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I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends.
—Abraham Lincoln (attributed)
After a fair and square fight, everyone becomes friends - That's the Rule of Right of Shonen Manga!
żQuien Es Mas Macho? (Fargo Rule): Every powerful character you attempt to seek aid from will first insist upon "testing your strength" in a battle to the death
—-The Grand List of Console Role Playing Game Cliches
In a series based around an endless series of one-on-one fights, defeating a Worthy Opponent or The Rival will sometimes convert them to the hero's side, if not always to his cause. Furthermore, no matter how many people the Worthy Opponent has killed, how much grief he has caused, even if he slaughtered helpless children or the hero's own family, as soon as he shows a bit of remorse or goes out of his way to help the hero even once, he will be welcomed into the hero's circle of Nakama with open arms.
It helps if the story is idealistic enough for the hero to forgive the villain after s/he is safely defeated. Correspondingly, the villain in this kind of story is so surprised and moved that the hero would be that big hearted to do that, that they have a change of heart.
In video games, this may simply be an instance of the designers wanting to include more Boss Battles; this is even more obvious in several cases where a character is already an ideological ally but wants to "duel" or "practice" against you anyways, or needs to " test your strength" before he'll join up. ( Summons love to do this, as do Mons.) These fights are, then, essentially filler. Of course, more Boss Battles are usually what the player wants, as well, so there are rarely complaints.
Examples:
Anime
- Naturally Dragonball, as every member in the Z team at one point had the sole goal in life to defeat and/or kill Goku (or "send him to another dimension"). Overall, Piccolo and Vegeta were the most reluctant, but both became allies in the end, even though they were evil at first. Note that Vegeta does this twice; the others are all too ready to forgive him after he had voluntarily became a minion and killed thousands of Innocent Bystanders. But then, Death Is Cheap in Dragonball, and none of Vegeta's victims actually stayed dead (with the exception of Nappa from the Saiyan saga, who Vegeta wasted in a You Have Failed Me moment).
- Then again, why should anyone hold a few thousand humans against him? Or even the thousands of Nameks before that? Before coming to Earth, Vegeta's job was depopulating inhabitable planets to resell them to the highest bidder, and his hobby was depopulating and then blowing up less attractive inhabited planets, just for the workout. We even see one of the latter in Anime. If everyone (except Killin, but who cares about him?) can forgive him for that, then a small town's worth of people is small fry.
- Ryuji Otogi (Duke Devlin in the dub) begins his appearance on Yu-Gi-Oh! nursing a tremendous grudge against Yugi Motoh for destroying his chance at success (by ruining Pegasus's reputation, and a potential publishing deal). After a single defeat at the game he designed, however, Ryuji does a 180 and becomes part of Yugi's inner circle of friends. Ever since, fans of the series have called such drastic, absurdly frequent turnarounds "pulling a Devlin". No characters are ever genre blind about this.
- Bear in mind, Ryuji's entire case was "Pegasus's defeat was bad for me, so clearly Yugi is a cheating bastard". It wasn't so much Yami winning the game as Ryuji getting over himself. Yugi beating him in a 'fair' game, or actually one where Ryuji is cheating, and the fact that he got back the publishing deal, too.
- Yu-Gi-Oh GX subverts this with the Society of Light, who "recruits" their members by beating them at Duel Monsters. Interestingly, a good deal of the main characters that fall into the Society's sway were trying to use this trope to snap their friends out.
- Whole Yu-Gi-Oh GX seemed to be about this trope. Every season there seems to be at least one type of adversaries who convert the important characters by beating them and then the Good Guys Turned Bad are turned good again when a main character beats them in a duel. And the Big Bads die or become good after losing a game. Of course, this is partially explained by the fact that according to the show, the universe was created of cardgames. I am not making this up.
- The absurdly powerful Captain Kenpachi in Bleach more or less joins Ichigo's side when he is beaten in a fight. So that he can fight him more in the future, of course. Many fans believe that the arrancar Grimmjow Jeagerjaques (part of the Quirky Miniboss Squad) is going to be next, given his obsession with having a "proper" fight with Ichigo. The "proper" fight unsurprisingly ended with Ichigo's victory, but Grimmjow has been severely injured by the arrancar Nnoitra right after his defeat, and as of chapter 307 it's still unknown if he has survived or not. But then, this is Bleach we're talking about... (Several of Ichigo's other opponents, including Renji Abarai and Byakuya Kuchiki, become convinced of the righteousness of his cause after being defeated by him as well.)
- Though Byakuya still treats Ichigo with disdain, and has trouble tolerating his presence in the same frame.
- Pretty much the same story with Sagara Sanosuke in Rurouni Kenshin
- A longstanding tradition in Jojos Bizarre Adventure. The first real friend that Jonathan Joestar makes is Robert E. O. Speedwagon (haha), who tried to mug him. Jonathan's great-great grandson Jotaro makes friends with Kakyoin and Polnareff by freeing them from Dio's mind control, and nearly all of Jotaro's 16 year old uncle (long story) Josuke's friends were people who tries to kill him the first time they met.
- Not ALL of Josuke's friends tried to kill him, just the vast majority. The minority being Koichi. Just Koichi.
- It is wryly noted that this is how Nanoha of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha seems to make all of her friends, both Muggles and other mages. So much so that fans use the word "befriend" as a synonym for "beat the crap out of". Before anyone is deemed worthy of her affection, (s)he first has to miraculously survive one of her massively aggressive onslaughts, which Fate experiences first-hand.
- As can be inferred from the above image, the current title of most befriended goes to Vivio, who took the title from Fate when she received five Starlight Breakers and managed to remain conscious and stand on her own afterwards. A considerable feat since Fate couldn't even claim that when Nanoha struck her with one. Nanoha officially adopts Vivio as her daughter afterwards.
- That explains why she isn't as close to Chrono as to the rest of her friends. She never blew him up! HetOption Yuuno is around, but has less and less presence each season.
- It should be noted that in Triangle Heart 3 Sweet Songs Forever, Chrono does in fact get blown up by Nanoha, and becomes romantically involved with her afterwards.
- Aw, now I feel bad for Chrono! All this time, he was just a brutal beating away from being the main character's love interest; yet he never managed to land that one, crucial hospital stay and got Put On A Bus instead. Poor guy. If Yuuno knows what's good for him, he'll start picking fights with Nanoha as soon as possible...
- In Pokemon, the titular creatures must be captured by the protagonists, often by weakening them in battle first, who then obey the commands of their handlers. In the anime, this is handwaved as a more mutual relationship, since some of the creatures can be downright dangerously surly if you treat them badly. It's probably only the "Kids Show" part that stops people getting their heads bitten off (literally).
- Probably spoofed too many times to count, such as here (Warning: blood)
 .
- This is also the case in the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games, where you play as a Pokémon. Basically, if you defeat a wild Pokémon, they may sometimes want to join you. However, you have to leave the dungeon "successfully" in order to keep them, and not all Pokémon can be obtained this way.
- In Pokemon Mystery Dungeon 2, it's changed so all you have to do is beat them. If your party's full, they just teleport out. You no longer have to complete the dungeoun with them. Success!
- The fan comic CharCole shows some more reasons for Pokémon to follow their trainers: "Charlie" Cole eventually agrees out of concern for Brian and his other Pokemon
(s), while Raijal's Pikachu, Kraker, apparently just likes to kick fry some Pokémon butt and be praised for it.
- Misaki from Kidou Tenshi Angelic Layer uses a combination of skill, cuteness and "you're not alone!" speeches to win over every other player. (Add obliviousness, if it's a battle with someone who cheats — apparently, the ability to win anyway is heightened by her honestly thinking that her opponent would never mess with the odds.)
- The entire Shuffle Alliance in G Gundam is assembled in this fashion (except Sai Saici, who fought Domon to a draw rather than being beaten). Main rival Chibodee Crocket goes back and forth between violently beating the hero and having breakfast with him at least three times.
- Various antagonists in Naruto — Neji and Gaara most obviously, to the point where one fan artist referred to a "We Got Some Sense Kicked Into Us By Naruto Club" (members include the above plus Inari, Konohamaru and Tsunade...)
- It would take less time to list the antagonists in Beyblade that didn't do this than take the time to list those that did. Suffice it to say, by the final arc, there were 30-some good guys.
- In Ranma 1/2, after Ranma defeats Shampoo as a male, she becomes his fiancée by tribal law. Later Ranma defeats Ukyo and they go back to being friends (in her case, an Unlucky Childhood Friend). Before both fights the girls were out for revenge, and after the fight they more-or-less became friends (or clingy unrequited love interest) with him. Other then that though, none of Ranma's many rivals have ever become friend and always get madder at him after defeat.
- In Ryoga and Mousse's cases, battling common foes and saving each other's lives have made them Nakama, however. But not friends.
- And, of course, a key plot point in Super Dimension Fortress Macross / Robotech for the elite female Zentraedi warrior Miriya, who ends up marrying Max. The broadcast of their wedding then gives Breetai, the enemy commander, much food for thought...
- Actually subverted in Yu Yu Hakusho, when Hiei is defeated and captured by Yuusuke; he subsequently becomes one of Yuusuke's comrades (and later friends), but is initially only helping him because he was assigned the task for parole. It is also mentioned that the members of the Toguro Dark Tournament team who are not the actual Toguro brothers are only working with them for the chance to get stronger and then turn around and kill them.
- Also, the younger Toguro is not only fully aware of this fact, he actually welcomes it. The elder Toguro, on the other hand, is simply unkillable and thus has no reason to care.
- Happens several times in Shaman King. Ren, Ryu, Faust and Lyserg all attempt to kill Yoh and/or Manta before joining Yoh's posse, often executing bizarre Heel Face Turns.
- Gokudera Hayato in Katekyo Hitman Reborn, declaring his undying devotion to Sawada Tsuna after the latter defeated the former by going into "Dying Will" mode.
- And with a recent chapter of the manga, it looks like Gamma is going the same way after being defeated by Gokudera.
- In Outlaw Star, Gene Starwind earns Suzuka's allegiance this way, though it's been theorized she was really just tired with the life of a hired assassin. This incident is especially interesting because Gene ends the fight by essentially disrobing her.
- Arguably subverted in Hellsing. Everyone Alucard kills becomes one of his summoned monsters. They have no choice in the matter, and definitely aren't too happy about it.
- Lampshaded in the final episode of Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei where a character declares himself to be an enemy of Itoshki specifically because of the assumption that Defeat Means Friendship. Harumi Fujiyoshi then points out that Defeat Means Friendship tend to mean something else too...
- The girls from Magic Knight Rayearth managed to convince the summoner Ascot to stop fighting them after defeating his beasts and teaching him the value of friendship.
- In Mahou Sensei Negima, Kotaro becomes The Rival after Negi defeats him during the Kyoto arc. Chisame and Chachamaru also become relatively good friends after their massive hacking battle during the Mahora Festival arc. Later, Jack Rakan is revealed to have had one of these with Nagi in a situation surprisingly similar to the thing with Kotaro.
- In Samurai Pizza Cats Bad Bird is the arch rival of Speedy until he is fully defeated in the final ep. After Speedy gives a speech telling him it's not too late to change, Bad Bird sees the light, becomes GOOD bird, and helps Speedy destroy a comet heading for Tokyo.
- Flame Of Recca is notorious for this, particularly during the Tournament Arc. People who were trying to kill Team Hokage just hours ago are suddenly eating snacks, playing videoganes, and sharing stories with our heroes in their hotel room.
- Possibly subverted in Black Lagoon: Chang and Balalaika became friends after their (intended) fight to the death turned out a draw.
- In The Prince Of Tennis, the Seigaku and Fudomine teams become rather acquaintenced (sp?) after the first team wins the matches agaainst the latter. Something similar happens with the Rokkaku and Hyoutei teams, to different degrees (Well, Saeki from Rokkaku was Fuji's Forgotten Childhood Friend, So Yeah).
- In the Dragon Half manga, when Mink defeats the necromancer Dead Lie and the four elemental generals, they become quite friendly, treating Mink and her party to a picnic and wishing her luck on her quest.
- In Cynthia The Mission, the Big Bad Cybele does this. All of her subordinates became her loyal and loving followers after she destroyed them in battle. Phantom got his lips torn off. The guy in the glasses got his eyes gouged out. Bridget got her arm torn off. And the boxer guy got his neck slit. Yes, the least crippling injury was a throat cutting. Cybele herself gave Bridget and the boxer medical attention and a prosthetic arm in Bridget's case.
- Kinda subverted in One Piece, after the fight between Sanji and Mr. 2 Bon Clay, Sanji wins. Bon Clay tells him to finish him off and instead...Sanji offers his hand to apparently help him up. Bon Clay is touched (his inner thoughts say stuff about 'enemies becoming friends!' or something like that), and then Sanji promptly knocks him out and retrieves Usopp's goggles from him. Later on, though, Bon Clay does help the Straw Hat Pirates.
Comic Books
- Partially subverted in Elf Quest. After
years centuries of festering rivalry (not to mention Rayek abducting Cutter's entire family so that he has to be lonely for a couple hundred years!), Cutter and Rayek decide to settle their differences by beating the crap out of each other. Once the fight is over they don't exactly become friends, but they're at least willing to cooperate with each other.
Film
- It's a one fight thing, but when the documentary film, When We Were Kings, won its Oscar, Muhammad Ali and George Foreman went to the podium with the winners as a gesture to show they'd reconciled over the 1974 bout. (Particularly touching was Foreman's very gentle attempts to assist Ali up the steps).
- In the 2008 Horton Hears A Who, Horton is triumphant getting his neighbours to believe the microscopic Whos exist and is hailed a hero of the ages. However, he can't help but notice the Sour Kangaroo is now alone, ashamed and hated for what she did to him and almost to the Whos. Fortunately, Horton has a heart as big as his ears and he immediately goes to offer his forgiveness to the Kangaroo. The Kangaroo, realizing how lucky she is to have a friend as noble as Horton, immediately offers to help him shelter the Whos for the trip to Mount Nool.
- Puss in Boots, in Shrek.
Literature
Western Animation
- Dinobot, of Transformers: Beast Wars, joins the Maximals after a heated swordfight with Optimus Primal, impressed by the Maximal leader's honor. (Initially the plan was to kill Optimus and take over. That he thought the other Maximals would fall in line after that says a lot about the Predacons.)
- In the first episode of Ben 10 Alien Force, Ben's old nemesis and Evil Counterpart Kevin 11 is defeated by Ben in their first encounter, and subsequently becomes one of Ben's two closest allies. This is quite a break from the original Ben 10, where each defeat at Ben's hands only made Kevin even crazier and more determined to kill him, even after two Save The Villain moments by Ben.
- This troper thinks it has more to do with Gwen than with Ben.
- This Troper thinks it has more to do with a need for a power trio, with the leader of the old one being in another dimension and whatnot. They needed a new hero, so they picked the coolest side character who was even close to human.
Video Games
- In Final Fantasy IX, Amarant is a bounty hunter hired to kill Zidane and company, until they best him in a fight and he decides to throw in with them. This is one part honour and one part trying to figure out exactly how he beat him.
- In Castlevania 3: Dracula's Curse, Trevor Belmont picks up allies Grant and Alucard only after defeating them as bosses.
- Final Fantasy games often require you to defeat various monsters as bosses before they offer you their power as Summon Magic.
- Star Wolf in Star Fox, particularly in the recent games, tend to fight the main characters first before joining them. Although to be fair, it was Star Fox who bothered them in their base.
- The Touhou doujin game series, most notably in Imperishable Night, in which the playable characters consist of teams of one human and one youkai who are all mostly bosses from previous games, and in Mountain of Faith, the premise of which revolves around the fact that many of these youkai are now living in the Hakurei shrine. Long-standing co-protagonist Marisa started as a boss.
- In fact, every game ends with the good guys sitting down for tea with the bad guys, and unlocking a bonus stage where they agree to fight the Big Bad's Rival. Then the Big Bad usually becomes a PC in the next game (nerfed as needed).
- A continuing video game example: Many newcomers in the Sonic The Hedgehog franchise fight Sonic, usually out of misunderstanding, before joining his side. This dates back as far as Knuckles (from 1994's Sonic 3 & Knuckles, but several times since) to the recent additions of Blaze (Sonic Rush) and Silver (SONIC the Hedgehog). The real baddie usually shows up midfight, making the opposing character perform a Heel Face Turn split-second.
- Shadow in Sonic Adventure 2 is an exception in that he's actually the one orchestrating the evil, so even after his defeats at the hands of Sonic, he continues to be evil. His Heel Face Turn comes later.
- Super Smash Bros Brawl uses this as a common means of getting new allies in the Subspace Emissary mode. The odd thing is, you can often fight as either, so it works both ways.
- Nippon Ichi really likes to use this one.
- In Disgaea, Flonne, Hoggmeiser, Maderas, and Gordon all get converted to Laharl's side after he beats them handily in boss battles.
- Of course, Hoggmeiser and Maderas are noted as joining without Laharl's approval, and plenty of the other cases are "Laharl beats the crap out of someone so they'll become his new vassal".
- In Phantom Brave, killing a few of an enemy type will make it possible to recruit that enemy type.
- In La Pucelle Tactics, if you "purify" just about any enemy before killing it, it will join your party and can be fielded immediately if you don't already have 8 units in play.
- In the Expansion Pack to Baldurs Gate II, you can recruit Sarevok, Big Bad of the first game, into your party. This is after you've killed him. Twice. A popular mod also allows you to recruit Big Bad of the second game (that's the one this is an expansion to). After killing him. Twice.
- Shar-Teel, in the first Baldurs Gate is less over-the-top version, as she simply insists on dueling a male member of your party before she joins you.
- Knights Of The Old Republic has you, in one of your early missions as a Jedi, track down and defeat the fallen Jedi apprentice Juhani. After you duel her, you can talk her back to the Jedi path with relative ease. Or kill her, if you're Dark Side-inclined, but that's more than a bit of a waste.
- Well, that depends on wether you want to take revenge on her annoying Psycho Lesbian friend, Belaya, or end all those opportunties Juhani has to bore you to death with stories of her tragic childhood.
- Tales of Symphonia has this in spades. Regal joins almost right after defeating him. Many bosses often convert to your side as friendly NPC's once Lloyd beats the stuffing out of them. With an epiphany speech tossed in for free.
- Magic Knight Rayearth: In the SNES RPG, similarly as in the animé, every major antagonist will have a change of heart and join your party, and then leave right before you fight the next major antagonist. Well, except for Caldina, who lets you hire her for 3000 gold if you want her to tag along, and doesn't tag along if you don't hire her. But Fenrio, Ascot, and Lafarga all join your party temporarily, after they are taught the meaning of friendship, or in some cases, de-brainwashed.
- In Ristar, a weird alien kid follows you around stage 5-1 in the background, and at the end of the stage you must must beat him in a snowball fight. Later on, when you fight the stage 5 boss he helps you.
- Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2 generally plays this straight with some side characters, but also has an interesting aversion: When you are attacked by Adelle under the effect of a spell, you don't have to beat her, just talk to her a few times with Luso until she snaps out of it.
- Both subverted and played straight in Grandia with Gadwin's two duels, the first being an impossible boss fight.
- The GBA remake of River City Ransom allows you to recruit most of the gang bosses into your party after you beat them.
Web Comics
- Played with in Misfile while most of Ash's races are nothing more than just races (some friendly, some less so), when Ash gets defeated by Kamikaze Kate it is Kate that declares Ash not only to be her friend, but surrogate "little sister".
Professional Wrestling
- Happens a lot in Professional Wrestling, as well; for example, this was the impetus for A.J. Styles and Christopher Daniels to form a tag team and go after the NWA Tag Team Championship. Usually comes with a Heel Face Turn for the heel side of the previous rivalry, though the opposite happens occasionally.
- Hilariously subverted at WrestleMania XIX - after losing to Shawn Michaels, Chris Jericho seemed to be going in for the big weepy face-turning hug... and instead boots HBK full force in the crotch.
Truth In Television
- In high school, one kid had something against this troper, and eventually attacked him. After the fight (such as it was), we didn't become friends, but he did become somewhat friendly toward the troper.
- Hello? America? Japan? World War II?
- This one dates back to Commodore Perry's
conquest opening of trade relations with Japan. Under threat of cannon fire.
- Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are a lot friendlier now that the primaries are over.
- At least they're acting friendlier. This troper imagines there's more than a little resentment on the Clinton side.
- The Obama side is displeased, knowing that Clinton choosing to stay in for so long allowed such resentment to form, and that it could well cost the election due to disgruntled Clinton voters switching sides or skipping out in protest.
- If that does happen, Clinton's career is over...
- It might be too early to tell, but it looks like Obama and John Mc Cain patched up their differences pretty quick after the former's victory.
- Before all the votes were counted, even. Mc Cain's concession speech won back most of the respect that picking Palin lost him in the eyes of this troper.
- An emotional version of this was common in several of this troper's childhood relationships. The new kid gets treated a bit harshly to see how they react, and after the conflict is over (sometimes they fight back, sometimes they don't), they're a friend. Participating in this sort of ribbing is a sign of friendship and goodwill in itself.
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