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"I trust you implicitly, thieving child."
They betrayed you, they tried to kill you, in some cases they really did kill you. * But within the space of an episode or two, you find it in your heart to forgive them. As long as they're a fellow series regular.
Usually an instance of Plug N Play Friends. If the unmasked traitor was an active party member or contributing part of the team, and remains an active party member or contributing part of the team, it's Welcome Back Traitor.
If some sort of Hand Wave is given for this, then it's a case of Get Out Of Jail Free Card. If no such excuse exists or "apology accepted" speech occurs, then it's a Karma Houdini. Compare Welcome Back Traitor and All Is Well That Ends Well. Contrast Reformed But Rejected, where the bad guy does want to be forgiven and works for it, but doesn't get accepted. See also Protagonist Centered Morality.
Examples:
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- Duke Devlin on Yu-Gi-Oh.
- Seto Kaiba repeatedly tried to kill the protagonists in the early manga, including Tristan's year old nephew who just happened to be with them at the time. One of the ways was locking them in a house with a child mass murderer. They do hold a bit of a grudge for a while, but still forgive him far too quickly.
- Pegasus and Marik, in a case of Defeat Means Friendship.
- Shizuru in Mai-HiME is Easily Forgiven by by Natsuki (a good number of the series' fans too) for the things she did as a Psycho Lesbian. Haruka and Yukino weren't quite as easily convinced, though.
- Same thing with Mikoto, who was directly responsible for killing two of Mai's Most Important People. Mai, however, realizes she was brainwashed the whole time, and decides not to hold it against Mikoto, even telling her up front that she loves her (though probably not in that way).
- While the theme of forgiveness vs. revenge is developed in an interesting and moving way in Gankutsuou, it is difficult to believe that Albert would actually forgive the Count so easily for befriending him to use him for the sake of his twisted revenge, lying to him all along, betraying him, breaking apart his family, killing his best friend, and attempting repeatedly to kill him in a brutal way in front of one of his parents. Sure enough, Albert gets to understand that Edmond Dantes is truly a caring man who's been deeply wronged by Fernand and is trying to kill off his human feelings - and the fact that he's just witnessed his father going on a psychotic rampage probably helps- but psychological realism really goes overboard when he decides to save Dantes from himself. Why doesn't Albert suffer from massive post-traumatic stress disorder every time the Count shows up towards the end of the series anyway!?
- It makes the point that even after losing everything, not everyone will go mad and become a heartless bastard like the Count did, which makes Albert a foil for the Count.
- Futhermore, it isn't as though Albert doesn't mind or care about the horrible things the Count did to him and his loved ones; of course he does. The point is that he understands the Count, his pain, and why he did those things. One of the central themes of the ending is that forgiving someone doesn't necessarily mean writing off sins, but that it necessitates a deep understanding of the person who wronged you and their actions.
- Nina Wang from Mai-Otome. Sure, she was perfectly complacent with committing mass murder in an effort to show her (adoptive) father that she *ahem* loved him, but somehow Arika still manages to forgive her, saying that she never wanted the two of them to fight in the first place (and because it was Nagi who forced her to do it). We know Arika has the patience of a saint, but still...that's an awful lot of blood Nina's going to have to wash off her Robe.
- Kouga in Inu Yasha. He started out by slaughtering Rin's entire village, and to top it off, kidnaps Kagome, falls for her, and tries to force her to be his bride. He falls into The Rival role, and the only person who distrusts him even slightly (aside from Rin, who rarely confronts him) is Inuyasha, and that's treated like a schoolyard dispute.
- Subverted in One Piece. After a series of events that lead to Usopp leaving the crew and challenging Luffy for the ownership of their broken ship, the Going Merry, Usopp is planning to come back and act casual about it. Luffy learns about this and rushes off to find him, but he's stopped by Zoro. Zoro tells Luffy and the rest of the crew that they shouldn't easily forgive Usopp, because they can't trust someone who left the crew so easily, nor can the captain let himself be walked over. If he comes back on his knees, fine; but letting him back in full of pride is unacceptable. Later, the crew begins to depart without Usopp in order to escape from some marines. Usopp runs to the shore and begins shouting out his rehersed excuses, but most of the Straw Hats ignore him. As the ship gets further away, Usopp panics and finally blurts out an apology, and begs to be let back in. Satisfied, Luffy uses his rubber powers to bring him aboard the ship.
- Subverted again during the Impel Down arc when Luffy comes across Crocodile. Crocodile offers to help in exchange for being let out of his cell, but Luffy turns him down cold because of all the things he did in Alabasta. Luffy is convinced to let him out anyway, though, because Ivankov assures him that he knows something about Crocodile to keep him in line.
- Played straighter with with Bon Clay (a.k.a. Mr. 2) at the end of the Alabasta arc. Affable as he was, Mr. 2 DID directly take part in framing the king to incite the rebels to full-blown warfare, but after an Heroic Sacrifice to distract the Marines away from the escaping Straw Hats, he's been considered a friend of the crew ever since.
- Rokudo Mukuro from Katekyo Hitman Reborn. He manipulated Lancia into killing all of his friends, beat up Tsuna's friends and used them as hostages, beat Tsuna up quite a bit during their fight, revealed his plan was to possess Tsuna's body so he could destroy the Mafia and turn the world into a sea of blood, and generally fought dirty. He is shown to be entirely unapologetic about the whole thing the next time he meets Tsuna, even stating that he plans to take over Tsuna at the next opportunity. However, when he became Tsuna's guardian and showed Tsuna the vision of his body in prison, Tsuna quickly develops sympathy for him, and it becomes obvious that Tsuna has already forgiven him for the whole ordeal (much to Reborn's chagrin). Tsuna even goes so far as to excuse his unapologetic proclamation as him just being stubborn and shy.
- Andrei Smirnov in Gundam 00 counts very much here. He committed patricide on his own father Sergei Smirnov, his adopted daughter Soma Peiries hunts him down with extreme vengeance. But in the latest episode, thanks to a certain Deus Ex Machina device... he is forgiven. Thankfully, said Deus Ex Machina comes with him finally realising how much of an ass he was and getting rid of what makes him annoying, thus somewhat rescuing him from the Scrappy Heap.
- This Troper thinks that this is more or less a subversion, since Soma might have forgiven Andrei... but Andrei will never forgive himself. Now that he knows Sergei did try to do his best to reach for him, the fact that he killed his dad as the ultimate rejection of him and the guilt coming from such a fact will certainly haunt Andrei forever.
- Mars has two egregious instances. In a Cliff Hanger, Harumi escalates her bullying of Kira to an unthinkable level by threatening to smash Kira's fingers with a small barbell. She doesn't follow through, but it's jarring when Harumi become's Kira's closest and most supportive female friend not two volumes later. An even worse instance is when Kira's mother, stricken by Soap Opera Disease, takes back the stepfather who raped her daughter. Kira's mother may forgive, but Kira certainly doesn't.
- Umineko No Naku Koro Ni has Beatrice, the main antagonist of the series. A supposedly all-powerful witch who the protagonist has seen kill his family repeatedly in grotesque and horrific ways, she plays up a Heel Face Turn to specifically lead Battler into forgiving her, and even coming to like her... and then proceeds to troll the Hell out of him and reveal it was all an act just for the sake of toying with his emotions.
- Fan speculation is that the heel-face turn was legit, and the troll itself was a troll.
- The Twelve Kingdoms: Yuka and Kouya. Not only do murder and assault go completely unpunished, but the two are quickly returned to their normal lives despite both showing a serious lack of morality.
- In Gundam Seed Destiny, even though lots of fans hate the Clyne Faction, Lacus and Kira are certainly forgiving and hold no grudges. The Orb forces refuse to acknowledge Cagalli and attack her? It's ok so long as they are sorry. Athrun finally returns after fighting against them and indirectly allowing Orb's fleet to be destroyed and being betrayed by the guy he was defending to them? Instead of letting him rot and telling him "That's what you get for listening to Durandal, you jerk", they welcome him back with open arms and give him their second most powerful machine. Even Shinn who personally killed hundreds of their pilots, intended to cause massive damage to their home country, and defeated and nearly killed both Athrun and Kira, was forgiven with no grudges in the end. This makes sense though since "Grudges are pointless and only prolong hatred" was a big lesson everybody learned in Seed and thankfully wasn't lost to Aesop Amnesia. On the other hand, Shinn held grudges for the whole series, and Durandal tried to eliminate anyone who stood in his way. Certainly makes you wonder just who the nicer guys were.
- A little over midway through the series, Shinn receives Wall Banger quality easy forgiveness. Shinn learns that the captive Stella's condition is rapidly deteriorating to the point where the Minerva's doctor is already making plans for her autopsy. Shinn then takes it upon himself to save her, assaulting several crewmates, stealing the Impulse Gundam, and making unauthorized contact with the enemy in the process (nevermind the additional Wall Banger that he's returning her to the same people responsible for her condition in the first place and expecting them to take better care of her). Upon returning to the Minerva, Shinn is put in the brig and Capt. Gladys notes that he would be executed under normal circumstances. But then, not only does he receive a full pardon (courtesy of Chairman Durandal), but after his next few major battles, Shinn is rewarded with another Order of the Nebula medal and membership in FAITH (essentially autonomous special forces). So Yeah, an arrogant punk who should have been executed for treason is now one of ZAFT's most decorated war heroes.
- Hrrrm, Vegeta anyone? A genocidal maniac who had no problem blowing up entire planets for little to no reasons. The man who's mooks or right-hands man ended up killing supporting heroes Chaotzu, Tien, Yamcha & Piccolo? Who tried to blow up the earth coz Goku's bruised his ego by not letting himself be killed like some punk? After lending a hand fighting Frieza and his goons (a fight he only took part in because his ass was every bit as much on the line as everyone else's - or more) and dying there is allowed to live on earth once resurrected, at Bulma's home no less ! (Remember, Bulma was Yamcha's lover). While not necessarily considered a good friend of the team at first, no one seems to hold a particularly large grudge towards him. In fact, they seem to mostly dislike him coz he's a Jerk, not because he's, ya know, a murderer and worst.
- Vegeta never really had a choice to be anything else. It was be a remorseless murdurer and do everything Freeza said, or die, and he does calm down considerably by the end.
- Plus if Goku was only friends with people who hadn't conspired against, attacked, or tried to kill him at some point in time, the only friends he would have would be Bulma and Roshi's turtle.
- Subverted in Fullmetal Alchemist. Winry didn't yet forgive Scar for killing her parents. Although it didn't stop her for treating his wounds. One strong theme in this manga is how to deal with sins, forgiveness, and cycle of hatred.
- Also subverted with the Ishbalan people after nearly getting wiped out in a genocide. Scar's master says that they should not forgive the Amestrians, because good people should be outraged at injustice, but they do need to endure it and not continue the cycle of hatred. The result is a rare middle ground between forgiveness and vengeance.
- Subverted again when Izumi forgives Edward and Alphonse for disobeying her repeated warnings to not attempt human transmutation ... but still expels them as her students. They now consider each other peers rather than master and student, though.
- In the anime, the two are forced to repeat the month-long island training, although they have a much easier time.
- Hilariously played straight with Paninya in Rush Valley. Paninya stole Edward's silver watch, the proof that he's a state alchemist, which sparked off a chase sequence that caused a lot of damage. When they capture her, a furious Edward wants to have her arrested, while Winry berates him for being so horrible for not forgiving a 'minor' slight ... mostly because she wants Paninya to introduce her to the man who made her incredibly well-designed automail legs. (Edward does forgive her after a punch or two).
- Sailor Moon in the anime forgives Ali and En, the Akayashi Sisters, the Black Moon brothers, Professor Tomoe, the Amazon Trio, the Amazon Quartet, and Galaxia. Although it's not shown that any of these people (save Galaxia) killed anyone, they all were trying to kill the senshi and destroy the world.
- In the manga it's only the Shitennou, the Quartet, and Galaxia. What's worse is they actually do kill people there.
- They were brainwashed by higher-up villains (Beryl and Metallia, Nehelenia, and Chaos)... who were not forgiven.
- In Magic Knight Rayearth, when Ascot turns to the good side he is instantly forgiven for earlier having killed Presea and in turn instantly forgives the Magic Knights for killing his summons, whom he thought of as friends.
- In Bleach, most of the Soul Reapers' actions, such as attacking each other, even their direct superiors, are forgotten in the wake of Aizen's betrayal, as is Ichigo and his group's infiltration of the Seireitei. This includes Ukitake and Kyoraku destroying the Sokyoku, which Yamamoto had deemed "unforgivable". Izuru and Momo are later shown apologizing to Rangiku and Hitsugaya, who are quite forgiving (with the plus that Izuru is Rangiku's old friend, and Momo is Hitsugaya's adoptive sister).
- Of all people, Goldie Musou, the main antagonist of Gunsmith Cats, gets Easily Forgiven by the protagonists after temporarily losing her memory, and entering to a relationship with Misty Brown. The same Misty Brown she once kidnapped and was implied to have raped. So Yeah.
- Depending on if you follow the Manga or Anime, Elfen Lied either plays this straight or subverts it. In the anime, Kouta forgives Lucy for killing his sister Kanae and his father. In the manga, he doesn't. However, even though he never does forgive her in the manga, he still visits the spot they promised to meet each other.
- Naruto had the Sand Village ninjas (particularly Gaara and company) start off as murderers conspiring with the current Big Bad to try and overthrow and destroy the Hidden Leaf Village. The plan fails, but the third hokage still ends up dead in no small part thanks to the Sand Village's assistance and at least tacit approval. Later on, the Sand Village as a whole, and Gaara, Temari and Kankuro specifically, are close allies with the Hidden Leaf Village and friends of the protagonists.
- Yuno Gasai of Mirai Nikki kidnaps the main character, keeps him tied up and drugged for a week, and tries to kill his friends when they come to rescue him. Two chapters later, all is forgiven between the two. To her credit, she has become much tamer since that incident.
- The finale of Infinite Ryvius shows EVERYONE from the ship being invited back to crew it, all on excellent terms after apparently having escaped both legal consequences and personal grievances for their widely publicized behavior in earlier episodes. For the record, they include gangs, rebels, dictators, torturers, rapists, murderers, and utter lunatics (one of whom led her own secret death cult!) Oh, and kids from the ship aside, there's also [[the evil conspiracy that purposely caused the whole incident, hounded them nearly to death, and BLEW UP AN INHABITED WORLD]].
- When Hal Jordan came back from the dead he was not Easily Forgiven. In this case it makes no sense as he was possessed by a cosmic being that they all know is completely real.
- The problem was while the Earth heroes more or less forgave Hal (even Batman), the Green Lantern Corps which Hal decimated was much less so. Especially when a sizable group of them were left for dead in space by Hal and were captured by Manhunters for years. It's more of a "Why didn't you do better trying to stop that cosmic being, Mr. Willpower?" than anything.
- Sandman in Spider-Man 3. Apparently, the fact that Sandman has a sick daughter and didn't mean to kill Uncle Ben is enough to get forgiveness from Spidey.
- This troper and his friend came to the conclusion that Spidey forgave him because he realize that the Sandman is impossible to permanently defeat. How do you hurt sand? So he forgave him because Sandman will leave him alone that way.
- To be fair, Spider-Man did beat the crap out of him first, and by the end of the movie he's sort of going through Venom Rehab, trying not to be vengeful and stuff. It's all part of a forgiveness Aesop, and Your Mileage May Vary on how believable it is.
- In From Dusk Till Dawn, Seth Gecko's reaction to his brother having raped and murdered their hostage while he was gone quickly fades from disgusted to 'don't do that again' and then hugs him and forgives him... sort of justified because we're apparently supposed to be shocked at the mildness of his reaction. It it also used to show Seth's blind love for his brother, as well as the fact that Seth is also a psychopath, if not a rapist.
- Fingerprints: A major villain from the first six books suddenly joins the heroes in the seventh. The reason for the Heel Face Turn makes sense; the speed with which the main character accepts it does not. The villain even admits to being baffled by the hero's easy forgiveness.
- Harry Potter. Sirius Black uses Lupin, a member of his Nakama, as a murder weapon in an attempt to kill Snape. Lupin utterly loathes his lycanthropy and hates the idea that he might hurt anyone while a werewolf, to the extent that he temporarily abandons his wife and baby in Deathly Hallows. Furthermore, the wizarding world is highly prejudiced against werewolves, so it's very unlikely that Lupin would have got a fair trial if Sirius' plan had succeeded. Nonetheless, he remains Sirius' friend after this betrayal, and no one but Snape points out that Sirius didn't exactly do the right thing here.
- Well, to be fair, Sirius is also one of the only friends Lupin has ever had since he became a werewolf. Plus, the whole thing was only really brought to light after Sirius escapes from Azkaban - at which point, he's the only friend Lupin has who is still alive (and hasn't gone over to Voldemort). While Lupin probably is really displeased with Sirius over it, he's also got to weigh expressing his anger over the risk of alienating the only friend he has left.
- This Troper always interpreted the incident to be a thoughtless prank that Sirius didn't really consider the potential consequences of. Neither James nor Sirius were shown to be the types who really thought about what they did when they were younger. In regards to the trope itself, Your Milage May Vary on whether a thoughtless prank that nearly killed someone is easier to forgive than an actual attempt to kill someone.
- In the Star Wars Expanded Universe, particularly media set during the early days of the Rebel Alliance, the Rebels are such a small presence that they're always eager for new recruits, even recruits who have defected from the Empire. Even when these former Imperials have killed Rebels. Some of their best people are ex-Imperials who quit for various reasons. By the time of the X Wing Series, around three or four years after Endor, attitudes have changed and members of the New Republic are suspicious of new ex-Imperials; Wedge Antilles is very ready to forgive former enemies, even ones he's flown against personally, but he's the exception. He and other characters argue about whether it's ever too late to change.
- A repeated theme throughout numerous works in said Expanded Universe mention that while Luke Easily Forgave Darth Vader for years of death and destruction after ten minutes of good behaviour (admitedly good behaviour that was essential in toppling The Empire), the rest of the galaxy most certainly did not, and still generally consider him one the greatest evils in galactic history. Leia in particular was originally outraged that Luke would forgive the "monster" that tortured her, and even decades later while she admitted that he was essentially a good man, he was also a good man that did horrible things.
- Willow in Buffy The Vampire Slayer.
- And Tara, with the blindness thing. And Xander with the musical demon. And Buffy, with the psychological institution one. And Angel, with the whole second half of Season 2. It's safe to say that just about everybody got one of these, at least.
- Which explains it. Those who live in glass houses...
- And yet they could not muster the strength to forgive Spike despite him having the excuse "I was soulless, I am better now" which, I might add, the others did not have (well, Angel did). Nor did it help with Andrew, whose resentment at not being Easily Forgiven when everyone else was is a large part of his Season 7 character arc. Not that I am bitter...
- This Troper feels that Buffy actually forgave Spike TOO easily in Season 7 (he did try to RAPE her after all), as I'd expect most people would take a lot more time than a episode and a half and a "I was soulless then" excuse to get over something that horrifying.
- Angel wasn't forgiven easily either except by Buffy and maybe Willow. Oz never really knew him until after the Angelus thing had already passed so that wasn't a issue but Xander and Giles were bitter and untrusting of him the whole 3rd season (which made sense since Xander never liked him to begin with and Giles was hurt the most by his actions) and were certainly glad to see him leave at the end. Giles was still bitter over the phone years later. Joyce also more or less told Angel to leave Buffy alone and go away for good. Cordelia was uncertain as after a certain point she stopped interacting with Buffy's group and like Oz Angelus had never really done anything to her. But Angel was hardly forgiven by the whole group easily. It was one of the reasons he left after all.
- Except that the Scoobies actually had a history of doing good things before they did whatever it was to necessitate forgiveness in the first place. Andrew... not so much. The first time they meet him, he's a wannabe super villain. Not exactly the same, is it? And, the whole Angel situation probably made them understandably reluctant to accept any vampire with a soul.
- It also deserves to be mentioned that Willow, Xander, Tara, and Buffy weren't doing what they did for any "evil" reasons. Both times Willow abused magic was when she was acting out of grief over losing someone she loved (and didn't even realize what a mess she'd caused the first time until D'Hoffryn showed up), Tara didn't want to be rejected for supposedly being part demon, Xander only wanted his marriage with Anya to work out, but didn't know that there would be burning and dying to go with the dancing and singing, and Buffy was acting under the influence of the Glarghk Guhl Kashma'nik demon's venom, which had exacerbated her post-heaven depression.
- Indeed. Andrew's actions, on the other hand, were of his own doing, and were done for the purposes of self-gratification. He did what he did to get rich, not out of a feeling of rejection (or fear of it) or to try to make a relationship work, or any other more sympathetic motives. It was pure selfish and materialistic greed. And, of course, Spike did evil out of enjoyment of it, and unlike Angel, wasn't really much different with a soul than without.
- The fact that most of the Scoobies and their significant others/friends/allies have hurt or tried to kill each other at one point or another, whether intentionally or purposefully, and were forgiven, doesn’t seem to have helped Faith either, despite the fact that she’s the only one who went to prison for her actions. Not that Season 7 gave her much interaction with any of the main group, aside from a smidgen with Buffy (but who’s bitter?), and Willow is shown to have forgiven her (which makes sense, seeing as after what happened to Willow, staying mad at Faith would be hypocritical). And while she and Buffy seemed to reach a little understanding at the end of the season, all of that is undone in the Season 8 comics where Buffy is back to thinking the worst of Faith automatically.
- When Giles takes Buffy's powers away, and tosses her in a house with a killer vampire, she is afterwards in "never forgive" territory. Next episode ("The Zeppo") Giles does something so incredibly brave and self-sacrificing, that all is well between him and Buffy. Conveniently for the creators, this act happens off-screen and is not described, making it "Informed Forgiveability".
- Heavily, brutally subverted in Angel. Wesley is tricked into thinking that Angel will kill his new born son, Connor, so Wesley kidnaps him to prevent this from happening. For his efforts, he gets his throat slit and the baby is taken by one of Angel's enemies who escapes into a demon dimension. At the hospital, Angel calmly tells Wesley that he understands why he did what he did, but that he needs to understand that it's Angel talking to him now, not Angelus. Angel then grabs Wesley's pillow and attempts to smother him with it, yelling that he'll never forgive him. As he's dragged off by the other members of their team, Angel swears to kill Wesley the next time he sees him. This is also partially inverted, as Wesley holds a grudge against his friends for abandoning him. The team does eventually make up, but it takes a rather long time.
- It helps the situation that before the last season, everyone but Angel has their memory of Connor's life wiped, including Wesley's betrayal. Until their memories are all restored and Wesley has to struggle with the knowledge that he betrayed Angel all over again.
- Wesley himself later stabs Gunn non-fatally in revenge for not telling anyone that he passed Illyria's sarcophagus through customs, a bonehead move on Gunn's part which led to the death of Fred.
- Amusingly subverted in an episode of Firefly, where Simon figures out that Jayne had sold out both River and himself in a previous episode. Simon doesn't forgive Jayne, but he does point out they have way too many mutual enemies as it stands, and that constantly being at each others' throats over this would be pointless and stupid. Then, as he leaves, River sticks her head in, looks directly at Jayne, and warns him that "I can kill you with my brain."
- In Torchwood, series 1, Captain Jack is shot dead by Owen. Despite the fact Owen was unaware that Jack would resurrect, Jack easiy forgives him.
- And, in another episode, we find out Ianto's been hiding a dangerous Cyberman in the basement. He endangers the whole planet, tells the main character he wants him dead and is forgiven by the end of the episode.
- The season two finale, Captain Jack forgives his brother, Gray, for burying him alive for about 1900 years. Mind you, this is after Gray has John Hart systematically blow up Cardiff, in addition to stabbing Jack in the back (literally!) when they're first reunited.
- In the finale of the third series of Doctor Who, the Master's reign of terror over the earth is ended. Said reign of terror involved the murder of at least one tenth of the Earth's population, the enslavement of the remaining nine tenths, messing with the Doctor's physical aging process and rendering him wheelchair-bound for most of the year and birdcage-bond for the rest, the repeated killing of the aforementioned Captain Jack, and building weapons with which he planned to take over and/or destroy the rest of the universe. At the point of the Master's defeat, the Doctor finally says that "one thing" he had to say to the Master, which he'd hinted at several times in the episode. What did he say? I forgive you.
- This is however by far the worst punishment the Doctor could bestow on the Master. Remember, the man's plan is just as much "Make the Doctor my bitch" as it is "Take over the Universe" (Some would say that his plan was "Take over the Universe in order to make the Doctor my Bitch"). By forgiving the Master in such a off-handed way, he proves his complete and utter failure in that.
- If that's the reason, it's more like Cool And Unusual Punishment. Which has the same problems that that trope usually does: it's too blatantly an attempt to show a character (the Doctor) as nasty without the inconvenience of making the audience not sympathize with someone who does nasty things. It also still counts as Easily Forgiven, since "the Master really hates being forgiven" doesn't explain how the Doctor can forgive the Master for things he did to other people.
- Degrassi The Next Generation does this to a ridiculous extent to justify the current Heel Face Turn. Here are some things Degrassi villains have done, all of which were forgiven promptly by the victim after the turn:
- Stealing irreplaceable property.
- Taking credit for a subordinate's work, then firing the subordinate for complaining.
- Posting topless photos of a classmate on the internet.
- Helping a pedophile stalk a classmate, purely for the fun of it (!).
- Happens a lot on Rome. Eirene goes from hating Pullo for having killed her fiancé in cold blood to agreeing to marry him within the course of an episode. Caesar forgives Brutus for siding with Pompey in the civil war. Vorenus forgives Pullo not once but twice, the first time when he watches Pullo fighting for his life in the gladiator arena and the second when Pullo has found out that Vorenus' daughters are not dead but have been sold to slavery. Antonius and Octavius quickly set aside their previous battle-to-the-death differences and join forces to fight against Brutus and Cassius. The list goes on... It could probably be best described in the words of Antonius:
Atia: Why would Servilia want to see me, she hates me!
Antonius: So do I. But that's no bar to friendship.
- Justified in that many of these scenarios involving historical figures actually played out that way in real life.
- This happens a lot in Professional Wrestling, but there are some examples that stand out more than others. In a recent example, apparently if you concuss Cody Rhodes, his father, and his best friend then he'll be perfectly happy to hang out with you after an argument or two.
- An extremely obvious one is the recent (apparent) reconciliation with Matt and Jeff Hardy. Essentially Matt said that he had made a mistake and Jeff forgave him. The "mistake" apparently involved Matt burning Jeff's house to the ground, killing his dog, and trying to murder him and/or end his career at least three times. The forgiveness came only a couple months after the end of their fighting over it.
- Heroes season 3: Elle seems to forgive Sylar a bit too easily for killing her father. It's true, she did try her best to kill him at first, but subsequently it looks more like that was self loathing than hatred. This is even remarked upon by Noah.
- Seems to happen quite a lot in the various Star Trek series: One of the regular cast is taken over by some Applied Phlebotinum or Monster Of The Week, spends the episode trying to kill everyone, drive the ship into a black hole or whatever, and is welcomed back with open arms by all concerned.
- This is especially clear in the fifth film, which is really just one big Wall Banger. It's specifically stated that the people the villain converts are not brainwashed; they're completely acting of their own free will in following him. Yet none of them face any repercussions.
- Not quite in the league as most of these, but in the series finale of Stargate SG 1, after a vitriolic and contemptuous rant at her enumerating in painful detail why he would never sleep with her, Daniel Jackson comes up short when he sees he's actually hurt Vala, and is forgiven.
- After the whole Bosco/Faith/Cruz shooting incident at the end of Season 4 of Third Watch, and also after the Faith/Cruz/Donald Mann shooting incident at the end of Season 5, enemies Faith and Cruz are soon back to work alongside each other.
- Largely averted on Lost: Sawyer and Charlie's behavior in "Fire + Water" and "The Long Con" is not soon forgiven by their fellow Losties. Season 3 makes it clear Sun won't be forgiving Sawyer anytime soon. In season 4, Sayid has not forgiven Michael for his murder and treason from season 2. Also, three years after rescue, Kate, Sayid, and Jack are still harsh with Locke for his efforts to keep everyone on the island.
- Cleverly averted in season 5 with Ben and Locke. You'd think Locke would be angrier, but since it turns out to be an evil entity impersonating Locke (who wanted Locke dead), it makes sense.
- First subverted, then played Wall Bangingly straight on CSI Miami. First, it takes the team several episodes to warm up to Natalia again after she reveals that she'd originally been sent there to spy on them by the FBI. She never said anything bad about them though, and it turned out that someone else had set them up. But then a few seasons later, Ryan, WITHHOLDS EVIDENCE from a crime scene because a friend's son has been kidnapped by the Russian mob, which he only tells Horatio, yet despite very realistic anger from the rest of his team when he finally produces the evidence, by next episode, it seems to not only have been forgiven but forgotten too. Sometimes this show is really good about continuity, sometimes it throws it out the window. I kinda wish it'd make up it's mind.
- Played absurdly straight on Robin Hood. Ask yourself: would you go on a field-trip with the man who brutally slaughtered your wife? Robin does. Made even more idiotic considering Robin doesn't display any such altruism toward Isabella or Allan, whose crimes against him are barely a blip on the radar screen compared to Guy's.
- Very shortly after Pope John Paul II survived an assassination attempt, he paid a friendly visit to his would-be killer in jail to let him know he wasn't mad at him for shooting him in the chest. In fact, it was the first thing he did after he got out of the hospital.
- Julius Caesar made a point of forgiving pretty much everyone on the opposing side in the civil war between him and Pompey, whether they surrendered or had been taken captive. A rather smart strategy, as he came off in a much more positive light than Pompey in the eyes of the Roman people. Unfortunately for him, several of the people that he forgave conspired to assassinate him. His successor, Augustus, decided not to follow that same path and refused to grant clemency to Caesar's killers.
- The Dead Or Alive series of fighting games are so thoroughly removed from the terrible-but-somehow-great Xtreme spinoff. The best example is that Christie murdered Helena's mother, but buy her a couple of gifts and suddenly she'll pair up for volleyball matches and mutual sun-tan oil application. With the woman who murdered her mother. Covering her in her mother's blood. While they were both on stage in an opera. In an opera house that then caught fire.
- Fallout 3 has a major sidequest which ends when you get a man to return to his home town, days after he killed and ate a full 20% of its inhabitants. The villagers welcome him home.
- To be fair this was the result of a form of insanity, which he now has under control plus the group that took him in after he committed said killings besides trying to teach him how to control his "hunger" has made it appear as they had committed the killings themselves. You don't see the conversation where he explains the situation to the rest of the village. He may have omitted some of the facts.
- Summoner has loads of this, including:
- Joseph (the protagonist) was being taught how to use his powers to summon creatures using a magical ring by Yago, but when bandits attacked his village, he decided to summon a mighty demon to help fight them. The demon went completely out of control, killing bandits and villagers alike (including his family), causing Joseph to be exiled by the refugees of his Doomed Hometown. Joseph threw the ring down a well and said he never wanted to see Yago again. In spite of this, Yago was the first person Joseph ran to when the Orenians went gunning for him, and he fell hook, line and sinker for Yago's advice again. Of course, it turns out that Yago was possessed by the Demon of Darkness from within the ring (the demon Joseph summoned) at the time, and tricked Joseph into summoning him on purpose.
- Jekhar swore that he would kill his childhood friend Joseph for destroying his village and slaughtering his family with the demon years ago. In spite of numerous opportunities to do so, he never does. As a matter of fact, he never even menaces him except for the first two times you bump into him.
- To be honest, by the time he joins the party, he's doing it under orders and can't really kill Joseph by that point. He then gets to see first hand how Joseph hates himself more than Jekhar does over what happened to Ciran and Masad, and that Joseph is the world's only hope. On top of that Joseph is the god Urath. So by the end of the game, in at least one ending, Jekhar couldn't kill him even if he wanted to.
- Yago abandoned his wife and their unborn daughter, Rosalind, to seek ringlore. When you ask Rosalind (now, after her mother's death, a member of a cloistered society of monks who must never return if she leaves) to abandon her vows and come with you on Yago's behalf, she actually does so. While she is very confrontational with Yago, she never actually tries to bring him to task for his dastardly behavior (not to mention that Yago dumped them before he was possessed, meaning that it really IS his fault.)
- Joseph also forgives Flece pretty fast after she's been betraying him nearly since they met. Of course, she is so guilt-ridden that she goes to save him soon after, but still.
- Flece forgives Aoqi (really her mother Quifeng) pretty easily for Tancred's murder. Although her reasons were rather compelling, it remains that she was basically a stranger who killed the only father Flece ever knew.
- Super Robot Wars: Original Generations (and indeed just about any installment in the series, licensed mecha or not) absolutely loves this trope. Major and minor villains alike often find their way into the protagonist's squadron, no matter how grievous the crimes they committed- up to and not including nearly killing the main character, being a pain in the ass for the majority of the game, nearly enslaving earth, or even being accomplice to the destruction of the entire dimension. Later on, there is a picture that lampshades this thing.
- And even those who do not repent are not safe from this. Cases in point:
- Ingram, who was revealed to be Brainwashed And Scheming all along.
- Shu, who attempted to do an Earth Shattering Kaboom in a Xanatos Gambit to free himself from an evil God. The aftermath after his death is Masaki, his own rival that utterly hates him... sheds a tear for him. This happens in EVERY INSTALLMENT OF SRW where they duke it out, not just OG.
- Juergen 'killed' Lamia in OG Gaiden, then everyone else pitied him for 'not being himself and got consumed by his own creation'. Compared to the likes of Archibald, who has done lots of ***s to the Bransteins and condemned to death even when it faces him, they were pretty merciful towards Juergen.
- Duminuss, who was stripped from every sympathy she had in R, got a special mention, even though mostly everyone else didn't show any sympathy. She messed Lamia up by turning her Brainwashed And Crazy. But after she was returned to her senses, she easily forgives Duminuss, never mind all those crimes to her, what matters the most was 'She brought her back to life'. In here 'forgive' as in she didn't hold a complete grudge on her, and defeats her because she's in the way not Its Personal. Speaking of that, probably she feels the same way to the ODE System and Juergen who put her to death in the first place.
- Not even non-OG is safe from this and in fact, it can take it to Wall Banger territority. In Super Robot Wars D, you can even recruit Katejina Loos and instantly forgive every single of sheer depravity that she has done.
- Tales Of The Abyss takes this one straight to Wall Banger territory when the party instantly forgives Anise when they find out she'd been spying on them for the villain over the course of three quarters of the game, and directly helped to kill one of the most important people helping to stop both a world war and an Earth Shattering Kaboom.
- It's even worse when you consider that all of them except Tear (and Guy, a bit later) completely abandoned Luke earlier in the storyline during his Heroic BSOD. Apparently the Jerkass Mole is more sympathetic than a guy who'd been more or less brainwashed and betrayed by his mentor of seven years.
- And she could have asked for help at any time. They had shown earlier that they could easily reach her parents. Like Jade couldn't come up with something.
- The party's main issue was the motivations and how they reacted; Anise is devastated with guilt after Ion's death, and tried to help the party reach Mohs in time by covertly giving them directions, while Luke repeatedly insists that he's not at all responsible for what he did in the immediate aftermath of Akzeriuth's collapse.
- When the party finally kills that fanatically stupid Grand Maestro Mohs, their next reaction was 'Poor him...'. WHAT THE HELL!? He's the guy behind Anise's spying, instigating Ion's death 'For The Score' and if the spy is forgiven, the instigator is also forgiven?! Where is the justice in Auldrant!?
- Tales Of Vesperia has a pretty bad one too, though not as bad as Abyss's. Raven kidnaps Estelle and willingly hands her over to Alexei. The consequences of this (apocalypse) are wholly known to Raven. And then when you meet Raven again, he reveals he's actually Captain Schwann and was playing both the party and the entire guild Altosk as fools. And then makes a full on attempt to kill you. And how does the party react when he has a change of heart and decide to come back? They bop him over the head and conveniently forget about it for the rest of the game aside from around two minor references. And this party includes Yuri, a man who, throughout the game, has shown that he's more than willing to kill someone for a lot less.
- "A lot less"? We're talking about Ragou and Cumore here, people. Besides, the scene is also a Crowning Moment Of Awesome, and it's made quite clear that he was an Anti Villain Death Seeker. And let's not forget the pseudo-Heroic Sacrifice...and Yuri more or less making it clear that next time Raven pulls a stunt like that, his corpse will be joining Ragou's at the bottom of a river.
- Also noteworthy is Raven saved their lives after said attempt to kill them and proving he was, at the very least, not their enemy.
- Another example might be Duke. He attempts to kill every human in order to save the planet and refuses to listen to Yuri's alternate plan. After defeating him and saving the world, the gang casually wave to him as he walks away and is later seen playing with animals in the peaceful new world. Now, to be fair, upon his defeat, he does lend his power to Yuri's plan, which could be seen as very redeeming. But the fact that he was seconds away from KILLING EVERY HUMAN ON EARTH before they got there and is given no repremandation for this by the group and seems to be on friendly terms with them now is somewhat jarring.
- Another, less known example is Judith. No one seems to mind that she crippled the party's ship and abandoned them after she rejoins. Granted, she DID have an argueably good reason, but still. Two good reasons, that is.
- Tales Of Legendia is a prime example of this. Shirley ("So who cares if our only experience with you is the part where you tried to destroy the land and kill millions of people? You're part of the team now."), Chloe ("Guys, we have to save the chick who just ran me through with a sword!"), Jay ("Well, obviously he had a reason for kidnapping her."), Alcott ("Sure, you killed hundreds of people and served as general to an evil regime, but it was all for your sick daughter, so we forgive you."), and Maurits (...let's just not go there.) Granted, in the game itself, this comes off more like an example of the party's endearing-if-stupid idealism than anything else, but still.
- The transition of the Turks from fairly serious (albeit quirky) villains in Final Fantasy VII to comic relief, Heel Face Turned semi-heroes in the Compilation. Mostly based on Pandering To The Base on the part of the games' creators, but feels a little odd when one considers how easily the "we were just doing our jobs" angle works given how they detonated the support tower for the Sector 7 plate (destroying the heroes' homes, killing the original AVALANCHE crew and countless innocent people in the process) in the original game. Cloud in Advent Children seems to be the only person who mistrusts them.
- To be fair, there is also a "just doing our jobs" scene in Crisis Core, where Tseng (one of the Turks), lets a village be bombed to erase evidence and doesn't show remorse over it. Zack does not take that lightly, and spends the rest of the game remembering it.
- The Turks were hardly taken seriously in the original game, despite the Sector 7 collapse. Every time you fight them they toss comments around leisurely, you see them outside of battle quite a bit lounging around, and there's an entire sidequest in Wutai involving them and their "just doing our jobs" stuff.
- Final Fantasy VII also has Yuffie committing (literal) Wutai Theft and Cait Sith acting as a spy for Shinra since the time you meet and kidnapping hostages. Each one is welcomed back more or less unchanged.
- Nobody commented on Kain from Final Fantasy IV yet? Not only he turns from Face to Heel and back at an alarming rate, each time he comes back to the good side everybody welcomes him with open arms. Curiously enough, when he finally turns good for real, the only one to distrust him is Edge, who has seen him betray the party only once.
- Considering this was rather a case of mind control than betrayal, it makes sense they don't blame Kain too much.
- In Tekken, Craig Marduk killed Armor King in the 4th series; in turn, the second King beats the crap out of Marduk, only to refuse to kill him out of vengeance... well, that was forgiving, but not easy. Then, in the 5th series, Marduk goes on to disgrace Armor King by raiding some matches wearing his black jaguar mask and issuing a challenge to King. After the challenge is settled, they suddenly become best buds, as if Armor King's disgrace is easily forgotten...
- War Craft has an odd mutual example of this, and many more subversions. The Orcs, under demonic influence at the time, threatened to destroy the "human" world of Azeroth, twice. After their defeat, most are rounded up and put in internment camps, where they languish for a generation in withdrawal from the dark energy that gave them greater power, the humans understandably not trying to treat this near-suicidal depression. When a new warchief named Thrall frees his people, he has no grudge against them, having seen both the best and worst of humans, and departs to find a new land. He later finds himself working alongside Jaina Proudmoore, who can't even remember when the orcs were a threat, to unite against a greater threat. Aside from these two, pretty much everyone, orc and human, does not easily forgive the other side.
- In Tony Hawk's Underground the player character (i.e. you) does this twice to his "best friend" Eric Sparrow: first when Eric purposefully didn't sign your name for the Tampa Am competition so you wouldn't go up against him and later when Eric stole the footage of your amazing "jumping over the helicopter" stunt and instead submitted footage of his own stunts in the spot you discovered, thus earning Eric a promotion to Pro status. To be fair, Eric did seem to sincerely apologize after that. It takes Eric getting drunk, stealing a Russian tank, crashing it into a building and framing you for it for your character to realize what a Jerkass he is.
- Everyone in Touhou. Everyone. No exceptions. Except Tenshi. While this makes sense for most of the characters, who were either just doing their job, not doing anything too bad, or just in the way, this can be something of a problem for characters like Yuyuko (who was willing to greatly delay spring for the sake of making a cherry tree blossom *
the tree is also evil, but she didn't know that ) or Utsuho (who considered nuking Gensoukyou purely out of power madness).
- Particularly in the early strips, the cast of Sluggy Freelance was surprisingly tolerant of Aylee's human eating tendencies and Bun-Bun's general sociopathic tendencies. They do eventually put their foot down on Aylee eating people and convince her to quit, but Bun-Bun still gets a mostly free pass for all the violent and manipulative things he's done, does, and will do. Of course, that might just be because he'd kill them all if they tried to get tough with him. Better to keep the switchblade-wielding bully on their side.
- Raimundo in Xiaolin Showdown, after willingly turning evil and then back again. Omi does express suspicion about him from time to time.
- To be fair, Raimundo did give up everything he could have wanted to save their lives and turned down a choice to become their level because he wasn't ready.
- Also, given the fact that afterwards Omi kept falling into Chase Young's traps to be prepared for his ally he really couldn't say that he didn't know what Raimundo did.
- Kevin Levin is easily forgiven by Ben and especially Gwen in Ben 10 Alien Force, conveniently ignoring the fact that he was a murderous sociopath in Ben 10 (Seriously, the show itself seems to forget the extent of Kevin's villainy and the characters act as if he was just a run-off-the-mill crook in the original series. But hey, whatever it takes to make Gwen/Kevin work...)
- Subverted in Justice League Unlimited with Hawkgirl. At first glance, it seems that the team will sweep her assignment from the Thannigarian Empire under the rug at the end of the episode because she's part of the Nakama, but she resigns from the team. She spends a season mostly off-camera doing some soul-searching and still has to save the world a few more times before Wonder Woman's fine with having Hawkgirl in the Justice League again. It remains a sore spot for her and detractors of the Justice League still bring up that the League let Hawkgirl back on the team after what she did... a sore spot that Lex Luthor is notably willing to exploit.
- Every "villain" in Horton Hears A Who! The directors bring this up a couple times on the DVD commentary, justifying it by saying it stays true to the spirit of Dr. Seuss' works, as Seuss "was not in the comeuppance business." There was originally a more clear comeuppance for the Kangaroo when everyone turns their back on her, but it was taken out for this reason.
- On The Fairly Oddparents, Mark Chang goes from Timmy's enemy to a good friend after his Heel Face Turn. This is despite the fact that Mark has threatened to slurp out Timmy's brain through a bendy straw,
kidnapped his babysitter (he liked that), tried to kill him in death combat, and launched a weapon that he thought would destroy the Earth.
- In Gargoyles, Goliath readily forgives anyone who stops attacking and tries to undo whatever they've done. Even if two minutes before that they were roaring at each other and fighting tooth and nail. It's most apparent in that lengthy section in season two where he and a few others were being sent all over the world by Avalon. Of course, those few times when he wasn't attacked right off the bat and tried being friendly first didn't work that well...
- Kim Possible, episode "Ill-Suited"; Ron is let off the hook despite lying to Kim, cheating at a major sporting event and stole high tech weaponry that put lives in danger. Kim forgave him and Barkin let him stay on the team. Although he did have to do 20 crabwalk laps around the field. Though it is a stark reminder of how in Season 1 Kim was grounded just for lying. Although since Ron is the goofy comic relief, writer's surrogate and Designated Hero of this particular episode he can do no wrong.
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