History Main / StakingTheLovedOne

* ''VideoGame/{{Majyuo}}'': If you complete the game as a human (didn't obtain the final transformation), it is all but shown through the screen smashing to black with the sound of a gunshot that [[spoiler:the protagonist blew his own daughter's brains out to spare her from her fate as a demon]].
* ''VideoGame/{{Majyuo}}'' have this happening in the BadEnding, where your daughter have been converted into a succubi to fight you. If you failed to obtain the final transformation item, you're then forced to finish her off.

* Played with in ''VideoGame/GoldenSunDarkDawn'' when [[CuteMonsterGirl Sveta]] realizes that activating the [[WaveMotionGun Apollo Lens]] required to end the Grave Eclipse will [[spoiler: kill her brother, who was [[BalefulPolymorph transformed into a monster of darkness]]]] by the games main antagonists. Made worse by the fact that [[BecauseDestinySaysSo she is the only one who can do it.]]

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* In ''Manga/{{Hellsing}}'', [[LadyOfWar Integra]] is instructed to put down her subordinates-turned-ghouls herself, since she was their leader and thus their being defeated and transformed is her responsibility.
* In an inversion, ''Manga/RosarioPlusVampire'' has the vampiric Moka nearly beating [[spoiler: the human Tsukune]] to death because he had become a ghoul that was dangerous to everyone around him. She considered it her responsibility to finish him because she was the one who caused the transformation.
* ''LightNovel/FateZero'' shows us the consequences of ''not'' doing it: after drinking a potion that transformed her in a vampire, Kiritsugu's childhood friend [[UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom Shirley]] begged Kiritsugu to kill her while she was still capable of resisting her instincts, but when Kiritsugu couldn't go through it (opting instead to ask the local priest for counsel) she caused a [[ZombieApocalypse vampire outbreak]] [[DoomedHometown that claimed everyone on the island but Kiritsugu and his father]]. The experience, including the Church and the Mage Association killing all the vampires and burning down the place and having to kill his own father for experimenting on vampirism, was Kiritsugu's CynicismCatalyst: since then Kiritsugu never hesitated to pull the trigger whenever necessary, and when he got to choose between shooting down a plane with [[ParentalSubstitute his mother surrogate]] and a horde of ghouls on it and risking it to cause another vampire outbreak he immediately shot down the plane.
* ''Manga/TokyoGhoul [=:Re=]'': [[spoiler: After encountering his NotQuiteDead [[DeadSidekick Sidekick]] as a deranged [[HalfHumanHybrid half-ghoul]], Houji makes the difficult decision to attempt to put down his former subordinate himself. It......does ''not'' end well, with Takizawa slaughtering the entire squad in a rage. He kills Houji via decapitation, before strangling [[ImpliedLoveInterest Akira]] while demanding to know why they would try to kill him when he just wanted to help them]].
* {{Subverted}} in ''Manga/{{Parasyte}}''--Shinichi tries to do this to the Parasite who killed/infested [[spoiler:his mom]] but freezes up at the critical moment. [[NonProtagonistResolver Mamoru Uda and Jaw kill her instead]], with the former arguing that Shinichi shouldn't have to be the one to do it.

* In Marvel's ''Comicbook/TheTombOfDracula'', Drac is clockwork predictable with this trope. Virtually no one outside the 'Bridge Crew' was taken prisoner without being turned.

* Defied in ''ComicBook/XMen'', where the team flat out rejected this as an option after ComicBook/JubileeMarvelComics was turned, although Blade tried to convince them there wasn't any other. She handled herself okay until she was eventually cured.
* ''ComicBook/CaballisticsInc'': Hannah Chapter reveals to a psychic vampire that before becoming an OccultDetective she was once involved with a woman who turned into a zombie, forcing Hannah to blow her head off. She turns off her com so that Lawrence (her closest friend) can't hear this.

[[folder:Fan Fic]]

* In Creator/StephenKing's ''Film/NightOfTheLivingDead1968'' fanfic story "The Reach", the inhabitants of a small New England island off the coast of Massachusetts cooperate to rid their island of zombies and to prevent the local graveyard from spawning new ones. When the strain gets to be too much for one old man, he begins suffering a heart attack. Rather than risk dying and coming back as a zombie, he tells his sons that he's going to recite the Lord's prayer, and when he says "Amen", they are to put the muzzles of their shotguns up to his chest and pull the trigger, just so he can spare them this.
* In the ''Series/{{Angel}}''/''Literature/TheHungerGames'' fic "[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10718717/1/Demon-s-Games Demon's Games]]", the final battle sees [[spoiler:Katniss forced to stake the now-vampire Prim, tearfully accepting that the sister she loved has gone forever before she hits the DespairEventHorizon and has to be saved from a burning building by Peeta]].
* Peripherally applies in ''Fanfic/TorontoBatFansLetMeIn'' fic "Eternally Bonded", when Owen and Abby essentially kill a woman who was attacked by Abby's vampire uncle Jebediah (they burn down the morgue her body was being kept in before she can 'wake up' as a vampire). They don't know the dead woman themselves, but she was married to a friend of Owen's grandfather Oscar, who has given Owen and Abby a safe place to stay since they left Owen's apartment building.

* ''Film/IAmLegend'' featured [[spoiler:the main character's dog being bitten by the "vampires" and he must put her down when it becomes obvious that the antidote he's been trying to develop didn't work. Worse than a lot of examples because the main character is the last human left in a city full of monsters, and the dog was his only companion.]]
* ''Film/FromDuskTillDawn''. [[spoiler: Seth has to kill his brother. Kate has to kill her father ''and'' brother after her brother found himself unable to kill the father and was infected as a result.]]

-->'''Van Helsing''': It must be done by one who loved her in life!
-->'''Jonathan Harker''': But I only liked her!
-->'''Van Helsing''': Close enough!
* Subverted in the first ''Film/CountYorga'' film, one of the protagonist is given the chance to stake a female friend of his that been turned by the title character (she actually stands there and waits on him). He considers it but ultimately can't do it and leaves her in her undead state.
* In ''Film/ShaunOfTheDead,'' Shaun has to kill [[spoiler:his zombified mother]]. Subverted in the case of his [[spoiler:zombified best friend; Shaun locks him in a shed in his back yard and they play video games together.]]
* ''Film/{{Blade}}'' has to stake [[spoiler:his own mother]] in the first film; [[spoiler:he believed she had died giving birth to him after a Vampire bite]].
** He also [[spoiler:gives Whistler a gun to shoot himself before he fully turns. Blade does an UnflinchingWalk as a gunshot is heard behind him. Subverted when it turns out that Whistler missed and survived]].

* In ''Film/{{Zombieland}}'', Columbus and Tallahassee come across Wichita and her zombie-bitten sister, Little Rock. They hand her the gun to do the mercy kill, but things don't go ''quite'' as they plan because [[spoiler: they're faking the zombie bite just so they can get a hold of Columbus and Tallahassee's guns and truck]].
* In ''Film/TwentyEightDaysLater'' Selena tells Jim right near the start that if he got infected she'd kill him "in a heartbeat", and she proves this by killing one of her other friends when he turns. At the climax, she believes Jim has been infected due to the [[EyeScream shockingly brutal]] killing the formerly gentle man commits. [[spoiler: She can't bring herself to actually attack him.]]
** Earlier on [[spoiler: Frank]] is infected but Jim can't bring himself to deliver the death blow, even though he knows he's only got seconds before they're all in danger and Selena is screaming at him to do it.

* When Secker and Paxton in ''Film/TasteTheBloodOfDracula'' find vampirized Lucy in a casket, Secker tries to stake her, only for Paxton to chase him away, so that the task of slaying his daughter would befall on him alone. He fails because he takes too much time to do the deed.
* ''Film/JohnCarpentersVampires''. When John Crowe discovers that his Vatican liaison is withholding information from him, he threatens the priest, who refuses to believe that Crowe will harm a human being. Crowe responds thus:
-->"Listen to me, you fuck! My father kept a secret once. He had been bitten by a vampire. [[ZombieInfectee He kept it a secret from me and my mother.]] By the fifth day, he was turning. That night he attacked my mother. And then he came after me. I killed my own father, Padre. I got no trouble killing you."
* ''Film/StarTrekFirstContact'': {{Downplayed}} on the "loved one" part, but when the Borg invade the ''Enterprise'', Captain Picard makes it clear what must be done to all drones, even former crewmembers. He then shoots one RedShirt whose assimilation has just begun, and later on he guns down a drone who used to be Ensign Lynch.
-->'''Picard:''' ''(to his security teams)'' You may encounter ''Enterprise'' crewmembers who have already been assimilated. Don't hesitate to fire. [[MercyKill Believe me, you'll be doing them a favor.]]

** In the PerspectiveFlip book ''Literature/TheDraculaTape'' Dracula uses this incident to advance his argument that Helsing is a sadistic psychopath.

* ''Literature/TheGardellaVampireChronicles''.
* Subversion in ''[[Literature/DenOfShadows All Just Glass]]''. [[spoiler:The main character herself is a vampire hunter and witch who is turned into a vampire. Her sister, another hunter, wants to do this, but ultimately can't bring herself to do it.]]
** There's another subversion in the book that comes right before it in the series, ''Shattered Mirror''. [[spoiler: Sarah goes out to kill Kristopher, and then gets turned into a vampire.]]
* In one Literature/AnitaBlake book, the parents of a dead girl ask Anita to do this for them before their daughter rises as a vampire.
* Happens to several characters in ''Literature/SalemsLot.''

* In the Literature/MercyThompson novels, doing this to werewolves who can't control their "wolf side" is usually the duty of their closest werewolf relatives, but if they can't do it, the Marrok (Alpha-in-chief of all North America's werewolf packs) or his son Charles has to step in. The novels make it clear that both the Marrok and Charles have already done it too many times for their own peace of mind.
* In ''Literature/BloodPromise'', Rose has to do this to [[spoiler: Dimitri]].
* In ''Literature/{{Baltimore}}'', or the Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire, Baltimore has to do this [[spoiler: not only to his wife, but his father, mother, and sister as well.]]
* Invoked in-universe in ''Literature/DreamPark'', when the casualties of the South Seas Treasure Game are sent back in make-up to "attack" their former comrades as part of a zombie horde. Gwen, acting under the Game Masters' orders, winds up in a duel with her out-of-game boyfriend Oliver, and he's so shocked that she has to whisper "Kill me, Ollie, please" before he'll play out the scene properly and strike her down with his virtual weapon.
* In the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' novels, Angua has specifically ''requested'' that Carrot do this if she ever ends up becoming as monstrous as her brother Wolfgang.
* In ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'', ''Literature/{{Changes}}'', [[spoiler: Harry is forced to kill his vampire girlfriend Susan when she turns fully. The situation was further complicated in that the Red Court vampires that sired Susan were about to kill their daughter to activate a spell that would kill her family line, and by killing Susan, Harry could use the spell against the villains, destroying all members of the Red Court.]]
** Made even worse when one realizes that [[spoiler:our hero]] knowingly manipulated the situation so that [[spoiler:Susan would lose control and kill, thereby turning into the youngest Red Court vampire. He hates himself for doing it and will never forgive himself, even though it saved their daughter.]]
** Note finally that [[spoiler:Susan had]] ''regained'' control in the final moments, and knew exactly what [[spoiler:he was doing and why. The fact that she realized it was the only way to save their child, and didn't struggle, arguably made it even harder for Harry to cope with this trope.]]
* Buffy having to stake the vamped Giles in the ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' novel ''The Lost Slayer''.
* In the ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' novel ''Nemesis'', Eladamri kills the Phyrexian Belbe, who was created from the corpse of Eladamri's daughter. Overlaps with VanHelsingHateCrime in that Belbe had already gone through a HeelFaceTurn and was actively sabotaging the Phyrexians' plans. NiceJobBreakingItHero.
* In the post-ZombieApocalypse ''Literature/{{Newsflesh}}'' world, it's accepted that if someone is about to amplify (become a zombie), even close relatives are expected to put the victim down for good, both as [[MercyKill an act of compassion]] and to keep the victim from spreading the problem by attacking those around him/her. In the first book, we hear about a mother forced to kill her child and see an about-to-be-zombie shot by a close friend. Then there's [[spoiler:Shaun performing a MercyKill on his [[BrotherSisterIncest lover]]/[[NotBloodSiblings adoptive sister]] Georgia]], which sends him into SanitySlippage for the next two books.
* ''Literature/EdenGreen'' follows a rationalist attempting to cure her best friend of an alien needle parasite. As she begins to realize the seriousness of the situation, she resolves to do whatever is necessary to make sure the parasite doesn't spread.
* ''Literature/TheSagaOfErikTheRed'': During the winter Thorstein Eriksson and Gudrid spend in the Western Settlement with farmer Thorstein and his wife Sigrid, people start dying from a mysterious disease (later revealed to be the doing of the ''draugr'' Gardi). Sigrid dies, but hours later comes alive again as an undead and tries to get into the bed of the sick Thorstein Eriksson. Her husband puts her to rest again by driving an axe into her breast.

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', many times.
** Season Two is a protracted inner struggle for Buffy, who can't bring herself to stake Angelus in their first encounter. She ends up having to send him to Hell to stop Acathla when he'd ''just'' had his soul restored.
** In "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS1E2TheHarvest The Harvest]]", Xander staking one of his best friends by ''accident.'' He couldn't do it and only survived because a panicked bystander unknowingly shoved the vamp onto his raised stake.
** In "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS7E17LiesMyParentsToldMe Lies My Parents Told Me]]", Spike had to stake his newly-sired mother after it was made clear that she was a completely different person. And evil. And trying to shag him.

* The ''failure'' to do this quickly enough, when his infected friend hands him a silver-loaded pistol and begs him to end his suffering, is what set Eric Cord on his quest in ''Series/Werewolf1987''.

* Krista in ''Series/{{Blade}}'' does it to [[spoiler:her mother]] after her plan to turn [[spoiler:her]] into a vampire goes awry.
** Subverted in the case of [[spoiler:Krista's uncle]] after he is [[spoiler:bitten by Krista's newly-turned mother]]. Blade [[OffWithHisHead beheads]] him as a precautionary measure.
* A vampire hunter in a ''Series/{{Sliders}}'' episode does this after finding his wife in a coffin before the other vampires swarm him. Quinn is ready to do this to Wade, except she hasn't been bitten and was just sleeping in the coffin.
* ''Series/ForeverKnight'':
** In "A More Permanent Hell" [=LaCroix=] is brought across by his early-teen daughter Divia to escape the destruction of Pompei, but when she declares that mortal rules should no longer constrain them, and they should become lovers, [=LaCroix=] [[EvenEvilHasStandards is horrified]], and [[spoiler:beheads Divia and imprisons her remains in a sarcophagus]].
** Later, in the final episode, [[spoiler:Nick asks [=LaCroix=] to stake him so that he and Natalie can die together, telling [=LaCroix=] that he should do it because of their friendship. (The scene cuts away before the actual staking, though, so it's a popular fan theory that [=LaCroix=] instead smacked Nick in the head with the wood and brought Natalie across.)]]

* ''Series/{{iZombie}}'': In the season 2 finale, [[spoiler:Liv finds out that Vaughn Du Clarke's people have experimented on some of the zombies kidnapped by Major, attempting to cure the condition. Unfortunately, the "cures" end up turning them into "full Romero" zombies. Drake ends up volunteering for an experiment to spare another zombie and goes mindless. Clarke then sics him on Clive, forcing Liv to shoot Drake in the head]].
* ''Series/{{Curfew}}'' features feral creatures called "mooks" which are created when humans are infected with a virus. In episode five, [[spoiler:Ruby Newman]] defends the Donahue family from a group of mooks, but gets bitten and infected by one that wasn't dead yet. When she's unable to kill herself, her [[spoiler:sister Kaye]] performs the Mercy Kill instead.

* In the Music/SoundHorizon song "Koibito wo Uchiotoshita Hi" ("The Day I Shot Down My Lover"), a girl must kill her lover - who saved her life from a monster - when the venom from his battle wound causes him to turn into a monster himself.

* [[spoiler:Saber]] in Heavens Feel route of ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'', though in this route she's not a love interest so much as a very close friend. Quite a downer when the Taiga Dojo for ''not'' doing points out if you want to save her you can go play another route, because it's not happening here (assuming the resultant horrifically Bad End didn't floor you already).
** Doing this to [[spoiler:Sakura]] instead of trying to find a way to save her, on the other hand, is not recommended, as this will net you a Bad End where [[spoiler:Shirou effectively becomes Kiritsugu 2.0, with no qualms about killing anyone in the way of winning the Holy Grail War, [[JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope up to and including Rin and Ilya]]]].
* [[spoiler:Akiha]] makes you promise this in ''VisualNovel/{{Tsukihime}}'' when her demon blood is taking over. [[spoiler:Averted in the True End, though, when you TakeAThirdOption by returning your life force to her. The Normal End is actually ''worse'' than if you had killed her.]] Also barely averted in Kohaku's route with [[spoiler:Akiha again.]] Not [[DemotedToExtra Satsuki]] though. She was just a classmate, so Shiki is just upset he had to kill someone at all.
* In ''VideoGame/MeltyBlood'', Riesbyfe's path takes place in a timeline where Sion fell to vampirism, and she had to kill her. Then she had to do the same thing to Dust of Osiris; a copy of a version of Sion from a possible future that never came to be (It's complicated). She does this knowing that Dust of Osiris is sustaining Riesbyfe's existence. "I hope to see you again, my friend; after the darkness."
* In ''[[VideoGame/PrinceOfPersiaTheSandsOfTime Prince of Persia: The Sands Of Time]]'', the Prince finds himself having to fight his father as a Sand Demon.

* In ''VideoGame/CrisisCore: VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'', [[spoiler: Zack has to kill his mentor, Angeal, who actually makes himself monstrous to make it easier for Zack to kill him.]]
* In ''VideoGame/BaldursGateII'', [[spoiler: your love interest (if you have one)]] gets turned into a vampire and you have to kill them. They'll be only partially turned, so it works like normal dying, not vampire "dying", except that resurrection spells won't work. [[spoiler: There's another way to bring them back to life, though.]]

* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyAdventure'', the hero is forced to kill Amanda, a fellow gladiator, after she gets bitten by Medusa.
* Franchise/ResidentEvil:

* Ending C in ''VideoGame/{{NieR}}'' has the protagonist [[spoiler: killing his LoveInterest Kainé after the [[TheHeartless Shade]] part of her takes over]].
* Played with in ''VideoGame/GoldenSunDarkDawn'' when [[CuteMonsterGirl Sveta]] realizes that activating the [[WaveMotionGun Apollo Lens]] required to end the Grave Eclipse will [[spoiler: kill her brother, who was [[BalefulPolymorph transformed into a monster of darkness]]]] by the games main antagonists. Made worse by the fact that [[BecauseDestinySaysSo she is the only one who can do it.]]
** Subverted when he [[BigBrotherInstinct regains his memory and knocks her away from it]] so he can [[HeroicSacrifice fire it himself]], [[RedemptionEqualsDeath ending the Eclipse.]]
* ''VideoGame/Left4Dead'' provides the page image: In Zoey's backstory, her father was bitten by [[NotUsingTheZWord the Infected]] and asked her to shoot him before he turned. A few weeks later, she found out that she was [[TheImmune immune to the infection]]... [[SenselessSacrifice which means that he probably was too]].
* Done in self-defense in ''VideoGame/{{Phantasmagoria}}''. [[spoiler:Heroine Adrienne is being padlocked into a torture chair which is rigged to kill her when a lever is pulled by her demon-possessed husband Don. At first, she tries to reach out to him with a snowman ornament and pleading that she loves him, but this will fail and he will pull the lever anyway if no action is taken. She ''has'' to pull the lever and make the rigging kill Don to save herself.]]
* In ''VideoGame/{{Starcraft}}: Brood Wars'' Zeratul is forced to slay [[spoiler: his Matriach Razhagal]] after it turns out [[spoiler: she was enslaved by Kerrigan]].
* [[TearJerker The most heart wrenching decision]] you'll have to make in ''VideoGame/TheWalkingDead'' [[spoiler:comes at the end where Lee is about to succumb to the infection that will turn him into a zombie, and the player must decide whether to have Clementine shoot him or simply run and leave him. It seems like a pretty clear-cut choice, and it would be for most, but given the hell that poor Clementine has been through for most of the game, having to shoot the man who's faithfully protected her through it all must seem like murder. Whether she does it or not is up to the player, but either way, its hard to watch. This situation comes up more than once a season, with the drama therein played to the hilt every time.]]
* In ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'' both [[spoiler: Kratos]] and [[spoiler: Regal]] were forced to MercyKill their lovers when they were mutated by Exspheres.
* In ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsIII'', if you complete Siegward of Catarina's [[CompanionSpecificSidequest questline]] before facing Yhorm the Giant, Siegward will join you for this boss battle, revealing that the "duty" he spoke of earlier is a promise he made to Yhorm, his old friend, long ago--namely, to MercyKill him, should he ever be brought back to (un)life after sacrificing himself to the First Flame. To this end, Yhorm had, in fact, given Siegward one of two Swords of Giant-Slaying (the other is kept in his boss arena), which make the boss fight a ''lot'' more manageable. If you manage to get the other one and equip it yourself during the battle, you and Siegward can steamroll the game's biggest DamageSpongeBoss in just a few hits.

* ''VideoGame/{{Majyuo}}'': If you complete the game as a human (didn't obtain the final transformation), it is all but shown through the screen smashing to black with the sound of a gunshot that [[spoiler:the protagonist blew his own daughter's brains out to spare her from her fate as a demon.]]
* At the end of ''VideoGame/ObsCure II'', after [[spoiler:Kenny]] undergoes a FaceMonsterTurn, [[spoiler:his sister Shannon]] is one of the two characters who faces him in the FinalBoss fight. [[spoiler:Afterwards, Amy, who Kenny had [[IHaveYouNowMyPretty raped and impregnated]], undergoes an ExpressDelivery of his monster spawn, and the BolivianArmyEnding that follows has Shannon and her boyfriend Stan getting ready to face her "nephew".]]

* In the ''Webcomic/PennyArcade'' [[http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/7/21/ three]] [[http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/07/28/ part]] [[http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/07/30/ story]], the Cardboard-Tube Samurai is forced to kill an old ally who has been possessed by a cursed sword.

* In ''Webcomic/CharbyTheVampirate'' when [[spoiler: Victoria]] comes back as a vampire with an altered personality and tries to turn Victor he puts her back in the ground for good.
* This is {{zigzagged}} in ''WebComic/TheOrderOfTheStick'' when Durkon is turned into a vampire. The reader is left with time to think about what this means will happen, and the other main characters are shown thinking about it too and being really sad about it. They don't mention having to kill him, but it really doesn't need saying. Then, of course, since that's the obvious way for the plot to go, it doesn't: Durkon's vampire master is killed, he becomes free-willed again, and he turns into a FriendlyNeighborhoodVampire who rejoins the group and finds a way to control his need for blood. [[spoiler: Except he really isn't friendly, or even "Durkon" anymore-- he's a vampiric spirit inhabiting Durkon's body, holding his actual spirit helpless while he works to bring about the literal end of the world. This all leads to a confrontation between the party and Vampire!Durkon, during which Real!Durkon's spirit overwhelms the vampiric puppeteer long enough to lower his defenses, finally allowing this trope to be played straight (except that it might be a bit of a stretch to call [[HeroicComedicSociopath Belkar]] a "loved one").]]

* The ''failure'' to do this quickly enough, when his infected friend hands him a silver-loaded pistol and begs him to end his suffering, is what set Eric Cord on his quest in ''Series/{{Werewolf}}''.

* ''VideoGame/{{Majyuo}}'': If you complete the game as a human, it is all but shown through the screen smashing to black with the sound of a gunshot that [[spoiler:the protagonist blew his own daughter's brains out to spare her from her fate as a demon.]]

* Defied in ''ComicBook/XMen'', where the team flat out rejected this as an option after ComicBook/JubileeMarvelComics was turned, although Blade tried to convince them there wasn't any other. She seems to be handling herself okay since then.

** In "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS2E15Phases Phases]]" Angelus turns a schoolmate of Buffy's into a vampire, knowing that [[BreakTheCutie she'll be forced to stake her]] when she goes to examine the corpse.

* Peripherally applies in ''Fanfic/ToronotoBatFansLetMeIn'' fic "Eternally Bonded", when Owen and Abby essentially kill a woman who was attacked by Abby's vampire uncle Jebediah (they burn down the morgue her body was being kept in before she can 'wake up' as a vampire), as the dead woman’s husband was a friend of Owen's grandfather Oscar, who has given Owen and Abby a safe place to stay since they left Owen's apartment building.

* Javier did this to his girlfriend on ''Series/BloodTies''.

* ''Film/ResidentEvil'' (2002). Matthew Addison has to kill his ally Rain Ocampo after she turns into a zombie.

* ''Film/StarTrekFirstContact'': {{Downplayed}} on the "loved one" part, but when the Borg invade the ''Enterprise'', Captain Picard makes it clear what must be done to all drones, even former crewmembers. He then shoots one RedShirt who's assimilation has just begun, and later on he guns down a drone who used to be Ensign Lynch.

** Even worse when Aya meets [[spoiler:[[GreaterScopeVillain the original Eve]], who had been using [[TheHeavy the one that had caused the events of the game]] as a puppet controlled via a donated organ containing the mitochondria that took over and mutated the host. Not to mention that this monster resides in [[LongLostRelative Aya's sister, Maya,]] who [[PoweredByAForsakenChild hasn't aged a day since they were separated]]. To [[KickTheDog twist the knife]], the parasite lets Maya "chat" with her sister for a moment. The little girl clearly has no idea where she is or what she's been used for, not even recognizing her sister since [[AlternateIdentityAmnesia her last memory had Aya just as young as she is]], and almost immediately screaming about "[[ArcWords the heat]] coming back". The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrv26cipNQc&ab_channel=VloudLeonhart somber track]] that plays during the twisted reunion is then overlapped with the typical [[OneWomanWail boss theme of Mitochondria Eve]] after the parasite mutates Maya's body while reminding Aya that this is still her sister after the woman [[IllKillYou justifiably rages]] at [[YankTheDogsChain being taunted with her sister being so close yet out of reach]]. It doesn't stop through the whole [[BonusBoss extremely difficult fight]], as a reminder to [[PlayerPunch the player]] what must be done]].

* In ''VideoGame/{{Starcraft}}:Brood Wars'' Zeratul is forced to slay [[spoiler: his Matriach Razhagal]] after it turns out [[spoiler: she was enslaved by Kerrigan]].
* [[TearJerker The most heart wrenching decision]] you'll have to make in ''VideoGame/TheWalkingDead'' and possibly in video games in general) [[spoiler:comes at the end where Lee is about to succumb to the infection that will turn him into a zombie, and the player must decide whether to have Clementine shoot him or simply run and leave him. It seems like a pretty clear cut choice and it would for most, but given the hell that poor Clementine has been through for most of the game, having to shoot the man who's faithfully protected her through it all must seem like murder. Whether she does it or not is up to the player, but either way, its hard to watch. This situation comes up more than once a season, with the drama therein played to the hilt every time.]]

* In an inversion, ''Manga/RosarioToVampire'' has the vampiric Moka nearly beating [[spoiler: the human Tsukune]] to death because he had become a ghoul that was dangerous to everyone around him. She considered it her responsibility to finish him because she was the one who caused the transformation.

* Defied in ''ComicBook/XMen'', where the team flat out rejected this as an option after ComicBook/{{Jubilee}} was turned, although Blade tried to convince them there wasn't any other. She seems to be handling herself okay since then.

* This is {{zigzagged}} in ''WebComic/TheOrderOfTheStick'' when Durkon is turned into a vampire. The reader is left with time to think about what this means will happen, and the other main characters are shown thinking about it too and being really sad about it. They don't mention having to kill him, but it really doesn't need saying. Then, of course, since that's the obvious way for the plot to go, it doesn't: Durkon's vampire master is killed, he becomes free-willed again, and he turns into a FriendlyNeighborhoodVampire who rejoins the group and finds a way to control his need for blood. [[spoiler: Except he really isn't friendly, or even "Durkon" anymore-- he's a vampiric spirit inhabiting Durkon's body while holding his actual spirit helpless while he works to bring about the literal end of the world. This all leads to a confrontation between the party and Vampire!Durkon, during which Real!Durkon's spirit overwhelms the vampiric puppeteer long enough to lower his defenses, finally allowing this trope to be played straight (except that it might be a bit of a stretch to call [[HeroicComedicSociopath Belkar]] a "loved one").]]