Vincent Liu said:
The ending of Muppet Treasure Island. After Jim let the pirate go with the treasure, the Captain (Kermit) comes and says you're brave, and you're father will be proud of you. How come? He let the bad guy away with the treasure.
Well, the treasure really didn't matter to Kermit/Smollet--or to Jim. What DID matter is that Long John, despite being the villain, was legitimately Jim's friend. (Note when he specifically tells Jim to escape when the pirates start getting violent: "Because I like you, boy. I hope you didn't think I was lying about that." Also note the fact that after Jim lets him go, Long John returns the compass.)
The conflict for Jim in that scene is whether or not to do what's
legally right, by stopping Long John from escaping... which would also mean betraying his friend. Since the punishment for piracy was hanging, if Jim
had blown the whistle and caught Long John, he would have pretty much directly sentenced his friend to death. Either course of action, from Jim's perspective, would have felt horribly wrong.
That is why Kermit is there to assure him that he
did make the right choice by being loyal to his friend.
Besides which, one jolly boat full of gold--and no food or other supplies--would
only get Long John as far as the island, where it is highly unlikely for any other ship to happen by any time soon. So let Long John hang out on a now-uninhabited island. Why not? He can't hurt anyone from there, and the gold won't do him any good--not that he gets to keep it, anyway. As Drtooth was vaguely remembering, we find out from Sam that the jolly boat Long John was in was "terribly unsafe," which is why we see it sink--along with the gold, which the cruise ship rats later retrieve.