History Main / AccompliceByInaction

* In ''Manhwa/MyLoveTiger'', Aya is suffering from an illness. Rang-ii's saliva could cure her, but Aya seems to hold a grudge against her and refuses to receive treatment. As Sunghoon spends more time learning about Aya's past, it's revealed that Aya's father actually sought for Rang-ii's help in the past, but as she was sleeping to regain her strength, her servant turned him away. Technically Rang-ii was sleeping at the time, and didn't know any of that happened. But as part of her growth, she learns to take responsibility anyway and apologize to Aya before pleading to let Rang-ii save her.

* Servants Thomas and Ethel Rogers are accused of withholding their elderly mistress's medication during a heart attack, leading to her death by U.N. Owen in ''Literature/AndThenThereWereNone''.

* ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'''s infamous series finale double-episode has the gang arrested for watching a man get mugged and making fun of his weight instead of trying to help him. Footage of their snide commentary makes the news, causing their trial to get lots of publicity. The prosecuting attorney [[TheBusCameBack brings up]] [[BackForTheFinale everybody]] they managed to somehow piss off to testify about their [[TheDogBitesBack horrible character]].

** Rei Todoroki, Shoto's mother and Endeavor's estranged wife, [[LampshadeHanging acknwoledges herself in the aftermath of the Paranormal War Arc that she herself is accountable for turning a blind eye to Enji's mistreatment of their kids]], and Toya [[spoiler: (alias Dabi)]] in particular. Toya himself lashes out at his mother when she tries to convince him to stop training, telling her that she also has a hand in his ordeal, mostly because she enabled it by choosing to do nothing, even though she could.

* In ''Film/TalesFromTheHood2'', the Robo Patriot judges Mr. Beach's two aides to be just as guilty for their complicity in his crimes, as neither of them ever objected to his behavior.
** In the first movie, three white cops beat a black activist to death and frame him up as a heroine addict, while a black officer watches. 1 year later, the activist comes back as a zombie, and after killing the white cops, does the same to the black cop for doing nothing.

* Godot in ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneyTrialsAndTribulations'' hates Phoenix Wright because he did nothing to stop Mia from getting killed--never mind that Phoenix ''couldn't'' have done anything under the circumstances, and knew nothing of the danger she was in. [[spoiler:In actuality, this is displaced anger at ''himself'' for not stopping Mia from getting killed--never mind that he was in a coma at the time. It's heavily implied Godot is not all there.]]

** Many times in this cases, the famous quote from Edmund Burke is often used to push on this mindset: "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." Therefore, if you, as a 'good man', do nothing, that means you're guilty for letting evil triumph when you could have taken action and stop it. The depth of what constitutes as good or bad for different people depending on the culture they grow up with tends to get ignored.

* This is also the treatment of Dumbledore in ''Fanfic/ALittleLightReading''.

* ''Manga/MakenKi'': During season 2's fifth episode, Aki tells her parents she's dating Takeru to avoid being [[IWantGrandkids pressured into marriage.]] So her parents have him kidnapped and stranded on an island with her in hopes they'd [[CoitusEnsues "make memories"]] together. When Haruko and Himgami find out, they race to the island under the assumption that Takeru has run off with Aki, who could have cleared up the confusion by explaining what really happened. Instead, Aki lets Takeru [[UnprovokedPervertPayback take a beating]] for a situation that wasn't his fault. At the end of the episode, she admits that she didn't say anything because seeing Haruko and Himegami jealous of her, made her [[ChristmasCake feel young]] again.

* In ''Manga/EternalSabbath,'' the [[AbusiveParents abusive mother]] of the young girl Yuri was [[TroubledAbuser herself horrifically abused by her violent father as a child]]. However she eventually admits that, while she hated and feared her father, she hated her mother just as much if not more for being too cowardly to try protecting her beyond meekly asking him to stop. Whenever her father beat her, her mother would buy her candy to try apologizing to her, but she could never even taste it.

* In ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'', Floch, when criticizing Eren's decision to [[spoiler:use the Titan serum to save Armin's life rather than Erwin's]], a decision that Eren had convinced Levi to accept, also calls out the other Survey Corps members for not intervening to try to stop Eren.
* Discussed in ''Anime/DigimonAdventure02''. While he didn't actively participate in Ken's campaign as the Digimon Emperor, and tried to serve as his MoralityPet, Wormmon still stood back and and did nothing while Ken enslaved and tortured countless innocent Digimon. In "United We Stand," he states outright that because of this, he's just as guilty for the Emperor fiasco as Ken himself.
* ''LightNovel/KinosJourney''
** The citizens of the Coliseum country ultimately let their king do as he pleases because he gave them what he wanted. Possibly because of this, Kino doesn't have a problem with decreeing that the citizens must fight to choose a new king, resulting in the populace turning on and killing each other.
** Kino herself becomes this when she meets a man who agrees to travel with a woman in atonement for killing the latter's fiancee. The woman, unwilling to forgive the man, shoots him to death, then says Kino could have stopped her if she wanted to. Kino nonchalantly says she has no desire to play god.

* ''Fanfic/InfinityTrainBlossomverse''
** ''FanFic/InfinityTrainBlossomingTrail''

* ''FanFic/TheOneToMakeItStay'': Nino didn't help Alya film Chat's LoveConfession. Nor did he agree with her plan to [[ManipulativeEditing edit the footage]] to make it look like Ladybug reciprocated and post the results on her blog. In fact, he was made rather uncomfortable by the whole thing. But rather than sharing his concerns, he stayed silent, standing aside and letting her do it. As a result, when Ladybug sidelines Rena Rouge for the summer, she decides to bench Carapace as well. Notably, Nino takes the news better than Alya; while not ''happy'' about it, he recognizes the point Ladybug's making.

* The Danish film ''[[Film/TheCelebration Festen]]'' ''(The Celebration)'', set during a family reunion for a 60th birthday party, centres on the revelation by eldest son Christian that he and his twin sister were sexually abused by their father. When his mother tries to intervene, he [[CallingTheOldManOut calls her out]] for ignoring the abuse and says "[[SarcasmMode I'm so grateful to have such a twisted hypocrite for a mother]]. I wish you were dead."
* In ''Film/NaturalBornKillers'', after Mickey kills Mallory's abusive father, Mallory kills her mother because she never did anything to try stopping her Dad.
* ''Film/BeautyAndTheBeast2017'' states this reason for why the castle servants were changed into furniture and kitchen utensils by the Sorceress. Yes, they did not refuse the old woman charity, but they also didn't stop the Prince's abusive father from raising him to become a selfish jerk.

* In ''Film/KillBill'', that's precisely why the Bride went after Sophie Fatale. Sophie didn't participate in the execution of the Bride, her husband-to-be and her friends at the wedding in El Paso but she was present and watched it happen, even casually answering a professional phone call while the Deadly Vipers Assassination Squad was beating the Bride to a pulp before Bill shot her in the head. In the end, [[CruelMercy the Bride lets her live]], but not before [[AnArmAndALeg severing her arm]] as punishment for doing nothing about the whole ordeal, even seemingly approving of it.

* ''VideoGame/WatchDogsLegion'': One of the trailers uses a modernized version of "First they came..." to explain why everyone and their grandmother[[note]]no, really, you can recruit their grandmother if she's on the street[[/note]] is capable of rising up against the fascist Albion instead of continuing their movement routines:

* In ''Literature/TheFountainhead'', Gail Wynand was once nearly beaten to death as a youth by a drunken longshoreman. Wynand dragged himself to a saloon and asked for help for the first and last time in his life when the saloonkeeper found him. The saloonkeeper simply went back inside without a word. Years later, the now wealthy and powerful Wynand still remembered the longshoreman and the saloonkeeper. Wynand never did anything to the longshoreman. He utterly ruined the saloonkeeper's life, driving him to suicide.

* In ''LightNovel/KinosJourney'', the citizens of the Coliseum country ultimately let their king do as he pleases because he gave them what he wanted. Possibly because of this, Kino doesn't have a problem with decreeing that the citizens must fight to choose a new king, resulting in the populace turning on and killing each other.

* ''ComicBook/TheTransformersLastStandOfTheWreckers'': Invoked when Squadron X were killed. The Decepticons were all arrested, but because it was on a neutral world they couldn't be held. Impactor took a gun, locked himself in and shot them all to death. All the Wreckers stood by except Springer who tried to stop him (but couldn't as he was injured) and let him. Afterward they confessed to Springer that they were too stunned or scared to stop him, and had fallen under BystanderSyndrome. Springer, tired of all the death believed them and Impactor was jailed alone. Much later in life Roadbuster confessed to a comatose Springer that they did nothing because they agreed with Impactor and were unwilling to stop him, afterward they just wanted to avoid prison time.

* ''FanFic/InfinityTrainBlossomingTrail'':
** When Miss April catches [[AlphaBitch Sara]] sneering about how Chloe doesn't ''deserve'' to have anyone searching for her, and that she hopes she's never found or returns home, she's deeply disappointed in her... and in the rest of her class. Not just for letting Sara's words go largely unchallenged, but for how they contributed to driving Chloe away in the first place.
** Miss April herself is seen as one; while she did ''try'' to curtail the bullying, the Professor believes that she didn't try hard ''enough''. It doesn't help that she [[HorribleJudgeOfCharacter misjudged one of their bullying tactics]]; in her eyes, Chloe's classmates talking to her about Pokémon was an improvement, as they were actually including her in conversations. She wasn't aware of how much Chloe ''hated'' Pokémon, or that the others were teasing her about this.
** Professor Cerise regards his lab assistant Renji as one after learning that he was actually ''aware'' that Chloe was having issues, but chose not to say anything about it, mistakenly assuming that things would work themselves out without intervention.
** Trip accuses Ash of being one as well. While he ''did'' attempt to invite Chloe to travel with them, he didn't make any effort to learn ''why'' she kept refusing, or try to connect with her in any other ways. Trip considers that lack of investment to be incredibly strange on Ash's part, and Ash himself struggles to figure out why he didn't try as hard with her as he has with other companions in the past.
** In the anime, it's noted that Goh's parents were heavily concerned on Goh not having a social life because he spent all his time in front of his computer to search for Mew. This fanfic shows that they did ''nothing'' to help their son at all -- preferably to get his ass off his chair to go see Chloe -- that contributed to him having very little social skills, sympathy or emotional intelligence.
* ''Fanfic/InfinityTrainKnightOfTheOrangeLily'': Lillie sees her brother this way after realizing that [[CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot much of the drama surrounding the Nihilego incident could have been avoided]] if Gladion had simply ''told someone'' what he witnessed that night. Instead, he took off with Type: Null to train, trying to keep her LockedOutOfTheLoop... effectively abandoning her for ''years'' in the process.

* In the ''Series/That70sShow'' episode "Halloween," the gang breaks into their old elementary school, which burned down years before for some Halloween hijinks. Just as they decide to leave becuase they're not having any fun, Jackie and Donna come in with their old permanent records. When they look into Hyde's file, it says that he's a born criminal with no future because he smashed a girl's diorama, which he denies doing. Eric then confeses that he smashed the dioram because he was jealous of how much better hers was. Hyde then starts blaming Eric for how he has been treated by everynone, saying that he was pegged as a troublemaker because Eric just stood by while their teacher yelled at him for something he didn't do.