Sparing Them the Dirty Work

Lex Luthor: You're going to kill me so that Superman can't.
The Question: I'm a well-known crackpot. The Justice League's reputation will survive my actions... and Superman's legacy will remain intact.

— Justice League Unlimited, "Question Authority"

A person wants to kill another who has greatly wronged them, but another character gets to the target before they can do so — not out of personal vengeance, but to spare the first from having to commit the "sin" of taking another life, or the punishment of committing murder, or both.

This second character is usually a Psycho Supporter or Psycho Sidekick to the first, who is often an All-Loving Hero or is otherwise known as a morally upright individual with a code against murder. The second character brings it upon themselves to carry the revenge on behalf of the first so that the latter can keep their hands clean; meanwhile, the avenger might think that, since their hands have been "tainted" anyway, adding more stain wouldn't make much of a difference.

Another variation is when the target is someone's friend or family member, and the avenger is another friend who wants to spare the former the pain and heartbreak of having to kill a loved one, while still believing that the target needs to die.

Usually a Sub-Trope of Shoot the Dog, where a character kills another for a good cause — in this case, it's to preserve another character's innocence, morality, freedom, feelings, etc. Related to If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!, a different way a character tries to stop another from tainting their hands with murder.

Compare Making the Choice for You, where a character is spared from making a difficult choice (whether it's something as mundane as choosing what food to order, to a matter of life and death) by a third party making that choice for them.

Compare and contrast Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work, where a villain does an evil deed that's beneficial to the heroes so that the heroes can advance their goals without actually getting their hands dirty, and Won't Do Your Dirty Work, when someone, usually a villain's minion, refuses to do the dirty work they've been told/assigned to do.

---

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Cross Ange: The titular character is on the verge of annihilating her treacherous brother Julio when Embryo, the series' Big Bad who takes an interest in her, does the deed for her, not wishing to see her stain her hands.
• In Fullmetal Alchemist Riza Hawkeye intervenes when Roy attempts to kill Envy out of revenge for Hughes' murder. She tells him that killing someone in rage would leave its mark on him, and once that line has been crossed he'll continue to let his anger get the better of him. She reassures him that Envy will pay for his crimes and offers to execute him herself.
• In Mob Psycho 100, when the group is on the ropes against the leaders of the Nebulous Evil Organization Claw, Kid Hero and Reluctant Warrior Mob is on the verge of another Superpower Meltdown when his muggle mentor Reigen calms him down by reassuring him that it's ok to run away. Mob then manages to Take a Third Option by subconsciously transferring the energy building up inside him to Reigen, allowing him to nonlethally humiliate Claw on his behalf.
• Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water: Captain Nemo forbids Jean to fully join the Nautilus crew because he believes Nemo and his men should fight Neo Atlantis so that the younger generation wouldn't.
  The reason we fight this war is to prevent someone like you from having to fight and kill other people. I'd rather lose in battle than bloody your hands. Do you understand?
• A more subtle example occurs in Naruto when Kakuzu, the first victim of Naruto's devastating Rasenshuriken technique, somehow managed to survive what should have been a killing blow just so he could be finished off by Kakashi instead as he gives a speech about Passing the Torch to the next generation.
• One Piece: Kyros believes that Rebecca, his daughter, is pure, while he, a known murderer, is dirty. So when he saves her from being cornered by Diamante, Doflamingo's underling, he says that it's his duty, and not hers, to defeat Diamante.
• In Parasyte, Uda deals the killing blow to the parasite who killed and took the form of Shinichi's mother for this reason.

Comic Book

• In one arc of Deadpool, one of Deadpool's friends has an abusive boyfriend, but she gets Deadpool to promise not to kill him. Taskmaster goes up to the boyfriend after they've left and tells him "I didn't promise her anything". Cue Gory Discretion Shot.
• Injustice: Gods Among Us shows a possible alternate reality in which Batman kills the Joker before Superman has a chance to, preventing the Bad Future in which Superman becomes a tyrant.
• The Order (2007): During the Order's first mission, Calamity is sent to track down the Soviet sleeper agents who are mentally controlling a team of cloned Russian superheroes who are trying to nuke Los Angeles. He discovers that the agents are literally sleeper agents — they were put on ice way back in the sixties and don't realize that the Cold War is over, and there is no way to wake them up in time to stop the bomb, and thus someone will have to kill them. Calamity, having no experience with killing, can't bring himself to do it, so the team sends Omninaut, who used to be a soldier, to do it for him.
• In The Punisher (2001), The Punisher has Daredevil tied to a pole and gives him the Sadistic Choice of killing him to stop him from killing a mob boss to force him to see Frank's point of view; that if he doesn't act he has a death on his conscience but if he does he's a killer. Daredevil takes the shot, only to find out that there was no firing pin in the gun Frank gave him and Frank tells him to leave the killing to him.
  • Frank generally doesn't like other people trying to do what he does. In another comic, Frank encounters a group of fanboy cops that look up to him and he tells them off, saying that if they want a role model they should look to Captain America and that they're supposed to uphold the law & help people which he "gave up a long time ago".
• In Secret Six, Deadshot kills the assassin who bombed Scandal and Knockout's hotel room so that Scandal, who's already a bit of a wreck over Knockout's injuries, doesn't have to deal with it.

Fan Works

• The Last Son: When the heroes finally get General Zod depowered and cornered, they're at a crossroads about what to do with him, though most of them agree that he's too dangerous to be kept alive, and they can't keep him contained forever. Wolverine says he's willing to "jump on that grenade" if nobody else is, but their decision is rendered moot when Cadmus launches a Kryptonite-laced nuke at them, to kill both Superman and Zod in one fell swoop. Superman orders Sentrius to open a Phantom Zone singularity near them in order to minimize the damage, while also giving Zod two choices: either he stays where he is to allow the missile to kill him, or he goes back to the Phantom Zone to survive.
• In the RWBY fanfiction Cursed, Ruby has been turned into a vampire. When everyone finds out an attempt is made to make a cure to save her from the microscopic grimm within her. However by the time the cure is made she has fully turned and her soul is gone, after which she turns Weiss into a vampire as well but she doesn't fully turn. The cure will now kill her instead of cure. When Yang and Blake face down Ruby and Weiss, Blake is determined to be the one to use the cure on Ruby so Yang doesn't have to kill her own sister. However, Yang convinces Blake to let her do it because if Blake was the one to do it she would never be able to look at her the same way ever again. In the end, Yang is able to find a way to save Ruby.

Films — Live-Action

• Adventures in Babysitting: Downplayed, non-lethal example. After a harrowing night with her babysitting job, Chris finds her boyfriend, who had bowed out on their date because he'd claimed to be sick, at a restaurant with another girl. Brad, who is in love with Chris, tells the guy that he should beat him to a pulp, but that he won't, because the boyfriend is so slimy, Brad won't sink to his level. Daryl, who already has a beef with the guy for beating him up a year before for allegedly touching his car (which Daryl denied doing), says he has no problem with it, and kicks the guy in the rear, sending him into a dessert tray.
• Deadpool 2: A time-traveler warns the main characters that if Kid Hero Russell gets to kill the sadistic headmaster of the Orphanage of Fear where he lived, he'll learn that he really likes burning people alive and go From Nobody to Nightmare. Instead, Dopinder mows him down in his taxi while Russell watches in amusement.
• For Your Eyes Only: Melina Havelock wants revenge against Aristotle Kristatos for having her parents murdered, with Bond warning her about the ramifications of seeking vengeance. But in the end, it's Colombo, Kristatos's longtime rival, who finishes him off.
• The Operative in Serenity fills this role for the controlling central government. He himself observes that the purpose of his actions is to maintain an ordered society for people unlike him. In the end he finds out that the government has terribly failed to uphold its ideals, so he ceases to work for it.
  Operative: I believe in something greater than myself. A better world. A world without sin.
  Malcolm: So me and mine gotta lay down and die so you can live in your better world?
  Operative: I'm not going to live there. There's No Place for Me There... any more than there is for you. Malcolm, I'm a monster. What I do is evil. I have no illusions about it but it must be done.
• Se7en: A case of What Could Have Been. One of the alternative endings had Somerset kill John Doe so that Mills didn't have to after John Doe killed Tracey. This is not the ending used.

Literature

• As time wears in in Animorphs, this job falls to Rachel, both of her own volition and when pressed. Already the team's most eager combatant and most prone to collateral damage in her heroics, Rachel is eventually tasked with taking care of David, who had previously been trapped in rat morph and exiled to an uninhabited island, and with undertaking a suicide mission to stop her cousin, Tom. The repeated stress of being the team's designated killer wears on her psyche and morale significantly, and contributes to her inability to live a peaceful life toward the war's end.
• Beware of Chicken: When Jin faces a demonic cultivator who needs to be put down like a rabid dog, the lingering partial spirit of Jin Rou, or possibly the earth spirit, offers to take control and deliver the finishing blow so Jin doesn't have to, but Jin internally replies that they'll do it together.
• In The Curse of Chalion, Princess Iselle is betrothed against her will to Dondo. As he's a womanizer, attempted rapist, and a murderer who had attempted to kill Iselle's tutor and had successfully killed her brother's tutor, this would certainly be a fate worse than death. Her friend and handmaiden Betriz conspires to assassinate him, seeing it as the only way to save Iselle and asks Cazaril to teach her how to use a knife to do so, but he convinces her to hold off and attempts death magic himself (actually a 'death miracle', in which one trades their life to The Bastard, a god, to right some wrong via good old smiting), trying to both save Iselle and stop Betriz from having to dirty her hands. It works, though not in the normal way. Dondo does die via Death Magic and Betriz doesn't kill him, but inexplicably Cazaril doesn't die either. Instead, the demon's and Dondo's souls are both trapped in Cazaril's body (along with his soul, of course) in the form of a tumor by a second miracle granted to Iselle by the Daughter. Later, when Cazaril is stabbed in the tumor, the demon and Dondo are released and the soul of the person who stabbed him is also taken up, leaving Cazaril alive.
• The Dresden Files:
  • Death Masks: After Harry, Sanya, and Michael defeat Quintus Cassius, he relinquishes his Blackened Denarius coin in a fake show of remorse. This puts the Knights of the Cross at an impasse, as they are obliged by their oaths to let Cassius go, despite knowing that he will go right back to the necromancy and making pacts with devils. Harry, who is under no such oath, resolves the situation by sending the Knights away, then breaking Cassius' knees and elbows with a baseball bat, eliminating him as a threat without taking his life.
  • In The Warrior, Michael Carpenter is sorely tempted to beat his daughter's abductor to death after disarming the man. Talking his friend down, Harry volunteers to kill the man himself if there's really no alternative: Harry's done questionable things himself before, but Michael is a Knight of the Cross who shouldn't lower himself to such an act.
  "If this is how it has to be, I'll do it. But you can't, man."
• Near the end of Durarara!!, Vorona sees Shizuo defeating his archenemy, Izaya, and interrupts their fight by stabbing the latter with a knife, then attempting to finish him with a gun before Shizuo can deliver his final blow. When Shizuo tells her not to become a murderer, Vorona shrugs off his concern since she's a trained assassin who has killed many people before. She is, however, foiled by Simon, who threw a stun grenade at their midst, incapacitating her and allowing Izaya to escape the encounter.
  Vorona: "I have, from the very start... been a beast that enjoys killing."
• In the Erebus Sequence, Dino agrees to be an assassin for Russo because if he refuses, she'll send his friend Massimo instead. Even if Massimo can pull it off safely, Dino doesn't want Massimo (whom Dino is secretly in love with) to carry a murder with him for the rest of his life.
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: It's revealed that Snape's killing of Dumbledore the previous year was carried out at Dumbledore's own request, partially because he was already dying, and partially because he knew that Draco Malfoy had been ordered to kill him, and wanted to spare the boy the burden. Snape, though a little miffed at the implication that he was already beyond saving, dutifully carried out his headmaster's instructions.
• John Carter of Mars: The first book, "A Princess of Mars", actually has this as a plot point. John Carter can't kill Sab Than, himself, since Sab Than is already betrothed to marry Dejah Thoris, and Martian custom decrees that John Carter cannot marry a woman whose husband/betrothed he killed. Therefore, Tars Tarkas is the one to kill Than instead so John's planned marriage to Dejah Thoris is safe.
• In season 3 of Penny Dreadful, Malcolm shoots Jared Talbot dead rather than let the bitter old man goad his son Ethan into doing it.
• Sage Adair: In Land Sharks, retired hatchet-man Fong Kam Tong discovers that the man who robbed and killed his family is still alive. Despite having given up bloodshed, Fong is out for revenge again. Sage knows that a Chinese man who kills a white man, no matter what the reason, will inevitably hang, and decides to kill two birds with one stone: in order to infiltrate a gang of crimps he has to provide a crewman for a clapped-out whaler that can't fill its roster because every sailor can tell it won't survive another voyage.
• In Saikyou Juzoku Tensei, the story introduces Melzef, Chieftain of the Doom tribe. He leads a group of his clansmen on the trail of Abel and Mea, with the intention of capturing the latter and killing her, due to her being born as the Red Stone, despite her being his daughter. Later his subordinate Dafne, who happens to be Mea's Parental Substitute, takes over the group when Melzef got separated from them (Dafne planned with the group on that), and leads the group with the intention of killing Mea himself, to spare his boss and friend the agony of such decision, and to lie to Mea and tell her that her father opposed killing her to spare her the heartbreak in her last moments. A well-intentioned action, since Melzef has no qualms about killing his daughter.
• Zig-zagged in A Song of Ice and Fire, as in the final days of Robert's Rebellion, Lord Tywin Lannister had been sitting as a neutral party waiting for things to play out. Once it becomes clear that Robert was going to win the war and become king, he set out with his army toward King's Landing as a way of showing his loyalty to the new king by sacking the city and obliterating the armies of the Mad King Aerys II Targaryen, who believed Tywin was coming to save him. As Tywin sacked the city, he had Ser Gregor Clegane, his Ax-Crazy Blood Knight enforcer, commit all manner of atrocities against the Targaryen house, mainly killing all of the children of the king and his heir Rhaegar to ensure that there were no claimants to the throne who could seek revenge. While Robert did not order him to do any of this, nor did Tywin do this out of the goodness of his heart, Robert admitted to Eddard Stark that he was secretly relieved Tywin had done it so that Robert wouldn't have had to resort to the necessary butchery to ensure a stable rule.
• Discussed in one of the Spenser books. Spenser needs to deal with someone, and while killing them would be quick and easy, he can't do it that way. Hawk offers to do it, as he's considerably more cold-blooded, but Spenser refuses, saying that having Hawk do it for him is like Spenser doing it but pretending he didn't; Hawk is so amoral that it would be like blaming the gun you shot someone with for going off, even though you're the one who pulled the trigger.
• In the final book of StarCraft: The Dark Templar Saga, Executor Selendis beheads the infested Ethan Stewart before Rosemary can kill him, stating she's protecting Rosemary from her desire for revenge (whereas for Selendis, Stewart is just an enemy).
• Widdershins Adventures: Renard kills Henri Roubet because he doesn't want Widdershins to become a killer.

Live-Action TV

• Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: In the season 2 finale, Cal ends up killing Jiaying so Skye won't have to live with the pain of killing her own mother, telling her "let me live with it instead" (Cal still loves Jiaying, but has come to realize she's become a monster bent on wiping out humanity). Mercifully, Skye arranges for Cal to have his memory erased so he doesn't have to live with the pain either.
• In Angel once Fred discovers one of her professors sent her to Pyelea, she starts to summon a spell to send him to an even worse dimension. Gunn tries to talk her out of it, after this fails, he breaks the professor's neck and kills him before he can enter the portal.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In the Season 5 finale, it is determined the only way to stop Glory, the villainous Hell God of the season from returning to Earth is to kill Ben, the human conduit she lives through. Ben is actually a pretty nice guy, though the fact that he tolerates Glory does break a little sympathy for him. After Buffy defeats Glory and she returns to Ben, Giles shows up, says that Buffy is a hero and "not like us" and smothers Ben to death so that Buffy doesn't need to do the fairly unheroic action of killing a defenseless man.
• Zig-zagged in Chuck. Chuck passes his Red Test (go out and kill someone you don't know, under orders from higher-ups) only because Casey actually kills the target instead of Chuck. Since Casey was temporarily discharged from the Agency at the time Chuck takes "credit" for the kill because otherwise Casey would be arrested for murder.
• At the end of the Doctor Who episode "Death in Heaven", the Doctor is faced with the fact that killing Missy is the only way to stop her from causing more havoc in the future. A cyberconverted Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart rescues him from the dilemma by (seemingly) vaporizing her himself since he's a soldier and for him, the question of killing one person to save others is already settled.
• In The Expanse, when Prax finds the doctor who kidnapped his daughter and performed deadly experiments on other children, he sends his daughter away to confront the doctor alone. Before he can pull the trigger, though, he's stopped by Amos, who tells Prax he's "not that guy". After Prax leaves, Amos coldly turns to the doctor and tells him, "I am that guy."
• A very low-stakes version is Played for Laughs in an episode of The Golden Girls. After a misunderstanding results in Dorothy spending her birthday at a childish Suck E. Cheese's-style restaurant and being tormented by the host, a clown named "Mr. Ha-Ha," Dorothy seems "very close" to pieing Ha-Ha in the face with her birthday cake, only for him to remind her that 1) he has a lawyer that will sue her and 2) it's not a very grown-up thing to do. Dorothy concedes and puts her birthday cake down, only for a little boy also having a birthday there to walk up and throw his cake in Mr. Ha-Ha's face. To drive home the fact he did it as a favor to Dorothy, he promptly turns around and wishes her a Happy Birthday with a big grin on his face.
• In The Great, multiple people urge Catherine to kill her nine-year-old brother-in-law before he can challenge her claim to the throne. When she protests against killing a child, Marial offers to do it for her. In the end, Elizabeth kills him, and tells Catherine "You're welcome."
• Harlots: Lucy stabs George Howard when he tries to rape her. He doesn't die right away, but it's obvious that he will as he lies bleeding out in the Wells' house. Lucy's mother Margaret smothers Howard so when officials inevitably look into it, his death will be her crime and not Lucy's.
• In season 4 of Leverage, Nate contemplates killing the season's Big Bad as revenge for the death of his father, Eliot warns Nate about the Moral Event Horizon of becoming a killer, but Nate continues with his preparations. A little later, Eliot has the Big Bad at gunpoint and when Sophie asks what he's doing (since he usually doesn't use guns), Eliot responds, "I'm thinking about saving my friend some trouble." After a long pause, he removes the ammunition from the gun.
  • And after that, Quinn says "Hell, next time, give me the gun. I'm your Huckleberry"—making it a double example!
• Person of Interest
  • Played with in a first season episode. The person of the week is a medical resident who plans on killing the serial rapist she blames for her sister's suicide. Reese is able to intervene, talks her out of it, and captures the rapist himself. The final shot is him debating if he should kill the rapist, whether he does is not revealed (Later episodes imply that he may have been able to Take a Third Option and sent the rapist along with other villains in the show to a secret prison in Latin America.)
  • Also played with in a season 4 episode where the villainous AI of the episodes kills a woman's abusive husband by messing with his insulin medication to prevent her from killing him.
• Revenge (2011): The series finale has Emily Thorne ready to kill Victoria Grayson after having set her up earlier. Victoria at this point considers death but a mere formality, and expects Emily to go down for killing her for real as a final insult. What neither of them expects is the former's father, David Clarke, showing up and doing the deed for her, sparing his daughter the punishment, which, as he is dying from lymphoma, is short for him, as he is given compassionate release.

Music

• According to the official Novelization of the Vocaloid duology Nazotoki/Nazokake (or the original novel they were based on), this is the solution to the two singers' contradictory claims: Rin found out the first victim was the culprit behind the arson that killed her parents and cost Len his arm, so she poisoned his wine. Len found out, and stabbed the man to death before he could drink it so Rin wouldn't become a murderer.

Theatre

• The second Musical Touken Ranbu production Bakamatsu Tenrouden has the cast trying to undo the History Retrograde forces' attempts to change the timeline, one of which includes saving the Shinsengumi leader Isami Kondo from his execution in Itabashi. Problem is, Kondo's beloved sword-now-human Nagasone Kotetsu is on the main team, and Kondo himself requests that Nagasone be the one to execute him. Nagasone already has a lot on his plate right now, and killing his own master to preserve the timeline is definitely not going to help ease his mind. Before he can decapitate Kondo, however, his teammate and fellow Touken Danshi Hachisuka Kotetsu backhands him and does the execution himself. As Hachisuka had been needlessly antagonizing Nagasone the whole show, this gesture conveys that the former has finally started respecting the latter and that as a teammate he doesn't want Nagasone to quietly burden himself alone.

Toys

• The Transformers: The bio of the G1 character Repugnus says that this is his role in the Autobots. He's thoroughly unpopular among the rest of the Autobots and has been kicked out more than once, but he keeps being brought back because he's very willing to take on all the dirty tasks like assassinations and sabotage missions that more moral characters aren't. And he actually is committed to the Autobot cause and wants to spare the rest from having to be like he is.

Video Games

• Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag: Edward does this on two occasions:
  • Edward assassinates Hilary Flint so that his Assassin lover Rhona doesn't have to.
  • When Vance Travers is revealed to be an Assassin turncoat, Edward does the deed of assassinating him so that Upton doesn't have to kill his own brother.
• Bioshock Infinite: After Booker returns to 1912 and frees Elizabeth, she says she's going to kill Comstock. Booker tells her he's not going to let her do it because he's going to do it for her. He carries out his promise.
• Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony: Kaito kills Kochiki with a hydraulic press as part of his Thanatos Gambit after they have both been shot by poisoned crossbow bolts by Maki. This is because Maki would become the Blackened and be executed if it is found that Kochiki died of poison. By murdering Kokichi himself, Kaito becomes the Blackened in her place.
• In Devil May Cry 5, Dante insists that Nero stay out of the final fight so he won't have to kill his father, Vergil. Nero says to hell with this and stops them both from killing each other with his newly awakened Devil Trigger. Just before giving his father what for.
• Fable II: Played with. If you don't kill Lucien at the end Reaver will do it for you.
• Final Fantasy XIV:
  • Unukalhai executes the thralls tempered by the Warring Triad, believing that a hero like the Warrior of Light shouldn't have to stain their hands with "the dirty work". Y'shtola admonishes him for this, pointing out that the Warrior already has already acknowledged that there's no other recourse for the tempered until a cure can be found and has killed others many times before. In the end, Unukalhai realizes that he's put the Warrior on a pedestal rather than working openly and earnestly with them.
  • At the end of the Save the Queen questline, the Warrior can prepare to execute Misjia for her crimes against the Bozjan Resistance. Should the Warrior have advocated against the execution earlier in the storyline, Bajsaljen will stop the Warrior and say that it is his responsibility to do the deed as the Resistance's leader.
• Fire Emblem:
  • In Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, it is revealed in Wallace's supports with Lyn that Wallace destroyed the Taliver Bandits, the group that killed Lyn's parents, so that she wouldn't feel consumed by vengeance.
  • Fire Emblem Fates: In the Conquest route, after defeating Zola, Leo executes him to spare the Player Character the burden of doing so.
  • In Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Hubert's support with Edelgard has him insist that she leave the combat and dirty work to him rather than stain her hands with blood in pursuit of her goals. Edelgard gently refuses, as she is resolute in her convictions and refuses to let other people kill others and die for her meritocratic ideals unless she is living up to them by fighting alongside her own men.
  • Toward the end of Fire Emblem Engage, Alear must defeat their mother Lumera, who has been resurrected as a Corrupted slave of Sombron. Veyle, whose evil personality had killed Lumera, insists on handling the individual in question, partly to spare Alear the pain and partly as penance for her evil side's actions. Unfortunately, Veyle is not strong enough to defeat Lumera alone, so Alear takes matters into their own hands.
• League of Legends has two rival orders of ninja — the Kinkou and the Yanléi. The Kinkou believe in preserving the Balance Between Good and Evil and are more likely to observe than intervene; the Yanléi are openly partisan assassins. When Zed, the founder of the Yanléi, got a focus comic series, it turns out that he supports the Kinkou and thinks they need to stay neutral... so he started his own order to do the practical but less-than-moral deeds that have to be done. It also siphons off disaffected ninja who might otherwise have corrupted the Kinkou.
• Mass Effect:
  • Mass Effect: In one side mission investigating the deaths of a number of scientists, Shepard finds a former soldier (who was a member of their squad if they have the Sole Survivor background) who's been tracking down a scientist who kidnapped him and conducted brutal tests on him for years. The soldier wants to kill the last scientist responsible who's revealed to have been working for the Nebulous Evil Organisation Cerberus, but the Renegade option is to kill the scientist yourself on the grounds that Shepard's status as a Spectre makes them immune to prosecution whereas the soldier would go to prison for murder.
  • Mass Effect 2: In Thane's loyalty mission you must stop his son from following in his footsteps by also becoming an assassin. His target is an Asshole Victim; a candidate for office running on a xenophobic anti-human platform who takes bribes and shakes down human-run businesses for protection money. One Renegade solution to the mission is to kill the target yourself, so Thane's son can't and therefore won't start down the same path.
• Splinter Cell: Conviction: At the end of the game, Sam Fisher finally has the Big Bad Tom Reed at gunpoint, and the player has the choice of whether to kill him or not. If Sam relents, Reed gets a moment to laugh at his survival before Grímsdóttir, Fisher's considerably more cold-blooded ally, finishes him off instead.
• Tales of Zestiria: A recurring sequence is for Rose to deal the killing blow to the party's unforgivable enemies instead of Sorey. Justified because Sorey is too much of a Nice Guy to be able to handle that, and the internal conflict from actually killing a human, even a corrupted one, could easily turn him into a Hellion himself, with catastrophic results, while Rose is able to stay detached enough to remain human.
• In chapter 3 of The Walking Dead (Telltale), "Long Road Ahead", Kenny's son Duck is bitten by a walker and has to be dealt with before he can reanimate and becomes a threat to the rest of the group. One of the ways the protagonist Lee can resolve the problem is to offer to shoot Duck instead so Kenny doesn't have to.
• Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus: When the Kreisau Circle arrives at the TV studio to kill Frau Engel, they tell Sigrun to stay in the submarine, since although she understands what needs to be done, she cannot directly take part in the mission to kill her mother.

Western Animation

• In Justice League Unlimited, The Question discovers that, in an alternate universe, Lex Luthor successfully ran for US presidency, and that universe's Superman subsequently killed him, becoming The Unfettered in the process. When Luthor runs for presidency in the Prime Universe too, the Question decides to kill him before Superman can, judging that the League's reputation wouldn't suffer much for the actions of a known crackpot like him.
• Played for Laughs in Rick and Morty: In "Total Rickall", after Pencilvester is revealed to be an alien imposter, Rick still can't bring himself to kill his friend, and so orders Morty to do it for him.
• In Star Wars: The Clone Wars, The Mole Tal Merrik attempts to kill Obi-Wan's pacifist girlfriend Duchess Satine and during his escape attempt begins Evil Gloating, pointing out that Satine couldn't kill him and Obi-Wan wouldn't for fear of losing her respect. He then begins Tempting Fate, inviting one of them to "brand themselves a cold-blooded killer". What he didn't expect, however, was Anakin sneaking up behind him.

---