Cruel and Unusual Death: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

{{quote|"The Council had decided to have you hung by your entrails and your corpse paraded throughout the city."|'''The High Prophet of Truth''', ''[[Halo 2]]''}}

* ''[[Naruto]]'' has several cases of nasty death, including being ground to a paste by Gaara's sand and being trapped inside the puppet that suddenly gets turned into an iron maiden.

** Being ''blown to pieces'' and having your [[Fate Worse Than Death|still-living head buried]] also counts.

***** Just ended his ability to reset his immortality. He'll die ''eventually'', but not quickly. Apparently, he'll start rotting before he finally dies.

****** Which just makes it even [[Harsher in Hindsight]] and fits even more.

* In ''[[End of Evangelion]]'', Asuka and her EVA die messily at the hands of the Mass-Production EVA. At 300% synchronisation with her EVA (100% the level control and feedback one has with one's own body) she is [[Eye Scream|impaled through the eye]]. Still alive, she [[Grasp the Sun|reaches out]] [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|to attack them with her good hand, glaring them down with her uninjured eye]]. Then an MP EVA throws its spear and splits Unit 02's arm... and Asuka's... and then the others throw [[Impaled with Extreme Prejudice|throw their spears]] into Unit 02... and then swoop down on it, tearing its armour off and tearing at its flesh with their hands and teeth, basically ''[[Eaten Alive|eating it (and her) alive]]''. Shinji gets a good look at the corpse when he emerges from Nerv HQ in EVA-01. There's not much left... of Unit 02, Asuka, or Shinji's sanity by that point.

** At least she made it out of [[Instrumentality]] at the end...

* In ''[[Hellsing]]'', Rip Van Winkle is [[Impaled with Extreme Prejudice|impaled]] through the chest with a fairly large-caliber smoothbore musket by Alucard and then eaten alive (Not to mention the rather brutal rape implications). Turbalcain Alhambra gets a broken knee, one arm ripped in half and finally is eaten alive and burned to ashes. Luke Valentine is eaten alive and turned into a bloody smear by Alucard's [[Eldritch Abomination]] form after his legs are blown off. Zorin Blitz, an illusionist from the [[Quirky Miniboss Squad]], has her head grated against a wall by a vamped-out and ''supremely'' pissed off Seras until only an ear remains. Incognito gets the full Vlad the Impaler treatment from Alucard, getting impaled on a pole in vicious fashion just like the real Vlad did to his victims. Let's just say the series in general ''loves'' this trope.

* ''[[Digimon Adventure]]'' has War Greymon and Metal Garurumon defeat Myotismon a ''second'' [[Why Wont You Just Die|but ''not'' final time]] by tearing up the [[Freud Was Right|the crotch]], kicking the Fuji tower into it, and [[It Makes Sense in Context|finally simultaneously freezing and burning up the torn area]]

** And that's in the TV series/early manga. The Hades Saga has [[Professional Butt-Kisser|Frog Zelos]] killing Camus, a Golden Saint who's [[An Ice Person]], and then facing Camus's ''very'' pissed off disciple Cygnus Hyoga, who performs his ultimate technique ''Aurora Execution''. However, Zelos is still alive after receiving it... then he tries to move despite being a borderline [[Human Popsicle]] at this point, [[Cryonics Failure|breaking his frozen feet off before falling down and shattering.]] Can we say, "Yikes"?

* ''[[The Legend of the Legendary Heroes]]'' is full of these, enough to make some viewers wonder if anyone dies ''normally'' in this series.

** The [[Oriko Magica]] manga deals several of these, like Yuma's abusive parents being melted alive by a witch, sweet Kazuko-sensei being chomped on by another witch's familiars ''in front of her students'' until only a bone remains of her, or Madoka being impaled in the chest with a HUGE shard of said another witch's body.

* In [[Gankutsuou]], corrupt banker Dangler is left adrift in space on an empty ship he can't steer to starve to death surrounded by his precious gold. [[Hanging Judge]] Villefort is poisoned by the illegitimate son he tried to kill at birth, and left for his mind to slowly rot away in an asylum.

** Wait... they took a squirrel-like Green Lantern, and turned him into road kill? Aw man, that is horrible.

* In the ''[[Elf Quest]]: Shards'' storyline Two-Edge builds a particularly nasty execution device for the human tyrant Grohmul Djun. It consists of two large urns in the shape of birds with upraised beaks, between which the prisoner is strapped. The urns are slowly filled with water, the weight causing them to tip outward, putting greater and greater force on the prisoner's limbs until he is eventually torn in two.

** To punish Doctor Light, the Spectre transformed him into a candle, with his head as the wick and his body made of wax. The results were obvious after a while. At other times, he transformed a criminal into wood, and chucked him into a grinder. A paedophile was rent apart by his collection of dolls. He once judged an entire country guilty (it had a long history of blood feuds and ethnic cleansings). His answer? Burn it to the ground, men, women and children included, and leave the two top politicians alive, damning them to rule over the devastated land. He even threatened to do the same to the whole of the state of New York (a convicted criminal, who turned out to be innocent, was slated to be executed; this would mean '''the people of the State of New York''' would be guilty of homicide by the Spectre's book). In the most recent Batman cartoon, he takes minor criminal Professor Achilles Milo, releases the group of rats he had mind-controlled, and turned him into cheese. Do the math.

** Note that this was always the Spectre's specialty; some classic stories feature, in no particular order: being turned to glass and shattered, being turned into a mannequin and burned alive, melting as if made of wax, drowning in the clutches of a giant octopus; being cut in half by a giant pair of scissors, being beheaded by a falling decorative sword, being sliced and diced by a spectral meat cleaver, aging to a pile of dust and simply being reduced to a skeleton in the blink of an eye while being center of attention on a crowded airplane.

** The priests who helped Imhotep in the prologue are ''mummified alive''.

* The main character's sister in ''[[Mirrors]]'' died by having her jaws ripped open by the mirror demon-this results in a double dose of gore as we see both her reflection breaking its own jaws and the real person seemingly having her mouth torn in half by invisible hands.

** The tanning bed deaths. Just... No. And let's not forget the guy who had HIS ORGANS SUCKED OUT HIS ASS.

*** What is worse is that the guy's death was apparently based on something that ACTUALLY HAPPENED. And the poor little girl lived for months in agony before dying.

** Or being [[Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom|head-shredded by a ceiling fan]].

** Or being pulled [[Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom|feet-first into a rock crusher]].

** Or being jammed into a Nazi U-Boat's torpedo tube. (That one's from the games)

* In ''Beerfest'', Landfill One drowns in a gigantic vat of beer.

* [[The Naked Gun|Frank Drebin of Police Squad]] dreams of dying this way.

{{quote|'''Frank Drebin:''' A parachute not opening... that's a way to die. Getting caught in the gears of a combine... having your nuts bit off by a Laplander, that's the way I wanna go!}}

* There is one particularly nasty death in ''[[Ghost in the Machine]]'' which involves a middle-aged man microwaving some popcorn. The serial killer is somehow in the electrical circuit and starts a fire. When the man returns his face starts to literally bubble like the popcorn in the microwave. Then to make his death seem more pathetic he slips and hits his head on the kitchen bench. If you're after a night of good old fashioned [[Gorn]], I would recommend this classic.

* In ''[[Star Wars]] Episode VI: [[Return of the Jedi]]'', Jabba the Hutt condemns Luke and Han to be thrown into the mouth of the sarlacc, where they'd be slowly digested over a thousand years. You might comfort yourself with the fact that you'd die quickly, but that's not the case - the sarlacc's digestive system will ''keep you alive'' for all those years to attain maximum nutrition.

* In Gary Jennings's historical epic ''[[Aztec]]'', a man has the skin of a little girl placed on his vital areas and is left to let the skin dry and thus suffocate him.

* In ''Eumenides in the Fourth-Floor Lavatory'' by [[Orson Scott Card]], the [[Asshole Victim]] protagonist becomes forever plagued by monstrous, grotesquely-deformed infants whose sucker-like suction cup appendages rip off his skin when they make contact with it, as well as cause pus-filled sores to appear. And only HE can hear...and see...and experience these things, causing everyone else to believe him to be insane.

** His first book contains being thrown through a book case then being ripped in half, getting mauled alive by wolf like aliens, burning to death, being electricuted, being [[Tele Frag|telefraged]] and, being crushed under a descending elevator.

** In ''Scarecrow'', in addtion to the more mundane exploding planes and multiple bullet holes, there's being burned alive by a fighter jet's afterburner, multiple decapitations using various methods like guillotine and machetes, the burning oil trap, microwave beams causing a person to explode, being eaten by shark, and having a hole burned through the mouth.

** There are many of these in the first book alone. For instance, Capa Barsavi knows that someone's killing the leaders of the gangs under his watch, and so keeps bringing the survivors of said gangs in for "questioning." When he's done with them, he either throws them to the sharks or lets his [[Torture Technician]] go to town. One such death involves taking a leather bag, filling it with broken glass, slipping it over the poor bastard's head, and ''kneading''.

** An even worse death is described in the sequel, ''Red Seas Under Red Skies''. An assassination attempt on crime boss Requin left Requin's lover, Selendri, [[Two-Faced|horribly disfigured on her left side]]. When Requin caught the assassin, he dipped his left side in cement, let it harden, then left him like that, forcing water down his throat to keep him going as long as possible, while the trapped side rotted and became gangrenous...

* In ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'', Viserys Targaryen weds his sister to a Khal Drogo in the hopes of using Drogo's army to conquer the Seven Kingdoms. Eventually he pisses Drogo off enough that Drogo crowns him. With molten gold.

** In the "embarrassing" mode of things, we have Lord Tywin Lannister who is shot in the bowels, and ends his life with a stunning aversion of [[Nobody Poops]].

** The sequel isn't much better. We've got a guy getting the shit beaten out of him, crucified with exacto knives, ''his mouth stabled shut'', and finally being cut open with a box cutter, another guy getting his head beaten in with a sledgehammer, another character beaten stabbed, and electrified ''using her own blood'', a woman literally getting melted down into a human pizza, and finally the main character's best friend is strangled with wires. (which is, oddly enough, the ''tamest'' death)

* In one of ''[[Madou Souhei Kleinhasa]]'''s bad endings, Roze ends up literally being raped to death. [[Or So I Heard]].

* ''[[Naughty Bear]]'' has this as part of the gameplay, being the [[Spiritual Successor]] to [[Manhunt]]. One example is slamming a teddy's face into a spinning turntable.

* The old vector graphics game, ''[[Out of This World]]'' (aka ''Another World'') , is practically made out of this trope. Not only does everything on the planet want to kill him, it wants to kill him in the most gruesome way possible. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fdq7sDvIuLo&feature=related Roll the clip!]

* Manius Aquillius of Rome was killed by having molten gold poured down his throat. (Counts as a [[Karmic Death]] since the Romans had systematically destroyed and milked Pontus and the surrounding area in their pusuit of money.)

* Some stories claim the Aztecs poured molten gold down Spanish throats after Montezuma was killed. Doesn't help that Cortez told the Aztecs they wanted the gold because they had a disease that only gold could cure.

* The Roman emperor Valerian I was captured at the Battle of Edessa by the Persian King Shapur I. At first, Shapur merely used Valerian as a human footstool. However, when Shapur grew tired of this game, he had Valerian flayed alive, then stuffed his skin with dung and straw and had it put on display in one of the larger temples in his capital.

* King Edward II of England was assassinated by way of first being crushed between two heavy mattresses and then having a red-hot branding iron shoved as far up the King's rectal passage as it could be pushed. The person who arranged this murder? Edward's wife, Isabella. It's generally seen as a particularly cruel [[Take That]] since Edward was notorious for his passion for a male courtier. The courtier in question, [[wikipedia:Hugh Despenser the Younger|Hugh Despenser the Younger]], was eventually drawn and quartered.

* The Cheka in the early days of Soviet Russia:

{{quote|Victims were reportedly skinned alive, scalped, "crowned" with barbed wire, impaled, crucified, hanged, stoned to death, tied to planks and pushed slowly into furnaces or tanks of boiling water, and rolled around naked in internally nail-studded barrels. Chekists reportedly poured water on naked prisoners in the winter-bound streets until they became living ice statues. Others reportedly beheaded their victims by twisting their necks until their heads could be torn off. The Chinese Cheka detachments stationed in Kiev reportedly would attach an iron tube to the torso of a bound victim and insert a rat into the other end which was then closed off with wire netting. The tube was then held over a flame until the rat began gnawing through the victim's guts in an effort to escape. Anton Denikin's investigation discovered corpses whose lungs, throats, and mouths had been packed with earth.}}

* Elizabeth Bathory was punished for her crimes by being sealed in her room, with only a small window in the wall that used to be her doorway from which a guard would give her her meals. She actually lived like this for a few years before finally dying.

** Cruel and unusual? Really?! Pretty mundane compared to some of the things she allegedly did to her victims: Cooking them alive, biting their throats out, locking them in spike-filled cages which were then swung about on pulley systems...To name a few of the TAME ones.

* There was once a torture device known as a Judas Cradle, which comprised of a small pyramid on legs. Basically, you would be tied over it with your legs spread and lowered downward as the Cradle went... places.

* Necklacing. Someone fills a rubber tire with a flammable liquid like petroleum, forces it around your chest and arms, then lights it on fire. It may take up to twenty minutes before the person dies. Popular in South Africa in the 1980s and 1990s and in Haiti from 1986-1990, during the transition to democracy.

** The Finnish version of this, called ''teilaus'' was to first break all the bones and then revolve the wheel around so that the broken bone heads would cause internal hemorrhage, the victim slowly bleeding to death. In today's colloquial Finnish, ''teilaus'' means a particularly nasty rejection, critique or review.

* A person struck by a subway train, either from an accidental fall or more likely from a suicide attempt, not infrequently ends up dragged between the train and the station platform. When the train comes to a stop, the hapless victim's midsection is compressed almost flat, in most cases there being only about an inch of clearance between the train and the platform edge. Most or all of the internal organs are destroyed and all bones of the pelvis are smashed into dust. The spine is usually severed in multiple places, and quite often the victim's upper body and legs are facing in different directions. The worst part - the victim is alive and often lucid. The pressure between the train and the platform acts as a giant tourniquet, forcing blood into the upper body and keeping the victim's brain and heart functioning. The *really* worst part is that there is no hope whatsoever of survival. As soon as rescuers release the pressure, by using jacks or airbags to push the train away from the platform, the most of the victim's blood (and often the remains of his or her internal organs) will go gushing onto the tracks, with death following in seconds.