Honor Before Reason/Anime and Manga: Difference between revisions

* Played straight with Kira Yamato, the protagonist of ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam SEED|Gundam SEED]]''. He realizes that although stopping one's enemies without murdering them may be difficult, but doing otherwise would breed more hatred and thus not bring an end to war. [[Justified Trope|Of course,]] [[Improbable Aiming Skills|his aim is so good]] [[Beam Spam|and his arsenal so large]] [[The Ace|that against anything other than a top ace]] [[Martial Pacifist|the fact that he shoots to disable rather than destroy]] [[One-Man Army|really makes no difference at all.]]

** In the sequel series he takes this to ridiculous levels, allowing himself to be defeated losing his mecha and seriously risking his own death rather than allow his side to wipe out an enemy force instead they try to outrun and only disable and shoot near misses. He also refuses to hold a grudge and kill enemy pilot Shinn Asuka when the guy has nearly killed him and killed countless pilots on his side and it's clear the man as a very nasty vendetta against him.

*** And the fact that Zeon ''gassed his home colony in front of him during the first week of the gas'' doesn't change his mind about this. They're a reason why people laughed in his face when talking about this.

** Both these instances can be traced back to Judau Ashta from ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ|Gundam ZZ]]'' who began acting like this about the same time they touched down on Earth and the show started [[Growing the Beard]], simply because he couldn't handle any more death. Sometimes it actually worked, such as with Masai and Puru 2. However, it usually failed miserably (the death of the entire Blue Team, Rommel, {{spoiler|Chara Soon}}, and Haman). At the end of the series, having born witness to the Federation dragging its heels before mobilizing a fleet to defeat Neo Zeon and showing up after the battle was over, he was at the breaking point. To let him blow off steam, Bright let Judau deck him in the face... [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|something awesome for both of them.]]

* [[Action Girl|2nd Lt.]] [[Pumpkin Scissors|Alice L. Malvin]] has made it her mission to help people and to repair the damage done to her nation by the recent war. This means that she will not hesitate to call out ''anyone'' who she sees as contributing to or aggravating that damage, up to and including [[The Emperor]] of her own country, regardless of how capable they might be of physically or politically squashing her like a bug.

* Naja of ''[[World Destruction]]'' is guilty of this on several occasions, most notably when he and Lia escape from a sand submersible working together with the World Destruction Committee. After surfacing and reaching land, he has the chance to arrest them on the spot, but opts to let them go (much to Lia's frustration). After all, they had a deal.

** Josuke Higashikata is the poster child of this trope. In a series where [[Anyone Can Die]] he holds the distinction of having not killed a single human, despite the deaths of people around him, including his grandfather early on! Of course, that's just [[Technical Pacifist|not taking their life...]]

** In the Part 7, Steel Ball Run, Ringo Roadagain is determined to make sure that not only is he aware of everything that could play a role in a duel; he wants his opponent to be likewise aware. There's actually a good reason for this--those duels are to help purify his spirit of uncertainty. If neither side has an advantage (and before you ask, although Mandom's good at [[Groundhog Day Loop|saving Ringo's neck,]] it gives his opponent the same capacity to avoid Ringo's attacks), then he can be sure that his victories were genuinely deserved.