Bury Your Gays: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

Often, especially in older works (to the extent that they ''are'' found in older works, of course), gay characters just aren't allowed happy endings. Even if they do end up having some kind of relationship, at least one half of the couple, often the one who was more aggressive in pursuing a relationship, thus "perverting" the other one, has to die at the end. Of course, it can also happen to gay characters who aren't in relationships, particularly if they're [[Psycho Lesbian|psycho lesbians]] or [[Depraved Homosexual|depraved homosexuals]].

Period fiction also needs to take into account the lack of understanding of gay characters, whereby depicting the death or murder of homosexuals may not reflect the views of the author but the social dynamics of the setting.

{{deathtrope}}

** Also, in Special Edition 1, a very lightly hinted gay relationship is made explicit between Alejandro and Ribbons, who turn out to be the [[Big Bad]] of season 1 and 2 respectively. {{spoiler|More exactly, Ribbons was a male [[Honey Trap]] and pretended to care for Alejandro, who ''was'' rather smitten with him... and then he kills him and takes over.}}

* ''[[Honey Crush]]'' had a different take on this: the lesbian main character is killed off in the first chapter but brought back as a ghost and not precluded from still getting a happy ending, though she does {{spoiler|go to Heaven}} in the final chapter after confessing to Kyouko, so it's still a [[Bittersweet Ending]].

* The ultimate fate of Gilbert in ''[[Kaze to Ki no Uta]]''.

* Subverted in the ''[[Lupin III]]'' TV Special ''An Angel's Tactics''. Bisexual [[Bifauxnen]] Lady Joe is the only one of the villainesses who survives.

* Maya in ''[[Maya's Funeral Procession]]'' is burned to death minutes after learning that her love interest is [[Incest Is Relative|really her half-sister]]. Said love interest marries a man not long afterwards.

* Mimi and Sheshe of ''[[Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch]]'' are killed in the second arc by their own employer. It's much worse for them in the manga, where they're [[I'm a Humanitarian|eaten alive]] without warning, than in the anime, where their life force is simply absorbed after they [[Heel Face Turn|rebel]].

* ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'': Of course, all the relationships end badly, so Shinji and Kaworu's relationship is not unique here. It is unique in that Shinji has to kill him.

* Rei Asaka/"Hana no Saint-Juste" in ''[[Oniisama e...]]'', although in depends on which adaptation you are following: In the anime she dies suddenly in an accident just when it's beginning to look as though she and her love interest Nanako are getting a happy ending; in the manga, it's suicide after her other "love interest", her half-sister Fukiko, gives her a cruel [["The Reason You Suck" Speech]].

** Not if you remember his original (rather unfortunate) superhero name of...Asgardian. As in from Asgard. So an "alien."

* Likewise, Marvel's ''The Order'' axed some superfluous characters in the first issue, but one of the two main characters to die by the end of the series was the lesbian Mulholland Black. That said, she was also the youngest and the most innocent, her gang history aside.

** In a prime example of "Oops, we done fucked up," James Robinson has now resurrected Tasmanian Devil (via a Lazarus Pit), and it looks like he and Mikaal may get together at some point.

* In Matt Wagner's ''Grendel'' series, [[Action Girl|bad-ass]] bodyguard and fighter Susan Veraghen is portrayed as a lesbian. Her first lover abandons her. Her next lover is brutally killed. Her ''next'' lover abandons her and THEN is brutally killed. Veraghan herself lives to a ripe old age, but only after she falls in [[Courtly Love]] with the (male) Grendel Prime.

* ''[[Two Thousand Maniacs!|2001 Maniacs]]'' - The [[Token Minority|gay guy]] is [[Death by Sex|sodomized to death]].

* ''[[Trailer Park Of Terror]]'' - A group of [[Cure Your Gays|troubled teens on a Christian retreat]] get [[Ironic Hell|tormented]] according to their most offensive [[Anvilicious|sin]] by a gang of supernatural [[Deep South|trailer]] [[Corrupt Hick|trash]]. The leader gets some [[Incredibly Lame Pun|head]] while cheating on his wife, [[Drugs Are Bad|the doper gets it after doing dope]], the [[A Date with Rosie Palms|masturbator]] gets a not-so-happy ending, the [[Alpha Bitch|hetero couple]] gets [[The Bible]] misquoted at them for their [[Death by Sex|premarital sex]] before getting murdered. But the [[But Not Too Gay|gay]] guy? Well, he gets hit by a car, nothing to do with his "sin" to avoid showing the sin, unlike the rest of the characters, [[Unfortunate Implications|because gay sex would be too terrible to show in a movie filled with endless, varied torture and murder in loving close-up]]. Breasts are also too terrible to show. The writer tried to make the gay guy's primary sin different halfway through by having the gay guy literally throw the goth girl at one of the monsters so that he could escape, which only made him a [[Depraved Homosexual]]. [[Have I Mentioned I Am Gay?|And we only know that he's gay because another character calls the gay guy various epithets.]]

*** But don't worry: [[It Was His Sled|A heterosexual survives]].

* [[9 Dead Gay Guys]]: [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|All there in the title.]] The two protagonists,one straight and one gay, live.

* ''Beyond the Valley of the Dolls'' in some way subverted this trope. Though the lesbian couple in the film were not the only ones to die in the show, their fate was specifically mentioned in the sarcastic voice-over ending as not being based around the fact that their relationship was in any way evil. Of course, they also weren't the only people to die, just the only ones for whom it wasn't supposed to be a consequence or punishment of their wrongdoing according to that monologue.

* In ''The Fox'' lesbian Jill is killed and her girlfriend runs off with a man.

* Jack from ''Four Brothers,'' maybe. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhzN02NwsPU In a deleted scene], his older brother Bobby joked about him being gay. Bobby went as low as making fun of his tongue ring.

* Right at the end of ''L.I.E.'', pederast Big John is shot dead by a jealous boyfriend who thinks he's been replaced by a younger model.

* In ''Smukke Dreng'' (''Pretty Boy''), a 13-year-old boy has a relationship with an astronomy professor who kicks him out when the professor's girlfriend comes home. The boy ends up semi-accidentally killing the man by throwing a rock at his head, sending him on a long fall.

* In ''[[Ma Vie en Rose]]'', the protagonist, a gender-variant seven-year-old whose gender variance causes him/her a lot of trouble, attempts suicide by shutting himself up in the family's garage freezer, but is rescued by his mother.

* In the documentary ''The Lavender Lens: 100 Years of Celluloid Queers'', there's a very striking montage towards the end of gay accidental death, murder and suicide scenes from various films, set to 'Another One Bites the Dust'. The film ends with a Bugs Bunny clip in which Bugs is suspected dead but revives and runs off wearing a tutu.

* The 1987 thriller ''[[No Way Out]]'' features a [[Depraved Homosexual]] as the story's main antagonist. When his [[Unrequited Love]] for the man he's protecting from a murder accusation is outed, he [[Driven to Suicide|shoots himself]] and is posthumously framed both for the murder and for being a [[Red Herring Mole|Soviet mole]].

* The titular funeral in [[Four Weddings and a Funeral]]. The eulogy delivered for Gareth got the main character thinking about love and marriage, setting up the climax.

* [[Your Highness]] gets extra special mention for Boremont, who reveals his love for Fabious, [[Dying Declaration of Love|as Fabious is stabbing him]].

* ''[[The Picture of Dorian Gray]]'', in which the two main characters (Basil Hallward and Dorian Grey) are heavily implied to be gay or bisexual, ends up with two of them dead, one murdered by the other. The other later effectively committed suicide. This may be a reflection of the difficulties of being a gay man in Victorian England, though (Wilde himself eventually died in poverty after being imprisoned for "gross obscenity", i.e. having sex with men).

* ''Kiss of the Spider Woman'', in which the gay protagonist demonstrates his new-found bravery by accepting a suicide mission to pass a message to political revolutionaries.

* Margaret in ''Affinity'' intends to take her life at the end of the story. The TV adaptation explicitly shows her jumping into the Thames.

* Played as a [[Gay Aesop]] in ''The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay'', Sam Clay's too-good-to-be-true boyfriend Tracy is killed in action in World War II. Soon after, Sam marries fellow comic book writer Rosa Saks. Sam and Tracy were arrested in a raid, where the arresting officer basically raped Sam before letting him and Tracy go. Tracy wanted to know what happened, but Sam [[What the Hell, Hero?|breaks off the relationship and never tells Tracy why]]. Rosa becomes [[The Beard]] because she'd gotten pregnant before her fiancée Joe (also Sam's cousin and writing partner) ran off to join the Navy. After Joe comes back and is [[Easily Forgiven]], Sam is pretty much outed for the [[All Gays Are Promiscuous|multiple affairs he's had with other men]] and regrets having treated Tracy so poorly. Sam is forced to renounce his [[Jerkass]] [[Gayngst]] and [[Earn Your Happy Ending|move on with his own life.]] As for Tracy, being an [[Heroic Build|able-bodied American male]] on the eve of [[World War II]], he might have wanted to [[Truth in Television|join the Air Force regardless of his relationship status]]. No news on if Tracy ever found [[Hello, Sailor!|love in the barraks]].

* ''[[The Book of Lost Things]]'' features the knight Roland, who is trying to find out what happened to his lost lover, Raphael. He is, of course, dead. Roland ends up dying as well, once he finds out what happened.

* ''[[Wicked (novel)|Wicked]]''. [[Word of Gay]] is that there was something going on between Glinda and Elphaba. Elphaba, aka the Wicked Witch of the West [[It Was His Sled|dies at]] [[Foregone Conclusion|the end]]. [[Lighter and Softer|Not in the musical though]].

* Carol Plum-Ucci's ''What Happened to Lani Garver'' is built around this trope, although it's justified in that one of the major themes of the book is to bring attention to homophobic hate crimes. Also, it's strongly implied that Lani is actually an angel, which may change things a bit.

* In an episode of ''Foyle's War'', Foyle lets the handsome young gay pilot in love with Foyle's son, Andrew, atone for his crime (his "girlfriend"'s death) by dying heroically in battle.

** In another episode, the [[Victim of the Week]] [[Never Suicide|supposedly committed suicide]] over a breakup with his girlfriend. Discovering the victim "didn't fancy girls" is an early hint at the lie.

** But when it comes to the lesbian main characters, the show hasn't killed any of them. They put two of them on a bus, they got the third one in an almost fatal accident, but nobody has died yet.

* ''[[Hex]]'' managed to subvert this somewhat. The first episode introduced Thelma, the main character's lesbian best friend. Then it had a demon murder her. Cut to her funeral, at which the priest is talking about how Thelma was very much her own individual and saying it was this individuality which left her isolated and led to her tragic death... at which point Thelma's ghost walks up beside the main character and says: "God, they're loving this. Don't be a dyke or you'll end up topping yourself." Thelma then goes on to be one of only two of the original cast to be left after the show's [[Kill'Em All]] ending.

* Another British soap, ''[[Emmerdale]]'' had Aaron and Jackson. Aaron was a violent thug, who got worse when he realised, and hated the fact that, he was gay. Eventually, he settled down with Jackson, who could tame him. They were happy, accepted. Then Jackson became paraplegic and begged Aaron to help him die until he agreed.

* The fourth episode of ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'' has two main couples whose babies are given different treatments to solve the case. The innocent lesbians lose their child, the (granted, unknowingly) infection-spreading straight couple keeps their child.

* General Arcadius dies [[Heroic Sacrifice|saving the life of the title character]] in the first episode of ''Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire'' after finding the love of his life and his true nature in prison. However his lover has become a series regular.

* ''[[Lost]]'' was said to be adding a gay character. In season 4, this was revealed to be Tom, who by that time was already dead.

** Averted in ''Vengeance''; fans were actually ''celebrating'' the fact that the gay couple didn't get a scene in the finale, [[Anyone Can Die|because at least they survived it!]]

* Although ''[[True Blood]]'' initially [[Spared by the Adaptation|subverted]] this trope with Lafayette, the fourth season finale kills off both Lafayette's boyfriend, Jesus, AND [[Suddenly Sexuality|Tara.]] Unless [[Unexplained Recovery|she gets better]].

* A possible subversion in ''[[The Tudors]]'' with George Boleyn and Mark Smeaton..only one other person even knows that they are gay, and they are actually executed for an(alleged)''heterosexual'' sex act.

** Played straight with William Compton and Thomas Tallis, however. Tallis originally rejected Compton's advances but eventually gave in. Compton then died of "sweating sickness" in the episode after they had consummated the relationship.

== Western Animation ==

* Surprisingly subverted in ''[[Superman: The Animated Series]]'' (That is, if [[Hide Your Lesbians|you managed to notice it at all]]), espcially since this is a show that is ''not'' [[Never Say "Die"|afraid to say "die"]]. Maggie Sawyer is blown out of her car during an attack by Intergang, and the next shot has her badly burned and motionless beneath a crushing pile of rubble, ''without'' [[Eye Awaken|moving her eyes]] or [[Finger-Twitching Revival|her fingers]]. Dan Turpin even calls the attackers "murderers" as he screams at them, so everything seems to be indicating that she [[Killed Off for Real|is really dead]]... [[Not Quite Dead|except she is alive]], and she returns later on in this and future episodes. In fact, her recovery is the first ([[Hide Your Lesbians|and only]]) appearance of her girlfriend in the series... and ''Turpin'' is later [[Killed Off for Real]].

* In the show ''[[Adventure Time]]'', a group of gladiators killed each other, and were forced to continue fighting each other in the afterlife as ghosts. [[Word of Gay|It was revealed months after the episode aired that the gladiators weren't brothers or friends; they were all homosexual couples.]] [[What Do You Mean It's for Kids?|This is a kid's show.]]

== Real Life ==

* Has been known to happen in [[Real Life]], and all too often because someone is [[Driven to Suicide]] or the victim of a hate crime, resulting in a disproportionately high mortality rate in the gay community.

* After taking power in 1933, [[Those Wacky Nazis|the Nazis]] persecuted homosexuals as part of their so-called moral crusade to racially and culturally purify Germany. This persecution ranged from dissolution of homosexual organizations to internment of thousands of individuals in concentration camps. Gay men, in particular, were subject to harassment, arrest, incarceration, castration and murder. In Nazi eyes, gay men were weak and unfit to be soldiers, as well as unlikely to have children and thereby contribute to the racial struggle for Aryan dominance. They also persecuted lesbians, but less severely.

** Even tody, in many Islamic and African countries, homosexuality is a crime, sometimes even punishable by death.