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What the Hell, Hero?/Literature: Difference between revisions
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* In ''[[Inheritance Cycle|Brisingr]]'', Sloan finally calls out [[Heroic Sociopath|ostensibly heroic sociopath]] Eragon on his actions in a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]].
** Eragon then delivered his own [[What the Hell, Hero?]] to Sloan, calling him out for betraying his entire village to inhuman monsters whose primary diet consisted of [[I Am a Humanitarian|humans]] as well as [[What an Idiot!|trusting them to keep their word]] when they kidnapped his "beloved daughter", who he ALSO sold out to them out of a petty grudge toward Eragon's cousin(who wished to marry her and wound up getting mauled by those abominations) as well as irrational superstition.
**** Remember he also murdered a night watchmen in order to rat out his village to the Ra'zac.
** Later, Elva calls out Eragon for his actions (namely, trying to reverse the magic that he had just done, which got rid of Elva's compulsion to help those in pain) by comparing him to Gallbatorix. This seems to have more of an effect on him.
*** As with many, ''many'' things in the [[Inheritance Cycle]], this is ''highly'' subjective. Especially the situation with [[Asshole Victim|Sloan]]. But one [[What the Hell, Hero?]]? cannot be denied, and that is the nameless soldier in Feinster who calls out Eragon for helping to perpetuate a brutal war when the majority of the empire just wants to go about their lives. Even the people who don't see Eragon as a [[Heroic Sociopath]] cannot deny how effective that particular WTHH? was.
** Perhaps the best WTTH? in Inheritance is the poor soldier Eragon and Arya meet on their way back to the Varden. "Why are you doing this, you're a monster!" he screams as he surrenders. Eragon still [[Psycho for Hire|murders him because "he was a threat"]]
** The heroes of the ''[[Inheritance Cycle]]'' often have [[My God, What Have I Done?]], but Eragon and Orik are definitely [[Squick|squicked]] when Angela the witch poisons the enemy soldiers. They see it as dishonorable; she sees it as just good strategy.
* In ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four|1984]]'', Winston Smith joins what he thinks is the resistance movement against "Big Brother." The supposed leader of the resistance, O'Brien, questions him on what he's willing to do for the movement. Smith agrees to everything O'Brien asks, including rape, murder, arson, terrorism, and even throwing sulfuric acid into an innocent child's face. Later on when it is revealed that {{spoiler|O'Brien is a double agent working for Big Brother, he plays a tape of Smith confessing to this in order to destroy Smith's claims of moral superiority}}.
** What makes this particular moment all the more chilling is how understated it is. {{spoiler|O'Brien}} plays the tape once then basically dismisses it, and Winston [[Angst? What Angst?|barely thinks about it afterwards]]. It says something about the level of [[Hannibal Lecture]] [[Mind Rape]] Winston is going through that this is one of the ''least'' mentally damaging parts of it.
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** To be fair, just prior to being chewed out Luke had essentially been ''bragging'' about being the one who fired the proton torpedo that blew up the Death Star. The "calling out" moment was as much a commentary about his slightly cavalier attitude toward killing.
** In a later novel, Luke comments that "he has the blood of millions on his hands" despite the circumstances in which they died.
** In ''[[X Wing Series|Wraith Squadron]]'', the Wraiths pull a prank that gets a cantina full of people to think that one of their female pilots is married to their [[Pig Man|Gammorrean]] pilot. Falynn is highly offended and doesn't find this funny, but then Piggy stops her, asks if she'd react like this if the prank had involved, say, [[Good
** Karen Traviss's ''[[Republic Commando]]'' novels provide a chance for various characters to call this on the Jedi, the ostensible good guys of the Star Wars universe, for taking a conveniently provided army of 'living slaves' who have been 'torturously abused' since birth and using them as 'cannon fodder' for a war in which the soldiers have no stake.
** A twofer in the person of Kyp Durron. Durron ''destroys an [[Apocalypse Wow|entire inhabited solar system]]'' while [[Drunk on the Dark Side]], and when he sobers up Luke takes him in with no questions asked. Luke is called out for this by Corran Horn and his own future wife Mara later on, while Durron hears about it [[Never Live It Down|for the rest of his life.]]
* Lucas Trask in ''Space Viking'' by [[H. Beam Piper]] has an ''internal'' one when he's talking with an eight-year-old princess and wonders how many of the people killed in his raids earlier in the book had been children.
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* In ''[[Emma]]'' by [[Jane Austen]], Emma gets rebuked by Mr. Knightley because of her cruel behaviour to Miss Bates.
* Patroclos, in the ''[[The Iliad]],'' calls Achilles for [[Achilles in His Tent|moping]] over Briseis instead of fighting for Greece.
** Subverted by [[Butt Monkey|Thersites]], who attempts to call out Agamemnon for being a [[Jerkass]] to Achilles, among other failings on his part, but gets beaten down by Odysseus for his arrogance. [[And There Was Much Rejoicing]].
* In Book 3 of the ''[[The Aeneid|Aeneid]]'', Aeneas and his men stop on an island and prepare for a meal, when a bunch of harpies come down and ruin the food (because that's what harpies do). So they prepare again, this time concealing weapons: when the harpies return, they attack. But not only are the harpies invulnerable (so the meal is still ruined), once they've flown to safety, one of them, Celaeno, gives a What the Hell, Hero speech, pointing out that the harpies were there first, and it's a little disproportionate to start a battle over some ruined food.
* One of the ''[[Doctor Who Expanded Universe]]'' short-story collections had a tale with an AI that could recharge itself off emotions, attempting to get enough power to send a message and prevent the destruction of the planet it was on. In the end, it decided that the best solution was to call the Doctor out on some of his less pleasant actions - such as abandoning his daughter on a relatively barbaric world and inciting a race to war to find his lost pen.
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