Let's say there are teammates, two or more, who are having trouble getting along with each other and it got so bad that a fierce argument breaks out, or better yet, the argument leads into a fight between them. As a few minutes pass, they start to realize the dissension between them and feel bad about it. One of them will ask, "What are we fighting about?".
Perhaps their infighting has jeopardized their mission, causing the villain to succeed in conquering the world. Perhaps their fighting has led another of their teammates, usually the one who brings the group together, into harm's way. Maybe the teammates realize that they're lowering themselves in fighting each other. Whatever the reason, they feel bad about it and this will lead them to learn An Aesop about friendship and working together.
This trope can also apply to close friends, family members (usually siblings), and lovers. They will learn to realize that their arguing and fighting is tearing their relationship apart and is hurting them on the inside. That said, this will follow up with a reconciliation of their relationship. Characters who witness the dissension between others will invoke this trope by call them out on their fighting, deeming them to be trivial.
Keep in mind that this trope doesn't always have to involve characters immediately feeling remorse for their conflict. Sometimes, the realization will happen over time, usually serving as a part of Character Development for both parties. On the other hand, if something bad happens to one of the characters before the remorse sets in, it can lead to Parting-Words Regret.
A subtrope to My God, What Have I Done?. This is often done in a Feud Episode or a Break-Up/Make-Up Scenario. Often the step for characters to become Fire-Forged Friends.
Examples:
Anime & Manga
- Haikyuu!!: Hinata and Kageyama are Vitriolic Best Buds who clash and bicker all the time, but in season 2, they had a full-blown argument over both of their roles on the team that left them both upset and on edge until they managed to reconcile.
- Kageyama's falling out and abandonment by his teammates from Kitagawa Daiichi, particularly Kindaiichi and Kunimi. At the practice match between their new high school teams, Kageyama attempts to apologize for his bad behavior in his third year of middle school but Kindaiichi refuses to accept it, still bitter and resentful. In season 4, he approaches Kageyama's volleyball partner Hinata at the Shiratorizawa training camp to ask about how Kageyama is doing, feeling guilty about how things went. Hinata reassures him that Kageyama is alright and that fighting is normal so he shouldn't feel bad about it now. In the timeskip, Kageyama is shown to have reconciled with Kindaiichi and Kunimi and they even played beach volleyball together at one point.
- In Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, Kira and Athrun share a moment like this after the Battle of JOSH-A, which is the first time in the series that they meet on the same side of the barricades, not knowing how to apologize for directly or indirectly causing the deaths of each other's friends earlier on. The moment is then "ruined" by Cagalli, Kira's sister and Athrun's then-love interest, who runs up and hugs them, happy from seeing the two of them reconcile.
- Rebuild World: Reina lashes out at multiple hunters she’s assigned to work with, including the protagonist Akira, in her first scenes. Akira gives her a Brutal Honesty assessment that she’s too much of a liability for him to ever hire her, and she feels remorseful over it, with it being a minor Break the Haughty moment starting her Character Development. Akira also feels some remorse for how harshly he worded his criticisms of her.
Fanfiction
- Disparity Between The Truth And Lies: Minori and Sagiso. It is more obvious in Sagiso, given by how she always looked at Minori after the fight. Minori took a while to feel the need to apologize to her, but he obviously feels guilty. It's a shame that Sagiso ended up losing her trust in him before he could actually apologize though.
- Loved and Lost: Princess Celestia, Shining Armor, Spike, and the Mane Five regret turning their backs on Twilight during the wedding rehearsal. Later on, Twilight herself expresses remorse for allowing Jewelius to manipulate her into betraying her loved ones.
Film - Animated
- The Fox and the Hound: Tod and Copper are forced to put their feud on hold when a rogue bear in the forest begins chasing down Copper and Slade and nearly kill them, causing the two to immediately rekindle their childhood friendship and work together to distract the bear while Copper and Slade escape, and Copper also eventually saves Tod's life as well.
Film - Live Action
- In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Kraglin is the instigator of a crew mutiny, tired of Yondu constantly putting Quill's well-being and desires ahead of their entire den of thieves. His pointing this out causes an uprising he soon regrets when the rebels begin viciously spacing otherwise very strong crew members simply for being loyal to Yondu. Kraglin eventually helps Yondu escape, kill the mutinous crew, and save Quill. Kraglin actually apologizes saying he never meant to cause such a huge reaction.
Live-Action TV
- In House of Anubis, Joy and Fabian get into a fight when they're the last two players of the Senet Game. Having gone through a lot that season, especially in terms of Joy's unrequited love for Fabian, it was a moment of the two of them letting their pent-up emotions fly; Fabian called Joy a bully and a witch, while Joy called him a coward and an Extreme Doormat. After they return to the game and Fabian takes it upon himself to pull off the move she thought was too risky, which ended up giving them the victory, they made up.
- iCarly: In "iQuit iCarly" when Carly and Sam are rescued and they realize their fighting nearly got them killed, it causes them, plus Fleck and Dave, to break down in tears and reconcile.
Literature
- The Railway Series book More About Thomas The Tank Engine focuses on Thomas and Percy getting into a falling-out with each other after they each have an incident with some coal; at the end of the book, they decide to call it even and make up. The television series adaptation cuts their feud down to just the first story and leaves out the last, and the two immediately make up their feud in the shed that evening after Percy's accident.
- In Little Women, Jo writes to her mother how she and Laurie got into an argument. Marmie taught the girls "don't let the sun go down upon your anger," and, remembering what happened last time Jo ignored that, after a day of stewing, when it's almost time for bed, Jo decides to go next door and make up with Laurie... only to run into him coming to do the same!
Video Games
- In Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, the Voerman twins are a Cute and Psycho party girl and an Ice Queen businesswoman whose mutual belittlement and sabotage ultimately escalates to an armed standoff. The Player Character can talk them into reconciling their differences since they're both Split Personalities of the same person, which leaves them deeply remorseful of how far they'd gone and inspires them to join forces.
Web Original
- In "Old Tricks" from Sodor the Early Years, Thomas and Percy nearly collided with each other on the same track, and the two fall out over it. Then Diesel comes along and makes up insulting names for the two tank engines and made them believe they made them up for each other, but when Toby informs the two that Diesel made up those names, Thomas and Percy then feel bad for believing in his lies, knowing that they would never do that to each other. Thus both made up for this as well as their argument over the near-collision.
Western Animation
- In the Aaahh!!! Real Monsters episode "Rookie Monsters", Ickis, Krumm, and Oblina get into an argument after getting stuck in a garbage compactor and end their friendship, which then leads to a Whole Episode Flashback to when they first met each other and subsequently became friends. When the flashback ends, the monsters begin to cry as they apologize and reconcile.
- The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius: In "Battle of the Band", Jimmy, Carl, and Sheen start a band for the school talent show, but they soon get into a huge spat over who is the best of the group. The feud lasts until Hugh comes in to remind them to "have fun with it", causing the boys to realize they got caught up in superstardom and reconcile.
- Big City Greens:
- The episode "Dinner Party" has Cricket invite the Remingtons over for dinner in an attempt to get both families to befriend each other, but it soon erupts into a disagreement when he and Remy discover their families hate the opposite's differences, and they get pulled into it as well. However, they quickly stop their feud before the final blow and admit the truth to their families allowing them to reconcile.
- In "The Room", Cricket and Tilly erupt into a full-blown reality show-like sibling war when Tilly closes his secret passage out of jealousy, resulting in their room and later the whole house being split in half, and Gloria and Gramma, viewing this as the same form of entertainment as the reality show they were watching, decide to play on their argument which worsens it even more to the point of almost destroying the house. To stop them, Gloria hosts an eviction where one of the two has to leave the house for good; this causes the two to stop their feud in a panic and make up with each other and compromise.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In "The Mean 6", the Mane Six's camping trip almost becomes a disaster when they start resenting each other thanks to all the misunderstandings caused by their clones; luckily, Twilight manages to resolve the argument, admitting their friendship is strong enough to handle almost anything thrown at them (even a few Poor Communication Kills), and the ponies begin to reconcile over whatever problem they encountered, and they happily resume their trip.
- The Powerpuff Girls (1998): In "Octi Evil", Blossom and Buttercup immediately stop their quarrel when they see Bubbles screaming bloody murder in the HIM-possessed Octi's tentacles, prompting them to call it off for their sister's sake.
- Rocko's Modern Life: In the episode "Hut Sut Raw", Rocko, Heffer, and Filburt suffer from a lack of food during their camping trip, which eventually results in Heffer and Filburt arguing over who gets to eat Rocko. Immediately, Rocko steps in and tells them that friends don't eat each other. Cue Heffer and Filburt ending their conflict and sharing a hug as they break down in tears.
- SpongeBob SquarePants:
- Done in the episode "Band Geeks". Squidward rehearses a marching band that includes just about many of the Bikini Bottom citizens, but no progress has been made and it causes the band members to fight each other. Squidward chews out the band members for their failure and leaves in sorrow. Then SpongeBob tells the others what kind of monsters are they for destroying Squidward's dream which leads to a speech to rally the band members to practice for Squidward.
- In "The Fry Cook Games", SpongeBob and Patrick are pushed to battle each other by Mr. Krabs and Plankton despite their friendship. During the final event shortly after exchanging a Hidden Disdain Reveal, their pants fall, revealing they are wearing underwear in the color of its opposite owner, causing them to tearfully stop fighting and reconcile.
- In "New Student Starfish" after SpongeBob and Patrick are sent to detention, SpongeBob is livid with Patrick getting him in trouble with Mrs. Puff all day (even costing him one of his Good Noodle stars), and they proceed to exchange a string of back-and-forth "I hate you" messages. However, it culminates in the light bulb keeping the class pet Roger alive suddenly blacking out, and Sponge and Pat are sent into a 30-second Freak Out as they try to ignore each other while simultaneously seeing Roger start to freeze; it is that point they cannot take it anymore and tearfully reconcile with each other, and work together to save Roger.
- In "Pineapple Fever", SpongeBob, Patrick, and Squidward begin to fight over some food and behave like apes, just until a burger gets stuck on a ceiling. Squidward then questions about one little storm making them act like complete animals.
- In "Friend or Foe". Mr. Krabs and Plankton, who are sworn enemies, tell their own versions of how they used to be friends. Then Karen, knowing that their versions of the story were false, tells the true story when the two become enemies after blaming each other for poisoning Old Man Jenkins and calls out both of them for letting the Krabby Patty recipe ruin their friendship. Both Krabs and Plankton realize this and teared up, apologizing to each other. Then as the two share a heartwarming hug, Plankton steals the secret formula from Mr. Krabs' pocket.
- In "Yours, Mine and Mine", Mr. Krabs gives SpongeBob and Patrick a krabby patty toy to share, but Patrick, who has no idea how sharing truly works, wants to keep the toy all to himself. This initiates a violent brawl between the two, culminating when Patrick eats the toy so no one can have it. Mr. Krabs witnesses this and chews the two out for letting a single toy nearly ruin their friendship, and quickly resolves their conflict by giving each of them another toy, which in turn ends the feud.
- Teen Titans Go!: In the episode "Caramel Apples", Raven and Starfire get into an argument and then start fighting. Then after Starfire blasts Raven through the Tower knocking her out for a few seconds, she finally realizes that she had just hurt her friend and flies over to Raven. The two apologize to each other for fighting, with Raven admitting that she was never mad at Starfire, but only mad at Trigon the whole time.
