This isn't even the worst thing that happened in that episode...
When friends become enemies, sometimes they can't bring themselves to kill each other.
When a character's significant other is possessed or zombified, sometimes they can't bring themselves to kill them.
Whatever the case, Everyone Has Standards, and many people have someone they just can't bring themselves to kill. Some people can get around this by letting someone else kill their loved one for them.
Often overlaps with Fighting Your Friend, Defeat Means Friendship, and possibly Tragic Monster or "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight, depending on the cause of the fight. It can be related to Even Evil Has Loved Ones (and its subtropes Villainous Parental Instinct and Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas). The loved one in question is often a Morality Chain or Morality Pet. Likewise can overlap with Shapeshifter Guilt Trip if the story deals with evil being who can shapeshift.
If the loved one is possessed or zombified, then it overlaps with Supporting the Monster Loved One.
Might come in conjunction with Even Evil Has Standards if the villain has someone they care about.
Contrast Kill the Ones You Love.
No Real Life Examples, Please!
Examples
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Anime & Manga
- In Bleach, this trope is exploited by Grand Fisher, who creates illusions of his opponents' loved ones and hides behind them. He believes that every Soul Reaper, no matter how vicious, has at least one person who they can't kill.
- Fairy Tail: In the final arc Erza and Wendy are pitted against Irene Belserion, one of the 12 guards of the Spriggan Empire who reveals herself to be Erza's mother. She explains she was a dragon slayer whose power turned her into a dragon. Zeref gave her back a humanoid form centuries later, but the loss of her senses drove her mad and she had planned to take Erza's body after she was born. However her motherly instinct prevented her from going through with it and she gave up Erza for adoption to protect Erza from herself. In the present time, Irene claims she doesn't care about Erza anymore and tries kill her. After taking a mortal blow from Erza, Irene has enough strength to finish her weakened daughter. But when given the chance, finds she still can't go through with it as deep down she still loves Erza and ultimately kills herself in the end.
- Saint Seiya: A baddie in the Poseidon arc exploits this by taking the appearance of the Saints' loved ones so he can assassinate them. Even when they know it's an impostor, they still hesitate long enough to give him an opening. Except Phoenix Ikki, who takes the opportunity to give him a taste of his own medicine. Turns out the baddie is so cowardly he can't kill a copy of himself, something that would never stop the Saints since they're all willing to die for their cause.
- School-Live!: Being a story about survivors of a zombie apocalypse, there are some examples of this trope.
- When Kurumi finds a zombified Megu-nee in the school basement (and a zombified Taromaru in the anime), she is unable to kill her, causing her infection.
- In the anime version, Yuuri can't bring herself to kill Kurumi to prevent her zombification. In the manga, however, it is unclear if Yuuri would have accomplished it, since Miki arrived with the cure before she could decide.
- Near the end of the manga, while trying to return with the water to save Kurumi, Miki meets a zombified Kei, her former best friend, so she is unable to kill her, leading to Miki being bitten.
Comic Books
- Sonic the Hedgehog:
- Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics): When Snively is confronted by his niece, Hope, he is unable to order his forces to attack her.
- Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW): In the climax of the Metal Virus Saga, Whisper gets confronted by Tangle who was turned into a Zombot earlier. Whisper struggles to pull the trigger on her weapon as Tangle approaches her.
Fan Works
- In The Gray Jedi: Merciless Indifference, Zari admits to Des — her lover and the father of her children — that she can't bring herself to kill him if he falls under the villain's Mind Control.
Zari: I can't kill you!
Des: [silence]
Zari: I can't. I know I'm strong enough to keep going after you die, but I am not mentally or emotionally capable of killing you. The only possible exception is if I had to stop you from killing Zak and Kyra, but even then I don't know if I could do it.
Des: You once asked me to kill you to save the kids.
Zari: I know. Then you got possessed and I realized I'm a hypocrite. - Hear Me Roar: When the Lannister family ends up in Middle-Earth, and Joffrey ends up betraying his family and bribing a goblin army to restore him to the throne, taking over the Westerlands and taking his much kinder brother Tommen prisoner in the process, his uncle/father Jaime is instructed to kill him and save Tommen. Despite Joffrey's Ax-Crazy tendencies, however, Jaime can't bring himself to kill his son. Tommen, on the other hand, does kill his brother, allowing Jaime to take the blame for his sake.
- "My Brother Cain, My Brother Abel" when Caleb and Philip Wittebane have their final confrontation, Caleb gains the upper hand, pinning his brother down. He repeatedly tells himself that he has to kill his little brother in order to protect his wife and child, but he cannot force himself to do it. This turns out to be a fatal mistake because it turns out Philip can bring himself to deliver the final blow
Films — Animation
- The LEGO Movie: After Emmet manages to escape from Lord Business's goons. Good Cop/Bad Cop is called into Lord Business's office who decides to test his resolve by having him "Kragle" (read: super glue) his parents. Good Cop hesitates when ordered and can't go through with it which Lord Business sees as a weakness and has his Good Cop face rubbed away with nail polish. Without his good side to balance him out, Bad Cop goes through with the orders to kragle his parents.
- Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse: When the supervillain Prowler catches Spider-Man (who is actually his nephew Miles) at Aunt May's house, Miles (knowing that his beloved Uncle Aaron is the Prowler) takes off his mask. Aaron is so shocked that he takes off his own mask, leaving both of them completely revealed. When he puts Miles' mask back on at Kingpin's urging to kill him, it's ambiguous if it's to make killing his nephew easier or to keep him protected if anybody sees them. In the end, he can't go through with it... and pays with his life.
Films — Live-Action
- The Complex: Q reveals that this is why the killer, who is an alternate version of him, can't kill Jay.
Killer: I'm gonna kill you, cocksucker!
Jay: Fine! Then go ahead and do it. I'm tired of your bullshit whining, so go ahead and just fucking kill me!
Q: Oh, he can't.
Killer: I can't?
Jay: Dude, he's got the gun loaded in my ear hole. Suddenly I'm not doubting!
Q: Bullshit. He's not gonna kill you.
Killer: Why not?
Jay: Yeah, w-why not?
Q: Because you're his best friend.
Killer: [whispering] Son of a bitch. - Count Yorga: Near the end of the first film, Micheal gets ambushed by two of Yorga's vampire women, one of whom is his friend Erica who was bitten, kidnapped and ultimately turned by Yorga. Micheal manages to ward the women back and chase off one of them, but Erica oddly doesn't flee and allows him the chance to stake her. Despite knowing she's no longer the friend he knew and is now just an undead being. He can't bring himself to kill her and leaves her in the room as she hisses at him.
- End of Days: Jericho's partner Chicago, despite having become Satan's henchman, is unable to directly kill his old friend when it comes down to it, even when the alternative is his master burning him alive.
- Evil Dead (2013): David prepares to burn the cabin while his possessed sister Mia is locked in in the cellar. He is ultimately unable to go through with it.
- Unlike in the original, Michael Myers in Halloween (2007) has no wish to kill Laurie after finding out she's his sister.
- Hot Fuzz: Danny can't bring himself to shoot his own evil father in the back during the climax and instead fires off his handgun at the air in anger, parodying a movie that he and Angel were watching earlier in the movie.
- Howl: Ged can't killed his wife Jenny to save his own life, or even allow his fellow survivors on the train to kill her, going into a Heroic BSoD when she becomes a werewolf and punching Adrian when the latter nearly kills her for him.
- John Wick:
- Marcus is hired by Viggo to kill John. He sets up on a rooftop to shoot John while he sleeps, only to change his mind and shoot the pillow next to his head, alerting him that Miss Perkins is sneaking in to kill him.
- Subverted in John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum. Winston, who has acted as a friend and mentor to John up until this point, doesn't hesitate to shoot John off the roof of the Continental in order to settle his issues with the Adjudicator and the High Table.
- Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom: Owen apparently feels this way towards Blue, the Velociraptor he raised. When asked by Claire early on in the movie, he declares he can and will do nothing while Blue perishes with the other dinosaurs. But he ends up joining Claire's efforts to rescue Blue and other dinosaurs anyway, and he continues going out of his way to ensure Blue's wellbeing whenever they cross paths and he even tries to get her to rejoin him with no strings attached, showing a level of concern and compassion for Blue which he doesn't extend to any of the other dinosaurs.
- Pan's Labyrinth: When Ofelia has to kill her baby brother to prove herself as a princess of another world (the Faun claims he just needs to draw a few drops of blood and that her brother will suffer no lasting harm, but she doesn't believe him). She refuses to do so. Turns out it was a Secret Test of Character; by refusing to take her brother's life she proved herself worthy of returning.
- Comes up more than once over the course of the Star Wars films:
- In Return of the Jedi, after confirming that Darth Vader is his father, Luke says he can't kill him. After Luke surrenders to Vader and Palpatine, he's determined to convince Vader to renounce the Dark Side, and when the two end up dueling, generally sticks to defense and trying to withdraw. He only outright attacks Vader when he threatens Leia.
- Revenge of the Sith: After discovering that Anakin has fallen to the Dark Side and is now the loyal servant of Emperor Palpatine, Obi-Wan begs Yoda not to make him be the one to destroy him.
Yoda: Destroy the Sith, we must.
Obi-Wan: Send me to kill the Emperor. I will not kill Anakin!
Yoda: To fight this Lord Sidious, strong enough, you are not.
Obi-Wan: He is like my brother. I cannot do it.
Yoda: Twisted by the Dark Side, young Skywalker has become. The boy you've trained, gone, he is, consumed by Darth Vader.
Obi-Wan: I do not know where the Emperor has sent him. I don't know where to look.
Yoda: Use your feelings, Obi-Wan, and find him, you will.- This is then demonstrated after their climactic duel on Mustafar. Obi-Wan leaves Anakin/Vader triple-amputated and burning next to a river of lava, but can't bring himself to deliver a Mercy Kill and instead leaves him to his fate — which allows him to survive as a Dark Lord on Life Support. Years later, they have another duel that ends with Obi-Wan severely injuring Vader — and again, Obi-Wan can't deliver coup de gras and walks away.
- The Last Jedi
- Kylo attacks the Resistance ship that has his mother, Leia, on it. Despite having killed his father in the previous film, when he has a clear shot at the ship where Leia is, he is unable to fire. A moment later, another pilot does it instead. Luckily Leia survives.
- In Luke's backstory involving Kylo Ren (formerly his own nephew, Ben Solo), Luke realized Ben held tremendous power and potential within the Force during his Jedi training. But likewise much darkness as well which scared him into thinking that Ben could become just like his grandfather, Darth Vader. In an act of irrationality, Luke was set to kill Ben in his sleep but managed to catch himself and ultimately couldn't do it. However, in tragic irony, Ben woke up and saw Luke standing over him with the lightsaber. This supposed betrayal of his uncle was all the motivation Ben needed to join the Dark Side.
- Sneakers: Cosmo, unwilling to kill his former friend Bishop, finds a loophole.
- This actually bites him in the end, as he finds himself facing down his friend without any henchmen along; Cosmo tries one last time to talk Bishop into joining him, then threatens to shoot him rather than let him leave. Bishop says he'll have to shoot him then, and leaves, and Cosmo truly can't bring himself to do it.
- Van Helsing: Anna Valerious can readily kill vampires, Diwergi and even Frankenstein, but she cannot kill her brother Velkan after he's turned into a werewolf and permanently enslaved by Dracula. Even after she accepts that there's no saving Velkan, she still briefly gets upset at Van Helsing for killing the werewolf.
Literature
- Arc of a Scythe: At the end of Scythe, it's revealed that the final test before becoming an official Scythe is being forced to kill a relative. The reasoning is that it will weed out the apprentices who don't have the resolve to kill a loved one. Of course, since it's a futuristic society where humanity has all but conquered death, the victims will be revived within a few days. Rowan is made to temporarily kill his mother and Citra her younger brother, while two other apprentices are said to have been unable to go through with it.
- Cold Days: Mab orders Harry to kill Maeve. It turns out that the reason for this is because as cold as she may be, she simply cannot personally kill her own daughter no matter how much she wants or needs to.
- Dracula: After Mina is bitten by Dracula along with being forced to drink his blood (which will turn her without the need for Dracula to drain her blood), she begs the hunters to kill her should she become a vampire as Lucy did. Having read second hand from Jonathan's diary about his encounter with Dracula and his brides and how, from Lucy's turning, it will corrupt her and make her a literal and figurative immoral monster which she sees as a A Fate Worse Than Death. However Johnathan can't bear to do so if it comes to that and promises to let himself be turned and join her if the worst case scenario should happen. Thankfully they manage to kill Dracula and break his curse over her.
- Zig-Zagged in Darth Bane: Rule of Two. Young Zannah is confronted by her cousin Darovit, who tries to threaten Darth Bane with a stolen lightsaber. Not want Bane to kill her cousin Darovit and unwilling to kill him herself, Zannah uses the Force to disintegrate Darovit's right hand. A decade later, she spares his life again, not because she cares about him, but out of pragmatism. She uses her Sith sorcery to drive him mad and leaves him to be found by the Jedi, who assume him to be Bane.
- The Little Mermaid: The titular character doesn't end up with the prince, who ends up marring a different girl. Her sisters tell her that she has to kill the prince in order to become a mermaid again, but she can't bring herself to do that and she turns into sea foam as a result of a deal with the sea witch.
- The Road: As the man lies dying of his breathing problems (which may be lung cancer or radiation sickness), the boy begs him to shoot him, as he promised he would rather than make him live in a hellish, cannibalistic dystopia alone. The man refuses, saying he thought he could kill his son, but he can't.
Live-Action TV
- In Breaking Bad, Walter White becomes a drug lord and ruthless killer, culminating in his having ten witnesses murdered in prison within two minutes. However, when his brother-in-law Hank, a DEA agent, figures it all out, Walter refuses to consider killing Hank, despite his lawyer's suggestion.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
- When Xander's friend Jesse becomes a vampire, Xander, being a Naïve Newcomer to the supernatural at this point, chooses to believe that his friend is still in there and tries to reach him instead of killing him.
- Played with with Angel, since Darla was his girlfriend when they were both monsters. When he gets his soul back, he just can't bring himself to kill her. It takes a direct and immediate threat to Buffy's life to get him to do it. Later when Darla comes back, Angel hesitates to kill her and becomes convinced that the only way he will ever be able to is to cut himself off from his friends and embrace his inner killer.
- In their first fight after Angel lost his soul and became Angelus again, Buffy defeated him but was still too in love to bring herself to stake him. She discovered the will to finish him after he killed Jenny Calendar.
- In "The Gift," Buffy is very reluctant to even consider killing her sister Dawn, even if it's the only way to stop Glory's apocalyptic ritual. In the end, faced with that choice, she realizes there's a third option, sacrificing herself.
- A non-lethal example appears in one episode of Happy Days. After Richie rescues a young girl from bullies and escorts her home, one of the thugs at his high school reveals that the girl is his little sister, and declares that he and Richie are friends for life because of what he did. Later in the episode, the thug's gang and Richie's friends are about to have a fight. The thug realizes that he's about to beat up his sister's savior, and declares that he can't fight his friend — so he tells one of his gang buddies to beat up Richie instead. This brief moment of conscience on the thug's part actually delays the fight just long enough for Fonzie to arrive and break it up.
- At the end of Raising Dion Season 2, Dion knows that he has to fight The Crooked Man again. Unfortunately, the Crooked Man has been using his friend Brayden's body, and the only way to kill The Crooked Man would be to hurt Brayden if not outright kill him. Dion is upset about this, but with the help of his mom, they convince Brayden that there is still good in him, and that he need not use the Crooked Energy to feel empowered anymore.
- Star Trek: The Next Generation: In "Ethics", Worf is paralyzed from the waist down and asks Commander Riker, as his friend, to do this for him in a sort of Klingon ritual assisted suicide. Riker refuses on the grounds that under the ritual, it's properly the duty of the eldest son. Unwilling to ask this of Alexander, Worf opts for a dangerous experimental surgery instead.
- Supernatural: In Season 2, "Born Under A Bad Sign", after Sam seemingly murders an innocent in cold blood, he asks Dean to kill him to stop him from hurting anyone else. Dean refuses.
Dean: I can't. I'd rather die.
- Torchwood:
- In "Cyberwoman", Ianto absolutely cannot bring himself to kill his partly Cyberman-converted girlfriend Lisa even when she's presenting an active danger to his friends and to humanity at large.
- In Children of Earth, the government officials when they start coming around to the idea of acquiescing to the 456's demand to be given 1/10 of the population's children are emphatic about ensuring their own children and grandchildren (and brother's children in one case) are strictly exempt from the 10% however they select the children. This provides a harrowing contrast to Captain Jack, who sacrifices the life of his own grandson to save millions of other people's children.
- In Westworld, Teddy is given a new narrative by Dr. Ford where he has a nemesis named Wyatt. However by the season one finale, he finds out that Wyatt is actually a personality embedded on his girlfriend, Dolores. When Dolores starts her rebellion against the humans, Teddy remains at her side, trying to make sure she doesn't devolved into her violent state. However, Dolores reprograms him into a killing machine because she believe his Nice Guy personality wouldn't help him survive. When Teddy regains self-consciousness, he's dismayed to what Dolores did to him. As he confronts her, he admits that she's his cornerstone and made a promise to protect him. But he knows that he couldn't protect her from herself. Because he's horrified to what Dolores had become and couldn't bring himself to kill her, Teddy shoots himself in the head instead.
Myths & Religion
- Greek Mythology: Agamemnon had to kill his daughter Iphigenia so that the Greek fleet could sail... opinions differ as to whether he actually did the deed. In the most commonly retold version, he did, which was one of the reasons his wife murdered him on his return.
Video Games
- Deltarune: Susie fights Lancer near the end of the first chapter, utterly enraged that he betrayed her. Lancer's attacks cannot intentionally hit Susie, even while she tries to kill him. she ultimately can't go through with it.
- Fire Emblem:
- In Fire Emblem Gaiden, Emperor Rudolf will not attack his son Alm during the battle against him. The person in question isn't aware of their relationship until Rudolf is dying, at which point he gets a My God, What Have I Done? reaction.
- In Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem, it's revealed that Michalis was only badly wounded by his sister, Minerva in Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light. Marth asks if she deliberately spared him, and she doesn't deny it.
- In Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, various former comrades-in-arms from ''Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance end up on opposite sides. In a handful of cases, the characters will refuse to fight each other. In another example, in the penultimate map, Sephiran and his descendant Sanaki cannot attack each other.
- Fire Emblem: Awakening: When Robin is revealed to be Grima, Lucina realizes that killing them will prevent her bad future from happening, and Robin can choose whether to let her without a fight or resist before Chrom steps in to prevent it and suggest finding an alternative way to prevent Robin from becoming Grima. If Robin is married to either Chrom (if female), and thus is Lucina's mother, or Lucina herself (if male), Lucina is unable to go through with killing them at all.
- Mafia II: After learning that the Vinci Family intends making a move against the Falcone Family, Eddie Scarpa asks Vito Scaletta to kill Leo Galante as part of a plan to strike the Vinci Family first. Vito declines out of respect for their friendship.
Vito: Sorry, Eddie. I can't do this. Leo was like a father to me back in the can.
- Ninja Gaiden: Both Rachel and her twin sister Alma were afflicted with a blood curse that made them part fiend. While Rachel retained her humanity, the curse consumed Alma entirely. Rachel became a fiend hunter with the ultimate goal of killing her sister to free her soul. She finally finds Alma at the Dworku Monastery where she has been defeated by Ryu. However, despite this having been her motivation for being a fiend hunter, Rachel finds that she cannot bring herself to kill her own sister.
- Resident Evil:
- Ada is incapable of killing Leon, despite having been put in that position multiple times.
- In Resident Evil 2, the gun she uses to threaten him actually has no bullets in it, since she removed them beforehand.
- The Resident Evil 2 remake changes the situation slightly, in that now its unknown whether or not Ada's gun is loaded. Regardless she is still unable to shoot Leon, even after he provokes her.
- Her scenario in Resident Evil 4, Separate Ways, shows that Wesker ordered her to kill Leon. Ada responded by completely ignoring those orders and going so far as to avoid Leon so Wesker couldn't force her to do it.
- In the Resident Evil 3 remake, Jill is unable to kill her Fire-Forged Friend Carlos after he turns into a zombie right in front of her. He even requests that she shoot him, but Jill puts her gun away and lets him come after her instead. This in stark contrast to Jill showing no hesitation when it came to shooting herself after she had turned. Both scenarios are actually only nightmares, but still shows Jill's stance on both matters.
- Ada is incapable of killing Leon, despite having been put in that position multiple times.
- Tales of Xillia 2: At the start of the game, Ludger comes across who he believes is his brother, Julius, but is actually a version of Julius from an alternate universe, who has hijacked a train and murdered all the passengers on it. When given the order to kill him, Ludger's default option is to say he can't kill him, prompting Julius to remark on his kindness, then murder two bystanders and try to kill Ludger himself.
Web Comics
- Dracula: Ruler of the Night: In the rendition of the classic story, when the protagonists go to confront Lucy after she's been turned. She doesn't flee back to her crypt like in the book, but tries to fight them off. Arthur manages to hold her back with his cross and is urged by Van Helsing to impale her with a stake while she's vulnerable. But Arthur hesitates in doing so, especially when Lucy retracts her vampire features to appear as she did when she was human. This stays his hand long enough for Dracula to arrive to knock the hunters back and quickly abscond with Lucy.
- Homestuck: After Jack Noir gets merged with Jade's Canine Companion Becquerel, "Bec Noir" can no longer bring himself to kill her. So he orders his minion the Courtyard Droll to do it instead. And when CD succeeds, Bec Noir kills him in a fit of rage, then carries Jade over to her Quest Bed so she can resurrect.
- Schlock Mercenary: When Kaff Tagon's girlfriend and mother were infected with a Grey Goo weapon, his father Karl ordered him to firebomb them all, but Kaff hesitated
long enough for the nanites to spread. Hypocritically, Karl blamed him for years, even though Karl had the same incendiary grenades and didn't do the deed either.
Kathryn: You wanted somebody else to do it for you, but the only person around was your son, cut from the same loving cloth. You couldn't firebomb your wife, but you expected your son to be able to firebomb his mother?
Western Animation
- Ben 10: Ultimate Alien: In "The Enemy of My Enemy", Ultimate Kevin apparently killed Argit, and was about to kill Gwen, too, irritated by her protests. However, he makes a big efffort to restrain himself and goes away, giving her hope to restore him back to normal. In "Absolute Power", he makes an effort again, telling Gwen that he stayed away from her because he knew he would hurt, or kill her. Unfortunately, he couldn't hold off anymore, sucked Gwen's mana and lost his last speckle of sanity.
- Darkwing Duck: In the episode "Time and Punishment" Gosalyn ends up Gone to the Future due to being accidentally taken there by the villains Megavolt and Quackerjack. In the intervening years, Darkwing ended up becoming a Knight Templar and turned St. Canard into a Police State. So when Gosalyn breaks out the villains in order to return to the past, Darkwing points a missile gun at her, but hesitates to shoot because Gosalyn is still his daughter.
- Downplayed in an episode of Futurama:
Professor: I'd fire all of you right now, but I'm just not that cold-hearted.
Professor: [whispers something to Hermes]
Hermes: You're all fired. - Invincible: Played for Drama and Deconstructed. Despite Omni-Man being willing to kill the Guardians of the Globe along with countless civilians, as well as inflict a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on Mark for refusing to join him in conquering Earth for the Viltrum Empire, Omni-Man is unwilling to kill his wife Debbie and his friend Art Rosenbaum. He also cannot bring himself to kill Mark after beating him, especially after Mark declares he would still have him as his father even after outliving everyone else he cared about, which leads him to abandon his post and leave Earth out of guilt. While this does prove that he cares about his family more than he would like to admit, the fact that he still harmed them horribly (physically in Mark's case and emotionally in Debbie and Art's case) through his actions and words makes it clear that they're not happy about being spared. Debbie and Art are last shown in Season 1 drowning their sorrows, not knowing if they understood the real Nolan Grayson and questioning why he spared them in the first place. Mark is left heartbroken by his father's actions and remains conflicted about him despite the atrocities he's committed.
- Maya and the Three: Lady Micte conceived Maya with a human (King Teca) to give her husband more power with the baby's sacrifice. However, she came to love her child, so she convinced Lord Mictlan to have Maya sent to be raised to the Tecas to be sacrificed when she would be older, making the king and queen to suffer. She makes everything she can to help Maya and protect her, without raising her husband's suspicions.
- The Owl House:
- At her worst, Lilith is willing to enforce Emperor Belos' police state and put Luz in mortal danger, but when Belos intends to have Lilith's sister Eda executed instead of curing her curse, it prompts Lilith's Heel–Face Turn to save her sister's life, giving up the organization she's devoted decades of her life to.
- Implied. Hunter is obedient and loyal to Belos, his uncle, and becomes desperate after, instead of acquiring Palismen for the emperor to consume, he obtains his own Palisman named Flapjack. To make up for this failure, he sets out to find Titan's blood only to despair when he discovers it dried up. However, despite being so terrified of returning home empty-handed that he tries to dig his own grave, Hunter never even thinks of turning over Flapjack, the only being to show him unconditional love, to be killed by Belos as per his original assignment.
- This is taken further when Belos possesses Hunter and wounds Flapjack, intending to consume him, but Hunter manages to fight back and stop him from doing so. However, it's unknown if Flapjack could have survived or not, since he gives up his life energy to revive Hunter soon after.
- Averted hard by Belos himself, who is implied to not only have killed his own brother Caleb, but to have created numerous duplicates of him over the years, only to kill them as well simply because he was afraid they might betray him just like his brother did.
- Rick and Morty: In the episode "Total Rickall", Rick can't bring himself to kill Pencilvester, so he has Morty do it instead.
- She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: In the last episode, Horde Prime tells Hordak to kill Entrapta. Despite having mind-wiped twice — and not remembering clearly who Entrapta is — Hordak still has feelings for her. Both Prime's pressure to kill her and Hordak's efforts to remember make him get his memories back (at least, mostly); he shoots Horde Prime, grabs him by his throat and tosses all the belittling lecture Prime gave him once back on his face, before dropping him in the abyss.
- Wakfu: In the end, Oropo has an Omni-Man style downfall. He's willing to destroy an entire dimension along with all its inhabitants in the name of his cause, and he's engineered at least two major turning points in the World of Twelve's history that had truly apocalyptic ramifications with full knowledge of what would happen, but once members of his own Brotherhood whom he genuinely bonded with are directly put in harm's way by the culmination of his Evil Plan, he gradually realizes their lives aren't a price he can pay for the realization of his goals and he gives up.
