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Death Faked for You: Difference between revisions
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* In ''[[Claymore]]'', {{spoiler|After an attack on The Organization is defeated, several handlers find their [[Super Soldier|warriors]] hacking the body of the renegade named Phantom Miria into a bloody mass of meat with thier [[BFS|swords]]. Of course considering her [[Healing Factor]] this turned out to be the best way the warriors could protect the woman that had taken such pains not to do them harm from their superiors.}}
* Done by accident in ''[[Tantei Gakuen Q]]''. A businesswoman learns that the meeting she had hoped would save her company was a lost cause, so she didn't bother going on the flight to the meeting site, giving her ticket to someone on the reserve list. The plane crashed, and she the authorities assumed she died on the flight. Because her life insurance policy would yield enough to save the family business, she allowed the report of her death to stand. Unfortunately, {{spoiler|her attempt to visit her family in disguise gets her killed by her own sons, who think that she is a con artist employed by greedy relatives hoping to seize the company}}.
* In ''[[Baccano!]]'', during his [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] aboard the Flying Pussyfoot, {{spoiler|Claire Stanfield}} kills a man with a similar build, hair color, and {{spoiler|conductor's uniform}} by [[What a Drag|grinding his face off on the tracks]]. He is later amused to find that the FBI mistook the defaced victim for ''him'' -- so amused that [http://untuned-strings.blogspot.com/2012/03/baccano-1931-grand-punk-railroad.html he allowed himself to be interviewed for his own obituary.]
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* ''[[Oedipus Rex]]''. It didn't end well.
* Subverted with in ''[[The Yeomen of the Guard]]'': The plot's something of a [[Gambit Pileup]], but, very briefly, Point claiming Fairfax was dead actually forced the disguised Fairfax to set up Point's [[Tear Jerker]] ending. A little less briefly *deep breath*:
** {{spoiler|The play's set in the Tudor era. Fairfax's relative wants him dead so he can inherit some entailed property, so had him condemned. Fairfax realises that under the terms of the entailment, if he marries, he can keep the relative from inheriting, so arranges with a friendly guard to marry... anyone willing. Point and Elsie work as entertainers, and have come to the Tower of London looking to get money to help Elsie's dying mother. Elsie agrees to the marriage. Then the plot to break Fairfax out of jail by some other characters happens, and Fairfax gets disguised as the son of one of the guards.}}
** {{spoiler|This is set in the Tudor era, so marriage is pretty much unbreakable, morally and legally. Point decides the only way to rescue Elsie from the criminal is to fake Fairfax's death, and sets it up with the guard who took the blame for Fairfax's escape. The shot being fired interrupts Fairfax right at the brink of telling Elsie what's going on, and he's then forced to deal with Point trying to convince his wife that he's dead, and basically trying to trick her into committing bigamy. Fairfax is morally outraged about this, but it's been a few days, and Elsie likes "Leonard", so, when Point asks Fairfax to teach him how to woo Elsie, he agrees. The demonstration is completely successful, and Elsie agrees to marry him - that him being Fairfax.}}
** {{spoiler|So, basically, Point's attempt to invoke this trope changes what would likely have been a gentle let down into a series of horrible shocks for him, and, well, after one last, desperate attempt to win Elsie back, on her wedding day to Leonard, and just after it's revealed Leonard and Fairfax are the same person - well, he basically ruins what Elsie was calling one of the happiest days of her life. His fatal, selfish flaw of making everything about him pretty much ruins any chance he had to even be friends with her, though she is still sorry for him, and, as she and Fairfax leave, he either dies or is just left a completely broken man (depending on production).}}
** And that's the ''simplified'' version. What's so great about ''Yeomen'' is it manages to have a plot that complex, but keeps it all understandable, natural, manages to invoke tragedy without having any actual villains - everyone acts out of sensible, human motivations, and noone is all that unsympathetic (even if modern productions tend to play up Fairfax's flaws a bit more, thanks to the [[Values Dissonance]] of the Tudor attitudes about marriage. Oh, and it has ''all sorts'' of [[Crowning Music of Awesome]] - it's considered by many to be Gilbert and Sullivan's best work.
* A simpler version of the tragic type: ''Rigoletto'', in which Rigoletto discovers too late that the body in the sack isn't the Duke he hired an assassin to kill to protect his daughter... but his daughter herself, having decided on the [[Heroic Sacrifice]] approach to love.
* Tragic example in [[Aida]]: When the Egyptian soldiers come looking for Aida, Nehebka sacrifices herself while the other Nubians restrain and hide Aida.
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