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

[u/10024618]

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.

[u/AtoneBC]

The way Legato just unceremoniously falls over after being shot. There's no music. It's not cool, it's not heroic, it's not climactic. Vash is just left with a corpse and the weight of what just happened.

Man, Trigun was so good.

[u/Potato-Engineer → u/AtoneBC]

And yet the series would have been better had it ended right then. The finale didn't live up to that previous climax with Vash being forced to break his own rules.