Heroic Sacrifice/Literature

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known."
 * Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings
 * The Silmarillion is full of these, being the darker of Tolkien's works. In no particular order, Finrod, Aredhel, the entire House of Hador, Glorfindel, Ecthelion, Beren and Luthien all die doing something heroic (although the last two don't take).
 * In the Malazan Book of the Fallen,
 * I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream. Ted pretty much kills the other four prisoners so they won't have to suffer anymore, and in return, suffers a Fate Worse Than Death for the rest of eternity.
 * Mack Ferran from Wereworld Rise of the wolf which also doubles as a CMoH and Tear Jerker
 * In Girlfriend In A Coma by Douglas Coupland,
 * Many, many, many in Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts novel.
 * At the climax of Honour Guard: Several Ghosts attempt
 * In Traitor General, shortly after their meeting, Landerson tells Gaunt that the hounds have his scent and says he will lead them off; Gaunt dismisses this as a Stupid Sacrifice and saves him. He offers again, in the Untill, to carry the unconscious Feygor because it will not matter if he falls behind.
 * In Only In Death, when the Blood Pact are climbing a net of ropes,, also on the net, cuts the ropes so they all plummet.
 * Necropolis has one that serves as the Crowning Moment of Awesome for a character who's been a pain in the neck for Gaunt and the other heroes, as, in the face of a Chaos Beast, allows the beast to bite off his own arms... which were holding a belt of grenades, which explode and kill the Chaos Beast, allowing Gaunt to reactivate the Shield.
 * In The Dresden Files, Lashiel's Shadow ultimately turns to the side of good in the last moments of White Night, saving Harry's life by taking the psychic backlash of the spell she used to save him at the cost of her life.
 * Then we have, in Death Masks, Shiro's giving his own life up to replace Harry's in Nicodemus's plan. The suffering he went through before dying (and he was alive at the end, too) was described as being nothing short of profane, and to make things worse, he couldn't die of it until later, either.
 * In Dan Abnett's Warhammer 40,000 novel Titanicus, Varco, in command of a handful of soldiers because he had given orders when they were in disarray, finds a tower.
 * In Aaron Dembski-Bowden's Warhammer 40,000 novel Void Stalker Mercutian, badly wounded fighting the Phoenix Lord Jain Zar, stays behind to buy his fellow Night Lords time to escape. Jain Zar demolishes him but leaves him to bleed out, which turns out to be a huge mistake giving Mercutian the opening to shiv her in the thigh. He is promptly executed, but his last act gave the other Night Lords a chance at victory.
 * In Lloyd Alexander's Black Cauldron, the titular cauldron can only be destroyed when someone willing enters the cauldron, fully aware that he will die.
 * Cazaril in The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold. Three times. He still ends up alive.
 * Sydney Carton from Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities is an enduring, classic and saddening version; he looks exactly like the man whom the woman he loves loves, so Sydney saves the other man from execution by replacing him during a visit to his cell. The last words of the book illustrate his possible Last Words, though more of an expression of his last thoughts than anything said out loud.

"Thrass: "It appears we will both be dying to save your people.""
 * Diane Duane's Young Wizards series takes it as a given that defeating the Lone Power will require someone making a Heroic Sacrifice. In particular, Deep Wizardry concerns one of the protagonists unintentionally signing away her life in payment for a previous act. Played even straighter when
 * Also in Young Wizards, the avatar of a Power is taunted with the fact that to fully embody, his passenger would have to kill the host and "he would never do that". The avatar promptly.
 * in Animorphs, who agrees to go on a suicide mission to kill Tom and destroy the Blade ship from within.
 * Eponine in Les Misérables, kind of. She only gets shot to save him because she wanted to die first, she still wanted him to die though.
 * in Robin Jarvis's Deptford Mice trilogy. In volume one, The Dark Portal, she starts off as an unscrupulous trader who descends into fully-fledged villainy under the influence of Jupiter, rat god of the sewers, but demonstrates the possibility for redemption when . In volume two, The Crystal Prison,   and appears to have changed for the better in Fennywolde  . She finally earns redemption at the last minute, when  . Of course,
 * In Graham McNeill's Warhammer 40000 Ultramarines short story "Chains Of Command", Captain Idaeus sacrifices his life to bring down a bridge the enemy is using (After passing on his sword to a subordinate).
 * In Nightbringer, Virgil Ortega and his fellow Arbites seize the armory and rig it to explode, to keep it from the hands of the rebels, without regard for the danger.
 * In Dead Sky Black Sun,, having persuaded Uriel to leave him behind because he is dying, explodes a grenade, taking out monsters that could have chased the escaping Marines.
 * The climax Garth Nix's Abhorsen. To bind Orannis, Lirael goes in assuming that she will die, as symbolised by her ringing of the bell Astarael. Tear Jerker, indeed.
 * Every single Dzur in any of Brust's books will insist to be the one making any heroic sacrifices required, despite the fact that none have actually become necessary. (No, )
 * In the ending of Lioness Rampant by Tamora Pierce,
 * in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (He Got Better).
 * Additionally:  Not all of them were deaths, though.
 * How dare you forget !?
 * In The Bartimaeus Trilogy,, dies in the final pages of the book while defeating an evil spirit..
 * In James Swallow's Warhammer 40,000 Horus Heresy novel The Flight of the Eisenstein, the housecarl Kaleb thinks his master Garro is chosen by the God-Emperor and so faced with a viral weapon, he saves his master for the Emperor's work. The Apothecary with Garro explicitly says that he gave up his life to save them.
 * In James Swallow's Warhammer 40,000 novel Faith & Fire, Iona takes up the mask of Repentia, because honorable death is her only good fate, and it spares the rest of her squad.
 * In Gav Thorpe's Warhammer 40,000 novel Angels of Darkness, the Dark Angels are in a fortress where a virus is free. Boreas convinces them that their duty is to remain there and die, because their suits cannot preserve their lives longer than the virus can last, rather than unleash it on the world. Fearing what they might do when desperate, they commit suicide together.
 * The Sacrifice of HMS Thunderchild in HG Wells' The War of the Worlds:
 * No; this was already proven at Shepparton, when one of the Martians is.
 * in Foucault's Pendulum. Also Redemption Equals Death.
 * Played straight in the Ea Cycle with the Heroic Sacrifice of Subverted in the case of  whose death turns out to be pointless and counter-effective for the most part and the benefit to the heroes, such as it is, comes in a way he didn't intend.
 * Sturm Brightblade, a Knight in Shining Armor indeed, even if he wasn't one officially through most of his life, performed one in the second Dragonlance novel, giving the other heroes a chance to activate the Lost Superweapon and giving the Knighthood an example to strive for, pulling them from their slide into corruption.
 * It may be that she was just an old, mad, half-blind and technically evil dragon and only a supporting character anyway -- but without Matafleur's last flight to protect 'her' children from Highlord Verminaard and his dragon mount, the attempt to free the prisoners at Pax Tharkas would have ended in fire and blood thanks to 's treachery and the whole original trilogy might well have ended then and there (which is to say, with the first book).
 * In the Stuart Slade-authored novel The Salvation War: Armageddon, in the last chapter before the epilogue it's a Heroic Sacrifice because nobody knows if humans get another extra life.
 * Mildly subverts the trope in that the heroic sacrifice is not intentional, and in the original thread where this story was posted there was actually a discussion before the chapter about such.
 * Star Wars
 * In the novelization of Revenge of the Sith, the dragon lizard that Obi-Wan rode on Utapau, named Boga, somehow sensed the clone attack coming and twisted herself in midair to take the brunt of the blasts, saving Obi-Wan's life.
 * of The Cestus Deception, a Star Wars Expanded Universe novel,
 * Outbound Flight. Jedi Knight Lorana Jinzler and Syndic Mitth'ras'safis (older brother of the more famous Mitth'raw'nuruodo), in order to land the dying vessel in such a way that the last fifty-seven survivors won't be killed, had to spin the entire thing around so the side they are in is crushed into the planetoid. They aren't very happy about this, and each suggests that the other move and save themself, but they both know it will take two to pull it off, and they take it calmly.
 * Outbound Flight. Jedi Knight Lorana Jinzler and Syndic Mitth'ras'safis (older brother of the more famous Mitth'raw'nuruodo), in order to land the dying vessel in such a way that the last fifty-seven survivors won't be killed, had to spin the entire thing around so the side they are in is crushed into the planetoid. They aren't very happy about this, and each suggests that the other move and save themself, but they both know it will take two to pull it off, and they take it calmly.

"All he knew, as the flesh on his face and hands began to sear and his vision became a red, shimmering fog, was that he had to row. Nothing else in the entire world mattered anymore except for getting that crazy, stupid bomb the hell away from his ship. He made it almost forty yards."
 * In the Star Wars Expanded Universe book "Vector Prime", Chewbacca sacrifices himself while saving Han Solo's son.
 * To elaborate, a gravitational weapon has pulled a backwater planet's moon out of orbit, and it's slowly falling towards the planet. Han, Chewie and Anakin Solo are busy loading the Falcon with refugees. But as Anakin is heading back to the Falcon, a chunk of debris cracks the back of his head and he goes down. Chewbacca notices and runs back to rescue Anakin. With the Falcon as packed as it is and the wind getting more turbulent, Chewie chooses to throw Anakin up to the people crowded on the landing ramp. The Falcon takes off because there's no more room for Chewie, and he dies roaring in defiance at the moon.
 * Later on in the same series of books, Anakin Solo (not to be confused with his whiny namesake, whom he is exponentially cooler than) is heading a mission with Jedi infiltrators to kill the source of a weapon that's slaughtering the Jedi. Partway through, he sustains a nasty injury to his side, which only gets worse because they're never able to stop, make camp and let him heal. As his condition becomes critical and the team is trapped in a small building, Anakin takes a high powered blaster and his lightsaber, tells the others he's going to give them an opening to escape, and charges out to face a group of warriors that rival Darth Maul in viciousness. The fight scene that follows is one of the most badass in all Star Wars. Also a Tear Jerker moment when he promises his girlfriend that he'll come back to see her, and it's clearly obvious (at least to the readers, if not the characters) that he won't.
 * And let's not forget Ganner Rhysode's Crowning Moment of Awesome when he agrees to defend a gateway to the World Brain in order to give Jacen Solo time to put his plan into motion. Over a thousand warriors, each capable of killing a Jedi in a fair fight, versus one mediocre Jedi. The resulting carnage was so incredible, Ganner was made an impassable GOD in the Yuuzhan Vong pantheon after building a literal rampart of dead enemies before succumbing to a Death of a Thousand Cuts
 * Not to mention that his last act before death is to use the Force to collapse the building they're in, killing all the remaining Vong in the process.
 * In the Halo novel, The Fall of Reach, the orbital drydock Cradle moves to absorb the Covenant fire and protect the human ships. Pretty much every single human who saw this was stunned by it.
 * Earlier in Fall of Reach, a wounded Sam stays aboard a Covenant ship to buy John and Kelly time to escape, and to ensure a bomb goes off inside the ship's reactor.
 * goes out in a similar way in Ghosts Of Onyx -.
 * At the end of The Night Angel Trilogy,  consents to become the host of an evil entity which is looking for a body to inhabit, and then stops said entity from escaping in order for   to destroy both of them.
 * gets one in Red Seas Under Red Skies
 * In the second novel David Weber's Hell's Gate series, Prince Janaki uses his precognitive abilities to successfully defend a fort from enemy attack - despite the fact that the strength and clarity of his vision means that he will die during the battle.
 * Also the historical Emperor Halian who died leading his army in defense of one of his ally's cities.
 * In Edgar Rice Burroughs's The Gods of Mars, Thuvia attempts to let John Carter escape by sliding from his mount, thus lessening the burden. He thinks that she does not know him well enough to think he would accept it -- but it is Cathoris who actually rescues her, and Carter admires his son, even though his self-sacrifice would prevent their escape.
 * Later, when Phaidor, a Woman Scorned, goes to stab Dejah Thoris, Thuvia throws herself between them.
 * King Haarahld at the end of David Weber's Safehold book, Off Armageddon Reef. Haarahld, needing their victory to be as complete as possible, tried to intercept the last of their enemy fleet only for the enemy flagship's crew to board the King's in a suicide attack. Haarahld ended up fighting alongside an eleven-year-old midshipman, who threw himself between his king and an attacker with an arbalest. Immediately upon realizing what the boy was doing, Haarahld threw him aside and took the arabalest bolt in his leg, ultimately causing him to die of blood loss. This act, combined with his last words and his gallantry at sea, make King Haarahld a hero among his people.
 * Also, one that's arguably easy to miss, given that it involves the main character, is the sacrifice of the original Nimue Alban. Nimue knowingly volunteered for what was a hopeless suicide battle not only to help get the last survivors of humanity to safety, but also to enact The Plan to ensure its success.
 * also in the fifth book, Prince Nahrmahn throws himself between a bomb and his wife to save her life.
 * A non-fatal version in Annals of the Black Company:  chooses to give up her powers and live as a mortal rather than allow an even greater evil than herself to take over the world.
 * In the Dale Brown novel Flight of the Old Dog,  leaves the Old Dog to fight off Soviets who are threatening his comrades.
 * Fatal Terrain,  crashes the EB-52 Megafortress with himself on board into a Chinese ICBM site.
 * In Battle Born,  deliberately "de-stealths" his modified B-1B to draw missiles to it instead of the missile aimed at the enemy HQ.
 * Throughout the The Power of Five series, Richard does this for Matt no less than three times. And despite trapping himself in a collapsing museum with animate dinosaur skeletons so Matt could get out, being taken by "kidnappers" while allowing Matt the time he needed to get safely away, and emptying a gun into a ship's entire load of fireworks so Matt and co could escape without notice, he is still alive. Go figure.
 * In The Wheel of Time, and . Both fall into the redeem category.
 * near the end of the first Mistborn novel and at the end of the series. Each of these also doubles as a Crowning Moment of Awesome. Also,  in Warbreaker and  in Elantris. Sanderson likes this trope a lot.
 * In the Dark Reflections Trilogy, the flowing queen must return to her body (leaving her host, Merle) in order to defeat the Big Bad. but to do so, the life energy of her host must be exchanged with the life energy of her own body--and her body has none. Merle is willing to die to save the world/her friends, but the flowing queen speaks through her, telling all Merle's friends and her Love Interest that someone could, in theory, take Merle's place. Merle refuses to let anyone, but pleads with her. She says no, but the Queen agrees that it would work.
 * Empire From the Ashes has many heroic sacrifices, starting with Dahak's original captain in the prologue. In the second book,
 * Juliet Marillier's "Blade of Fortriu" has a magnificent example.
 * In Wizard's First Rule, Giller uses his magic to sacrifice himself before Darken Rahl can read his entrails so that Rachel can get away with one of the all-important boxes.
 * In the second book of Taylor Anderson's Destroyermen series, some of the people they're trying to help attempt to sink USS Walker with an improvised bomb in a rowboat. CPO Donaghey climbs into the boat and rows it away, ignoring the calls of his shipmates to come back. Instead of a fuse, the saboteurs set the whole boat on fire, so he's burning alive as he does this.
 * In the second book of Taylor Anderson's Destroyermen series, some of the people they're trying to help attempt to sink USS Walker with an improvised bomb in a rowboat. CPO Donaghey climbs into the boat and rows it away, ignoring the calls of his shipmates to come back. Instead of a fuse, the saboteurs set the whole boat on fire, so he's burning alive as he does this.


 * In the Backstory of John C. Wright's The Golden Age, Helion had sacrificed himself in a solar storm, especially to save his son. During the course of the novel, Phaethon believes that the whole civilization lies in danger, and opens his memories, knowing it will mean exile.
 * In The Phoenix Exultant, Atkins asks whether Phaethon is willing to die to save the Golden Oecumene, Phaethon says it goes without saying, and Atkins says that it's because the two of them are the only ones to say it, nowadays.
 * In The Golden Transcedence, Atkins reveals that the Sophotechs who had died in the solar storm had actually realized they had been affected by a virus and committed suicide rather than spread it.
 * Rincewind, of all people,.
 * In the Legends of Dune prequel trilogy, Xavier Harkonnen pilots his ship into a star in order to kill Grant Patriarch Iblis Ginjo who knowingly allowed the Tlulaxa to harvest organs from living people and who was becoming more and more Stalin-like in his policies. Slightly subverted in that Xavier knew that the moment he found out the truth, his life was forfeit, so he really had nothing to lose.
 * Unfortunately, for his trouble, Xavier was branded a traitor, and the truth never came to light.
 * Also, the reprogrammed mech Chirox is attacked by a former student who joined the cult of machine haters. After reluctantly killing the student, Chirox realizes that his other students will die to protect him from an angry mob and shuts himself down. This is the only case in the novels of a machine sacrificing itself for a human.
 * Quentin Butler helps Vorian Atreides kill the last three Titans, knowing full well that he will die the instant the last Titan falls. However, by that point, he was no longer human and did not consider his continued existence "living".
 * Each Guardian is a human who gave up their life to protect someone else from supernatural forces, and received the Call to Adventure at the moment of their death.
 * In the Warcraft: War of the Ancients trilogy by Richard Knaak, makes a Last Stand against the hordes of the  in order to give Malfurion time to . In a Crowning Moment of Awesome,  even manages to wound  himself before dying.
 * Just read his wiki page. The amount of awesome cannot be described with mere words.
 * is killed by Archimonde with a Neck Snap, trying to save his son Cenarius from the same fate.
 * Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn.
 * Lawrence Huff's Dome novel, about a runaway nuclear reactor. Extreme sportsman and metallurgist Dan Mason dons a protective suit and attempts to plant control rods in the malfunctioning reactor core. Unfortunately the reactor environment is far more hostile than expected and his suit is critically damaged, while the magnetic field set up by eddies in the coolant is causing the suit to electrocute him. Though he is in a haze of agony, he prevents a complete meltdown (which would destroy Louisiana and possibly push the Earth out of orbit) by drawing the control rods from the suit's pouch, shoving his arms directly into the superheated core and planting his legs over the drain holes to disrupt the eddies. He succeeds. His body is never found.
 * In Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian novel The Hour of the Dragon, Tiberias dies for leading Valerius astray, because he had nothing to lose.
 * does this at the climax of the third book of The Tomorrow Series, A Killing Frost.
 * Two characters sacrifice themselves in the Legacy of the Drow Series. Wulfgar, in the grip of a monster that is threatening his friends, causes an avalanche that buries them both. Shortly afterwards, Drizzt attempts a heroic sacrifice after concluding that his presence in Mithral Hall is putting those around him in danger from future drow attacks targeting him. He decides to leave and return to Menzoberranzan, allowing the drow to have him in order to spare those dear to him. After he's taken captive, however, Drizzt learns that the drow are intent on attacking Mithral Hall whether he's there or not, and that turning himself in didn't accomplish anything.
 * Fablehaven has Lena, a naiad turned human, sacrifice herself to stop the shadow plague by destroying the talisman infused with dark energy.
 * In The Farthest Shore, Ged uses all his power to close the hole in the world. He doesn't die, but he does permanently lose his magic (he describes it as pouring a cup of water on the ground), so the person he was is essentially dead.
 * Several in the Prince Roger series:
 * The sacrifice of Captain Cranitsky and his crew to destroy the second Saint cruiser and allow the Prince and his bodyguard to escape is one of the things that kick-starts Roger's personal growth.
 * Captain Armand Pahner.
 * Rastar Komas Ta'Norton, last prince of Therdan,.
 * of Mercedes Lackey's Heralds of Valdemar. Facing his greatest fear, one that has been hounding him since childhood, he  and saving the kingdom.
 * In the final book of the His Dark Materials trilogy,
 * In the Black Magician Trilogy,  in order to
 * Bess in the poem The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes.
 * In Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, first Mags, then the unnamed Morphling addict from District 6 give up their lives to save Peeta, which confuses Katniss greatly.
 * Alien by Igor' Dravin (Чужак, Игорь Дравин): Vlad's unit grabbed the Wolves (5 female Hunters) and his sister Dunya from the altars of a Human Sacrifice ritual disrupting it and killing several Catacomb Lords. Nata, a healer mage, is the only one conscious among the saved and knows that Arna, the Wolves' commander, Dunya and herself can yet be saved if exorcized in time. Seeing a group of religious fanatics intercept Vlad's unit demanding the survivors to be burned at stakes, Nata calmly burns her magic gift to make sure Vlad's beloved Arna and Dunya survive long enough for Vlad's unit to kill the ambushing troops and reach the city, knowing well that this dooms herself.
 * Subverted in Chalice by Robin McKinley. The Fisher King of the demesne of Willowlands is all set to throw himself on his challenger's sword during their Trial by Combat, in the hopes that his voluntary sacrifice will keep the land from literally tearing itself apart during the transition to a new (and foreign) Master. However, Mirasol and her enormous swarm of bees object very strenuously his plan.
 * Silena Beauregard from Percy Jackson and The Olympians
 * in Helm, when he discovers what Siegfried Montrose is doing.
 * When a bounty is placed on all Jedi by Yuuzhan-Vong warmaster Tsavong Lah, Dorsk 82 is trapped on Ando by a mob of scared Aqualish. Most of the galaxy is afraid that if they don't immediately turn in or kill all Jedi, the Yuuzhan Vong will target their world next. Escape is highly unlikely, and if he did manage to he would have to kill many Aqualish. He decides that his life is not more valuable than all of theirs, and is gunned down while taking no defensive action.
 * In Gene Stratton Porter's Freckles, Freckles saves Angel from a falling tree at the cost of his own injuries.