Basic Trope: A character's crimes are legally blotted out.
- Straight:
- The Gentleman Thief steals back the king's crown from the bandits. As a reward, the king pardons him.
- Outlaws shelter the queen and crown prince when they flee enemies, and the king pardons them.
- The dashing highwayman Anthony Daring helps prisoners of some smugglers escape and is badly wounded, which means the police catch him as well, but for his efforts, he is pardoned — and escapes soon after to return to his life on the highway.
- Exaggerated: King Hilarion is always letting all the criminals out of jail.
- Downplayed: The king decreases punishment for a criminal.
- Justified:
- The crimes are minor compared to the heroic act, so the King decides to spare the now-reformed thief the trouble his record might bring him.
- The crimes resulted from a miscarriage of justice and targeted no innocents, as such they fall under the legal defense of Necessity.
- Inverted: The king imprisons someone who has not committed a crime.
- Subverted: The outlaws are brought before the king, and beg for a pardon, and the king holds a trial and sentences them all to death.
- Double Subverted: He commutes the sentence at the gallows.
- Parodied: King Hilarion pardons anyone he meets for any offenses they might have committed, from sneezing in his presence to stealing the crown jewels. Prince Ivan plots his deposition and, though caught many times in the process, is pardoned each one and carries out his plan.
- Zig Zagged: King Robert announces that he will pardon the Gentleman Thief for stealing the Crown Jewels, but not for the other crimes he confessed to, but he will for various tasks, but once the thief does them, the king reveals he knows of more crimes and imprisons him for life.
- Averted: The law requires all sentences be carried out.
- Enforced: "Anthony can't get out of this one on his own, he's too badly injured — let's make one of the prisoners he rescued from the smugglers be a noble, who gets him pardoned."
- Lampshaded: ???
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: The Gentleman Thief lets himself be caught while the king is dying, because it's traditional to pardon all prisoners on the ascension of the king — which he would not get if he were at liberty.
- Defied: King Robert pardons Alice for a brutal murder. Carol, the dead man's sister, suppresses the pardon and executes her anyway.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Deconstructed: King Alexander frees prisoners on a regular basis as a show of clemency. This allows them to return to their lives of crime and terrorize the innocent and leads to armed revolt.
- Reconstructed: King Boniface, having seized the throne from Alexander, threatens to have all the rebels executed and then pardons them to show that the pardon still has its points, even after abuse.
- Implied: Criminals get out jails quickly, especially if they have connections.
- Played For Laughs: King Hilarion insists on convicting characters for violating obscure and ridiculous laws, and then pardoning them.
- Played For Drama: Prince Conrad stages a Kangaroo Court to convince the innocent Bob. Alice goes to Bring News Back to Queen Carol before the execution, so there will be a pardon.
Back to The Pardon
