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| 10 | ->''"Si vis pacem para bellum."'' |
| 11 | -->-- '''Latin adage''', translated as "If you wish for peace, prepare for war" |
| 12 | |
| 13 | So, you have an idea, it's beautiful and you want to fulfill it. Let's say, for example, you want peace. So, how are you going to fulfill it? Fight a war. |
| 14 | |
| 15 | Put it basically, you're doing the exact opposite of what you're trying to fulfill. |
| 16 | |
| 17 | This comes in two setups, but leads down to the same point: |
| 18 | # You want to fulfill X, so you do Y, which is completely opposite to X. (the page quote) |
| 19 | # You want to stop X, so you do X. (For example, you want to stop war, so you start a war, so when you finish it, you can disarm everyone) |
| 20 | |
| 21 | As [[LogicBomb hypocritical]] as it may sound, sometimes this is the only possible choice, and some people will [[HypocrisyNod even acknowledge it]]. |
| 22 | |
| 23 | Some will know this with the phrase "Fight fire with fire", which this trope is (in Setup 2), but this trope also includes the ideology of the action, not just the methods alone, but, of course, it's not totally necessary to have the ideology to back it up. This will be frequently invoked in the MotiveRant of the OmnicidalManiac who will explain that he is trying to kill everyone so they don't get killed by some other means, or even by someone else using the same method. |
| 24 | |
| 25 | 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, TakesOneToKillOne (and the related trope SerialKillerKiller), where the only way to defeat something to use that same something against it, and EngineeredHeroics, where someone creates or fakes a dangerous situation so they can get credit for solving it. LaboriousLaziness is a SubTrope, in that it means doing a lot of work to avoid work. |
| 26 | |
| 27 | ---- |
| 28 | !!Examples: |
| 29 | |
| 30 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 31 | |
| 32 | [[folder:Anime & Manga]] |
| 33 | * ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'': During the Blood War arc, it's revealed that Quincy have [[spoiler:developed a way to seal a shinigami's final release (or "bankai"). To test its capabilities, several captains allow their bankai to be sealed... except that the Quincy actually ''[[PowerParasite steal]]'' [[PowerParasite the bankai]] and use them against their owners. Worse still, when Kisuke Urahara found a way to [[AssimilationBackfire turn the stolen bankai against the Quincy that stole them]], thereby not leaving the Captains at a horrible disadvantage, it was then revealed that having stolen bankais also functioned as a PowerLimiter, preventing the use of the Quincy Vollständig. The advantage they got back was nullified on the spot.]] |
| 34 | * The [[AbsurdlyPowerfulStudentCouncil Miyaji High Student Council]] employs this strategy against the unwanted Miyaji Cardfight Club in ''Anime/CardfightVanguard''. 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. |
| 35 | * ''Franchise/CodeGeass'' plays this one very straight. Early in the second season, [[DarkMessiah Zero]] publicly admits that he [[NecessarilyEvil became evil because he was convinced it was the only way]] to defeat the evil Britannian empire. This culminates in his [[spoiler: ZeroApprovalGambit, where he commits atrocity after atrocity to focus all of the world's hatred on to him, then has himself killed to destroy it.]] |
| 36 | ** This also turns out to be the ''Emperor's'' plan. [[spoiler: Wanting to put an end to conflict due to people not understanding each other...he sets up a system will he places certain people on top, encourages them to misunderstand each other, and wages war against the whole world to get the ancient technology he needs for his plan.]] |
| 37 | * ''Literature/CrestOfTheStars'': The Ahb take the position that humanity will 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.]] |
| 38 | * Light Yagami of ''Manga/DeathNote'' commits mass homicide in order to put an end to all crime. |
| 39 | * ''Manga/FireForce'' takes the term "fight fire with fire" to the extreme, with the premise of members of special firefighterfroups PlayingWithFire to stop out of control fire monsters who were once people. |
| 40 | * In Episode 21 of ''Anime/GenesisOfAquarion'', Sirius declares that "the reason I fight is to create a world free of fighting, where beauty prevails." |
| 41 | * Many ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}'' characters: |
| 42 | ** 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. |
| 43 | ** ''[[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. |
| 44 | ** ''[[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.]] |
| 45 | * ''Franchise/{{Naruto}}'': |
| 46 | ** Pain's grand plan to bring true peace is to get people to see first-hand the horrors of warfare with {{fantastic nuke}}s and make war much less likely by virtue of {{mutually assured destruction}}. He flat out states that his plan is a stop-gap measure at best, and he expects them to resume fighting and nuke each other once they've forgotten how terrible it is. |
| 47 | ** "Salamander" Hanzo, a legendary shinobi with a reputation as TheDreaded, claimed his warmongering ways sprang from an attempt in his youth to unite the land under him. And as you could imagine Hanzo's wars just made the division in the shinobi world worse (since he lost interest in his original ideals early on and became a paranoid monster that oppressed his people) and was actually directly responsible for driving aforementioned Pain insane in the first place. |
| 48 | ** [[spoiler:Sasuke Uchiha seems to have decided to go on an insane path of his predecessors, beginning his revolution which according to him to end all wars in the world. His master plan to do it, to put the world into a perpetual state of war against him that would only last as long as he continues to perpetuate the hatred itself. Naruto manages to make Sasuke stop with that idea, along with ''finally bringing him back home''.]] |
| 49 | * In ''Manga/NegimaMagisterNegiMagi'', 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. |
| 50 | * In ''Literature/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. |
| 51 | * Chris from ''Anime/{{Symphogear}}'' uses her heavily armed PoweredArmor to end wars and fighting by beating thouroughly anyone armed at all. |
| 52 | * In ''Anime/TheVisionOfEscaflowne'', Emperor Dornkirk's method for creating a world free of war mostly consists of invading sovereign nations by military force. |
| 53 | ** 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]].]] |
| 54 | * Paradox from ''Anime/YuGiOhBondsBeyondTime'' wants to use Duel Monsters to stop Duel Monsters from being made. |
| 55 | ** The [[WebVideo/YuGiOhTheAbridgedSeries abridged]] version sums it up nicely: |
| 56 | --->'''Paradox:''' Pwotagonists! I challenge you to a card game!\ |
| 57 | '''Yusei:''' You mean the thing that's going to destroy the world?\ |
| 58 | '''Paradox:''' Yes! That.\ |
| 59 | '''Yusei:''' Seems kind of hypocritical. |
| 60 | [[/folder]] |
| 61 | |
| 62 | [[folder:Audio Plays]] |
| 63 | * In the ''AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho'' audio "[[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho145IndustrialEvolution Industrial Evolution]]", the BigBad is a Luddite who wants to destroy Earth's technology. He does this by encouraging the uncontrolled growth of nanotech, so people will start blaming it for all their problems and reject it. He acknowledges the hypocrisy of this but claims it's justified. (He is unaware of the greater hypocrisy [[spoiler: that he himself is a machine planted on Earth by forces unknown]]). |
| 64 | [[/folder]] |
| 65 | |
| 66 | [[folder:Comic Books]] |
| 67 | * ''ComicBook/DCOneMillion'': in order to stop [[spoiler:Solaris's]] plot to destroy the past, the heroes have to [[spoiler:build him so that the nanobot virus he has sent into the past will 'upload' itself into his 'new' body]]. |
| 68 | * In ''ComicBook/{{Hellboy}}'', a sea-witch captures Hellboy and plans on killing him because she's afraid someone will take his [[TheRightHandOfDoom Right Hand of Doom]] and use it to destroy the world. This gets lampshaded by Hellboy himself. |
| 69 | * Mr. X of ''ComicBook/MegaManArchieComics'' 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. |
| 70 | * ''ComicBook/SupermanAndBatmanWorldsFunnest'': Mr Mxyzptlk hates how saying his own name backwards forces him to go back to the fifth dimension, so he deliberately goes back to the fifth dimension of his own accord with the intention of destroying it, thinking he can't be made to go back to a dimension that no longer exists. Surprisingly enough, this works. |
| 71 | * ''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]]. |
| 72 | [[/folder]] |
| 73 | |
| 74 | [[folder:Fan Works]] |
| 75 | * ''Fanfic/AllAlone'': If Taylor wants to heal someone, she first has to wait for them to die. [[spoiler:Then she can raise them as one of her "Animated" undead, and heal their injuries, though that doesn't bring them back to life.]] |
| 76 | * 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. |
| 77 | * ''Fanfic/HopeComesToBrocktonBay'': Coil suggests that it might be possible to help Noelle by killing her and having Hope bring her back, since the process weakens the person and thus it might reduce her PowerIncontinence. Trickster isn't having it. |
| 78 | * In ''Fanfic/MyHuntsmanAcademia'', Izuku tries to assure Weiss that there's nothing wrong with him using Go Beyond, which temporarily doubles his upper limit on One For All at the cost of straining his body to point that it's constantly breaking apart and is only being held together by his Aura. He insists that it's better than breaking his fingers and gimping himself in a fight until she points out the absurdity of this. |
| 79 | -->'''Weiss:''' So your solution to us worrying about you breaking your fingers and fixing them with Aura is to [[OutOfTheFryingPan break your everything and fix it with Aura?]]\ |
| 80 | '''Izuku:''' ''[{{Beat}}]'' [[OhCrap Ah... I... You see...]] |
| 81 | * 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. |
| 82 | * In the ''Manga/DeathNote'' [[AlternateUniverseFic AU]] ''Fanfic/ThoseWhoStandForNothingFallForAnything'' Light becomes a CorruptPolitician in order to put an end to corruption. |
| 83 | [[/folder]] |
| 84 | |
| 85 | [[folder:Films -- Live-Action]] |
| 86 | * In ''Film/DemolitionMan'', 20th century cop 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. |
| 87 | * ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019'': [[Characters/MonsterVerseEcoTerrorists Eco-terrorist]] Alan Jonah's [[WellIntentionedExtremist more well-meaning]] accomplice [[spoiler:Emma Russell]] says they've decided to release all the Titans indiscriminately and allow them to decimate humanity in GaiasVengeance whilst regenerating the planet's ecosphere with their biological byproducts, because they want to ensure the death of [[spoiler:her son Andrew]] during Godzilla's past battle against the [=MUTOs=] was not in vain. Yet they're incredibly oblivious to how hypocritical it is that they're "honoring" [[spoiler:Andrew]]'s memory and supposedly preventing the incident from ever happening again, by repeating the very same tragedy a hundred-fold upon ''millions'' of other families with children. [[spoiler:Emma's daughter]] Madison herself calls [[spoiler:Emma]] out on this. |
| 88 | * ''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. |
| 89 | * In ''Film/LadyFrankenstein'', Tanya Frankenstein reasons the only way to stop her father's monster, which has escaped and is wreaking havoc on the nearby town, is to create a second monster and use it to destroy the first. |
| 90 | * Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse: |
| 91 | ** 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". |
| 92 | ** 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.]] |
| 93 | ** ''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.]] |
| 94 | ** In ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar'', Thanos's idea of saving lives from an OverpopulationCrisis is to kill half of all life in the universe. |
| 95 | * 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. |
| 96 | ** 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). |
| 97 | ** As another specific example, in ''Fallout'' Benji's analysis of [[spoiler:the two bombs created by Lane's Apostles reveals that the only way to disable the bombs requires the countdown to have already started]]. |
| 98 | * 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 ConfirmationBias: you see what you want to see because you'll work to make it come true. |
| 99 | * 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 [[NoPlaceForMeThere no place for a monster like him in his intended paradise]]. |
| 100 | * ''Film/WarGames'': David hacks into WOPR, the NORAD MasterComputer, believing it's a video game company's computer system, and starts it "Global Thermonuclear War" tactical simulation, thinking it's one of their games. [[CannotTellFictionFromReality Unfortunately, WOPR is unable to tell fiction from reality and is actually intent on launching the US's nuclear arsenal and starting]] WorldWarIII. Towards the end, [[PasswordSlotMachine as WOPR's trying to find the nuclear launch codes]], David has it play a game of TabletopGame/TicTacToe, first himself against WOPR and then WOPR playing tic-tac-toe against itself. As each game ends in a tie, WOPR then extends the idea to examining countless nuclear strike scenarios, each ending in [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt "Winner: None"]], and concludes "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play", and stops its attempt at an actual nuclear attack. |
| 101 | * ''Film/WonderWoman2017'': Ares's plan to end war and bring about permanent peace is to create a war to wipe out all humanity. [[spoiler: Which he tries to do by engineering an armistice, so that certain disgruntled factions will ramp up their war crimes and jump-start a second, more destructive phase.]] |
| 102 | [[/folder]] |
| 103 | |
| 104 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 105 | * In ''Literature/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.]] |
| 106 | * 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. |
| 107 | * ''Literature/{{Frindle}}'' combines this with ReversePsychology. A young boy is trying to popularize the term "frindle" as an alternative for "pen," [[spoiler:and a disliked teacher is secretly rooting for his act of rebellion, but she doesn't think he has much of a chance on his own. She therefore [[StreisandEffect bans the use of the word in school, so that the other students will use it as a way of spiting her]].]] |
| 108 | * ''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. |
| 109 | * The protagonist of ''The Janson Directive'' muses upon this concept (with regards to American foreign policy). |
| 110 | * 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. |
| 111 | * In Shakespear's play ''Theatre/KingJohn'': |
| 112 | --> Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire;\ |
| 113 | Threaten the threatener and outface the brow\ |
| 114 | Of bragging horror |
| 115 | * In ''The Literature/MistbornTheOriginalTrilogy'' Elend who is fighting for the freedom and rights of the people [[spoiler: ultimately declares martial law and seizes absolute power in order to ensure the survival of his people. He determines that he'll do anything to ensure the survival of his people even if it means he's seen as the next [[EvilOverlord Lord Ruler]].]] |
| 116 | * In ''Literature/TheOrphansTales'', kappas are turtle-like beings who keep a reservoir of water in their skulls. If the water ever spills out, they lose all of their strength. Early in history, a brilliant kappa named Yazo became obsessed with proving to her people that they couldn't continue living a life where their water was in danger of spilling, so she regularly drained the water from her head, becoming more and more feeble and weak, until she finally died. The kappa learned from her example and moved to very cold climates, where their water froze and would never spill again. |
| 117 | * 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.]] |
| 118 | * In ''[[Literature/WizardOfYurt A Bad Spell in Yurt]]'', the young wizard Daimbert is asked by the queen to make it stop raining, as the king is ill and the rain is affecting his health. Since Daimbert had primarily studied spells that would be practical in a farming community (which is where he thought he would end up), he only knows spells to make it ''start'' raining (to help crops grow). He does, however, know a spell to make it stop ''storming'', so in order to make it stop raining, first he has to cast a spell to turn the gentle shower into a terrible storm, because that's something he can stop. |
| 119 | [[/folder]] |
| 120 | |
| 121 | [[folder:Live-Action TV]] |
| 122 | * 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 nuclear weapons and influenza, 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. |
| 123 | * 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. |
| 124 | * 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. |
| 125 | * 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. |
| 126 | * ''Series/GameOfThrones'': |
| 127 | ** [[Characters/GameOfThronesDaenerysCourt 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? |
| 128 | ** When pressed by Jon in [[Recap/GameOfThronesS8E6TheIronThrone the finale]], [[spoiler:Daenerys]] claims that in order to create a merciful world, they cannot show mercy in the "liberations". They seem not to realize that said behavior would just further entrench the very behavior they wish to stop. [[spoiler:In all, it comes across as another showing of her madness]]. |
| 129 | * ''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. |
| 130 | * 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 [[GodhoodSeeker 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. |
| 131 | * ''Series/LastWeekTonightWithJohnOliver'': |
| 132 | ** In the episode about robocalls, with the FCC refusing to do anything to stop robocalls, John sets up his own to send to all the organization's top people ''every 90 minutes'' until they decide it's worth addressing. And sets up a giant version of the usual BigRedButton to do it. [[Film/{{Gladiator}} "Unleash hell!"]] |
| 133 | ** In the episode about the filibuster, Creator/JohnOliver ends the episode giving a filibuster about abolishing the filibuster, arguing that it is a needless hindrance in American politics. |
| 134 | * In ''Series/MoonKnight2022'', Arthur Harrow wants to release Ammit to get rid of "evil" people before they can harm others -- but of course that necessitates killing them himself first. He acknowledges the hypocrisy, knowing that he would never pass Ammit's judgment himself, but then [[spoiler:Ammit surprises him by telling him that she requires an Avatar willing to do such terrible things. After all, the last time she had one who passed judgment she was trapped in stone for centuries]]. |
| 135 | * ''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. |
| 136 | ** 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. |
| 137 | * In the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekS1E23ATasteOfArmageddon 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. |
| 138 | * ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS7E8ForceOfNature Force of Nature]]", a scientist is trying to convince the Federation that [[FasterThanLightTravel warp drive]] is dangerous and is damaging space ([[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything using similar arguments]] to [[GreenAesop how real-life greenhouse emissions are damaging Earth]]), which is particularly bad around her planet since it's a major shipping lane. In order to try to convince the Federation to stop using warp drive, she intentionally self-destructs her ship's warp drive in order to ''cause'' the very damage she was trying to prevent, just to prove her point. As a result of the episode, the Federation begins research into safer drive systems; in the meantime (as a stopgap measure), an order is issued to all Federation ships to restrict travel to warp 5 for non-emergency situations. |
| 139 | ** Which is mentioned only twice in subsequent episodes. StatusQuoIsGod, and emergency situations tend to make for more interesting episodes. |
| 140 | ** It's revealed that ''[[Series/StarTrekVoyager Voyager]]'' and other later designs for starships have the non-subspace damaging warp drives, dealing with the issue this episode brought up. (In fact, that's why ''Voyager'''s nacelles fold up when it goes to warp.) However, it's AllThereInTheManual, and it's not specified whether older ships could be refitted with the new warp drive. |
| 141 | [[/folder]] |
| 142 | |
| 143 | [[folder:Music]] |
| 144 | * "Virus Alert" by Music/WeirdAlYankovic plays this semi-subtly. It advocates sending everybody an email warning them about a virus -- the spread of the email, if you think about it, would be kind of like a virus itself. More obvious in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvfD5rnkTws the video]], where "forward this message on to everybody" is accompanied by a visual of multiplying viruses. |
| 145 | [[/folder]] |
| 146 | |
| 147 | [[folder:Tabletop Games]] |
| 148 | * 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. |
| 149 | * In ''TabletopGame/ArkhamHorror'', the spell "Call Ancient One" allows you to awaken the Ancient One instead of waiting for him to awaken on his own. The reason to do this is that you want to fight him at a time of your own choosing, when you know that you have the firepower to [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu punch out Cthulhu]]. Works better against some Ancient Ones than others. |
| 150 | ** The spell also removes a large number of Doom Tokens (The Ancient One's "health" in the Final Battle) depending on how many trophies are spent on the casting. Combining enough trophies with an ability to automatically cast a spell can lead to a FlawlessVictory by killing the Ancient One before the first combat round. |
| 151 | * Many members of the Boros Legion in ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' are dedicated wholeheartedly to the cause of stopping Guild violence with, um, more Guild violence. |
| 152 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'': Vampire lord Carstein's master plan to prevent Chaos from taking over the world is to kill everyone and raise them as zombies. No emotions, no Chaos. |
| 153 | * ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': |
| 154 | ** [[NeglectfulPrecursors The Old Ones]] attempted to destroy the [[OmnicidalManiac omnicidal C'tan]] and restore peace by creating [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy an entire species of bloodthristy, mass-reproducing brutes who understand and desire only war]] and setting them loose on the galaxy. Bonus points for them [[TooDumbToLive forgetting to install an off-switch so that said species immediately began attacking The Old Ones and their allies]] as soon as the C'tan were defeated/hid in their tomb-worlds. |
| 155 | ** The Imperium of Man took the C'Tan's brainfart of an idea, and doubled the murderous alien contestants. Getting their collective asses kicked in the Octarius system, they devised a plan to win the day. Sick the [[HordeOfAlienLocusts Tyranids]] on the Ork forces. The plan backfired ''spectacularly''. With both notoriously hard to kill Xeno races getting stronger as the battle still goes on. |
| 156 | [[/folder]] |
| 157 | |
| 158 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 159 | * 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"]].]] Though he was completely out of his mind when he came up with this plan, and there are some hints that he's being manipulated by an ArtifactOfDoom as well. |
| 160 | * 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. |
| 161 | * 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.]] |
| 162 | * In the backstory of ''VideoGame/BloodstainedRitualOfTheNight'', the Alchemist Guild feared losing their wealthy patrons to the Industrial Revolutions, and so in attempt to rein in their source of income, they first tried to scare the populace saying that embracing the revolution and abandoning spirituality will summon HellOnEarth. When words alone failed, they summoned demons themselves while [[MonsterProtectionRacket planning to vanquish the demons to prove their point]]. They ended up unable to curb the demon invasion, causing the Church to intervene, in the process blowing their ruse open and thus causing their downfall. |
| 163 | * Late in ''VideoGame/BravelyDefault'' you discover that [[spoiler: your ExpositionFairy has been manipulating you into awakening the crystals in order to link the parallel 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. |
| 164 | * 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. |
| 165 | * 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. |
| 166 | * 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.]] |
| 167 | * 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'. |
| 168 | * ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'', of course, features the master plan to prevent [[spoiler: Ultimecia from compressing time]]: Let her [[spoiler: compress time ''partially'']] and jump her ass while she does that. |
| 169 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' has a large portion of the plot involving trying to free the Espers from the control of TheEmpire, and preventing the Empire from reaching the hidden world of the Espers. So naturally that involves reaching the hidden world of the Espers to use their powers to stop the Empire. |
| 170 | ** 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]]'']]. |
| 171 | ** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII'', the BigBad's goal is to force the protagonists to destroy the mechanism keeping Cocoon afloat, causing it to [[ColonyDrop crash into Gran Pulse]] and be destroyed along with everyone in it. The protagonists (or specifically, [[spoiler:Fang and Vanille]]) eventually decide that the only way to prevent this is [[spoiler:to go ahead and destroy the mechanism, and then -- having fulfilled their destiny -- crystallise into a giant pillar that will ''physically'' hold Cocoon in place above Gran Pulse]]. |
| 172 | ** Can be invoked by the player in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'''s expansion Shadowbringers. Nothing stops the PlayerCharacter from fighting [[AngelicAbomination Sin Eaters]] in the First as the light/holy-based Paladin or White Mage. That said, the promo materials ''do'' feature the Dark Knight job for a reason. |
| 173 | * In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemWarriorsThreeHopes'', in the Blue Lions route, Prince Dimitri of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus learns that the Kingdom is descending into unrest as a result of his uncle's misrule as regent. Dimitri recounts to [[PlayerCharacter Shez]] that many in the Kingdom have opposed his uncle, and wanted Dimitri to take the throne even before he went to the Officers' Academy, but Dimitri realized that agreeing to that would have divided the Kingdom, but supporting his uncle's claim would have led to open rebellion. Now that the Kingdom is on the verge of civil war, Dimitri laments that he must kill his uncle to stop the situation from getting any worse and laments the situation. |
| 174 | -->'''Dimitri''': In other words, I cannot restore my grandfather's peace without first breaking it. |
| 175 | * ''VideoGame/GearsOfWar 2'': To stop the Horde from sinking humanity, Marcus and Dom decide to [[spoiler: sink Jacinto faster to take them out, too]]. |
| 176 | * 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. |
| 177 | * Throughout ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'', it's implied that the only way to deal with a SealedEvilInACan once the can starts leaking is to let it escape. Then the Hero (Link) can beat it up and seal the weakened BigBad into a new can, restoring peace to Hyrule. ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword Skyward Sword]]'' in particular demonstrates that trying to stuff its BigBad back into the same can over and over again is a game of diminishing returns: the seal gets weaker every time it's remade, allowing the BigBad to break out faster next time. Only after Link confronts the BigBad directly and seals him in a ''different'' way is the villain properly contained. |
| 178 | * ''VideoGame/{{Manafinder}}'': Illia wants to end humanity's dependency on gods and manastones, but she tries to accomplish this by recruiting and blessing her own followers. She is also willing to use manastones to power up her champion, Azain. |
| 179 | * 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 regularly 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.]] |
| 180 | * In ''VideoGame/MasterDetectiveArchivesRainCode'', Makoto Kagutsuchi sees that the Amaterasu Corporation is severely flawed in how it operates, especially the Peacekeepers, and finds that the absolute willingness to twist laws to work in its favor and have control over everything only leads to devastation. But in regards to what ''he'' is doing about this, [[spoiler:it turns out that he's an AntiVillain who thinks the solution is to get rid of those Peacekeepers and replace them with himself, and ''also'' become the company's overall CEO (as in, ranking above said Peacekeepers) in order to take charge himself. This involves doing some extreme things that terrorize Kanai Ward's population, like covering up the truth of them being homunculi, spreading rumors around, and conspiring in a scheme to enforce mass cannibalism as something that's NecessarilyEvil, while also being convinced he's in the right. Makoto seems to not notice that he's exactly the same figure of corruption as the very corporation he despises in the very process of trying to eliminate that corruption.]] |
| 181 | * Fight, VideoGame/{{Mega Man|Classic}}! For everlasting peace! |
| 182 | ** What's the best weapon to defeat Metal Man? [[HoistByHisOwnPetard Metal Man's own weapon, of course!]] |
| 183 | * ''VideoGame/MeltyBlood'': [[TimeTravel Dust of Osiris]]' plan to defy the end of humankind's existence is by ending humankind's existence and leave behind a record of some sort. |
| 184 | * ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidPeaceWalker'': Hot Coldman turns out to be a complete nutbar who believes that nuclear deterrence is doomed to fail because no one has the guts to return fire. So his solution is "nuke everyone so no one can nuke anyone". |
| 185 | * ''VideoGame/MetalGearRisingRevengeance'': The goal of the VisionaryVillain in an age where the world is hooked on a global war economy: ''"You still don't get it. I'm using war as a business to get ELECTED! So I can end war as a business."'' He becomes less self-contradictory when he later details that he's totally fine with plunging USA into anarchic civil war as long as it's ''not a business''. Raiden finds his ideas [[YoureInsane completely ridiculous]] either way. |
| 186 | * ''VideoGame/MetroidPrimeTrilogy'': |
| 187 | ** 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. |
| 188 | ** ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime2Echoes'': According to the lore, this was the idea behind the Luminoth's creation of the Dark Beam; killing dark creatures by overloading them with dark energy. Unfortunately, this didn't work, so the Luminoth created the Light Beam instead, to much better results. |
| 189 | * ''VideoGame/MortalKombat2011'': Raiden is trying to prevent Shao Kahn from merging the realms. How does he do this? By letting him start to merge the realms, which violates the rules of Mortal Kombat and causes the Elder Gods to intervene and stop him. |
| 190 | * ''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.]] |
| 191 | * In ''VideoGame/PokemonVietnameseCrystal'', a TranslationTrainWreck of ''Pokémon Crystal Version'', you apparently have to pull the power supply out to start up the PC. |
| 192 | * ''VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite'': Team Plasma wants all Pokémon to be released into the wild, and they'll use their Pokémon 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.]] |
| 193 | * 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]]. |
| 194 | * ''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. |
| 195 | * 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. |
| 196 | * The Maymai Alliance in ''VideoGame/SpectralForceGenesis'' wants to stop a war that will ravage the land, but to do it, they'll beat everyone else and then disarm them all. |
| 197 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Starbound}}'', the Ruin was sealed away in the Ark using six artifacts as keys. When signs indicate it's about to break free and cause untold destruction, what can you do to stop it? Find the artifacts, open the Ark, and go in and kill it yourself! |
| 198 | * ''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. |
| 199 | * 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.]] |
| 200 | * Throughout the ''VisualNovel/ZeroEscape'' series, this tends to be a major motivation behind each iteration of Zero. |
| 201 | ** 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.]] |
| 202 | ** 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]]. |
| 203 | ** In ''VisualNovel/ZeroTimeDilemma'', [[spoiler:it turns out the only reason Brother/Zero II/Delta released Radical-6 into the world is because a religious fanatic was going to kick off a nuclear war that would wipe out ''all'' of humanity. Since he didn't know the fanatic's identity, a disease that would "only" wipe out 75% of humanity was the surest bet to take him out. However, his true goal was to create a timeline where the protagonists, armed with the knowledge from all other timelines, would track down the fanatic and stop him without Radical-6 needing to be released]]. |
| 204 | [[/folder]] |
| 205 | |
| 206 | [[folder:Webcomics]] |
| 207 | * Janis from ''Webcomic/{{Erfworld}}'' is a Hippymancer who wants to see Erfworld at peace. She's become convinced that this won't happen until [[http://archives.erfworld.com/Book%201/154 things get broken even worse than usual]]. |
| 208 | -->"Lord Parson doesn't want to lead it. I respect him for that, but I'm also really quite frightened about what will happen to the whole world if he takes command again."\ |
| 209 | One corner of Janis' mouth drooped, and she touched his shoulder.\ |
| 210 | "It will break. I told you. He may war so terribly that it breaks war itself. That is my own hope." She smiled sadly, "And in the long run, I have few others." |
| 211 | * In ''Webcomic/{{Goblins}}'', one TempleOfDoom has a spirit, Noh, who manifests whenever his name is spoken, intentionally or not, and says he'll kill everyone present the fourth time he's summoned. The team BloodKnight verifies that he appears in the same location each time and that he's vulnerable to having his throat ripped out, then readies his claws, summons him a fourth time, and [[OneHitKill beats him to the punch]]. |
| 212 | * The main goal of ''Webcomic/{{Misfile}}'' is to find a way for Rumisiel to return to Heaven to correct the titular mistake in the CelestialBureaucracy which turned Ash [[GenderBender into a girl]] and deleted two years of Emily's life. Near the end, they finally get the chance to, but by that time things have happened that caused them to change their mind. Emily easily decides [[spoiler: to destroy the files about her missing years since she's decided that her life post-misfile is miles better than before]], but while Ash wants his proper body back, he also realizes that being a girl did alot of good for both himself and others, both retroactively and during the year and half of the plot, and fixing the misfile will also erase his memories of what happened, which means that among other things he might not be together with Emily. Rumisiel manages to find a compromise [[spoiler: by making more misfiles, first by creating a copy of Ash's file, marking out all the references to gender, and filing it in the female cabinet, creating a twin sister who did everything Ash did in the altered timeline as well as during the comic's plot, while Ash's file gets re-filed into the proper male cabinet, only covered in post-it notes, confusing the system enough to let Ash keep his memories (albeit also setting up the plot of the sequel).]] |
| 213 | [[/folder]] |
| 214 | |
| 215 | [[folder:Web Original]] |
| 216 | * ''WebVideo/ScottTheWoz'' has a video about smoking, where he tries to start smoking so he can later stop smoking. |
| 217 | * Parodied in ''WebVideo/ToBoldlyFlee'' when [[Film/SupermanII General Zod]] takes control of [[Film/BattlefieldEarth Terl's]] operation to kill WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic (who's turned his house into a spaceship). He quickly decides that the best way to fight the Critic is to turn Terl's own CoolShip into a house. |
| 218 | * In the ''WebVideo/HonestTrailers'' episode for ''Film/NationalTreasure'', the narrator pokes fun at how Ben Gates' plan to stop the villain from stealing the Declaration of Independence is to steal the Declaration of Independence himself. |
| 219 | [[/folder]] |
| 220 | |
| 221 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 222 | * 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. |
| 223 | * ''WesternAnimation/FinalSpace'': As revealed in [[Characters/FinalSpaceTheTeamSquad Avocato]]'s {{Backstory}}, the [[EvilOverlord Lord Commander]] successfully convinced the Ventraxian warrior to turn to his side partly by playing on the pain of his original son's death and painting a vision of a universe where death itself no longer exists -- and the Lord Commander's very first order for Avocato once he has him in his grasp is to assassinate [[spoiler:the King and Queen of Ventraxia]] so the Lord Commander will have control of the planet. |
| 224 | * ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'': |
| 225 | ** In "Hank's Dirty Laundry", to prove he did not rent a pornographic video, Hank has to watch a ''series'' of pornographic videos closely for evidence of when they were released. |
| 226 | ** 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. |
| 227 | * 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. |
| 228 | * In ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'', Twilight Sparkle falls into this twice: |
| 229 | ** In the episode "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS2E3LessonZero Lesson Zero]]", she [[SanitySlippage literally goes crazy]] with worry about not turning in her weekly friendship report to Princess Celestia on time and, after failing to find a problem to solve, decides "If I can't ''find'' a friendship problem, I'll '''''make''''' a friendship problem!" |
| 230 | ** The episode "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS2E20ItsAboutTime It's About Time]]" has her get a visit from her future self which makes her think that there is going to be a terrible calamity by next Tuesday. The episode has her growing increasingly frantic and sleep-deprived, trying to figure out what this calamity ''is'' so that she can stop it. Finally, she gets so desperate that she decides the only way to prevent whatever is going to happen is to find a spell to stop time itself, so that next Tuesday can never come. [[spoiler:The big punchline to the episode is that there never was any future calamity on its way, and the whole plot was kicked off by a StableTimeLoop caused by 'future' Twilight going back to the past in a failed attempt to tell herself not spend the next week freaking out.]] |
| 231 | * 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. |
| 232 | * ''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 knowledge 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. |
| 233 | [[/folder]] |
| 234 | |
| 235 | [[folder:Real Life]] |
| 236 | * Windows 95 and later: click the Start button to Shut Down the computer. |
| 237 | * UsefulNotes/WorldWarI's description as "The War to End All Wars" sounds like an example, but in reality peace wasn't the goal of the instigators. The term comes from the vain hope of the survivors that its horrors would put people off warfare for good. [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII Obviously that didn't come to pass.]] |
| 238 | * UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar's General Sherman had an idea decades early during the conflict and said he wanted to make [[WarIsHell war so frightening for the South]] that they'd never want to take up arms ever again. By all appearances he succeeded, since there has not been another American Civil War in the century-and-a-half since then[[note]]although see the entry under WonTheWarLostThePeace for another explanation[[/note]]. |
| 239 | * Doctor Richard Gatling invented the high rate-of-fire gun that bears his name in order for the side with the gun to not need as many men to face danger. Great idea until the other side gets them too and both sides just decide they need even bigger armies to soak up the bullets. |
| 240 | * Peter Arnett quoted a United States major as saying, "It became necessary to destroy [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bến_Tre the town]] to save it." |
| 241 | * UsefulNotes/MaoZedong's defining phase, "political power grows out the barrel of a gun" came from this passage: (''Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, Vol. II'', pp. 224-225) |
| 242 | -->[O]''nly with guns can the whole world be transformed. We are advocates of the abolition of war, we do not want war; but war can only be abolished through war, and in order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to take up the gun.'' |
| 243 | * Back-fires are controlled fires used to stop the progress of an uncontrolled one (by using controlled fires to consume the fuel for the uncontrolled fire), and the origin of the phrase "fight fire with fire." |
| 244 | ** This is also periodically done to ''prevent'' major fires, by creating low-intensity fires to burn off much of the dry undergrowth and dead foliage that contribute to major fires. Sometimes these controlled burns [[NiceJobBreakingItHero get out of control]], making it a controversial tactic. |
| 245 | ** It's ''inverted'' when naturally occurring fires are stamped out early, meaning that the underbrush does ''not'' get burned off naturally. Eventually a fire starts in such a fuel-rich environment and rapidly grows into a huge blaze. |
| 246 | ** A certain logic problem revolves around this trope. You're stranded on an island covered entirely with a forest. A lightning strike starts a fire at one end of the island, and the wind is causing the fire to slowly spread across the rest of the island. How do you survive? [[spoiler:Pick up a branch from the underbrush in the forest, go near the fire and light the stick. Run to the other end of the island and light the forest on fire there. It will burn out soon, as it can't spread against the wind. You can then use this burnt-out section as a safe spot when the main fire comes.]] |
| 247 | ** While not quite the same as starting a fire, another way to stop a fire when it's impractical to burn out its fuel (such as in an oil well fire)? You set off an explosion to displace the air of oxygen, which is required for a fire to burn. |
| 248 | * UsefulNotes/OliverCromwell's English republic had this as its motto -- ''Pax Quaeritur Bello'', or "Peace is sought through war". |
| 249 | * This happened all the time during UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolution. Many of the Revolutionaries in fighting for and arguing for the things they wanted to put in place resorted to means which contradicted their ideals: |
| 250 | ** In order for the Revolution to create a society as per "The Declaration of the Rights of Man" which asserted the protection of civil liberties and right to property as well as freedom of religion, they had to reform feudalism. To reform feudalism they came up with the scheme of creating a new national church and seizing property, i.e., violate the very principles they are trying to erect. This was a key cause for the counter-revolution, as this interference was resented by the rural population, the Vendeeans. Pro-revolutionary historians admit that it was a less than perfect approach to separation of Church and State. |
| 251 | ** The Declaration also stated that France would not declare or provoke war nor would it conquer other sovereign nations. However, in order for the revolution to succeed against opposition, many politicians like the Girondins decided that France should invade neighbouring regions to "spread the Revolution". Danton, despite initially opposing the war, admitted that it was a chance for France to reclaim its "natural frontiers", and expansionist rhetoric accompanied idealistic notions of spreading the Revolution, almost entirely without irony. |
| 252 | ** Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin did not invent the device, but advocated its use to make executions swift and painless hoping it would lead to an end to capital punishment to which he was opposed. The Reign of Terror started not long after with the beheading machine getting a lot of use. |
| 253 | ** Robespierre opposed capital punishment, but only during peacetime. During wartime, [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans killing the King and counter-revolutionaries was necessary to arrive at the capital-punishment-free peacetime]]. Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès saw himself as a liberal and moderate, rather than a firebrand revolutionary. Eventually he felt France was being too unstable and that there needed to be order. So [[JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope he decided to mastermind a military coup d'etat]] and went shopping for a general to serve as his puppet. The one guy who was ''conveniently'' available : UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte. Such reversals, drastic and dynamic were common and bitterly {{lampshaded}} by Pierre-Victurnien Vergniaud at the trial of the Girondins: |
| 254 | --> ''"Citizens, we have reason to fear that the Revolution, like Saturn, will successively devour all its children, [[{{Foreshadowing}} and finally produce despotism, with the calamities that accompany it]]."'' |
| 255 | * There exists a school of extremist through, known as "accelerationism," which believes that (in the simplest of terms) in order to overthrow a broken or unjust system, its worst aspects must be intensified (accelerated) to speed up its collapse and radicalize the population into action according to goals. It has both [[{{UsefulNotes/Socialism}} left-wing]] and right-wing branches, depending on whether the system being overthrown is capitalism or pluralistic democracy. |
| 256 | * Bruce Hoffman suggested in his 1998 book ''Inside Terrorism'' that the trend of escalating violence would soon lead to an act of terror so awful that the world's sympathies would turn against the perpetrators. Terrorism would get so [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone horrific]] that terrorists would abandon it. |
| 257 | * US forces in Iraq had more success against the foreign jihadists in the mid-2000's when their acts of terrorism became so brutal that the local armed rebels got sick of them and began opposing them. |
| 258 | * In May 2015, scientists [[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-32551873 successfully cured people of the C. difficile bacterium]] by injecting them with... more C. difficile. The injected C. difficile had been programmed not to produce the toxins that caused the bacterium's symptoms, and occupied the spaces in the gut that the bacterium normally inhabits, preventing the real bacterium from settling there. |
| 259 | * It is common for bomb squads to deal with a suspicious package or bag that might be a bomb by blowing it up in a controlled explosion. |
| 260 | * As counterintuitive as it sounds, blasting a nuke with conventional explosives has a pretty good chance of disarming it, as nuclear fission has to be induced through a series of carefully calculated explosions of the conventional explosives on the outside of the fission material, compressing it inwards to reach critical mass. Setting off the explosives preemptively will not cause such a calculated explosion, thus killing the nuke in its cradle. You still have to deal with the radioactive materials spilling out after the explosion, though. |
| 261 | * [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactive_armour#Explosive_reactive_armour Explosive Reactive Armour]] attached to armored fighting vehicles uses one explosion to neutralize another explosion in Anti-Tank warfare. |
| 262 | ** Similarly, noise canceling headphones produce noise in such a way that it cancels out soundwaves heading towards the ear. |
| 263 | * One method used to rapidly clear lanes through a minefield is launch a long rope of explosives along the planned route and blow it up to blow up the mines. |
| 264 | * If you have a dog that won't quit barking, one method of training it out of that behavior is to first teach it to bark on command. |
| 265 | * 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). And most recently, [=mRNA=] vaccines contain no viral material at all, instead causing the body's own cells to create the appropriate proteins to trigger an immune response. |
| 266 | [[/folder]] |
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