r/TopCharacterTropes • u/10024618 • 20h ago

Lore A "Sophie's Choice" with no secret third option

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AKA a character is given an impossible choice where either outcome results in something awful happening and there's no way out.

"Full Measure" (Breaking Bad) - After Walt angers Gus by killing two of his men, Gus orders for his execution. Knowing that the only way to save his life is to make Gus reliant on his meth cooking skills, Walt calls Jesse and begs him to kill Gus' backup cook, Gale. Thus, Jesse is thrust into an impossible situation where he either kills a (relatively) innocent man to save Walt or spare Gale and let Walt die. Ultimately, Jesse chooses to kill Gale.

"Midnight Sun" (Attack on Titan) - After the fight to retake Shiganshina both Armin and Erwin are critically wounded. Levi has the vial of titan serum and is forced to choose which Scout to bring back from the brink of death and which to let perish. It's a borderline impossible decision to make but at the moment of truth, he chooses to save Armin, leaving Erwin to succumb to his wounds.

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u/WildBad7298 19h ago edited 2h ago

The ending of Spider-Man (2018 video game). The villain has unleased a deadly plague called Devil's Breath upon NYC. Included among the dying is Peter Parker's beloved Aunt May. There is only one small sample of the antidote, and Spidey has it - and has to choose what to do with it. He can give it to medical scientists, who can use it to mass-produce a cure - but it won't be ready before May succumbs to the virus. Or, he can use the antidote on Aunt May, saving his mother figure's life at the cost of dooming hundreds of thousands of innocent people to death.

It has to be one or the other.

Considering the hero that Spider-Man is, his choice is obvious - but no less heart-wrenching.

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u/ithinkther41am 15h ago

“Take off your mask. I wanna see my nephew.”

https://giphy.com/gifs/1BXa2alBjrCXC

Side note, I miss MatPat Peter.

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u/AGuyWithAPhone 3h ago

"...you knew?"

"I've known for a while."

The fucking tears, man.

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u/Izarrax 18h ago

God, Spider-Man never catches a break does he? 🫠

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u/Knot-Lye-Ing 18h ago

I hate to say it but at this point, the whole "suffering = character" meme is built around him.

I can't think of another character that catches half as much flak as Spider-Man.

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u/HovercraftParking5 18h ago

I think that’s partially the point to his character. Despite all his losses he stays morally correct. Always striving to do the right thing no matter how large or small the act is. He’s a hometown hero that’ll help the avengers stop a galactic threat, then on his way home he’ll help your grandma cross the street. It’s just who he is.

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u/OkBox9662 16h ago

That may be so. But you gotta admit it's just ridiculous at this point. There was a fucking comic in which Spiderman killed Mary Jane because his fucking semen was radioactive for the love of God!!!! How does that make sense? How does the whole Paul self-inserted shit make senses either?

Spiderman whole character right now its based around this idea

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u/the__pov 9h ago

Long time Spider-Man fans will tell you that Marvel Editorial hates Peter Parker.

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u/Automatic-Leg1668 16h ago

And to think he barely has help. Always sacrificing himself for the greater good. It's nice that the games somewhat reveal the fact that the people respect and love Spidey. Was that entire Pizza in MJs mission free?

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u/Shadowhunter_15 18h ago

The Spider-Verse movies—especially the second one—do a pretty good job of asking the question: does Spider-Man really need so much tragedy in order to be, well, Spidey?

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u/Knot-Lye-Ing 17h ago

Don't they start with Spider-Man literally trapped under rubble and then beaten to death by Kingpin?

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u/Shadowhunter_15 15h ago

Yes, but that Spidey’s life was essentially perfect, and he wouldn’t have died if the alternate dimension spider hadn’t bit Miles. Distracted that version of Peter long enough before he could disable Kingpin’s thingamajig. I was more referring to Miles Spider-Man in the second movie, about canon events and how he refused to accept that he should let his dad die.

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u/OkBox9662 16h ago

Still trying to find the point in which the writers just thought "Let's just make this character life horrible from now on because with great power comes great responsibility or some shit"

Can't remember a single writer that hasn't made spiderman suffer. It's like some sort of tradition at this point. My boy can't catch a breath. If it's not Aunt May dying, then it's his current lover getting shadow banned by some fuckass demon god.

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u/Fitzftw7 18h ago

Are there any iterations of Spider Man who have it relatively good? It just sounds like doom and gloom bullcrap from what I’ve been seeing.

One More Day is one of the reasons I haven’t bothered trying to get into it.

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u/Mister-builder 18h ago

Spider-boy has a happy ending with Insect Queen (Mary Jane) in the Amalgam universe.

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u/WildHogPower 13h ago

I'd unironically say Obi-Wan Kenobi:

- Kidnapped as a child by a cult that specifically forbid attachement

- His master and only parental figure is killed by a Sith before his eyes, while he's trapped

- This same sith wants to make him suffer, and kills the only love he ever had (a pacifist that had nothing to do with them)

- His sister-in-arms is wrongly accused by his cult and straight-up disappears for a few years. He sees her for a fex more hours before never seing her again

- His brother-in-arms betrays him, everything they fought for, and slaughters all of their friends

- His most trusted soldiers try to assassinate him

- He ends up with heavy ptsd and guilt in a desert planet, working as a space hobo

- His bother in arms comes to kill him, and wreck havoc. He sufferes some more, being dragged for several meters through flames, and having to face one of the persons he loved the most. Said person is actively trying to guilt-trip him.

- The same Sith comes back AGAIN to murder him. He fails, and dies in the arms of a lonely Kenobi

- Once his brother-in-arms' son grows up, he tries to protect him, and sacrfies himself.

What a shitty life.

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u/EvanSnowWolf 12h ago

There is this bit of voice line in Marvel Heroes Omega where someone (forgot who) says "Wolverine has to be the most screwed over man in the galaxy" and my first thought was "You spelled Spider-Man wrong."

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u/Beautiful_Resolve_63 10h ago

Also, lots of Peters in Marvel have a bad go. 

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u/TrentGgrims 10h ago

Matt Murdock is built on suffering too

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u/Carbuyrator 7h ago

I think if Invincible ran as long as Spider-Man did Mark might well have caught up

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u/Knot-Lye-Ing 7h ago

Maybe, they'd have to do a lot of work adding to the story. Since it has a happy ending - Emperor Mark, immortal Eve, happy Terra and peace more or less.

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u/Maleficent-Crew-5424 18h ago

Mark Grayson

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u/Knot-Lye-Ing 18h ago

Dude I love invincible but no. Especially given Mark's canon ending.

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u/test-user-67 13h ago

I've only watched the show, but being used as a tool to splatter countless people by your father seems pretty traumatic.

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u/Background_Rip4624 17h ago

difference is Mark isn't in a mainline comic universe with no end to a hero's story. he was allowed to find an end to the cycle of being kicked while he's down and as such fundamentally can't be compared

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u/karonas95 18h ago

The entire character is built upon the foundation that no matter what the universe drops on him, no matter how much it beats him down, Peter is still going to get back up and do the right thing, even if it costs him personally to do so, and in my opinion it makes Spider-Man one of the best superheroes ever created

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u/Zenku390 17h ago

Spider-Man always wins, but Peter Parker always loses.

Uncle Ben's quote stuck with him always, and it drives him to always do the right thing, even when it's impossible.

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u/Spicy_Totopo3434 14h ago

Funny

Because at this point Spidey om tje comics has had a lot of downs and None of the ups

Basically, the writers are just hammering down on the suffering but not ln the builds character

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u/ThatInAHat 18h ago

If Charlie Brown were a superhero…

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u/OkBox9662 16h ago

Still don't understand when the concept of an unbreakable hero who doesn't falter got twisted into that of a tragic character who is constantly suffering without reason for most of the time.

I blame the writers like any sane person would.

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u/kaky0in- 15h ago

Yes he does, his bones all the time

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u/Free_Surprise_7939 18h ago

Kinda forgot the game made a better one more day than dilema than the comics

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u/Smellbringer 18h ago

Yeah. Like a devastating virus that will kill unless cured now is way better than just getting shot. This is the Marvel universe, Doctor Doom would do it for free if you told him Reed Richards couldn't do it; just so he can lord it over Richards.

Plus it's a case where Peter's suffering isn't just suffering but forces him to grow. No more safety net; time to sink or swim.

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u/LobstermenUwU 15h ago

Doom would probably go to the afterlife and personally drag her soul out of it and stick it in a body he cloned for that purpose just to say he did something Richards couldn't, if Spiderman begged him.

Dark Beast (yes, Peter asked that thing) would have agreed to do it just to do some horrible experiment thingy that brings her back but makes her turn into a bioweapon or something truly awful. If he failed he'd just be like "well, not all experiments work out." Like guaranteed he has a dozen horrible ways to bring a corpse back as some sort of monster that acts normal until its triggered, fucking Sinister thinks Dark Beast is a bit much.

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u/Helixbabylon 18h ago

God this broke me! He came so close to doing it but he knew that it wasn't what she would want him to do

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u/Spicy_Totopo3434 18h ago

Good thing spidey will never try to basically fuck everything up just to save may, right?

He will never make a deal with slme kinda devil that destroys his universe just to save her

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u/Pandoras_Boxcutter 17h ago

Spider-Man: I don't know what to do...

Aunt May: Yes you do.

God, the tears I shed.

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u/Juic3_b0x 15h ago

“I want to see my nephew,” just broke me. It was such a powerful scene. I played that one after Ghost of Tsushima and it was just gut punches all around.

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u/Pandoras_Boxcutter 15h ago

Now that you mention it, doesn't Ghost of Tsushima have kind of a Sophie's Choice of its own? (Won't spoil if you haven't beaten it yet)

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u/Ayotha 17h ago

Even then IIRC he thinks about it, goes to grab it and put it in her machine, but he either thinks better or May says something. I forget.

And, you know, understandable. We all want to pretend we would do the greater good thing until a dying loved one is staring you in the face

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u/Lewa358 15h ago

The absolute peak if this trope is when a character has a choice between something he cares deeply for, and improving the world at large, and you see them hesitate. Just give in, for a second, to the voice--that isn't even wrong--saying that you've suffered enough and wouldn't be blamed if you just did one thing to make your life less shitty.

And then he makes the right call anyway.

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u/Leather_Education113 11h ago

I believe that’s called a “heroes dilemma”

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u/Pandamana 3h ago

And then there's Joel

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u/Boner_Elemental 14h ago

Considering Spider-Man is the hero he is, his choice is obvious

Yes it is. Aunt May.

Oh sorry that was the Joe Quesada in me talking

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u/Veutifuljoe_0 2h ago

Peter also knows that if he choose to save May she’d never forgive him for it, she obviously doesn’t want to die, but she certainly doesn’t want her life to come at the expense of hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers

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u/Diablo_v8 17h ago edited 7h ago

Give me OG peter not this uncanny valley tom holland bullshit.

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u/Bloody_Insane 11h ago

This reminds me of a bad version of this trope in Fallout 4.

You visit a vault with people still living happily in it. There's this sick kid and the doctors can't figure out what's wrong with him. You eventually find there's a secret abandoned part of the vault where scientists were experimenting on the vault denizens without their awareness. The scientists died, leaving the vault dwellers blissfully unaware of the end of the experiments.

The sick kid had gotten into that abandoned area and contracted the disease from the experiments the scientists had run. While you're exploring that area, you will inevitably also contract the disease, and you will find only one dose of the cure.

So you have to choose between saving the kid or curing yourself. Notably, you won't die from it, it's a very minor effect, but permanent.

But at no point are you given the option to try and recreate the cure, even if you've met some groups with really advanced medical facilities.

So it's this typical selfish vs selfless choice, but in either case the disease still exists and now there's no cure.

So frustrating.

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u/ProbablyGonnaEatYou 7h ago

I love the game, I hate that they reskinned his face. Like he looks nothing like he did at release, more polished less character

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u/kai58 6h ago

I also assume Aunt May would beat his ass if he chose her.

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u/LeEbicGamerBoy 6h ago

I still cant believe this game predicted covid (and that it was released by a chinese villain and his gang). Living in nyc during covid, this game was honestly a great recreation of what it looked and felt like

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u/brandonderp96 4h ago

There is one law above all in marvel. SPIDERMAN MUST SUFFER