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You Kill It, You Bought It: Difference between revisions
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* The country of Arko in Philosopher in Arms follows the law of 'what kills, becomes'. Killing an Arkan in a lawful manner results in the killer inheriting all of his property, including his wife, children, slaves, and job, as the hero finds out when he defeats
* Played with in [[Brandon Sanderson]]'s Stormlight Archive, the most common way by far of aquiring Shards is to kill a Shardbearer, however, it is nearly impossible to kill a shardbearer unless you already have both Plate and Blade yourself, so you will generally just win the right to choose who gets the shards.
* The office of [[The Grim Reaper|Death]] in Piers Anthony's ''[[Incarnations of Immortality]]'' series passes this way. Normally Death wears impenetrable armor, but sooner or later every Death gets careless...
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* In [[Tamora Pierce]]'s [[Tortall Universe|Lioness Quartet,]] Alanna winds up killing a desert tribe's shaman in a fight, and is told that she ''must'' now take his place.
* In [[Terry Pratchett]]'s ''[[Discworld]]'':
** {{smallcaps|Death's}} job was shown to work this way in ''[[Discworld/Mort|Mort]]''.
** ''[[Discworld/Reaper Man|Reaper Man]]'', when {{smallcaps|Death's}} time for "retirement" comes, a new Death shows up to kill him so he can take his place. {{spoiler|However, in a subversion, the original Death is actually able to defeat his replacement.}}
** He also takes the place of [[Santa Claus|The Hogfather]] for a while, not because he killed him, but because someone else is trying to, and [[Someone Has to Do It|the role has to be filled.]]
* In ''[[Harry Potter]] and the Deathly Hallows'' a central plot point is that wands may switch allegiance to whoever kills or defeats the former owner, which is why wands of wizards who die natural deaths are usually destroyed or buried with their owner; they will not accept a new master. These facts are of particular importance relating to {{spoiler|the Elder Wand}}.
** What most wizards don't realize, and what ends up being a major plot point at the end of the book, is that {{spoiler|killing your opponent isn't necessary, you just have to somehow deprive them of their wand. Even if it's not the wand in question, you will still have mastery over it}}. This throws a wrench in {{spoiler|Dumbledore's plan to leave the Elder Wand without a master: he originally intended to let Snape kill him, which would mean the wand still belonged to him in death.}} Instead, {{spoiler|Draco disarms Dumbledore, unwittingly becoming the Elder Wand's master, meaning that ''Harry'' later becomes its master when he disarms Draco}}. This means that {{spoiler|when Voldemort, who thinks that he is the wand's master because he killed Snape, tries to duel Harry with the Elder Wand, it obeys Harry, not Voldemort}}. Confused? You're not alone.
* In ''The Last Light of the Sun'', there's a mercenary organization which you can only join by defeating a current member in ritual combat.
* This is how First Mate Cox becomes chief of the cannibalistic Raiders in ''[[Nation]]''. In that case, he ''meant'' to kill the previous chief; he just didn't know he'd get the job afterward.
* This is the usual (but not the only) method of obtaining Shardblades and Shardplate in ''[[The Stormlight Archive]]'', although it wasn't always that way. It's usually done deliberately although it's possible that
* In ''[[Malevil]]'', Emmanuel finds himself in this position after killing Wahrwoorde. His tormented family quietly accepts that Emmanuel is their new tyrant, to be abused (raped in Miette's case) at his leisure. He makes it clear that he has no intention of being anybody's master.
* In [[Harry Harrison]]'s ''[[Deathworld 2]]'' (AKA ''The Ethical Engineer'') Jason dinAlt crash-lands on a planet that turns out to be a [[Lost Colony]]. Him and his reluctant companion (the man who kidnapped him, actually) are almost immediately captured by a nomad called Chaka, who adds them to his group of slaves. Later on, Chaka reaches the border of his territory and meets with another nomadic slaveowner. They have a fight, and Chaka ends up killing him and taking his slaves. Jason sneaks into Chaka's sleeping area at night and kills him. All the slaves automatically start calling Jason Chaka. So not only does whoever kills a slaveowner keep his possessions, they also take his name.
* An interesting case in [[Sergey Lukyanenko]]'s ''Spectrum''. The protagonist is a private investigator who specializes in looking for people who have travelled off-world. He tracks his target (a young woman whose wealthy father is very worried) to a planet of advanced [[Human Aliens]]. On his way, he is attacked by some sort of beam weapon that he barely escapes. When he finally finds the girl and explains to her that he's not here to harm her, her [[Human Alien]] colleague (who is also secretly enamoured with her) is revealed to be the shooter. He once again attempts to kill the protagonist but some quick thinking by the latter results in the former dying. The local law enforcement explains that their laws grant the victim of an attempted murder the right to claim the assailant's possessions, including his or her spouse. The protagonist agrees to keep the beam rifle but refuses the rest, especially the man's wife. The officer agrees it's a wise choice, as the woman would then simply divorce him and keep half of ''his'' possessions. Even though their culture refuses to share advanced technology with other cultures, this law supercedes everything else, meaning the protagonist gets to keep the weapon.
== Live Action TV ==
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