What Measure Is a Mook?: Difference between revisions

* In ''[[On Deadly Ground]]'', Steven Seagal's character brutally massacres dozens of guards on an oil rig, some of whom aren't even posing a real threat to him, ostensibly for the horrific crime of being ''accessories'' to pollution. After killing all these people, he finally gets the [[Big Bad]] right where he wants him, and ''then'' decides he's not worth killing (though, of course, [[The Chick]] then takes the initiative to off the [[Big Bad]] herself).

** He more or less ''kills one for smoking'' (ok smoking on an oil rig not very smart, but so isn't blowing one up)

* Subverted and made into a plot point in ''Machine Girl'', where the heroine's slaughter of a squad of ninja mooks leads to a scene with their mourning families..

* Occurs in the film ''[[Hitman]]'', where the eponymous assassin has no problem shooting his way through hordes of gas-masked troops, but always lets named characters go, despite that fact that they are the ones leading the investigation into him. Particularly bad as the troops are simply ordinary Russian soldiers protecting their president.

** A particularly noteworthy example occurs in the first mission of Chaos Theory; one of the guards you can grapple and interrogate instead tells you how he knew something like this would happen ever since his family was killed by Americans, and how he's prepared to die so he can meet them again. And he doesn't even have a name. It's a little disturbing, actually; even Sam is creeped out.

** Entirely averted in ''Conviction'' though.

* ''[[Grand Theft Auto San Andreas|Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas]]'' follows this trope in order to [[Follow the Plotted Line]]. CJ is told by some corrupt cops that if he leaves town, they'll pin the murder of another cop on him. Thing is, during the game you can murder cops and civilians by the dozens with your comeuppance being...respawning at the police station or hospital less 10% of your money.

** Tenpenny and later Toreno stonewalls any attempts to put CJ away for good. And besides, it's knocking out a few fellow officers off the ladder.

** [[Justified Trope|Vader said no witnesses.]] And seeing as how every single ONE of them will attack with the aim of killing you first, self-defense is hardly unjustified. To say nothing of the fact that the stormtroopers are genuinely on Vader's side, whereas to Starkiller they were either obstacles he was obliged to neutralize on orders of his master or genuine enemies, and that Vader and Palpy are quite capable of manipulating attacks on them to turn the tables (and the near-certainty that Palpy is playing possum) means that there is some justification for this.

* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' subverts this with two mooks, one each for the Alliance and the Horde. When you kill the Alliance one, you find a letter on her corpse. Turns out she was forced to fight for the bad guys, was sabotaging them from the inside where she could, and she loved her daddy. Much the same applies to the Horde one, except the letter is addressed to his sister.

* If you've seen the capabilities of ''Milo and Kate'' with the new Project Natal technology, you won't be surprised to see this kind of thing happen in future games. The game demo has shown that AI can be programmed to be almost indistinguishable from a normal human, which could lead to some very poignant moments in a game: Talking to another randomly spawned ally in ''[[Call of Duty]]'' and hearing him give his views on the war or talk about his family, and then watching as a rogue grenade promptly takes him out. Or an enemy begging for his life after watching his squad get slaughtered and allowing you to talk to him just like you would a real man pleading to be spared. The humanizing aspects that modern AI technology is demonstrating could be enough to make you question senseless killing of the mooks.

* ''[[Call of Duty]]: [[Modern Warfare]] 2'' reminds one of this near the end. {{spoiler|The [[Big Bad]] is then revealed to be a rogue general who has orchestrated the events of the game as one giant [[Batman Gambit]], and now the two main characters shoot up his private guard in a mission to take him out for sheer revenge. While the game implies that these mooks are an elite paramilitary unit handpicked by the general and not really US soldiers at this point, there's no question that most if not all signed up believing they would be doing the right thing and probably aren't even aware of their boss's behind the scenes actions. On the other hand, Shepherd's troops saw him shoot Roach and Ghost, then threw their bodies into a ditch then doused them with gasoline.}}