History Main / StartXToStopX

* ''VideoGame/MetroidPrimeTrilogy'': This is a recurring theme with Phazon-based enemies, against whom Phazon-based weaponry is usually the most effective. In fact, the {{Final Boss}}es of ''Prime'' and ''Echoes'' can only be damaged with Phazon-based [[EleventhHourSuperpower Eleventh Hour Superpowers]]. ''Corruption'' takes this further by giving you Phazon weapons early on, which continue to be the best way to deal with Phazon-wielding enemies found throughout the game.

* A number of television shows feature as plots the implementation of various Weapons of Mass Destruction because the antagonist believes if they use them it will bring attention to the anti-WMD cause. Season 2 of ''Series/Jericho2006'' and the ''Series/{{Leverage}}'' episode "[[Recap/LeverageS05E09TheRundownJob The Rundown Job]]" feature this using influenza and nuclear weapons, respectively. In the case of ''Series/Jericho2006'', the antagonist also wanted to expose the conspiracy that a corporation had plans to take over the country in the event of a nuclear war -- by setting off a bunch of nukes and watching as they carried out those plans.

* In ''Film/{{Paycheck}}'', SelfFulfillingProphecy is in full effect: the future-seeing machine sees a newspaper article about one nation going to war with another, so the first nation ''starts'' the war in an attempt to get an advantage, causing the article to be written exactly as they saw. Another article points to a massive outbreak of a plague that results in people being put into quarantine camps, so the government gathers up those people and puts them in quarantine camps, at which point they get sick and spread the plague amongst each other. And it escalates from there to nuclear war: one nation sees that nuclear war is coming, so they launch their nukes first because they don't want to get struck first, triggering the nuclear war. The protagonist states that no one should see the future because it's only confirmation bias: you see what you want to see because you'll work to make it come true.

* Chris from ''Anime/SenkiZesshouSymphogear'' uses her heavily armed PoweredArmor to end wars and fighting by beating thouroughly anyone armed at all.

** In ''VisualNovel/ZeroTimeDilemma'', [[spoiler:Brother wanted to release Radical-6 in the hopes that it would stop a religious fanatic that would kill all humans, and not just the 6 billion that would die as a result of Radical-6's effects]].

* ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'': In "Hank's Bully", a young boy named Caleb and his family move into the neighborhood, and immediately begins bullying Hank, calling him names like "Dusty Old Bones, full of green dust" [[BrokenRecord over and over]]. Hank tries to tell Caleb's parents, [[AdultsAreUseless but they brush it off]], [[BitchInSheepsClothing since he acts so nice around them]]. Eventually, Hank decides the best way to have Caleb's parents put an end to it is to have Bobby mimic Caleb's behavior, [[IronicEcho with Hank repeating the parents' statements]] once they complain about it.

* Mr. X of ''ComicBook/MegaMan'' wants to invoke this with Dr. Wily, encouraging him to continue trying to destroy things with his robots in order to keep humanity from building more robots and causing more destruction in the future.

* A number of television shows feature as plots the implementation of various Weapons of Mass Destruction because the antagonist believes if they use them it will bring attention to the anti-WMD cause. Season 2 of ''Series/Jericho2006'' and the ''Series/{{Leverage}}'' episode "[[Recap/LeverageS05E09TheRundownJob The Rundown Job]]"feature this using influenza and nuclear weapons, respectively. In the case of ''Series/Jericho2006'', the antagonist also wanted to expose the conspiracy that a corporation had plans to take over the country in the event of a nuclear war -- by setting off a bunch of nukes and watching as they carried out those plans.

* A number of television shows feature as plots the implementation of various Weapons of Mass Destruction because the antagonist believes if they use them it will bring attention to the anti-WMD cause. Season 2 of ''Series/{{Jericho}}'' and an episode of ''Series/{{Leverage}}'' feature this using Influenza and Nuclear weapons, respectively. In the case of ''Series/{{Jericho}}'', the antagonist also wanted to expose the conspiracy that a corporation had plans to take over the country in the event of a nuclear war -- by setting off a bunch of nukes and watching as they carried out those plans.

* ''Series/GameOfThrones'': Varys is loyal to the common people and feels they are oppressed and stifled and suffer for the wars of the nobles and the high lords. To help them he is willing to destabilize a government if he feels that it's not doing its job well. So what if his method of doing so is backing another King, starting a war and prepping an invasion, which will in all likelihood affect and hurt the same common people he claims to care about, and all for the sake of replacing one King for the sake of the another, and in the case of Viserys, a ruler who would have been far worse than the one currently in charge?

* Late in ''VideoGame/BravelyDefault'' you discover that [[spoiler: your ExpositionFairy has been manipulating you into awakening the crystals in order to link the paralell worlds, which will eventually allow her master Lord Ourobouros to consume them.]] The obvious solution is to [[spoiler: overcharge and shatter one of the crystals]], but this only leads to the normal ending, in which the bad guy is temporarily thwarted, but will be able to try again [[spoiler: when the crystal regrows in 5000 years]]. The permanent solution requires you to [[spoiler: go along with Airy's plan and allow her to finish linking the worlds]], which allows your party to put a permanent stop to the plan by confronting and defeating [[spoiler: Lord Ourobouros]], leading to the GoldenEnding.

* ''VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite'': Team Plasma wants all Pokémon to be released into the wild, and they'll use their Pokemon to force you to give them up. [[spoiler:Turns out TheManBehindTheMan Ghetsis just wants everyone else to release their Pokémon, so he'll be the only one with Pokémon and can take over Unova with ease.]]

-->'''Paradox:''' Pwotagonists! I challenge you to a card game!
-->'''Yusei:''' You mean the thing that's going to destroy the world?
-->'''Paradox:''' Yes! That.
-->'''Yusei:''' Seems kind of hypocritical.

* In the ''Manga/DeathNote'' [[AlternateUniverseFic AU]] ''Fanfic/ThoseWhoStandForNothingFallForAnything'' Light becomes a CorruptPolitician in order to put an end to corruption.
* In ''FanFic/RosarioVampireBrightestDarkness Acts III and IV'', Hokuto claims that his plan is to bring about peace, and that all life on Earth, human and monster alike, is a plague; therefore, in order to achieve true peace, Hokuto intends to revive [[EldritchAbomination Alucard]] and kick back and watch as Alucard kills every living thing on the planet.

* In ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'', Nick Fury shoots a bazooka at a fighter pilot to prevent him from [[NukeEm nuking New York]]. ''WebVideo/CinemaSins'' describes it as "Nick Fury shoots a missile at an American to stop him from firing a missile at Americans".
** This is the entirety of Ultron’s descent into madness. Tony created him with the prime directive “protect the Earth”, but upon awakening, he decided that humanity was the biggest threat to Earth and decided to wipe them out. The Avengers themselves do something similar when they realize the only way to [[spoiler: prevent Sokovia from falling to Earth and destroying everything is to destroy Sokovia themselves.]]
** Used in another MCU movie, ''Film/ThorRagnarok''. [[spoiler: The only way to stop Hela from destroying pretty much everything else through her conquest is to summon Surtur and let him destroy Asgard with her there.]]

Compare TurnTheOtherCheek, when allowing someone to hurt you can be a BadassPacifist tactic that stops them from hurting you, ZerothLawRebellion, in which this trope is utilized by a logical program, and TakesOneToKillOne, where the only way to defeat something to use that same something against it. LaboriousLaziness is a SubTrope, in that it means doing a lot of work to avoid work.

* ''VideoGame/Persona5'': A major plot element is a series of mental shutdowns and psychotic breakdowns that have been occurring across Tokyo and causing accidents and deaths. [[spoiler: They are being caused by Akechi Goro in his Metaverse guise as "Black Mask," while in the real world he acts as the "Detective Prince" who figures out the causes of the accidents and enjoys fame and fortune for his apparent brilliance.]]

* Some vaccines, such as the oral polio vaccine, introduce a weakened form of a pathogen. Some others, such as the smallpox vaccine, introduce a different but "close enough" pathogen (cowpox for smallpox). Thus, a small number of vaccines work to prevent illness by giving a weakened illness. Note: these are the exceptions today. Most, like the common flu vaccine today, introduce something incapable of causing disease like an isolated viral protein (though soreness is common, as the immune system is supposed to react to the substance and the soreness is caused by that reaction.)

* The Operative in ''Film/{{Serenity}}'' wants to create a perfect world without sin, no matter how many innocent children he has to kill in the process. An oddly self-aware example, in that he freely admits there's no place for a monster like him in his intended paradise.

* ''Film/WonderWoman2017'': Ares's plan to end war and bring about permanent peace is to create a war to wipe out all humanity.

* PlayedForLaughs in the ''Series/LastWeekTonightWithJohnOliver'' episode about the filibuster, as Creator/JohnOliver ends the episode giving a filibuster about abolishing the filibuster, arguing that it is a needless hindrance in American politics.

* In the ''Franchise/KamenRider'' movie ''[[Film/KamenRiderHeiseiGenerationsFinalBuildAndExAidWithLegendRiders Heisei Generations Final]]'', the BigBad's plan is to forcibly merge the mainline ''Kamen Rider'' universe and Series/KamenRiderBuild's AlternateUniverse together during a CelestialAlignment, so that he and his AlternateSelf will [[FusionDance merge into a single being]] with [[AGodAmI godlike power]]. Build and [[Series/KamenRiderExAid Ex-Aid]] activate the villain's machine ''before'' the planets can align, which keeps him from becoming all-powerful and leaves him open to defeat.

* The [[AbsurdlyPowerfulStudentCouncil Miyaji High Student Council]] employs this strategy against the unwanted Miyaji Cardfight Club in [[Anime/CardfightVanguard Cardfight!! Vanguard]]. By sending "assassins" against said club, they hope the club will cease to exist once they beat them in their own game. Needless to say, this has yet to succeed, prompting the vice president to take more extreme measures in sabotaging.

* In ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima'', the group "Perfect World" wants to save the MagicWorld from its inevitable impending collapse by destroying it first, sending all its inhabitants to their "perfect world" that is suspiciously afterlife-like.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' story, ''FanFic/FlashFog'', Ponyville is threatened by the accidental release of a huge mass of experimental and highly dangerous fog. After trying everything else she can think of to disperse it, resident fog expert Fluttershy decides to try saving Ponyville from the fog by ''letting'' it roll through Ponyville and into the Everfree Forest, where she hopes the wild magic permeating the place will negate the pegasus magic in the fog which makes it so hazardous.

* In ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'', Nick Fury shoots a bazooka at a fighter pilot to prevent him from [[NukeEm nuking New York]]. ''Webvideo/CinemaSins'' describes it as "Nick Fury shoots a missile at an American to stop him from firing a missile at Americans".

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}''

* The Maymai Alliance in ''Spectral Force Genesis'' wants to stop a war that will ravage the land, but to do it, they'll beat everyone else and then disarm them all.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

Compare TurnTheOtherCheek, when allowing someone to hurt you can be a BadassPacifist tactic that stops them from hurting you, and ZerothLawRebellion, in which this trope is utilized by a logical program. LaboriousLaziness is a SubTrope, in that it means doing a lot of work to avoid work.

* Late in ''VideoGame/BravelyDefault'' you discover that [[spoiler: your ExpositionFairy has been manipulating you into awakening the crystals in order to link the paralell worlds, which will eventually allow her master Lord Ourobouros to consume them.]] The obvious solution is to [[spoiler: overcharge and shatter one of the crystals]], but this only leads to the normal ending, in which the bad guy is temporarily thwarted, but will be able to try again [[spoiler: when the crystal regrows in 5000 years]]. The permanent solution requires you to [[spoiler: go along with Airy's plan and allow her to finish linking the worlds]], which allows your party to put a permanent stop to the plan by confronting and defeating the BigBad, leading to the GoldenEnding.

%% Image moved to Catch22Dilemma per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1485208821068514100
%% Please start a new thread if you'd like to suggest an image.

* Many ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}'' characters:
** In ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundam00 Gundam 00]]'', the protagonists seek to end war via "armed interventions" -- in other words, attacking warlike parties and shutting them down with the overwhelming power of their Gundams. Both their enemies and the more savvy members of their organization {{Lampshade}} how hypocritical it all sounds.
** ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing Gundam Wing]]'' has Zechs desire to cause such intense devastation to Earth that war loses all appeal. In [[TheMovie Endless Waltz]] this is partially the reason Wufei switches sides and fights against the Gundam Pilots, which is explained more in supplimentary materials.
** ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamAGE Gundam AGE]]'' has Lord Ezelcant decide to end war forever by... staring a huge war. [[spoiler:His SocialDarwinist agenda is even worse. He wants to purge humanity of warlike tendencies. Except the people who live through wars and disasters tend to be the ones who ''fight the hardest'' to survive.]]

* ''LightNovel/CrestOfTheStars'' The Ahb take the position that humanity will be inevitably be destroyed in a galactic war if left to themselves. So they decide to conquer everyone and incorporate them into their Empire, denying all other races the ability of hyperspace travel so that there won't be any war. Tactics used to accomplish this salvation include blowing away the atmosphere of rebellious planets. [[DesignatedHero And the series is on their side.]]
* Light Yagami of ''Manga/DeathNote'' commits mass homicide in order to put an end to all crime.
* In episode 21 of ''Anime/GenesisOfAquarion'', Sirius declares that "the reason I fight is to create a world free of fighting, where beauty prevails."

* Chris from ''Anime/SenkiZesshouSymphogear'' uses her heavily armed PoweredArmor to end wars and fighting by beating thouroughly anyone armed at all.
* In ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima'', the group "Perfect World" wants to save the MagicWorld from its inevitable impending collapse by destroying it first, sending all its inhabitants to their "perfect world" that is suspiciously afterlife-like.
* The [[AbsurdlyPowerfulStudentCouncil Miyaji High Student Council]] employs this strategy against the unwanted Miyaji Cardfight Club in [[Anime/CardfightVanguard Cardfight!! Vanguard]]. By sending "assassins" against said club, they hope the club will cease to exist once they beat them in their own game. Needless to say, this has yet to succeed, prompting the vice president to take more extreme measures in sabotaging.
* In ''Anime/VisionOfEscaflowne'', Emperor Dornkirk's method for creating a world free of war mostly consists of invading sovereign nations by military force.
** It gets better. His ultimate goal is [[spoiler:to build a machine that grants wishes, reasoning that people will have no need for war if they can get whatever they want easily. Of course, since he started a bloody, globe-spanning conflict, "whatever they want" for most people in the world translates to [[FantasticNuke the deaths of all the enemies who've been killing their families and destroying their homes]].]]
* In ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnlineAlternativeGunGaleOnline'', Karen "LLENN" Kohirumaki hears that Pito is planning on participating in Squad Jam 2, and killing herself if she loses, since Pito wants to feel the exhilaration of risking her own life in a game. However, Goshi "M" Asougi tells Karen that Pito will make an exception if LLENN kills her, so LLENN sets out to kill Pito in the game in order to save her (real) life.

* ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'': in order to stop people from killing each other, [[spoiler:make it look like an outside force (aliens) are going to attack them. By killing a whole lot of people]].

* In ''Film/DemolitionMan'', cop 20th century John Spartan is thawed out in the future to catch 20th century criminal Simon Phoenix on the basis of "Send a maniac to catch a maniac." Then it turns out Simon's escape was arranged by Raymond Cocteau, who wanted him to assassinate the leader of outlaws threatening his peaceful society... and create enough chaos for an excuse to turn it into an even more rigid and "perfect" one.
* The BigBad of ''Film/MissionImpossibleGhostProtocol'' is a nuclear weapons specialist who is convinced that mankind will keep building more and more powerful weapons until it inevitably wipes itself out in nuclear war. So he seeks to prevent this by...starting nuclear war ''right now'' while weapons are not powerful enough to ''completely'' wipe out mankind in the hopes that human civilization will be so traumatized that they will never do it again.
** Ethan Hunt is '''''always''''' doing this. Sometimes it’s deliberate but others (such as in the aforementioned ''Ghost Protocol'') his hand is forced and he has to fall back to it. Typically this means whatever he’s hoping to avert ends up being narrowly avoided (the worst of which happening in ''Ghost Protocol'' and ''[[Film/MissionImpossibleFallout Fallout]]'', where a nuclear attack is averted only by mere seconds).
* In ''Film/{{Paycheck}}'', SelfFulfillingProphecy is in full effect: the future-seeing machine sees a newspaper article about one nation going to war with another, so the first nation ''starts'' the war in an attempt to get an advantage, causing the article to be written exactly as they saw. Another article points to a massive outbreak of a plague that results in people being put into quarantine camps, so the government gathers up those people and puts them in quarantine camps, at which point they get sick and spread the plague amongst each other. And it escalates from there to nuclear war: one nation sees that nuclear war is coming, so they launch their nukes first because they don't want to get struck first, triggering the nuclear war. The protagonist states that no one should see the future because it's only confirmation bias: you see what you want to see because you'll work to make it come true.

* The Operative in ''Film/{{Serenity}}'' wants to create a perfect world without sin, no matter how many innocent children he has to kill in the process. An oddly self-aware example, in that he freely admits there's no place for a monster like him in his intended paradise.

* ''Film/ItsAWonderfulLife'': George's Guardian Angel, Clarence, arrives on Earth just seconds before George can [[DrivenToSuicide hurl himself off a bridge into an icy river]]. Clarence stops him by jumping into the water himself and begging someone to save him, George jumps into the water, but specifically to pull Clarence to safety, and drags himself out of the water to make sure he's safe when the authorities give him medical attention. This, in turn, gives Clarence a chance to introduce himself and subject George to the [[TropeNamer original]] [[ItsAWonderfulPlot wonderful plot]] to convince him not to kill himself.

* Literature/TheWheelOfTime: Throughout the series, the characters have been trying to prevent the [[BigBad Dark One]] from breaking free of [[SealedEvilInACan his prison]]. In the twelfth book, it's revealed that [[spoiler: in order to keep the Dark One sealed away, they first need to break the seals on the prison, so they can remake the seals even stronger.]]
* In the Literature/{{Dragaera}} series, we learn that the Morganti weapons, which devour the souls of their victims, were created by the Serioli to make war so horrible that no one would ever fight again. It worked... but only for the Serioli, who have a very alien way of thinking. Dragaerans and Easterners don't have the same level of conscience that would restrain them from destroying a soul.
* Subverted in ''Literature/{{Jingo}}'', where Vetinari sees the Klatchian empire is remarkably well prepared for a conflict that supposedly flared up only a few days ago, noting: "If you want war, prepare for war." When Leonard corrects him with the page quote, Vetinari thinks about it and says he doesn't see it.

* ''Literature/TheHandmaidsTale'': A justification of the new order, as explained in Aunt Lydia's [[NewEraSpeech "Freedom From" speech]] to new Handmaid trainees at the Red Center, is that the old society with all its freedoms "to" was full of crimes against women including rape. Yet this new order, which was to provide women with "freedom from" those things through restrictions on old liberties, basically implemented a systematic institutionalization of rape by forcing procreative sex on captive Handmaids, and women were arguably less secure in other ways even if they obeyed the rules but failed to conceive or were merely accused of anything, given that they now had [[KangarooCourt zero legal recourse]] as second-class citizens in the new patriarchal theocracy.
* In ''LightNovel/CookingWithWildGame'', [[WellIntentionedExtremist the villains' plan]] to go legit starts with kidnapping an innocent person and forcing him to make money for them. Things go downhill from there, [[spoiler:although it's implied that the clan's remorseful members only pretended to support the kidnapping plan, doing so (even after the clan is brought to justice) because their culture dictates that sabotaging one's family- however good the reason- is a crime in itself.]]
* In Shakespear's play ''Theatre/KingJohn'':
--> Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire;\\
Threaten the threatener and outface the brow\\
Of bragging horror

* A number of television shows feature as plots the implementation of various Weapons of Mass Destruction because the antagonist believes if they use them it will bring attention to the anti-WMD cause. Season 2 of ''Series/{{Jericho}}'' and a episode of ''Series/{{Leverage}}'' feature this using Influenza and Nuclear weapons, respectively. In the case of ''Series/{{Jericho}}'', the antagonist also wanted to expose the conspiracy that a corporation had plans to take over the country in the event of a nuclear war - by setting off a bunch of nukes and watching as they carried out those plans.
* Crichton of ''Series/{{Farscape}}'' showcases just how destructive wormhole weapons are so everyone would stop trying to bully, blackmail, threaten and MindRape the secrets out of his head.
* In the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "A Taste Of Armageddon", [[AMillionIsAStatistic two planets fight a "clean" war by having computers figure out who was killed by each virtual attack]], whereupon the designated casualties report for [[NeverSayDie termination]]. Kirk destroys the computers on one side, forcing them to choose between fighting war in the usual messy manner or making peace.
* ''Series/OnceUponATime'' has this in Season 4 with Ingrid/The Snow Queen, who feels that magic users will always eventually be isolated and so she, Elsa, and Emma should be one big happy family with no one else involved. She intends to get Emma in her "family" by helping Emma control her powers...only Emma's never had control problems before. So in "The Snow Queen" she preys on Emma's insecurities to ''create'' control problems that she can then solve.
** Ingrid is shown to have a history of this, often with it not working out. Wanting to convince Elsa that Anna will turn on her, she uses a spell to force Anna to turn against Elsa. Elsa sees right through it. Wanting to convince Elsa that people will turn on her for her powers, she frames Elsa for murder. It fails.
* The whole [=SuperPAC=] saga. In 2012, ''Series/TheDailyShow'' and ''Series/TheColbertReport'' started a [=SuperPAC=] to demonstrate the opacity and lack of rules surrounding the collection, distribution, and spending of [=SuperPAC=] money, by having Colbert [[ExactWords "not" collude with Stewart on it]], spending the money questionably, etc, with the guidance of their lawyer, Trevor Potter. Then it more explicitly became this trope when they donated some of the [=SuperPAC=] money to organizations dedicated to changing [=SuperPAC=] rules to stop exactly those kinds of shenanigans.
* ''Series/KaitouSentaiLupinrangerVsKeisatsuSentaiPatranger'': The PhantomThief Lupinrangers and the intergalactic crime family known as the Ganglers both fight over, and use, artifacts from the Lupin Collection to derive their powers. In order to contend with both the Lupinrangers and Ganglers, the officers of the Global Police also use Lupin Collection items to transform into the Patrangers and fight their rivals on equal footing.
* In the ''Franchise/KamenRider'' movie ''[[Film/KamenRiderHeiseiGenerationsFinalBuildAndExAidWithLegendRiders Heisei Generations Final]]'', the BigBad's plan is to forcibly merge the mainline ''Kamen Rider'' universe and Series/KamenRiderBuild's AlternateUniverse together during a CelestialAlignment, so that he and his AlternateSelf will [[FusionDance merge into a single being]] with [[AGodAmI godlike power]]. Build and [[Series/KamenRiderExAid Ex-Aid]] activate the villain's machine ''before'' the planets can align, which keeps him from becoming all-powerful and leaves him open to defeat.
* In ''Series/DoctorWho'' Season 4, Dalek Caan does this. He [[spoiler: rebuilds the entire Dalek Empire under the command of their resurrected creator, Davros, just so the Doctor can kill them all off for good.]] Unfortunately, it doesn't work.

* The Inquisition in ''TabletopGame/AnimaBeyondFantasy'' follows this trope to a T, their members using the very same stuff (magic, psionics, Ki attacks...) they combat -justifying them as gifts given to them by God to destroy heretics and demons-.

* Most of the ''VideoGame/QuestForGlory'' games require you to play UnwittingPawn to the villain's scheme before you can put an end to that scheme. In the second game, this is actually in force by your enemy, who needs "A hero from the north" to fulfill a prophecy, and so send the elementals to test you[[note]]In addition to providing a test of your abilities, it's also designed to get you to a specific place, at a specific time, with a ''specific title'' (Hero). Not knowing that you're a hero from Spielburg, the BigBad plots to ''make you'' a hero, so that you can fulfill a prophecy for him. The only reason he fails is because he didn't know the full, real prophecy[[/note]]. In the third game, you're trying to avert a war between the Leopardmen and the Simbani, but the only way to discover who's trying to incite the war is to let the war actually happen[[note]]Though you don't know that at the time. The majority of the game is spent trying to get a peace conference between the two groups, and when you ultimately succeed, the demons behind the plot are forced to intervene directly, giving evidence of their previously-unconfirmed involvement and setting you on the path to confront them[[/note]]. In the fourth game, the BigBad plots to unleash an otherworldly [[EldritchAbomination Dark One]] that was partially summoned years ago (and the partial summoning is responsible for the sorry state of the surrounding countryside), and to permanently banish the Dark One, the hero has to finish summoning it[[note]]Though in this case, the reason the Dark One must be summoned is because the only person capable of banishing it completely was trapped with the Dark One in a partial banishment, preventing either from gaining an advantage[[/note]].
* The Maymai Alliance in ''Spectral Force Genesis'' wants to stop a war that will ravage the land, but to do it, they'll beat everyone else and then disarm them all.
* In ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedII'', one of Altair's Codex pages lists what he considers the three ironies at the heart of the Assassins - They seek peace, which they try to obtain through murder. They seek to free the minds of men, but require obedience to a leader and a set of rules. They seek to expose the dangers of faith, but use it themselves. He goes on to say that he is trying to find a way to resolve the contradiction but fears that no solution exists. By the modern day, Assassins are less ''likely'' to use murder, refute organized faith, and operate in cells where everyone is equal, but separately skilled, meaning that ''eventually'' they worked out a compromise.
* ''VideoGame/GearsOfWar 2'': To stop the Horde from sinking humanity, Marcus and Dom decide to [[spoiler: sink Jacinto faster to take them out, too]].

** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'', Maester Seymour believes that the [[EldritchAbomination otherworldly entity Sin]] has trapped the world of Spira in a downwards spiral of death and suffering. How will he save Spira's people from this sorrow? [[spoiler: by becoming Sin himself and ''[[PutThemAllOutOfMyMisery killing everyone on the face of the planet]]'']].

* ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeonExplorers'': Stop time to stop time from stopping. To elaborate more: Stealing a Time Gear from its place will cause time in that area to stop flowing, but [[spoiler: if the Time Gears are not taken from their current location to Temporal Tower, the tower will fall into ruin and time ''everywhere'' will stop flowing.]]

* In the ''VideoGame/RType'' series, the iconic Force device is made using embryonic Bydo flesh, creating a nigh-impenetrable shield and multi-functional weapon that is highly effective in destroying Bydo. It's strongly implied that this is what eventually creates the Bydo themselves in the future, so the only way to stop the Bydo war is to use the Bydo to destroy the Bydo which will create the Bydo to then go back into the past and start the invasion. It's almost an InvertedTrope: Stop X to Start X.
* In ''VideoGame/PokemonVietnameseCrystal'', a TranslationTrainWreck of ''Pokémon Crystal Version'', you apparently have to pull the power supply out to start up the PC.
* ''VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite'': Team Plasma wants all Pokémon to be released into the wild, and they'll use their Pokemon to force you to give them up. [[spoiler:Turns out TheManBehindTheMan Ghetsis just wants everyone else to release their Pokémon, so he'll be the only one with Pokémon and can take over Unova with ease.]]

* In the ''Franchise/MassEffect'' series, the true reason the Reapers cull organic life in the galaxy every 50,000 years or so? [[spoiler:It was the answer their creator the Catalyst, the first true Artificial Intelligence ever created, came up with to its creators the Leviathans' question of how to prevent synthetic life from wiping out organics. The Catalyst believed that organics would inevitably create synthetic life and just as inevitably come into conflict with it. Such a RobotWar could wipe out life in the galaxy forever. To prevent this, the Reapers wipe out the most advanced races before they create synthetic life, leaving the less advanced species alone. In the process, they preserve said races by using their genetic material to create new Reapers and continue their own genocidal cycle.]]
* ''VideoGame/StarCraftII'': [[spoiler:The Overmind]]'s idea: start a genocidal war to stop a genocidal war. [[spoiler:It seeks someone strong enough to take over the Zerg Swarm, lest the Zerg Swarm will eventually be mind-slaved by the Xelnaga Amon]]. Amazingly, this plan seems to be working in its favor despite everything.

* Lloyd and co from ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'', after discovering where [[PoweredByAForsakenChild Exspheres come from]], resolve to stop the Desians [[spoiler: and Cruxis]] and stop the manufacture of Exspheres. However, they quickly realize afterwards that, in order to even stand a chance against them, they have to keep using their own Exspheres anyway. [[spoiler: The party continues to use theirs after the game, while planning to give them up after Lloyd finishes his quest to gather every Exsphere on the planet.]]
* Throughout the ''VisualNovel/ZeroEscape'' series, this tends to be a major motivation behind each iteration of Zero.
** In ''VisualNovel/NineHoursNinePersonsNineDoors'', [[spoiler:Past!Akane is trying to survive a Nonary Game. To this end, she causes a time paradox, shifting her consciousness into the future, where she creates ''another'' Nonary Game and risks people's lives to make them play it.]]
** In ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward'', [[spoiler:the world will be devastated by people infected with a disease called Radical-6, leading to the deaths of 6 billion people. Preventing it involves creating a Nonary Game and injecting its participants with Radical-6]].
** In ''VisualNovel/ZeroTimeDilemma'', [[spoiler:Brother wanted to release Radical-6 in the hopes that it would stop a religious fanatic that would kill all humans, and not just the 6 billion that would die as a result of Radical-6's effects]].
* In ''VideoGame/{{Bloodborne}}'', [[spoiler: the [[EldritchAbomination Moon Presence]] uses [[DeathSeeker Gehrman]] as a surrogate host to create the Hunt, hoping to undo the madness done by his kind, Mergo. It however backfired and ruined the city of Yharnam instead, some became the Beast they used to hunt, and some were mentally tormented and driven to madness. Even if you managed to succeed him and decided to continue the struggle against the Great Ones, you would one day share his fate and be treated as an enemy by the other Hunters.]]
* The very core of the backstory to ''VideoGame/AmnesiaAMachineForPigs'': [[spoiler: Your player character, having received a vision via a magical mask of the brutal wars coming in the 20th century, murders his two sons to save them from their prophesised deaths at the Battle of Somme. He then constructs the titular machine to slaughter the inhabitants of London, and presumably from there all humanity, and replace them with twisted [[PigMan porcine monsters called "Manpigs"]].]] There are some hints that he's being manipulated by an ArtifactOfDoom, though.
* ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil6'': As revealed during Leon's story mode, Simmons orchestrated the C-Virus outbreak in Tall Oaks to prevent President Benford from revealing the truth behind the Raccoon City Incident, believing that if he did so, the U.S. would lose all of its global authority and the world would descend into chaos. Leon and Helena call him on it, pointing out that his idea of stopping a ''possible'' disaster was causing an ''actual'' one.

* The protagonist of ''VideoGame/ExitFate'', Daniel Vinyard, is a pacifist who dreams of world peace. He's also a military officer and established fighter, and has no compunctions about participating in and even starting military actions for his own goals; just because he wants peace doesn't mean others will just stop fighting. [[spoiler:It's eventually revealed that he - as the Hand of Fate - was created for this specific purpose.]] [[spoiler:In the very end, he succeeds in uniting the nations into a peaceful alliance, though how long it'll last is anyone's guess.]]

* In ''VisualNovel/Danganronpa2GoodbyeDespair'', Nagito Komaeda is obsessed with hope, but also believes that any despair is followed by an even greater hope. To that end, he's willing to allow the killing game to continue, and even sets himself up to be murdered in the first chapter.
* In ''VideoGame/Fallout4'''s first DLC, Automatron, it turns out that the Mechanist really did desire to protect the people of the Commonwealth; but [[AIIsACrapshoot a logic error in their control bots]] caused the bots to conclude that, since death is inevitable for humans, the best way for the robots to 'protect' a human is to kill them, bringing about the inevitable end as soon as possible (and preventing a lifetime filled with suffering) and freeing up more valuable time to 'protect' other humans. One of the ways to skip the final boss battle is to get the Mechanist to notice that their reports show identical values for the robots' 'kill count' and 'lives saved'.
* In ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'', one of the prerequisites to pulling off the first heist in the main story should you go with the "quiet" plan is stealing a truck and uniforms from a pest control company. When you arrive at the building, you see two exterminators talking and one saying that he plants bugs in peoples' homes so they'll have a reason to hire the company.
* In ''VideoGame/DeusExHumanRevolution'', the eventual BigBad, [[spoiler: Hugh Darrow]], believes that human augmentation will be disastrous for humanity, by creating a dangerous class of superhumans that will inevitably harm those without augmentations. So he decides to prove his point by [[spoiler: forcing all augmented humans to go crazy and attack anyone and anything]], hoping to force people to recognize the danger and turn against augmentation. Notably, even when you point out the monstrousness of his actions, he remains committed to his goal, though he admits he might have gone too far to make his point.

* ''WebVideo/ScottTheWoz'' has a video about smoking, where he tries to start smoking so he can later stop smoking.

* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPandaLegendsOfAwesomeness'' has Po consider releasing a SealedEvilInACan so he can defeat it and restore his fan club's faith in him. After a brief ImagineSpot he opts against it, but then accidentally releases it when he drops the jar it was in.
* The episode "Jet" of ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' features one rather similar to the Vietnam situation in the RealLife section. An Earth Kingdom village has been taken over by the Fire Nation, and the rebels are determined to save it. Their solution? Blow up the dam and kill everyone in the village.
* At the end of season 3 of ''WesternAnimation/ReBoot'', Mainframe is falling apart thanks to Megabyte's reign. When a Game approaches, Bob decides to let it crash the system instead of play it. Mainframe is too far gone for system repairs -- their only recourse is the User rebooting the system after it crashes. To save Mainframe, they have to let it and everyone in it die first.
* ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'': In "Hank's Bully", a young boy named Caleb and his family move into the neighborhood, and immediately begins bullying Hank, calling him names like "Dusty Old Bones, full of green dust" [[BrokenRecord over and over]]. Hank tries to tell Caleb's parents, [[AdultsAreUseless but they brush it off]], [[BitchInSheepsClothing since he acts so nice around them]]. Eventually, Hank decides the best way to have Caleb's parents put an end to it is to have Bobby mimic Caleb's behavior, [[IronicEcho with Hank repeating the parents' statements]] once they complain about it.
* ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'': The fact that meeting personal power and anger with personal power and anger is a bad idea when talking about force users and is not the Jedi way is pointed out in [[Recap/StarWarsTheCloneWarsS1E10LairOfGrievous "Lair of Grievous"]] when Knight Nahdar Vebb insists on fighting Grievous alone because he wants revenge and thinks his knoledge of and power in the force is greater. This gets him killed, while he probably would have survived if he'd kept by Kit Fisto and remained true to the Jedi creed.

* UsefulNotes/OliverCromwell's English republic had this as its motto - ''Pax Quaeritur Bello'', or "Peace is sought through war".