"Stay your blade from the flesh of the innocent. The goal of the assassins is to ensure peace in all things."
Many villains are ruthless and uncaring about the world around them, perfectly willing to hurt innocents to further their gains, but it's not always this way. Sometimes, you'll run across a villain who, while just as greedy and self-serving, still makes sure not to hurt those around him, and is not willing to kill and destroy innocent lives just to get ahead. Offer them infinite power if they'd just kill a single innocent, and expect them to say no; of course, that doesn't mean they won't accept the infinite power if they could get around the whole "killing the innocent" part. These villains are some of the more human villains out there.
Generally, this is shown as villains trying to avoid harming people who aren't involved, and making sure not to kill innocent people. Unfortunately for our heroes, they don't count, so they can expect every weapon at these villains' disposal to be aimed at them.
This is a must for the Hitman with a Heart an Anti-Villain, Noble Demon, or Anti-Hero, a form of Even Evil Has Standards, and is a Sub-Trope of sorts of Affably Evil. See also A Lighter Shade of Grey, when something like this makes them look good despite a total willingness to kill the guilty, and Punch-Clock Villain, for villains who take this to the next level, and only act villainous because it pays the bills (though it's not a given that they'll be like this). A Blood Knight may also exhibit this, although in their case it may be more down to innocents never putting up a good fight. Don't expect the Omnicidal Maniac and Psycho for Hire to adhere to this trope.
It should be noted that, while this trope is the the domain of villains with actual standards, it may be possible for less scrupulous villains to decide that targeting a hero’s loved ones just isn’t worth it. They would happily target their enemy’s weaker loved ones, if it weren’t for the inevitable reprisal. Often they find this out ‘’after’’ the fact, much to their misfortune.
Some subtropes denote specific groups or classes of persons as off-limits:
- Wouldn't Harm the Disabled —Since disabled people are (usually) weaker, expect this villain/anti-hero to see attacking the disabled as cowardly.
- Wouldn't Hurt a Child — kids, because Children Are Innocent.
- Wouldn't Hit a Girl — women. Expect this villain/antihero to be a Wife-Basher Basher as well.
- Would Not Shoot a Civilian — noncombatants.
- Kick Them While They Are Down — the injured or incapacitated.
- Would Not Shoot a Good Guy — those whose opposition is honest but misinformed.
Other common "off-limits" groups include medical personnel (contrast Shoot the Medic First) and clergy. Contrast Targeted to Hurt the Hero, where a villain deliberately targets an innocent to break The Hero.
May be a form of Villainous Vow. Pay Evil unto Evil is the kind of antagonism permitted to characters following this trope. The opposite of You Can't Make an Omelette.... This trope is generally ubiquitous in heroes so list villains, antivillains, and antiheroes here.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- Zigzagged with Guts in Berserk, he has personally killed at least one genuine innocent on Griffith's orders: Adonis, the sweet son of Julius. Though he didn’t intend to and the whole thing left Guts traumatised with guilt and was the first step down the path of him leaving Griffith and the Band. Later in the Lost Children arc, he’s horrified at the fact the insect demons he’s killing were once innocent children turned into monsters by Rosine, but ultimately justifies taking their lives along with Rosine because they’re not human anymore. Even at his most blood crazed, Guts still saves Jill, dousing her with demon egg sac juice when she catches fire. Guts definitely won’t harm innocent people if he can help it, but don’t expect him to treat you gently either.
- Blue Ursus: Possibly the one unspoken rule the delinquents of Gokumon Girls' High School abide by is to not attack or bother the girls who aren't delinquents themselves. Even when Ume and her faction are violently bearing down on Seina in an attempt to make her join them, they actively avoid going after the non-delinquent Maya and Fumina despite them being Seina's Best Friend and elder sister respectively.
- A Certain Magical Index: Accelerator, for all his sadism in combat, holds the attitude that innocents should be left out of the conflicts of "the dark side" of the world. His definition of "innocent" is pretty narrow, though. Attack him, however ineffectively, or just be involved in shady dealings, and you deserve whatever's coming to you, as far as he's concerned.
- Code Geass: Sort of, since Lelouch Lamperouge doesn't kill innocent civilians. However, they are still in danger of getting killed if they are accidentally caught in a crossfire.
- Light Yagami in Death Note thinks of himself as this; his stated intention is to kill all the criminals in the world to make it safe for innocents. But he's really bad at that in practice. As soon as he hears that L plans to stop him, he shifts right into "all who oppose me must die" mode.
- He manages it alright during the Yotsuba Arc, where it's shown (as if we weren't already aware) that his morals when he doesn't own a Death Note are an almost direct lift from his father — which brings them both into conflict with L.
- Dragon Ball:
- Tien, Piccolo and eventually Vegeta and Buu start practicing this. Tien in the original anime even gets on his knees and bends his head in apology to a man he crippled in a fight in the past. Piccolo apart from beating the shit out of poor little kid Gohan as part of his Training from Hell hasn’t harmed any innocent people. He is also willing to punch Pan (a three year old) during training in Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero though unlike with her father, Piccolo does hold back from tossing her at mountains. Vegeta and Buu have colossal body counts but after bonding with the Z-Fighters they eventually stop killing innocent people, Vegeta protecting civilians from Hirudegarn in Dragon Ball Z: Wrath of the Dragon and even saving a Namekian boy from Moro in the Dragon Ball Super manga.
- Generally what sets 17 and 18 apart from their psychotic Bad Future selves is that they don’t harm any innocent people, or anyone who doesn’t attack them first. In the manga at least. In the anime, they have absolutely no qualms hurting people that bother them during their road trip of hunting Goku. 17 in particular kills several rowdy bikers and in his cameo in the Buu Saga he points a rifle at two hunters while giving Goku energy.
- Nuova Shenron of Dragon Ball GT. After knocking Pan out, when Goku demands he put her down, Nuova does just that without a word and fights him, stating he won't hurt innocent people.
- In Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero Dr. Hedo and his superhero androids Gamma 1 & Gamma 2 hold to this, they were initially oblivious to the Red Ribbon Army’s evil nature and genuinely believed their propaganda that the Z-Fighters were an Alien Invasion. They were openly disgusted over Magenta holding Pan hostage and when Carmine tries to kill Pan, Gamma 1 immediately defects along with his twin. They aid the Z-Fighters in beating Cell Max and even join the Capsule Corporation.
- Fabricant 100: While No 100 has promised to Ashibi to never take anyone's organs, Mortsafe agrees to ignore her only for as long as no human is hurt during their Fabricant hunts.
- Fullmetal Alchemist: Greed and Scar fall into this.
- Greed is greedy for followers, so he has no interest in harming innocents. Eventually, he actually tries to save people. This is a sharp contrast to the rest of his siblings.
- Scar starts off as a Serial Killer targeting only State Alchemists, generally those who fought in and committed genocide during the Ishvallan War, although he also tries to kill the protagonist, who was only a child during the war and wasn't involved at all. His only sin (in Scar's eyes) is that he does work for the military dictatorship that started the war.
- Scar also draws a line between combatants and civilians. When Winry discovers he killed her parents, she aims a gun at him. Scar tells her she has her sympathies, and she's not wrong to try to kill him, but the second she pulls the trigger, she's his enemy.
- In Hunter × Hunter, Zeno Zoldyck is a ruthless assassin and has killed thousands of people in contracts over decades, but is completely unnerved when one of his stronger attacks ends up mortally wounding a civilian in the area and forfeits the job, mentioning he just killed someone unrelated to the job for the first time and is visibly upset.
- In Jujutsu Kaisen, this is a line many sorcerers won't cross, including Satoru Gojo. Jogo, Hanami, Choso and Mahito take advantage of it by fighting him in a crowded area where he can't use his most powerful attacks. When Gojo snaps and decides to cut lose and use his Domain Expansion, it's a sign of how much pressure they've put on him; luckily, Gojo is able to use Unlimited Void for just long enough that the civilians will not suffer permanent damage (though they do become unable to function normally for a few months afterwards).
- In Killing Bites, the fact that Hitomi feels guilty about killing Nomoto (who had been nothing but compliant) surprises even her. Being an anti-hero, though, she feels no compunctions about roughing up innocents who are unhelpful or just plain annoying.
- Maria no Danzai: Maria is willing to cross a lot of lines in order to murder Okaya's gang, but harming people who played no part in Kiritaka's death is not one of them:
- While at first she considers killing Iijima for being a loose end that could potentially connect her to Shikimi's death, Maria is ultimately convinced by a vision of her dead son to spare his life, and she decides to silence him by other means later. Yuda kills Iijima anyway after Maria leaves to kill Shikimi.
- During the Cultural Festival, Maria ponders whether a bomb that Okaya had planted in order to bait her may or may not be real, but in the end decides that risking innocent lives for the sake of her revenge is unacceptable and attempts to defuse it anyway even though it risks exposing her real identity.
- Negima! Magister Negi Magi: Just about every major villain to appear generally falls into this. Chao took great pains to see that no one would be injured, and Negi is the only person that she actually fought seriously against. Later on, Fate has stated that he has no desire to hurt anyone except those who are actively opposing his plans and that the only person he actually wants to kill is Nodoka, as her Telepathy makes her too dangerous to his plan. It's actually a bit of a Double Subversion, as his ultimate plan seems to be erasing the magic world from existence, but he thinks that he's doing everybody a favor.
- Even the demons summoned in the Kyoto arc (not counting the Demon God); when they just think they're being sicced on "ordinary teenage girls" assure Asuka and Setsuna that they'll just beat them up; not kill them or anything.
- One Piece:
- The series introduces Smoker to the audience in an interesting way. All marines up to this point are mostly corrupt and some are outright murderous. When Smoker is introduced, a young girl smacks into him and spills her ice cream on his pants. Instead of responding with violence, Smoker comically apologizes for his pants "eating her ice cream" and gives her money to buy more, much to the shock and thanks of her father. Only minutes later in the episode, Smoker absolutely destroys an entire pirate crew in combat, and in subsequent episodes tries to kill Luffy because he's a pirate.
- The Straw Hat Pirates, Red Hair Pirates, Whitebeard Pirates and Heart Pirates don’t attack or rob innocent people. Luffy and Shanks’s crews have both aided innocent civilians and protected them from actual bad guys. The Kid Pirates are big exceptions among the Main Characters having actively hurt and killed innocent people. This massively bites Kidd in the ass when he attacks the village Shanks was protecting — at which the Yonko one shots him and destroys his crew without any hesitation.
- The Revolutionaries only target the World Government and Celestial Dragons, as they want to protect innocent civilians from them. They also make a point of not attacking the royals of the four seas, despite their connection to Mary Geoise. That being said, they will make exceptions for particularly vile and corrupt monarchs, as seen in Kuma’s flashback.
- Kanone in Spiral has a strict rule to only kill Blade Children. This is something that is used by Ayumu to help defeat him. Kanone has amazing reflexes, but he always makes himself pause for a moment to ensure he is not killing a normal human rather than Blade Children. So Ayumu takes advantage of that.
- SPY×FAMILY:
- Agent Twilight aka Loid Forger is a top spy who prefers to only use lethal force against armed, hostile individuals, and makes a principle out of minimizing the hurt and distress to anyone else who might be caught in the crossfire. Even when a trained bomb-dog attacks him, Twilight goes out of his way to non-lethally incapacitate it and remove the bomb rather than killing it, partially on the grounds that an animal can't be blamed for the actions of the humans who made it a weapon.
- Likewise, his wife, Yor Briar (later Forger), is a professional assassin who needs to constantly remind herself of this, because whenever an everyday problem comes up, her first choice to solve it usually involves killing someone. Mission 29 also reveals Yor carefully goes through intelligence on her targets, and all are unrepentant criminals actively hurting her country and its people.
- While Tiger & Bunny's Lunatic will kill criminals and attack people who aid criminals (like, say, heroes trying to prevent his assassinations), he won't hurt someone he sees as innocent according to his moral code. So when he realizes that Kotetsu has been Unpersoned and framed for murder, he's the first to help him out.
- In YuYu Hakusho, Younger Toguro mostly will not harm innocent humans or demons unless either they go against his master plan, they are contract kills, or they are fighting against him in a competition. But that's only if he's in his more human forms. If he's at more than even 70% power (meaning 70% demon), all bets are off, evidenced by his willingness (almost eagerness) beginning at 85% power to vacuum the souls of apparitions in the bleachers of the Dark Tournament to feed his power even further.
Toguro (Human Form): "I only kill true fighters and job assignments. You're neither. So run along."
Comic Books
- Batman: In the Batman Vampire series, after having fully succumbed to his vampire nature and bloodlust in Crimson Mist, Batman still makes it a point not to kill innocents and just targets other crooks for their blood; he even reflects that most of the prisoners of Blackgate are in for theft or less and don't deserve to be drained by him. However, even Batman himself knows that it's only a matter of time before he runs out of criminals to feed on and turns to civilians.
- Black Magick: Backmatter of the first issue shows that, though Aira has no compunctions about hunting and executing people that use Black Magic, their members are taught that they cannot succumb to zealotry or paranoia: They have to make sure the witches they are executing are witches to be executed. They force themselves to watch the Catholic Church burn an innocent girl so that they know the risks of allowing themselves to convict an innocent.
- Deadpool: Deadpool criticizes a group of mercenaries who saved him from jail by killing everyone who was guarding him. When they insist it doesn't matter because they're just cops, Deadpool snaps back that they were only trying to protect their people (the town was currently infested with zombies... long story). And then he kills them all and goes on alone.
- Deathstroke: Deathstroke is another case of Depending on the Writer. During the controversial Titans issue where he murdered Ryan Choi, Deathstroke notably spared the life of Choi's girlfriend Amanda, stating that she had nothing to do with the battle.
- The Flash: The Rogues are generally made up of people who probably wouldn't make a plan around shooting an old lady crossing the street. Explicitly stated a few times as something of a survival strategy. They really don't expect superheroes to intentionally kill them, but they know being homicidal maniacs will bring more than just the (usually rather reasonable, and sometimes even friendly) Flash down upon them. Many of them are also probably self-aware enough to know that their issues combined with killing needlessly would probably land them somewhere like Arkham, and they know they don't want to be cooped up with the kind of people that wind up there.
- Ghost Rider: The Spirits of Vengeance, entities whose purpose is to punish the guilty for their sins. Consequently, despite their brutal methods, they never target innocents. Unfortunately, their human hosts are usually in the driver’s seat, leading to some fallibility. A good example is when Johnny Blaze killed Dr Strange because he thought he was Satan (he got better).
- Harley Quinn: Depending on the Writer, this can be the case with Harley. During her solo series, she never killed cops, guards, superheroes, or bystanders, usually leaving them knocked out or Bound and Gagged instead. When she did kill someone, it was usually made clear they were a "bad" person. Other stories, however, do show her taking innocent lives (or at least endangering them), usually at the behest of The Joker.
- The Incredible Hulk: The Hulk is like this. He may rage to high heaven and destroy an entire city, but he has never killed anyone deliberately... or even accidentally! Best not to think about the latter too much. Ultimate Hulk is, quite graphically, as far from this as you can get. Then came the "Heart of the Monster" story arc in Incredible Hulks when he wound up in the Dark Dimension. Where no one is innocent. And his ex-wife and his worst enemies were there too.
- Marvel Universe: The Scourge of the Underworld operate by this, but it's down to their own warped code. They won't attack anyone they think is innocent, and on occasion hold off on murdering supervillains because there's a hero in the way and the Scourges feel they're on the same side (one even gets confused when Captain America attacks him). However, they will kill anyone who works for a target, even if it's just being a cook, because they're considered guilty by association.
- The Mighty Thor: Skurge the Executioner fought on the side of evil in an effort to win the love of Amora the Enchantress. However, he was brave and noble, and never attacks anyone besides his target. In one story, Thor realized the Skurge he was fighting was an imposter because the fake slapped a child in his path. In The Super Hero Squad Show, he surrenders when he accidentally knocks a frozen solid Valkyrie off a building, where she would have shattered if Thor hadn't caught her.
Skurge: (while using a heat blast to defrost Valkyrie) "My mad love for Amora almost cost an innocent's life!"
- Poison Ivy: Ivy like her off-and-on again girlfriend Harley can be written as this. Most notably in Batman: No Man's Land she adopts several children who orphaned by the earthquake and genuinely looks after them like a real mother. Ivy is not at all happy when the police try to take them away from her and breaks out the killer plants in retaliation. In most other comics Ivy only sees plant life as worth caring for.
- The Punisher: In The Punisher MAX at least, this is one of the reasons the Punisher is an Anti Hero. He takes great pains to avoid civilian casualties while he's gunning down dozens of mooks, and at one point he nearly kills himself because he thinks he shot an innocent. note The mainstream Punisher, depending on who's writing him, is portrayed as trying to not kill innocent civilians or the superheroes who try to stop him. Of course, other writers have had him attempting to gun down jaywalkers. And he did kill off his sidekick's girlfriend while brainwashed, though at an earlier time, being ordered to kill Spider-Man (an innocent) broke the brainwashing a different villain subjected him to. note
- During The Punisher: Welcome Back, Frank arc, Frank runs into a trio of vigilantes who use him as a role model. Trouble is, Elite's only interested in keeping filth (read:non-WASPs) off his streets, the Holy is a religious lunatic, and Mr. Payback unloaded a heavy machine gun on full-auto into a boardroom of Corrupt Corporate Executives... and shot a cleaning lady when the bullets kept going. So Frank just kills them all.
- Spider-Man:
- Venom, Depending on the Writer. Even during those times, though, even if he'd never hurt anyone he decided was innocent, it's hard to know who will or won't fit the criteria (due to his being Ax-Crazy, if less so than Carnage.)
- Demogoblin, a demonically possessed variant of the Green Goblin/Hobgoblin/etc. was out to kill all sinners in the world. His final death was saving a mother and child from a collapsing church.
- Kraven The Hunter, Depending on the Writer, he was willing to kidnap Gwen during the time Spidey, J.Jonah and Gwen visited the Savage Land but otherwise he generally doesn’t target or hurt civilians unconnected to him. It’s not out of compassion, there’s just no sport in it.
- Spawn: Despite being a Hellspawn with demonic powers, Spawn avoids harming innocents if he can.
- Teen Titans: Cheshire started off like this. One Action Comics story had her assuring a Bound and Gagged hostage that she had no intention of harming him since she just needed him out of the way for a little bit in order to kill her real target.
- The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye: The Decepticon Justice Division claim this, as their purpose is to hunt down traitors and make examples of them in grotesquely brutal fashion, and don't concern themselves with anyone who isn't on their list. Of course, the key word here is "claim", as the DJD are such fanatic believers of Decepticonism that they only ever spare Cybertronian bystanders and will gladly tread over any and all organics, innocence be damned.
- Usagi Yojimbo: Despite being an Ax-Crazy Serial Killer, Jei never turns his blade on an innocent. Unfortunately, his idea of "innocent" is...somewhat skewed.
- Watchmen: Rorschach’s biggest redeeming quality, is that for all his alt-ring wing flaws and Black-and-White Insanity — he would never hurt an innocent civilian, especially women and children (cops attacking him is another story). His reasons for Jumping Off the Slippery Slope in the first place was the horrific murder of little Blair Roche at the hands of a depraved kidnapper, causing him to start Pay Evil unto Evil on rapists and pedophiles. This is what sets Rorschach apart from Hidden Villain Ozymandias, whom is willing to kill innocent people from his just secretary while faking his assassination attempt, to three million people in New York in his bid to create world peace.
- X-Men: Depending on the Writer, Magneto can be one of these. It's generally a given that he won't take a mutant life if he can help it, and, if he's one of his less megalomaniacal moods, will avoid attacking humans that aren't his targets or against him (in his other moods, all humans are his targets). Sometimes this trope can make Magneto even crueller since while he usually won’t hurt an innocent, he won’t help them either since he considers those who don’t help his cause an Accomplice by Inaction.
Fan Works
- All For Luz: Luz Noceda is now fine with killing her enemies when forced to do so. But the blood of the innocent spilled by her unintentionally or otherwise? Not so much. At least until she goes full supervillain. She won’t hurt innocents on purpose, but she won’t lose any sleep over them being caught in the crossfire.
- Angel of the Bat III: Da Pacem Domine: Ordinarily, because the Spectre’s powers are based around retribution for sin, its powers cannot affect anyone its host considers innocent. Given the Knight Templar nature of the villain, Kedar, seeking to steal its power, however, virtually no one is safe. Virtually because, as a committed Catholic, Kedar believes anyone who has completed confession and contrition is free of sin. Cassandra was unknowingly granted one just before the final battle, so the Spectre’s power had no effect on her.
- Fade: Light invokes this, as he knows that if he were to subvert it for any reason, his likelihood of becoming like the Kira in the story increases. L, on the other hand, is worse than canon!Light in this regard. Whereas almost all the innocent people canon!Light killed were people opposing him, L has no issue killing random people off the street to achieve his goals.
- A Game of Cat and Cat: Nanashi kills because he needs to eat human brains, but only targets those who deserve it; to this end, he disguises himself as a young homeless girl to see who tries to mug the monster. He spares those who help, or even ignore the little girl, and when Soma outs him as the killer, opts to stun him and run rather than fight back.
- Hunters of Justice: Control Freak may be a self-stylized villain and threaten people over petty reasons, but he never wants to hurt anyone he doesn't think deserves it. When hijacking a film studio, he created a legion of Stormtroopers to act as perimeter defense because he knew that their terrible aim would scare off people without actually harming anyone.
- One helluva time with Iruma kun, Husk is a former Overlord who doesn’t regret his history of buying and gambling with souls. However, his past victims were all Sinners, humans who went to Hell for their crimes. After seeing Iruma Suzuki, an innocent living human, Dragged Off to Hell by Alastor, Husk makes it clear that he would never buy the soul of an innocent human.
- In the Turning Red fic Turning Red: Secrets of the Panda, Howard Mitchell only goes after the giant red pandas (who he doesn't consider innocent), and never tries to hurt anyone else (which includes Mei's friends).
Films — Animated
- Played with and subverted with Pitch Black in Rise of the Guardians. He’s perfectly willing to let Jack Frost off with a warning before he sides with the Guardians officially, dismissing him as a neutral party. However, this is in the first half of the movie when he’s in charge of the plot and can afford being relatively principled. When he’s on the verge of losing, Pitch is perfectly willing to attack children.
- In Aladdin and the King of Thieves, Cassim reveals that he added this to the code of the Forty Thieves after becoming their leader.
- In Batman: Under the Red Hood, the Red Hood warns all of the drug dealers in Gotham to pay up to him and to not sell to children, before showing them the heads of their top dealers in a duffel bag.
Films — Live-Action
- Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice: Batman's moral code more closely follows this than a standard Thou Shall Not Kill belief system, as he doesn't seem to be concerned with saving criminals from collateral damage like explosions. The horrifying realization that Superman was Raised by Humans and his adoptive mother is being used as a hostage over him (along with the fluke of both their mothers having the same first name) is what gets him to realize that Superman is an innocent and not a threat to humanity.
- Big Trouble: Henry and Leonard don't try to kill Puggy after he sees their faces and wait until Anne and Jenny aren't in the line of fire before shooting at Arthur.
- Die Hard with a Vengeance: Most of Simon's soldiers follow this, as they go out of their way to take down police and civilians non-lethally, express concern over one of their disabled bombs being "found by some children", and Simon's infamous "Of course not; I'm a soldier, not a monster" response when it's found out the "bomb" he left in the school was merely a distraction filled with corn syrup. Keyword being most: one of his goons gleefully guns down a cop (and is immediately chastised for it), of course his Dragon / Love Interest is a batshit insane murderous knifer, and Simon himself will gleefully kill an innocent for getting in his way too much or being friends with the "dumb Irish flatfoot who threw his brother out a window".
- Dolls (1987): Gabriel, Hilary, and the dolls gladly punish any bad or evil people who come into their mansion by killing them and turning them into dolls. But they are perfectly nice to children like Judy or good, child-like adults such as Ralph.
- The Godfather: Michael Corleone is somewhat more lax in his standards of justice than his father, but at least in Part I, his victims are still all more evil than he is. Less so in Part II.
- Heat: Ultimately, this trope is what separates Neil and Vincent from each other even though they're similar in many aspects: during the shootout in downtown Los Angeles, Vincent tries to protect as many innocent civilians as he can and get them out of harm's way, while Neil has no qualms shooting into crowds of people and lets one of his crew take a little girl hostage so that he can escape.
- Hellraiser: Zig-zagged. In the second film, the demonic cenobite Pinhead protects a psychiatric patient who was manipulated into summoning him via an Artifact of Doom, saying "It is not hands that summon us; it is desire." On the other hand, the cenobites generally don't mind doing horrible things to humans who slip into the "collateral damage" category.
- In Bruges: Ken, Ray, and Harry are very specific about never killing anyone who is innocent (particularly notable with Harry since he is otherwise quite sociopathic). At one point, Harry is very careful not to shoot in a crowded area, and both he and Ray adamantly refuse to fight with a pregnant woman standing between them. When Harry believes himself to have accidentally murdered a child at the end, he immediately commits suicide because he considers what he has done to be unforgivable.
- They mostly adhere to this. Given their profession, it's more like never hurt an innocent without a "good" reason. Children are the main way it's played completely straight — while the story is the result of Ray accidentally killing a child, and Harry commits suicide because he thinks he did, the child Ray killed was behind his target, a priest who just got in the way of Harry's business. Ray does assume he was following this fairly closely until he finds out about that, though.
- Inside Man: The robber running the bank job will not hurt anyone who doesn't force him to do so, kills no one, and is actually trying to bring down someone who did kill many innocents.
- John Q.: The only thing the main character cares about is his son, and has no intention of killing anyone.
- John Wick 1: Never outright stated, but implied. During the club scene, John avoids several shots at Iosef that would risk hitting bystanders or Iosef's Human Shield. Later on, when invading Viggo's stash of blackmail information, John shoots all the guards without a second thought but lets the two helpless secretaries working there leave unharmed.
- Jumanji: Egomaniac Hunter Van Pelt is summoned by the game to hunt Alan, who rolled him up — but, as it turns out, only Alan. Van Pelt can't or won't directly harm anyone else (and lampshades this), though he has no compunctions on collateral damage in the process of slowing Alan down, as long as nobody else gets anything worse than an inconvenience. He even legally buys a new gun when his old one runs out of ammo, and is fairly polite throughout the transaction.
- Averted in the reboot, when Van Pelt is instead a cursed being made of animals who wants to kill Dr. Bravestone and his associates... even though said associates are five ordinary teenagers trapped in a video game.
- Mission: Impossible Film Series: Throughout, Ethan and his team never hurt innocent people. Of note, almost every film has him pursued by an Inspector Javert (and team), and he never hurts them either.
- Mission: Impossible (1996): Ethan specifically stops Kiriger from killing a guard at Langley, telling him "No bodies."
- Mission: Impossible II: Lampshaded by Ambrose, who notes that Ethan will take the much more difficult option of breaking into Biocyte via the roof, specifically so that he won't have to kill any innocent guards in the lobby.
- Mission: Impossible – Fallout: The mission in Paris is compromised when a random and innocent French police officer stumbles onto the team. That Walker is willing to kill her is (another) hint that he isn't a good guy.
- The Killer (2024): Zee refuses to harm innocent people, always asking whether her targets deserve death. She rebels against Finn, her handler, when her scruples make her save Jenn, a witness to her latest hit.
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Captain Jack Sparrow is willing to kill other pirates or officials of the East India Trading Company if they give him a legitimate reason to do so, but he has gone so far as to sacrifice at least three chances at immortality to save good men and women who he had come to care for when it was the only way to save their lives. On another personal note, Jack has consistently avoided killing anyone who is not actively trying to kill him, preferring to avoid or escape soldiers who are just trying to arrest a pirate rather than people with a specific vendetta against Captain Jack Sparrow.
- Predator: The Predator species generally avoids killing unarmed opponents, since they considered it poor sport. This also includes weak prey such as pregnant women, children, and cancer-afflicted humans. Only when they actively pose a threat anyway do the Predators consider them fair game.
- The Professional: Leon has very simple rules about his clients: "No women, no kids, that's the rules."
- The Rock: Francis Hummel takes innocents hostage and threatens to launch a chemical strike at San Francisco, but he refuses to harm any of his prisoners and deliberately sabotages his own missile launch to avoid civilian casualties. And just before he takes over Alcatraz, he has a bunch of kids on a field trip and their teacher get out of the complex.
- Scarface (1983): One of Tony Montana's good traits. He blew the brains out of an assassin he was supposed to drive around because he was willing to kill the target's wife and children just to get him.
- Silent Night, Deadly Night: Billy goes on a rampage to punish those who are naughty while leaving those who are deemed nice alone.
- The Star Chamber: Hardin refuses to see two men die who are innocent of murder, although they're possibly guilty of others (it's shown they have committed serious crimes, though murder is not shown to be one.) Caulfield, on the other hand, argues they can't risk exposing themselves and have to pursue the greater good-plus as stated the criminals were guilty of something, in an impromptu debate on morality.
- Star Wars: Since the Jedi are peacekeepers this is a natural rule for them. They have respect and compassion for all life and frown upon hurting the innocent, unlike their Evil Counterparts the Sith.
- Suspect Zero: Mackelway argues O'Ryan isn't Suspect Zero to his boss by noting he's spared the life of a highway patrol cop who stopped him, only stealing his car and gun though he could have murdered the man easily. All other people who O'Ryan killed had turned out to be vicious serial killers. He turns out to be right. He threatens Mackelway, though only as a test or for Suicide by Cop at the end.
- Terminator 2: Judgment Day: John Connor tries to get the T-800 to do this by asking him not to kill anyone. The terminator complies by shooting a security guard in the knees. When John protests the Terminator coldly responds "He'll live."
- Thor: Thor invokes this when Loki unleashes the Destroyer (not quite a Giant Mecha but has a proportionally similar impact) on a small New Mexico town. It’s one of the film’s most emotional moments, and one that sets Thor up for his final redemption arc.
Thor: "Brother, however I have wronged you, whatever I have done that has led you to do this, I am truly sorry. But these people are innocent, taking their lives will gain you nothing. So take mine, and end this."
- Van Helsing: The titular monster hunter strictly follows this rule and won't even kill monsters unless they are evil:
Van Helsing (On Frankenstein's monster): My life, my job is to vanquish evil. I can sense evil. This thing, man, whatever it is... evil may have created it, may have left its mark on it. But evil does not rule it, so I cannot kill it.
- Venom (2018): By the end, Eddie has warmed up to the idea of hosting the Venom symbiote, even though he eats people, on the grounds that he only eats bad people. The sequel shows the "do not eat" order extends to all people who might not be bad; even when visiting a maximum security prison, he refuses to let Venom go after any inmates, because things like frame-ups, false confessions, plea bargains, and plain bad luck mean that there may well be people there who were actually innocent of the crimes for which they were convicted. Unless there's ironclad proof and he's seen it for himself, they're off-limits. (There also seems to be a certain level of "bad" that they have to meet; he won't let Venom eat a purse-snatcher, but gives him the go-ahead for a man running a Protection Racket on Mrs. Chen whom she's obviously very afraid of.) Venom's willingness to adhere to this policy sets him apart from every other Symbiote we've seen thus far, who are Always Chaotic Evil.
- The Windmill Massacre: The Miller is the servant of the Devil and can only reap those whose souls are bound for Hell. He is forbidden from harming the truly innocent or those who have truly repented of their sins. He has a human servant who is not bound by this restriction and can dispose of these annoyances for his master.
- X-Men Film Series: Magneto is usually like this. In Last Stand a family are trapped in their car when the bridge is moved, and once it is moved, Magneto notices them, frowning in surprise. The mother locks the door and he turns away smiling. He also seems not to toss that particular car, and with a couple of notable exceptions (Rogue and possibly the policemen guarding Mystique), most of the people he kills are cases of Jerkass Victim (e.g. the security guard and Stryker). The exception is attempting to turn Stryker's plan in X2: X-Men United around to kill all non-mutants, though that was more impersonal.
Literature
- Artemis Fowl: When Artemis is accused of being just as bad as the current villain, he uses this trope as a defense.
- Discworld
- Going Postal: This is something Moist von Lipwig prides himself on. Subverted when Pump 19 tells him that Moist's cons and scams, while not hurting anyone directly, have caused harm equivalent to the murder of 2.338 people. This is brought home when he learns that a previous job of his working to defraud banks working with bonds and letters-of-rights made his love interest lose her job. In the TV adaptation, the number of people Moist "killed" increases to 22.8 and his fraud causes the bankruptcy of his love interest's family (and gave the book's Big Bad the opening he needed).
- The members of the Assassins Guild could be argued to fit this trope. They would never kill (or ‘inhume’ as they call it) someone unless they are paid to do so and the victim (client) must have a sporting chance. They won’t take out a contract on someone who can’t defend themselves but if you can afford a bodyguard then you’re automatically deemed able to do so. They prefer to inhume their clients at their place of work or at home rather than the street. Although it’s acceptable for them to inhume a client’s bodyguard or another assassin while performing their service, they wouldn't dream of killing an innocent maid who just happened to be in the house at the time. They are polite, efficient and will even clean up afterwards.
- The Dresden Files: One of the things that makes "Gentleman" Johnny Marcone a Noble Demon (despite being The Don of Chicago) is the fact that he goes out of the way to ensure children never suffer the ill effects of his "business." If someone in his organization hurts or sells drugs to a child, God help them. In at least one instance, he goes out of his way to help Harry when he finds out that a child is going to be part of a ritual Human Sacrifice. In fact, having been involved in a shootout in which a young girl was shot and rendered comatose is what gives him the will and drive to control the criminal underworld and make it less dangerous.
- Shadow of the Conqueror, Daylen fits the "anti-hero" version of this trope. As a Vigilante Man who adopts Pay Evil unto Evil as his creed, he vows to kill himself if he ever kills a truly innocent person, as it would be a sign that he's gone back to his old ways.
- Star Wars Legends:
- Commander Thrawn tries not to kill anyone who isn't his enemy. He'll fire at Vagaari ships, which have Living Shields, saying that they are already dead; if the Vagaari's tactics don't kill them in this battle they will die in the next, and stopping the Vagaari now will save more people in the long run, but he's unhappy about doing this, and makes plans to avoid it in the next engagement. This may be an extension of his species' brand of Martial Pacifism, although Thrawn himself ignores their rules whenever they're inconvenient. He is deeply, deeply unhappy about what happened to the 50,000 innocents on Outbound Flight.
- In Outbound Flight he's about as non-evil as Thrawn gets. In later-set novels, while his plans and tactics show him to be A Lighter Shade of Grey and he avoids killing innocents when possible, he's very much more pragmatic.
- The stormtroopers who later form the Hand of Judgment get in trouble with the Imperial Security Bureau because at least one of them refused to shoot unarmed civilians, never mind that they were supposedly Rebels. This leads to him semi-accidentally killing the ISB officer who confronted him with a blaster, which leads to him and his friends deserting. That same stormtrooper, LaRone, who aimed to miss ends up being the leader of the group; another of them explains how, ending with the fact that refusing to kill innocents gives him the moral high ground. Confused, LaRone says that he thought all of them did that, and he is told, "I obeyed orders."
Live-Action TV
- Dexter: Dexter Morgan has an insatiable need to kill, but his foster father Harry helped him develop a code: he makes a point of only killing other killers, typically those who slipped through the cracks of the justice system. Not only is he setting a wrong right, but the death of an abhorrent criminal is much less likely to be followed up on. Which of these two points motivates Dexter's MO more is discussed more than once.
- Doctor Who: In the episode "A Town Called Mercy" The Doctor finds a town besieged by a cyborg gunslinger who keeps supplies from arriving and demands one occupant. When confronted by The Doctor, the cyborg confesses his strategy is to prevent others from getting in the way. Eventually, however, the gunslinger concedes that he needs to take a more direct approach which he re-evaluates on realising he is pointing his Arm Cannon at a child. He leaves the town without harming anyone.
- The Dukes of Hazzard: Boss Hogg never hurts innocent people. Sorrell Booke, the actor who portrayed him in the series, only agreed on the condition the character wouldn't do certain things. Hurting innocents was the most known item on the list.
- Game of Thrones: When the Free Folk sack Mole's Town, Ygritte finds Gilly and her baby son sheltering behind a curtain. As a "spear wife", she's just as fierce a fighter as her male counterparts and rarely has qualms about killing. In this case, though, not only does she not harm Gilly, but actively warns her to stay quiet to not attract the men's attention.
- Heroes: Sylar has made it clear that he doesn't just kill people for fun - only if he needs their powers. On the other hand, he has also made it very clear that he does enjoy killing people - even continuing to mutilate his victims after figuring out how to replicate their powers without doing so and commentating that he almost forgot what fun it was. Apparently the thrill of it is not enough to go after ordinary, and therefore useless, people though. In season 1, when Sylar first comes to the (incorrect) realization that he is the bomb that will blow up New York City and kill half the population, he goes through utter turmoil, asking Mohinder for help. According to him, he only kills because he sees it as an evolutionary imperative that he acquires new powers. He only kills evolved humans who have powers he wants. He does not want to kill 4 million regular humans. He eventually gets over it after (inadvertently) killing his mother.
- Peaky Blinders: The titular gang prefer to operate under this trope as a whole, particularly Tommy - they may be ruthless gangsters, but in general they usually go for people who are just as bad if not worse than they are. In Season Four, when Tommy is confronted by Luca Changretta and they discuss how their feud is going to go down, the very first condition Tommy gives is, "No civilians, no children", to which the former agrees to without issue.
- Power Rangers: A few villains, such as Ecliptor, Astronema, and Villamax have shown an unwillingness to harm innocent civilians, with the latter two even heroically saving innocents, the above three being prime examples of Noble Demon type villains (with Astronema even doing a Heel–Face Turn).
- Scream Queens (2015): In an odd move for a character who is essentially a Slasher, the Red Devil is very strict on who he kills, limiting himself to members, pledges, and employees of Kappa Kappa Tau. As long as you have nothing to do with KKT and avoid direct confrontations (e.g., trying to usurp his place as mascot, like Coney; or directly challenging them to a fight, like the Dickie Dollar Scholars), you will likely survive a run-in with the Red Devil. For example he knocks out Pete when he catches him snooping in the dean's office, but just does the equivalent of letting him off with a warning.
- Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: Cameron, being a good robot, is expected to avoid hurting innocents (although her definition of a non-innocent is sometimes called into question). However in one episode a bad robot is attempting to "kill" Cameron, and the fight continues in an elevator, but suddenly both combatants — including the bad robot — suspend their battle when an innocent bystander briefly boards the elevator. Possibly that had more to do with preserving the masquerade than anything else, at least on the other Terminator's part.
- The Thick of It: In a non-violent example, Malcolm Tucker states that he never targets "real people", although his actions at one point inadvertently cause Mr. Tickell to commit suicide.
- The Wire: Omar Little, badass Gayngster extraordinaire, has a code of honour that includes only robbing other criminals and never stealing from or harming anyone who isn't a part of The Game. "A man got to have a code."
Omar: Don't get it twisted, I do some dirt too, but I ain't never put my gun on nobody who wasn't in the game.
Tabletop Games
- Eberron: The Church of the Silver Flame that rules the nation of Thrane is founded on the concept of protecting the innocent from supernatural evil. Therefore, more than any other organization, they will never knowingly harm an innocent person. Of course, this being a Grey-and-Grey Morality world, there are many mistakes, incorrect assumptions, and justifications. Cardinal Krozen, for example, tends to define "innocent" as "citizen of Thrane who is not currently an obstacle in my path." Per Word of God, the Keeper of the Flame, Jaela Daran, represents the Church's idealistic side, while the Council of Cardinals represents its more pragmatic side.
Theatre
- Older Than Feudalism: In the Antigone, Creon stubbornly insists on punishing Antigone even when it's clear that this will do more harm than good, but relents from punishing Ismene once he realizes there's no evidence she was involved in her sister's crime.
Theme Parks
- In Universal Studios' Halloween Horror Nights, the Usher, unlike his more indiscriminate compatriots, will only kill people who break the rules of his movie theatre.
Video Games
- This is one of the main tenets of the Assassin's Creed. Altaïr's disregard for innocent lives and arrogance led to him being stripped of his rank within the Assassin Brotherhood. In-game, harming civilians will cause the player to "desync", since none of the playable Assassins killed civilians. Averted with Shay Patrick Cormac of Assassin's Creed Rogue, who as an Assassin turned Templar has no such compunctions.
- While being able to kill civilians in Rogue makes no sense at first, given that Shay leaves the Assassins precisely to avoid innocent bloodshed, it starts to make sense when you remember that Shay unwittingly caused the Lisbon Earthquake, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people, which is what caused him to leave the Brotherhood. He has, in a way, already killed civilians, so the Animus doesn't desync you if you do it.
- Also averted in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag where, when you sink civilian fishing boats, the game just states that Edward Kenway did not kill civilians without desyncing. Justified in that he only joins the Assassin Brotherhood later. In a later mission, however, Edward has to sneak through an Assassin village without killing any of the Order guards.
- This is also averted in Origins and Odyssey though more for the sake of gameplay than anything.
- Darkstalkers: Morrigan Aensland has never killed humans according to Capcom, that despite being a succubus who frequently visits the human world. She however has no problem draining Pyron, the main villain of the first two games, to death. In general Morrigan has no problem killing enemies out of love for combat but goes out her way to avoid killing innocent people. In most adaptations outside of the original video games however, everybody's a potential target.
- Dragon Quest Builders 2: In the Moonbrooke arc, the constant warfare sets off Malroth's Blood Knight instincts, cumulating in him leading a squadron of soldiers to a pointless charge that gets them all killed. He's flippant with their lives, saying They Knew the Risks, but he made sure the only civilian in the area, the local nun, was safe beforehand.
- Hitman: It varies. While Agent 47 is very much into Pay Evil unto Evil, he only cares about his contract and will kill innocent people if he's paid to. That said, for the sake of professionalism and avoiding unwanted attention 47 canonically avoids killing civilians and at most will simply knock them out.
- Fate/stay night:
- Lancer, mostly, because innocents are no fun to fight. He still 'silences' Shirou when the latter ends up causing a masquerade violation, but clearly doesn't like having to do it.
- Likewise, Saber refuses to harm innocent people and boost her strength by devouring their souls, as it goes against her code of honor as a knight.
- In Mass Effect 2, Justicar Samara's code prevents her from ever hurting an innocent person, even if she must allow a criminal to escape in order to prevent it. Apparently, this tenet of her code is overridden if that innocent person poses any threat to the Justicar herself or attempts to impede her investigations, though Samara is willing to exploit loopholes in her code to take alternate options when she can. It's more like they're no longer "innocent" if they are impeding the work of a justicar.
- Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain: Miller is adamantly against Venom Snake killing Child Soldiers. If Snake does so, it's an immediate game over and Miller will chew him out for it.
- In one mission, Snake is hired to kill a group of civil war prisoners in Africa, only those prisoners turn out to be child soldiers as well. Their leader wanted them dead so they couldn't give valuable information to their enemies. However, Snake and Miller conspire to fake their deaths and covertly bring them back to Mother Base and give the poor kids a shot at a normal life.
- In another mission in Africa, Snake has to use nonlethal weapons to incapacitate a group of child soldiers and Fulton extracts them off the battlefield.
- In The Godfather: The Game, while you can freely indulge in Video Game Cruelty Potential while free-roaming, some missions ask you not to kill innocents. Inverted in one contract hit, where you need to ensure there are no witnesses for the Respect and monetary bonuses - guess what?
- One of the rules that demons in the Reincarnation (2008) series must follow is that they cannot directly harm innocent humans when attempting to assassinate the Reincarnies. Nothing's stopping them from killing animals and indirectly setting up humans to be harmed while earning proof.
- In Scarface: The World Is Yours, Tony says that he cannot hurt civilians when he attempts to shoot one. However, he can still punch them and run them over with a car.
- Thief: Garret may be a thief and an outlaw, but he does not look kindly on harming innocents. Oh, the player may still do it, but it's considered a bad mark by the game.
- In Borderlands 2, Krieg's personalities have a simple agreement: the psycho side of Krieg can kill as many evil men and savage beasts as he wants, so long as he stays his wrath from the innocent. If the murderous side does harm an innocent, the moral half of his mind will take control and force them to immediately commit suicide. Pandora being Pandora the psycho side doesn't have much trouble complying.
- The Gerudo race in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time are an all-female race with their only male being Ganondorf. They are Desert Bandits that will steal from people, but they absolutely refuse to rob and/or harm women and children. Ganondorf, who is the leader of the Gerudo, has no problem hurting and stealing from anyone, which includes women and children, and is even willing to kill. Nabooru, the 2nd in command of the Gerudo, is absolutely disgusted by Ganondorf's lack of moral code and is willing to help Link overthrow him.
- DOOM: Doomguy is usually portrayed this way. If you're not a demon, and are not aiding demons, then he will not harm you. In Doom Eternal, the worst he does is give a mouthy guard an intimidating Death Glare before nonchalantly taking the guy's gun. It's also said the reason Doomguy was originally assigned to Mars was because he assaulted a superior officer... because said officer had ordered him to gun down civilians.
- In the Like a Dragon series and associated games, the main characters will not harm anyone unless they're attacked first or there's a very good reason. (One of the main differences between these games and, say, Grand Theft Auto is that you can only attack people on the street who attack you first—you can't just pull out a crowbar and wail on grandmas in the crosswalk.) This is because most of them are ex-yakuza members, and the yakuza have strict rules about not hurting people who aren't involved with yakuza business.
- In Yakuza 0 specifically, this is leveraged by protagonist Kiryu: he wants to temporarily quit the yakuza so he can find out who framed him for murder. Lieutenant Kuze refuses, then orders his men to kill Kiryu. Kiryu points out that Kuze can't have a fellow clan member killed without authorization from the higher-ups, so Kuze accepts Kiryu's request to quit, then attacks Kiryu. When the other lieutenants find out that Kuze attacked a civilian, they force him to cut off his pinky for breaking the laws of the clan.
- RUINER: What sets "Puppy" and HER apart from their enemies is this trope. The protagonist may slaughter his foes with sheer brutality, and HER may blackmail and manipulate through her way for her goals, but neither of them ever dare to harm an innocent. In fact, the former can put his quests on hold to help Rengkok's people with their own problems, and the latter wants to liberate the countless innocents that were exploited by HEAVEN.
- The Azuma Ninja from Tenchu firmly believe in this trope, which isn't surprising considering the lord they serve. Some of the loading screens before a mission in the first game will remind you not to harm Innocent Bystanders, and failure to do so will incur a penalty to your score at the end of the mission. In Fatal Shadows, one of the "bosses" in Ayame's path is a geisha named Tatsukichi who decides to fight Ayame to protect her lover Jyuzou even though it's clear that she's absolutely out of her depth (to the point that Ayame, who was rushing towards her and Jyuzou to fight, actually stops in her tracks to ask "...Are you serious ?"). While the player won't get punished for actually killing her (she's pitifully slow and has very little health), performing a grab on her will result in Ayame performing a Non-Lethal K.O. on her, fully aware that her opponent is merely a harmless civilian. Jyuzou will then reward Tatsukichi's selfless loyalty by killing her anyway .
Webcomics
- Grrl Power: Deus Superion apparently has a rule about this
: "Did he really make you watch a ten hour "This Was Their Life" presentation about the last "innocent" you killed?" The person asking was wanting to recharge a magical artifact in the shape of a knife (that seemed to require being used to kill a certain number of times to recharge its effect), and thought that a random killing would be covered up within other war-related deaths. The attempt to dissuade them also included the idea that Deus was "a stickler when it comes to people who "deserve it"."
- In the inn scene of The Order of the Stick, the assassins who are after the king of Nowhere try to avoid hurting anyone who is not involved. Too bad they think that Roy is the king of Nowhere, due to Who's on First? problems.
- In Schlock Mercenary, Tagon is faced with the choices of revealing the Gatekeepers are copying people using wormhole gates and then interrogating the copies, killing the copied people once the interrogation is finished and starting a war that would lead to the end of galactic civilization, or remain silent and let the gate clones continue to be killed, both of which result in massive loss of innocent lives.note
- Silvah of Inverloch is extremely reluctant to harm Lei'ella because he can effortlessly defend himself and he doesn't feel any enmity towards the Severed elves. He only stabs her when Raul points out her limited sense could still unravel their Evil Plan, but he's clearly pleased when he senses that she's been healed and refuses to go back and finish her off. The plan itself is not to directly kill anyone, either, despite being motivated by You Killed My Father. Rather, it's to turn the elves mortal and magicless like other races.
Web Original
- Dr. Horrible of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is this way, at least at first. He refuses to fight a hero in a park because children play there (well, that and he doesn't have time to fight every "poser in a parka"). He also tells a room full of civilians to flee before he tries to off the hero, Captain Hammer. Plus the fact that he never really crosses over the Moral Event Horizon completely shows that, even after getting a seat on the Evil League of Evil, he still has problems with truly hurting innocents.
- Deathstroke, the Big Bad of series one of Nightwing: The Series (found here), has this as one of his redeeming traits. In his Establishing Character Moment, he forces his way into Senator Hamilton Hill's re-election fundraiser and starts a fight with his bodyguards, then appears to take aim at a singer across the room only to shoot an armed guard behind her, allowing her and the rest of the party to leave unharmed. Later, when storming a nightclub to kill a target, he scares everyone out, bar one man that tries to hit him with a glass bottle and gives Nightwing the opportunity to leave (which he naturally doesn't accept). It later turns out that his superiors ordered him to murder children, and this is one reason why he is so hellbent on revenge.
- The Nostalgia Critic has a breakdown when his anger over Quest for Camelot makes him accidentally kill Mary Poppins, Dick Van Dyke, and Mickey Mouse.
- POWCreations: The more morally-grey anti-heroes generally follow the belief that innocents shouldn't be harmed, usually in contrast to morally darker members of the server who end up crossing the line to borderline to outright villainy.
- Pirates SMP: While in the middle of a "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Apo and Martyn on Day 106, after they kidnap Cruppy, the Faction Isles' de facto Team Pet, to torture information out of it, Kuervo, an aloof and world-weary tyrannicidal Rogue Soldier, declares that he'd rather do nothing than resort to the means they've gone to try to obtain information.note
- Rats: In Paris: While Ratman, the resident Vigilante Man, is understanding of Ros wanting to murder the other rats for allegedly leaving her to die in a cultic rat sacrifice, he's insistent that none of them ever kill for fun and to only hurt those who have hurt others before as revenge. When Korva dies in the play Ros organized after she joins up with said cult, Ratman is more outraged by the fact that Korva did nothing to deserve being killed than the fact that someone died at all.
- Agents in the Protectors of the Plot Continuum generally try to either recruit non-Sueish bit characters or let them assimilate into the canon. They also tend to do their best to save Sues' kids.
- In RWBY, Blake defected from the White Fang terrorists upon realizing that they would kill civilians. She describes this trope as the difference between activism and terrorism.
Western Animation
- Batman: The Brave and the Bold: The Spectre, as harsh as he is, directs his wrath firmly on those who willingly break the law. In one of his few Pet the Dog moments, he casually saves a crate of Dr. Milo's mind-controlled rats from falling debris.
Only the guilty will suffer tonight.
- Blue Eye Samurai: Mizu has no compunction about taking the lives of her enemies, but she tries to avoid innocents getting caught up in her quest. She repeatedly tries to dissuade Ringo from following her by pointing out that vengeance is a dark and bloody path (without success) and when she accidentally brings reprisals on a brothel owner she'd struck a deal with, Mizu stays and fights off the entire criminal gang alone instead of cutting and running even though she got the information she needed. When she realizes that her impulsive attempt to cut off Fowler's escape snowballed into all of Edo being set on fire, she's horrified.
- Justice League Unlimited: Despite her attempts to destroy the Justice League, Amanda Waller occasionally displays this. She is genuinely angry and horrified when General Eiling launches a kryptonite-lined nuclear missile at an island the League is helping to evacuate. Eiling claims he is taking out Superman and stopping the longtime flow of drug traffickers from the island ("two birds, one stone"), but Waller is stunned that he would be willing to sacrifice so many civilians to do it.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: A non-villainous example appears in "Griffon the Brush Off". Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash have a fun day pulling practical jokes on their friends in Ponyville, except for Fluttershy, whom they leave undisturbed because she's too innocent and sensitive for their pranks.
- Phantom 2040: Poignantly, The Dragon cyborg Graft stopped a fight he was winning when a kid got endangered.
- Sandman in The Spectacular Spider-Man was never truly malevolent, he was just in the villainy game for the money, and hoped having powers would finally get him the "big score" he always wanted. In episode 18, he helped save the passengers of a ship about to explode. A ship he was trying to rob until his fight with Spidey started a fire.
Spider-Man: Sandman, stop! You... [watches Sandman place the crewmen he'd grabbed into the life rafts] ...saved them?Sandman: I was just in it for the bucks. I never meant for this to happen.
- Kraven is similar. Despite priding himself on being the world's best hunter, he doesn't kill animals that he knows aren't acting dangerous of their own accord (such as when he spared a rampaging rhino because it was sick), and he only wants to kill Spider-Man, never going after anyone else.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012): Slash can be ruthless and brutal, but as revealed in "Newtralized!", he only wants to take out the Kraang and won't kill innocents. His partnership with the Newtralizer falls apart because the Newtralizer is an Ax-Crazy Knight Templar who's willing to do anything possible to take the Kraang down, up to and including leveling all of New York.
- Red X from Teen Titans seems to follow this principle—and it even applies (in a general sense) to the heroes. He's perfectly willing to curbstomp them and taunt them about it, but he's not trying to kill them and refrains from attacking them when they're down. Similarly, he's quite happy to steal expensive items from corporations, but when a supervillain threatened the city with a disintegrator cannon and Robin almost fell to his death, Red X chose to save Robin's life and help him defeat the supervillain rather than make a clean getaway.
- Non-villainous example happens in the Justice League episode "Hearts and Minds". While the Flash and Kilowog are searching John's apartment for his lantern battery, they're interrupted by John's rather paranoid landlady "armed" with a mop. Since Flash would clearly hurt her if he made any resistance to her "attacking" him, all he can really do is block her blows with his arms until Kilowog finds it so they can leave quickly, apologizing on the way out.
- X-Men: The Animated Series had Magneto take this role twice. The first is when he constructed an orbital safe haven for mutants and armed it with enough nuclear missiles to wipe out all life on Earth. Even he however is disgusted when he finds that Fabian Cortez fired off one of the missiles at Earth with the intent of kill normal humans simply because he hates them that much. Later at the end of season four during a Villain Team-Up with Apocalypse, he works with and then turns on him when he finds that Apocalypse' plan involved wiping out the whole of reality so he could recreate it in his own image, berating him a plan that would kill "the innocent along with the guilty." Even Apocalypse's minion Mystique turns on him by that point. Magneto expected Mr. Sinister to also have standard regarding the plan. He didn't. In both cases, Magneto having standards prompts a Heel–Face Turn.
- In He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (2021), both Teela and Duncan start the series aiding Evelyn and Kronis in their goal of usurping King Randor for the throne of Eternos. Teela is a Street Urchin hired to steal any relics related to the Power of Grayskull and Duncan is Kronis' apprentice. Teela steals the Sword of Power from the palace, but a guiding voice and Evelyn nearly killing royal guards only doing their jobs spur Teela to find the "Champion". Duncan's not comfortable with being a criminal, but goes along with Kronis up until he and Evelyn order him to burn down a village and kill its people so they can flush out Teela and the sword. Duncan defects and he and Teela join with Adam, Cringer, and Krass to eventually become the Masters of the Universe.
