"You two fight, and can't apologize, but neither of you has the guts to contact the other. So you make a call on me, a mutual acquaintance, looking to find an excuse to talk."
— Kozakura, Otherside Picnic
Be it friendships, relationships between siblings, or a romantic couple, every relationship is bound to hit its rough patches.
When that happens, it falls on a mutual friend to try and patch the relationship.
There are a few ways to do it. One of the most common involves telling each party, independently, that the other wants to apologize but is too proud. Another is arranging a "chance" meeting between the feuding parties to get them together to talk things out.
Whatever the method chosen, the role of the Third Party Peacekeeper is to remind the pair of their friendship.
If done well, it can lead to a Heartfelt Apology from one or both of the arguing parties. If done poorly, it can prolong the fight.
Usually, it will be the Mellow Fellow or Only Sane Man who is trying to get the bickering parties to realize that they're still friends/lovers/siblings (as the case may be). The Team Mom and The Heart also often get involved in conflict resolution. May happen during a Feud Episode.
In a few instances, one or both of the feuding parties will desire a reconciliation, but be unable to make the first overtures, in which case they will invoke this trope and drag in a mutual friend. They may even have Instant Regret over how the rift happened, but the other party is too angry to accept an apology.
It may overlap with Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure and Formal Cessation of Hostilities. Compare Reconcile the Bitter Foes. May lead to Mediation Backfire. Could also be done via a Threatening Mediator. Contrast Third-Party Deal Breaker.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Frieren: Beyond Journey's End: Sein takes up this role when Stark forgets to get a birthday present for Fern, pointing out to her that Stark is a young fool, but not a bad person, even suggesting that Stark probably doesn't remember his own birthday, Fern recognizes that this is true, as Stark had already informed her that no one ever celebrated his birthday by giving him gifts in an earlier episode. She seeks out Stark to apologize to him for getting angry, and the two go off to do birthday shopping together.
- GTO: The Early Years: Whenever Eikichi and Ryuji get into a fight and break up the gang, it falls to one of their friends (usually Tsukai) to get them to reconcile.
- K-On!: Played with. Azusa walks into the club room to witness what looks like an argument between Ritsu and Yui about lyrics and musical styling, with Mugi seemingly trying to restore the peace. It turns out that they were all just play-acting a typical band break-up. Even Mio. Although it gave Azusa quite the scare.
- Mysteria Friends: Attempted by the rest of the school when Anne and Grea are having a squabble. Ultimately subverted, as the pair make up before the efforts can truly begin.
- Negima! Magister Negi Magi: After Negi says some rather Innocently Insensitive things to his friend Asuna, she gets extremely upset with him and starts giving him the cold shoulder. When they venture off to a Southern Island sponsored by Ayaka Yukihiro, she opts to help Negi patch up his friendship with Asuna using a false danger scenario. Asuna figures out the danger was never real and delves into Anger Born of Worry. Ayaka later has a heart-to-heart with Asuna that pushes her into forgiving him... Or rather acknowledging that she already had forgiven him and the two make up soon after.
- Squid Girl: In the Season 2 finale, Eiko and Squid Girl are fighting yet again. Only this time, it doesn't seem to be letting up. Chizuru announces that they'll be closing up early and heading to a local festival. She gets a bit of an assist from Kozue Tanabe (implied to be an Octopus Girl), who tells Eiko how to find Squid Girl after the group gets caught in a sudden downpour.
- Wasteful Days of High School Girls: An unusual case. When Baka and Wota get into a fight, Robo demonstrates to Majime that she can put an end to the fight quickly, and uses a method of overriding Baka's anger by giving her a series of simple tasks that will be easy for her to accomplish, using the sense of achievement to replace the anger of the moment. Robo tells Majime that it works because Baka truly is an idiot. note
Asian Animation
- In the Lamput episode "The Split", Specs Doc and Skinny Doc become irritated over how many times they've failed to catch Lamput and officially end their friendship, leaving Lamput himself to find a way to bring them back together. He tries to remind the docs how much they love each other, to no avail until they're stranded on an island by Lamput's antics.
Comic Books
- Last of the Sandwalkers: This is the role Professor Bombardier has gotten into. She tries to stop arguments among the crew and gets them to apologize (mostly Lucy) when needed.
- Transformers:
- At one point in The Transformers (Marvel), the Decepticons have splintered into a civil war between Megatron and Shockwave. Attempts at peace talks were deliberately sabotaged by the Autobot unit known as Earthforce since it's in their best interests that the 'cons spend as much time fighting each other as possible. However, eventually, Soundwave and Starscream try to get Megatron and Shockwave to reconcile again, recognising the Civil War is detrimental to the Decepticons as a whole. When the attempt fails, the duo instead seize power for themselves, reunifying the Decepticons under their joint command. Ironically, Megatron and Shockwave wind up allying with each other in order to reclaim their leadership status.
- During The Transformers: All Hail Megatron, the Autobots are trapped on Cybertron with Optimus Prime on life support. Morale is at an all-time low, with Ironhide in particular blaming Mirage (who he suspects is a traitor who leaked information leading to their situation) for everything. Jazz spends much of his time shoring up morale as best he can, sharing stories of hope and the like to keep everyone together. When Ironhide tries to ignore him and assault Mirage, Jazz smiles and suggests he go for a walk, tacitly reminding the old soldier that while very friendly, Jazz is also the head of Special Operations and fully willing and capable of taking him apart with his bare hands. While they don't fully reconcile until later, Jazz's interference does ensure Ironhide and Mirage are in a condition to actually do so once Autobot reinforcements arrive.
Fan Works
- Duran and Kiyohime's Omake Theater: In one chapter, Nao correctly deduces that Natsuki staying late in the Student Council Room and not going home is because she and Shizuru had a fight. Natsuki corrects her that it wasn't a fight because she had stormed out after getting angry at Shizuru and not given the other girl a chance to respond. Nao, demonstrating that she's actually become friendly with the pair, makes an astute observation.
Nao: It's not a bloody contest, Kuga. You don't win anything if you hold out longer. That only applies in dumb sitcoms and Shoujo manga. Just call her already. One of you ought to act like a grown-up, and it might as well be you.
Films — Live Action
- Mallrats: T.S. and his girlfriend Brandi break up after a fight about her replacing a contestant on her father's ripoff of The Dating Game after the original contestant died. note Brody tells Brandi, after he and T.S. have gotten themselves on the show, that T.S. has done nothing but pine for her all day, and encourages the two of them to get back together, which they do.
- Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara: While Arjun, Imran, and Kabir are childhood friends, the former two have drifted apart following Imran's breaking of The Bro Code when he slept with Arjun's girlfriend Sonali, causing Kabir to have to intervene to keep the peace when they start fighting.
Literature
- The Berenstain Bears Big Chapter Books:
- Late in The Berenstain Bears and the Giddy Grandma, Brother rushes over to Gran and Gramps' home in the hopes of playing this role and saving his grandparents' forty-year marriage. Once he's done talking, Gramps just laughs and explains that Brother didn't need to convince him — he'd already realized he was being silly. Furthermore, he's planning on crashing the talent show with an act of his own to prove that he's ready to apologize.
- In The Berenstain Bears and the Showdown at Chainsaw Gap, Mama Bear tries when she attempts to mediate an argument between Papa and the cubs over the Birder's Woods matter. It doesn't work at the time, because Papa's too stubborn to listen and the cubs end up storming off to their room, but she's more successful when she goes to Mayor Honeypot to help settle things over the fight between the woodsbears and the bears seeking to protect Birder's Woods.
- Different Seasons: In "The Body," Chris Chambers leads the gang because he's the best at making peace when the others fight, and it shows when he calms down an altercation between Gordie and Teddy on the railroad tracks. It comes back to bite him as an adult when he tries to stop two men fighting in a restaurant; one guy pulls a knife and stabs Chris in the throat, killing him almost instantly.
- In the Newsflesh novella "How Green This Land, How Blue This Sea", Olivia (who is part of a three-person marriage, having both a husband and a wife who are also married to each other) comments while observing a former couple she knows that she doesn't understand how monogamous people deal with disputes, since in her own marriage, if two are having an issue, the third is a built-in mediator.
- Otherside Picnic: Kozakura accuses Sorawo and Toriko of using her for this purpose when they have a spat about going back into the Otherside.
Kozakura: You two fight, and can't apologize, but neither of you has the guts to contact the other. So you make a call on me, a mutual acquaintance, looking to find an excuse to talk.
- The Treehouse Series: Jill tends to take on this role whenever Andy and Terry come into conflict with animals, mainly because she can actually understand them. She also tries keeping the peace when Andy and Terry are the ones to fight each other on rare occasions.
- The Valley of Fear: When McMurdo and Baldwin are close to starting a fight (over both of them dating Elsie), Boss McGinty has to step in to prevent his two best Hired Guns from killing each other.
Live-Action TV
- The Big Bang Theory:
- Attempted by Leonard during "The Panty Pinata Polarization", after Sheldon and Penny get into a feud over Sheldon's neuroses and Penny's insensitivity to same. Ultimately, Leonard's efforts fail, and he has to use the Nuclear Option (calling Sheldon's mother).
- Penny finds herself in this role a few times. Once, when Leonard and Sheldon are fighting about presenting a paper the two of them had authored together, Penny tries to smooth things over, but a poor choice of words on her part exacerbates the situation.
- After Sheldon learns that the data from his polar expedition had been forged by his colleagues, Penny again tries to smooth over the situation, telling Sheldon that the others had merely told an unfortunate lie in a difficult situation like Kirk did to Spock in "the new Star Trek movie". All she does is further upset Sheldon by reminding him that he missed the debut of the latest film in his favorite franchise.
- When Sheldon and Howard are having a fight over a parking space, their respective Love Interests take sides, prompting Penny to try and play the part of Peacemaker again. She gets bashed in the face with a coffee can full of loose change for her troubles (although her injury does convince Amy and Bernadette that they've gone too far).
- Doctor Who:
- "Asylum of the Daleks". Amy and Rory are on the verge of a divorce, and Amy has thrown Rory out of the house. The Doctor asks what he can do to help, and Amy says he can do nothing, that it's not something he can fix the way he fixes his bow tie. They're on a planet where there are nanomachines that will slowly convert a living organism into a Dalek, and Amy has lost the protective wristband that will keep her safe. The Doctor leaves Amy and Rory together, and then Rory, having heard Oswin's description of turning someone into a Dalek involves "subtracting love and adding hate", decides to give Amy his wristband. He reasons he'll be able to resist longer because he says a simple fact in their marriage is that he's always loved her more. Amy is hurt by this, telling Rory that his 2000 years of waiting for her was nothing compared to her giving him up so that he could find someone who could give him children, as she no longer could after the events of the previous series. Then they discover that Amy is wearing The Doctor's wristband, which he didn't need because his Gallifreyan physiology kept him safe. Cut to a scene where the Doctor smugly adjusts his bow tie.
- "Mummy on the Orient Express". After the events of "Kill the Moon", Clara is furious with The Doctor for the position he put her in, and she's telling Danny Pink that she and The Doctor are through. Danny, though no fan of The Doctor, tells her that it's a rash decision and that she and The Doctor "basically still get on". It turns out he's not wrong, and Clara decides to keep traveling with The Doctor.
- iCarly: Exploited in "iDate Sam & Freddie", in which Sam and Freddie, known for being very Vitriolic Best Buds, have Carly accompany them on a date in an attempt to save their romantic relationship. However, they end up heaping most of their insults and abuse onto her, culminating in them destroying their table and making a big mess. A livid Carly then blows up at them, saying that if all they're going to do is fight, then they shouldn't be together at all.
- M*A*S*H:
- A downplayed example. After Radar and Hawkeye have a fight, Col. Potter tells Radar that one day the two of them might find themselves talking about the weather, and just slowly rebuild their friendship afterward. It doesn't hurt that Hawkeye feels like a grade-A Jerkass for how the rift started in the first place.
- In another episode, Potter attempts this after Hawkeye and BJ are steamed at each other after Potter left Hawk in charge and BJ went AWOL to help some locals with a medical emergency. His efforts are in vain, though, leaving him to lament the waste of good whiskey.
- Scrubs: A marital rift forms between Turk and Carla after Carla and JD share a brief drunken kiss, and Turk decides to hold Carla the one responsible. But JD realizes that (at least for the sake of his two friends' marriage) he should have been the one to bear the blame, not her. And so he walks up to Turk and gives him a brief kiss as well, demonstrating what a quick and small kiss it was in the first place. He then points out to Turk that he was no saint in the marriage himself, having been texting an old girlfriend behind Carla's back (blowing off steam about which was why she and JD were drinking together when the kiss occurred). Turk realizes that JD has a point, and starts treating Carla with love and affection again as they both recommit to each other and their relationship.
Mythology and Religion
- Suggested metaphorically in the Book of Ecclesiastes: "Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves, and a cord of three strands is not quickly broken."
Video Games
- Grand Theft Auto V: Franklin typically has to play this between Michael and Trevor, particularly near the end after their Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure. In "The Third Way", after finding them at a Mexican Standoff after he's going out of his way to find a way to save them both, he frustratedly tells them that their options now are to either work together or he'll put a bullet in both of their heads.
- Tomodachi Life: Miis frequently have a fight with each other and the player has to calm them down to try and apologize; however, there is an uncommon occurance where the Miis will have a "huge fight", where both will be so furious at one another that neither of them will apologize and have to be left alone. The only way to end the huge fight is to get a third Mii who is friends with both of the fighters to intervene, with a 50-50 chance the two will either make up or keep fighting.
Webcomics
- In Homestuck's Troll culture, this trope takes the form of the Auspictice role in Quadrant relationships. Auspictices are meant to keep the members of a kismesitude/black-rom relationship from completely throttling each other, as while kismesitude encourages both party members to have a balanced amount of hatred, it should never be enough to outright kill each other (it's a relationship required for mating, after all).
Western Animation
- Carl the Collector: In "The Crayonverters Collection," Forrest and Arugula both try to serve as this to Carl and Nico's argument, but both end up taking sides. Sheldon, on the other hand, chooses not to take sides at all.
- The Casagrandes: Subverted in "The Grandparent Trap", where Bobby, Ronnie Anne, Carlota, CJ, Carl, and Carlitos think their grandparents Hector and Rosa are about to get divorced because they were arguing. They set up a date for them, but then it turns out that they were never planning on divorcing and were just "blowing off steam".
- Daria:
- Whenever Daria and Jane have a disagreement, it is usually Jane's older brother, Trent, who will help them reconcile, sometimes by "forgetting" something Jane told him and having Daria check Jane's room.
- After Jane and Tom have a fight about him eating a bowl of gummy bears she'd sorted for an art project, Daria points out that Jane had never told him the purpose of the foodstuffs, nor had she labeled them as such.
Jane: I don't have a leg to stand on, do I?
Daria: I don't want to answer that, Stumpy.
- Futurama When Fry and Bender are having a fight about Fry prioritizing a luxurious apartment that is rent-controlled over his friendship with Bender (whose antenna was fouling up the TV for the apartment complex), Leela takes it on herself to try and mediate. When the soap opera with Calculon has the titular robot making up with a human friend, Leela points out that Fry and Bender could learn a thing from them. Fry and Bender agree, but they do the apology in reverse.
- Hey Arnold!: Arnold plays this role on a number of occasions:
- In "Best Friends", when Rhonda and Nadine have a fight, Arnold reconciles the two with the "arranged chance meeting" method.
- In "Grandpa's Sister", he tries to get Grandpa and Aunt Mitzi, who have been feuding for so long that neither remembers how it started, to resolve their differences; he discovers that the feud started 71 years ago when each blamed the other for the death of their pet dog and finally gets them to acknowledge that it was neither's fault.
- In "New Bully on the Block", Arnold tries to get rival bullies Wolfgang and Ludwig to become friends so they will leave the fourth graders alone. His efforts work; the two become friends and decide to start bullying the fourth graders together.
- Let's Go Luna!: In "Pulling Strings", Carmen and Andy break off their friendship when they disagree on what they want to do for the day. Leo, the neutral party, attempts to bring them back together with a Kathputli puppet show, since it combines their respective interests: music and art.
- The Loud House:
- Three times in "Project Loud House", Lana and Lola are arguing over something (a dollar, who uses the bathroom, and what sandwiches they like); Lincoln then intervenes and splits the issues 50-50.
Twins: Thanks, Lincoln!
- In "Space Invader", the two sisters Lynn and Lucy have such a bad argument that they don't want to bunk together anymore. This leads to Lynn sharing a bed with Lincoln, the brother of the two. He is annoyed by her roughhousing and snoring, so he tries to get the girls to make up by cooking them spaghetti.
- Attempted in vain in "Brawl in the Family" when the two oldest sisters, Lori and Leni, had been fighting over identical dresses and their brother Lincoln tries to get them to make peace (despite the other sisters telling him to stay out of it) by claiming to both that one sister dislikes how the other looks in the dress. However, they'd already made up, and this just causes them to start fighting again. He only manages to end the fight by leaving the house for the day to stay with Clyde.
- Three times in "Project Loud House", Lana and Lola are arguing over something (a dollar, who uses the bathroom, and what sandwiches they like); Lincoln then intervenes and splits the issues 50-50.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- "Lesson Zero", Twilight keeps trying to invoke this trope, because she is desperate for a "friendship lesson" that she can write Princess Celestia about, thinking that failing to send a letter will mean that she's not doing her tasks correctly. Unfortunately, all of the "friendship problems" she wants to solve are nothing of the sort, and she goes a tad bit off the deep end until Celestia herself arrives to undo some mayhem Twilight had caused.
- Starlight has a budding friendship with Trixie, which is ruined for a time when Trixie says irritating Twilight was "just a bonus" (words Starlight had used before in her villainous days). When Trixie is about to attempt a magic trick she can't pull off without Starlight, with a strong possibility of dying, Twilight tells Starlight that she believes Trixie's remorse and on-stage self-deprecation are genuine, and urges Starlight to give Trixie a second chance, something Trixie had accused Twilight of denying her. Trixie and Starlight renew their friendship.
- Downplayed in another episode. Two young fillies are fighting, and Twilight gets caught in the crossfire. We're shown the end of a lecture where Twilight recites one of her own friendship experiences to them and convinces them to patch up their friendship, which then inspires her to have copies of the Friendship Journal made for all of Equestria.
- SpongeBob SquarePants:
- In "Naughty Nautical Neighbors", Squidward gets SpongeBob and Patrick to break up for his own amusement, which then backfires when they each want to make him their new best friend. To get his life back to normal, Squidward asks SpongeBob and Patrick to meet him at his home so they would talk it out. They eventually make up, but not without accidentally destroying Squidward's house in the process.
- In "Yours, Mine and Mine", Mr. Krabs becomes this to SpongeBob and Patrick in the final scene. After seeing the two fighting over Patty Pal due to Patrick's refusal to share it, he outright chews them out for letting a single toy nearly ruin their friendship, and offers each of them a new Patty Pal so they don't have to bother sharing them. This allows them to call it even and ends their feud.
- Spike has Tom and Jerry sign a peace treaty in the Tom and Jerry episode "The Truce Hurts". It actually does keep the peace...for a little while.
Real Life
- This is basically the most notable accomplishment of Sakamoto Ryōma. He got in the middle of the Choshu and Satsuma clans, who wanted to rebel against the shogun but bickered with each other all the time. Even though Ryoma was practically an outsider to their conflict, he was a genuinely friendly dude who managed to make them get along. The three sides eventually formed the Satchou Alliance, enabling them to overthrow the shogun and initiate the Meiji Restoration. The alliance stood strong even after Ryoma was abruptly assassinated.