Times where an antagonist rejects the heroes' attempt to reason with them in Literature.
- Nineteen Eighty-Four:
- Done by O'Brien to Winston. When torturing Winston at the end, O'Brien asks why the Party goes to the lengths it does to keep power. Winston says that it's for the good of the people. O'Brien rebukes him and tells him flat out, the Party seeks and keeps power for power's sake.
- There's also the part where Winston says that the party would never strip him of his humanity and moral superiority. What O'Brien does is play a tape of the night when Winston and Julia vowed to commit hideous crimes for the Brotherhood's sake.
- Older Than Print: In the 11th century Chanson de Roland, Charlemagne calls on the Pagan leader Baligant to repent and be baptized, and then the Emperor his "first friend will be." Baligant tells him, "Your sermon's but ill preached." Of course, the medieval belief that being non-Christian necessarily makes Baligant the villain of the piece hits modern Values Dissonance.
- Fengshen Yanyi: more often than not, the verbal duels between factions starts with the villain accusing the heroes of being traitors, the heroes defending themselves and asdmonishing/mocking the villain for opposing the Will of Heaven and being in general too dumb to realize how bad is the situation in the Shang Dynasty, only for them to rebuff either by making one last disrespecting comment before attacking or asking one of their men to bring them the enemy general's head.
- In the Warrior Cats book The Last Hope, Firestar asks Big Bad Tigerstar if all the hate and death was worth it; Tigerstar responds "every moment."
