Leave Behind a Pistol: Difference between revisions

'''Jacob''': ''(walking away)'' It's not for them, ''[[Calling the Old Man Out|Dad.]]''|''[[Mass Effect 2]]''}}

 

 

And sometimes when it's all done the hero will meet their former friend, now in chains or facing disgrace, and tell them that they can't let the matter go to trial and [[Come to Gawk|become public]]. Perhaps it'll hurt the hero too much to see their former friend ruined and disgraced, or will hurt an innocent loved one of the villain to learn what a monster they've become. Perhaps it could even have repercussions that will shake or destroy an entire society. Perhaps the former friend simply doesn't deserve the clemency he may possibly receive, or is facing a horrific fate the hero wouldn't wish on anyone, especially if it's [[Disproportionate Retribution|disproportionate to the crime]]. Perhaps the former friend simply deserves a chance to reclaim their sullied honour, and [[A Friend in Need|their old friendship is worth that much]].

 

 

We may then see the hero walking down a corridor. And hear a single gunshot from the room they've just left.

 

 

 

 

Has nothing to do with the common [[Retroactive Preparation|time-traveller's gambit]] in which a gun is deposited where you know an ally (or an alternate you) will be needing one later.

 

== Comic Books ==

{{quote|"The Beast is Dead. Well, Near as damnit. He has been removed from power. Which, for such as him, is much the same thing as being dead. ... I feel uncommon pity for him. So I have sent him, care of his feedsite's address, a loaded handgun. I have marked it with the words USE THIS ON YOURSELF. I urge you to do likewise."}}

* [[Wolverine]] did this to Mystique in the one-shot comic, ''Wolverine: Get Mystique'' after the events of ''Messiah Comple-X''. Of course, he DID snikt her immediately beforehand to the extent where she would've bled out SLOOOOWLLY if she hadn't followed through with the gun.

* The page quote comes from Oliver Stone's ''Nixon''; whilst not an example of the trope [[Real Life|for obvious reasons]], [[Richard Nixon|President Nixon]] lampshades it to General Haig at one point. It's when Watergate is starting to go sour, and a revealing insight into his less-than-healthy mental state at the time.

* The finale of ''[[Point Break]]'' is something like this: Bohdi is caught bang to rights, but is given the option of dying in the surf. Which he takes, of course.

* ''[[Enemy at the Gates]]'': "I have to report to [[Josef Stalin|The Boss]]. Perhaps you'd like to avoid the red tape?"

* ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]'' offers a variation; when Captain Jack's crew [[The Mutiny|mutinies]], they dump him on a desert island with a pistol and a single shot, so that he may kill himself rather than face a long, painful death from starvation and exposure; not so much an honorable end as a ''quick'' one. Jack keeps the pistol, and eventually uses it. [[Designated Bullet|But not on himself.]]

** Before Barbossa maroons both Jack and Elizabeth, he gives Jack his pistol back (still with a single shot). Jack points out that, as there's two of them, a gentleman would give them a pistol each, to which Barbossa suggests that ''Jack'' can be the gentleman, by shooting Elizabeth and starving to death himself. Ouch.

* ''[[Blade]]''. Whistler is attacked by Frost's men, and is left dying and soon to become a vampire. The titular character, rather than kill his friend and mentor, gives him a gun with one round. Blade leaves Whistler, and it is assumed that Whistler kills himself off-screen. A deleted scene has Whistler becoming a vampire, and this is confirmed in the sequel, where he reappears as a prisoner of the vampires who keep him around for interrogation. He is cured of his vampirism and returned to human after Blade rescues him. And then {{spoiler|he's killed in the last movie!}}

'''Prosecutor:''' "No, no, no..."

''(Kaminski drops a pistol in front of the prosecutor.)''

''(Kaminski walks out. From behind the closed door comes the sound of a single gunshot as the prosecutor chooses to "resign.")'' }}

** In the unedited version, the prosecutor tries to back-shoot Kaminski after being given the gun, and is blown away for his trouble.

* [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in ''[[The Departed]]'': an [[Shell-Shocked Veteran|understandably mentally unstable]] Billy Costigan asks his shrink for a Valium prescription. She hands him ''one'' pill. "Why don't you just give me a bottle of scotch and a handgun to blow my fucking head off!" She eventually gives it to him, [[Good Is Not Nice|the jerk...]]

** Doesn't seppuku require a close friend or a family member to take the head in order to end the suffering? The person doing it also has to be good enough to do it in a single strike but stop just short of cutting through the entire neck. It's bad form for the head to roll.

**** The head cutting thing is optional. The 2nd was originally there to cut off the head if 1st showed hesitancy. Later, they started doing it as a mercy kill once they person performed the minimum action on their own, or were too badly injured to finish the job themselves.

{{quote|"There is not enough anti-venom for the two of us. How you choose to leave this world is up to you."}}

* A scene filmed for ''[[Aliens]]'' has [[Corrupt Corporate Executive|Carter Burke]] [[Face Full of Alien Wingwong|impregnated]] and cocooned to the wall. Ripley gives him a grenade to detonate and moves on. The scene has never been included in any release of the film, [[Word of God|apparently]] because it breaks up the tension of the final segment, plus it would raise potential plotholes with regard to the alien lifecycle. However, the scene is included in the novelization and the ''Newt's Tale'' comic series.

 

== Literature ==

* The ''Doctor Who'' [[Past Doctor Adventures]] novel ''The Devil Goblins Of Neptune'' features a subversion; a spy who's been acting to undermine U.N.I.T has discovered that his superiors have betrayed him, and has been captured and tortured by them as a result when he tried to defect. Later, one of his minders appears to leave a gun behind to end the spy's misery; he tries to, only to learn it's not loaded. His former boss then enters the room and bluntly tells him that ''he'll'' be the one to decide when it ends for him.

* Lord Peter does this to the murderer at the end of the [[Lord Peter Wimsey]] novel ''Murder Must Advertise''. The drug ring the murderer's involved with has shown a nasty penchant for staging fatal accidents for anyone who gets in their way. So, after he's confessed, Peter tells him that there's one way to get out of this without his family being dragged in: go home slowly, on foot, and don't look behind him too carefully.

** Wasn't that the blackmailer? If so, it was because the whole affair would be wrapped up with far fewer tears if he died wihout exposure to proper authorities.

** No, the blackmailer is killed by one of his victims, a young woman whom Holmes and Watson choose not to tattle on.

* In [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]]'s ''[[John Carter of Mars|The Chessman of Mars]]'', when they decide to proclaim A-Kor jeddak of Manator:

{{quote|''"There can be but one jeddak in Manator," said the chief who held the dagger; his eyes still fixed upon the hapless O-Tar he crossed to where the latter stood and holding the dagger upon an outstretched palm proffered it to the discredited ruler. "There can be but one jeddak in Manator," he repeated meaningly.

* [[Judge Dee]] gives a parracide a chance to commit suicide before charging him with his crime and watches as the mastermind of a vicious court conspiracy takes his 'medicine' knowing perfectly well it is actually poison.

* Done to {{spoiler|Danny Upshaw}} in [[James Ellroy]]'s ''The Big Nowhere''. One of the other characters notes the trope.

* [[Ellery Queen]] does this to the murderer at the end of ''Ten Days' Wonder''.

* Towards the end of the short story "Death Stops Payment", the money-grubbing private detective locks the murderer in a windowless room with an unloaded pistol. He only delivers the bullet ''after'' the killer's check clears.

 

 

** In another episode, he offers a gay airman implicated in a murder the chance to fly one last mission in The Battle Of Britain. His plane is shot down. He does not bail out.

* Implied in one episode of ''[[Battlestar Galactica]]'' (the new version): Baltar and Boomer (who is beginning to suspect that she is a [[Manchurian Agent|Cylon agent]]) have a long conversation discussing how she needs to "do what's right for herself." As Baltar leaves, a gunshot is heard from the room behind him.

** Something of a subversion. She missed.

* In the latest ''[[Robin Hood (TV series)|Robin Hood]]'' series, Guy's sister Isabella is in the dungeon following the capture of Nottingham by the peasants. Her execution is scheduled for the next day. While Guy doesn't exactly feel anything for his [[Face Heel Turn]] sister, he does give her a vial of poison, claiming she'll be dead by morning. Isabella manages to escape and, in the ensuing fight, kills Guy with a dagger and then cuts Robin with it, having covered it with the poison beforehand. This gives Robin just enough time to kill the Sheriff and Isabella and say his good-byes to the gang.

* A similar case happens in ''[[Prison Break]]'', where Agent Mahone tells C-Note that his wife will go free if he uses what is in the package Mahone gives him. C-Note opens it to find a rope, already tied in a noose. C-Note tries to use it, but the guards manage to pull him off just in time. Subverted in that this isn't about honor at all.

 

 

== Real Life ==

*** Many sources quote him as refusing, saying "If I am to be killed, let Adolf do it himself," so it wasn't indecision so much.

** Similarly, Ludwig Beck offered to commit suicide after being arrested for his role in the Valkyrie plot. Unfortunately subverted, since [[Nightmare Fuel|he survived the gunshot]] and a sergeant had to deliver a coup de grace.

** That would qualify as a [[Badass]] [[Taking You with Me|Dying]] [[Dying Moment of Awesome|Moment of Awesome]]. Bit of a mouthful though...

** You forgot to mention he requested a new pistol because [[Badass|his was too damaged from '''melee combat''' to shoot]].

** Sergeant Thomas Baker received the posthumous Congressional Medal of Honour for the feat. Talk about [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] !

* In a subversion of sorts, the former Head of the Metropolitan Police (Head of the Greater London police and generally regarded as the top policeman in the UK) Sir Iain Blair was once described as the sort of man who if offered the traditional revolver and bottle of whiskey, would drink the whiskey and come out shooting.

** Preventing this type of reaction is why the [[Trope Namer]] pistol is loaded with only one round.

* A variant of this trope happened during [[WWII]] in Poland: a captured officer of [[La Résistance|the Home Army]] was released from prison to deliver an offer of limited cooperation to the [[La Résistance]] command. However, the command refused to even think of it, instead telling him to "solve the matter in an honourable way". After a couple of days, he shot himself.

** The case of the Roman general Regulus was even more badass: captured by the Carthaginians and sent back to Rome to negotiate a surrender, he told the Senate to fight to the end rather than give in to the hated enemy, even though it meant that all the prisoners would be tortured to death. He then went back to Carthage to die alongside his men.

* This is pretty much standardized in the medieval [[Far East]] when the elite were implicated in capital offenses less than treason. The reason was, like all examples, to protect the person's honour. It is often effected by an Imperial "gift" of things that can be used this way (sword, long pieces of silk, or poison). While nobody mentioned what are those gifts used for, the giftee can usually get the idea.

* A non-lethal variation often occurs in workplaces where a sympathetic supervisor might discover that a liked employee has nonetheless done something worthy of termination and presents them a resignation form instead of reporting it or before an investigation occurs.

* Before confessing to killing her two sons, Susan Smith asked the sheriff to give her his gun so that she could take her own life.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Truth in Television]]

[[Category:Betrayal Tropes]]