Sheathe Your Sword: Difference between revisions

 

{{quote|'''Jason:''' He's the most lethal video game creature ever! He towers above you with fists like anvils! Skulls litter the ground at his feet! And you're not supposed to even ''try'' to take this guy on in a fight??... [[Path of Most Resistance|Wow, talk about counter-intuitive.]]

 

You've entered a boss fight. It seems like nothing you do to the boss can faze it, and anything you ''try'' to do results in it counterattacking with deadly force. But then the player character hears something. Perhaps sage advice from a [[Spirit Advisor]], or perhaps the boss itself is taunting you by informing you that anything you do to attack it will only make it stronger. Either way, you've just been told to stop trying to ''fight'' the boss.

 

{{examples}}

* In ''[[Vision of Escaflowne]]'', dragons are empathic and respond to human (or possibly just [[Winged Humanoid|Draconian]]) emotions. Come at them all aggressive-like and they'll tear you a new one (unless you're just [[Badass]] enough to take them on). Throw down your sword and make with the peacefulness, and they'll get bored and wander off.

* Used in the ''[[Brave Story]]'' movie during the climactic battle against their respective doppelgangers. {{spoiler|The hero Wataru ends up winning the fight by accepting that his shadow is a part of himself, all the parts of himself that he was afraid to acknowledge. The anti-hero Mitsuru wins the fight by stabbing his shadow through the chest... and you guessed it, dies of a self-inflicted stab wound.}}

* [[Mysterious Girlfriend X]]: Best option to use against panty scissors, unless you have your own special attack.

* In ''[[Bleach]]'' Ichigo enters some last minute training with Zangetsu before his final battle with Aizen. Zangetsu explains that he won't simply tell Ichigo the ultimate technique of his power and proceeds to fight him. After a bit of swordplay that doesn't seem to go anywhere, Ichigo figures out he won't learn the secret by pure force but rather by letting Zangetsu stab him. This is exactly what the spirit wanted and gives Ichigo his power for the final confrontation.

 

* In one of the 1970s-vintage Marvel-DC crossovers, Superman once defeated the Hulk by allowing him to wail on his indestructible body until the Hulk wore himself out and reverted back to Banner. Doubly so, he also spotted and destroyed a microscopic irritant that was keeping the Hulk enraged.

* Arguably the way [[Scott Pilgrim]] deals with {{spoiler|The Negascott}}.

* As one of his trials to become Sorcerer Supreme, [[Doctor Strange]] had to meet Death in combat. After doing everything he could to fight or escape Death, he resigned himself to defeat, surrendered entirely to it—and became immortal.

 

* Used in the movie version of ''[[The Chronicles of Narnia|Prince Caspian]]'', when Caspian, after seeing an entire squadron of Telmarine assassins downed by something underfoot, is himself tripped and set upon by the unseen assailant... [[Lethal Joke Character|Reepicheep the Mouse]]. Reepicheep orders Caspian to retrieve his sword and face him in honorable combat, as he refuses to kill an unarmed man. Caspian's reply: "Then I'll live longer if I don't." Reepicheep doesn't have infinite patience, though, so this tactic doesn't last Caspian forever.

* Joshua's lesson in ''[[WarGames]]''.

* When Duncan has The Guardian at his mercy in ''[[Highlander: The Source|Highlander the Source]]'', he insists that Duncan beheads him and takes his place. Duncan refuses and goes to claim the prize. This makes The Guardian explode.

 

* In the RPG-inspired book, manga, and movie ''[[Brave Story]],'' the hero, Wataru, gets thrown into a [[Mirror Boss]] with a shadowy version of himself. He and it proceed to beat each other up, with neither side truly winning, until Wataru realizes that he ''can't'' fight it. {{spoiler|It's made up of all his fear, anger, hatred, and sorrow -- his negative emotions. And no matter what he does, all his negative emotions will always be part of him. Instead, he accepts it, and he comfortably takes it back into himself. [[The Rival|Mitsuru]] isn't so lucky...}}

* In the game-within-a-story of ''[[Ender's Game]]'', Ender consistently reaches a tower in the game, crushes a snake that tries to kill him, and [[The Many Deaths of You|gets himself killed trying to proceed]]. Fed up, he eventually picks the snake up and tries to get it to bite him—but he screws up the control input and accidentally [[True Love's Kiss|kisses it.]] It turns into his sister, because the [[Rule of Symbolism]] is weird like that.

* In ''[[John Scalzi|The Android's Dream]]'', two [[Virtual Ghost]]s argue over the proper way to deal with a situation, and the more experienced one proposes to make her point with a simulation of the battle in which the less experienced one originally died. She'll take control of the enemy forces, he'll control the forces he fought in, and his job is to keep it from becoming a bloodbath like it did in real life. His forces are too badly outgunned to ever win, so in the final iteration he surrenders at the first sight of the enemy, preserving the lives of all his troops.

 

* In the ''[[Deep Space Nine]]'' episode "The House of Quark", the title Ferengi is challenged to a duel to the death by a Klingon named D'Ghor. Fighting would almost certainly get him killed, but refusing would dishonor the Klingon woman he's been trying to help. His solution is to show up, throw his weapon aside, kneel down, and dare the Klingon to murder him in cold blood, without any honor or glory. {{spoiler|D'Ghor goes right ahead and tries it, but Chancellor Gowron stops him and, disgusted at such a dishonorable act, discommendates him on the spot}}. A [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] for Quark for sure.

* In the ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Next Generation]]'' episode "Hero Worship", a [[Negative Space Wedgie]] that destroyed a science vessel is battering the ''Enterprise'' repeatedly. Captain Picard orders more and more power to the shields, but the attacks continue to get worse. Data discovers that the anomaly is simply reflecting back all the energy of the ship's deflectors. The solution is instead to ''drop'' the shields, giving it nothing to reflect.

* In ''[[Highlander the Series]]'', there's a much-maligned three-episode arc where protagonist Duncan MacLeod is the [[Chosen One]] to fight against the evil demon Ahriman. Violence won't work in this battle, and the only way to defeat Ahriman is for Duncan to achieve inner peace.

 

 

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

 

* On a general note, many strategy guides - particularly unofficial ones - advise this strategy against a [[Hopeless Boss Fight]] in order to conserve resources - in which case you should not only sheathe your sword, but not do ''anything''.

* [[Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura]]: In a side-quest where you have to remove interlopers from an elven Holy Ground, you have the option of goading them into attacking you so that a curse will kill them for shedding blood. But if you fight back ([[Guide Dang It|or if your Automatic Combat Mode is on]]) you are pretty much screwed by the same curse.

* In ''[[Mortal Kombat 9]]'', this is how {{spoiler|Raiden defeats Shao Kahn. By letting Kahn merge Earth and Outworld without winning Mortal Kombat, Raiden is able to ''finally'' spur the Elder Gods into action, and use their power to destroy Kahn.}} "He must win!"

* The XBLA indie shooter ''Shoot 1UP'' features shields that form and expand around your ships when you refrain from shooting. Firing while an enemy is inside a shield unleashes a "shield attack," which earns you much higher bonuses than shooting around blindly. It's essential in order to rack up huge scores.

** Also applies the ''second'' time the player meets Cauthrien. She doesn't give you a surrender option this time, but it's possible to convince her to stand aside and let you pass if your Persuasion skill is high enough.

 

* [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0077.html This strip] in ''[[The Order of the Stick|Order of the Stick]]''.

* In-universe example in ''[[Girl Genius]]'', where Gil is fighting a 'training clank' which counters every attack and learns from previous battles. Agatha shuts it down—by walking right up to it, figuring that it won't defend itself against someone who isn't attacking it.

 

* ''[[How It Should Have Ended]]'' [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fp9DHzgr758 highlights] that this forms a fairly large plot hole in ''[[Predator]]''.

 

* When facing an [[Evil Twin]] made up purely of his aggression and negative emotions, [[Samurai Jack]] realized he could only win by not fighting and returning to true peace inside himself.

* ''[[Batman: The Brave And The Bold|Batman the Brave And The Bold]]'': The normally [[Attack! Attack! Attack!|unrestrained]] OMAC eventually manages to defeat the supervillain Shrapnel by using a force field to protect against Shrapnel's blows while refusing to counterattack—which meant that Shrapnel had no source of power to replenish himself with.

* In the ''[[Adventure Time]]'' episode "Tree Trunks", Finn, Jake and Tree Trunks find the Crystal Gem Apple but are confronted by a Crystal Guardian, who copies everything they do - and since it's a great deal harder than either Finn or Jake, they only manage to hurt themselves when they try to attack it. Tree Trunks, in the meantime, starts playing with some mildly disturbing skull-faced butterflies, and when the Crystal Guardian starts copying her as well, Finn and Jake realize that the Crystal Guardian will ''only'' attack them if they attack first.

 

* Gandhi's resistance to the British empire. If the citizens had actively fought back against the empire (instead of resisting passively), they would have been violently suppressed by Britain's superior military, and the rest of the world would have thought it justified, since the soldiers were only defending themselves.

** This only worked because of the British [[Moral Dissonance]] not really registering how brutal their regime was until they had to enforce it on people who refused even token resistance. Gandhi himself admitted it wouldn't have worked on someone like the Nazis that just didn't care.

* There is a Zen parable where a samurai asks a master if there is an afterlife and what it is like. The master challenged him, saying what sort of question was that for a samurai, and what a worthless samurai would ask it. The furious samurai grabbed his sword and began to draw it, to which the master shouted, "Here open the gates of hell!" The shamed samurai, realizing his error, sheathed his weapon and asked for forgiveness to which the master whispered, "And here open the gates of heaven."

{{quote|Ah, if only Czechs shot! [...] For liberation of Hungary the Soviet Army paid with blood. In Czechoslovakia the price was higher. We paid with morale.

The thing is, when you get shot at, the situation simplifies to the extreme. You don't have to think it over. The contemplative ones are killed first.