Sadistic Choices in Fan Works.
Crossovers
- Ace Combat: The Equestrian War:
- In chapter 11, Rainbow Dash was forced to choose between betraying her friends and joining Gilda or try to save Medley's life. She chose the latter.
- Two chapters later, Lightning Bolt must choose between saving Cloud Kicker from being killed by griffins or stop another griffon from bombing the Eastern Sector of Stalliongrad. She (initially) chooses the latter, but thanks to Garuda team's Big Damn Heroes moment, she goes to help Cloud Kicker.
- The third one happens in chapter 20: the Mane Cast, together with Princesses Celestia and Luna, are attempting to combine the power of the Elements of Harmony with the Royal Sisters' magic. The result of such spell could either gradually rejuvenate Equestria's flora and fauna to the moment before the war or revive every single victim of the war, despite the fact that doing so may cause the Elements to be unusable and both princesses may fade away from existence. They chose the former.
- Professor Moriarty's offer to Sherlock Holmes in Children of Time is very simple: Holmes's soul or Watson's broken body. Before Holmes's eyes. ...yes, that ends the way you think it does.
- In Dangerous Tenant, towards the end, the Doctor has to take control of the remaining hunters himself to plant explosives and basically turn them into suicide bombers; Donna volunteers to do this job to spare him having to do it himself.
- Equestrylvania:
- Marble poisons most of the remaining foals in Ponyville and tells Twilight she'll only give her the cure if she hands over Dracula's rib. And then, once she has the rib, she adds the stipulation that Twilight escort her out of the hospital unharmed before she'll hand it over, just to humiliate her.
- When Rainbow Dash and Shatterstorm are captured by Rose Blade, he gives Dash the choice of either being his sex slave, or watching Shatterstorm die. She chooses to escape instead.
- In An Extraordinary Journey, Willow's abilities prove inadequate for fighting Adria. If she continues trying, she, and the rest of SG-1 are all dead; the only alternative is that Willow Ascend, which will give her enough of a power boost to win, but the Others will punish her severely for breaking the rules.
- Justice League of Equestria: During the second arc of Mare of Steel, Brainiac — with some aid from Silversmith — sets one up for Rainbow Dash. He captures her and brings her to his ship, placing her on a pressure plate that, depending on how she chooses to act when she gets off it, will either electrocute the captive Scootaloo or detonate a bomb that will destroy Cloudsdale (and the bomb's also on a timer, so she doesn't have the option of sitting still). However, because Brainiac underestimated her sheer determination to prevent either from happening, she finds a third option: she uses her heat vision to destroy the circuitry that would remotely activate the bomb, then breaks Scootaloo free and rushes off to stop the bomb.
- Lulu's Bizarre Rebellion: The Stand "Wake the Snake" becomes the Stand of the most recent person it has injected venom into. The only way to stop the venom is to kill Wake the Snake, but damage to stands is reflected on their user, so killing the Stand also kills the most recent victim.
- My Hero Academia: Unchained Predator: The Slayer is forced to fight his way through the small army of heroes in order to avoid going to Tartarus. The only saving grace they have is that he didn't decide to permanently cripple them.
- When All Might suggests revealing the truth with a few details left out, Sayaka and Mera are left flabbergasted until they realize that there is no way they could spin this without causing more problems. All they could do is brace for the fallout.
- When the demons inevitably come knocking under the orders of the Khan Maykr, all of the MHA world will be left with only one good choice: Let the Doom Slayer roam free, as the alternate would be total extinction.
- The New Recruit: Matt Garetty had to make this choice during Andrew's rampage through Seattle: he could either let him destroy the city, or he could stop the attack by killing his cousin. The fact that he chose the latter causes him a lot of pain.
- The Night Unfurls: The Rebel Scum Arc features Celestine making one of these upon bearing the news of a rebellion in Ken backed by the Church and numerous Black Dog supporters, aimed at denouncing her rule. Either she sends Sir Kyril the Bloody to put it down by force while alienating a large portion of the people, or make peace with the rebels while fighting a war with the Black Dogs on multiple fronts, not to mention the unknown price the rebels would ask for. She chose the former.
- Oni Ga Shiku Series: Combining this with Morton's Fork is the choise that Kurosawa presents to Majima at the height of the Akatani arc. The choices go as follows: choice one is that Majima has to fight his sworn brother Saejima, and if he wins both he and Saejima die but everyone else stays alive; if he loses, Kurosawa will kill Majima, Izuku and Inko and pin their deaths on Saejima. If he chooses not to fight, then Haruka will be killed on live television, and there's no telling what might happen to the others. Majima goes with "fight and try to win", but the plan gets blown up on Kurosawa's face when Akatani pulls a Big Damn Heroes to get rid of his men.
- In Quoth the Raven, the Rookie Nine are forced to debate over their next action when Shikamaru falls sick: either they stay safely hidden in the woods and risk one of them dying from the lack of medical care, or they surrender to the elves trying to abduct them in the hopes they will agree to heal Shikamaru. They ultimately pick the second option.
- The Stars Will Aid Their Escape:
- Nyarlathotep pulls one on the Princesses when they confront him in Canterlot — they can banish him and thus stop his plans, but he's stolen the Cutie Mark Crusaders' souls, and will take them with him if he goes.
- He pulls another one shortly after, where he tells Shining Armor to either stay and protect the Bearers (who he probably won't hurt yet) or go and save his troops who are being attacked by the Dark Young (who will kill all of them). Shining reluctantly picks the latter."I enjoy a good hero — they're so predictable. One little nudge and off they run towards the screaming."
- There Was Once an Avenger From Krypton: In That Which Drives Nerds to Change the World, Iron Man is rescuing individuals from a fire at SFIT when he finds the unconscious and seemingly dead body of Professor Callaghan and sees Tadashi rushing inside the building attempting to rescue him, right when a nearby machine is about to explode. Tony finds himself trapped between rescuing his former mentor and the young aspiring inventor. Ultimately, he chooses to protect Tadashi by blasting him out of the building with his repulsors before the building explodes around him and Callaghan.
- America faces one in Weight of the World. He can accept Vale's Aura, stopping Cinder from achieving her goals to plunge Remnant into chaos and risking the lives of his American citizens. Or he can refuse, thus allowing Cinder to use Vale's power to retrieve the Relic and give it to Salem, while also bringing Remnant to its knees. In the end, the choice is taken from him.
- Khaos Omega sets up a way to block this from happening with Anise: On her first school-based op after the events of World of Amethyst Anise's already insanely massive collection of shoes is boosted further by the addition of a collection of a shoe type Anise had only ever worn once before (specifically the day she gained access to her 'Angel of the Twelve' form). Knowing of a new stipulation she had activated when she performed the XLE Rescue, the shoe type will only take its actual form when worn with compatible clothing, otherwise said shoe type will look like a heelless ballet boot but sound like a stiletto one when worn. The trope-naming choice being avoided by this particular situation is for undercover missions, to prevent someone from making her either wear the shoe type with incompatible clothing or reveal her true identity. This new stipulation also has an extension that makes her unable to wear normal sneakers unless she goes with a high-heeled pair.
- A Theory of Butterflies and Other Insects: After a harrowing heron assault on Toad Tower leaves thirty-one toads dead and six more severely injured, with half of that number having suffered fatal wounds, Captain Grime offers Marcy one. Either she joins him and helps support his schemes to make the toads stronger, or else he'll tell his men that she was responsible for causing the attack by attracting the herons with a mating call.
- Blackbird (Arrow): In the flashbacks, Dinah Lance forces her younger daughter Sara, who had just been traumatized from her time on the Amazo and the "death" of Oliver, to choose between joining the League of Assassins to fulfill her life debt to the League, or allowing Dinah to trade her older sister Laurel to them in her place and allow Sara to go home. In reality, Dinah had already chosen to do the latter and was forcing Sara to choose it as well (knowing she was in no position to make the decision on her own) so she could justify herself and assuage whatever guilt she would feel for making it. It is this scene that subtly shows that, for all that Sara is Dinah's "favorite", Dinah is no better a mother to her than she is to Laurel.
- To Hell and Back (Arrowverse): During the battle against Zoom’s army, Harry gets accidentally forced into one. He can either shoot Rupture to save Dante’s life while making the metas notice the machine he’s building or he can finish the machine and watch Dante die. He quickly decides the latter in order to ensure Zoom’s defeat, but Dante develops powers and handles the situation himself.
- As explained by her character article on the Avatar: The Last Airbender canon and fanon wiki, Azula in Avatar: The Last Airbender Revised was forced by Ozai to make a Sadistic Choice at age eleven, sending her down a path of sadism and cruelty. She had to choose which person (both being her own age) she would burn to death: an innocent noble-blood male suitor of hers, or her very close friend Ty Lee. He attempts to persuade her to kill Ty Lee by saying that she, as a commoner, is of less value than the noble boy. Nevertheless, she kills the boy, laughing while she does it.
- The fanfic Book 5: Legends features this when the Big Bad of the story, well aware he can't handle the Avatar and her allies so early in the story, sabotages a mag rail line, forcing Korra to decide on saving the train or stopping them from escaping. Naturally, she chooses the former.
- In Did I Make the Most of Loving You?, after being unboxed, the future Cavil claims that he will leave the fleet and the 'defective' Cylons (Twos, Sixes and Eights) alone in exchange for Laura Roslin and Hera Agathon, with Adama immediately rejecting that offer even as he has to grimly acknowledge that others in the Fleet may consider it.
- In And Ye Shall Receive
, Susan is allowed to return to Narnia if she accepts that she will endure pain and suffering, and the knowledge that her memory will be reviled by her family with no promise of reward. This reveals that Susan's spirit became the star-daughter who Caspian married after The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, while another spirit inhabited her body back in England, this woman wanting nothing more than the world to be the way she wanted it to be and unconcerned about Susan's own family.
- In Rhyme and Reason, the main villain Ivana M. Killjoy confronts Gadget with a vat of Hollywood Acid. On two slides behind it lie a coffin which Ivana claims contains Gadget's deceased father Geegaw Hackwrench and her dear friend Sparky who is bound but still alive. She can only save one. To make matters worse, Gadget who would otherwise be a clear and logical thinker is still under the influence of the Emotion Bomb Ivana had just dropped onto her the moment before: She had shown her a Valentine's card from Chip that he had never dared to give her. Not only didn't Gadget know about Chip's feelings for her, but she feels the same for him, and at this point, she doesn't even know if Chip is still alive. And now she has do decide between dissolving her father and killing her friend.
- In the fan comic from DeviantArt, Cagney Is a Carnation by fuyuflowga, Cagney Carnation discovers that his adopted flower children have lost their game to the Devil himself in the casino in spite of the flower's warnings not to gamble or go there. In desperation, Cagney begs that he'll do anything for the Devil to spare the children, and the Devil offers him a choice: either sign the Soul Contract and he'll offer his soul in exchange for those of the flower children; or refuse and the flower children will die. Despite the children's warnings not to sign the contract while the Devil tortures them into unconsciousness, Cagney can't bear to watch the children suffer, so he signs the contract in his Papa Wolf effort to save them... and you know how that will turn out...
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
- In the final trial of Despair's Last Resort, the mastermind gives one to the surviving students. Complete the final test and leave the resort, but risk the possibility of having their mental trauma return along with their memories and have their classmates be lost forever, fail the test and allow her to make them members of Super High School Level Despair, or sacrifice Shuuya so they can stay forever in the resort. Though it turns out the last one was a complete lie.
- In one story of the Facing the Future Series, Technus gave Danny and Sam the choice between stopping his latest scheme, or saving an out of control bus full of people. Technus, of course, knew which choice they would make, much to Danny's chagrin.
- Under Moonlight: After all of his ghostly duplicates have mysteriously disappeared, Danny finally discovers what's been happening to them and has the chance to rescue one of them. However, doing so will mean gaining the memories of all the horrors they endured — something he previously experienced when Walker captured one, and that left him severely traumatized. Or he can escape alone, abandoning his other self to a gruesome fate at the hands of his own parents.
- In chapter 18 of the Teen Titans fanfic Maiden Of Stone, the villain Sedaris captures Raven and Terra, then forces Beast Boy to choose which one of them he will spare, an act which, according to one reviewer, brought Sedaris "up to Slade level on the evil scale". He even mentions Sophie's Choice.
- Point of Succession: In which Mello has been kidnapped by Beyond Birthday, Beyond puts a sniper rifle in Mello's hands and suggests he put his Wammy's training to good use and and kill someone. At first Mello objects vehemently until B reveals the target he has picked out for him is a pedophile and points out the child that the man is molesting. B leaves it up to him-he can take the shot and become a murderer or do nothing and leave the kid to be victimized. Mello takes the shot.
- During his fight against Gallantmon in the Tamers Forever Series, Piedmon launches his Trump Swords in separate directions, two going for Rapidmon and the other two for Taomon, forcing Takato to choose which Digimon to save. Takato Takes A Third Option by using his shield to knock Rapidmon out of the way of the first two swords, then allowing the remaining two swords to gut him instead of Taomon.
- In Volume I of Dragon Ball X, this is a character trait of Denkuma. He offers to Mataro for him to kill both Denkuma and Arasha or let them both live; to Blitzo to stop Makurin's Oozaru rampage or to let it continue (thus killing Denkuma); to Korros to kill himself to save Haven or let it be destroyed; and finally, to Arnika to give Denkuma immortality or be killed herself. Most of the time, he plays on the desire of the main characters to defeat him, heavily emphasising the cost of doing so.
- In Freedom to the Free Simon, Wash, River and Kaylee are captured and enslaved. Simon spends most of his ordeal enduring sadistic choices from their captors. He’s made to use his doctor skills to treat the slaves, and is ordered to do a castration. He is outraged, saying it’s against his oath, but is told it’ll be done without anesthesia and the same will be done to an already injured Wash. The worst though is after Wash is first beaten into unconsciousness. He’s told that if Wash won’t wake up, he’s to kill him. Simon refuses and is asked if he’ll do it to save River and Kaylee. Fortunately Wash wakes up. He also lets himself be used by the owner as essentially a Sex Slave because when he initially refuses he’s told Kaylee will be raped if he refuses. He’s pretty traumatized by the time he’s back on Serenity, needless to say.
- The Choices That Make Us: Narcissa and Andromeda both want to visit Sirius and/or Bellatrix in Azkaban, but have the futures of their children hung over their heads (explicitly in Narcissa's case, ambiguously in Andromeda's) to make them drop the issue.
- In The Power of Seven, during the final battle, Harry briefly feels as though he and the girls have spent the last few months working to save Harry's life only for Harry to be forced to kill Dumbledore while Voldemort's possessing him, but Harry manages to find a way to save Dumbledore anyway.
- Hivefled; the Grand Highblood collects the ghosts of captive trolls. The binding has to be signed by the victim, so standard practice is to offer them the choice between binding themselves to him or watching their friends and quadrants be tortured as well.
- In the short Homestuck fanfiction Prize, an evil John casually asks Karkat whether he should kill Jade or Kanaya. Karkat refuses to choose, but evil!John keeps insisting that his friend has to.
- In Dark Valkyrie, Stoick has to contemplate whether to protect his future-daughter-in law from the Council of Chiefs or to give in to whatever their demands are for Astrid to keep Berk from being isolated after she goes on a ruthless rampage against various parties after Hiccup is nearly poisoned..
- In Intercom, when Joy accidentally loses four good core memories to recall, and her fellow emotions catch her before she gets sucked up, she realizes she has a tough choice to make: Stay in headquarters so Riley can have the potential of joy even though she hasn't been "used" all that much during the day but lose the core memories possibly for good, or go after them, send them back up, and just hope the other four can keep Riley safe until she gets back. She goes with the second choice, despite how hard it was for her to choose.
- Entering The Love Hina World: Tsuruko gives Motoko a choice of three ways that she can atone for her years of abusing Keitaro. Option 1: Become Keitaro's personal bodyguard and servant. Option 2: Financially reimburse Keitaro for every attack she's made on him, along with the cost of repairs from damages done to the Hinata Inn by her. Option 3: Abandon the God Cry style, never picking up a sword or entering the dojo again. Motoko's pride won't permit her to take the first or third options, so she goes for the second, knowing it will likely take her years to complete.
- The story Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty has a horrible, horrible variation of this. The Crimson Cowl has kidnapped two women Captain America loves - Bernie Rosenthal and Diamondback. They are trapped in glass tubes, with deadly gas ready to be released when a tube is broken, and only enough time to save one of them. However, this is also a Sadistic Choice for the two women, as both of them has been provided with a hammer to free themselves, at the cost of the other's life. Cap tries to Take a Third Option and smash Bernie's tube, give her an air filter, and then race to free Rachel. But the Cowl didn't allow this - Rachel's tube was not made of glass, but an unbreakable force field. Cap can only watch helplessly as she dies horribly. Talk about sadistic.
- In Mega Man: Defender of the Human Race, Dr. Wily is fond of offering these, especially to those in power.
Monster Girl Encyclopedia
- In Sword and Claw, Adam and Lilith are faced with one of these when trying to deal with centaur children whose parents they've killed. The centaur children naturally hate them, and they still have the monster instinct to attack humans. Negotiating with them doesn't work, keeping them away from humans is unlikely to work in the long term, and Adam and Lilith don't want to kill them, so eventually Lilith resorts to making them fear humans so much that they'll stay away from them.
- Phoenix's Tear: Reignition: After causing an avalanche that separates Tiger of the Wind, Hare, Mocchi and Suezo from the rest of their friends, Gray Wolf offers his brother the chance to save himself and two of his companions by picking which of them he'll sacrifice to Gray Wolf and his pack. Naturally, Tiger offers himself to keep the others safe.
- In Walk a Mile in Another's Shoes, Inko gets taken hostage by All for One. Izuku is constantly forced to decide if he will obey All for One’s orders and hurt people or let his mother die. This culminates in All for One forcing him to choose between All Might’s life or his mother’s.
- In Someone You Trust, Hizashi Yamada/Present Mic is faced with either torturing his best friend Aizawa Shota or letting Class 1-A members be kidnapped and tortured. He was acting as a Fake Defector inside the organization behind it and didn’t expect Aizawa to get captured. The traffickers want information on their targets and consider even keeping Aizawa if the kids aren’t delivered. Calling for a raid early would have gotten the two out of it but wouldn’t have netted the clients buying the kids. The thing is, Aizawa and the reader aren’t filled in til after the rescue. Aizawa understands Hizashi was being constantly watched and cares about his kids deeply, so he ultimately forgives Hizashi but Hizashi is traumatized by it.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- Antipodes: Rubidium offers Jigsaw a choice. Become the next Attenuator and spend the rest of his live being torturously used as a living battery, or refuse and let the city be destroyed. Tantalus interrupts his choice.
- Cheerilee's Garden: Silver Spoon is given one in the form of a button that she can press to temporarily stop her torture device, but which pours acid into Diamond Tiara's trap.
- The Dear Sweetie Belle Continuity: In Dear Scootaloo, Feather Duster throws filly Scootaloo off a cloud, forcing Rainbow Dash to choose between letting her fall or allowing him to overload the Cloudsdale weather engines and create a cataclysmic storm. At least that's what he thinks — turns out Dash is just fast enough to catch Scootaloo, leave her safe, and dash back up to kick his flank.
- Diamond and Dazzle features an imp forcing Diamond Tiara to choose between her tiara, her cutie mark, her voice, and her pet cat.
- Getting Back on Your Hooves: Following a Villainous Breakdown brought about by her continued failures to ruin Trixie's life, Checker Monarch kidnaps her and tells her to either leave town and give up all her happiness, or Checker will ruin all of her friends. Tellingly, even after Trixie reluctantly agrees to get thrown out of town (and dumped in a desert, to boot), Checker decides to ruin the others anyway.
- Inner Demons: The recently Face Heel Turned Twilight Sparkle crosses the Moral Event Horizon with one of these. She captures Pinkie Pie, and when Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy show up to save her, Twilight incapacitates Fluttershy as well. She then tells Rainbow Dash to either rape Pinkie, or else she'll kill Fluttershy. Applejack shows up to save them... but only after Rainbow decides she has no choice and forces herself on Pinkie.
- In the fancomic A Piece of Pie, one of Pinkie Pie's other personalities, Golden Pie, tells Rarity to get Pinkie's balloon, and if Rarity tries to take Golden Pie by force, the seat she's sitting on will set off creamy explosives that will ruin all of Rarity's dresses, so it's either ruin the shop and dresses or take Pinkie's balloon. No third option is taken, because Rarity takes Golden Pie off the seat and says that she'll just make more fabulous dressses.
- The Pieces Lie Where They Fell: The Nightmare’s plans for Sunset involved this, forcing Princess Celestia to choose between banishing her student away or risk her future student and everyone in Canterlot with a demonic powered Sunset.
- The Pony POV Series: it's shown that in the Epilogue timeline, that this is Discord's preferred method of "playing" with Traitor Dash. Whenever he needs something dirty done (that doesn't require sending all of the Chaos Six), he'll send her, and get her to do it by threatening to either harm one of her friends or destroying the Sky Ocean.
- Rainbooms and Royalty: After Rainbow Dash rejects Nightmare Moon's offer, she tries to force Rainbow through one of these by putting the rest of the Mane Cast in a life-threatening situation, and telling her to choose whom to save. Rainbow takes a third option.
- Rainbow Factory: When workers find out the truth about the rainbow factory, namely that it uses pony resources to make rainbows, they're given a choice: keep their mouths shut and be party to the slaughter of countless foals whose only fault was failing a flight exam, or spare a foal only to take their place. Only twice was a foal's life spared-those of Fluttershy and Derpy Hooves.
- Split Second has Discord give one to Sparkle: Kill Fluttershy, and get a book with a spell that might save her life, kill her sister, and get her leg back so that Sparkle doesn't bleed to death, kill all 12 of mares present to get both, or do nothing and die. She takes a fifth option.
- You Obey shows what happens when a changeling, all of which are telepaths, is ordered to interrogate a prisoner. When nicer methods of interrogation fail to make the prisoner talk, the protagonist has to choose between giving up, which means A Fate Worse Than Death, and going forwards, which entails torturing the prisoner, despite the horribly unpleasant emotional feedback.
- It Wasn't A Kindness: After a time-displaced Sasuke reveals to his family just what his Itachi did to him and the Uchiha Clan, the younger Itachi shakily suggests that he was trying to spare his brother. In response, Sasuke decides to present him with one of these by creating a massive storm to destroy Konoha, then declaring that he'll kill himself unless Itachi chooses to stay with him over the younger Sasuke and the rest of their clan. Itachi decides to leave with the older Sasuke, while the younger one swears to get him back in a dark mirror of how the original Sasuke swore to avenge his clan.
- Neon Genesis Evangelion: Genocide:
- Kluge forces Maya to choose between betraying secrets of NERV and let everyone die.
- After the Final Battle, Misato has a plan to save the Children... but her plan would mean abandoning the personnel of NERV to an uncertain fate.Misato: I don't want to heal them. I know I can't do that. I just want to protect them. Just talking about it isn't going to make that happen. I had a plan, but now that plan means abandoning other people who depend on me. No matter what I do, someone is going to get hurt.
Rei: That is always going to happen. The only thing you can do is choose. We all have.
- Walking in the Shadow of Dreams: In episode 7 of the first version, it gets revealed Ariel is half-angel. It looks like if they will be forced to kill her -something Asuka understandably is NOT in favor of-, when Gendo orders to subdue her and retrieve her without harm.
- This Bites!:
- CP9 faces this in Enies Lobby. Either they do their jobs and try to defeat the Straw Hats who, quite apart from their reputation, treated their third strongest member like a punching bag, or they attempt to flee and risk Lucci's blatant death threat for doing so. They unanimously choose the former, and unanimously regret it. Most notably in the conclusion of Nami versus Kalifa, right before the coup de grâce:Kalifa: ...I should have tried my luck with Lucci.
Nami: Considering how you chose to face us instead? Yes. You should have. - The Marine fleet sent to suppress the Straw Hats also face this choice, when they see that their own commanders are willing to kill anyone in the way of killing the pirates. Either they stay to do their jobs and possibly get slaughtered in the crossfire, or they try to run and face the wrath of Admiral Akainu.
- When Kuma knocks Cross and Luffy out and declares his intent to bring them to the World Government for execution, Zoro offers to sacrifice himself for them. But as Kuma points out, Zoro is only one man and there are two captives, so which one the swordsman is going to pick? Thankfully, Sanji and then Nami were there to allow Zoro to offer himself for Luffy while they each offer themself for Cross.
- When the crew is about to land on Little Garden, Cross tries to make bug repellent for crew, since he doesn't want Nami to suffer the near-lethal fever she contracts and barely survives. However, he's grimly aware that without the fever, they have no real incentive to stop at Drum Island and recruit Chopper. This crosses his mind again when he sees the bug about to bite Nami, and ultimately chooses to smash it before Nami gets bitten."Fortunately" he unwittingly ends up Taking a Third Option by contracting a local and deadly form of diarrhea himself, requiring a trip to Drum Island. Talk about No Good Deed Goes Unpunished.
- Subverted with Cross's decision to slowly boost Usopp's confidence against the option of keeping his canon pessimism as a defense against Perona's Negative Hollow. While not doing so would have given the Straw Hats an advantage over an unfamiliar power that they have no hope of overcoming, Cross points out that had Ussop found about this and learned that this lack of confidence led him to turn on Luffy in the canon Water 7 arc, he wouldn't let Cross near a half-mile by the Thousand Sunny. Thankfully, Cross is able to come up with an alternative plan to take Perona out of the picture.
- CP9 faces this in Enies Lobby. Either they do their jobs and try to defeat the Straw Hats who, quite apart from their reputation, treated their third strongest member like a punching bag, or they attempt to flee and risk Lucci's blatant death threat for doing so. They unanimously choose the former, and unanimously regret it. Most notably in the conclusion of Nami versus Kalifa, right before the coup de grâce:
- In A History of Magic, Homura is forced into this situation: give the last human being left on Earth to Kyubey to clone a new human race for the Incubators to harvest or kill the baby herself. (Simply running was not an option because Homura was dying herself.) She chooses to give up any chance of seeing Madoka again to ensure the baby went to Madoka's heaven instead. They both end up there as a result.
- From RWBY: Second Generation, Verse is forced into this in the final chapter of Volume 2. Cobalt offers Verse the choice to either kill himself or watch his teammates and friends die in front of him. With everyone else at gunpoint, he only has a few seconds to make a choice. He instead decides to Take a Third Option, and kills the people behind the gun, saving himself and his friends.
- A fanfic in which magic from the Silver Crystal allows Michiru to become pregnant with Haruka's child has this at the climax — the story eventually reveals that Sailor Senshi are supposed to be sterile to prevent them from being forced to choose between duty and child and having the baby will kill Michiru. In the end, Haruka has to choose between saving her lover or her child. She chooses Michiru, but in a twist, because the baby's life force was linked to Michiru's own, neither dies.
- The Sanctuary Telepath: Janine is forced to choose between staying with Helen or helping John, in which case she would lose her relationship with her "sister". She believes she took a third option by helping her brother while spending periods of time with Helen, but later realizes that all the necessary lying and roleplaying weakened their relationship to the point that she actually did choose.
- In Your Words are Gelignite, the horrific cliffhanger ending of the series was continued upon in such a way that Moriarty offered this sort of choice to Sherlock, only instead of having him choose between two people, he was forced to choose between himself and John (with the threat of the full extent of Moriarty's madness hanging over John's head if he takes the third option). Being Sherlock, he takes the third option.
- In the Empath: The Luckiest Smurf story "Polaris' Smurfy New Life," Empath's friend Polaris Psyche comes down with a degenerative disease that could kill him in a matter of hours or days, and Empath learns that the Psyche Master had purposely implanted this disease in the Psyches to be activated about a year from being disconnected from the collective conscience of the Psyches. Empath is faced with the option of either returning Polaris Psyche back to the Psyche Master, though in the process Polaris would no longer remember anything he had learned about Empath or the Smurfs, or letting him live out remaining time he has with the disease. Empath chooses freedom for his friend, but fortunately Papa Smurf lets Polaris live beyond the remaining time by giving him the Long Life Elixir...though this presents itself with the temporary side effect of turning Polaris' skin blue like a Smurf.
- Episode 75 of Sonic X: Dark Chaos has a truly crowning example. Satan gives Sonic and his friends a choice between giving him the Chaos Emeralds or the metaphysical annihilation of the entire Milky Way Galaxy. Sonic and his friends choose the latter, but D'Arnazhee betrays Maledict and shoots the Galaxy Crusher's firing mechanism right out of his hand.
- In The Chaotic Three, a time-displaced Poe is forced to agree to wager BB-8 and the freedom of Jedi Padawan Aayla Secura on a bet with Jabba the Hutt against Watto, or the other two will just be taken as slaves and Poe will be killed.
- In Paradox, with Ahsoka having been sent into the future, Palpatine takes great satisfaction in making it clear that Vader can only attempt to turn Luke or Ahsoka to the Dark Side, expecting Vader to kill either his old apprentice or his own son.
- In Princess Leia Slave To Jabba The Hutt, after being captured by Jabba the Hutt, Leia is forced to choose between watching Han and Chewie be eaten alive by the rancor or strip naked in front of Jabba and his entire court. Leia chooses the latter because even though it deeply humiliates her, she would rather suffer the indignity of being naked in public than let her friends die a horrible death.
- Doctor Ghemor, I Presume? has a very painful example. After being thoroughly gaslighted by the Obsidian Order, Bashir finds himself reluctant to submit himself to a procedure that would definitely establish his identity as both persons he might be have something he craves: Julian Bashir is an independent, respected doctor on Deep Space Nine, but Cesnil Ghemor has a loving father who wants nothing but a caring relationship with him.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012)
- In Shards of a Memory, Karai poisons April with Gentle Mercy (a poison Tang Shen invented) and gives her a choice: either cure April and prove to her that she had replaced her, or choose her and let April die. While it pains her greatly, Shard recognizes this for the loaded choice that someone like the Shredder would teach and heals April, Karai crying out to her in anger.
- This trope is analyzed and discussed during the events of story three of Gensokyo 20XX, Chapter 18: Mokou's Question, Morton's Fork, and Sadistic Choice of Gensokyo 20XXII, when Mokou brings up a circumstance not too unlike Sophie's Choice and wonders if Yukari was placed in the same circumstance with Ran's pup and Reimu and what it would be like. From Yuuka's perspective, it would be sheer hell and for good reason. Nevertheless, going hand to hand with Morton's Fork, it is called a "damned of I do and damned if I don't" circumstance because neither choice would be good.
- Horrortale: A flashback shows Undyne contending with how she can either kill Sans to use his power to restart the CORE and save monster society, or spare Sans' life at the cost of dooming the entire Underground to slowly starve. Undyne picks killing Sans for the greater good, which manages to backfire and result in a worse version of the second option happening.
- Sillyhat Productions:
- In "Trial of the Black Witch", Virgilia presents Battler with the chance to win the game and save most of his family... all he needs to do is name somebody as the culprit. She helpfully presents him with several candidates, all trussed up and ready to be burned at the stake for their crimes.
- Battler is faced with another one that forms the crux of "Deus Ex Machina": does he open the catbox and free his family, but sacrifice his own existence in the process? Or instead, does he challenge Beatrice to one last game, sacrificing everyone in the Golden Land?
- A Darker Path: Atropos forces Panacea to face one — either she breaks her self-imposed rule of not messing with someone's brain to rollback Bonesaw's personality to when she was Riley, or she's Forced to Watch as Atropos blows Bonesaw's brains out. Amy chooses option 1, adding an aversion to hurting people... which is exactly what Atropos wanted.
- Hope Comes to Brockton Bay: Jack Slash is taken off-guard by Hope's arrival, and tries to stall her by inflicting mortal wounds on Kayden, Theo, and Aster Anders, then making her choose which ones to save and which to let die. He's rather taken aback that she chooses to save Theo and Aster without hesitation — but as soon as he's gone, Hope uses her Kiss of Life to revive Kayden too.Hope: You are a very cruel man.
Jack: That I am, dear child.
- In From The Ashes Of Temples, Commander Bradford has to make a decision on whether to send a comatose VIP into the alien interrogation chamber to get at crucial information, or let EXALT get away with kidnapping Annette Durand.
