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 ==

{{quote|"We could introduce him to my mother. She could talk him to death."}}

* Six nice little words for you: [[Labyrinth|You have no power over me.]] - which were the end to a lengthy, melodramatic speech but it actually just were these words that did the trick.

 

 

== Game Books ==

* The ''[[Marvel Super Heroes]]'' CYOA ''Spider-Man: City In Darkness'' featured a rather [[Anvilicious]] version. Doctor Octopus has embarked on a scheme that will destroy New York. If you (as [[Spider-Man]]) try to actually fight Ock, he goes down in less than a paragraph, only for his psychiatrist to chew you out over saving millions of lives. The ''proper'' solution is to simply tell one of web-head's greatest enemies that he's hurting people; he immediately stops his evil schemes and breaks down crying.

 

== Literature ==

{{quote|'''Stephenie Meyer:''' [[They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character|Alice]] tore a page from ''[[Shakespeare|The Merchant of Venice]]'' because the end of ''Breaking Dawn'' was going to be somewhat similar: bloodshed appears inevitable, doom approaches, and then the power is reversed and the game is won by some clever verbal strategies; no blood is shed, and the romantic pairings all have a happily ever after.}}

* Any ''[[Discworld]]'' book aimed at younger readers (marked "A Tale of Discworld") will likely end like this. ''A Hat Full of Sky'' contains a particularly notable example, as Tiffany ''literally'' talks the Hiver through to the death it wants.

** Let's not forget pig boring. Doesn't really count since pigs aren't monsters, but literally talking it to death has to be mentioned.

* In Robert Lynn Asprin's ''[[Myth Adventures|Myth-Ing Persons]]'', Aahz is being held in a prison which is a magically-animated monster-head. Skeeve frees him by prompting him to tell a string of his old drinking stories, which are so infamously boring the prison-head yawns, allowing Aahz to jump to freedom.

* 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.'''

** It is a little more complicated than that, but not by much.

** Another ''[[Babylon 5]]'' example—during the civil war between Sheridan's forces and Earth Force ships loyal to President Clark, Sheridan convinces one of the enemy ship captains that Clark's orders are illegal and that he should therefore disobey them. That decision is briefly reversed when the other ship's first officer takes over, and then re-reversed when the ship's crew takes the first officer into custody.

** In the first season, Sinclair talked one [[Monster of the Week]] into committing suicide (more or less).

* In one episode of ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'', the [[Monster of the Week]], a [[Card-Carrying Villain]], has Troi trapped behind an impenetrable force field. Picard {{spoiler|gives a speech about how the monster isn't actually evil. This upsets the monster enough that its concentration on maintaining its force field weakens to the point where the Enterprise's [[Teleporters and Transporters|teleporter]] can rescue Troi.}}

* On Madeline Kahn's appearance on ''[[The Muppet Show]]'', she appears in a skit where she is in a park marvelling at how beautiful everything is. Along comes a monster who starts destroying each beautiful thing she mentions. Then she turns to the monster and starts talking about how beautiful it is in its awfulness. The monster starts shrinking from embarrassment until it is small enough for Madeline to hit it away with her umbrella. "Sometimes it helps to talk your problems down to size."

* In ''[[Warehouse 13]]'' Myka does this with H.G Wells when H.G is trying to destroy the world. In the end Myka makes H.G put a gun to her head telling H.G to shoot her then since everyone was going to die anyway then H.G should just shoot her making H.G realise she can't kill Myka and has a breakdown.

 

== Mythology ==

** Wouldn't that be an inversion? Talking Yourself To Life?

* Subverted in a Japanese folktale: a monk meets in a ruin a wicked, cannibalistic hag who's crying because she can't reach Nirvana (being a cannibalistic hag and all). The monk tries to talk to her and make her repent her sins, but the old witch changes her mind and [[Downer Ending|devours the poor guy]].

 

== New Media ==

 

== Tabletop Games ==

* The infamous story of a PC in ''[[Paranoia (game)|Paranoia]]'' talking the Computer into a logic loop and crashing it.

* There are several ways you can do this in ''[[Exalted]]'', to the point that most Social charms are built around this trope. A few of them even references the story of Zhuge Liang (see [[Real Life]] examples).

 

== Video Games ==

*** ''[[Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne|Nocturne]]'' had Jive Talk which allowed you to converse with certain demons that you normally couldn't.

*** ''[[Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey|Strange Journey]]'' had Lunatic which allowed you to talk to Demons during the Full Moon. Their behavior is far different though (Much easier to enrage or recruit)

** Also played straight in one area where you can hurt the monsters by reading a dictionary to them.

* Because many creations instinctively obey anyone who can control essence, a PC in the ''[[Geneforge]]'' series with high leadership has the option to convince some creations to commit suicide.

* ''[[Deus Ex: Human Revolution]]'' gives you the opportunity to use diplomacy to overcome some situations. Unfortunately, the main bosses can't be beaten this way.

* Inverted in ''[[Crimsoness]]'', with [[Motor Mouth|Iteko]] trying to talk ''the main character'' to death, taking advantage of the game's 3 minute time limit and talking on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on...

 

== Web Comics ==

** Later it's revealed in a [[Tear Jerker|heartbreaking]] (mini)arc that {{spoiler|his father got banished by his mother}} with the [http://asherhyder.deviantart.com/art/Roommates-133-Forsaken-184751515 very SAME monologue] and appearently it [http://asherhyder.deviantart.com/art/Roommates-22-Girls-Rock-71158866 also works] on [[The Lord of the Rings|Ringwraiths]].

* ''[[Vexxarr]]'' once he <s>was deranged enough</s> got the hang of it, managed to [http://www.vexxarr.com/archive.php?seldate=010311 disable three crewmates in three pages] by talking to them.

* In ''[[Digger]]''. this is Boneclaw Mother's weapon of choice. {{spoiler|Eventually used to stop Jhalm. "Don't worry about him. We had a little chat and he decided to leave."}}

* In ''[[Captain SNES]]'', Frog, Palom and Porom defeated the Eater of Dreams during a conversation. He was giving his big speech about how the heroes have no chance and the heroes were saying how much of a cheating bastard he was or how he could not win, but the EOD ends up dying because he wasn't paying attention to his HP and ran out of hit points due to a previously cast Virus spell.

** [[Mr. Exposition|Mr. Verres]], as the new [http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2010-01-19 Head of Paranormal Diplomacy], had a meeting with some sort of half-a-ton troll ("[http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2012-01-10 business stuff]") and somehow convinced him to apply elsewhere with that rampaging "deathless army of rage". He's just that good.

* ''[[The Non-Adventures of Wonderella]]'' presents it [http://nonadventures.com/2013/03/16/two-girls-one-up/ in an old game format].

 

== Web Original ==

* Spoofed in ''[[The Salvation War]]''. A Russian politician makes a defeated demon ''beg to be killed'' by reciting some speeches of Russia's then-president Vladimir Putin to it.

* [[Atop the Fourth Wall|Linkara]], in the climax of the 2011 "Entity" Arc, talks the Entity into killing itself by using an [[And Then What?|Omnicidal]] [[Logic Bomb]].

 

== Western Animation ==

* Terry gives an excellent example in ''[[Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker]]''. While Bruce much preferred to ignore the Joker's insane ramblings and [[The Stoic|stay silent]], Terry has no difficulty pushing Joker's buttons in a [[Ironic Echo|complete reversal]] of Joker's speech with the original Batman. Who knew laughing at the Joker would be his [[Berserk Button]]?

* In an old animated short on ''[[Sesame Street]]'', the Western town of Sniddlers Gulch is terrorized by Cowboy X, a huge bruiser who rides around town using an ink stamp to mark random things with a letter X. One small boy finally tries asking Cowboy X not to do that. Cowboy X actually agrees to stop. In a subversion, he immediately changes his name to Cowboy O, and rides around town stamping things with the letter O. In a double subversion, the people of Sniddlers Gulch are satisfied with this.

 

== Real Life ==

** Ironically enough, it was subverted in its very first use during the Senate's meeting over the issue to reverse the censure placed on [[Andrew Jackson]]. The opponents to reversing it simply began to talk on and on. The Jacksonian faction's response? They simply stocked up on food, ale and coffee and enjoyed themselves until the opposition gave up.

*** In America at least, the ability to use a filibuster to halt the passing of a bill became so annoying that it was decided that any use of it could be overridden by a 60% majority simply because pretty much anyone could delay a bill and piss off everyone just by talking for a long time.

** This ended up getting subverted in the USA by the introduction of rules that removes the need to talk for hours to filibuster - a formal declaration of filibustering a bill is enough for it to count.

* Zhuge Liang has a knack for this. He once challenged Wang Lang to a battle of words, and when Zhuge finished verbally lobotomizing the reasons for Wei's political moves, Wang Lang ''died''. Same thing happened with Cao Zhen, but with a ''letter''. In the exact words, "Cao Zhen became furious, coughed, and spat blood..." If only Zhuge Liang could have a little chat with all his enemies...

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Death Tropes]]

[[Category:Psychological Combat]]

[[Category:Drama Tropes]]

[[Category:Speeches and Monologues]]