History Main / DudleyDorightStopsToHelp

** No-one is forcing you to pick every paragon option, it's depends on who's playing, if it get's played straight or averted. [[NoPointsForNeutrality But then again...]]

* In the 1993 film ''TheFugitive'', while on the run, Dr. Kimble is in a hospital as part of his search for the one-armed man. He notices that a child has been misdiagnosed and will die if not given immediate surgery. He changes the orders on the kid's chart and saves his life. The problem with this? He was masquerading as a janitor at the time.

* Happened semi-regularly to Dr Richard Kimble on ''TheFugitive''. Despite being on the run for murder, he would go to the aid of anyone in medical need. (Of course, ''TheFugitive'' was inspired by ''LesMiserables''.)

* Happened from time to time in ''TheIncredibleHulk'' TV show (which was loosely based on ''TheFugitive'' which was in turn based partially on ''Les Miserables'').

* Lampooned at the end of ''Cannonball Run'', as Captain Chaos turns aside and forfeits his team's victory when a woman screams that her baby is drowning. Said "baby" turns out to be a dog, but his teammate still forgives him for losing the race.
* In the 1993 film ''The Fugitive'', while on the run, Dr. Kimble is in a hospital as part of his search for the one-armed man. He notices that a child has been misdiagnosed and will die if not given immediate surgery. He changes the orders on the kid's chart and saves his life. The problem with this? He was masquerading as a janitor at the time.
* In the third movie, {{RoboCop}} veered off pursuing some insurgents to come to aid of a squad of cops locked in a firefight with a gang of thugs.

** In ''Harry Potter and the DeathlyHallows'', the Trio enacted an impromptu mass breakout of Muggle-borns in the middle of an undercover mission to pick up a MacGuffin from one of the densest centers of Death Eater activity.

* Anytime the cast from the ''DungeonsAndDragons'' cartoon show actually found a portal home, it was guaranteed that they'd have to turn around to save the character of the week while the portal closed.

[[folder: FanFic]]
* In DragonAgeTheCrownOfThorns, it is played perfectly straight by the dwarven noble protagonist, of all people. You'd think that a politician that spawns one XanatosGambit after another and who has the whole world on his shoulders would be a bit less eager to go into potentially deadly situations with just his dog as help. Turns out that he [[spoiler:doesn't think too hard on whether or not to totally go out of his way in the opposite direction (about ''a day's journey'' too) and check on Honnleath and if anyone was still alive there, even though [[spoiler:he'd finally seen the first human after roaming the Korcari Wilds for weeks, during which time he almost got killed several times, nearly dyed of starvation and refused a deal with Flemeth that she would not outline until agreed upon. And his armor was so rusted and worn that it didn't even survive the trip to the golem village, although, true enough, the demon shattered most of it.]] Raonar does reason that it's important to assess whether the horde really reached so far west in such a short time or if it's just a group of stragglers. One would think this is just him looking for justification, but that wouldn't fit with his BrutalHonesty [[HonestyIsTheBestPolicy policy]] that he uses on everyone, including himself, meaning that he manages to play this trope AND avert HonorBeforeReason altogether (after all, he had gained some nifty magical abilities to tip the scales).

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[[/folder: Anime & Manga]]

* Jean Valjean from ''LesMiserables'', of course. More often than not, his Moments involved throwing himself directly in InspectorJavert's path, rather than merely risking the same.

* In ''{{Firefly}}'', Simon Tam, while breaking into an Alliance hospital to steal medicine, [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome stopped to save a man's life from his doctor's incompetence]].
** Boy, was he mad about it, too!
*** When a group of heroes is attempting to infiltrate a hospital as doctors, ''having a doctor along'' correcting the mistakes of hospital staff has got to be one of the better ways to establish genuineness.
* HarryPotter, the boy with the "saving people thing", is of course prone to this.
** In ''HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire'', the second task of the Triwizard tournament is rescuing a hostage from some mermaids. Harry gets there first, but ends up coming up last because he waits to make sure ''all'' the hostages are saved. It's then pointed out to him that it was all part of the contest and nobody was actually in danger, but he gets extra points from the judges for heroism.
** In ''Harry Potter and the DeathlyHallows'', the Trio enacted an impromptu mass breakout of Muggle-borns in the middle of an undercover mission to pick up a MacGuffin from one of the densest centers of Death Eater activity.
* ''Fahrenheit'', AKA ''IndigoProphecy'': You're on the run from the police, accused of a murder that you... well, you totally committed it, but you were being controlled by a thousand-year-old Mayan Voodoo priest, see? Though for some strange reason, the cops don't wanna hear about it. On the bright side, having been briefly possessed has unlocked hidden superpowers and limited precognition in you. While secretly meeting your brother in a park in the middle of the winter, you get a warning flash of danger - not to yourself, but to a kid playing on a frozen lake nearby. The ice is gonna break, and he'll either drown or die from hypothermia! With your superhuman speed and powers, you can save him... but a pair of beat cops are patrolling the park, and you're Public Enemy no. 1 - if you make a hero of yourself, they're bound to notice! Dilemma! You can actually choose not to act but it was apparently the worst thing you could possibly do for your SanityMeter. Fortunately, after you pull the kid out of the ice, the cops rushing to the scene, despite recognizing you, decide to pretend not to notice, figuring that arresting a guy who's just saved a kid's life would be really impolite.
** Not just impolite. If you save the kid, this is referenced later when one of the cops admits to Carla that he could have made an arrest, but couldn't bring himself to do it right after witnessing such a selfless act. Carla says she probably would have felt the same way in the other cop's shoes.
* Happened semi-regularly to Dr Richard Kimble on ''TheFugitive''. Despite being on the run for murder, he would go to the aid of anyone in medical need. (Of course, ''TheFugitive'' was inspired by ''LesMiserables''.)
** Also happens in the film version: While on the run, Dr. Kimble is in a hospital as part of his search for the one-armed man. He notices that a child has been misdiagnosed and will die if not given immediate surgery. He changes the orders on the kid's chart and saves his life. The problem with this? He was masquerading as a janitor at the time.
*** At least Simon Tam was disguised as a ''doctor''.
* Happened from time to time in ''TheIncredibleHulk'' TV show (which was loosely based on ''TheFugitive'' which was in turn based partially on ''Les Miserables'').
* All the time in ''TheZetaProject''. Zeta does this so constantly that it rubs off on Ro, because no one in her life had ever displayed this kind of behavior before.

* The OHenry story "A Retrieved Reformation" is all about this trope; a safecracker escapes from jail, adopts an alias, heads west, and gets a job as a banker, and gets engaged to the bank manager's daughter. Just as the police show up in town, looking for someone like him, a young child gets locked in the safe. He quickly starts work cracking the safe open, knowing it'll give him away to the cops. At the end of the stories, the cops know damn well that he's the safecracker they're looking for, but pretend to not recognize him because he's obviously reformed.

* A good deal of the episodes of ''SamuraiJack'' involve Jack finding a way to [[FishOutOfTemporalWater travel back to his own time]], but passing it up to help a bystander.
* It's easier to list RPG heroes who don't follow this trope than not. It doesn't matter that Dr. Von Destruticius is going to drop a meteor on you now, some random preschooler has asked you to get their cat out a tree and [[ButThouMust you're gonna do it]].
* Anytime the cast from the ''DungeonsAndDragons'' cartoon show actually found a portal home, it was guaranteed that they'd have to turn around to save the character of the week while the portal closed.
* In ''WhoWantsToBeASuperhero'', StanLee acknowledged this trope and punished people who didn't in a SecretTestOfCharacter. In a test to change into your super hero outfit and race to the finish line the fastest there was a little girl crying for her mother mere yards from the goal line. Anybody who stopped to track down the girl's mother and/or take her to the nearby park station automatically got a pass, but anybody who ignored her were front runners for the chopping block.
* RealLife example: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Landy John Landy]] at the 1956 Australian National Championships in athletics. He was leading in the 1500 metres final. Fellow runner Ron Clarke tripped and fell, and Landy doubled back to help him up. [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome He went on to win the race.]]
* Jubilee of the Comicbook/{{X-Men}} broke off her escape from Operation: Zero Tolerance to [[SaveTheVillain give first aid to a villain]] she had [[PowerIncontinence accidentally injured]]. This lead directly to her being recaptured for another round of torture.

* [[FateStayNight Emiya. Shirou.]] Good god, Shirou. Helping people is one thing. Helping little girls out is even better. Helping little girls [[spoiler:who were just stabbed in the chest by what is damn near a physical god, at least compared to YOU,]] is [[{{understatement}} not an advisable course of action.]] And you HAVE to do it or you get a bad end.

* Dwight in ''SinCity'' does a lot of good for the girls of Old Town despite being wanted for murder.
** A minor example would be Marv protecting people while on parole. This often means lots and lots of violent things happening.
* In ''MuhyoAndRoji'', Roji fails a test that would [[spoiler:allow him to officially advance to First Clerk and stay as Muhyo's assistant]], when he takes too long to help carry out an injured fellow student.

* The O. Henry story "A Retrieved Reformation" is all about this trope; a safecracker escapes from jail, adopts an alias, heads west, and gets a job as a banker, and gets engaged to the bank manager's daughter. Just as the police show up in town, looking for someone like him, his fiancee gets locked in the safe. He quickly starts work cracking the safe open, knowing it'll give him away to the cops. At the end of the stories, the cops know damn well that he's the safecracker they're looking for, but pretend to not recognize him because he's obviously reformed.
** You nailed the trope, but the one locked in the vault was a young child. The hero's fiancée was on the scene, though, both stunned and grateful for his actions. He was willing to walk away from her to surrender, further proof that he was changed, IMO.

Often leads to [[BeingGoodSucks detection by the people he's been evading all this time]], but not as often as you'd think. This trope is why a [[strike:Paladin]] [[CharacterAlignment Good Aligned]] character will always blow their cover when infiltrating a WretchedHive. Depending on what the outcome is, it may result in a BigDamnHeroes moment.

* Kenzo Tenma from ''{{Anime/Monster}}'' will never let an injury go uncared-for. '''Ever.''' At one point, an unscrupulous character wanted to recruit him as an underground physician, but really, that's a good part of what he was doing already.

** Boy was he mad about it too!
*** It is worth noting that while attempting to infiltrate a hospital as doctors, ''having a doctor along'' correcting the mistakes of hospital staff has got to be one of the better ways to establish genuineness.
* Harry Potter, the boy with the "saving people thing", is of course prone to this.

** In ''HarryPotter and the DeathlyHallows'', the Trio enacted an impromptu mass breakout of Muggle-borns in the middle of an undercover mission to pick up a MacGuffin from one of the densest centers of Death Eater activity.
* ''Fahrenheit'', AKA ''IndigoProphecy''. You're on the run from the police, accused of a murder that you... well, you totally committed it, but you were being controlled by a thousand-year-old Mayan Voodoo priest, see? Though for some strange reason, the cops don't wanna hear about it. On the bright side, having been briefly possessed has unlocked hidden superpowers and limited precognition in you. While secretly meeting your brother in a park in the middle of the winter, you get a warning flash of danger - not to yourself, but to a kid playing on a frozen lake nearby. The ice is gonna break, and he'll either drown or die from hypothermia! With your superhuman speed and powers, you can save him... but a pair of beat cops are patrolling the park, and you're Public Enemy no. 1 - if you make a hero of yourself, they're bound to notice! Dilemma! You can actually choose not to act but it was apparently the worst thing you could possibly do for your SanityMeter. Fortunately, after you pull the kid out of the ice, the cops rushing to the scene, despite recognizing you, decide to pretend not to notice, figuring that arresting a guy who's just saved a kid's life would be really impolite.

** You nailed the trope, but the one locked in the vault was a young child. The protagonist's fiancee was on the scene, though, both stunned and grateful for his actions. He was willing to walk away from her to surrender, further proof that he was changed, IMO.

* In the third movie {{Robocop}} veered off pursuing some insurgents to come to aid of a squad of cops locked in a firefight with a gang of thugs.

* It's easier to list RPG protagonists who don't follow this trope than not. It doesn't matter that Dr. Von Destruticius is going to drop a meteor on you now, some random preschooler has asked you to get their cat out a tree and [[ButThouMust you're gonna do it]].
* Anytime the cast from the DungeonsAndDragons cartoon show actually found a portal home, it was garunteed that they'd have to turn around to save the character of the week while the portal closed.
* In WhoWantsToBeASuperHero, Stan Lee acknowledged this trope and punished people who didn't in a SecretTestOfCharacter. In a test to change into your super hero outfit and race to the finish line the fastest there was a little girl crying for her mother mere yards from the goal line. Anybody who stopped to track down the girl's mother and/or take her to the nearby park station automatically got a pass, but anybody who ignored her were front runners for the chopping block.

* Jubilee of the [[XMen X-Men]] broke off her escape from Operation: Zero Tolerance to [[SaveTheVillain give first aid to a villain]] she had [[PowerIncontinence accidentally injured]]. This lead directly to her being recaptured for another round of torture.
* {{Discworld}} example: in ''Thief of Time'', Lobsang Ludd and Lu Tze are trying to outrun a ''lightning bolt'', knowing that if they fail, the entire world and all of history will be destroyed. Lu Tze falters. Lobsang ''turns back to help!''. As a result, the entire world gets frozen in time. Susan sto Helit [[LampshadeHanging lampshades this hard]] when she finds out.

* In the cartoon version of MotherGooseAndGrimm, the title character of the show-within-a-show ''Karl the Wonder Poodle'' is temporarily diverted from saving the person who made the original call for help (a kid who fell in the river and is floating towards a waterfall) by the need to deal with a dozen or so other events in need of a superhero.
* Dwight in SinCity does a lot of good for the girls of Old Town despite being wanted for murder.

* In MuhyoAndRoji, Roji fails a test that would [[spoiler:allow him to officially advance to First Clerk and stay as Muhyo's assistant]], when he takes too long to help carry out an injured fellow student.

** A more example would be Marv protecting people while on parole. This often means lots and lots of violent things happening.

* Kenzo Tenma from ''{{Monster}}'' will never let an injury go uncared-for. '''Ever.''' At one point, an unscrupulous character wanted to recruit him as an underground physician, but really, that's a good part of what he was doing already.

Closely related to HonorBeforeReason. A subtrope of TheDrifter and ChronicHeroSyndrome, and supertrope of InconvenientHippocraticOath. When done wrong, can be a form of HeroBall or StupidGood. Compare KnightErrant. Contrast DickDastardlyStopsToCheat.

* The O. Henry story "A Retrieved Reformation" is all about this trope; a safecracker escapes from jail, adopts an alias, heads west, and gets a job as a banker. Just as the police show up in town, looking for someone like him, the bank manager's daughter gets locked in the safe. He quickly starts work cracking the safe open, knowing it'll give him away to the cops.

* Jubilee of the [[XMen X-Men]] broke off her escape from Operation: Zero Tolerance to [[SaveTheVillain give first aid to a villain]] she had [[PowerIncontinence accidentally injured]]. This lead directly to her being recaptured for another round of torture."

* All the time in ''TheZetaProject''.

* Zeta from ''TheZetaProject'' does this so consistantly that he even stops to help his enemies. But he'll also save random strangers and people who have displayed nothing but FantasticRacism to him. The very first episode has him fighting off the leader of a gang to save someone he'd never met before, even though the NSA are on their way to catch him and smarter thing to do would be to keep moving.

** While on the run, Dr. Kimble is in a hospital as part of his search for the one-armed man. He notices that a child has been misdiagnosed and will die if not given immediate surgery. He changes the orders on the kid's chart and saves his life. The problem with this? He was masquerading as a janitor at the time.

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<<|CrimeAndPunishmentTropes|>>
<<|CharacterizationTropes|>>

** In ''HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire'', the second task of the Triwizard tournament is rescuing a hostage from some mermaids. Harry gets their first, but ends up coming up last because he waits to make sure ''all'' the hostages are saved. It's then pointed out to him that it was all part of the contest and nobody was actually in danger, but he gets extra points from the judges for heroism.

Named after [[DudleyDoRight Dudley Do Right]], of course.

Named after [[DudleyDoRight]], of course.

* RealLife example: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Landy John Landy]] at the 1956 Olympics. He was leading in the 1500 metres final. Fellow runner Ron Clarke tripped and fell, and Landy doubled back to help him up. [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome He went on to win the race.]]