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{{quote|''"The awful daring of a moment's surrender
''which an age of prudence can never retract."''
|'''[[T. S. Eliot]]'''
A misguided character comes to realize that his actions have caused incredible damage, physical pain, emotional pain, or even loss of life. What usually follows is the character uttering some variation on the trope title, optionally accompanied by [[Tears of Remorse]] and/or a [[Thousand-Yard Stare]].
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{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* Sayaka from ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]'' has this reaction when she makes Madoka cry after she yells at her for not using her latent power to fight witches. Unfortunately, {{spoiler|this realization helps push her towards the
* Robin Mask suffers from this when he thinks he's killed [[Kinnikuman]] during their fight in the 20th Choujin Olympics.
* ''[[Dragonball Z]]'': Vegeta
** Gohan had this too, thanks to his cockiness.
** A short while before the above example{{context|reason=which one?}}, Goku had one of these moments on his own when Piccolo [[What the Hell, Hero?|reminded him]] that Gohan was [[Half Human Hybrids|partially human]], didn't share [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|Goku's]] lust for battle, and thus didn't find any pleasure at all in getting [[Curb Stomp Battle|curbstomped]] by Cell while his father simply looked on from a distance.
* In the OVA of ''[[Angel Sanctuary]]'', Katan says this while looking down at his hands in horror after {{spoiler|accidentally killing Sara, when he was actually aiming for Setsuna}}.
* ''[[Magical Project S]]'': Misao Amano (as her [[Super-Powered Evil Side|evil]] [[Magical Girl]] alter ego Pixy Misa) was
* Guld Bowman
* Sasuke in ''[[Naruto]]'' after finding out that {{spoiler|the brother he spent years trying to kill and finally succeeding did everything to protect him and Konoha and the Council ordered him to do it in the first place}}.
** Somewhat averted{{verify}} as
**
** Sakura has this reaction when she realises what the promise she got out of Naruto did to him.{{context|reason=what is said promise?}}
* ''[[Digimon Adventure 02]]'': It's discovered that [[Big Bad]] Ken Ichijouji, definitely an [[Evil Overlord]] with a [[0% Approval Rating]], never knew Digimon were sentient, thinking the Digital World to be a very, ''very'' realistic [[Video Game Cruelty Potential|video game]]. He gives this line once he finds out he's done real harm, and makes a [[Heel Face Turn]].
* Yamaki of ''[[Digimon Tamers]]''
** [[Blood Knight
* Shinji Ikari in ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' has a [[Heroic BSOD]] after he is forced to kill {{spoiler|the angel Kaworu}}.
** And another one after his EVA nearly kills Toji Suzuhara due to his inability to fight. {{spoiler|This haunts him to a greater degree in the manga since he, rather the dummy plug, actually kills Toji.}}
* Renton from ''[[Eureka Seven]]'' does this after he goes berserk and tears an army of enemy LFO's to shreds
* Lelouch from ''[[Code Geass]]'' has a [[Delayed Reaction]]
** Suzaku also has one of these {{spoiler|when he realizes he's [[Jumping Off the Slippery Slope]] by trying to drug Kallen to get information out of her
▲* Lelouch from ''[[Code Geass]]'' has a [[Delayed Reaction]] version of this when the memory of his murder of {{spoiler|his half-brother Clovis}} from the previous episode causes him to vomit (you see the bathroom sink water running indicating he did get sick).
** Lelouch
▲** Suzaku also has one of these {{spoiler|when he realizes he's [[Jumping Off the Slippery Slope]] by trying to drug Kallen to get information out of her }}. Followed by {{spoiler|Nina Einstein, once she witnesses the horrendous results of her FLEJIYA nuke.}}
▲** Lelouch actually has another one of these, when he {{spoiler|loses control of Geass and Euphemia gets hit with his off the cuff command to KILL ALL JAPANESE PEOPLE!}} The look of utter shock on his face spoke volumes.
*** Earlier in the series, he gets a similar expression upon being informed that {{spoiler|his love interest's father was among the casualties of his latest battle.}} Although this isn't as objectively big as the aforementioned incident, it shook Lelouch rather badly and forced him to personally face the consequences of his actions and orders.
** Darlton gets one of these {{spoiler|after his hypnosis wears off and he realizes he just saved Zero by shooting Cornelia in the back.}}
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* The protagonist from ''[[Tsukihime]]'' goes through this in every route, after he regains control/consciousness from whatever insanity/inversion/dream-turned-reality he just went through, all of which generally involve him causing bloodshed and death.
* Gyoubu Kasumi from ''[[Basilisk]]'', after {{spoiler|Tenzen grabs a flautist boy and throws him into the middle of their fight, causing Gyoubu to accidentally kill the boy's father when the old man tries to save his son}}.
* In ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'' ''Duel Monsters'', season 4. Yami in a big way after that Raphael duel
* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX]]'': Judai's mind is stuck on this trope
* Tony in ''[[Toward the Terra]]'' after he {{spoiler|accidentally kills Matsuka, a fellow Mu}}, while attempting to assassinate the antagonist. Complete with enough angst to last the rest of the series.
* The manga version of ''[[Chrono Crusade]]'' has Chrono do this after {{spoiler|his [[Unstoppable Rage]] in volume 5}}. He's so distraught he can't even quite get out the words: "Oh, no. Have I done? Ro...sette!"
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*** When {{spoiler|''Greed'' kills his only surviving True Companion after being Mind Wiped}} in the manga. [[Big No]] ensues.
** Roy after {{spoiler|killing Winry's parents}}.
* In ''[[Higurashi no Naku Koro ni]]'', several of the characters have these moments.
* ''[[Kikaider|Android Kikaider: The Animation]]'' (not to be confused with the [[Toku|live-action ancestor]] of the "[[Power Rangers]].") In the first episode, Jiro [[Henshin Hero|(the android)]] helps some kids get their toy airplane out of a tree by pushing the tree over. (He was in his "human" form at the time, and the kids thought they were enlisting his help to ''climb'' the tree.) After the the kids run away, [[Mood Whiplash|any humor in this moment gets a kick in the nuts]] when Jiro realizes there was a bird's nest in the tree, and the eggs in it have been destroyed. In the English dub, he utters the trope verbatim.
* In the manga ''[[Pokémon Special]]'', Ruby does this when he realizes {{spoiler|he was a huge [[Jerkass]] to his Feebas after she loses a Contest and caused her to run away. He only partly realized that on his own at best, and it takes a [[What the Hell, Hero?|tongue-lashing from Wallace]] before it finally gets through to him completely.}}
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* In the final episode of ''[[Tenshi ni Narumon]]'', {{spoiler|after Silky sets their wings on fire, Mikael snaps out of his madness and when Raphael appears before him and confronts him with what his actions have led to, Mikael breaks into [[Tears of Remorse|tears]], expresses his remorse over what he has done and pleads his teacher to rescue everyone. When Raphael disappears, Mikael just resigns to the [[Redemption Equals Death|worst]].}}
* In the movie version of ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'', Precia gets one over how she had treated Fate when she remembered that {{spoiler|Alicia had always wanted a little sister.}} Unfortunately, by the time she remembers this, it's too late to apologize or make amends.
* [[Mad Scientist|Van Argeno]] from ''[[Blood
** Mai, when she snaps out of the Orichalcos' control.
* In ''[[Inuyasha]]'', [[The Stoic|Sesshoumaru]] had one of these [[Inner Monologue|moments]] in the Underworld upon [[Not So Stoic|realizing]] that [[Morality Pet|his beloved Rin]] was dead as a result of his quest to strengthen [[Healing Shiv|Tenseiga]]. "She can't be saved?...What's the point of it now? Tenseiga...just for something like this, (Rin) I let you die...To obtain this in exchange for Rin's life - [[Character Development|it means nothing]]." [[Death Is Cheap|She]] [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|got]] [[Tear Jerker|better]].
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== Fan Works ==
* Katara has one of these in the ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'' fanfic ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4252182/1/The_Chong_Sheng_Trilogy_Peace The Chong Sheng Trilogy]'', after {{spoiler|going on a [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] when Jet is tortured and murdered in cold blood right in front of her. She uses said cold blood to literally rip apart anyone wearing Fire Nation armor, even the ones surrendering or running for their lives. It results in a [[Heroic BSOD]] that nearly [[Driven to Suicide|drives her to suicide]].}}
* In a ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' fanfic ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20120428175055/http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5353458/1/Blast_to_the_Past Blast to the Past]'', Princess Elise managed to prevent the Metarex from changing the past, (without Eggman, they'd have no competition, and most likely none of the events of the Sonic games would have never happened) but latter finds out - much to her shock and disgust - {{spoiler|that ''she'' was the one caused the events that [[Sonic Underground|started it all,]]}} something that was just as bad when {{spoiler|[[Sonic the Hedgehog (2006 video game)|Sonic was killed because of "That damned demon within her."]]}} Silver and Blaze managed to convince her that Sonic played an important factor in everyone's lives, {{spoiler|[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3272287/1/Sweet_Dreams almost the same way that Eilse convinced him.]}}
* In the ''[[Axis Powers Hetalia]]'' doujinshi ''Besame Mucho'', Spain gets one of these (quoting the trope name included) when standing in front of a destroyed house in a village his army just slaugtered. He is passing by when he sees a dead child's arm peeking out of a pile of wreck, and it makes him remember about Romano. Something was in my eye when he says that they just killed people, who were the same as him or little Romano. His companion's answer? "You are wrong. You are not human.". [[Tear Jerker]], indeed.
* Also in ''Axis Powers Hetalia'', this is lampshaded by an authoress in the notes of the first chapter of her intense FACE bondage-dominance foursome. Repeat, the /first/ chapter.
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* [[Charles Dickens]] wasn't averse to this sort of twist. In ''[[Great Expectations]]'', the malignant Miss Havisham gives us the following line: '"O!" she cried, despairingly. "What have I done! What have I done!"'
* ''[[The Assassins of Tamurin]]'': This is Lale's reaction after she kills her would-be mugger/rapist. What stresses her out is that she didn't kill him simply in self-defense but because [[Evil Feels Good|she was excited to put her training to the test]].
* [[J. R. R.
** The Steward's family is big on these moments. Denethor has [[Fond Memories That Could Have Been|another]] when his younger son, Faramir, is brought back dying after being wounded in a pointless battle which Denethor sent him into.
* This trope also turns up in
* [[Jo Walton]]'s ''[[Small Change|Ha'penny]]'': Inspector Carmichael, after {{spoiler|saving Hitler's life}}.
* In ''[[Honor Harrington|Flag in Exile]]'', Honor Harrington is attacked by an assassin who sees her as a corrupting agent of Satan... but the beloved leader of his church [[Taking the Bullet|takes the bullet]] for her. Horrified, he drops the gun and falls to his knees: "My God, my God--''what have You let me do''?"
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* The [[Dale Brown]] novel ''Act of War'' has Kelsey quite distraught after she realises that she had unwittingly ordered {{spoiler|Carl Bolton}} to his death.
** ''Edge of Battle'' has a US Army [[Humongous Mecha]] mobbed by rioters at a detention camp for illegal immigrants ([[Jumped the Shark|"Jumping the shark"]]? [[Your Mileage May Vary]]) and reflexively responding with predictably horrific results. When he comes back to his senses the mecha's pilot calmly and methodically climbs down from his vehicle, picks up the first available firearm and puts a bullet through his head.
* In ''[[Harry Potter and
** Also Severus Snape, after he realizes his actions have inadvertently sentenced a woman he loves to death. Whoops again.
** And in the film version of ''[[Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (film)|Goblet of Fire]]'', when Harry doesn't resurface from the Hogwarts Lake for a minute or so after being given his underwater breathing apparatus (Gillyweed), Neville gasps, "Oh my God- I've killed Harry Potter!" Harry then promptly does a spectacular backflip out of the water, making everybody know he's quite alright.
** Ginny Weasley's attempt to destroy [[Mailer Daemon|Riddle's diary]] in ''[[Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (novel)|Chamber of Secrets]]'' was ([https://web.archive.org/web/20081218165554/http://alicia-chan.deviantart.com/art/HP-Penpal-problems-44206083 probably]) a reaction to this trope. In any case, she was in full mode of this trope after being saved by Harry at the end. Poor Ginny. It must be... devastating doesn't even describe it... for an eleven-year-old to realize her actions have very nearly caused the deaths of half her friends and her crush. [[Fridge Brilliance|Maybe that's why she was so sympathetic to Harry after the "Sectumsempra" incident.]]
** {{spoiler|Ariana's death - possibly at his own hands -}} was this for Dumbledore.
* In ''Cry Mercy'', the third volume of Toni Andrews's "Mercy Hollings" series, the title character confronts her adoptive parents in order to seek answers about her mysterious origins and troubled childhood. Throughout the series, she has expressed a great deal of anger towards her adoptive parents for dissolving the adoption and giving her back as a ward of the state at the age of twelve, which led her to spend her teenage years in a series of unhappy foster homes. She believes they abandoned her because they couldn't deal with the fact that she was a psychic with the power of [[Compelling Voice]]. However, her former adoptive mother reveals that {{spoiler|although her adoptive parents feared her powers and found her difficult to deal with, they cared about her and didn't intend to give her up until she used her Compelling Voice power to make them do so by telling them "Get out of my life and leave me alone!" in a fit of adolescent rebellion}}. She had repressed the memories of what had really happened, and realizes later that she is at least partly responsible for the problems that have made her miserable all her life. Mercy has another moment like this later on when trying to get an armed gunman to put down his weapon and release his hostage. She does not have perfect control of her power, and when he fails to respond at first she {{spoiler|loses her temper and thinks, "Goddammit, why don't you just blow your own brains out?!". Her anger makes her powers kick in and she has the man's death on her conscience, although she saves the hostage.}}
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* In [[Adrian Tchaikovsky]]'s ''[[Shadows of the Apt|Dragonfly Falling]]'', Fenise asks "What have I done?" as she realizes why she won't kill Thalric.
* In L. Jagi Lamplighter's ''[[Prospero's Daughter|Prospero Lost]]'', Miranda leads a boat that is pursuing hers on a route that ends with his crashing and dying. In ''Prospero In Hell'', she learns he wasn't an enemy. Nearly has [[Tears of Remorse]].
* ''[[Discworld]]'': Carrot has one of these moments in ''[[
* [[The Atoner|Jean Valjean]] of [[Les Misérables]] has a [[Heroic Blue Screen of Death]] based on this trope after he robbed a child. The robbing happened right after his encounter with [[The Messiah|Bishop Myriel]], who gave him a second chance at freedom after Valjean betrayed the Bishop's trust and robbed from him. The combination of these two events cause a guilt trip several pages long.
* Tsion Ben-Judah's reaction in in the [[Left Behind]] book ''Desecration'' when he realizes he has given away the location of where the Israeli Jews would flee to according to what the [[Book of Revelation]] says about the matter (the deserted city of Petra), fearing that he has messed up God's plan. He gets some reassurance from one of the Tribulation Force members that God may have intended for Tsion to let slip the location of where the Jews would flee to in order to lure Nicolae Carpathia's forces into a trap God has set up for them, which is all according to the Word of God.
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* Jerry ''[[Seinfeld]]'', after he gets engaged to Jeanie Steinem, a woman exactly like him...
{{quote|I think I may have made a big mistake! All of the sudden I realized what the problem is! I can't be with someone like me! I hate myself!}}
* In
{{quote|{{spoiler|Gaeta: [[Heel Realization|We--we had the truth on our side. Now... now]]...}}
{{spoiler|Zarek: [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|The truth is told by whoever is left standing]].}} }}
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** "We have to go back!"
* In an episode of ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'', Torres utters this exact line when she realizes the race of robots she is helping were responsible for the extinction of their creators.
* In ''[[The Closer]]'', after several episodes of not feeling any remorse for facilitating a [[Vigilante Execution]] the previous season and not taking the victim's family's lawsuit against the department seriously, Brenda finally breaks down sobbing "
* On the third-season finale of ''[[The Big Bang Theory]]'', Howard and Raj make an account for Sheldon on an online dating site. Sheldon gets matched with Amy Farrah Fowler, who is almost exactly like him. Howard's reaction when he sees the two together: "Good God, what have we done?"
* ''[[Forever Knight]]'''s Nick Knight has several of these over the course of the series, many in the flashbacks where he's struggling between needing to feed to survive and not wanting to kill.
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''To take your fuckin' lives!'' }}
* "Evaporated" by Ben Folds Five uses this line as the last line of the chorus - though it's never actually revealed what the singer actually ''has'' done.
* Forgive Durden's musical, ''[[Razia's Shadow: A Musical]]'' uses this trope in a near-verbatim manner at the conclusion of "Toba the Tura," when {{spoiler|Ahrima comes to grips with his sin of destroying the lamps}}.
{{quote|''What have I done?''
''Please make me your son''
''What have I become?''
''Destroyed all I love!'' }}
** Also in ''
* In the song "The Flame" by Chimera, the lasts lines are "Oh God…What Have I Done"
* The protagonist of [[Genesis (band)|Genesis]]' "One for the Vine" becomes the murderous conquerer he (as a lowly foot soldier) had deserted at the beginning of the song. No, not just a very similar figure - the ''exact'' same one.
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==
* Link from ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time]]''. He pulls the Master Sword out of its pedestal, not knowing Ganondorf was using him to get into the Sacred Realm. Especially hits home when you visit what used to be Hyrule Castle. Link's expression can only be, "Oh my God, I did this."
* Alexandra Roivas from ''[[Eternal Darkness]]'', at the end of the game. After you defeat Pious Augustus, Alexandra finally realizes the {{spoiler|[[Cosmic Horror|ancient god]] she just released has the power to destroy all of humanity. Shocked, she kneels and says "What have I done!?". The Ancient God is then turned into [[Sealed Evil in a Can]] by Edward Roivas' spirit, after replacing two of the runes in the super-mega-huge spellcasting device.}} Except not really, because it's revealed through one hell of a [[Mind Screw]] that {{spoiler|Mantorok has [[My Death Is Just the Beginning|orchestrated events]] so that in three different iterations of reality a different Ancient was summoned each time, essentially meaning that all three were killed at the same time; not being subjected to the same rules of time and existence as us lowly mortals this could easily happen. Of course leaving Mantorok to fester for eternity, plotting his eventual escape.}}
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* Similar to ''[[Shadow of the Colossus]]'', ''[[Far Cry|Far Cry 2]]'' seems to be designed to eat away at the player until they realise just how many people they're butchering and what a monster they are, resulting in a My God, What am I doing? moment.
* Kastor in ''[[Age of Mythology]]'', after {{spoiler|blindly following Krios's hidden plan of releasing the Titans}}.
* [[The Woobie|Oichi]] from ''[[Sengoku Basara]]'', after {{spoiler|being [[Break the Cutie|driven insane]] by her [[
* In the Ulduar raid of ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', Algalon the Observer is sent by the Titans to "re-originate" the planet (read: [[Kill'Em All|destroy all organic life]]) in the event the corruption from [[Eldritch Abomination|the Old Gods]] got too severe - actually triggered by your [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|earlier murder of one of the Titans' corrupted overseers.]] However, if your raid [[That One Boss|manages to defeat him]], he has one of these moments, in which he laments just coldly following his orders without considering the lives of the people he was destroying.
* In a more humorous example, in ''[[The Nameless Mod]]'', Despot says this when he tells the player that he left [[Cloudcuckoolander|Ghandaiah]] in charge instead of the far more competent King Kashue.
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* In ''[[Catherine]]'', girlfriend Katherine suffers from this after the incident on day 8, frozen in place screaming.
* Lara Croft in ''[[Tomb Raider]] Anniversary'' has this moment when she is forced to kill Larson, who held her at gunpoint. It was Lara's first human kill in her whole life.
* {{spoiler|Tyrann}} in ''[[
* In the ''[[Fallout: New Vegas]]'' DLC Old World Blues, it's possible to get [[Evilutionary Biologist]] Dr. Borous to feel intense guilt over his brutal experimentation of his loyal dog Gabe after you bring him his food dish. Of course, he quickly forces himself to suppress the feeling and goes back to his obsession with [[For Science!|Science!]]
=== Visual Novels ===▼
▲== Visual Novels ==
* Part of the meltdown of {{spoiler|Acro}} in ''[[Ace Attorney]]''. You don't actually see the moment onscreen but the aftereffects are obvious during his breakdown. {{spoiler|In attempting to murder Regina he accidentally killed her father, to whom Acro and his brother owed everything.}} As [[Sympathetic Murderer]]s go he's high on the list.
* Archer from ''[[Fate/stay night|Fate Stay Night]]'' as revealed in UBW route. {{spoiler|He is trying to kill Shirou, himself from past, because he wants to prevent him making a pact with world to protect people, because it'll only make him one who kills some to save many.}}
* One of the extended bad endings in the [[PlayStation 2]] version of ''[[School Days]]'' has {{spoiler|Kotonoha murder Sekai in cold blood and then offer herself to Makoto, who was watching. Makoto's horrified reaction causes Kotonoha to realize what she has done, and she breaks down in tears.}}
== Webcomics ==
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* In [[Dragonball Z Abridged]], Dr. Briefs yells "WHAT HAS SCIENCE DONE??" after Goku blasts himself into space on a ship Dr. Briefs built.
** King Kai gets one too, after realizing that sending Goku home has resulted in him being all alone again. When Bubbles, Gregory and Bojack try to comfort him, he tells them to shut up.
* In ''[[
* [[The Nostalgia Critic]] is pretty broken up about shooting his childhood icon, [[Mary Poppins]], when she didn't explain all the [[Plot Hole]]s in ''[[Quest for Camelot]]''.
** He looked crushed in ''[[Kickassia]]'' right after he accidentally shoots {{spoiler|Santa Christ}}.
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* An episode of ''[[Batman: The Animated Series]]'' features a robot clone of Batman that seeks to kill Batman and take his place. Once he (apparently) succeeds at this, he goes through an existential crisis since the real Batman [[Thou Shalt Not Kill|wouldn't kill anyone.]] He cries out "What have I done? I've taken a life!" and proceeds to smash the console evil supercomputer HARDAC was attempting to use in its evil ploy, both stopping the program and electrocuting himself, prompting the real Batman (who was hiding on a conveniently placed cliff crag) to wonder if his robot duplicate actually had a soul.
* In ''[[Justice League Unlimited]]'', when {{spoiler|the League's [[Kill Sat]] not-all-so-accidentally fires upon Cadmus HQ}}, [[Superman]] rounds up the founding members and questions: "What have we done?" Doubly subverted, though: First, they tell him that they haven't done anything, since someone else hijacked their main computer. However, he replies that it was their choice to keep the orbital cannon, therefore all of them must take the responsibility.
* Appears to be this in the episode "A Dumb Wish" in ''[[The Grim Adventures of Billy
* Zummi says this in the [[Grand Finale]] of ''[[Gummi Bears]]'', after his carelessness results in [[Big Bad|Duke Igthorn]] capturing most of the Gummis, learning the secret of [[Super Serum|Gummiberry Juice]], and taking over Dunwhyn Castle.
* In [[Space Ghost Coast to Coast]], one episode deals with a pledge drive that's not going very well. Frustrated, Space Ghost orders the audience to give him money, or he'll shoot Brak. Brak starts crying, and Space Ghost feels ashamed of what he's doing. Brak calms down and tells him that "it's okay", which Space Ghost cheerfully takes as permission to shoot him.
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** Fluttershy gets one in ''Putting Your Hoof Down'' after being a huge bitch to Pinkie Pie and Rarity, due to taking her assertiveness lessons from Iron Will.
** Twilight has one in ''A Canterlot Wedding'' when everyone calls her out on calling Cadence evil. {{spoiler|The twist is that it wasn't really Cadence at all, but an imposter posing as her.}}
* A comedic version happens in ''[[Animaniacs]]'' short 'Temporary Insanity', twice to Mr. Plotz. The first time is when he realizes that instead of calling a temp agency, he's called the Warners and told them he needs help in the office while his secretary is out sick. The second time is when he ''agrees'' to the Warners helping him out. [[Hilarity Ensues|Needless to say, his fears do not go unwarranted.]]
* In an episode of the ''[[Krazy Kat]]'' animated series, Krazy is [[Born Lucky]], and Ignatz is jealous and wants her luck for himself. Then he comes up with the perfect solution—he'll give her some [[Cement Shoes]], get her to sign her luck away to him, then dump her underwater. Only after he's already done this does he have this reaction and dive underwater to save her.
{{quote|"I must have been insane!"}}
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{{quote|Now we are all sons of bitches.|'''Kenneth Bainbridge''', Trinity Test Director, Manhattan Project}}
** On the topic of [[WW 2]], the Marines having arrived on Okinawa, experienced no resistance from the Japanese. This had the marines extremely on edge, especially the first night since the Japanese were infamous for night attacks (especially of the Banzai Charge nature). Unfortunately that night, a convoy of Okinawan civilians were fleeing the Japanese. [[Tragic Mistake|The Marines thinking it was a Banzai Charge...]] This trope was the reaction of the Marines.
* [[wikipedia:Ashoka the Great|Ashoka the Great]], emperor of India in the 3rd century BC, is said to have uttered this line after a bloody military campaign and then converted to Buddhism and never waged war again
* Alfred Nobel developed dynamite in order to make the nitroglycerin used for mining, quarrying and construction safer to use. Instead it became widely employed as a weapon, to the point that a paper mistakenly published his obituary on the occasion of his brother Ludvig's death, with the title "The merchant of death is dead". His personal fortune at the time of his death was approximately 250 million dollars in today's money. He bequeathed ''0.5%'' to his family, and the rest to the newly founded Nobel foundation. He also specified that race and nationality was not to be a factor in choosing recipients, which caused a major stir at the time. (The prize committee made good on this specification relatively quickly, giving the Literature Prize to Indian [[wikipedia:Rabindranath Tagore|Rabindranath Tagore]] in 1914.)
* Sociologist Robert Putnam was so horrified by the results of a study he performed that among other things suggested that racially diverse societies caused individuals to become more isolated that he almost didn't publish it. [https://web.archive.org/web/20130313055128/http://www.hks.harvard.edu/saguaro/communitysurvey/results3.html He did eventually]. When criticized about witholding his findings he explained that he was terrified his work would be used by racist organizations to justify their hatred.
* When the hysteria died down following the Salem witch trials, the people of Salem went straight to [http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2051&version=KJV Psalm 51].
* A classic sports example of this happened when Lawrence Taylor gruesomely (but inadvertently) [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH8SZOqc6Pk broke Joe Theismann's leg]. As soon as it happened, Taylor—known then as a vicious defensive player and a bit of a trash-talker—immediately and frantically called to the sidelines for the medical staff to come and help Theismann, knowing that he'd inflicted an exceptionally serious injury. Indeed, it ended Theismann's career.
* A rather literal example is HMS Beagle captain Robert FitzRoy, who was a fundamentalist Christian creationist. He regretted being part of the Beagle expedition that led to Darwin publishing On The Origin Of Species, thereby indirectly contributing to the development of the theory of evolution, which contradicted [[The Bible]]'s account of creation
* A common reaction by people when they kill someone, especially the first time. The degree of trauma depends on a number of factors, such as group participation (squads, teams, etc), range (greater distance = more detachment), emotions and weapons used.
**
* [[Stephen King]] had one of these after he found out about the number of school shootings that had been linked to his novel ''Rage'', in which a high school student snaps after being expelled from school, takes out a pistol, and then kills multiple people as well as hold several students hostage and is portrayed as a [[Sympathetic Murderer]]. Investigation of students who had started shootings in their schools revealed that several of them had copies of ''Rage'' in their possession. Stephen King then requested that ''Rage'' be taken out of print in an attempt to make up for it.
* The story goes that General Launcelot Kiggell, Chief of General Staff in the British Army in World War One, saw the conditions at Passchendaele at the end of the battle, cried "My God, did we really send men to fight in that?" and burst into tears. Now considered to be anecdotal, as the higher-ups knew damn well what the conditions were but had legitimate military reasons for continuing. (Whether those reasons constituted ''justification'' for continuing is a matter for debate.)
* Many raiders who run in on people in their homes threatening the occupants and getting them to tell said raiders, for example, the password to the home safe, will hate having to do this to parents of kids (particularly if the kids are seeing the whole ordeal). There have even been cases in which robbers have turned themselves in due to their guilty conscience about how they traumatized a poor kid haunting them. Some raiders will even try and comfort the kids, if they have to.
* A [[Real Life]] self-styled [[Evil Debt Collector]] quit the industry after he discovered that a woman he'd tried to collect from [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJS9c0jgosQ died in 9/11].
* Often experienced after a binge drinking session, especially with some of the more foul tasting beverages.
* The reaction was this [http://www.nbcnews.com/news/crime-courts/dashcam-video-shows-montana-officer-breaking-down-after-fatal-shooting-n285331 Montana police officer] had when he shot and killed a passenger during altercation. It was after he was forced to use deadly force when he learned the guy he killed wasn't unarmed, causing the officer to break down in tears.
* Became a meme targeted at [[Joisey|New Jersey]] Governor Chris Christie after he dropped out of the race for President of the United States and endorsed [[Donald Trump]] as the Republican candidate in late February 2016. Christie had spent nearly his whole campaign castigating Trump as utterly unsuited for office, and the barely-concealed look of shock and dismay on his face during the rant Trump delivered while accepting the endorsement spawned dozens of meme pics like [[media:Christ-2016-what have i done.jpg|this one]]. Given that the Trump endorsement may well have [http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/02/politics/chris-christie-donald-trump-backlash/ destroyed] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2016/03/02/chris-christies-wordless-screaming/?tid= his political] [http://www.npr.org/2016/03/02/468875131/christie-stands-by-trump-as-new-jersey-supporters-wonder-why future], they may be right on the money.
** Four years later, Christie ran a long-shot campaign to become President based on being the only candidate in his party who wasn't supporting Trump's re-election bid.
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