Basic Trope: A character wants to bring another character in account for not doing anything to save them.
- Straight: Alice seeks revenge on Sonia, the villain's Dark Mistress, who didn't do anything to prevent her boyfriend and his gang from abusing Alice, even though she could.
- Exaggerated: Alice plans to destroy the human race because no one came to save her from being tortured by a gang of criminals.
- Downplayed:
- Alice calls out Sonia for standing by as she saw Alice getting mobbed.
- Sonic doesn't help Alice win an online multiplayer competitive game, even though she's on her team. Alice hits Sonia in the arm.
- Justified:
- Alice believes that the inaction of doing good is just as horrible as committing evil.
- Sonia had it within her power to easily save Alice, but instead she refused to. Sonia even told Alice to her face that she didn't want to get involved.
- Sonia is friends with the people who abused Alice and refuses to disavow them even after she found out. Of course, Alice is pissed.
- Inverted:
- Alice holds a grudge against Sonia for saving her from a gang of criminals.
- Sonia took an active part in Alice's assault. While Alice remembers and seeks vengeance on the rest of the gang she forgives Sonia for her part in it because she's a woman.
- Alice tries to reward Sonia for doing nothing.
- Because You Were Nice to Me
- She tries to reward her for hurting her.
- Subverted: Alice finds out Sonia did try to save her, but wasn't successful, e.g. if she tried direct intervention she would likely had been knocked out or would have been targeted for revenge by her boyfriend and his gang later had she called the cops.
- Double Subverted: Sonia failed because of something she could have controlled, such as being aware of what was going to happen and not tipping the cops anonymously. Alice is still angry at her.
- Parodied: Alice seeks revenge on Sonia for doing nothing to prevent the mobbing from happening. Sonia, in this case, is a total stranger who lives on the other side of the world and doesn't even know who Alice is.
- Zig-Zagged: Both Sonia and Charlene witnessed Alice being abused by criminals and did nothing to stop it, but Alice only seeks revenge on Sonia while Charlene is Easily Forgiven.
- Averted: Alice doesn't hold anything against Sonia for doing nothing to save her.
- Enforced: The producers need to get two good guys to fight for this next arc, so they have Alice seek revenge on Sonia for being part of the gang, even though she left the gang before the attack on Alice.
- Lampshaded:Sonia: "Alice, why are you targeting me? I didn't do anything!"Alice: "Precisely. You were the only one who had the power to stop this from happening but you chose to do nothing. I was the one who was left for dead, therefore I am she who decides who is accountable, not you."
- Invoked: Alice declares that she will wipe out everyone who was ever involved in the gang, even people who defected like Sonia, because their leaving didn't stop the gang from committing more crimes.
- Exploited: Sonia is The Mole in the gang so she can't break cover to rescue Alice. Alice doesn't know she was The Mole, but the leader of the gang does and uses it to attempt to make Sonia a mole for fear of Alice's revenge.
- Defied:
- Alice decides to forgive Sonia.
- Sonia feels so guilty about not helping Alice that she kills herself before Alice can even take revenge.
- Discussed: "Alice should be thinking twice before going after Sonia, people might think that's going too far."
- Conversed: "Choosing not to act is also a choice. And all choices have consequences."
- Deconstructed:
- Alice remembers the faces of everyone she saw while held captive, including Sonia's. But after she kills Sonia she learns she was a Defector from Decadence who helped the authorities free Alice from captivity.
- Alice only gets angry at Sonia because she's scared to target the villain, or because she's unconsciously in love with him or just a chronic procrastinator when it comes to important decisions. She has to rationalise her failure to get justice by telling herself that she has to hold everyone involved accountable, so she can never actually go through the work of holding the guilty party accountable.
- Alternatively, Alice is an Entitled Bastard and Damsel Scrappy. She's perceived as both lovable and incompetent, (regardless of her actual skills and personality) and therefore, people keep rescuing her and she relies on it. Meanwhile, Sonia comes from the Wrong Side of the Tracks and is perceived as expendable. She had to fight to survive, relying only on herself until she resorted to dating the Big Bad (one of the only people powerful enough to protect her) in exchange for her safety. Sonia herself neither partakes in nor does she especially appreciates nor agrees with her boyfriend's activities but she has to choose between being his girlfriend and living on the streets where certain death awaits her. Asking an Innocent Bystander to put themself in harm's way to save her would have been simply unthinkable to her, and she reacts with disgust at Alice's entitlement. After all, did Alice try and save ''her''?
- Alice is a Knight Templar suffering Black-and-White Insanity. She adopts the mindset of With Us or Against Us and holds onto the belief of 'Bystander Syndrome is bad' and the creed she lives by is "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.", therefore she saw Sonia as a good person that squandered her goodness, thus an accessory of evil that must exterminated. Sonia is baffled at this, asking who the hell does Alice think she is to dictate her life and morals in the name of such narrow view of life all while covering behind sweet words like that quote. In the end, Sonia thinks that Alice is a selfish, fearmongering madwoman and actually motivates her to oppose Alice, with or without the Big Bad's help.
- Reconstructed:
- It turns out Sonia did this not out of any remorse, but rather as part of a plea-bargain to save her own skin. In other words, she still deserved to die.
- After talking with Sonia, Alice realises that both are actually unwilling participants in a system that puts them, two people who wouldn't otherwise hold any ill will towards one another, in a position of obligatory victim or obligatory accomplice. Alice eventually lets Sonia go, along with her grudge against her since it would be unjust to punish someone who had no actual choice in the matter. Sonia, for her part, is now presented with a choice to go back to her boyfriend and this time becoming his accessry for good or trying to change her life by leaving town and starting over somewhere else.
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