History Main / GainingTheWillToKill

They may find that ItGetsEasier. Or [[ItNeverGetsAnyEasier not]]. [[MurderMakesYouCrazy Going crazy]] or [[BleedEmAndWeep sad]] is optional.

* The Justice Lords arc of ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' involves an Alternate Universe version of the League called the Justice Lords. At the beginning, we see a flashback showing that Earth's Superman make this decision and kill Lex Luthor at Luthor's goading because he killed ComicBook/TheFlash and caused another World War. After that the Lords has no problem killing (or lobotomising) criminals, justifying it as the greater good. They proceed to form a ruthless dictatorship across Earth, punishing even small crimes harshly. Interestingly, Lord-Superman lobotomizing every SuperVillain winds up biting League-Superman in the ass when he does it to Doomsday, the monster that becomes stronger every time you kill him. Doomsday later comes back with a grudge against Superman (albeit the wrong one), and he tries Lord-Superman's tactic only for him to find that his skull has become far more durable in the meantime.

* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' involves an Alternate Universe version of the League called the Justice Lords. At the beginning, we see a flashback showing that Earth's Superman make this decision and kill Lex Luthor at Luthor's goading because he killed ComicBook/TheFlash and caused another World War. After that the Lords has no problem killing (or lobotomising) criminals, justifying it as the greater good. They proceed to form a ruthless dictatorship across Earth, punishing even small crimes harshly. Interestingly, Lord-Superman lobotomizing every SuperVillain winds up biting League-Superman in the ass when he does it to Doomsday, the monster that becomes stronger every time you kill him. Doomsday later comes back with a grudge against Superman (albeit the wrong one), and he tries Lord-Superman's tactic only for him to find that his skull has become far more durable in the meantime.

* ''Manga/DeathNote'': Light's first two kills serve as this. The first guy Light kills is a serious headcase who had taken a school full of kids hostage. Light writes the guy's name into the title notebook as a means of figuring out whether or not it was real or just a sick prank. When the criminal in question dies of a heart attack 40 seconds after Light wrote the name in, Light still isn't completely convinced that the Death Note is real, so after school, he decides to test out the notebook a second time, taking out the leader of a motorcycle gang and stopping his AttemptedRape of a young woman by sending him and his bike into the path of an oncoming semi. After wrestling with the implications of passing judgement upon people like this, Light makes the decision to become Kira and "change the world" by killing off its criminals and evil people, which sets him on the path to [[AGodAmI developing his infamous god-complex]] and becoming the VillainProtagonist of the series.

* ''Franchise/DragonBall'': Gohan, while being in several life or death fights throughout the series where he usually acted on instinct (and was never powerful enough to kill enemies on his own outside of filler arcs), was faced with the decision to consciously kill Cell during the Cell games. Despite being brutalized by Cell and watching him torment all the other Z fighters and threaten the planet, Gohan doesn't gain the will to kill until Android 16 reaches him. He explains that people like Cell will never listen to words, and that Gohan must kill Cell in order to protect everything he loves. Unfortunately in the process he also [[PayEvilUntoEvil gains the will to torture]] and decides to punish Cell for everything he's done, which leads to [[spoiler:Goku needing to commit a HeroicSacrifice after Cell decides to [[TakingYouWithMe self-destruct in order to take out the entire planet.]]]]

* In the fifth season of ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack'', the titular samurai kills one of the Daughters of Aku by [[SlashedThroat slitting her throat]]. Up until that point, Jack assumed they were robots, until [[UnroboticReveal he saw the assassin's blood]]. The only reason he doesn’t kill is because he’s too traumatized by witnessing his father kill bandits. In the next episode, Jack debates his options, but ultimately decides "it's kill or be killed." He remembers that, as a Samurai, it’s his duty to kill if necessary. When Jack encounters the Daughters again, it's a fight to the death.

* Subverted by ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender''. [[spoiler: In the final season, Avatar Aang grapples with potentially having to kill Fire Lord Ozai. Everything seems to lead to Aang making that choice until he discovers a different path at the last possible moment.]]

** Albert mentions vomiting after his first murder

* In the fifth season of ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack'', the titular samurai kills one of the Daughters of Aku by [[SlashedThroat slitting her throat]]. Up until that point, Jack assumed they were robots, until [[UnroboticReveal he saw the assassin's blood]]. The only reason. He doesn’t kill is because he’s too traumatized by witnessing his father kill bandits. In the next episode, Jack debates his options, but ultimately decides "it's kill or be killed." He remembers that, as a Samurai, it’s his duty to kill if necessary. When Jack encounters the Daughters again, it's a fight to the death.

* In the fifth season of ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack'', the titular samurai kills one of the Daughters of Aku by [[SlashedThroat slitting her throat]]. Up until that point, Jack assumed they were robots, until [[UnroboticReveal he saw the assassin's blood]]. In the next episode, Jack debates his options, but ultimately decides "it's kill or be killed." When Jack encounters the Daughters again, it's a fight to the death.

* In the ''Burial at Sea'' DLC of ''Videogame/BioshockInfinite'', [[spoiler:Daisy Fitzroy's apparent attempt to murder a child is revealed to have been act set up by both her and the Lutece twins in order to force Elizabeth to mature through spilling blood, and thus the will to oppose Comstock.]]

* ''Fanfic/AFrozenFlower'': Played with in the case of Oscar. Although he tries to kill Orchid because she's a monster and has killed someone before, it's not his first rodeo and it's all but stated that he has killed before. His reasons for his past victims' deaths are never clearly stated, but going by his attempted murder on Orchid, it's implied he only murders people who have murdered others before.

* ComicBook/CaptainBritain (aka Brian Braddock) was a fairly straightforward example of TheCape... until the day his nemesis, Slaymaster, fought Brian's sister [[ComicBook/{{Psylocke}} Betsy]] and beat her to within an inch of her life before ripping out her eyes. Slaymaster's last words -- spoken as Brian Braddock stood over him, holding a large rock -- were: "Fool! [[TemptingFate You have not the strength to kill...]]"
* ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'': When Mysterio started out as a supervillain, he never meant for anybody to get hurt or killed, and actually tended to go out of his way to avoid injuring people — especially civilians — too badly in his schemes. When he kills for the first time by [[AccidentalMurder inadvertently causing the death of a bystander]] in a bank robbery gone wrong, he's so horrified, upset, and traumatized by the experience that he considers leaving crime. [[HeelFaceDoorSlam A vicious beating from a symbiote-influenced Spider-Man puts the kibosh on his retirement plans]] and the ensuing decades of living the criminal lifestyle plus learning he's dying of cancer (and then ''[[BackFromTheDead coming back]]'' thanks to an ill-advised DealWithTheDevil) causes him to slowly lose his aversion to violence and become frighteningly willing to kill to get what he wants, even if he still doesn't actively seek it.
* In ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'', this was a major sign of Rorschach having transformed into his current persona - up until that point, he had only beaten criminals up and tied them up for the police. However, after [[spoiler: finding that a kidnapped child had been chopped up and fed to the kidnapper's two Alsatians]], [[RageBreakingPoint he begins to kill]] [[TranquilFury villains as necessary.]]

* In episode 8 of ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'', this happens to [[spoiler:Sayaka when she brutally attacks and possibly kills two sexists on a subway. She had come to the realization that if she is going to be a proper hero, unlike Kyoko and Akemi, and hunt witches for the sake of protecting humans, then why stop at the witches? It's around this point where she becomes Oktavia von Seckendorff and lets go of her humanity]].