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Never Hurt an Innocent

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"Stay your blade from the flesh of the innocent. The goal of the assassins is to ensure peace in all things."

Many villains are ruthless and uncaring about the world around them, perfectly willing to hurt innocents to further their gains, but it's not always this way. Sometimes, you'll run across a villain who, while just as greedy and self-serving, still makes sure not to hurt those around him, and is not willing to kill and destroy innocent lives just to get ahead. Offer them infinite power if they'd just kill a single innocent, and expect them to say no; of course, that doesn't mean they won't accept the infinite power if they could get around the whole "killing the innocent" part. These villains are some of the more human villains out there.

Generally, this is shown as villains trying to avoid harming people who aren't involved, and making sure not to kill innocent people. Unfortunately for our heroes, they don't count, so they can expect every weapon at these villains' disposal to be aimed at them.

This is a must for the Hitman with a Heart an Anti-Villain, Noble Demon, or Anti-Hero, a form of Even Evil Has Standards, and is a Sub-Trope of sorts of Affably Evil. See also A Lighter Shade of Grey, when something like this makes them look good despite a total willingness to kill the guilty, and Punch-Clock Villain, for villains who take this to the next level, and only act villainous because it pays the bills (though it's not a given that they'll be like this). A Blood Knight may also exhibit this, although in their case it may be more down to innocents never putting up a good fight. Don't expect the Omnicidal Maniac and Psycho for Hire to adhere to this trope.

Some subtropes denote specific groups or classes of persons as off-limits:

Other common "off-limits" groups include medical personnel (contrast Shoot the Medic First) and clergy.

May be a form of Villainous Vow. Pay Evil unto Evil is the kind of antagonism permitted to characters following this trope. The opposite of You Can't Make an Omelette.... This trope is generally ubiquitous in heroes so list villains and antiheroes here.


Examples:

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    Anime and Manga 
  • In Hunter × Hunter, Zeno Zoldyck is a ruthless assassin and has killed thousands of people in contracts over decades, but is completely unnerved when one of his stronger attacks ends up mortally wounding a civilian in the area and forfeits the job, mentioning he just killed someone unrelated to the job for the first time and is visibly upset.
  • Light in Death Note thinks of himself as this; his stated intention is to kill all the criminals in the world to make it safe for innocents. But he's really bad at that in practice. As soon as he hears that L plans to stop him, he shifts right into "all who oppose me must die" mode.
    • He manages it alright during the Yotsuba Arc, where it's shown (as if we weren't already aware) that his morals when he doesn't own a Death Note are an almost direct lift from his father — which brings them both into conflict with L.
  • Nuova Shenron of Dragon Ball GT. After knocking Pan out, when Goku demands he put her down, Nuova does just that without a word and fights him, stating he won't hurt innocent people.
  • In Jujutsu Kaisen, this is a line many sorcerers won't cross, including Satoru Gojo. Jogo, Hanami, Choso and Mahito took advantage of it by fighting him in a crowded area where he couldn't use his most powerful attacks.
  • Negima! Magister Negi Magi: Just about every major villain to appear generally falls into this. Chao took great pains to see that no one would be injured, and Negi is the only person that she actually fought seriously against. Later on, Fate has stated that he has no desire to hurt anyone except those who are actively opposing his plans and that the only person he actually wants to kill is Nodoka, as her Telepathy makes her too dangerous to his plan. It's actually a bit of a Double Subversion, as his ultimate plan seems to be erasing the magic world from existence, but he thinks that he's doing everybody a favor.
    • Even the demons summoned in the Kyoto arc (not counting the Demon God); when they just think they're being sicced on "ordinary teenage girls" assure Asuka and Setsuna that they'll just beat them up; not kill them or anything.
  • The two anti-villains of Fullmetal Alchemist, Greed and Scar fit this. Greed is greedy for followers, so he has no interest in harming innocents. Eventually, he actually tries to save people. This is a sharp contrast to the rest of his siblings. Scar starts off as a Serial Killer targeting only State Alchemists, generally those who fought in and committed genocide during the Ishvallan War, although he also tries to kill the protagonist, who was only a child during the war and wasn't involved at all. His only sin (in Scar's eyes) is that he does work for the military dictatorship that started the war.
  • Kanone in Spiral has a strict rule to only kill Blade Children. This is something that is used by Ayumu to help defeat him. Kanone has amazing reflexes, but he always makes himself pause for a moment to ensure he is not killing a normal human rather than Blade Children. So Ayumu takes advantage of that.
  • While Tiger & Bunny's Lunatic will kill criminals and attack people who aid criminals (like, say, heroes trying to prevent his assassinations), he won't hurt someone he sees as innocent according to his moral code. So when he realizes that Kotetsu has been Unpersoned and framed for murder, he's the first to help him out.
  • A Certain Magical Index: Accelerator, for all his sadism in combat, holds the attitude that innocents should be left out of the conflicts of "the dark side" of the world. His definition of "innocent" is pretty narrow, though. Attack him, however ineffectively, or just be involved in shady dealings, and you deserve whatever's coming to you, as far as he's concerned.
  • In YuYu Hakusho, Younger Toguro mostly will not harm innocent humans or demons unless either they go against his master plan, they are contract kills, or they are fighting against him in a competition. But that's only if he's in his more human forms. If he's at more than even 70% power (meaning 70% demon), all bets are off, evidenced by his willingness (almost eagerness) beginning at 85% power to vacuum the souls of apparitions in the bleachers of the Dark Tournament to feed his power even further.
    Toguro (Human Form): "I only kill true fighters and job assignments. You're neither. So run along."
  • In Killing Bites, the fact that Hitomi feels guilty about killing Nomoto (who had been nothing but compliant) surprises even her. Being an anti-hero, though, she feels no compunctions about roughing up innocents who are unhelpful or just plain annoying.
  • SPY×FAMILY:
    • Agent Twilight aka Loid Forger is a top spy who prefers to only use lethal force against armed, hostile individuals, and makes a principle out of minimizing the hurt and distress to anyone else who might be caught in the crossfire. Even when a trained bomb-dog attacks him, Twilight goes out of his way to non-lethally incapacitate it and remove the bomb rather than killing it, partially on the grounds that an animal can't be blamed for the actions of the humans who made it a weapon.
    • Likewise, his wife, Yor Briar (later Forger), is a professional assassin who needs to constantly remind herself of this, because whenever an everyday problem comes up, her first choice to solve it usually involves killing someone. Mission 29 also reveals Yor carefully goes through intelligence on her targets, and all are unrepentant criminals actively hurting her country and its people.
  • Fabricant 100: While No 100 has promised to Ashibi to never take anyone's organs, Mortsafe agrees to ignore her only for as long as no human is hurt during their Fabricant hunts.

    Comic Books 
  • Batman: In the Batman Vampire series, after having fully succumbed to his vampire nature and bloodlust in Crimson Mist, Batman still makes it a point not to kill innocents and just targets other crooks for their blood; he even reflects that most of the prisoners of Blackgate are in for theft or less and don't deserve to be drained by him. However, even Batman himself knows that it's only a matter of time before he runs out of criminals to feed on and turns to civilians.
  • Black Magick: Backmatter of the first issue shows that, though Aira has no compunctions about hunting and executing people that use Black Magic, their members are taught that they cannot succumb to zealotry or paranoia: They have to make sure the witches they are executing are witches to be executed. They force themselves to watch the Catholic Church burn an innocent girl so that they know the risks of allowing themselves to convict an innocent.
  • Deadpool: Deadpool criticizes a group of mercenaries who saved him from jail by killing everyone who was guarding him. When they insist it doesn't matter because they're just cops, Deadpool snaps back that they were only trying to protect their people (the town was currently infested with zombies... long story). And then he kills them all and goes on alone.
  • Deathstroke: Deathstroke is another case of Depending on the Writer. During the controversial Titans issue where he murdered Ryan Choi, Deathstroke notably spared the life of Choi's girlfriend Amanda, stating that she had nothing to do with the battle.

  • The Flash: The Rogues are generally made up of people who probably wouldn't make a plan around shooting an old lady crossing the street. Explicitly stated a few times as something of a survival strategy. They really don't expect superheroes to intentionally kill them, but they know being homicidal maniacs will bring more than just the (usually rather reasonable, and sometimes even friendly) Flash down upon them. Many of them are also probably self-aware enough to know that their issues combined with killing needlessly would probably land them somewhere like Arkham, and they know they don't want to be cooped up with the kind of people that wind up there.
  • Ghost Rider: The Spirits of Vengeance, entities whose purpose is to punish the guilty for their sins. Consequently, despite their brutal methods, they never target innocents. Unfortunately, their human hosts are usually in the driver’s seat, leading to some fallibility. A good example is when Johnny Blaze killed Dr Strange because he thought he was Satan (he got better).
  • Harley Quinn: Depending on the Writer, this can be the case with Harley. During her solo series, she never killed cops, guards, superheroes, or bystanders, usually leaving them knocked out or Bound and Gagged instead. When she did kill someone, it was usually made clear they were a "bad" person. Other stories, however, do show her taking innocent lives (or at least endangering them), usually at the behest of The Joker.
  • The Incredible Hulk: The Hulk is like this. He may rage to high heaven and destroy an entire city, but he has never killed anyone deliberately... or even accidentally! Best not to think about the latter too much. Ultimate Hulk is, quite graphically, as far from this as you can get. Then came the "Heart of the Monster" story arc in Incredible Hulks when he wound up in the Dark Dimension. Where no one is innocent. And his ex-wife and his worst enemies were there too.
  • Marvel Universe: The Scourge of the Underworld operate by this, but it's down to their own warped code. They won't attack anyone they think is innocent, and on occasion hold off on murdering supervillains because there's a hero in the way and the Scourges feel they're on the same side (one even gets confused when Captain America attacks him). However, they will kill anyone who works for a target, even if it's just being a cook, because they're considered guilty by association.
  • The Mighty Thor: Skurge the Executioner fought on the side of evil in an effort to win the love of Amora the Enchantress. However, he was brave and noble, and never attacks anyone besides his target. In one story, Thor realized the Skurge he was fighting was an imposter because the fake slapped a child in his path. In The Super Hero Squad Show, he surrenders when he accidentally knocks a frozen solid Valkyrie off a building, where she would have shattered if Thor hadn't caught her.
    Skurge: (while using a heat blast to defrost Valkyrie) "My mad love for Amora almost cost an innocent's life!"
  • The Punisher: In The Punisher MAX at least, this is one of the reasons the Punisher is an Anti Hero. He takes great pains to avoid civilian casualties while he's gunning down dozens of mooks, and at one point he nearly kills himself because he thinks he shot an innocent. note  The mainstream Punisher, depending on who's writing him, is portrayed as trying to not kill innocent civilians or the superheroes who try to stop him. Of course, other writers have had him attempting to gun down jaywalkers. And he did kill off his sidekick's girlfriend while brainwashed, though at an earlier time, being ordered to kill Spider-Man (an innocent) broke the brainwashing a different villain subjected him to. note 
    • During The Punisher: Welcome Back, Frank arc, Frank runs into a trio of vigilantes who use him as a role model. Trouble is, Elite's only interested in keeping filth (read:non-WASPs) off his streets, the Holy is a religious lunatic, and Mr. Payback unloaded a heavy machine gun on full-auto into a boardroom of Corrupt Corporate Executives... and shot a cleaning lady when the bullets kept going. So Frank just kills them all.
  • Spider-Man:
    • Venom, Depending on the Writer. Even during those times, though, even if he'd never hurt anyone he decided was innocent, it's hard to know who will or won't fit the criteria (due to his being Ax-Crazy, if less so than Carnage.)
    • Demogoblin, a demonically possessed variant of the Green Goblin/Hobgoblin/etc. was out to kill all sinners in the world. His final death was saving a mother and child from a collapsing church.
  • Teen Titans: Cheshire started off like this. One Action Comics story had her assuring a Bound and Gagged hostage that she had no intention of harming him since she just needed him out of the way for a little bit in order to kill her real target.
  • The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye: The Decepticon Justice Division claim this, as their purpose is to hunt down traitors and make examples of them in grotesquely brutal fashion, and don't concern themselves with anyone who isn't on their list. Of course, the key word here is "claim", as the DJD are such fanatic believers of Decepticonism that they only ever spare Cybertronian bystanders and will gladly tread over any and all organics, innocence be damned.
  • Usagi Yojimbo: Despite being an Ax-Crazy Serial Killer, Jei never turns his blade on an innocent. Unfortunately, his idea of "innocent" is...somewhat skewed.
  • X-Men: Depending on the Writer, Magneto can be one of these. It's generally a given that he won't take a mutant life if he can help it, and, if he's one of his less megalomaniacal moods, will avoid attacking humans that aren't his targets or against him (in his other moods, all humans are his targets).

    Fan Works 
  • Fade: Light invokes this, as he knows that if he were to subvert it for any reason, his likelihood of becoming like the Kira in the story increases. L, on the other hand, is worse than canon!Light in this regard. Whereas almost all the innocent people canon!Light killed were people opposing him, L has no issue killing random people off the street to achieve his goals.
  • Hunters of Justice: Control Freak may be a self-stylized villain and threaten people over petty reasons, but he never wants to hurt anyone he doesn't think deserves it. When hijacking a film studio, he created a legion of Stormtroopers to act as perimiter defense because he knew that their terrible aim would scare off people without actually harming anyone.
  • In the Turning Red fic Turning Red: Secrets of the Panda, Howard Mitchell only goes after the giant red pandas (who he doesn't consider innocent), and never tries to hurt anyone else (which includes Mei's friends).

    Films — Animated 

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice: Batman's moral code more closely follows this than a standard Thou Shall Not Kill belief system, as he doesn't seem to be concerned with saving criminals from collateral damage like explosions. The horrifying realization that Superman was Raised by Humans and his adoptive mother is being used as a hostage over him (along with the fluke of both their mothers having the same first name) is what gets him to realize that Superman is an innocent and not a threat to humanity.
  • Big Trouble: Henry and Leonard don't try to kill Puggy after he sees their faces and wait until Anne and Jenny aren't in the line of fire before shooting at Arthur.
  • Die Hard with a Vengeance: Most of Simon's soldiers follow this, as they go out of their way to take down police and civilians non-lethally, express concern over one of their disabled bombs being "found by some children", and Simon's infamous "Of course not; I'm a soldier, not a monster" response when it's found out the "bomb" he left in the school was merely a distraction filled with corn syrup. Keyword being most: one of his goons gleefully guns down a cop (and is immediately chastised for it), of course his Dragon / Love Interest is a batshit insane murderous knifer, and Simon himself will gleefully kill an innocent for getting in his way too much or being friends with the "dumb Irish flatfoot who threw his brother out a window".
  • Dolls (1987): Gabriel, Hilary, and the dolls gladly punish any bad or evil people who come into their mansion by killing them and turning them into dolls. But they are perfectly nice to children like Judy or good, child-like adults such as Ralph.
  • The Godfather:
    • The film opens with Don Vito hearing the laments of a man who feels cheated by the justice system. Vito refuses the man's request to assassinate the men who crippled his daughter on the grounds that, as his daughter is still alive, it would be unjust.
    We're not murderers, in spite of what this undertaker says.
  • Hellraiser: Zig-zagged. In the second film, the demonic cenobite Pinhead protects a psychiatric patient who was manipulated into summoning him via an Artifact of Doom, saying "It is not hands that summon us; it is desire." On the other hand, the cenobites generally don't mind doing horrible things to humans who slip into the "collateral damage" category.
  • In Bruges: Ken, Ray, and Harry are very specific about never killing anyone who is innocent (particularly notable with Harry since he is otherwise quite sociopathic). At one point, Harry is very careful not to shoot in a crowded area, and both he and Ray adamantly refuse to fight with a pregnant woman standing between them. When Harry believes himself to have accidentally murdered a child at the end, he immediately commits suicide because he considers what he has done to be unforgivable.
    • They mostly adhere to this. Given their profession, it's more like never hurt an innocent without a "good" reason. Children are the main way it's played completely straight — while the story is the result of Ray accidentally killing a child, and Harry commits suicide because he thinks he did, the child Ray killed was behind his target, a priest who just got in the way of Harry's business. Ray does assume he was following this fairly closely until he finds out about that, though.
  • Inside Man: The robber running the bank job will not hurt anyone who doesn't force him to do so, kills no one, and is actually trying to bring down someone who did kill many innocents.
  • John Q.: The only thing the main character cares about is his son, and has no intention of killing anyone.
  • John Wick: Never outright stated, but implied. During the club scene, John avoids several shots at Iosef that would risk hitting bystanders or Iosef's Human Shield. Later on, when invading Viggo's stash of blackmail information, John shoots all the guards without a second thought but lets the two helpless secretaries working there leave unharmed.
  • Jumanji: Egomaniac Hunter Van Pelt is summoned by the game to hunt Alan, who rolled him up — but, as it turns out, only Alan. Van Pelt can't or won't directly harm anyone else (and lampshades this), though he has no compunctions on collateral damage in the process of slowing Alan down, as long as nobody else gets anything worse than an inconvenience. He even legally buys a new gun when his old one runs out of ammo, and is fairly polite throughout the transaction.
    • Averted in the reboot, when Van Pelt is instead a cursed being made of animals who wants to kill Dr. Bravestone and his associates... even though said associates are five ordinary teenagers trapped in a video game.
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: Captain Jack Sparrow is willing to kill other pirates or officials of the East India Trading Company if they give him a legitimate reason to do so, but he has gone so far as to sacrifice at least three chances at immortality to save good men and women who he had come to care for when it was the only way to save their lives. On another personal note, Jack has consistently avoided killing anyone who is not actively trying to kill him, preferring to avoid or escape soldiers who are just trying to arrest a pirate rather than people with a specific vendetta against Captain Jack Sparrow.
  • Predator: The Predator species generally avoids killing unarmed opponents, since they considered it poor sport. This also includes weak prey such as pregnant women, children, and cancer-afflicted humans. Only when they actively pose a threat anyway do the Predators consider them fair game.
  • The Professional: Leon has very simple rules about his clients: "No women, no kids, that's the rules."
  • The Rock: Francis Hummel takes innocents hostage and threatens to launch a chemical strike at San Francisco, but he refuses to harm any of his prisoners and deliberately sabotages his own missile launch to avoid civilian casualties. And just before he takes over Alcatraz, he has a bunch of kids on a field trip and their teacher get out of the complex.
  • Scarface (1983): One of Tony Montana's good traits. He blew the brains out of an assassin he was supposed to drive around because he was willing to kill the target's wife and children just to get him.
  • Silent Night, Deadly Night: Billy goes on a rampage to punish those who are naughty while leaving those who are deemed nice alone.
  • The Star Chamber: Hardin refuses to see two men die who are innocent of murder, although they're possibly guilty of others (it's shown they have committed serious crimes, though murder is not shown to be one.) Caulfield, on the other hand, argues they can't risk exposing themselves and have to pursue the greater good-plus as stated the criminals were guilty of something, in an impromptu debate on morality.
  • Star Wars: Since the Jedi are peacekeepers this is a natural rule for them. They have respect and compassion for all life and frown upon hurting the innocent, unlike their Evil Counterparts the Sith.
  • Terminator 2: Judgment Day: John Connor tries to get the T-800 to do this by asking him not to kill anyone. The terminator complies by shooting a security guard in the knees. When John protests the Terminator coldly responds "He'll live."
  • Thor: Thor invokes this when Loki unleashes the Destroyer (not quite a Giant Mecha but has a proportionally similar impact) on a small New Mexico town. It’s one of the film’s most emotional moments, and one that sets Thor up for his final redemption arc.
    Thor: "Brother, however I have wronged you, whatever I have done that has led you to do this, I am truly sorry. But these people are innocent, taking their lives will gain you nothing. So take mine, and end this."
  • Van Helsing: The titular monster hunter strictly follows this rule and won't even kill monsters unless they are evil:
    Van Helsing (On Frankenstein's monster): My life, my job is to vanquish evil. I can sense evil. This thing, man, whatever it is... evil may have created it, may have left its mark on it. But evil does not rule it, so I cannot kill it.
  • Venom (2018): By the end, Eddie has warmed up to the idea of hosting the Venom symbiote, even though he eats people, on the grounds that he only eats bad people. The sequel shows the "do not eat" order extends to all people who might not be bad; even when visiting a maximum security prison, he refuses to let Venom go after any inmates, because things like frame-ups, false confessions, plea bargains, and plain bad luck mean that there may well be people there who were actually innocent of the crimes for which they were convicted. Unless there's ironclad proof and he's seen it for himself, they're off-limits. (There also seems to be a certain level of "bad" that they have to meet; he won't let Venom eat a purse-snatcher, but gives him the go-ahead for a man running a Protection Racket on Mrs. Chen whom she's obviously very afraid of.) Venom's willingness to adhere to this policy sets him apart from every other Symbiote we've seen thus far, who are Always Chaotic Evil.
  • The Windmill Massacre: The Miller is the servant of the Devil and can only reap those whose souls are bound for Hell. He is forbidden from harming the truly innocent or those who have truly repented of their sins. He has a human servant who is not bound by this restriction and can dispose of these annoyances for his master.
  • X-Men Film Series: Magneto is usually like this. In Last Stand a family are trapped in their car when the bridge is moved, and once it is moved, Magneto notices them, frowning in surprise. The mother locks the door and he turns away smiling. He also seems not to toss that particular car, and with a couple of notable exceptions (Rogue and possibly the policemen guarding Mystique), most of the people he kills are cases of Jerkass Victim (e.g. the security guard and Stryker). The exception is attempting to turn Stryker's plan in X2: X-Men United around to kill all non-mutants, though that was more impersonal.

    Literature 
  • Artemis Fowl: When Artemis is accused of being just as bad as the current villain, he uses this trope as a defense.
  • Discworld
    • Going Postal: This is something Moist von Lipwig prides himself on. Subverted when Pump 19 tells him that Moist's cons and scams, while not hurting anyone directly, have caused harm equivalent to the murder of 2.338 people. This is brought home when he learns that a previous job of his working to defraud banks working with bonds and letters-of-rights made his love interest lose her job. In the TV adaptation, the number of people Moist "killed" increases to 22.8 and his fraud causes the bankruptcy of his love interest's family (and gave the book's Big Bad the opening he needed).
    • The members of the Assassins Guild could be argued to fit this trope. They would never kill (or ‘inhume’ as they call it) someone unless they are paid to do so and the victim (client) must have a sporting chance. They won’t take out a contract on someone who can’t defend themselves but if you can afford a bodyguard then you’re automatically deemed able to do so. They prefer to inhume their clients at their place of work or at home rather than the street. Although it’s acceptable for them to inhume a client’s bodyguard or another assassin while performing their service, they wouldn't dream of killing an innocent maid who just happened to be in the house at the time. They are polite, efficient and will even clean up afterwards.
  • The Dresden Files: One of the things that makes "Gentleman" Johnny Marcone a Noble Demon (despite being The Don of Chicago) is the fact that he goes out of the way to ensure children never suffer the ill effects of his "business." If someone in his organization hurts or sells drugs to a child, God help them. In at least one instance, he goes out of his way to help Harry when he finds out that a child is going to be part of a ritual Human Sacrifice. In fact, having been involved in a shootout in which a young girl was shot and rendered comatose is what gives him the will and drive to control the criminal underworld and make it less dangerous.
  • Harry Potter: Harry himself largely abides by this rule, and perhaps the clearest example is seen in Deathly Hallows. When attempting to outrun a crew of Voldemort's Death Eaters, he sees Stan Shunpike (conductor of the popular wizarding transport The Knight Bus) among them. Knowing Stan to be somewhat slow in the head, and that he had most likely been bewitched into Voldemort's service, he opts to disarm rather than stun or kill. This, unfortunately, makes Voldemort come after Harry himself and he barely escapes with his life. When Harry later gets chewed out for being too "nice", he staunchly defends his actions.
    Harry: I won't blast people out of my way just because they're there. That's Voldemort's job."
  • Shadow of the Conqueror, Daylen fits the "anti-hero" version of this trope. As a Vigilante Man who adopts Pay Evil unto Evil as his creed, he vows to kill himself if he ever kills a truly innocent person, as it would be a sign that he's gone back to his old ways.
  • Star Wars Legends:
    • Commander Thrawn tries not to kill anyone who isn't his enemy. He'll fire at Vagaari ships, which have Living Shields, saying that they are already dead; if the Vagaari's tactics don't kill them in this battle they will die in the next, and stopping the Vagaari now will save more people in the long run, but he's unhappy about doing this, and makes plans to avoid it in the next engagement. This may be an extension of his species' brand of Martial Pacifism, although Thrawn himself ignores their rules whenever they're inconvenient. He is deeply, deeply unhappy about what happened to the 50,000 innocents on Outbound Flight.
    • In Outbound Flight he's about as non-evil as Thrawn gets. In later-set novels, while his plans and tactics show him to be A Lighter Shade of Grey and he avoids killing innocents when possible, he's very much more pragmatic.
    • The stormtroopers who later form the Hand of Judgment get in trouble with the Imperial Security Bureau because at least one of them refused to shoot unarmed civilians, never mind that they were supposedly Rebels. This leads to him semi-accidentally killing the ISB officer who confronted him with a blaster, which leads to him and his friends deserting. That same stormtrooper, LaRone, who aimed to miss ends up being the leader of the group; another of them explains how, ending with the fact that refusing to kill innocents gives him the moral high ground. Confused, LaRone says that he thought all of them did that, and he is told, "I obeyed orders."

    Live-Action TV 
  • Dexter: Dexter has an insatiable need to kill, but his foster father Harry helped him develop a code: he makes a point of only killing other killers, typically those who slipped through the cracks of the justice system. Not only is he setting a wrong right, but the death of an abhorrent criminal is much less likely to be followed up on. Which of these two points motivates Dexter's MO more is discussed more than once.
  • Sylar in Heroes has made it clear that he doesn't just kill people for fun - only if he needs their powers. On the other hand, he has also made it very clear that he does enjoy killing people - even continuing to mutilate his victims after figuring out how to replicate their powers without doing so and commentating that he almost forgot what fun it was. Apparently the thrill of it is not enough to go after ordinary, and therefore useless, people though. In season 1, when Sylar first comes to the (incorrect) realization that he is the bomb that will blow up New York City and kill half the population, he goes through utter turmoil, asking Mohinder for help. According to him, he only kills because he sees it as an evolutionary imperative that he acquires new powers. He only kills evolved humans who have powers he wants. He does not want to kill 4 million regular humans. He eventually gets over it after (inadvertently) killing his mother.
  • From The Wire, Omar Little, badass Gayngster extraordinaire, has a code of honour that includes only robbing other criminals and never stealing from or harming anyone who isn't a part of The Game. "A man got to have a code."
    Omar: Don't get it twisted, I do some dirt too, but I ain't never put my gun on nobody who wasn't in the game.
  • Boss Hogg in The Dukes of Hazzard never hurts innocent people. Sorrell Booke, the actor who portrayed him in the series, only agreed on the condition the character wouldn't do certain things. Hurting innocents was the most known item on the list.
  • In the Doctor Who episode "A Town Called Mercy" The Doctor finds a town besieged by a cyborg gunslinger who keeps supplies from arriving and demands one occupant. When confronted by The Doctor, the cyborg confesses his strategy is to prevent others from getting in the way. Eventually, however, the gunslinger concedes that he needs to take a more direct approach which he re-evaluates on realising he is pointing his Arm Cannon at a child. He leaves the town without harming anyone.
  • Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: Cameron, being a good robot, is expected to avoid hurting innocents (although her definition of a non-innocent is sometimes called into question). However in one episode a bad robot is attempting to "kill" Cameron, and the fight continues in an elevator, but suddenly both combatants — including the bad robot — suspend their battle when an innocent bystander briefly boards the elevator. Possibly that had more to do with preserving the masquerade than anything else, at least on the other Terminator's part.
  • In an odd move for a character who is essentially a Slasher, the Red Devil from Scream Queens (2015) is very strict on who he kills, limiting himself to members, pledges, and employees of Kappa Kappa Tau. As long as you have nothing to do with KKT and avoid direct confrontations (e.g., trying to usurp his place as mascot, like Coney; or directly challenging them to a fight, like the Dickie Dollar Scholars), you will likely survive a run-in with the Red Devil. For example he knocks out Pete when he catches him snooping in the dean's office, but just does the equivalent of letting him off with a warning.
  • In a non-violent example, Malcolm Tucker from The Thick of It states that he never targets "real people", although his actions at one point inadvertently cause Mr. Tickell to commit suicide.
  • The Peaky Blinders prefer to operate under this trope as a whole, particularly Tommy - they may be ruthless gangsters, but in general they usually go for people who are just as bad if not worse than they are. In Season Four, when Tommy is confronted by Luca Changretta and they discuss how their feud is going to go down, the very first condition Tommy gives is, "No civilians, no children", to which the former agrees to without issue.
  • A few villains in Power Rangers such as Ecliptor, Astronema, and Villamax have shown an unwillingness to harm innocent civilians, with the latter two even heroically saving innocents, the above three being prime examples of Noble Demon type villains (with Astronema even doing a Heel–Face Turn).

    Tabletop Games 

  • Eberron: The Church of the Silver Flame that rules the nation of Thrane is founded on the concept of protecting the innocent from supernatural evil. Therefore, more than any other organization, they will never knowingly harm an innocent person. Of course, this being a Grey-and-Grey Morality world, there are many mistakes, incorrect assumptions, and justifications. Cardinal Krozen, for example, tends to define "innocent" as "citizen of Thrane who is not currently an obstacle in my path." Per Word of God, the Keeper of the Flame, Jaela Daran, represents the Church's idealistic side, while the Council of Cardinals represents its more pragmatic side.

    Theatre 
  • Older Than Feudalism: In the Antigone, Creon stubbornly insists on punishing Antigone even when it's clear that this will do more harm than good, but relents from punishing Ismene once he realizes there's no evidence she was involved in her sister's crime.

    Theme Parks 

    Video Games 
  • This is one of the main tenets of the Assassin's Creed. Altaïr's disregard for innocent lives and arrogance led to him being stripped of his rank within the Assassin Brotherhood. In-game, harming civilians will cause the player to "desync", since none of the playable Assassins killed civilians. Averted with Shay Patrick Cormac of Assassin's Creed Rogue, who as an Assassin turned Templar has no such compunctions.
    • While being able to kill civilians in Rogue makes no sense at first, given that Shay leaves the Assassins precisely to avoid innocent bloodshed, it starts to make sense when you remember that Shay unwittingly caused the Lisbon Earthquake, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people, which is what caused him to leave the Brotherhood. He has, in a way, already killed civilians, so the Animus doesn't desync you if you do it.
    • Also averted in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag where, when you sink civilian fishing boats, the game just states that Edward Kenway did not kill civilians without desyncing. Justified in that he only joins the Assassin Brotherhood later. In a later mission, however, Edward has to sneak through an Assassin village without killing any of the Order guards.
    • This is also averted in Origins and Odyssey though more for the sake of gameplay than anything.
  • Darkstalkers: Morrigan Aensland has never killed humans according to Capcom, that despite being a succubus who frequently visits the human world. She however has no problem draining Pyron, the main villain of the first two games, to death. In general Morrigan has no problem killing enemies out of love for combat but goes out her way to avoid killing innocent people. In most adaptations outside of the original video games however, everybody's a potential target.
  • Hitman: It varies. While Agent 47 is very much into Pay Evil unto Evil, he only cares about his contract and will kill innocent people if he's paid to. That said, for the sake of professionalism and avoiding unwanted attention 47 canonically avoids killing civilians and at most will simply knock them out.
  • Fate/stay night: Lancer, mostly, because innocents are no fun to fight. He still 'silences' Shirou when the latter ends up causing a masquerade violation, but clearly doesn't like having to do it.
  • In Mass Effect 2, Justicar Samara's code prevents her from ever hurting an innocent person, even if she must allow a criminal to escape in order to prevent it. Apparently, this tenet of her code is overridden if that innocent person poses any threat to the Justicar herself or attempts to impede her investigations, though Samara is willing to exploit loopholes in her code to take alternate options when she can. It's more like they're no longer "innocent" if they are impeding the work of a justicar.
  • In The Godfather: The Game, while you can freely indulge in Video Game Cruelty Potential while free-roaming, some missions ask you not to kill innocents. Inverted in one contract hit, where you need to ensure there are no witnesses for the Respect and monetary bonuses - guess what?
  • One of the rules that demons in the Reincarnation (2008) series must follow is that they cannot directly harm innocent humans when attempting to assassinate the Reincarnies. Nothing's stopping them from killing animals and indirectly setting up humans to be harmed while earning proof.
  • In Scarface: The World Is Yours, Tony says that he cannot hurt civilians when he attempts to shoot one. However, he can still punch them and run them over with a car.
  • Thief: Garret may be a thief and an outlaw, but he does not look kindly on harming innocents. Oh, the player may still do it, but it's considered a bad mark by the game.
  • In Borderlands 2, Krieg's personalities have a simple agreement: the psycho side of Krieg can kill as many evil men and savage beasts as he wants, so long as he stays his wrath from the innocent. If the murderous side does harm an innocent, the moral half of his mind will take control and force them to immediately commit suicide. Pandora being Pandora the psycho side doesn't have much trouble complying.
  • The Gerudo race in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time are an all-female race with their only male being Ganondorf. They are Desert Bandits that will steal from people, but they absolutely refuse to rob and/or harm women and children. Ganondorf, who is the leader of the Gerudo, has no problem hurting and stealing from anyone, which includes women and children, and is even willing to kill. Nabooru, the 2nd in command of the Gerudo, is absolutely disgusted by Ganondorf's lack of moral code and is willing to help Link overthrow him.
  • DOOM: Doomguy is usually portrayed this way. If you're not a demon, and are not aiding demons, then he will not harm you. In Doom Eternal, the worst he does is give a mouthy guard an intimidating Death Glare before nonchalantly taking the guy's gun. It's also said the reason Doomguy was originally assigned to Mars was because he assaulted a superior officer... because said officer had ordered him to gun down civilians.
  • In the Yakuza series and associated games, the main characters will not harm anyone unless they're attacked first or there's a very good reason. (One of the main differences between these games and, say, Grand Theft Auto is that you can only attack people on the street who attack you first—you can't just pull out a crowbar and wail on grandmas in the crosswalk.) This is because most of them are ex-yakuza members, and the yakuza have strict rules about not hurting people who aren't involved with yakuza business.
    • In Yakuza 0 specifically, this is leveraged by protagonist Kiryu: he wants to temporarily quit the yakuza so he can find out who framed him for murder. Lieutenant Kuze refuses, then orders his men to kill Kiryu. Kiryu points out that Kuze can't have a fellow clan member killed without authorization from the higher-ups, so Kuze accepts Kiryu's request to quit, then attacks Kiryu. When the other lieutenants find out that Kuze attacked a civilian, they force him to cut off his pinky for breaking the laws of the clan.

    Webcomics 
  • In the inn scene of The Order of the Stick, the assassins who are after the king of Nowhere try to avoid hurting anyone who is not involved. Too bad they think that Roy is the king of Nowhere, due to Who's on First? problems.
  • In Schlock Mercenary, Tagon is faced with the choices of revealing the Gatekeepers are copying people using wormhole gates and then interrogating the copies, killing the copied people once the interrogation is finished and starting a war that would lead to the end of galactic civilization, or remain silent and let the gate clones continue to be killed, both of which result in massive loss of innocent lives.note 
  • Silvah of Inverloch is extremely reluctant to harm Lei'ella because he can effortlessly defend himself and he doesn't feel any enmity towards the Severed elves. He only stabs her when Raul points out her limited sense could still unravel their Evil Plan, but he's clearly pleased when he senses that she's been healed and refuses to go back and finish her off. The plan itself is not to directly kill anyone, either, despite being motivated by You Killed My Father. Rather, it's to turn the elves mortal and magicless like other races.

    Web Original 
  • Dr. Horrible of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is this way, at least at first. He refuses to fight a hero in a park because children play there (well, that and he doesn't have time to fight every "poser in a parka"). He also tells a room full of civilians to flee before he tries to off the hero, Captain Hammer. Plus the fact that he never really crosses over the Moral Event Horizon completely shows that, even after getting a seat on the Evil League of Evil, he still has problems with truly hurting innocents.
  • Agents in the Protectors of the Plot Continuum generally try to either recruit non-Sueish bit characters or let them assimilate into the canon. They also tend to do their best to save Sues' kids.
  • The Nostalgia Critic has a breakdown when his anger over Quest for Camelot makes him accidentally kill Mary Poppins, Dick Van Dyke, and Mickey Mouse.
  • Deathstroke, the Big Bad of series one of Nightwing The Series (found here), has this as one of his redeeming traits. In his Establishing Character Moment, he forces his way into Senator Hamilton Hill's re-election fundraiser and starts a fight with his bodyguards, then appears to take aim at a singer across the room only to shoot an armed guard behind her, allowing her and the rest of the party to leave unharmed. Later, when storming a nightclub to kill a target, he scares everyone out, bar one man that tries to hit him with a glass bottle and gives Nightwing the opportunity to leave (which he naturally doesn't accept). It later turns out that his superiors ordered him to murder children, and this is one reason why he is so hellbent on revenge.
  • In RWBY, Blake defected from the White Fang terrorists upon realizing that they would kill civilians. She describes this trope as the difference between activism and terrorism.

    Western Animation 
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: A non-villainous example appears in "Griffon the Brush Off". Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash have a fun day pulling practical jokes on their friends in Ponyville, except for Fluttershy, whom they leave undisturbed because she's too innocent and sensitive for their pranks.
  • Phantom 2040: Poignantly, The Dragon cyborg Graft stopped a fight he was winning when a kid got endangered.
  • Sandman in The Spectacular Spider-Man was never truly malevolent, he was just in the villainy game for the money, and hoped having powers would finally get him the "big score" he always wanted. In episode 18, he helped save the passengers of a ship about to explode. A ship he was trying to rob until his fight with Spidey started a fire.
    Spider-Man: Sandman, stop! You... [watches Sandman place the crewmen he'd grabbed into the life rafts] ...saved them?
    Sandman: I was just in it for the bucks. I never meant for this to happen.
    • Kraven is similar. Despite priding himself on being the world's best hunter, he doesn't kill animals that he knows aren't acting dangerous of their own accord (such as when he spared a rampaging rhino because it was sick), and he only wants to kill Spider-Man, never going after anyone else.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012): Slash can be ruthless and brutal, but as revealed in "Newtralized!", he only wants to take out the Kraang and won't kill innocents. His partnership with the Newtralizer falls apart because the Newtralizer is an Ax-Crazy Knight Templar who's willing to do anything possible to take the Kraang down, up to and including leveling all of New York.
  • Red X from Teen Titans seems to follow this principle—and it even applies (in a general sense) to the heroes. He's perfectly willing to curbstomp them and taunt them about it, but he's not trying to kill them and refrains from attacking them when they're down. Similarly, he's quite happy to steal expensive items from corporations, but when a supervillain threatened the city with a disintegrator cannon and Robin almost fell to his death, Red X chose to save Robin's life and help him defeat the supervillain rather than make a clean getaway.
  • Non-villainous example happens in the Justice League episode "Hearts and Minds". While the Flash and Kilowog are searching John's apartment for his lantern battery, they're interrupted by John's rather paranoid landlady "armed" with a mop. Since Flash would clearly hurt her if he made any resistance to her "attacking" him, all he can really do is block her blows with his arms until Kilowog finds it so they can leave quickly, apologizing on the way out.
  • X-Men: The Animated Series had Magneto take this role twice. The first is when he constructed an orbital safe haven for mutants and armed it with enough nuclear missiles to wipe out all life on Earth. Even he however is disgusted when he finds that Fabian Cortez fired off one of the missiles at Earth with the intent of kill normal humans simply because he hates them that much. Later at the end of season four during a Villain Teamup with Apocalypse, he works with and then turns on him when he finds that Apocalypse' plan involved wiping out the whole of reality so he could recreate it in his own image, berating him a plan that would kill "the innocent along with the guilty." Even Apocalypse's minion Mystique turns on him by that point. Magneto expected Mr. Sinister to also have standard regarding the plan. He didn't. In both cases, Magneto having standards prompts a Heel–Face Turn.
  • In He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (2021), both Teela and Duncan start the series aiding Evelyn and Kronis in their goal of usurping King Randor for the throne of Eternos. Teela is a Street Urchin hired to steal any relics related to the Power of Grayskull and Duncan is Kronis' apprentice. Teela steals the Sword of Power from the palace, but a guiding voice and Evelyn nearly killing royal guards only doing their jobs spur Teela to find the "Champion". Duncan's not comfortable with being a criminal, but goes along with Kronis up until he and Evelyn order him to burn down a village and kill its people so they can flush out Teela and the sword. Duncan defects and he and Teela join with Adam, Cringer, and Krass to eventually become the Masters of the Universe.

 
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No Wife, No Kids

Tony Montana may be a murderous, drug dealing crime boss who will not hesitate to eliminate anyone who gets in his way, but even he draws the line at killing kids in a hit.

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