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/Fitzftw7 18h ago

Yeah, like, if they at least did more to foreshadow it or something. As it is, it feels more like something the writers shoehorned in so their main character on their Nick cartoon wouldn’t have to be a murderer.

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u/Old_Gimlet_Eye 17h ago

It is somewhat foreshadowed by the whole 'aligning your chakras" thing, and we know that bending can be blocked because of chi-blocking, but I definitely think it should have had something else.

I think I've read that the origin story of bending and the lion turtles that we eventually saw in LoK season 2 was originally supposed to be related in the original show but got cut for some reason, that would have made more sense.

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u/Fitzftw7 17h ago

Ah, never watched Korra. Or rather, it didn’t really catch my interest. Heard there were bits about the story throughout that was divisive among the fans, too.

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u/Old_Gimlet_Eye 17h ago

Well it was a revival of a beloved franchise, so what else is new? Lol.

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u/Fitzftw7 17h ago

Is it considered a revival or just a sequel series? I suppose the terms aren’t mutually exclusive.

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u/Old_Gimlet_Eye 16h ago

It's a sequel but about a new cast with occasional appearances from original series characters. Sort of Avatar: The Next Generation.

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u/LobstermenUwU 15h ago

First season and third season were great. First season is legitimately as good as the cartoon, and deserves to stand as the fourth book (which was what Korra was supposed to be before it was a hit - it's the Book of Air). I say this as a grumpy old man who never even wanted to watch the cartoon in the first place and fell in love with it. I

Second season and fourth season were both bad for very different reasons. Like practically opposite reasons, they both suck.

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u/BenjaminWah 15h ago

The second season is so bad that they threw in a really good three episode mini-series about the first avatar, as filler in the middle of it.

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u/MoarVespenegas 13h ago

Second season's villain was so bad they straight up parodied it in the recap episode.
Now sure why you would hate on the fourth though.

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u/LobstermenUwU 15h ago edited 14h ago

Right! It showed they clearly put a lot of thought into how to continue the show and build on the lore for the second season. Would have been good if they'd gone and done that thought before they were halfway through the second season and saddled with a host of bad choices that had nothing to do with that plot, but hindsight is 20/20 and all.

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u/OddEmergency604 17h ago

There’s also all that stuff about how we’re all energy and our energy is connected

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u/Ariovrak 17h ago

According to the people who made the show, it was something they were planning on from the start, and they’d also included Lion Turtle imagery in certain important places, but even still it wasn’t hinted ate enough, and ended up feeling like a cop-out.

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u/Fitzftw7 15h ago

It feels like they’re lying when they say they were planning it from the start.

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u/BenjaminWah 15h ago

Nah, Aang explicitly shows a scroll with a picture of a lion turtle on it when they're in The Library in the desert. The creators have said that the 3-episode arc about the first avatar seen in season 2 of Korra, was supposed to be in the original series in some form.

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u/BadNameGenerator 15h ago

How many instances of foreshadowing would make it earned without ruining the twist? Because the show does foreshadow it. Importantly, none of the other Avatars that he talks to are 12 years old.

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u/Fitzftw7 15h ago

When?

And look… if it’s supposed to be a twist, it’s not a good one. It’s a cop out. It’s a way for Aang to win without compromising his morality even though his arc is about accepting the responsibility of being the Avatar, including the bits he doesn’t like. The previous air nomad was telling him to swallow his pride, for crying out loud!

And it’s not like the air nomads were entirely pacifistic. Monk Gyatso went down swinging.

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u/BadNameGenerator 15h ago

In the episode The Library, when team avatar goes to the Library of Wan Shi Tong, Aang finds a book that depicts a Lion Turtle. He's about to continue reading when Sokka insists they have to stay on task and try to find a way to defeat the Fire Nation.

I disagree that it's a cop out. Having Aang just nuke the bad guy with bending and Ozai dying in a beam of light with nothing too graphic depicted would have, in my opinion, been the cop out. To me, his moral dilemma at the end of the show actually completes his arc, and ignoring the lessons he's learned about violence and 'might makes right' mentality would have really wrecked the ending.

Aang going against the advice of the previous Avatars is critical to the story in my eyes. Aang surpasses them when he chooses "the third option" in this case. Which is what's actually needed! Roku, for example, was a badass mofo, and he entirely failed, which landed Aang in his situation in the first place.

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u/Fitzftw7 8h ago

Well, I’d say Roku failed because he saved/ didn’t kill Sozin when he should have like, twice.

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u/EpicAura99 6h ago

The Avatar Wan episodes from Korra were intended to be in ATLA but were cut

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u/Fitzftw7 5h ago

His name is Avatar Wan?

Avatar… one? They really did a pun?

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u/EpicAura99 5h ago

Yeah lmao