Saved by the Awesome

"An airbender never attacks a defenseless opponent. [Beat] But that was very good technique."

— Tenzin, The Legend of Korra

In short, you've done something so Awesome—so undeniably badass—that it makes up for the hundreds of rules you broke along the way.

This is the reason why the Military Maverick and the Cowboy Cop have careers — even commendations — and how the Bunny-Ears Lawyer still gets clients. This is why I Did What I Had to Do gets you off the hook (mostly). It's one thing to say Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!. But it's another thing to flout the rules and do the right thing with STYLE.

Now the end result must be sufficiently awesome to override the righteous fury that has built up in Da Chief when his subordinate ignored protocol. Success is never blameworthy, and victors aren't condemned.

See also Hero Insurance, "Get Out of Jail Free" Card, and Wrongful Accusation Insurance. Likely to be referenced when discussing Arson, Murder, and Lifesaving. May lead to a Berate and Switch.

This trope applies to specific examples. If the heroes are generally on the money but they disobey a high directive, they are likely to face some punishment, even if it's so mild as to suggest tacit approval for what they've done. In this trope, the punishment is explicitly waived because the rule-breakers were successful beyond everyone's expectations. Sometimes they may even be rewarded for their disobedience, usually with a promotion. In this case, there's likely to be a Milholland Relationship Moment when the hero finally stands before her boss, without remorse but fully expecting to be sent packing. Compare Sparing the Aces.

Examples

Audio Plays

• In StrikerS Sound Stage X, Teana is nearly put on trial for unwittingly collaborating with the terrorist mastermind, but is let off with a warning thanks to her efforts in containing the damage caused by the incident.

Fan Works

• Better Bones AU: Harespring expects to lose his deputy position for going behind his leader's back to dig a tunnel and getting Brushblaze killed in the process. But Onestar can't be mad at him because he managed to rescue many cats in the process.

Film — Animated

• Disney's Mulan.
  The Emperor of China: I've heard a great deal about you, Fa Mulan. You stole your father's armor, ran away from home, impersonated a soldier, deceived your commanding officer, dishonored the Chinese Army, destroyed my palace, and... you have saved us all.
• Ultimate Avengers 2: T'Challa's actions get him into a lot of hot water with the elders of Wakanda, but especially bringing in outsiders. However, when he saves the elders from being killed by Chitauri, the high priestess (who had previously read him the riot act) momentarily smirks at him, showing in this instance she's not about to complain.

Film — Live-Action

• Captain America: The First Avenger: Steve willingly surrenders himself to disciplinary measures after going off against orders, having also talked a superior officer into going along with his plan. Colonel Phillips (extremely) grudgingly lets it slide because in the process he's saved hundreds of P.O.W.s who the Allies had given up as a lost cause.
• Star Trek:
  • The granddaddy of these must be Captain James T. Kirk. As recounted in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, he put this trope into action when he cheated on an Academy test, and rather than be kicked out, he was given a commendation. For original thinking. It helped that the Academy test he 'cheated' on was an Unwinnable Training Simulation designed specifically to find out what a cadet does when faced with a scenario where all their choices are bad ones; Kirk's response to a no-win scenario was to improvise, think outside of the box, and use a few dirty tricks so he could Take a Third Option, which is exactly the kind of qualities Starfleet wants in their officers.
  • Star Trek (2009) takes it farther, but first subverts it. Kirk is actually about to be kicked out for cheating on the test. But somehow he ends up on the Enterprise and tops his cheating with actually attempting a mutiny against Spock and disobeying the acting Captain's orders. Being that it was his disregard of orders that led to the defeat of the Big Bad and the saving of (almost) every planet in the Federation, one can begin to see how he actually skips all the way to the Captain's chair at the end.
    • Star Trek Into Darkness then subverts it again, by having Kirk's maverick actions cause untold problems and almost getting him discharged from Starfleet.
  • At the end of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Kirk and his bunch manage to nearly completely duck the surefire court-martialing and dismissal from Starfleet that was coming their way for stealing the Enterprise and subsequently blowing it up. The Federation President states that it is specifically because Kirk avoided having the mystery probe destroy the Earth by rescuing the humpbacked whales from extinction. Of course, there has to be some kind of punishment, so Kirk gets demoted. From the desk job of Admiral he hated so much.
  • Gets a lampshade hung on it in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country after the Enterprise crew break a whole bunch of rules and even commit outright mutiny against Starfleet, but in the process save both the Federation President and the Chancellor of the Klingon Empire from assassination during a peace conference.
    Kirk: Once again, we've saved civilization as we know it.
    McCoy And the good news is they're not going to prosecute.

Literature

• In Aquarium, the protagonist is advised by a more experienced spy:
  If you break the rules and get into difficulties you will end up before a GRU tribunal. If you keep carefully to the rules but have a failure, again it is you who will be to blame, on the grounds that you applied the rule book too dogmatically. But if you are successful, everybody will back you up and forgive you everything, including breaches of our most important rules, on the grounds that you applied the rules in a creative and flexible manner, ignoring out-of-date and obsolete rules.
• Tavi of Jim Butcher's Codex Alera does this several times a book. Once, he wrote his own pardons.
• The Dresden Files:
  • Harry Dresden is able to get away with some Black Magic in Dead Beat through a combination of Loophole Abuse, necessity, and the fact that reanimating a Tyrannosaurus rex was so unspeakably awesome that even some of the Wardens were impressed.
    • They needed the firepower. As he'd pointed out, the Wardens had already drafted him. Harry Dresden is one of the best examples of a cowboy PI in literature, and doesn't play well with rules or authority.
  • Some of the Summer Court's best hitmen have let him get away on the basis of personal respect and Loophole Abuse.
  • Unfortunately, Murphy repeatedly gets none of this.
• Harry Potter:
  • In the second book, Dumbledore tells him he broke about a hundred school rules, then gives him an Award for Special Services to the School because saving Ginny and the rest of the school from Tom Riddle outweighed the rule breaking.
  • It's even a plot point in the fifth book, where a Tyrant Takes the Helm and begins banning things left and right to stop any attempt by the Power Trio to teach their fellow students defense against the dark arts. Harry even notes at one point that now that Dumbledore has virtually no power, he can't count on this to save him. He eventually does so anyway, reasoning that even if he's expelled, the students he taught will be safer. Then it sort of works, as Dumbledore manages to shift all blame on himself, letting the members and Harry get away scot-free.
• In Death series: Eve Dallas is one of the best cops there is. She has broken a lot of rules and laws to achieve actual justice. While it seems that her superiors don't know about the methods she uses to achieve results, there are indications that they know she is working around the law, but as long as she succeeds, they have no problem with that.
• In Mercedes Lackey works "It's easier to ask forgiveness than to get permission" is practically a motto. And while her younger characters sometimes do have to grovel a bit afterward, they're just as likely to be applauded for showing agency and acting like adults.
  • In the Last Herald-Mage Trilogy, the Royal Bastard and her cousin get married. Half the cast is appalled — it means Altar Diplomacy is now off the table, for one — but they are unrepentant and a couple of other characters praise them for acting for themselves instead of being steered around.
  • In the Mage Storms trilogy, several lower-deck characters quietly open communications with Grand Duke Tremane, who has taken possession of a neighboring country, in the interest of forming a multinational alliance to deal with the Mage Storms. Karsite priest Karal takes the worst of the backlash — Tremane ordered the assassination of his mentor and one of High Priest Solaris's closest associates — but Solaris ultimately backs off when she realizes he was right.
  • In The Obsidian Trilogy, after a handful of scouts sent to look over a cavern system where Shadowed Elves are believed to lurk die, Redhelwar decides not to bother scouting it at all and just to send in an army. Kellen, using either Knight Mage intuition or just plain common sense, thinks this is a terrible idea and goes against direct orders to look into it himself. When he comes out and finds the entire army waiting for him, Redhelwar is furious - and then Kellen explains that the caverns were a trap and said army would have died to a man, and the general, stiff with horror, thanks him.
• New Jedi Order: It's part of the military doctrine of the Yuuzhan Vong; "all things are justified by victory." That said, Supreme Overlord Shimra demonstrates there are values of "all", when he chews Tsavong Lah out for the fact his victories have cost the Vong their entire reserves.
• Helva, The Ship Who... Sang, is always willing to disregard a regulation. In The Ship Who Mourned she shelters a therapist who's trying to prove she can relieve the symptoms of a paralytic plague despite the authorities demanding she hand the woman over. This leads to the therapist's techniques being widely adopted, saving untold people. Her quick thinking in The Ship Who Killed saves Kira and gives her some Epiphany Therapy, despite the fact that singing sarcastically in public is illegal on many planets. One of her brawn partners disapproves of this well past the point of Honor Before Reason and she ends up shouting him out of her living quarters. During one of these she yells that the ends justify the means to someone trying to stop her.
• Star Trek Living Memory: At the end, Admiral Cartwright tells Uhura and an old friend of hers that since they helped stop a Negative Space Wedgie, he's going to overlook the fact they inadvertently helped cause it in the first place.
• Almost everyone in the Tortall Universe does this.
  • Alanna kick-starts off the tradition by disguising her gender to become a knight in Song of the Lioness. By the time it's revealed she's a girl, she runs off to avoid the political implications, although she gets a pardon for exposing Roger's treachery. Then she retrieves the Dominion Jewel and stops the Big Bad, so instead of getting kicked out or killed, she actually becomes the realm's top knight by invoking Vetinari Job Security.
  • Daine in the The Immortals wrecks a foreign ruler's entire palace and his army using her gods-given powers to reanimate the dinosaurs in the museum (and before you cry foul, this book was written before The Dresden Files) and essentially destroys his seat of power. Okay, she gets away with this more because the ruler had been a horrible one and the gods themselves were going to destroy his land if he wasn't replaced, but seriously, would you really want to mess with her?
  • Kel in Protector of the Small goes to rescue her people, knowing full well that she'll be executed for desertion when she returns. Since she killed the man responsible for the enemy's superweapons on the way and turned the tide of the war, her commanding officers decide it evens out and agree to pretend her mission never happened.
• Vorkosigan Saga: Miles Vorkosigan manages this often in his career in ImpSec. Miles has a...problem with following orders, and those above constantly complain about his "excessive initiative" or curse him by wishing he one day commands someone "just like him". This trope is probably most notable in The Vor Game. Miles is sent to a dead-end position for just 6 months to prove he can follow orders, he comes home in 3 months with a charge of treason but is forgiven because his refusal to keep his head down managed to prevent a crazy near-homicidal commanding officer from allowing a group of techs that refused to obey his orders (to pointlessly risk themselves cleaning up a toxic spill) from freezing to death. He is put under the one man who could possible deal with him and sent on a simple intelligence gathering mission, by the end of which he manages to have 3 separate 'superior officers' locked in the brig so he can go about leading a mercenary troop to defend a wormhole from an enemy invasion which no one ever asked him to do. But since he did manage to save everyone he ends up with a promotion and his dream job of playing admiral for said military fleet.

Live-Action TV

• In the pilot of Airwolf, Stringfellow Hawke robs the United States Freakin' Government and withholds their prize titular helicopter (though he agrees to fly it on their behalf in the future). He wisely did this after stealing said helicopter from terrorist dictators and the Mad Scientist that invented it. He also killed said Mad Scientist, who'd pissed off the government by murdering a bunch of Feds during a test run.
• Subverted on CSI, when the team manage to solve the case despite all the evidence being stolen while they were having breakfast at a nearby diner. Ecklie says it won't be a case of "No harm, no foul" and that there will still be an internal investigation. Played straight in that he's implied to only be doing it to get at Grissom.
• Several characters from M*A*S*H, most notably Hawkeye, get out of trouble this way on a regular basis.
• Merlin in the series finale uses his magic, forbidden in Camelot, to curbstomp the troops at Camlann and save all of Camelot and by extension the United Kingdoms. Add one Reasonable Authority Figure and it's not hard to guess what happened afterwards.
• The Badass Crew of Stargate SG-1 always tended to bend the rules a little (their leader is a Colonel Badass, after all), but in the season one finale they outright disobey Congress and launch an unauthorized mission right after the Gate has been ordered buried. The fact that they save Earth from an invasion is what keeps them from being spending the rest of their lives in Ft. Leavenworth.
• Star Trek
  • Lt. Cmdr. Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation outright disobeys Capt. Picard (on a hunch, no less) and refuses to regroup with the fleet. He also manages to not only catch the disguised Romulan ships but also owns them magnificently, putting an end to their incursion. Picard smilingly tells Data afterward that rather than court-martial him, he's actually issuing him a commendation. This one isn't quite a straight example, however; Data was in command of another starship at the time, and The Captain of a ship has a measure of leeway with orders from on high.
    • The Nitpicker's Guide observes that this was unnecessarily dramatic anyway: Data had only to say, "Please stand by, Captain, I may have another solution."
  • Star Trek: Voyager: Admiral Kathryn Janeway violates nearly 154 rules by traveling back in time and swindling the Klingons. The fact that her actions get Voyager home nearly 15 years early and with added technology as a bonus results in her past self getting a promotion... to Admiral (it probably helps that her past self hadn't violated, or even had the intent to violate, most of those 154 rules yet).
  • Also on an episode of Voyager, Reginald Barclay disobeys orders to continue work on project to try to communicate with Voyager from the Alpha quadrant despite his direct superior officer believing it a waste of time and resources. His efforts seem to be for naught in the end, leaving him almost certainly facing court martial — until Janeway's voice comes through the comm system. After that, he seems to face no threat of disciplinary action and in fact is later seen on further projects relating to Voyager.
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - "The Die is Cast:" "If you pull a stunt like that again, I'll court martial you. Or I'll promote you."

Tabletop Games

• C°ntinuum: roleplaying in The Yet: This is the unofficial sixth rule of the Continuum - if you do something illegal and highly risky, and it works, then obviously it was meant to happen and no laws were broken. This most commonly applies to fixing terminal frag; spanners (time travelers) are expected to just let themselves be Ret-Gone if they're beyond saving, but if they somehow save themselves anyway, nobody is going to call them on it.
• Warhammer 40,000: The Tactica Imperialis's oft-quoted maxim, "Victory requires no explanation; defeat allows none" is half this, half Not Cheating Unless You Get Caught.

Video Games

• Oni: In one level, you can find a computer terminal that reveals information on Terrance Griffin himself. It turns out that the Board he answers to are aware that he cares more for results than in following procedure. They turned a blind eye to it because he has done more to oppose The Syndicate than any other agent in the Technological Crimes Task Force. Despite this, it says that they feel that they can't keep turning a blind eye to it for much longer.
• Commander Shepard from the Mass Effect series makes their Spectre career out of this. In the first game, they hijack the grounded Normandy SR-1 in order to pursue Saren. This prevents Sovereign from capturing the Citadel and starting the Reaper invasion in full-force.
• Discussed Trope in Destiny: The Taken King.
  Cayde-6: Everyone loves a bad idea when it works.

Web Original

• The Henchman Guide (a corollary to the Evil Overlord List) mentions, in its section on Trusted Lieutenants:
  7: If you follow orders and fail, the Evil Overlord will claim he told you to do something different, and your body parts will be used as castle decorations. If you disobey orders and succeed, the EO will act as if what you did was his idea, and you will be commended. The Moral: Do what works.

Western Animation

• Exo Squad:
  • Invoked in the episode "The Price of Courage", when Simbacca encourages Marsh to bypass the chain of command and personally lead a vital massive counterattack against Neosapiens. True enough, Marsh wins and is not even reprimanded for bending the regulations.
  • Even earlier, in the first season finale, Marsh's squad effectively mutinies in the middle of a battle but ends up saving the Terran flagship and so they are merely grounded for a year instead of execution.
• The Legend of Korra: Used in "Original Airbenders", when Kai uses aggressive airbending to save Jinora. Tenzin comments on this.
  Tenzin: An airbender never attacks a defenseless opponent. [beat] But that was very good technique.

Real Life

• When James Cameron directed Titanic (1997), he ran almost a half-a-year over schedule, nearly doubled the allotted budget, drove nearly the entire cast and crew to revolt, and even assaulted a Fox executive. A bajillion dollars at the box office and 11 Academy Awards later, all is forgiven.
• Admiral Horatio Nelson, who could technically have been court-martialed at least once and probably several times, got away with it because he was too much of a badass to throw away.
  • Of course, the Admiralty did make their displeasure known in other ways, such as denying him a command at a time when he was in financial trouble and really needed the extra pay. He only got command of a ship again when war broke out and his aggressive style was needed again.
• Admiral Yi Sun-sin was a Korean admiral during Korea's Joseon Dynasty. He was known for his ingenuity, including building an armored ship affectionately dubbed the "Turtle Ship" due to its shape. When it looked as though Japan was gearing up for an invasion, he was told to remain on land as the army got ready. He went ahead and ignored his orders and sent his much smaller fleet out to beat Japan. This was considered an act of treason and he was actually scheduled to be executed but the King was impressed (y'know, with him halting an entire invasion and all), so he kept him alive and in command of Korea's navy. Admiral Yi went on to kick the crap out of Japan's invading forces about thirty more times, never losing a ship.
• Apparently during the Battle for France when everyone but a few German tank commanders expected a replay of 1914-1918 in some form Hitler gave many orders to halt the damn reckless advance, dammit, only for the tank commanders to largely ignore them. Given that this led to the capture of Paris and the surrender of the French high command within weeks, nobody was in any mood to punish anyone for their reckless attacks.