# I'm looking for stories in which the hero consciously decides to kill an innocent. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 27, 2012, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-stories-in-which-the-hero-consciously-decides-to-kill-an-innocent/645313 "2012-12-27T20:00:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Bakhesh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3da27b/32.png) [@Bakhesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bakhesh)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2012, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-stories-in-which-the-hero-consciously-decides-to-kill-an-innocent/645313/41 "2012-12-29T05:37:42Z")
Spoilers for Looper… …but I think Old Joe probably fits, when he decided to go all “are you Sarah Connor?” on three young children. You could argue that by killing Cid would have saved millions, but the other two were targeted for being born in the wrong hospital ---
**Author:** ![Bakhesh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3da27b/32.png) [@Bakhesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bakhesh)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2012, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-stories-in-which-the-hero-consciously-decides-to-kill-an-innocent/645313/42 "2012-12-29T05:54:38Z")
> [@Bakhesh](#): > > Spoilers for Looper… > > …but I think Old Joe probably fits, when he decided to go all “are you Sarah Connor?” on three young children. You could argue that by killing Cid would have saved millions, but the other two were targeted for being born in the wrong hospital Just noticed the literature only caveat in the OP. I meant Looper : the novelisation, obviously ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2012, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-stories-in-which-the-hero-consciously-decides-to-kill-an-innocent/645313/43 "2012-12-29T18:06:31Z")
This happens in Toni Morrison’s novel, _Beloved_. Sorry, but I’m apparently not doing the spoiler setting correctly, so I can’t be more specific than that. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2012, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-stories-in-which-the-hero-consciously-decides-to-kill-an-innocent/645313/44 "2012-12-29T18:49:57Z")
_Old Yeller._ ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2012, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-stories-in-which-the-hero-consciously-decides-to-kill-an-innocent/645313/45 "2012-12-29T19:23:43Z")
> [@Dendarii\_Dame](#): > > This happens in Toni Morrison’s novel, _Beloved_. > > Sorry, but I’m apparently not doing the spoiler setting correctly, so I can’t be more specific than that. You can type [spoiler] Text here [/ spoiler] (minus the extra spaces) around the text to be hidden. I’ll add it here: Spoiler for **Beloved** : One of the main characters of the book reveals the reason for the haunting of her home and why she is an outcast in that town. She had escaped from slavery with her children, and when her old master found her and wanted to take them back, she tried to kill her children to save them from slavery, managing to kill one daughter. The ghost that haunts the home is believed to be her daughter’s spirit. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2012, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-stories-in-which-the-hero-consciously-decides-to-kill-an-innocent/645313/46 "2012-12-29T20:08:46Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > The Bible had Abraham about to kill his only child. He didn’t, but he did intend to, and this intention was what caused God to stay Abraham’s hand. > > Also in the Bible, while it wasn’t a _killing_ of the innocents, Lot did offer his two teenage virgin daughters up to be gang-raped by the whole village of Sodom, merely to protect two travelers. You’ve answered this in the spirit of the thread, I think. Sadly my comment about Lot is NOT in the spirit of the thread. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2012, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-stories-in-which-the-hero-consciously-decides-to-kill-an-innocent/645313/47 "2012-12-29T20:17:07Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > How about reality? Reality’s just a crutch for peoplewho cannot handle smack. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2012, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-stories-in-which-the-hero-consciously-decides-to-kill-an-innocent/645313/48 "2012-12-29T21:48:12Z")
> [@cher3](#): > > I don’t know if Cromwell counts as a hero, but we are supposed to feel some connection to him. Hell no. ---
**Author:** ![Boulter\_s\_Canary](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e79b87/32.png) [@Boulter\_s\_Canary](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boulter_s_Canary)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2012, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-stories-in-which-the-hero-consciously-decides-to-kill-an-innocent/645313/49 "2012-12-29T22:43:36Z")
Phil Rickman’s novel _The Man in the Moss_. An ancient bog body has to be replaced in its marsh to avert disaster. Failing that: Somebody else has to be sacrificed by the Celtic triple death and put in the mud.. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2012, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-stories-in-which-the-hero-consciously-decides-to-kill-an-innocent/645313/50 "2012-12-29T23:13:27Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > You’ve answered this in the spirit of the thread, I think. Sadly my comment about Lot is NOT in the spirit of the thread. The Lot story is one of the most fucked-up in all literature, no doubt. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2012, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-stories-in-which-the-hero-consciously-decides-to-kill-an-innocent/645313/51 "2012-12-29T23:21:14Z")
The definition of “innocent” is crucial here. In Robert B. Parker’s\*\*\* A Catskill Eagle,\*\*\* private eye Spenser murders a pimp he’d never seen before, and who had never done anything to Spenser. Spenser told himself he had to do it because he feared the pimp would hurt two of the hookers who worked for him, and who had been helping Spenser out. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2012, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-stories-in-which-the-hero-consciously-decides-to-kill-an-innocent/645313/52 "2012-12-29T23:22:32Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > The Lot story is one of the most fucked-up in all literature, no doubt. It’s not the Lot story itself I have a problem with. I don’t have any trouble believing that a cowardly Bronze Age jackass might give up his daughters to be gangraped rather than two beings he believed her angels. I don’t even have a problem believing that the same jackass, after being widowed, fucked his daughters, knocked them both up, and was able to sell the story that they were the initiators of said fucking/impregnation. [It’s St. Peter calling Lot a righteous man, instead of noting that he was obviously a fuckwit.](http://bible.cc/2_peter/2.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2012, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-stories-in-which-the-hero-consciously-decides-to-kill-an-innocent/645313/53 "2012-12-29T23:29:01Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > The definition of “innocent” is crucial here. > > In Robert B. Parker’s\*\*\* A Catskill Eagle,\*\*\* private eye Spenser murders a pimp he’d never seen before, and who had never done anything to Spenser. > > Spenser told himself he had to do it because he feared the pimp would hurt two of the hookers who worked for him, and who had been helping Spenser out. I know that story well; _Catskill_ was my introduction to Spenser. I wouldn’t say it QUITE qualifies, since Spenser had good reason to believe that the pimp would torture and kill the two prostitutes for their (unwilling) role in the matter. So the pimp and his bodyguard (murdered by Hawk) weren’t exactly innocent. It was the cold-blooded nature of the act that bothered Spenser, along with the fact that he had created the prostitutes’ problem in the first place. Now if he’d killed the _hookers_ as part of his quest to sort-of rescue Susan, it’d be a clear example. But that’d be farther than Spenser could make himself go. ---
**Author:** ![Sandwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee59a6/32.png) [@Sandwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sandwood)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-stories-in-which-the-hero-consciously-decides-to-kill-an-innocent/645313/54 "2012-12-30T00:36:15Z")
One short story springs to mind, _2BR02B_ by Kurt Vonnegut: [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21279](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21279) ---
**Author:** ![Beastly\_Rotter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@Beastly\_Rotter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beastly_Rotter)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-stories-in-which-the-hero-consciously-decides-to-kill-an-innocent/645313/55 "2012-12-30T03:14:39Z")
Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville. In order to lure and destroy the slakemoths, Isaac`s crisis engine requires a homeless man dying of cancer to be plugged into it. They duly kidnap one and drag him to the trap, trussed and at gunpoint, but Mieville doesn`t let you off easily: they are deliberately sacrificing an innocent, terrified old man with a nasty, protracted death, and it ain`t a nice thing. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-stories-in-which-the-hero-consciously-decides-to-kill-an-innocent/645313/56 "2012-12-30T14:48:11Z")
If Lord Asriel is considered a hero (and he seems to be treated as one), then his actions at the end of “Northern Lights”/“The Golden Compass” count. Man, how I hoped that “The Amber Spyglass” would feature Lyra and her allies repudiate both Asriel and the Authority. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2012, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-stories-in-which-the-hero-consciously-decides-to-kill-an-innocent/645313/57 "2012-12-31T00:18:15Z")
An example that doesn’t really qualify: In _Crown of Slaves_, by Eric Flint and David Weber, special agent Victor Cachat begins a time-critical interrogation of a group of prisoners by shooting one of them in the head, just to unambiguously prove that yes, he was willing to kill them if they didn’t cooperate. It doesn’t qualify for two reasons, though. First, none of the prisoners was exactly “innocent”: They were mercenaries working for an absolutely reprehensible employer, and knew it. More importantly, though, Cachat isn’t exactly a heroic figure, either: He’s a monster, and just happens to be a monster on the same side as the heroes. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2012, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-stories-in-which-the-hero-consciously-decides-to-kill-an-innocent/645313/58 "2012-12-31T01:00:50Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > The definition of “innocent” is crucial here. I go back and forth about mentioning one of the Poirot books where this arguably happens: **Curtain** , in which our hero grudgingly admits that the guy in question _“did not actively take part in these crimes”_ – indeed, _“that he could never be convicted of crime”_ and _could not be touched by the law."_ Poirot shoots him in the head anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Lok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e8c25b/32.png) [@Lok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lok)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2012, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-stories-in-which-the-hero-consciously-decides-to-kill-an-innocent/645313/59 "2012-12-31T01:44:28Z")
> [@Reno\_Nevada](#): > > SPOILERS for \*Changes \*by Jim Butcher > > [SPOILER]OK, so this is the twelfth book in the series, so the backstory is more than somewhat ponderous, but the hero, Dresden, is fighting a nation of vampires, who have kidnapped his daughter. The girl’s mother has been partially turned into a vampire. The vampires have started up a ritual that will culminate in a human sacrifice; the ritual will kill anyone related to the sacrificee. The hero’s daughter is the designated sacrifice. > > Dresden winds up sacrificing the girl’s mother, his long-time lover, in the place of the daughter; due to the semi-vampiric nature of the mother, her relatives are the vampires instead of her human kin (including the daughter, I guess). Dresden’s actions result in the near-total elimination of the vampire nation. Since there is a 13th and 14th book, this causes other complications. > > I don’t know that this will help you. The series is well-worth reading, though.[/SPOILER] Sorry, you are incorrect about this. She was not an innocent. She had just murdered her partner in cold blood, completing her transformation into a Red Court vampire. That was why the curse worked to destroy the Red Court. It killed everyone in earlier generations and she was the youngest Red Court vampire in existence, literally less than a minute or so. > [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > There’s arguably another instance of this in _Changes_. I can’t do spoiler tags on my phone, so I’ll be elliptical: the last character to die is an innocent, whose death is arranged for (though not carried out by) the hero. I have two problems with this one. First, I would argue the victim is not an innocent in any way. Second, he never actually died, although he did come very close. > [@Wargamer](#): > > In his _Safehold_ series David Weber has some of the Good Guys fall into the hands of The Inquisition, who use typical Inquisition tactics to torture ‘confessions’ out of them. In one scene, the captain, who has been tortured himself has his midshipman thrown into the cell with him as a psychological ploy. The midshipman has been turned into a complete wreck, with the usual indignities visited upon him, and is trying to apologize to his captain for breaking under the strain. The captain, tells him he has nothing to apologize for and deliberately kills the boy by breaking his neck. > > I’m not sure if that qualifies, since the captain had the intent to spare his subordinate any more agony, but he definitely is presented as a hero, and he definitely makes a conscious decision to kill the midshipman. > > (Also, I’m aware that Weber may or may not be considered good literature, but I enjoy his work, even if he does tend to belabor some points. And belabor them again. And again. And…well, you get the idea.) I would agree with this one. And you missed one that is even better I think. When the Inquisition went to capture the Wylsynn brothers in their quarters, one pulls his sword and kills his brother in cold blood to prevent the brother’s capture and torture. ---
**Author:** ![Reno\_Nevada](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Reno\_Nevada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reno_Nevada)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2012, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-stories-in-which-the-hero-consciously-decides-to-kill-an-innocent/645313/60 "2012-12-31T02:05:17Z")
[quote=“Lok, post:59, topic:645313”] Sorry, you are incorrect about this. She was not an innocent. She had just murdered her partner in cold blood, completing her transformation into a Red Court vampire. That was why the curse worked to destroy the Red Court. It killed everyone in earlier generations and she was the youngest Red Court vampire in existence, literally less than a minute or so. No, I stand by my example. She had just killed her partner, but that partner had in fact betrayed them all to the vampires just moments ago. It was hardly murder. She had begun a transformation into a vampire, but she was not guilty. To **Noodles Fellicini** : \*Changes \*does represent a lot of, well, changes in the formula, but I would still recommend it. _Ghost Story_ continues the move away from the old formula, and a lot of people did not seem to like it. _Cold Day_ is back to what we expect, to my mind. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-stories-in-which-the-hero-consciously-decides-to-kill-an-innocent/645313.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-looking-for-stories-in-which-the-hero-consciously-decides-to-kill-an-innocent/645313.md?page=4)