History Main / CycleOfRevenge

* Subverted in the Music/KimyaDawson song "Hold My Hand." The narrator witnesses prolonged child abuse and neglect in two seperate families that a social worker either blatantly ignores or exacerbates, which the children suffer for. When she goes to the social worker to give her a piece of her mind, the woman mocks her for her do-gooder attitude, to which the narrator responds that she'd like to kill her with a crowbar but won't because "the cycle of violence has to end somewhere."

* The ''Franchise/StarTrek'' novel ''Literature/ChainOfAttack'' takes this UpToEleven, where multiple races have been wiped out in a war spanning ''millennia''. The original perpetrators have long since been wiped out, with the current belligerents continuing the conflict because they believe the other party is the one who originally started the war -- after all, even if you ''think'' you wiped the other guys out, [[ParanoiaFuel there's always the chance that you missed a colony somewhere, and the old enemy might still be lurking]]. One race (the "winners" of the last series of battles) mistook the other (up-and-coming race) for their old enemy, and attacked without warning, continuing the conflict. It's believed that this chain of attacks has claimed many civilizations in the devastated sector of space the ''Enterprise'' finds itself.

** Going back even '''[[UpToEleven further]]''', it's been suggested that part of the curse on Pelops and his descendants comes from the hubris of his father Tantalos, who originally murdered Pelops and tried to serve him in a stew to the gods (the Greek gods, for [[JerkassGod all their deubachery]], generally ''despised'' HumanSacrifice). And then there was the fact that Tantalos had stolen the food of the gods and given it to his friends, along with telling them the gods' secrets. DisproportionateRetribution much?

See BestServedCold, FeudingFamilies, HeWhoFightsMonsters, RememberTheAlamo, RevengeMyopia, RoaringRampageOfRevenge, ThenLetMeBeEvil, and YouKilledMyFather. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocal_altruism Reciprocal altruism]] (and, indeed, friendship in general) is quite possibly the flip side of this coin. Sometimes overlaps with ChickenAndEggParadox if there's no obvious reason for the cycle to have started in the first place.

* An episode of ''Series/KungFu'', appropriately titled "''An Eye for an Eye''", focuses on this situation.

* ''LightNovel/{{Durarara}}'': Shizuo and Izaya ''hate'' each other. They don't even have a logical reason they just don't like one another, the first thing they tried to do when they met, was kill each other. The cycle goes Izaya antagonizes Shizuo, either by setting him up or just existing in general, and Shizuo will chase after him causing massive property damage. Afterwards, Izaya will then once again antagonize him out of spite. They've known each other for around a decade and their relationship only gets worse, as Shizuo cannot be in the same room with Izaya without some kind of catastrophe and Izaya will simply refuse to even speak about Shizuo, unless he's talking about how much he hates him. In the ''Final Curtain Arc'', Izaya [[spoiler:finally decides to break the cycle and goes all out to kill Shizuo. When his plan falls through, he engages Shizuo in a fight. His logic is if he kills Shizuo, he wins, but if Shizuo kills him, then Shizuo is a murderer and society will reject him as a monster. However, thanks to Simon and Vorona, neither outcome happens and everybody lives]].

* This was the case with [[ComicBook/SubMariner Namor]] and ComicBook/BlackPanther (T'Challa) for a long while. It started in ''ComicBook/AvengersVsXMen'', when Namor, under the influence of the Phoenix Force, flooded the country T'Challa rules, Wakanda, in retaliation for something the Avengers did. When the story concludes, Atlantis, which Namor rules, and Wakanda are at war. In ComicBook/JonathanHickmansAvengers, the two are forced to work together in the Illuminati to combat a multiverse-shattering crisis, but T'Challa makes it clear that when the crisis is over, he will kill Namor. Eventually, some of T'Challa's soldiers are wounded when one of his advisers intentionally gives bad intel on Atlantis. Namor tries to talk to T'Challa about a treaty, and T'Challa says he'll talk to his sister (Shuri, the actual ruler of Wakanda) about it if Namor makes an official request. Namor does so and Shuri officially claims to be considering it, but in actuality launches an attack that kills many Atlantean warriors and civilians. Thus, when Thanos' army invades Earth, Atlantis is unable to repel it while Wakanda can. Namor bows to Thanos, who is looking for an Infinity Gem, and tells him it's in Wakanda, which he knows it's not. Wakanda is nearly destroyed when Thanos focuses almost all of his resources on it. Afterwards, Namor claims responsibility for the attack, and tells Panther his only regret is that so many Wakandans lived. The two get into a brawl, and Namor is expelled from the Illuminati. Namor starts his own secret organisation, the Cabal, to combat the multiverse crisis, and they are given Wakanda as their home base by the world's various governments. The Cabal kill Shuri. Eventually, Namor admits that his Cabal is out of control, and T'Challa and Black Bolt (another Illuminati member and monarch) say they'll help Namor defeat them. Instead, Panther and Black Bolt attempt to murder Namor. Namor survives (unbeknownst to them), and ends up back with the Cabal. He and T'Challa eventually work together in ComicBook/SecretWars2015 to thwart ComicBook/DoctorDoom, and finally reconcile.

* In a sort of one-sided variation, old Creator/DCComics villain/antihero ''TheShade'' keeps being pursued by the descendants of the Ludlows a family of murderers who attempted to rob and kill him in the Victorian era. Unfortunately for the family, Shade had just experienced the event that would grant him his unexplained powers, and slayed the entire family with his shadow demons... except for the pair of twins living upstairs.

* In the original ''Comicbook/{{Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles|Mirage}}'' comic books, the turtles kill Oroku Saki/The Shredder on Splinter's behalf, as revenge for the death of Splinter's former owner, Hamato Yoshi, who had died at Saki's hand. Yoshi, for his part, had been killed (along with his lover Tang Shen because Saki was a dick) as revenge for slaying Oroku Nagi, Saki's older brother. Why was Nagi killed? Because when Tang Shen, the object of both Yoshi and Nagi's affections, chose Yoshi over Nagi, Nagi flew into a rage and [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown savagely beat her]]; one berserker rage later, Yoshi had killed Nagi. Saki's death wasn't the end of things, however; after he was slain, the Foot Clan that he led became honor-bound to kill the turtles in order to avenge him, and the cycle continues until Karai, who had been sent from Japan in order to unify the then-warring Foot Clan, offers to end the vendetta if the turtles help her eliminate one of the rogue factions, a deal which they take.

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* Similarly, in ''Film/{{Oldboy 2003}}'', Oh Dae-su wants to find the mysterious 'Evergreen' and make him pay for imprisoning him for fifteen years. [[spoiler:It turns out that Evergreen is Lee Woo-jin, who was getting him back for carelessly outing an [[BrotherSisterIncest incestuous relationship he was having with his sister]] while they were back in high school, which [[DrivenToSuicide drove his sister to suicide]]. What's more, Lee's revenge was just beginning]].

* In ''Film/{{Taken}}'', [[PapaWolf Bryan]] slaughters the members of a human trafficking ring, including one named Marko, to rescue his daughter. In ''Film/{{Taken 2}}'', the villains' [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes families]], led by Marko's father Murad, attempt to avenge them and attack Bryan and his family. Bryan eventually discusses this with Murad, particularly when he learns that Murad has two more sons who will surely attempt to avenge him as well. Or Murad could go home and be with his remaining family, ending the cycle; those who who have died so far is simply the price paid of their "business", echoing the lives and families destroyed by their actions. Murad [[UngratefulBastard tries to kill him]] and Bryan kills him. While there is a ''Film/{{Taken 3}}'', Murad's sons do not appear. Maybe they decided not to continue it?

* In Nick Kyme's ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' novel ''[[Literature/{{Salamanders}} Salamander]]'', in the BackStory, the 3rd Company had killed some renegades' captains; in the opening, they kill the 3rd Company's captain; shortly thereafter, the new captain goes in pursuit of them. [[spoiler:They get sidetracked by another issue, but happen on the killers, and get both the commander and the actual killer. Whereupon their captain is murdered after the battle.]]
* This is what led to one of the most central rules of ''[[Literature/{{WarriorCats}} Warriors'...]]'' well, [[CodeofHonour Warrior Code]]. When a cat was killed in battle, it dragged two of the Clans into constant war to avenge their fallen, until [=StarClan=] finally steps in to encourage the creation of a rule against killing unless in self-defense.

* ''Series/{{Bones}}'': A VictimOfTheWeek was the head of a [[FeudingFamilies Feuding Family]] not unlike the Hatfields and the [=McCoys=]. It all started when a man from one of the families and a woman from the other one were romantically involved and the two of them were poisoned. Each family blamed the other one. When the VictimOfTheWeek figured out neither half of the couple was at fault, he tried to put an end to the feud, but his attorney[=/=]daughter-in-law killed him to continue making money off the lawsuits. (In modern times, the families resorted to suing instead of murdering.)

* This is a central theme on ''{{Series/Merlin 2008}}''. King Uther is a KnightTemplar who has genocided all the magic users he can find. In retribution, quite a few magicians go overboard in their attack on him, attacking innocent civilians. Thus, Prince Arthur grows up being told that magic is evil and having it constantly proven to him. The eponymous Merlin, Arthur's manservant, best friend, and secretly a warlock, spends most of the series trying to convince Arthur to accept magic and therefore break the cycle, but his success has been limited.

* The PerformanceVideo for ''Week End'' by {{Music/X Japan}} is this, combined with BolivianArmyEnding and EverybodysDeadDave -- everyone dies in a chain of murders and suicides, all connected to the deaths preceding them. Yoshiki's wordplay about the "end of a life" being "the end of the world" in the lyrics matches this as well -- the end of the life is the end of that person's world, and if the Cycle Of Revenge kicks in, a chain of murder and suicide only grows and expands...

* The music video for "Cut The Cord" by {{Music/The Living Tombstone}} details this between two designers. It starts when one designer kicked the other, the protagonist, out, the protagonist then becomes [[StartMyOwn their own up-and-coming designer]] getting touted as "The Next Big Thing" in a newspaper. The original designer gets jealous and sends some mannequin robots to sabatoge them by cutting up all their clothes. The protagonist then takes those cut up clothes and manages to make ''that'' the next fashion trend, then the protagonist makes their own mannequin robot army to fight them directly. After that fight the original designer's building is practically in ruins with broken robots all about, and the protagonist then makes an even bigger robot army to finish them off.

* The Ultramarines/Word Bearers enmity in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' is predicated on this. The Ultramarines, acting under the Emperor's direct orders, destroyed a city the Word Bearers had converted to a centre of Emperor-worship, which [[StopWorshippingMe the Emperor was not a fan of]]. Years later, in the early stages of the Horus Heresy, the Word Bearers responded by attempting to wipe out the Ultramarines to the last man, mingling a greater objective (victory for Horus) with some good old-fashioned revenge. Since then, the two Legions have taken every available chance to murder each other, even after the Ultramarines were divided into largely independent Chapters.

* The ''Franchise/{{Star Wars}}'' extended universe, including ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'', is chock-full of these kinds of vendettas.

* In ''VideoGame/TelltalesGameOfThrones'', Maester Ortengryn lampshades this trope as the reason [[FeudingFamilies the Forresters and Whitehills]] hate each other.

* ''WebComic/{{xkcd}}'': [[https://xkcd.com/381/ "Mobius Battle"]] features a short comic in which one figure kicks a ball at another's head and laughs. The idea is that, since it works in mirror image too, it can be drawn on a transparent strip that can be formed into a Möbius strip[[note]]meaning you flip one end 180 degrees and then glue both ends together[[/note]], and then you can keep scrolling it forward until you're on the other side of the original strip[[note]]a Möbius strip only has one side because the different sides just got glued together[[/note]] and the role of the figures (based on which side they stand on) is reversed. This will go on for as long as you keep moving forward along the strip, with the figures forever kicking the ball at each other.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Thundercats 2011}}'' has this as an undercurrent of the generations-long war between the [[{{Catfolk}} Cats]] and the [[{{Lizardfolk}} Lizards]]. Implicitly, this is Lizard General Slithe's motive over a long career of fighting the Cats.

* In ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'', the conflict between the Sapphire Guard (an order of LawfulGood [[KnightInShiningArmor Paladins]]) and the [[SubvertedTrope allegedly]] AlwaysChaoticEvil goblin races is a perfect example of this. The story makes it abundantly clear that both sides are at fault, but that the destruction of Azure City at the hands of [[TheDragon Redcloak's]] hobgoblin horde is a direct consequence of the Azurites' [[KnightTemplar arrogance]] in engaging in a preemptive genocidal crusade. For his part, Redcloak is only too happy to continue the cycle of atrocities.
** Vaarsuvius also gets some quality time with this trope in the arc with the vengeful black dragon and goes straight to the FinalSolution to end it. Unfortunately, this comes at the price of [[DealWithTheDevil owing his/her soul]] to some fiends who don't plan to wait for his/her death to collect, ''and'' s/he still gets hunted by agents of Tiamat, the goddess of vengeance and chromatic dragons, who is less than pleased about a full quarter of the black dragon population getting wiped out of existence thanks to V.
*** Oh, and those "extreme steps"? [[spoiler:They killed off a plot-relevant family of NPC guardians, leaving one of the Gates defenseless.]] NiceJobBreakingItHero.

* By the time of the first ''Literature/{{Dune}}'' novel, the Atreides and Harkonnen families had been feuding for millenia, and the feud only ended with the death of Feyd, Rabban and Vladimir (the last surviving members of the Harkonnen family, not counting Vladimir's unacknowledged daughter Jessica and her Atreides descendants) at the end of the book. Accoriding to the first book, the feud apparently started because at some point thousands of years earlier, an Atreides had a Harkonnen banished for cowardice.

See BestServedCold, FeudingFamilies, HeWhoFightsMonsters, RememberTheAlamo, RevengeMyopia, RoaringRampageOfRevenge, ThenLetMeBeEvil, and YouKilledMyFather. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocal_altruism Reciprocal altruism]] (and, indeed, friendship in general) is quite possibly the flip side of this coin.

* Even Creator/DrSeuss got in on this with ''The Butter Battle Book'', a criticism of the UsefulNotes/ColdWar and MutuallyAssuredDestruction.

* ''The Corsican Brothers'' (The original, not the Cheech and Chong lampoon!).

* The ''Franchise/StarTrek'' novel ''Chain of Attack'' takes this UpToEleven, where multiple races have been wiped out in a war spanning ''millennia''. The original perpetrators have long since been wiped out, with the current belligerents continuing the conflict because they believe the other party is the one who originally started the war -- after all, even if you ''think'' you wiped the other guys out, [[ParanoiaFuel there's always the chance that you missed a colony somewhere, and the old enemy might still be lurking]]. One race (the "winners" of the last series of battles) mistook the other (up-and-coming race) for their old enemy, and attacked without warning, continuing the conflict. It's believed that this chain of attacks has claimed many civilizations in the devastated sector of space the ''Enterprise'' finds itself.

** Turns out to be the whole reason the ''Attack on Titan'' world is as {{crapsack|world}} as it is now. [[spoiler:The Eldian Empire subjugated its people to all sorts of atrocities during its reign, due to the actions of the despotic King Fritz and his abusive control over the powers of his slave Ymir. When the empire dissolved, descendants of those Eldians were subjected to xenophobic laws in response, with the worst treatment saved for the descendants of the Children of Ymir. And the people of Paradis, once they find out, want to take back their former "glory" as revenge for what the rest of the world subjected them to. Eren's plan to break the cycle once and for all? [[FinalSolution Commit genocide on the entire world outside Paradis]], so there can be nobody left to remember the atrocities in any capacity and start the cycle anew. [[ShaggyDogStory It doesn't work.]]]]

** Turns out to be the whole reason the ''Attack on Titan'' world is as {{crapsack|world}} as it is now. [[spoiler:The Eldian Empire subjugated its people to all sorts of atrocities during its reign, due to the actions of the despotic King Fritz and his abusive control over the powers of his slave Ymir. When the empire dissolved, descendants of those Eldians were subjected to xenophobic laws in response, with the worst treatment saved for the descendants of the Children of Ymir. And the people of Paradis, once they find out, want to take back their former "glory" as revenge for what the rest of the world subjected them to. Eren's plan to break the cycle once and for all? [[FinalSolution Commit genocide on the entire world outside Paradis]], so there can be nobody left to remember the atrocities in any capacity and start the cycle anew.]]

* ''Series/KamenRiderDrive'': [[RidiculouslyHumanRobots Roidmundes]] were the toy creation of a MadScientist, who [[CompleteMonster abused]] them and [[AIIsACrapshoot corrupted]] their programming. All for funzies. It's no wonder that [[TheDogBitesBack they]] killed him and went to wipe out [[HumansAreBastards humanity]]. That led to the protagonists' crusade against them and more violence on both sides. The appearance of a good, sane Roidmund didn't make the protagonists question the situation in the slightest. An all out extermination war ensued and persisted long after the Roidmunds abandoned their homicidal efforts and just wanted to survive somewhere away from humans.

** Deliberately averted by Sasha's father when he's confronted with [[spoiler: Sasha's murderer, Gabi. While he certainly mourns his daughter, he recognizes that she was a soldier who knew what she was getting into, and refuses to take vengeance on Gabi when she's entirely at his mercy. His refusal to stoop to Gabi's level shakes her to her core, and makes her realize that Eldians aren't devils, they're normal people with the same capacity for kindness as everyone else.]]

* Part of the conflict between the Praying Races and the goblins in ''LightNovel/GoblinSlayer'' is this - the titular character is one of only two survivors of a goblin raid, and devoted his life to exterminating them in vengeance. He then goes on to describe how any survivors of his raids would escape, grow up, amass its own horde, then start raiding the settlements of the Praying Races. This is ''not'' portrayed as something that needs to be broken by diplomacy though. Why? The ''other'' major reason that goblins come into conflict with the Praying Races is that they are an AlwaysChaoticEvil race that commits RapePillageAndBurn against literally '''everyone else''' and the ''only'' way for them to reproduce is by ''raping females of other races''. [[GuiltFreeExterminationWar The only way this can end is when one side is totally wiped out.]]

** In ''Anime/MobileSuitZetaGundam'', this trope is manifested in Kamille and Jerid's series-long rivalry. Throughout the series, there's a back and forth of Kamille and Jerid killing the people that the other cares about, deepening their rivalry to pure hatred. It gets to the point where it seems like the only thing Jerid cares about is killing Kamille, who actually loses interest in him when it's clear that he's already outclassed him. Interestingly, the rivalry only started on the ''second'' killing - when Jerid killed Kamille's mother, Kamille conceded that he was JustFollowingOrders and that he honestly didn't know that the orders were to commit murder (he had been instructed to destroy an object rather than allow the enemy to claim it, not knowing that there was a person inside) until after the fact. The feud started a few episodes later when Kamille killed Jerid's former instructor in a fairly fought duel.

** Hody Jones, on the other hand, takes this to extreme. He wants to destroy the world government and kills humans whenever he can, even going so far as to kill Fish-men who sympathize with them, in response to wrongs [[spoiler: he never personally suffered or even witnessed. The culture of hatred he grew up in conditioned him to just hate humans.]]

* ''Manga/VampireKnight'': Zero hates vampires because [[spoiler: Hiou Shizuka, a pureblood, killed his vampire hunter parents AND turned him into a vampire]]. He hates them so much that he vows to kill [[spoiler:her]] and every other pureblood vampire, even [[spoiler:Yuuki once it's revealed that she herself is one]]. He also has no issue offing himself once the deed gets done. Later we find out [[spoiler: Hiou Shizuka killed his parents because ''they killed someone very precious to her'' -- only because this person's name was put on the "assassination list" for some malevolent reason, despite the fact he wasn't a Level E]]. It could have gotten ''worse'' had everyone continued to believe he killed [[spoiler: Shizuka]] which, if not for Kaname, would have brought down the vengeance of the vampire senate on Zero.

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* Another short story by Edgar Allan Poe, "Literature/TheCaskOfAmontillado", has the narrator lampshade the trope and strive to avert it; he notes that "I must not only punish but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser." [[spoiler: And indeed, he gets away with his horrific revenge on Fortunato.]]

* The ''Franchise/StarTrek'' novel ''Chain of Attack'' takes this UpToEleven, where multiple races have been wiped out in a war spanning ''millennia''. The original perpetrators have long since been wiped out, with the current belligerents continuing the conflict because they believe the other party is the one who originally started the war--after all, even if you ''think'' you wiped the other guys out, [[ParanoiaFuel there's always the chance that you missed a colony somewhere, and the old enemy might still be lurking]]. One race (the "winners" of the last series of battles) mistook the other (up-and-coming race) for their old enemy, and attacked without warning, continuing the conflict. It's believed that this chain of attacks has claimed many civilizations in the devastated sector of space the ''Enterprise'' finds itself.

* ''Literature/TheSwamplingKing'': The swamplings hate the highlanders for murdering them on sight, and the highlanders hate the swamplings for the exact same thing. Part of the problem is that the highlanders mistakenly believe that the swamplings control the deeplings, so everything the monsters do is blamed on the swamplings as well. That being said, the swamplings ''do'' genuinely kill any highlanders they find in the Swamp--but again, that's because the highlanders do the same to them.

** In the third arc, the history of Pantala has this theme as well. [=HiveWings=] tried conquering the [=LeafWings=] (who fought back and were almost completely wiped out, along with the trees they fought to protect) and the [=SilkWings=] (who surrendered and now live as a lower class society subservient to the [=HiveWings=]). The remaining [=LeafWings=] are pretty resentful, and revolutionary groups within them plan to burn down hives where the [=HiveWings=] and [=SilkWings=] live. Unfortunately, this would not only kill supporters of the war, but also innocent dragons who either couldn't, refused to, or were unable to participate in the war, as well as several blameless [=SilkWings=], especially their dragonets, who can't fly away from fires since they aren't born with wings. [[spoiler: The protagonists try to prevent this, but it happens anyway.]]

* A major theme of ''Series/TemptationOfAnAngel''. [[BrokenBird Ah]] [[FemmeFatale Ran]] seduces and marries [[NiceGuy Shin Hyun Woo]] in order to enter his family and avenge the death of her parents. When he discovers both her lover and her lies, [[spoiler: she tries to kill him. Twice.]] He [[spoiler: survives both attempts and]], gets MagicPlasticSurgery, and [[BewareTheNiceOnes decides to dish out his own drawn out plan of revenge.]] When the dust finally settles, no one comes out unscathed.

** King Agamemnon kills a deer in a sacred grove and boasts he is the best hunter. Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, orders a sacrifice of him for such a disrespectful statement, making him kill his daughter Iphigenia. After doing so, the king gets killed by his wife and Iphigenia's mother. She in turn gets killed by her own son for killing his father.
** As usual with Greek myths, there are actually several explanations why Artemis demanded Iphigenia's sacrifice, including one that was because Agamemnon's father had failed to sacrifice the first lamb of his flock to her, while according to Aischylos it was because two eagles (who symbolized Agamemnon and his brother Menelaos) had torn a pregnant hare to pieces, which enraged the goddess. And in the Iliad, Iphigenia wasn't sacrificed at all (Agamemnon offers the hands of all his three daughters in marriage to Achilles), while according to Euripides she was saved at the last moment and transported to Tauris (on the Crimea) to become a priestess at the local temple to Artemis...
** The story is further complicated by Klytaimnestra (Agamemnon's queen) hooking up with Aigisthos, murderer of Agamemnon's father Atreus, who wanted to get revenge on Agamemnon for driving his father Thyestes (Atreus' brother) into exile from Mycene. (Because of an oracle, Thyestes had fathered Aigisthos by raping his own daughter Pelopia, in order to avenge his other children whom Atreus had killed). Aigisthos and Klytaemnestra together killed Agamemnon and Klytaemnestra for good measure also killed Agamemnon's prisoner/concubine Cassandra of Troy. [[note]]See also: "Under the Ice" by Music/BlindGuardian.[[/note]]

** In ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet'', the Capulets and the Montagues alternately avenge every death that the opposing family caused. It's been going on for so long that the two warring families have forgotten exactly who started it and over what. In fact, it's gotten so bad that the local prince has decreed that the next time one side starts something, the guilty party will be put to death--not that he's able to enforce it as stringently as he'd like[[note]]The first time it happens, two of the three involved parties are already dead, and he settles for exiling the last one standing, Romeo, after the Montagues appeal, and it's hinted that the fact that the guy Romeo had killed in the fight was the one who started it may have factored into his decision; the second time, ''both'' parties are already dead by the time the prince shows up, and the one that gets it in the throat for the fight is an apothecary who wasn't even involved in the fight and whose only crime was giving one of the combatants a poison with the intent that he kills himself[[/note]]. Only the deaths of the original StarCrossedLovers are enough to get both families to snap out of it.

* Happens in ''VideoGame/{{Shenmue}}'' with Ryo's father... boy howdy. As revealed in ''VideoGame/ShenmueII'' [[spoiler: Iwao Hazuki allegedly murdered Sunming Zhao. Years later Sunming's son Longsun Zhao, now calling himself Lan Di, murders Iwao in front of his son Ryu Hazuki, setting off the events of the game as Ryu searches for his father's killer.]]

* Invoked in ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'' by [[spoiler: Temple]], in a desperate attempt save himself, after the Reds and Blues have defeated him and Tucker's about to FinishHim, saying that if he does this, [[spoiler: Temple's]] friends will just keep this going. Tucker simply asks [[ShutUpHannibal "What friends?"]], as all his allies were either dead or captured at that point. [[spoiler: Luckily for him, Carolina manages to talk Tucker out of killing him.]]

* This is one of the reasons why vigilantism is not permitted. If you come after someone because they harmed you or one of your loved ones, what’s to stop one of your target’s loved ones from coming after you (and so on and so forth). As imperfect as law enforcement and the courts are, at least they can have more neutrality and can put aside their emotional side to extent to carry out justice- and even then, they have to deal with RageAgainstTheLegalSystem. Not to mention, they’re are checks and balances to help correct when they do get things wrong.
* A part of the reason the UsefulNotes/ArabIsraeliConflict has lasted so long is largely because of this. [[ItsPersonal Everybody knows somebody who was killed by someone on the other side]], and hardliners on both sides feel that they need to take action to make everything even -- Palestinian [[YourTerroristsAreOurFreedomFighters terrorists and / or freedom fighers]] launch an attack on Israel, which causes Israel to retaliate more forcefully, which increases support for violent retribution in Palestine, [[HereWeGoAgain which prompts Israel to retaliate more forcefully]]... [[NeverMyFault Both sides will also claim the other side started it]].
* To prevent cycles of revenge from going on forever, or turning into ''spirals'' of revenge, the Anglo-Saxons, as well as many other medieval societies had the institution of "wer-gild", or blood money. Someone outside the feud would come in and decide who had suffered the most (i.e., which side had suffered the most murders). The side that had suffered less would then have to pay a fine to the others' side proportional to the overzealousness of their revenge killings.

* ''ComicBook/BlueMonday'': Never, EVER [[ThePeepingTom tape a girl bathing]] and show people. You'll lose your PornStash in a ball of fire. Of course, if you made copies, don't let the girl know or she and her friends will beat the shit out of you in front of the whole school during a rigged soccer match. Of course, by that point, you're justified in sending a copy to air on local cable access. And this isn't even taking into account the [[ToiletPaperPrank mass TP-ing of a house]] or the [[IAteWhat pube-burgers]]!

* This is also the case with child abuse. The people who were abused as children [[TheChainOfHarm may become child abusers themselves]]. This may be because it was a cycle in the family for the kids and their ancestors to grow up being abused.

* This is one of the reasons why vigilantism is not permitted. If you come after someone because they harmed you or one of your loved ones, what’s to stop one of your target’s loved ones from coming after you (and so on and so forth). As imperfect as law enforcement and the courts are, at least they can have more neutrality and can put aside their emotional side to extent to carry out justice. Not to mention, they’re are checks and balances to help correct when they do get things wrong.

->''"[[RevengeIsNotJustice An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.]]"''