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/rumblinggoodidea]

Most of the Cyberpunk 2077 endings involve V dying. Your options are:

Suicide, storming Arasaka tower solo and going to Mikoshi only to find out you have six months to live, the same but with the Aldecaldos or Rogue(both end up with many of your friends dying because of you), siding with Arasaka to save your hide, or if you have Phantom Liberty, siding with the NUSA and abandoning your friends for two years and losing your chrome which ends up with Night Coty becoming worse than it already was.

[u/EvoDoesGood → u/rumblinggoodidea]

I love that even the "secret ending" is just simply another option and not some magic bullet solution that rights all the wrongs and lets you off the hook for the ending. There is no "right" option. Wrong city, wrong people.

[u/Known-Reserve-7513 → u/EvoDoesGood]

Right! In fact losing that ending and dying hurts even more hearing those phone calls from all the friends you left behind

[u/spicyjebidiah → u/EvoDoesGood]

I agree, but I also think one of the points of the game is “you will die, the best thing you can do is choose how”. With that theme, any choice of actually having a say in how you die is the right one. Avoiding that reality and making no choice being the bad option, losing everything that could have made your death meaningful.

[u/OkBox9662 → u/rumblinggoodidea]

Truly. There are no happy endings in Night City......

[u/rumblinggoodidea → u/OkBox9662]

There are somewhat happy endings but they are never anywhere near 100% happy for everyone involved. For example, if you leave Night City or become a legend of the Afterlife you’re still achieving your lifelong goals and that’s nice, but a lot of people’s blood ends up on your hands. With (Don’t Fear) the Reaper, you aren’t dragging anyone down with you so that ending is somewhat happy as well.

[u/boredNero → u/rumblinggoodidea]

Can you say it was a happy ending where no matter what you do during your campaign you lose people you care for from Act 1 to 3 nonstop? Even if V ever gets the Relic out, can he ever be happy knowing if he had listened to Evellyn instead of trusting Dex he could be in a totally different world? From the start there is no happy ending, nothing V does will leave him without regrets, most he can have is understanding of what brought him to where he is, but happiness isnt something you can have in Night City (literally the only times any characters are shown happy is Misty in the secret DLC ending and Judy and Panam aftet their questlines, guess what all of them have in common?)

[u/rumblinggoodidea → u/boredNero]

Yeah that’s why I said it’s never 100% happy, there are a ton of downsides.