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alt title(s): Technical Pacifism
If you live in an action-adventure show-universe (or perhaps a videogame), violence is one of those things that you just can't escape. This can be a real problem if you want your leading man to be a new-agey tree-hugging intellectual, because, now that Hunter S. Thompson is dead, how many gun-toting hippies do you know?
So you end up with the Technical Pacifist. The Technical Pacifist is willing to beat people up as much as he wants. He may even get a few fatalities through the fridge. However, once it comes down to a choice between killing the villain and not killing the villain, the Technical Pacifist will not kill the villain. (That is, unless - as is often the case - the Self-Disposing Villain is Too Dumb To Live and likes to juggle Villain Balls.)
Sometimes, a Technical Pacifist may have an aversion to certain weapons due to their lethality ( most often guns), preferring to fight with his fists and other blunt weapons that are less likely to kill someone. Other times, he employs swords or even bullets in ways designed to subdue his opponents in a non-lethal manner.
There is a villainous variant of the Technical Pacifist, often seen with the Corrupt Corporate Executive and the Worthy Opponent. In the former case, this is a Big Bad who has no qualms about killing people, but doesn't like to get his hands dirty (or at least to be seen getting his hands dirty). So he has someone else do it instead. This invariably leads to the hero being locked in an Easily Escapable Deathtrap so that the villain won't get bloodstains on his suit. This tends to drop away when he's backed into a corner. In the latter case, the Worthy Opponent just refuses to use a gun because it's "not fair".
Can result in Fridge Logic, especially when this is executed by stretching Never Say Die and Could Have Been Messy beyond Willing Suspension Of Disbelief's outer limits.
See also Where Did They Get Lasers and Improbable Weapon User. See also Martial Pacifist, for the martial arts expert who follows The Path of Peace. Contrast Actual Pacifist for somebody who genuinely doesn't hurt people, instead of hurting them less. Compare Reluctant Warrior, who despite not wanting to fight, does fight and kills, much to their own regret.
Examples:
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Anime
- Prince Philionel from The Slayers doesn't believe in violence. He thus attacks with justice-themed physical attacks, such as Pacifist Crush, Kindness to All Creatures kick and Goodwill Towards Men Smash.
- Himura Kenshin from Rurouni Kenshin is a Meiji era former assassin that has forsworn the taking of human life and wears/uses a sakabatou (katana forged with a blunted outer edge) more because of this vow than laws against private uses of swords. Of course he will maim and cripple when sufficiently provoked.
- Lots of times he does stuff with the blunt sword, like hitting people in the throat or smashing them head-first into the ceiling so that they hang there, that could easily kill them, but it never does. Because he's just that awesome a judge of force, apparently.
- A weird subversion of this is seen in Corrector Yui, where the corrector program Peace has the power of materializing any kind of weapons, but doesn't use them, ever, because he says he's a pacifist and won't fight or use weapons. Instead, he gives it to other correctors to use against their enemies.
- And nobody's mentioned Kaname Tousen of Bleach yet? For a man who claims that his blind eyes see only "the path with the least bloodshed" and always talks about justice, it seems a bit odd to run off as a follower of the Big Bad. Plus he cuts off a subordinate's arm in the name of this "justice". Crazy much?
- Thors becomes one of these after his desertion from the Jomsviking.
- Katou. He's the personification of this trope taken to its logical conclusion.
- The Wing Gundam Team becomes Technical Pacifists in The Movie, primarily because the enemy soldiers have been lied to by their leader and think they're fighting for a noble cause when, in fact, it's all about said leader's mad desire for revenge. As soon as the deception is revealed, every single pilot surrenders willingly.
- Haru Glory, The Hero of the manga Rave Master believes it's morally wrong to kill other people. Apparently, beating the ever living daylights out of them is perfectly fine, so long as they deserve it (which, of course, they always do). Then again, since anything short of death or dismemberment in Rave Master can be shrugged off within a day or two, this makes some sense. He also uses a sword even though guns do exist in his world, but that's because swords are more romantic.
- And his particular sword, Ten Commandments, happens to be a magical weapon with ten distinct and unique forms. Let's see a gun cut through magic.
- The first main villain, and the final one-the originals son, both had to opt for suicide to be defeated. Never mind that the first killed Haru's mom in cold blood and the second was trying to destroy the world even though he already massacred about half of it. Haru wouldn't kill them. He avoided this with Lucia twice and even tried to convince both of them to live.
- Tetsunosuke from Peacemaker Kurogane, due to huge trauma from his past, refuses to kill people. Even though he's in the Shinsengumi. This is kind of lampshaded, as he is unable to tell Suzu that Yoshida wasn't killed by him, because he realizes that he just simply used Okita to do the deed for him.
- Naruto from Naruto. He's a freakin' NINJA, and he's never killed anyone before. He tends to let his comrades finish off the opponents (or converts the opponents).
- A very straight forward example from Gundam: SEED's main character Kira Jesus Yamato has - apart from the real Big Bad and Stella Loussier in Gundam SEED Destiny - not killed a single enemy since his more or less accidental kill of Nicol. He is actually able to disarm all of his opponents by only disabling their suits.
- This is unique in the sense that the slight subversion came first before the straight example: Loran Cehack of Turn-A Gundam will not hesitate to kill, but not before he's exhausted all other means to resolve whatever conflict he's part of without bloodshed (instead of leaping into his (overpowered) MS and disabling everything in sight).
- Yang Wen-Li would love to live in a universe in peace and claims to be totally inept when it comes to guns and actual fighting. He is also directly responsible for the death of tens of millions of imperial soldiers and is quite aware of the contradiction.
- Trigun anime's lead Vash the Stampede lives this trope as his essential gimmick. Outlaw with a very big gun and Improbable Aiming Skills, does a lot of ass-kicking when required, but goes to great and painful lengths to avoid letting anyone be killed. Likely to whack someone with his gun, throw the bullets out the back of the gun, shoot their pants off, get bubblegum into their gun, or let the terrain clobber them if engaging, also very likely to run away. Will deliver non-fatal shots if necessary. Gets sneered at and called either a moron or a hypocrite a lot. Starry-eyed idealist, but scary if pushed far enough. The Big Bad's evil scheming more or less culminates in sending his fanatically loyal psychic The Dragon to force Vash to shoot him dead to save his remaining best friends. Object: 'Eternal Suffering to Vash the Stampede.' In the end, shoots Big Bad through all major limbs and carries him into the desert over his shoulder.
- Situation in the manga version slightly different. But he saves the world through psychic powers of love instead of violence in the end, and apparently convinces the Big Bad to give up genocide. Could be partly that he's been left with no allies, almost no power, and a fraction of his former lifespan.
- Rally Vincent in Gunsmith Cats (or at least the manga) is reluctant to kill, despite being an expert in fire gun's use and manteinance, and having a day job as the owner of a Gun's shop and a night job as a bounty hunter. She is pretty proficient at shooting down the other's gun's hammer/trigger, or, if pissed off enough, their trigger fingers. Though she'll kill bad guys if a good guy is in dire danger, she would regret it. Her sidekick, Minnie May, holds a similar morale, though her speciality are bombs.
- Edward Elrid in the Full Metal Alchemist manga, as well as his brother Alphonse.
Comic Books
- King Mob in Grant Morrison's The Invisibles begins the series killing indiscriminately, then turns into a kung-fu master/Technical Pacifist after realizing that the death toll is negatively affecting his karma.
- Batman has long been portrayed as being adamantly opposed to killing criminals (although this troper can't recall an instance where Bats stopped a legally sentenced execution).
- Originally, however, he subverted this trope, feeling it was his job to destroy the scum Gotham Police couldn't, as an act of revenge for his parents' deaths. Moreover, he used the gun that was used to kill them.
- Whereas this troper has read Joker: Devil's Advocate in which Batman prevents the execution of the Joker, mostly because the Joker didn't actually commit the crime.
- Given that Batman's good friend Commissioner Gordon has killed people in the line of duty not just in past instances but also in scenes while Batman was standing right next to him, and Batman has never said one disapproving word to him about it, we can reasonably presume Bruce is all right with justifiable homicide so long as it's done with moral and legal sanction. It's just, he can't do it, as he figures he's already enough of a vigilante as is.
- He goes back and forth here. Jason Todd and Damien Al Ghul/Wayne are basically left to run around and dispense justice their own way with only some interference from Batman and/or the rest of the family. He didn't actually stop Cass all that much, and basically shrugged when Catwoman told him that she shot Black Mask. Even going so far as to act insulted when she implied he didn't know because he wasn't yelling at her about it. However, he blamed Wonder Woman for Maxwell Lord, and told Manhunter he would come and stop her at some future point. It seems to depend partly on his particular ties to whomever is doing the killing and possibly why to a lesser extent. In Kingdom Come, he is shown kind of happy that someone else blew up both Arkham Asylum and Black Gate prison(inmates included), much to Superman's disgust.
- Basically, Batfamily members have Bat-immunity. When Bruce loves you, Batman lets you get away with murder.
- Or he's naturally more suspicious of superhumans.
- In some versions of his story, such as Batman Begins or Batman The Animated Series, where recurring enemies haven't killed more than a handful of citizens, this makes sense: Batman's already deciding who the criminals are and committing felonies himself to stop them, he has to leave something to the Law (trials and sentences) or else he is the sole arbiter of right and wrong in the greater Gotham metropolitan area.
- In the comics, however, where Joker-related violence is a leading cause of death somewhere between car wrecks and heart disease, it seems increasingly immoral of the Batman not to kill — especially since he's apparently the only man (or Kryptonian) on Earth capable of it.
- One could say that the courts of Gotham are more at fault than Batman for not executing the Joker. On the other hand, in real life Joker would have been executed already, if just for stuff like trying to kill the president or attempting to gas a UN meeting. At the very least he'd be taken out of Arkham and sent to somewhere actually capable of holding him.
- It's instructive to note that another reason Batman adamantly refuses to kill any villain is because he's afraid he might grow to like it. Bruce is entirely aware of just how epically large an amount of repressed anger he's carrying around, and would very much like it to stay repressed.
- In one Robin comic book, while the Boy Wonder is training with a super secret paramilitary unit, one of the members asks why he and Batman don't use guns. Robin replies that, unlike the cops and the military, Batman and Robin can't appear in a court of law to justify it if they end up killing someone, and they don't have any official authority, so they don't use lethal force.
- Some of the above examples may be partially made moot by the fact that the members of the Bat Family would have the knowledge and resources to dispose of dead bodies if they had to, although that doesn't affect the moral implications of the act.
- Interestingly, Batman has fewer reservations about lethal force when dealing with superhuman threats(heroes or otherwise). In JLA:Tower of Babel, many of his 'defensive' measures against his fellow super-powered heroes(should they ever go rogue) involve highly creative ways of killing them(synthetic Kryptonite for Superman, nanites that cause the Martian Manhunter to spontaneously combust, a hallucinogen designed to give Wonder Woman a heart attack and so on).
- Cassandra Cain (Batgirl III). By being able to read body language as a first language means that killing a man makes her feel the horror of the other person's death, thus she doesn't kill. Usually.
- And let's not forget that Green Arrow started as this (but of course, he was basically a Batman rip-off). He also made it into a form of art, with stunning arrows, sleep/cough gas arrows, electronic disturbance arrows, and his trademark boxing globe arrows. After losing his money, though, he got over it.
- Then there's ROM, SPACEKNIGHT, who banishes rather than kills the Dire Wraiths early on... Because he thinks they suffer more that way. ROM is stone cold.
- A much later issue of The Avengers (the comic ones, not the British TV guys) find themselves stranded in the dimension where ROM keeps sending all those Dire Wraiths. They force the Avengers *to kill them* rather than continue to exist there.
- Traditionally, and very unrealistically for a military commander with hundreds of millennia of experience, Optimus Prime has been a Technical Pacifist or close to it. (More accurately, it is unrealistic that a technical pacifist would survive military command that long, though he might certainly want to be a technical pacifist after so much death and combat.) This is likely because the original series were aimed at children. More recent comics produced by IDW make Prime willing not only to kill enemy soldiers, but when absolutely necessary accept Collateral Damage, though it eats at him.
- Let's not even get into guys like Mirage, Perceptor, Botanica, Bluestreak, and Backstreet, and Movie Ratchet, who, for people who "don't like to fight" are pretty well-armed. (This is quite often lampshade). Hell, most of the Autobots listed have have guns mounted on their robot modes.
- Daredevil, regardless of what the horrible movie might make one think, has always stuck to his belief that he doesn't have the right to kill. No matter how much he might want to. Beat people senseless, yes. Kill, no. This is, in fact, the one thing that keeps him from entering CastleLand. Bets might be off lately, though. After all of the breaking the cutie that's been going on with him, he's been having many breakdowns for a while now, and they get worse each time. Also, he hates guns. That will never change.
- Tintin is somewhere between this and Actual Pacifist, but he generally only uses forces on self-defense. Tintin In The Congo doesn't count.
Film
- Sneakers arguably had one of the best uses of this, as the villain (played beautifully by Ben Kingsley) looks at the hero with the line, "I cannot kill my friend." Just as the characters (and the audience) sigh in relief, he turns to his shotgun-carrying minion, and in the exact same tone of voice repeats his last three words.
- Averted in Rush Hour 2. One of the fight scenes focuses on everyone in the room trying to get their hand on a gun. A behind-the-scenes DVD featurette shows that the script originally called for Chan's character to have the gun fall in his hand, and then throw it away in disgust. Chan rightly pointed out that, given the fight going on in the room, throwing it away was "stupid."
- This is a trait shared by Bruce Lee. Despite never actually using a gun, in most of his latter movies he specifically asks about if he can use one, only for the possiblity to be handwaved away. (Enter the Dragon, Uncut Game of Death, for example.) Also, from his 1971 English-language interview: "Why doesn't someone just pull out a .45 and — 'BANG!' — settle it?" In his own writing, he was rather explicit about how guns versus fists would actually fare.
- The Charlies Angels movies featured this trope in contrast to the original series, due to producer/star Drew Barrymore's aversion to glamorizing gun use (as opposed to kung-fu violence). The change is commented on in the second film by villainous former angel Madison who says "In my day we used guns," before shooting the heroines, hitting their surprisingly small bulletproof vests.
- Field Of Dreams played this one for laughs: Costner's character is threatening James Earl Jones with a fake gun, prompting Jones to pull out a crowbar and start walking toward Costner with a maniacal but serious look. Costner falls down, muttering about 'rules', then finally gets his act together just in time and shouts "You're a PACIFIST!"... to which he gets a very disappointed look and puts down the crowbar.
- In an unusually subtle example, Jason Bourne appears to become a Technical Pacifist after the first film. Having declared his intention to give up killing people, he spends the next two films beating the living hell out of every enemy to cross his path but, despite killing three of them, never once fires a gun. He's even seen taking guns off opponents and then throwing them away a couple of times.
- Partial example: In Tall Tale, Pecos Bill will not kill a man on a Sunday. He shoots off their trigger finger instead.
- Subverted in Blade Trinity. At one point, Blade and his sidekicks get into a fight with a group of security guards armed with nightsticks. The heroes kick and punch the security guards into submission, then Blade whips out a pistol and kills the last one just to show that he can.
- And of course there's the Terminator in T2. Ordered not to kill by a young John Connor, he shoots people in the kneecaps instead. "He'll live."
- In the first film (but not the original novel), Rambo largely refrained from using lethal force-even Gault only died when he fell from the helicopter.
- Walker does not directly slay any of his enemies in Point Blank.
- In the 1997 film The Saint, the Saint neither uses a firearm nor does he take a life, something the prose version of the character had no qualms about. The main gangsters even live to see trial at the end of the film.
- Indeed, the original Saint was known for occasionally remarking that he hasn't killed anyone in a while, and is worried he'll "get squeamish" if he goes too long between (justified) murders. And then he guns down the leaders of a drug ring.
- Iron Man: Tony Stark could possible be called this as he refuses to build more weapons. He has no problem taking out the bad guys in a number of ways.
- Though being fair on the guy, his problem with making weapons was knowing they were being used to kill innocent people rather than being used to kill in and out of themselves.
- His problem was that he realized once they got out of his hands he didn't know where they'd end up. He had no problem USING weapons, he just didn't want to supply them to anyone he couldn't personally vouch for.
- In The Glimmer Man, Steven Seagal's character (a police officer) declares he can't fight when he and his partner are held up by some, but then proceeds to fight them (using a razor to slice a couple of throats, then his good old fashions limb breaking attacks and a final kick of one bad guy onto some spiky things). His partner says "I thought you said you can't fight?" to which he answers "It's not that I can't fight; I'm not supposed to. I'm a Buddhist.". Prior in the movie, he neutralises a hostage situation because he knew SWAT would most likely kill the hostage taker (a high school student). The character's history also shows a violent person who converts to Buddhism in Vietnam (the war anyway, he wasn't actually in Vietnam at the time) which explains his skill in fighting.
Literature
- The Assassins' Guild in the Discworld novels, while not pacifistic in even a technical sense, have suppressed the invention of guns, and aren't happy about improvements in crossbow technology, on the grounds that making it too easy to kill people devalues their profession. Sam Vimes, Commander of the City Watch, loathes "spring-gonnes" (concealable pistol crossbows) to the point where anyone caught with one within city limits will end up swinging gently in the breeze.
- No, not in a children's playground, though kids might be fascinated by them.
- The Animorphs' allies, The Chee, are programmed to be 100% pacifistic, but Erek King is pretty technical about it. He managed to override the violence prohibition, but was so sickened by the massive amount carnage he caused (more deaths in one hour than the Animorphs themselves caused in months) that he immediately changed it back and had the item that made it possible thrown away. However, this doesn't stop him from attempting to manipulate the Animorphs into killing the aliens that destroyed his creators... Then there's the final battle, but it's unclear whether or not he was offended because Jake killed and threatened to kill indiscriminately, or because Jake blackmailed him. But it's probably both.
- Doc Savage was big on not deliberately killing his opponents, since this would be a waste of human life. Whether his habit of subjecting captured criminals to personality-altering brain surgery is a better thing is debatable. He also has no problem with knocking people off of cliffs or buildings, or out of windows, making planes crash, or leaving people to the mercy of wild animals: driver ants in one story; giant vampire bats in another; and swarms of weasels in yet a third.
- You Should Know This Already but The Culture epitomize this trope: they are a bunch of hippies with WMD who built a galactic empire and they don't take it very well when someone tries to stop them from spreading their way of life.
Live Action TV
- Probably a borderline example if anything, but no Wraith weaponry in Stargate Atlantis is lethal, except for ship-to-ship armaments. Of course, this is so that they can devour their victims later...
- The Goa'uld's Zat'n'ktl are also primarily for stunning (and torture). And they kill on the second shot. Stunners are all over the place in Stargate, and most Sci Fi. Plot-handy without necessarily being a statement.
- The Doctor (Doctor Who) usually eschewed guns (the exceptions being notable such as in "The Seeds of Doom", where the characters act as if the script was actually a misplaced episode of The Avengers), both for moral reasons and because he inevitably faced threats Immune To Bullets, but would not shy away from killing the Monster Of The Week in other ways. For that matter, he often had no misgivings about having The Cavalry use guns (see Five Rounds Rapid).The Tenth Doctor in particular has an aversion to killing; in one episode Rose points out that their enemy have guns: the Doctor responds "And I haven't, which makes me the better person. They can shoot me dead, but the moral high ground is mine." Given the severe nature of his behavior when he does take off the kid gloves, this editor speculates that the Doctor, having only a handful of regenerations left, may be afraid that he's turning into the Valeyard.
- In the episode Dalek, however, the Ninth Doctor had precious few compunctions about rifling through an alien arsenal and pulling out the biggest BFG he could find; this is partially justified by the fact that he intends to use it to kill the titular Dalek, the apparent last survivor of his rapacious race of exterminators, but it still represents a surprising break of character, especially considering how confident he seems with the weapon (even though he never actually pulls the trigger).
- And, indeed, Rose, the Dalek itself, and, it seems likely, the writers, consider the Doctor to be at this point dangerously close to crossing a line he ought not cross.
- Daleks bring out the worst in the Doctor. In Resurrection of the Daleks, the Doctor fully intends to act as Davros' executioner, and is only prevented from it by a Deus Ex Machina which allows Davros to escape. Though the Doctor has reservations, he fully intends to kill, with a gun. In this same serial, he actually did shoot a shelless Dalek dead with a gun.
- The Daleks are a race of so-close-as-to-make-no-practical-difference irredeemable Omnicidal Maniacs. Technical Pacifism in the face of such a threat is pretty much a universal death-wish. Besides, if the Doctor wishes to be a perfect pacifist, then he should stop complaining when his Companions get threatened and killed.
- Davros takes the opportunity to really stick the boot in during World's End. He points out, when The Doctor's various companions threaten an extremely violent act to stop Davros, including the destruction of Earth to deprive him of one of the planets he needs, that The Doctor doesn't need to carry a gun because he takes people and fashions them into weapons instead.
- There was also the episode (The Brain of Morbius) where the Doctor killed the Mad Scientist with cyanide gas. What have we learned from this show? Guns are bad, cyanide gas is good. Now go home and play with cyanide, kids.
- Often pointed out by villains and companions; anyone who actually sees what he is like is terrified of what he's capable of doing.
- You know you're getting close when the God-Emperor of the Daleks calls YOU 'The Great Exterminator!'. Considering that the good Doctor was planning a Class 3a at BEST over at Apocalypse How at the time, aimed at Earth...
- Then there was the time the Fourth Doctor was disguised as one of the loyal soldiers of the serial's Big Bad. The villain hands him an explosive and expects him to use it for a suicide bombing. Then he charges off...and explodes. The Doctor planted the bomb back on him. Very funny in a Looney Tunes sort of way, but also an almost totally unnecessary execution of a villain who had already been pretty much declawed at this point.
- Even when he is being pacifistic and not killing his enemies he's extremely scary. In "The Family of Blood" he gives the titular Family the thing they want the most, immortality, but like a djinn, not the way you expected it.
- Gabrielle from Xena Warrior Princess had no problems with beating people up, but throughout most of the series had a taboo about personally killing people, despite travelling with Xena, who was a walking Cuisinart.
- Max, of Dark Angel, hated guns because Colonel Lydecker shot her sister Eva to death with one. She never used any "cheats" (devices that aren't technically guns), but she did beat the crap out of the bad guys and sometimes killed them through fisticuffs.
- One of Mr. Chapel's codes in Vengeance Unlimited was, did not kill his marks. However, he did use stuff that went boom (and called in favors from people who knew how to use stuff that went boom) to scare the bejeezus out of his marks.
- Shepherd Book from Firefly won't kill people, due to it being against the teachings of The Bible, but those teachings are a "mite fuzzier on the subject of kneecaps." He's also shown beating the crap out of people a few times.
- Firefly's Woman With No Name is a deconstruction. Since she's a not-very-sympathetic antagonist, it's easy to see how thin the distinction between Technical Pacifist and Serial Killer is. That and Mal points it out frequently.
- "Woman With No Name"? Are you talking about Yosaffbridge?
- Odo from Star Trek Deep Space Nine, as a police officer he does not like to kill, but he is more than willing to fight hand to hand. His shapeshifting abilities and experience in combat allow him to be more dangerous unarmed than a rabid, bat'leth-swinging, disruptor-toting Klingon. He also has a certain amount of pride about this; upon being told Klingons attacking the station would likely come after him in hopes of making themselves worthy of song, he muses that if any one Klingon warrior did kill him in combat, it would be an act worthy of an entire Klingon opera.
- Sheriff Andy Taylor of The Andy Griffith Show almost never used a gun, preferring to outwit criminals. Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife was more willing to use his sidearm, but carried it unloaded so that he wouldn't accidentally shoot himself when attempting to draw it.
- In an episode of the show, it's revealed that Andy doesn't use a gun because the last time he did, the criminal ended up without the use of one knee. Andy gets a letter from the criminal saying he's coming by for a visit. Though most of the town urges Andy to take up his gun again, Andy can't bring himself to do so. The end of the episode reveals that Andy did the criminal a huge favor, the loss of his knee made the crook start his life over. The criminal became a model citizen and wanted to give Andy a gift, a hunting rifle. Guns are both good and bad.
- The "no gun" policy on Andy's part was most likely meant to convey the almost total lack of violent crime more than anything else, in keeping with the Idylic Small Town setting.
- The Lone Ranger used guns, but only to disarm his opponents in the least painful way possible. Presumably, he was one of the inspirations for Vash the Stampede.
- The Equalizer has no problem with firearms, but prefers to use psychological warfare to inspire villains to recant or confess. His reluctance to kill is more because he's trying to atone for his past as trained government spy/killer.
- Burn Notice plays with this trope. Michael is not so much against killing as he is not wanting to draw attention to himself by killing. It seems like he doesn't like the idea of outright murder, but he has killed people when pushed. Besides all of that, he is more then okay with the bad guys dying so long as the innocent are protected.
- In the last episode of season 2, He and Victor, his new assassin-turned-ally, are trapped on Victor's houseboat. Carla has just shot Victor, and he is dying. He asks Mike to kill him and save himself, which Mike refuses to do (either on principle, or because Victor is the one person who understands what he's gone through). In the end, they both take the gun and put it to Victor's chest. Although it is unclear who pulled the trigger, Michael is visibly shaken by Victor's death.
- "She's not like us, you see she's a hero" - Buffy the Vampire Slayer refuses to outright kill a human, even if that person is an evil hellgoddess with no regard for human life 50% of the time.
Video Games
- Dizzy from Guilty Gear is a pacifist who hates violence of any form. The only problem is that the spirits living in her wings are very protective of her and have no such moral concepts. Her attacks have names like "This Was Used to Pick Fruit From Trees" and similar nonviolent uses. Most of her quotes in battle are desperate pleas for said spirits to either stop or at least hold back. It's even worse when she takes a nasty shock (such as a 10,000-foot fall), as one of the spirits possesses her...
- Similarly, Zappa from Guilty Gear XX is a softy who has no desire to fight anybody. It's just his luck that he's possessed by a host of excessively belligerent spirits with a penchant for insulting the wrong people.
- In the Kingdom Hearts games, in contrast to his being the captain of the knights, Goofy hates weapons according to the manual. Instead, he uses his shield to beat people up, with surprising effectiveness for a character who's supposed to be clumsy...
- Because beating people to death at length with a large, blunt instrument is morally superior to killing them quicker with a real weapon. Uh, yeah... Uh, yeah...
- Regal, a playable character in Tales Of Symphonia, once killed with his bare hands and as a result refuses to ever use his hands as weapons ever again. He wears shackles for the entire game as a symbol of his crime; nevertheless, he studies extensively in a fighting style made up exclusively of kicks instead. Several characters call him on this logical inconsistency, but he remains firm to his vow. It should be noted that Regal rarely if ever fights with the intent to kill.
- Well, his objection is really specifically because of who he killed (his lover, Presea's sister...under completely justifiable circumstances, no less). It might be for the best, though: there's strong indication that if he ever did fight with his hands, he'd be an absolute monster (strength/skill-wise).
- Yes, we did see him use his hands once, and when he did he kinda blew through steel like it was nothing. So he is, perhaps, justified.
- Nethack has an optional conduct "pacifist", generally considered one of the most difficult to win with. A Nethack pacifist must avoid killing a single monster... directly. However, this does not preclude them from leading their army of powerful pets to a monster and letting violence ensue. In fact, it doesn't preclude their wailing on monsters all they like, provided they don't personally land the killing blow; although this is extremely risky to try without a thorough knowledge of how much damage various attacks do, and a way of tracking monster HP.
- The less deaths one directly causes in the Metal Gear series, especially in later games, the more points one is rewarded and the more you'll qualify for special rewards. You can even tranq bosses in later games, with a different cutscene after, though the end results are the same. In fact, the boss encounter with The Sorrow in MGS3 is 1:1 proportional with how many mooks you slew. (More disturbingly, if you left any to the crows or vultures, their ghosts will actually show the damage.)
- The higher-score reward seems to be less about advocating non-violence than it is the series being about stealth. Killing every living thing in your path is not a particularly stealthy way of getting into places.
- Thief has a similar ranking system, with human kills being completely forbidden on the highest difficulty setting, not so much for morality reasons (Anti Hero Garrett is a walking Dead Pan Snarker Misanthrope) but rather because "leaving a mess behind" is "unprofessional". To assist in this regard, Garrett gets a variety of non-lethal takedown options, including sleeping gas arrows, flash bombs, and a good ol' blackjack to the back to the head.
- Likewise, the Hitman games have a scoring system that encourages players to complete missions by only killing the target, without leaving any collateral damage. Each game presents certain non-lethal takedown options, such as chloroform or tranquilizer syringes, to assist in this regard when dealing with patrolling guards or unlucky civilians. Again, this is done for reasons of "professionalism" rather than morality, and in Blood Money 47 is perfectly willing to kill civilians without batting an eyelid if he's specifically ordered to do so.
- Sam Fisher in Splinter Cell has an assault rifle with a special Trick Arrow launcher that fires a wide assortment of less-than-lethal ordinance, including airfoil rounds, taser darts, and mini-cameras that release sleeping gas on command. The scoring system in the later games encourages players to take the non-lethal approach, although Sam as an actual character seems to prefer lethal force in his in-game dialogue, often having to be told to "hold back" by Mission Control.
- In the FPS/RPG Deus Ex, there are several nonlethal weapons and in the early stages of the game the player is encouraged by various characters to knock foes unconscious whenever possible, rather than kill them. It is actually possible to complete the entire game without killing a single person, and many players endeavour to accomplish such a so-called 'no kills' game. Also in the early stages of the game, how much lethal force the player uses against opponents earns them brownie points with their more gung-ho allies, and disapproval from the rest, or vice versa.
- Doing a no kills run actually requires fighting, one person must be KO'd or killed to progress, 1 needs injured to the point they retreat (opening a door for you). A no equipment run can be can done by useing explosive crates (or jumping on them, as one is perfectly set up for) to kill these people
- Of course, Deus Ex also features another Technical Pacifist - Paul Denton. Since he's secretly working for the NSF, he'll often preach about using non-lethal weapons. But he himself is only armed with a sword, a machine gun and a giant plasma gun of death, so if you get him into a fight with his supposed allies, he'll be quite happy to slaughter them.
- Freeware game Iji has the storyline change somewhat depending on how many enemies you kill, however, only direct kills count, so, while you can avoid everything for the pacifistic route you can also make heavy use of technical pacifism and use indirect means to kill your foes without upping the counter; such as intentionally being hit by an enemy explosive so the explosion kills everything in promixity to you (or the enemy who shot it).
- Some boss battles still require you to fight even on a pacifism run, but fortunately something always happens in the end that upholds the technical pacifism (the boss runs away, somebody else delivers the killing blow, the boss is a machine so destroying it doesn't count, etc.)
- Mirror's Edge on the Xbox 360 has two achievements that play this trope straight: 'Pacifist' (complete a single mission without firing a shot) and 'Test of Faith' (complete the game without firing a shot that hits a guard). Now, the thing to note is firing a shot — for the purposes of these achievements, it is perfectly acceptable to smash the enemies in the face with your knee or their own guns, kick them in the face to send them careening off of buildings, and otherwise brutalize them... as long as you don't shoot them. (of course, the ONE shot you actually HAVE to shoot in ONE sequence in Chapter 8 probably does kill someone, but it doesn't count if the bullet does NOT hit anyone directly. ( it hits an engine if you aimed correctly.) Same thing for using the handgun in chapter 4 - if it doesn't hurt anyone, you can still get the achievement)
- Fallout 3 has a interesting way of doing this. Do you have a follower NPC and want someone dead, but you don't want to be evil? Punch them in the face to start combat with them, then watch as Charon shotguns them in the face, causing him to lose the Karma! Do not attempt this in a crowded plaza.
- Just like his creator/"father", all that the eponymous Hero of Mega Man X wants is to see a peaceful world where humans and Reploids co-exist with each other. However, he's ready to destroy any Mavericks that threaten that way of life, until X7.
- It also should be noted that X is forcing himself to be this, because he feels guilty over the fact that he is pretty much the father of all reploids and mavericks.
- This troper would like to add that any Megaman from any megaman series would fit in this trope. Obviously, the reason why is because all series are based off the first Megaman, and that one was based off Astro-boy.
- Definitely not Zero.
- Nor Trigger, who happily wandered around blowing the hell out of anything that moved. One may say that most of his kills were robots and thusly don't count, except that in this alternate universe/future timeline/whatever it's supposed to be today, nobody bothers distinguishing robots or humans as different anymore.
- The Peace Sims from Perfect Dark's Combat Simulator mode are a fine example of this. Being opposed to violence, they run around picking up the guns and ammo in the levels, and disarming anyone they come across who isn't a teammate. (They have no problems socking you one to take the gun out of your hands, though - but it counts even more towards this since it doesn't do any damage.) This also serves to make them into roving weapons lockers - slay one and he'll usually drop a full complement of all the guns being used during the round.
- The Fist Sims are another example of this, since they too shy away from the use of guns - but have no qualms beating the living tar out of you with their fists.
- The author of Scarab Of Ra "feels kindly toward his creatures, and has not provided any way for you to kill them" - even the ones who can fatally bite and maul you. However, you can permanently snare any animal in a net, leaving it so tightly bound and helpless that it will presumably starve to death.
- Xenogears has a couple of them. Fei is forced to fight because his life and the lives of those he cares for would otherwise be in jeopardy. Citan renounced his warrior ways, but his pragmatism and duty wins out in the end. And Miang, one of the three core villains of the game fights the party only once out of necessity because she's the last line of defence for her boss/partner, Krelian.
Web Comics
- Dr. McNinja
 is a good example... Partly because he's a doctor, partly because he's a Batman fanboy. It's not that he dislikes guns, though, he genuinely tries to avoid killing... But when he IS forced to kill, the body count tends to rack up pretty quick, though that only really happened once and he felt pretty shaken up about it afterwards. He has no problem beating the crap out of people, though. He also has no problem with having a Gunslinger as his sidekick. Also, when zombies attacked, he had no problems whatsoever with duel-wielding shotguns.
- Though he did kill that one security guard rather unnecessarily.
- As well as at least 30 pirates when rescuing his family.
- I'm not sure he killed that many pirates. He just wounded them, and left them with peg faces.
- And all those ninjas led by Rayner. And.....you know, maybe the Doctor isn't the best example of this.
- Celia from Order Of The Stick is probably a fantasy version of this. She won't compromise her anti-killing principles to save a friend's life, but she has no issues cheering on her teammate in battle.
Western Animation
- The titular Gargoyles were very opposed to guns, and killing in general beyond that. Broadway in particular had an experience in which he accidentally shot and nearly killed Elisa, one of the main characters and a close friend, but for the others their hatred of guns was specifically linked to their dislike of killing. In the Episode Awakening, Goliath actually mentions that a killing that occurs in the heat of battle is all right, it's deliberate (i.e. premeditated) attacking with intent to kill that they hate.
- Batman is a Technical Pacifist, though whether he is willing to kill his enemies depends on the writers of that particular incarnation. Certainly, Batman, Batman The Animated Series, and Batman Beyond all showcased a Batman who never wanted to see anyone get killed, which is the reason for all his non-lethal gadgetry. When, in Justice League Unlimited, he's possessed by a spectral hero and forced to use an at-hand gun to stop an enemy who would have killed him otherwise, he is badly shaken (though that was probably aggravated by him being possessed).
- In the prologue at the very beginning of Batman Beyond, when he's older and in far less good physical shape, he is almost beaten to death by a thug with a giant wrench. In order to save himself and the hostage, he sees a gun and picks it up to scare off the thug. Seeing what he had to resort to, he retires from being Batman.
- On the other hand, Terry McGinnis, Bruce's protege in Batman Beyond, is rather more pragmatic. The series makes a point of the fact that he would never kill an enemy in cold blood after defeating them, but in spite of that Terry doesn't lose sleep over the villains who meet messy ends as the result of his actions in combat. Admittedly, he's also Genre Savvy enough to know that they may not stay dead.
- In the Justice League Unlimited episode, "Hawk and Dove", one of the title characters is a superhero named Dove who is an ardent pacifist as befitting his name. He is ready to mix it up as necessary, but largely with soft martial arts like aikido that allow him to take down the toughest foes without much injury and with a focus on subduing and disarming. In addition, when facing a unstoppable machine that feeds on aggression for its strength, he is the only one who keeps a cool enough head to realize that a passive stance against it could shut it down.
- Jackie Chan, from Jackie Chan Adventures does not fight for the sake of fighting, and he clearly points this out, despite the fact that he is obviously a badass at doing it. He states that he will resort to fighting only when there is no other alternative. Of course since one of the points of the show is to show off Jackie's badassery of the martial arts, this typically means every episode. But still, he usually fights only when threatened and only enough to prevent the villains from actually doing anything bad.
- Given a bit of a lampshade hanging in the usually Family-Unfriendly Violent Transformers Beast Wars, when the two sides have a truce. The terms of the truce ban weapons, but a fight begins anyway using cartoony but equally violent slapstick (Example: sabotaging an enemy's flight systems, causing them to plummet to the ground Wile E. Coyote-style). Optimus and Dinobot even comment on how peaceful it is, while watching an enemy get crushed by the rear end of a rhino.
- Played for Laughs in an Animaniacs short. At the beginning of the short, Flaxseed, the Jerk Ass candy-shop owner who hates kids, is confronted by a kindly-looking nun in his store, pleasantly asking that he donate some of his candy to her Orphanage. He kicks her out onto the street. Near the end, about a half-dozen nuns come in, demanding he unhand the Warner Siblings that were running amok in his store, and get this close to beating him senseless with rulers when he calls them on it.
Flaxseed: Wait, wait! You're nuns! You're not supposed to resort to physical violence!
Nun: He's right girls, let us pray.
All of them drop to their knees, praying. A bus full of Notre Dame football players show up and immediately surround Flaxseed with angry scowls.
Nun: Our prayers have been answered!
The players dogpile Flaxseed
- Genies in the Aladdin universe are forbidden to kill, but you'd be surprised what you can live through. They also are allowed to, for instance, turn someone into a cockroach to make it easier for their master to kill them.
- Funny you write that, considering how hard cockroaches are to kill. Simply stamping them may not suffice.
- In The Zeta Project, the titular robot goes from being an assassin to having a strict no-kill policy. Unfortunately, everyone is after him and his human friend, so he is forced to use his badass fighting skills to crash cars, destroy buildings, and lots more in the 'CLEARLY DANGEROUS' category, though he makes sure that nobody actually dies.
- Stripperella. Parodied in "Curse of the Were-Beaver". Superhero Stripperella has no problem with beating the crap out of people, but loves furry animals. This causes problems when she's charged with stopping a man who keeps mutating into a giant rampaging beaver.
- Subverted in The Venture Brothers: Brock hates guns and refuses to use them whenever possible. This has nothing to do with a refusal to kill though, as he has quite the bodycount behind him. Rather, it's because he'd preferr to use his badass bowie knife, or his bare hands.
Real Life
- A real-life example is the famous "Wild West" peacekeeper, Bat Masterson. He didn't use a gun very often, having been lamed by one in a moment of recklessness, but had no problem beating people with the walking stick that gave him his nickname. Nor, for that matter, did he have problems associating with Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday, who would kill people with guns.
- Wyatt Earp, for that matter, didn't shoot quite as many people as is often thought, preferring to Pistol Whip criminals. At one point in the old west, getting hit in the head was known as "an Earp."
- During the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church declared crossbows anathema, and forbid its use by Christians on Christians because they were "unsporting" - or rather, they allowed poorly trained peasants and rabble to easily slaughter knights and noblemen, which wasn't deemed to be a Good Thing. Unsurprisingly, the holy call went largely unheeded.
- Critical Research Failure, dude. First off, "peasants and rabble" would have been killing knights and noblemen...for other knights and noblemen, it's not like there were any non-feudal armies. Second off, the Church tried to ban all missile weapons, not just crossbows, and that was because a Rain Of Arrows was a contemporary WMD, killing indiscriminately, especially when fired over walls during sieges. Third, even if it had been just to protect nobles, that would've been entirely justified, since the shitty discipline of a feudal army meant that once a commander died, his army basically became a large gang of bandits.
- In the same vein, the Inquisition never killed anyone. They just released those guilty of heresy to the Secular Arm - that is the authorities - which was the one who actually carried the sentence. "Because the Church abhors the shedding of blood". Of course, any Secular Arm who was lax in carrying out the sentences could expect trouble from the Church...
- Not quite what you'd expect, eh?
- Again, completely reasonable given the conditions of the time. The Catholic Church was the only source for anything resembling international law at the time, which made heretics the equivalent of rogue states. The secular powers of the medieval world, don't let's forget, made war over things like breach-of-contract, so of course their response to their equivalent of Kim Jong Il would've been...vigorous. Comparing the Inquisition to contemporary secular courts reveals the Inquisitors were actually much milder, with strict rules for how torture could be used and much, much stricter rules for evidence—why do you think being tried in clerical courts was regarded as a privilege? This doesn't count the Spanish Inquisition (weren't expecting that, were you?), which was of very questionable legality almost from the beginning. It started after the Middle Ages, though.
- The Catholic Church is also alleged to have imposed a rule of "sine effusione sanguinis" -no shedding of blood- on its priesthood for a while, inspiring the D&D example below. It's not clear if this is actually true, bashing people over the head with a blunt instrument yet refusing to use edged weapons being so technical a form of pacifism that it doesn't really merit being called such.
- That and weapons such as maces and flails tended to be the goriest weapons on the field.
- The Duke of Wellington is considered to be one of the greatest military commanders Britain has ever produced. He spent close to 15 years at war, effectively conquered half of India, defeated Napoleon and caused the deaths of thousands. Despite all this historians agree that there's no evidence he ever killed anyone, or even fired a shot in anger; so far as can be made out, he never engaged in violence on a personal level. He may have considered it distasteful.
- This may have been because he proved himself to be a poor shot when fighting a duel.
- Or the rather more likely reversal - if you never fight you're hardly likely to be any good if you do.
- Despite leading the French army into combat, Joan of Arc personally found killing abhorrent.
- John Dillinger robbed banks for the thrill of it, his heists involving as much planning as a real job might, but would never, ever kill. In fact, he despised cold blooded killers Bonnie and Clyde, saying they gave honest crooks like him a bad name.
- How ironic that he was gunned down by FBI agents while running away with his gun in one hand, but never firing a shot.
- Bizarrely enough, Adolf Hitler was a sort-of example during his reign - he was all for war, but there is no evidence that he would have killed anyone, at least after his career in the World War I, or personally witnessed the atrocities he routinely ordered. He also considered killing of animals for sport unethical.
- I think that this strains the definition of the trope. Even if starting wars and ordering the deaths of millions doesn't qualify, we don't have any reason to suppose that he would have hesitated to kill, personally, if given the opportunity and cause. The fact that he wasn't ever put in such a situation isn't evidence that he wouldn't have, otherwise nearly everyone on the planet is a technical pacifist.
Tabletop RPG
- In Dungeons And Dragons, the standard rule for generic clerics has long been "no edged weapons", in a Fantasy Gun Control version of this trope. The idea was originally to reconcile the presumably "peaceful" nature of priests with the vagaries of an adventuring life, though it's worth pointing out that nobody has ever requested a "humane" bludgeoning over execution by guillotine or axe.
- This conception was actually inspired by a real world example and simply popularized by said roleplaying game.
- Although to be fair, Odo of Bayeux's use of the mace wasn't quite a "technical pacifist" position, but more of a cynical attempt to get in on the glory of the English Conquest yet still be considered a "holy servant of god."
- In 3rd edition, since increased customization allowed for followers of different gods (including gods of war) to specialize in different areas, this was dropped and it was made so that the average cleric only has proficiency in simple weapons—the kind anyone could pick up with basic trainng: clubs, staves, maces, and so on, but including edged weapons like daggers and spears, and ranged weapons like crossbows (as opposed to just slings as in previous editions). This reflects a relative lack of combat training (compared to fighters, barbarians, and so on). They can, however, use advancement opportunities to learn more advanced use of weapons, and priests of the aforementioned gods of war can even start play with significant skill in their god's favored weapon if they pick the right powers.
- This has been around since Second Edition AD&D at the least. While clerics were limited in their weapon choice to non-edged weaponry (in as much as one can call a morningstar a bludgeoning weapon), the various gods in the multiverse all had what were called "specialty priests," who had their own restrictions for armor, weapons, and magical items. A specialty priest of Lathander, for example, was restricted to a cleric's weapons and no armor heavier than plate, while priests of Eilistraee could use any weapon they liked.
- The MMORPG Ragnarok Online has heard of this restriction too.
- While we're here, how did we forget the Vow of Peace feat from the Book of Exalted Deeds? It essentially states "feel free to massacre undead, they don't count" and (although this troper hasn't checked in a while) may have stated "nonlethal damage (read: beating people up) is acceptable".
- GURPS has the Reluctant Killer disadvantage, which keeps a character from attacking a recognizable person. The character can still attack: people wearing masks, people he can't see, occupied vehicles, anything that looks like a monster, and blips on a radar screen.
- Along with a number of other Pacifism variants, ranging from Cannot Kill to Total Nonviolence.
- Even beyond that, the highest level of pacifism requires you to stop other people from doing anything that might hurt another person for any reason.
Web Original
- The titular protagonist of Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog shows a strong aversion to violence and lethal force throughout the movie, with his laser weaponry being more non-lethal. Even when he finally has to carry through with his order to commit murder, he hesitates heavily. Subverted with so-called Superhero Captain Hammer, who has no problem using excessive force when the situation does not warrant it.
- Whateley's Jade qualifies, and is a self-professed Technical Pacifist. She has no problem actually killing people - and, in one of the few exceptions, does actually use a gun - but she's chosen to deliberately avoid doing so unless she sees no reasonable alternative. She's taken to calling herself an "NRA pacifist - non-violent until there's no other option, and then BOOM! Unbeatable power!" Her friends have openly wondered if she's going to be a bit schizophrenic, since her "sister", Jinn, carries a bear trap in her head - among other things.
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