Basic Trope: Characters getting revenge on someone will lead other characters to get revenge on said characters.
- Straight: Max bodily harms Jake for murdering his best friend Paul. This causes Jake's partners to get their revenge on Max by assaulting him.
- Exaggerated: Max kills Jake, which leads his right-hand man Kyle to kill Max, which in turn leads Paul to kill Kyle, which leads Issac to murder Paul, and so forth.
- Downplayed: Max gets revenge on Jake for bullying him, which led to his friends to get back at him.
- Justified: Poor Communication Kills. Jake killed Paul because he finds it fun, so Max kills Jake in retaliation. None of Jake's friends knew that Jake was a serial killer and Max didn't tell them so they think Max murdered their friend for no reason and kill Max in retaliation. In turn Max's wife Alice didn't know that Jake's friends didn't know about Jake's crime, so she thinks they were just Avenging the Villain, so she in turn kills Jake's friends with car-bombs. One of the explosions causes a piece of shrapnel to fly across the street and kill the bystander Susan whose son Greg traces it back to Alice, concludes that she bombs people for fun, drives to the retirement home, and stabs Alice's mother Rose to death with the same piece of shrapnel. Now Alice doesn't know that she accidentally killed Susan, so she traces it back to Greg and hires a sniper to kill him in a family reunion. Greg's husband Harry sees this, renounces his pacifism to take revenge, and kills Alice. Alice's brother Alex sees this...
- Inverted: Max gives gifts to Jake and his friends. They are grateful and return the favor by giving more gifts to Max. Max feels indebted to them and prepares an even better gift for them.
- Subverted: Max kills Jake for murdering his best friend Paul. Jake's partners consider going after Max in revenge, but ultimately decide that revenge is a sucker's game.
- Double Subverted: Jake's son Isaac, however, is not willing to let things slide, and goes after Max to exact his revenge.
- Parodied: ???
- Zig Zagged: Max kills Jake for murdering Paul. Jake's friends decide not to kill Max until they find out that Max is now bragging about it. They kill Max and ask for a truce with Max's friends. They agree and revenge stops. Until Max's son finds out and breaks the truce and kills one of Jake's friends' son. Thus restarting the cycle.
- Averted: Revenge doesn't result in revenge.
- Enforced:
- Knowing from personal experience that getting revenge will end up in other people getting revenge, the author intends this as the central theme for his work.
- The author wants to teach about forgiveness.
- Lampshaded: "Will you guys make up for what y'all did to each other already?"
- Invoked: Let's You and Him Fight
- Exploited:
- Max is a Blood Knight who enjoys battle, so by killing Jake, he’s basically killing two birds with one stone. He gets his vengeance and he knows that the cycle of revenge will push people into trying to avenge Jake, which is course exactly what Max wants, since he enjoys fighting people.
- A third party murders Paul and frames Jake for the crime. Max gets revenge on Jake, Jake decides getting even with Max is more important than figuring out who really killed Paul...
- Said third party decides to make a profit from the vendetta between Max and Jake's clans by selling weapons to both sides and pretending to be a peacekeeper.
- Defied:
- Max decides not to get back at Jake, knowing that his friends will plan on retaliating.
- Max takes to heart the motto 'An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind' and knows that Vengeance Feels Empty so he decides not to give in to his emotions and step into the cycle by just not getting back at Jake.
- Alternatively, Jake's friends don't seek to get back at Jake since they acknowledge that Jake deserved to die for killing Paul.
- Max covers his tracks when he takes revenge on Jake. Jake's friends know that Jake was stabbed to death, but they have no idea who did it.
- When Max kills Jake in an attempt to avenge Paul, he also kills all of Jake's friends to make sure none of them try to avenge Jake.
- Max brings his grievance to a judge. Both Max and Jake agree to accept whatever ruling the judge makes.
- Max and Jake's families/friends step in and restrains (both physically and emotionally) both before turning to each other and talk things out.
- Jake was a Complete Monster and a Jerkass who was liked by no one, so who would want to avenge him? Heck, people may even throw Max a party to thank him for getting rid of Jake.
- Max is a Physical God and/or an Invincible Hero with no, so of course, nobody will even bother trying to avenge Jake. Not because they don’t want to, but because Max is simply too powerful and would flatten anyone who tried anything against him like a pancake, which means that the cycle of revenge cannot continue since there is nothing anyone can do against Max.
- Max is a ghost, so when he takes his vengeance against Jake for killing him, there won’t be a cycle of revenge since there is nothing the living can do against him, because he’s already dead.
- After Max takes his revenge on Jake, he commits seppuku to ensure that nobody can perpetuate the cycle of violence.
- Discussed:
- "Why the hell do they want to avenge Jake? He's the pedophile, he's the one in the wrong, not me!"
- "Cycle of revenge? CYCLE OF REVENGE? *bursts into laughter* Are you kidding me? Who the hell would want to avenge YOU? Don’t you get it? You’re a monster and a murderer! Nobody likes you, so nobody will want to avenge you! There IS no cycle of revenge! Not when it comes to you! Hell, people would probably celebrate your death and treat me like a hero for killing you!"
- Conversed: "Don't wear those colors around here. If you ever hear the words 'where you from' or 'who you with' around here and you tell them that you don't bang while you're wearing those colors, you're gonna get pulled up on." "I'm outta the loop. Why is this?" "Those are the colors of a gang who the dudes around here have serious beef with and vice versa. You wear them around here, you're gonna get fucked up." "What happened that caused this?" "Someone with those colors set up a few of theirs in a deal and robbed and killed all of them a few years ago, so one of them pulled up on and killed two of theirs. It's been a war ever since. You wear the wrong colors in the wrong area, and it ain't a matter of if you're gonna get shot, but when."
- Deconstructed:
- Because of the nature of it, this trope results in a Crapsack World and the corruption of humanity. Non-vengeful characters who try to prevent those seeking revenge are ignored, killed on the spot, or even become vengeful themselves.
- How do you defy a Cycle of Revenge without Forgiveness? Why, kill everyone related to your target so they can't avenge your target's death... and for good measure, kill everyone related to those people too. But can't be too careful, maybe we should kill everyone related to those people as well... or just head straight to the easiest solution and kill everything until there's no living being left...
- Reconstructed:
- The cycle of revenge begins to affect other people, and soon enough authorities or other groups removed from the cycle of revenge intervene to stop it before it destabilizes everything.
- Played For Laughs: Max steals the last cookie from Jake, so Jake puts tabasco sauce on Max's hot dog, so Max replaces all of Jake's music with Justin Bieber...
Back to Cycle of Revenge
