Even Good Can Be a Weakness

> "*Finally, he saw the truth. This truth: that he, the avatar of light, Supreme Master of the Jedi Order, the fiercest, most implacable, most devastatingly powerful foe the darkness had ever known... just didn't have it. He had never had it. He had lost before he started... before he was born. The Sith had changed. The Sith had grown, had adapted, had invested a thousand years' intensive study into every aspect of not only the Force but Jedi lore itself, in preparation for this exact day. The Sith had remade themselves. They had become new... The Jedi had spent the same millennium trying to re-fight the last war. The new Sith could not be destroyed by a lightsaber; they could not be burned away by any torch of the Force*"
> ― Yoda discovered how flawed he and his fellow members of Jedi Order truly was in comparison of the Sith who turned out already evolved since its defeat long prior to events of *A Phantom Menace* in the novelization of *Revenge of the Sith* by Matthew Stover.
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Similar to how villains can be disgusted by the actions of other villains, some heroes can be good to the point that not only can it be used against them, but it can come off as appalling or pathetic by other heroes and/or villains (current or former). This usually refers to when a hero has a villain at their mercy or has a perfect chance to kill them and end the threat they pose, but out of the goodness of their heart, or some misguided respect, or even by being tricked by the villain themselves, let them go. As a consequence to heroes and their allies, following their good heart can, on rare occasions, trigger a series of events in which are either:

* Their closest allies/friends ended up killed/heavily injured by their enemies that were backstabbing them after being spared, in which either they ended up incapacitated or worse; dead before being resurrected later on or otherwise for the rest of the story, in which all cases depend on the story/fiction where it occurred.
* Suffer huge losses on their side, ranging from having their supply destroyed to losing the very planet that they lived on.
* Worst case, some of their allies ended up turning to the dark side out of fear, rage, or despair over the consequence of the choice that the hero made by sparing their enemies (in some cases overlaps with Despair Event Horizon as well) either the outcome was identical with the previous case above or other causes that are equally bad/worse.

Other examples of this could be either:

* A hero openly expresses so much pride or can be so naive in their good deeds that their allies or witnesses can find it lame and obnoxious. Some cases of this also showcase how the individual themselves can potentially become the villain's pawn.
* The hero overestimates/does not fully understand the unlikable traits of his allies/friends, in which when they reveal the said traits, it will become a serious problem for the hero and his other allies.
* The individual (either the heroes themselves or others) is overprotective of their relatives/subordinates/allies too much of something, which irritates their allies and witnesses. In some cases, their actions are even too far to the point that they end up ruining/hindering anything that their allies/friends dear most.
* The hero attempted to do something beneficial for themselves and their allies or everyone else. However, they didn't take the necessary precautions to prevent unwanted consequences.

While the heroes will do what it takes to correct the damage caused by trusting their enemies, their mistakes often lead to irreversible consequences.

A form of opposition to this is "Cruel Mercy", where the hero has taken precautions to ensure their enemies cannot use the mercy they gave them against the hero.

Since a person's sense of goodness differs from person to person, audience members often have differing opinions, and both sides can get supporters.

## Examples

### Literature

* *Harry Potter*:
	+ **Harry Potter**: Although he learned Wormtail's role in framing Sirius and his parents' death, Harry chose to spare Wormtail by proxy and intended to have him incarcerated in the castle until being brought to Azkaban. Unfortunately, he underestimated how deadly Wormtail can be beneath his cowardly facade, as Wormtail later escaped and helped ensure Lord Voldemort's return. This mistake, thankfully, does not count as a Tragic Mistake as Dumbledore approved such a decision back then. Despite its dire ramifications, Wormtail would unknowingly ensure Voldemort's downfall regardless by letting the Dark Lord taking Harry's blood to revive himself and subsequently become more vulnerable than ever in some respects against his destined nemesis.
	+ **Professor Albus Dumbledore**: Some of Dumbledore's decisions proved to not always be beneficial despite being well-intentioned, to begin with.
		- He has arranged for Dolores Umbridge to be released from Centaur captivity to maintain the goodwill between the Ministry of Magic and Centaurs, knowing that having her imprisoned for too long would bring dire ramifications. Although this allowed her to willingly join forces with Death Eaters in persecuting and sentencing muggle-borns and half-bloods to death during Lord Voldemort's reign, most astute of audiences agreed it is the lesser of two evils as Dumbledore deciding otherwise would lead both sides to wage war against one another. Not to mention after Voldemort met his end, Dolores was confined in Azkaban for the rest of her life, along with the captured Death Eaters at last.
		- Dumbledore also arranged for Dursleys, particularly Petunia for being the muggle sibling of the late Lily Potter, to take Harry in and link the two with the bond of blood charm to keep him safe until he is ready to learn his true heritage and eventually, destiny as the only one who can kill Voldemort despite agreeing with McGonagall that it would lead to The Boy Who Lived enduring harsh childhood. That being said, he would later confront them (minus Marge) for his mistreatment of Harry.
* **Annabeth Chase**: Due to their past friendship, Annabeth could never do her best to stop Luke and still believe that his betrayal was the result of Kronos' manipulation. Such adamant belief of hers proved not to be misplaced as despite the damages he did, Luke was motivated by understandable resentments from being wronged by both the Gods of Olympus and the whole world, the very reason how Kronos pulled his strings, to begin with.

### Comic Books

* Batman: Batman has a principle of never killing them, specifically to set himself apart from criminals and supervillains, and is inspired by trauma from his parents' death. While this made him an effective crime fighter and invaluable ally to Gotham Police Department and other heroes, some rightfully point out certain individuals proved immune to his methods because of genuinely beyond redemption, such as his nemesis Joker and therefore delaying inevitable catastrophes said villains would cause in addition of indirectly inspired his enemies to better prepare against the Dark Knight and his allies.
	+ Jason Todd questioned Batman's cruel mercy approach against a villain that, after dying at the hands of Joker and subsequently resurrected, he takes up the mantle of Red Hood out of betrayal by his morals. But even Jason refused to understand why Batman won't use lethal force despite being aware of the flaws of his methods.
		- Similarly, in *Batman: Arkham Origins*, Anarky questioned Batman's principle that he believes Batman doesn't save Gotham people but makes them dependent on him.
	+ In *JLA: Tower of Babel* and its adaptation *Justice League: Doom*, Batman is revealed to prepare plans to deal with Justice League members in case they become villains, an idea which led to a major problem where a team of villains who learned about it decided to steal them from his computer to use it against entire Justice League.
	+ In *Lego Batman: The Movie – DC Super Heroes Unite*, Batman decides to keep his and Robin's investigation on Lex Luthor's plan with green kryptonite synthetic a secret from Superman despite his sidekick Robin pointing out Superman can aid them in dealing with the crisis better. Unfortunately for the dark knight and his partner, Joker, and Lex Luthor ultimately stole the entire stash and demolished the entire Batcave.

### Live-Action

* *Star Wars*:
	+ The Jedi Order: Jedi Order had a code that made it passive during times of conflict and had legitimate reasons against the Dark Side of The Force. Unfortunately, it made the Order less decisive in combating its enemies, such as the Sith Order among those who threatened the peace and prosperity throughout the galaxy at large, leading to its downfall during the Second Jedi Purge.
		- Another issue in the Jedi Order, as noted in Matthew Stover's novelization of *Revenge of the Sith*, revealed that the Order did not bother to keep its ways up to date in changing times, particularly its understanding regarding the Force and matters between the Force and emotional attachments. For instance, during Anakin Skywalker's time as a Jedi Knight, the Order of the Jedi banned its members from developing any form of emotional attachments out of believing it would make them susceptible to the Dark Side of The Force and, therefore, one of the roots of all evil. As expected, this resulted in them being not only detached from others more than they realized but also ill-prepared against the returned Sith, who had long improved its ways since its defeat prior to the events of the prequel trilogy.
	+ Yoda: Though his attempt to comfort Anakin over his fear of losing Padme was genuine, Yoda ironically contributed to Anakin's descent into villainy because his advice was nothing but platitudes about how emotional attachment is dangerous and wrong. This, in turn, showed that despite his wisdom, Yoda was still affected by how outdated Jedi Order's ways at the time, a mistake he realized too late upon discovering how much the Sith improved in comparison in Matthew Stover's novelization of *Revenge of the Sith*.
* In *Power Rangers Super Ninja Steel*, Haley realizes her mistake with her poor addition got in between her relationship with Calvin, which tested their relationship.
* Caesar: Despite knowing the sad history between Koba and humanity and even agreeing with his belief that apes are better than humans, Caesar's wish to form friendly relationships between their kind and humanity made him blind to the scope of Koba's hatred. In fact, he didn't take the possibility of anyone on either side brutally opposing the peaceful coexistence between their kinds or even how awful the hatred had consumed Koba until it was too late.
* *Marvel Cinematic Universe* series:
	+ Tony Stark and Bruce Banner: Tony and Bruce created Ultron as a peacekeeper program with the help of one of the Infinity Stones within Loki's Sceptre so he would be able to aid Avengers against their enemies, but unfortunately, the said program was unable to cope with the negative traits of humanity and ended up chooses to rebel and decided to destroy humanity. Worse, Ultron's first victim was J.A.R.V.I.S., which caused Steve Rogers/Captain America and Thor Odinson to berate Tony for harming Bruce Banner, causing too much trouble, and this mess. Even though this is ultimately undone thanks to the help of Vision (who was born from Ultron's latest new body, which is programmed with the remains of J.A.R.V.I.S.) and the redeemed Maximoff siblings, it is obvious that Steve eventually became distrustful of Tony since the accident, in which became one of the reasons of their rivalries in *Captain America: Civil War*.
	+ This is also not the first time Steve Rogers berated his ally, who attempted to do good things that ended up disastrous: He once disagreed with Nick Fury's idea regarding Project Insight because such a project was deemed too extreme despite its good intentions. Worse, the project later backfires when some S.H.I.E.L.D members betrayed their allies and revealed themselves as HYDRA members and causing the project to target innocent people alongside those who potentially get in their way.
* Kilgharrah the Great Dragon: Kilgharrah told Merlin that his attempt to see other people’s kindness could be his undoing. This was proved when Morgana and Mordred, those whom he attempted to see their kindness proved to be vulnerable to turning to the dark side. Though Merlin tries to undo this once he hears about a prophecy where Morgana and Mordred would become evil, both of them are already one step past to the dark side: Mordred callously kills two Camelot Knights instead of simply immobilizing them with his sonic scream spell while Morgana starts her move by mentally tortured Uther with a magically specialized mandrake Root.

### Cartoons

* *Teen Titans* (2003):
	+ Robin: In order to get close to Slade and better know about his plans, he made a supervillain alter-ego called "Red X" who proposed the alliance with the criminal mastermind, only to realize it was never a good idea due to him almost crossed the line between good and evil, and worse, came close to lose his friends. While he managed to prevent the worst, someone later stole the Red X suit for his own use as a thieving supervillain.
* The Queen of Ant Island: Regarding dealing with Hopper's pack, Queen Ant believes that obeying the grasshoppers' demands is the best way to ensure her colony's safety, which is later revealed not to be the best idea.
* *Avatar*:
	+ Roku: Because of his friendship with Sozin, he didn't use any chance to take him out despite seeing how far he had fallen as a firelord, which allowed Sozin to use it against him and left him to die and wiped out entire airbenders so he could no longer disturb his plans of world domination. Roku's spirit many times expressed his regret that he wasn't more decisive and didn't prevent a war that lasted a century.
	+ Aang: He saved Zuko instead of leaving him to freeze to death, but at that time, the fallen Fire Nation prince is still blinded by the obsession to return to his home nation (which is wrong due to him repeatedly seeing misery Fire Nation inflicted to the entire planet due to his father and grandfather's rule), the latter ended up turned against him in Ba Sing Se. To compound the issue, Aang didn't finish his training to return to Ba Sing Se to save Katara and was unprepared. The former case was stemmed from being educated that all life is sacred and limited his options in dealing with his more ruthless adversaries, such as Firelord Ozai. Not surprisingly, Aang's unwillingness to kill Firelord Ozai would cost him his life and victory had he not been summoned by a passing turtle lion who then taught him energy-bending and with it, the solution against his unrepentant nemesis.
	+ Zuko: Zuko stood up against the idea of sacrificing the young recruits in battle, which was recognized as a disrespect to his father Ozai, who later challenged him to fight. Zuko refused to fight Ozai, which resulted in him burning a great scar on his son's face for the rest of his life and subsequently exiling him. Zuko almost lost his relationship with Mai when he attempted to redeem himself. When he was already a Firelord, his patriotism and devotion to duty made him ultimately lose his beloved, severing his friendship with Avatar Aang and risking a war he could not win (though he later undoes most of his mistakes after realizing that most of his problems turned out due to his own fear of turning to the dark side as worse as Ozai ever did and immediately undo it before it could be worse). Also, despite what Azula did to him, he did not want to kill her, which resulted in her escape.
* Bubbles: Due to her love for animals, she inadvertently saved a cat that later was revealed to be a criminal mastermind who fooled her with its charm.
* Optimus Prime: Referring to the Transformers: Prime series, during the war for Cybertron, according to his oldest friend, Ratchet, Optimus Prime had many chances to kill their worst enemy, Megatron, but let him go out of the respect he once held for the one he once considered a brother, as they both once worked together to rid Cybertron of corruption and inequality before the war started.
* Gwen Tennyson: She successfully goes back in time and prevents Kevin's monstrous mutation, only for her to find out that her meddling in time has caused a Bad Future where Hex rules the Earth, Kevin's Charmcaster's slave, Ben's chained in a dungeon as Hex's prisoner, and she's dead.
* Scrooge McDuck: He becomes a vigilante to fight crime in the episode "Masked Mallard", but a crooked TV reporter copies the identity to commit crimes and blame the hero in his REPORTS in order to boost ratings.
* SpongeBob SquarePants: SpongeBob's naive personality at times made him susceptible to Krabs' and other villains' manipulations and overestimated how destructive Patrick's stupidity can be, leading to trouble. Unfortunately, this led to his most controversial moment in the episode "A Pal for Gary", where he bought Puffy Fluffy as Gary's roommate (oblivious that the animal itself is one of the known worst and possibly deadliest predators in the ocean). And when the Fluffy reveals its true apex predator form and nearly kills Gary, SpongeBob himself yells at Gary for attacking him (unaware that the situation is the polar opposite of what he thinks) and was nearly killed had Gary not defeated it.
	+ When SpongeBob used squirrel-related jokes in Comedy Krab show to boost its rating, Sandy realized that he unknowingly (and dangerously) tarnished her kind's image and thus had to be stopped, more so as she learned some of Bikini Bottomites erroneously perceived said jokes as documentary facts about squirrels in general. So, she decided to punish him by putting up a false facade based on said jokes so he came up with better jokes that don't demean anyone.
* Snow White: Due to her sweet nature and goodwill towards others, the princess Snow White can be gullible and easily manipulated to rebel against the orders of others, such as inviting an old crone, who was her stepmother, the Queen, in disguise (believing her to be a harmless, sickly old woman) into the cottage, disobeying the dwarfs' orders to stay away from strangers. This would result in her downfall as the Queen was successfully able to poison her with an apple. However, Snow White's loving heart is ultimately able to prevail, as her mutual love for the Prince ultimately saves her life. This symbolizes both the dangers and advantages of having a pure heart and making her a more human character.
* Hiccup: Due to having made peace between humans and dragons, Hiccup grew to be overconfident in his skills in maintaining peace and believed he could negotiate with Drago Bludvist, a warlord bent on controlling dragons. Hiccup's overconfidence also causes him to not listen to his parents' descriptions and warnings about Drago's bloodthirsty, psychotic nature. As a result, Hiccup confronts and tries to negotiate with Drago, only for the latter to hypnotize Toothless with his Bewilderbeast and order him to kill Hiccup. This leads to Stoick sacrificing himself to save Hiccup, and his death leaves Hiccup filled with grief and guilt.

### Anime/Manga

* *Dragon Ball*:
	+ **Goku**: When his evil brother Raditz came to Earth, and kidnapped his young son Gohan as ransom in exchange for his return to his brutal Saiyan heritage, and even threatened to kill every life form on the planet, Goku had to team up with his former enemy Piccolo to have the best chance of defeating him. Goku, not wanting to tip Raditz off about his knowledge of his tail being his weakness, waited until the right moment to grab Raditz' tail, rendering him immobile and defenseless against Piccolo's lethal Special Beam Cannon technique. Raditz begged Goku to spare him and promised to leave Earth, and never returned. Initially, Goku refused to believe him but soon gave in once Raditz sounded sincere enough to keep his word, despite Piccolo warning him twice not to fall for it. Raditz immediately beat Goku down the moment he let him go. Piccolo angrily chastised Goku for his naive nature.
	+ Gohan: In the anime-exclusive episodes of *Dragonball Z*, Gohan assumed an alter-ego by the name of "Great Saiyaman" to keep his identity a secret from the public whenever he fought crime. When he saved an airline jet from crashing in a highly populated city, he declared his success with an obnoxious speech and striking several over-the-top victory poses. A little girl who watched denounced him as a "geek". Something like this happened again in the 13th movie when he stopped two bank robbers from escaping in their getaway car. Once he disarmed them and disabled their vehicle, he made another long-winded speech and struck another pose. One of the bank robbers questioned the length of the speech, and even Videl, Gohan's girlfriend, who had also assumed a similar alter-ego and aided him in foiling the robbery, agreed, even telling him "See, Gohan? Even the low-lives agree.".
* *Naruto*:
	+ Naruto Uzumaki: Because of his bond with Sasuke Uchiha, he didn't go to the most extreme length to stop Sasuke from defecting; he refused to kill Sasuke when he had the perfect opportunity, which allowed Sasuke to become an international criminal and preserve his alliance with Akatsuki because of Sasuke's own vulnerability to Obito's manipulations. This resulted in him being criticized by his friends and also by A The Raikage, who yelled at him because Sasuke seemingly killed Killer Bee that left him in vengeful rage until Tobi revealed that said person escaped but used this as a ruse to have fun on the outside of the village.
	+ That being said, Naruto ironically proved to be the only one who best suited for the endeavor in stopping Sasuke both because he could match the latter in strength and importantly, possessed sufficient wisdom to do so thanks to his confrontation against Nagato aka. Pain prior. To further drive this point, A the Raikage and those who criticized his approach in it were ironically too consumed by rage and hatred and therefore doomed to either fail or worse, causing a fatal mistake that led to an all-out war between nation.
	+ Sai: Sai greatly understood Naruto's concerns regarding dire ramifications from Sasuke's post-Itachi killing activities, particularly the prospect of either their comrades or shinobi from other nations making a fatal mistake in the endeavor of stopping the rogue Uchiha due to too blinded by anger and hate thus unwittingly incite an all-out war between nations. Although his points regarding Sasuke being Konohagakure's responsibility instead of Kumogakure are valid, Sai realized too late that sharing his conclusion to his peers, Sakura in particular due to her feelings for the rogue Uchiha, was a mistake prompting him to inform Naruto who ultimately better suited for such endeavor.
	+ Itachi Uchiha: He was ordered to kill his entire clan to prevent a bloody coup that would kill all of Konoha, but couldn't bring himself to kill his younger brother, Sasuke. As a result, he spared said person, and tried to enact a plan that would end with that person a hero beloved by Konoha, and capable of defending himself and it against the Madara. Instead, it ended with him as Obito to Madara, swearing to destroy Konoha. He later fix this out though once revived by Kabuto later on.
	+ Tobirama Senju: Out of concern with another possible rebellion from Uchiha clan, Tobirama Senju gave the Uchiha control of the Konoha Military Police Force as a sign of trust as well as means to keeping the Uchiha's emotions in check so the village would not end up with another Madara. Though this actually meant for Uchiha clan and inhabitants of Konoha to coexist in better way, this ultimately intensifies the chance for Uchiha clan to consumed by hatred. Hashirama even critizes this method when both of them revived alongside other Kages by Orochimaru's aid to undo the Fuinjustu techique that invovled the usage of the Shikigami's stomach to previously confined them as prison.
* *Bleach*:
	+ Ichigo Kurosaki: He and his friends went to Hueco Mundo to save Orihime defying Soul Society's orders. Yamamoto, who had hoped to be able to send a captain-class invasion force in three months time was forced to speed up his plans to get the captains into Hueco Mundo to follow after the kids. Then it's revealed this was Aizen's plan all along, knowing Orihime's unique powers would force the shinigami to act to prevent her power being used by Aizen. Aizen successfully split the Gotei 13 forces in half, enabling him to have to only fight half the Gotei 13 at Karakura Town.
	+ Orihime Inoue: She healed Menoly despite she abused her, which inadvertly gave her the chance to abuse her more sadistically.

### Videogames

* Mega Man and several of his other counterparts are known for having naivete, which their enemies would often point out may be their fatal flaws. For example, when he and Bass meet in battle, Mega Man would often state his refusal to fight him out of belief that they are not enemies. Another example is found in Mega Man's futuristic successor Mega Man X, who shows a lot of qualms about having to fight due to being a pacifist at heart.
* **Spiritia Rosenberg**: She has her own naivete similarly to Mega Man above. Interestingly, her naiveness mainly comes from trusting Iris Sepperin, who eventually reveals herself to be the one responsible for having been orchestrating RKS's rebellion against the Orthodox Church all along.
* **Sash Lilac** and **Carol Tea** are forced to turn the system for Lord Brevon's spaceship back on and give him the disk they were using to do so by him when he threatens to kill **Milla Basset** following their attempt to shut it down. Little do they know, that Brevon has tricked them into doing so so that he could mutate Milla into a monster and force the two to fight her.
* Protagonist of the first Fallout game was forced to sent himself into exile from the Vault because his/her heroic action in saving the Vault from army of mutants has inspired the children inhabitants to do heroic actions that similar with what he did, an influence that threaten to bring the unwanted consequences.

## Gallery

Marlin yells at Nemo.jpgMarlin embarrassing Nemo in front of his classmates, leading to his son disowning him, and then getting taken by divers.Hiccup's Overconfident Downfall.pngHiccup's overconfidence in maintaining peace leads Drago to hypnotize Toothless and kill his father Stoick.