History Main / DefeatMeansFriendship

** In season 3, Careful S. fought and defeated Kalo three times (or two and a half, depending on how you consider the last one) and at the end, Kalo wants to stay and fight alongside Careful S. In this case, it somewhat overlaps with FireForgedFriends.

* In ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda: Secret of the Furious Five'', a short feature that explores the backstory of WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda, we learn that Monkey was once a mischievous trickster, and only become good after being defeated by [[spoiler: Oogway]].

* While their fight was a draw, WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack and the Scotsman become good friends after fighting one another and then teaming up to fight off some bounty hunters that had been chasing them. The Scotsman goes on to become one of Jack's dearest allies, not only saving Jack's life on one occasion but also [[spoiler:being instrumental in the final battle against [[BigBad Aku]]]].

* [[PlayingWithATrope Played with]] on ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime:'' [[KidHero Finn]] doesn't ''defeat'' [[VampireMonarch Marceline]] in her OneWingedAngel form, but he does wound her, which impresses her enough that she calls off their fight and returns the house that she had taken from him and [[NonHumanSidekick Jake]]. The next episode has him outwit her plans to prank him, and after that they become increasingly friendly.

* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'': Numerous episodes showed Gotham's rogues attempting to turn their lives around. Each time, they act friendly with Batman or Bruce Wayne (sometimes even both in the same episode, with Bruce Wayne being friendly and offering genuine support while Batman warns them to stay out of trouble). Unfortunately, [[StatusQuoIsGod something always happens that sends them back into villainy]].
* Subverted ''and'' played straight in ''WesternAnimation/{{Ben 10}}'', where Ben, feeling some sympathy for [[EvilCounterpart Kevin 11]] due to his FreudianExcuse, offered him this after defeating him. Kevin appeared to consider the offer, but only used the opportunity to attempt to backstab Ben. In a later episode, they did have an EnemyMine following their capture in GladiatorGames, but Kevin attempted once again to kill Ben at the first opportunity. The trope eventually is played straight in the sequel ''WesternAnimation/Ben10AlienForce'', where Kevin is once again forced to team up with Ben for a longer time, leading them to actually befriend each other, but it took a 5-year TimeSkip for such a thing to happen, and later episodes reveal Kevin had to recover from his psychosis during those five years.

** Nightmare Moon is defeated and purified by the Elements of Harmony.
** Discord is defeated the same way as Nightmare Moon--he even dares the Mane Six to "Friend me" just before the attack -- but the Elements deem him to be undeserving (or incapable) of redemption and instead [[TakenForGranite stick him right back]] in the FateWorseThanDeath he crawled out of. WordOfGod states that the reason behind the different effect is that Nightmare Moon was under the [[MoreThanMindControl influence]] of TheCorruption while Discord was himself [[RealityWarper a corrupting force]]. In "Keep Calm and Flutter On," Discord returns and the trope is {{inverted|Trope}}. Fluttershy becomes the first friend he's had in untold years, and Discord is surprised to realize how much he values her friendship. When Fluttershy finally puts her hoof down and tells Discord that he'll lose her friendship if he keeps being a jerk, Discord concedes and undergoes a HeelFaceTurn. Thus, Friendship Equals Defeat.

** Happens quite ''literally'' in "The Cutie Remark", as Season 5 BigBad Starlight Glimmer accepts defeat and becomes Twilight Sparkle's student in the study of friendship, becoming [[SixthRanger a new addition]] to the Mane Six.
** ''Denied'' in "To Where And Back Again" with [[spoiler: Chrysalis. Starlight offers her the chance to be good like Twilight did with her, but Chrysalis instead declares that she'll exact her revenge on Starlight, the aesop being that some people are beyond redemption]].

** After the Crystal Gems finally caught Peridot, she began warming up to Steven during their EnemyMine to defeat the Cluster, which eventually leads to her doing a HeelFaceTurn.

** Another deconstruction shows up in "Why So Blue"; Lapis tries to talk two other Lapis Lazulis into stopping their attack on another world. In the end, they double-team her, and it looks like she might be in trouble... until she loses her temper. One TOTAL CurbStompBattle later, they've gone from smug, to terrified, to quickly becoming her biggest fans, so impressed that they cheerfully do whatever she says. However, she'd wanted them to truly make a HeelFaceTurn and is disgusted that they decided to befriend her because they believe in MightMakesRight and saw Lapis as "[[IFightForTheStrongestSide the strongest side]]".

-->-- '''Jason Thompson,''' ''[[http://io9.com/5490323/to-protect-and-kill-morality-in-action-manga To Protect and Kill: Morality in Action Manga.]]'' ''io9, March 11th, 2010''.

* In Boorman's ''Film/{{Excalibur}}'':

* The ''Franchise/TheFastAndTheFurious'' series relies on this trope heavily to expand its roster of protagonists; nearly every antagonist that isn't killed at the end of their film ends up joining the crew.
** In the original ''The Fast and the Furious'', Dom is all but defeated and Brian could easily arrest him, but he lets him go, leading to them teaming up again in every subsequent film they both appear in. Dom's crewmates Brad and Letty later pop up and work with him and Brian again in later films.
** ''Fast Five'' had the crew hunted by DEA agent Luke Hobbs and Brazilian police officer Elena Neves; they ultimately fail to take them down and both later join the crew themselves.
** Brothers Owen and Deckard Shaw (the lead antagonists of ''Fast & Furious 6'' and ''Furious 7'', respectively) are thoroughly defeated, and return in ''The Fate of the Furious'' to rescue Dom's infant son. Deckard also returns alongside former nemesis Hobbs in the teamup spinoff ''Hobbs & Shaw''.
* Prince Barin spends the middle third of ''Film/{{Flash Gordon|1980}}'' trying to kill Flash, then joins him when Flash defeats him in a "battle to the death" -- and then saves him from a very, ''very'' long fall.

-->'''[[Characters/XMen90sMembers Jubilee]]''': How many bad guys have you actually sent to jail in the last year or so?\\

* In ''ComicBook/SupermanVsTheAmazingSpiderMan'', after their mandatory first meeting/fight, which Characters/{{Superman|TheCharacter}} wins, Superman and [[Characters/SpiderManPeterParker Spider-Man]] agree to work together in the same case and they quickly become friends.

* Discussed in chapter 2 of ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/38203459/chapters/95605858 Things Are Gonna Get Easier]]'', after Hayato is shocked that Okuyasu plans to keep the plant-cat hybrid Stray Cat as a pet [[AttackAnimal despite Yoshikage Kira using to nearly kill them]]. Okuyasu reveals that the majority of Morioh's heroic stand users, including himself, all started out as enemies before being defeated by Josuke and/or Koichi. Though he does point out [[EverybodyHasStandards that they don't extend this courtesy to everyone]], such as [[SerialKiller Angelo]] and [[PsychoElectro Akira Otoishi]]. He confirms to Hayato that they would have also punished Yoshikage Kira for his crimes [[spoiler:if he didn't get kill in an ambulance accident]].