Basic Trope: A villain (or Anti-Hero) refuses to harm innocent people.
- Straight: Emperor Evulz refuses to bomb the hero, Bob's, house because his mother, who did nothing wrong in Evulz's eyes, is in there.
- Exaggerated: Emperor Evulz refuses to bomb Bob's house because a fly is in there.
- Downplayed:
- Evulz refuses to bomb Bob's town because his extended family is in there.
- Evulz has an unwritten rule against outright killing innocents, unless it's absolutely necessary.
- Justified:
- Evulz is, or wants to be a, Villain with Good Publicity.
- Evulz is motivated by a desire for revenge on Bob. Ergo, harming someone else would be logically incoherent.
- Pragmatic Villainy, in the form of either Evulz knowing that needlessly getting more people to want his downfall is detrimental to his end goals, or simply because war crime trials are messy.
- Inverted: Evulz doesn't care about what happens to Bob's mother, but refuses to bomb her house because Bob is in there.
- Subverted:
- Evulz appears as if he doesn't want to bomb Bob's house because his mother is in there, but then does so anyway.
- Evulz has other reasons for wanting to spare Bob's mother.
- Double Subverted:
- After his mother is out of the house.
- He then refrains from harming a different innocent when they're in the way of getting to Bob. Evulz having a personal interest in protecting Bob's mother especially is irrelevant to that.
- Averted:
- Would Hurt a Child
- Would Hit a Girl
- Would Harm a Senior
- Evulz bombs the house anyway, to hell with Bob or his mother.
- Exploited: Bob is an Anti-Hero who has no qualms with actively using civilians as a shield.
- Defied: When challenged about his unwillingness to kill innocents, Evulz, without a word, pulls out the detonator and presses the button on the spot to make a point.
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