Kill the Cutie

""The Lackey patented formula for success -- make your audience identify with and care deeply for a character, then drop a mountain on him!""

- Mercedes Lackey

A series introduces a character as sweet and lovable, more comic relief than anything, who likes nothing more than to pet little puppies. They make you adore them, root for them and love them.

Then they proceed to put them in to a battle against an antagonist and they wind up brutally killed off. Further, the awful deed is done on camera to make sure we know it. Usually they get a few moments to show their ability to keep a warrior on his toes, but their deaths are all but certain once they decided to pick up a weapon and go through trial by combat. As for the audience, what comes next is obvious.

Like Breaking the Cutie, such deaths provoke the lead character to an unprecedented level of bloodlust from watching the girl die in such a gruesome manner and he is driven to kill the bastard who cut her down. At best, characters who witness this will enter an Unstoppable Rage. At worst, they may very well turn evil from the depravity of the act. A lesser grunt will either die in futility challenging the murderer or die a redeeming death for their beloved girl. Expect an Anti-Villain or Noble Demon who witnesses the act to get pissed off at the offender, possibly with an Even Evil Has Standards rant. Moments like these are especially harsh for someone with a no kill code, so any villain who does this had better hope that the hero regains his composure before he becomes a bloody corpse on the ground.

As if it needs to be said, the above example is not the only circumstance this trope kicks in for. Essentially, any time the least deserving and absolute last character you wanted to see die horribly -by combat or otherwise- ends up dying horribly will likely be a Kill the Cutie moment.

Occasionally coupled off with Break the Cutie for extra gruesomeness. It's also part of the ideal behind the Ryona phenomenon: Killing off characters (usually female) in order to strike at the protective instincts of their fans. Too Good for This Sinful Earth is often used to justify this trope. See also Death by Newbery Medal, Gut Punch, and Player Punch. Contrast Final Girl. Sub trope of Moral Event Horizon as characters who are guilty of this tend to cross it. A cause of being Stuffed Into the Fridge. Related to Nice Job Fixing It, Villain.

Anime and Manga

 * Elfen Lied: In the first episode/chapter, you are shown an adorably ditzy secretary during the alert. Within minutes, she meets Lucy. Before the secretary even realizes she's in trouble, Lucy twists her head off and uses her body as a meat shield. Her death is even worse in the manga, what with But one might view the secretary as getting her just desserts, since she was working for such a horrible institution that routinely practiced torture and dehumanization.
 * When you get right down to it, Elfen Lied is just a series of cuties breaking and killing/trying to kill each other.
 * In the manga, Diclonius Number 28.
 * Code Geass: Let's not forget . Sweet Lord, poor  . One was  The other learned that   And to further twist the knife, both of them suffered a Break the Cutie before.
 * Few fans are also none too amused when minor hot looking Knights of the Round got killed off. Some hope that in the SRW game they debut in, they will not die similarly to the Astray Girls in Alpha 3.
 * Elemental Gelade loves this trope to death. Any Edel Raid that wasn't a good guy will be pretty much dead meat as in one notable issue, Gladius cuts down a bunch of Edel Raids of one guy after he failed to defeat Coud. The anime had more G rated death but it is still killing cuties by the handful.
 * from MAR was a victim of the trope.
 * In Rozen Maiden,, is killed off in the second season. In the anime, her death is heartbreaking. In the manga, she perishes horribly.
 * Everyone in Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. Repeatedly.
 * In Texhnolyze, death causes main character Ichise to.
 * Also,  himself at the end of the anime after spending the entire anime in one long Break the Cutie process.
 * in Fushigi Yuugi is a rare male example.
 * Naruto's Haku was very much a kind loving character. He wanted nothing more than to pet bunnies and enjoy life. And protect the Demon of Red Mist, murderous ninja Zabuza, whom he owes his life to. That aside, he was killed rather abruptly and violently to protect Zabuza. To be fair to Kakashi, Haku was NOT his intended target and the event causes Zazuba's eventual redemption.
 * A more direct example is when Pain apparently killed  in chapter 437. The character and fan base reaction was certainly there. Subverted as she lived through it despite what it looked like.
 * You could only really tell because the death was like the ones in the Rescue Sasuke Arc.
 * Subverted with Hinata yet again in the Chunnin exam when she became a target of Revenge by Proxy. The reaction from Naruto was not pleasant. There's also some Fridge Horror here when you think about what could have happened if Orochimaru didn't use that 5 pronged seal.
 * Remember though, part of the reason Naruto went eight tails against Pain was that the seal has been gradually weakening over time. By the end of Part I, Naruto was only able to achieve one tail, and even then it was a combination of a desire to bring Sasuke back combined with self-preservation, so he probably would only have gone one tail if he saw Hinata apparently killed in front of him during the Chuunin exams. Bad news for Neji, yes, but nothing that would threaten the entire village, especially since there were genjutsu experts on site, and if nothing else, Gaara was there to keep Naruto occupied, at which point everyone runs away from the two bloodthirsty jinchuriki.
 * Then some random ANBU guy restrains Naruto before anyone gets hurt.
 * in Utawarerumono tries standing up for Hakuoro. It doesn't turn out well and
 * Fullmetal Alchemist: Nina Tucker. She suffers a Fate Worse Than Death, followed by Shoot the Dog.
 * In the first anime,.
 * from Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's. Twice.
 * Baccano has a unique example due to the effects of the elixir. Czeslaw Meyer inevitably becomes a victim of this trope over and over again by his beloved guardian. Strangely it is through Kill the Cutie that Break the Cutie occurs and results in Czes turning into a Jerkass Crazy Survivalist.
 * Weiss Kreuz is pretty fond of this trope. The clearest examples appear in Weiss Kreuz Gluhen: first, after befriending Sena, is given the Break the Cutie treatment and Driven to Suicide within the first few episodes. Then, in the second half of the series, is rewarded for her effort to be a good and caring teacher by getting Impaled with Extreme Prejudice by , and dies in Aya's arms.  isn't immune either,  Seems to be a trend.
 * from X 1999, after a prolonged stretch of Break the Cutie.
 * Pretty much every teenager used by the National Scientific Welfare Foundation in Witchblade, and Wadau's secretary he used to test the ultimate blade. Also,  which resulted in a Break the Cutie for
 * Pseudo Big Bad Maria, especially once Masane kills the only friend she ever had. It seems that up until that point she treated the power of the witchblade and fighting as a game, her only non-childish moment prior when she was driven mad with rage and killed her mother for rejecting her. (Lets just say she's had a similar upbringing to Shinji but responded to it as Asuka would have, to put it simply.) Once her friend dies, the flash of emotions over the next 60 seconds could only be described as a Heroic BSOD for the neutral anti-hero.
 * in Gundam 00.  almost joined them. It Got Worse for the kid onwards.
 * There's a cute little girl in Gundam Seed who is introduced early in the story and gets killed along with the settler ship by Duel Gundam. Thanks a lot for that, Yzak Joule.
 * To be fair, all Kill'Em All Gundam stories loves this, especially Victory Gundam, with mass amounts of persons of all kinds (and specially cute Action Girls) getting killed. War Is Hell indeed.
 * The most recent victim comes from Gundam AGE.
 * Yoshiyuki Tomino's Kill'Em All shows are overloaded with this. Non-cuties die plenty too, though. Just know that the Fan Nickname "Kill 'em All Tomino" is well-earned.
 * The 1980 Astro Boy series thrives on this. More often than not an episode will introduce a sympathetic robot character only to kill them off, leaving Astro to bemoan why humans had to make robots that way.
 * Wolf's Rain: Toboe. And Toboe's death is just the START of it.
 * Rin from Inuyasha suffers a subversion of this trope on two occasions. The first time, she is . The second time, she.
 * Done brutally in RahXephon to  What makes it worse is that   It's a Tear Jerker deluxe with pain flavored sprinkles.
 * In Fang Of The Sun Dougram, when Rita's naivete gets her killed, it doesn't just send George, who was quite obviously in love with her, into an Unstoppable Rage, it actually turns him into a cynical asshole for much of the rest of the show.
 * Though not a particularly "cute" child due to,  is suddenly shot in the head by a would-be hero with bad aim, causing his friend Akira's catastrophic meltdown that levels Neo Tokyo in the manga version.
 * What makes it even worse is that right then,  was happily going towards Akira, walking up to him while all "Hey, Akira! Remember me? I'm  ! I used to be your friend! Come with me, let's go home,   are waiting...". And then? Boom! Headshot!. For no real reason at all. WAAAAAH!
 * also dies in both the manga and anime, but two different ways. In the manga and in the anime
 * Bleach: Almost happened to . Nice Job Breaking It, . Now, since is a protagonist, the likelihood that  will die? Not that much. (Nobody Dies In Bleach, anyway.) But it's heartbreaking all the same. "why?"   is a bastard, that's why.
 * Lisanna from Fairy Tail is presented this way as a character in a Flash Back. Adorable, sweet, and a Love Interest for Natsu, she was quickly liked by everyone... until she goes on an S-Ranked mission with her Sibling Team and is killed by her older brother Elfman when he loses control of his Take Over magic.
 * Black Lagoon:  are quite the variation on the trope. They are portrayed as soulless killers with no mercy, but then we get to lean   So their whole life is a long, bloody, slow Kill the Cutie process...
 * in Gankutsuou.
 * Saya from Black Cat, when Creed
 * from Black Butler II.
 * from Devilman, outside of the somewhat Lighter and Softer TV anime adaptation, is usually killed brutally. Amon: Apocalypse of Devilman has
 * The manga and movie versions of Kimba the White Lion
 * Puella Magi Madoka Magica has DEAR GOD
 * And in episode 9,
 * Episode 10.
 * With a name like Corpse Party, it was probably inevitable, but  is still devastating due to what leads up to it.
 * in A Certain Magical Index series. It's never pretty.
 * In Blood C we have GOD DAMN!! And to twist the knife even more?
 * Happens in the second chapter of Limit. The cute, "perfect", but cruelly judgmental Sakura dies while on a bus accident. It's ironic since she said that another girl, who she deemed pathetic and worthless, should die; but that girl ended up surviving.
 * from Rose of Versailles, and later,.
 * from Rose of Versailles, and later,.

Comic Books

 * Dreamkeepers has a rather disturbing version of this trope,.
 * The Walking Dead has this trope to an effect, with  but its hardly noticable due to the fact that
 * Fray doesn't kick into high gear until.

Film

 * Played straight in The Dark Knight.
 * British indie actress Myanna Buring is naturally adorable, and this tends to carry across to her characters. She also has a tendency towards horror films and characters with suicidal tendencies, so this happens a lot.
 * The Condemned had a horrible scene of a woman being raped and killed (behind a tree, for what that's worth) while her husband was forced to listen. Wikipedia shows the character of Rosa (played by Dasi Ruz) to have "stood by her man during the duo's merciless killing spree, which landed her a seat next to her husband on death row. Charges of prostitution flesh out her mile long rap sheet." Nevertheless, it was one of the scenes which established The Dragon.
 * Jamie Lloyd from the Halloween series, who winds up impaled on and ripped open by tractor harrows courtesy of uncle Michael.
 * The main character's Love Interest in the remake of The Assault On Precinct 13 is rather pointlessly executed after being kidnapped by the Big Bad.
 * Marlena in Cloverfield. Especially the way she dies.
 * 9|Poor, poor 5... It's just not enough that he dies, oh no, he has to have what fans call the most TearJerking deaths in the whole movie.
 * Newt was killed off pretty quickly in Alien3, and the audience is given an sickeningly just-out-of-shot autopsy scene to confirm this. Probably for the best, though - she would have totally ruined the movie's tone if she were alive. Of course, many fans would argue that it would have been best if the whole movie was killed off pretty quickly.
 * Eusebios in the 2010 Clash of the Titans, clearly the youngest of the group of heroes. He is turned to stone by Medusa after watching his companion die, and his body is then smashed to pieces at Perseus' feet.
 * Lorna in Hostel II. Being played by Heather Matarazza only made it that much worse.
 * Josh in the original. The fact he gets arguably the most painful death in the entire movie just makes it much, much worse.
 * Also, Karen from Cabin Fever
 * Boltie (Elliot Page) in Super gets a third of her head blown off with a shotgun. Even though she's a psychopath, you can't help but like her and the brutal nature of her death hits hard.
 * In Pan's Labyrinth, Captain Vidal solidifies himself as one of the most despicable villains in cinematic history
 * Su-in from Dead Friend. Just poor, poor Su-in.
 * His name was Phil. Dammit, Joss.

Literature
""The Lackey patented formula for success—make your audience identify with and care deeply for a character then drop a mountain on him!""
 * In Stephen King's Cell,
 * in The Hunger Games.
 * Depending on definition, also possibly  from the second book, although
 * And just when you think that maybe  has fulfilled this trope enough for one trilogy, they go and kill off   in the final book. Pass the tissues.
 * Nancy in Dickens' Oliver Twist
 * Dickens does this a lot. Paul Dombey in Dombey and Son, the infamous death of Little Nell in The Old Curiosity Shop, Dora in David Copperfield, Smike in Nicholas Nickleby. He plays with the trope in A Christmas Carol, in the Christmas Future scene where Tiny Tim is dead, but Scrooge's repentance averts the death.
 * in The Outsiders
 * goes out in contorting, flaming ruin in the second book of Douglas Niles's Watershed Trilogy.
 * in JC Hutchins' Dark Art is another rare male example.
 * Harry Potter's potentially extensive list: with arguably qualifying mentions to Lily Potter,  depending on how you want to define cutie.
 * In the Strugatsky Brothers novel Hard to Be A God, the concluding Roaring Rampage of Revenge is caused by the deaths of the Hero's Love Interest and Kid Sidekick - possibly the only pure characters in the story.
 * Erin Hunter's Warrior Cats. if there is a cutie, expect she or he to end up broken, and then dead.
 * Martin the Warrior has Laterose die at the end of the book, causing Martin to go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
 * from Lord of the Flies., too.
 * in Brightly Burning. As bragged by Mercedes Lackey:
 * from Lord of the Flies., too.
 * in Brightly Burning. As bragged by Mercedes Lackey:


 * The German book The Land Of Oblivion has a particularly gruesome variation. Technically,  is already dead by the time of introduction, but in the end,   ends up Deader Than Dead, condemned to nothingness, and there is nothing to do about it. Ouch.
 * Laura and the Silver Wolf, meanwhile, has the death of
 * Rilla of Ingleside loses her favourite brother, Walter, in World War One. Made worse by the fact that Walter desperately didn't want to go, and had spent half the novel in a state of torment because he thought himself a coward. And he was always the kindest, gentlest of the children.
 * A particularly cruel but subverted example in Stationery Voyagers: "The Wages of Cheating Death": Stella-Marie Jenkins is introduced as the Cutie, but is also portrayed as having recently survived an explosion that murdered her parents. She is on an operating table, bleeding lime-green ink profusely and screaming in pain. She is near-killed almost as soon as she is introduced! "Saving" her through Unwilling Roboticisation is the real twist: It's a Sadistic Choice for Katrina! Either let this young girl finish dying a horrible and agonizing death, or make an exception to her own moral disgust with the idea of artificial reincarnation and let the girl become a possessed robot. Ending her pain, but also giving her "immortality" at the expense of not fully and truly "living." Katrina won't perform the operation herself, but decides not to interfere with the procedure being done. She sighs and agrees that as long as the Xyliens use such cases to make excuses for their practice, there will always be a need for Edge Skidders to catch the rogue robots.
 * Bheth Halleck from Dune: House Harkonnen: The gentle younger sister of Gurney Halleck's Bheth is first kidnapped by the Harkonnens for trying to protect her brother. Next they cut out her larynx so she can't do more than scream wordlessly. Then she is subjected to 6 years (starting at an innocent 17 years old) of sadistic rape and torture by a recorded 4620 Harkonnan soldiers. The Beast Rabban finally kills her in retribution of Gurney's attempt on his life.
 * in The Time Machine.
 * and in Chaos Walking.
 * in Fahrenheit451.
 * in Fahrenheit451.

Live-Action TV

 * Bonanza: Seemingly every episode that featured a Cartwright becoming romantically involved with a young woman.
 * Joss Whedon is positively obsessed with this trope. Examples include in Buffy the Vampire Slayer; and  in Angel. If there's one blessing in the short lifespan of Firefly, it's that Whedon didn't get a chance to do this to us.
 * He made up for it by killing in The Movie.
 * He also poked fun at his penchant for this in the pilot of Firefly, with Kaylee's "death" (it all turns out to be a psychotic joke by Mal). The only reason that the joke was as effective as it was is because of Joss's track record.
 * That is all.
 * Then in "The Hollow Men" (2x12)
 * And in 2x13,
 * Battlestar Galactica Reimagined.
 * Now let's not forget
 * Also, the irritatingly cute chicken-eating munchkin in the original miniseries. Introduced in one scene, playing with her doll and talking to Laura Roslin about how she's going to have dinner with her parents. Blown up by Cylons in her very next scene. This was when it became clear that Cylons aren't all bad.
 * on House. Cause of death?
 * in Torchwood.
 * and, as well.
 * From Miracle Day, we have . At this point, we can all agree that if you're nice, likable, and a fan favourite, you can expect to die by the end of the season.
 * in Doctor Who.
 * Not to mention  and  . There's also Astrid, from "Voyage of the Damned".
 * What about that adorable little kid (who was sent in by Blue Peter, no less) in the episode "Utopia", and who
 * From the same episode as the above,.
 * Rory is surely this. The amount of times he gets killed and frankly he is Adorkable. However, by this point, he's taken so many levels in badass that in fandom, the They Killed Kenny jokes have fully stopped in favor of adding to his Chuck Norris Facts type list, "What doesn't kill Rory Williams makes him stronger. What kills Rory Williams also makes him stronger." He's still The Cutie, though.
 * One can never forget the tragic death of  on Heroes.
 * But
 * On Lost, Anyone Can Die, so it's no surprise this applies.
 * Initially Lilly Kane, the character who dies before the beginning of the first series of Veronica Mars, would count as an example, since she was a young attractive teenager who got her head smashed in with, though she becomes arguably less of a 'cutie' during some of the later flashbacks as her innocence level drops.
 * Horatio Hornblower has this happen twice in "Retribution." Both
 * The acclaimed Star Trek TOS episode "The City on the Edge of Forever" offers Kirk a Sadistic Choice: either Kill the Cutie or alter history so the Nazis win World War II.
 * At the end of the third/beginning of the fourth seasons of Breaking Bad, unfortunate circumstances force  to kill.
 * On Bones, the creators even admitted they killed "for the heartbreak."
 * On Bones, the creators even admitted they killed "for the heartbreak."

Tabletop Games

 * A very common tactic for cruel Dungeon Masters, regardless of system or setting.

Theatre

 * Seward's son in Macbeth challenges the title character to single combat in the middle of the climactic battle. Macbeth is a brutal, murderous Fallen Hero with years of combat experience. Seward's son is just some poor brave kid. Guess the end of that one.
 * Also, MacDuff's entire family, onstage, just to get him to come back to Scotland. It works.
 * in Little Shop of Horrors.
 * Next to Normal: Defied with Diana
 * Next to Normal: Defied with Diana

Video Games

 * in The World Ends With You. Worst part is how this echoes perfectly how
 * in Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days. Made even worse by the fact that  Cue epic Tear Jerker.
 * Much more importantly, how about  in Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep"? Even though he doesn't TECHNICALLY die, he is basically destroyed. Same could go for
 * Tiltyu in Fire Emblem 4, after the Time Skip was subjected into lots and lots of Break the Cutie moments to the point it killed her.
 * too. They were travelling through the Yied Desert to meet up with . However,   And no, there is no way to save them.
 * MUGEN has led to a couple of creative videos where Mortal Kombat characters giggle in glee as they kill Chun-Li, Mai, all of the maidens, Pikachu, etc. in a brutal fashion.
 * It's not just those characters. Ryona fighting game videos in general tend toward this kind of thing.
 * Just fighting games?
 * Of course, but MUGEN takes it to sadistic levels.
 * 12-year-old pianist May Norton from Clock Tower 3 is introduced as the serial killer Sledgehammer's first victim by taking said weapon to the face.
 * The Turrets from Portal.
 * Tales of the Abyss with Arietta the Wild. And a tragic one too.
 * Keeping in mind that it's YOU who is killing the God Generals such as her. And you also kill the sentient animal that was her adopted mother.
 * The anime even made it MORE heart-breaking.
 * Ion, too.
 * That one kid in Akzeriuth.
 * Tales of Legendia has Fenimore and Stella.
 * Martel's death in Tales of Symphonia has a corrupting effecting effect on Mithos.
 * Aeris from Final Fantasy VII is a classic example of this trope. If Cloud's anger doesn't count, the millions of players hucking PS 1 controllers around when they found out a Phoenix Down doesn't help probably does.
 * Also Doomed by Canon Zack Fair.
 * in Final Fantasy XIII-2.
 * While not a cutie by Grand Theft Auto standards, Ling dies in the next mission after meeting Huang and the guy remarks on how he misses her a lot.
 * in Persona 3 exemplifies this, causing him to enter an Unstoppable Rage...you can revive her in FES, but she does not remember anything. Unfortunately,  death is canonical.
 * Then tampered with again for Yosuke as he loses Saki. God the Junpei partner type is easily have the worst luck, this is lampshaded when.
 * In Knights of the Old Republic, should you choose the Dark path, you get to.
 * Arguably, sacrificing in your duel with Nihilus in the sequel counts.
 * A really, really mean character can do this to along the Dark path.
 * After all you go through to find Mayu in Fatal Frame 2, in the default ending, . The more tragic thing? This is the canon ending.
 * Arguably, Super Metroid of all things. Samus's surrogate child gets kidnapped and treated in a somewhat Woobie manner,  Every time the player dies in this game, he/she is treated to an image of the  still calling out to Samus in   little shrieks, too..
 * Cave Story takes this to a whole 'nother level of Player Punch.
 * This only gets us started on the doom train.  Doing a few unintuitive things can save some of them, but long odds you aren't going to know what those are the first time.
 * Maria's death in the Sonic the Hedgehog series caused much of Shadow's emotional trauma and had the trademark Roaring Rampage of Revenge reaction.
 * . Which really sucks since not only was he one of the best-developed characters in the series by a long shot, but
 * Ditto for from Sonic Adventure.
 * Also in the original Sonic Adventure,
 * This also happens in the bad ending for the Gamegear version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2. If you fail to get all the Chaos Emeralds before making it to the penultimate boss, the credits roll while Sonic runs alone until he eventually stops and sees
 * Also,  in Sonic the Hedgehog 2006.
 * in Sonic Unleashed.
 * In the bad ending of Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice,  triggers Mao's Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum.
 * Deconstructed with Artina's death 400 years before Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten as a result of No Good Deed Goes Unpunished turning  into an Omnicidal Maniac bent on destroying both the human world and the nether world.
 * Potentially, in Mass Effect 2 can die before the player's eyes in a horrible fashion if the player dawdles after a certain event. Especially brutal if . Fortunately, however, it's easy enough to avert. Which means that if she does die this way, it's your fault.
 * If  doesn't make you want to unload a few dozen rounds into  you have a heart of stone.
 * in Breath of Fire IV is a particularly heartbreaking example of this trope.
 * It's tragic enough in the original game; in the Comic Book Adaptation of Breath of Fire IV this scene is turned Up to Eleven.
 * In Limbo you are the cutie. And you WILL die....often. After the first death though, the mindset you have while playing completely changes, as you turn Properly Paranoid about everything you see in the environment.
 * Security guards in The Getaway: Black Monday will feel no guilt about killing Samantha, a petite, nineteen year old woman who cannot defend herself at all. If you get the bad ending,.
 * Valkyria Chronicles To make things even worse, it is possible to complete Valkyria Chronicles without losing a single other member of your squad, making it arguably even harder-hitting. And because it is part of the storyline rather than gameplay (unlike other potential deaths) it is impossible to prevent. Without playing through the rest of the game you don't get the same impact, but for those curious, links to the death scene and the funeral scene.
 * Throughout Tales of Monkey Island,
 * Soma Cruz becomes corrupted by his powers after seeing his child hood friend killed in front of him in the bad ending of Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow. Subverted in the true ending as it was a fake.
 * Throughout Tales of Monkey Island,
 * Soma Cruz becomes corrupted by his powers after seeing his child hood friend killed in front of him in the bad ending of Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow. Subverted in the true ending as it was a fake.
 * Soma Cruz becomes corrupted by his powers after seeing his child hood friend killed in front of him in the bad ending of Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow. Subverted in the true ending as it was a fake.
 * Soma Cruz becomes corrupted by his powers after seeing his child hood friend killed in front of him in the bad ending of Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow. Subverted in the true ending as it was a fake.

Web Comics

 * Andrew Hussie must really enjoy making Homestuck fans cry, due to the alarmingly frequent number of times this trope is used.
 * Not to mention, who was dead before the story even began.
 * Also invoked with
 * Some will argue that  qualifies. Others will argue that   had it coming from lightyears away.
 * As of [S] Cascade,
 * Poor is killed in the most brutal way so far in Mitadake Saga.

Web Original

 * In the Crapsack World of There Will Be Brawl,  is the only unequivocally good character throughout the entire series. So The Mafia blows up his house.
 * Doctor Horribles Sing Along Blog. Goddammit, Joss.
 * Hey! Is there a character you like in Survival of the Fittest? It's almost definite they won't make it to the end, thanks to the premise.