History PlayingWith / ThreateningMediator

** Harry threatens to shoot [[WithFriendsLikeThese Steve]] and [[VitriolicBestBuds Pete]] if they don't stop fighting each other.
** Steve and Pete have been arguing for three hours now. Harry's request for them to shut up and make up starts [[ShutUpGunshot with him blasting a hole in the wall with his sidearm]].

** Harry threatens to torture Steve and Pete in [[ToThePain highly disturbing details]] if they don't end their fighting. [[ScareEmStraight It works so well.]]
** Harry threatens to [[EarthShatteringKaboom blow up the entire planet]] if humans don't stop being [[HumansAreBastards assholes to each other]].
** Steve and Pete pull a MexicanStandoff. Harry, who is in the same room, pulls out a ''hand grenade'' and threatens to turn the entire room into a Jackson Pollock painting with their collective blood splatter (yes, including ''[[TakingYouWithMe his]]'') unless they toss their guns away.
** Harry threatens to kill Steve, Pete and anybody stupid enough to try to stop him (be it friend, foe, family member, cop, pet or divine being) if they ever so much as think of ever telling one another a YourMom joke for the rest of their lives (being their personal BerserkButton and all). Knowing that this means Harry has threatened to kill the whole town essentially, Steve and Pete don't wanna risk getting such a blood bath on their consciences.
** Harry's preferred way to shut up Steve and/or Pete when they start going on one of their childish tirades (knowing they will soon start to blame the other guy for whatever is ailing them) is to put a loaded shotgun to their faces point-blank and ([[TranquilFury in an eerily calm and polite voice]]) tell them to stop. And they know he'll fire. They have the [[AScarToRemember reconstructive surgery bills]] to prove it.
* '''Downplayed''': Harry threatens to leave Steve and Pete stranded in the wilderness if they don't stop bickering.

** Harry feels that solving conflicts peacefully isn't effective enough.
** Steve and Pete keep dragging others into their fights, usually people Harry cares about, and Harry is determined to prevent any further collateral damage.
** Steve and Pete's idea of an EscalatingWar usually involves property destruction in the multiple figures and lengthy hospital stays by the time they decide to call a truce... [[YoYoPlotPoint all thirty seconds of it.]] Harry is ''[[RageBreakingPoint way]]'' beyond "fed up" with their shit.
** Harry is AxCrazy and EvilerThanThou ("thou" being Steve and Pete). He is OffingTheAnnoyance, in a figurative sense.
** The group is in imminent mortal peril, and Harry cannot afford to let Steve and Pete work out their shit peacefully/at their own pace.
** It may be TeethClenchedTeamwork at the moment, but this is teaching Steve and Pete how to work as a team… the problem Harry has is that [[WeAreStrugglingTogether the "teeth-clenched" part of the trope is really overriding the "teamwork" part.]]
** Harry tried, and ''very'' hard, to obtain a peaceful resolution in this conflict. [[MediationBackfire Steve and Pete took this as a personal offense and hurt him]]. Peace (or at least one not enforced by Harry) is literally no longer an option.
** Harry tried to point out that there is a common foe that needs to be stopped and Steve and Pete are struggling together. Their response: "WeAreStrugglingTogether". Now with proof that Steve and Pete [[SkewedPriorities will prioritize destroying each other over getting anything done]], Harry stops treating them as teammates and begins treating them as pawns that must be brought to heel.
* '''Inverted''': [[MediationBackfire Steve and Pete threaten Harry with horrifying harm]] (and maybe that they will ''[[EnemyMine double-team to inflict it]]'') if he even ''thinks'' of trying to stop their feud.
* '''Subverted''': Harry gives Steve and Pete a death glare when they start to argue and stands up straight, showcasing he's OneHeadTaller than both of them. Steve and/or Pete pulls out a SinisterSwitchblade and yells at Harry to sit down, which he does...
* '''Double Subverted''': ...only because it's easier for him to pull out the .357 Magnum snub-nosed revolver he's carrying on an ankle holster if he's in a sitting position. One DramaticGunCock later, Steve and Pete stand down.
* '''Parodied''': Harry manages to end a war between two countries by [[CutHisHeartOutWithASpoon threatening to stab each soldier with a spoon.]]
* '''Zig Zagged''': Harry, Pete and Steve are determined badasses who won't back down. The bickering of who is going to stop and who is going to make who stop and what kind of brutal things they will do to each other to make it happen is every bit as loud and extensive as Pete and Steve's regular matches.
* '''Averted''': Harry doesn't threaten Steve and Pete to get along.
* '''Enforced''': "Listen, guys, having Steve and Pete going on an EscalatingWar for the smallest of discussions was all well and good as a RunningGag, but we want to [[EstablishingCharacterMoment establish]] [[NaiveNewcomer Harry]] as a capital-B Badass with a HairTriggerTemper, so why not have him put his foot down on one of the guys' discussions and ''threaten'' them to stop? Doesn't needs to work more than once, but at least it will keep things fresh."
* '''Lampshaded''': "Harry would make a great cop one day for stopping disputes like that."
* '''Invoked''': Harry works on becoming threatening so that he can mediate between argumentative people.
* '''Exploited''': Alice is utterly sick and tired of Steve and Pete's unending vitriol, so she asks her big brother Harry to meet them one day. She knows very well that his BigBrotherInstinct and the violent impulses that it triggers within him will provide a perfect GunboatDiplomacy support to her request for them to stop.

** "Harry, before you go to them, I need to remind you that getting violent with them may lead to a lawsuit."
* '''Discussed''': "Harry is the kind of man who gets so brutal when he's ticked off that he will threaten ''his own friends'' if they argue too loudly."
* '''Conversed''': "Don't you think Harry is... kind of too brutal?" "What do you mean?" "Last week he threatened to shoot Steve and Pete if they could not agree on what movie to put on." "Steve and Pete would have let it become a SillyReasonForWar and we would have been patching up walls for a month while they tried to out-beat each other. Harry is just pragmatic, is all." "I fear the day Harry decides to get "pragmatic" on ''me''."
* '''Implied''': Harry's picture in the living room has a DeathGlare on it. Steve and Pete notice it when they begin to argue and they immediately stop.
* '''Deconstructed''': Harry's constant attempts to make people play nice by threatening both sides turn him into TheDreaded, and not even his closest of friends or lovers want to talk back to him on anything, even the smallest of digressions. Harry, thus, ends up being cut off by his peers.
* '''Reconstructed''': But Steve and Pete are such pains in the ass that, in the choice between GentleTouchVsFirmHand in order to keep them in line, "Firm Hand" inevitably wins... and nobody can provide that firm hand better than Harry.
* '''Played For Laughs''': Steve and Pete, the protagonists of the show, are on another of their prank wars. Harry (who is not only a bigger badass, but also built like a Sumo wrestler) threatens to give them both a multiple-hour "Dutch oven" session ''at the same time'' if they don't stop. They do.
* '''Played For Drama''': Local ''Franchise/LawAndOrder'' copy ''"AliceAndBob: TheSeries"'' has an episode where two people called Steve and Pete are the VictimOfTheWeek duo, having been torn apart while they were alive in ways that would make [[Literature/TheHellboundHeart the Cenobites]] puke. Turns out that their constant bickering and EscalatingWar bouts damaged the livelihood of the sister of the (now former, having been kicked out in disgrace) member of the NeighborhoodFriendlyGangsters named Harry. He told them that he would kill them if they didn't stopped their stupid prank war -- or, at the very least, if they ever dragged his sister into it ever again. [[BullyingADragon They thought he was blowing smoke up their asses]]. It became their last mistake. ''Ever''.
* '''Played for Horror''': Harry slaughters an entire roomful of people just to make a point of what he can do to Steve and Pete if they continue their feud and makes clear he ''[[BloodKnight wants]]'' them to defy him.

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%%* '''Played For Laughs''': ???
%%* '''Played For Drama''': ???