A problem for heroes

Before I begin this post I'd like to add something, recently I have been playing a fair few stealth based games. This caused a problem for me, most of these offer two paths to success - the standard video game pathway : murder everyone in sight in anyway possible, and their special method - ignoring everyone and leaving no trace , some offer a third route - in-capacitation, this would seem to be the best of both worlds and in a game sense it is. However from a heroic standpoint none of these options really works.

Killing - this has the most obvious problems associated with it, it's flat out murder - most category 1 heroes denounce either violence or killing - Batman's famous "only rule" springs to mind. This is usually because they either do not want to kill innocents who were only following orders or simply to keep themselves above the criminals and villainy that they stand against. But besides the point it shouldn't need explaining why heroes shouldn't kill the faceless goons.

Ignoring guards - this would seem to be perfect for a hero, surely without anyone seeing them the hero can achieve their goals, no-one need be hurt so everyone wins! you'd think but no. What would happen should a rent-a-cop be on the job when Sam Fisher or Solid Snake decide that what they want is super-dooper secret documents from an office in their building and under their watch they get by and steal them? It would almost certainly lead to them being fired from that particular job. No biggy though right? they've left the employment of an evil villain and have gone onto more legitimate work - well what if they were unskilled and this was the only job they'd had and being fired made it more difficult to find work later? what if they had a family to support and without the regular income of the labour they struggled through - children possibly getting bullied for being poor.  In short it has ruined their lives, whilst not intentional a sequence of events has ruined this person's livelihood and in the short term their lives.

incapacitation is left then,  this must be the one heroes use? no guard can be blamed should they be unconscious after the eponymous hero has made his way through the base. well the thing is, being unconscious for more than a few moments takes a large amount of force, this trauma would cause the guard great physical stress - this would lead to possible mental damage and/or serious disability. and, due to the reasons mentioned above, would completely change the lives of the guard and their family members, almost certainly for the worst as they are unable to  find work as they once were able to.

In short the biggest problem for the hero, never mind those who favour stealth is the common or garden rent-a-cop. The super-villains are easy to deal with as they often act out of knowledge and with motive, the high ranking officers do the same. The grunts however may not have prior knowledge - often you can overhear them discussing theories about what they are guarding, working towards or looking for - showing just how little knowledge they have of their roles, this lack of knowledge and differing motives - often looking only for a wage means that a true hero cannot approach these guy in all good conscience, saving the world will just have to wait a little longer.