Kill the Ones You Love: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

Sometimes, a character you care for is going to die. Rather than killed off by the bad guys or some cosmic whim, though, the murderer is [[True Companions|another character who cares very much for the deceased]]. Perhaps your little sis has become a [[Tragic Monster]] and you have to [[Staking the Loved One|stake them]] or maybe you have to [[Fighting Your Friend|Fight Your Friend]] to the death. Occasionally it's a case of [[Shoot the Dog]] or [[Mercy Kill]]. In any case, the characters know each other, as well as their relationship to each other. And the killer knows that the other has to die for anything to be resolved. In some cases leads to [[Cradling Your Kill]].

 

In video games, this is invariably a [[Player Punch]]. This trope usually doesn't villainize the killer, since the now-dead character generally has to be killed to right wrongs, or at least keep the story going. Doesn't stop him or her from [[Heroic BSOD|feeling like crap]] afterwards, though.

 

{{deathtrope}}

 

{{examples}}

== Anime and Manga ==

* ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'': Shinji killing his only friend Kaworu, in order to save humanity. Kaworu actually ''[[Go Out with a Smile|smiles]]'' when he tells Shinji he has to die...

*** It's also especially tragic because everybody except Lelouch thinks Suzaku is dead and since he was an accomplice in the [[Zero-Approval Gambit]], he can't go public or he'll ruin Lelouch's plans. Also, he can't take the easy way out because his "live" Geass forces him to do exactly that.

* ''[[Weiss Kreuz]]'' loves this trope. ''Loves'' it. Aya has to kill two of his mentors; Ken has to kill his best friend, girlfriend, surrogate mother, ''and'' old friend's brother; and Youji gets to kill ''three'' girlfriends.

* In ''[[RG Veda]]'', believing that Sōma can't survive the battle and will be killed, Kendappa-ō kills her herself, and then commits suicide because she sees no point in living on without her.

* In the ''[[Claymore]]'' universe, this sort of thing happens all the time due to the whole [[I Cannot Self-Terminate]] thing. The first instance occured in the very first volume when Clare was called upon to [[Mercy Kill]] her girlhood friend Elena.

** The instance with Raphaela is particulary memorable, tough.

** [[Ga-Rei|Yomi]] [[Memetic Mutation|;_;]] (''twice'', [[Trauma Conga Line|at that]])

* In ''[[Corsair]]'', this is a major issue for Canale. His murder of Sesaam, his lover at the time, is the biggest instance but he also feels responsible for his mother's suicide and the general death and destruction that follow him wherever he goes.

* In ''Project ARMS'', all of the heroes say, in no uncertain terms, that they won't hesitate to kill Ryo if he's taken over by the Jabberwock. Given that he fears that happening to him, it's actually ''comforting''. At the end of the manga, he remembers this when he has to bring himself to kill Katsumi, who is possessed by Alice. Fortunately, she gets better.

** An even more tragic example is later in the third timeline, when Madoka and Homura destroy Walpurgisnacht, but are both in danger of becoming witches. Madoka removes the darkness from Homura's Soul Gem in order to spare her from becoming a witch, and Homura returns the favor by tearfully [[Mercy Kill]]ing Madoka before she becomes a witch.

* Realising that he has to do this to his [[Love Interest]], [[Emotionless Girl|Yin]] because her [[Super-Powered Evil Side]] will destroy the world if he doesn't causes [[Badass|Hei]] from ''[[Darker than Black]]'' to [[Heroic BSOD|BSOD]] big time leading to him becoming the drunken [[Jerkass]] we know from the second season.

* This is the entire point of the Sacrifice of ''[[Berserk]]'', as first revealed in the Guardians of Desire arc. By consigning that which you most love to be eaten by demons, the would-be Apostle (or Godhand) cuts himself or herself off from humanity and opens himself or herself to evil. Unlike most of the examples on this page, this act is presented as a monstrous betrayal of everything the person holds dear and a crossing of the [[Moral Event Horizon]], both because of the [[Cruel and Unusual Death|Cruel And Unusual Deaths]] often suffered by those who get the Brand put on them and due to the added little detail that anyone sacrificed in the creation of a demon gets his or her soul condemned to Hell for all eternity.

** Conrad also throws Yozak off a cliff {{spoiler|during his [[Face Heel Turn]], right after Yozak attacked him while giving a declaration that was basically, 'you're my best friend and my captain and if this is how it's going to be I'll kill you myself.'}}

** And in the weird guest episode with the mountain of betrayal miasma, where everyone except [[Incorruptible Pure Pureness|Yuuri]] became convinced that everyone else had been compromised by the mist of betrayal and become their enemy. Yozak and Conrad had rather a good duel in the snow.

 

== Live Action TV ==

* Done tragically in ''[[NCIS]]'' - Ziva kills her brother Ari (who is a [[Complete Monster]]) and is never able to mention him again without visibly stiffening or crying.

* In ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'', Wilson does this when he turns off Amber's life support. For everybody else, though, it was [[Alas, Poor Scrappy]].

** The end cutscene twists the knife by revealing that The Boss was a [[Fake Defector]] after all, and it was her sworn duty to be killed by Snake in order to prevent a nuclear war.

** The Boss had to experience something similar: She ended up having to go to Tselinoyarsk in 1962 to fight The Sorrow, and the flashbacks shown when Snake regains consciousness implies that she was unwilling to kill The Sorrow. Peace Walker explains the exact circumstances of what happened: The Philosophers forced them to fight each other to the death under the threat of Ocelot's life if both survive.

** Or, in fact, if you take any other path. You can't be allied to both Chiaki and Isamu after all, you'll have to fight at least one of them.

* In ''[[Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume]]'', the titular feather is used to sacrifice party members, but it will ''only'' work on people who already trust you as a friend. So they ''have'' to like you for you to kill them.