History Main / TakeAThirdOption

* In the [[Fanfic/RainbowDoubleDashsLunaverse Lunaverse]] story ''At The Grand Galloping Gala'', Trixie finally comprehends how thoroughly corrupted the Night Court is when Viceroy Night Light reveals himself to have deliberately held back relief aid for Ponyville just to torment Trixie (who in fairness is at least in part responsible for his daughter Twilight becoming a wanted fugitive). He gives her a SadisticChoice: Give up her lifelong dream of getting anywhere in the Night Court hierarcy and Ponyville will be left alone, or continue with her political aspirations and Ponyville will suffer. Trixie's choice: [[spoiler: Wreck the whole rotten organisation]].

** [[spoiler:At the end of Priority: Rannoch]] in ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', [[spoiler:Legion (or the Geth VI if Legion died in ME2) tries to upload the Reaper upgrades into the geth, upon their freedom from the Reapers. However, the quarian fleet is still hellbent on obliterating the upgraded geth, causing it to be the one to be wiped out, instead. It's at that point, Shepard has to either continue the upload at the expense of destroying the quarians, or kill Legion so that the quarians can destroy their creations without getting wiped out themselves.]]\\

* At the end of Season 5 of ''Series/{{BuffyTheVampireSlayer}}'', Buffy's apparent choices, if she and The Scoobies cannot stop Glory from starting the ritual that would end the world and kill all human life, are to kill Dawn and save the world, which Giles tries and fails to convince her is the best action, or to save Dawn temporarily but let the whole world be destroyed, which is what her [[PrinciplesZealot deontological]] instincts tell her is still preferable. [[spoiler: The ritual is not prevented, and Buffy sacrifices her own life, her blood being similar enough to Dawn's, to save the world without killing an innocent]]

* A comic from ''TheFarSide'' has people discussing a glass that has water in half of it. One says, "The glass is half full!" One says, "The glass is half empty!" One says, "Half full... no, wait, half empty... no, wait..." And the last guy is shouting, "Hey! I ordered a cheeseburger!"

* In what amounts to a prose VillainSong, [[BigBad Ellsworth Toohey]] in ''TheFountainhead'' gloats that the contemporary world was fixated on the "choice" between the Nazis and the Communists, two brutal totalitarian ideologies. (The novel was written in the late 1930s, when many people believed that freedom and individual rights had been discredited; in the world of ''The Fountainhead'', ''freedom'' is the Third Option.)

* ''Franchise/FireEmblem:

* In ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorney: Justice for All'', Phoenix at one point must decide whether to [[spoiler:[[DistressedDamsel save Maya from an assassin]] while condemning an innocent woman, or convict his guilty client but let Maya die.]] In the end, he manages to [[spoiler:convince the assassin to drop his contract by revealing that the guilty client had planned to betray him all along; he releases Maya and announces his intention to kill the treacherous client next, who is scared for his life to the point that he ''demands'' a guilty verdict.]]
** Subverted at the very end, though: [[spoiler:after that reveal, you must still either accuse your client of being guilty or defend him to the end, asking for a "not guilty" verdict.]] The outcome is the same.
** There's also multiple points where Phoenix/Apollo/Edgeworth reconcile a contradiction by saying that the contradiction itself is true. The most notable is in the final case of ''Trials and Tribulations'' when Iris appears to be in two places at once according to two separate pieces of testimony. Which testimony is true? [[spoiler: Both. One of the 'Irises' is her twin sister Dahlia, being channeled by Misty Fey.]]
** Edgeworth gets one too. Who is [[spoiler:the real Yatagarasu]]? Neither [[spoiler:Byrne Faraday]] nor [[spoiler:Calisto Yew]]...[[spoiler:because the real answer is both. The Yatagarasu was a CollectiveIdentity made up of Faraday, Yew, and Detective Badd.]]

* In ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemTellius Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn]]'', [[MyCountryRightOrWrong Micaiah]] at one point has to [[spoiler:[[HeroicSacrifice kill King Pelleas to save her country, at Pelleas's own request]].]] The player originally has the choice to carry out the order or pass the duty to someone else, but after the first playthrough, a third option appears where[[spoiler: she refuses to let him die]].
* Happens in FireEmblemAwakening: [[spoiler: Chrom and Lissa's sister Emmeryn is captured by the Plegian army and forced to stand atop of a cliff to force Chrom into a SadisticChoice: either he hands the [[MacGuffin Fire Emblem]] to Plegia (which will trigger the ruin of the continent) or they will kill her in front of him. Her choice? To give a brief RousingSpeech... and then [[HeroicSuicide willingly throw herself off the cliff]].]]
* In ''PhoenixWrightAceAttorney: Justice for All'', Phoenix at one point must decide whether to [[spoiler:[[DistressedDamsel save Maya from an assassin]] while condemning an innocent woman, or convict his guilty client but let Maya die.]] In the end, he manages to [[spoiler:convince the assassin to drop his contract by revealing that the guilty client had planned to betray him all along; he releases Maya and announces his intention to kill the treacherous client next, who is scared for his life to the point that he ''demands'' a guilty verdict.]]

* [[spoiler: Sakura Oogami]] from DanganRonpa took one. [[spoiler: It's eventually revealed at the end of case 4's trial that the reason Monobear was able to persuade Sakura to be TheMole was because Monobear was holding the Oogami dojo hostage. Sakura either had to kill someone and thus lose her moral integrity, which would emotionally destroy her (and cause her to be ''bloodily executed'' if she can't get away with it), or lose her family's beloved dojo which is the other important thing in her life... And what does she do? [[DrivenToSuicide She kills herself]], which simultaneously satisfies the dojo-saving requirement of killing someone (''her own person'') while preserving Sakura's moral integrity by not actually killing any of the others.]]

** A much more extreme example exists in the closing episodes of season 1, showcasing one of Lelouch's worst "third choices". [[spoiler:Trapped between accepting a potentially unfavorable agreement that would derail the Black Knights and give the Japanese a false sense of equality, and harming his sister, one option ruining his plans and stepping on his pride, and the other morally repugnant, he chooses to be shot and then blame it on his sister. Considering that setting up his own assassination would likely result in either hospitalisation, ruining his disguise, getting captured, or death, depending on accuracy, and horrify his sister, the writers go out of their way to force him to take one of the original two options, but in a far more cruel manner.]]

* In the anime adaption of VisualNovel/UminekoNoNakuKoroNi, Battler is given a choice between killing the person he loves most, himself, or everyone else on the island. He states that there's no one he loves most, and elects Beatrice to that spot and chooses her. [[spoiler:This failed plan to get rid of Beatrice is pretty ironic considering he marries her in the sound novel.]]

** This [[http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/What_Is_Truth_0x3f_.aspx post]] which has became a famous meme in the thedailywtf.com community. True, False, or FileNotFound.

--> [[spoiler:This, in turn, pays off for Bumi when the eclipse arrived and rendering firebenders powerless, allowing him to single-handedly take back the city.]]

* The 2010 Australian election looked like it would be between the once popular but flagging Kevin Rudd and the horrifying Tony Abbott. Then Parliament seemed to take the third option and appointed Julia Gillard instead.

* Occurs in the 1948 film ''TheRedShoes''. The main character Vicky is forced to choose between Julian, the man she loves, and dancing ballet, which she considers as important as living. At one point, she has a relationship with him, but keeps it a secret. When they are discovered, things get more complicated and in the end [[spoiler: she decides to commit suicide by throwing herself in front of a moving train]].

* In ''MinorityReport'', Burgess; the inventor of Pre Crime detection is cornered by John Anderton for committing a past murder. A Pre Crime report shows that Anderton is to be killed by Burgess, and Burgess holds Anderton at gunpoint. Anderton gives the villain a dilemma: if the villain kills Anderton, he proves that [=PreCrime=] detection works but he gets a life sentence for murder. If he doesn't kill, he proves that Precrime is folly. Burgess takes the third option and [[spoiler:shoots himself instead.]]

* In ''[[Film/SherlockHolmes Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows]]'', Holmes' final confrontation with Professor Moriarty [[ItWasHisSled over the Reichenbach Falls]] boils down to a choice between letting Moriarty go, knowing that Moriarty will take revenge by killing Dr. Watson and his new wife, or trying to fight the former Cambridge boxing champion while suffering from a serious shoulder injury, which he deduces will result in his own death ''and'' Moriarty going after the Watsons anyway. Holmes' third option is [[spoiler:to grab Moriarty and [[TakingYouWithMe throw them both over the Falls]].]]

[[caption-width-right:186:[[FlatWhat wat.]]]]

** It's speculated that [[spoiler:Byakuya]] subtly invoked the trope in his last fight against [[spoiler: Ichigo]], at the end of the Soul Society arc. If he wins said match, [[spoiler: his sister-in-law Rukia will be executed and the promise he made to protect her (and to his dying wife, Rukia's sister!) will be broken, which will emotionally destroy him]]. If he openly loses the fight, [[spoiler: his whole clan will be dishonored]]. So what does he do? [[spoiler: Byakuya shows up, fights Ichigo, and then ''throws the fight at the very last moment'', letting Ichigo win. That way Ichigo and his friends rescue Rukia and everyone thinks Byakuya did what he could to protect his honor. (And then comes TheReveal so everything else is forgotten, but Byakuya couldn't know that.)]]

** [[spoiler:What do you do if you are part of a [[HaremGenre Harem]] but don't want anybody to lose? TenchiSolution.]]

* In the novel by Robert brown The Paradise Prophecy,the deuteragonist Sebastian takes a third option when an apopalyptic prophecy is about to be fulfilled. He can either [[spoiler: kill Jenna himself]] or he can [[spoiler: let Jenna kill herself, as she is about to do because Belial is both encouraging her and holding her hostage]]. Instead he [spoiler: Decapitates Belial, which turns out to have been the right choice, as it was a tst to see whether humans had any humanity left in them.]]