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Tykebombs are generally raised with people who tell them they're nothing but a weapon and usually treat them like crap. Then along comes someone who's different. When they look at the Tykebomb, they don't see a weapon, they see a messed-up little kid. Naturally, they try and rescue the poor Tykebomb, talking or fighting their way towards them. The Hug Tropes is likely to be their arsenal and expect The Power of Friendship to be used. The one doing the defusing is also likely to be a Warrior Therapist and/or The Messiah.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't; what matters for trope purposes is the intent.
Examples:
Anime & Manga
Comic Books
Film
- In Blood Diamond, one of the protagonists' son is captured early in the film. When they find him, he's been converted into a child soldier for the rebels in Sierra Leone. The tyke holds his father at gunpoint, but gets talked down. Unfortunately, at the end of the film it's mentioned that there are still 200,000
tyke bombs Child Soldiers in Africa.
- Danny the Dog presents a particularly tough case: a man who was raised in a kennel and treated like an attack dog, intended to kill anyone who threatened his "Uncle Bart." Bart's (apparent) death leads Danny to a blind piano tuner, who tries to teach him the rules humans live by.
Literature
- Discworld's Sourcery: Rincewind does this to Coin, and the Librarian keeps it good.
- Lois McMaster Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan starts this job with his clone-brother Mark in Brothers in Arms. His parents, especially his mother Cordelia, pick up the job in Mirror Dance.
- Technically more of a Thicker than Water, as in Betan society cloning is a perfectly valid form of reproduction, and as such Mark is a Long Lost Relative.
“Except that—I keep hearing my mother’s voice, in my head. That’s where I picked up that perfect Betan accent, y’know, that I use for Admiral Naismith, I can hear her now.”
“And what does she say?” Galeni’s brows twitched in amusement.
“Miles—she says—what have you done with your baby brother?!”
- And Kareen Koudelka seems to have happily picked up where Cordelia leaves off, although Kareen and Mark do meet in Mirror Dance. By A Civil Campaign, the two have gone into business together.
- Cairo Azarcon was captured as a child by Big Bad Falcone, and raised as a Tykebomb. He's found and rescued in his late teens by a Space Marine. It takes a few years, but Azarcon eventually assimilates into EarthHub society...well, more or less.
- Prof. Marius, the Tall, Dark and Snarky teacher of Edgewood Academy, from The Princess 99 manages to defuse the tykebomb in question here Axel before they destroy the entire school.
Live-Action TV
- In Angel the titular character tries to do this for Connor, with some success. However, Connor quickly develops other reasons for them not to get along, and in any case never fully gets over his prejudice against Angel.
- At least, not until the season 4 finale when Angel retcons everyone's memories to give Connor a life with a normal, loving family. Even in season 5, when his original memories are restored, the experience has given him a much greater sense of stability and grounding, so by the end of the series he's patched things up with his real father.
- 24 surprisingly let this work, rather than forcing Jack to kill a child soldier.
- Odo attempts this with a newborn Jem'Hadar on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. His attempts to raise the fast-growing child to be more empathetic and less violent fail because the Founders are just that good at manipulating them on the genetic level.
Real Life
- As child soldiers exsist, so does job of trying to defuse them.
Video Games
- Snake sort of plays this role in Metal Gear Solid 2.
- A child soldier has to be talked out of culling the nurse with a pair of scissors in Trauma Center
- Knights of the Old Republic: The light-side path with Visas, along with many Crowning Moments Of Heartwarming
- In Blaze Union, we learn that Yggdra Union's Hero Antagonist Gulcasa was technically born one of these—his mother attempted to defuse him by forcibly sealing his abilities and then leaving him to go Find the Cure. His father, resenting him for the loss of his wife, started abusing him, and any good the seal did was undone posthaste. According to Word Of God, the young Gulcasa was a bitter and violent Empty Shell until Siskier and Jenon befriended him and helped him learn to be a normal little kid again.
- Attempted in two routes of Fate/stay night with Ilya. It doesn't work in the first until after she's been defeated, at which point she realizes Shirou really does care. In the second, they get along much better and the defusing is therefore much more successful.
- Done to Eine aka Katerina in FE: Shin Monshou no Nazo.
- A Paragon Commander Shepard has this effect on Jack in Mass Effect 2. She has way too many issues for you to deal with all of them in the game's time-frame, but you can at least convince her there are ways of solving problems besides shooting people.
- In a particularly odd case, Morrigan from Dragon Age ends up defusing herself.
Webcomics
- The Order of the Stick has a variant with the Monster in the Darkness and the paladin O-Chul. While MitD may be a monster of unknown origin, it has the personality of a child and O-Chul forms an Odd Friendship with it while he's imprisoned by the Big Bad.
Western Animation
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