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Jack Slate (who at this point has brutally killed at least 50 criminals): They were judge, jury, and executioner, all in one nasty package.
Slowbeef: That is YOU!
Let's Play Dead to Rights: Retribution
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Moral Dissonance is the result of having a hero who has a double-standard and no one notices. It can include pretty much any unintentional Double Standard on the hero's part that becomes obvious to the viewer during a walk to the fridge. It's important to point out the hero isn't necessarily acting the Jerkass, Anti-Hero, or morally myopic villain, and may in fact be likable and decent, but their actions simply don't line up with their rhetoric and no one calls them on it.

Usually results either from using an old Aesop or trope that's a genre staple with different values to those of the hero, usually resulting in a Broken Aesop. For example: Hero believes in giving the villain a Last Second Chance and will go the extra mile to Save the Villain from his own devices regardless of previous backstabs and never consider killing him because If You Kill Him You Will Be Just Like Him. The Punch Clock Villain minions? Doesn't even flinch when he has to kill them because they inconvenience him. Since they don't have a name it doesn't really matter. This gets its own subtrope: What Measure Is a Mook?

With an Omniscient Morality License the old Mentor character, especially a Trickster Mentor, can do anything because of their absolute knowledge over what will occur. Anyone else even approaching that level of arrogance would be smacked by the plot and smacked hard. Obviously Sociopathic Heroes are exempt as they are expected to act this way.

This trope is named partly for Cognitive Dissonance, the concept psychologists use to describe the tension one feels when holding two conflicting ideas or viewpoints simultaneously. In this case, it can be that the character seems to hold two incompatible beliefs - thus having literal cognitive dissonance - or it can be that they are acting against their supposed moral beliefs, for whatever reason. Moral, because the hero can be The Messiah and a Technical Pacifist while being very Immoral.

To be fair, very much Truth in Television (sadly). Even the most moral of Real Life individuals can and do have this kind of disconnect all the time, if only because they failed to think about the implications of their actions that time. In fictional cases, it may be up for argument whether the dissonance was on the part of the character or the writer.

Compare Values Dissonance, where the cause is cultural. Compare also Family-Unfriendly Aesop, where the hero's actions line up with morals that the reader might not agree with. Also compare What Do You Mean It's Not Heinous? Contrast Not So Different, where the double-standard is noticed; What the Hell, Hero?, where they are expressly called out and can even be a driving force of the plot; It's All About Me, where the villain actively holds this kind of double-standard, and it's noticed; Tautological Templar, where another character also actively thinks he can do no wrong. For The Rival holding a grudge, it's Disproportionate Retribution. See also Protagonist-Centered Morality.

See also Jerk with a Heart of Gold who is at heart a good guy but often behaves badly.

Consider No Endor Holocaust, where often heroes' actions should have had some negative effect, but won't because they're supposed to be the good guys. Pay Evil Unto Evil is the concept where it's acceptable to commit crimes against evil people.

Expect the Mary Sue to do this. Oh, so very often.

The trope is about internal inconsistency — the dissonance is on the part of the character, not the audience. The hero saying one thing and doing another is the trope. The hero making an argument for his actions that is considered unconvincing, or acting in a way that you don't consider moral is not the trope.

Examples of Moral Dissonance include:


General[]


Anime and Manga[]

  • The Black Knights of Code Geass, particularly Ohgi, fall victim to this when they fall for both logical and moral incongruities put forth by Schneizel to turn them against Lelouch. Ohgi, despite believing that people should not be treated as pawns, nevertheless allows himself and the others to be manipulated by Schneizel in order to get rid of Lelouch. He probably thought of it as choosing the lesser of two evils. On top of that, Ohgi uses Kallen as a pawn to draw out Lelouch, who he intends to sell out to Schneizel, as a pawn no less, in exchange for Japan.
    • In the same scenario, Villetta Nu, while acting out of concern for Ohgi, leaves out a number of details (that she may or may not even have been aware of herself, given that it's likely all her information on it came from Emperor Charles and who knows how honest he was with her) that would have cast a favorable light on Lelouch, namely the limitations of said power, thereby needlessly (or maliciously) hurting the latter's case.


Comic Books[]

  • Batman has no qualms with killing Dracula in The Batman crossover film (or Red Rain crossover comic) or with blowing away Aliens in another crossover. What Measure Is a Non-Human? applies to Batman's moral code as well, apparently. Though Dracula comes Back From the Dead so many times that death is equal to a stint in Arkham for him anyway, this argument isn't used, and Batman justifies offing him simply by the fact that he's a 'monster', though his "crime" is hardly worse than even this series' comparatively tame version of Joker tries in every episode he's featured in. Of course, Dracula is also a vampire, and in most variations on the vampire mythos vampires technically are medically dead anyway (no heartbeat, no pulse, no breathing, nothing), thus making this a tricky example.
    • This is pretty much his reasoning behind Dracula too: he's a centuries-old humanoid monster who has caused (directly or through his progeny) untold death, destruction and corruption through those years, and who will continue to do it for untold years more if not stop, potentially killing the entire human race and can ONLY be stopped by death as, to him, any prison is literally as solid as a wet cardboard box. That said, in Red Rain at least, he DOES have some internal conflict over the issue, and only finally goes through with it in the middle of a life-or-death struggle after already having detonated the Bat Cave and causing Wayne Manor to collapse into it, and oh yeah he was halfway through the process of becoming a vampire himself at the time.
      • In JLA Classified, Batman threatens Gorilla Grodd with "My code doesn't apply to apes, Grodd." and "I've killed apes before. Don't tempt me." Plus, he seems to have little hesitation against using deadly tactics on a rogue Superman or Martian Manhunter (but this might be justified by the sheer severity of the threat--think a sapient reusable nuke and you've just about got a small idea of the tiniest fraction of Superman's considerable power and even less of Martian Manhunter's.)
      • The very first story with Catwoman (or 'the Cat' as she was known at first) has Batman sternly Break the Fourth Wall to remind the readers that crooks should never be admired and be fought at every turn. Four pages later he allows the Cat to escape (and deliberately foils Robin's attempt to stop her) for the sole reason that he finds her sexy - other than being non-violent there are literally no other extenuating circumstances in favor of letting her go.
  • Every time Brainiac shows up, Superman always states how "my code against killing doesn't apply to machines". This despite the fact that Brainiac is portrayed as anywhere from all but sapient to perhaps more sapient than humans, depending on the writer, and Superman knows other so-called machines who are treated as being basically human. This gets really stupid in JLA: Earth 2, when Superman trots out the above line, when facing the alternate universe Brainiac but stops himself when it turns out that rather than an advanced AI, this universe's version of Brainiac is an "organic syntellect"--either way, it's still an artificial life form, and the only difference is what it's made of.
  • Wonder Woman has a different take on this problem, as when Superman, Batman and the rest of the Justice League were discussing the treatment of Dr. Light (had his mind wiped to forget him committing a rather heinous crime) Superman was at a loss to see what else they could have done. Wonder Woman replies simply with, you should have killed him.
  • Most absurd version of this (that didn't actually happen)? Spider-Man made a deal with Mephisto. You, know, big demon guy? Makes deals with people and then screws them over? The deal in question? He wiped his and his wife's minds, aborting their unborn baby in the process, just so his aunt who, even in terms of comic book aging is older than the Bill of Rights, can recover from a gunshot wound to live for a couple more years before finally kicking the bucket. There's a reason One More Day is viscerally hated by pretty much the entire Spidey fandom.
  • Most superheroes in the Marvel Universe don't get along with The Punisher due to the fact that he kills the bad guys, but are A-okay with Wolverine who does the same thing.

Film[]

  • Star Wars. The clone issue in II and III. There's moral dissonance in the practices of the Jedi and the Republic, the good guys of the Star Wars universe, who supposedly outlawed slavery: they use an army of mass-produced living slaves as cannon fodder for a war in which the soldiers have no stake. This is a case of Fridge Brilliance — who masterminded the clone army? Palpatine, the saga's Magnificent Bastard Big Bad who was out to, among other things, rot the Republic and Jedi from within and corrupt the ideals they stood for. Creating an army of what are essentially slaves, then creating a situation where the Republic is forced to use them to ensure it's own survival... all part of the plan.
  • Boiler Room. In the end, Seth convinces Chris to "do one thing right" and sign a ticket sale making one schmuck client good by stealing from another anonymous buyer on the market.
  • Dorothy from The Wiz, like her precursor from The Wizard of Oz, is sent off by the Wizard to kill the Wicked Witch of the West. However, in 1939 original, Dorothy had been attacked by the Wicked Witch on more than one occasion, and knew her to be a threat. In The Wiz, she's only been told that the witch is a threat. Moreover, where the original Dorothy is a twelve-year-old girl who has nowhere else to go, this Dorothy is a grown woman who, as the film suggests, could easily just stay in Oz. She essentially becomes an assassin because she "could never be happy here.

Literature[]

  • Twilight. The fact that Bella is worth fighting for and dying for the Cullens and all the werewolves, but the concept of fighting to stop the vampires from eating anyone else is ignored. She is the only one they are willing to protect, because nobody could ever be as perfect as Bella. Everyone else is considered food whenever their vampire friends from out of town stop by and Bella doesn't have any objections.
    • She also thinks her father is creepy because he checks in on her at night. Despite the fact that a) he's her father; b) he's a police officer; c) she endangered her life numerous times and his worrying is entirely reasonable; and d) her vampire boyfriend has been watching her sleep before they even started dating and even oiled her window frame so that it doesn't squeak.
  • Also from Stephenie Meyer, in The Host the Souls are loving, peaceful, serene, can't-tell-a-lie adventurers--who routinely commit mass genocide by means of destroying the minds of entire sentient species just to experience other worlds. When they get bored, they move on to the next planet of poor shmucks.
  • In the V. C. Andrews book Seeds of Yesterday (the final book in the Dollanganger series) the protagonist Cathy reacts with anger and disgust when she discovers her son and daughter-in-law's adulterous affair (the woman is married to her other son), and when she realizes the extent of her teenage daughter's promiscuity. Meanwhile, she's carrying on an incestuous relationship with her brother and acts as if this is perfectly acceptable and normal.
  • In David Eddings' The Elenium and the sequel books The Tamuli, we meet Kring, chief of the Peloi, a tribe of savage horsemen. In his first appearance, his troops have joined an allied army to fight a joint enemy. He asks about the army's policy on raping. He is told that it is not allowed and he sighs, saying it will be hard to explain to his men that they can't. Later, his fiancée talks about how she murdered men who attempted to rape her. He clearly shows how he thinks rape is wrong and he is glad they died. No one in the story seems to recall or mention that he was unhappy that his men weren't allowed to rape women earlier.
  • The death of Helsa in Shirley Rousseau Murphy's The Catswold Portal. Sure, the character in question was being used as a catspaw by the Big Bad, and was a Jerkass in her own right; she was still more of a sucker than a villain.
  • Sisterhood series by Fern Michaels: As the series goes on, this sets in, due to Double Standards. It's like this: the female Vigilantes feel that only women are good enough to get the job done, and that men are only dumb robots who need to be ordered by someone smarter, namely women. In fact, the women will happily use their men as muscle, but they will certainly not include them in the planning. No one seems to notice this...until Deja Vu where this gets a big subversion. The men, getting sick and tired of being excluded, just up and leave without a word. Charles Martin has to explain to the Vigilantes why that happened. The author herself has said that "Characters are human just like the rest of us mortals."
    • Vendetta has the Vigilantes capture John Chai, son of the Chinese ambassador to the USA. His crime was to drunkenly hit-and-run Barbara Rutledge and her unborn child and kill them both, as well as pull a Karma Houdini due to Diplomatic Impunity. Myra decides that the perfect Revenge for John is caning, which somehow translates to skinning him alive. The author seriously expects us to believe that this is not only a perfectly justified way of balancing the scales, but that John deserved it just because he's Chinese.
    • The Jury has Jack Emery take Nicole Quinn and the Vigilantes' side. She tells him everything, including that part about skinning John alive! Jack's reaction is to say "Whoa, you skinned him alive?! I would have paid money to see that!" Up until this point, Jack, a prosecutor, had been trying to take down the Vigilantes due to them breaking the law, and he supposedly has a great deal of ethics and standards. The fact that he didn't even get upset about John's punishment is more than a little disturbing.

Live Action TV[]

  • In Doctor Who, the Tenth Doctor deposing Prime Minister Harriet Jones in "The Christmas Invasion". Prior to this moment, Harriet Jones had been depicted as a thoroughly sympathetic character whom the audience was encouraged to root for, so even on the most rudimentary level of audience empathy, the Doctor just does not look good here.
  • In Supernatural's first season, Sam, Dean and Bobby make a huge case out of what happens to the host of a demon when they exorcise it, or use the Colt to kill one. Come later seasons, that concern retreats into the background, especially once the boys acquire Ruby's knife and a new supply of ammo for the Colt. This is likely intentional, to show how both are being adversely affected by the war they are embroiled in, and justified by the sheer number of demons they have to deal with under time constraints.
    • In season four, part of Sam's justification for using his powers to exorcise demons is that it doesn't kill the hosts like using the knife (or the Colt, when they have it) does.
    • Even the angels (which might not be so surprising, in retrospect) kill the hosts when they kill the demons within them.
  • Power Rangers:
    • In several incarnations the eponymous heroes are told (or even have it be part of their song lyrics) to only use their powers for defense. This explains why they never use the Megazord to stomp the monster before it grows (they won't risk the property damage until the enemy forces their hand) or why they never directly attack the villain's base (although they did so in Dino Thunder after they found it's location; guess Tommy'd become Genre Savvy). However, there have been more than a few occasions where they blew up the monster while it was basically helpless and in some cases practically begging for mercy. There's one particular instance in MMPR where the Red Ranger seems downright sadistic...
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 Jason: Give up, birdbrain!

Monster: (terrified squawks and "I surrender" gestures)

Jason: Then we have no choice! (kills the monster)

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    • In Power Rangers in Space, the Megazord goes completely medieval on Monster of the Week Clawhammer, who was attacking them, to be sure... but maybe ripping out his tendrils, kicking him repeatedly in the groin, and throwing him into lava was a tad excessive. Maybe whatever Clawhammer had done in the Super Sentai episode the fight footage came from was a lot more evil than his Power Rangers actions of simply being a literal Giant Mook.
      • In the Sentai version he was thrown into lava because his shell was made out of the same stuff as the robot's sword, and thus couldn't be penetrated by it.
    • Recent series have the Rangers being more likely to chase down and kill fleeing monsters that the original Rangers would have allowed to pull a Villain Exit Stage Left. Strangely, Power Rangers RPM isn't one, despite the higher consequences of letting a bad guy go free.
    • A horrible case in Power Rangers Wild Force. There Animus actually takes the Wild Force Zords away because humans have polluted the planet (ignoring that the Orgs would probably win because of this and make the planet even worse). He does give them back eventually, claiming that it was a test for the Power Rangers but that ignores the fact that the Rangers had already been fighting the Orgs for quite some time before Animus did a thing to help them.
  • Babylon 5: Minbari do not lie, being such an honorable, morally-superior-to-humanity kind of race. Of course, to get around this, they've made an artform out of evasiveness and stretching the definition of truth to breaking point. And they will lie to help another save face, so they could in fact lie all they want as long as they can come up with a vague justification (like the Minbari who lied to help implicate Sheridan in the murder of another Minbari).
    • There's also the Vorlon and Shadows, whose ships are powered by Moral Dissonance, to the point that they no longer even remember why they're doing what they're doing. That is, until they get called out on it.
  • In the Blakes Seven episode "Gold", the Seven decide to steal some gold from the planet Zerok, which isn't even part of the Federation. (Okay, they trade with them but that's stretching the point.) In the process, they are responsible, directly or indirectly, for the death of at least fifteen security guards who were just doing their job, one of whom actually had his weapon lowered and could easily have been taken prisoner. Then, their ally Keillor kills a doctor who was trying to raise the alarm and they all treat this as a heinous crime. The stated reason that he wasn't armed doesn't really hold water. Apparently the moral is it's okay to kill innocent bystanders if they're carrying guns.
  • Smallville is undoubtedly so full of them that one could spend hours yelling at the TV in frustration of Clark's repetitively poor and self destructive decisions. For example, he will often lecture other heroes, or Lois, or earlier Lana, on how important honesty is, and in the case of the heroes, encouraging them to unmask themselves to their significant others, while causing huge problems and creating danger out the wazoo for his own while protecting his own secret. The entire Superman franchise is founded on this, however.
  • On VH-1's I Love New York, it's unforgivable to say something horrible about New York's mother Sister Patterson, but it's perfectly fine for her to insult a contestant's family members! There's a reason why Tango dumping her at the reunion show (because she insulted his mother, no less) is considered a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
  • There's an episode of Star Trek the Next Generation in Season Two, in which a population of clones is dying out from a lack of genetic variation in their people. They ask if they can use the Enterprise crew to make clones to help them expand their population but when the entire crew refuses, they drug Riker and Pulaski and create clones of them anyway. Awful though this is, when Riker and Pulaski find the room with their growing clones, they calmly murder them all without the slightest moral qualm. These are living, sentient beings but no-one calls Riker or Pulaski out on this, despite the fact that she is a doctor and (you would think) therefore should do no harm.
    • Especially weird since this could have been intended as an abortion parallel (the clones not yet being 'active', they were not fully 'alive') and been a big moral issue story of the sort that Star Trek used to like tackling, but instead it's glossed over as completely unimportant.
  • In the failed Wonder Woman 2011 pilot, they make the bad guys out to be complete and utter scum who use trafficked humans and underprivileged ghetto kids to test their steroid-type drugs and use their lobbyists to avoid being investigated, and that whatever means that Wonder Woman uses is justified. Unfortunately, Wonder Woman is a brutal, vicious killer who goes after people without any actual evidence, tortures people for information, and uses her contacts with the police to avoid prosecution. Pants to be darkened, indeed.
  • The BBC's Robin Hood often insists on a "no-killing" policy, telling his allies and enemies alike that he only kills people when absolutely necessary. This...is total rubbish. By the end of the series, he had needlessly shot countless guards (often in the back), a mentally-deranged man who was holding his friend hostage (this was after trying to kill him whilst he was unconscious, only to be stopped by a guest-star), and a corrupt churchman who wasn't doing anything more threatening than just standing there making bitchy comments. The worst example is when he barges into a woman's bedroom to find that she's just killed her sadistic husband in self-defense. He grabs her around the throat and accuses her of murder, literally minutes after shooting dead an executioner who was just doing his job.
  • Merlin can be quite bad at this at times, particularly in the portrayal of Merlin and Morgana. The show would have us believe that the former is good and the latter is bad, and to be fair, there are justifications for why Merlin is the hero and Morgana is the villain (albeit a designated one). Yet when you look at what each character does with their magic, there's very little difference. Both have used magic to kill enemies, to take away a person's free will, to manipulate events to their own advantage, and both have expressed delight in doing these things (when Morgana tells Merlin that he condemned Morgause to "a slow and painful death," he replies that he's "quite proud" of that accomplishment). Furthermore, Merlin often uses magic to humiliate Arthur (forcing him to belch in front of a princess, bray like a donkey in front of his men, or magically pulling his pants down in front of his council).

Professional Wrestling[]

  • Sometimes, there's a moral double standard concerning faces and heels where faces can get away with things heels would be condemned for, such as assaulting non-wrestlers and cheating. A good example could be at Backlash 2000 where The Rock and Triple H used very similar tactics but where Triple H was lambasted by Jim Ross on commentary for it (such as when he low blowed the Rock), the Rock was more or less given a pass whenever he skirted the rules (like low blowing Triple H) as acting "in desperation".
  • It's A-OK for Hornswoggle to get involved in other people's matches and wreck other people's stuff but when the heels finally put the little punk in his place we're supposed to believe they're the bad guys.
  • One Raw found Triple H at the mercy of Lance Cade and Trevor Murdoch, when Brian Kendrick and Paul London (who were feuding with Cade & Murdoch at the time) ran out to rescue Hunter. How'd he repay London and Kendrick for the assistance? Pedigree to each of them, and the commentators just laughed it off and said they had it coming.
  • The Bella Twins switching before their Face Heel Turn. The announcers called it "twin magic" and it was treated as fun and whimsical. Their feud with Jillian started because they pulled the switch on her in a match, unprovoked, yet Jillian was meant to have deserved it somehow. Now that they're heels, of course, the moral viewpoint is flipped.
  • Stone Cold Steve Austin gave Stacy Keibler a stunner because she wouldn't share a beer with him. Right, except he actually saved her from two abusive men. JR even said "I might not agree with him but that's the way he is" right after vilifying Test and Scott Steiner for abusing her. Worst of all, Stacy herself continued to consider Austin her friend after this happened!
  • Good ol' Randy Orton has picked up where Stone Cold left off. Not only is he in many ways a complete Karma Houdini, but even as a face he continues to launch sneak attacks on his opponents out of sheer malice or annoyance, and still the crowds cheer him. His popularity is even used by management to justify giving him a World Heavyweight title shot within his first ten minutes back on Smackdown for doing absolutely nothing against a guy who just won the championship for the first time ever in a ladder match mere DAYS ago. Even worse, whenever one of the heels rightly claims that Orton has assaulted or ripped him off, whatever authority figure who is in a position to punish Orton will either mock the heel or tell him to shut up.
  • In the spring of 2001, Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit were involved in a feud which included Benoit taking Angle's medals. Angle was a heel at the time, so everyone cheered. A few months later a heel Austin would do the same exact thing, only this time it was Played for Drama.


Tabletop Games[]


Video Games[]

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 Ash: You're wrong! Though this world may be wicked, life itself is precious! Good and evil, love and hate. Each man contains the potential for both. You would exterminate mankind for their sins? I would fight the gods themselves to save them!

Dolf: Sanctimonious whelp! How many souls have you yourself released from their corporeal bondage?

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  • One particular example in World of Warcraft involves Egomaniac Hunter Hemet Nesingwary and a group of Druids calling themselves D.E.H.T.A. (obvious reference to P.E.T.A.) who are out to stop his hunting party from mass-killing wildlife in the name of his "hunt". How do they do this? By sending the player to mass-kill the hunters, of course!
    • The game also tends to portray graverobbers as villainous, but the players robbing the corpses of freshly killed soldiers, and in some cases, civilians, is considered OK.
  • Similar to Star Trek, the Star Ocean series has an interplanetary law known as the Underdeveloped Planet Pact and, like the Prime Directive, it is rarely, if ever enforced despite how often its "values" are preached.
    • In fact, the fourth game, which is a prequel, explains that the Pact was made because the hero got himself directly involved in multiple underdeveloped planets' affairs and screwed things up royally each time.
  • Dragon Age II, the player has the option of hunting down mages or diplomatically talking them into returning to their confinement; equally unfortunately, the option to actually free them only once or twice. Hawke is either a mage or sheltering his/her mage sister through most of this. The dissonance is probably intended, and Hawke does get called in this by Anders if s/he is a mage and is opposing Anders' efforts to free mages.
  • Fallout: New Vegas features this in its Honest Hearts expansion. If you help Joshua Grahmn kill the White Legs, at the end of the campaign you'll see him take the leader and two others prisoner. He will then immediately fatally shoot the other prisoners in the head, and the leader will plead with you to make Joshua see sense. Which ending you get for the campaign depends solely on how you talk Joshua into dealing with the leader - and not on the dozens of White Legs you can let Joshua kill to get to this point.
    • The White Legs on the way may be justified (that is, not actually an example of this trope) - they're actively fighting against you, both of you have reason to want to get to the leader quickly, etc. What is, however, dissonant is how the two prisoners Graham shot in the head are treated as disposable where the White Legs' leader is not.
  • Fallout 3 has two side quests where you can help people with romantic complications. In Girdershade, Ronald Laren wants you to get him a full case of Nuka-Cola Quantum so he can wow his neighbour Sierra (a nuka-fan and arguably addict) and convince her to put out for him. This gives you bad karma, even though he's not forcing her (addiction notwithstanding) and it won't lead anywhere anyway as she is too naive to understand his intentions. (Also, they're the only people in Girdershade, far away from any civilised communities, so Ronald would have every opportunity to just rape her outright if that was his plan.) In Rivet City, Angela has the hots for young, celibate alcolyte Diego, who is uncomfortable with her advances because he really wants to become a priest. To "help" them, you have to provide Angela with ant-queen pheromones, which will make her irresistible enough for Diego to do the dirty deed with her... and once it wears off, he's kicked out of the priesthood and forcibly married off to a woman who practically date-raped him. Your helpful assistance nets you good karma, of course. Wait, what?
    • There's also the Tenpenny Tower mission. Roy Phelps is being denied permission to buy an apartment because he is a ghoul, and Alistair Tenpenny hates ghouls. As he storms off, Phelps makes various death threats against Tenpenny, and one of the three solutions to the quest is helping him murder everyone in the tower by unleashing a horde of ghouls into the building. Bear in mind, the main reason the inhabitants don't like ghouls is because they think they're all mindless, murderous zombies, which is perfectly justified by Phelps' reaction. Similarly, even if he weren't a ghoul, he's willing to murder everyone in the tower (which includes the Retired Badass and kindly old man Herbert Dashwood) because they wouldn't let him buy/rent a room. For of the other solutions, you convince the tower's inhabitants to give Roy a chance, and they let him in and give him a room...a few days later, he's murdered all the human inhabitants, and proved their bigotry right again. And if you kill this man who has proven himself to be a psychotic murderer, Three Dog declares you to be a monster and a bigot.
  • In Armored Core 4 the second to last mission requires you to destroy a company's headquarters given the universe this doesn't sound to bad, until you find out it's an office building and you pilot a Humongous Mecha. Then for Answer hinted that that company wanted to open the way to space due to the planet being polluted and the earths orbit is covered with kill sats. Thankfully one of the endings fixes this, the other two...
  • Near the beginning of Uncharted 2, Nate is forced to rob a museum, and balks at the idea of killing the guards. At one point, he throws a guard about a hundred and fifty down to the water without a second thought, in a series that averts Soft Water.
    • If the player waits a few seconds after doing this, you can see the guard swimming to a nearby rock, so he doesn't die outright. Even the animator who made this little extra admits it was a cheap cop-out though.
  • As Yahtzee points out in his review of Dead Rising 2, the game refers to one of its main antagonist groups as "looters," but at the same time, the player is encouraged to break open ATM machines and acquire wealth to buy Zombrex (from those same "looters").
  • A particularly infuriating example in Chrono Cross: early on, you hear about the dwarves inhabiting Hydra Marshes in Home World. Later on, the Hydra is killed by humans, which kills the marshes and drives the dwarves out. Some time later, your party goes to Water Dragon Isle and discovers the dwarves slaughtering the fairies to give themselves a new home. When you finish off the dwarf chieftain, he calls Serge out on the death of the Hydra, asking why humans can't just live in harmony with other species - never mind that the dwarves just massacred the fairies!!
  • While not particularly apparent, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater has The Boss essentially doing the same thing Volgin did by nuking Groznyj Grad and the Granin Design Bureau and it being brushed aside just prior to the final battle and only briefly ends up referenced during the stinger, despite the fact that Volgin's action of nuking the Sokolov Design Bureau was treated as a major Moral Event Horizon for him.

Webcomics[]


Western Animation[]

  • Teen Titans: At the end of "Mother Mae-Eye" the Titans, freed from the spell of the malign entity who brainwashes her victims to love her unconditionally and then eats them, wonder what to do with the pie that contains her spirit. They decide to leave it anonymously to the Hive-Five. It was meant to be humorous, but Fridge Logic essentially makes it an attempted murder by proxy - what happened to the code against killing?
  • In Beast Wars, when Blackarachnia eventually joins the Maximals, she strenuously objects to having her Predacon shell programme removed on the grounds that it would make her something other than what she is. Come Beast Machines, she herself reformats the Vehicon general with Silverbolt's spark despite him giving pretty much the same objection. He doesn't take it well.
    • Though these two things sort of explain each other. Blackarachnia still has Predacon programming, thus allowing her to be an unrepentant Hypocrite. She wants Silverbolt back so she's going to get him back. (Of course, there are numerous other issues that also cloud the whole thing, such as whether Blackarachnia was self-aware before she was reformatted as a Predacon, while Silverbolt was undoubtedly a person with a personality before being reformatted into a Vehicon.)
  • The Hobbit has this when the men of Lake-town and the wood elves both demand a share of the treasure after the death of the dragon Smaug. First, Bilbo instantly agrees with Bard, the new king of Lake-town, and the wood elf king, that there is more than enough treasure to go around, and that all three factions should get a share. Bilbo is clearly presented as being in the right, and as being the reasonable, sensible one, in contrast to the greedy and intransigent dwarf king Thorin. Except that Bilbo is offering to give away treasure that does not belong to him. The book version is somewhat different, since there the elves are acting in conjunction with the humans, so the elf claim can be argued to be subsidiary to or an extension of the human claim. In the animated movie, however, the elves have simply shown up with their army and demanded a share of what is, after all, Thorin and the dwarves' rightful property, and no one thinks to point out that this is nothing but plain banditry.
    • They sort of try and explain it with the Elf King's claim that his people have suffered from Smaug as well, but even if this were true, it is not as if the Dwarves invited Smaug there or are in any way responsible for anything that he did to them.