"Seen It All" Suicide



What can you do when you've seen it all? Not much except kill yourself, apparently. After all, there's nothing in the world you'd really want to see twice.

On its way to becoming a Forgotten Trope, a "Seen It All" Suicide occurs when a cartoon character, having seen some outrageous sight, proclaims "Now I've seen everything!" and promptly produces a pistol and shoots himself on the spot. The reason this might happen is because the character feels they have finally cracked and wish to end their lives before it gets worse. When these old cartoons are reaired nowadays, however, this joke is usually Bowdlerised out. Watch for it—if a character proclaims that he's seen it all, expect him not to show up again.

In Real Life, people sometimes say things like, "I'm ready, Jesus," if something momentous has just happened—meant to indicate that they're ready to die, but without the rather jarring effect of pulling a weapon out of thin air and actually doing the job.

A subtrope of Suicide as Comedy.

For the more serious and dramatic situation when a character decides to die because they've seen and done everything and can't see anything in their future but crushing boredom, see Nothing Left to Do But Die.

Anime and Manga

 * A random demon audience member in Yu Yu Hakusho proclaims "Somebody kill me, now I've seen everything!" after witnessing an apparent one-shot kill.

Literature

 * Invoked at the end of Shards of Honor. Emperor Ezar Vorbarra, expecting to be dead within the week, engages in a bit of Gallows Humor with Lord Aral Vorkosigan, who has just suggested the Minister of the Interior as a possible Regent for soon-to-be-Emperor Gregor: "So you do have something good to say for my Ministers after all. I may die now; I've heard everything." He doesn't die immediately, but after he's recruited Aral as Regent, he falls back in exhaustion, implying he's not long for the world. (In Barrayar, Ezar hangs on just long enough to see Aral confirmed as Regent, after which he finally succumbs to his long illness.)
 * Subverted in the first Erast Fandorin novel: this looks like the cause of the suicide on the first pages, but there is a lot more to it.
 * Played for drama in Haunted. The Nightmare Box supposedly shows the "truth" of reality, driving people who look into it insane and eventually to suicide.
 * In Wizard and Glass, a saloon singer, while witnessing an epic Mexican Standoff, declares, "You can take me to the path at the end of the clearing, cuz now I've seen it all." She doesn't kill herself, but she does remain standing on a stool in the middle of a bar that's probably about to see a gunfight, claiming that getting shot at this point would be totally Worth It.

Live-Action TV

 * This one is not exactly a suicide, but pretty close. On an episode of Friends, Phoebe believes that she has been possessed by the spirit of an old woman who didn't want to pass on until she had seen everything. Later she attends a lesbian wedding, at which point she says in an old lady voice, "Well, now I've seen everything!" goes limp for a moment, and then is back to being her old self.

Web Comics

 * Chainsawsuit: The All-Award: the totality of human achievement. The recipient of the award celebrates by leaping into an open grave.
 * In The Adventures of Dr. McNinja Dracula is carefully planning one of these. But before he dies, he wants to know what awaits him on the other side.

Western Animation
"Cartman (brightly): Well, I'm out, guys. If this is what's cool now I think I'm done. I no longer have any connection to this world. I'm going to go home and kill myself. Goodbye, friends."
 * In the Warner Brothers adaptation of Horton Hatches the Egg, a fish (a caricature of Peter Lorre) does this after seeing Horton, sitting on a nest in his tree, going by on the deck of a freighter.
 * A number of other Looney Tunes cartoons employ more or less the same gag, usually with the antagonist offing himself in response to something outrageous. Bob Clampett loved doing this gag in particular as many of his cartoons featured this. (The picture above is from Clampett's An Itch in Time.) Of course, since the 1970s Moral Guardians - afraid that children might procure firearms and, on a lark, blow their own brains out - have edited most of these scenes out for TV airings.
 * Tex Avery's Cross Country Detours has a scene where the narrator states, "Here's the sound of a frog croaking" where the frog then pulls out a gun and shoots himself in the head.
 * Ballot Box Bunny ends with Bugs Bunny and Sam playing Russian Roulette after losing an election to a (literal) "dark horse."
 * Subverted when Bugs gets the gun and the scene irises out when you hear a bang, the iris reverses to find that Bugs "missed" and hit Sam instead who is not amused.
 * In The Grey Hounded Hare, the race announcer says, "Now I've seen everything!"...and then a gunshot is heard over the P.A. speaker.
 * Chuck Jones' Cheese Chasers uses an extended version of this trope and Nothing Left to Do But Die. Two mice discover that they have eaten every type of cheese there is and decide to commit suicide by cat. Their efforts cause the cat to go mad and try to commit its own suicide by letting a bulldog "massacre" him, driving the dog mad as well.
 * In Tortoise Wins By a Hare, Bugs has made himself a turtle costume so he can beat Cecil Turtle in a rematch race. A group of rabbit gamblers, having bet on Bugs, mistakes him for Cecil (aided by Cecil donning a rabbit costume) and delays him, allowing Cecil to win the race. When Bugs finally makes them realize that he is the rabbit, they all say "Eh, now he tells us!" and blow their brains out.
 * Wolfie in Tex Avery's Red Hot Riding Hood, which is never shown nowadays. Ironic when you consider the original planned ending where Wolfie and Grandma have a family was apparently too shocking (you know with cubs implying certain relations) and changed in favor of this one.
 * Metalocalypse has something very similar to this. One episode deals with the group learning to be stand-up comedians from a strange old sea captain. After they put on a good performance, he says "Well, can't teach them no more," pulls out a gun, and blows his brains out. Despite being an animated series, this is decidedly not cartoonish.
 * Cartman from South Park makes an attempt after watching High School Musical.