Honor Before Reason - Television Tropes & Idioms

In InuYasha, Inu-Yasha himself is a good example of this. Kajinbo comes and tries to kill him at the night he's in human form (he's greatly weakened and not used to fighting while in this form). The logical choice would be letting his friends take over the business. His opponent insults him, says that it's pathetic to hide by women and children.
Shippo: Inu-Yasha, don't let yourself be lured!
Inu-Yasha: I'm not that stupid... however... it's me who he comes after. I will not hide nor run.
::And he runs forward to fight Kajinbo!
- Then we have Sesshomaru, who realizes that his father's plan was that Sesshomaru would perfect Meido Zangetsuha and then his brother's Tessaiga would reabsorb it and thus gain the completed technique. He decides to test whether Inu-Yasha's the true successor of Tessaiga as well as Meido Zangetsuha (with the belief that the true successor must be able to gain them himself). Note that he uses an extremely sneaky way to do "the test". He throws his brother into a Meido (a portal to the other world). Inu-Yasha appears to fail the test. Sesshomaru throws his Tenseiga (which carries the Meido technique) into the Meido and tells it to vanish along with Inu-Yasha. But then Inu-Yasha shows that he can overcome the Meido, unfortunately Naraku interferes and attacks him. Yet Sesshomaru has seen the proof he wants, he jumps into the Meido to give Inuyasha the technique. The sensible thing for him to do would be opening a portal to life himself first and waiting until both're safe to give it to Inu-Yasha, but he doesn't. He gives (the heavily injured and poisoned) Inu-Yasha (who has never used the technique) what belongs to Inu-Yasha right away. Then he calmly and casually tells the panicked Inu-Yasha that whether they can return to the living world or not, all depends on him...
In Speed Grapher, Saiga relentlessly protects Kagura from Suitengu and the members of the secret underground club of the rich and elite of Japan, against the advice and protests of his friends Ginza and Bob, who believe throughout the series that he should simply leave her to her fate. Saiga is willing to die in order to allow Kagura a chance of happiness, and in the end goes blind while saving her.
The heroes of the anime Rurouni Kenshin follow this trope to a tee. Surprisingly enough, even the heartless Darwinist villain Shishio Makoto follows this trope, threatening to kill his scheming right-hand man, Houji, who proposed a cowardly assault on the loved ones of the heroes while they dueled his lord; for such behavior is, to quote Shishio himself, "Against the Way of the Warrior." (They do it anyway.)
- In the manga, a different story. While he initially claimed the original plan would not be changed to include the attack on the Aoiya, because a challenge was a challenge, he then proceeded to claim the Aoiya idea as his own after lying to the Juppongatana about a supposed infraction Houji had committed that had put them in danger, as a way to put Houji on the spot and force him to prove the strength of his devotion.
Son Goku's seemingly illogical and insane unconditional love for life and his ability to forgive anyone has allowed him to turn the dozens of monsters, madmen and murderers that he has fought throughout the Dragon Ball Z saga (with the unfortunate exception of Freeza, Dr. Gero and Cell) into heroes.
- Another infamous example is when Goku gives Cell a Senzu bean to fully heal himself so that he can fight Goku's son Gohan at full strength. He was confident in his son's strength and he is partially impaired by his Saiyan genes. What he did to Freeza on the other hand...
  - What he did for Freeza was more of Compassion Before Reason. Freeza was begging for mercy after being done in by his own attack, appealing to Goku's sense of decency through the Super Saiya'jin Anger. Goku relented due to mercy, giving Freeza only enough ki to float...which he squandered with an attack against the very man who saved him because his pride couldn't take defeat against an 'inferior monkey'.
- The whole scene near the end of the Buu arc where Goku is refusing to throw the Genki Dama because Vegeta's in the way must qualify for this. He's holding back an attack with enough power to destroy the final Big Bad because it would kill Vegeta too. Forget that not throwing the attack would doom the entire universe including that one person he's trying to spare.
Played straight with Kira Yamato, the protagonist of Gundam Seed. He realizes that although stopping one's enemies without murdering them may be difficult, but doing otherwise would breed more hatred and thus not bring an end to war.
- Played equally straight, previously, with Shiro Amada of 8th MS Team, who believed in killing only as an absolute last resort, despite being the commander of a mobile suit unit.
  - And the fact that Zeon gassed his home colony in front of him during the first week of the gas doesn't change his mind about this. They're a reason why people laughed in his face when talking about this.
- Both these instances can be traced back to Judau Ashta from Gundam ZZ who began acting like this about the same time they touched down on Earth and the show started Growing The Beard, simply because he couldn't handle any more death. Sometimes it actually worked, such as with Masai and Puru 2. However, it usually failed miserably (the death of the entire Blue Team, Rommel, Chara Soon, and Haman). At the end of the series, having born witness to the Federation dragging its heels before mobilizing a fleet to defeat Neo Zeon and showing up after the battle was over, he was at the breaking point. To let him blow off steam, Bright let Judau deck him in the face... something awesome for both of them.
- In Gundam Wing, Wufei tracks down Treize Khushrenada in an attempt to kill him to prevent him from taking control of the Earth Sphere Alliance. However, instead of blowing Treize to smithereens with his Gundam, Wufei accepts a challenge to a sword duel from Treize which he loses. Treize reciprocates Wufei's earlier gesture of honor and allows him to leave in his Gundam rather than seizing the state-of-the-art machine for study or reverse-engineering. Wufei departs—again passing up the perfectly good chance to eliminate the would-be dictator with superior firepower.
- In Endless Waltz, Zechs, Noin, and the Wing boys also do this. After they defeat hundreds of enemy mobile suits without killing a single soldier, Quatre comments that if they were fighting to kill, they could have blown through the Mariemeia Army far more easily, but then there would have been no point to their intervention.
In Hayate the Combat Butler, the title character's suicidal devotion to Nagi and every person that needs his help. Plus, the fact he never called social services on his deadbeat parents (who are either heartless, brainless, or both) as a child speaks volumes about his kind character.
'Ranma ½ would be considerably less funny without this. It also would've been much much shorter.
- This can actually be considered an element of Ranma's fighting style; whenever challenged to one of the various Martial Arts and Crafts, he always has to Beat Them at Their Own Game, even if he has only a minimum amount of time to pick up the rules and despite the fact he's usually going against a champion of that style. One time that can almost cross into Wallbanger territory is the Martial Arts Dining arc; despite the fact Ranma is clearly starving, s/he insists that s/he will only eat what s/he earns from the table/arena. In the anime, at least, s/he even goes so far as to turn down Akane when she offers her fiancé some smuggled food. This almost results in Ranma losing the contest when his/her frantic efforts at both fighting and thinking up counters burn out what little energy s/he has left.
- Nodoka Saotome and her Seppuku pledge is a rather dark take on this, seeing as how the so-called "pledge" is ambiguous as all hell. And all the evidence in the series is that, if Ranma thought he had sufficiently disappointed his mother, he would go through with it.
The only way to cure Kibagami Jubei, the hero of the anime classic Ninja Scroll, of the slow-acting poison in his body was to take a Girl Ninja whose own body's potent poison would destroy the comparatively weaker venom in the process. But knowing that this would obliterate what little was left of her sense of self-worth, already shredded by the fact no man dares to touch her, Jubei instead refused her offer and walked off like a gentleman, into certain death.
- Well, he does kiss her.
Negi Springfield of Mahou Sensei Negima!, in spite of being a talented young warrior, is so kind-hearted he even offered mercy to a Demon Lord who destroyed his village and crippled his sister. His kindness and merciful nature has almost cost him his life on more than one occasion.
- He tends to show mercy when he perceives an unvoiced If I Wanted You Dead subtext — he's just painfully ready to see those. He also benefits more from showing mercy than he would from finishing enemies of the week off. For example, the Demon Lord (who was just a summoned lackey anyway) dropped on its way back home the second hint so far that the village massacre did no truly permanent harm to anybody... except emotionally, if Negi let it...
In Super Dimension Fortress Macross/Robotech Miriya insists that Max shoot to disable Zentradi battlepods to simply put them out of action instead of simply killing them to show that the Terrans are serious about wanting peace. Even though this could be seen as completely insane considering the Zentradi finally decided to fight full out to destroy the ship, Rick Hunter learns what his wingmates are doing and joins this act of mercy along with other pilots despite the dire situation. As it turns out, that gesture saves the ship because the many of the Zentrani forces, already becoming enthralled with Terran culture, learn what about the Humans' mercy and decide to mutiny throughout the fleet to stop the fight. Commander Breetai is horrified at that unprecedented insubordination and ordered an immediate ceasefire in direct violation of his orders.
In a somewhat unusual example, Suzaku from Code Geass displays shades of this trope. Unusual since many consider him to be a villain, because the main character is a Necessarily Evil Anti Hero violently rebelling against The Empire that Suzaku has joined to attempt to induce legitimate social change.
Though she knows she can't do it for everybody (and this fact does cost her quite a bit of her happiness), Mai Tokiha possesses an unshakable desire to protect her friends and her brother. She even wanted to find it in her heart to forgive a pair of her enemies (who wanted to turn her school into a pile of smoldering rubble), because she saw them happily singing together in a park one day and figured that even they deserved a chance at happiness.
Subverted in (of all shows) Transformers Armada. Faced with the choice of leaving his friend, Wheeljack, trapped in an inferno and going for help, or staying with him to the end, Hot Shot goes with the former. The decision is later regretted, out of both reasonable, genuine guilt, and the fact that Wheeljack survived, and did not...take abandonment very well.
Tendō Rushuna in Grenadier specifically fights to "remove an enemy's will to fight" without killing, or if possible, without hurting them at all.
In Vinland Saga it's more of a case of vengeance over reason, with Thorfinn risking life and limb to protect the man he wants to kill.
- More importantly is the way he always insists on doing the killing the 'honourable' way, in a one-on-one duel. Said man, who is more experienced, skilled at playing the younger man as a two-cent kazoo and far more The Combat Pragmatist (and once was in the same position as Thorfinn; he assassinated his victim in his bed after spending two years worming himself into his graces), considers Thorfinn's methods to be a major case of What An Idiot.
Fate of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, who, despite the insistence of her superiors, stayed inside the Big Bad's Collapsing Lair to try and stop the Self Destruct Mechanism during the third season finale because there were innocent people trapped inside. Not to mention the time she freed her Worthy Opponent from the clutches of a monster out of instinct... which promptly got her berated by Mission Control because she was supposed to capture her.
Despite the carnage that inevitably occurs around him, and his superhuman skill with a gun, Vash the Stampede from Trigun is absolutely determined never to kill anyone. This puts him in increasingly tighter positions as the series progresses, until he has to choose between killing a villain with his own gun or allowing his friends to be killed. He shoots. Or maybe the villain forced Vash to shoot him with his mind control powers. It's plausible that he would rather just force Vash to kill him than see Vash maintain his no killing rule (even though it would have caused Vash great suffering from guilt). Vash himself might not even know which happened.
- Oh no, it was very clear that Vash chose to pull the trigger. That was the whole point of Legato's plot — he only used his powers to keep Vash from saving Meryl and Milly directly, forcing him to choose of his own will to pull the trigger. He could have chosen to let them die, instead he chose to kill Legato. It's fiendishly brilliant.
Chibodee and George in G Gundam both lose their rematch to Domon because they showed their attacks to him beforehand, and he was able to learn moves to counter them.
- Sai Saici had a different version of this in his rematch with Domon. Even with his Gundam getting thrashed by Domon, he still kept fighting. It took the intervention of Neo-China's Emperor to prevent Sai Saici's death.
The entire premise of Idolmaster Xenoglossia is that Japan's government is so committed to honoring its post-WWII disarmament agreements, that when the planet is threatened by asteroids that used to be pieces of the moon, instead of arming itself with ballistic missiles to protect itself like most nations did they go to the ludicrous expense of creating Humongous Mecha which can only be piloted by children who have certain qualities to destroy the rocks instead.
Lampshade Hanging: Both protagonist and antagonist fall victim to this line of thinking in Claymore. An awakened being Ophelia puts all of her vulnerable, human portions at her tail and challenges Claire to cut through the awakened being's body using her dangerous "Flash Sword" technique. As Claire begins the test of mettle, Ophelia thinks to herself, "The fool, she could've just ignored me and aimed right for my tail." Ophelia seems to slightly realize that she too is guilty of honor before reason since she agreed to put all of her vulnerable parts in one easy to target place. As she continues to berate Claire's foolishness, Ophelia thinks to herself, "Wait, who am I talking about?"
In One Piece, Lovable Sex Maniac Sanji is completely unwilling to hit a female for any reason whatsoever. This has very nearly cost him his life on more than one occasion, and he's been called out on it as well. Sanji is fully aware of this, but this rule is so ingrained in him that he can not and will not break it for anything.
- Sanji also straight up used this trope when, against the advice from his crewmates, gave food to starving and obviously evil pirates who then immediately attacked him. Sanji then said that he stood by his decision.
  - Because he starved almost to death as a kid starving is something he literally does not wish on his worst enemy. No exceptions.
- Also Whitebeard, who'd do truly outrageous and insane things to protect his sons. He is however opposed to rushing in half-cocked, and makes sure to use strategy and not just brute force.
In Fullmetal Alchemist, Edward turns down the opportunity to take the Philosopher's Stone and run, despite it being the one thing he's been searching for for three years. He leaves it, because the doctor who has the stone used it to heal injuries and sicknesses in his town. Edward says that he didn't want to take away the town's life support, and if he achieved his objective at the cost of others, then it would leave a bitter aftertaste. His brother agrees.
- Also, even to save his friends, Edward finds himself unable to shoot at anybody, even his virtually immortal enemies.
- Al (the manga version) on the other hand? Not so much.
This trope applies to a few characters from Bleach. Most prominently, we have the main protagonist, Ichigo Kurosaki, who in his most recent fight against the fourth Espada, Ulquiorra, was killed by his opponent, at which point his Inner Hollow took over and basically blasted Ulquiorra apart. When Ichigo recovers and sees that Ulquiorra is still standing, but minus an arm and a leg, he demands that he cut off his own limbs to make it a fair fight.
- Honor is one thing, but doesn't Ichigo know that limbs don't just grow back? You know dude, there are more important things to worry about than your own silly sense of a fair fight. Like, for example, the ENTIRE UNIVERSE!!!
  - Limbs have a funny habit of growing back when Orihime's around. He probably took that into consideration.
- Also, your friends. As in, making sure they are OK and getting them the f*** out of the enemy base they were sent to after being captured (your ORIGINAL reason for entering said enemy base).
- As well as this, we have Captain Jushiro Ukitake (a.k.a. Captain Tuberculosis), whose honorable ideals led to the death of his lieutenant, Kaien Shiba.
2nd Lt. Alice L. Malvin has made it her mission to help people and to repair the damage done to her nation by the recent war. This means that she will not hesitate to call out anyone who she sees as contributing to or aggravating that damage, up to and including The Emperor of her own country, regardless of how capable they might be of physically or politically squashing her like a bug.
Naja of World Destruction is guilty of this on several occasions, most notably when he and Lia escape from a sand submersible working together with the World Destruction Committee. After surfacing and reaching land, he has the chance to arrest them on the spot, but opts to let them go (much to Lia's frustration). After all, they had a deal.
In the seventh part of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Steel Ball Run, Ringo Roadagain is determined to make sure that not only is he aware of everything that could play a role in a duel; he wants his opponent to be likewise aware. There's actually a good reason for this—those duels are to help purify his spirit of uncertainty. If neither side has an advantage (and before you ask, although Mandom's good at saving Ringo's neck, it gives his opponent the same capacity to avoid Ringo's attacks), then he can be sure that his victories were genuinely deserved.
Tenma in Monster, although he distinctly cares about the "right thing" rather than any type of personal honor.
Theoretically this can also be applied to the Dai-Gurren team in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann because they tend to put everything before reason. Viral especially.

The protagonists of Sin City each possess this trait. Despite their violent and sadistic nature, they will still put their lives on the line and suffer greatly for the sake of those they wish to protect.
In Usagi Yojimbo, when a character makes a decision and says, "I am adamant!", that means literally nothing, especially death threats, will make them change their mind. For instance, a swordsmith said this in refusing to sell one of his swords to a brutish samurai and when threatened to be killed, he all but said, "Kill me if you want, but that just guarantees I won't sell you anything."
- Usagi sums up his feelings for this trope when he says "What fools we have in this world, that confuse honor for weakness."
Lobo is anything but honorable... except for one thing. If he gives his word, he does it. No questions asked. What he does after fulfilling his promise, though...
Lobo: The Main Man's Word is his bond.
More of a case of obsession before reason, but Rorschach from Watchmen has "Never Compromise" as his motto in the face or murderers and rapists, and the people who would stop him. This leads to his death as he refuses to allow Ozymandias to go free, despite that this would render the death of millions meaningless and restart the cold war.
In Rom Space Knight, the title character found himself in such a situation when he had captured a disguised Dire Wraith disguised as a human scientist, but her security staff, unaware of her true nature, had arrived to help her. The Dire Wraith dared him to banish her at the cost that it will appear he killed her and he would likely never be able to convince humanity of the truth. Rom considers this, but since a friend had sacrificed his life to free his main weapon, he cannot have that sacrifice be for nothing. So, he banishes her and prepares to deal with the consequences.
Yorick of Y The Last Man is like this for the first part of the series. Two major examples: He's the last living male human, yet tries not to cheat on his girlfriend who is half a world away. He comes across a town that's entirely populated by convicts from the near by women's correctional facility. Despite this, it seems to be one of the few nice places After The End and is actually very stable. Yorick wants to turn them in to the government.
- It should be noted that Yorick has a nasty combination of Survivor's Guilt and general Catholic Guilt, along with a variety pack of mental hang-ups, that cause him to do not necessarily what is right, but what is mostly likely to make people hate and want to kill him (Honor Before Survival, in other words).
Transformers: There was the time Optimus Prime allowed himself to be destroyed because of a video game that he and Megatron were connected to in order to decide a battle. A game that he'd won, but by taking several NPCs out with Megs — something he'd never do in reality, so he considered himself the loser.
Jubilee of the X-Men takes the superheroic code against killing to a foolish extreme in one story. While escaping from Operation: Zero Tolerance (who had been torturing her for days), she seriously injured one of the guards — and broke off her escape to perform CPR on him.
- That was a Crowning Moment Of Awesome.
  Jubilee: You wanna go around killing people? That's your choice. But don't think for a fraction of a second you're gonna make a murderer outta me.

When Ellen Ripley of Alien makes a promise, crosses her heart and hopes to die, you can bet your cocooned hide that no hive of monsters, snarling Alien Queen or imminent thermo-nuclear explosion will stop her from saving your life. And what Ripley Clone? Oh, that heartless, self centered emo-cynic bitch is just an alien-hybrid copy, not Ripley anyway.
Broken Arrow: Rather than forcing Vic Deakin (John Travolta), who is out of bullets, to disarm a nuke there and then, Riley Hale (Christian Slater) drops his shotgun and accepts his former friend's challenge to one final fistfight.
- Well, Vic is holding the remote control that can detonate the nuke in single click; if Riley's just being practical, the result can be disastrous.
Con Air: Cameron Poe (played by Nicholas Cage), one of only two decent human beings trapped on a prison transport aircraft populated by murderers, rapists and "every creep and freak in the universe", was a free man on parole who could have left the plane at any time to go back to his wife and daughter (who had never met him). Yet, the former Army Ranger in him would not allow him to "leave a fallen man behind," hence Poe gladly traded his freedom to save the life of his diabetic friend and the sole female guard eyed by the plane's worst rapist, "Johnny 23".
Luke Skywalker's unconditional love and faith in the humanity of Darth Vader, seen as at best stupid and at worst suicidal by the rest of the galaxy, was what saved his father and the Star Wars galaxy.
- Simultaneously giving us the second greatest Crowning Moment Of Awesome in the franchise, and setting his father up to give us the greatest one.
- Luke actually throws away his lightsaber so that he is defenseless against being tortured to death by Palpatine, rather than kill Vader and go to the dark side, making this what is possibly the Most Triumphant Example of this trope in all of fiction.
- Except, at least the part about Vader, it was hardly stupid — for a talented and trained Force Sensitive, it is far more reasonable to trust your feelings and instincts. Luke states on more than one occasion that he can sense the good in Vader, and there's little reason to doubt this is literally true.
In The Sound of Music, after the Nazi takeover, Uncle Max says, "Well, the Anschluss happened peacefully, let's at least be grateful about that." Captain von Trapp replies, "Grateful?!". As he was brought up as a part of Europe's old warrior-caste he probably took the fact that Austria submitted peacefully as a personal insult.
John Connor of Terminator 2 is another admirable example of this trope: he stops Sarah from killing Dyson even if it meant preventing Judgment Day, and his idealism allowed a war for humanity's future to be waged and won without murdering a single innocent human being.
- Well, at least until the movie that followed. And the movie that followed that. Though some people would prefer they didn't exist.
- Actually, if they would kill Dyson, they would lose any access to T-800's arm and CPU. Also, the rest of the machine was taken by military, so they didn't prevent Judgment Day, but delayed it, along with the deployment of T-600 and other sophisticated terminators.
Rambo from movie 2 onwards.
The most noble live-action example would have to be Indiana Jones in The Temple of Doom, who could have escaped with fortune and glory, instead got captured to save a helpless little boy from being whipped to death. Not the smartest of moves, yes; but any illusions of him being a heartless and cynical mercenary disappears at this point, and we cheer for him all the way as he saves all of the children and defeats the evil of Kali-Ma.
In the Disney adaptation of Peter Pan having given his word of honor to not fly in his final duel with Captain Hook, Peter doggedly refuses to do so even when Hook proves to be the superior swordsman, having forced him to the corner of a mast leading to a fall that can kill him.
William Turner of the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy is another suicidally selfless example of this trope. For an example, see the "You can't... I can," scene in the first movie. Even the initially selfish Captain Jack Sparrow seems to be infected by his idealism, and eventually obeys this trope as well. In Sparrow's case, though, he obeys the trope explicitly because he knows that it's the last thing people expect from him.
Norrington: You actually were telling the truth.
Capt. Sparrow: I do that quite a lot, yet people are always surprised.
- Norrington in Curse of the Black Pearl:
  Jack: Think about it — The Black Pearl? The last real pirate threat in the Caribbean, mate. How can you pass that up?
  Norrington: By remembering that I serve others, Mister Sparrow, not only myself.
In Batman Begins, when Bruce Wayne realizes Ra's Al Ghul's ninja clan is a den of insanely destructive fanaticism and refuses to help them inflict such harm on the innocent. When Ducard learns about Wayne's opinion, he dismisses it and Wayne has the perfect response to illustrate his honor.
Henry Ducard: Your compassion is a weakness your enemies will not share.
Bruce Wayne: That's why it's so important. It separates us from them.
- Furthermore, Wayne also vows to fight evil his way. Even though he is in this den of villainy, surrounded and outnumbered 100-1, he doesn't hesitate for an instant to start his war on crime on the clan.
Toward the end of the film Kingdom of Heaven, King Baldwin IV offers Balian his sister Sybilla's hand in marriage. Sybilla is already married to Guy de Lusignan, but Baldwin IV offers to have Guy executed to allow the marriage to occur. It seems like a no-brainer, as it would allow Balian to ascend to the throne of Jerusalem, it would allow him to marry the woman he genuinely loves, and it would allow Balian to have a dangerous political rival eliminated. Balian, however, refuses, his piety not allowing him to have any part in Guy's death. Guy is allowed to live, and after Baldwin's death, ascends to the throne of Jerusalem, immediately inciting a war that allows Saladin's troops to overrun and capture Jerusalem. Had Balian accepted Baldwin's offer, Jerusalem would've remained in Crusader hands.
- Of course, Balian realized long before anyone else did, that Jerusalem in Saladin's hands was not a bad thing at all, and in fact gives a passionate speech at the end of the movie not for the Crusaders to hold Jerusalem to their deaths, but in fact to lay down their arms and surrender for the glory of God. So he actually subverts the trope later.
  - Dear God. The real Balian of Ibelin must be turning over in his grave. Sybilla of Jerusalem too. Historically she rejected an Ibelin, Balian's elder brother Baldwin, to marry Guy de Lusignan who was a lousy King of Jerusalem but young, handsome and her true love. BTW exactly how is surrendering Jerusalem's Christian population to slavery if they can't pay ransom a 'good thing'.
In Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy, Tracy is kidnapped and taken to his girlfriend's apartment building's boiler room where Big Boy Caprice tries to bribe him. Although the smart thing for Tracy would be to pretend to accept the money and then turn it in to the Police Department as soon as he's let go, Tracy decides to throw it back in Caprice's face on principle. Of course, the Kid is watching all of this in hiding, waiting for an opportunity to help, and is really impressed at the detective's fearless honor, but there is no way Tracy could have known he had an audience.
Excalibur: Queen Guinevere has been accused of treason by adultery with Sir Lancelot, but not one person will champion her in Trial By Battle against Sir Gawain ... except the unarmored, untrained page Percival who appears to be operating either under the simple principle that the Queen must be championed, or The Dulcinea Effect. King Arthur knights him for this purpose ... although the battle is averted by the arrival of Sir Lancelot to take his place.
- Come to think of it, King Arthur refusing to champion his own wife against the accusation — on the basis he is king and must be her judge in this — is probably a potent illustration of Honor Before Reason.
The Beast of War (1988). The Pashtun rebels spare the life of the protagonist (a Soviet tank driver) when he appeals to their traditional code of Pashtunwali, which requires even an enemy to be given sanctuary if he asks. Though some of the rebels argue that the rules shouldn't apply to Dirty Communists who've learnt a single word of their language (nanawatai - sanctuary), the fact that he'd been left for dead by his comrades (and is willing to repair an RPG in order to blow them up in payback) is a significant factor in his defence.
The Sword, a short film by Pointy Stick Productions, appears to be built entirely around this idea. It features a boy with hundreds of opportunities to exploit flaws in the strategies of the Muslim invaders outside his castle wall, and an able-bodied monk in the castle that, with the boy's help, could at least match the invaders' fighting skills and shut the gate long before help could arrive for either side. This is made worse when the boy's father thinks it okay to go off and fight in the Crusades but doesn't think it important to teach anyone how to practically defend a castle nor work as a team. The fact that the castle is so oblivious how to defend itself save for its gate and that the villains in the forest, with all the accessible wood, don't think to build a flaming battering ram to take down that gate illustrates that the short film's producers really weren't all that concerned with historical realism. The one saving grace is perhaps that the monk successfully averts some films' certain beliefs about monks.
In Lord of War, agent Valentine will never break the law in order to arrest or stop Yuri Orlov.
Interpol agent: Let me make him disappear Mr. Valentine. Around here, people disappear all the time.
Agent Valentine: I can't do that.
Interpol agent: Look where we are. Who will know?
Agent Valentine: We will.
The Mangalores in The Fifth Element live this trope to the core, and it's used against them. When they have barricaded themselves in a room and demand to negotiate, Korben Dallas walks in and shoots the leader in the head, as Mangalores refuse to fight without a leader. This results in one of the mooks complaining, "No fair!", rather than shooting Dallas when they outnumber him five to one.
While O-Ren Ishii of Kill Bill is far from a good person, what with making her living as head of the Japanese underworld, she fights the Bride honorably, refusing to do the sensible thing and finish her off while she is on the ground. Honor doesn't really pay off against a Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
- Earlier (or later), The Bride had the perfect opportunity to finish off Vernita Greene, but but could not do the deed with Vernita's daughter present.
Inglourious Basterds: Sgt. Werner Rachtman is given an opportunity to save his life if he will disclose the location of a nearby German camp. If he refuses, Lt. Raine is gonna call up the Bear Jew. He refuses to put the lives of his fellow countrymen in danger. "Hilarity Ensues."
- ...And also a point about depravity being present on both sides.
Captain Miller's decision to let the German sniper live in Saving Private Ryan. Dumbass move with a capital D. But later, when Miller explains why he chooses Compassion Over Reason, you "almost" understand why he did it.
Captain Kirk and his crew decide that court-martial is a better alternative than not trying to rescue their friend in Star Trek III The Search for Spock.

Kel from Tamora Pierce's Tortall Universe. In particular, she goes into enemy territory with the intent of rescuing 500 refugees. By herself.
Horton The Elephant from Dr Seuss is an elephant of unshakable honor; once he gives his word, nothing will make him go back on it regardless of much danger, humiliation or rejection he suffers. Fortunately, his stories always end with him coming out on top because of this sense of honor.
Eddard Stark from A Song of Ice and Fire is a classic example. The series being highly cynical in outlook, this is a tragic flaw which leads directly to his own death, his daughter's captivity, and his son's armed rebellion.
- Eddard's son Robb Stark unfortunately inherits this trait. Despite his pledge to marry a Frey lady to seal his alliance with the Freys, he marries another woman, to save her honor after sleeping with her, shortly after Frey men died fighting for him, which eventually leads to his murder. So does Ned's bastard son, Jon. At least he does right up until he starts repeatedly doinking his wildling girlfriend, despite his vow of celibacy. Although to his credit, he was playing the Fake Defector at the time.
  - Yes, he was doinking her as a matter of sworn duty. Really.
Piers Anthony relies on this one a lot. Given that the promises are often given under extreme duress ("Swear it or I kill her" or "Swear it or I will never let you leave"), one might think the promises meant little... oh no. Even if it endangers the free world, or the universe, that promise will not be broken, no matter how much Angsting goes on because of it. Results in more than a few Wall Banger moments.
- Self-lampshaded in later books: male centaur "character" (the refusal to go back on one's word) is "stubbornness" to everyone else, especially to the level-headed and practical female centaurs.
  - Maybe for centaurs, but I've never seen a main character centaur yet, and every main character of his has this happen. "My word is far more important than thousands of innocent lives, even if my word was given under duress or through trickery."
- Remember, the Theory Of Narrative Causality is a law of physics to Piers Anthony. Breaking one's given oath will probably create more problems than it solves.
- This is actually subverted in his Mode Series. The villain, well aware that the male lead will never go back on his word, agrees to let them go free, if they agree not to interfere with his plans. What he didn't take into account was that the female protagonist and her psychic horse don't play by those rules and the moment they are free, the horse uses his powers to force said villain to relinquish his claim to the multiverse, thus trapping him in his own world. The male lead is upset about this, but ultimately can't do anything about it now.
Averted in His Dark Materials: It is Will's opinion that honor might make you feel important, but when fighting is a matter of life or death, you have to fight dirty.
- Especially when you're like twelve, and going against grown-ups.
In Empire of Ivory Laurence cannot abide High Command's act of sending a Typhoid Mary among the French aerial corps — an act which probably would win the war for England, but would just as likely also result in genocide among Europe's (and possibly Asia's) dragons. So, in an act he knows will see him hung, he steals some of the curative mushrooms they'd gathered from Africa, and goes AWOL to deliver them to the French. In a further act of Honor Before Reason, he turns down Napoleon's offer of asylum or safe passage to China, preferring to return to England and face the music. Temeraire, getting in on the act, refuses to let him return alone. Laurence urges him to return to China, because he knew Temeraire was destined to be used as nothing but breeding stock if he went back. He doesn't. And the book ends with them flying back together.
- This is quite heavily lampshaded by Admiral Roland in the fifth book when she points out how this verged on Lawful Stupid: he could have paid someone to take the sample stealthily to Napoleon and kept himself from being named a traitor.
Wanderer, a parasitic alien who co-inhabits the mind and body of a human named Melanie in The Host is very pro-life. She lies, badly and obviously, in order to protect the life of a guy who repeatedly tried to kill her. In fact, she's so pro-life that when she realizes that being a parasite on intelligent species is wrong, she would rather let herself die than be transplanted into another body and take away their free will. Fortunately for Wanda, her friends (a) disagee with that, and (b) found her a replacement body that was as close to her ethical standards as possible.
Carrot Ironfoundersson, the six foot dwarf (adopted) of the Discworld series is this to a "T". The weird part, though, is that, for Carrot, it works.
- Theory Of Narrative Causality is a fact of life in Discworld, so of course it's going to work.
  - But the weird thing is, if anyone else tried it, they'd get creamed. It only works for Carrot because he's, well, Carrot.
  - And it doesn't always work for Carrot — see the curb stomping he took in The Fifth Elephant, as he tried to fight Wolfgang "the proper way".
- Another Discworld example from Jingo: 71-Hour Ahmed got his name from averting this trope. In the desert people are obliged to give one another three days of hospitality; the bond between guest and host is sacred, and considered inviolate by even the most seasoned killer. Ahmed was the guest of a man he suspected of poisoning a well, and thereby killing an entire village. After seventy-one hours he had put together the evidence necessary to prove his host's guilt, and Ahmed saw no reason why justice should wait even one hour — and so his host became a head shorter. Ahmed became feared even by the D'regs, who despite being viewed as untrustworthy, bloodthirsty, and deceptive have their own code of honor.
  - "Carrot, what have I told you about the Marquis of Bloody Fantailler?"
Galad Damodred, from Robert Jordan's ~~12-book trilogy~~ Door Stopper fantasy series The Wheel of Time, always does what is right, no matter the cost to himself or others. His half-sister considers him loathsome for this reason. He also joins the series' version of the Knights Templar, which created similar opinions in readers. This actually works in his favor in Knife of Dreams when he challenges an opponent knowing that his opponent was the better swordsman only to win because his opponent was dragging out the fight to make Galad suffer. The result is that the Knights Templar now follow him.
- Also, there's the Ogier, who'll never go back on their word, a fact exploited by Faile in The Shadow Rising in order to force Perrin to take her with him to the Two Rivers.
Refreshingly averted in the Honor Harrington series (even though you'd be forgiven for mistaking the trope name for one of its titles): most main characters, while definitely being persons of honor, hold those who enter the Lawful Stupid territory due to this in the very low regard. Especially the title character, who once suffered a command officer that tried to use this trope to cover his incompetence.
- Honor herself is generally pretty honourable (appropriately enough!) — she just makes sure when she gives her word that she either really means to keep it or phrases it so carefully that she technically didn't break it (as in Honor Among Enemies).
Romance of the Three Kingdoms has Liu Bei, who nominally honors this trope (for political correctness' sake, apparently with Confucianism and thus this trope being en vogue). Subverted in that more than once he operates less than nicely, whereas other times Honor Before Reason's the reason that he's the protagonist.
- For example, his refusal to simply take over Jing province before Cao Cao's arrival, even when Zhuge Liang specifically calls him on it, is because it would be interrupting the "natural" succession to the eldest son of current governor Liu Biao, and he doesn't want to take any criticism from "the people" for it, even though Liu Biao himself requested this. (In an earlier case though, the late governor's officers and people begged Liu Bei to accept the succession, with the governor inadvertently helping by dying on the spot... and even then, he tries to give the office away to Lu Bu.)
In JRR Tolkien's the Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers, Aragorn makes a statement fitting this trope when the Brothers-in-Arms have gone into Fangorn in search of Merry and Pippin.
Gimli: Then what shall we do now? We cannot pursue them through the whole fastness of Fangorn. We have come ill supplied. If we do not find them soon, we shall be of no use to them, except to sit down beside them and show our friendship by starving together.
Aragorn: If that is indeed all we can do, then we must do that. Let us go on.
- In The Silmarillion, the Oath of Fëanor is particularly problematic: the eldest sons of Fëanor feel compelled to fulfill their oath, even though this means doing things which are not only counterproductive but which they know to be utterly wrong.
In The Dresden Files, the purpose of the Knights of the Cross is not to kill Denarians, but to save their hosts. They will give their foe every chance to surrender the coin, only killing the host if there is absolutely no other choice. And if the host does surrender the coin, their job is done, no matter how evil and vile the host may be, or how likely they are to seek another coin — their purpose is not to judge, but to give each host a shot at redemption. Oddly enough, it does seem to work out for the best: Sanya, Knight of the Cross and wielder of Esperacchius was a former Denarian host. However, also brutally subverted — Michael and Sanya walk away from a particularly nasty host who had surrendered his coin in order for his life to be spared. However, they didn't insist that harry do the same, and Harry, being the nice sort of chap he is, proceeds to break every major joint in the host's body with a baseball bat in order to extract important information and stop the host from escaping. And afterwards, the two Knights have a good laugh at the expression on the host's face when he realized he was left alone in a hotel room with a violently angry and vengeful man. The host deserved it many times over, but still, dick move Harry.
- On the side, they're especially amused by the fact that Harry gave the man a quarter to use the pay phone to call 911.
  Michael: Phone calls cost more than that now.
  Harry: I know.
  Everyone: (raucous laughter)
- Considering that said Denarian knew that the Knights wouldn't touch him because he surrendered the coin, regardless of the reason; then, before Harry beats the crap out of him, talks about how they tortured Shiro, the third Knight, and threatens Susan, the same woman Harry started a freaking WAR over... Of course, it deserves to be mentioned that the same Denarian host comes back two books later in Dead Beat while working with the main villains, and tortures Harry in an attempt to get Lasciel's coin.
- To a lesser degree, Harry himself. Despite Harry's repeated insistence he isn't a good person, he displays an alarming tendency to screw himself over to save others. Especially women and children.
Harry Potter: Come on guys... Cedric Diggory?
The entire novel of Don Quixote De La Mancha is a parody of the Chivalric Romance of Cervantes' time, including their obsession with honor.
Alice L. Malvin of Pumpkin Scissors insists on charging ahead and "destroying evil" no matter what the odds are against them. Even after she started using more reason after she was kidnapped, she stayed true to her ideals.
In Graham Mc Neill's Warhammer 40000 Ultramarines novel Dead Sky Black Sun, Uriel and Pasanius pursue their death oath until the bitter end although no one would know if they failed, and Leonid joins them, although the renegade Marines who join them for a time decide that it wasn't worth it.
In Sir Apropos of Nothing,, the titular Anti Hero has no use for honor, and often uses other people's honor against them in strange and awesome ways. Well, sometimes. Okay, when he's backed into a corner.
Another Warhammer 40000 novel example: Soul Drinker. Sarpedon's refusal to back down and let the Adeptus Mechanicus get away with stealing the Soulspear (which was the most sacred relic of their Chapter, and they had only just managed to locate it) led directly to their being declared Excommunicate Traitoris and finding themselves chased around the galaxy pursued by both Chaos and the Imperium, perpetually depleted and subject to shoot-on-sight orders.
- From the same series but applying to the Inquisition, there's their mandate to burn the records of any Chapter that goes rogue. Yeah, you want to ensure you can't track them or understand them in the future...why?
  - Most likly they keep copies and burn then after the chapters been whiped out
  - The Soul Drinkers have yet to be wiped out, and they are industriously wiping out their records.
In James Swallow's Warhammer 40000 Blood Angels novel Deus Encarmine, Stele indulges in Flaw Exploitation with this; because the Blood Angels believe they owe him, he sets into play a Xanatos Gambit to win them to Chaos. Unfortunately, he trusts it a little too far. When he hears a message had been sent bearing the id of a dead sergeant, he is flabbergasted: the Blood Angels regard tampering with the equipment of the dead as sacriligeous. He does not consider that it is forbidden except under the most dire circumstances and so does not investigate who could have gotten to the dead man's gear. Indeed, when the responsible Blood Angel confesses, those he confesses to regard it as very serious — but not so serious that even investigating it should take precedence over the news he had sent.
In P.C. Hodgell's Chronicles of the Kencyrath, the Kencyr peoples display this trait as a whole. Honor overrides reason and common-sense, although the cleverer Kencyr are very good at working out ways to keep within the Law while doing whatever they want.
In The Belgariad, the Arends have this as their hat. Mandorallen takes this to the extreme even for an Arend.
The Knights of Solamnia in the Dragonlance saga.
In GK Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday, Syme is certain he will be crushed by Sunday if he doesn't tell the police — but he's promised not to reveal anything he's learned. He knows how crazy it is, but does it anyway.
It was his last triumph over these lunatics to go down into their dark room and die for something that they could not even understand.
In Edgar Rice Burroughs's The Gods of Mars, a traitor offers John Carter his freedom in return for certain pledges, and even though he will die, and his friends and allies could really use his help, Carter refuses.
- In The Chessmen of Mars, when a man tries to lay hands on her while she is a prisoner, Tara stabs him, much to the horror of a slave woman.
  Lan-O, wide-eyed, looked with horror upon the corpse. "For this we shall both die," she cried.
  "And who would live a slave in Manator?" asked Tara of Helium.
  "I am not so brave as thou," said the slave girl, "and life is sweet and there is always hope."
  "Life is sweet," agreed Tara of Helium, "but honor is sacred. But do not fear. When they come I shall tell them the truth — that you had no hand in this and no opportunity to prevent it."
- In A Fighting Man of Mars, Tan Hadron rues this: John Carter refuses to strike first in any war, but his enemies, this time, had a Mad Scientist invention that caused ships to disintegrate and men to fall to their deaths, horribly; it had a short range, and Heliumite guns could have pounded the enemy ships to pieces before being in danger.
Doing this is the central theme of de Sade's Justine. It is, however, satire.
The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons. Alexander and Dimitri plan to desert during the Finnish War by volunteering to search for their commanding officer's missing son. When they really do find him while crossing the lines, Alexander insists they bring him back, earning Alexander the eternal gratitude of their CO, and the hatred of his friend Dimitri.
This attitude gets Bertie Wooster into (light comedic) trouble on a regular basis.
In Wen Spencer's Endless Blue, Paige says that they can't provoke a fight with the civ, as they are intelligent if primitive, Jones says that's inconvenient, and Paige says it's not supposed to be convenient.
Byrhtnoth Byrhthelming, hero of the Anglo-Saxon poem The Battle of Maldon (fought in 991, making this Older Than Print), has a horrible case of this: the Saxon army is on the mainland, the Viking enemy are on a marshy island with a one-man-wide causeway as the only way off, the Viking leader says that a really honourable opponent would let them cross and fight on open ground... and Byrhtnoth agrees. The Saxons are crushed and he dies.
A similar dilemma to the last John Carter example above lead directly to the utter destruction of a galactic civilization in the past of the Perry Rhodan universe: Segafrendo. Picture a galaxy very much at peace with itself and ably defended against external threats by scarily competent alien mercenaries who everybody knows can nonetheless be trusted utterly because of their adherence to a strict code of honor. A code of honor that, it turns out, prevents them from initiating any hostilities against others on their own no matter how much they might want to. Cue a massive invasion force from another galaxy showing up and clearly moving into the perfect position over multiple worlds for its own crippling first strike, all the while refusing to formally declare its intentions or fire a single shot until ready...
Sharpe's Honour, shockingly enough, features this as a major element. It starts with Sharpe fighting a duel over the honour of a woman he knows to be a traitor. Half-way through he's offered the chance to escape captivity, foil his nemesis and save the war for Britain, but refuses because doing so would involve breaking his parole (which he has not, at that point, given).

In the classic Star Trek The Original Series episode, "Spectre of the Gun", Kirk becomes increasingly desperate to escape the surreal nightmare Death Trap he and his landing party are thrust in. However, when the sheriff suggests he ambush the Earps to murder them, Kirk becomes nearly hysterical that he cannot stoop that low regardless of how dire the situation is. However, after the party figures a way to beat the trap, Kirk keeps to that same principle to spare the defeated Earps and that act impresses the aliens to not only let Kirk's party go, but also open up relations with the Federation. Thus by keeping to his principles, Kirk pulls a real victory out of the affair instead of mere survival. The same thing happens in "Arena" when he refuses to finish off the Gorn. Although by that point the Gorn wasn't in any shape to take advantage.
- Ironically, the outcome of "Spectre of the Gun" was due to Executive Meddling. In the original script, Kirk does let pragmatism trump honor, and shoots Wyatt Earp in the back. The aliens release Kirk not because they're impressed by his principles, but because, having read his mind, they know he believes in honor, and conclude that for him to have violated his own principles, he must be insane, and therefore not culpable for his actions.
Also prevalent in Star Trek The Next Generation, especially in the episode "I, Borg". Picard decides not to take a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to destroy the Borg, an entity that had cut through the galaxy like locusts, including assimilating Picard himself, because to use a newly individualized Borg against his race would be wrong. Somehow. Picard was severely reprimanded by his superiors for making that choice and, later, he admits that while what he did was the moral thing to do it may not have been the right thing.
In Star Trek Voyager Captain Janeway turns down many opportunities to get the crew home by refusing to violate the Prime Directive. The irony there is that her willingness to violate the Prime Directive in the first episode is what left the ship stranded.
In Firefly, Captain Malcolm Reynolds chooses to take in and shelter Simon and River Tam, despite the fact that having them on board increases the danger to his crew and actually puts all them in danger multiple times. When asked why he would do something so risky for people he barely knows when he seems like such a rational, cold-hearted bastard, he doesn't respond, tries to avoid answering altogether, or offers some flimsy excuse that everyone can see through quite clearly.
- Though this trope applies once they've become part of his crew, his reason for offering that protection in the first place probably come down to a simple Take That against the Alliance.
- The Big Damn Movie shows this in one of its more powerful scenes: After River's psychotic rampage, and when Mal is confronted with every rational reason to leave them behind, he still chooses to protect them and fight for them.
- Mal is still brutally pragmatic, though, especially when dealing with threats to his crew. Case in point: him kicking Crow into the ship's engine after he declared they would meet again in "The Train Job," or when he decided to shoot the Operative as soon as he said he was unarmed in Serenity. That's what we like about Mal: he has honor, but not stupid honor."
- Mal does make it a point to help out people who are in dire straits, though; in "The Train Job," the moment he finds out the cargo he stole is medicine for the dying villagers he chooses to return it. When the local lawman remarks that people have a choice to make when they find out the details of a situation like theirs, Mal's only response is that he feels they don't have a choice at all.
- Even Jayne has a few instances of this. One particular example is in "War Stories," where he outright tells the rest of the crew that going to rescue Mal from Niska's army of thugs is insane and a suicide mission. Later on, as everyone is preparing to go on the rescue mission, Jayne appears, fully loaded with all of his guns and ready to do his part. At the surprised look of the rest of the crew, his only response is a confused "What?"
- Jayne's sense of honor showed through in its own way; after betraying Simon and River Tam to the feds in "Ariel" and having to bust them back out due to getting pinched right long with them, he pleads with Mal not to let the others know about his dishonorable actions, even while he was faced with his own death by being Thrown Out The Airlock. That's the only reason Mal spared him.
  - It's also worth noting that Jayne could have easily left both of them there to distract the Feds and make a clean getaway, but he still helps them escape.
  - Maybe he just didn't think of it.
- Simon seems to do this more spectacularly then any of them and has a number of Crowning Moments Of Awesome about this. Oddly enough he is also once in a while shown doing Dirty Business as well because he is a Knight Templar Big Brother. Simon is in some ways a Knight In Shining Armor, compared to the rest of the crew, but he also has a bit of sour armor.
The Doctor could easily, easily wipe out the alien threat of the week, but he insists on giving them a choice, usually involving finding another world for them to settle on, free of intelligent life. It's only when they refuse that he shows them why that might have been a good idea.
- A perfect alternative example appears in the 1996 TV movie; a police officer is preventing the Doctor and his companion from reaching their destination. Time is running out, the entire planet Earth is at stake, and the Doctor doesn't have time to reason with the police officer. So he swipes the officer's gun. However, he is also not the kind of man who points guns at innocent people, no matter what the situation. So he points the gun at himself and yells "Now stand aside before I shoot myself!"
Helo on Battlestar Galactica.
- It would have been a lot more meaningful if the whole "disseminate a fairly-run-of-the-mill biological virus via a radio transmission" plan had made any sense whatsoever. That's an idea which would look stupid even on Star Trek, never mind a show like Galactica.
  - Except it did make sense, sort of.
In The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which tosses out the events of Terminator 3, both John and Sarah try to stop Skynet with no deaths. Cameron and Derek Reese don't share the same sentiment, however. If killing someone will complete the mission and possibly stop Skynet, they'll kill them in a heartbeat.
- That goes out the window at the start of the second season, when John is forced to witness a man attempting to rape his mother. Thou Shalt Not Kill comes to a crashing end when he breaks free.
- On the other hand, John refuses to destroy Cameron even after she goes berserk and tries to kill him. Everyone, even Cameron herself thinks that John should have destroyed her, but he refuses to, because he still trusts her.
  - Granted, we're getting to the point where "You Cannot Kill Summer Glau" should probably be its own trope now.
Subverted in The A Team. Even though the team usually fits the trope to a T, in one episode Hannibal secures the help of General Fullbright by promising to turn himself in if he assists him. Afterwards, Hannibal escapes and says "In war there are no promises; only strategy."
Subversion in Rome where Anthony, who is besieged in his palace with the (very) pitiful remaints of his guard, counts on this trope and challenges Octavian, his sworn enemy and leader of the Roman forces, to a one-on-one duel, knowing that he is easily the superior warrior and brags that he alone is going to win the war. Octavian's answer is looking at his general-staff and asking: "Is he completely nuts???" Anthony rather stupidly assumed in his drug-addled state that Octavian would give up a supreme tactical advantage just to avoid looking like a coward, when even if Octavian cared about that he could just kill anyone who heard about it.
- Rome also has a very interesting take on this trope with Lucius Vorenus. He is driven by his morals 100% and can think of nothing worse than dishonor. He stays loyal to Antony even after his death, prompting Octavian to comment: "The man turns loyalty into a vice". What makes Vorenus an interesting example is that he is so completely driven by his sense of honor and moral, but those don't exactly measure up with the ones we have today. He is, for example, prepared to kill the boy Lucius (his dead wife's bastard son) because "honor demands it".
Michael Westen from Burn Notice will stop at nothing to solve the problems of every and any passerby he meets. Even if he should be trying to figure out who burned him. Or if his appartment as just been blown up in an attempt to murder him.
- Michael Weston is a curious example of this. He lives among shady people and does not mind fighting dirty. Yet in a strange sort of way he always retains a gentlemanly side. Even if he would never admit it himself.
Duncan MacLeod in Highlander is another prototype example for this trope. He would accept any challenge, no matter what the the odds, only to prove his honor. He even explained it to Methos in an episode:
Duncan: Did you know Mencius?
Methos: Student of Confucius, yeah.
Duncan: "I dislike death, but there are things that I dislike more than death—"
Methos: "—therefore there are occasions when I will not avoid danger." Death before dishonor.
- Actually justified considering Duncan is a 16th-century Highland Clansman when such ideals were very much the rule.

As arguably Priam should have given Paris and Helen (who after all endangered their people for their personal pleasure) to the Greeks with his thanks, thus saving a whole lot of trouble, one could say that The Iliad is an example of this.

Subverted in Warhammer 40000, where this is practically the catchphrase of the Space Marines and the Imperium as a whole. Seems to be played straight at first glance, until you realize that the trope's basic description falls on the idealistic side of things, and is being played straight according to the Imperium... in a setting that runs on Black And Grey Morality.
The not-overly-great Marvel Superheroes RPG had this as a game mechanic. You couldn't use Mind Control in any circumstance without losing Karma unless you were a villain. If it comes down to mind controlling the villain to take apart his Aludium Q36 Planet Exploder versus permitting him to destroy the world, you'll take a Karma ding because you couldn't talk the monster to death. The power of Hypnotic Speech from one of the expansions leaves you literally no way out.
The godess Rondra and her church of the pen & paper RPG The Dark Eye are a fine example of this trope: Over the course of time Rondra degenerated from a godess of war into a godess of honor, going so far as to deem battles between armies and the art of war (strategy and tactics, that is) as "necessary evils" and only approving of one-on-one combats, which meet certain standards of honorable behavior. This development hasn't been without consequences in the game world itself: it has been mentioned, that army officiers tend to worship Hesinde (a godess of knowledge) or Phex (a trickster god of luck and wits) instead of Rondra. Not to mention Kor, a merciless god of bloodshed and mercenaries, who has a considerable amount of followers among desillusioned warriors. And it seems as if yet another god prepares to compete with Rondra and take over her old domain: Nandus, a god of reason, whose followers unsurpisingly prefer reason over honor.
High Compassion and Valour virtues in Exalted can create an ersatz form of this trope.
Virtues work this way in Scion. If a character wants to go against what their virtues would compel them to do they need to make a dice roll and fail to take the action, for example a character with Courage would have to fail a Courage roll to pass up on a fight with a dangerous opponent or willingly accept help from another person. If a Scion ignores their virtues too much they succumb to the virtue extremity and act out the extreme of the virtue.

This is the entire point of the plot of The Pirates of Penzance. In addition to the do-nothing-ness and ethics of the pirates, Frederic swears himself to killing all of his friends once his indenture is over because piracy is wrong. He interrupts the Major General's daughters stripping on the beach due to uh, honor. And when the Pirate King and Ruth reveal that due to his birthday, he's going to be indentured until 1940, they don't even try to enforce it on him — "we leave it to your honor."
- Hell, it's right there the subtitle -- "The Slave of Duty"
- Stripping? They intend to paddle in the water. So — take their shoes and socks off. Probably pull up their skirts a little, too. Then, he is a slave to duty.
Arguably, this is the tragic flaw of Brutus in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar - he doesn't want to accept that the people around him are not as idealistic and honorable as he is.
In Camelot this is the fork Arthur finds himself caught on when Guinevere is caught with Lancelot. As Mordred says (inexact quote), "Let her die and your life is over. Let her live and your life is meaningless."

Luke, the protagonist of Tales of the Abyss, starts off as being extremely self-centered and arrogant, but later he becomes near-suicidally selfless in an attempt to make up for his previous behavior, and holds true to the strength and ideals of humanity, opposing the fatalist views of the game's antagonists.
If Adell makes you a promise, he will keep it. If he has to go Beyond The Impossible in order to keep it (and at times, beyond even that), then so be it.
Rozalin: Fool! You are going to get yourself killed!
Adell: ... Don't worry. I won't die. I still have other promises to keep.
Subverted in Bioshock. Though initially Jack is told that the only way to get large amounts of ADAM is to kill and harvest the Little Sisters, Doctor Tenenbaum makes it a point to give Jack gifts for choosing the harder path of rescuing the Little Sisters, by giving him both large amounts of ADAM and unique plasmids. Considering how much more great loot you get from saving them and how little the difference in ADAM between saving and harvesting all the Sisters is (over the course of the whole game), choosing to harvest the little sisters would be a case of Sadism Before Reason. (Or you might do it just to hear the ending where the good doctor calls you out for being a jerk.)
- When you think about it, it certainly is strange that Atlas/Fontaine didn't just say "Would you kindly harvest that Little Sister." In effect, the only choice Jack has is the one that matters the most.
  - He rarely uses the phrase, "would you kindly". Given that there is no major practical consequence to Jack not harvesting the girls, I doubt he thought it worthwhile forcing him — if Jack fought the command, then he'd be a far less effective soldier, and he might just remove his radio.
In Samurai Warriors, Naoe Kanetsugu embodies this trope to a tee, Azai Nagamasa less so (who splits this with his love of Oichi). Interestingly, the Jerk Ass Ishida Mitsunari actually adopts this trope by his decisive battle at Sekigahara by refusing an officer's suggestion of a sneak attack on the enemy, and revealing in his ending that his friends' honor tropes actually rubbed off on him.
In Warriors Orochi, Pang De's version of this trope is so cliche that he's called out on this more than once — hilariously, when one asks him what his "way of the warrior" even means, Pang De's explanation is basically repeating the concept. It's especially off, and call-out-on-worthy, since he's on Orochi's side through Wei, particularly Cao Pi's aligning with Orochi. However, in the Battle of Shizugatake (Shu story) if the player manages to save enough Hojo officers and prevent defections he will recognize the conflict and agree to leave Wei/Orochi.
In the canonical ending of Jedi Knight, Kyle Katarn has Jerec disarmed and on his knees. Jerec tries to goad Kyle into killing him. Kyle responds by giving him his weapon back.
In the Warcraft Book Of Blood and Honor, the human paladin Tirion Fordring is an extremely honourable guy, saving a merciful elderly of a race which pretty much all of humanity was recovering from after being nearly crushed by them at the time - for which he was exiled for treachery, his wife refusing to take herself and their son into the ruin he made for himself. His magical powers were supposed to have been taken from his, though due to nature of his use of them, it is assumed that they were granted by moral righteousness - which has since been debated and argued about in true nature, due to World Of Warcraft.
Inverted in the Metal Gear series. Being a Stealth Based Game, Snake isn't averse to using every dirty, underhanded tactic in the book to incapacitate/kill/sneak past his enemies, and Mission Control encourages the player to employ these tactics at every possible occasion, while the villains always announce their presense and proceed to give Snake a (relatively) fair fight instead of Just Killing Him.
- How Vulcan Raven can possibly consider "Man on foot with pistol- in a MINEFIELD- vs. Tank" a fair fight is beyond this troper...
  - Well, Snake has destroyed entire armies of mercenaries and taken down a nuclear missile-equipped walking battle machine piloted by the single most badass soldier in history all by his lonesome. If anything, Vulcan Raven is handicapping himself by only using a single tank.
- The Boss from Snake Eater inverts and plays this trope straight. Her Xanatos Roulette ensured that she'd be dishonored and declared "the biggest traitor of this century," her personal honor keeps her from killing, and sometimes even passively helping Snake in his mission. This extends to her Cobra Squad, who were honorable in their fights against Snake despite their abilities, and preserve their honor by killing themselves at the end.
  - The End is a more pure embodiment, as he wanted "one last" honorable sniper battle. even if he gets the drop on you, he only ever knocks Snake out and drags him to an unlocked cell at a previous base instead of killing Snake.
In Army of Two, Tyson Rios makes it a point to try to bring the conspirators within Security and Strategy Corporation to justice, even going to so far as to force Ernest Stockwell, CEO of SSC to turn himself in once they rescued him. His partner, Eliot Salem, who is much more prgamatic and selfish, repeatedly calls him on his honorable nature, pointing out that the two are mercenaries.
In Quest for Glory 2, a fighter faces The Dragon in a climactic swordfight, and quickly disarms him. If he chooses to kill his unarmed foe, instead of letting him have his sword back, the game treats it as a dishonorable act... even though The End Of The World As We Know It is due to happen in a few minutes, if the hero doesn't get a move on. The VGA fan remake is even more extreme in this regard; giving the sword back leads to a truly Nintendo Hard fight. Apparently, The Dragon waits until after you show him mercy to bust out the really nasty moves.
- That, presumably, is what makes a paladin a paladin, a near-superhuman Bad Ass who fights honorably even when the situation demands speed, no matter what the stakes.
The Clans from Battletech suffer from this when they invade the Inner Sphere. One of the biggest reason for their failure is that the Inner Sphere refuses to fight to the Clans' rules, and actually takes advantage of the Clans' adherence to their code. Example: Clans traditionally begin battles with a challenge that states how many troops their committing to the assault, and asks the enemy what they're preparing to defend with (this actually makes sense for inter-Clan warfare; they're short on resources, so they want to keep battles small so as to minimize casualties and collateral damage). The Inner Sphere, of course, would lie. Later averted by most Clanners, who simply come to the conclusion that anyone who doesn't want to fight by the rules shouldn't be protected by them.
In Romancing SaGa, Lord Theodore is the leader of the Knights of the Dominion, and one of the few who still follows their code to the letter. Unfortunately, he's so convinced that he's the last bastion of justice and honor left in the Dominion that he constantly overcompensates for the failings of his kin, both real and imagined. Rather than leading by example, he becomes Lawful Stupid incarnate.
Saber in Fate Stay Night and Fate Zero has a pretty bad case of this. She knows her decisions are going to screw her over yet feels bound by her honor and rules of fair play. As an example in FSN, she charges the temple single handed after everyone agrees it's suicide to do so, is commanded not to go and is perfectly aware that at best she will be severely wounded. In FZ, she lets Lancer go assuming that he's going to kill her Master Kiritsugu and therefore remove her from the war. Why? One, she doesn't like Kiritsugu and two, Lancer just helped her out. He only lives because Lancer lives by the same rules.
- Naturally, in Fate Stay Night, she ends up the Servant of another person who is the epitome of this trope, Shirou.
While several characters from Mega Man X show signs of this, nowhere is it more apparent then in Colonel from the fourth game. By stubbornly refusing to allow his forces to be questioned by the Hunters due to his pride, he is hugely responsible for the Fourth Maverick War, which leaves himself, his sister and the rest of Repliforce dead. In fact, he is one of the few villains from that game who is completly unsympathetic.
- This Troper would disagree about the "completely" part, I suppose Your Mileage May Vary.
In Call of Juarez and especially the new sequel characters will come along and challenge the protagonist to a gunfight, which he accepts. Never mind they have easily pulled a Malcolm Reynolds style move and simply shot them as soon as they showed up instead of doing the whole showdown thing. In the second game they are already outlaws anyway and no one else is around to tell the tale later.
Angeal in Crisis Core, honorable as he is he gave us a warning early on.
Angeal: But I never stole from that tree, because the wealthy man's son was my friend.
Zack: If he was a friend, you should've just asked for some.
Angeal: Honor can be quite a burden at times.
- Long story short, It Got Worse.
In Dissidia Final Fantasy, The Onion Knight learns this as An Aesop, as, though it went against his otherwise perfectly rational motto of not taking on any foe he wasn't confident about, he found he had to fight on regardless if it meant rescuing Terra.
In Battle Arena Toshinden, the French gentleman-fighter Duke refuses to attack prone and vunerable opponents, because of his insistence on fighting like a gentleman.

Tales of the Questor is filled with this trope, and just reading the comic would be faster than listing every case. Some noteworthy examples include taking on a rat-king on his own with nearly suicidal results, freeing a thief he believed would be punished remarkably severely, feeding said thief after she tried to steal from him, and being polite and friendly to humans he had little reason to trust. When Quentin reveals himself to the villagers to help fight the evil Fey lord, his honorable behavior he displayed at the farmer's home comes into play when that farmer speaks up and tells the crowd that he trusts the Racoonan hero. Even more recently, attempting to draw the attention of said evil Fey lord to protect a bunch of humans earned him three wishes.
- However, Honor Before Reason is nowhere to be found when he makes those three wishes. He — as a narrator — tells us that even one carefully-worded wish could ruin a fae. When he's done making his three, the evil Fae Lord is utterly boned. Then again, perhaps he is showing honor — by protecting the mortal realm by turning their nemesis into the fae version of a penniless vagabond, especially when he could have wished for all his grand quest items to allow him to return home in triumph.
  - It may not be immediately obvious, but most of his Honor Before Reason behavior is attributable to his own naïveté. Taking on a rat-king alone was a matter of being in a hopeless scenario. If he ran, the shadow rats would have overwhelmed and devoured him anyway. He helped the thief in question less because of honor and more because he's a soft touch. As to wishing for the Fae Lord to retrieve all the quest items for him, that was a little bit above the Fae's pay grade (they're powerful, not omnipotent or omniscient). Phrasing the wishes just right to avoid a backlash would have required a platoon of lawyers, and even if the Fae had granted the wish he would still have been left with a very powerful and very ANGRY Fae Princeling ready to squash him like a bug. His three wishes were phrased so as to minimize the damage the Fae Princeling could cause. He is largely oblivious till after the fact what a perfect storm of bankruptcy his wishes have caused the Fae Lord in question.
- Honor and Reason go hand in hand when he takes on his current quest. He acts with Honor by fulfilling an ancient contract to save a village, which is very reasonable because his home is at stake with the rest of the village.
The Order of the Stick: Lord Soon of the Sapphire Guard swore an oath of non-interference regarding the Snarl's Gates, other than his own. This was a good idea at the time, to prevent infighting from spoiling old friendships. However, all the paladins of the Guard still consider themselves bound by this oath, even though those to whom it was sworn are (probably) all dead, and seizing the Gates before the Big Bad does is the key to saving the multiverse. Nevertheless, the oath takes precedence over the paladins' drive to oppose evil wherever it be found. This forces Lord Shojo to get creative, and hire the title party to investigate the Gates instead.
- On the other hand, this led to O-Chul being able to completely avoid compromising ANYTHING about the other gates. This is lampshaded by Redcloak, who remarks with frustration that it is absurd for generations of paladins to wilfully sabotage their own ability to perform their duties, all for a silly promise. A (literal) lampshade is then promptly hung around the lampshade itself.
- No longer true. A leader of the paladins eventually offers to help the Order of the Stick in their quest, if only by covering one of the remaining gates when the main characters go to find the other. He explains that with Lord Shojo dead and their former home city occupied, their entire military order is effectively disbanded, so they're free to help the heroes as individuals if they want.
- Durkon declares he and Hilgya must part because they must do their duty [1] — followed by Manly Tears.
Vashiel from Misfile is a prime example of this trope and firmly on the "Lawful Stupid" side of the scale.
Flipside has one ongoing example and one example that crosses over with Refusal of the Call.
- The Knights of La-Shoar have a strict policy on anything that goes against "Natural Law", policies that have become defacto law in their territory - at the top of that list is magic. Any magic, from healing magic to offensive spells to charmed items. Not only does this put their kingdom at a disadvantage (Every other major power makes open use of magic), but they know it. But refuse to change their ways at all.
- Lady Of War Bernadette jumped through every ridiculous hoop The Knights put up to test her "suitability" to be one of their numbers. They had to be sure she wasn't "cheating" or just getting lucky when challenging other knights. (As if her taking down an Artifact Of Doom-wielding psycho who'd carved through their ranks wasn't proof enough.). This has been Bernadette's life dream. And just when the elder Knights formally ask Bernadette to join them... she turns them down. She chose to come out of the closet as Maytag's lover, rather than be forced to deny her as a knight. (Homosexuals also being against "Natural Law") Note that Bernadette and Maytag were very much on the down low before Bernadette's moment and Maytag would've been perfectly happy to keep it that way.
In Two Kinds, this trope is the Basitin hat, to the point that they're biologically tuned to accept and obey orders, even clearly self-destructive ones. (Keith's ability to disobey is considered "proof" that he's "broken and unfit".)
Villainous example: The Wizard's Apprentice in El Goonish Shive. He swore to his mentor and God that he would kill all of the Dewitchery Diamond's spawn, which previously had all been monsters. Now that he's discovered that Ellen is not a monster but instead an Opposite Sex Clone who has done nothing wrong, well, he feels really bad about it, but he takes his oaths very seriously.
In Castlevania RPG, Katrina has been harassing Shaft (one of Dracula's lieutenants), convinced his take over of a villiage (he was elected mayor through no trickery on his part) is part of some master plan of villainy. In exasperation, Shaft removes the curse he'd placed on her years ago (the one that turned her into a Cat Girl), thinking that would shut her up. It made her angrier, since she was convinced she had to "earn" the curse's removal through good deeds and demanded Shaft re-curse her. (He does - again, just to shut her up).
Sir Muir in Harkovast pretty much personifies this trope.

Neil Sinclair of Survival of the Fittest fits this trope. The primary example of such behaviour is trusting Dominica Sharpiro by offering her a place in his Pro escape group, despite knowing, for certain that she earlier killed another group member who became separated from the others.

Samurai Jack insists on defending others from evil, even when it means passing up a chance to return to the past and undo the original cause of the evil.
In the Gargoyles episode "The Gathering", Goliath decides to have himself and his clan help their enemy, David Xanatos, stop the godlike Oberon from abducting his child on pure principle, considering they owe the billionaire absolutely nothing. Although it's obviously a difficult and dangerous task, Goliath is instrumental to making Oberon compromise to allow the child to stay. As a result, Xanatos then feels he owes the clan big time, which leads him to inviting them back to the castle to live safely after they are exposed to the public.
Optimus Prime in Transformers Generation 1 always was an honorable fighter. Particularly in the episode "Heavy Metal War", when Megatron challenged Prime to single combat. Megatron, of course, cheated by transferring all of the special abilities of the Deceptions to himself. Even though Megatron was clearly doing things he could not possibly do (teleport, fire null rays, etc.) Prime accepted defeat. At least, until Teletraan-1 pointed out what a cheating bastard Megatron was.
- Many of the older comics and some of the new ones use this to mark the difference between Optimus Prime and other Autobot leaders such as Grimlock, who's not as honor bound, more ruthless and willing to do whatever is necessary for a victory. Yet that same honor, similar to Captain Carrot (see Literature, above) is what allows Prime to make things work that others simply wouldn't. Through patience, a few Peter Cullen Speeches, and honorable behavior throughout, Prime manages to convince a Decepticon commander that his surrender to the Earthbound Deceptions is not a sign that the "great Optimus Prime" actually is and always was a coward or a weakling, but rather that he genuinely believes that only by uniting can they stop a greater threat.
Hey Arnold! Honorable: Refusing to sign a lucrative advertising contract after overhearing the advertisers insulting you behind your back. Reasonable: Refusing to sign... while exposing their misdeeds so that you won't be branded an idiot for not signing.
Slightly subverted in ReBoot. Enzo has returned home to Mainframe, all grown up, big, strong and gunning for Megabyte, both literally and figuratively. When confronted by Enzo's gun, Megabyte taunts him into fighting like a "real sprite". Enzo puts away his gun...but then proceeds to send Megabyte flying with a punch hard enough to dent his chest, before Megabyte has a chance to prepare. And he then proceeds to do it again while Megabyte is still recovering from the first attack.
Elisa from Dead Space Downfall was more so worried about helping the survivors (whom might already be infected) then quarantining the ship. Her captain might have been nuts but he actually made SOME sense. Could also be a case of Compassion Before Reason.
- You have to be dead in order to be infected, but still there was at most 20 people out of 2000 left alive and going crazy.
Played straight and then subverted during an episode of the Iron Man animated series. Tony Stark agrees to get an artifact from a booby-trapped tomb if Madame Masque will release his kidnapped workers. She releases Julia Carpenter (Spiderwoman) who will send the Iron Man armor but keeps the other workers captive. Julia says that she will send down the armor "and a lot more", but Tony stops her because he has given his word. The trope is subverted almost immediately afterward. Once, Iron Man has entered the tomb, Julia convinces Jim Rhodes (War Machine) to attack Madame Masque and her minions anyway, arguing that the only chance the hostages have is if they attack their captors off guard.
The Doom Patrol in Teen Titans are made of this trope; so much so that they come across as arrogant whe they refuse to let the title characters join them on a potential suicide mission. This trope is also subverted in that the Teen Titans end up undoing all the Heroic Sacrifices the Doom Patrol made offscreen.
Omi in Xiaolin Showdown actually pulls a Face Heel Turn because of this trope. I mean, just... what the hell was that?
Subverted in a strange way in a The Powerpuff Girls episode. Mojo has Blossom in a bind by having the Professor and her two sisters hostage. He demands Blossom's fealty and tries to use her honesty against her.
Blossom: What do you want?
Mojo Jojo: First, you will bow down before me! Next, you will pledge your allegiance and devotion to serve me!
Blossom: How do you know I won't lie?
Mojo Jojo: Because you're Blossom.
Blossom: Shoot!
The Simpsons: Lisa turning down a fortune after finding out what Mr Burns had turned the recycling company he and Lisa had started into. What she could've done with twelve million.
- At the cost of her allowing Burns to cause devastating environmental destruction as he horrifically perverts her ideals. That's not a matter of honor, but of conscience.
  - It happened anyway. Instead Burns KEEPS the money to do evil with and she has nothing.

Pope Pius XII hiding thousands of jews IN THE VATICAN! Noble, but not the safest move...
- The Vatican was safe. Italians respect the Padre.
- It was, if this troper's not mistaken; the Vatican was "off limits" for both Hitler, Mussolini and the war. Of course we're talking about Hitler here.
Oskar Schindler, the obvious example.
- The worst of the Holocaust began just about as the Russo-Finnish war did; I strongly doubt it would have mattered more to Marshal Mannerheim than did Stalin's crimes to Churchill. The presence of German officers commanding Finnish troops did create a bit of difficulty resolved by their physical separation from any unit containing Jews.
At the Battle of Gettysburg, Confederate General Richard Garnett was still suffering from a leg wound, making him unable to walk any distance. He refused to sit out of his divisions charge because he had previously been accused of cowardice by Stonewall Jackson, but had never gotten the chance to defend himself before the latter's death. Since he couldn't walk, he had to ride a horse which made him the perfect target. His division? Pickett's.
- Also at Gettysburg, during the initial artillery barrage by the Confederates and their infantry assault, Union General Winfield Scott Hancock sat atop his horse in plain view. His response when being asked by his men to get down was, "There are times when a corp commander's life does not count." He was later shot and injured, but refused to be removed from the field.
  - Also at Gettysburg, during the battle of Little Round Top, after hours of constant Confederate infantry assaults, the Union divisions atop the round top (notably the 20th Maine regiment) ran out of ammunition. Taking command after Strong Vincent's death was Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. He ordered a bayonet charge straight down into the Confederate lines as they charged again. The Confederates surrendered in droves.
- Also General Robert E. Lee, although ideologically opposed to slavery and the cause of the South, refused to be a Northern General because he would not take up arms against his home state of Virginia.
The Knights of Medieval Europe, and their code of chivalry, viewed retreating as dishonorable and would try to avoid it as much as possible. Naturally, the Mongolians had no such scruples, and time after time, a feint retreat would cause a group of heavily armored knights to chase a much faster lighter armored Mongolian light cavalry unit to the brink of exhaustion, only for the knights to find themselves surrounded, and then the knights would get picked apart
The United States' Libertarian party is one of the more highly visible Third Parties, but wields no real clout. Partly due to their platform lacking popular appeal. But their inability to gain power can be most attributed to their complete unwillingness to compromise their principles in the political game.
- Not to mention trends they started being Hijacked By Hannity. For eight years, they protested the income tax under George W Bush, and were called traitors to their country. Now that a Democrat is in office, the Republicans have usurped control of the so-called Tea Parties, and are praised as being "true patriots".
- Basically the only thing they have that's attracting to new young voters is their stance on the decriminalization of cannabis.
The World War II era Japanese Imperial Army's soldiers preferred death to surrender because of the dishonor it would bring and banzai-charged or committed suicide when they realized they couldn't win a battle.
- Medieval era Japanese samurai can be seen as an even more extreme example, with their entire lives being lived strictly according to what is most honorable, and then ending their life by charging into the Jaws of Death because their lord commanded it, without a second thought. Of course, the only alternative is to become a ronin, So Yeah
In Cicero's "On Duties," he talks of a Roman who had been captured by Carthage during the Punic Wars. He was sent back to Rome to negotiate a Roman surrender, with the promise that he would return once his embassy was complete. If he was unsuccessful, the Carthaginians would kill him. Cicero relates that the man went to Rome, argued long and loud AGAINST a surrender, and then returned to the Carthaginian camp, where he, true to his word, accepted his execution at a Carthaginian sword.
Bulgarian colonel Vladimir Seraphimov, who during the 1st Balkan war advanced way ahead of the main army with his 21st regiment, and found himself facing the Turkish army corps of Javer pasha numbering between 15000 to 20000. When ordered to retreat, his word to the HQ were "We will die to the last man but we will not retreat! We cannot leave to the Turkish mercy the villages that yesterday greeted us as liberators!" He then led the entire regiment in frontal assault with the regimental orchestre playing the anthem, defeating the vasty superior enemy force. During the Second balkan war, colonel Konstantine Velikov Kavarnalief, with two regiments — the 32nd and 42nd, goes head on against 6 greek divisions numbering 42 000 and led by the Greek king Konstantinos I. He held their advance for an entire week, and with no reinforcements available, led a final bayonet charge against the greeks, pushing them back once more but getting wounded in the attack. He refused to leave the positions and died of bloodloss because the wound did not seem serious(to him at least ).
In New Zealand about 10 years ago, much was made of a 15 year old student who received their School Certificate results (the national assessment at that time) and found that they had been given a higher mark than they had earnt. They sent the paper back to the national examiner to have the mark corrected on their record.
A minor example, but Muhammed Ali refusing to be drafted in a way that he did not believe, and not only being sent to jail, but being stripped of the World Heavyweight Boxing Championship that no-one had ever come close to taking from him in the ring.
Double example: During a war between Ancient Greece and Rome, the doctor of Greek King Pyrrhus sent a letter to the general of the Roman army, Fabricus, asking how much Fabricus would pay to have the king assassinated. Fabricus had the letter passed on to Pyrrhus, with a note advising him that he was "at war with honest men and allied with the wicked and unfaithful". Pyrrhus had the doctor executed, and as a mark of respect for his opponent, set his prisoners of war free without ransom.

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