this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2024
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My least favorite trope is more of a universal one
It's the "If we beat the bad guys using their own tactics, we're no better than them" trope and it's been pissing me off since I was five years old
Like, it's one thing to have a character who is extremely optimistic about rehabilitation and redemption, it's another one entirely to just pull the old "We'll figure out a better way" and the better way is an absolute pulled-it-out-of-my-ass thing that only happened because otherwise the hero is fucked
To piggyback on your first point: when the hero witnesses the evil bad guy do something personal to them and they still refuse to kill them and then the bad guy tries to stab them in the back and dies by mishap.
Example: bad guy just triggered the Innocence Bomb and blew up seventy orphanages of kids with cockney accents. He then stabs the loveable side kick/mentor. Hero screams in slow motion. Cradles their dying friend. Swears vengeance. Hero fights the bad guy. Epic swords and guns. Gains the upper hand. Has a knife to the throat, a gun to the head, and is standing on both of the bad guy's balls. Hero says "this isn't what Comedic Uncle Mentor would have wanted me to do." Hero lets the bad guy live. Hero turns around. Bad guy leaps up with a poisoned Doom Blade of Death, the same one he used to kill the hero's godparents in the flashback or intro! Bad guy slips on a skateboard and falls backwards over a rail into the giant magma-acid pit-reactor.
I hate that shit.
I honestly think that is part of a general psy op to discourage the poors from getting revenge on thr people that have wronged them as capitalism is based on wronging the poors. Pretty much every society had Norms around not harming your social superiors. We just try to hide it so it feels weird.
Honestly I can kinda see it. Even if it's not a psy op it seems that there is a bias against full revolution in a lot of media. Like the authors are afraid they won't get published if they go too far.