Talking the Monster to Death: Difference between revisions

* Usagi talks down Black Lady, who reverts to ChibiUsa in ''[[Sailor Moon]] R''. Then she does it again with Nehellenia, and finally Galaxia in ''Stars''. The anime also had her talking down lesser villains on a pretty regular basis.

* ''[[Tenchi in Tokyo]]'' (AKA ''Shin Tenchi Muyo!'') ended with Tenchi telling the villain that he accepts and understands her, and she agrees to put herself into suspended animation until she grows up into a better person. His grandfather had earlier remarked that Tenchi had the gift of being able to solve problems without fighting.

* ''[[Digimon Adventure 02]]'''s [[Mind Rape]]-powered [[Big Bad]] is [[Nigh Invulnerable]] (without the "nigh") and has been kicking our heroes' butts and spreading a sinister black cloud over the world that ''can't'' be good. The ultimate battle to save two worlds ensues... no, wait, it doesn't. Instead, the heroes get the kids whose fear he's using to think about their [[Care Bear Stare|hopes and dreams]], resulting in one of the most humiliating villain deaths ever: Various parts of his body disappear as kids say "I want to be a teacher!" "I want to be an artist!" etc. until nothing remains. Then Malo gets blasted and well whining saves the day. The villain in question, Malo Myotismon, got nicknamed [[Memetic Mutation|"Marsh Malo Myotismon"]] on numerous boards for this.

** The part that made this painful was that the future aspirations of the character seemingly had ''nothing'' to do with what had come before in the series. The guy who's currently in a wildly popular (for a) garage band? Yeah, he wants to be an ''astronaut''.

* Played with in ''[[The Slayers|Slayers]]'': Since mazoku feed on negative emotions, [[Love Freak|Amelia]]'s justice speeches tend to leave Xellos feeling rather queasy.

* Used twice in ''[[Cyborg 009]]'''s 2001 series. {{spoiler|005 uses it against the Spirit of the Earth (in the form of a gigantic jaguar that has been killing people, including the husband of a friend of 005 himself, and both 003 and 009 do that to [[Mailer Daemon|Sphynx]], a super computer who kidnaps 003 [[We Can Rule Together|to make her his puppet girlfriend]] and tries to kill the others, specially 009 and 004.}}

** This is Naruto's M.O. for practically ''every'' problem; Except, of course, when he just rams a Rasengan in their chests, usually after the villain's crossed enough [[Moral Event Horizon]]s and [[Kick the Dog|kicked enough dogs]] so Naruto focuses enough on doing something useful. He usually does this trope when it's with people like him(Outcasts, exiled and others usually considered freaks of nature out of fear), which would make him a big [[The Chessmaster|Chessmaster]] if he wasn't so stupid. Only person who's managed to avert the effects of this trope was {{spoiler|Sasuke and, for some reason, Naruto hasn't restorted to bashing him with a Rasengan.}}

** Played straight {{spoiler|with Naruto's own dark side. Justified, though because it was during a [[Journey to the Center of the Mind]], and [[Futurama|perfectly symmetrical violence]] had proven to be pointless.}}

** As of Chapter 518, it's one of the few ways of {{spoiler|killing Edo Tensei zombies(and the only way that the heroes have access to), seen when Sai's brother who had been revived decided to die again. And in the next chapter after being captured, Sasori gives up without even trying to escape after Kankuro gives a pretty speech. And there are still at least 22 more zombies to go around, so expect this trope to become much more popular.}}

* In ''[[Infinite Ryvius]]'', {{spoiler|the ''Grey Geshpenst'' completely outpowers the ''Ryvius'' and is only stopped when a badly-battered Neya begs Captain Viscuess to stop, and he realizes he can't go through with murdering 500 children.}} Combined with the events occurring on the Lift Ship at the same time, this is part of an [[Aesop]] that words can solve problems that violence can't.

* Played with in ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]''; after Kotaro [[Defeat Means Friendship|joins Negi's side]], he starts and keeps bothering Negi about the proper way to fight (fighting for the sake of fighting), prompting [[Emotionless Girl|Y]][[The Philosopher|u]][[The Stoic|e]] to flatten him with a speech.

* Played with in ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]''. When {{spoiler|Envy}} makes a desperate last attempt to turn {{spoiler|Ed, Roy, Riza and Scar}} against each other, {{spoiler|Ed tells him he's realized the reason he hates human beings so much is his very envy of their humanity}}. His response is to [[Driven to Suicide|kill himself]]. Not a straight example since he was half-dead already anywayand was completely powerless to defend himself, and it was very clear that he wasn't leaving that room alive anyway. He just took what he saw as a less humiliating exit.

* Mr. Satan (Hercule in the dub) does this to Majin Buu in ''[[Dragonball Z]]''. Unfortunately two hunters cause Buu to transform into a more evil form.

* The [[Subverted Trope]] version is used in the [[Climax Boss|Climactic mid-way]] [[Boss Battle]] of the [[OVA]] of ''[[Record of Lodoss War]]'' (which also happens to be the final battle in the first manga, where this trope is also used, since the OVA [[Compressed Adaptation|condensed]] the story dramatically. {{spoiler|Ghim insists that Leylia still exists within her possessed body, and shows a comb he made for her, which allows Leylia a foothold, distracting Karla long enough for the [[Player Party|Party]] to defeat her. Too bad the [[Sixth Ranger]] Woodchuck was possessed next.}}

** In general, this is usually Nanoha's first course of action when faced with a new villain. They never listen: cue [[Beam Spam]], [[Out of the Inferno]], etc.

* Subverted in ''[[Souten Kouro]]''. Cao Cao has a whole debate with Li Lie and defeats him with rhetoric... which buys Xu Chu enough time to come and blow his brains out.

* Subverted in ''[[Paranoia Agent]]'': {{spoiler|Mrs. Ikari sits Li'l Slugger down, discusses her life up to this point, and proceeds to divine his true nature and weaknesses... but unfortunately, she's not the one who has to come to terms with him. All her speech does is freak him out and start the destruction of Tokyo.}}

* Subverted in ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]''. In episode 9 {{spoiler|after Sayaka became a witch, Oktavia, due to her corrupted Soul Gem, Kyoko desperately looked for ways to revert Sayaka back to being a human. QB told her that to his knowledge no one has ever been able to turn back once they became a witch. He gave Kyoko a [[Hope Spot]] by saying that there is no precedent to such thing, and there might be a way which he does not know of. Kyoko then proceeded to befriend and team up with Sayaka's best friend Madoka in an attempt to [["I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight|talk Sayaka back into humanity.]]}} [[Wrong Genre Savvy|It]] [[Mercy Kill|did not]] [[Taking You with Me|end]] [[Heroic Sacrifice|well]]

 

== Comic Books ==

* In ''[[Transformers: Last Stand of the Wreckers]]'', it's [[Played for Laughs]] when Kup tells a story about how Prowl once spent two and a half straight days lecturing to a captured Decepticon every single chapter and verse of the Tyrest Accord that the 'Con had violated, until the 'Con finally committed suicide out of sheer intolerable boredom.

 

 

== Film ==

* Eddie literally does this to Blaine the Mono in [[Stephen King]]'s ''[[Dark Tower|Wizard And Glass]]''.

** More accurately, Eddie kills Blaine with an unstoppable barrage of really bad jokes. And it is awesome.

** Well, Harry ''tries'' to talk Voldemort into not throwing the curse and repenting his crimes. Instead, Voldemort refuses to listen and casts the Killing Curse at Harry {{spoiler|not knowing that Harry had become the master of the Elder Wand, which caused said curse to backfire and kill Voldemort instead.}}

* In [[Neil Gaiman]]'s ''[[Anansi Boys]]'', the protagonist scares a dragon away by the nothing he is carrying in his pocket. The dragon happens to be afraid of nothing. Absolutely terrified, in fact.

* In the novel ''Far Away From Us''' by Michael Uspensky. King Solomon convinces some brigands that "life is futile and is full of sorrows and is pointless to carry on", whereupon they (the brigands, that is) wholeheartedly agree and stab each other. The Hero then inquires if the trick could be repeated with a whole army. The king is uncertain.

* In ''[[Narnia|The Silver Chair]]'', Puddleglum manages to break the Green Witch's spell by a combination of burnt-marshwiggle odor and this trope. Ironically, he does so by ''conceding to everything she's said'' in her own [[Hannibal Lecture]], then declaring that even so, he'd rather go on living ''as if'' her accusations are baseless than embrace her overly-bleak perspective.

** Parodied hilariously by ''[[Xkcd]]'' [https://xkcd.com/635/ here].

 

* [[Doctor Who|The Doctor]] would, in a perfect world, talk all his enemies down to a negotiation table and hammer out a ceasefire and trade agreement over tea and cookies. But if that fails, he has this.

** The [[Actual Pacifist]] Seventh Doctor especially made use of this, notably talking down a Black Dalek this way in "Remembrance of the Daleks"; bear in mind that he has already taken out Skaro and the whole Dalek fleet- he went after the survivor for ''completeness' sake.'''