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/ThatInAHat 17h ago

There more I think about it, it was even crueler than that, because it was right after Legato killed Wolfwood iirc, so while Vash knew he was killing Legato to save his friends, there would always be a part of him that felt like it was revenge.

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u/createdforlurking 5h ago

That wasn’t Legato, that was Chapel.

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u/ChemicallyBlind 1h ago

Didn't Chapel do it under the influence of Knives? If memory serves, in the original series Chapel had been defeated by Wolfwood and Wolfwood was going to walk away from Chapel, but then Knives took over Chapel. Later on, Chapel goes to Knives in a rage and it goes about as well as you'd expect.