What Measure Is a Mook?: Difference between revisions

[[File:BITF-Ode-To-Minions-And-Mooks 7937.jpg|link=Brawl in the Family|frame|Well, do you remember them, [[You Bastard]]? Do you?]]

 

 

When the hero confronts the [[Big Bad]], no matter his crimes, he will spare him, despite all logic being against it; however, when he kills a [[Mook]] who happens to be in his way, it's [[Evil Tastes Good|delicious]].

 

{{examples}}

== Anime and Manga ==

* Averted in ''[[Trigun]]'' by Vash the Stampede who refuses to take a human life, sometimes using his [[Improbable Aiming Skills]] to shoot other people's bullets out of the air. When he gets caught flat-footed by a couple of [[Mooks]] in one episode and accidentally shoots them seriously in self-defense, he's overcome with panic for their welfare, desperately trying to bandage them up first even though he was shot as well. On the [[Crapsack World]] he lives, even young teens consider this behavior immature.

* Similarly averted in ''[[Grenadier]]'' with Rushuna Tendou, who is pretty much Vash's [[Distaff Counterpart]]. She offers everyone she meets a smile and a hug and even if they try with all their might to kill her, no matter who, she sticks to her ultimate strategy of "taking away the enemy's will to fight", which involves not killing them. And I'll be damned if it doesn't work, [[Marshmallow Hell|it being what it is]].

* Commander Sazabi's troops in ''[[SD Gundam Force]]'' may apply in a far less spoken version. [[Mecha-Mooks|The Zako Soldiers]], by far considered the series most innocent mooks never die on screen, and are simply cast aside. The more malicious Dark Axis troops are not as fortunate, however, and very clearly explode. Tallgeese's Pawn Leos fall into a middle ground, in that they enjoy what they do, but are as [[The Woobie|Woobie-like]] as the Zakos, and aren't said to actually die when defeated.

* ''[[El Cazador de la Bruja]]'' has gas-mask-wearing government soldiers attack the protagonists in a misguided attempt to contain a non-existent plague only to be killed off by various good and bad characters. The gas masks were a dead giveaway that they needed extra dehumanization for their murders to be even remotely justifiable as a good act.

* Mentioned in ''[[Rurouni Kenshin]]'', when Aoshi Shinamori condemns Shishio after Shishio [[We Have Reserves|sends four mooks to fight Aoshi knowing they would die just so he can see how good Aoshi really is]]. Shishio's [[The Dragon|Dragon]] Soujiro responds by saying that it's just as heartless to kill four men without hesitation when you know that they're just being used. Unfortunately this theme is never brought up again, but then again the main character of the series is a humongous [[Technical Pacifist]], so this situation doesn't come up very often.

* Averted in ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'', probably as a part of the whole idea of all sympathetic characters being very loyal to their [[True Companions|friends]], in contrast to the villains. When heroic characters start rebelling against the [[Armies Are Evil|Army]], they inflict injuries on mooks working for the State Military on several occasions, but none of them will kill (for characters who are soldiers, it is because the mooks are their former comrades-in-arms, for Ed, it's more because he's a [[Technical Pacifist]]). Also, the idea of "mooks don't have families" is averted in a recent chapter, where [[Fan Nickname|"Greedling"]] tells members of the [[Armies Are Evil|Army]] that if they have wives, families, etc. at home waiting for them, he's giving them a chance to run.

* The [[Villain Protagonist]] of the ''[[Mass Effect]]'' fanfic ''The Council Era'', Tyrin Lieph, completely disregards his own Mooks as expendable. While this is reasonable when it only refers to his Mecha Mooks, later within the storyline, (i.e. The second part, The Krogan Rebellions, tenuously scheduled to start in summer of 2011) {{spoiler|he has completely disregarded the value of the lives of his dezban militia, the Krogan Resistance Movement, and even his own devoted Soldiers of Salvation.}}

* Heavily deconstructed in ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6225805/1/The_Measure_of_a_Guard The Measure of a Guard]'', a short story set in the world of ''[[Fall From Heaven]]'', where the ''protagonist'' himself is a mook.

 

== Film ==

** In Part III, Nigel is able to defeat a [[Mook]] by reminding of how many anonymous henchmen he's indiscriminately killed over the years. The fact that he's [[Nominal Importance|not even wearing a name tag]] isn't improving his chances. The guy just decides to lie down and play dead.

* ''[[Road House]]'': When Patrick Swayze's character breaks into the [[Big Bad]]'s mansion, he beats the tar out of him, but then can't bring himself to kill him... despite having killed nearly all the villain's henchmen on the way in.

* In ''[[The Chronicles of Narnia]]: Prince Caspian'', the [[Big Bad]] is an evil, murderous, genocidal git who orders the killing of his own men for propaganda, and is generally not a nice guy. ''Three times'' the heroes have him at their mercy and either can't bring themselves to kill him or straight up let him go. Because it's wrong to kill. All those guards and soldiers who were just following orders get slaughtered by the hundreds without hesitation.

** It should be remembered that there is a considerable difference between killing a soldier in a fight to the death, and killing an unarmed and helpless prisoner. Slaughtering Miraz's troops on the battlefield was the former. Killing Miraz when he could not fight back was the latter.

** What about the Endor Holocaust?

*** Don't worry, there was [[No Endor Holocaust|no such thing]].

** Lucas himself weighed in on this for his commentary of ''Attack of the Clones'' (he even specifically [[Shout-Out|referenced Jay and Silent Bob when doing it]]). He figures the Geonosians were the ones who built the Death Star, and that it was probably okay for them to die, since they were "just large termites." [[What Measure Is a Non-Cute?]] / Non Human factor in as well, apparently. [[Family-Unfriendly Aesop]] ahoy!

* Subtly lampshaded in ''[[Brazil (film)|Brazil]]'', when the protagonist and his love interest are being chased by the [[Police Brutality|dystopian police]] in a [[Hot Pursuit]]. When the protagonist looks back and sees the police trucks crash and [[Every Car Is a Pinto|explode]], he cheers. But then we see a policeman getting out of the wreckage, covered in flames and flailing about, and the protagonist watches in horror. In the [[Word of God|commentary]], [[Terry Gilliam]] states that he goes out of his way to humanize the bad guys because he doesn't like this trope. Later, we see a pair of the frightening faceless state police take off their masks to complain about how hot they are - one mentions that his oversized eyebrows help him deal with sweat.

* In ''[[Knight and Day]]'', {{spoiler|Tom Cruise knows there's one evil agent who framed him, and the agency now wants him dead. So Cruise actually manages to kill about thirty completely innocent agents but ''avoid'' directly killing the villain.}}

* ''[[Judge Dredd (film)|Judge Dredd]]'' has the title character kill dozens of law-enforcement officials, despite the fact that they legitimately believe him to be a murderer (not to mention the likelihood that he personally trained some of them]].

* While ''Merantau'' does not explicitly confirm the mooks' deaths, the protagonist uses a number of techniques that would almost unquestionably kill, notably kicking a man in the head in the middle of a running long jump such that his body is sent flipping backward and whips his skull into the corner of a steel shipping container.

* ''[[The Matrix]]'' films, particularly the first film, has this happening in spades to the human security guards and law-enforcement officers.

* ''[[All Quiet on the Western Front]]'' is all about this trope. In one scene, Paul attacks a French soldier, whom he previously sees as nothing more than a [[Mook]], but after realizing that the soldier has friends, a job, and [[I Have a Family|a family]], [[My God, What Have I Done?|Paul is profoundly disturbed]].

* Taken up to eleven in Michael Crichton's final novel ''Pirate Latitudes''. The "heroes" slaughter hundreds of people, among them a ''nineteen-year-old kid''. It's not even acknowledged that the mooks these people slaughter are actually on the side of the law and it's the protagonists who are menacing the populace. The [[Big Bad]] of the novel is essentially evil incarnate, because he'd have to be, in order to be worse than the heroes. Keep in mind that this novel was published posthumously, and it wasn't actually complete.

{{quote|Yes, a good swipe at head height would kill...

''...some mother's son, some sister's brother, some lad who'd followed the drum for a shilling and his first new suit. If only she'd been trained, if only she'd had a few weeks stabbing straw men until she could believe that all men were made of straw...'' }}

{{quote|Whatever their name is, their purpose in any work of heroic fantasy is identical: it is, round about Chapter Three (or ten minutes into the film) to rush into the room, [[Mook Chivalry|attack the hero one at a time]], and be slaughtered. No-one ever asks them if they wanted to.}}

* The ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' 'Gatekeeper' novel trilogy. The [[Big Bad]] has dozens of human mooks on his side. Many of them are smart enough to figure out they're getting a raw deal from a guy who wants to turn Earth into a charnel pit. The authors delve into the minds of many mooks, making some sympathetic. Then the mooks tend to explode.

* Both averted and played straight in ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]''. In the averted case, when Sam sees Faramir's rangers attacking a band of Southrons in service to Mordor, he wonders of a dead [[Fantastic Racism|Southron soldier]] "whether he was really evil at heart, and what lies or threats had driven him on this march so long from his home, and whether he would have rather stayed there in peace." On the other hand, [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?|Orcs are slaughtered wholesale and without a moment's hesitation]] by pretty much everybody.

** Well, orcs are [[Exclusively Evil]], although Tolkien was troubled by the [[Unfortunate Implications]].

* Inverted in ''[[The Dresden Files]]'', especially near the end of ''Small Favor''. Harry is more than willing to do absolutely everything in his power to kill {{spoiler|[[Big Bad|Nicodemus]], even slowly throttle him to death over several minutes}}, but he steadfastly refuses to kill the mooks that chase him down afterward.

* In ''[[Mistborn|The Well of Ascension]]'' by Brandon Sanderson, Vin is perfectly happy to attack an enemy keep, killing dozens of soldiers at least. However, when she reaches the lord and his son—the only two named characters in the building—she refuses to harm them and leaves instead.

* Jenna in the [[Great Alta Saga]] is prone to these moments, but she usually feels guilty (read: can barely keep going) afterword. It makes sense given that she has been raised in a culture that has no real taboo against violence, but she remains a seventeen-year-old girl.

* In [[Aaron Allston]]'s ''[[Galatea in 2-D]]'', the hero [[Cold-Blooded Torture|tortures]] one of the villain's mooks to try to get information from another. He slackens off without getting everything he wanted, realizing that she didn't know anything and that he was invoking this trope. [[My God, What Have I Done?|That thought horrifies him]] -- [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?|just because they were]] [[Art Initiates Life|two paintings who came to life]], and whom the villain had sent to kill him didn't mean torturing them was all right. {{spoiler|At the climax, the trope is reversed: they kill the villains and tell the mooks that as long as they stay out of their way, the heroes won't bother them.}}

* In ''[[His Dark Materials]]'', this is a function of the daemons: if the daemon is a rare animal, it would be a crime to kill the owner. If the daemon is a guard dog or a wolf, go ahead it's a war, any kill in the other camp is good!

** Of course it's also played straight. Even after the Animorphs start to think of the Hork Bajir and Taxxons as people they are still far less likely to look for nonlethal resolutions than they are when dealing with Human Controllers.

*** Which is itself brought up as a plot point when Visser One figures out that the Animorphs are human because of this. It's probably safe to say that this trope was totally [[Deconstructed]].

* Inverted to the extreme in Ken Follett's ''Lie Down With Lions'', where Jane refuses to kill the Russian soldiers who are at that very moment trying to capture her and Ellis and bring them back for execution, and who are at war with the very Afghans who's she's been trying to help for the past few years, because the soldiers "all have mothers." She has considerably less consideration than that for the actual Big Bad.

* As mentioned above, ''[[Star Wars]]'', at least with regards to certain types of mooks. In one novel, during a scene from the perspective of an Imperial officer, he muses that since the Emperor's death, stormtroopers are even less willing to retreat, becoming almost fatalistic in their outlook. Of course, said perspective also includes musing that stormtroopers aren't really people—even the Empire believes that, apparently. Meanwhile, it's averted with the more run of the mill mooks. In the Wraith Squadron novels, they try hard to avoid casualties, since they're fighting more for hearts and minds than control, as the New Republic has already conquered Coruscant. One notable sequence a gunner jump from his ground-based gunnery tower a second before a Wraith fighter hits it, and he muses that at least he won't have to worry about the outcome of the battle in another fifteen hundred meters. One thousand. Five hundred...

 

== Live Action TV ==

* Pointed out in ''[[How I Met Your Mother]]'' when Lily found out [[Star Wars|Stormtroopers]] were not robots.

{{quote|'''Lily:''' So when they blew up the Death Star, those were ''people'' on that thing?}}

 

== Video Games ==

** In fact, there is one specific faceless mook early in the game who has an effect on the plot near the end—whether or not you kill her determines whether in sector nine Iji will {{spoiler|have a crisis of faith as she finds the log of a close friend of hers}} or find a log stating how {{spoiler|the two of them found a safe place to flee to and will become two of the only three Tasen who are capable of surviving the end of the game}}. There will be no evidence at all that this mook was different from the others until you've reached sector nine (or more likely, read some of the earlier logs ''after'' reaching sector nine on a previous playthrough), and even then you have to infer which one she was. The mook in question is all by herself and little threat and can be easily killed or easily run past {{spoiler|(and thanks to the truce won't attack you at all if you've followed the pacifist path up to that point)}}, so it's probably a fair bet that most first-time players will kill her for her nano if they're playing a killer and spare her if they're playing a pacifist.

** Hell, Iji actually apologizes after her first few kills.

* In ''[[Marathon Trilogy|Marathon]]'', there's no sympathy at all for the thousands of Pfhor you kill through the games (only one has been explicitly referred to, and that was as "that pile of chitin and fluids cooling on the floor behind you"). In the ''Marathon'' 3rd party scenario ''Rubicon'', however, the player comes across [http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/9402/37191514.png this] terminal after killing a whole lot of Enforcers. (The kind of mook seen in the picture.)

** In one of the early missions of ''Marathon 2: Durandal'', you encounter a Sph't compiler at a terminal, who quickly notices you and is summarily dispatched. What was he programming? A message for you, apologizing for his incapacity to resist the compulsion to kill you, and forgiving your for your inevitable response. He encourages you to make haste and fight hard, for the sake his fellow Sph't, yet to be freed.

** ''[[Deus Ex]]'' actually does an astonishingly good job of letting you choose whether this trope is in effect. Aside from a straight [[Pacifist Run]], from the very start the game offers a variety of non-lethal ways to take out mooks, and {{spoiler|up until you leave for the resistance}} your efforts to either cheerfully indulge in or stringently avoid wanton mook killing are noted by the game and commented on by other agents, for better or worse.

* In ''[[Tenchu]]'', the player can often [[Enemy Chatter|hear the mooks utter some lines]] while hiding in the Shadows. That includes lines as "The doctor said I should stay away from dangerous business for a while" (said by a ''[[Ninja]]'' of all people) and "I need to cut down on my drinking, or my wife will be mad at me again". Though that might not be intentional. You could feel sorry for mooks getting murdered seconds after saying "I'm sure tonight will be completely uneventful".

* The personal emails that you sometimes find, alongside useful passcodes, security information etc, in dead or unconscious guards' computers in ''[[Splinter Cell]]'' can be a bit of a guilt trip.

** A particularly noteworthy example occurs in the first mission of Chaos Theory; one of the guards you can grapple and interrogate instead tells you how he knew something like this would happen ever since his family was killed by Americans, and how he's prepared to die so he can meet them again. And he doesn't even have a name. It's a little disturbing, actually; even Sam is creeped out.

** Entirely averted in ''Conviction'' though.

* ''[[Sin and Punishment]]'' has the Armed Volunteers, a military group devoted to defending against the monstrous Ruffians. Unfortunately, they're also creating martial law in Japan, so Achi's group labels them as their enemies. Once one of the main characters becomes [[Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever|a giant Ruffian]], they mobilize, and the other main character's next mission is basically wiping out their entire military, a military that most of them joined specifically to protect humanity. If that wasn't enough, Achi laughs at their pathetic deaths, providing an early clue that there is something wrong with her.

** Tenpenny and later Toreno stonewalls any attempts to put CJ away for good. And besides, it's knocking out a few fellow officers off the ladder.

* In ''[[Half-Life]]'', both [[Mook]] and [[One-Man Army]] are [[Deconstruction|deconstructed]]; sneaky players can listen in on the [[Armies Are Evil|Army]] as they have weird self-hating conversations about [[Cavalry Betrayal|slaughtering hundreds of scientists who expected them to RESCUE them]] - and later their rage at the player, a scientist who has the audacity to ''not'' [[Dying Like Animals|die like his colleagues]] and is instead slaughtering them in return.

* ''[[Call of Duty]]: [[Modern Warfare]] 2'' reminds one of this near the end. {{spoiler|The [[Big Bad]] is then revealed to be a rogue general who has orchestrated the events of the game as one giant [[Batman Gambit]], and now the two main characters shoot up his private guard in a mission to take him out for sheer revenge. While the game implies that these mooks are an elite paramilitary unit handpicked by the general and not really US soldiers at this point, there's no question that most if not all signed up believing they would be doing the right thing and probably aren't even aware of their boss's behind the scenes actions. On the other hand, Shepherd's troops saw him shoot Roach and Ghost, then threw their bodies into a ditch then doused them with gasoline.}}

** Although the Player is encouraged as {{spoiler|Mactavish}} to treat them such a way when {{spoiler|Sheperd bombs a base with many soldiers STILL INSIDE.}} And a variation of this occurs within the {{spoiler|Airport}} scene, as most people treat the {{spoiler|civilians}} as faceless, even though being encouraged to feel for them (and all the other people they have to kill). Heck, some are {{spoiler|1=dragging the bodies of their FRIENDS less than 20m in front of you.}}

* In a web flash game series ''[[MARDEK]]'', Emela asks this very same thing. She questions the morality of killing henchmen, remarking on how they have lives, and possibly families of their own, that she and her crew are tearing apart. She even exclaims "A killer killer is still a killer" (if you kill a killer, you're a killer as well), confusing the main lead. Her fellow teammates tells her to put it out of her mind, since as soldiers, this is part of the job.

** Judging by one of said teammates' comments, that little speech got to him, too. Also, the speech was brought on by a semi-accidental [[Unfriendly Fire]] [[Shoot the Dog]] moment when [[Save the Villain|Saving The Villain]].

{{quote|"All simulated, of course, but real enough to them, I suppose."}}

* ''[[Sengoku Basara]]'' plays this trope to the hilt. The various warlords you play as playable characters fight each other for practically no reason and are on quite cordial terms even as they're busy smacking the crap out of each other—the hundreds of people KOed every battle are never even mentioned. In one case in ''Samurai Heroes'', Ieyasu consents to an alliance with the Hojo clan after the clan's messenger—the ninja Kotaro Fuuma—has butchered his way through Ieyasu's guards and doesn't seem to give it a second thought.

* Zig zagged in [[Super Robot Wars]]: original generation. your battalion cuts through what amounts to an intermediate army of mooks without mention, then there's one that's portrayed as sympathetic, but he joins your battalion and you go back to killing an army of mooks without a second thought.

* Invoked on the ''[[You Bastard|player's]]'' part in ''[[Pikmin]]''. Over the course of the game, you'll send wave after wave of Pikmin to their inevitable doom, and when they're gone you'll just pull up more without thinking about it. The [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3syya-w9xgw&feature=related theme song], however, is a tearjerking, melancholy ballad from the Pikmin's point of view in which they're resigned to their fate.

{{quote|''We'll work together, fight, and be eaten,''

* ''[[Guild Wars]] Beyond: Winds of Change'' plays this trope hard at times. Having spent the better part of a decade at war, your character is increasingly bitter about the thousands he has killed and the pain it has caused to their loved ones and companions. One guard even muses he has spent so long treating a gang as a faceless enemy he never believed any would be there save to act as villains.

** Seen earlier but not expanded on during the ''Nightfall'' Pogahn Passage mission. While disguised as a Kournan, it was possible to overhear the enemy talking about how Varesh was a visionary who planned to bring prosperity to all the nations. Most telling was one who talked about how his poor family had been promised fertile land in Istan for their role in the war.

 

== Webcomics ==

* Invoked in ''[[Concerned]]'' Detailing the [http://hlcomic.com/index.php?date=2006-05-17 life] [http://hlcomic.com/index.php?date=2006-05-18 and] [http://hlcomic.com/index.php?date=2006-05-20 death] of a random Overwatch Soldier. {{spoiler|1=Only to be subverted one issue [http://hlcomic.com/index.php?date=2006-05-22 later.]}}

* In ''[[Antihero for Hire]]'', mooks are taken down with little to no guilt by [[Anti-Hero|Dechs]]. [[Knight Templar|Crossroad]] has a bad habit of killing everyone, to an extreme even he doesn't agree with (for her part, she considers Dechs a "[[Wide-Eyed Idealist|rampant idealist]]").

** However, the reason Dech dislikes killing major villains isn't morality, it's pragmatism. He gets paid for thwarting villains. If he takes them in alive, he is paid more, then they can potentially escape from the [[Cardboard Prison]] and try some harebrained scheme again - at which point he can get paid for thwarting them ''again''.

** Well, not quite. The heroes still try to avoid killing anyone other than the (justifiably) [[Exclusively Evil]] Elite Guards.

* Subverted and inverted in ''[[Terinu]]'', as the main cast shoot down attacking Galapados warriors with no remorse, even blasting a breeding facility without a qualm to cover their escape. An act that is immediately inverted when the Galapados leader ''contradicts the Big Bad's orders'' to go after them, in order to save the dying Galapados clones.

{{quote|ARG! My hopes and dreams!}}

* Parodied in [http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/10/19/ this] ''[[Penny Arcade]]'' strip. A mook is not so happy with his boss' escapades and is thinking about switching sides and—oops.

{{quote|These minions clock in from 9 to 5// to provide for their wives// not knowing' it'd be the last day// of their liiiives!}}

** An earlier strip [http://brawlinthefamily.keenspot.com/2009/03/17/148-stomp1/ with multiple endings] also featured this trope.

** [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0784.html In this strip,] Elan celebrates when the Allosaurus eats the [[Mooks]] instead of two [[Jerkass]] bounty hunters. "Hooray! The people whose names I know are saved!"

* [http://xkcd.com/873/ Parodied] in ''[[Xkcd]]''.

{{quote|'''Walkbot''': Hey, Dino, can robots last ''forever''?

'''Dino''': Maybe, but most of the time, [[Just a Machine|a robot's sole purpose]] is to be ''killed'', just like ''[[Expendable Clone|clones]]'' and ''[[Conservation of Ninjutsu|ninjas]]''. }}

* In ''[[Sonichu]]'', especially during the final two issues, the characters are more than happy to mow down hundreds of Jerkops and Decepticlones. However, during the ninth issue, it's revealed that the Jerkops were actually ''brainwashed people''. But, for Chris, Sonichu and the like, that's okay, because they were in his way of Chris' great Love Quest.

* ''[[Mushroom Go]]'' shows the measure of a mook in a flashback. {{spoiler|Too bad the mook in question is Captain Martello's father.}}

 

== Web Original ==

* Involuntarily inverted in the first two seasons of ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2003]]'' (2003): thanks to standards and practices, defeated mooks were invariably shown as being merely knocked out, despite the fact that the turtles theoretically had no problem killing in self defense and tried several times to kill the Shredder.

** Averted in the [[Family Friendly]] 1987 ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'', where the Shredder gets [[Mecha-Mooks|robot Foot Clan]] ninjas so that the Turtles have plenty to dismember with their sharp weapons, but nobody has to worry about where he's getting all these mooks from or why they're so incompetent.

** All the mooks were Bi-Nomes, [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?|which invokes another trope.]]

* ''[[Stroker and Hoop]]''. Hoop fires at ninjas in order to save Stroker and his son. Instead of scaring them away (his secret usual M.O.) he nails one in the brain. Hoop goes into a wild emotional breakdown and essentially takes over the ninja's life. Stroker doesn't see what the big deal was (he intentionally shoots people all the time) and even the ninja's boss kills his own minions (despite saying how stupid it would be to do so).

* Megatron's Decepticons in ''[[Transformers Prime]]'' are—save for a few lieutenants—seemingly nameless, faceless Vehicons (unlike most characters on the show, they have Cylon-like unemotive faces). Needless to say, the Autobots kill them by the dozen in each episode, and even Starscream once demonstrates a Doomsday Device on a hapless Vehicon. But...later on we see them talking, interacting, and some even expressing doubts about the current leadership, demonstrating that they are living thinking beings. Yet, average, about 10 of them die in every episode at the hands of our "heroes", often in very brutal ways (disemboweling, decapitation) which is allowed to be shown on a kid's show because, a) it's Hasbro's own network and b) "Hey, they are robots". And all this often by the very same Optimus Prime who offers Starscream to actually join the Autobots, and for a long time, does not want to kill the Megatron who essentially destroyed Cybertron and turned it into a desolate world crawling with cyber-zombies—because they used to be buddies...

** Especially jarring in the episode where Ratchet supercharges himself with an experimental Energon drug, and becomes a badass jerk. After an attack at a Decepticon Squad, while the others massacre the guards, Ratchet goes on to capture and then interrogate and torture (with a scalpel!) a Decepticon Technician. Optimus Prime stops him, and warns Ratchet that he should ''not'' torture a non-combatant Decepticon. Okaaaay... so torturing a captured Vehicon soldier would be ay-okay for Prime?!?

** Panthro is very much an equal opportunity guy in his handling of the trope—his own arch-enemy gets the same treatment as any nameless mook. Whenever he encounters Grune, he doesn't even want to talk to the guy who used to be his friend before his betrayal—he just wants to kill him, same as any other enemy. (And, he is not afraid to make any sacrifices to get the job done).

 

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Morality Tropes]]

[[Category:Mooks]]

[[Category:Villains]]

[[Category:What Measure Is an Index?]]