Punished for Sympathy

Nothing says "You Have Failed Me" like kicking a man while he's down.

"For showing compassion, Granny would condemn me to a thousand mindyears of all-pain."

— Big Barda, Gotham City Garage

Whenever the villain does something bad, a punishment is always in order and you can expect them to get No Sympathy from the heroes and the citizens when that punishment is dished out. But there's one character or a small number of characters who show some form of sympathy for the villain. As a result, others call them out on it, even going as far as to say they're just as bad as the villain who committed that evil deed.

This is the trope where a character will receive punishment, ostracism, or criticism from other characters for sympathizing, forgiving, sparing, or just being plain nice to someone. In stories centered on Black-and-White Morality, one way to set a group of heroes over the edge is when someone within their group expresses pity for the villain. Perhaps the heroes consider the villain truly beyond redemption for their horrible deeds, and the sympathizer is too naive or too stubborn to understand the gravity of their crimes. In another situation, even if the sympathizer is not condoning the villain's actions, they will still get scolded by the heroes for expressing sympathy for the villain who had a bad past or upbringing, especially if the heroes believe that the villain cannot be forgiven for their crimes despite the circumstances that pushed them to villainy. If the focus is on the villain's punishment, the sympathizer would get scolded if they consider the punishment too harsh.

In other variants, the person the character sympathizes with can be someone who's not well-liked or respected by society, and they don't take kindly to those who show pity towards them. The sympathizer may be a part of a group who detests other groups and will get treated with contempt by the group if they're friendly to each other. The sympathizer may be a Reluctant Warrior and them showing mercy to the enemy can put the Proud Warrior Race to shame.

This is quite common in many wars. If there were a general who commands soldiers to kill a certain population they oppose, expect one to spare at least one life or just refuse to kill everyone. The soldier has disobeyed the general's orders, and when he hears about this, he will tell him to turn in his badge — or worse.

This is a suitable reaction towards a Stupid Good character as well as characters who are friendly to each other despite being supposedly enemies. Pushover Parents will get this for not disciplining their children. Sympathy for the Devil is also defied by this trope. Can be a demonstration on why No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.

Contrast Made Out to Be a Jerkass and No Sympathy for Grudgeholders — the former is when a character is given backlash for rightfully showing no sympathy for the offender whereas the latter is when a character is rebuked for not forgiving the wrongdoer. A Knight Templar may give out these to those whom they think are in the way of the greater good. Those who aid and abet an Outlaw are also prone to receiving this treatment — historically, such people received the same punishment as the outlaw. This can serve as one of the tenets of the With Us or Against Us philosophy if being friendly to an enemy makes them an enemy as well. Throwing roses when the authorities want you to throw rocks in Come to Gawk can produce this. Often related to You Bastard!.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In Black Lagoon, Balalaika (a Russian veteran from the Afghanistan war and current crime lord) reveals that although her discharge was medical, and on-request, she was unofficially dishonored because she saved a child from a refugee camp, mirroring Caxton stopping his superior officer in 'Nam from leading the unit to rape a young village girl.
• A near case in Code Geass. Kallen is threatened with execution along with Lelouch by the Black Knights when they accuse her of being under the Geass of their leader, who they are now betraying, when she tries stepping up to his defense. After noticing this is Schneizel's doing and that he has no way out, Lelouch lies to have her spared his fate. In the Compilation Movie, the Black Knights are the ones basically subjected to this, as they correctly suspect that Lelouch is putting on an act and just want him to truthfully answer their questions first before actually passing judgement. Ultimately, they're ignored by Schneizel's men, who attempt to open fire anyway, much to their objection.
• In Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School, Makoto is branded a traitor by the Future Foundation and subjected to a Kangaroo Court for reforming the Remnants of Despair instead of turning them in. When he finally has an opportunity to properly explain his actions, his rival Munakata calls him a Suicidal Pacifist and says his "naivete" will just get himself and others killed.
• In episode 16 of Doki Doki! PreCure, Makoto, who hates seeing wrongdoers go unpunished, calls out Mana and even abandons her for trying to befriend Regina, who shares the blame for destroying Makopi's country.
• Subverted in Fullmetal Alchemist. During the Ishvalan War, Alex Louis Armstrong becomes so horrified about the genocide brought down on the Ishvalan people, that he ends up letting a couple of them escape the extermination. Solf J. Kimblee notices this and quickly kills the two Ishvalans. As Kimblee states himself, he could easily get Armstrong in trouble by reporting him to the court-martial, but he respects him for sticking to his beliefs. However, he doesn't do this, which makes his character all the more disturbing, killing them so Armstrong can't get in trouble for it. Armstrong doesn't take it well.
• Played with in Sailor Moon in that Queen Nehelenia goes absolutely nuts whenever Sailor Moon or anyone else shows her any kind of sympathy. In episode 166 she recoils as Sailor Moon states she feels sorry for her after learning Nehelenia's utterly fucked up past (like how she murdered everyone on her planet to eat their dreams and preserve her beauty), but then responds by trying to murder Sailor Chibi-Moon.
  Queen Nehelenia: I don't you to sympathize with me! YOU OF ALL PEOPLE!
• Watashi No O Okami Kun: In her former school, Komugi became a pariah because she refused to bully another girl. Traumatized by the event, she decides to no longer get involved in other people's issues; however, her friendship with Yuu and his foster brothers give her enough courage to stand ground against a Girl Posse and, later, to defend another girl, too. Yuu asks her later how did she feel and she confirms that made her feel good.

Comic Books

• Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith. To the shock of the other Inquisitors, after a successful mission Darth Vader takes out his lightsaber and tries to execute a female Inquisitor, only to be instinctively blocked by her partner who was apparently in love with her. This gets both of them killed for 'treason'. The Inquisitor had earlier been sent after the wife of a Jedi and their baby, who pleaded with her "woman to woman" to let her go. The Inquisitor apparently relented, only to use the Force to steal the baby at the last second as a Kick the Dog. Vader however claims that she let the baby go and only stole it back because another Inquisitor had arrived to witness her action. The audience is left to make up their own mind up over whether this is true.
• Gotham City Garage provides some examples:
  • Kara Gordon is hunted down because she saved an innocent man from being gunned down.
  • Unsurprisingly, in Apokolips mercy is punished with Mind Rape:
    Barda: For showing compassion, Granny would condemn me to a thousand mindyears of all-pain.
• In Knights of the Old Republic, a single Mandalorian objects to the slaughter of the already defeated Cathar, prompting her superiors to kill her too.
• The Red Skull actually had a couple of moments of this in his early years. Boy, did it come back to bite the world hard.
  • When he was a child, he tried to help a homeless dog, but the manager of the orphanage found them and he was punished for it.
  • During his early years as a Nazi, he once tried to stop a few Nazi militia from harassing a young Communist girl. Of course, they turned on him and beat him up for it.
• In Superman storyline Last Daughter of Krypton, Simon Tycho gets lucky enough to capture Supergirl, intending to cut her up, examine her alien biology, and make a profit of his findings. Jacobs, one of his mercenaries-for-hire, decides he did not sign up for torturing young girls, so he releases Kara... and his boss gets him killed off immediately for "screwing with [his] plans".
• Transformers: More than Meets the Eye:
  • Issue #11 reveals that Shockwave's Start of Darkness was caused by a horrific procedure performed on him by the corrupt Senate that destroyed his personality and left him an emotionless monster with a cycloptic head and claws for hands. The reason? He objected to a plan of theirs that would've killed thousands of innocent people and allowed the heroes to prevent said plan. The removal of his emotions in particular was intended to be an ironic punishment for his "excessive" empathy.
  • Some forty-nine issues later, Getaway leads a mutiny against Rodimus, partly because he is a god-awful leader, but also kicks off anyone on the ship who believed Megatron could be redeemed. Some seventeen issues later, it turns out twenty four members of the remaining crew disagreed with this, and Getaway... "dealt with them", too.

Fairy Tales

• In Franz Xaver von Schönwerth's "King Goldenlocks", the main character sets an unjustly imprisoned wildman free, is sentenced to death for his "crime", and is forced to flee.

Fan Works

• Advice and Trust: Shinji and Asuka are fired and thrown out. The reason? Bardiel had hijacked the Humongous Mecha that one of their friends was piloting. They were ordered to disregard the pilot and destroy the enemy. They refused to abandon their friend and managed saving the pilot and destroying the enemy. Still Gendo was so furious with them for not following his orders that he declared they were unreliable and fired them.
• Alien Exodus: Leego always loved giving his slaves A Taste of the Lash. When Cosmo intervened in one of his sadistic displays, he got badly beaten for it.
• Black As Night: After accidentally blinding Hiccup in a training accident, Astrid is horrified by her own actions and wants to atone... all the more so since Gobber points out that it looked like she deliberately attacked the chief's son. However, Hiccup is still an outcast in their society, and she fears that showing too much sympathy for his situation will result in her being isolated as well.
• A Crown of Stars: Before the beginning of the story, Shinji had been giving money to homeless, starving people that the secret police deemed as "possible subversives and rebels". Asuka criticized him for it, since she was frightened that the police secret would haul him and her away, too. Nevertheless she later admitted that Shinji was doing the right thing.
• In Power Girl fanfic A Force of Four, Aldon Persis attempts to use a healing ray on Wonder Woman's scarred face. Badra catches him and pummels him.
• The Karma of Lies has several Justified examples with Adrien:
  • Adrien mistakenly believes that Lila just wants impress others with her Celebrity Lies. Sure, he's also fully aware that she's a Con Artist who's scamming the rest of the class, but he dismisses that as "not that big a deal" since in his experience, material goods are easily replaceable. Surely they're not giving up anything they can't afford to lose, right? Naturally, his Betrayal by Inaction enables Lila to do more damage, and eventually results in her karmic backlash hitting him instead, as she sets him up as her scapegoat.
  • After Gabriel is revealed as Hawkmoth, Adrien defends his father's actions, arguing that Hawkmoth never caused any permanent damage while terrorizing Paris since Ladybug's Miraculous Cure kept repairing the damage. His attempts to use his clout as Chat Noir to defend him backfire, as Chat Noir didn't show up during the Final Battle, so his claiming that Hawkmoth shouldn't be punished for all the people he hurt or killed just makes him look even more suspicious.
  • When Mayura attacks, Adrien attempts to defeat her by himself in order to repair his damaged reputation... but when he sees that she's none other than Nathalie, he offers her a hand back up. Mayura exploits this to snatch the Black Cat Ring right off his finger. Making matters worse, this was Caught on Tape, making it appear that he willingly surrendered his Ring.
  • Ultimately, all of Adrien's "sympathy" is shown to be more of a Lack of Empathy for everyone who was victimized by Lila, Hawkmoth, Chloé and others. Once he's personally impacted, his attitude shifts dramatically towards getting justice for himself... and only himself, as he plots to leave Paris and hunt Lila down.
• Miraculous Ladybug Salt-Shots: Played With in A Price to Pay, where Gabriel Agreste gets into a car accident that claims the life of Tom Dupain-Cheng, then bribes his way out of having to deal with any legal repercussions. But he's still Convicted by Public Opinion and despised for refusing to take any responsibility for his mistake... and Adrien, who stood by and defended his father, is tarnished by association. The twist is that this was actually a case of Balancing Death's Books: reality was altered by Hawkmoth/Gabriel making a Wish, and Tom's life was the price of bringing his wife Emilie back to life. Gabriel and Adrien had expected to get away clean since nobody would be aware of what they'd done in the original reality, but the Wish ensured that Gabriel would still be connected to his victim's death in the new world.
• RWBY: Destiny of Remnant: After Salem senses that Cinder sympathizes with Ashe, being horrified by what her brother is going through, she punishes Cinder by forcing her to kill him.

Film — Animation

• Occurs to Hiccup in How to Train Your Dragon (2010) when his father discovers that Hiccup's success against dragons comes from understanding them rather than ruthlessly destroying them. Once Hiccup's compassion for the Night Fury Toothless comes to light, Stoick drops the hammer: "You're not my son."
• In The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney), Frollo orders Phoebus to burn down a mill with the miller and his family still inside. Not only does Phoebus refuse, but when Frollo sets the fire himself in his crossing of the Moral Event Horizon, he goes in to rescue the family. Frollo would have had him executed for treason right then and there, had Esmeralda not come to the rescue.

Literature

• Animorphs:
  • The Yeerks are a Puppeteer Parasite race that considers sympathizing with or befriending the host the worst possible crime, and their laws punish it with a painful death sentence.
  • The Animorphs are pretty hostile towards Cassie on the occasions when she shows sympathy towards Yeerks.
• In Chronicles of Ancient Darkness, Outcasts are to be killed on sight, and the same applies to anyone who helps them. Of course, this doesn't prevent Renn from helping Torak when he's cast out.
• The Diadem Saga: Azdar has Vajd's eyes put out for helping Aleytys escape after she was set to be a Human Sacrifice.
• The Divine Comedy: Downplayed in Inferno. Dante is scolded by Virgil when he weeps at the pitiful appearance of the soothsayers in Malebolge. He learns his lesson and bluntly ignores the damned who plead with him in the Ninth Circle of Hell.
• The Dresden Files: The only way for a criminal who violated the Laws of Magic (killing humans with magic, Forced Transformation, tampering with a human's mind, necromancy of humans, Time Travel, and researching or contacting the Outsiders) to escape immediate execution is for a member of the White Council to vouch for them. This places both of them under the Doom of Damocles; if the criminal violates a Law again, both the criminal and their sponsor are executed. Justified^note That is to say, it's justified in the minds of much of the White Council, but Harry and some other more moderate wizards consider them Knight Templars and believe more flexibility should be exercised. because the proscribed magics are literally addictive; those who so much as begin to delve into them, even for a good cause, inevitably wind up Slowly Slipping Into Evil. Thus, the requirement for a White Council member to vouch for the accused; his role is not only to demonstrate that the offender isn't evil, but to prevent them from becoming evil through use of The Dark Arts.
• In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, we learn that Peter's silver hand was enchanted by Voldemort to strangle him if he so much as seriously thought about helping Harry, which it does in the end. Also, anyone suspected of or caught helping Muggle-borns or the Order are punished.
• In Leia, Princess of Alderaan, it's very risky for Leia, her family, and others involved somehow in the Senate to show more than a vague general sympathy for anyone The Empire has decided to punish. The Empire will allow charity missions to feed, heal, and clothe victims of Imperial policy — generally those who were unable to meet high Imperial quotas and were subsequently driven into poverty — but shows a certain contempt even there, and corrupt officials sometimes just take any donated supplies for themselves. Sympathy that goes beyond meeting immediate, urgent needs is too much like questioning the Empire itself. This is a worse problem for Leia in her work in the Apprentice Legislature. One assignment is to advise on how to punish a planet's government and people for refusing to refuel a TIE convoy. It comes up that the people in question had only had enough fuel on hand to cover their own emergency services. Any suggestion that these were extenuating circumstances is suspect and tantamount to treasonous anti-Imperial sentiment.
• In the Safehold book Hells Foundations Quiver, an Inquisitor in charge of a concentration camp finds himself about to be painfully executed because he had the morality to feed one of the captives of the camp — who was from the section of the camp for people being held on suspicion of heresy and had not been convicted of anything yet — a little girl who was trying to get medicine for her sick father. Fortunately, before the execution can take place, Dialydd Mab manages to rescue the little girl and her family by Faking the Dead for them and, while he is unable to rescue the Inquisitor, grants him a Mercy Kill instead of the torture he'd have suffered otherwise.

Live-Action TV

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Buffy goes out of her way to be kind and welcoming to Faith, and even tries to help Faith after her Start of Darkness, only to have Faith try to kill her or ruin her life multiple times. By the Angel episode "Sanctuary", Buffy has finally gotten sick of it—ironically, around the time when Faith really is starting her Heel–Face Turn.
• Cobra Kai: In Season 3, Bert refuses to feed a hamster that he had grown fond of and named Clarence to a snake when ordered to do so as a show of loyalty. Kreese responds to this by kicking him out of Cobra Kai, viewing him as "weak" and then feeding Clarence to the snake anyways.
• The M*A*S*H episode "The Trial of Henry Blake" puts this into perspective: in an attempt to have Henry relieved of duty as commanding officer of the 4077th, Margaret and Frank have him charged with a number of crimes, including giving aid and comfort to North Koreans. In actuality, Henry had been contributing penicillin, among other drugs, to an elderly American nurse who ran a clinic in enemy territory dedicated to aiding poverty-stricken civilians, and was doing so long before the war even began.
• The Stargate SG-1 episode "Prisoners" has the team imprisoned for trespassing unmarked territory and giving a small amount of assistance to a native they met.
• Star Trek:
  • The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "I Borg" has Picard refuse to use Hugh, a Borg drone they rescued, as a Typhoid Mary for a cyberweapon that would theoretically destroy the Borg Collective. He had come to see Hugh as a person instead of a mindless enemy. In the episode's sequel, "Descent", Admiral Nechayev is unpleasantly astonished at this, dresses down Picard for placing his conscience at a higher value than the lives of Federation citizens, and gives him a direct order that, if a similar opportunity presents itself, he is to take advantage of it. Picard later admits privately that while his choice in "I Borg" may have been the moral choice, it may not have been the right choice. Of course, it turns out that the Enterprise crew had actually made Hugh a Typhoid Mary for a sense of individuality instead...
  • Downplayed in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Captive Pursuit". Sisko chews out Chief O'Brien for helping Tosk escape the Hunters (technically, it was a minor Prime Directive violation in addition to resulting in the death of one of the Hunters). However, the Hunters had attacked Deep Space 9 to get to Tosk, and the subtext of the scene makes it pretty clear that Sisko's only doing it because he's required to, and that O'Brien knows it.
• The Twilight Zone (1985): A paradoxical example appears in "To See the Invisible Man". A man is punished for "coldness" by becoming a pariah whom no one is allowed to acknowledge. Eventually he serves out his sentence and is allowed to reenter society. But when he sees someone being punished in the same way, he now has too much compassion and empathy to ignore them, which leads to another punishment.

Music

• The Sabaton song "No Bullets Fly" note that Luftwaffe fighter pilot Franz Stigler "risked his life two times that day" when he refused to finish off a flak-damaged B-17, instead escorting it to safety. This carried a potential death sentence in Nazi Germany (and so in the real incident, Stigler lied in his report). It should be noted that Stigler's plan was to try to get them to surrender or at least land in neutral Sweden, but the B-17 crew couldn't understand his attempts to communicate.

Professional Wrestling

• From TNA, Hulk Hogan severely chews out Sting for trusting Bully Ray to help the company fight back against the Aces And Eights (as well as marrying Brooke Hogan), only to find out that Bully revealed himself as the group's President after defeating Jeff Hardy in Lockdown 2013 for the TNA World Heavyweight Championship. To show that he won't make the same mistake in trusting him again, Hogan orders Sting to leave the Impact Zone. However, a few weeks later, the two reconciled and agreed to continue fighting against Aces & Eights together.

Religion

• The Bible:
  • In Leviticus 10:1-6: Aaron's two sons, Nadab and Abihu, were burned to death by God for accidentally defiling the sacrificial service. Moses has to warn Aaron not to make any signs of mourning.
  • In Numbers 16:41-50: The Israelites complained to Moses about God killing 250 men who were rebelling against him. God responded to this new rebellion by killing 14,700 more of the Israelites.
  • In Judges 2:1-4: An angel of the LORD scolds the Israelites for failing to wipe out the inhabitants of Canaan as well as being friendly with them. To punish them, God allows the Canaanites to be Israelites' oppressors. Amusingly, in this case, the Israelites' punishment for choosing to live with the Canaanites instead of to wipe them out them is that they have to live with the Canaanites.
  • In the I Samuel 2:27-36, Eli is chastised by a prophet of God for not taking strong measures against his sons Hophni and Phinehas for abusing their positions as priests before God — the most that Eli did was warn them, and that was it — and for that, not only did Eli lose both his sons in one day, but also his family line was cursed.
  • In I Samuel 15:18-23: King Saul is chastised by Samuel because he had spared only one Amalekite, King Agag (whom Saul viewed as a strategically valuable hostage), as well as the sheep and cattle which were valuable. God had commanded Saul to kill them all. For this, God officially rejected Saul as king of Israel, to be replaced with David.
  • Joab calls out David for publicly mourning the death of his Antagonistic Offspring Absalom. This is right after David's soldiers fought and defeated him, so as Joab notes, David was sending the message that he would have preferred his men to fall in battle instead.
  • In 1st Kings 20, after the armies of King Ben-Hadad of Syria have been defeated twice by the armies of Israel with the help of the Lord, the Syrian king decides to surrender in humility to the king of Israel and make a treaty of peace with him. Because the king of Israel accepted a peace treaty with a man that the Lord had appointed to utter destruction, He sent a prophet to warn the king that his life will be taken for the life of the king of Syria, and the lives of Israel for those of Syria.
• According to Jewish tradition (namely the midrash Genesis Rabbah), Sodom had laws that punished people for feeding the poor. A girl is described as being executed by burning for giving a starving girl flour.

Tabletop Games

• Champions supplement Red Doom. Yuri Kamonov (AKA Sputnik) is a superpowered member of the Supreme Soviets. He won't use lethal force against opponents unless it's absolutely necessary and there's no other alternative. He also tries to avoid conflict and resolve confrontations by negotiation or non-lethal force. This has caused him to get in trouble with Colonel Vasalov, the leader of the Supreme Soviets, on multiple occasions, and Vasalov has punished him by denying him any promotion.

Theatre

• In Sophocles's Antigone, the title character's brother Polynices dies an enemy of the state, and Creon commands that Polynices's body shall not be buried. Antigone gives him a proper burial anyway, so she is sentenced to be locked in a tomb.

Video Games

• Disgaea:
  • In Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, healers say that barbed clothing is a self-inflicted punishment for being healers.
  • The plot of Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten is more or less driven by the fact that the Big Bad Nemo was once a human who was injured in a war and helped by an enemy nurse called Artina, who was executed as a traitor for it (and ended up convincing Valvatorez to give up blood, allowing Nemo to take over his position), thus leading to his Start of Darkness (and her becoming the angel Vulcanus).
• Divinity: Original Sin II: Paladin DeSelby is sentenced to death for disobeying Lord Kemm's order to Leave No Survivors among the Magisters. She argues that the people she spared were mere boys who had nothing to do with the higher-ups' crimes, but only the player character can get her off the hook. Justified when Lord Kemm is revealed to be a Mole in Charge, undermining the Paladins on the villains' behalf.
• Ensemble Stars!:
  • The backstory has the Five Oddballs ostracized and defeated by Eichi's unit, fine, which splits up once this is done. Later on, one of the Oddballs, Wataru, joins fine, causing Natsume to see him as a traitor. Downplayed in that Natsume still admires Wataru and they still get along, this has just tarnished Natsume's opinion of Wataru.
  • A much darker version happens within Akatsuki — when Souma finally finds out exactly what his seniors are planning for Kanata, someone he cares very deeply about, he's extremely upset and tries to convince them that what they're doing is wrong. Unfortunately, Keito is too deep into it by this point and becomes very angry, yelling at him and expelling him from the unit. In the long run, however, Souma does manage to help them both Take a Level in Kindness, and they're both extremely grateful to him for it.
• In Final Fantasy IV, it's ambiguous whether Cecil is punished for expressing sympathy for the Mysidians, even though he carried out the order to take their crystal, or for questioning the King. After Cecil laments that the Mysidians offered no resistance, Baigan reports him to the King, but the King only punishes Cecil after he speaks out at the end of the meeting. However, Kain is also punished just for trying to defend Cecil.
• Fire Emblem Fates: In the Birthright route, Zola is revealed to be a spy for Nohr and sells the party to King Garon. However, he begs Garon to spare and forgive Corrin. The King treats him as a traitor and kills him immediately.
• Part of the backstory of World of Warcraft's paladin Highlord Tirion Fordring. Not long after the second war against the orcs, Tirion has his life saved by one, Eitrigg. When Eitrigg is captured, Tirion tries to save his life and return the favor, only to be ostracized, declared a traitor, and exiled.

Webcomics

• A flashback in Terra has Talos Antares try to fake having killed a human civilian to protect her from his immediate superior, Solus Kalar. Solus isn't fooled, hunts down and kills the civilian in cold blood, then starts beating the crap out of Talos. Agrippa Varus, Solus' equal in rank at the time, rescues Talos.
• In Vegan Artbook, anyone who is willing to tolerate those who eat meat is considered just as bad as the meat-eaters themselves.

Web Videos

• Part of Grog's backstory in Critical Role. While he was part of the Herd of Storms, he was beaten to near-death by his uncle Kevdak for refusing to kill an elderly gnome non-combatant. Grog was nursed back to health by the gnome's granddaughter, a cleric, and ended up Happily Adopted by them.

Western Animation

• In the Ed, Edd n Eddy Valentine's Day episode, Kevin gives Edd detention because Edd stood up for Eddy.
• In Exosquad, the Neosapien ace Thrax is demoted for repeatedly showing mercy to Terrans, such as refusing to finish off Kaz Takagi after winning a space duel against him on Mercury and disobeying direct orders to detonate thermonuclear charges under Venus City, killing all Terran soldiers and captured civilians inside.
• In The Legend of Tarzan, Hugo and Hooft are on the run from the Foreign Legion because they disobeyed orders to kill civilians.
• In The Simpsons episode "The Parent Rap", Bart would've gotten this for standing up for his parents had Judge Roy Snyder not arrived just in time. He even agrees with Lisa considering that Bart, Homer, and Marge had been through enough.
• In the Spongebob Squarepants episode "The Clash of Triton", King Neptune reveals that the reason he is sad during his 5,000th birthday is because he misses his son Triton, whom he locks in a cage in the Island in the Sky for 10,000 years (although specifically, Triton has only been in the cage for 1,000 years) because he made a cure for all mortal diseases, hoping that would teach him how to be a god.
• The pilot episode of TRON: Uprising has Beck hijack a train full of Programs about to be arrested by General Tessler and either killed or made to fight for the Big Bad. During the hijacking, he spares the life of a Mook, who is shocked at being spared and does a Mook–Face Turn over it. He helps Beck find and free the Programs, and seems about to switch sides when he gets a fist through his torso, courtesy of General Tessler.

Real Life

• The common punishment for anyone who aided and abetted someone declared outlaw back in the day was to suffer the same punishment that the outlaw faced. Even now, harboring or otherwise knowingly assisting criminals is a crime itself.
• Erin Cox, an North Andover teenager, got in trouble for attending a party despite a school policy because a classmate asked her for a ride. The police didn't take action because Cox, while committing a technical violation by going to the party site while underage, didn't drink any alcohol herself and was preventing a case of drunk driving which could've been fatal — in fact, the police came to Cox's defense, just like many in the public who heard about the situation.
• During the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution, some of the victims got executed because they sympathized with earlier victims, called for moderation or argued for clemency. Camille Desmoulins, who had initially supported the Terror as an emergency wartime measure, later called for a Committee of Clemency for lighter crimes and political criminals still imprisoned. He got executed, alongside Danton (who was also becoming moderate and sympathetic but was also guilty of political corruption, for which he was charged).
• During The Hollywood Blacklist, some of the people who were called to the HUAC were punished for left-wing sympathies and what was later described as "premature anti-fascism", agitation and criticism of Nazism and dictators before America entered the war; since the Communist Party was the major anti-fascist political faction at the time, in the minds of Americans during the Red Scare, this made anti-fascism seem "pinko".
  • Of course, later historians retroactively justify the blacklist by citing the Molotov-Ribbentrop act, and that for a brief period in the late 30s, where the Communists (after opposing Franco in Spain, and likewise criticizing Chamberlain Munich), arguing that the U.S. Communist Party called for negotiations with Hitler and undermined Great Britain, and didn't raise a fuss even when Stalin invaded Poland and not before the USSR was invaded. In point of fact most of the Hollywood fellow-travellers left the party after the Pact and in any case, the HUAC rarely mentioned this pact as a justification during their investigations.
• Sympathy for criminals, especially those accused of murder, torture, or sex crimes. Whether you acknowledge the circumstances that led them to break the law or you believe their (judicial or extrajudicial) punishment is a Disproportionate Retribution, expressing any kind of sympathy for a convict will more than likely get you labelled as an apologist or a criminal yourself, even if you clearly say that they should still be punished and their crimes aren't excusable.
• It's said that one of the reasons why soldiers from Imperial Japan during World War II mistreated Allied POWs, or just stood by and watched the abuse, was because anyone helping out, or even sympathizing with, them was seen as fraternizing with the enemy, a shameful crime that often carried a similar punishment that was doled out to the prisoner.
• Misha Collins and other (leftist) celebrities have been harassed on Twitter simply for expressing a certain softness towards Donald Trump upon him getting COVID-19, despite still not supporting him overall.
• On the topic of child-rearing, parents often get criticized by other parents (particularly those from conservative cultures) for not spanking their children as a means to discipline them, and cite their refusal to spank as the reason why children of modern society are rebellious and disrespectful. Parents who are anti-spanking argue that spanking does more harm than good and there are better and healthier ways to discipline children.

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