Basic Trope: When you can't save everyone, do whatever saves the greatest number.
- Played Straight: Bob has to choose between saving one drowning person or a sinking ship. With no time to save both, he chooses to save the sinking ship.
- Exaggerated: It is a decision that Bob will regret for the rest of his life, but he chooses to sacrifice the cute little five-year-old innocent bystander who worships him like a god because he swore to keep them safe in order to save the multiverse.
- Defied:
- Despite everyone telling him it's impossible, Bob manages to save both the one drowning person AND the sinking ship, later claiming that a hero who'd sacrifice one person even to save others doesn't deserve to be called one.
- "I see any of you assholes trying to kill my sister thinking it will "ease her suffering" and/or it may increase our chances of survival, and I will make sure your own suffering will end, right then and there."
- Averted: Bob chooses to save the drowning victim as they're a friend or love interest while the ship is full of strangers.
- Subverted: Sacrificing the few for the many turns out to be for nothing as either A) it doesn't really solve the root problem and was done more out of convenience or B) the whole thing was a lie and the "greater good" turned out to be just for the benefit of those in power.
- Inverted: The many are sacrificed to save an elite few.
- Deconstructed:
- Sacrificing a few serves the greater good, but those same few or their survivors bear a deep-seated grudge against those who threw them away; resulting in hostility, resentment, or even vengeance.
- The guilt of sacrificing a few to save the many results in Bob losing faith in his ability to save anyone.
- Alternatively, doing it once leads to Bob jumping off the slippery slope as he suffers Motive Decay, becoming more and more willing to make greater and greater sacrifices regardless of whether they're necessary or not.
- Reconstructed:
- There are few grudges when the few sacrificed themselves for the many on own accord, and are frequently fondly remembered by the many for said sacrifice.
- Bob eventually is put in a position where he has to decide to sacrifice dozens to save billions and that is by taking a third option, and he can only walk away from it thinking that I Did What I Had to Do.
- The situation eventually places Bob (probably in a very karmic fashion) as "the one" who needs to be sacrificed to save "the many". Bob does not hesitates.
- Discussed: "This is a nice belief to have until you become one of the "few"… or worse yet, you are the "one"… that is gonna get the shaft."
- Conversed: "Oh, great. Raymond, ever the misguided Spock fan, just said that there’s not enough food for everybody while staring at Jim. And yup, here's a close-up of Ray giving Jim the evil eye. Bet you we have five minutes before Ray either kills Jim or does his absolute damnedest trying before it gets taken off his hands."
