History Main / ItNeverGetsAnyEasier

[[folder:Film]]

* Subverted in ''WesternAnimation/SouthParkBiggerLongerAndUncut'', when the doctor (voiced by George Clooney) who has failed to resuscitate Kenny because he replaced his heart with a baked potato cries, verbatim, "It never gets any easier!" He immediately begins whistling cheerfully as he walks away.
* ''TheBraveLittleToaster'': In "Worthless", the [[SentientVehicle hearse]] going to meet its death in the crusher sings:
-->''I took a man to a graveyard''\\
''I beg your pardon, it's quite hard enough''\\
''Just living with the stuff I have learned.''

While in reality, people might have some problems the first few times, they quickly grow used to what is, after all, part of their profession. For any given person or family, the sudden death of a loved one can be a traumatic and tragic event, but for the people who see it on a regular basis it doesn't have the same impact. Get a bunch of paramedics, firefighters or other first responders together in a room relaxing and inevitably you'll eventually get morbid jokes, [[BlackHumor pitch-black humor]], and stories of "good runs" where "good" would be defined by the average civilian as "scene from a horror movie". But studio execs assume that all ViewersAreMorons and if we'd see our heroes show even the slightest callousness, we would immediately reject them as inhuman monsters.

* In the {{Warcraft}} novel, ''Literature/TidesOfWar'', Jaina tells her apprentice Kinnidy, [[BreakTheCutie distraught after seeing war for the first time]], that war is always difficult to bear, but after a while, it becomes more familiar and you learn to move on. [[spoiler:She's consumeed by grief and rage after Theramore's destruction, and loses sight of this for a while, but comes to her senses]].

* In ''TheBraveLittleToaster'', the [[SentientVehicle hearse]] going to meet its death in the crusher sings:

* The first ''Film/XMen1'' film has a rare physical version:

** On the other end of the scale, [[TheMessiah Kira]] spends a good portion of the first series in various stages of HeroicBSOD [[strike:because of]] trying to ''avoid'' this trope, because he knows he's the OnlyOne who can protect the [[CoolShip Archangel]].
* Dr. Tenma from ''Anime/{{Monster}}'' [[TheMessiah appears to be physically incapable of letting anyone die on his watch]]. Even when the patient in question has handcuffed him and is currently ''threatening to shoot him'' if he so much as takes another step closer.

* Happens in ''[[TortallUniverse Squire]]'' by TamoraPierce, after Kel is {{Squick}}ed out by the executions she had to witness. Probably a way of further establishing the main characters as heroic, because Pierce has a tendency of giving her villains a complete and utter disregard for human life.

* In VirtuesLastReward, Sigma states to the player a number of times that walking into a room and finding a dead body never has any less of an impact or ever becomes any easier to cope with, despite how often it happens.

* ''MegamanX'':

* Parodied on ''StrangersWithCandy'' when Jerri's father dies.

* US police departments encourage this way of thinking. Lethal force is always the absolute last resort and after having to use it most officers are taken off active duty for a period of time and receive counseling.

----

* Subverted in ''GundamSEED'', when Andrew Waltfeld admits that he was sick after the first time he killed in battle, but that eventually [[ItGetsEasier he got used it it]]. Granted, although Waltfeld is by this point a protagonist, the series does not present it as a positive thing.
** Also subverted by [[TheAce Mu La Flaga]], who displays a similarly thick-skinned attitude towards combat. At one point, after a town is razed for supporting LaResistance, he tells its newly-homeless citizens (correctly, but [[{{Jerkass}} without sensitivity]]) that the enemy commander was very kind to give them the chance to evacuate first and that they are being let off lightly.

** Hell, by the end [[spoiler:he even brings ''Johan'' back after he suffers a ''second'' headshot.]]

* In ''MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaSoundStageX'', this was a discussion that Subaru had with her [[EmergencyServices Special Rescue Team]] Commander after she had watched a person she was trying to save commit suicide ([[spoiler: or more specifically, [[PeoplePuppet was mind-controlled to suicide]]]]) right in front of her. They talk about how hard it is to see someone die and how they could still see the people they failed to save in their dreams. Then Subaru's superior breaks the tension by saying how idiots such as them shouldn't be having introspective conversations like these and the two share a slight chuckle.
** It should be noted that ItGetsEasier and ItNeverGetsAnyEasier are both present in TheVerse: everybody normally uses magical guns set to non-lethal - even if the blast had to go through half a warship to hit it's target, it will still be a NonLethalKO, thus ensuring that fighting someone ''is'' psychologically easy right from the start, but reaction to seeing anyone actually die for any reason is no different from non-combatant's reaction.

* ''Film/TheProfessional''
--> '''Mathilda''': Is life always this hard, or is it just when you're a kid?
--> '''Leon''': Always like this.

* Similar to the ''Franchise/StarTrek'' example, when an officer dies under Wedge's command in the ExpandedUniverse novel ''[[XWingSeries Wraith Squadron]]'', he finds it hard to write the letter informing next of kin. (That the next of kin is in this case his supreme commander probably makes it a bit more difficult.) However, while it takes him all night to word it properly, and he doesn't have much time for sleep, he's ''able'' to sleep for the hour or so, and is faintly proud that it ''isn't'' any easier than it was the first time he had to do it.
** It's also come up that since he half expects new pilots to die soon, he doesn't let himself get to know most of them, even keeping to a LastNameBasis.
** The trope is directly invoked in the first Stackpole novel, at a funeral for a pilot killed in her sleep by Imperial commandoes:

* Although Franchise/JamesBond in the movies follows the ItGetsEasier path, in Ian Fleming's original novels, there are numerous occasions in which Bond makes it clear that killing people, even in self defence, never gets easier for him. In the original ''Literature/{{Goldfinger}}'' novel, for one example, he mopes over having to kill a thug, and in ''Literature/DiamondsAreForever'', Bond momentarily imagines a corpse of a man he just killed confronting Bond with the permanence of his actions.

-->"It hurts, every time. But the... unfamiliarity of it goes away, and you learn that you can go on. That those you've lost would ''want'' you to go on. You'll remember how to laugh and be thankful and enjoy life. But you won't ever forget."

** For instance very sensitive Doctor Allison Cameron had to tell parents that their baby died. It was the first patient of House's team that died in the series.

-->'''Buffy''': Does it ever get easy?
-->'''Giles''': You mean life?
-->'''Buffy''': Yeah? Does it get easy?
-->'''Giles''': What do you want me to say?
-->'''Buffy''': [[TitleDrop Lie to me.]]
-->'''Giles''': Yes, it's terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true, the bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats, and we always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies, and everybody lives happily ever after.
-->'''Buffy''': Liar.

* While a variation of this trope may seem to be played straight in the game VideoGame/BrothersInArms: Hell's Highway, it can be excused on account ThatOtherWiki claims the Operation Market Garden that the game takes place in seems to be a rather big failure as there are around 18000 casualties or losses by the Allies' forces that you play versus the 8000 casualties by the Germans. ([[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Market_Garden see the proof here!]])
** Operation Market Garden was, strategically speaking, a colossal failure, committing resources to a risky attack that failed within ''days'' and had to be defended for ''weeks'', requiring even more resources.

* MegamanX, mostly because he is at heart [[MartialPacifist a pacifist]]. While Zero has learned to deal with death over his career, X always feels grief and doubt about those who die in the Maverick Wars, even his own enemies. It's even be argued that he ''deliberately'' does this so he always has sympathy for the enemy because becoming callous is not the way to finding real peace. When he finally loses all sympathy centuries into the future, he retires.
** Almost completely averted with Zero, who doesn't let it bother him. He's not totally heartless though - he just sees it from a different perspective. When a twin dies along with his BigBad brother (because they shared a CPU), he told the upset X that he knew the consequences and he should honor his sacrifice instead of bemoaning it. However, when his [[ItsPersonal love interest Iris]] dies in cruel and pointless war, [[HeroicBSOD he didn't take it well]].
* Possibly invoked in {{MadWorld}}. In the ending theme [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9vB94bpw_A "Soul"]], the song takes place from Jack's point of view and deals with his conflicted self. The song suggests that he hates killing [[HeWhoFightsMonsters but he has to keep doing it for a greater cause.]]

* A sports example: Hockey goaltender Glenn Hall admitted, even back in the day, to throwing up before every game in nervousness. He was one of the all-time greats at his position (his nickname was Mr. Goalie, not something you get for being bad at the job) and easily entered the sport's Hall of Fame. Even with his talent and skill, he never could get used to having a team rely on him and throwing himself in front of a chunk of frozen rubber.
** This is similar to stage fright, which is a common affliction even among seasoned performers. Though it gets better after actually appearing before the audience, that anxiety leading up to it never gets better. Most stage actors use exercises to cope with it; acting exercises, vocal exercises, sometimes just physical exercises.
* US police departments encourage this way of thinking. Lethal force is always the absolute last resort and after having to use it most officers are taken off active duty for a period of time and recieve counseling.

* Every medical drama you've ever seen. Even ''Series/{{House}}''. The downright worst perpetrator at the moment seems to be ''Series/GreysAnatomy''.
** In one episode of ''Series/GreysAnatomy'', an experienced doctor ordered one of the newbies to watch a premature baby in an incubator overnight. The exhausted doctor fell asleep, the baby died, and her supervisor explained she knew the baby would die and assigned her to watch it specifically so she could get used to patients dying.
*** The short-lived medical drama ''{{Mercy}}'' did a similar thing: It's a nurse's first day on the job, and her first assignment is to unplug a guy on life support. Striking is the cavalierness of which her supervising nurses treat the assignment.
** Mentioned in ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'', as half the stories have AnAesop that sometimes patients just die, and if you go into depression every time, you'll never get anything done. The only character who actually ''acts'' on this Aesop, though, is Dr. Kelso, but that's just because he has to keep himself together in order to effectively run the hospital. However, [[JustifiedTrope J.D. has stated]] that he doesn't ''want'' to be one of the doctors that just doesn't care anymore. One of the reasons he respects Dr. Cox so much is because when he loses a patient, it still hits him hard (granted Dr. Cox was responsible for the deaths of three patients all in one day. That kind of thing can [[HeroicBSOD take a toll on your psyche]].)
** Weakly [[JustifiedTrope justified]] during the first season of ''Series/{{House}}'', when doctors Cameron, Chase and Foreman were still new hotshot fellows. Still, fast forward to season 3, and the trope becomes an absurd ''plot point'' when Dr. Foreman [[spoiler:considers quitting his job and eventually does. The reason? A patient who died because the team misdiagnosed her. House is disappointed, but felt he and the team did the right thing. On the other hand, Foreman felt that it was House's methods that killed the patient, and eventually quit because he "didn't want to be like House." (Not entirely the same issue, but brought to a head by the events of the episode.)]] Never mind that House himself repeats over and over that doctors will see a patient die every now and then and they just have to live with it - to the point that he even uses it as a reason to [[spoiler:fire Dr. Amber "Cutthroat Bitch" Volakis, because House doesn't see Amber as an individual who could accept losing.]]
*** It is fairly well justified. Foreman's issue was more that they were so ready to perform dangerous operations (in this case, irradiation) on a hunch when they could theoretically have taken their time and completed the diagnosis before starting treatment. The bigger issue is that almost every case in House involves time constraints where this isn't feasible.
*** Somewhat ironic when you consider season four's finale, when [[spoiler:Amber dies after the group uses every last available method to diagnose her, including electric stimulation to House's brain. Also somewhat heartwrenching, as she and Dr. Wilson had proven to be quite adorable. Thirteen also had a difficult time accepting this.]]
** Come to think of it, the only way a character from a medical drama will get over the fact that sick people die is if they're portrayed as evil or amoral. Like Kelso or House (see above examples).
*** Heck, even ''House'' isn't ''completely'' immune, given his obsession with saving patients ("Control"), getting upset when he seems to be failing ("Autopsy"), brooding years later over hard cases ("All In")... In these instances, [[JustifiedTrope it fits]] his "obsessive-must-be-proven-right" character, [[ItNeverGetsAnyEasier but still...]]
*** Kelso isn't immune either. The purpose of the episode "My Jiggly Ball" seems to have been to [[DeconstructedTrope deconstruct]] the 'heartless administrator' stock character by showing that he isn't obsessed with money because he wants to be, he's obsessed because he ''has'' to be.
** Subverted in the first episode of ''Cardiac Arrest'' (a series written by an actual ex-doctor) in which a junior doctor, after telling a patient's family that he has passed away, is told by his boss "Soon you'll be worried about how ''little'' this affects you".
*** Similarly played with/deconstructed on ''Series/WithoutATrace''; when asked if it gets any easier, Jack Malone answers, "Unfortunately, yes."
* ''LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'' has this trope in an awkward position, as children get horribly abused and, sometimes, killed in every episode. Bouts of angsty rage are quite common, though; Stabler on occasion wonders whether he can keep doing his job.
** Considering that it's mentioned ''in the show'' that the average time in the department for an SVU detective is two years, and the detectives in the show have been on the job for as much as ''eight'', it's no surprise that they're breaking down rather spectacularly at times. In fact, the show can be a lesson in ''why'' detectives rotate out of that position after two years: if they don't, they start to go ''native''.
* ''ThirdWatch'', where the senior paramedic (Doc) eventually had a mental breakdown.
** [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] with Carlos, though. After his first day on the job, Doc assumes he's having trouble dealing with everything they went through and tells him that all the pain and suffering "gets to you." But Carlos says that it didn't get to him at all and that he felt no emotional connection to their patients. Carlos is a bit of a {{Jerkass}}, but Doc eventually realizes that this makes him an excellent paramedic since he can look at a situation objectively.
* Exception: ''Series/{{NCIS}}'' features Ducky, a gentlemanly coroner who is positively delighted with his trade and Abby, a PerkyGoth [[TheLabRat Lab Rat]] who isn't squeamish, either.
** Should be noted that Ducky does play this trope straight with one specific type of victim: colleagues. He invokes this trope to his assistant Mr. Palmer, who's normally as unfazed by the gruesome nature of their work as he is, the first time he has to autopsy an NCIS agent [[spoiler: actually Director Shepard]] and the boy is visibly shaken.
*** Ducky seems to be deliberately trying to avert this trope in himself - he talks to the corpses, making sure to give them their dignity instead of dehumanizing them so that he can examine the absolutely staggering number of corpses the MCU seems to deal with and not suffer a nervous breakdown. He never seems happy to have work - obviously, as that means someone's been killed under suspicious circumstances - but he's undeniably one of the best in his field because he almost never lets it get to him. All that said, he does show a sort of twisted interest when someone has been killed in a particularly bizarre way (like, say, shanked with a screwdriver and then tossed into a smokestack). It never makes him seem nuts, just a bit of a CloudCuckooLander.
** And then there's [=McGee's=] shocked reaction to a body in a suitcase... Not because it's a dead guy thrown in a dumpster, but because he just bought that exact model of suitcase, and the seam on this one is ripped. After another agent points out what he just said, [=McGee=] wonders if maybe he's been doing this job for too long.
** Ziva is also a walking aversion of the trope. In the season 3 episode "Jeopardy," when a perp drops dead while in her custody, Ziva is unbothered by his death and confident that her actions didn't cause it, and simply wants to know when she can get back to work.
** Ziva was trained from birth to kill, but not to question. Years later when she kills a serial killer who nearly killed her, she breaks down; she had come literally within a millimeter of death, and started doubting herself for the first time. And then, a year or so after that, she resigns herself to death, only to be rescued by the last person she expected; afterward she changes loyalties (from an external perspective), and her co-workers comment on how relatively subdued she has become.
* Parodied on ''ThatMitchellAndWebbLook'', where (in a ridiculously simplified parody of medical programmes) a doctor pulls off a plaster and says 'That Never Gets Any Easier'

->''"Every time I operate I always question myself. Have I made a mistake? Can I pull this off? Will there be any unforeseen complications? I'm always nervous. The patient's life is in my hands...In '''my''' hands. '''How the hell do you expect me to stay calm?!'''"''

->''"They say the more teddybears you tickle the easier it gets. No, sir."''
-->--'''Abraham Simpson's''' {{Bowdlerized}} war story, ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''.

* In ''TheCloser'', Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson is going to tell a family that their child has died, and requests that Sgt Gabriel deliver the actual news, as part of his training (they are effectively a homicide squad, so he will be doing this a lot). As they pull up to the house, Johnson says to Gabriel, "Prepare to be the central character in the worst day of these people's lives".

Contrast with the more [[SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism cynical]] ItGetsEasier.

* MaryRussell and Holmes discuss this after the end of her first case in BEEK. Holmes admits that this is the source of his addiction to cocaine.

* Parodied in an episode of ''Series/{{Monk}}'': Lieutenant Disher tells Natalie that one gets used to seeing murder victims while working in the police. He then adds that "getting used to it" is the worst part of the job, the part he never gets used to.

--> '''Rogue''': Does it hurt when your claws come out?

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': The Doctor never gets over the deaths of people that he's charged himself with protecting. He just buries it in his memories and goes on, presenting a cheerful face to the universe. Sometimes, after a particularly wrenching loss, he [[HeroicSafeMode withdraws into himself]] and decides that he will travel alone. This never lasts for long, because ''without'' [[MoralityChain a companion]], he becomes [[AGodAmI truly fearsome]].