History TakeAThirdOption / AnimatedFilms

* James P. "Sulley" Sullivan is left in charge of ''WesternAnimation/MonstersInc'' with a dilemma: continue to operate the company harvesting the screams of small children, after [[HeelRealization seeing how terrified it makes them]], or let the company collapse, leaving him in poverty and shame and Monstropolis in an eternal electrical blackout? [[spoiler: Sulley goes public with the discovery of laughter, a power source ten times more potent than screams, compatible with existing Monsters, Inc. technology, and entirely kid-friendly.]]

* In the beginning of ''WesternAnimation/AtlantisTheLostEmpire'', Milo is enraged that his boss Mr. Harcourt (head of the Smithsonian board) rejected his proposal of funding an expedition to find the lost city of Atlantis, and confronted him for this; even threatening to submit a resignation letter and quit his job at the boiler room if Harcourt doesn't give him a chance to explain his proposal. However, rather than accepting either Milo's proposal or his resignation letter, Harcourt instead [[JerkassHasAPoint rebukes Milo not to waste away his potential on finding an ancient city that may or may not exist]]; even giving him a quarter out of pity before riding away, soaking Milo's resignation letter in the process.

* In the climax of ''WesternAnimation/BigHero6'', Hiro must encourage four of his mates to do this by fleeing from attacking microbots, since their normal attacks don't seem to work. Wasabi gets pinned down by some between slabs of concrete on either side, [[spoiler: but he cuts into the concrete in order to escape these microbots.]] Gogo gets encased in a microbot orb, [[spoiler: but starts circling inside them to burn her way out.]] Although Honey Lemon gets trapped in her chemical dome while trying to protect herself when it is failing, [[spoiler: she attaches her chemicals to the microbots intstead to pull her out.]] Lastly, Fredzilla gets his suit's limbs seized and [[spoiler: realizes that it's like his mascot's costume. However, he pulls his arms out to grab some debris in order to free himself with.]]
* In Pixar's ''WesternAnimation/{{Brave}}'', Merida is faced with two choices. One is going through an arranged marriage when she doesn't want to be married at ''all,'' much less to some stranger [[spoiler: (and later it's revealed that the prospect candidates are as reluctant as she is)]]. Two is cancel the tourney and provoke war between the clans. So Merida, who is a pretty good archer on her own, decides to try some LoopholeAbuse and win her own hand in the contest. [[spoiler: [[SubvertedTrope Which turns out to insult the other clans just as much as a cancellation]]. Even worse, in a separate incident, she caused her mother to be turned into a bear too. Which makes things worse because ''her mother is the person who keeps the clans in order'', and without her there they cannot be appeased.]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/TurningRed'', Meilin Lee is told by her family that as a female descendant of Sun Yee, she has two choices regarding her red panda spirit: perform a magic ritual under a red moon to seal it away and return to being her old self, or else be burdened with the strain of repressing it for the rest of her life. Her friends wonder if there's a third option: banish the panda, but keep the personality changes that came with it. In the end, Mei [[spoiler:finds a ''fourth'' option: she embraces the red panda spirit and thereby gains full control over it, as Sun Yee did. As the red moon ends, Mei decides to take this option permanently as a way to live her own life and avoid the generational trauma that passed from her mother down to her]].

* In ''WesternAnimation/TurningRed'', as a female descendant of Sun Yee, Mei is warned that she has to perform a magic ritual under a red moon to seal away her red panda spirit and return to being just Meilin Lee, or else she'll be burdened with the strain of repressing it for the rest of her life. Her friends wonder if there's a third option: banish the panda, but keep the personality changes that came with it. In the end, Mei [[spoiler:finds a ''fourth'' option: she embraces the red panda spirit and thereby gains full control over it, as Sun Yee did. As the red moon ends, Mei decides to take this option permanently as a way to live her own life and avoid the generational trauma that passed from her mother down to her]].

* After the climax of ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaidIIReturnToTheSea'' as a reward for stopping Morgana, King Triton gives Melody the choice to live in Atlantica with him as a mermaid or return to her home on land. Her decision is "I have a better idea..." and uses the trident to dissolve the wall separating the castle from the ocean and presumably spends her teenage years switching back and forth from human to mermaid.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Tangled}}'', Mother Gothel is about to forcefully take Rapunzel away, but Rapunzel promises she'll go with Mother Gothel willingly if she can use her hair to heal a fatally injured Flynn first. Flynn quickly takes a third option by ''cutting Rapunzel's hair before she can heal him'', allowing Rapunzel her freedom while denying Mother Gothel from her source of eternal youth ''and'' denying himself a chance to be healed from his mortal injury. He dies, but then Rapunzel's SwissArmyTears (which retain the last bits of her hair's healing powers) kick in and he's revived.

** Also done in the FakeOutOpening for ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory3'', where Woody has to choose which of his friends will he save.
-->"I choose Buzz Lightyear!"\\
"Wait a minute, he's not one of the options!"

* In the climax of ''Disney/BigHero6'', Hiro must encourage four of his mates to do this by fleeing from attacking microbots, since their normal attacks don't seem to work. Wasabi gets pinned down by some between slabs of concrete on either side, [[spoiler: but he cuts into the concrete in order to escape these microbots.]] Gogo gets encased in a microbot orb, [[spoiler: but starts circling inside them to burn her way out.]] Although Honey Lemon gets trapped in her chemical dome while trying to protect herself when it is failing, [[spoiler: she attaches her chemicals to the microbots intstead to pull her out.]] Lastly, Fredzilla gets his suit's limbs seized and [[spoiler: realizes that it's like his mascot's costume. However, he pulls his arms out to grab some debris in order to free himself with.]]

* Megara from ''Disney/{{Hercules}}'' takes one of these via using a LoopholeAbuse. One option is to do nothing and let Hercules be defeated since he's been BroughtDownToNormal through a deal with Hades that she was involved into, in exchange for her physical safety. The second is to have Hercules break the pact, which would get her hurt. The one she takes is to [[spoiler: break the pact ''herself'' via pulling a DivingSave to keep Hercules from being crushed by a falling column; as soon as she's injured, Hercules recovers his powers and is able to fight back. (Too bad Megara's injuries are fatal, however. But Hercules himself finds a way to get around that, too).]]
* After the climax of ''Disney/TheLittleMermaidIIReturnToTheSea'' as a reward for stopping Morgana, King Triton gives Melody the choice to live in Atlantica with him as a mermaid or return to her home on land. Her decision is "I have a better idea..." and uses the trident to dissolve the wall separating the castle from the ocean and presumably spends her teenage years switching back and forth from human to mermaid.

* ''Disney/ThePrincessAndTheFrog'' has a meta example: Tiana is the first African-American Disney princess, so how do they go about portraying the prince? They couldn't make him white, since that would be telling African-American boys that they will never be good enough to be princes. They couldn't make him African-American either, since that would reinforce the stereotype that only African-Americans can fall in love with and marry other African-Americans.[[note]]There were some people who were behind this idea, pointing to [[UsefulNotes/BarackObama the first African-American couple in the White House]].[[/note]] Disney's solution: make him Middle Eastern, leading to the creation of Prince Naveen of Maldonia.
* In ''Disney/{{Tangled}}'', Mother Gothel is about to forcefully take Rapunzel away, but Rapunzel promises she'll go with Mother Gothel willingly if she can use her hair to heal a fatally injured Flynn first. Flynn quickly takes a third option by ''cutting Rapunzel's hair before she can heal him'', allowing Rapunzel her freedom while denying Mother Gothel from her source of eternal youth ''and'' denying himself a chance to be healed from his mortal injury. He dies, but then Rapunzel's SwissArmyTears (which retain the last bits of her hair's healing powers) kick in and he's revived.

* In the climax of ''Disney/TheLittleMermaidIIReturnToTheSea'' as a reward for stopping Morgana, King Triton gives Melody the choice to live in Atlantica with him or return to her home on land. Her decision is "I have a better idea..." and uses the trident to dissolve the wall separating the castle from the ocean.

* In the climax of ''Disney/BigHero6'', Hiro must encourage four of his mates to do this by fleeing from attacking microbots, since their normal attacks don't seem to work. Wasabi gets pinned down by some between slabs on concrete on either side, [[spoiler: but he cuts into the concrete in order to escape these microbots.]] Gogo gets encased in a microbot orb, [[spoiler: but starts circling inside them to burn her way out.]] Although Honey Lemon gets trapped in her chemical dome while trying to protect herself when it is failing, [[spoiler: she attaches her chemicals to the microbots intstead to pull her out.]] Lastly, Fredzilla gets his suit's limbs seized and [[spoiler: realizes that it's like his mascot's costume. However, he pulls his arms out to grab some debris in order to free himself with.]]

* In Pixar's ''WesternAnimation/{{Brave}}'', Merida is faced with two choices. One is going through an arranged marriage when she doesn't want to be married at ''all,'' much less to some stranger [[spoiler: (and later it's revealed that the prospect candidates are as reluctant as she is)]]. Two is cancel the tourney and provoke war between the clans. So Merida, who is a pretty good archer on her own, decides to try some LoopholeAbuse and win her own hand in the contest. [[spoiler: [[SubvertedTrope Which turns out to insult the other clans just as much as a cancellation]]. Oh, and in a separate incident, she caused her mother to be turned into a bear too. Which makes things worse because ''her mother is the person who keeps the clans in order'', and without her there they cannot be appeased.]]

* James P. "Sulley" Sullivan is left in charge of ''WesternAnimation/MonstersInc'' with a dilemma: continue to operate the company harvesting the screams of small children, after [[HeelRealization seeing how terrified it makes them]]? Or let the company collapse, leaving him in poverty and shame and Monstropolis in an eternal electrical blackout? [[spoiler: Sulley goes public with the discovery of laughter, a power source ten times more potent than screams, compatible with existing Monsters, Inc. technology, and entirely kid-friendly.]]

** Foreshadows how Woody himself solves the film's main plot, where he must either abandon the other Woody's Roundup toys to go back to Andy, or abandon Andy to join their exhibit at the museum so they won't be put into storage.
-->'''Woody:''' Hey guys...come with me! Andy will play with all of us, I just know it!

* In the climax of ''Disney/BigHero6'', Hiro must encourage four of his mates to do this by fleeing from attacking microbots, since their normal attacks don't seem to work. Wasabi gets pinned down by some between slabs on concrete on either side, [[spoiler: but he cuts into concrete in order to escape these microbots.]] Gogo gets encased in a microbot-orb, [[spoiler: but starts circling inside them to burn her way out.]] Although Honey Lemon gets trapped in her chemical dome while trying to protect herself when it is failing, [[spoiler: she attaches her chemicals to microbots intstead to pull her out.]] Lastly, Fredzilla gets his suit's limbs seized and [[spoiler: realizes that it's like his mascot's costume. However, he pulls his arms out to grab some debris in order to free himself with.]]

* In the climax of ''Disney/BigHero6'', Hiro must encourage four of his mates to do this by fleeing from attacking microbots, since their normal attacks don't seem to work. Wasabi gets pinned down by some between slabs on concrete on either side, [[spoiler: but he cuts into concrete in order to escape these microbots.]] Gogo gets encased in a microbot-orb, [[spoiler: but starts circling inside them to burn her way out.]] Although Honey Lemon gets trapped in her chemical dome while trying to protect herself when it is failing, [[spoiler: she attaches her chemicals to microbots intstead to pull her out.]] Lastly, Fredzilla gets his suit's limbs seized and [[spoiler: realizes that it's like his mascot's costume. However, he pulls his arms out to grab some debris in order to free himself with.]]

-->"I choose Buzz Lightyear!"
-->[[LampshadeHanging "What? That's not a choice!"]]

-->"I choose Buzz Lightyear!"
-->"Wait a minute, he's not one of the options!"
* James P. "Sulley" Sullivan is left in charge of ''WesternAnimation/MonstersInc'' with a dilemma: continue to operate the company harvesting the screams of small children, after [[HeelRealization seeing how terrified it makes them]]? Or let the company collapse, leaving him in poverty and shame and Monstropolis in an eternal electrical blackout? [[spoiler: Sulley goes public with the discovery of laughter, a power source ten times more potent than screams, compatible with existing Monsters, Inc. technology, and entirely kid-friendly.]]

* In Pixar's ''WesternAnimation/{{Brave}}'', Merida is faced with two choices. One is arranged marriage when she doesn't want to be married at ''all,'' much less to some stranger. Two is cancel the tourney and provoke war between the clans. So Merida, who is a pretty good archer on her own, decides to try some LoopholeAbuse and win her own hand in the contest. [[spoiler: [[SubvertedTrope Which turns out to insult the other clans just as much as a cancellation]]. Oh, and she turned her mother into a bear too. Which makes things worse because ''her mother is the person who keeps the clans in order'', and without her there they cannot be appeased.]]

* In ''Disney/{{Tangled}}'', Mother Gothel is about to forcefully take Rapunzel away, but Rapunzel promises she'll go with Mother Gothel willingly if she can use her hair to heal a fatally injured Flynn first. Flynn quickly takes a third option by ''cutting Rapunzel's hair before she can heal him'', allowing Rapunzel her freedom while denying Mother Gothel from her source of eternal youth ''and'' denying himself a chance to be healed from his mortal injury. He dies, but then the SwissArmyTears kick in and he's revived.