If You Kill Him You Will Be Just Like Him - Television Tropes & Idioms

Damn it Luke, your parents would not be proud. Wasn't your father happy when you showed him that you weren't going to make his mistakes?

"Robo captain, do you not realise that by destroying the human race because of their destructive tendencies, we too have become like, well it's ironic, because we..."

"Silence! Destroy him!"

Flight of the Conchords, "The Humans are Dead"

If you take a life, do you know what you give?

Odds are you won't like what it is

Chris Cornell, "You Know My Name" (opening theme to Casino Royale)

Very traditional line spoken as the hero has the villain in their power. It could be said by the hero, the former Distressed Damsel, or even the villain themselves if they're aware of the rules of the trope. The goal is to evoke a Not So Different moment.

The most common situation involves the villain hanging over a cliff or building, and the hero deciding whether to drop them or lift them up. Also common is the villain's attempt to pull the hero over the edge after they decide to let said villain live, resulting in the hero accidentally losing their grip, and the villain getting a Karmic Death that isn't the fault of the hero.

Note, for some reason, this form of heroic morality only counts for the head villains. The hero may have consciously wiped out scores of Evil Minions and Mooks to get to this point, some in deliberate ambushes. None of them count, probably because that was technically in self-defense, and to get in that Dramatic Pause that occurs during instances of this trope, the scene doesn't look much like self-defense. See What Measure Is A Mook for more on this.

Note also that so very very few heroes answer this challenge with a simple 'The difference between me and you is I'm going to kill someone guilty and you've been murdering people who were innocent.' And this makes the trope a Broken Aesop . Unless the story is trying to bust out the Idealism extreme of the Sliding Scale Of Idealism Versus Cynicism the Villain will most certainly not see the error of his ways, and by allowing him to live because you'll be as bad as him makes you kinda worse than him, as he'll make another world-wide incident where tens of thousands die.

Note that in most cases in which the situation plays out exactly like this that doesn't involve a Karmic Death also involves not bringing the villain to any other form of justice whatsoever. That is, unless the hero personally administers Cruel Mercy, which may in fact be worse than having simply killed them.

Contrast with Kill Him Already. Compare with Save The Villain and Sword Over Head. Anti Heroes are exempt from all four.

The Dog Bites Back and Disney Villain Death may be used to evade the consequences.

See If You Taunt Him You Will Be Just Like Him for when the stakes involved in this situation are notably lower.

Examples

Anime and Manga

Subverted in the Berserk anime, when Guts takes out his first major enemy (on-screen, not chronologically). The demon begs for mercy and Guts immediately reminds him that this is precisely what all of his victims did, and subsequently kills him.
In Death Note, Ryuk tells Light that if he kills all bad people, then he himself will be the only bad person left. Light deflects this entirely, because his perspective is godawful.
Subverted to some degree in The Daughter Of Twenty Faces as the eponymous "Twenty-Faces", a Gentleman Thief who's primary concern is "reclaiming treasures from pigs", practices a code of not killing anyone, even police or competitor Mooks, in the process of a heist and even avoids hurting anyone if at all possible and demands the same from all those who work with him; he even gets Hot Blooded, Knife Nut Ken to back down from returning fire against a competing criminal who is attempting to steal the gang's loot. The show then subverts the entire trope again, however, in episode six where everyone, even Twenty, must either kill the rival gang attacking them or they themselves will be killed.
Suzaku in Code Geass remarks that he won't stoop to using drugs to interrogate Kallen because it would make him akin to Zero. Also, this may or may not count, but in the battle with V.V., V.V. tells Lelouch that he's becoming more and more like the Emperor, who he's out to destroy in the first place.
- Rather than just remarking on it, it's much more a Near Rape Experience that he halts when he realizes he's using the line attributed to Zero: "You will follow my orders."
Goku of the Dragonball series never killed his enemies (until it became totally necessary, which was somewhere around Frieza). As Future Trunks revealed when he first arrived, this could come back to haunt everyone.
- On the other hand, Goku tends to inadvertently benefit from his own stupidity. For example, two of the seemingly irredeemably evil foes that Goku spared made improbable Heel Face Turns to become his most powerful allies.
Saji Crossroad's justification for not pulling the trigger on Setsuna F Seiei in Gundam 00, although it remains to be seen how long he can hold on to his convictions.
In Fullmetal Alchemist, several characters attempt to keep Roy from killing Envy. At least Riza has no qualms about executing him and offers to shoot Envy herself, but they all agree on the detail that subjecting him to horrible torture first is taking it a step too far.

Comics

Batman seems to find himself in this predicament fairly often. Seen recently in the Crisis Crossover Infinite Crisis, when he very nearly blows the head off of Lex Luthor's Alternate Universe doppelganger and (of course) relents. 15 years ago, he nearly did the same to Nineties Anti Hero the Reaper, and this happens maybe half the times he goes up against the Joker. This is subverted in Batman The Animated Series in "Batgirl Returns," while in an Enemy Mine situation: Batgirl tells Catwoman "if you let him fall, you're no better than he is!" Catwoman replies "Oh, grow up," and drops the guy anyway.
- Also subverted at the end of the climactic fight with Ra's al Ghul in Batman Begins. The showdown aboard an out-of-control train ends with Ra's beaten and at Batman's mercy. He wonders aloud if Batman has "finally learned to do what is necessary." Bats responds perfectly: "I won't kill you...but I don't have to save you," as he bails out and leaves Ra's to his fate.
  - However, it was upheld a couple of times in The Dark Knight, most notably in the scene where The Joker dares, nay demands, Batman to run him over with his Batcycle, and the ferry sequence — "I'm gonna do what you shoulda done ten minutes ago!" But then again, the film is in part a rumination on the theme.
  - More to the point, this trope is a significant part of the conflict between Batman and The Joker in The Dark Knight. The Joker actually wants Batman to kill him, specifically to fulfill this trope.
  - In the audioplay of Batman: Knightfall, Dick Grayson (Nightwing), and Tim Drake (Robin), come upon Bruce Wayne just as he has apparently killed the Mook who was attacking him. An outraged Nightwing declares: "killing this creep doesn't make you as bad as the slime we used to fight, it makes you worse." Of course, it turns out Bruce had used a move that makes the victim appear to be dead for a little while..
Darkman ends with the hero dangling the villain off a building. The villain goads Darkman into killing him and then explains why Darkman won't let him fall, asserting that he could never live with himself. Needless to say, down he goes. "I'm learning to live with a lot of things," mumbles Darkman.
Subverted in Birds of Prey #73, when Vixen thanks Huntress for "not giving in" and executing evil cult-leader Sovereign Brusaw, to which Huntress replies "Don't thank me....The truth is, my crossbow jammed."
Kremlin references the trope in Ex Machina Special #2 and states how he thinks such is an out of date, fairy tale ideal.
Averted/Played with in AtomicRobo when A now elderly Skorzeny informs him that he was the one that killed Nikola Tesla, Robos creator, during WWII, and he did it to steal the mans inventions to use against Robo, who was at the time serving in the US Army. Robo picks up a gun, aims... and then puts the gun away, informs the Nazi that he knows he's dying of cancer, and that he won't be dying like a soldier, instead dying alone, in a hospital bed, in agony.
Superman's long lived in fear of sliding down this slippery slope, and, in the Silver Age Alternate Continuity story "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow", it comes to pass when Superman, in order to save himself, his remaining friends, the world and possibly the entire universe, is forced to deliberately kill the villainous Mr. Mxyzptlk. While everyone else tries to convince him that his decision was clearly justified, he refuses to take the risk, cites this very reasoning as a condemnation of his actions, and so carries out a promise that if he should ever take a life, it would be the end of Superman. As it turns out, he fulfills his promise by stripping himself of his powers and living the rest of his life as an anonymous human, which actually gives him a happy ending after all.

Film

The Emperor tries to get Luke to try to kill him in order to corrupt him at the climax of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi; it is not clear whether he was confident that Luke wouldn't actually be able to do so, or was genuinely prepared to die to ensure that the Empire would be in good (that is, evil) hands. (The Expanded Universe comic Dark Empire introduced a third explanation by claiming that he had a near-endless supply of cloned bodies ready for him to transfer his soul into if he were killed. Supposedly the only reason this didn't work is because the Death Star's destruction forced him to travel much further to find a body he could possess, or something like that.)
- I guess he kept them downstairs, inside the Death Star ...
  - Possibly. It is indicated that most of the time he had plenty of warning when he was going to die—it was from his bodies rotting, not his being actively killed by someone, so he would go to where they were stored and switch at that time. Since "Everything is unfolding as I have foreseen", if there was any muddying about whether or not he lived he probably would have kept some clones nearby...which would have themselves gone up when the Death Star blew.
  - Palps appearing just after being killed would definitely have been a hit to Luke's morale. He could have been activating a clone right as the Death Star blew up! Lando Calrissian and Wedge Antilles had excellent timing.
  - Actually, can't we just discount this whole clone/soul thing as being really stupid?
- The obvious explanation is that the Emperor only wanted to provoke Luke into trying to kill him to force him into battle with Vader, so that Luke would kill Vader, fall to the dark side and become Palpatine's new apprentice. This is actually exactly what happened (except for the "kill Vader, fall to the dark side and become Palpatine's new apprentice" part).
  - The Emperor could also have been aiming for an Obi Wan Moment kind of death. Turning Luke to The Dark Side and becoming a Force ghost would've been a brilliant move.
- In Star Wars, the trope is actually justified (though only for Force users) due to the unique nature of The Force. The Dark Side is highly addictive, and killing in anger, no matter how much the target may deserve to die, is one of the most extreme Dark Side actions a Force user can take. On the other hand, if a Jedi is completely calm, unswayed by anger or fear, they can kill without risk of falling to the Dark Side. Presumably the Emperor thought Luke wasn't strong enough to be capable of killing him without tapping into the Dark Side, otherwise his taunt would've been meaningless.
  - This raises another problem: what happens to completely sociopathic Jedi who kill innocents routinely without emotion?
  - I... have no idea. Though sociopathy and the like is more said to mean you just don't care about other people and opposed to having no emotions... so let's assume sociopaths within Star Wars will still enjoy the killing, which will make them go down into the Dark Side.
  - Sociopaths wouldn't be very good with the Force, considering you have to feel, not think, to use it. The Dark Side is raaaaaaaaaaaaaaage. The Force is life, feeling, warmth, emotion, candy bears, etcetera.
  - There was an Expanded Universe novel where a rather wimpy Jedi encountered two Mandalorians, one of them a perpetually detached sociopath with a beloved evil pet and the other an angry psycho; the psycho was supposed to be more sympathetic, though both of them were on her side. In the narration, she does feel surprise because the sociopath's detachment is what Jedi are supposed to feel.
- The second explanation can be justified, too; in another Expanded Universe book, it's revealed that the Emperor owns a cloak made with Green Rocks spun into it.
- The same comics series that gave us clones of Palpatine also showed us Luke, overwhelmed, deciding that he could switch sides and serve the reborn Emperor, learning more about the Force and getting into position to take down the Emperor, all while secretly staying a good guy. ...He failed. Interestingly, Palps gave him his father's position - as his apprentice and as the Empire's Supreme Commander - and clothes a lot like Vader's◊, though without the life support or the helmet. Luke was even redeemed by his sister following him. And before falling he even survived a battle over Coruscant and landed a gigantic ship with few casualties! Just like him indeed - though honestly, Luke fell as soon as he realized that Palpatine was too strong for him, no Xanatos Gambit needed.
- In issue 8 of the comic series Star Wars: Legacy, Moff Calixte upon being threatened by Emperor Roan Fel, remarks "Striking down an unarmed person in anger? Isn't that what the Sith do? And you abhor the Sith ... your Majesty." Fel lets her live.
- Also brought up in the Expanded Universe novel The Bacta War, by Michael A. Stackpole. Fliry Vorru, a criminal mastermind who had been picked up off a prison planet in order to cause a disturbance, surrenders to a pair of revolutionaries, and then proceeds to taunt them with all the suffering he's caused, and the knowledge that he'll be able to blackmail his way to freedom. The more vicious of the pair, Elscol, shoots Vorru, only to find out that the other, Iella, had set her blaster to stun. Iella explains: "He expected you to burn him down. It would've been his victory, because you would have killed a man who had surrendered, making you no better than he is." They then arrange to drop him off on the same prison planet that he'd been picked up off of before he gets a chance to blackmail anyone.
Very conspicuously subverted in the 2004 Punisher film. Frank Castle's roommate and love interest, as he's about to storm the Big Bad's Hideout, "So you kill them all. Then what? What makes you any different from them?" He responds "They have something to lose."
- Also subverted in the comic books (naturally). One occasion had Daredevil pleading with Frank not to kill the criminal in his sights, uttering more-or-less this phrase. Frank's reply? "Don't be naive" [BANG!]
Played straight in the gag-worthy ending to Knight Rider 2000.
Played straight, then subverted in Rush Hour 2. Lee has Ricky Tan, the Big Bad at gunpoint, when Ricky starts taunting him, and Lee's partner Carter tells him, "He's trying to trick you, don't go too far." That is until Ricky says Lee's father was "pathetic," at which point Carter changes his tune to "Shoot his ass!"
Rather bafflingly employed in the finale of Road House: Patrick Swayze is unable to kill the evil crime lord, despite having killed his henchmen in hilariously violent ways (ripping out throats, crushing to death with stuffed bears, etc.) just moments earlier. Then the townsfolk that the crime lord had previously bullied show up and blast him with a shot gun anyway. ... Hooray?
Played similarly straight and similarly confusingly in the finale of the film Prince Caspian. Caspian decides at the last moment not to kill Miraz, even though he's fully prepared to hack-and-slash his way through Miraz's army a few moments later, had no trouble chopping up bad guys at the castle a few nights before, and could probably fill a book with unassailable reasons that necessitate Miraz's death.
- He doesn't kill Miraz because it's an arranged duel, where particular rules apply, rather than pitched battle where combat pragmatism is much more in effect. This is one of the things that is much, much clearer in the book than the film.
- Also in the book, Peter is the one who duels Miraz, and backs off when Miraz stumbles onto the ground. Miraz isn't given a chance to get up however, because his own goons take the chance to backstab him then.
Played dead straight in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, by Logan's squeeze Kayla, in regards him killing off Sabretooth and/or Stryker. Two men, who have been rounding up mutants like cattle, are effectively above the law, and will most likely continue to hunt Logan down as long as he lives. All of which could be solved by a little extra stabbing...

Literature

In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry stops Sirius Black and Remus Lupin from killing Peter Pettigrew, who had betrayed Harry's parents' whereabouts to Voldemort, because he was sure his father wouldn't have wanted his old friends to become murderers, even in revenge for his own death.
- However, thanks to this everything went apeshit from Book Three. Voldemort comes back in the fourth book thanks to Peter, Sirius Black dies in the Fifth Book thanks to Voldemort's resurrection, Dumbledore dies the wrong way (he was supposed to give the Elder Wand to Snape) in the Sixth Book and an all out war explodes in the Seventh thanks to Dumbledore's depart. He does make a final act of redemption in the Seventh book, but it would be better if Sirius just had offed him.
  - So the moral of book three is "Cowards are irredeemably evil, so go ahead and kill them in case they cause more trouble?
  - Pretty sure it's that idealism falls on its ass every now and then, sometimes catastrophically.
A variation is used in book two of The Bartimaeus Trilogy: True Neutral (or so he claims) djinni Bartimaeus persuades Kitty to save Nathaniel by hinting that, 'If you let him die, you'll be just like me.'
Used in the book Komarr in the Vorkosigan Saga by Lois Mc Master Bujold. Komarran terrorists are about to activate their new weapon, which they think will lead to a bloodless coup, but which will actually blow up the space station it's positioned on, in revenge for the Barrayan massacre of Komarran hostages. When the army closes in, they threaten to murder their hostages, Ekaterin Vorsoisson and Aunt Vorthys, if Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan doesn't order the army to back off. Miles tells them, "Please observe that you have now gone as far as you can without turning yourselves into a perfect replica of the enemy you set out to oppose." The terrorists surrender, but partially because Ekaterin had already destroyed their device.
The Discworld novel Jingo implies that Sam Vimes believes something like this. He's all right with killing someone by accident, but a pre-meditated killing leaves him deeply troubled. In the next City Watch book, Night Watch the Gargoyles parallel is even more explicit, as he's now shown to be perfectly willing to kill other people intentionally when he's in the middle of a pitched battle.
- Although that's implied that it's because it's a War not just a fight.
- In The Fifth Elephant, he had no choice but to kill Wolfgang but refused to deliver any of the Bond One Liners that came into his head because he feared becoming the Complete Monster that Wolfgang was.
The Bandakarians in the Sword Of Truth book Naked Empire believe something akin to this in relation to all killing. Including that in battle.
Subverted in Shadow of the Giant, when Bean grabs Volescu, a man who tried to redesign the human race by replacing them with people like Bean: super-smart but doomed to die by age twenty or so, and also is directly responsible for Bean being like that, by the throat and threatens to kill him:
Petra: "Please don't kill him, Bean. Please."
Bean: "Remind me why."
Petra: "Because we're good people."
Volescu: *laughs* "You live by murder. How many people have you both killed? And if we add in all the Buggers you slaughtered out in space..."
Petra: "Ok, go ahead and kill him."

They end up not killing him in the end, if for no other reason than he has information they need.

The Doctor did have a point, What Measure Is A Non Human. Bean was the one that gave the order that set off the MD device taking out the Bugger Homeworld, He and Ender share the guilt for the largest mass murder in history. As far as Volescu is concerned, he's small time compared to the 'heroes'.

Live Action TV

The Pretender episode "Hazards", when Sydney confronts the Nazi scientist who experimented on him when he was a boy: only a one-shot villain, but the "just like him" question is explicitly raised.
Subverted: In an episode of Stargate SG-1, Daniel Jackson and Captain Samantha Carter come across a vat of young Goa’uld symbiotes, Daniel is about to shoot it when Captain Carter says that if he does he will be as bad as the Goa’uld. They begin to walk away but then Daniel suddenly turns and fires at the vat anyway, killing the symbiotes.
- This editor found it rather an odd comment from Carter, it having been long established by this point the the Goa’uld are born irredeemably evil.
  - You probably didn't watch the episode in order. This happens in the episode "Bloodlines", in season 1. While it's been mentioned by this point that all Goa'uld possess the knowledge of all those that came before them, it's several seasons before the mention that this causes them to all be born evil (having the memories of countless sociopaths and genocidal maniacs in them).
Faith pulls this on Buffy The Vampire Slayer to break a Mexican Standoff where she and Buffy both have knives to the other's throat. Unique in that Faith seems to somewhat want Buffy to kill her and thus become like her, as some form of revenge. Yeah, Faith had issues...
- In Issue #8 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight, Buffy finally says what we all think of when this trope is done poorly.
Willow: You know what I mean. It's not like we can just stake these grunts in the heart, right? Not killing humans is what separates us from the bad guys.
Buffy: No, not being bad is what separates us from the bad guys.
Although never actually spoken, it is heavily implied (and even nearly subverted) during the scene at the Huntsman's treehouse in The Tenth Kingdom, when Wolf is about to kill him with the magic axe and Virginia stops him.
Virginia: "No! We can't kill him."
Wolf: "Of course we can, he'd kill us!"
Virginia: "That's not the point, he's helpless!"
Wolf: "Exactly why we should kill him now!"
Virginia: "Wolf, no!"
Wolf: "Awwww, he's gonna come after us!"
Virginia: "I don't care, we're not killing him."
Wolf: "You're gonna regret this moment."
- And of course, he's right.
When this came up at the end of the movie Cave Dwellers on Mystery Science Theater 3000, Joel (impersonating the film's hero) pointed out how foolish it was: "Then why the heck did I hang-glide in here, anyway?" (Don't ask about the hang-glider.)
A variation on this occurs in Doctor Who, when the Doctor yells at a Dalek, telling it to die, and it replies "You would make a good Dalek."
- A rare case where this reaction is arguably justified, seeing how the Doctor is responsible for the (near) genocide of both the Daleks and his own race.
  - At least it means he knows what he's talking about when he gives this speech to other people.
  - This Troper always got the impression that the Time Lords at least were a Heroic Sacrifice.
A variation (and eventual subversion) occurs in the Babylon Five episode "Deathwalker" when the title character flaunts her miracle cure to Commander Sinclair, a miracle cure that requires the death of another living being to manufacture. "The billions who live forever will be a monument to my work, and the billions who are murdered to buy that immortality will be the continuance of my work. Not like us? You will become us." The subversion comes when the deal is made to research her cure anyway... only to have the Vorlon ambassador destroy her ship, claiming the younger races were not ready for immortality.
- Bit of a Wall Banger when you realize it's a chemical treatment and after some years they'd have to figure out how to synthesis it, or at least learn to make it from cloned tissue.
Subverted and yet played straight in an episode of Fast Lane. Billie has the criminal who ruined her life at gunpoint when one of her male partners arrives and yells, "Don't do it! Not like this! {Dramatic pause} Use my gun! It has a larger calibur so it will be more satisfying." Her other parther has a similar do-it-this-way comment (which I can't remember), but they're both using reverse psychology to convince her not to kill the criminal. Maybe. Well, she doesn't, anyway.
This is part of the philosophy of the Ancients in Stargate SG-1. They believe in the free will of every being and even though they have the power to eliminate every threat in the galaxy, they still don't do it. This, however is taken to such an extreme that one can only declare them guilty.
- What's worse is the Ancients won't even defend themselves from other Ascended beaings... Anyone else think they should of used the galaxy wide bomb that kills Ascended beings on the Milky Way along with the Ori?
In the second season finale of Rozen Maiden, Jun utters the line when Shinku was about to kill Barasuishou. Bad move. She uses the chance to defeat Shinku.
A non-killing example: In an episode of the sitcom Taxi, an arrogant hairdresser (played by Ted Danson of Cheers, of all people) gives Elaine a truly horrific new hairdo. She, Alex and Louie go back to confront the man, who is utterly unrepentant. An enraged Elaine is about to dump a large bowl of some noxious liquid over the man's head, when Alex gives the standard "no better than him!" speech. Elaine agrees and storms out. Louie then gleefully states: "She may be better than you, but I'm not!" BLOOP.
Played bizarrely straight (and by a character who should have known better) in Criminal Minds; an episode of the second season ends with one of the agents pondering, apropos of almost nothing, how much difference there REALLY is between the offenders that they hunt, and the agents themselves. In this corner, an antisocial, sociopathic recidivist murderer who was abused by his parents for fifteen years and slaughters innocent women purely for the sexual thrill that it gives him. In the opposite side, an agent with ten or fifteen years of experience in fieldwork with the FBI who is willing to fire their weapon ONLY in cause of self-defense or the preservation of another life (and even then, only with utmost angst over the decision afterward), and who has dedicated their professional life to the incarceration of those who would commit such heinous crimes. Yeah, that's a real slippery slope right there.
- Also from Criminal Minds: In an episode of season three, a man takes it upon himself to rescue his kidnapped daughter, but is interrupted from killing him by Agent Reid, who tells the man that if he kills the kidnapper, he'll introduce a cycle of violence into his own life. As he pleads with the father, asking him when the violence will stop, the man whispers, "Tomorrow," and shoots the kidnapper in the head.
Mac Gyver, being a Technical Pacifist, was rather fond of pulling this gem out whenever his sidekick-of-the-week had the villain at their mercy. Perhaps most brokenly, it's the reason that a Holocaust survivor refrains from shooting the Nazi who is most of the way to succeeding in her plan to infiltrate all aspects of the US Government with neo-Nazis. Apparently, killing one person who has the resources and intent to commit genocide and is most of the way to enacting that plan and has already orchestrated numerous murders is morally exactly the same as being a Nazi.
Harry tries this on the werewolf leader in the second book of The Dresden Files, Fool Moon, but she simply points out that there will be one important difference: the villain will be dead.

Other Media

Parodied in this Picnicface video.

Video Games

The 360 game Ninety-Nine-Nights has the two main characters in different play throughs in the same situation where they get a chance to kill the main villain. The noble Aspharr spares the goblin king and is bathed in holy light for his mercy. The vengeance driven Inphyy kills him and the holy powers she had been using the entire game reverse on her making her the new villain. The game also features the second corollary of this trope in that in the course of sparing this guy you killed thousands of his soldiers, his priests and various commanders (Not to mention kings of other races) with no such karmic backlash.
Advance Wars: Dual Strike features Von Bolt - an old man using technology to sucking the life force from the land in order to extend his own life - saying this to Jake in his Not So Different speech during the game's ending; if Jake shoots him, they'll both be guilty of the same thing: killing others to save themselves. The game then lets the player decide. If you say yes, Jake destroys the Mac Guffin Von Bolt uses to drain the land's life force and dooms him to die of old age; if you refuse, Hawke shoots Von Bolt.
- In Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, Lin (good guy who frequently has Anti Hero tendencies) is about to kill Greyfield/Sigismundo (evil megalomaniac who borders on A God Am I in his insanity), when he tries to pull off a speech like this trope. He basically says that she'll be just like him if she kills him. Lin considers this, admits he's completely correct, then kills him anyway. His death is karmic in the sense that he had tried to make himself a prisoner of war so he wouldn't be shot, when he himself had murdered a prisoner of war against the wishes of Captain Brenner/O'Brian, causing the good guys to rebel against him in the first place.
This was the whole plot behind Guile's ending in the Street Fighter 2 game. He wants to kill Bison to avenge his friend Charlie's death, then his daughter Amy and his wife Jane disuade him. Note that the wife was more concerned about Guile killing Bison in cold blood than asking him to come back home, until the daughter chimes in.
Subverted at the end of the game Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight after the final battle between Kyle Katarn and Jerec. Jerec taunts Kyle, "Strike me down and the power of the Dark Side will be yours! I'm sure you haven't forgotten, I was the one who murdered your father." Kyle replies that he hasn't forgotten, pulls Jerec's lightsaber into his hand, and then tosses it where Jerec can easily reach it. Jerec takes it up, screams, and makes a final desperate lunge, where Kyle easily cuts him down.
A very much Wall Banger moment in Star Wars The Force Unleashed light side ending. Galen Marek (formerly Starkiller) rescues the leader of the newly founded Rebel Alliance, defeating both Darth Vader and Palpatine in the process. He's stopped from finishing Palpatine off by a Jedi who tells him that doing so will cause him to fall to The Dark Side. Despite the fact that said Jedi is a leader of the rebel alliance and who's very purpose is to KILL THE EMPEROR.
- Let's not forget, the Jedi were more about killing the Sith in the right way than just wiping them out.
  - In other words, either stupidly or by Mind Rape?
  - Without feeling an ounce of hate or anger or they'll probably replace said sith, eventually. I felt this had more to do with the fact that he was still plenty strong and just faking weakness.
  - Wouldn't be the first time.
Towards the end of the Karda Nui arc in Bionicle, a shadow corrupted Takanuva enters a near-Unstoppable Rage and almost kills a few Makuta in revenge for what they did to him. He is stopped when Kopaka pulls a Get A Hold Of Yourself Man and cites the Toa's Thou Shall Not Kill code when he tells that he'd just be giving into that darkness inside if he did it.
Commander Shepard of Mass Effect can address this subject on at least two different occasions:
- After helping resident Cowboy Cop Garrus Vakarian track down a Mad Doctor who'd previously escaped justice, Shepard can either encourage Garrus to just shoot him, or persuade him to arrest the doctor and bring him in to stand trial. If the player opts for the latter, Paragon Shepard uses Gargoyles explanation, adding that while they can't always predict other people's actions, that doesn't mean they should stoop to the same level.
- In another instance, Shepard confronts a soldier at the end of a Roaring Rampage Of Revenge against the Mad Scientists who used him as an unwilling test subject, and again has to choose between encouraging him to finish the job or persuading him to let the law handle it. In this case, Shepard has the third option of "let me kill him, because I can get away with it legally and you can't."

Webcomics

Subverted in the Webcomic It's Walky!: in the final battle, Head Alien tries to pull this on Sal, who kills him anyway.
Parodied in the Sluggy Freelance story arc "That Which Redeems." When demons invade the Dimension of Lame and start eating and killing people for fun, most people still feel that killing demons would make them no better than demons. Unfortunately, when Torg tries to organize a human resistance, he discovers most Dimension of Lame residents think stubbing demons' toes or throwing pies also makes them as bad as demons. Torg ignores their protests and cuts demons into little bits anyway.
Inverted in GastroPhobia, where the protagonist Phobia is nearly killed by a deer-turned-monster attempting to avenge his mother (who Phobia killed six years ago). But upon seeing that Phobia is herself a mother, the deer can't bring himself to kill her.

Tabletop Games

Lucius the Eternal from Warhammer 40000 literally embodies this trope. As in, if you kill him, you will turn into him. Right down to the clothes, which will only have one difference: your soul, nailed to the surface with all the others who have killed him in past.
- The only possible way to avoid this horrific fate is to kill him without feeling any kind of pride at having done so...or possibly to take an extremely fast-acting poison as soon as you kill him. Unfortunately most of his victims don't know this.

Western Animation

Spoken by Elisa to Goliath in the premiere of Gargoyles, as Goliath held the villain David Xanatos over the edge of his own building (although she compares the act to something the other main villain, Demona, would do). Partially subverted when Hudson seems to back her up, asking if that's really what he wants, but sounds genuinely ambivalent about it.
- The show elaborates in another episode, saying killing someone in the heat of battle was all right, but attacking with the direct intent to kill was wrong.
  - Unfortunately, since in battle you are attacking with the direct intent to kill, this is something of a Broken Aesop.
  - Not necessarily: in battle, you're attacking with the intent to force the other party to submit. That doesn't always mean that they'll have to die, they just have to submit. For instance, animals that keep attacking until the other is dead, ignoring all signals of surrender, are considered to be highly abnormal and dangerous.
Subverted in an episode of Mighty Max. Norman is facing down a rival barbarian who killed his family. The bad guy uses this line because it's the last card in his deck. Norman smiles and says "I can live with that", then knocks him off a cliff.
The Lion King plays this trope straight, as Scar surrenders to Simba and begs for his life. However, it turns out he's merely playing for time, and his truce-breaking leads directly to his Karmic Death... twice. (Just to make sure Simba doesn't get his paws dirty.)
Used in the Dungeons And Dragons episode "The Dragon's Graveyard", where Hank refuses to finish Venger on the grounds that if he did, "We'd be no better than you are."
Subverted in Batman The Animated Series. When Catwoman is about do drop the villain into a vat of acid, Batgirl calls out "If you drop him you'll be just like him." Catwoman replys, "Grow up" and lets go.