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No Adequate Punishment
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For most of the world today, if you get caught doing a crime, you do the (sometimes metaphorical) time associated with the crime. The justice system is there to ensure you get a punishment that fits what you've done. But in fiction where Big Bads can plot to Take Over the World or commit countless atrocities in pursuit of their goal, the heroes might find that there is no adequate punishment for the Big Bad's crimes. If they'd killed a person they'd have been charged with murder, but what if they caused a World-Wrecking Wave and spoiled the lands on top of the already uncountable death toll - how do you punish that? Good question, because often crimes with No Adequate Punishment are so unthinkably evil, bizarre, or stupid that literally no one in a position to mete out justice has had the forethought of what to actually do if someone went and did them. Don't expect this to mean that they get Off on a Technicality since there Ain't No Rule though, because The Villain Must Be Punished. In most cases, people who commit crimes like these are left to deal with the consequences of their actions, charged with something else in an attempt to at least get some measure of inadequate justice, or just outright killed or given a Longer-Than-Life Sentence to put a stop to further crimes on the pile. It's not justice, because their crime is such that there is no adequate justice to be had, but it's an attempt. Reminder: If a crime has a "The harshest punishment imaginable" it is not an example of this trope. On the other hand; If "The harshest punishment imaginable" is invoked as a Plan B in a vain attempt to cover the crime, it is an example. Contrast Failed Execution, No Sentence, in which the law does has an "adequate punishment" (in this case, death), but the fact that the executionee survives leads to the law being at odds of what to do, and There Should Be a Law for when someone believes what they have come across should be illegalized and punished by law, but isn't. May lead to an Obvious Rule Patch being subsequently applied in the form of a law specifically designed to mete out adequate punishment. Sub-Trope of Language Equals Thought, and related to Moral Event Horizon for actions which might have adequate punishment, but still serve to prove to the audience that there is no coming back from villainy for the character committing them. Example: |
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On That '70s Show, Kelso enrolls in the police academy and does pretty badly on a test. He and the others break into the office that night to alter the answers only to get caught. The officer who catches them tells him there's no punishment for what he's doing because it was thought there was no one stupid enough to do it. | |
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In Harry Potter creating a Horcrux is considered the ultimate evil, beyond even using any of the three "Unforgivable curses"note One is an instant-death spell, the second is Mind Control, and the third is an Agony Beam which carry a life sentence in Azkaban with no parole, and yet the Wizarding world has no punishment for creating a Horcruxnote as opposed to the murder one must commit to even make one of the damn things — because creating one involves literally tearing parts off your soul, and they don't know of a way to make the punishment worse than that. | |
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Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: The Norscans punish unlawful killings with a fine of wergild. Every class of society incurs its own death-price, except for Seers and Vitki — it is completely forbidden by the Chaos Gods to do them harm, and only Divine Punishment can settle the debt. | |
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In Rainbow Six, this is discussed by Clark and Chavez in regards to the bio-terrorism plot intended to wipe out humanity to save the planet. Clark isn't sure how they'd even start with a trial for the attempted murder of the entire human race or who would have jurisdiction for punishing them. In the end, when Rainbow assaults the conspiracy's compound in the Amazon, rather than bring in the surviving conspirators to face trial and open the massive can of worms that would entail, he simply destroys their base and forces them to flee into the jungle with little hope of survival. | |
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In The Curse of Chalion attempting to use death magic to kill someone is punished by execution. However, successfully using death magic to kill someone carries no penalty, since successful death magic a) is technically a "death miracle", and thus sanctioned by the gods, and b) kills the spellcaster along with their victim, so it's not like you could punish them even if you wanted to. When Cazaril manages to survive performing death magic, it's acknowledged that in theory he's committed no crime, but that might not protect him (especially from the target's elder brother, the Evil Chancellor of the Royacy of Chalion whose love for his kin is absolute well past the point of being a virtue) if the information became public. | |
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From Things Fall Apart: | |
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The Hanar of Mass Effect apparently had no idea what to do when Jack Colony Dropped a space station onto their "favorite moon" hard enough to make a new crater, and so they just charged her with "vandalism" instead — the same kind of charge one would get for breaking a couple windows, which makes it stand out on her List of Transgressions as being a case of Poke the Poodle. | |
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In Closely Watched Trains, a womanizing telegraphist stamps the legs and buttocks of a female co-worker using rubber stamps from the train station they work in. When the girl's outraged mother sees them, he takes her to the police and courts, who reveal that they can't do anything because he never forced or threatened her. Finally, a Nazi Party official (the film takes place in occupied Czechoslovakia), upon seeing that the stamps are written in German as well as Czech, has the telegraphist charged with "Desecration of the German Language". | |
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At the end of The Transformers (IDW), Megatron is charged with all the crimes he committed over his several billion year long war. While they do come up with some punishment, either a Longer-Than-Life Sentence that'll last until the universe goes out or execution, Megatron himself believes it to be a case of this. | |
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Malcolm in the Middle has a comedic version of this show up in the episode "Motivational Seminar": Reese joins a pack of dogs, and goes on a destructive spree after they make him his leader. He ends up being caught by the police in a chicken coop and brought back to his parents which leads to the following comment from the arresting officer: | |
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Planescape: Torment: If The Nameless One tells Vhailor that one of his previous incarnations murdered someone (a death sentence in Vhailor's book) but he's since lost his identity and can't recall anything of his previous life, Vhailor will ruminate on the matter and decide that there is no suitable punishment. He subsequently decides that The Nameless One's amnesia in itself serves as punishment — the one who performed the actual murder is "dead" in a manner of speaking. | |
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The Order of the Stick: Vaarsuvius killed a quarter of all black dragons, and everyone related to them, including innumerable humans, including the entire Draketooth family. Roy tells V that he's incapable of either counseling or judging the elf. And when V insists, Roy goes into detail as to why he can't advise the elf: The legal issues would take an army of lawyers to sort out, and morally/ethically, the harm V caused would likely defy any price V would be capable of paying. | |
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In Astro City, Infidel's crimes include laying waste to the entire world and destroying it at least once. Unfortunately, he has been involved in so many historic events (including several in the future) that his longtime enemy Samaritan has been unable to come up with a punishment that would suit the crime without damaging the timeline. On the other hand, Infidel has been unable to find a way to kill Samaritan without causing similar damage. As a result, they've been at an impasse for years, so Infidel has agreed to go into retirement in a pocket dimension, while Samaritan agrees not to interfere with whatever he does there... for now, anyway. | |
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In the Star Wars Legends Jedi Academy Trilogy, Kyp Durron stands trial in front of the council for destroying a solar system. Mon Mothma acknowledges that while this makes him a mass murderer on par with the Emperor, there is no adequate law in the New Republic books to punish such a crime, and the council is not a judicial body. Not helping is that he was under the influence of the ancient Sith lord Exar Kun (long story, don't ask) which muddies the question of if he was even in control of his actions. Mon Mothma declares that the only person who could make a proper judgement is the ranking Jedi master, Luke Skywalker. The later novel I, Jedi explored some of the massive problems with this decision. | |
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Torchwood: Miracle Day: Because no-one can die anymore, many laws regarding life and death are rendered useless. A man strangled his wife into brain-death. Since she isn't dead and no-one can die anymore, he can't be charged with murder or attempted murder. Assault is the only thing he can be charged with. | |
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The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Survivors". After investigating some strange occurrences on a seemingly-abandoned colony, the crew learns the truth from its Sole Survivor, a man named Kevin: he is actually a nigh-omnipotent immortal alien, who decided to live among the human inhabitants of the colony as one of their own. When the colony came under attack by a cruel, warlike species known as the Husnock, he tried to ward them off nonviolently — but this only furthered the Husnock's aggression, leading to the destruction of the entire colony. Overcome with grief and rage, Kevin proceeded to exterminate all 50 billion Husnock in the galaxy with a single thought in retaliation. The subsequent realization of what he'd done made him decide to live in self-imposed exile within the ruins of the colony, with only an illusory recreation of his dead human wife as company. Picard is utterly stunned and concludes that not only does the Federation not have any laws befitting of Kevin's crime, but even if they did they have no power to actually enforce a punishment on such a powerful being, and he ultimately decides to simply leave Kevin to his solitude. | |
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