Shoot Your Mate: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

The hero is in the role of a [[Fake Defector]]. One of his friends has been captured. The [[Big Bad]] hands him or her a gun and tells them to kill them. The gun is almost always empty.

 

{{examples}}

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* Subverted in ''[[Gunsmith Cats]]'', where Rally is asked to kill an ATF agent to prove her loyalty to some gun-runners. She knows by weight that the gun is unloaded, asks for a bullet, and shoots the ATF agent's bonds, releasing him.

* In essence, a sword variant of this happens in ''[[Bleach]]''. {{spoiler|To truly convince Aizen that he's totally loyal ''and'' to make sure she stays out of the equation where Aizen can't kill her like anybody else who goes up against him, Gin Ichimaru stabs his effective love interest Rangiku in the chest and leaves her bleeding on the roof of a building. However, he specifically gave her a wound shallow enough for her to survive and only told Aizen that he'd disposed of her. He double crosses Aizen not long afterward.}}

 

* Subversion: when [[Batman|Robin and Batgirl]] start watching over Bludhaven, they attempt to take out the seeds of the Penguin's organization, and they end up faking a fight; Batgirl lets him win in such a way that makes it look like she's dead. The Penguin [[Dangerously Genre Savvy|isn't convinced]], and tells Robin to shoot her 'corpse'. He does. She doesn't react. The Penguin lets down his guard, and Batgirl [[Waif Fu|springs into motion]]. Later, when Batgirl and Robin have escaped:

{{quote|'''Robin''': How can you take a bullet and not bat an eye?

* In the original ''[[Stargate (film)|Stargate]]'' film, Daniel Jackson is ordered by Ra to kill his companions in order to prove his loyalty to the sun god, so that the workers won't question his authority. Although Daniel did not board Ra's ship as a spy in the first place, when the time comes he acts for a few moments as if he is really going to obey the order. [[Let's Get Dangerous|Then he turns around and shoots at Ra instead]].

* ''The [[The Bourne Series (film)|Bourne Ultimatum]]'' reveals that the final test of Jason Bourne's training was to kill someone. The person wasn't any one that Bourne knew, but neither was Bourne given any reason to justify killing him, other than that it was his orders. It was quite a moral struggle for him to decide whether to obey.

 

== [[Literature]] ==

* Played with in [http://www.yaplakal.com/forum6/topic104854.html this] russian short story (no translation available). The undercover cop is ordered to kill his childhood friend, and he promptly pulls the trigger. It turns out that {{spoiler|he had secretly been training himself to count the number of rounds in a magazine, judging by the weight of the gun, so he was ''almost'' sure that nothing would happen. His friend didn't know that, and was genuinely pissed, so they parted.}}

 

* ''[[24]]'' has done on four occasions:

** Season 1: Jack on Nina (he pulls the trigger, but she's wearing a [[Bulletproof Vest]]). Although the fact that she's wearing one is unknown to both the audience and ''her''.

* ''[[Burn Notice]]'' does this from time to time; in the instance the page quote is referring to, Sam (posing as a [[Corrupt Cop]]) is being asked to help kill Michael (posing as a junkie snitch). {{spoiler|They manage to arrange for Michael to escape without it looking like Sam's fault.}}

 

* There's an old joke/urban legend told about the armed forces (doesn't matter which country, the agency names can be easily swapped out). A recruit is handed a gun and told that the final test is to go into a room and shoot whoever they find there. The first goes in, finds his wife or mother, and immediately turns around and leaves. Repeat with various branches of the military, until the Navy SEAL/SAS/FBI agent goes in, and comes out 5 minutes later. "Some idiot loaded the gun with blanks! I had to strangle them to death/beat them to death with the chair."

** Another variation is that several men from some organization (usually the FBI) are each told to kill their respective spouse. The first few men can't but the woman goes through the whole chair-beating thing.

* The final moral choice in ''[[Army of Two]]: The 40th Day'' is to either kill the [[Big Bad]] and activate his [[Dead Mans Switch]], or get him to disarm the bomb by showing him "true sacrifice" and having either Rios or Salem kill the other.

 

* Elgie of ''[[Chimneyspeak]]'' had to do this, since he was contracted to kill a man, then made a friend, and didn't realize they were the same person.

 

* In ''[[Justice League]]'', exposed agent Hawkgirl was asked by fellow Thanagarian soldier Kragger to kill the captured Justice Leaguers. She took the pistol, but explained that killing the superheroes will only anger and ignite the Earth's population to retaliate. While her explanation is reasonable, it only strengthens his suspicion against her loyalty.

* In ''[[Transformers]]: [[Beast Wars]]'', Dinobot genuinely did want to change sides and become a Predacon again, but when Megatron told him to kill Rattrap as proof of his loyalty, Dinobot ultimately couldn't go through with it. {{spoiler|Which was good because Megatron was going to stab him in the back anyway.}}

* Brother Blood of ''[[Teen Titans (animation)|Teen Titans]]'' gave Cyborg a special weapon which amplified his powers, to prove his loyalty to the H.I.V.E. he had to shoot the Titans. Psych! Cyborg turns around and shoots Brother Blood!

* In ''[[Exo Squad]]'' the titular crew is captured by the Neosapiens (rebellious artficial super-humans) after an ostensible betrayal by a Neosapien crew member Marsella. The Neosapien leader Phaeton decides to pull the Shoot Your Mate on Marsella and orders him to kill his ex-comrades. Marsella receives an obligatory "How could you?! After all we went through together!" reprimand frim the humands, responds with a heartfelt and hateful speech about human oppression of his people...and naturally shoots the Neosapiens. However the second part of the trope is subverted as Phaeton turned out dumb enough to actually give him a loaded gun.

* In an episode of ''[[Biker Mice From Mars]]'', Limburger tries to get Modo to join them by offering him a new fancy artificial arm. Modo pretends to go along with it to find out what Limburger's latest scheme is. Naturally, he is told to prove his loyalty by shooting Throttle and Vinnie as they drive by the tower. He does and Limburger is pleased. Of course, they were actually dummies with the bikes being operated by remote control.