Killing in Self-Defense

Phoenix Wright: ("Justified self-defense"... A plea usually reserved for when a person unintentionally kills in defense of himself. We could very easily make a solid case that it was self-defense, but...) The defense stands by the plea of "not guilty", Your Honor! (Because to plead "justified self-defense" is to say you did kill someone.)

— Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Justice for All, "Reunion, and Turnabout"

In many cultures, taking someone's life is considered one of the worst things you can do to a person, but there's one circumstance where it will often be considered justified: self-defense.

Enter Killing in Self-Defense, where an assailant is killed by whomever they were trying to harm. This can come in a variety of ways. Maybe the would-be victim managed to fight back and killed their assailant in the ensuing struggle, or perhaps the would-be victim knew in advance that they would be targeted and took steps to outgambit the attacker. There are even cases where the victim had no intent to kill at all, and the death was purely accidental in nature. In fiction, and in real life, this sometimes results in a sentence for the Crime of Self-Defense.

Self-Defense Ruse is a variant, where a person pretends they had to kill someone (or stages a scene so it looks like they did).

If the assailant was out to kill the victim, then it's essentially Karmic Death at its finest.

Compare Assassin Outclassin', which encompasses all instances of foiled assassination attempts, and Guilt-Free Extermination War when this applies to large groups or entire species (though, given the context, it's hardly considered self-defense anymore). Compare also Counter-Attack, especially for Video Games. Also see Inconveniently Vanishing Exonerating Evidence.

Since this is a Death Trope, expect unmarked spoilers ahead!

---

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Many times, the murderers in Case Closed will claim they killed their victims (generally of the Asshole kind) only to defend themselves. 99% of the time they won't be validated by Conan and the other detectives; a police inspector even delivers one of these killers a "The Reason You Suck" Speech where he basically recited the whole Japanese law about self-defense from memory to disprove his claims.
• In an episode of Cowboy Bebop, former cop turned Bounty Hunter Jet runs into his former fiancee Alisa, who left him years ago, and discovers that her current boyfriend Rhint has a price on his head. Turns out that Alisa took some money out from a Loan Shark trying to keep her bar afloat, but couldn't make the payments. When they were being menaced by the loan shark and group of his goons, one mook took out a gun and pointed it at them, apparently about to kill them. Rhint managed to wrestle the gun away and then shoot the loan shark. When Jet catches and turns in Rhint near the end of the episode, he comments that Rhint has a viable chance of using a self-defense plea at trial.
• In Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Kurotawa gets rid of his would-be murderer by sidestepping as he tries to push him into a Bottomless Pit, making a snarky comment on how the rumors of newly-sent officers (like himself) meeting unfortunate ends weren't exaggerated.

Comic Books

• Bat Lash: In Bat's origin story, he goes to town to report to the marshal how con men had swindled his family out of their land. The marshal is out of town, so he makes his report to a seemingly Clueless Deputy. Bat later discovers that the deputy is Dirty Cop in league with the con man. The hotheaded Bat confronts the deputy and in the subsequent struggle, the deputy pulls a gun on Bat. Bat grabs a gun that was dropped earlier and shoots the deputy. However, without witnesses, it appears that Bat shot the deputy in cold blood, forcing him to go on the run.
• An interesting variation in The Avengers storyline The Trial of Yellowjacket. The villain Egghead and his Masters of Evil are single-handedly defeated by Hank Pym. As Pym turns to walk away, Egghead pulls out a blaster and prepares to shoot. Hawkeye, who had just arrived and watched Pym's victory, called out to his old ally and fired an arrow into the barrel of Egghead's gun just as he pulled the trigger. The resulting action caused a feedback that killed Egghead, much to Hawkeye's horror. Thankfully, both the law and the Avengers were on Hawkeye's side and he was able to walk free.

Fan Works

• Androgyninja's A Drop of Poison: Sakura's first kill happens during the Wave Mission, when she's attacked by Tsunami's traitorous cousin, Shota. Her assailant tries to blame her, but attacks when she retorts that he's the one forcing their confrontation, attempting to slash her throat before she manages to slice his open first. When Naruto finally learns about all this, he's horrified, demanding to know how she could do such a thing — mainly because he's still struggling with the concept that the lives of shinobi frequently boil down to "kill or be killed".
• Chika's Bizarre Adventure: The idols of Aqours are forced to kill when fighting against antagonistic Stand Users. Tragically, this also means they end up killing their former role models of µ's, who are now willing to kill the heroes if it means protecting their leader Honoka or avenging their murdered friends.
• Honoka's Bizarre Adventure: After defeating Fuhai with her Stand [All Star], Honoka Kousaka considers killing him so he won't come after her family again, and breaks him apart right when he's about to kill her. Though unaware that Fuhai is still alive but in literal pieces, Honoka is rather shaken at her decision afterwrads, but both Kotori and Umi assure her that she only did so to protect herself and her family from a dangerous killer.
• A Leaf of the Tree: Sugishi takes advantage of this when assigned to take care of Juzo. Juzo already holds a grudge against her for how she scarred his cheek during a previous encounter; when they see each other again, she taunts him, then heads off on her own, luring him out and getting him to attack him in front of one of the servants of the daimyo of Noodles. The servant testifies to their lord and to the Kiri delegation that Juzo went after her first, resulting in her being found innocent on these grounds.
• A Wand for Skitter: Taylor finds herself having to do this a lot, to the point that the main reason she hasn't been shipped off to Azkaban is because all of them were legitimately trying to murder.

Films — Live-Action

• Before the start of 100 Feet, Marnie killed her husband with the knife he attacked her with. She's just returned from serving two years of jail for the crime.
• Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice: Unlike most incarnations, Batman has no qualms against using lethal force; among other things, he's crashed and wrecked vehicles with enemies still inside using the Batmobile, as well as using both its guns and the Batwing's to cause explosions near enemies, usually by blowing up nearby vehicles. He also allows his opponents to be caught in explosions, as by knocking grenades near them, or shooting Knyazev's flamethrower to save Martha Kent. However, he only uses lethal force against criminals, in response to them using it against him first; Zack Snyder even likens Batman's policy in this regard to the difference between manslaughter and murder.
• Happens in Blood Simple, when the heroine manages to fight off and kill the Psycho for Hire.
• In Dial M for Murder, Margot Wendice's husband, Tony hires a crook named Swann to strangle her to death. However, Margot manages to stab him to death with her scissors. A Perfect Murder, the 1998 remake, has a similar situation, though in this case, the wife stabbed her assailant to death with a meat thermometer rather than a pair of scissors.
• A Good Woman Is Hard To Find: Sarah kills Tito as he's trying to rape and murder her. Though justified, it still leaves her traumatized. Later she also kills Miller and his men, who were going to murder her if she hadn't.
• In The Guilty, this is Asger's cover story for having killed a young man in the line of duty. It was actually a Vigilante Execution.
• It's a Wonderful Knife (2023): Winnie has to kill the Angel Killer on multiple occasions to defend herself or other people. Even though it's justified, she's still pretty shaken the first time.
• Jason's Lyric: The main protagonist, Jason, shot his abusive father when the latter obviously intended to harm himself and his mother further. But, he didn't mean to shoot fatally as he only wanted to stop his father.
• Last Night in Soho: Ellie has mystical visions of Sandie, who was forced into prostitution by Jack. In one of these visions, she thinks she sees Jack killing Sandie for defying him. The truth is that, while he tried, she managed to get the knife off him and killed him instead.
• Last Tango in Paris: At the end, Jeanne shoots Paul dead, defending herself from him.
• Discussed in Lucky Number Slevin, when the titular character asks the Rabbi how he reconciles being a devout Jew with killing people. The Rabbi replies that one is permitted to shoot a man in self-defense, which is how he justifies it (to himself).
• A New Hope: Right when Han Solo is about to go transport Luke, Obi Wan, and the droids to Alderaan on the Millennium Falcon, he gets accosted by Greedo, who has orders from Jabba the Hutt to kill Han for dumping smuggled goods before Imperials could search his ship. While defending his actions to an unsympathetic Greedo, Han slowly moves his hand toward his blaster and then shoots Greedo dead when he gets the opportunity. Despite Greedo clearly threatening Han's life before getting shot, George Lucas eventually found this too coldblooded even for the Loveable Rogue, so he would alter the scene so that Greedo shoots first and Han is more justified in defending himself.
• Non-Stop: When Marks confronts a fellow air marshal he thinks is behind the plot to hijack the flight, the two get into a fight in the plane's lavatory. The other one gets hold of a gun and Marks snaps his neck before he has a chance to use it.
• In Our Man Flint, while Flint is in a restaurant bathroom, Hans Gruber enters and tries to murder him with a gun and a knife. Flint turns the tables on him and stabs him to death with his own knife.
• Pulp Fiction: Vincent Vega is assigned to kill Butch, but happens to take a bathroom break when Butch comes home. Butch finds Vincent's gun lying on the kitchen counter and shoots him.
• Has happened numerous times throughout the Saw series.
  • Played with in the first film, in that it was to save someone else's life; Adam smashes Zep's skull in with a toilet tank lid before he can pull the trigger to kill Lawrence.
  • In Saw IV, Jeff sees Strahm by John's corpse and assumes he's an apprentice involved in the game; he pulls his gun and is halfway through screaming at him to ask where his daughter's being held when Strahm, who is also armed, shoots him.
  • Exaggerated at the end of Spiral, where a SWAT team unload all of their guns into Marcus when his trap makes it look like he's about to shoot them with a single pistol.
• In Silver Lode, two of McCarty's men follow Ballard and try to kill him when he tries to flee, and they end up shot dead in return.
• Tamara: Alison is forced to kill both Shawn and Patrick after they attempt to murder her, in self-defense. She's very shaken by all of this afterward, realistically.

Literature

• The Change Room: Shar's rapist had told her afterward that he'd kill her and dump her body in the sea, with no one being the wiser. When he turned away for a moment she grabbed his knife and killed him with it to save herself.
• Jude has to do this twice in The Folk of the Air. The first time Valerian breaks into her room to kill her, and she has to quietly dispose of the body after. The second time she is challenged to a duel by Balekin, who intends to kill her as revenge for her thwarting a more subtle scheme. Cardan automatically assumes the first to have been an act of cold blood, but readily accepts that it was self-defense when the situation is explained to him. Given that Jude floated murdering her second victim several times before she's forced to actually do it, Cardan is less willing to listen the second time around.
• Forgive Me Not: Petra killed a man who was trying to sexually assault her by stabbing him with a pair of scissors. She was arrested because he was the son of the borough's council member, and his parents argued that she didn't have to stab him so close to the spine, which left him with permanent disabilities.
• Goldfinger opens with James Bond with a glass of whiskey in hand, who is thinking about the Mexican killer whom he was forced to kill in self-defence, and tries to rationalize about it by telling himself that he was very likely a very bad person.
• Journey to Chaos: At one point in the first book, A Mage's Power, Eric has to fight an orc. In this verse, even the weakest orc is bigger, tougher, and stronger than the average human, and Eric is a teenager with beginner magic. The only way to protect himself and Annala, who was Tahart's initial target was to put the orc down for good. The in-house advocate for Eric's guild says the self-defense case is so clear that he won't have to stand trial for it.
• In Last Sacrifice, Eddie Castile kills James, a Moroi assassin who was trying to kill him with a knife, after the Moroi man attacks Lissa.
• Warrior Cats has a rule in the warrior code stating that Clan cats must not kill other cats to achieve victory, but they can kill either when outside the Clans or as a last resort.

Live-Action TV

• In American Horror Story: Asylum Lana Winters kills her son, who has been on a killing spree and has vowed vengeance on his mother for killing his father, the original bloody face (because he was also trying to kill her).
• Babylon 5: The Season 1 episode "The Quality of Mercy" has a Back-Alley Doctor who uses an alien device from a lost civilization to transfer her own life energy to her patients, healing them. At the end, an escaped killer takes her and her daughter hostage, demanding she heal a wound he got from security, but she eventually realizes he intends to kill them both anyway and reverses the flow, killing him and curing herself of the syndrome she was Secretly Dying of (apparently the actual purpose of the device: executing criminals in a painless way while using the execution to save someone terminally ill). The courts decide that she acted in self-defense and drop any charges, on the condition she turn the device over to station personnel. It will go on to be used in extreme circumstances in episodes of Seasons 2 and 4.
• Breaking Bad:
  • DEA Agent Hank Schrader ends up killing most of the Salamanca crime family in self-defense situations.
    • While tracking down Walt, who has (unknown to Hank) been kidnapped by Tuco, Hank stumbles upon a bloodied Tuco with an M16 rifle. After Tuco opens fire, Hank takes cover until Tuco has to reload and puts him down with one carefully-aimed shot. He embellishes his handling of the situation a bit in his DEA debriefing to make what happened look better on paper (such as identifying himself as an police officer, which he was actually too startled to do), but it was still clearly self-defense.
    • His encounter with the Salamanca Twins is a lot messier: desiring revenge on Hank for killing their cousin, they ambush him in a parking lot, shooting him several times over and murdering several bystanders in the process. Thanks to a tip-off, Hank knows they're coming and runs over one of the twins, Leonel, with his car. The other twin, Marco, shoots him again before grabbing an axe to finish the job. Hank succeeds in loading his gun in the nick of time with a spilled bullet to put Marco down.
  • Joaquin Salamanca is killed by Jesse in a firefight in self-defence as him, Mike, and Gus are fleeing from the cartel mansion. This is significant to the plot because Joaquin was the second-to-last member of the Salamanca family, leaving Hector the last of his bloodline, and giving Gus a reason to bring Jesse along to rub this fact in Hector's face. Jesse letting Walt know about Gus' animosity with Hector is vital to Walt's plan to kill Gus, by offering Hector a chance to get revenge.
• Boardwalk Empire has a few examples of this:
  • Jimmy Darmody murders two thugs who were trying to mug him, an act which actually ends up having consequences for fellow mobsters Meyer Lanski and Lucky Luciano.
  • Manny Horvitz murders a hitman sent at him by way of a meat cleaver to the head.
• Bones: A suspect in the Victim of the Week's murder (who was cleared when they found who did it) becomes a Stalker with a Crush on Booth, and decides to kill Brennan in order for Booth and her to be together. Booth jumps in front of the bullet, taking it in the shoulder; when the stalker woman raises her gun for another shot Brennan picks up Booth's gun and shoots her in the heart.
• Twice in CSI: NY with Stella, then Jo. Stella had to kill her angry ex-boyfriend and Jo was attacked by the rapist whose case led her to leave the FBI for the Crime Lab.
• Forever:
  • When Jo is confronted by a serial killer in "The Frustrating Thing About Psychopaths" and he tries to draw a gun on her, she shoots him in the chest four times, taking him down.
  • Played with in Henry's case in "Skinny Dipper". Henry has been stalked by another immortal, Adam, since the start of the series. Adam has killed himself in front of Henry, proving he is also immortal, and has just killed two people and tried to frame Henry for their murders. The evidence shows that the stalker's real identity is Clark Walker, a psych patient who just escaped them at Bellevue. Henry arrives home to find his son nowhere to be found and Clark Walker waiting for him. Henry refuses to fight him, until he hears his son coming home upstairs, at which point a desperate struggle ensues. Henry ends up stabbing Walker with a letter opener, killing him, but when Walker fails to vanish upon death Henry realizes, to his horror, that the other man isn't Adam, isn't immortal, and is actually dead. Henry would never have killed, even in self defense, if Adam hadn't manipulated him so thoroughly.
  • Jo and Henry later bond over the fact that they've both killed someone. Jo had no doubts she did the right thing, but Henry tells Jo he didn't have to kill the man, and he shouldn't have. He doesn't explain why he feels that way, though.
• The opening scene of Justified shows US Marshall Raylan Givens kill a Miami gun thug in a restaurant. The criminal drew his gun first so the killing is deemed to be justified self-defense. However, word spreads around that Raylan has previously given the gun thug 24 hours to leave town "or else". This causes doubts about the shooting, and Raylan's superiors ship him off to Kentucky. Even Raylan admits that he is not sure if he would still have killed the criminal if the guy did not draw his gun first. Throughout the series, Raylan kills more people but it is always in self-defense.
• In the Law & Order episode "Hubris", this is how the Smug Snake villain meets his end. After representing himself and seducing a member of the jury to get himself acquitted, he tries to strangle her from behind while she's washing the dishes (his usual MO for dealing with witnesses) - she accidentally stabs him with a knife she was washing.
• Legion: In "Chapter 22", while being strangled to death by a Nazi soldier, Charles Xavier can only save himself by telepathically ordering his assailant to commit suicide. Charles is able breathe again after the Nazi shoots himself in the head with the former's service revolver.
• Midsomer Murders: Three of the murders in "Sins of Commission" are a type of self-defence.
• In the NCIS episode "Devil's Trifecta", recurring FBI agent Tobias Fornell is shot by an assassin at a fast-food drive-thru. However, because Fornell was still wearing his Bulletproof Vest from an FBI takedown he participated in earlier in the day, he's able to shoot back and kill his assailant.
• In the NUMB3RS episode "Hot Shot", Don is forced to shoot Chandler after Chandler injects him with morphine, as he's about to pass out and can't risk what Chandler might do once he's unconscious and unable to defend himself. Charlie and Alan both agree that it was fully justified under the circumstances.
• In the season 2 finale of Person of Interest the Dirty Cop organization HR tries to set up Detective Joss Carter, one of the heroes, to get killed during a bust. Carter is quicker on the trigger than her would-be assassin, so the HR member on scene improvises, pocketing the assassin's piece to make it look to Internal Affairs like Carter shot and killed an unarmed man.
• Two Sentence Horror Stories: In "Instinct" Anika uses a hidden weapon fatally on Patrick at the end when he tries to murder her.
• The Walking Dead (2010), Shane murders a hostage named Randyl in order to lure Rick into the forest to kill him and claim Lori and Carl as his own family. But Rick manages to kill him in self-defense just in time for Carl to shoot Walker!Shane in the head.
• Why Women Kill: Taylor fatally stabs Jade as the latter is trying to kill her.

Podcasts

• Dice Funk: This is how the party rationalizes "the Stoneroot Massacre," in which Rinaldo escalated a fistfight into a bloodbath.

Roleplay

• Dawn of a New Age: Oldport Blues:
  • After he gains superpowers that turn him into a bug monster, Benjy tries to hide in a warehouse that turns out to be occupied by a local gang of Neo-Nazis. They attempt to kill him, which in turn causes him to go berserk and kill them all in self-defense.
  • Daigo uses his new power to mutate a Disposable Vagrant into a lizard monster. It attempts to eat Ciro's siblings, and then Ciro himself, and is only stopped when Zia steps in and explodes its brain with her telepathy powers.

Video Games

• In Persona 5 Strikers: Akira Konoe killed his father. This was albeit in self defense as Akira was about to be murdered by the man, and his mother was also dead by Konoe Sr's hands.
• A side quest in Skellige during The Witcher 3 has Geralt forced to kill two local youths who attack him for no more reason than bigotry. He's briefly imprisoned when the father of the deceased demands justice for his sons, but the local lord, who clearly despises the family, bends the law to get Geralt off the hook, paying the weregild out of his own pocket in exchange for Geralt doing him a favour.

Visual Novels

• Some murders in Ace Attorney are ultimately revealed to actually be this:
  • The first time it occurs in the franchise is in "Turnabout Samurai" (i.e. 1-3), where it's eventually revealed that victim Jack Hammer had tried to murder Dee Vasquez and frame Will Powers, but during the struggle Dee had accidentally pushed him onto a sharpened fence post. Presumably, being able to plead self-defense for a lighter sentence is why Dee doesn't have a Villainous Breakdown like most other culprits.
  • Invoked in "Reunion, And Turnabout" (i.e. 2-2), where the prosecutor of the case, Franziska von Karma, tries to convince Phoenix to plead "justified self-defense" for the murder she believes Maya committed, since the victim had a gun, had earlier stated his intent to coerce the person Maya was channeling into admitting guilt in a malpractice incident, and had shot at his killer. Phoenix refuses because he believes that Maya didn't kill anyone at all, and pleads Not Guilty, which turns out to be the truth as the killer had been impersonating Maya at the time.
  • Used as a form of The Reveal in the second case of Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney. The (relatively) spoiler-free recap is that the victim, Pal Meraktis, strangled the culprit, after which he tried to dump the body into a river. The culprit was Not Quite Dead, however, and killed him shortly after regaining consciousness.
  • Invoked again in the final case of Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth, where the culprit claims he killed an interloper who was hired to steal something from him in self-defense. It's heavily implied to be a lie and it ultimately becomes a moot point seeing as he committed another murder that night that wasn't self-defense. The sequel’s final culprit makes a similar argument about killing the victim, since Simon otherwise made it a point to never kill anyone directly^note Unlike the first Investigations game, this argument may actually hold. Considering the final culprit was in a hot-air balloon at the time, they had no way of knowing that the victim would be at the place they were headed at the time they got there, and the victim was proven to be armed and had attempted fire upon the balloon at least once, an argument could be made that both escape and diplomacy were impossible, especially since a fleeing hot-air balloon is still a very easy target for a gun..
  • It comes back in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice in the game's third case. Puhray was accidentally killed by Behlieb in self-defense. However, the crime was manipulated by Tahrust to make him look like an innocent victim of a random killing. This was done because Tahrust believed that Behlieb would've been convicted of murder instead of justified self-defense, both because of Khurain's highly corrupt legal system and also because Puhray was secretly a government operative. When he hears the truth, Phoenix even comments that it would've been a better idea to have him defend the killer so he could secure an acquittal on the grounds of justified self-defense, though Tahrust doesn't take that option both because of his distrust of attorneys and because Behlieb was guilty of being a rebel, and under the Defense Culpability Act Phoenix would be considered one too.
  • It's also discussed in the DLC case in Spirit of Justice, where the defendant allegedly killed a man who had been attacking her. The case looks like justified self-defense, however the victim's autopsy showed he was struck twice: the first blow knocked him unconscious, the second blow killed him. Edgeworth, the prosecution, rightfully points out that since the defendant struck the victim after she had already knocked him out, she willfully went beyond "self-defense" and into a straight-out killing, and was therefore criminally responsible for his death. Phoenix never manages to counter this argument, and instead wins the case by proving that the defendant had been set up and was not the one to strike the victim.
• Danganronpa:
  • Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc has this for the first murder, when Sayaka attempts to murder Leon in order to escape the school. Leon realizes what's happening right as she's about to stab him and fights back, killing her instead. Everyone else initially looks at it as justified self defense until it's pointed out that Leon had to leave the room and get the tools he needed to break into the bathroom where she had locked herself in. Monokuma considers a killing a killing and executes Leon. The manga portrays it as both this trope and an Accidental Murder — it shows that Leon had been trying to snap Sayaka (who was still trying to kill him) out of a Freak Out, and that he didn't really mean to hurt her.
  • Come to Chapter Four of Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony, where Miu created a virtual reality where she intends to kill Kokichi and frame Kaito. Unfortunately for her, Kokichi caught on what she was doing and manipulated Gonta's avatar into killing her, although like Leon it's pointed out that he could have easily ended the situation non-lethally (seeing as he knew what Miu was planning), but didn't.
• In Mica: Apoptosis, Mika responds to Tamora hitting her by brutally ripping her apart in anger. While she tries to justify it to herself later, it is clear that the force she used was way more than excessive, and she was essentially a murderer.
• In Slow Damage, this is revealed to be how Towa's mother died. Towa was kept as his mother's prisoner for years to abuse and manipulate and keep under thumb and heal, but then one day, he finally had enough and defied her for the first time. This enraged Maya, who then chased him down the hall with a knife in hand. As both mother and son struggled, they eventually reached the edge of staircase. Towa then attempted to push Maya off of him, and she ended up falling down the steps. Though she didn't immediately die then and there, the injuries she sustained from the fall were still critical enough to eventually kill her some time later.

Web Animation

• In RWBY, at the penultimate episode of Volume 6, Blake and Yang kill Adam by impaling him through with the fractured shards of Gambol Shroud, Blake's short sword. Adam had previously vowed to destroy everyone and everything Blake loved as retaliation for "ruining his life" (which she did by walking out on him when it became clear that he'd stopped being a Well-Intentioned Extremist and was simply a murderous terrorist), inflicted grave wounds on both Blake and Yang, attempted to assassinate Blake's parents, and had stalked Blake across a continent to interfere with her. It's very clear he would never have stopped hunting the girls as long as he was alive, and his death came at the end of a prolonged battle where they had given him multiple chances to back off or give up, so killing him is not presented in any unheroic way.

Webcomics

• Beyond the End: In the original version of chapter 23, End killed one of the demons in self-defence. This was written out in the rerelease, where the demon instead miraculously survived.
• Unsounded: The sidestory "Interior Emanations" reveals that the first time Duane killed someone it was a bully who had gathered a group of friends to jump and kill Duane out of jealousy. While killing him made his friends flee and saved Duane's life he was traumatized by what he'd done, especially because he Core Leeched the other boy which is not considered an honorable way to do things.

Web Videos

• Invoked and parodied by Hydraulic Press Channel via the "extra content" segments. Lauri's wife Anni sculpts cutesy little creatures out of clay, for the sole purpose of placing them on her husband Lauri's hydraulic press platform. Lauri always "rationalizes" the destruction of these cute figures this way by arguing that all of them "can a-ttack at ANY time, so we must deal with it." Cue the piston coming down and comically squashing the clay sculpture. The more harmless the creature would actually be if it were real, the better.

Western Animation

• Infinity Train: In "The Wasteland", Agent Mace, who is already bleeding out from having his lower body torn off, attempts to pull a Taking You with Me on MT by pulling MT off the train as she's climbing one of the cars. In response, MT headbutts him off of her before pushing him into the train's wheels.
• Samurai Jack: In Season 5, Jack is at first horrified that one of the Daughters of Aku he killed was human like him, not a machine as he had previously thought. But after recovering with the help of a wolf, he stands his ground and kills off almost all of the Daughters when they strike again.
• Invoked and played with in early episodes of South Park: hunters Jimbo & Ned justify their hunting by shouting "It's coming right for us!" before shooting in order to claim self-defense. This loophole is later closed (but they find another loophole to use).

Real Life

• The story goes that Edward I killed a Mamluk assassin with his own blade.
• A man in Portland, Oregon hired a hitman to kill his estranged wife. After a protracted struggle, the woman was able to disarm the hitman, and subsequently strangled him to death.
• Charlize Theron's mom killed her dad in self-defense when she was a kid.
• In 1988, actor Gianni Russo (best known for his role as Carlo Rizzi in The Godfather) got into an argument, which quickly escalated into a fight, with a man inside a Las Vegas inside a nightclub he owned, after he intervened to stop him from harassing a female patron. During the fight, the man stabbed Russo with a broken champagne bottle, and in response Russo drew a gun and shot him, which ended up killing him. Due to the circumstances of the killing, no changes were made against Russo as the Nevada District Attorney's Office ruled it a justifiable homicide.

---