Basic Trope: The Big Bad is given more mercy than his/her minions.
- Straight: The Hero Alice refuses to kill Emperor Evulz but has no qualms about the hundreds of guards she had to kill to get there.
- Exaggerated: Alice slaughters Evulz's entire army, including those who surrendered or offered to change sides. Then when she reaches the throne room, she just turns and leaves.
- Downplayed:
- Alice did take efforts to avoid bloodshed, using stealth and non lethal weapons on various guards. Nonetheless she killed a number of them, with only vague regrets on how the violence reflected poorly on her. Once she confronts Evulz, she makes numerous offers to him to surrender peacefully, only to have Evulz choose death over the shame of defeat. Alice spends multiple episodes angsting over the death of Evulz, despite being aware the world is a better place without him.
- While Alice may be willing to kill both the mooks and Emperor Evulz himself, she both uses dirty tatics and inflicts cruel and unusual deaths on the guards, while she fights Evulz fairly and kills him with a simple bullet to the head.
- Justified:
- Evulz surrendered; the mooks didn't.
- Alice is from a culture where regicide is outlawed, even in times of war.
- Evulz was not the one she was trying to kill. Alice was very much trying to kill the guards the whole time, but still had to face down Evulz.
- Alice can justify killing Mooks in the heat of battle, but can't justify a more premeditated act against Evulz.
- The mooks were non-sapient robots or undead. They were mere tools as opposed to Evulz who was actually a person.
- "They were gonna shoot me! What was I supposed to do, let them kill me?!"
- Alice considers killing Evulz a mercy. She wants to give him a trial so that all of his various victims can finally speak out against him in public.
- Capturing Evulz alive is the only thing that will be able to stop the war.
- The mooks that started the current mess had acted without authorization, meaning that Evulz was an innocent party.
- Killing the mooks is actually part of Alice’s revenge plan.
- Evulz is Alice's brother or former friend, she can't bring himself to kill him.
- Inverted:
- Alice goes through incredible lengths to ensure that none of the guards are fatally injured, but cuts loose as soon as she starts to fight Evulz.
- The mooks are heinous Complete Monsters who constantly Kick the Dog while on screen. Bad Bob is an Internal Reformist and a Technical Pacifist. Despite this Alice and other "good guys" react like she killing the mooks was morally objectionable and allowing Bob to live when he abandons the evil cause he was born into is a heinous act on her part.
- Emperor Evulz goes out of his way killing red shirts left and right. But when he finally approaches General Hiro, Evulz gives out a lengthy speech and spares him out of pure hopes he can turn Hiro evil.
- Subverted:
- Alice contemplates sparing Evulz, but instead decides to treat him the same way as his minions.
- The mooks don't stay dead. Killing them is more morally equivalent to injuring them. Evulz and Alice lack that benefit so killing either one once is more morally significant. (Gratuitous cruelty like repeatedly killing them is another matter morally.)
- Double Subverted: ...only for Evulz to guilt-trip her into sparing him anyway.
- Parodied: Alice proudly proclaims to Evulz that she would never kill anyone... while surrounded by the dying mooks she just cut through.
- Zig-Zagged:
- Alice's treatment varies per villain. For Awful Adam, she refuses to harm his mooks even when they are hurting her. The reason she does so is that they are mind-controlled innocents. However, she shows him no mercy when she finally reaches him. Baneful Bob and his soldiers she slays with no second thoughts. Crazy Charlie's puppets get plowed through, but he is shown mercy. With Dark Dan, she cuts through his mooks and was going to spare him until he admitted how much he enjoyed killing her little sister.
- Alice is fine killing mooks if they attack her, but when she sees the main villain execute mooks for their failure or god forbid for the funzies, she gets enraged at his cruelty and callousness toward his underlings.
- Alice has a dossier on all of Evulz's mooks, telling her which ones are just doing their jobs and which ones enjoy them too much. She is still forced to kill a number of them she does not hate, and a few of the cruel ones surrender, forcing Alice to spare them, but plans to later put them before a war crimes panel.
- Averted:
- Alice has no qualms killing either the guards or their boss.
- She refuses to kill anyone, whether they're the villain or a mook.
- Enforced: In a game, a quirk of the ratings system allows for killing of Faceless Mooks but killing actual characters counts.
- Lampshaded: "So warlords are to be spared but no mercy for their levy soldiers?"
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: Evulz breaks Alice by pointing out that she's pretty much responsible for a mass murder, and thus, she is in no position to be lecturing him on moral behavior.
- Defied:
- Alice's friend Bob calls her out for giving mercy to Evulz when the guards they just slaughtered deserved it far more, possibly going as far as killing Evulz himself to take the choice out of Alice's hands.
- Evulz wants to die, and points out that since Alice already has blood on her hands, she might as well just kill him anyway.
- Discussed:
- Rookie sidekick Bob asks veteran hero Alice why killing mooks is apparently okay. Depending on the writer's cynicism, Alice may:
- Suddenly reconsider her past behavior;
- Menacingly glare at Bob and tell him not to ask this question ever again;
- Answer that it's not okay, he shouldn't do it, and it's a shame so many heroes do.
- Justify killing them by saying they were assholes who deserved it.
- Emperor Evulz breaks Alice by pointing out that she's pretty much responsible for a mass murder. Alice may be convinced and corrupted, or retort with one of the justifications listed above.
- Evulz claims that he's nothing less than his own mooks, and that there's no point in keeping him alive.
Evuls: You killed all of my men. What else would I be if not another life taken by your hands, Alice? - Rookie sidekick Bob asks veteran hero Alice why killing mooks is apparently okay. Depending on the writer's cynicism, Alice may:
- Conversed: Bob and Dan watch a superhero movie featuring Super Alice mowing down mooks, and comment that that kind of behavior would be terrible in real life.
- Played for Laughs: None of this is real — we're seeing Alice and Bob's gameplay, and, since Bob is in charge of Evulz's character and that those were, in a way, his mooks, he starts bickering with Alice about it.
- Played for Drama: Alice is stated to have a mysterious entity watching over her, protecting her, and even raising her from the dead. This entity turns out to be the player themselves, meaning that any violence committed was never Alice's choice in the first place. During a cutscene, Alice finally does have a choice, which is why she refuses to stoop to the player's level of violence.
- Played for Horror: Mook Horror Show
- Implied: Alice is shown with Evulz captured and his base exploding but his mooks are nowhere to be seen when she exits.
- Deconstructed: Alice's lack of mercy towards the guards is a sign that she's starting to become more like Evulz.
- Reconstructed: However, the treatment of the mooks turns out to be not unjustified given that they commit countless war crimes for no reason other than their selfish enjoyment. Evulz, meanwhile, was a Well-Intentioned Extremist.
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