History Main / MercifulMinion

Compare to IfYoureSoEvilEatThisKitten (where the villain orders an underling to "take care" of the hero as a loyalty test), AloneWithPrisonerPloy (which is just as likely to be information-passing as "time to escape"), PetTheDog (where the villain shows some kindness to highlight their redeeming qualities), EvenEvilHasStandards, MinionWithAnFInEvil, HelpfulMook, and NobleDemon. Can overlap with DeathFakedForYou.

* WesternAnimation/HotWheelsBattleForce5: Zug gets a moment where he saves Stanford.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

[[quoteright:187:[[Webcomic/{{Sinfest}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/SinfestMercifulMinion_949.JPG]]]]
[[caption-width-right:187:Those PuppyDogEyes...]]

* In ''Penta of the Chopped-Off Hands'', colled in ''[[ https://web.archive.org/web/20200222051817/http://surlalunefairytales.com/pentamerone/index.html Il Pentamerone]]'', an exchanged letter orders that Penta and her child be burnt; concluding the king had gone mad, his servants sent them away to protect them.
* In "Literature/TheGirlWithoutHands", collected by Creator/TheBrothersGrimm, in the first edition the mother-in-law's servants spare her when the mother-in-law orders her taken to the forest and killed; in the second and later ones, the mother-in-law receives the letter ordering her death and sends her away to avoid it.

* In ''Penta of the Chopped-Off Hands'', an exchanged letter orders that Penta and her child be burnt; concluding the king had gone mad, his servants sent them away to protect them.
* In ''The Girl Without Hands'', collected by Creator/TheBrothersGrimm, in the first edition the mother-in-law's servants spare her when the mother-in-law orders her taken to the forest and killed; in the second and later ones, the mother-in-law receives the letter ordering her death and sends her away to avoid it.

* In ''Webcomic/{{Sinfest}}'', [[http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=4301 despite Satan's orders]], [[http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=4315 the green succubus can't bring herself to abandon the enlightened drones]], but [[http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=4328 brings them home.]]

[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]

* ''{{Anime/Gankutsuou}}'': Baptistan finds Albert sleeping at the Count's doorstep after trying to find him and confront him over recent betrayals. Instead of kicking him out, he wakes him up, and sends him off, later giving him a communicator, [[spoiler: and saving him with Bertuccio. At the end of the series, Bertuccio defies a direct order to kill Albert, realizing that the Count has gone too far.]]

[[folder: Film ]]

* ''Film/Fury2014'': A young SS trooper silently spares [[spoiler:Norman]] from a AFateWorseThanDeath by not alerting the surviving Nazi platoon to his hiding position underneath the titular tank.
* {{WesternAnimation/Coraline}} does this twice; Other Wybie rebels against Other Mother, helping Coraline escape, and is killed for his troubles. Later, Coraline's Other Father tries to help too. He's being controlled by a machine and can't do much but be an ApologeticAttacker at first, but at the last second is able to wrench his hand free and throw Coraline one of the Ghost Eyes she needs to save her real parents.

[[folder: Folklore ]]

** In a Scottish variant on the tale, ''Literature/GoldTreeAndSilverTree'', Queen Silver-Tree orders her own husband to kill Gold-Tree and [[ImAHumanitarian serve her the heart and liver]]. Luckily, a foreign prince has recently expressed an interest in Gold-Tree, so the king has them quietly married and sent off to the prince’s country.
* In "[[http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/grimms/97wateroflife.html The Water Of Life]]", the older brothers steal the water and put salt water in the youngest son's bottle, so that they heal their father, who thinks the youngest is trying to poison him. He sends a huntsman to kill him, in the woods, but the huntsman warns the prince and lets him escape.

[[folder: Literature ]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

-->'''[[spoiler: Yun]]:''' [[VillainsDyingGrace He's a Jedi. He deserves a fight]].

[[folder: Web Comics ]]

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

* In the ''[[WesternAnimation/{{Thundercats 2011}} [=ThunderCats (2011)=]]]'' episode "Omens Part One" Lion-O shows mercy to two [[StockPunishment stockaded]] Lizard prisoners by [[PleaseSpareHimMyLiege convincing his father]] to set them free. In "Part Two", one of the two Lizards [[AndroclesLion repays the favor]] during the Lizard invasion, by smuggling the key to Lion-O and Tygra's cell [[JailBake in some soup]] when they're LockedInTheDungeon, allowing them to escape.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Reboot}}'' has Hack and Slash, who ultimately can't bring themselves to delete Cyrus. They then have an epiphany that they were only willing to do ''most if not all'' of the evil stuff they used to do because they always knew Bob would stop them from [[JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope going to far]] anyways.

Compare to IfYoureSoEvilEatThisKitten (where the villain orders an underling to "take care" of the hero as a loyalty test), AloneWithPrisonerPloy (which is just as likely to be information-passing as "time to escape"), PetTheDog (where the villain shows some kindness to highlight their redeeming qualities), EvenEvilHasStandards, MinionWithAnFInEvil, and NobleDemon. Can overlap with DeathFakedForYou.

Compare to IfYoureSoEvilEatThisKitten (where the villain orders an underling to "take care" of the hero as a loyalty test), AloneWithPrisonerPloy (which is just as likely to be information-passing as "time to escape"), EvenEvilHasStandards, MinionWithAnFInEvil, and NobleDemon. Can overlap with DeathFakedForYou.

* Literature/SnowWhite's evil stepmother ordered a huntsman to kill Snow White and bring her heart back as proof. He leaves her in the woods instead, and brought back the heart of a deer. (In [[Disney/SnowWhiteAndTheSevenDwarfs the Disney version]] it's a pig, because that's funnier.)

* In ''Series/TheMentalist'' a child witnesses a murder on the orders of a criminal, who then orders one of his henchmen to kill the kid. Said henchman instead asks his relative to take the kid in. The criminal, showing a shocking lack of GenreSavvy, tries to order a different henchman to carry out the deed later and is flat out refused.

* WesternAnimation/HotWheelsBattleForce5: Zug get's a moment where he saves Stanford.

* Literature/SnowWhite's evil stepmother ordered a huntsman to kill Snow White and bring her heart back as proof. He leaves her in the woods instead, and brought back the heart of a deer.

[[AC:Anime and Manga]]

[[AC:Film]]

[[AC:Folklore]]

[[AC:{{Literature}}]]

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]

[[AC:{{VideoGames}}]]

[[AC:WebComics]]

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]

* In ''Literature/{{Edgedancer}}'', when Lift is tailing Nale's acolytes, she realizes that one of them is coming up from behind her and hides. He manages to locate her nevertheless, but rather than rat her out to his companions, he deliberately ignores her, as he's come to doubt his boss' sanity.

* In ''The Girl Without Hands'', in the GrimmBrothers' first edition, the mother-in-law's servants spare her when the mother-in-law orders her taken to the forest and killed; in the second and later ones, the mother-in-law receives the letter ordering her death and sends her away to avoid it.

* ''VideoGame/JadeEmpire'': The Emperor ordered Sun Li's family killed. The Lotus Assassins did their duty...save one. [[spoiler: Sagacious Zu balked at having to kill a newbown and decided to smuggle the infant Dawn Star out of the palace and hide her]]. We also have a case with Sun Li himself sparing the PlayerCharacter as the rest of the Spirit Monks were slaughtered. [[spoiler: But this is a subversion. He was planning all along to [[InvokedTrope invoke]] the GenocideBackfire trope and set you up as a LaserGuidedTykebomb to kill his enemies so he could take over!]]

* ''Force 10 from Navarone'' (sequel to ''[[Film/TheGunsOfNavarone The Guns Of Navarone]]''). Major Schroeder's mistress, Maritza, volunteers to take Mallory and Barnsby to recover the penicillin and to execute them if it doesn't exist. She eventually kills the German guards, reveals that she's actually a member of the partisans and lets Mallory and Barnsby escape.