The insight is an intuitive one—threatening someone to convince him not to attack you is much more likely to work than threatening him in order to make him give up something he cares about.

这是一种非常直观的感受—与其威逼某人让他放弃他所在乎的东西，还不如威慑他让他不要攻击你，这似乎会是更有效的方法。

youdao

When someone you love has a life-threatening illness, everything else pales in comparison.

当你所爱的人得了致命的疾病时，其他的一切就都显得不重要了。

《柯林斯英汉双解大词典》

A common way of debiasing attention is to show someone two words or pictures—one neutral and the other threatening—on a computer screen.

去偏的一个通常做法是在电脑屏幕上给某个人两个词或者两幅图画——一个中性，另一个带有威胁性。

youdao

The expression "to bulldoze" also means to make someone helpless, usually by using power or threatening violence.

VOA: special.2009.02.15

Similarly, if you want to avoid threatening someone else, keep your eyes lowered and your head down.

FORBES: How to Detect Respect - or Disrespect: Body Language Quick Takes #7

And so this line captures the character of Nucky Thompson, it echoes a truth that Nucky realizes about himself when at the end of season two he kills someone who has been threatening his business.

FORBES: Nucky Thompson: Know Yourself Before You Can Get What You Want

If someone tries to blackmail a software company by threatening to expose a bug then let them sue, but saying that full details can only be given to trusted insiders is surely not acceptable.

BBC: How digital Armageddon was averted