History Main / IDidWhatIHadToDo

* RonaldReagan said, on the bombing of Libya in 1986, "Colonel Qadhafi is not only an enemy of the United States. His record of subversion and aggression against the neighboring States in Africa is well documented and well known. He has ordered the murder of fellow Libyans in countless countries. He has sanctioned acts of terror in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, as well as the Western Hemisphere. Today we have done what we had to do. If necessary, we shall do it again."

* [[ThePrince Machiavelli]] wrote in ''ThePrince'' that a Prince should not let his morals impede the running of a state. (In most academic circles ''The Prince'' is regarded as a satire. He also wrote about how a Republic and its citizens would be called upon to do what was necessary for the good of the Republic in ''Discourse On Livy''.)

** The kicker? The rumor of their involvement and the whole mutiny thing were [[spoiler: ''false'']].
* In ''[[PokeWars The Subsistence]]'' Ash has Pikachu use Thunder on a sinking ferry overrun by Sharpedo and Tentecruel. He regrets that he had to kill everyone on the ship but the Pokémon swarming the ship were too dangerous to leave alive.

* Maxim 20 from ''SchlockMercenary'': If you're not willing to shell your own position, you're not willing to win.

** More recently, Morrigan's cheif warlock, Monteraine, defected to Ami's forces upon capture. this enrages Eline and Venna, who reveal that she was the one who implemented Venna's [[BrainwashedAndCrazy conditioning]] [[SexSlave for]] [[BadBoss Morrigan]]. Monteraine immeadiately offers to do the same again for Ami's minions, and it is only when it is clear that Ami is considering not hiring her that Monteraine admits she had little choice in the matter.

* Fanfic/DungeonKeeperAmi features this a few times, when Ami has to make hard moral calls, usualy involveing a cost/benefit tradeoff of some kind. She ''is'' a designated villain, after all. Some of her minions are more willing to take the risk on her behalf, instead.

* This quote from the VillainProtagonist of the MassEffect fanfic The Council Era says all that is needed to be said. "I will pay for taking the low ground after I die, but there always has to be someone who is willing to make such a sacrifice, for the sake of something far greater than themselves. It's part of the order of things." Keep in mind that his "taking the low ground" was committing genocide. It is likely that in the second part of the storyline, when he's expected to decline further into ChaoticEvil, that he'll still try to use the "I Did What I Had To Do" card, even if his motivation becomes DespotismJustifiesTheMeans.

* Again, in TransformersPrime, Optimus says this when he finally realizes that the war will never end until he kills Megatron. Since it's Optimus, [[spoiler: he obviously doesn't go through with it. He get's interrupted when the literal Transformer Devil wakes up]]

* ''{{Carriers}}''. In a world where there's an infectious virus that kills people, pretty much everyone is forced to kill people who are infected but not yet dead. On some occasions our 'heroes' kill some non-infected people when they refused to give up gas in their car. They needed this gas to survive.

* In ''TheBattleOfAlgiers'' Mathieu delivers a speech on this theme to the French press, justifying his use of torture in combating the Algerian insurgency.

The questioned character turns to them and says just one thing: "I did what I had to do." And nothing else. Except possibly "AndItWorked".

Sometimes good people have to do bad things because if they don't, worse things will happen. At its heart, this is a post-facto justification for [[NecessarilyEvil morally questionable]] [[ShootTheDog actions]] presented to those who would question the necessity or ''right''ness of said actions. Perhaps TheHero has [[SaveTheVillain saved the villain]], or [[HostageForMcGuffin surrendered the macguffin to save a hostage]], or abandoned innocents/friends to their fate [[SadisticChoice to save others]]. Or the NobleDemon has saved TheHero while [[IWasJustPassingThrough just passing through]]. Or the AntiHero has [[ShootTheDog shot the dog]]. Their comrades are baffled, stunned, and angered. They ask ''"WhatWereYouThinking"'', and exclaim ''"WhatTheHellHero"''

* WonderWoman ends up having to say this a lot after killing MindController Maxwell Lords (with the whole thing recorded and broadcast to boot), who was controlling Superman (and who could've killed everyone present in the time it took to come up with a better plan). The whole thing sets off the CrisisCrossover, InfiniteCrisis.

* This is {{Batman}}'s tacit justification for every time the Justice League finds out his plans to take them down should it be needed. Interesting because Batman helps undoing them anyway. He also encourages this state of mind in his protégés, especially Tim (among others, in [[BadFuture the form]] of a DangerousSixteenthBirthday worthy of the greatest [[ManipulativeBastard Manipulative Bastards]]).

* [[spoiler: Ra's Al Ghul]] says this line verbatim in ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond''. Of course, [[spoiler:he HAD placed his mind into his daughter's body in order to cheat death.]]

* In ''Literature/{[Worm}}'', Alexandria justifies abducting innocents from other worlds, most of whom were about to die, and then experimenting on them in order to better develop Cauldron's super serum with this.

** Katagiri was asked to keep a secret but felt forced to reveal it because she believed the secret would threaten the Ishida family's future. [[spoiler: The secret was that Masaki had saved a Shinigami but she'd spotted Masaki had a Hollow-tainted wound and acted based on Ryuuken's earlier statement to her that the future of the family depended on their bloodline remaining untainted. Her decision was the correct one as Masaki's tainted wound would have destroyed her had she not received treatment in time.]]

** Katagiri was asked to keep a secret but felt forced to reveal it because she believed the secret would threaten the Ishida family's future. [[spoiler: The secret was that Masaki had saved a Shinigami but she'd spotted Masaki had a Hollow-tainted wound and acted based on Ryuuken's earlier statement to her that the future of the family depended on their bloodline remaining untainted. Her decision was the correct one as Masaki's tainted wound almost killed Masaki.]]

* The famous quote "We had to destroy the village in order to save it" from a commander in the Vietnam War.

** Katagiri was asked to keep a secret but felt forced to reveal it because she believed the secret would threaten the Ishida family's future. [[spoiler: The secret was that Masaki had saved a Shinigami but she'd spotted Masaki had a Hollow-tainted wound and acted based on Ryuuken's earlier statement to her that the future of the family depended on their bloodline remaining untainted.]]

* Featured prominently in the second of many speeches in ''VForVendetta''.

* Ryo Narushima of ''Manga/{{Shamo}}'' uses this to jusify killing his own parents (of all things!) in the first chapter of the manga. After that... well, let's just say he gets a little too used to this trope.

* More or less King's justification for having turned Demon Card into a criminal orginization in ''RaveMaster''

** Mayrui has a confrontation with Yamamoto over taking a very important decision without first consulting Yamamoto and his response is that he had to do what was necessary because the problem required an immediate response and couldn't afford to be tied up by CelestialBureaucracy. [[spoiler:The decision concerned was to kill twenty-eight thousand residents of Soul Society to stabilise the cosmic balance of souls that exist to prevent the universe from breaking.]]

The questioned character turns to them and says just one thing: "I did what I had to do." And nothing else.