History TakeAThirdOption / Literature

* In PiersAnthony's ''[[Literature/ApprenticeAdept The Blue Adept]],'' protagonist Stile has to face the local unicorn Herd Stallion in TrialByCombat so his friend, Neysa, is allowed to accompany him on his quest. The duel will take place within a unicorn circle, which will [[AntiMagic nullify Stile's magical power]], leaving him no match for the massive Stallion. But he's recently acquired use of the Platinum Flute which will allow him to retain his magic. Stile is left with two unpalatable (to him) options: Play things straight, lose, and let the Stallion humiliate him or use the Flute and humiliate the Stallion, possibly making a powerful enemy in the process and definitely making life harder for Neysa, once the quest is over. After consulting with an elder vampire that his friend, Hulk, had helped out earlier, Stile comes up with a plan: At the start of the match, Stile puts on a display of power that showed his magic was intact, allowing the Stallion to bow out gracefully. When the Stallion [[HonorBeforeReason refused to back down]], Stile used the Flute to give himself the same physical power as the Stallion, making things a truly fair fight. The Stallion won, but was so impressed with Stile playing things fairly that he yielded the issue and allowed Neysa to accompany him.

* Oddly enough, this is ''ignored'' in the ''Literature/EarthsChildren'' series. The book ''TheMammothHunters'' creates a love triangle between Ayla, Jondolar and Razak, and even though everyone mentions Ayla could simply mate both men, all three characters and the narrative as a whole treats it as an either/or choice. This could be dismissed as jealousy if it weren't for the fact that ''no other character in the entire series enters a polyamorous relationship''; at the end of the book Ayla tells Razak to mate another woman who loves him instead of her who had initially been resentful of the possibility of Ayla stealing Razak from her, and Jondolar's mother, despite mating several times, divorced all her previous mates before mating new ones. And yet the series treats mating with multiple partners as normal and commonplace and the expected end to love triangles, making this almost a case of entire cultures having an InformedAttribute.

* In ''[[Literature/WarriorCats The First Battle]]'', the moor cats are arguing whether or not they should attack [[WellIntentionedExtremist Clear Sky]]. They've reached a stalemate when Cloud Spots interrupts, pointing out that they don't have any prey stored, and that feeding themselves is a higher priority than dealing with Clear Sky.

* At the end of ''Literature/LesMiserables'', InspectorJavert is faced with the decision of taking Jean Valjean, a runaway convict who saved his life, either back to jail to serve a life sentence or allow him to go. Javert, who has dedicated his whole life to serving the law, feels that he cannot let a wanted convict go, for it would be to betray everything he has even been; And neither can he bring him in, for that would be to betray justice and God's law, and prove that he has been unjust in judging good men, and therefore his whole life has been meaningless. It is a two-edged sword that he eventually resolves by [[spoiler: [[DrivenToSuicide throwing himself into the Seine]] ]]

** In that same book, Harry needed a massive amount of undead to protect himself to even get close to said dangerous spell and stop a godling from being born. However, doing so requires using Necromancy, which is forbidden. Solution? [[spoiler: Raise a TyrannosaurusRex from the dead, which is ''[[LoopholeAbuse not]]'' forbidden.]]

* Lena becoming both Light and Dark at the end of ''Literature/BeautifulCreatures''.

* Used subtly in ''[[Literature/HouseOfNight Lenobia's Vow]]''. A bishop and an abbess are discussing the vampyres' presence in New Orleans, which the bishop considers [[FantasticRacism "blasphemy"]]. The abbess is faced with a dilemma: does she disagree with the bishop (thus starting a tedious argument) or agree with him and lie about her beliefs? Her response is to shrug and reply, "Some say so, some say so."

* Used subtly in ''[[Literature/HouseOfNight Lenobia's Vow]]''. A bishop and an abbess are discussing the vampyres' presence in New Orleans, which the bishop considers [[FantasticRacism "blasphemy"]]. The abbess is faced with a dilemma: does she disagree with the bishop (thus starting a tedious argument) or agree with him and lie about her beliefs? Her response is to shrug and reply, "Some say so, some say so."

* In the classic short story ''First Contact'', an exploratory ship with humans unexpectedly, and far from home, runs into a ship of aliens on the same sort of mission. Both groups discover they have a lot in common physically and psychologically, and realize they can't take the risk on letting the other find out where their respective homeworlds are. Because they don't know about each other enough for trust, their choices are limited to either trying to preemptively attacking the other (which won't work because both are expecting it), or trying to make a run for home which will also result in battle because the running ship will have to engage the pursuing ship before it finds out where it's going, and the pursuing ship would want to destroy the running one before it could reveal there was someone else out there once they'd found out where where it was going. Both crews eventually hit on the third option: switch ships, after first ensuring that their own weapons systems have been destroyed, (so that the other crew couldn't use them when they occupied the ship), and that all data on their ship which could be used to find their homeworld was erased. With confidence that the two ships can't attack each other, the two crews go their separate ways in peace.

** From the Summer and Winter Mothers: (paraphrased) "Which is more important, body or soul?" "Your question is stupid." "Yes."
** When Shagnasty has Thomas at the top of Demonreach Island, he demands that Harry turn over Morgan or it'll kill Thomas. Harry blasts Thomas out of his hands, into the hut where Molly is hiding. Subverted; Shagnasty had tortured Thomas so much that Thomas's succubus-demon had full reign, and so Shagnasty was considering throwing Thomas in there anyway ForTheEvulz.

* Harry Dresden of the DresdenFiles gets a few of these over time.

** In the first book: if Harry doesn't kill the warlock, he'll die. If he does, he'll be killed. Solution? [[spoiler: disrupt the curse and then free the demon that the warlock sends after him. The warlock was eaten by the demon.]]

* In ''Wizard'', the second book in Creator/JohnVarley's ''GaeaTrilogy'', an applicant for receiving one of Gaea's "miracles" is asked a hypothetical question: A train is coming. A little boy and a little girl are tied to the railroad tracks. You only have time to save one of them. What do you do? ... Gaea eventually reveals that there is a response for mortals, and a response for gods. Mortals save one child and then try to save the other. Gods, though, don't bother saving ''either'' of them.

* In the McAuslan story ''Captain Errol'', Lieutenant [=MacNeill=] and his platoon of Highlanders are sent to prevent Arab rioters from crossing a bridge. [=MacNeill=] doesn't want to fire on the mob -- even injuring the leader will lead to bad PR -- but the rioters aren't stopping and [=MacNeill=] is AFatherToHisMen. Luckily, another officer appears at this point. His third option is to [[spoiler: make it appear as if he is about to blow up the bridge, by carrying an empty ammo box and roll of wire to the center. The mob dissipates at once, without bloodshed.]]

* ''Literature/TheObernewtynChronicles''. In ''The Farseekers'' Elspeth and the group can either take the main pass or an "olden way" through the mountains. Or raft down the dangerous river...

* ''Literature/TheOberNewtynChronicles''. In ''The Farseekers'' Elspeth and the group can either take the main pass or an "olden way" through the mountains. Or raft down the dangerous river...

* Lena becoming both Light and Dark at the end of ''Literature/BeautifulCreatures''.

* In the classic short story ''First Contact'', an exploratory ship with humans unexpectedly, and far from home, runs into a ship of aliens on the same sort of mission. Both groups discover they have a lot in common physically and psychologically, and realize they can't take the risk on letting the other find out where their respective homeworlds are. Because they don't know about each other enough for trust, their choices are limited to either trying to preemptively attacking the other (which won't work because both are expecting it), or trying to make a run for home which will also result in battle because the running ship will have to engage the pursuing ship before it finds out where it's going, and the pursuing ship would want to destroy the running one before it could reveal there was someone else out there once they'd found out where where it was going. Both crews eventually hit on the third option: switch ships, after first ensuring that their own weapons systems have been destroyed, (so that the other crew couldn't use them when they occupied the ship), and that all data on their ship which could be used to find their homeworld was erased. With confidence that the two ships can't attack each other, the two crews go their separate ways in peace.

* In ''Wody Głębokie Jak Niebo'' Sever is faced with a dilemma to either execute the women he loves, for practicing magic (which is forbidden for women), or let her live and be forced to flee with her from his kingdom. He takes the third option by [[spoiler: merging her with a demon.]] He can keep her by his side as his wife, since she (or at least her mind) is technically dead.

* In the novel by Robert brown The Paradise Prophecy,the deuteragonist Sebastian takes a third option when an apopalyptic prophecy is about to be fulfilled. He can either [[spoiler: kill Jenna himself]] or he can [[spoiler: let Jenna kill herself, as she is about to do because Belial is both encouraging her and holding her hostage]]. Instead he [[spoiler: Decapitates Belial, which turns out to have been the right choice, as it was a tst to see whether humans had any humanity left in them.]]

* In ''Wody Głębokie Jak Niebo'' Sever is faced with a dilemma to either execute the women he loves, for practicing magic (which is forbidden for women), or let her live and be forced to flee with her from his kingdom. He takes the third option by [[spoiler: merging her with a demon.]] He can keep her by his side as his wife, since she (or at least her mind) is technically dead.

* [[Literature/HarryPotter Neville Longbottom]] gets a "Join Me or Die" from [[spoiler: Voldemort]]. He takes a third [[SugarWiki/MomentofAwesome option]]: [[spoiler: killing Voldemort's snake Nagini and tell him he won't join. Turns out doing that prevents Voldemort from retaliating, as the snake was his ''last'' [[SoulJar Horcrux]]; he was now vulnerable to being KilledOffForReal by Harry.]]

* A rare example of a hero being ''offered'' a third option occurs in ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire'' when Harry encounters the [[RiddlingSphinx sphinx]] in the maze. She tells him that he is allowed to simply turn around and walk away if he is unable to solve the riddle she poses. (This is a subversion, however, because he doesn't take that option: he able to answer it correctly.)

** In ''TimeEnoughForLove'', one of the passages from "The Notebooks of Lazarus Long" embraces the concept of The Third Option;

* ''Literature/TheHost'': The humans do this when they implant Wanderer into another human host whose original personality didn't survive rather than either killing her or sending her to another Soul controlled planet like she wanted them to.

* At the climax of Clockwork Angels, the protagonist has to decide between joining the freedom loving, but aggressive and uncompromising Anarchist or joining the serene, but extremely rigid and precise Clockmaker. owen hardy decides to say screw it to both of them, steals one of the airships during the battle and flees.

* [[HarryPotter Neville Longbottom]] gets a "Join Me or Die" from [[spoiler: Voldemort]]. He takes a third [[SugarWiki/MomentofAwesome option]]: [[spoiler: killing Voldemort's snake Nagini and tell him he won't join. Turns out doing that prevents Voldemort from retaliating, as the snake was his ''last'' [[SoulJar Horcrux]]; he was now vulnerable to being KilledOffForReal by Harry.]]
* At the end of LesMiserables, InspectorJavert is faced with the decision of taking Jean Valjean, a runaway convict who saved his life, either back to jail to serve a life sentence or allow him to go. Javert, who has dedicated his whole life to serving the law, feels that he cannot let a wanted convict go, for it would be to betray everything he has even been; And neither can he bring him in, for that would be to betray justice and God's law, and prove that he has been unjust in judging good men, and therefore his whole life has been meaningless. It is a two-edged sword that he eventually resolves by [[spoiler: [[DrivenToSuicide throwing himself into the Seine]] ]]

* In the novel by Robert brown The Paradise Prophecy,the deuteragonist Sebastian takes a third option when an apopalyptic prophecy is about to be fulfilled. He can either [[spoiler: kill Jenna himself]] or he can [[spoiler: let Jenna kill herself, as she is about to do because Belial is both encouraging her and holding her hostage]]. Instead he [[spoiler: Decapitates Belial, which turns out to have been the right choice, as it was a tst to see whether humans had any humanity left in them.]]

* In ''Literature/ABrothersPrice'', the method for preventing a CycleOfRevenge triggered by [[YouKilledMyFather executing traitor parents while leaving their children alive]] is to... execute the children too. Ren finds this monstrous and distressing, but she does have to admit that no one will take in [[spoiler: little Eldier Porter]] and if ''she'' does, the child will surely resent Ren's little sisters and future children and probably try to take revenge on them. And a five-year-old will not fare well if turned out on the streets. Fortunately the Whistlers are nearby and listening; their great-grandmothers were executed for treason but, because the family was so mixed and not cohesive, not all of their grandmothers were killed, and the family went on to serve the crowns without resentment. So they [[Heartwarming/ABrothersPrice adopt the child]].