choosing whether to kill someone to spare them suffering theme
A character must choose whether or not to kill another character in order to spare them from some perceived or anticipated suffering. The intended victim- cum-benefactor may or may not be consenting to the act.
14 total · 2 major · 12 minor
| Story | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| movie: Of Mice and Men (1939) | major | George ended up shooting Lennie himself rather than leave Lennie to the bloodthirsty vigilantes that were hunting him. |
| movie: The Illustrated Man (1969) | major | A husband and wife had to decide whether or not to follow the order to kill their children to save them from the coming horror of the end of the world in the "The Last Night of the World" subplot. |
| ahp5x05 | minor | Cindy briefly and insincerely tried to justify her homicidal inclination as being a kindness. |
| as1985e1x05 | minor | Static resolved to put a bullet in Jonathan's head to spare him a gruesome death in the ball turret, but he couldn't bring himself to pull the trigger when the time came. |
| movie: Alien vs Predator (2004) | minor | Lex reluctantly mercy killed Sebastian after he'd become parasitized by an Alien. |
| movie: Color Out of Space (2019) | minor | Nathan was on the verge of shooting his wife and son to put them out of their misery after they'd become fused together, but he changed his mind at the last second. |
| movie: Cosmic Sin (2021) | minor | Ford mercy killed Bleck. |
| movie: Full Metal Jacket (1987) | minor | the squad, and Joker in particular, deliberated whether to put the wounded sniper out of her misery |
| movie: Slither (2006) | minor | Police Chief Bill Pardy blew the brains out of an alien parasitized man who begged the officer to put him out of his misery. |
| movie: The Mist (2007) | minor | In the end, David shot dead his young son, Billy, to spare him the horror of dying horribly at the "hands" of the insect-like creatures. David, however, almost immediately came to regret his decision, as the military came rolling in shortly after he did the deed. |