Moments of Cruel Mercy in Fan Works.
Crossovers
- In Cross Cases, after Sam allows Lucifer to take him as his vessel, Lucifer lets Sam keep control of his body so that Sam can go back home and tell Dean goodbye. Sam notes in his internal narration that this really does seem nice on the surface, but perceives it as a final "fuck you" so that Sam's last moments as himself and of Dean are of Dean reaming him out for handing himself over to Lucifer, hopefully followed by Dean killing him in an attempt at taking Lucifer with him. This thought keeps Sam lingering in St. Mary's convent, whereupon he finds the teleportation spell.
- An Extraordinary Journey: During the "Going Home" arc, Rack reads Willow's mind. She can't let him retain that knowledge, but killing him would mean the First Evil learns it. So instead, she wipes his memories until he's left as a drooling vegetable.
- Discussed and ultimately averted in Fodlan's God of War
. While Edelgard never wanted to kill Rhea, initially it was because she wanted to force Rhea to watch as she destroyed everything she had built. However, once she finds out about Rhea’s Dark and Troubled Past, she can’t bring herself to feel any genuine hatred towards her anymore and wants to show her mercy for its own sake rather than to prove any kind of point. Unfortunately, Edelgard’s attempt at offering an olive branch initially only serves to feed into Rhea’s anger and paranoia. They eventually manage to set their animosity aside, though they make it clear that they will never be friends. - to forget is unforgivable has Izuku Driven to Suicide after his fateful encounter with All Might, then coming back as a Special Grade Cursed Spirit who haunts Katsuki. Izuku outright tells Katsuki that he has no intention of killing him; no, he wants him to live and face the consequences of his actions, such as how he's become a social outcast at Aldera.
- Halloween Unspectacular:
- At the end of Blue Alert, this is the ultimate fate of General Rausseman. Ford denies him his wish to die in a blaze of glory, and as a result he ends up spending the rest of his life in a prison hospital, his terminal illness slowly killing him.
- This turns out to be the Stranger's intended fate for E350 in This is fine. He (seemingly) murders all of his friends, destroys his home, and frames Sandy as the perpetrator behind the attacks on Sydney, then leaves E350 alive so that he can live a long life knowing that everything that happened was his own fault.
- In Harry Potter: Geth, a Quarian admiral who attacked Tali and was (along with the other admirals) telling the Migrant Fleet Blatant Lies about the Geth and life on Rannoch is sentenced to house arrest on Rannoch for the rest of her life. Specifically, she has to live there without receiving the nanites that would let her leave her suit and her apartment has a window that takes up an entire wall to let her see the Geth and Quarians living together in peace.
- Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail:
- When Yeardley's mockery of Parker incites him into trying to bash out Yeardley's brains with his sister's bat, Ash steps in to prevent it — mainly for Parker's sake, so he doesn't get into trouble for attacking the bully. Afterwards, Yeardley's 'friends' online note that he might have been better off if the kid followed through. After all, his Engineered Public Confession where he bragged about bullying Chloe (who ran off into the Infinity Train because of the dare they placed on her) was posted online for all to see, outing him as a bully to the whole world. Getting his skull caved in might have been a kinder fate than dealing with the scorn and infamy he's now facing.
- Grace Monroe's fate in this story and sequel ends up being this. She has to live with the knowledge that she completely misunderstood the Train's purpose and screwed up so many lives. Chloe Cerise, a girl she mocked as incapable of stopping the Apex, proves stronger than she ever anticipated, she's Forced to Watch Simon's death, followed by the decline and collapse of everything she built. And eventually, she ends up Dying Alone, murdered and reborn upon the Train as one of the very denizens she once persecuted and slaughtered, never to see or reconcile with her parents.
- Megami no Hanabira: Yuuna suggests subjecting Archibald Phillips to this after they defeat him: considering Phillips fancies himself a god, detests humans and is terrified of death, sending him to prison where he would be powerless and ordered around by other humans while he waits for death would be exponentially worse than just killing him on the spot. It doesn't pan out: Metatron sacrifices Phillips to fuel his appearance in the human world.
- In The Noble Nine, A Kill BillEsque Tale of Revenge, Crono's only goal in life is to die a noble death in battle... so Samus, playing the role of the Bride in this story, spares him. The other seven members of the Nine are all dead by the end of the story - all by Samus's hand, except for Sonic, who denies her the satisfaction of his death by killing himself in front of her.
- In One Helluva Broken Day, SCP-682 refuses to kill any of the humans in its facility after SCP-001 activates. It does this not out of a newfound camaraderie with the Foundation personnel, but because eating them would spare them from becoming SCP-001-A. Unlike most examples, this isn't as satisfying for the "mercy"-giver, as now it's surrounded by people it's still homicidally disgusted with and it can't escape itself because it isn't sure its Adaptive Ability will protect it from The Broken Sun's light.
- In The Prayer Warriors, during The Evil Gods, Part 2, after Jason kills the Roman god Socrates, Thalia comes to him with one of Socrates' captured followers. The follower begs Jason to kill her, but he tells her he will not, because murder is a sin, and says she will become his slave and has Thalia take her away to be punished. This may also apply to a Communist Mook in Threat of Satanic Commonism, whom Jerry spares after cutting off his arms and legs and blinding him so that he can suffer from his wounds and have the possibility of converting and going to Heaven.
- In Snakepit, Chang-Mu inflicts this fate upon the villagers who abandoned her.
- Warning Letter: Light ultimately decides against writing Kamoshida's name in the Death Note on the grounds that, as a rapist with teenaged victims, he probably won't last long in prison anyway.
- The Wedding Crashers: While Team Free Will is just about ready to massacre every vampire and werewolf at Renesmee's wedding by the end, Claire convinces them to give the assembled monsters "The Princess Bride treatment". That is, they have to spend the rest of their immortal lives knowing that there are things out there that can and will kill them, and that — after displaying Fantastic Racism repeatedly throughout the wedding — the only reason they weren't killed was because of one of the few humans in their midst. On top of that, the Cullens are ostracized from the rest of the vampire community for quite literally bringing the wrath of God down on their heads, and Quil is left to slowly go insane after Claire definitively rejects his imprinting on her.
- Adventures of the Morning Star: Jhin initially intends to kill Sona once he tracks her down. However, when he sees her wracked with despair over the death of her wife and the dozens of innocents he killed in the process of hunting her, he deems that to be good enough, informing her that it's entirely her fault that they all died before leaving her drowning in that guilt.
- In God is Cruel, Oliver uses Laurel as bait for Slade without her knowledge. Slade takes advantage of the set up and stabs Laurel in the stomach, nearly killing her and ultimately putting her in a coma. Dean, Laurel's husband, furiously tells Oliver he'll kill him if she dies. When the time comes to take her off life support, Dean tells Roy he'll make Oliver live instead, and explains why that's worse. Roy is left genuinely terrified by it.Dean: God is cruel, Roy, and so am I. You tell him he's going to live a long, healthy life. Death is too easy. Death would be wasted on him. You tell him he's going to wake up every single day with her blood on his hands. You tell him he's going to live with Tommy and Laurel and everyone else he's killed whispering in his ear every night. I'm not gonna waste a bullet on Oliver Queen, Roy. I'm gonna make sure he lives. Laurel is going to die tonight, and he's gonna have to live with himself for a long time. And trust me, that's worse than death.
- Some fan fiction views Aang's mercy on Ozai from the Avatar: The Last Airbender Grand Finale as this. Cruelty, for instance, has Ozai sneering that "The Avatar calls this mercy." Considering Ozai planned to burn a continent to the ground to secure his rule, on top of a lifetime of other atrocities, his Cruel Mercy may be very well-deserved.
- The Fall of the Fire Empire:
- After Yue/Tui destroys Yuan's fleet, she lets him live to wallow in his failure and insignificance. Unfortunately for him, Shiyan is much less merciful.
- And at the end of the story, Jiazin's first act as Fire Lord is to force Qing Xi into retirement as punishment for going along with the majority of Azula's crimes.
- In Swinging Pendulum, Central 46 decides to permanently imprison Ichigo in isolation and darkness instead of executing him with the rest of the Visoreds as an acknowledgment for killing Aizen. A very horrible punishment for a guy known for his loyalty to his True Companions. Shinji lampshades it:Shinji: What kinda fucked up acknowledgment is that?! Death is better, ya thrice-damned Shinigami!
- After his assassination attempt against Emperor Zero in Darwin, Suzaku is imprisoned for life in a cell with a news feed. Zero explains that he wants Suzaku to spend the rest of his life watching the world praise Zero and give him more power until he rules the world and to know that every night Zero is having sex with Suzaku's former fiance Kaguya at her behest. Lastly, he wants Suzaku to spend the rest of his life knowing he'd been less than an inch away from stopping Zeronote .
- Cross Ange The Knight Of Hilda: Cornered by Dark and Embryo during the assault on Arzenal, Embryo announces that Rio has been a thorn in his side for too long, but neither can he ignore that he owes Rio for rescuing Ange. In the end, he decides that since Rio doesn't appreciate his gift of the Light of Mana, he strips it from him so that Rio can spend the rest of his life powerless. This actually backfires in the long run, as it turns out Aura had other plans.
- I'd Trade My Life For Yours: In the climax, Kaede saves Tsumugi's life specifically because they don't want them to gain any satisfaction in dying for Team Danganronpa.
- Never Say Never: Following the third trial, Hifumi forces Celeste to pay for her manipulating and corrupting him by making her live on as Taeko after her 'Celestia Ludenberg' persona is completely destroyed.
- Discussed and ultimately Subverted in Where Talent Goes on Vacation. At the end of the fifth trial, the group is forced to choose someone to sacrifice, since the two murder victims killed each other. Tatsuki asks whether Kurogane, whose best friend she killed wants to choose her, but Kurogane says that if revenge was his goal, then it would make more sense to leave Tatsuki, who'd been borderline suicidal ever since her sister's death, alive. However, Kurogane understands that Tatsuki has since become The Atoner, and thus believes that Tatsuki doesn't deserve to die.
- Princess Fantasy DX 2: Rather than finishing Gothel off directly, Rapunzel makes clear that she's leaving her to die without access to her youth-restoring hair.
- In All This Sh*t is Twice as Weird, this is the Lord Inquisitor's logic in deferring to the Lady Inquisitor when judging Blackwall.Lord Inquisitor: Toria will forgive him. And... that forgiveness will be harder to accept than any condemnation.
- Bethany employs this in Beyond Heroes: Of Sunshine and Red Lyrium, when she learns about the actions of the Mayor of Crestwood. Rather than waste Inquisition resources to track him down and bring him in, she decides to just let him go, explaining to her friends that living with the knowledge of what he's done is worse than anything she could have done to him anyway.
- Birth and Re-Death: After Gangrel's defeat, Maribelle seals him away with a hex that prevents him from taking his own life.
- The New Retcons: John refused to get any psychiatric help for his wife Elly after she started going insane, ignoring her downward spiral and pretending it didn't have anything to do with him. Ultimately, the courts decide not to bother prosecuting him for this, or for how he assaulted her later... mainly because in their view, it would be a waste of time, noting that his reputation, the main thing he cared about, was already completely shot. John arrogantly tells himself that he beat the system. Eventually, he realizes what they meant when Christmas rolls around and he finds himself completely alone.
- Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): Zig-Zagged by Ghidorah's middle head (Ichi/Eldest Brother). After eating Vivienne Graham in Antarctica, he ordered San (then Ghidorah's left head) to resurrect and regenerate her, turning her into a human-Ghidorah Artificial Hybrid specifically because Ichi wanted to torment Viv; by turning her into a mimicry of the monster she spent years at Outpost 32 fearing, with the implication that Ichi would have gone on to torture her further afterwards if things had gone according to plan.
- In canon, Harry persuades Sirius and Lupin to spare Pettigrew because he doesn't think James would want them to become murderers (and to help prove Sirius's innocence). In Rose Lily Potter: The Girl Who Lived, on the other hand, Rose describes in rather ghoulish detail how much worse than death life in Azkaban will be for him, and this isn't even the creepiest thing she does.
- The story of A Monster and a Saint has a post-Heel Realization Sera deciding to leave Heaven in self-imposed exile, departing for Hell out of guilt and shame. At the end of the first chapter, Carmilla Carmine runs into her, fully aware that Sera is directly responsible for ordering the cullings of Hell for so long. Sera, who at this point has become a Death Seeker, promises that she won't resist if Carmine tries to kill her - and when she, true to her word, doesn't even flinch when Carmine seemingly attacks her, Carmine decides instead to let her live, both so that Sera can continue helping the people of Hell as a form of atonement, and to see the willingly Fallen Angel wallow in her guilt longer.I'm not the Princess... so I'm glad it torments you. Hell has to live with what you've done, after all. Now you do, too.
- A Son's Revenge has Multiple Endings; in one, Shawn chooses to spare Lt. Blake so that the man will have to live with the knowledge that the boy he saved despises him for how he ordered his father's death.
- Hivefled: Darkleer fell in love with the Disciple and let her go, hoping she could rebuild her life. She didn't want to and tracked him down with the intention of killing him for not letting her join her dead lover.
- A Thing of Vikings: To celebrate Yule, Savage declares a young thrall a freedman (after forcing him to kill his own father, since he said only one man would go free). The catch? He has to leave the Berserkers' holdings with nothing but the clothes on his back and no provisions right in the middle of winter with no reasonable expectation of him surviving the journey. Toiréasa and Dagur are horrified but neither could openly protest.
- Becoming a True Invader: At the end of the story, Zim chooses not to kill Tak, instead sending her back into exile on Planet Dirt with only a malfunctioning Mimi and a copy of the Dibship's AI (which is obsessed with her, to her disgust) for company.
- My Hostage, Not Yours:
- Gaz spares Iggins; instead, she 'merely' beats them within an inch of their life, and leaves them so heavily traumatized that Takeover later confirms that they ended up in an asylum.
- Invader Tak is turned human and dumped on Earth; Professor Membrane decides to help them out by wiping their memory, giving them a chance to live in peace at the cost of a Death of Personality.
- The Legend of Link: Lucky Number 13: Link appears to let his recently-depowered father live out the rest of his life as a crippled mortal, but subverts it almost immediately after.
- In New Life in Westview, instead of Thor killing Thanos, Wanda, who survives the Snap points out that death is too easy on Thanos and subjects him to a memory loop of him killing Gamora & the pain that came with it along with the pain he caused everyone else. No one objects to this as it's less than what Thanos deserved.Wanda: He shall view his worst memory on a constant loop, and I also made it that he shall feel the pain of everyone else that suffers because of him...
- Lila runs into this twice in BURN THE WITCH:
- After repeatedly protecting her from Witch Hunter and her angry mob, Ladybug informs Lila that she's going to be keeping a very close eye on her from now on, doing her best to protect her from Hawkmoth and any other akuma by "rescuing" her in ways that will both humiliate her and curtail any further attempts to cause problems. She also points out that Lila herself has claimed that the two of them are good friends, making it only natural that she'd go out of her way to protect her.
- When her lies to the adults unravel, Lila expects to be immediately expelled. But Mr. Damocles states that they don't expel students for truancy, and goes on to explain how he intends to accommodate her as she continues her school and makes up all the work she missed — which, given how frequently she skipped out, is likely to involve her repeating a grade. Given that Lila was expecting to leave Paris behind entirely and move on to another country, she doesn't take the prospect of staying well.
- In The Karma of Lies, Lila Rossi escapes Paris completely unscathed by the chaos her lies have brought and fifty million Euros she stole from the Agreste family, but Ladybug easily finds her with her Miraculous powers and gives her a warning: that she had seen Lila's future with the Rabbit Miraculous and it would be that she would get shanked to death by someone fed up with her con artistry, so she better change her ways, and then leaves. Lila then ends the tale driving herself crazy over the possibility Marinette may be telling the truth.
- Two of the Recursive Fanfictions of this story (Karma Overbalance and Karmic Backlash) revolve around deconstructing Marinette's plan and how little forethought she probably put into it by showing Lila exploiting the freedom Marinette gave her alongside her cruel mercy and using it to plot Marinette's downfall. Karmic Backlash even has people chew out Marinette over thinking it would be enough punishment for Rossi.
- Miraculous City: At the end of the story, Bug Noire and Chat Bug use their Healing Hands to cure Gabriel of both the injuries from Chat's No-Holds-Barred Beatdown and the Catalcylsm that's been killing him throughout the story. Bug Noire explicitly tells him that they did so because if she and the rest of Team Miraculous have to live with their Secret Identities exposed to the world, then he'll have to live through the same consequences as a world-wanted terrorist.
- In Anyone, Tensei and Tenya's mother confronts Stain after he's been paralyzed from the waist down. She admits that she originally wanted to kill him for what he put her sons through, but after seeing the condition he's in, she wishes for him to live a very long and painful life instead.
- Apotheosis:
- Rather than killing All Might, Izuku exposes his true form and the truth of One for All to the public.
- Similarly, Izuku deals with Endeavor by exposing how he abused his children and wife, strips away his Quirk and leaves him to the mercy of the news journalists.
- Nemesis: Izuku has no intention of killing Katsuki; instead, he gets revenge upon him by exposing their connection to the world, having established himself as the supervillain Mischief long before Katsuki even got his hero license. He then spells out for Katsuki how he'll never be able to escape that link now... and since heroes with nemeses are more popular than those without, no matter how high he climbs in the Pro Ranks, he'll never know whether he achieved that on his own merits or if Izuku helped him get there.
- With Confidence: Inko punishes Katsuki for bullying her son by making him research Quirklessness and volunteer at Quirkless charities. This forces him to directly confront his cruelties; reflecting back on this, he admits it was both a fair punishment and not as light as he'd originally believed.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- Bitter Tears: An Anon-A-Miss Fic: Apple Bloom sees Principal Celestia's decision not to expel her and the other CMC for creating Anon-A-Miss. Transferring to another school would've been hard, but everyone at Canterlot High knows what they did, she's pretty certain everyone hates them for it, and they're being bullied, with Apple Bloom thoroughly convinced that there's no point in reporting it as nobody will care enough to step in.
- A Brief History of Equestria: After Hurricane's coup against Commander Sullamander, the latter's remaining loyalists tried to stage a counter-revolt and were effortlessly crushed. When Hurricane realized that his own (unloving and unloved) mother Star Saber was the leader of the revolt, he spared her — not out of familial obligation, but because he wanted her to live with her utter failure.
- In Frigid Winds and Burning Hearts, Princess Luna realizes that killing Captain Braveheart will just confirm in everyone else's eyes that she's a monster. So instead, she spares his life, and teleports him to his commander, telling him to have fun explaining his actions to his superior. Braveheart is not too happy upon hearing her plans. Unfortunately, this backfires, as he just tracks them down again and ambushes Twilight.
- The Lunar Rebellion:
- In the aftermath of the Pegasopolan rebellion, everyone is eager to see how Celestia will choose to deal with the defeated rebel forces. Her allies are initially furiously outraged when she announces that she will not have the rebel clan leaders executed for their crimes, and the rebels themselves can scarcely believe how light they are getting off... until she reveals that she intends to completely and totally disband the clans, essentially striking their very cultural identity from Equestrian history. The intensely traditionalist clans seem to consider this a Fate Worse than Death.
- On a more individual level, this is why Sunbeam Sparkle chooses to prevent Dusk Charger's execution, although he had betrayed the Solars, let the Avatar into Canterlot and kidnapped Sunbeam's daughter to deliver her to warlocks, crimes that other characters note fully warrant execution. As far as she's concerned, having to watch the clans be systematically dismantled and the culture he had built his life around destroyed, all the while living with the knowledge that his actions led to this happening, is a far worse fate than any death or torture she could devise. Dusk himself agrees.
- In Seven Days in Sunny June, Sunset learns that Flash cheated on her and on Blossomforth, along with using a date rape drug on human Twilight. However, she decides not to do anything to him, as Blossomforth is pregnant with his child, and her father is a pastor who's going to force him into a Shotgun Wedding.
- Severing And Reconnection: Just before her defeat, Twilight is informed that in several cultures, killing a lame pony is considered a form of kindness.
- In Vengeance of the Star, Twilight is Forced to Watch as her adopted son Spike is killed in front of her by assassins. In retaliation she captures them and during their trial, after stripping them of their wings and horns, kills their families in front of them before stripping them of their magic and banishing them from Equestria.Twilight: You three are hereby banished from Equestria, should he ever return, my guards will send you back in worse condition than before. (leans in to glare into their eyes) Now you will know the pain I will have to suffer for the rest of my life, the pain of knowing that your actions have cost you your family, the pain of knowing that you will die alone, with your entire bloodline hated by all of Equestria. The pain of knowing that your entire legacy is now tainted. All. because. of. you.
- Grey Hoof suffers this in the Waking Nightmares chapter "A Blank Story, part 2". (Story of the Blanks is considered canon.) After he's shown to have learned nothing from his punishment by transferring the curse to everypony in Ponyville just to save himself, Celestia decides he needs a more severe punishment... trapping him in the ruins of Sunnytown, alone, under a spell that makes him imperceptible to others (and causes them to avoid the area). The spell also keeps his mind calm and sane, as falling into madness would be a merciful escape, and Celestia won't allow even that.
- Aptly serves as the title of Blind's sixty-ninth chapter. Instead of killing his opponent, Sasuke opts to cut off the fingers of their right hand, then blind them, forcing them to walk the earth weakened and unable to distract themselves from the memory of their crimes. To top it off, he weaponizes Ear Worm by putting them under an audial genjutsu so that they'll hear their mother singing softly to him for the rest of their life.
- Sometimes Naruto/Naruichi's mercy in The Darkest Light is this. While one man he begged to be spared for the sake of his son, the next he begged to be spared because "If he dies, he won't be able to teach the lesson." Said man was beaten to unconsciousness then forced to work for free for a month while wearing a sign that makes people ask questions, thus causing him to explain that he's only alive due to his victim's pleas. Then again, the first man Naruichi wanted to be spared since he attacked Naruichi thinking he was harming his boss. The second gave a fake coin to Naruichi (who is blind), which is considered a horrible crime.
- Déjà vu no Jutsu: Uroko Kurama gets her wish: she doesn't have to marry her cousin Murakamo. Instead, she winds up suffering some severe Laser-Guided Karma for how she avoided this fate: by betraying her cousin Natsumi. She winds up a pariah, stripped of her status as a ninja along with her clan being completely disbanded, along with being left with a permanent reminder of her betrayal in the scars Natsumi left on her face during the kidnapping.
- When Sasuke defects in Reaching for a Dream, Naruto lets him leave, just to rub in that Sasuke was no match for him. Subverted however when Naruto's words drive Sasuke to attack him in a rage, causing Naruto to kill him.Naruto: You're old enough to be making your own decisions, so if you want to shack up with a weirdo like Orochimaru, that's fine with me, just make sure you can live with the consequences.
Sasuke: Wait, you mean you're just letting me go?
Naruto: We both know that you're not even close to being strong enough to get away from me unless I let you. So run away little boy, run away and escape the only way you can. Because I let you. - War of the Biju: When Gaara faces his Edo Tensei-revived father, he curb-stomps and calls him out on his actions, declaring that his forgiveness is the one comfort Rasa can take back with him to the Pure Land.
- The Second Try: Ritsuko claims that she saved Gendo's life because being in a coma is a Fate Worse than Death to him, though it's not clear whether she's being sincere."Though you still would have died if Ritsuko hadn't found and helped you. At first, she always said she didn't even know why she had done it. Later she changed it to 'Having to live in this condition is a bigger punishment for him than death'."
- Ashes of the Past has this as the ultimate fate of the original Team Galactic and their willing Pokemon. They're given exactly what they wanted in the end: a "world without spirit", which in this case means a world without civilization, without any other humans, without any Pokemon but those who worked with them willingly, whose power are severely weakened. They are imprisoned there for the rest of their lives without escape, and survival will be a difficult task.
- In Arc Royale, Grimm has the chance to kill Cinder, but opts not to take it. Instead, he informs them that he's only sparing their life so that they can watch as their plans all come to naught, resulting only in their downfall.
- Salem and Miss Malachite from Ruby and Nora love to spare their enemies if it means they suffer.
- I'm Here to Help: After the first rebellion against Crystal Tokyo fails, Emerald finds himself faced with the prospect of banishment from Earth. What enrages him the most about this is how everybody at his trial acts as though this is evidence of Queen Serenity's compassionate, generous nature and not a terrible punishment in its own right:Emerald: If being thrown off the planet that had born, raised, and supported you, if being thrown off the planet that you fought time and time again to save and protect, if being thrown off the planet that people died, DIED to help you protect, if being thrown off your home planet, the planet you love is MERCY, then by the GODS, never, EVER show any mercy to me AGAIN!
There's no mercy in planetary exile, none at all.
- Between Three Rogues:
- The spirits of the Glacians possess enough psychic power that they could destroy the minds of the intruding heroes outright. However, their ringleader decides not to after hearing Fina talk about how monstrous the Glacians were while making no mention of her own peoples' sins. Instead, they force her to learn the Awful Truth about the Silvites, figuring this would be more painful than anything else they could possibly do to her.
- Ramirez decides that cutting out Fina's Shard of the Silver Moon Crystal is a much better fate than what the Elders have planned for her.
- My Father's Son: Rhaegar was deeply tempted to just kill Balon Greyjoy for orchestrating a rebellion that also threatened his family. But instead he decided to take a different approach. Balon wanted to create a kingdom for himself, so as punishment, Rhaegar forces the Iron Islands to pay heavy war reparations, lose their independent governance while the payments are being honored so they'd lose the ability to carry out a rebellion without economic prospects. And as a coup de grace, Rhaegar went even farther than Robert did in Canon, by taking BOTH his remaining children as wards. Dividing them between himself and his most trusted bannerman: Ned.
- In the Deep Space Nine fanfic The First Tile, a bereaved Trill father whose daughter's death was ordered by the planetary government hopes the monarch has a long life in prison."I'm glad he will spend the rest of his life in a prison, eating meager food, surrounded by cold walls, performing the same kind of labor many Unjoined spend their entire working lives doing. I don't want him to get out. I want him to spend the rest of his life remembering what he did to our world, and when he dies, I hope that even the wind forsakes him. I say that as a father, in the name of every other parent who will, or has faced the same truth."
- Blood and Honor: When Sanguis realizes that killing Jedi isn't as satisfying as she hoped it'd be, she turns to this instead, bringing out the darkness lurking in the hearts of several of her opponents and then leaving them to face the truth about themselves.
- In Heart of the Inferno, Smaug meets the aged Bilbo Baggins in Rivendell and attempts to kill the enemy he hasn't seen for sixty years. However, Bilbo has a fit induced by his exposure to the One Ring and searches for his "precious". Disgusted by how the hobbit seems to have become deranged, Smaug finds it unsatisfying to kill an enemy who can't register their own death. He opts to let Bilbo live the rest of his life tormented by insanity.Smaug: Be left with the prison of your own design, with the poison of your own making, thief-in-the-shadows. Once again, you've denied me the satisfaction of killing an enemy. But I know death will come for you. It comes for all of us. Especially the insane. Enjoy your tormented world, Bilbo Baggins. I shall certainly enjoy watching you slowly die.
- Cats, Gangs and Leaders: This is why Gold Pelt opts to keep Spook alive in Chapter 9 after torturing them for several days.
- In A New World, Lunarians have invaded Gensokyo en masse to avenge a centuries-old murder, and in pursuit of that revenge, have used Earth's own nuclear weapons to nearly exterminate mankind. Even so, Tenshi isn't overly concerned until after a brutal battle, her Only Friend Suika is slain by a Lunarian warrior. An embittered Tenshi asks the Lunarian Was It Really Worth It?. The answer (no) and the response (a suicide attempt) so infuriate Tenshi, she invokes Heaven's Mercy on said warrior, condemning her to an unending life of self-sacrifice and absolute piety until the wounds the Lunarians have inflicted upon Earth heal. The broken woman can barely whisper how much worse her punishment is than Hell's Justice.
- In Young Justice: Darkness Falls, the heroes universally agree that it would be far worse to allow their Apokoliptian enemies to live and suffer Darkseid's wrath rather than kill them.
Other
- Mr. Evil's Original Character Fredi Heat sees this method as worse than just killing them. Despite having no qualms about brutally killing someone that looks at him wrong (did I mention he is a "good guy"), he always sees it crueler to take someone in alive rather than dead. As he quotes "'Alive' just means you can still breathe on your own".
