Protags who do this would normally also spare henchmen who were incapacitated or surrendered, right? Those 7,455 henchmen who died all went down swinging. Accepting the villain’s surrender is only notable because for some reason all of their underlings were fanatics who fought to the death.
It’s too close to murdering CEOs.
They don’t want peasants getting ideas.
You can kill each other, but you can’t kill the rich, deranged asshole in charge.
That tracks.
Lets leave those friends of epstein alone. We are better than them 😔
Related: Leaving the bad guy injured or “probably dead”
Cut the head off and make sure they’re for-real dead.
Or you know, check like a pulse.
The term I see used for this is “ludonarrative dissonance”. Basically, your experience playing the game doesn’t match what the story is trying to tell you.
The opposite would be “ludonarrative synchronicity”. Like in Doom the protagonist is an overpowered entity feared by all enemies, both in gameplay and in the story.
Edit: specifically applied to games, I’m not sure if there’s a term for movies or other media.
Im currently rewatching Smallville and there are so many random villains whose death are directly Clarks fault, and he never takes any responsibility, but still everyone acts like taking a life is a big thing.
Going a bit off on a tangent but are ludonarrative synchronicity, ludonarrative resonance, ludonarrative coherence, ludonarrative harmony and ludonarrative consistency all the same thing or are there some subtle differences? Over the years I’ve see all of them be used as the opposite to ludonarrative dissonance.
It’s even stupider when the game railroads you into it. If I left a trail of bodies in my wake then obviously I intend to kill the main baddie too.
Fuck games that make you let the baddie go.
If I left a trail of bodies in my wake then obviously I intend to kill the main baddie too.
Fuck games that make you let the baddie go.
I think one of the reasons people like FNV so much is kinda this. If you want to, you can tell the final boss to go away. Or you can kill them. I made a character that was speech focused. I didn’t want to reassure the end boss that “oh, logistics is hard, don’t worry, my faction will collapse eventually because of logistics” and I got to cave their head in.
Maybe I dont watch enough shitty action movies, but i dont think I’ve seen/read/played anything even vaguely resembling this since I was a child.
Just what are you consuming that falls into this trope, and why havent you stopped?
Well, the henchmen usually wears masks or helmets so we and the protagonist don’t humanize them.
Someone has been watching CW’s Arrow.
Like, Oliver, those henchem you shot with arrows, and your sidekicks shot with bullets are dead. Your friends are actively begging you to kill their leader who has threatened the entire city like 6 times now. Just kill him too, no one cares, they will probably build you a statue.
Far cry 4 was unbelievably frustrating with this “mechanic” a rocket launcher of 50cal round to the face means you don’t get to fuck me in a cutscene… The game disagreed.
Yeah downscaling your power level for a cut scene is stupid too. Lotta times in games I’m just like “this is 6 mercs, I could have taken them easy”
MGS is also guilty of it
This is just another instance of the class morality. The lower classes are not really people for the upper classes.
Exactly. Also, there a chance the minions are black and the villain is white in this scenario.
Aang be like:
Aang doesn’t kill anyone, though. It’s an important part of his character for the entire series.
Yeah. In universe his personal human body count is zero. Out of universe, there’s no way the water spirit merging didn’t kill hundreds of fire nation sailors, but as far as the story itself is concerned, aang didn’t actually kill anyone.
https://screenrant.com/avatar-last-airbender-aang-killed-people-pacifist/
Externalities are a hell of a drug.
I think it’s pretty well established that he doesn’t personally have control of his actions in the avatar state, at least at that point in the story. He doesn’t even know how it works. Thats a pretty major plot point. Combine that with him also being merged with the twin spirit of the one that was just killed, and justifying an argument of “but what about all those soldiers” really just falls flat.
I’d say the closest he came to killing of his own volition was when the sandbenders stole Appa… and he still didn’t pull the trigger.
When I was young I thought the ending was the coolest thing ever because taking a person’s elemental bending away is like ripping your entire being away. Like stripping a billionaire of all of their assets and cash. Horrible blow to their ego, lifetime of suffering, etc.
But now that I’m older, Aang should have just killed the bastard. The fight was hella cool tho.
Amazing how, as you got older, your opinions got more basic and animalistic.
Kids really are incredible.
Caillou looking centrist loser 😶
Meanwhile Sokka and Toph do a dozen hindenbergs and no one cares
the hero didnt kill them! they just uh… fell…? out of shot? i guess?
I remember waiting for a twist when wonder woman was plowing through all those allied forces just to spare the nazi at the end??
This is why I liked the ending of The Watchmen.
