Basic Trope: A character's family and/or friends harm them because of Honor Before Reason.
- Straight: Aerith and Bob are together, but Aerith's parents don't approve of Bob. They lock her up in a tower guarded by a fierce dragon, just so she'll never see him again.
- Exaggerated:
- Aerith's parents actually kill her and/or Bob.
- Aerith's parents consider her Defiled Forever for being raped, so they join the rapists.
- When Aerith's parents find out that she wants to refuse an Arranged Marriage, they lock her up in a cellar, starve her, whip her, beat her, wound her, and rape her until she either dies or changes her mind.
- Aerith breaks some minor promise, which overall is seen by everybody as a good thing because not doing it otherwise would have been much more abominable (such as, for example, telling the whereabouts of a runaway multiple rapist after being sworn not to say). Aerith's parents, however, see the breaking of the promise as an act abominable enough on its own that killing her (their own, and sole, daughter) in the goriest fashion possible is the best retribution they can think of.
- Downplayed:
- Aerith and Bob are together, but Aerith's parents don't approve of Bob. They lecture her, saying some rather unnecessarily hurtful things, and finish their rant by telling her she's grounded.
- Aerith is disowned and kicked out of her home.
- Aerith's action as actual crimes, up to and including killing commoners for sport. Her parents don't actually care what she does, only that it ruins their reputation.
- Justified:
- Aerith is living in No Woman's Land, and considered the property of her father, rather than a real person with the right to decide whom she marries or sleeps with.
- Aerith is part of a Big, Screwed-Up Family.
- If Aerith's parents choose not to punish her, their society will kill them (or at least their social cachet) as well as her(s) "for tolerating her indecency". They had to choose Lesser of Two Evils. (Couldn't they Take a Third Option and let her go, then say everyone that she fled?)
- Aerith's parents are sociopaths, so they only see her as a thing to be tossed aside as soon as she gets in their way.
- Inverted:
- Rather than harm Aerith, her parents kill or injure Bob.
- Aerith is rewarded (not punished) for being involved with Bob. (See also My Girl Is a Slut.)
- Aerith is killed for being a Purity Sue.
- Subverted:
- Aerith's parents discourage her from seeing Bob again but take no further action...
- Aerith is not killed for her involvement with Bob.
- Double Subverted:
- ...until she defies them in public, after which they kill her.
- She is, however, badly maimed by having strong acid thrown on her to disfigure her.
- Parodied: Aerith holds a boy's hand and her parents are so ashamed they [1] kill her and proceed to shoot up the entire park.
- Zig-Zagged: Sometimes Aerith is punished severely for doing things or seeing people her parents don't like, other times she gets off with barely a slap on the wrist, other times she gets an unishment, and other times she gets an outright reward.
- Averted:
- Aerith has Good Parents who treat her well, even when she does/says/wears things or dates people they don't approve of.
- Aerith's parents don't give a damn what (or whom) she does or doesn't do. This is one of the few cases when Parental Neglect is better than too much attention from them.
- Aerith is Conveniently an Orphan and an only child of a rich family that made it into becoming an adult, so no one is able to mess with her life.
- Aerith's parents killed her specifically to make headlines and become infamous.
- Enforced:
- The setting of the story demands it.
- The author was subjected to this, and is trying to use their work as therapy.
- The author needs a reason why the protagonist isn't at home.
- Lampshaded: "In losing her, we have lost a whore."
- Invoked:
- Aerith's parents purposefully set up the affair so they have an excuse to punish her.
- Aerith's parents rape her so that they can "honorably" kill her and say that she "deserved it for having premarital sex".
- Exploited:
- Someone with a grudge against Aerith tells her parents that she has been unchaste outside of marriage.
- Rape becomes an unpunishable crime because the victims are usually the only ones who are executed, simultaneously killing off the victim and silencing the rest of them. Rapists continue raping and families continue killing victims until the entire land becomes a Ghost Town.
- Defied:
- Aerith's parents realize that she is a person, and that she may do things they don't approve of. If religion is the issue, they pray to the Powers That Be for her forgiveness, and they accept her as she is.
- Bob comes to her rescue and he and Aerith fight back against the abuse. Their bonds strengthened because of that.
- Discussed: "Did you hear Aerith dating that poor guy Bob? I hope her parents won't be too harsh to her for that..."
- Conversed: "Good thing we live in the 21st century! If we lived, say, three or four centuries back, like in that story, one of us might've been beaten or even murdered for dating each other."
- Implied: Aerith is rescued from her tower. When asked why she was in there, she says, "Let's just say 'honor' is the dumbest thing ever."
- Deconstructed:
- This is a form of Domestic Abuse; Aerith's rights are being violated in the name of family honor and her parents cross the Moral Event Horizon in the process.
- When her parents decide to kill her for "ruining their family's honor", Aerith eventually snaps and lashes out at them, possibly even going as far as turning into a Self-Made Orphan.
- Aerith"s parents murder her to preserve their reputation. They go out in public and brag about their "heroic act". Everyone is horrified and they are arrested. Aerith's brother is now relentlessly bullied for having child murdering parents.
- Reconstructed: Aerith has internalized her parents' ideas of honor, and thus cannot retaliate.
- Played for Laughs: Aerith's parents punish her for dating Bob ... by taking away all her fancy dresses so that she has nothing but a set of Impossibly Tacky Clothes (or even her natural "costume", that is, her own skin) to wear while out, hoping that she'd be too ashamed to meet Bob again.
- Played for Drama:
- Being abused is scary enough, the fact that Aerith's parents think that they are in the right, makes it even more horrifying.
- Bob, upon learning of this, decides that Aerith's entire society needs its "honor" restored, and sets out on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge that ends up as a revolution.
- Played for Horror: An examination of the things people have done to get retribution for dishonor (which includes and does not stops at maiming, rape, stoning people to death, setting them on fire and disfiguring them with powerful acids) is usually bone-chilling.
- Plot Foundation (an Exaggerated Trope version of the Rule of Drama): Aerith was a cheerful young girl who loved her family. However, she learned the hard way that her feelings are one-sided when she finds herself on the receiving end of an attempt to Offing the Offspring for dating a boy from a wrong family because they thought it would damage the rep of their family. Desperate for her life, she kills the parents and is soon arrested and sentenced to a long prison term for the Crime of Self-Defense. She comes out of the prison a bitter, roguish, antisocial shadow of her former persona. Now there are (usually) two ways to pick from: a) become a full-on criminal with no remorse or pity towards members of their society and a massive Freudian Excuse; or b) overcome her troubles, mobilize her fellow women to stand up for their rights and grow into a head of a rebellion against the ultra-patriarchal society that tears it down and sets up a much more just one.
Hey Aerith, you were at the main page again?? You know how you are ruining our family's credit? Next time I see you there, there'll be a murder!
