed orders you knew to be morally reprehensible, what would you do? For reference, the [[Nazi Germany|concentration camps]] also housed those convicted of treason. Many of those who used the Nuremberg Defense knew what was waiting for them whether they followed orders or not.
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== Anime & Manga ==
* ''[[Now and Then Here Andand There]]'' ([[Necessarily Evil|played]] [[Shell-Shocked Veteran|for]] [[Child Soldiers|drama]])
{{quote| '''Shu''': You can't do this! This is not right!<br />
'''Nabuca''': Never mind right or wrong! An order is an order! }}
* [[Fullmetal Alchemist]]- Ed tries to invoke this when Riza [[Whole-Episode Flashback|tells him]] what happened in Ishval, saying that the [[Our Homunculi Are Different|Homunculi]] were really the ones behind it. Riza replies that, yes, the Homunculi may have started it, but they were the ones who carried it out, and that is something they will never forget
* ''[[Monster (Animemanga)|Monster]]'' began with this trope. Tenma was ordered to save a man of importance as he was about to perform surgery on an immigrant and did so, and only later found out that the immigrant had died and left a widow who angrily confronted him about it. Tenma is later presented a similar situation, and opts instead to save the young boy he was about to operate on over another man of importance. [[No Good Deed Goes Unpunished|And oh, what a mistake that was.]]
* In the beginning of the anime version of ''[[Black Cat (Mangamanga)|Black Cat]]'' this is the defense Train gives to justify attempting to murder Eve.
* ''[[Inuyasha (Manga)|Inuyasha]]'' Naraku orders Byakuya to allow Mouyoumaru to live. This forces Byakuya to interfere with Sesshoumaru's pursuit of Mouryoumaru. When Sesshoumaru turns on him, he says "don't hate me, I'm just doing my job" and then beats a hasty retreat.
 
 
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{{quote| '''Mr. Marcus''': We're here in Customs and I have a job to do. <br />
'''Frances''': We're [[Just Following Orders]], are we? Asshole. }}
* In ''[[Ever After (Filmfilm)|Ever After]]'', Danielle has ordered her servant Maurice to be released from slavery.
{{quote| '''Cargomaster''': I'm following orders here. It's my job to take these criminals and thieves to the coast.}}
* ''[[The Crazies]]'': The soldiers go on a killing spree against civilians because that's what they were told to do to contain the virus.
* ''[[Outbreak]]'':
{{quote| '''Sam Daniels''': If you think I'm lying, drop the bomb. If you think I'm crazy, drop the bomb. But don't drop the bomb just because you're following orders! }}
* In ''[[Tomorrow Never Dies (Film)|Tomorrow Never Dies]]'', Bond has this conversation after subduing an assassin who has just killed Paris Carver;
{{quote| '''Dr. Kaufmann''': Wait! I'm just a [[Punch Clock Villain|professional doing a job!]]<br />
'''Bond''': [[Bond One-Liner|Me too]]. '''[[Boom! Headshot!|*BANG*]]''' }}
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* Used along with a healthy dose of ~Godwin's Law~ in ''[[Clerks]]''. A man berates Dante in front of customers for selling cigarettes, accusing him of being just like the Nazis since he's "only following orders," and tells customers that they should buy Chewlies Gum instead (because selling a dangerous product to a willing consumer is just like gassing innocent people). The man is later revealed as a Chewlies Gum salesman.
* A rather pathetic example appears in ''[[Aliens Vs Predator Requiem]]'' after {{spoiler|the military drop a nuclear bomb on the alien-infested town}}; a soldier says this after a survivor calls him out on it.
** He should just have said: [[It's the Only Way Toto Be Sure]].
*** At least that would have been a redeemable [[Shout-Out]].
* ''[[X -Men: First Class (Film)|X Men First Class]]'': When Erik is seconds away from {{spoiler|throwing dozens of missiles back at the humans who fired them}}, Charles makes the mistake of using this argument on a ''Holocaust survivor''. He's also unknowingly echoing some Nazi fugitives who tried to use the same excuse when Erik is killing them.
 
 
== Fanfic ==
* The ''[[Battlestar Galactica]]''/''[[Battle TechBattleTech]]'' crossover ''[[Hunted Tribes]]'' gives one of the most epic treatments of this trope ever. Clan Wolverine soldiers refuse to associate with crewmembers from the Pegasus, considering the ship and all who served under Admiral Cain disgraced for abandoning civilians to the Cylons. When someone tries to claim they were just following orders, the Wolverines state that people's conscience should have stopped them, and that they should have killed Admiral Cain for issuing the order in the first place. Roslin tries the [[I Did What I Had to Do]]-Defense, only to be told that the Wolverines have been in similar situations without ever compromising their morals, and that that excuse would have been good enough for any number of people, but NOT for them.
 
 
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== Literature ==
* Given the [[Playing Withwith a Trope|usual workout]] in ''[[Discworld (Literature)|Discworld]]'', not just with the predictable [[Mooks]], [[Punch Clock Villain|Punch Clock Villains]] and [[Obstructive Bureaucrat|Obstructive Bureaucrats]], but also with a number of notable subversions, mainly courtesy of the increasingly morally ambiguous and complex police Captain Carrot, who frequently subverts [[Just Following Orders]] by (seemingly) [[Exact Words|playing]] [[Bothering Byby the Book|it]] [[Loophole Abuse|straight]].
** Carrot's affinity for subversions of this trope may also explain how he is the first (and arguably only) character in ''[[Discworld (Literature)/Feet of Clay|Feet of Clay]]'' to notice that the [[Literal Genie|Golems]] rebel ''by'' following orders.
** Played straight with the local watchmen from Bonk in ''[[Discworld (Literature)/The Fifth Elephant|The Fifth Elephant]]'' where the captain thereof tries to justify the things he's done to VIMES using this. Needless to say this is a futile effort, leading to the invoked aversion of this trope, where Vimes orders Detritus to kill the man, and Detritus, knowing what's up, telling him to stuff it (with all due respect).
* From ''[[Good Omens (Literature)|Good Omens]]'', the {{spoiler|mostly}} [[Lawful Good]] angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley discuss [[Not So Different|their bad feelings]] about the coming [[The End of the World Asas We Know It|end of the world]]:
{{quote| 'It's not that I disagree with you,' said the angel, as they plodded across the grass. 'It's just that I'm not allowed to disobey. You know that.'<br />
'Me too,' said Crowley.<br />
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* In the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]], Tenn Graneet, the head gunner on the [[Death Star]], while gripped by the [[Being Evil Sucks|enormity]] of [[My God, What Have I Done?|what he did]], can't justify it in any way, even if justifications flick through his mind. Following orders to [[Earthshattering Kaboom|destroy an inhabited planet]], even if refusing just would have meant they killed him and got a new gunner to do his job, is [[Moral Event Horizon|unforgivable]] to the rest of the galaxy. And to him.
** He does, however, inadvertently save the Rebellion by not firing immediately after ordered. He says "Stand by" twice before Luke's torpedoes hit the reactor.
** Since the Empire [[Putting Onon the Reich|resembles Nazi Germany]], sympathetic Imperials wrestle with this trope a lot in the Expanded Universe.
* Non-military variation; ''[[The Grapes of Wrath (Literature)|The Grapes of Wrath]]'' features an interlude with a bulldozer driver who is employed by the banks and landowners to bulldoze repossessed farms for development. One of the dispossessed farm-owners recognises him as the son of an acquaintance and demands to know how he can do this to his own people. The bulldozer driver replies that it's his job; he has a family to think of as well, and if he quit out of moral outrage all that would happen would be that the banks would get someone else to do his job and he and his family would end up starving as well. Sort of a [[Deconstruction]] of [[We ARE Struggling Together!]], if you think about it.
* Perhaps the most extreme version imaginable appears in [[Stephen King]]'s ''[[The Dark Tower]]'' (the last book). One of the [[Mooks]] at the [[Evil Overlord]]'s multiverse-breaking facility blames the heroes for attacking him and his fellows, in reply to which she queries how exactly this compares to the moral status of their working to kill absolutely everyone everywhere. His answer? Go on, guess.
* In the third book of [[The Underland Chronicles]], {{spoiler|Doctor Neveeve}} says this line while being arrested.
* Ranga Sanga in the [[Belisarius Series]] both plays this straight and subverts it. He ''fights'' for the bad guys because of his [[I Gave My Word|feudal duties]] but doesn't commit atrocities for them and turns on them when they [[Berserk Button|go too far]].
** Belisarius himself, goes out of his way to order his men not to commit [[Rape, Pillage and Burn]] on random civilians and in fact harshly punishes those who do such things. Those are of course good orders.
* In Bernhard Schlink's ''[[The Reader (Literature)|The Reader]]'', Hanna is prosecuted as a war criminal when she is found to have been a concentration camp guard who oversaw a forced prisoner march. The guards were ordered not to lose any prisoners, and so locked them inside a church on an overnight stop. When the church caught fire, the guards chose to leave the doors chained rather than risk that any might escape, and all 300 prisoners died. When questioned about this, she points to her orders, and asks the judge naively, "What would you have done?"
* Referenced in [[World War Z]]. A unit of the German army has been ordered to retreat to a more defensible location and abandon the civilians they have been defending to the zombies. Despite the fact that he understands the awful necessity of it -their position was in imminent danger of being overrun and to stay would be a futile gesture- the officer being interviewed is appalled that the theatre commander was capable of giving this order, for everyone who enlists in the German military has it impressed on them that their first and most important duty is to their conscience.
* A variation occures in the "Dragon" play by Eugeny Shwartz.
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== Live-Action TV ==
* In ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)|Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'', Xander chloroforms Dawn and kidnaps her under Buffy's orders. However, it turns out Dawn carries a tazer and doesn't care, so she tazes him and drives them back anyways.
* From the ''~Blake's Seven~'' episode "Headhunter":
{{quote| '''Orac:''' I am obliged to do as you tell me, even though I know it to be wrong.<br />
'''Kerr Avon:''' Only following orders? That's not very original, Orac. }}
* From ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' Chapter Nine: "It's Coming":
{{quote| '''Elle Bishop''': I only saved you so we could use you, like a lab rat. <br />
'''Sylar''': You were [[Just Following Orders]]... But I forgive you. Now you need to forgive yourself. }}
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* In the [[Docu Drama]] ''[[Nuremberg]]'', Field Marshal Keitel states this after reading the accounts on which he has been convicted.
{{quote| '''Wilhelm Keitel''': We were just following orders!}}
* ''[[Star Trek: theThe Next Generation]]'' does this a few times:
** [[Inverted Trope]] in episode "Redemption II".
{{quote| '''Data''': Captain, I wish to submit myself for disciplinary action. I have disobeyed a direct order from a superior officer. Although the result of my actions proved positive, the ends cannot justify the means. <br />
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** "The Pegasus":
{{quote| '''Commander Riker''': I wasn't a hero, and [[Broken Pedestal|neither were you]]! What you did was wrong. And I was wrong to support you, but I was too young and too stupid to realize it! You were the captain, I was the ensign. I was [[Just Following Orders]]. }}
* More or less the theme of the ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]'' episode "Duet", where it is doubly subverted, first when a [[A Nazi Byby Any Other Name|Cardassian]] officer gleefully refuses to claim it, and then at the end when {{spoiler|it turns out that he's actually just a common soldier who is still tortured by his acquiescence in the atrocities ordered by his superiors, and has been impersonating a dead superior in hopes of shaming his fellow Cardassians}}.
* In the ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'' episode "Equinox: Part 1":
{{quote| '''Captain Janeway''': I'm putting an end to your experiments, and you are hereby relieved of your command. You and your crew will be confined to quarters. <br />
'''Captain Ransom''': Please, show them leniency. They were only following my orders. <br />
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** It continues in Series 3 with incompetent new press officer John Duggan:
{{quote| "I'm [[Just Following Orders]]! Like a Nazi guard, [[Dude, Not Funny|only less gassy]]! [sheepish pause] You're not Jewish are you?"}}
* Averted at least once in ''[[Babylon Five5]]''. Dr. Franklin is ordered to turn over his notes on Minbari anatomy so that the military can create a biological weapon. He refuses, stating that under military law he has no duty to obey an order if it would violate his conscience.
** ''Not'' so averted. The military locks him up and tears his house and office apart looking for some remnant of those notes. He was just [[Genre Savvy]] enough to have destroyed them in advance, knowing in times of war, military law is "Do What We Say And '''Maybe''' We Won't Kill You."
** Delenn raised a whole fleet without the permission of the Grey Council. So much for orders.
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'''Pullo:''' Why? I was only obeying orders. Bloody good orders, too. }}
* Nancy Cartwright in ''[[Life On Mars]]'' uses this defence - not necessarily as an excuse but as an admission of complicity in the death of Billy Kemble - in this way in the penultimate episode of series 1.
* Invoked in Episode 6 of ''[[Torchwood Miracle Day (TV)|Torchwood: Miracle Day]]'' when Gwen confronts Dr Patel about the {{spoiler|incineration of 'Category One' patients}}. Dr Patel begins to protest, and Gwen interrupts her.
{{quote| '''Gwen:''' Don't you dare. Don't you ''dare'' look at me and tell me you're obeying orders. Don't you bloody dare.}}
** And again with Colin Maloney, director of the San Pedro camp.
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== Radio ==
* In one episode of ''[[Old Harry's Game (Radio)|Old Harrys Game]]'' the Professor is interviewing various historical figures for a history book, this includes a Nazi who claims he was only following orders. The Nazi in question was actually [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]].
 
 
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{{quote| '''Thomas Holman''': I was [[Just Following Orders]]. <br />
'''Lian Xing''': Yeah? Well, we were all [[Just Following Orders]]. }}
* ''[[Ninety -Nine Nights]]''. In Tyurru's story, Yesperratt justifies killing civilians by saying that she's just following orders.
* In ''[[Alpha Protocol]]'', {{spoiler|Parker and Westridge}} uses this as their defense for their complicity in the whole Halbech fiasco and for {{spoiler|sending Mike to Saudi Arabia with the intention of [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness|having him killed once he'd completed his mission]].}}
* The classic arcade shooter [[Sunset Riders]] does this after one of the boss fights. After the beaten but still alive boss falls to the ground, his sister suddenly runs up and says "please don't shoot my brother. He was just following orders." Ever the chivalrous gentleman cowboy, your character can't turn down a request from a lady and agrees to spare him. Note that this is the only time you spare a boss; every other one gets a bullet between the eyes, even if he was just following orders.
** It's rather odd that she would specifically ask you not to shoot him considering that, in order to beat the guy, you have to shoot him about a hundred times. What's one more bullet?
*** [[Critical Existence Failure]], clearly.
* ''[[Mega Man 8 (Video Game)|Mega Man 8]]'' features Sword Man, the one robot master who doesn't seem to have any problem with Mega Man; in fact, he seems to respect him quite a bit. He invokes this trope (along with [[Nothing Personal]]) right before you fight him.
* [[Assassin Blue]] uses this as an excuse for killing {{spoiler|at least initially.}}
* If you take [[The Paragon]] option, Commander Shepard in ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'' can get two prison guards to avert this trope when beating up a prisoner.
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* In ''[[Juathuur]]'', this is the main source of conflict between Sojueilo (who follows orders) and Thomil (who doesn't).
* Gen. William Howe of ''[[The Dreamer]]''.
* ''[[Freefall (Webcomic)|Freefall]]'' [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1400/fc01361.htm knows] all about this one.
* ''[[Schlock Mercenary (Webcomic)|Schlock Mercenary]]'' had the eponymous amorph [http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2011-01-20 explain fine details] of "I'm just doing my job".
* In ''[[Escape From Terra (Webcomic)|Escape Fromfrom Terra]]'' a UW gunner who incinerated a defenseless Cerean homestead tried to use this excuse, though to be fair his superior who ordered the attack had assurred him he'd be taking full responsibility. The court did not see it that way, he and the ordering officer were both executed.
 
 
== Western Animation ==
* After being defeated in a water balloon war, one of Nelson's goons says this in ''[[The Simpsons (Animationanimation)|The Simpsons]]'' episode "Bart the General." Bart spares them and pelts Nelson with the extra balloons instead.
* In one episode of [[Johnny Test]], Johnny, his friends and [[Go-Karting Withwith Bowser|enemies]] start to have a drag race but are stopped by the sheriff. The General tries to fast-talk their way through before yelling, "GO around him! the general rules!" The two secret agents call this trope as they do just that.
 
 
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