History Main / PayingItForward

* In the ''LightNovel/OkamiSan'' series, the Otogi Bank performs favors for others in exchange for the promise of performing a later favor. Many of its current members were inspired to join the group because someone else helped them in the past. Also, in the climax of the anime adaptation, several of their past clients come back to aid them in their plan to rescue Ryuko from the Onigashima High School.

* ''VideoGame/AzureStrikerGunvolt'': Gunvolt was a tortured test subject for a superhuman project (which creates [[PsychicChildren Adepts]]) before being saved by Asimov, who would become his father figure. Some time after, in the events in the game, he decides to do the same to another young Adept named Joule, citing his past as why he wants to.

** In ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'', if Hawke rescues the elf girl Lia from the serial killer Kelder and then kill him in Act 1, then walks around town with Aveline in Act 3, the pair will encounter the now-grown Lia - one of the newest recruits to the City Guard. She wants to protect people the same way Hawke protected her.

* ''Manga/NingenFushinNoBoukenshatachiGaSekaiOSukuuYoudesu'': When Nick was at his lowest, freshly kicked out of his party and losing his girlfriend, he was cheered up by the idol Agate. When he meets Karan, Sem, and Tianna, he sees them in the same boat he was, Karan especially, and reaches out the same way Agate did for him.

* CycleOfVirtue (philosophy where one good deed leads to another, ad infinitum)

* LaserGuidedKarma (which is both positive and negative).
* MoralityChain (a character is held back from turning bad because of someone they care for/who treats them well).
* NowLetMeCarryYou (when it involves TheCaretaker).

* ''Literature/LesMiserables'': After the Bishop shows parolee Jean Valjean mercy and doesn't turn him in for stealing his silver candlestick holders, Valjean is encouraged and inspired to become an honest man, paying it forward throughout the rest of the novel: first by innovating manufacturing practices that build factories employing hundreds, then by taking in Cosette, then by saving Cosette's crush Marius from the slaughter at the barricade. He even spares [[{{Javert}} the man who has been looking to take him back to prison the whole time]].

* ''Literature/LesMiserables'': After the Bishop shows parolee Jean Valjean mercy and doesn't turn him in for stealing his silver candlestick holders, Valjean is encouraged and inspired to become an honest man, paying it forward throughout the rest of the novel: first by innovating manufacturing practices that build factories employing hundreds, then by taking in Cosette, then by saving Cosette's crush Marius from the slaughter at the barricade. He even spares [[TheJavert the man who has been looking to take him back to prison the whole time]].

* ContagiousHeroism (when someone's heroic motives and spirit rub off on his surroundings)

* MoralityChain (a character is held back from turning bad because of someone he cares for/who treats him well).

A character, oftentimes in dire need of something, receives help from another character and becomes so inspired by this kindness, they resolve to be helpful to other people. The helpee might be a side character whom TheProtagonist (or another character) helps, or the hero of the story whom another character helps -- in fact, it's often how a hero and/or a FutureBadass came to be. A villain who [[SaveTheVillain gets saved]] or otherwise helped may [[HeelFaceTurn turn face]] and strive to be a better person, frequently by [[TheAtoner trying to atone for his sins]]. Or maybe it simply helped them to realize that GoodFeelsGood.

* MoralityChain (a character is held back from turning bad because of someone he cares/who treats him well).

* In ''Series/{{Quantico}}'', Nimah Amin is a daughter of refugees from the Middle East, and states in an early episode that she wants to be an FBIAgent as a way of paying back the United States for helping her family.

* Clay Walker's "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdP6xh_XIag The Chain of Love]]" is a song about paying it forward: a man helps an old woman with her flat tire and refuses to take any payment, instead telling her, "Don't let the chain of love end with you." The woman then goes to a restaurant and leaves a $100 tip for the waitress, with a note with it saying the same thing the man had told her. At the end of the song it is revealed that the waitress is the wife of the man who helped with the flat tire.

* ''VideoGame/MegaManZX Advent'': Grey was saved by a group of Hunters in an unknown lab (albeit accidentally via prematurely opening his capsule and they died in the process from security; he just grabbed a gun off a body and ran after waking up to the carnage) and then gets nursed back to health in their camp by the actions of a Hunter who found him almost dead outside near the camp after his escape ended with him being blasted off a bridge by explosion and chose to do the right thing. This inspires him to save others in need for no other reason than because it's right and he has the power to do so, even the Raiders (who are the Hunters' antithesis), and ultimately [[spoiler:leads him to decide that such a goal is more important than his QuestForIdentity, to the point when he confronts the BigBad it's made clear he doing it for the sake of everyone he's met and all of their rights to live in peace without a megalomaniacal man with a god complex manipulating things.]]

* ''VideoGame/MegaManZXAdvent'': Grey was saved by a group of Hunters in an unknown lab (albeit accidentally via prematurely opening his capsule and they died in the process from security; he just grabbed a gun off a body and ran after waking up to the carnage) and then gets nursed back to health in their camp by the actions of a Hunter who found him almost dead outside near the camp after his escape ended with him being blasted off a bridge by explosion and chose to do the right thing. This inspires him to save others in need for no other reason than because it's right and he has the power to do so, even the Raiders (who are the Hunters' antithesis), and ultimately [[spoiler:leads him to decide that such a goal is more important than his QuestForIdentity, to the point when he confronts the BigBad it's made clear he doing it for the sake of everyone he's met and all of their rights to live in peace without a megalomaniacal man with a god complex manipulating things.]]

!!Examples

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* In the ''LightNovel/OokamiSan'' series, the Otogi Bank performs favors for others in exchange for the promise of performing a later favor. Many of its current members were inspired to join the group because someone else helped them in the past. Also, in the climax of the anime adaptation, several of their past clients come back to aid them in their plan to rescue Ryuko from the Onigashima High School.

[[folder:Film -- Animated]]

[[folder:Film -- Live-Action]]

[[/folder]]

* ''VideoGame/MegaManZX Advent'': Grey was saved by a group of Hunters in an unknown lab and then gets nursed back to health in their camp. This inspires him to save others in need, even the Raiders (who are the Hunters' antithesis).

A character, oftentimes in dire need of something, receives help from another character and becomes so inspired by this kindness, they resolve to be helpful to other people. The helpee might be a side character that TheProtagonist (or another character) helps, or the hero of the story that another character helps -- in fact, it's often how a hero and/or a FutureBadass came to be. A villain who [[SaveTheVillain gets saved]] or otherwise helped may [[HeelFaceTurn turn face]] and strive to be a better person, frequently by [[TheAtoner trying to atone for his sins]]. Or maybe it simply helped them to realize that GoodFeelsGood.

----

* In Robert Fulghum's ''All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarden'', a man going to the big city to try to get a job is robbed. A nearby stranger gives him a little money to get started. The man turns it into a successful career and pays it forward just before he dies. Fulghum then recalls that many people have told him variants of the story:

* In the final season of ''Series/PersonOfInterest'', it was revealed that at least three of the people the heroes have saved over the series have formed their own team. They are getting their own set of Numbers from the Machine and are saving the associated people from deadly danger. It is implied that there might be other teams of previous Numbers who are paying things forward this way.

* Clay Walker's "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdP6xh_XIag The Chain of Love]]" is a song about paying it forward: a man helps an old woman with her flat tire and refuses to take any payment, instead telling her "Don't let the chain of love end with you." The woman then goes to a restaurant and leaves a $100 tip for the waitress, with a note with it saying the same thing the man had told her. At the end of the song it is revealed that the waitress is the wife of the man who helped with the flat tire.

* ''VideoGame/AzureStrikerGunvolt'': Gunvolt was a tortured test subject for a superhuman project (that creates [[PsychicChildren Adepts]]) before being saved by Asimov, who would become his father figure. Some time after, in the events in the game, he decides to do the same to another young Adept named Joule, citing his past as why he wants to.

** In ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'', if you rescue Lia from the serial killer Kelder and then kill him in Act I, then in Act III, Lia will proudly introduce herself as one of the newest recruits to the City Guard.
** Sutherland in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeInquisition'' asks the Inquisitor to give him a chance to prove himself as a field agent (basically asking for a sword to scare some bandits away from his home village). Repeatedly putting your trust in him and his slowly-growing RagtagBunchOfMisfits, instead of dismissing them as just another gang of upstarts, eventually allows them to become minor folk heroes in their own right. After Sutherland and his company decide to leave the Inquisition to take charge of their own hold, he asks the Inquisitor how he can repay their trust, and one of the available replies is to [[InvokedTrope suggest that Sutherland pays it forward himself]], finding a new bunch of promising hopefuls and helping them do what he and his own people accomplished with the Inquisitor's help.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Shelldon}}'' has an episode called "Pay Happiness Forward" in which Connie's school project that she chooses is that she does two favors for two people with the idea that instead of returning the favor to her, each of them instead does a favor for two other people.

* [[http://www.trueactivist.com/man-shows-random-act-of-kindness-the-day-before-his-death-and-inspires-pay-it-forward-movement/ This article]] reports of a man who showed a random act of kindness on the day before he died which inspired a "Pay It Forward" movement.
[[/folder]]
----

A character, oftentimes in dire need of something, receives help from another character and becomes so inspired by this kindness, they resolve to be helpful to other people. The helpee might be a side character that TheProtagonist (or another character) helps, or the hero of the story that another character helps -- in fact, it's often how a hero and/or a FutureBadass came to be. A villain who [[SaveTheVillain gets saved]] or otherwise helped may [[HeelFaceTurn turn face]] and strive to be a better person, frequently by [[TheAtoner trying to atone for his sins]].

* WesternAnimation/{{Shelldon}}'' has an episode called "Pay Happiness Forward" in which Connie's school project that she chooses is that she does two favors for two people with the idea that instead of returning the favor to her, each of them instead does a favor for two other people.

* ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'': At the beginning of the game, there's a rich {{Jerkass}} who gives you 10 gold if you dance like a chicken. His children hate him, his wife is worried about how this affects their family, and there's two treasure chests in his house. Later in the game, you can run across the man's ancestors who ask you if you can spare some food. If you do, she swears that her children will learn to be generous towards strangers. If you return to the present, the man no longer gives you money, but he does let you open the chests, his children love him... and his wife is worried about his generosity.

Contrast the dark side of "treating people the way you have been treated": {{Revenge}}, FreudianExcuse and WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds.

----
Indices: GratitudeTropes, IndebtedIndex.