Save The Villain / Western Animation

• In the American Dragon: Jake Long episode "The Ski Trip", Jake learns that Rose, his love interest, and Huntsgirl, his arch-enemy, are one and the same. As such, when Huntsgirl gets caught in an avalanche, Jake swoops in to save her, much to her confusion.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • Naturally, Aang, the hero, has saved Prince Zuko on a number of occasions, including in the unaired pilot. His friends don't always approve.
    Aang: Wait — we can't just leave him here.
    Sokka: Sure we can...
  • In "The Siege of the North, Part 2", Prince Zuko, an Anti-Villain, is fighting Admiral Zhao, a full-fledged villain, when the latter is suddenly seized by the Ocean Spirit. Even though Zuko hates Zhao's guts, he yells, "Take My Hand!," because he's just honorable like that. Zhao refuses Zuko's help and suffers a Karmic Death. It isn't until the next series that we discover he suffered a Fate Worse than Death instead.
  • Even Momo saves enemies which wanted to eat him five minutes earlier in "The Tales of Ba Sing Se".
• The DCU:
  • This is something of a hallmark of Superman Theatrical Cartoons. The 1941 shorts "The Mad Scientist" and "The Mechanical Monsters" each end with Superman grabbing Lois and the villain as their base blows up and leaping to safety.
  • Batman: The Animated Series:
    • In "Day of the Samurai", Batman's second encounter with a villainous ninja, Kyodai Ken, ends with the ninja stranded on a rock in the middle of a lava flow. Despite all that has passed between them, Batman throws a line and offers to try and pull him to safety. The rescue is refused, and the ninja presumably dies seconds later.
    • In "The Underdwellers", Batman saves a villain called the Sewer King from being hit by a subway train. When the astonished villain asks why, Batman responds that he leaves judgment and execution to the courts. Batman is still sorely tempted to make an exception here, what with the nature of the otherwise silly-looking villain's crimes.
    • Another episode has Batman saving an unconscious Joker from an exploding building - probably unnecessary, given Joker's history with big explosions.
    • In "Love Is a Croc", when other villain Killer Croc drops Baby Doll (already a sympathetic character, anyway, though still insane) over a poorly designed ledge in the nuclear power plant, Batman catches her. She then knocks out Croc with a chemical, saving Batman in return.
    • Lampshaded in "The Last Laugh", where The Joker is hanging over a pit of molten metal.
      Joker: Batman! You wouldn't let me fry, would you?
      Batman: [considers it]
      Joker: BATMAN! [Batman pulls him up]
    • In "Heart of Ice", Batman thaws out a mook who accidentally got hit with Mr. Freeze's cold gun. Later, Batman stops Mr. Freeze from murdering Ferris Boyle, but out of disgust for Boyle's crimes, he gives the reporter Summer Gleason evidence of them and leaves without unfreezing him.
  • Batman: The Brave and the Bold:
    • In one episode Batman saves the life of The Joker, who'd been betrayed by the washed-up Golden Age supervillain he'd brought out of retirement. Joker is quite displeased, and says that he'd ruined his best joke ever — if the Weeper had killed Joker, he'd have "claimed his destiny", going from washed up lame bad guy to the king of crime.
    • Batman tries to do this with Joe Chill, the man who murdered his parents, by saving Chill when his fellow villains turn on him so he can live to stand trial. He succeeds in defeating them, only for a section of the ceiling that was damaged in the fight to collapse and fatally crush Chill, with it being strongly implied that the Spectre deliberately caused this to happen in order to protect Batman's secret identity.
  • Superman: The Animated Series:
    • An interesting subversion happens during the three-part "World's Finest" special. The Joker has just accidentally set the huge flying wing he, Harley Quinn, Batman, and Lex Luthor are all on board to exploding; Superman turns up, Batman tells Superman to get Luthor, he's got Quinn... exeunt omnes through Superman's entrance hole... without making even the slightest effort to save The Joker, who's on the far side of what's functionally a minefield. Granted, it did give us the immortal lines after the plane had gone up in a fireball the size of a small city:
      Harley Quinn: PUDDIN'!
      Batman: At this point, he probably is.
    • A variation happens between Superman and Lobo in the episode "The Main Man". Lobo was in no danger of dying, but he had been captured by the Preserver along with Superman, and couldn't escape his cell on his own. Superman offered to help, so long as he promised never to bother the Earth again. Once Lobo agreed and told him that "the Main Man's word is as good as gold", Superman broke him out.
  • Justice League:
    • In the episode "Twilight", this is averted by Superman of all people. When Darkseid tells the League that Brainiac is trying to assimilate Apokolips, Superman refuses to help and the rest of the League has to convince him otherwise. After Darkseid's inevitable betrayal, Superman actually hunts him down to personally kill him, and is only prevented by Batman because the entire base was about to explode. That said, it does work in that they leave the tyrant to die in the explosion and it sticks — Darkseid remains dead all the way to the finale of Unlimited four seasons later.
    • Also subverted in the earlier episode "The Enemy Below." Orm ends up dangling off a ledge over a high drop, screaming for help, after trying to kill both his brother Aquaman and his infant son as well as untold numbers of people by melting the polar ice caps. Aquaman reaches down...and grabs his nearby trident instead, while Orm falls to his death.
      Aquaman: I believe this is mine.
  • Justice League Action: Superman and Wonder Woman save the Joker from Mongul in "Galaxy Jest" and Lex Luthor from a black hole in "Repulse".
  • Several episodes of the first season of My Adventures with Superman end with Supes saving members of his Rogues Gallery from being fatally Hoist by Their Own Petard.
  • In Young Justice (2010), Superman tries to save Kroleteans about to be destroyed by a bomb hidden in their volcano base. They don't believe him and keep attacking, so he fails.
• Garfield and Friends: Garfield gets sent to Stonewall Obedience School in "School Daze" under the supervision of a totalitarian coach who was kicked out of the Marines for unnecessary roughness. After barely escaping her and being forced into an obstacle course, Garfield spares her from getting mauled by her own dogs.
• The Legend of Korra:
  • Good-naturedly mocked. Korra and Mako just happen to come across the imprisoned Tarrlok while staking out Amon's headquarters. Tarrlok sarcastically quips, "I don't suppose you're here to rescue me?" They weren't the least bit interested in doing so. Korra does honestly consider freeing him, but Tarrlok warns her not to do so, in order to ensure that no one would know they had spoken.
  • In the climactic moment of the Grand Finale of the fourth season, it's played perfectly straight. Kuvira looks up to see her own overloading spirit energy supercannon about to blast her. Instead of letting her be hit, Korra leaps right in front of her and uses energybending to deflect the beam and ensuing superpowered explosion.
• The Perils of Penelope Pitstop: In the episode "North Pole Peril", Penelope rescues the Hooded Claw after a yeti throws him off a cliff. Naturally, she regrets it later.
• Audience-based subversion: There was once an Action Man (1995) advert where Dr. X was hanging off the edge of a building, about to fall to his death, and viewers voted whether Action Man should save him or not. They voted no, and Dr. X fell to his death.
• Captain Planet and the Planeteers: Captain Planet, being the Superman-style Nice Guy hero that he is, responds to anyone in need of help, including the eco-villains. So do the Planteers. Very few of the eco-villains ever reward them for it at all.
  • Dr. Blight begs Captain Planet to save her from being trampled to death by a genetically altered steer (that she created), resulting in a lampshading on both ends.
    Dr. Blight: You've got to save me, Planet! It's in your hero's manual!
    Captain Planet: For once, she's right.
  • Looten Plunder when the robotic wolf that Blight made for him malfunctions and goes crazy.
  • Hoggish Greedly when his son almost dies due to smog produced by Greedly's road hog cars.
  • Sly Sludge when the garbage eating monsters he released are getting out of control. It would have been perfect had Wheeler not thrown Sludge's briefcase of money to the garbage monster at the last minute.
  • Looten Plunder and Doctor Blight in "Send In the Clones". In perhaps the most extreme case of the experiment that had Gone Horribly Wrong in the whole series, which saw a boy being cloned thousands of times, even Blight wanted to see the cloning reversed. Plunder agreed in the end that it had gone too far, but he of all people took a surprisingly long time to realise it was no longer fun and games.
  • Sly Sludge's underling, Ooze, begged for Captain Planet's help when all the garbage they had shrunk and compacted started to grow back, threatening to bury them all alive.
  • "The Garbage Strikes": Sly Sludge, thanks to his releasing the garbage-eating microbe too soon, ends up nearly being trapped by the resulting Blob Monster. He only survives the episode thanks to Wheeler rescuing him.
  • "The Predator": After spending the entire episode slaughtering sharks and trying to kill the Planeteers when they attempt to stop him, Argos Bleak gets his boat sunk and, seeing a blue shark coming his way, has the nerve to beg for help. The Captain snarks that he'd hate for the shark to get indigestion and pulls Bleak out of the water just before the shark can sink its teeth into him. He's not amused when Bleak complains about his not killing the shark afterwards.
• Dora the Explorer: Dora and Boots had to save Swiper from a magic bottle in the "Dance to the Rescue" special.
• An episode of ReBoot had both Bob and Megabyte both fighting for survival in a glitched-up Game, which culminated in Megabyte being trapped in quicksand by a Tyrannosaurus with a tank for a head. Bob saves him, and later in the episode, successfully resolves a standoff by reminding Megabyte that he owes him. The indisputable highlight, though, is the way Megabyte finally asks for help...
• In one episode of X-Men: The Animated Series, Juggernaut starts an all-out attack on Xavier's mansion, but is stopped when somebody else steals his powers. Cain Marko then starts to die, requiring the X-Men to find the Ruby of Cyttorak to restore his power and save his life. They do, and Juggernaut repays them by stopping the attack and leaving.
  Cyclops: We're going to save the Juggernaut's sorry life. And don't bother telling me you don't like it.
  Wolverine: I don't like it.
• The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! features a subversion in its Christmas Episode. Bowser, who has taken Santa Claus captive at this point and is threatening to throw him into the icy water below, stupidly causes an avalanche. Mario uses his plumbers' snake to rescue St. Nick, but instead of doing the same for the Koopa King, he gestures to the reptile that he'll just have to jump into the water himself (which he surprisingly survives).
• Kim Possible:
  • Lampshaded a bit in this exchange from "Gorilla Fist.":
    Ron: So you want to tell me again exactly why we're going back?
    Kim: 'Cause it is the right thing to do.
    Sensei: (wisely) A weed that never grows does not need to be cut down.
    Ron: Hmm, yeah, that's a good gardening tip. So why are we doing this again?
    Yori: What Sensei is saying is that even though Monkey Fist is bad, he has not done us wrong this day. It is our honor to save him.
    Ron: Oh, we're rescuing the bad guy!
    Kim: Yeah, but it sounds better the way he says it.
  • "Rewriting History" has Kim get Drakken and Shego away from an invention that would have probably killed them, with Drakken then saying "We never speak of this again!" She also dives in and saves Drakken from drowning in "Cap'n Drakken", proving she's that big a damn hero once and for all.
  • Averted when a crook robs the Senor Seniors. Rather than ignore their efforts against the con artist to regain what is rightfully theirs, Kim tries to capture them. Technically, she was trying to save the crook from Senior's revenge, so she did save a villain, just not the ones who for all intents and purposes had built their wealth legitimately and treat villainy as a hobby.
• Aladdin: The Series:
  • In the episode "Black Sand", Aladdin tries to save Mozenrath from falling off the palace into his black sand trap. Obviously, Mozenrath attempts to pull Aladdin down with him but ends up falling into his own black sand.
  • In the episode "The Hunted," Genie has to save Mukhtar, a Genie Hunter, from a man-eating Venus flytrap in Mozenrath's citadel. He then says "Saving people we might not like. It's a good guy thing!" Afterwards, Mukhtar seems to be an Ungrateful Bastard and betray Genie to Mozenrath, but he lies to Mozenrath and tells him that Aladdin and his other hostages are dead, but lets them go once he leaves the palace, his way of repaying a debt in his eyes; and even yet, after reflecting on what Genie did for him for a while, comes back and helps save Genie and defeat Mozenrath.
  • In "The Vapor Chase" after Abis Mal tricks Jasmine into buying magic powder that he (disguised as a merchant) claimed to be a more efficient alternative to firewood but really released smoke demons to steal valuables for him when burned, Jasmine gets so angry that she was taken advantage of that Aladdin has to get Genie to stop her giving Abis Mal a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
• On Phineas and Ferb, Perry the Platypus occasionally does this for Dr. Doofensmirtz, even though the doctor routinely manages to survive huge explosions and worse. In the episode "The Magnificent Few", Perry saves Dr. Doofenshmirtz from his exploding evil lair.
• In an episode of Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes, Mr. Fantastic briefly considers leaving Mole Man to be eaten by the monsters he was trying to control, before concluding "I think they'd take away our superhero licenses".
• The Spectacular Spider-Man:
  • In an episode Spidey finds himself saving Tombstone from the Green Goblin. He seriously resents this. Though to be fair, you could argue that he was more rescuing all the innocent people at Tombstone's party.
  • In "Shear Strength," Spidey has taken serious physical damage (including a Shout-Out to his famous "lifting a bridge" scene) and is about to escape with Gwen from the self-destructing villain lair...when Gwen points out that some members of the Sinister Six are unconscious in the rubble. After a brief "seriously?!" moment, he manages to swing over, drag them back to the submarine and then collapse into his seat, so drained that Gwen has to pilot them to safety.
• In an episode of Spider-Man: The Animated Series SM rescues Jameson from the Scorpion (who, by the way, was created by Jameson to hunt down Spidey). Naturally, That Doesn't Change Anything, and SM later ruminates in amusement that "It's like Sherlock Holmes rescuing Moriarty".
  • In the 80s show, Jameson is in trouble at one point and begs Spider-Man to save him, promising to stop printing bad things about him. After he's rescued, he immediately tells Spider-Man that he was lying and gloats about it. Spider-Man says that he wasn't fooled. If Jameson had kept his promise, then he'd be surprised.
  • Back into Spider-Man: The Animated Series, the trope was occasionally subverted. Peter Parker (he didn't have time to change clothes) once saved Wilson Fisk from the Hobgoblin but Spidey didn't know back then Fisk was the Kingpin. In a later episode, he saved an old man he'd later learn was the mob boss Silvermane. Spidey even commented he'd give him back to Doctor Octopus if he knew the truth back then (considering how Spidey learned Silvermane's identity, who can blame him?). He once knowingly saved the Scorpion from danger, playing this trope straight, but he made it clear to Black Cat (and the viewers) he's only doing it because it was Spidey's own fault the Scorpion was in that danger in the first place.
• Courage the Cowardly Dog rescues his callous and mean owner Eustace on a regular basis. To his credit, he does this most reluctantly and only for the sake of Eustace's cute and caring wife Muriel whom Courage adores. Every plunge into the maw of death to retrieve the Ungrateful Bastard is preacted with a mournful lament: "Things I do for love!"
• In the fifth season of Samurai Jack, the titular character ends up trapped in the belly of a beast along with Ashi, the remaining member of the Daughters of Aku. He saves Ashi by tying her up in chains and carrying her on his back as they escape. This escalates into a Fire-Forged Friendship between the two.
  • Which is not to say Jack has an easy time of it. Ashi spends the entire episode being a royal pain-in-the-behind. She screams, she glares, kicks and head-butts when he's distracted, and generally acts like a defiant child. Inner-Jack^note the personification of Jack's feelings of hoplessness and despair that manifested during the time-skip between seasons 4 and 5 makes the situation even more unbearable.
• In Moral Orel, Orel (reluctantly) shoots a bear in order to rescue Clay. This was after the latter had shot Orel in the leg and showed no remorse over it. Clay then asks Orel if he shot the bear, but Orel lies to Clay that he shot the bear to remove his satisfaction.
• He-Man saves Skeletor's life a lot of times (or his henchmen and other villains) in both the 1983 He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and the 2002 reboot. He even lampshades this once in one episode of the remake, saying, "I'm probably going to regret this later..." before he rescues Evil-Lyn (and he does). Still, what Skeletor was about to do to her was beyond cruel (he was going to offer her body and soul to an Eldritch Abomination) so you can't blame him.
  • Several episodes in the original series show that He-Man's willingness to save "the villain" terrifies Skeletor, which is why he gives up on his plans so quickly and runs away after He-Man saves him near the end of the episode.
• In one of the final episodes of Storm Hawks, Stork attempts to save Repton from falling to his death. He fails.
• In Care Bears: Adventures in Care-a-Lot, the Care Bears are usually willing to do this for Grizzle.
• The Smurfs end up doing this to Gargamel on various occasions, one reluctantly being when Gargamel accidentally turned himself into a statue while the Smurfs rejoice afterward, Papa Smurf being the exception.
• Jake and/or the members of his team on Jake and the Never Land Pirates always offer this to Captain Hook when he inevitably gets into a sticky situation. Hook, however, always refuses, claiming that he doesn't need help. Jake and the others don't try to press the issue.
• Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: In "Donald's Big Balloon Race" after Pete crashes into a tree just before the finish line, Mickey refuses to leave Pete stuck because he wants Donald to be a good sport, so the two use a rope ladder to rescue Pete before flying over the line.
• Subverted by Posey in Mission Hill when she's threatened by a pimp for taking away with her (unfortunately printed) "healthful release" massage. When he pulls his back out of place she uses her massage techniques to fix him, then pushes him off the building.
  Posey: I didn't want him to fall off the roof and not feel it.
• Kong: The Animated Series:
  • Jason and the others save De La Porta a few times, and at one point he returns the favor, if only to make them even.
  • One episode also has Kong face an Evil Twin of himself who ultimately falls off a cliff only for Kong to save him. It turns out the battle is a Secret Test of Character and saving even his evil self is what it takes to pass.
• The Transformers: In the season 2 episode "Masquerade", the Stunticon Breakdown catches fire when the Autobots are in the process of capturing him and Wild Rider. Inferno puts the fire out, but not before quipping:
  Inferno: I'll probably hate myself in the morning, but...
• Transformers: Prime:
  • Subverted when both Bots and Cons get caught in a cave-in, the Autobots consider rescuing them. They choose not to, reasoning that not killing them in cold blood is good enough.
  • Played much straighter in "Operation: Breakdown." When the human terrorists MECH get their hands on Breakdown and start dissecting him, Optimus insists on a rescue mission, if only to keep MECH from acquiring dangerous tech. Bulkhead is initially reluctant to help his rival, but Miko convinces him to do it so he can beat Breakdown fair and square later.
• In Transformers: Cyberverse, Starscream overruns the Nemesis with scraplets and has the Decepticons at his mercy, Megatron sends out a distress signal to the Autobots. While his subordinates are willing to leave the Decepticons to their fate, Optimus predictably assembles a strike force to save them.
• Played in Hurricanes. Toro faced his fear of snakes to save Melinda Garkos.
• In The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Captain America nearly sacrifices himself to save Madame Viper from the Super Skrull. When Henry Gyrich asks what he's doing, Mockingbird responds with "He's being Captain America!" Viper returns the favor by helping the Invisible Woman save Cap, though she's back to being a bonafide villain after the Skrull invasion is foiled.
• Mike tries this toward "Red" in Motorcity, who refuses his help. Turns out he's still alive.
• Thomas the Tank Engine saves Diesel from rolling off an unfinished bridge in Misty Island Rescue.
• Ben 10: Alien Force:
  • Ben saves the Highbreed from extinction by changing their DNA with the Omnitrix.
  • Gwen and Kevin save Kraab from his exploding ship. Ben saves Albedo from Vilgax's sinking ship in the same episode.
  • Averted in one episode. When Kevin foils Ragnarok's plan to harvest the Sun's energy to sell on the alien market, Ragnarok is left dangling from a platform and risks falling into the sun, and begs Kevin to save him, saying it's what his father would have done. Kevin acknowledges this. However, as said father was killed by Ragnarok, Kevin's not in the mood to save him, and lets him fall to his death.
• In the Wacky Races episode "The Super Silly Swamp Sprint," Peter Perfect pulls Dick Dastardly and Muttley out of an alligator-filled swamp. The result of which puts the Mean Machine in first place.
• In the Adventure Time episode "Fire and Ice", Finn rescues Ice King after Flame Princess almost kills him and leaves the Ice Kingdom falling down around him. Mostly because it was Finn's fault she was doing this.
• One episode of Codename: Kids Next Door has the Delightful Children from Down the Lane beg Sector V for help lest they suffer the wrath of Father. Father had left the mansion in their care briefly to go get a spa treatment, and the DCFDTL attempted to take advantage of the situation to kiss up to the teenagers — only for them to accidentally start a TV-Y7 version of a Wild Teen Party. Since they are kids in distress, Sector V is honor-bound to help them in getting rid of the unwanted guests before Father returns. Once Father does come back, the entire mansion blows up from mashed potatoes, and the DCFDTL throw them under the bus by pointing fingers at Sector V.
• The Powerpuff Girls (1998): In "Get Back Jojo", Mojo uses a time portal created by the Professor to go back in time to Ret-Gone the Girls. The Girls follow him back in time and kick him into the volcano where he would later build his observatory. However, they realize they can't leave him like this and save him just as the Professor uses a claw to pull both the Girls and Mojo back to the present.
• Happens twice in Tiny Toon Adventures with Montana Max, both examples involving a giant robot he uses to try to attack the protagonists but instead attacks him. Both examples also have a case of Laser-Guided Karma for Monty anyway at the end.
  • In the short, "Rent-A-Friend" from the episode, "Rainy Daze", Montana Max uses the Acme Bunny Basher robot to try to attack Buster, who is his rent-a-friend for the afternoon. Buster hides his ears and puts fake rabbit ears on Monty to trick the robot, who at this point, tries to drop Monty from the top of his mansion. Buster powers down the robot by taking a Durasmell Battery out of the robot's Achilles' Heel. The robot drops Monty anyway, but Buster saves Monty by calling the Acme Rescue Team, which cost $200,000, which he charged to Monty's account.
  • In the short, "C.L.I.D.E. and Prejudice" from the episode, "Elephant Issues", Monty orders an attack robot called S.N.I.D.E. ^note Standing for Super New Improved Droid Eradicator to attack C.L.I.D.E..^note Standing for Cybernetic Laser Ionized Digital Entity Specifically, programming S.N.I.D.E. to "Attack Nearest Geek". As a result, S.N.I.D.E. tries to attack Monty. C.L.I.D.E. transforms into a race car to catch up to them, then to an airplane to catch Monty and get him away from S.N.I.D.E.. Monty thanks C.L.I.D.E. for saving him, and tells him that he was wrong to judge him based on his looks, but C.L.I.D.E., aware of Monty's plan to destroy him, transforms into an anvil to flatten him.
• One interesting variation of the theme happened on Jem, where a plane carrying both the Holograms and the Misfits crashed in the ocean several hundred feet from the shore of an island, and Jem had to rescue Stormer - who couldn't swim - from drowning. It wasn't that Stormer was ungrateful (indeed, probably the only member of the Misfits who would be) but the problem was, the water briefly interfered with Synergy's signal, and Stormer thought Jerrica had saved her. Big problem. With the whole cast now marooned on an island and several of them who didn't know about her dual identity thinking she was alive and missing, suffice to say it caused problems.
• Steven Universe: Pearl attempts to save an unconscious Jasper from falling through a fissure in "Super Watermelon Island", but doesn't make it in time.
• The Wild West C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Mesa episode "Boom Town or Bust" has the C.O.W.-Boys having to save the corrupt Mayor Bulloney as well as his goons Saddle Sore and Boothill Buzzard from an incoming flood due to Saddle Sore and Boothill Buzzard having difficulty in getting Mayor Bulloney to leave behind the money he's made from selling overpriced mining equipment during the gold rush.
• In the Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends pilot movie Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Kids, Spiderus tries to smoosh Holley and ends up taking a nasty fall for it. Miss Spider immediately declares that they have to help him.
• In the Shazam episode "The Great Circus Plot", Captain Marvel saves Dr. Sivana and Mr. Mind when their ship is about to crash, much to Sivana's dismay.
• Super Dinosaur: While infiltrating the Lair Leviathan with Derek and SD after Minimus' takeover, Squidious gets stung by several DynOre-mutated security jellyfish that render him unconscious... but SD swims in and saves him from falling.
• The Owl House: In "Hunting Palismen", Luz is captured by the Golden Guard. While the two are initially hostile to one another, they are then attacked by Kikimora's dragon, causing them to crash in the jungle. Luz then overhears Kiki ordering her dragon to eat the Guard — who is laying unconscious in a bush nearby — and decides to save him by slapping him awake.
  Luz: Listen. You are a bad person, and I do not like you. But Kikimora is trying to kill you, and unfortunately, I'm too nice to let that happen.
• Star Trek: Lower Decks
  • The present, "Good" Rutherford wins against his suppressed Jerkass personality in their Battle in the Center of the Mind—but knowing that he was a fake personality laid over the original, tries to think of a way to have them both survive. Past Rutherford rejects the offer to merge because he thinks it would lead to both of them dying.
  • In the season 4 finale, Mariner has to activate a knockoff Genesis device to keep it away from the Arc Villain, her old acquaintance Nick Locarno. Freeman beams her off just in time, and Mariner tries to get him beamed away too. Unfortunately, he's so insistant that his plan will work and that he can shut off the device that he keeps the shields up to prevent his own rescue. He's ultimately foiled by the bomb's paywall (It Makes Sense in Context) and he dies in the explosion.
• Kipo does her best in Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts when Dr. Emilia transforms herself into a Mega-Mute and loses herself. Not because Kipo thinks she deserves to go free, but that her punishment shouldn't be an And I Must Scream situation like this. Unfortunately, Emilia is an Ungrateful Bastard and tries to stab Kipo anyway once she's been saved, and Kipo's friends have to knock Emilia into Fun Gus's lair where she will undoubtedly be trapped for the rest of her life.

---