Nah. All those henchmen who “fought to the death” are almost never even given a chance to surrender. The excuse is closer to “it was in the heat of battle” but the only reason that excuse doesn’t fly for the villain is plot armor. How many of these movies even have the protag doing stealth kills of guards, coming up behind some poor underling on watch duty and doing the magic neck-snap move or a knife to the throat or a quick pewt-pewt from a “silenced” gun before the guard even knows what hit them. Those guys were probably the most likely to lay down their weapon and say “yeah, go ahead, I’m not paid nearly enough for this shit,” but they don’t matter because they’re underling fodder. We’re never introduced to them as having any motivations or personalities, so they’re just there to provide some action. They are not to be given moral consideration, only the villain is shown with agency, so the audience is only supposed to care about what the “hero” does with the villain. It’s laziness that is widely accepted and goes mostly unquestioned because of what Collatz_problem said, it’s class morality and we’re all used to that because that shit is ingrained.
I am actually having trouble thinking of any recent movies where this happens, so I’m mostly thinking about video games where every enemy that sees you instantly decides that it’s you or them, and no matter how many you kill the next guy is always like “I’ve definitely got this.”
Although I also haven’t recently played any games where you can spare the main villain, so… are we even still doing this? Maybe I’m not consuming the right media.
Edit: Wait I thought of one recent game where the protag spares the final boss because they’re sort of the same. I don’t know if I can say which game it is without it being a major spoiler. The “class” consciousness thing basically is the text though, it’s not like subtle or unintentional.
Nah. All those henchmen who “fought to the death” are almost never even given a chance to surrender. The excuse is closer to “it was in the heat of battle” but the only reason that excuse doesn’t fly for the villain is plot armor. How many of these movies even have the protag doing stealth kills of guards, coming up behind some poor underling on watch duty and doing the magic neck-snap move or a knife to the throat or a quick pewt-pewt from a “silenced” gun before the guard even knows what hit them. Those guys were probably the most likely to lay down their weapon and say “yeah, go ahead, I’m not paid nearly enough for this shit,” but they don’t matter because they’re underling fodder. We’re never introduced to them as having any motivations or personalities, so they’re just there to provide some action. They are not to be given moral consideration, only the villain is shown with agency, so the audience is only supposed to care about what the “hero” does with the villain. It’s laziness that is widely accepted and goes mostly unquestioned because of what Collatz_problem said, it’s class morality and we’re all used to that because that shit is ingrained.
I am actually having trouble thinking of any recent movies where this happens, so I’m mostly thinking about video games where every enemy that sees you instantly decides that it’s you or them, and no matter how many you kill the next guy is always like “I’ve definitely got this.”
Although I also haven’t recently played any games where you can spare the main villain, so… are we even still doing this? Maybe I’m not consuming the right media.
Edit: Wait I thought of one recent game where the protag spares the final boss because they’re sort of the same. I don’t know if I can say which game it is without it being a major spoiler. The “class” consciousness thing basically is the text though, it’s not like subtle or unintentional.
This feels like the right moment for this video
https://youtu.be/OC375rujZhs