History Main / YouWillBeSpared

* Amical, the friendly villain of ''[[{{Webcomic/morphe}}morphE}}]]'' is very fond of picking favorites and giving them favor in life or death situations. In the first chapter he recognizes a celebrity in a fight to the death and breaks the rules to help him win by shooting the other contestant in the back. Later the plot focuses on his use of this trope to select which of his pupils will have to die before his next big party.

* Subverted in ''Film/{{Commando}}'': Col. John Matrix (Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger) tells this to Sully, a wise-cracking bad guy. What's lost in MemeticMutation, however, is that it's [[DeadpanSnarker plainly obvious]] that Matrix isn't serious when he speaks the line.[[note]]Sully had just finished taunting Matrix and joking that his daughter would be gang-raped.[[/note]] Later, Matrix gets the picture during a HighAltitudeInterrogation:

* Subverted in ''Film/{{Commando}''}: Col. John Matrix (Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger) tells this to Sully, a wise-cracking bad guy. What's lost in MemeticMutation, however, is that it's [[DeadpanSnarker plainly obvious]] that Matrix isn't serious when he speaks the line.[[note]]Sully had just finished taunting Matrix and joking that his daughter would be gang-raped.[[/note]] Later, Matrix gets the picture during a HighAltitudeInterrogation:

* Col. John Matrix (Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger) tells this to one of the villains in ''Film/{{Commando}}''. Later, the Governator practices for his future role as a politician by flip-flopping on this promise while [[HighAltitudeInterrogation hanging Sully over a long drop]] by his leg:

* This is supposedly one of the reasons to worship [[Franchise/TheCthulhuMythos Cthulhu]]. Upon his rising, cultists will be devoured first, sparing them what happens next.

If said to a hero, it may because they're {{Friendly Enem|y}}ies. An OmnicidalManiac may either express a desire to preserve one person or event that they like, or say that it's the one thing they'll miss after destroying the world. If they believe the person or people they spare have some sort of UniquenessValue, that's SparingTheAces.

In ''Series/{{Gotham}}'', Fish Mooney does this to a few helpless victims she has strung up.

* The ''[[WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague Justice League Unlimited]]'' episode "Alive" offers Darkseid's take:
-->'''Darkseid:''' It seems I have you to thank [[spoiler: for my resurrection.]] Though your world will suffer slowly, I grant ''you'' a quick death.

* ''Webcomic/DominicDeegan'' uses this when Snow Song is thinking about how she'll destroy the town in a restaurant, but then the waitress gives her some chocolate cake on the house:

* At the conclusion of ''VideoGame/SleepingDogs'''s main story, the new [[TheTriadsAndTheTongs Sun On Yee]] Dragon Head [[spoiler:"Broken Nose" Jiang]] informs her advisor that [[spoiler:the protagonist Wei Shen]] is to be spared [[spoiler:[[TheMole despite having been an undercover cop who'd infiltrated his way to "Red Pole" -- and thus one of her peers]], since while he had abetted [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Sonny Wo]]'s arrest he also had defended her and his own gang when rival triads attacked, and in [[spoiler:decimating Henry "Big Smile" Lee's gang and killing him]] Wei had cleared the way for her own ascension.]]

* Rule 68 of the EvilOverlordList: "I will spare someone who saved my life sometime in the past. This is only reasonable as it encourages others to do so. However, the offer is good one time only. If they want me to spare them again, they'd better save my life again."

* Col. John Matrix (Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger) tells this to one of the villains in ''Film/{{Commando}}''. Later, [[HighAltitudeInterrogation he's hanging him over a long drop]] by his leg:

* In the last season of ''Series/BreakingBad'', [[spoiler:Jack and his crew]] spare Walter and Jesse for very different reasons.

* Another OlderThanFeudalism heroic one is in ''Literature/TheBible''-Rahab is told that she and her family will be spared after hiding the Hebrew spies from the soldiers of Jericho.

* Right before the FinalBattle of ''[[VideoGame/EarthboundZero MOTHER]]'', Giygas offers to spare Ninten, and ''only'' Ninten, and take him back to Giygas' world [[spoiler:out of lingering sentimentality for Ninten's great-grandmother Maria who was Giygas' ParentalSubstitute when he was a baby.]] Ninten of course refuses, and the battle commences.

** Nazi Germany was, in some sense, full of this trope. Many high ranking Nazi party officials, military officers, and government bureaucrats had friends and relatives who were Jewish or, more often, had recent Jewish ancestry, and in fact, quite a few had recent Jewish ancestry themselves. An entire legal process was created (described in detail in the book ''Hitler's Jewish Soldiers'' by Bryan Mark Riggs) whereby such people might apply for legal exceptions that spared them persecution--at least for the time being. Some high ranking Nazi leaders on trial at Nuremberg even used the help they had given their friends in securing these exemptions in attempt to demonstrate that they were not hardcore Nazis. For example, Goering talked about how he helped his friend General Erhard Milch, whose father was Jewish, stay in "his" Luftwaffe (incidentally, Milch was himself on trial for war crimes at Nuremberg). Doenitz used the help he had given Captain Bernhard Rogge (who would become famous for his humane and honorable conduct as the captain of the German raider ''Atlantis'') who had a Jewish grandfather, as his defense. According to Riggs, several hundred thousand such exemptions were granted throughout the Nazi era.

** Becomes a major plot point in the [[Film/TransformersDarkOfTheMoon third film]]. [[spoiler: Carly's boss Dylan, and some of his associates, are the descendents of humans who worked for NASA when the ''Ark'' was discovered on the moon. To ensure that no other human learned of this, Soundwave and Laserbeak forced NASA's employees to keep quiet about the discovery, lest they be killed off. Dylan turns out to be one of the few humans chosen to be spared after the Decepticons enslave humanity, possibly to work as a liaison between the 'Cons and the human slaves. It's also revealed that the various deaths in history related to NASA were Soundwave and Laserbeak getting rid of "loose ends."]]

** [[spoiler: After bumping Lily and her family to top of Voldemort's hit list, Severus Snape begged him to spare her (though ''not'' James, who he hated, or Harry, who was Voldemort's primary target and had no chance of being spared), in part due to his unrequited love for her. It almost worked; Voldemort did offer Lily the chance to step aside, but since she insisted on protecting Harry, he ended up killing her anyway. When Dumbledore found out about this he ''royally ripped Snape a new one''.]]

** [[spoiler: After bumping Lily and her family to top of Voldemort's hit list, Severus Snape begged him to spare her (though ''not'' James, who he hated, or Harry, who was Voldemort's primary target and had no chance of being spared), in part due to his unrequited love for her. It almost worked; Voldemort did offer Lily the chance to step aside, but since she insisted on protecting Harry, he ended up killing her anyway.]]

* One of the reasons Guy Fawkes' plot to blow up the parliament failed was that many of the plotters had friends in parliament and wanted to warm them not to go.

* One of the reasons Guy Fawkes' plot to blow up the parliament was that many of the plotters had friends in parliament and wanted to warm them not to go.

* This is one of the taunts in ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquer Red Alert 2]]''. The exact wording depends on the faction, ranging from "I promise amnesty for you and your troops" for the Americans, to "Surrender now and I'll kill you quickly" for the Cubans.

* Marik Ishtar from ''[[WebVideo/YuGiOhTheAbridgedSeries Yu-Gi-Oh The Abridged Series]]'' has to following evil monologue:
-->With his help I shall defeat you and then conquer the world! [[EvilLaugh Ah-hahaha!]] [[DistractedByTheShiny Oh hey look a bird!]] [[PetTheDog Isn't it just the cutest little guy]]-- I mean no! In my new world all birds will be enslaved! ''Especially this one!'' And he shall be named Mr. Tweetums, because it is ''very evil!'' Ah-hahaha! Now be gone Mr. Tweetums. I am trying to stalk my nemesis.
** He also likes Joey, who will be killed last. Evil Bakura quotes the ''Film/{{Commando}}'' exchange with Pegasus.