Basic Trope: A video game that allows and likely expects violence can also be beaten without any bloodshed.
- Straight: Stealth Agent has plenty of ways to kill and brutalize guards, but the player can also just sneak around the lot of them.
- Exaggerated: A peaceful run is required for Stealth Agent's Golden Ending.
- Downplayed:
- Stealth Agent can be beaten without killing anyone, but some fighting will be called for.
- Stealth Agent can be beaten without killing any sapient beings. The Mecha Mooks are legitimately dumb machines that can't be reasoned with, and the player isn't penalized for breaking them.
- Stealth Agent is about an assassin with a job to do, but it's quite possible to go through the entire game without killing anyone but the designated targets.
- Justified: The main character of Stealth Agent and his organization recognize their enemies are Punch Clock Villains at worst, and see no reason to hurt them.
- Inverted: A viciously creative player turns a normally peaceful game into a bloodbath.
- Subverted: In the first level, the player can reach Sgt. Viper without harming any of his guards, and are given the option to spare him. If they take it, Viper kills the player character for a Non-Standard Game Over.
- Double Subverted: ...unless the player took time to discover Viper's Freudian Excuse and uses the knowledge to talk him down.
- Parodied: The player character begins to look more and more like a stereotypical hippie as they progress through the levels without any bloodshed.
- Zig Zagged: While the game does give options for "non-lethal takedowns" that can be used with impunity while getting a "Pacifist Run" achievement, it strains credulity that every guard could survive them, so players looking for a "true" pacifist run avoid even those.
- Averted:
- It really is kill or be killed — you'll at least have to kill enemies with keys that can't be obtained any other way and bosses.
- There's no violent options to refrain from, period.
- Enforced: The game designer realizes that massive bloodshed is actually a terrible thing and/or unprofessionally messy, and so gives the player a satisfying way to avoid it and still enjoy the game.
- Lampshaded: Enemy Chatter eventually notes the player's style: "we've been shooting at this guy every time we see him, but he's never hurt one of us... what if, maybe we're on the wrong side?"
- Invoked: The lowly Mooks do their best to remind the unseen player that they're human beings to convince them to not kill them.
- Exploited: Emperor Evulz starts doing his best to force the player to choose between foiling his plans and avoiding collateral damage by refusing to evacuate mooks and stationing them just to serve as human shields.
- Defied: The crazed Sgt. Viper commits Suicide by Cop by the player's hand just to prove "you're a killer like the rest of us!"
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: "Why aren't you shooting back at those guys?" "Got an achievement to unlock."
- Deconstructed: The player can go through Stealth Agent without personally killing anyone, but some of the characters really do need a bullet through the brain; letting them live gets the player Pacifism Backfire.
- Reconstructed: If the player just avoids killing in Stealth Agent, they'll suffer Pacifism Backfire. The player can, however, fix the problems that made the Well-Intentioned Extremist villains start in the first place; this, along with a Pacifist Run, is the only way to get the Golden Ending.
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