Knowing when to fold 'em in Fan Works.
Crossovers
- Near the end of Adamantine Mist
, Cologne makes Shampoo give up on marrying Ranma after witnessing every civilian in Nerima prepare to stand against themnote . Sure, they could easily decimate every last one of them but neither Japan nor China would tolerate such a massacre and their village only exists because they're not worth the trouble to conquer. - All For Luz:
- With over half a dozen cops holding her at gunpoint and Millie revealing her Vigilante Man identity and her role in The Massacre of Fools, Luz decides to surrender peacefully to the police before things escalate further... only for her older cousin Riley to touch her from behind her and activate her Bomb Touch Quirk. After surviving the Assassination Attempt by her own cousin, Luz decides fuck it and go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge instead, which leads to her killing all the cops in the area and destroying an entire supermarket.
- Not long afterwards, Riley and Millie decide to pull a Screw This, I'm Outta Here when Luz, the new All For One user, proves too strong for them to defeat by themselves and are about to be killed in her Unstoppable Rage and can shrug off all their attacks with her Healing Factor.
- In The Bridge (MLP), Xenilla and Mothra realized that Princess Celestia's power dwarfed all the kaiju present. They managed to convince their teammates to surrender (except for Destroyah, who only stopped when The Cutie Mark Crusaders begged her to stop), as it was a fight they could not win.
- The Chaotic Masters:
- When the Titans (with Zatanna and Constantine in tow) realize the extent of the villainous attendees to Roulette's auction of magical artifacts, they decide they're out of their depth and need to withdraw to call for backup.
- After Section 13 breaks up the fighting at the auction, Mad Mod gives up instead of fighting or trying to weasel his way out of arrest, saying that he could use the peace and quiet of spending some time in a cell.
- Child of the Storm:
- During the epilogue, Wisdom reveals that the Prime Minister is planning to resign with dignity as soon as the cleanup from the Final Battle is done, rather than stick around for an election he's bound to lose because of all the stuff that happened on his watch.
- In the necromancy half of the sequel's Bloody Hell arc, Cowl pulls a Villain: Exit, Stage Left as soon as it becomes apparent that pulling off the Darkhallow (an ascension ritual) is no longer on the cards and the alternative is sticking around to fight Wanda Maximoff, Harry Dresden, several White Council Wardens, and Magneto.
- Code Geass: Paladins of Voltron: In Chapter 23, after Voltron decimates her forces effortlessly, an infuriated Cornelia orders her men to withdraw from Narita, making this the first defeat she's ever suffered.
- Contact at Kobol: Arguably the Tau'ri's entire strategy is to force the Colonials into one of these. Libran gets there first.
- The House of Black and White in A Discordant Note functionally refuses to even try to assassinate Harry. When King Aerys tries to hire them for the job, the price they quote is "enough to beggar the Seven Kingdoms for generations" with their representative citing that they're being asked to kill a powerful sorcerer at the seat of his power where he's rumored to be all seeing and all knowing. It certainly helps that decades prior, Harry warned the Faceless Men that he'd wipe them all out if they ever took a contract against him.
- The Games We Play explores this with Jaune's maternal grandma Jeanne Roma. She calls him out on his Determinator tendencies making him press on and getting into situations that nearly kill him, and has herself had a history of retreating from unwinnable battles. However, it also deconstructs the trope — said unwinnable battles involved defending civilians from the predations of the Creatures of Grimm, and the reader is forced to ask himself what kind of cold, calculating person would be willing to throw defenceless innocents to the wolves to protect herself, even if under the nebulous desire of wanting to avoid a Senseless Sacrifice to fight another day. Add in the strong implications that Jeanne's involved in shady business...
- Guardians, Wizards, and Kung-Fu Fighters:
- Servantis, Phobos' Token Good Teammate, ultimately decides to throw in the towel when Torus Filney is overrun by the Rebellion, telling Lothar to take his men and flee, while he stays behind to surrender.
- When it becomes clear that Tracker is going to kill him if they keep fighting, Ikki surrenders to the Chans and Guardians, knowing they'll just remove his mask from Hak Foo and disembody him.
- When the Guardians and Jade attack Cavigor to rescue Elyon's parents, they accidentally provide an opening for Drago to stop playing along and escape. As a contingency to make sure he can get away, he magically weakens the prison's foundations to the point that they'll collapse, and states that he's perfectly willing to let it fall on him if it means killing the Guardians and prison guards too. Realizing that he's not bluffing, the Guardians flee (knowing that they can track him down later), as does Warden Callisto, who grabs the Shapeshifter children in his care and runs to safety, realizing that there's no point in doing his job if the prison won't exist much longer.
- After Phobos is defeated at the end of Season 1, the Guard all lay down their weapons and surrender to the Rebellion.
- Infinity Crisis;
- In Taking Flight (and Fights), Alpha Flight is still determined to take back Wolverine even when fighting the X-Men. When the Avengers show up, Box and Puck warn Guardian they may be in over their heads. Captain America makes it clear that if Alpha Flight doesn't head back to Canada, the Avengers will take them down and go public about a Canadian super-team attacking a U.S. school. Coupled with She-Hulk pointing out all the laws they've violated so far, Alpha Flight take off to avoid the subsequent international incident.
- In Celestial Navigation, this basically defines Spider-Man's choice to withdraw from the Avengers, as he feels that their latest crises have been too large-scale for him and he wants to spend some time focusing on his civilian life and training himself rather than relying on the rest of the team for help. Tony accepts Peter's decision, but makes it clear that Peter will still have access to the tower and the team if he really needs their help.
- In Itachi, Is That a Baby?, Snape gives up on punishing Harry when he realizes Harry won't get in trouble since everything he does is either A) Legally self-defense, or B) Impossible to prove he did it.
- Jaune Arc, Lord of Hunger:
- When Jaune encounters an Alpha Beowolf at the start of the story, he doesn't even bother trying to fight it and runs as fast as his legs can carry him. He knows that without any training, he stands no chance of defeating a regular Beowolf, let alone an Alpha like the one he's facing.
- After witnessing Darth Nihilus curb-stomp a dozen Huntsmen at once and No-Sell her illusions, Neo decides that it's hopeless trying to fight him and wisely chooses to run the second she has the chance. Seeing as how Cinder winds up dead not long after picking a fight with Nihilus, Neo made the right call.
- In the middle of Winter and Adam's duel in "Vengeance", Winter catches sight of Darth Nihilus walking towards her position from behind Adam. Knowing that she is no match for him, she breaks off her duel with Adam and flees on the back of one of her Grimm summons. However, Adam doesn't get the message and tries to attack Nihilus with predictable results.
- Metal Gear: Green: Luan Igwe, the South African Warlord, upon finding out the MSF's most recent offensive had them advance 15 km inland, nearly liberating half of Cameroon, he orders the officer giving him the report to call back all his forces, viewing any further attempts to stall the MSF as utter suicide and prioritize fortifying his lands.
- In My Hero Academia: Unchained Predator, when it is down to Aizawa and Rock Lock against the Slayer after the Slayer had knocked out 46 heroes, the latter is quick to realize the utter hopelessness of the situation and tries to run, dragging Aizawa along. Unfortunately, the Slayer is upon them both and knocks them both out.Aizawa: Kan, what the hell are you-?!
Rock Lock: We have to get out of here!
Aizawa: What?! We can't just leave her-
Rock Lock: WE CAN'T FIGHT THIS GUY! JUST FUCKING RUN-- Beforehand, Slidin' Go decides to stay at the airport to watch the hostages and Ragdoll, with four other heroes joining. In reality, he knew that fighting the Slayer was outright suicidal after what he did to the Steel Sabers, but it was to also report back to Re-Destro about the man. Sure enough, seeing the unconscious and constantly in pain heroes in Chapter 22 ends up making Slidin' Go's choice the right one.
- In My Huntsman Academia, Sun stops and tries to reason with Team MNVW and Team RSBR after noticing Izuku, Katsuki, and Ruby closing in on him with Pyrrha close behind.
- In Origin Story, after Alex Harris defeats all of the other Avengers, SHIELD and Big Bertha listen to Alex's pleas to simply let her leave.
- The Reaping of Hatsune Miku: The Reaper's Game consists of seven missions for the Players to complete, with the final mission being the defeat or erasure of the Game Master. The distinction is important: several characters at various points in the series observe that if the mission is to defeat the Game Master, then the Game Master can admit defeat, allowing the Players to complete their mission and letting the Reaper live (kinda). Sadly, few Game Masters do end up admitting defeat.
- In A Scientific Mistake, Spike bails the moment a man named Dr. Banner warns him not to make him angry.
- Shadows over Meridian:
- When Frost's forces overwhelm the defenders at Cavigor, Vathek surrenders to the Razor Khan, on condition that his men will be spared, in hopes that he'll be delivered to Jade/Kage and able to pass along Elyon's peace offer.
- The arrival of a Shadowkhan and Phobos loyalist army at the besieged Snowpoint catches the attacking Rebellion soldiers off guard and starts to overwhelm them. Reluctantly, but recognizing the situation for what it is, the rebels fall back and retreat; they try to regroup at a fallback position but realize they have to abandon that too when they find their backup being overwhelmed as well.
- When Jade offers the Frostbiter meat in exchange for returning home, the Super-Persistent Predator that has chased Vera's team outside its territory still wants a taste of Caroline's blood. However, conceding that it's been driven hungry and tired as well as sensing that Jade and the shadow serpents are a credible threat, the Frostbiter gives up on its hunt and leaves with the offered meat.
- With Caroline and Philip captured and the rest of Vera's team having lost most of their weapons and exhausted from all the running and fighting as the enemy closes in on them, Amelia concludes their best option is to surrender. Alan and Tinsley accept this, especially after Alan gets wounded and Vera abandons them to get her revenge.
- When the squad led by Phobos takes control of the End Frontier fortress, the smarter members of the overwhelmed rebel garrison surrender rather than be killed. This is especially true in the cases of Abigor and Ilitia, both of whom find themselves facing Phobos one-on-one and quickly yield, knowing they don't stand a chance against him.
- The World Government functionally gives up on trying to capture Vivi in Shinobi of the High Seas by the Time Skip as her connection to the Straw Hat Pirates isn't worth tangling with her captain (Naruto) who has escaped Kizaru twice, fought Aokiji to a draw, and killed Akainu.
- Shinobi's Creed: The Raikage ultimately backs down and chooses not to attack Konoha after Yugito's defection, mostly due to the massive amounts of blackmail Hiruzen has regarding Kumo.
- In The Spider, a group of Mooks throw down their weapons when Spider-man points out that they're trying to fight a man who destroyed a walking tank and all they have is baseball bats.
- Captain Hina's men in Stallion of the Line initially try to fight the Straw Hats after following them up the knock up stream, but once it's clear the pirates are there to help and the marine vessel can't be saved, they promptly surrender.
- There Was Once an Avenger From Krypton: Vilgax's invasion of Arcadia is the last straw for the Kree, who decide to wash their hands of Earth and hand custodianship of the Sol system over to the Nova Empire instead.
- Xander advises conceding in Time and Again if Harry finds himself in over his head during any task of the Triwizard Tournament. As Xander explains, Harry's focus should be his own survival, not points or trying to win.
- In Transformers: MHA, when Sector Seven agents come in to arrest Izuku, Kyoka, Momo and Mei; Momo was the only one to not resist against them as they cuffed them with Quirk-suppressant cuffs, making any form of resistance futile.
- All Assorted Animorphs AUs: In "What if they were caught during their first mission?", Tobias tells Rachel that they'll "live and fight another day" while tied up and surrounded by people pointing guns at them. Then they're all made into controllers, and Tobias lets himself be killed.
- Age of Titans: When Ymir becomes the first titan, Karl Fritz submits to her and declares she was to have equal authority to himself within his lands, knowing he couldn't stand against a being who was functionally a god.
- one day at a time (Nyame): Played for Laughs. Jason Todd made every attempt to try and prevent his children, aka his Robins, from becoming vigilantes. Carrie Kelley simply ignored him and then saved his life, while Helena Wayne and Terry McGinnis tormented him via annoying music and vandalism respectively into training them. After his youngest son Matthew McGinnis managed to repel a home invasion when he was seven, Jason didn't even bother trying to fight him when he said he was going to be his next Robin and agreed to train him when he was older rather easily.
- Interesting Double Subversion in Ichigo Awakens. When Shunsui Kyoraku offers to let Yasutora "Chad" Sado join him for a drink instead of them fighting a clearly one-sided battle, Chad's refusal initially makes it seem like he's going to fight knowing he can't win, just like in canon, only for Chad to clarify that he doesn't want any alcohol because he's underage. When Kyoraku offers some tea, Chad willingly sits down for a drink and talks.
- Vow of the King:
- Shunsui convinces Ichigo to simply let him take Nemu back to Soul Society by convincing him that all he's doing is making her position worse by fighting.
- After being ambushed by Soifon, Sado and Ganju both quietly surrender rather than fight.
- In The World's End, after seeing how the Scoobies have been empowered (Buffy has Zelda's magic, Willow has Xena's skills, and Xander has become a Super Saiyan), the Order of Taraka both cancel the hit on Buffy and blacklist Sunnydale, refusing to ever take a job there again.
- Hellsister Trilogy: At the end of "The Apokolips Agenda", Darkseid's scheme revolving around the Anti-Life Equation has failed and he is apparently obliterated by Orion. In reality, Darkseid transferred his conscience to a spare body, cloned beforehand in the event that he was defeated, and he decides he'll spend the next hundreds of years sleeping, recovering his strength, and scheming while time and old age look after his fooled enemies.
- In Lex Marks the Spot, after someone tries to snipe Lex Luthor, he orders his men to find out who it is but to not engage if it was someone in a costume, as they don't stand a chance against a superhero/supervillain. When the security guards spot Deadshot fleeing the scene, they wave him on rather than try to stop him.
- Similarly, Deadshot leaves (presumably to renegotiate his contract) once he realizes he doesn't have any weapons on hand that can harm Lex in any meaningful way. Eventually, he calls Lex and tells him he's dropped the job because of the poor cost-benefit ratio.
- A Prize for Three Empires: When the Avengers, the X-Men, the Starjammers, and a Shi'ar warship storm their hideout after Carol Danvers has defeated the Kree champion, the Supreme Intelligence acknowledges it has been beaten and teleports away.
- King Cold in Inheritance leaves Earth after almost being defeated and all his generals and troops are killed. It's implied (and later confirmed) that he plans on returning after getting stronger. But currently, the planet and its residents are more hassle than they're worth.
- What If Goku Landed at Capsule Corp?: Guru unlocks the full potential of the heroes, but refuses to do the same for Vegeta. Realizing that Bocksa has become much stronger than him, Vegeta opts to shrug it off rather than trying to force the issue.
- What If Raditz Turned Good?: When Raditz manages to dodge Piccolo's Special Beam Cannon and escapes, Piccolo decides not to pursue, being too exhausted to continue fighting. He reasons that he can deal with the saiyan later.
- What If Videl Was A Z-Fighter?: While dealing with Dabura, Krillin prevents Videl from immediately throwing herself right back into the fight after eating a Senzu Bean, telling her that they don't stand a chance in their current state and taking her for some emergency training.
- Defied in Fragments of Chaldea, Fragment 36 where during a "battle" between Gabrielle and Delaqua, Delaqua keeps telling Gabby to do this because the latter is horribly outmatched. Gabby refuses, insisting that Delaqua needs to knock Gabby out as Gabby does not want to be seen as weak.
- In Chapter 72 of Angry Harry and the Seven, Harry Potter advises Cedric Diggory on the safest way to get past the obstacles in the Triwizard Tournament maze: "You only have to get past the obstacles, not defeat them. Sometimes your best choice is to run away."
- Becoming a True Invader: During the Final Battle, the Employer decides to flee to another dimension after his armies are destroyed on Irk and start over. But since he's possessing Zim's body at the time, Gaz refuses to let him.
- For the Glory of Irk: At the end of the Final Battle, with Control Brain IX destroyed and the Syndicate arriving to back up the Irken Resistance, the remaining Control Brain leaders of The Conspiracy surrender.
- Zim the Warlord: Irken Reversion: When he learns that humans are experimenting with Childergy, Zim doesn't even try to stop it, noting that since they've discovered its existence, they're bound to eventually hit the critical mass moment regardless of what he does. So he decides to just let it happen, and prepares to evacuate from the planet if it results in a World-Wrecking Wave.
- Ages of Shadow: As King Cheherazad starts decimating the forces of the Himinate, Jade orders her remaining minions to flee, so that the Shadow Walkers may survive and rebuild after the dust settles.
- Deconstructed in The Greatest Generation. In of itself, Admiral Shimada having his damaged and fatigued forces retreat from the oncoming Abyssal juggernaut they had no chance of defeating should have been a wise idea. However, political realities intruded in the form of Morton's Fork: With the sheer forces arrayed against him, the civilians were going to take a rusty spiked dildo in the butt sooner or later whatever he did. He could have his forces stand, fight, and die in the vain hope that they can make a difference when an earlier force in optimal condition had failed, or retreat and preserve his strength. Admiral Shimada chose to put The Men First and, because he didn't send his subordinates out to banzai charge and die in a Senseless Sacrifice like a good soldier, ended up vilified In-Universe and out.
- Ice and Fire (Minecraft): Stymphalian birds are highly aggressive birds that spawn in flocks of up to twenty. They attack all other creatures on sight, but if a single one is killed the rest will all run away.
- I See What You Do Behind Closed Doors: While she puts up some minor resistance, once it becomes clear that the jig is up, Lila just smirks, then bursts into laughter at her classmates' reactions:Lila: Oh, well. Sure took you long enough, huh? Well, I got enough money out of it, I suppose. (looks around, meeting everyone's eyes without fear, then doubles over, clutching her stomach as she guffaws) I'm — I'm sorry — I just... You all look so stupid! Which is fitting... but still. Your faces are all... (regains her composure) What was I saying? Oh, right. Of course, I didn't think I'd be staying this long, made the lies crazy obvious. Usually move a lot faster than this. In any case, if it's any consolation to you mindless, heartbroken sheep, I had fun! The stuff I made you guys do was too good to be true!
- The Karma of Lies:
- After Hawkmoth's Secret Identity is exposed during his Final Battle with Ladybug, along with Marinette herself getting unmasked, Lila realizes that she needs to cut her losses and get out of Paris as soon as possible. This contrasts sharply with Adrien, who ignores all warnings he receives from Plagg about the coming karmic backlash, refusing to believe that he's in any danger from his Karma Houdini Warranty running out.
- Also seen with Marinette; after all of her attempts to warn her classmates about Lila go ignored and she realizes that they took her generosity for granted, she gives up on trying to help them. Just in time for them to start clamoring for her to save them from the consequences of their actions.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- The bad guys of The Death of Princess Luna turn out to be four delusional stallions who are utterly convinced that killing Princess Luna is the right thing to do in order to end "Nightmare Moon" once and for all. After they're foiled and taken into custody, nearly all of them refuse to say anything despite the evidence against them, but Comet Tail confesses everything about their conspiracy and even identifies the one member who wasn't caught with the others. This earns him the lightest prison sentence.
- Long Road to Friendship: Twilight Sparkle concedes a chess match when it's clear that Sunset Shimmer is going to win. This makes Sunset even angrier at Twilight, since Sunset wanted to crush her and feels she was denied her victory.
- In The Negotiations-verse, after the humans successfully fight off the ponies' Assimilation Plot and manage to lay waste to much of Equestria, kill off a large number of their armed forces, and render Princess Celestia comatose after she spent the last of her power trying to protect her ponies from a brutal aerial assault, Twilight Sparkle decides to surrender the war. The first story in the series takes place in the immediate aftermath of the war where she needs to negotiate a peace treaty with the UN to ensure the nation's continued survival.
- In the prequel story Warfare as well as in certain chapters of the fan-made side story Choice, it's stated that as humanity's forces advanced further into Equestria, Cloudsdale and several other towns and cities across the country surrendered rather than fight and die horribly in a hopeless Curbstomp Battle. The last pony army outside of Canterlot even had a mutiny where the subordinates killed their leading officer and surrendered rather than go into a fight they knew they could not win.
- Unstable Sale centers around Apple Bloom's contemplation of this trope, as she realizes that three years of crusading for her cutie mark has just made everypony else in town hate her.
- Androgyninja's A Drop of Poison:
- This is a regular point of contention between Sakura and her teammates. Compared to Naruto, Sasuke, and even Kakashi, Sakura is the most willing to recognize when they need to step back from a situation.
- During the Chuunin Exams, Sakura repeatedly warns Naruto that they're up against opponents who are willing to kill them, and that they need to know when to quit. Naruto refuses to heed her warnings, even preventing his exhausted teammate from bowing out of the preliminary matches, much to her ire. His bullheaded attitude causes him to lose his match to Kiba via a tie.
- Black Flames Dance in the Wind: Rise of Naruto: Team Ten decides to withdraw from the Chuunin Exams; while they might be able to get through to the individual rounds, their main strength lies in their teamwork, and there are more ringers in this particular exam than entrants on their level, including several S-Class fighters. The trio deems it safer to back down than risk their lives vying for a promotion they could earn at a later exam.
- In Demon's Dirty Dreams, Zabuza decides against killing Tazuna when offered the pay he would have gotten for the job. It helps Naruto had already killed Gato at that point, so Zabuza's options were to fight and maybe die for nothing or take his pay and leave.
- I Am NOT Going Through Puberty Again!: Orochimaru gets his ass handed to him by Hinata, and promptly retires from supervillainy to become a researcher.
- The Pride: After Naruto abandons the village along with several kunoichi, Konoha pretty much decides that so long as he's not antagonizing them or allying with anyone who is, they'll just leave him be. At absolute worst, Naruto is tied for World's Strongest Man. Even if Sasuke could match him, something Shikamaru expresses his doubts about, he can't be on every team searching for Naruto, making the whole thing irrelevant. That another war might be brewing means that while they could certainly use Naruto's strength, they also can't spare the manpower to try and bring him in.
- Reaching for a Dream: When Naruto arrives at the Sacred Snake Mountain to steal all the Nature Chakra there, the Snake Sage lets him, to Naruto's surprise. The Sage explains that they can either let Naruto take it, or his clan can fight Naruto and die and Naruto will do so anyway.
- In Return of the Samsara, Karin races to raise a white flag at the Sound base she's in charge of because she can sense Naruto's coming and knows they don't have a chance against anyone with chakra that strong.
- Space to Breathe:
- During their preliminary match, Kankurou surrenders upon realizing that their opponent has managed to plant an explosive tag on Karasu, not wanting to have his puppet completely blown apart while he's staying in Konoha and doesn't have easy access to everything he needs to repair them.
- Shino also winds up surrendering during their preliminary match, admitting that their opponent has managed to wipe out most of his kikaichu. In this case, it's implied that their opponent also earned their respect by apologizing for what she'd done.
- Sakura muses about this after watching Shikamaru's match with Temari, noting that if it were up to her, she'd have them promoted for recognizing the importance of knowing when to back down from a fight.
- While returning from a mission, Sakura's team comes across the Sound Four. Swiftly realizing that they're badly outmatched, they make a break for it, with one of her teammates prepping a signal flare; when the flare goes off, their pursuers retreat — while they wanted to eliminate any witnesses, they're not willing to fight any reinforcements that might respond to said signal.
- In contrast to all of this, one of Sasuke's Fatal Flaws is that he doesn't grasp the value of knowing when to back down, being far too prideful to recognize a losing battle when he's embroiled in one. This arrogance costs him dearly when he attempts to assault Nanako in public while demanding a rematch — upon being denied, he uses the Chidori, getting himself into serious trouble with Kakashi and trashing his own reputation.
- In A Teacher's Glory, Team 7 decides to get Naruto medical attention after he's badly injured in the Forest of Death rather than try to continue the exam. It helps that they all realize there would be plenty of promotion opportunities in the future.
- Team 8: One of the first things Kurenai tells her team is that they need to learn how to do this; fighting a losing battle doesn't benefit anyone. When Hinata refuses to bow out during her battle with Neji in the Chuunin Exams, Kurenai is furious, accusing her of having effectively attempted to let herself be beaten to death just so she wouldn't have to face her father again.
- White Rain: He may be an Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy, but when trying to stop Rina's kidnapping, Yukio quickly decides that it's better for a genin like him to retreat and get backup rather than try to take on four Grass jonin at once.
- New Game Plus:
- After Luffy one-shots one of the Alvida Pirates in an absurdly effective way, the two who witnessed it wisely decide to skedaddle.
- Sham and Buchi, after witnessing the fantastic Curb-Stomp Battle that decimates their crew in seconds, promptly throw themselves at Zoro’s feet and surrender.
- Second Wind:
- In Chapter 35, when he sees that Onigumo and Doberman have both been defeated, Momonga is smart enough to stop fighting, grab them, and skedaddle.
- CP9 decide to simply leave when the Straw Hats, who'd been fighting them to a draw, are joined by Luffy and Zoro who are leagues ahead of the rest of the crew.
- During the G-8 arc, Jonathan's response to realizing the Straw Hats have landed in his base is to - do almost nothing. The Straw Hats have already taken on three Vice Admirals at once and won, he's the only person at that level in the base, and there are no other Marines who are close enough and strong enough to help catch the Straw Hats. So - he decides to gather all the information he can on the crew without getting involved directly so that there won't be any Person of Mass Destruction-level feats, acknowledging that he doesn't have a chance of catching them all by himself.
- After Luffy No Sells her attack in Supernova, Miss Valentine promptly surrenders, realizing she doesn't have a chance.
- This Bites!: During the Thriller Bark arc, Nami, Vivi, and Merry throw everything they have at Absalom, who manages to No-Sell even all the lightning from a broken Thunder Dial. The three states that they are done fighting, which baffles Absalom because the Straw Hats have a reputation of being determinators. That's because the girls are folding to let the waiting Sanji know he can finally come out and beat Absalom within an inch of his life.
- In Ashes of the Past, after Ash navigates through his gym with the Aura Sight, is able to seemingly see through everything he can do, and has multiple powerful Pokemon, who in the case of Charizard have set up a Flare Blitz that can burn off poison attacks... the gym leader Koga concedes and gives Ash the Soul Badge without any further fighting, deciding that Ash has all of the advantages whereas he has almost none. This also has the pleasant side-effect of leaving his gym mostly undamaged (a Running Gag is that Ash tends to heavily damage the gyms he fights in).
- A general rule in Pokémon Reset Bloodlines is that a good trainer knows when to give up for their Pokémon's sake, instead of letting them get pointlessly injured.
- Aunt Salem: Weiss is rather annoyed when everyone in her friend group starts talking about creating a polysexual romance centered around her boyfriend Jaune (Jaune isn't around to defend himself). She soon realizes that she won't be able to keep him to herself, so she recruits Velvet and Pyrrha, the two girls she finds least offensive, to help her keep everyone else away.
- Service with a Smile:
- Jaune is ashamed that when four men broke into his cafe and beat and robbed him, all he could do was beg for them to stop. Upon hearing this, the Malachite twins explain that in his situation, all he could do was fight, give up, or do nothing. Alone, unarmed, and with no experience, he couldn't hope to fight against four armed men. Doing nothing, aka stoically taking the beating, would tell them they hadn't beaten him enough. The only viable option was to give up and let them know he was giving up.
- Cafe Prime eventually settles out of court with Jaune, offering half a million lien as reparation and firing Alexander Sterling who started the whole mess.
- Chasing Dragons:
- When the Old Faith rebellion manages to completely overwhelm Gulltown's Arryn loyalist forces, the few remaining members of the latter's local garrison choose to give up and flee by sea rather than futilely continue to fight.
- After the Abolitionists break the Valyrian League's back at Ghoyan Drohe, the Tattered Prince sues for a separate peace, agreeing to aid the Abolitionists in liberating Norvos from the Slavers in exchange for he and his men being allowed to go into exile in neutral Lorath.
- When Norvos is being overrun by the Abolitionists, what's left of the city's navy quickly surrenders rather than keep up a futile fight defending the surrounded docks.
- In Sibling Revelry, Lando immediately abandons his attempt to rescue Han from Jabba and gets out of Dodge the instant Darth Vader comes to call and asks Jabba to hand Han over. He reasoned that the request was "the final boarding call for the escape train", and if Darth Vader wanted Han, there was nothing Lando could do to stop him, and Lando knows from experience what happens to people who try to refuse Darth Vader's business deals. He's the only survivor when Vader bombs Jabba's palace from orbit.
- The Heart Trilogy:
- In the first chapter of Heart of Ashes, Fankil resurrects Kathryn, only for her to start screaming due to her broken mind. He has only enough time to cast a sleeping spell on her before he's attacked by a merchant caravan that's alerted by the woman's screaming and find him sitting above her. Drained by the resurrection spell, Fankil knows he's too weakened to take on the men and flees to claim Kathryn another day.
- In the 13th chapter of Heart of the Inferno, Urgost fights with Smaug, losing one of his fingers to the bigger dragon's teeth before being pinned down. After Urgost realizes that Smaug isn't dead after all, he looks at his stump and surrenders, saying that he has no desire to make the line of Ancalagon the Black his enemy.
- Shatterheart: R!Syaoran decides to run away instead of fighting the gang attacking him as he's outnumbered from 4 to 1 and the gang wants to pick a fight and won't listen to reason. Kurogane tells him he picked the right choice.
- In Turning Red: Secrets of the Panda, even Jason Vaugn knows there are times when trying to kill the giant red pandas isn't a good idea, mainly since he doesn't want to ruin his reputation.
- Class A Felony: When Edward comes blazing up to Bella's house after Charlie already had Bella radio his deputy to arrest Jacob for sexual assault, Charlie warns Edward that "If you're off my property in the next five minutes, I won't have you arrested for trespassing." Edward wisely drives off without a word, likely realizing how pissed Charlie is.
- Learning To Be Human: After the Path to Victory shard tells him that the Entities' goal of an infinite food source and infinite replication is impossible given the known laws of physics, the Entity Abbadon (who'd created an amnesiac avatar that he recently reintegrated himself with), has a Heel Realization and finds a new solution to said goal. Specifically, giving up on it and dedicating his life to doing something more sensible.
- Tinker, Taylor, Builder, Nexus: After repeated failed attempts to kidnap or otherwise pressure Nexus inevitably result in her going on a rampage, often killing him, Coil decides to just wash his hands of her and the Undersiders (whom she had befriended).
- In the Yu-Gi-Oh! GX fanfic The Ultimate School Duels, Hassleberry folds against the OC Backfire in their duel when he realized he had no way he could win against his supreme monster. However, it was due to this action of Knowing When to Fold 'em that ultimately got him the position they both were dueling for.
