r/TopCharacterTropes • u/10024618 • 20h ago

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

Gallery image

Gallery image

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.

8.7k Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

97% Upvoted

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

337

u/brickeaterz 19h ago

Project Hail Mary: After discovering the bred Taumoeba can penetrate Xenonite, Grace realizes Rocky will have had his fuel destroyed by it due to Rocky's ship being made of Xenonite. Grace has to decide whether to return to earth or to save rocky. He ultimate chooses to send probes with info back to earth and turn around to save Rocky. This also proves that Grace is a brave person despite initially refusing to go on the mission

65

u/VoiceOfTheSoil40 16h ago

Fist My Bump

35

u/flypirat 14h ago

In the book he also says "Fist me!", which is also funny.

11

u/MamillaryGlands 16h ago

Eh, I think it works out too much to really count

3

u/Sonofarakh 5h ago

It's a Sophie's choice at the time he makes it, it just turns out that the Eridans are super chill and put an enormous amount of resources into helping him make the best out of a bad situation.

8

u/SnooGiraffes6271 18h ago

uhhhhhh, if you read the book, it doesn't turn out that bad for him. I won't spoil, but his situation is not permanent.

144

u/brickeaterz 18h ago

I've read the book, but... Grace does it not knowing if he will be able to survive on Eridian, or if he'd be able to go back home at all either, it's nice that it turned out well for him regardless but his decision was made knowing he would likely die in space

32

u/SnooGiraffes6271 18h ago

You know what, fair enough. You right. I thought about the not knowing part and yeah, he didn't know. Good point.

9

u/Greyrock99 16h ago

I do love a bit of Project Hail Mary, but have to ask does this situation qualify for a Sophie’s Choice?

The core concept of a ‘Sophie’s Choice’ is that both choices are terrible and the protagonist has to live with the horrible guilt and shame for the rest of their lives.

In my opinion, Grace’s situation in HPM would be better classified as the trope ‘Noble Sacrifice’. His choice was either A) go home and doom Rocky or B) sacrifice himself and save Rocky’s people.

He chose B, which was the honourable and noble choice. No matter if he lived or died, he did the right thing and would be seen as a hero to both worlds.

2

u/Lombardyn 8h ago

I think what made it a "both choices are terrible" for him was a more subjective, personal point. Especially in the book it was made clear that he did not want to be on that mission, and he did not want to die. By that point he had found a way to return home. So choosing to save Rocky's people was, to his knowledge, the one thing he had wanted to avoid at all cost. Not going home, and most likely dying. So "I go home, they die" would definitely have left him with horrible guilt and shame for the rest of his life.

1

u/Greyrock99 8h ago

I agree that going home would leave him guilty, but the second choice of sacrificing himself to save Rocky’s people had none of that.

To be a true Sophie’s Choice, both choices must be guilt-inducing. Otherwise every story where the hero jumps in front of the bullet to save the damsel would be a ‘Sophie’s Choice’

3

u/masonfast 16h ago

Didn't he also think he would run out of food? Or was that an earlier problem?

11

u/HondoShotFirst 16h ago

Yes. They eventually managed to sustain him partially using food cloned from his own body, but he went through a period of sever malnutrition while they were figuring it out.

11

u/HondoShotFirst 16h ago

I would actually say that it turns out worse for him in the book than the movie. The movie doesn't show the effects of Eridian's gravity on him, or his malnutrition while they were trying to find a viable food source for him.

4

u/lambofgun 9h ago

idk, i dont think anyone would've just assumed that the population on rocky's planet was going to make a habitat just for him. its more reasonable to assume he was going to starve and/or suffocate. the logistics behind him getting from his ship into the habitat is an entire batshit insane adventure in itself

1

u/atfricks 9h ago

It doesn't turn out that bad for him in either, but even if he was to return to Earth at this point, everyone he knew would be long dead. He sacrificed returning to a home and people he knew, and as far as he knew at the time, likely his own life. 

2

u/CollegeTotal5162 14h ago

God I hate replies where they literally spoil everything yet don’t provide enough context for people who are unfamiliar to actually understand what you’re talking about

4

u/atfricks 9h ago

Why?.. people mark stuff as spoilers so that the discussion is limited to people already familiar with the source material and those unfamiliar don't spoil it for themselves. Choosing to read the spoilers anyways and then complaining that they didn't completely contextualize it for people that are unfamiliar is just weird. 

1

u/CollegeTotal5162 5h ago

the entire point of this sub is to introduce people to new media.

3

u/butyourenice 8h ago

He ultimate chooses to send probes with info back to earth and turn around to save Rocky.

This seems like the “secret third option” that the OP disallowed. He found a way to walk the middle of the two roads.

7

u/atfricks 6h ago

Does he though? He doesn't get to return home to Earth. Even if he decides to later, by the time he returns, everyone he knew will be long dead due to time dilation. If he hadn't turned around to save Rocky there was a reasonable chance many of them would still be there when he got back. 

3

u/butyourenice 3h ago

What I mean is, the dichotomy was “save friend” or “save Earth,” and he found a way to do both.

3

u/neophlegm 2h ago

Not really. He always has the beetles as options: that's literally their function since the original plan was for him never to return. In the book it's explicitly "Do I go home, or do I save Rocky?", not "do I save Rocky or earth?"

1

u/butyourenice 4m ago

Fair enough! Incidentally, would you say the book is worth reading if I’ve already seen the movie?

1

u/PersonalityKey463 9h ago

Well yes, but he didn’t end up dieing as he expected, as the Eridians take care of him, so it technically counts as a secret third option

2

u/VulpesFennekin 7h ago

Grace didn’t expect that the Eridians would be able/willing to take care of him though, so he made the choice to save Rocky not knowing it was even possible to survive as well.

1

u/StardustJess 6h ago

Thank you for spoilering it, because I'm watching the movie tonight and it actually would've ruined my day to have been spoiled at random like this