Doomed Protagonist

""When I am taken, all my memories will fade, crowded out by eternal suffering. My imagination takes over and I see myself struggling through the body of the King, wracked with agonies and unable to remember any other existence. I know that I will have no more thoughts of freedom or safety or home because my very understanding of the concepts will be lost to me and it hurts. ""

- The protagonist of Yahtzee's "The Expedition"

Let's say a character comes across something that Was Once a Man and, after discovering the source of The Virus that made it that way, looks in the mirror to find that he shows all the signs of being infected with it. Cue "Oh Crap." Roll credits.

Or the character learns that everyone who has come before him to a certain place, looked at a particular Brown Note, or performed a certain action has suffered a horrible and irreversible fate. Alternately, their death may be assured by getting lost at sea, locked in an airtight coffin, seriously injured or catching/developing an incredibly deadly illness or disease.

Either way, we know he's screwed. And unless he can Find the Cure, fight off his fate or have some miraculous Deus Ex Machina save him, all he can do is sit back and wait to die. In most cases, he's not going to find the cure or get rescued. (Except maybe in Fanfic. By aliens.)

The story almost always ends just short of his final transformation or death, and sometimes begins with a later scene that shows him doomed. It is also almost always told from the first person. These stories are usually Apocalyptic Logs.

This may happen because of a Viral Transformation, The Virus or The Corruption. Compare Tomato in the Mirror, when the character was that way all along. Contrast And Then John Was a Zombie, when this is used as an ending twist. Also compare Heroic Willpower, which particularly special heroes can use to resist their fate. Not related to Doomed by Canon or Foregone Conclusion, although they can cover protagonists who are doomed. May lead to acting like a Sheep in Wolf's Clothing.

Since this is a form of foreshadowing and an Ending Trope, spoilers abound.

Anime and Manga

 * in Bokurano, due to.
 * In Puella Magi Madoka Magica,.
 * Seita from "Grave of the Fireflies": The first scene is him dying in the streets and then it flashes back to the past.
 * Hibiki of Senki Zesshou Symphogear is going to die. The opening scene of the show is Miku visiting her grave. The rest of the show is functioning as a How We Got Here to this.

Comic Books

 * The comic version of Sin City: The Hard Goodbye shows Marv realizing that he was going up against the Roark family: a powerful crime family with many connections and no morals. Marv realizes that he's as good as dead but soldiers on anyway.

Film

 * The premise of the classic Film Noir D.O.A. and its 1980s remake.
 * The heroine of The Ring (the U.S. version at least), when she realizes that she only has a few days to live after watching the tape.
 * District 9 plays with this trope. It may not be the best example, since the the moment of realization occurs halfway through the film, and no one prior to Wikus had experienced it before. However, it definitely counts.
 * Seth Brundle of The Fly.
 * This is the premise of Crank.
 * Seven Pounds,.
 * In The Wrestler, the protagonist collapses due to a heart attack and his doctor tells him in no uncertain terms that he has to stop wrestling or he will die. But after he messes things up with his daughter, wrestling is all that he's got.
 * Godzilla in the film Godzilla vs. Destoroyah.
 * The original ending of The Crazies remake had
 * Everyone in Threads.
 * This is the very idea behind Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samouraï, but in a simple crime drama. You know what's coming.
 * Final Destination is basically Doomed Protagonists: The Movie Trilogy.
 * The title character of the movie Simon Birch is going to die. You know this from the beginning, as the First-Person Peripheral Narrator is narrating the entire movie over his grave.
 * Alien 3 has Granted we learn this approximately halfway through.

Literature

 * Commonly used by HP Lovecraft, for example, his story The Shadow Over Innsmouth may count. In the very end the protagonist realizes that he shares ancestry with the people of Innsmouth, and is destined to eventually turn into a Deep One.
 * The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson
 * Several stories by Clark Ashton Smith including: The Double Shadow, Genius Loci, The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis, and The End of the Story.

New Media

 * At the end of the uncensored version of SCP-835's uncensored after-action report, it's revealed that.
 * Two of Yahtzee's Fully Ramblomatic stories, ' and ', end this way: one with the main character discovering that he's and the other with

Video Games

 * Damn near every playable character in Eternal Darkness. Which, you know, is inspired by Lovecraft, so...
 * in Fate/stay night, after The Dangerous Forbidden Technique that comes from using it would be survivable (though with a reduced lifespan) if he had years of gradual training to ease into it and did not have to overuse it—unfortunately, he hasn't got the luxury of either. Whether this is a subversion or not depends on the ending; in the True End, he gets better, in the Normal End, he doesn't.
 * The prequel, Fate/Zero has this happen to Kiritsugu, who is cursed by the Grail, and dies a few years later, before Fate/stay night begins.
 * The Legacy of Kain series has . Pain, betrayal, torture, humiliation and death? Oh yes, he has that coming in spades, but his is a more brutal kind of doom: After being executed by his master Kain, he's ressurected as a soul-devouring entity. Later, he becomes bound to a spectral blade known as the Reaver. After travelling back in time . He resists at first, but by the end realizes it has to happen and accepts it.
 * It looks like Rockman Trigger will remain stuck on Elysium. He's been up there for over a decade, and all of Roll, Tron's, and Capcom's attempts to bring him back to Terra have failed.
 * Resistance 2, where Hale has indeed been corrupted by The Virus, and fully transforms at the end.
 * Might be the fate of the two lead protagonists in Dead Rising.  well in Otis' opinion anyway. Also, at the end of the "real" ending, the message  is shown.
 * In Halo Wars.
 * Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter. About thirty minutes into the game, protagonist Ryu is "infected" with the dragon power. At no point in the game does he even think about trying to find a cure or a way of fixing his condition. You do the math.
 * Dragon Age Origins.
 * The joining ritual that the wardens undergo is itself a death sentence.
 * Although everyone DOES die eventually, and in a society like theirs, most people wouldn't live much longer than that anyway.
 * Avernus would LOVE to prove you wrong, as he's, pardon my words, old as shit AND a grey warden who's prolonged his life using blood magic.
 * Nearly every ending in G-Darius ends this way. Even the best ending is a little ambiguous.
 * A couple of R-Type Final's endings leave the pilot disabled and floating in space.
 * Persona 3 ends this way. . Shouldn't be all that surprising because it's a Mega Ten game and "Memento Mori" shows up quite a bit in the intro.
 * Final Fantasy X.
 * The ending to Diablo.
 * The Nameless One is damned even in the best endings of Planescape: Torment. Somehow it's not a Downer Ending, as Nameless is at peace with himself, and battling in the Lower Planes is old hat to him by now.
 * And you've worked for that damnation almost the entire game - the quest for your mortality (and death) began right at the end of the first "dungeon". On a happier note, depending on who you have with you at the end and whether they survive said end, they promise to come for you.
 * The protagonist of Heretic 2 contacts incurable virus early in the game and is looking for cure (and the source) for the most part of it.
 * At the end of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots,  But it's okay, because he's happy.
 * In Corpse Party, even if one avoids all the Wrong Ends and follows the True End path,.
 * Final Fantasy XIII-2: