Death Seeker: Difference between revisions

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** Marcus is explicitly described as a death seeker. He gets his wish.

** With at least six attempts at heroic sacrifice or suicide and the mother of all unaddressed guilt complexes, Delenn is an implicit embodiment of this trope.

* In the re-imagined ''[[Battlestar Galactica ~~Reimagined]]~~'' episode 1.03 "Bastille Day", Lee Adama suggests that {{spoiler|Tom Zarek}} is one of these.

* In [[Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series)|the re-imagined ''Battlestar Galactica'']] episode 1.03 "Bastille Day", Lee Adama suggests that {{spoiler|Tom Zarek}} is one of these.

** The sanguine manner in which he {{spoiler|meets his execution by firing squad}} seems to confirm this.

* ''[[House (TV series)|House]]''. While not as actively suicidal as some of the other examples, his self-destructiveness is leading him towards an early death, his curiosity exceeds his regard for his own life, the issue of him not caring if he dies and not feeling like he deserves to live (or be happy) has come up several times and he even says he would rather be dead than deal with all the crap in his life anymore in the Season Four finale.

* [[Robin Hood (TV series)|Robin Hood]]: Little John, whose motto is "Today is a good day to die", as a result of guilt and grief over abandoning and losing his family. {{spoiler|In the season 2 finale, he finally declares that it is NOT a good day to die; it remains to be seen if this marks a turning point for his Deathseeking ways.}}

* ''[[Robin Hood (TV series)|Robin Hood]]'': Little John, whose motto is "Today is a good day to die", as a result of guilt and grief over abandoning and losing his family. {{spoiler|In the season 2 finale, he finally declares that it is NOT a good day to die; it remains to be seen if this marks a turning point for his Deathseeking ways.}}

* In an episode of [[Dollhouse]], Echo is sent to protect a singer from a crazy stalker who's trying to kill her. It turns out that {{spoiler|the singer and the stalker have been in contact, and she sees being murdered in the middle of a show as both freedom from life and a way to become "immortal" in people's minds}}.

* In an episode of ''[[Dollhouse]]'', Echo is sent to protect a singer from a crazy stalker who's trying to kill her. It turns out that {{spoiler|the singer and the stalker have been in contact, and she sees being murdered in the middle of a show as both freedom from life and a way to become "immortal" in people's minds}}.

* Detective Inspector William "Jack" Frost in ''[[A Touch of Frost]]'' tried and failed to commit suicide by confronting an armed criminal. He got the George Cross for his troubles.

* Godric, a 2,000-year-old vampire from ''[[True Blood]]'', surrenders himself to a group of religious fanatics, hoping they will crucify and burn him, but he is saved by his vampire pals. After speechifying to the Fellowship of the Sun, he attracts a suicide bomber to his home that still fails to kill him. Later, he commits old fashioned vampire suicide by meeting the sun.

* Opie becomes this in the second season of ''[[Sons of Anarchy]]'' {{spoiler|after his wife Donna's death}}

* Logan Echolls of ''[[Veronica Mars]]'' has something of a death wish, highlighted most obviously in 1x22 'Leave It To Beaver' and 3x20 'The Bitch Is Back.' But with his background, can you blame him?

* There was an episode of ''[[M*A*S*H (television)]]'' which included a Chinese-American soldier trying to get himself killed in battle because he identified both as a Chinese person and an American and thus hated himself for "being" the enemy one way or another.

* There was an episode of ''[[M*A*S*H (television)|M*A*S*H]]'' which included a Chinese-American soldier trying to get himself killed in battle because he identified both as a Chinese person and an American and thus hated himself for "being the enemy" one way or another.

* ''[[Star Trek]]'' has the [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|Klingons]], whose religion holds that to get into Sto-Vo-Kor (their equivalent of Heaven...or more accurately, Valhalla) one has to die in honorable combat. "Today is a good day to die" is basically the motto of the entire species. A Klingon warrior who lives to old age will tend to get more extreme about this. A specific example of this is shown late in ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]'', with [[Old Master|Dahar Master]] Kor. During the Dominion War arc he desperately wants to be sent into combat so that he can have a chance to die honorably, but he's made so many enemies over the years that nobody is willing to let him join the war.

** Like the Vikings below, there ''are'' loopholes. For example, when Jadzia dies her Klingon husband, Worf, collects friends and goes into battle in her honor, which in Klingon religion can earn the deceased passage to Sto-Vo-Kor. (Paralleling the medieval Christian doctrine of substitution, wherein if you had committed more sin than you could do penance for in a lifetime, you could work it off by various more active things, like crusading or helping to build a church, which devolved into the outright-purchase papal indulgences Luther found so offensive. Or someone else could transfer ''their'' merit to you, which is why rich people endowed monasteries and where that 'pray for the souls of the dead' thing originates. [[And Now You Know]].)

* The Sontarans of ''[[Doctor Who]]'' are similarly eager to die in honorable combat, a trait [[Planet of Hats|brought forward particularly]] in the new series. This trope is played with in the episode "A Good Man Goes To War" when a Sontaran slowly dying of a painful wound quips that the experience is not quite as glorious as he anticipated. Of course, he's a nurse.

* [[Human Target]]: people from [[The Atoner|Christopher Chance]]'s [[Career Killers|old life]] are ''constantly'' accusing him of being this, often using this exact phrase. Given his new line of work, they sort of have a point. His clients sometimes ask him the same question, too:

* ''[[Human Target]]'': people from [[The Atoner|Christopher Chance]]'s [[Career Killers|old life]] are ''constantly'' accusing him of being this, often using this exact phrase. Given his new line of work, they sort of have a point. His clients sometimes ask him the same question, too:

{{quote|'''Mrs. Pucci''': "Everyone's afraid to die, Mr. Chance... unless, of course, for some reason they think they deserve it."}}

* [[Doctor Who|The Ninth Doctor]] shows some signs of this. From Dalek: "You survived {{spoiler|the time war}}." "Not by choice."

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== Music ==

* The song ''Across the Rainbow Bridge'' by Swedish melodic death metal band Amon Amarth is written from the perspective of an aging Norse warrior setting out to find an honourable death and so enter Valhalla.

* The song "Across the Rainbow Bridge" by Swedish melodic death metal band Amon Amarth is written from the perspective of an aging Norse warrior setting out to find an honourable death and so enter Valhalla.