It Gets Easier: Difference between revisions
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== Comic Books ==
* This is one of the many reasons [[Batman]] doesn't kill. If he resorts to the one first kill (he says is often all too easy to fall into it), he may become jaded to humanity and not be able to stop.
** The Batman example is also an in-universe tactic. In ''Knightfall'', Robin points out that Batman ''scares'' the crooks, but doesn't actually ''hurt''
** From ''Bruce Wayne: Fugitive'':
{{quote|'''Checkmate Operative''': We have no evidence of Batman ever having killed.
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* In John Grisham's first novel ''A Time to Kill'', the guy who kills the two guys who raped his kid daughter thinks that it was harder to kill the first Viet Cong fighter.
* This is strongly implied to be the case for the murderer in the [[Lord Peter Wimsey]] novel ''Unnatural Death''.
* Acheron Hades, in ''The Eyre Affair'', describes murder as "like eating a packet of shortbread"
* In [[Tanya Huff]]'s ''[[Confederation of Valor|Valor's Choice]]'', Lieutenant Jarret is shaken by having killed someone for the first time, and asks Torin if it ever gets easier. Her response is along the lines of, "yes, sir. I'm sorry to say that it does."
* Similar to the Batman example, [[Hercule Poirot]] gives this as a justification for bringing killers to justice (after they killed once, they will kill again to avoid being discovered, and each kill will be easier than the previous one). {{spoiler|This is an important plot point in his final case.}}
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* The trope forms part of the rationale behind the "red test" seen in ''[[Chuck]]'' in which an operative must perform his or her first kill before being promoted to agent. Disturbingly, the kills are of the cold-blooded variety: assassinations and murders, rather than kills in the heat of battle. Sarah and Casey's high body count attest to the clear implication that it gets easier.
* ''[[NCIS]]'' has also established that in the service's earlier days as "NIS", agents underwent a similar "red test" scenario, carrying out assassinations as a rite of passage. Jenny Shepherd failed her initial assigned kill, though she goes on to commit numerous kills (both hot- and cold-blooded) before the one kill she did not complete years earlier {{spoiler|results in her death}}.
* In ''[[Bones]]'', Brennan is greatly disturbed when she kills for the first time, yet later asks to be given a gun during another case because she's killed before, and in "The Wannabe in the Weeds" she is comfortable enough with killing to shoot a woman in the throat with no remorse evident. (The woman in question HAD just shot Brennan's
* In ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'', Buffy is [[Genre Savvy]] enough that a substantial part of her later character arc is about trying to avert this trope.
{{quote|I can beat up the demons until the cows come home. And then I can beat up the cows. But I'm not sure I like what it's doing to me. (...) To slay, to kill. It means being hard on the inside.}}
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