We don't need editorializing of any sort in trope articles.
I think the main problem is that its not clear atm if its just a list of uses of a stock phrase or instances of a trope about a specific kind of moral dilemma. The description is also rambling and pretty hostile so it needs rewritten at the very least. Is this better:
On the one hand, the villain may have proven himself a Complete Monster or done the hero great harm personally. But on the other, the average hero tends to take a dim view of killing the helpless. This could easily turn into a Jumping Off the Slippery Slope situation. Sometimes Being Good Sucks.
Contrast with Kill Him Already!. Compare with Save the Villain and Sword over Head. Anti Heroes are exempt from all four. Compare/Contrast Strike Me Down with All of Your Hatred!.
A subtrope of He Who Fights Monsters and Moral Dilemma. See If You Taunt Him, You Will Be Just Like Him for when the stakes involved in this situation are notably lower.
I wouldn't use Complete Monster in there, as per the cleanup effort that's going on.
But otherwise, that's a much-improved description, although few things wouldn't be.
The main page is indeed hostile to this idea. The rewrite is more focused on the moral delimma: killing a helpless person vs sparing a villain.
Is there anything to do here?
"If you aren't him, then you apparently got your brain from the same discount retailer, so..." - Fighteer
AXTE INCAL AXTUCE MUN
Agreed that Star Valkyrie's writeup is an improvement over the current article.
I didn't write any of that.
Changed the description. Anything I missed?
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanLooks good.
"If you aren't him, then you apparently got your brain from the same discount retailer, so..." - Fighteer
The old description for the trope (before my recent edit) seems to come across more about complaining about the hero sparing the villain at all (and a little too specifically about a falling death). The original point of the trope isn't about the Hero not killing the villain out of Joker Immunity or a misapplication of Thou Shalt Not Kill, but rather the fact that the villain is now helpless before the hero. It's literally a matter of the type of person the hero is. Is he the kind of person who would kill a helpless (or unarmed if it's a matter of honor) man?
Now when it's done wrong, that's when the writers fail to apply it universally. Sparing the villain after the battle when you killed Mooks (or The Dragon) during it is not a misuse of the trope in and of itself. Now if the hero spared the villain after blowing up the enemy barracks, then you did something wrong.