My God, What Have I Done?: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"The awful daring of a moment's surrender

''which an age of prudence can never retract."''

 

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]].

{{examples}}

== Anime and Manga ==

** Gohan had this too, thanks to his cockiness.

* 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}}.

* 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}}.

* ''[[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]].

* 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.}}

*** 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.}}

* 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}}.

* 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!"

*** 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}}.

* ''[[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.}}

* [[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]].

** 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.

* [[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''?"

* 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.

** Also Severus Snape, after he realizes his actions have inadvertently sentenced a woman he loves to death. Whoops again.

** {{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.}}

* 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]].

* [[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.

** "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.

* 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.

 

 

* 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.}}

* 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!]]

 

* 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 ==

** 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.}}

* 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!"}}

{{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.

* 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 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.

 

{{reflist}}