Despair Event Horizon

""It wasn't just the baby that died that day; something inside Sick Boy was lost and never returned.""

- Renton, Trainspotting

The line that, once crossed, destroys any last remaining sense of hope. It could be for a cause, a person, a situation, or simple survival. A character has given up on it, and there is no going back. It can lead soldiers to despair -- or even suicide. It can turn an Ideal Hero into an Anti Hero or an outright villain, or even, in some cases, vice versa. It is a vital element of Tragedy.

Coming near this line is quite common in fiction; frequently, at the end of the second act or the 45 minute mark of a drama or the first hour of a film, the protagonist comes dangerously close to the edge before a Rousing Speech or Deus Ex Machina or the like comes along. It makes for a Downer Ending if the protagonist does fall over the edge. Frequently, this is when the What You Are in The Dark test hits him. Alternatively, many stories have a hero "Fighting the Good Fight" and meeting someone who'd been at it longer and lost all hope.

This is often a goal of some wars. You break the enemy's morale, and you can win even without military success. Related to Heroic BSOD and Heroic Safe Mode, except the hero usually comes back from those. A Woobie Destroyer of Worlds is often a character who crossed this line long ago. It can result in the character entering an Angst Coma, being Dumb Struck, suffering Death By Despair, or becoming a Woobie Destroyer of Worlds (and subsequently crossing the Moral Event Horizon). Often a result of We Used to Be Friends. This is often the final stage of the Break the Cutie process. In a video game, often happens during a Bleak Level.

May be preceded with a Hope Spot, just to really twist the knife. And a Downer Ending might follow in really dark stories.

Compare Hope Is Scary. Contrast Heroic Spirit.

IMPORTANT: This is about a character losing all hope, not merely getting depressed, upset, or bored.

Anime & Manga
": This is it. I don't care if it's over. So I'll use everything. I'll kill you!"
 * Mazinger Z: The Hero Kouji almost, almost crossed it during the Mazinger-Z vs Great General of Darkness movie. After several Mykene Warrior Monsters have easily destroyed four major cities (Paris, London, New York and Moscow) they strike Tokyo. He launches Mazinger-Z to fight them... and he barely walks out of it alive. The Warrior Monsters easily rip his mecha apart and turn Tokyo into burning ruins as he is unable make anything to stop them. Back in the Home Base, he learns MORE Warrior Monsters have visited while he was away. His Home Base are in ruins, Love Interest Sayaka and victriolic best friend Boss' Humongous Mechas have been destroyed, and worst of all, his little brother Shirou got hurt cause collapsing ceiling and is in coma. Later, Kouji was sitting on -the remains of- his room, and he cried as he said he knew he could not win and he was going to die in the next battle; poor Sayaka, who was eavesdropping, also cried as hearing him.
 * It was way, WAY worse in one of the first chapters of Shin Mazinger Zero, where he did fully cross it. Straight after he was thrust in Mazinger-Z and his body absorbed by the machine. Turned into a raging The Berserker, he began fighting Mechanical Beasts in spite of he not even knew what they were or whence they came, and his negative emotions -pain, rage, despair, sadness, loneliness- fed Mazinger-Z until
 * Shinji crosses this line in Neon Genesis Evangelion when he is . He's pretty much a Woobie for the entirety of The Movie.
 * Asuka is declining steadily throughout the series, specially after being on the receiving end of Mind Rape, but she gets better. Then it gets worse.
 * Ritsuko also hit this
 * Griffith of Berserk, broken in body and mind after a year's worth of torture, loses all hope of becoming captain of the Band of the Hawks again when it's discovered that he will never recover from his injuries. Then, just after he resigns himself to living a peaceful life with Casca, he discovers that she's moved on and is now in a relationship with Guts. Griffith loses it completely. This drives him to activate his Crimson Behelit, summon the Godhand, and cross the Moral Event Horizon.
 * Hitting one's emotional nadir this way is all but a requirement for mortal bearers of Behelits in general. It ensures that one is in the proper frame of mind to accept the offer of the Godhand to make the Sacrifice (and thus cross the bearer's personal Moral Event Horizon) to become a demon. And provided the Behelit comes into contact with blood, a member of the Godhand can also use it to manifest in the physical world, such as when Slan manifests in front of Guts using a pile of troll intestines.
 * Guts comes perhaps the closest that any mortal can get to the Despair Event Horizon at the end of the Eclipse, what with being . The only thing that keeps Guts going in the face of such despair is an undying hatred for the one responsible for it all and a desire for revenge that all but consumes him for two years and nearly destroys the man that he used to be.
 * This happens a lot in Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni, to a number of different characters. In fact, it's the reason for most of the murderous rampages on the show, if not all.
 * Judai of Yu-Gi-Oh GX crossed this at the end of Season 3, and Season 4 saw the former Idiot Hero "jaded" into a stoic Ineffectual Loner.
 * Nozomu Itoshiki lives four leagues on the far side of the horizon. Constantly. Played for laughs.
 * "The Record of a Fallen Vampire" - Strauss crossed this when Stella was murdered.
 * The plot of Elfen Lied is pretty much set off by Lucy crossing the line when she finds out that the cousin Kouta is going to a festival with instead of her is a girl. Not a good reason, but at that point she snaps and starts killing on purpose.
 * It should be noted that this is actually the conclusion of a 8 to 10 years old process that began when her father abandoned her as a baby in the forest due to her cat ear-shaped horns. She was found and sent to an Orphanage of Fear, where she spent day and night tormented non stop by the other children and emotionally neglected by the staff of the facility, again, due to her horns. Then, when she finally thinks she made a friend, said friend proceeds to betray the girl's trust by telling the bullies of a puppy she was caring for; after which the bullies proceed to beat the poor thing to death right in front of her. This was the breaking point for Lucy, who snapped, awakening her vectors in the process, and slaughtered everyone in the room. Then she met Kouta, and the whole cousin issue was interpreted by the girl as another callous betrayal, driving her to a psychotically murderous rage that would become her standard mood from then on.
 * In Ranma 1/2, Ryoga has developed a ki attack that grows more powerful as he gets more depressed. In a battle where he's using this technique to solidly pound Ranma into the ground, Akane tries to cut through Ryouga's depression with a cheerful "Don't be sad! I really like you, Ryoga!... You're such a great friend!" Since Ryoga is desperately in love with her and is horrified that she only considers him a friend, this unwittingly pushes him over the Despair Event Horizon and makes his attacks even stronger.
 * In Monster, Johann gains power over people by pushing them over the line, putting them completely under his control.
 * Paranoia Agent: This is the entire point of the series. Li'l Slugger comes to those who have reached this point.
 * Edward and Alphonse Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist crossed this after their attempt to resurrect their mother went horribly wrong, traumatizing them both. It was only through the intervention of Roy Mustang, who told the boys that getting back their bodies was possible with the privileges of state alchemists, that they regained their will to live. Pretty much everyone else who has tried to bring those they love back from the dead with alchemy has reached this point.
 * Suzaku Kururugi in Code Geass crosses this twice. First, when . Later, when he . For all his loathing of the wrong means, he realizes that it's impossible for him to live according to his ideals.
 * Lelouch was already sitting on the fence after, but he only crosses it once and for all after   This leads a Do Not Go Gentle moment : "If anyone wishes to stop me, let them try. If there is anyone who can go beyond my despair...!". With matching soundtrack!
 * Not to say he got better afterwards. Not in the least. When his initial attempt to die by.
 * Arguably, most of the show's villains and Anti Hero type characters are such because they were pushed to such depths of despair that they simply can't be decent or sane people anymore.
 * Darcia from Wolf's Rain hits this he discovers that his lover Harmona, who has been on life support for two centuries while he was out attempting to find a cure, has been murdered while he was away from home. (And just before he could bring Cheza to help Harmona).
 * Kiba suffers a heartbreaking one as well.
 * In Black Butler, Ciel eventually reached this point after he was captured following his parent's murders.
 * In the Negima! (first) anime, Negi himself crosses the horizon after  He splinters so badly that watching it almost becomes the DEH for a few of his students.
 * In the manga,  found herself on the edge of it when.
 * Sasame reaches this point in Prétear when he realizes that It doesn't help that she nearly killed him during a battle.
 * also reached the point after, which tops on her loneliness and hidden emotional turmoil coming from   After that, she fell into such a despair that
 * crosses this horizon in Ideon, after the deaths of
 * This happens to from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann in his backstory, when he realizes the truth of the Spiral Nemesis.
 * One could say that the Despair Event Horizon is the fighting style of the . His goal in battle is to eliminate the opponent's Spiral Power, which is defined as (among other things) fighting spirit and the will to live. As such, he intentionally fights just beyond his opponent's ability, and repeatedly gives them Hope Spots, only to cruelly crush their hopes at the last second, with the goal of crushing their will to fight altogether.
 * Flit Asuno from Gundam AGE wants to finish the fight against the UE so he could return to the Minsry Colony to live a peaceful life with Yurin L'Ciel.
 * from Inuyasha was driven towards the DEH as he
 * in Mirai Nikki crosses this in her backstory, after  By the time we meet her, she's a full-blown Woobie Destroyer of Worlds.
 * Yomi from Ga Rei Zero.  Her Despair Event Horizon is such a Tear Jerker that even after crossing the Moral Event Horizon she is still a sympathetic Woobie Destroyer of Worlds.
 * Horo crosses this line early in season 2, after learning that . Cue breakdown.
 * In Spiral, Kanone Hilbert crosses this upon realizing that the Blade Children can never be saved. His reaction is trying to kill as many of them as he can - including all of his friends and himself. After he is stopped, he doesn't cross back to the other side of the line: in the anime, he just leaves the country, still sulking; in the manga, the way he finally finds to "save" himself is.
 * Souji Mikage from Revolutionary Girl Utena uses tactics that arguably predate those of Celestial Being, approaching young people who are in their lowest with promise of a chance to change their worlds and end what's making them suffer by defeating Utena. Specially obvious in the cases of people like  in fact, he rejected   because he wasn't despairing enough.
 * also crossed this in their backstories, which is what shaped them into
 * Once upon a time, there was a German boy named Faust (who was a descendant of that Faust, by the way). He had a Victorious Childhood Friend named Elisa, a sweet and cute Ill Girl. Faust became a doctor and worked hard to develop a cure; after many years of research, he finally created the perfect medicine for her, and when she recovered they got Happily Married... and then she was shot to death by a thug. The despaired Faust began researching about necromancy to find a way to properly revive Eliza, but only managed to become a Shaman and have her as his spirit partner. Needless to say, It Got Worse...and specially for Faust's rivals.
 * Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Fate Testarossa had a rather nasty case of this upon learning that will do that to you. Mind you, thanks to Arf's and Nanoha's companionship and combat therapy, respectively, she eventually snapped out of it in order to help and have one last word with her mother. Still counts, though.
 * On that note, so did Yagami Hayate in A's, when Mind you, the people doing all this were purposely trying to set this off, in complete Break the Cutie fashion.
 * In Hunter X Hunter 305, loses himself in rage and despair after being told that  has been Killed Off for Real and can't be revived. When he realizes that the person who strung him along with the promise of a resurrection lied to him, he decides to


 * Jyu-Oh-Sei brings us Third/, who, after learning that . He collapses in despair, spends a good few minutes staring blankly at nothing, and eventually.
 * Subverted in Bleach when Yumichika Ayasegawa and Charlotte Cuulhorne fight. Cuulhorne's final technique takes the form of a single white rose inside a pitch-black rosebush, the idea being that someone who revels in being the most beautiful person in a crowd will be terrified of dying alone, unnoticed and unmissed. It fails because it allows Yumichika to reveal what he's really capable of when no-one is watching.
 * Played straighter in the backstory of, who decided to
 * The backstory of Maki Ichinose, who had a Face Heel Turn out of despair when his beloved Captain was killed by Kenpachi in his Klingon Promotion stage.
 * 5th Espada Nnoitra Jiruga hit this at some point in the past and just kept on going. He's convinced that all of the Hollows are damned and that they might as well act like it. "None of us is finding redemption Nel."
 * As of the X-Cution arc,  seems to actively want to make   cross it. What's his method?
 * is all but stated to have crossed the DEH in her backstory, as  This is confirmed as we learn said backstory:
 * Puella Magi Madoka Magica is about  The most straight up example is
 * Another good example is
 * The Madoka sort-of Alternate Universe Oriko Magica plays this straight and subverts it:
 * Played straight:
 * Subverted:
 * Animal X: Yuuji crosses the Despair Event Horizon when he finds out what happened to his first child: she was subjected to vivisection, died, and then her remains were kept on ice in a research facility. After that, Yuuji is quietly broken and makes remarks that show that he's reached a point where he doesn't much care if he lives or dies.
 * and  from Weiss Kreuz end up crossing this horizon at different times. The first does it when  ; the second hits it in Gluhen, when
 * Also,  reached it in the backstory.
 * For major irony, according to the CD dramas  hit the DEH as well,   Come on, if he was sane after that, he would've not
 * Jose in Gunslinger Girl crosses it when he loses an eye in a botched attempt to kill the terrorist who killed Enrica, and cyborg girl Henrietta is reset to factory settings, destroying her personality so she'll never be able to take Enrica's place. By the nuclear power plant strike, Jose was so far beyond the Despair Event Horizon that
 * Most of the main plot of Trigun that made it into the anime (the manga had all this backstory stuff and Knives going One Winged Angel and staying that way for over a year while he slowly killed off the human race) was a Break the Cutie-slash-Break the Stoic plot aimed at pushing Vash over this, probably in hopes of inducing Face Heel Turn, but possibly just to punish him for being a disloyal brother. It works insofar as he is pushed past his (admittedly impressive) limits on a couple of occasions, which variously result in a two year retirement and brief catatonia.
 * Meanwhile, the greatest one in a series full of them is when Vash and Knives were one year old, and found out about Tesla. Two boys--physiologically around eight--read the documentation and looked at the corpse, and then shut themselves up in the lab where it had happened and didn't move for over a week. Rem didn't manage to break in to save them until after they'd passed out half-dead from thirst.
 * And then, Vash tried to kill himself with a fruit knife at the first opportunity, and laughed somewhere between hysteria and mania upon thinking he'd accidentally killed Rem when she interfered. Knives, on the other hand, pretended to have Easy Amnesia and then proceeded to methodically enact a plan to Kill All Humans. The kicker is that Knives was always the nicer, more trusting one, before.
 * Legato Bluesummers appears to have spent enough of his childhood in this that when he started developing his mind-control powers he prioritized 'killing everybody connected to my life' over getting the fuck away, and was consequently in the process of being raped to death when Knives happened to come along and slice up the building and...save the day. And not kill Legato, and even ask him his name. Nicest thing that ever happened to the kid.
 * Several of the Gung Ho Guns have this in their backstories. One in the manga notably is in this omnicide gig because he was a deformed beggar in July when Vash inadvertently blew it up, and the one good thing in his life (a lovely waitress who was kind to him) was killed, and his whole life since has been Training From Hell to get revenge on Vash.
 * Since the point of Trigun is a Broken Bird Wide Eyed Idealist Technical Pacifist Gunslinger confronting a Crapsack World full of murder, this trope is bread and butter to Yasuhiro Nightow.
 * In chapter 115 of Medaka Box, collapses on his hands and knees in despair after he realizes  Chapter 116 reveals that  masterminded this Despair Event Horizon
 * The Idolmaster - Chihaya got very close to crossing the line during her Heroic BSOD.
 * In Chobits, We see that Freya has crossed the horizon when she begins to physically malfunction from the incredible emotional strain of being in (and being unable to tell anyone about) an unrequited love situation. In the anime, we are even shown the exact moment this happens. Depending on whether one is reading the manga or watching the anime, she is either Driven to Suicide or dies from despair, respectively.
 * In Magic Knight Rayearth,  plowed through this when   She already was unstable after  ... and once , the poor broken person reacted by
 * In Shuffle Kaede lost the will to live following her mother's death but Rin managed to snap her out of it.
 * In One Piece,  came dangerously close to crossing it after  . Fortunately,   managed to snap him out of it.
 * Several characters were actually very close to this, as well. Nami, Robin, Zoro,, etc.
 * One half of Yu Yu Hakusho's innovativeness. The other being it's take on Hard Work Hardly Works that is rarely replicated in other battle manga.
 * One line involves Kuwabara who's growth has often been linked to Despair Event Horizon only for him to mature in the end and decide to give up fighting with the three other main characters after he was manipulated by one of the Big Bad, Sensui to slice the gate for demons to enter the human world.
 * Another involves younger Toguro who, again, goes through multiple Despair Event Horizon, each time seeming happier than the last despite the fact that he should be sadder. His last Despair Event Horizon arguably pushes him to Buddha status.
 * Kurama goes through another line of Despair Event Horizon being that his  mom is extremely important to him. He starts off just being a reluctant villain into the worst torturer in the entire series. It's safe to say he's the one good guy that is more evil than the most evil beings in the entire series if you piss him off. This guy is like a walking Despair meter just waiting for you to give him an excuse to not despair over you.
 * Sensui's Despair Event Horizon led him to saving and powering up the entire cast for the next arc despite his gambit backfiring. Interesting to note is that his Despair Event Horizon might have made him sane when everyone considered him having gone insane after watching something forbidden.
 * YYH is just littered with this. One guy's Despair Event Horizon made him choose to be eaten alive. Another guy made him sink totally into videogames. Someone decided to restore their youth and be mocked and killed by their lover. It's one series where you really have to be strict on which one is a Despair Event Horizon and which one is just a Despair Power-up Horizon even Power-ups that include being killed/turned into an Eldritch Abomination. The villains are also notorious for being pitiful of anyone who could surpass their Despair Event Horizon and would kill people who have lost all hope. Then YYH would avert this trope and this was lampshaded by one of Older Toguro's stories about Younger Toguro where he still killed his opponents despite them overcoming their Despair Event Horizon.
 * YYH is just littered with this. One guy's Despair Event Horizon made him choose to be eaten alive. Another guy made him sink totally into videogames. Someone decided to restore their youth and be mocked and killed by their lover. It's one series where you really have to be strict on which one is a Despair Event Horizon and which one is just a Despair Power-up Horizon even Power-ups that include being killed/turned into an Eldritch Abomination. The villains are also notorious for being pitiful of anyone who could surpass their Despair Event Horizon and would kill people who have lost all hope. Then YYH would avert this trope and this was lampshaded by one of Older Toguro's stories about Younger Toguro where he still killed his opponents despite them overcoming their Despair Event Horizon.

Comics
"Proud? Proud?! Proud of being the Man of Tomorrow?!?"
 * A Villain Protagonist equivalent (though more an Anti-Hero by this point) with Jackie Estacado of the Darkness, he can handle the mob life, the killing and the people trying to kill him but after he, of course the Character Development between the two at this point takes hold and the only 'rational' way for Jackie to get revenge is by . Of course, YMMV.
 * A curious Anti Hero version occurs in Kingdom Come; throughout the story, Superman is wary of encountering Magog, the Nineties Anti Hero who in many ways replaced him in the public's regard, until he and the rest of the Justice League encounter him in the ruins of Kansas... only to discover a broken man torn apart by guilt and anguish over his actions and the disastrous consequences they resulted in.


 * Walter Kovacs in Watchmen starts out a rather messed up, right-wing, but functional man, with a fairly normal life outside being a masked vigilante. Then he investigates the kidnapping of a little girl, and ends up From that point on, he's insane, murderous and barely capable of (or interested in) taking care of himself, having completely abandoned all identity outside of Rorschach.
 * The Comedian is a straighter example: When he discovers that reality is actually much worse than his dark parody of it, he breaks into Moloch's apartment to tell him about it, but the Comedian's already so far beyond the point of no return that he only manages to confess to his sins before he realizes how ridiculous it is that his nemesis is the closest thing to a friend that he has.
 * In the "Emerald Twilight" tie-in to The Death of Superman storyline, the destruction of Coast City by Mongul serves as the DEH for then-Green-Lantern Hal Jordan. He then goes on to cross the Moral Event Horizon pretty quickly. Even after the city is eventually rebuilt, it's more or less a Ghost City as nobody wants to move there because of what happened.
 * Then in Sinestro Corps War, Sinestro declares his intention to invoke this in Earth's population by razing Coast City again. But this time it's defied, as those who did live there, when warned of the coming danger, refused to evacuate and instead shined green lights out their windows in support of the Green Lanterns. This show of courage ended up having the exact opposite effect from what Sinestro wanted.
 * In "The Secret of the Indigo Tribe", Hal meets Natromo, one of the creators of the eponymous Indigo Tribe. Natromo explains how he and Abin Sur created the tribe both in preparation for the Blackest Night and . When Hal informs Natromo that Abin Sur is dead, Natromo declares that there's no chance in, and.
 * After being savagely beaten to death by The Joker, Jason Todd is resurrected, only to find that not only did Batman not avenge him by killing The Joker, he has also been replaced by Tim Drake as Robin. At this point he completely snaps, and becomes the Anti Villain Red Hood.
 * Happens to Nuke in the Squadron Supreme limited series.
 * Tony Stark after Steve Rogers is killed at the end of Civil War. He suffers a HeroicBSOD over Steve's death, and it also makes him even more reckless with his life than he's been in almost his entire history.
 * In Secret Warriors #24, badass super-agent Nick Fury finally breaks While standing at the graves of the  team, the agents of the Russian spy organization Leviathan come for him. He doesn't even try to resist.

Fanfiction

 * In Aeon Natum Engel many people cross the horizon when the Migou sends their ACTUAL Warships (those Swarm ships that is nearly equal to standard NEG Ship? A mere gunboat by Migou Standards), and then the Migou themselves cross this line when Moloch shows up.
 * In the Oneiroi Series, Redcloak rockets past it when.
 * In the Galaxy Rangers fanfic Chrysalis, the Queenof the Crowns shoves Zach over the line. He is Forced to Watch as she tortures his team in front of him and even  while he is kept in a well-appointed prison. He attempts suicide. She forces her medical staff to keep him alive, explicitly stating that he's not going to do much of anything unless she wishes it. The final blow is a Battle in The Center of The Mind where she brutally overpowers him by pointing out his failure to save his wife, the League, or his Rangers. To save what little is left of his sanity, he goes into an Angst Coma.
 * In The Second Try, Shinji and Asuka are forced to this line a second time, the latter when going against Arael again, the former when he thinks Asuka is dead.
 * Vampire mate bonds and werewolf imprinting are said to be strong enough to cause this in Luminosity. The actual trope is commonly avoided, as the vampire either commits suicide offscreen or becomes The Unfettered, but when thinks that he's lost, all he does is ask to die.
 * The Villain Protagonist of the Mass Effect fanfic The Council Era endured this when he  There's also a potential Alternate Character Interpretation that his criminal actions in the story are because he's caught in a state of perpetual despair following his wife's death, and is taking it out on the world.
 * In Revenge Road, Hikaru returns to Japan for an audition as a last effort to get Kyosuke to notice her, and then seemingly meets Kyosuke, who appears to have grown distant from Madoka, there. She fails the audition and learns that the Kyosuke she was with was a fake, then snaps and kills Kyosuke and Madoka.
 * Finally crossed by Mao in Code Geass Mao of the Deliverance after a Trauma Conga Line that would have made anyone else give up a long, long time ago, and which he rides all the way through The Last Dance.
 * In Touhou Tonari this is what happens to Yuyuko when she realises that her power has grown so powerful that it may kill Yukari and it eventually lead to her suicide.
 * The plot of Decks Fall Everyone Dies takes place after the worst possible thing that could happen to the Yu-Gi-Oh world: the fall of Card Games.
 * In Stars Above,
 * Rainbow Dash comes dangerously close to crossing it in Ace Combat: The Equestrian War, but luckily, Medley manages to snap her out of her Heroic BSOD.
 * Inner Demons: Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy both shoot past it after Queen!Twilight Sparkle cements her Face Heel Turn by using them in a Sadistic Choice against Rainbow Dash. In Fluttershy's case, it's so bad that.
 * Too many to count in The Unity Saga. In fact, the Empire systematically imposes these on a number of Starfleet officers and others.
 * So many characters in Bleach fic Winter War have either crossed the line or are dangerously close, it's almost impossible to keep track. Far too understandable, given the Trauma Conga Line that is their world.

Films -- Live-Action

 * In Braveheart, this trope hits William Wallace after he found out one of the Scottish nobles he trusted betrayed him. His anger immediately turned into distress and he seemed to simply give up, which also later caused the noble to suffer from My God What Have I Done.
 * Perhaps the most heartwrenching example of this trope is the focus of Its a Wonderful Life, in which Jimmy Stewart's entire life is a spiral of quiet desperation which is slowly winding him up...until he finally SNAPS. And it is terrifying.
 * In The Dark Knight, the Joker gets  to cross this, but doesn't succeed in getting the rest of Gotham City to follow, thanks to
 * The soldiers in 28 Days Later, had apparently crashed over this line before the events of the movie had even taken place.
 * In Lawrence of Arabia, the turning point of the movie is the capture, torture (and implied rape) of the protagonist by the Turks. The cocky, bemused Warrior Poet who believed to be invincible turns into a bitter, grim Anti Hero after that.
 * In the Monty Python film Now For Something Completely Different: Parodied in the "Marriage Guidance Counsellor" sketch.
 * In Trainspotting, Sick Boy, while morally ambiguous, still has his good points. That changes when Baby Dawn, now revealed to be his daughter, dies.
 * Red Dawn. Things are going well for the American guerrillas
 * Hitler's reaction upon hearing "Steiner didn't have sufficient forces" in the movie Downfall, complete with an epic Villainous Breakdown.
 * Penn and Teller Get Killed. The ending. Played straight then Played for Laughs when.
 * In Cloverfield, right after the main character's brother dies on the bridge, you can see the exact moment that his mind breaks and self preservation stops mattering.
 * Gettysburg showed General George Pickett cross this after the failure of his charge.
 * Oh Dae-su of Old Boy crossed his DEH after learning that.
 * His reaction to his DEH is hard to watch.
 * The President of the United States in Mars Attacks has apparently crossed this line by the time he finally gives in to his General's request to fight back against the Martians using nuclear weapons.
 * In Full Metal Jacket, Private Gomer Pyle is driven into a psychotic breakdown both by the original Drill Sergeant Nasty, Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, and by the rest of his platoon, which ultimately leads to . The moment when Pyle hit the Despair Event Horizon was probably when.
 * In the spirit of one upmanship and outdoing the rest of this list, A Serbian Film has Milos have one after learning that after which we get a Shower of Angst shot with him in the fetal position in the shower. Eventually this leads to him killing himself.
 * In Fourteen Oh Eight then his face afterwards is just a total emptiness inside, and the room keeps going.
 * The flashback scene in Tron Legacy. Clu takes over, the Sea of Simulation is poisoned so no more life can come from it, Tron is, the Iso Cities are destroyed, and the portal back to the human world flickers out. The brash and cheerful protagonist for the first film clearly died at that point, leaving behind a hollowed-out Zen Survivor.
 * In Black Death, certainly suffers one of these as a result of his journey.

Literature

 * High Lord Kevin falls into despair in the Backstory of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant and renders most of the continent unlivable for centuries with the Ritual of Desecration. Think of it as the fantasy equivalent of a huge nuclear bomb. This solved the problem of the Complete Monster Dark Lord that was winning the war but at the cost of everything Kevin was supposed to preserve. And the Dark Lord turned out to be only temporarily inconvenienced, being immortal and all...
 * Later on out of horror over what had happened to some of them.
 * Still later despairs also and commits his own Desecration . His sanity doesn't survive it.
 * This is a central theme in the Chronicles; it's the chief weapon of the villain, Lord Foul, whose whole objective seems to be pushing every single person in the world over their personal Despair Event Horizon. Indeed, every inhabitant of the Land swears an Oath of Peace which amounts to saying, "No matter what, I will not cross the Despair Event Horizon."
 * Covenant himself comes very close to the Despair Event Horizon at the end of The Illearth War, when Fortunately, Foamfollower is there to pull him back from the edge.
 * In The Great Gatsby,  goes over this line after   dies.
 * Denethor in JRR Tolkien's The Return of the King has been sinking into despair for a long time, and finally snaps when Faramir is critically injured during the Siege of Gondor. In his madness, he proceeds to try to immolate both himself and his son on a funeral pyre, but Gandalf and Pippin stop him before he can put Faramir to the torch and Denethor is subsequently burned alive. The book is more explicit than the movie in mentioning one important factor in Denethor's despair: he had long used his own Palantir (seeing-stone) for gathering information, but the Palantir also provided a direct channel for Sauron to break Denethor's originally-formidable determination by showing him the military power of Mordor and (something that's rarely noted) making Denethor believe that Sauron had obtained the Ring.
 * Tolkien loved these. The Silmarillion in particular is rife with them. Fingolfin passes the point of no return when it appears that the power of the allied Elven princedoms is destroyed, which leads him to Maedhros spends almost the entire book looking like he's about to hit it and then keeps going; . Nienor doesn't take the news that she's  Maglor, unusually,, but only by.
 * In Graham McNeill's Warhammer 40000 Horus Heresy novel Fulgrim, Fulgrim's is
 * In Warhammer 40000 Daemon World by Ben Counter when the daemon prince who he thought was Deus Ex Machina betrays him and kills his entire army.
 * Ditto the Sons of Malice, an entire traitor army that fights in complete and utter silence. Said to be extremely unnerving.
 * A Song of Ice and Fire: In A Storm of Swords, Catelyn Stark goes into  and believing two of her three sons are dead.
 * 1984 is an entire world that has fallen below the horizon, even if the protagonist doesn't realize it until he is pushed over his own personal rat-related line.
 * Room 101 in general is designed to make someone cross the Despair Event Horizon, by using whatever the person fears most to make them betray whatever is most important to them after first wearing them down with a long period of torture.
 * In Nick Kyme's Warhammer 40000 novel Salamander, the obviously suffering Fugis confesses to having lost faith at the death of their captain.
 * The ghosts of all his murder victims attempt to do this to Shakespeare's Richard III before the Battle of Bosworth, conveniently Lampshading it with the phrase "Despair and die." It doesn't really work because Richard is such a Magnificent Bastard as to be beyond all shame.
 * The Warhammer 40000 Grey Knights novel Hammer of Daemons has an Imperial Guardsman say that many of his comrades "finally lost the will when they" saw Alaric fighting as if a Chaos warrior.
 * The titular hero in Devdas loses all hope after Childhood Sweetheart Paro marries someone else. Made worse by the fact that it wouldn't have happened if he'd been able to stand up to his father. And It Gets Worse.
 * Most of the 12th Book of The Wheel of Time is about Rand Al'Thor reaching this point. When.
 * From Oleg Divov's Night Watcher, with a strong helping of Tear Jerker: Igor Dolinsky's  "Luckily", he had just enough connections to pull it off, but at that moment he hit the Despair Event Horizon hard and spent days contemplating suicide methods before coming to the horrible realization that he is simply too sane to kill himself, which made things even worse. So in the end he dedicated himself to saving his town from the vampires.
 * In Memory Sorrow and Thorn, this is embodied in the character of Cadrach, who is introduced as a Dirty Coward and thief, but later turns out to have played a critical role in delivering the Tome of Eldritch Lore to the Evil Sorcerer who kicked off the entire "summon the evil Storm King back into the world" plot. He knows this, knows he did the whole thing out of cowardice, and admits that he'd do it again, thanks to his will having been broken by the knowledge contained in that evil book.
 * In Otherland, the suffering endured by the Other, the quasi-AI operating system of the titular network, comes to a peak after Psycho for Hire Dread takes over the system, torturing it to the point where it gives up all hope of preserving itself or its secret, and instead hatches a plot to destroy itself along with all of its tormentors.
 * In Use of Weapons, happens in a rather nasty way to
 * Before the events of the novel, Ista has already been driven over the DEH by an Accidental Murder, the death of her husband the king, and the weight of the family curse. In Paladin of Souls, We are catching her on the way back, as her madness was (literally) miraculously cured at the end of the previous book.
 * Kiritsugu Emiya from Fate/zero suffered from this in his backstory. Similar to Archer, he was driven to despair by his ideals because he kept getting betrayed by them.
 * Darkness Visible has two notable examples. Most importantly, this is the reason why  Lewis crosses his own despair event horizon


 * Hitch Hikers Guide to The Galaxy: Marvin is in Mode Lock for this, and it's totally Played for Laughs.
 * In L. Jagi Lamplighter's Prospero Regained, Miranda is convinced that Astreus, having lost hope, will now fall prey to Hell.
 * At the end of the New Jedi Order, the death of Supreme Overlord Shimrra sends the Yuuzhan Vong species (and particularly the warrior caste) over the Despair Event Horizon en masse, with thousands of warriors committing ritual suicide or kamikaze attacks and the others surrendering to the Galactic Alliance. Oddly enough, this is a positive example of the trope, since it convinced the otherwise-implacable Vong that the war was not worth continuing.
 * Mme. Raquin in Therese Raquin experiences this when not only does she know that her niece/daughter-in-law killed her son, but she loses her one and only chance to expose Thérèse's crime.
 * In the second Apprentice Adept trilogy, Fleta reaches this point after being told by pretty much everyone she knows that there's no way she'd be allowed to be with her love, Mach. Not willing to settle for being Mach's kept woman, she decides suicide is the only answer, going so far as to demand a talisman from Adept Red that would keep her from reflexively changing shape and saving herself. It takes a super-powered Anguished Declaration of Love from Mach to overcome the talisman and save her.
 * Ciaphas Cain (HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!) ends up fighting a witch who weaponizes this--simply meeting the boy's eyes leaves a priest writhing and screaming. Cain himself ends up fighting to stay sane from an onset of Religious Horror until Jurgen's aura gets in range.

Music
"Goodbye cruel world,
 * The Wall by Pink Floyd is just one colossal DEH; the entire album is about a rock star who is constantly hurt within his life, and the mental "Wall" he builds between himself and society. Summed up in the aptly titled 'Goodbye Cruel World', as Pink is having a mental breakdown and going catatonic:

I'm leaving you today.

Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

Goodbye, all you people,

There's nothing you can say

To make me change my mind.

Goodbye."


 * Rammstein's song "Wo Bist Du" has the narrator crossing the Despair Event Horizon after the death of loved one.
 * Jethro Tull's song "Locomotive Breath" is about a man who has just crossed the Despair Event Horizon.
 * Supertramp enjoys these. Lord, is it mine?, Rudy (arguably), and If everyone was listening are about someone who's on the edge of that horizon, and in danger of going over.
 * Many country and western song, especially Johnny Cash songs Folsom Prison Blues, which is about a man sentenced to life imprisonment and 25 Minutes to Go, of a man who is about to be hanged.
 * "Scarsick" by Pain of Salvation follows a man who grows increasingly frustrated by the various facets of modern society shown to him through television. Eventually, he decides he's had enough and jumps off the roof of a building in an attempt to shock the people around him back to their senses... whether or not this works is left up to the listener.
 * Also, in the same vein, the extra track off "Entropia," Never Learn to Fly, a song where one of the characters decides that dreaming and striving for anything great will only lead to unbearable pain... hell, at least Plains of Dawn had a hopeful point, however brief.
 * Roger Miller's "One Dying And A Burying": One man contemplates suicide to forget the pain of lost love.
 * "21 Guns" by Green Day.
 * The entire premise of Depressive Suicidal Black Metal.
 * "Exitus" by E Nomine.
 * Many of David Gray's songs are either written from the other side of the horizon or are about trying to keep from crossing it, in particular "Holding On".
 * The title track from Black Sabbath's Paranoid.
 * "Dance with the Devil", by Immortal Technique. The protagonist rape a random woman in a dark street to be deemed "worthy" to integrate a gang, then is asked to shoot her as witness.
 * Van Der Graaf Generator's "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers" seems to be the self-narration of a man who cross the horizon, and then commits suicide.
 * Radiohead seem to have built their whole career on this.

Live-Action TV
"Harry: Who are you ? Who are you?
 * Malcolm Reynolds lost all idealism, along with any faith in God, at the battle of Serenity Valley.
 * Though not as overt, River's dialogue indicates that she has no hope of ever being "normal" again. At one point, she even rails against the drugs Simon is giving her, saying that she hates being able to think clearly because she knows she'll just slip back into madness sooner or later. You can actually see the very moment River breaks in the R. Tam Sessions, in the third video where the "counselor" tells River that her brother "is very busy." She stops, silently nods, then whispers "Yes...." and starts crying. (crack)
 * Halfway through season four of Battlestar Galactica Reimagined, the fleet, causing borderline cases of this for many characters, and a full-blown case for both
 * Series 3 of Torchwood has multiple Despair Event Horizons - as you would expect from a plot that involves
 * Dead Set.
 * In Spooks,  pretty much shuts down when Harry tells him that  . The "express elevator down" option off the top of the building they're on soon follows.




 * crosses it in the final episode of The Shadow Line.

New Media

 * Played for Laughs in the Rifftrax of Twilight. Two girls are having a discussion in the high school's cafeteria, when one mentions, "We're talking Olympic sized." Mike Nelson is right on top of it, chiming in, "High school girls discussing wang sizes. We have officially hit rock bottom, gentlemen."
 * And in the 'Trax for the Star Wars Holiday Special, while watching Harvey Korman debase himself in a miserably unfunny sketch, Mike sighs and says, "Well, Nietzsche was right; dead as a doornail."

Professional Wrestling

 * Bret Hart's heel turn and reformation of the Hart Foundation was largely based on his growing disapproval of America's failing family values in the wake of Steve Austin's new wave of popularity. It got worse when Shawn Michaels and HHH formed D-Generation X.
 * Austin Aries and Jimmy Jacobs took each other down all because of Lacey. Aries persuaded Lacey to leave her boyfriend and the Age of the Fall, only to have Jacobs lose even more of his mind and take Lacey out of ROH for good.
 * The real damage to Aries was done after he won the feud with Jimmy Jacobs and moved on to Age of the Fall Lieutenant Tyler Black. The fans began to get behind Black after a series of matches against Nigel McGuinness and Bryan Danielson to the point where some of them began to boo A-Double.

Tabletop Games

 * Warhammer 40000
 * This is the Chaos God Nurgle's modus operandi: prey upon those who have succumbed to despair and cynicism, especially if this anguish comes from a hideously-disfiguring disease. His victims wallow in self-pity until they fully embrace decay and entropy, find themselves perversely enjoying the experience, and begin worshiping him. In other words, through Father Nurgle you can fall past the Despair Event Horizon and end up Affably Evil.
 * For another Warhammer 40000 example, this is a significant chunk of the Soul Drinkers' fighting style - you break the enemy's will to fight, and then you can just kill them with ease.
 * Call of Cthulhu: Investigators (a.k.a. the PCs) wage a never ending war against the Elder Gods, slowly learning more and more of the Mythos. At one point or another, they get a view of what they're fighting, a clear unobstructed view. Those who don't Go Mad From the Revelation typically loose all motivation to fight out of finally understanding how small they really are in this fight.
 * It's implied in some articles about the Dirigible Engine Daystar in Exalted that  has crossed it at some point after   and the whole world went to the dogs. This is a sign of how bad things have gotten in Creation; the   is caught in a spiral of despair and denial.
 * Being that they're both settings about personal horror, crossing the horizon is horribly frequent in The World of Darkness games -- so much that many have mechanics for it.
 * Mages use their beliefs and sheer willpower to shape the reality around them. Pushing them over the edge and sending them into utter despair, naturally, has some terrible consequences... If lucky, their mind (and magic) breaks and the mage becomes a Marauder, who enforces their shattered vision of reality upon the world by existing. If unlucky, they might decide that it is better for reality not to exist at all and join the Nephandi. Mind that this process involves ripping their soul inside out.
 * In a world full of unwilling monsters, Prometheans probably have it the worst. The universe does not want them to exist. The very earth rejects them and the people are supernaturally urged to hate them. Learning to become human is a very difficult and bitter task, but many see it as a worthy goal to fight for... But many still fall to despair and pursue a very different goal: to become monsters. A Centimanus revels in their inhuman nature and uses their alchemical powers to dissolve and disintegrate.
 * In Changeling: The Lost, crossing the despair event horizon is

Video Games

 * in Live a Live.
 * After in Final Fantasy VI proves to be  final straw,  This event can be prevented by successfully playing a Mini Game, but the path of failure is much better written.
 * Several other characters get dangerously close as well.
 * This is Seymour's motive in Final Fantasy X. After a fairly crappy childhood he hits when his mother (the only person who ever loved him) sacrifices her own life to give him the power to defeat Sin. His despair drives him to plot the destruction of all life in Spira because he sees it as the only way to bring an end to all suffering.
 * It also turns out to be the motive for why  originally created Sin a thousand years ago. Seeing that his beloved city of Zanarkand would be destroyed, he killed every living being in it and used their souls to create an eternal Dream Zanarkand, as well as an all-powerful destructive force (Sin) to provide the power needed to keep Dream Zanarkand alive.
 * And in the sequel Final Fantasy X 2, a Despair Event Horizon is the main motive for its Big Bad, Shuyin, who wants to destroy the world which let him and his beloved die a thousand years ago. To put it in perspective, Shuyin's concentrated despair literally festered in a hole for a millenia after his death until it reached a point where the only way he could think to end his pain would be to end the world itself.
 * Oh and the whole being forced to watch his beloved die on repeat for a thousand years might have also had something to do with it.
 * It isn't clearly shown onscreen, but the backstory of Tales of Symphonia makes it apparent that all suffered this upon the death of, leading the heroes of the ancient world to become villains instead.
 * The sequel has Alice fall into this when
 * Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology has
 * Devil Survivor's  crosses this in the   ending.
 * Earlier on, Keisuke, already destabilized by a whole childhood of witnessing and suffering bullying, finally snaps when he sees Midori being nearly lunched to death to the people she was trying to save.He spends the following days going Knight Templar and killing anyone that commits any kind of injustice.
 * Kratos from God of War, when Athena tells him that
 * This is the entire premise behind Knights of the Old Republic II, as Revan is revealed to have deliberately subjected his Jedi Knights to brutal, dehumanizing battles until their spirit breaks and they turn to the dark side. Your character is the only person who managed to undergo this treatment and not succumb (you can still be as light or dark as you wish).
 * Before Digital Devil Saga starts, Angel crossed this when
 * Breath of Fire IV has this in spades.
 * Ryu's Despair Event Horizon occurs when the summoners of Chek (who all appear to be children) are massacred in front of him by Complete Monster Rasso. Ryu ends up having a Heroic BSOD which releases the Kaiser Dragon--a kaiju-esque dragon that is a Physical God--and results in him going into an Unstoppable Rage until receiving a Cooldown Hug from Nina.
 * Fou-lu's Despair Event Horizon occurs with the third attempt by The Empire to kill him (The Emperor isn't exactly keen on the re-awakening of the local King in The Mountain)...which involved the torturing to insanity and eventual literal use as living ammo of a girl named Mami in a Fantastic Nuke called the Carronade or Hex Cannon. Mami got to be human ammo because the Fantastic Nuke works on the principle that Love Hurts--the closer the connection, the deeper the taint goes--and Mami was explicitly in love with Fou-lu. The knowledge that Mami died explicitly because of her romantic connection to him sends him into full-blown Woobie Destroyer of Worlds mode.
 * We should also note here that this is also after no less than two previous attempts by The Empire to kill Fou-lu. Who is a literal God Emperor. Whom the Vestigial Empire predecessors of The Empire explicitly summoned there 600 years previously (botching the summoning and leaving the Physical God they were trying to pull across in two separate bodies separated by 600 years on opposite sides of the world) to unite their people and bring peace. And the main person trying to kill him, Yohm, is also explicitly a priest who knows damn well who and what Fou-lu is but is trying to kill him anyways.
 * Cray's Despair Event Horizon occurs when he has to Mercy Kill his fiance Elina (whom he and Nina have been looking for)--because Karma Houdini FUCKING YUNA turned Elina into an artificial Endless.
 * The manga adaptation of Breath of Fire IV cranks these up to massively Tear Jerker levels, including . In addition, in a transition between the Bad Ending and Good Ending of the original game (yes, both of the Multiple Endings were incorporated in a linear storyline)
 * Kane and Lynch revels in this.
 * Hunter, in Darkness, an interactive fiction, plays this one and plays it hard.
 * Wild Arms 2 has what could almost be an Incredibly Lame Pun. A certain Eldritch Abomination was sealed away "beyond the Event Horizon" in the backstory, and happens to be the source of the protagonist's Super Mode. Said protagonist is pushed to the edge of the Despair Event Horizon midway through, and teeters there for the entire game. After defeating the supposed final boss, he suffers a Heroic BSOD that almost releases the demon. In other words, his despair literally formed a bridge across the Event Horizon.
 * Dwarf Fortress has this as a fundamental aspect of managing your dwarves. They can become unhappy through a variety of reasons from simply not having any alcohol to drink through to the deaths of close friends or family. Getting a dwarf depressed enough will push them over the edge and cause them to lose their sanity. Depending on several factors this can be anything from a minor nuisance to extremely dangerous. If you're lucky, events can contrive to make this game-ending depending on your fortress design and how close other dwarves are to being over the edge themselves. Indeed, events can (or more usually, do) spiral out of control until your entire fortress is over the Despair Event Horizon.
 * Hiroki in Canvas 2 in regards to painting. Many of the routes actually deal more with helping him get over his problems than helping the heroine.
 * In Dragon Age II, the player can push Fenris over the Despair Event Horizon by agreeing to give him back to the blood mage who had previously enslaved him. He's so gutted by the betrayal that he doesn't even get angry, just bows his head and leaves with the slaver without a fight.
 * implied with
 * Happens many, MANY times in the Fire Emblem franchise:
 * Seisen no Keifu:  can hold himself up as well as possible when   However, the moment he sees that , he can only scream in utter horror and betrayal
 * Sigurd's old friend and companion  doesn't fare much better. In the second part of the game we learn that   crossed the DEH after not only , but also after
 * Thracia 776:  once was close to this horizon. So much that whatever happened to her, robbed her not only of  , but of   Much to our relief, at the end of the game we learn that
 * Olwen and  also were pretty close to it, once they learned about   They both pulled through it via Heel Face Turns.
 * Fuuin no Tsurugi: The biggest example is, who completely lost the will to reign and left the government to his advisors (many of them treacherous) after   And then
 * Rekka no Ken:  were both pretty close to cross this, once
 * did cross it several years ago, when  He was so utterly shattered that
 * Don't forget, an Ace who was throughly broken after being   We meet him as a powerful enemy whom the   charas must recruit as soon as possible lest he fights them to death, and his supports reveal how the horrors he witnessed and the helplessness he felt drove him into becoming an Empty Shell of the man he once was. For worse, some other supports (pecifically, with   heavily imply that he had severe self-esteem   issues before the whole Break the Cutie deal.
 * When we meet, the old man has crossed the DEH since   He's just about to succumb to Death By Despair by that point.
 * Fire Emblem the Sacred Stones:  never was the most self-assured person, despite his Badass Bookworm status and being   (His weak health didn't help either.) But then his beloved father and idol   died of illness, so the poor guy's mental health took a BIG nosedive. And soon, It Got Worse.
 * 's advisor,  actually managed to return from the DEH, having witnessed.
 * Persona 2's Nyarlathotep actively attempts to force everyone in the game who raises a hand against him over the edge. Eldritch Abomination + A Form To Actively Horrify You + Hannibal Lecture + The Reason You Suck Speech = this trope. Of course, the heroes' actions might make all his effort worthless...
 * In Dantes Inferno, Dante's will is steadily broken as he goes deeper in Hell and he is forced to face the many sins he committed in life. When a corrupted Beatrice calls him out on his misdeeds and betrayal of her trust, he falls to his knees and gives up on trying to redeem himself, deciding that he deserves to be trapped in Hell.
 * In Castlevania Lords of Shadow, Gabriel crosses it right after a moment of utter triumph when he sees that  Realizing that the hope he believed in was hollow, Gabriel collapses and cries silently.
 * Shadow the Hedgehog can fall into this during certain endings of his titular videogame (i.e. discovering he is an android, believing he is an experiment gone wrong). However, other endings he'll completely avert it. Ironically, no matter what happens, he will always end the story by saying "This is who I am."
 * Besides the Last Story, which he says
 * King's Quest III explains that King Graham passed this when Rosella (his remaining child) was picked for the annual Human Sacrifice to the dragon plaguing Daventry. This is why it falls to "Gwydion"  to rescue her and the kingdom.
 * BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend:
 * BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend:


 * Terumi literally feeds on others' despair to survive. He happens to be very good at causing this to extraordinary levels in almost everyone, and does exactly that, even if it's just for his own amusement. Every single ending, except his own, ultimately is a Heads I Win Tails You Lose situation for the character. He uses his abilities to turn, the girl who is loyal to him and falsely believes him to be a force of good, into a sobbing wreck of self-loathing and hatred.
 * His Motive Rant, which is delivered after said Heads I Win Tails You Lose situation basically sums up that he thinks everyone who have crossed the Despair Event Horizon are the only honest people, everything else are lies, those who believe them are liars and he's damn willing to make his own brand of truth of "Everyone, cross the Despair Event Horizon" to become the accepted truth in the world.
 * Gerald Robotnik crosses this hard in the Last Story of Sonic Adventure 2 when he finds out about.

Visual Novels

 * Fate Stay Night has a couple of primary examples:
 * In the backstory, crossed the Despair Event Horizon after the death of his wife, abandoning his attempt at living a 'good' life and fully embracing the fact that he can only feel happy through hurting others.
 * crossed the Despair Event Horizon after being betrayed by everyone he ever knew and finally, his own ideals. This leads him to . In the end, he.
 * Finally, goes through this in the Heaven's Feel route.  He's not one to sit around, though, so he just takes up another cause with gusto.
 * also crosses this line somewhere in the final battle, most likely around the time when she   Depending on the player's choices, she either follows this up by
 * In Umineko no Naku Koro Ni, this is hinted to have occurred to after realizing that  will not come back to the island.
 * of Tsukihime also crosses the Despair Event Horizon after being raped several times by and becomes utterly broken, as revealed in the Far Side routes.
 * death in Togainu no Chi is this for Akira on Shiki's route. Even though he still puts up a bit of a fight against Shiki, it's nowhere near the same defiance he had before. He also doesn't care whether he lives or dies and decides that whatever happens to him is punishment for
 * Thee Bad Endings of Katawa Shoujo imply that, if the player takes the wrong choices, the girls might reach this extreme. Some examples are:,  , and
 * Subverted in . How so?
 * Junpei goes through this in most of the Bad Endings of 999, but none more so than in the "Submarine Ending," right before

Webcomics

 * In Keychain of Creation, an Exalted webcomic, this is canonically how Abyssal Exalted get created, as shown in Renegade Deathknight Secret's backstory flashback. Her entire village is killed by a demonic plague, she's deathly ill, and just as she's given up all hope of living, the Neverborn show up and offers her Exaltation in exchange for servitude.
 * Bittersweet Candy Bowl, Lucy when and shortly after, when  The first one came with Dissonant Laughter.
 * Chapter 63 is getting sadder and Lucy looks about at the horizon here.
 * In Homestuck,  crosses both this and the Moral Event Horizon in the same scene.
 * Trudy crosses this in General Protection Fault after seeing Nick, (whom she had loved) propose to Ki, which Ki accepts. She had been starting to regret her actions, but this pushes her even further, and she attempts suicide in the next arc in which she appears.
 * In Goblin Hollow,
 * The Platypus Comix story "True Believers" has Spider-Man lose his wife, his home, and his job at the Daily Bugle all in the first 11 pages. As a result, he asks Dr. Octopus to kill him. Unfortunately for him, Death Is Cheap in the Marvel Universe, so not even murder can end his suffering.
 * In Sinfest,
 * Satan thinks it hilarious, of course.
 * Slick declares that losing a computer game again brings this on.
 * Order of the Stick has Vaarsuvius crossing the line after realizing the true extent of his/her earlier Moral Event Horizon.
 * In No Rest for The Wicked, Claire's Dark and Troubled Past has brought her to the state that she does not even care that the villagers, looking for The Scapegoat, will Burn the Witch because they think she killed her children.

Web Original
""But yeah, I was expecting to look down there and see this giant eyeball looking up at me, angry at me because I blew off its eyelashes or something, then the whole building starts shaking and I guess I'd… ball up and cry, because what do you do when something that big wants to kill you?""
 * Surprisingly enough, Ganondorf went over this in There Will Be Brawl upon finding the pure evil that is . He questions how heroes can even exist when such evil does.
 * As the end of Pokecapn's legendary Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 Let's Play approaches, the players themselves slowly slip towards and eventually cross the Despair Event Horizon; this is signified by.
 * In Dr. Horribles Sing Along Blog,.
 * Happens a lot in Survival of the Fittest, more often than not later in the game, but given the premise, is it really that surprising?
 * For example, Jacob Charles quickly shoots into this zone after his girlfriend is killed right in front of him, leading to him Read it here.
 * Happens to cup in Channel 101's "2 girls, 1 cup the show". Unlike most of the cases in this page, the result is hilarious.
 * Oancitizen of Brows Held High is driven to this in his Ken Park review. Genocide ensues.
 * He also does it with A Serbian Film, complete with calling NATO to fictionally bomb Serbia!
 * Discussed in Freemans Mind.
 * Discussed in Freemans Mind.

Western Animation

 * An Alternate Universe in Superman the Animated Series showed a demoralized Supes enslaving Metropolis alongside Lex Luthor because he couldn't save Lois Lane from a car bomb.
 * Similarly, in Justice League, led to another alternate universe's Justice League becoming the Justice Lords.
 * In Batman Beyond, after getting a second chance at living a normal life,  It's around this point that he's crossed the line and eventually chooses   His last words in the episode? "Believe me, Batman, you're the only one who cares..."
 * Also, in the "Return of the Joker" movie, we learn that  And then, It Gets Worse...
 * It's not quite that bad. Tim did make a life for himself with a good career and a family. It's really only when he sees The Joker on the television that he shows signs of trauma
 * Moral Orel. Nature. Clay . It's when the show officially shifts from comedy to a massive character study.
 * Danny Phantom saw his friends and family die right in front of his eyes. What comes as a result?
 * Hardy Har Har the hyena from Lippy The Lion And Hardy Har Har was pretty much born like this.
 * Twilight Sparkle in the pilot episode and season 2 premiere of My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic.
 * During the Time Skip in Young Justice, went through this when  Feeling betrayed by everyone in his life, he went to the only place he felt he could belong:

Real Life

 * The Imperial Japanese military became increasingly desperate as the Allies began to draw the noose around the Home Islands. They recommended a Last Stand on a national scale, and began training schoolchildren to fight with sticks, but when the Emperor supported the decision to surrender, many military officers chose seppuku as an alternative, inclusive of those officers who tried to stop the Emperor's broadcast and continue fighting without his Majesty's approval only to be arrested.
 * Theodore Roosevelt, when his son Quentin died in World War One. His health, held together for most of his life solely by sheer unfettered willpower, began failing almost immediately, and never recovered. His Death By Despair followed less than a year later.
 * He had already come close to this thirty years earlier when his wife and his mother died on the same day: Valentine's Day 1884.
 * Many of "the Projects" in the US from the 1960s fell into this. Now many of the people living in them have no hope of ever improving their lives. The sad part is there are now up to 3 generations who have lived this way.
 * Jason Russell dealt with massive amounts of criticism from Ugandans and internet goers of the viral video "Kony 2012" for his organization's handling of finances and purpose of helping Ugandans. Then personal attacks against his Evangelical Christian background came to light and he completely lost it.
 * This is essentially what depression is (the feeling that there is no hope).
 * Also why many people commit suicide or want to commit suicide.
 * Ravens usually mate in monogamous pairs for life. If one of the pair dies, it isn't uncommon for the other member to become despondent, sometimes even to the point of deliberately starving themselves to death. "Quoth the raven, 'nevermore.'"