Morton's Forks that have appeared in various Anime and Manga series.
- Armed Girl's Machiavellism: Nomura's given the option to pick whichever girl he wants to wash his back. He looks over at Rin:Rin: You wouldn't choose me now would you?
Nomura: It's anybody's guess, and what would you do if I did?
Rin: [flustered] Then I'd correct you!
Nomura: ...and if I said I wouldn't?
Rin: [angry] THEN I WOULD CORRECT YOU!!! - In Assassination Classroom, this is how Takaoka intended to destroy Karasuma's reputation as a teacher for Class E. Karasuma had the option of either sending one of his under-trained students into a hopeless knife duel against Takaoka or refuse the challenge and let Takaoka remain as Class E's barbaric P.E. teacher. Karasuma takes a third option and sends the one student that has a horrifying potential in close-combat assassination. It works.
- Attack on Titan:
- After Eren is exposed as a Titan Shifter, Weilman, the local Garrison commander, gives him a choice at cannonpoint: admit he's a traitor or say he's human. Eren, naturally, says he's human, and Weilman just fires the cannon anyway, pointing out that he can't prove it. Armin finds a way to prove it.
- Much, much later, an all-out war for Shiganshina is being waged and the human side is suffocating under threat after threat. You can either be inside the wall with the Armored Titan, or on top of or outside it, which is being barraged by the Beast Titan's missiles. It doesn't get better, as the Armored Titan is eventually replaced with the Colossal Titan, who on top of being virtually infallible, starts setting the city on fire. Then the Armored Titan gets back in the fight. Essentially, the heroes' only choice is to pick how they want to die, and eventually they are forced to do exactly that.
- The final arc gives Eren an even worse one: he's faced with two options, none of which guarantee his people's survival. Option one is to use the Founding Titan's powers to initiate The Rumbling and destroy everything outside of Paradis, literally trampling over billions of lives in order to ensure his home country's survival (since a lot of the outside world is rightfully scared of the Titans and take out this fear on extreme prejudice towards Eldians). His other option is Zeke's, which sterilizes all Eldians but allows them to live out their full lifespan and yet still risks Eldians being treated like dirt by the world at large. His final solution, taking out eighty percent of the population and then letting his companions take the credit for stopping a world-ending monster, still isn't the best solution; while Armin and co. are seen as heroes, Paradis has turned into an ultra-nationalist state, most of the world has turned into a barren wasteland, the remaining members of humanity try to rebuild and are furious at the Eldians, and some untold amount of time later Paradis' ultimate fate is getting carpet bombed into oblivion.
- In Bloom Into You, Touko, as a result of her self-worth issues, inflicts this on herself. While she's quite popular at school, she also convinces herself that the people who like her like her sister, by extension, since Touko has devoted her life to becoming her sister. Those who claim to like her for who she really is don't fare any better, since Touko hates herself, and wants to cast her old unremarkable self aside.
- Carnival Phantasm: This is the situation that Shiro and Shiki have when trying to please their respective harems. If they try to date all of them, the girls will find out and go nuclear on them. If they decided to date the main heroines (Saber and Arcueid), the other girls turn into yanderes and subject the boys to all sorts of torment. They just can't win.
- Code Geass employs this to brutal effect a few times.
- Near the end of the first season, Lelouch is on the verge of a breakthrough with Euphemia when his geass goes out of control when he remarks he could make her kill the Japanese, forcing her into a genocidal rampage. Lelouch has only one other option: kill her. In the aftermath, his choices are to permit the rioters who are basically the entire Japanese community of Area 11 to continue, and surely get slaughtered by the military, or rally them together by condemning Euphemia as a monster, then invading Tokyo and capturing Cornelia, in the hopes that the military will surrender to keep her safe which is not guaranteed to be possible. It fails, and almost all of them are captured or killed. Considering what happens in the second season, Schneizel and Charles probably wouldn't be too concerned by the threat, and invade with a significant force. Either way, it's chaos, with massive casualties involved.
- Shortly after that was the choice between going after the kidnapped Nunnally or staying with the black knight. Almost one season later, the Black Knights end up betraying Lelouch, and even threaten Kallen when she attempts to step up to Lelouch's defense. Not much later does Lelouch spot Schneizel, who he knows always plots around all possible outcomes, leading to the realization that he's basically screwed. Cue Lelouch shooing Kallen away by lying to her and the other Black Knights to at least have her spared.
- The Creation Alchemist Enjoys Freedom has the protagonist's backstory under his father, Duke Bragas Regus. Since Thor got the [Alchemy] skill from the gods instead of something flash and glaringly obvious for use in combat, in an imperial culture where Strength Equals Worthiness, the duke would love to torment him by asking "Do you know how shameful it is for a glorious duke house to sire a useless incompetent?!" If Thor answered "Yes," he'd be beaten into unconsciousness. If he answered "No," he'd be beaten into unconsciousness another way. If he remained silent, he'd be mocked as "too stupid to answer a simple yes/no question" and the staff would laugh at him. The difference in the beatings was either blows from a wooden sword to the head or punches to the gut.
- Cuticle Detective Inaba uses it in a more comedic example: Ogino's toddler daughter makes Valentine's day chocolate for Inaba and not him, so he gives Inaba two choices - refuse the chocolate and die, or kill Ogino and take it from his dying corpse. Either way, someone's gonna have to die, and considering the fact that Ogino's Made of Iron, well...
- In Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, after Rui's defeat and death, Muzan Kibutsuji summons the five remaining Lower Six of the Twelve Kizuki. He expresses his disappointment with their weakness compared to the Upper Six, and giving them a chance to either agree or disagree with him. Agreeing would amount to admitting one's uselessness, while Muzan considers disagreeing to be an insult to his own infallibility, and responds to both by having the speaker Eaten Alive. Two of the Lower Six try in vain to plead their own case, another makes an ill-fated attempt to escape and a fourth offends Muzan by asking him for an infusion of his blood (which runs the risk of killing the recipient, but would increase his powers if successful). The only one who survives, Enmu, impresses Muzan by saying that he is grateful that he saved him for last and would happily accept being killed by his hand.
- Just before the final match at the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai in Dragon Ball, Piccolo has trapped Kami in a tiny jar and swallowed it. If Goku wants to release Kami, he'd need to rip Piccolo's body open to get it... but if Piccolo dies, so does Kami. Luckily, Piccolo himself provides a third solution - During the fight, he makes himself so big that Goku is able to leap down his throat and pull the jar out!
- Fist of the North Star has Jyuza of the Clouds being beaten to death by Raoh to get him to reveal the identity of the last Nanto General. He ultimately dies without telling Raoh, but Raoh gets the information anyway when he figures out that Jyuza would only keep silent unto death to protect Yuria.
- Chapter 60 of Goodnight Punpun summarizes Mama's situation with this: "Without a place to call home, she's spent her entire life running from herself and her loneliness. What a sad life it will have been if she dies in surgery tomorrow. And what a sad life it will be if she lives."
- In Hino-san no Baka, Koguma ends up playing a game with Hino, in which Hino asks Koguma five questions about Koguma, offering an answer, and Koguma can tell her whether she's right or wrong (although Hino can confirm whether Koguma's response is true, when possible). If Koguma wins, Hino goes back to class, but if Hino wins, she gets to fondle Koguma's breasts. With the score tied, Hino's final question is to ask whether Koguma has A-cup size breasts.Koguma: Wh-What happens if I say you got it right?
Hino: I win, so I'll be fondling your boobs as a penalty game.
Koguma: YOU'RE THE ONE WHO DECIDED ON THAT PENALTY GAME! Th...Then, what if I say you got it wrong?
Hino: Well... I'll fondle them to check their size!!
Koguma: SO THEN YOU'LL BE FONDLING MY BREASTS NO MATTER WHAT, YOU JERK!! - Hunter × Hunter includes one of these as the protagonists are beginning their journey towards the Hunter Exams. As they walk through a shady alley, an old woman pops up and asks a couple different examples, often asking you to choose whether to help one person you care for or the other. Leorio eventually tries to attack her in frustration before it is explained that the only correct answer is that there IS no answer. Before they continue, she explains that all Hunters need to understand that sometimes, you must face issues that you can never get right.
- The Irregular at Magic High School, after their Arranged Marriage, Miyuki and Tatsuya's relationship reaches a stalemate because of this trope. The former constantly makes romantic advances towards the latter, yet also freezes up in embarrassment when he reciprocates those advances. Basically, no matter what anyone does, someone is going to feel uncomfortable about it.
- The Junji Ito Kyoufu Manga Collection story "The Hanging Balloons" has one of those concerning the titular balloons, which are huge, flying, shaped like a person's head, and dead set on killing their look-alike by hanging them with the steel cable that serves as their balloon string (just roll with it). Either one gets caught and hanged to death, or someone fighting back pops/deflates someone's balloon — which isn't any better, as that will cause the balloon's look-alike's head to also pop/deflate.
- When Zion Thenardier invades Alsace in the first volume of Lord Marksman and Vanadis, Tigrevurmud Vorn is faced with a morally grey decision: go off to fight Zion's forces alone, which would obviously get him killed, or have Eleonora Viltaria kill him, which would lead to Zion burning down Alsace.
- The situation in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's was originally set up as "The Wolkenritter betray Hayate's trust and fill the Book of Darkness or she dies", though later episodes show that it didn't matter if they filled it or not. If they didn't fill it, Hayate's paralysis would spread to her vital organs and she'd die. If they did fill it, the Book would activate, kill Hayate, and blow up the planet (or Graham would freeze it and her in a pocket dimension for all eternity). It's only thanks to Nanoha and Fate's intervention that they were able to Take a Third Option.
- Medaka Box ends with Medaka and Zenkichi having one last fight. If Zenkichi wins, Medaka has to accept his marriage proposal. If Medaka wins... Zenkichi has to accept her marriage proposal. A win-win situation in this case.
- A comedic example in Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury: during a teamfight, Renee starts targeting Lilique, accusing her of stealing her man: that is to say, her twelfth-ranked backup boyfriend, who asked Lilique out. When Lilique politely clarifies that she turned him down, Renee takes this as an insult, since it implies he wasn't good enough for her, and starts hitting harder.
- In My-HiME, near the end of the series, Shiho attacks Mai with her Child. Since both of them are Himes, Yuichi will die regardless of who wins, which is something neither of them wants, but Shiho is too far gone to liten to reason. Mikoto intervenes and destroys Shiho's Child, thus preventing Mai from having to defeat Shiho, but still causing Yuuichi's death.
- My Mental Choices Are Completely Interfering with My School Romantic Comedy, the protagonist is offered absurd choices throughout most of the series, usually all of them are equally as bad.
- My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!: When an ordinary Japanese high school girl is reincarnated into the life of an otome game villain, she realizes all her potential futures are like this. In the console game Fortune Lover, Katarina's fate is either exile (being stripped of her noble title and banished from the country as a criminal) or death (by either Gerald's sword or Keith's magic). Neither fate is appealing to Katarina, who does everything she can to Take a Third Option, such as building up her combat and magic skills for self-defense and learning agriculture to give herself skills to fall back on in the event of exile. She completely fails to realize that none of this is necessary; she's derailed the entire story simply by being a Nice Girl instead of a bitchy Spoiled Brat. It's to the point that when the event occurs where, in the game, Katarina was exiled or killed, all the characters who were supposed to be against her instead leap to her defense, pointing out that the accusations against her are false.
- Neon Genesis Evangelion:
- As a character, Shinji Ikari is an example across the continuities of Neon Genesis Evangelion and Rebuild of Evangelion. He starts out as an insecure, socially awkward Nice Guy who has trouble dealing with people, but also has plenty of untapped strength and potential. Once he becomes an EVA pilot, though, he experiences serious psychological trauma fighting the Angels. By the end, after Kaworu's death, he's become a self-loathing wreck, lost all hope and begs for others to help him. He's about ready to allow Third Impact and instrumentality to happen, just so he can stop dealing with all the misery and loneliness in his life. Rebuild has Shinji become much more assertive and powerful than his anime counterpart. What happens here? In trying to kill Zeruel, he ends up triggering Third Impact through his sheer determination, killing most of what was left of humanity and damaging the Earth's biosphere even more severely. Poor kid just can't catch a break.
- NERV and SEELE both want to cause Third Impact for their own reasons. Losing to the Angels will also cause Third Impact, and side material reveals giving them what they want will result in Third Impact as a byproduct, as Lilith's ultimate goal is to reunite with Adam (i.e., all of humanity). By the end of the series, the Children who were supposed to prevent it were so messed up by the Gambit Pileup that they ended up being part of the initiation of Third Impact anyway. In the Rebuild continuity where they aren't as messed up, Shinji causes it by accident.
- One Piece:
- During the Thriller Bark arc, the Straw Hats minus Luffy are fighting Oars, a giant-giant zombie animated by their captain's shadow. At one point Moria, the one who took the shadow and planted into Oars, shows up... in a cockpit built into Oars' chest. Now the crew has a dilemma; If they defeat Moria, Luffy's shadow will leave Oars, but the only way to get to Moria is to defeat Oars! Of course, Zoro thinks the problem just got simplified - both targets are now in one place.
- In Chapter 697, Donquixote Doflamingo of all people finds himself in one of these thanks to Trafalgar Law and the Straw Hats kidnapping one of his important subordinates, who he'll only get back if he resigns from the Seven Warlords of the Sea. If he accepts, he'll be back to being a regular pirate and the admirals will hunt him down. If he doesn't accept, he'll have to answer to his business associate Kaido, one of the Four Emperors. The situation causes the Perpetual Smiler to show rage for the first time. After his attempt to Take a Third Option is foiled thanks to Kuzan, he reluctantly chooses to comply with Law's demands. About fifteen chapters later, we find out that he did take a third option after all; he had the World Government falsely report to the whole world that he resigned just to fool Law and the Straw Hats, demonstrating that he has connections in the highest possible places. The plot thickens...
- In the Zou Arc Sanji finds out he has been forced into an arranged marriage with one of Big Mom's daughters, and he leaves without much of a fight because you can't refuse an invitation by Big Mom. As Pekoms later tells the other Straw Hat pirates, this is because these aren't so much of an invitation, as they are an order, because if you refuse you'll be mailed a "present" with the head of a friend or loved one inside for disrespecting Big Mom. There's no excuse either, because much later, we see a man who couldn't attend one of Big Mom's parties because he had to be at his mother's funeral, and despite having explained the situation to Big Mom in a letter, he still got sent the head of his father. Even if you do attend, there's a good chance you might get killed anyway, such as in the case of Sanji's Arranged Marriage, because it's actually a plot by Big Mom and her family to assassinate the Vinsmokes to gain political power.
- Big Mom's power usually revolves around Sadistic Choice, with the catchphrase "Life or <anything she wants>?". Give her what she wants, or she will yank all your remaining life off you. But if she asks "Life or dead?"... die, or she will kill you by draining all your lifespan.
- In Princess Tutu, Princess Crow holds the fragment of heart containing the prince's love captive, but suggests that it can pick between herself and Duck. Duck is faced with the choice between confessing her love to the prince (which would cause her to dissolve into a mote of light, making it impossible for her to return the fragment of the prince's heart to the prince, as she's the only one who can) or allowing Princess Crow to win. She takes a third option and shows her love for him by dancing.
- Episode 11 of Puella Magi Madoka Magica comes down to this. An incredibly powerful witch called Walpurgisnacht is coming, and Homura has three choices:
- Try to stop it without Madoka's help, fail and watch it destroy the city;
- Stop it with Madoka's help, but watch Madoka either die or become an even stronger witch in the aftermath and destroy the world; or...
- Essentially flee by going back in time and starting over, but knowing it will be worse next time because Madoka's magical potential will be even higher, causing her eventual witch form to be even more powerful.
- This means that Madoka is faced with the two choices of becoming a Magical Girl or not, with the corresponding consequences (let people die or doom everyone); while she's not really aware of the second consequence, she is still the one who manages to Take a Third Option.
- In Red River (1995), one arc has Nakia frame Yuri for poisoning Kail's eldest brother aka the King and sends the army to hunt her down. Her allies try to figure out how to save her, but their options boil down to (A) proving who the real murderer was (virtually impossible, since there's no evidence), (B) lying that one of them was the murderer (a guaranteed death sentence, considering that they'd be confessing to regicide), (C) Kail himself goes to rescue Yuri (which would pretty much ruin his vision of becoming King and saving the land, since he'd be foiling the arrest of someone accused of regicide), or (D) send word to Yuri to kill herself (which would prevent Nakia from sacrificing Yuri to curse Kail, as she plans to, but also would mean that Yuri ends up dead). The group is unable to decide what exactly to do, but the matter is resolved when one of Yuri's ladies in waiting, Ursula, willingly takes the second option: she confesses to the crime herself and allows herself to be imprisoned and executed, leaving Kail open to save Yuri without issue. Some time later, after Nakia's ally Urhi Shalma confesses to the King's murder (and is executed right there) and then Nakia is completely defeated, Ursula is officially exonerated.
- The situation involving Dragon Shiryu's self-inflicted blindness in Saint Seiya was a consequence of one of these. He was fighting the very powerful Perseus Algol, who had the Gorgon Shield that let him transform people in stone statues and had already petrified Seiya and Shun. Shiryu tried to close his eyes and fight that way, but it didn't work and his body began to petrify. Later he tried to blindfold himself, and it still didn't work and half his body was petrified (And in the anime, the Steel Saints were about to suffer the same destiny). So the only option he had left was plucking his own eyes and THEN finish the fight and kill Algol, which is what worked. So Seiya and Shiryu (and the Steel boys) were saved, but in exchange Shiryu was left blind from then on (temporarily in the anime, definitely in the manga).
- Saki, while playing mahjong with her family, had to choose between losing her New Year's money or candy if she lost or them getting mad at her if she won. She ended up choosing to end the game with the same amount of points she started with. These experiences and her parents' separation resulted in her disliking mahjong until the start of the series.
- Science Fell in Love, So I Tried to Prove it points out that there tends to be no good answer to the "Do you know why I'm mad at you?" question in a romantic relationship:
- If the person being asked the question has no idea, the asker will give them flack for not knowing.
- If they ask the reason, the asker will give them a Mathematician's Answer.
- If they correctly guess the reason, the asker will give them flack for doing the maddening thing despite knowing they wouldn't like it.
- In Episode 3 of Sonic X, Eggman rampages through Station Square with the first of his many Robots of the Week. When confronted by a police roadblock, Eggman tells them to surrender or be destroyed. The cops choose the first option, at which point Eggman remarks, "I can't stand quitters" and has his robot open fire on them anyway.
- In SPY×FAMILY, one of the examiners of Eden Academy who wants to make sure Anya won't qualify asks her the question of whether she prefers her new adopted mother or her old birth mother. If Anya says she prefers her new mother, then that would be highly disrespectful to her memory, if Anya says she prefers her old mother, then that would suggest that her current mother is inadequate—neither one looks good. On top of this, the question being so personal causes Anya to start crying, which allows the examiner to declare that Anya isn't cut out for work that would cause her to be separated from her mother and therefore is unworthy of the school. Loid, her adoptive father, is so incensed at the question that he goes into Tranquil Fury mode, before declaring that any school that would ask such a question of a child is one that he has no interest in sending Anya to. As it turns out, the headmaster finds Loid's argument rather convincing, and he decides that the examiner (a legacy hire) is the real disgrace to Eden's reputation.
- In X/1999, Kamui must choose between the Dragons of the Earth and destroy the Earth to cleanse it, or the Dragons of the Heaven and save the Earth to preserve humanity. That is, between "saving the earth" and "saving humanity." Not having much inclination one way or the other, he chooses the Dragons of Heaven, because his two friends (Fuuma and Kotori) are the only ones he really cares about, and these two would die if the Earth was destroyed. However, no matter what decision he made, Fuuma would become champion of the other set of dragons and Kotori would die, which is what happens. Leading to ANOTHER Morton's Fork as he has to decide between killing his remaining friend Fuuma to fulfill his purpose... or get killed by Fuuma instead. In the movie he chooses the Earth over Fuuma and kills him, in the TV series he chooses to let Fuuma kill him to deploy a Thanatos Gambit that ultimately saves Fuuma and the planet, and in the manga no one knows what will happen.
- Yu-Gi-Oh!:
- In Duelist Kingdom, Yugi manages to use one Morton's Fork to counter an enemy's: faced with two doors guarded by the Paradox Brothers, and having determined that their Knights and Knaves puzzle was fake, Yugi still had to figure out which door led to the exit and which was a trap. Eventually he showed the brothers two coins, each apparently marked with one of the brothers' symbols, and said that, after closing his hands over both of them, he'd open one hand and whichever coin was in the closed hand was his choice. Revealing the symbol on one coin, the brothers indicated that he'd chosen wrongly—only for Yugi to open the other hand and reveal the same symbol, as he'd figured out that the brothers were just going to say he'd picked the wrong one no matter what, and thus he'd put a different symbol on each side of the second coin. Defeated, the brothers are forced to let Yugi and his group go (whereupon they discovered that both doors actually led to the exit all along).
- In the first match of the Battle City Finals, Bakura tries to pull one of these on Yugi. His strategy involves using Dark Sanctuary, which can possess a monster, negate its attack, and damage Yugi's life points while restoring his own. He uses The Dark Door in conjunction with this, limiting Yugi to only one attack per turn. But he also has Destiny Board, a card that will eventually create an Instant-Win Condition, meaning Yugi can't just waste his turns not attacking, but can't risk using his only attack with a possessed monster. During the last turn, Bakura is one letter away from completing Destiny Board, but he also has the trap card Dark Spirit of the Silent on his field, which lets him negate an attack and force another monster to attack in its place, meaning Yugi will lose from either Destiny Board's win condition, or from the effect of Dark Sanctuary. The only reason Yugi is able to win is because he manages to draw his God Card Slifer/Osiris, which the ghost of Dark Sanctuary can't possess.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! GX features one of these in a kind of looping personal hell hallucination for Manjoume. He's playing a high-stakes professional match with a clear field and two cards in his hand: one, Ojama Yellow, can serve as a wall for one turn, the other, Reload, will let him shuffle Ojama Yellow back and draw a different card. However, he realizes that playing Ojama Yellow always results in the opponent summoning a card that damages through defense, and playing Reload results in him drawing Level Up instead, which he can't use because he doesn't have any cards to raise the level of, so either way, he loses, with his dream going up in smoke in the process. He repeats the hallucination multiple times before he gives up and decides to cheat instead, drawing the second card from the top of his deck (which can win him the duel), but this is immediately detected and results in him being disqualified. By that point however, he's just relieved the pressure and humiliation are now over, which was the goal of the hallucination to begin with.
- The ace card of Big Bad Don Thousand of Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL, Numeronius Numeronia, works like this. If the opponent ends their turn without having tried to attack it, then they automatically lose. However, if they do try to attack it, they'll find it has such an absurdly high ATK value (100,000, in a game where no other monster has a printed ATK above 5000 and a starting LP value of 8000note ) that any attack on it will end in them losing anyway. And even if the opponent does somehow pump a monster up enough to surpass it, then Numeronia can block the attack and give the user LP equal to whatever the attacker had, so even that's likely to result in the user being unscathed and getting a massive chunk of LP out of the bargain (unless you're playing against Yuma, whose signature card specifically counters attack-blocking). In the real game, though, it's fairly easy to simply get rid of Numeronia without needing to attack it.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS: In episode 108, no matter which combination of Ai's cards GO destroys after tributing Gouki Thunder Ogre to activate the effect of Gouki The Powerload Ogre, the end result will been the same. Destroy Doshin @Ignister, Pikari @Ignister, and the set card, then Dark Templar @Ignister will soak up some of the damage while Ai's Hymn (the set card) will allow Ai to live with some life points, which is what happens in the anime. He can also chain Ai's Hymn to Powerload Ogre's effect to tribute Dark Templar and gain 2300 life points before it can be destroyed and then use the graveyard effect of Ai's Hymn to banish itself so Ai can survive the two direct attacks from Gouki The Master Ogre and Powerload Ogre. Attempt to destroy Doshin, Pikari, and Dark Templar, and Ai can chain Ai's Hymn to Powerload Ogre's effect to tribute Dark Templar and gain 2300 life points before it can be destroyed and then use the graveyard effect of Ai's Hymn to banish itself so Ai can survive the two direct attacks from The Master Ogre and Powerload Ogre, just like in the first scenario. Destroy Dark Knight, Doshin/Pikari, and the set card, and the remaining defense monster will soak up the damage from one of the attacks while Ai will still have life points remaining, plus he can still use the graveyard effect of Ai's Hymn to gain some extra life points. Or he can chain Ai's Hymn to Powerload Ogre's effect to tribute Dark Templar before it can be destroyed and gain 2300 life points, like in the first and second scenarios. Same result indeed; no way to win. Looks like Ai was lying when he said he would have lost if GO had instead destroyed Dark Templar.
- Even though a Link Summoned Powerload Ogre is unaffected by other card effects, other effects can still be chained in response to it activating its own effects. Since Ai’s Hymn did not even involve Powerload Ogre — instead tributing an @Ignister monster to gain life points — even Powerload Ogre's protection effect couldn't have stopped the inevitable loss GO suffers.
- In Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead, Akira's abusive boss Kosugi is impossible to please when it comes to employee autonomy. Akira recalls that if he asked Kosugi for help, Kosugi would chew him out for not trying to work independently, but if Akira tried to solve a problem himself, Kosugi would chew him out for thinking he's the boss.
