Basic Trope: A character abhors killing, but has no problem with non-lethal violence.
- Straight: Bob has a personal morality code that forbids him from killing anything, but does not hesitate to beat people up whenever he feels the circumstances call for it.
- Exaggerated: Bob refuses to kill anyone, but at the slightest provocation will brutally maim and mangle people. Anyone who crosses him tends to end up in a wheelchair for the rest of their life.
- Downplayed:
- Bob tries to avoid any violence if at all possible, but will occasionally use non-lethal violence in extreme circumstances.
- Bob prefers to stick to non-lethal violence whenever reasonably possible, but isn't completely opposed to killing people.
- Bob is only willing to use lethal force when an innocent is directly threatened by not doing so, excluding himself.
- Justified:
- Bob has witnessed the sorrow associated with death, and wants no part in causing it.
- Bob believes that leaving his enemies wounded will hurt the evil army in the long run more than killing them would, because the army will waste time and resources trying to rescue and treat their wounded members.
- Inverted: Bob abhors the idea of injuring anyone, but will not hesitate to kill people by quick, painless methods. He snaps people's necks on a regular basis.
- Subverted:
- Bob normally has a strict policy against killing, but when Emperor Evulz Kicks the Dog one too many times, in a fit of rage he pulls out a gun and shoots him between the eyes.
- Bob gets very angry, and it seems he might beat someone up, but he resists.
- Double Subverted:
- Bob normally strictly prefers non-lethal violence, but when Emperor Evulz Kicks the Dog one too many times, he kills him in a fit of rage. After this, however, he is horrified at himself and swears never to do it again, and successfully holds himself to that.
- Alternately, he uses a paintball gun.
- Bob normally has a strict policy against killing, but when Emperor Evulz Kicks the Dog one too many times, in a fit of rage he pulls out a gun and shoots him between the eyes. However, it turns out that Emperor Evulz had a Healing Factor that makes this survivable for him, and Bob knew about it even though the audience didn't.
- Bob normally strictly prefers non-lethal violence, but when Emperor Evulz Kicks the Dog one too many times, he kills him in a fit of rage. After this, however, he is horrified at himself and swears never to do it again, and successfully holds himself to that.
- Zig Zagged: Bob normally strictly prefers non-lethal violence, but when Emperor Evulz Kicks the Dog one too many times, he kills him in a fit of rage. After this, however he is horrified at himself, and swears never to do it again. Nonetheless there are several similar incidents after this, but each time he kills someone he is horrified and renews his oath not to do it again.
- Parodied: Officer Bob doesn't carry a gun but uses his tazer so often he has to keep a car charger for it plugged into his squad car's cigarette lighter at all times, or else its battery won't last for a single shift of patrol duty. He also has no problem with beating up old ladies for jaywalking. When reprimanded for excessive use of force, he can't understand what the problem is, after all it's not like he killed anyone.
- Averted:
- Bob doesn't avoid killing people.
- Bob is an Actual Pacifist.
- Bob is never in any life-or-death situations, and we never learn his views about violence.
- All the characters in the story are immortal, so killing them isn't even a possibility.
- Enforced: The writers want lots of action scenes but are not allowed to depict killing. To avoid over-reliance on A-Team Firing and the like, they make the hero morally opposed to killing and well-practiced in non-lethal violence.
- Invoked: After being defeated in a fight, Emperor Evulz specifically reminds Bob of his oath not to kill people, in hopes that this will induce Bob to spare him.
- Exploited: Knowing that Bob will not kill, he specifically designs his fortress and equips his minions with a focus on guarding against Bob's non-lethal methods, instead of focusing on defense against intruders armed with lethal weapons.
- Defied: When Emperor Evulz reminds him of his oath, Bob replies that Evulz is worth making an exception for, and proceeds to use lethal force.
- Conversed: The following conversation occurs between Alice and Carol while watching The Adventures of Bob.Alice: "I wonder why Bob never kills anyone?"Carol: "They wanted to emphasize his moral superiority over the villains."
- Implied: Bob calls himself a pacifist, but everyone is still afraid of angering him.
- Deconstructed: Despite the lack of killing intent, not everyone Bob brutally beats the crap out of actually survives. When confronted with this, he suffers an emotional breakdown.
- Reconstructed: Bob comes to accept the risk of accidental death from unrestrained use of less-lethal forms of violence, but will still never intentionally kill anyone.
- Played For Laughs: Bob continues to espouse that he has a code against killing even as all hell breaks loose around him and people die and it still could be declared his fault with a thorough enough investigation.
- Played For Drama: After his parents are murdered by criminals, Bob is left with an intense antipathy to both criminals and killing. He swears to fight crime by any method he can, except for killing.
- Played For Horror: Bob says he won't kill people but has no problem maiming them to a degree where it would be more merciful to kill them and terrorize any and all bystanders to the point some faint and injure themselves or have heart attacks. When people decry him as more monstrous than the men he fights, it's not some kind of pithy attempt at playing mind games.
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