Fair warning: many of these occur at the end of a work, so spoilers may be unmarked. Tread carefully.
Last-Second Chances in Western Animation.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender:
- Zuko getting a last-second chance was the major point of hype for the season 2 finale, a chance he blew when his sister played the "honor and father's love" cards. His Heel–Face Turn only came around when he finally got sick of playing along with her in the third season, by which point none of the viewers were surprised.
- Of course, Aang gives one to Ozai, (though more to get him to stand down) who just laughs it off.
- Big City Greens: In "Feud Fight", a tomato war ignites in the Farmer's Market between Cricket and Chip Whistler, and Tilly convinces Cricket to stop by deciding enough is enough. Taking her advice, Cricket goes up to Chip, asks if they put aside their difference and calls a truce, hoping he'd make a Heel–Face Turn...but Chip thinks he's forfeiting the fight, and pelts him with tomatoes all over, resulting in him Shamed by a Mob.
- My Little Pony:
- My Little Pony: Escape From Catrina: After ignoring Rep's pleas for her to reform for most of the special, Catrina is eventually convinced to reform when she's hanging by her fingernails over a pit.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- Elements of Harmony": Celestia offers one to her younger sister, the defeated Nightmare Moon reverted to Princess Luna by the Elements of Harmony. Luna accepts and repents for what she's done.
- "Twilights Kingdom, Part 1": According to Tirek's backstory, his brother Scorpan tried this after having a Heel–Face Turn, trying to convince him to abandon their plans. Tirek wouldn't listen, so Scorpan had no choice but to arrange for him to be imprisoned in Tartarus.
- "The Cutie Map Part 2": Twilight gives a speech to Starlight Glimmer explaining real friendship, but Starlight rejects her offer and teleports off to parts unknown. However, back in Equestria Girls, a similar speech did get through to Sunset Shimmer. In fact, two movies later, it's Sunset's turn to give that speech to Twilight's human counterpart.
- "To Where and Back Again, Part 2": Queen Chrysalis is given a chance at redemption, but she refuses.
- ReBoot: Bob actively tries not to delete Megabyte because he believes all viruses can be redeemed and believes that if Megabyte can it would serve as the ultimate example. He has some backing for this: as he points out, if he had deleted Hexadecimal earlier in the series instead of trying to redeem her, the entire Internet would have been destroyed in the first movie.
- Samurai Jack; the episode "XCIV" has two examples- in a flashback, Jack's father offers mercy to some bandits that attacked his escort guards and about to do so again to his family in the horse carriage, quickly dispatching them when they refuse. Many years later, Jack makes the same offer to the Daughters of Aku when they catch up to him, but they too refuse. At least three of them are dead before the end of the episode, and the fate of the other three is uncertain.
- Star Wars: The Bad Batch: Minor Arc Villain Mokko is a greedy gang lord who has been gaslighting his workforce of young boys into believing they are scraping by for food and profit in a failing ipsium mine. It turns out that they are actually fabulously wealthy, but Mokko has been hoarding the profits for himself while forcing the boys to scrape by on pitifully small scraps of food. When the truth comes out, Mokko arrogantly tries to fight off his gang of now very angry, vengeful boys, but bungles his way into hanging off a bridge over a chasm of molten ipsium. The boys, who as a result of the gaslighting had not wanted to outright kill him, seem willing to help him up. But Mokko foolishly tries to pull Benni to his death in his place. This works out as well as you’d expect, and the boys realize Mokko truly is not worth saving and simply hold onto Benni tighter, and Mokko ends up falling to his doom.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003): In mid-late Season 4, Karai has become the new Shredder and has destroyed the Turtles' lair and nearly wiped them all out in a brutal attack. Leonardo, who was away for an extended training in Japan at the time, returns and reunites his family before confronting Karai in a duel. When Leo emerges victorious, Karai accepts her demise, but Leo says he's giving her one last chance to do the right thing, and warns her to not waste it. Karai refuses to change her ways, but by the next time they meet, Leo has to be reminded that they have more pressing matters than to make good on his promise to Karai. Ultimately, circumstances in the fifth season result in the Turtles forming an alliance with Karai that seems to take, though she goes through a bit of Heel–Face Revolving Door.
- Teen Titans (2003): The second season ends with one of these, with Terra sacrificing herself to stop a volcanic eruption. Note that in the comics she was much less sympathetic, so naturally she didn't get this treatment.
- In Transformers: Prime, Dreadwing is disillusioned with the Decepticon cause after discovering just how little honor really matters to Megatron. He then aids the Autobots by giving them the Forge of Solus Prime. Optimus once again asks Dreadwing to join the Autobots. Dreadwing refuses since betraying the Decepticons doesn't mean he is ready to join the Autobots. Dreadwing then returns to the Nemesis and takes actions that he almost certainly knows will lead to his death and indeed they do.
- Nox, the Big Bad from Wakfu is offered this after his plan to travel back in time to save his family fails. In a bit of a twist on the norm, he accepts, retreats, and - having given up on his time-magic immortality - is last shown dissolving into dust by his family's graves.
