Diabolus Ex Machina: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

* Firstly, note that the Diabolus Ex Machina is often brought in simply because if the villain were to lose, [[Failure Is the Only Option|the work of fiction would be over]]. Like the Deus Ex Machina, it only applies if it comes out of left field.

 

 

 

 

** Something happens like this in the Gundam Side-Story ''Space, to the End of a Flash'', where the pilot of the Gundam Unit 5 survives the battle of A Baoa Qu and is returning to the ship... {{spoiler|only to be shot in the back by a barely alive Gelgoog}}.

*** And again in the ''Gundam Evolve'' story involving the [[Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory|Dendrobrium Orchis]], {{spoiler|where the pilot is shot by a dying Zaku when he back was turned just as they were cutting to the credits}}

** What makes {{spoiler|the "kill all Japanese"}} incident SO much worse is that Lelouch clearly was about to confess all his wrongdoings to {{spoiler|Euphemia}} and leave his villainous ways behind. Only to slip up and stumble right into the [[Moral Event Horizon]] without even wanting to. After this you just know {{spoiler|there will be no happy ending for Lulu.}}

** Given the number of times Lelouch has horrible events happen right in his moment of triumph, one might expect that he leaves an open place setting at his dinner table just for Diabolus.

* ''[[End of Evangelion]]'', or even ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion|Evangelion]]'' in general loves this. In ''EoE'' {{spoiler|Asuka finally snaps out of her depression coma and gets a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] when she kills nine Mass Produced Evas in three minutes.}} She barely finishes, but it's looking up. The {{spoiler|1=Seele army has been driven out, Rei, Shinji and Asuka are alive, Ritsuko's plan to detonate the entire complex failed, Shinji isn't in his psychopathic mother and [[Instrumentality]] has been averted. Then [[Cruel and Unusual Death|[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Bpx66Ld-TI Asuka gets speared by a Lance of Longinius, right as her power runs out. Her Eva is then partially EATEN ALIVE by the Mass Production EVAs]]], [[Egregious|who simply regenerated the wounds Asuka inflicted on them]], [[Human Pincushion|and skewered to death by even more fake Lances]]; Shinji gets in Unit 01 and Rei fuses with Lilith, becomes a giant white god and turns all of humanity into orange juice on Shinji's orders.}} You could say [[It Got Worse]].

* A similar scene occurs in ''L/R''. The bad guys are defeated and one of the partners of the title agency has fallen in love and is all set to live happily ever after. {{spoiler|Unfortunately, while walking down the street near his office, one of the villains of the series pops into view and shoots him dead. Instantly. He doesn't even ''get'' a poignant flashback.}}

* A non-death example... ''[[Ojamajo Doremi]] Naisho'': Hazuki has taken an unlikely lead in the final leg of a relay to decide a swim meet... then she suddenly gets a cramp on the way back, allowing the other room to easily win the race.

* The [[Wham! Episode]] in ''[[Mai-Otome]]'' throws one of these in toward the end. At the end of the previous episode, Arika, Nina and Erstin are ready to take on their quests to become great Otomes as a team, even in the wake of Schwarz's [[All Your Base Are Belong to Us|hostile takeover]] of Windbloom. However, there's still air time left to kill, so along comes John Smith to spoil the party by revealing {{spoiler|Erstin as one of their [[The Mole|moles]], and forcing her to fight against her new friends}}. At around the same time, Sergey comes by to congratulate Nina on a stellar year, he drops a custom-made handkerchief given to him by {{spoiler|Arika}}, which sends Nina into a [[Rival Turned Evil|jealous rage]], sparking a fight that ends with {{spoiler|her killing Erstin}}. As later episodes show, it doesn't get much better for Nina from there, either.

* It'd be a shame to leave out ''[[Ga-Rei Zero]]''. Most of the major events that occur only happen in order to screw up everyone's lives even more than they were before. It ''always'' gets worse, save for a little spot of hope that Kagura ends up dealing relatively well with her duty fighting against monsters in the epilogue.

* Used quite well to make a point in ''[[Black Jack]]'' when Dr. Kiriko first appears. A woman with a terminal, inoperable condition has requested that Kiriko euthanize her. As this runs directly counter to Black Jack's principles, he begins meeting with the woman in an attempt to figure out a cure. He and Kiriko meet with each other, and Black Jack delivers a speech about how wrong Kiriko is to do what he does. After the operation goes through, with Kiriko present, Black Jack asks after the patient. {{spoiler|She and her entire family were killed when a car slammed into their ambulance after the surgery. All of Black Jack's work - and all of his sermonizing to Kiriko - means nothing.}}

** Kiriko laughs? Black Jack curses the heavens. In fact, thanks to the new releases of Black Jack manga, it can be seen that just about one fourth of his cases end like this. A running theme seems to be that even the world's best doctor isn't omnipotent.

*** This isn't just restricted to Black Jack, either- many of [[Osamu Tezuka]]'s works feature such occasions. The 1980 ''[[Astro Boy (anime)|Astro Boy]]'' anime, for instance, has many bit characters who exist only to die so that Astro can question why humans made robots this way.

* [[Mad Doctor|Faust]] from ''[[Shaman King]]'' has the unfortunate distinction of getting one in his [[Start of Darkness|origin story.]] He works for years to save his wife from a terminal disease, finally succeeding a few months before a burglar shoots her.

* At the end of ''[[Cowboy Bebop]]'', Spike finally finds his lost love Julia, {{spoiler|only for her to be shot dead by a random mook when the Red Dragon makes their move on them both, setting off Spike's final [[Storming the Castle]] moment and the final showdown with Vicious}}.

* ''[[Kurokami]]'' ends in this way, in the last minutes of last episode everyone discovers that final sacrifice is required, even if nobody dies.

* ''[[Tsukihime]]''. "And then Arcuied blew Roa into tiny pieces. Her and Shiki have a long, happy life in store as Shiki shows her all of the things she never thought to experience, and their mutual love is sure to last fore- '''SLICE'''."

* In the FRLG arc of ''[[Pokémon Special]]'', yay! The good guys defeat the bad guys, stop an airship from crashing into Vermillion, free Deoxys to let it go where ever it wants, have a happy reunion of sorts... then WHAM! They get [[Taken for Granite]].

* Several in ''[[Rave Master]]''. Gale, after failing to talk down King, asks to government to arrest him, but they shoot down his family instead. King and Gale manage to end the cycle of war between the Raregroove and Symphonia family with a [[Heroic Sacrifice]], only for King's [[Axe Crazy]] son to turn up and start the cycle back up. In order to defeat Endless Elie not only has to {{spoiler|fake her death and leave her time period}} but must also {{spoiler|kill her lover interest, Haru}}. Etc.

* In episode 278 of ''[[Bleach]]'', we have {{spoiler|Wonderweiss}} coming out of nowhere {{spoiler|unfreezing Halibel from her icy death, putting out the flames that are keeping Aizen out of combat, and stabbing Ukitake making it so he is unable to fight.}}

** The final fight with Aizen. {{spoiler|It's revealed that the Hougyoku has left him immortal so he can't be killed. Instead he's imprisoned, which means he has the potential to return.}}

* In ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]: Sinnoh League Victors'', [[Idiot Hero|Ash]] is finally so skilled a trainer that only 3 of his League matches are shown, the rest briefly touched on in a montage. Just as he {{spoiler|narrowly wins against Paul in a 6-on-6 full battle}}, in comes Tobias, aka the ''[[Olympus Mons|Darkrai Trainer]]'', who proceeds to curbstomp Ash thoroughly in ''minutes.'' This serves no purpose to the plot ''whatsoever'', other than to keep Ash from winning a League tournament.

** In the opening two-parter of ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]: Best Wishes'', Zekrom appears purely in order to shock Pikachu and screw up his ability to use Electric attacks (catching both him and Ash off-guard and causing him to lose to a newbie), provide a 'climactic' cliff-hanger which is resolved within the first minute of the next episode, and then disappear.

* A minor example of ''[[Ai Kora]]'': Hachibei's plan of [[It Makes Sense in Context|making Tsubame wear boots filled with clay so he can make a mold of her feet and ankles]] fails when she lets a friendly rival male driver she just met in that chapter ''wear her boots'', just because she thought they were comfortable. [[Sarcasm Mode|Because when your first meet someone, naturally you exchange footwear, of course!]]

* ''[[Shin Mazinger Shougeki! Z-hen]]'' has a pretty brutal one at the end. {{spoiler|Kouji confronts and defeats Dr. Hell in one last climatic battle and it seems that Mazinger-Z stands triumphant. However, it turns out to be a [[Xanatos Gambit]] by ''Baron Ashura'', who sacrifices his/herself to allow the Mycene Empire to arrive on Earth. Cue [[Cliff Hanger]] Ending.}}

 

== Comic Books ==

* Remember at the end of ''[[Watchmen (comics)|Watchmen]]'' when {{spoiler|the good guys have Ozymandias cornered?}}

{{quote|{{spoiler|Ozymandias}}: {{spoiler|Do it? Dan, I'm not a Republic Serial villain. Do you seriously think I'd explain my master-stroke if there remained the slightest chance of you affecting its outcome? I did it thirty-five minutes ago.}}}}

* Messiah Complex. The ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]]'' have finally defeated all of their enemies and {{spoiler|Scott has given the mutant baby to Cable to take into the future.}} Everything seems great. {{spoiler|Until Bishop, who's been trying to kill the baby to prevent his horrible future, shoots at the baby and Cable.}} And {{spoiler|Cable is already disappearing from that point in time, leaving the shot to go through and hit Professor X in the head.}} It really sucks to be a mutant. Granted he got better since this is a comic book and {{spoiler|Professor X missing at the end was a hint.}}

 

** To be continued...?

** And the second installment, after the defeat of the evil boss, ends with the dead Gordon Freeman becoming a ''zombie goast''.

** This is followed up with a glorious [[Deus Ex Machina]] in the third chapter, when even further into the future, John Freeman descends from the heavens to assist his son in defeating the Combines and sending them back to science and outer space.

* ''[[Star Trek: Voyager|Voyager]] Virtual Season 8'' uses one of these after the crew is almost home, getting them lost again in order to [[Fix Fic|fix a few plot holes]] as well as to set up a more satisfying climactic battle in Virtual Season 9.

 

 

* ''[[City of Angels (film)|City of Angels]]''. Less than a day after a fallen angel has given up his immortality to be with the mortal woman he's fallen in love with, she's inexplicably run over by a truck driven by the Diabolus Ex Machina. One might suspect his fellow angels of having summoned it in order to teach him a lesson...

* The movie-version of [[Stephen King]]'s ''[[The Mist]]'' takes this all the way into [[Deus Angst Machina]] territory.

** Then again, this does seem to follow naturally from the premise that Blofeld, as shown throughout the movie, is an [[Sophisticated As Hell|enormous dick.]]

*** At the beginning of ''[[For Your Eyes Only (film)|For Your Eyes Only]]'', Bond is visiting his wife's grave, complete with "We have all the time in the world." MI6 pick him up by helicopter, except it's remote controlled by... a bald man with a cat, who tortures Bond the way he tortured Blofeld in ''[[Diamonds Are Forever]]''.

*** It's very carefully structured to be open to the interpretation that it leads on from either ''[[You Only Live Twice]]'' or ''[[On Her Majesty's Secret Service]]''. For one, it opens in Japan, where most of the action of the former occurred. Take that as you will.

* The film ''Whoops Apocalypse!'' follows a desperate attempt to stop a nuclear war, which would have succeeded were it not for a hypnotist routine being disturbed - a navy officer is programmed to believe there is a large fire in progress when the hypnotist snaps his fingers (desperately yelling 'FIRE!'). Owing to an unfortunate intervention, this is never undone. When the officer receives the good news that the missiles don't have to be fired, he is so relieved that he doesn't respond to the questions being asked - leading to somebody snapping their fingers to get his attention....

* ''[[The Wages of Fear]]'' has the only surviving driver from the deadly nitroglycerine convoy plunging to his death on his way home for no readily apparent reason.

* [[Adam Sandler]] delivers this on himself in the ''middle'' of ''[[Eight Crazy Nights]]'', by explaining his hate for the holidays with a flashback where a younger version of himself sparks a [[Miracle Rally]] for his basketball team. {{spoiler|They win the game, but younger Sandler finds out that his parents were absent because they were too busy being dead. The game was played during Hanukkah, hence his holiday hate.}}

* In the Korean melodrama ''Failan'', the male protagonist decides to honor his wife's memory (who he wed for purely financial reasons, and had neglected until her death) by turning his back on his gangster wannabe lifestyle, even turning down a request from a fellow gangster to take the fall for a murder and serve his subsequent prison sentence. {{spoiler|He ends up being garroted by that same gangster in an unexpected act of reprisal, while he sees his deceased wife (through the videos he was watching before the attack) as the life slowly drains from him (symbolized by the picture in the video gradually losing its color)}}.

* In ''[[Screamers]]'', the captain survives the [[Late to the Party]], survives the Twist Ending, and makes it to the Emergency Evacuation Pod in time to [[Last of His Kind|make it off the planet alive]], only to take a [[Everything's Worse with Bears|cyborg teddy bear]] along with him for the ride home.

* ''[[Walk Hard]]'''s Dewey Cox dies 3 minutes after his last performance.

** This an actually more of a [[Brick Joke]] shaped aversion, as the police investigation of the knights is a [[Running Gag]] for most of the film.

* The ''[[Phantasm (Film)|Phantasm]]'' sequels ''all'' end with the heroes defeating the Tall Man, only for him to come back and devastate them. {{spoiler|In [[Phantasm Oblivion|the fourth film]], he kills Mike, one of the franchise's two leads... a death followed by a flashback to Mike as a kid, with no idea what's coming.}}

** Just to make it worse, {{spoiler|Tamara's death}} doesn't make any ''sense''. The reason she gets trapped is that water is pouring into the ship through the stern hatch, and several bulkhead doors slide shut to contain the flooding. Given that there is only one way for water to get into the ship and the watertight bulkheads are working properly, ''there is no reason for her compartment to keep filling up.''

** To say nothing of {{spoiler|Sasha successfully landing their plane, only for the ice to collapse from underneath the front of it}}.

* Subverted in ''[[Cabin Fever]]'', in that the one guy who apparently survives is the [[Jerkass]], and just as you're thinking, "You mean the ''asshole'' lived?" he gets cut in half by machine gun fire.

* ''[[Remember Me]]'' had Robert Pattinson, playing the angsty Tyler, finally bonding with [["Well Done, Son" Guy|his father]]. While Tyler is waiting in his father's office, it seems everything will be fine... {{spoiler|until he gets killed in the September 11 attacks in said office}}.

* ''[[Vertigo]]''. Just as it seems [[Earn Your Happy Ending]] ensued, {{spoiler|a nun enters, scaring Judy who falls to her death.}}

* ''[[Dr. Strangelove]]'' they finally uncover the plot by the madman base commander to start a nuclear war and order back all their planes ... only it's too late because one plane doesn't get the message since their radio is damaged and World War III begins.

* ''[[Haywire]]'' has a particularly bizarre one where, in a movie that otherwise strives for realism, the heroine manages to outmanoeuvre her opponents in a car chase only for the car to crash anyway because a freaking ''deer'' jumped into it.

* In the last minute of ''[[The Cube (film)|The Cube]]'', the man finds out that his escape was an illusion and he's still in the cube.

* [[Scream]]: {{spoiler|[[Sacrificial Lion|Tatum]] manages to really hold her own against the killer when her time seems to have come. She manages to knock him on his ass ''twice'', and puts up the best fight so far. One might think she could escape to warn Sidn- wait why is she [[Idiot Ball|crawling through the cat flap]]?}}

 

== Literature ==

* ''[[Animorphs]]'' killed a major character in the finale. Fair enough - their lease on survival was [[Good Thing You Can Heal|well overdue.]] But then, not content with successfully leaving realistic loose ends arising from what came before, Applegate brought in a completely unheralded [[Trippy Finale Syndrome|Hindu Borg Collective]] to really ruin her readers' day in the last handful of chapters.

** Some versions of the myth omit the Diabolus and have him lose his nerve for some other reason; thinking that he heard her cry out, for instance, or just plain ol' lack of willpower.

** Eurydice was happy in Hades because she'd had it up here with Orpheus and his penchant for boring her to tears with his songs and poems. Just as they're almost out of Hades, she asks to hear one of his songs, knowing that Orpheus can't resist this appeal to his vanity.

* ''[[Perdido Street Station]]'' by [[China Mieville]]'s summons the Diabolus Ex Machina with an unholy ritual of [[Dungeon Punk]] [[Functional Magic|Thaumaturgy]]. The fact that two completely separate incidents, with no relation between them, ensures that ''all'' the main characters will spend the rest of their days being utterly miserable makes this one of the nastiest examples of the demon's works. [[Deus Angst Machina]] was invited to the party, and danced all night long...

** Mieville's other books, ''[[Iron Council]]'' and ''[[Literature/King Rat|King Rat]]'', do this to a lesser extent. The first involves one of the main characters doing something incomprehensibly stupid that denies the revolution against the tyrannical government of New Crobuzon much-needed reinforcements (though it's implied they wouldn't have won anyway). The second has the reader being informed casually that the children who were the original victims of the [[Big Bad]] of the story were condemned eternally to hell alongside him (and the main character essentially doesn't care). ''Iron Council'' even has the chutzpah to tack on an epilogue that tries to make it not seem like the complete and utter betrayal that it is.

* Diabolus crosses over with [[Chekhov's Gun]] in ''Midnight Tides'' (Book 5 of the ''[[Malazan Book of the Fallen]]''). {{spoiler|The Royal Champion of the Letheri people has just given his life to take down the cursed Tiste Edur emperor (He had to be crippled, not killed, because his cursed sword would resurrect him, stronger and more insane than before, but the sword wouldn't heal physical injuries.). But a demon (that one of the protagonists had befriended earlier) wandered in and finished the Emperor off (thinking it to be an act of mercy). Why they didn't just cut his sword arm off before he revived involves a bit of a cultural [[Idiot Ball]]...}}

* The last 3 chapters of ''[[His Dark Materials|Northern Lights]]'', apparently for the purpose of introducing the rest of the trilogy. Shouldn't the author have been concerned with connecting it to previous events as much as upcoming events? Omitted from [[The Film of the Book]].

* Ian Irvine goes all out in his ''Well of Echoes'' trilogy (which [[Trilogy Creep|became a quadrilogy]] almost, it seems, so Diabolus could strike). The world is saved! All is harmonious! At which point one of the [[Big Bad]] ''whose son explicitly identified him as dead earlier'' turns up. To top it all off, the heroes then destroy all the world's magic, hoping to overload his personal magic source, but that backfires, leaving him the only one with any real magic in the entire world and the rest of civilization pawns to his whims. All so the author could go on and write a dictatorial dystopian trilogy as a follow up. Go figure.

** The author loves his [[Cliff Hanger|cliffhangers]], with only one of his fantasy books actually having a proper, satisfactory ending. The others have such glorious situations as {{spoiler|one character inadvertently summoning an interdimensional invasion force to her world, the magical field failing at a pivotal battle, rendering the vital magically powered walking tanks useless in the face of a horde of giant winged and clawed mutant monster things, and all the protagonists being captured by a [[Big Bad]] and sentenced to be flayed alive.}} No happy endings here, folks.

** Poor {{spoiler|Sehra Muril, the red-haired girl with a "deliciously dirty laugh". She was going to be first FEMALE VERGHAST SCOUT if it hadn't been for Cuu!}}

* [[Hans Christian Andersen]], "The Flying Trunk": Things are going well for the beggar guy with the titular trunk with his romance with a princess, {{spoiler|until the trunk gets destroyed by shrapnel from celebratory fireworks. Seriously. For a Hans story, that's pretty rough. Guess that's why it's not as well known as his other tales...}}

* ''[[The Kite Runner]]'', by Khaled Hosseini. The protagonist and his best friend's son are getting along well and all set to move to America when {{spoiler|the main guy tells boy he might have to go back to the orphanage for a short time, and the little boy tries to commit suicide and stops talking.}}

* ''The Princetta'': The main characters return from their adventures and are all set to live [[Happily Ever After]], Malva and Orpheus get together... {{spoiler|and then Orpheus is murdered at the last minute.}}

* The end of the ''[[Redwall]]'' series book ''Martin the Warrior'' does this to a degree that the flashback story it's based on ends on a [[Tear Jerker]]. Everything seems great, {{spoiler|Martin gets his father's sword back and kills his enemy Badrang the Tyrant...but right after it's revealed that the mouse Rose, Martin's friend and possible love interest for the entire book, was killed during their fight against Badrang. Martin then leaves his friends and promises never to mention his interactions with them again so they won't be put into danger.}}Of course then it fast forwards to the present day in Redwall where everything is okay and they discuss how Martin founded Redwall and was a great hero. But it still puts a damper on the entire ending and is one of the few Redwall books to do this.

* Arguably one of the worst examples occurs in the book ''[[Final Destination]]: Dead Man's Hand''. After the set up disaster the survivors are being transported by a cop, who dies in a freak traffic light accident (the group manages survive the car going out of control though). At the very end of the book the [[Final Girl]], who thinks she's beat Death and won, gets a call from her doctor, who says she has very advanced HIV, contracted from being splattered in the cop's blood at the beginning of the book.

* Ellen Hopkins's book ''Burned'' throws a ''completely random'' {{spoiler|car crash}} to cause an {{spoiler|inconvenient miscarriage and kill the protagonist's [[Love Interest]].}} The author seems contractually required to provide a [[Downer Ending]] or [[Bittersweet Ending]] because [[True Art Is Angsty]], but all her other protagonists got themselves in trouble with their own actions and not a snowstorm. Note to author: [[Voodoo Shark|It doesn't count as foreshadowing if you don't foreshadow until five pages before the event!]]

* ''Seekers'', by Erin Hunter. A young polar bear, Kallik, is orphaned and alone. After much wandering and hardship she gets caught by humans, who plan to re-release her alongside Nanuk, a mother who'd lost her cubs, in the hopes that she would adopt Kallik. After some consideration, both bears decide that this is an acceptable arrangement. {{spoiler|Nanuk immediately dies in a helicopter crash}}

* In Lord Sunday, the final installment of [[Keys to the Kingdom]], Arthur finally collects the 7 Keys. Up until this point, the series has been fairly predictable, although things have been getting kind of real in the background, what with {{spoiler|the deposed Trustees being mysteriously murdered & some people dying from plagues}}. However, it's here where everything truly goes downhill for Arthur. All he wants to do is end the fighting, but {{spoiler|the Will has other plans. It uses him to bring in a tide of Nothing to destroy the Universe, because it turns out it's 1/2 of the Architect of said Universe, & wants to die, but it can't until its creation is destroyed. The main characters are frozen by the power of the Keys, unable to do anything to save themselves for the few moments they have until destruction.}} Fortunately, it gets better. It turns out that {{spoiler|they were frozen because the Atlas was recording the Universe for Arthur to recreate it.}} The catch? {{spoiler|Arthur's mother had died just moments before.}} A series that had been very light-hearted up until this point takes a sudden turn: Arthur went on that entire quest with the only result being {{spoiler|the death of his adopted mother.}} The closing dialogue of the main story? "Wow, Arthur! You won!" "Yeah...I guess we won." Freaking. Ouch.

* At the very end of "Nuclear Holocaust Never Again", the second book in the "Never Again" series by R. J. Rummel, things are looking pretty good. The heroes have managed to [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong]] and have confronted the parents of the at-this-point still an infant villain, who have willingly [[Raise Him Right This Time|let the heroes adopt him so that he doesn't grow up to become a nuclear-war-causing dictator.]] Then, {{spoiler|John, Joy, and the child are blown up by a religious extremist's bomb.}} At least the world is safe, {{spoiler|[[Reset Button|until the sequel anyway.]]}}

* Shows up in ''[[Wolves of Mercy Falls Series|Shiver]]' in the form of {{spoiler|a white-tailed deer}}, of all things. {{spoiler|The deer appears in the middle of the road at exactly the wrong time, causing the crash that wrecks Grace's car. Both occupants survive, but with no way to keep Sam warm until help comes, he turns wolf for good. The characters are forced to try an incredibly dangerous plan to bring him back.}}

* ''[[The Count of Monte Cristo]]'' lampshades and ends up subverting the trope. Initially Dantes blames God and fate for all the terrible things that occured to him, but with the help of a fellow inmate, is able to reason out how certain ''people'' wanted him to suffer, not God. Thus, it becomes a core part of his philosophy that once he breaks out, he can't count on Diabolus to hand out random punishment. It has to be up to him.

* The ending of ''[[Malevil]]'' tastes a little of this, because of a [[Distant Finale]]. Some 575 pages are spent on a six-eight month period and the final 20 pages are a 3-year epilogue. More tragedy strikes in the final pages then the whole novel before because it covers a much larger span of time.

* At the end of ''[[My Sister's Keeper]]'', Anna finally gets medically emancipated from her parents... {{spoiler|and is then killed in a car accident, yet her kidneys--the organ she had been asked to donate earlier in the book, leading to the aforementioned emancipation quest--are perfectly intact to give to her sister, rendering her actions pointless.}}

** Not so contrived, actually; the best friend of [[Katherine Paterson]]'s son {{spoiler|was stuck by lightning}}, inspiring Paterson to write [[Bridge to Terabithia]].

* The end of Part 1 of ''[[The Sex Gates]]''. Lee and Rita are going to have a baby, Rita is finally opening a facility that should make the lives of technologically-deprived poor people much better... and then one of those same poor people fatally stabs her when he's supposed to be shaking his hand. They're forced to push Rita through one of the titular gates, which saves her life at the expense of [[Gender Bender|turning her into a man]] and [[Tear Jerker|destroying her unborn child in the process]] - and Lee loses his balance and falls through as well, turning into a woman.

* ''[[The Jungle]]'' is ''made'' of this, at least until [[Author Tract|Jurgis discovers Socialism]]. Even then, the [[What Could Have Been|original ending]] had one of these come out of absolutely nowhere in ''literally'' the last sentence of the book to render the entire novel [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog Story|completely pointless]]. This ending was ultimately cut.

 

== Live Action TV ==

** Poor little Cassie from "Help", rescued effortlessly from both an evil cult and arrow booby-trap, only to die from shock due to a heart condition (which was mentioned) as the arrow trap (which one of the villains sets up and discusses) activates. Buffy catches it without even blinking but it is too much for Cassie.

** Tara was lethally shot through a window and died almost instantaneously while in the middle of the room on the second floor. The gunman was outside on the ground shooting a pistol randomly into the air and yet on pure luck managed a hit so precise that a Marine sniper perched on the opposite rooftop with a rifle would have been hard-pressed to match it. Seriously, this one's a [[Trope Codifier]].

** In one of the Buffy comics, Halfrek the vengeance demon has cursed somebody that every descendent of his will die on their 30th birthday, and to ensure this happens she sends a variety of demons and monsters after one particular descendent. Spike wants to stop her mainly out of spite and figures that if he can keep the guy alive until midnight, he's off the hook. Then, after Halfrek has given up, at one minute past midnight, the guy falls out of a window for no reason, and dies anyway...

** Tara's sanity gets sucked out, but despite being attended to by Dawn for some time, waits until Glory punches a hole in her wall to start babbling about how Dawn's the [[MacGuffin Girl|glowing green energy girl]].

** Happened a second time with poor Hiro, albeit this time less touching and more stupid. He goes back sixteen years, and meets his dying mother. She gives him the catalyst, and he vows to keep it safe from Arthur, who wants to use the catalyst to fuel his army of supersoldiers. Somehow, for no explained reason, Arthur knows that Hiro has the catalyst and teleports exactly to where Hiro and Claire are. He steals the catalyst, sends Claire to the present, and almost kills Hiro.

** Sylar has benefited from this trope so many times it's not even funny. He technically "died" in Company custody halfway through the first season, but got a mysterious off-screen resurrection. Eden's [[Compelling Voice]] and Mohinder's power-disabling serum both worked against Sylar at first, but conveniently and inexplicably failed right when they were about to kill him. In the finale of the first season Niki uses her [[Super Strength]] to wail on Sylar with a parking meter, Hiro runs a friggin' ''katana'' through his body, and he ''still'' survives.

* In the seaon two finale ("Twilight") of ''[[NCIS]]'', the team manages to foil a devious terrorist plot. As they are celebrating their success, Diabolus strikes in the form of a high powered sniper rifle fired by the [[Big Bad]] that drills a hole in Kate's head. To add insult to injury, Kate had just taken a bullet for Gibbs and was spared serious injury thanks to her [[Bulletproof Vest]].

{{quote|'''Kate''': I was sure I was going to die before-- ''([[Boom! Headshot!]])''}}

* Just think: if it weren't for the miniseries, this is how ''[[Farscape]]'' would've ended: {{spoiler|They're finally safe from the Scarrans and the Peacekeepers, the wormhole to Earth has been closed forever -- but it's okay! Because John is going to marry Aeryn! And then a completely unforeshadowed alien descends from the sky and blasts them into little pebbly bits.}} And vice versa, since the cliffhanger was pretty much why there was such a demand for a miniseries to begin with.

* ''[[Good Times]]'', James Evans, Mississippi. For a ''comedy'' titled "Good Times", Diabolus sure was busy [[Yank the Dog's Chain|depriving the Evanses from having any...]]

* ''[[Doctor Who]]'' season finales tend to be based on unfortunate circumstances plunging the state of the world from bad to worse.

** The ending to the 2010 episode "Cold Blood". They've stopped the bad guys, got the humans and the Silurians at least on the right track to start living together in a thousand years, and are all set to escape when a crack in the space-time continuum appears, leading to not only the death of {{spoiler|Rory, but his erasure from existence. Luckily, he's revived in time for the season finale.}}

** The last of the 2009 specials, "The End of Time", involves a prophecy that the Doctor is soon to die. It concludes with the Doctor {{spoiler|vanquishing the Time Lords and sending Gallifrey back into the Time War, seemingly defying the prophecy. Then Wilfred Mott gets stuck in a box. Which is about to be flooded with radiation. And the door is locked. And it won't open unless somebody goes in the other side of the box. And there's no override. And the sonic screwdriver won't work.}} You can almost hear the writers straining to make this into a situation that requires the Doctor to sacrifice himself.

* ''[[Prison Break]]'' did this in the episode "Selfless" - Scylla had been stolen, everyone was free to go, the release papers had been handed over, and then {{spoiler|it turns out that the cop was playing them all along and they're in an even worse situation than they had been before.}}

** "Playthings". Sam wants his turn at being a martyr and, after getting drunk, forces a promise out of Dean that he would kill him when/if he turns evil. He's hung over the next day and we and Dean think he doesn't remember. But at the end of the episode, he brings it up again and they drive off in an uncomfortable silence. Add it on to them not exactly saving the day either and you've got one hell of a [[Downer Ending]].

** The Season One finale: John's been possessed and shot, Dean's been tortured, but everyone is alive and Sam is driving them to the hospital, and it looks like everything will be fine. Until a huge truck slams into the Impala, totaling the car, and the episode ends with all three men bloody and unconscious.

* By way of [[Crack Defeat]], an example where the demon is revealed ''after'' the fact: One of ''The Torkelsons'' has made it to the final of a contest whose winner will get to be a foreign exchange student in Paris. After her final interview she comes out and announces that she lost. [[Status Quo Game Show|No biggie, so?]] Well, she recounts her interview and ends with saying that she got the highest score. Why did she lose then? Because the exchange student deal is a homestay (we already knew this), and the French family involved would like a boy ([[Ass Pull|but not this]]). Well, [[Ungvichian|ISTR]] that would have made the final interviews [[Shaggy Dog Story|meaningless]], because there was only one boy amongst the three finalists.

* The ''[[Law & Order|Law and Order]]'' franchise loves using this trope to turn a slam-dunk case into an hour-long question of "Will they get away with it". Several [[Egregious]] examples:

*** This Diabolus was essentially just an excuse for Diane Neal and Adam Beach to leave the show, as Novak is disbarred for falsifying the evidence and Lake {{spoiler|shoots the perp in a [[Vigilante Execution]] and is arrested}}.

** "Zoontic"(CI). The creepy doctor that had been infecting people with diseases and the sleazeball he hired to rape his old girlfriends are behind bars without a trial. Everything is going swimmingly. And then at the literal last minute, it's revealed that the doctor got 5 grams of anthrax from South America, and he only had 3 grams in his apartment.

** Of course, sometimes the same person will show up a few seasons later where they actually will get what's coming to them.

* One of the last few episodes of ''[[Monk]]'', Monk spends the episode trying to get on the good side of the kid of the only cop against his reinstatement. Then he gets cornered by a bear, {{spoiler|saves the kid, solves the crime, and the guy changes his mind. Unfortunately, the two officers who supported him changed their minds after nothing more than going back over his case records}}. The writers [[Yank the Dog's Chain|Yanking The]] [[Shaggy Dog Story|Shaggy Dog's]] [[Yank the Dog's Chain|Chain]] resulted in a mildly delusional [[Heroic BSOD]].

* The final episode of Series 3 of ''[[Primeval]]'' where humanity has been saved from evil Helen by a hungry raptor. However the Pliocene anomaly closes, trapping Danny 3 million years in the past.

** Shi-Ann in ''[[Survivor]]: Thailand'' tried to network with the other tribes when time came for the merge, only for instead, they're told they're living on the same beach... so when Shi-Ann's tribe loses, she's low man on the totem pole, so bye-bye Shi-Ann.

** Michelle in ''Survivor: Fiji''. Ten players in the game, and they're divided into two teams of five. Unfortuantely, Michelle's stuck with indifferent players and people on an alliance; not wanting to vote out their own alliance member, they gang up on Michelle, who was playing perfectly well...

*** For that matter, Parker and Alex. They weren't disliked ''as much'' as their partners, but because everyone had to play in groups, they merely voted out the ''one'' person they disliked the most.

* The [[Syfy]] adaptation of the short story "[[The Cold Equations]]" ends on this. The basic premise of the story is that a young girl has stowed away on a spaceship carrying urgently needed medical supplies to a distant colony - and, because of her added mass, there isn't enough fuel to land the ship without crashing (and killing everyone on board), so, according to regulations, the pilot is supposed to throw the girl out the airlock so the cargo can arrive safely. It's established fairly early on that the cargo weighs about the same as the girl, and that jettisoning either the cargo or the girl would save the ship. Near the end, the two of them discover that the cargo wasn't what they thought it was, and jettison it, so they're safe now. That's when Diabolus shows up. To the surprise of the pilot and audience, the ship ''still'' has too much mass, because they waited too long and are now closer to the planet. So [[Someone Has to Die]] anyway.

* The Series One finale of ''[[Sherlock]]'' has {{spoiler|Moriarty walk out fairly close to the end. Sherlock removes John's explosive-laden outer layers, [[Ho Yay|jokes are cracked]] and all seems to be right with the world. Then Moriarty comes back, and the series ends with Sherlock and John being aimed at by multiple snipers while Sherlock aims his own gun at the explosives, which are now at Moriarty's feet.}}

* The sixth-season ''[[Degrassi the Next Generation]]'' episode "Rock This Town" involves many of the main characters attending a birthday party for their friend Liberty. It soon gets out of control when a group of kids from another school show up, but it turns out to be fairly harmless, and everyone has a number of embarrassing moments...until the very end, where Diabolus strikes its head by having one of the main cast (J.T.) stabbed out of the blue by a guest character who never appeared in any episode before or after the one in question.

* In ''[[The Walking Dead (TV series)|The Walking Dead]]'', Rick and Glenn spread walker blood all over some raincoats and wear them to blend in with them. Just when you think their safe, an absolutely random rainstorm shows up, stays just long enough to dull the smell from the blood by washing it away, and it stops raining after the zombies have noticed they're not undead.

* ''[[Xena: Warrior Princess]]'': The overall finale has Xena execute an ambitiously dangerous plan involving her being killed, so she could go off and fight the spirit [[Big Bad]] in the spirit world. She sets Gabrielle the task of bringing her back afterwards using her ashes, and magic spring water. It's not until Xena's actually won, and Gabs (and by extension the audience) is all ready for that happy ending, that Xena drops the bombshell, that {{spoiler|this time she has to stay dead, or her [[Heroic Sacrifice]] won't mean anything.}} The twist is not hinted at before it happens, is a disproportionate response, and is largely unnecessary since she mostly seems to have a massive [[Guilt Complex]] about the original precipitating incident, which was pretty much an accident. Since Xena claims she knew beforehand, she comes across as something of a [[Jerkass]] for not pre-warning Gabs about it.

** Remedied in the "director's cut" version of the episode, which provides foreshadowing (though still a little too close to the end) and shows us that Xena didn't really know beforehand that she {{spoiler|would have to stay dead.}}

* This is the driving force behind the plot, and the source of much of the humor, in ''[[Curb Your Enthusiasm]]''.

 

== Music ==

 

 

== Newspaper Comics ==

** Ironically, the author's [[Did Not Do the Research|complete ignorance]] on military discharges was such that he overlooked an entirely ''legal'' way to suddenly recall Wally to service. All initial enlistment contracts are for ''eight'' years of service obligation, not four. The typical arrangement is only four years of active duty and then four more years of 'Individual Ready Reserve' status, the practical upshot being that short of medical disability, Bad Conduct Discharge, etc., you can be yanked back in entirely at their discretion up until eight years have passed since your initial enlistment. The recruiter is required to make durn sure you understand this before you sign.

 

== Professional Wrestling ==

== Tabletop Games ==

* To some ''[[BattleTech]]'' fans, Diabolus is behind the Jihad storyline. Let's see, the Clan invasion is finally called off, the Star League tentatively reestablished, and while there are still loose ends left over (like the threat of the Wolf Khan to come invading anyway once the original truce is up, or the aftermath of a nasty civil war) things finally seem to be ready to calm down a bit...but hey, we can't have that, right? This game isn't called ''[[Status Quo Is God|PeaceTech]]''! So the Star League declares itself a sham and disbands again for no good reason just in time to cause the suddenly uber-powerful pseudo-religious lunatics known as the Word of Blake to go [[Ax Crazy]] and start pulling cyborg super soldiers, nuclear weapons, and other stuff out of their nether regions in an all-out war against everybody...

 

 

* [[Shakespeare]] is a notorious offender. For example, in ''[[King Lear]]'' {{spoiler|Cordelia's death}} comes pretty much out of the blue, transforming the play into a tragedy in its final act.

** ''King Lear'', like many of Shakespeare's other plays, was based on earlier stories that his audience would have been familiar with. {{spoiler|Lear}} and {{spoiler|Cordelia}} don't die in those stories. Shakespeare killed them off because he wanted to surprise the audience. This ending was subject to a lot of [[Fanon Discontinuity]] in later centuries, and many performances ended with {{spoiler|Cordelia}} marrying {{spoiler|Edgar}} instead ... even though she already got married earlier in the play.

 

 

* A lot of the moral choices in the second [[Army of Two]] game end this way. You either choose the "bad" option, or you choose the "good" option...except that the guy you gave up some advantage to save turns out to be corrupt AND selling weapons to terrorists. Or a guy you choose to save instead of killing in exchange for money is later killed in a plane crash accident.

* The updated ending to ''[[Portal (series)|Portal]]'' - The first independently mobile entity apart from Chell turns up just to drag her back right after you thought she was free.

** [[Left 4 Dead]] had the infamous Chopper pilot dying at the end of the first campaign. It was nixed when many people found the ending too depressing and cheated out of their feeling of accomplishment. Ironically it was the fan backlash that caused Valve to create a filler campaign between No Mercy and Death Toll, reinstating what was taken out. They use this again in the sequel, to link all of the campaigns together. This meant that some sort of Diabolus Ex Machina would show up in the ''beginning'' of each campaign, serving as the Machina of the last campaign (this included a chopper pilot dying as well).

** In [[Serious Sam]] 3, after seeing at least two choppers get shot down, (one of which he was ON at the time), Sam decides he's not going to get on any more choppers.

** Justified in that said [[Creepy Child]] was essentially the avatar or representative of said things falling out of the sky. We probably should mention that said things are ''pissed off as hell'' after she dies and with no seal holding them back...[[The End of the World as We Know It|well]]...

** The real kicker is the fifth ending. The heroes cross over into another dimension to kill the mother of all the aforementioned elderitch abominations. She and the heroes are transported to modern day Tokyo and, after a climatic boss battle, get shot down by missiles from an aircraft. Wow...

* ''[[Apocalypse]]'': Bruce Willis/Trey Kincaid has defeated the four horsemen, (i.e. the [[The Dragon|Dragons]]), and is about to take down the [[Big Bad]] Reverend. Unfortunately, he gets a [[Demonic Possession]] ex machina. [[Downer Ending]]. Or maybe intended to be a [[Cliff Hanger]] leading to a [[Vaporware]] sequel?

* Raiden's ending in the original ''[[Mortal Kombat]]''. Evil vanquished: check. BBEG dead: check. Hey fellas; let's break the world ourselves!

** Basically any time your less-than-useless Delta Force escorts come to extract you/insert you they all get killed horribly before the fighting even begins.

* Halfway through ''[[Call of Duty 4]]'', after you've completed the primary objective in Shock and Awe, there's a Diabolic [[Nuke Ex Machina]], when you get a call that the bad guys have set up a nuke in Asaad's palace, then one of your fellow chopper pilots gets shot down. You land to rescue her, but it's already too late, and the nuke knocks the escaping helicopters out of the sky and kills all of the American main characters. You have a minute of [[Controllable Helplessness]] before the protagonist, too, expires from radiation poisoning. As a result, [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog|the shaggy dog has not just been shot, but totally annihilated]].

** The fake-surrendering Japanese soldiers who kill Roebuck/Polonsky at the end of "Breaking Point" in ''World At War'' could qualify, too, seeing as the mission had been a success up to that point, and Roebuck even said in the opening narration that they would all go home at the end. Even worse, [[Sadistic Choice|you have to choose which one to save.]] In about a split instant.

*** But that one's kinda okay, considering one choice leads to your group essentially being led by Jack Bauer.

* Not quite the ending, but the climax of World 1 in ''[[Final Fantasy V]]'' is rather like this. Against all odds, you finally managed to get to the last elemental crystal in time, unlike all the other ones that ended up breaking. The bad guy's possessed puppet gets beaten back, there's a lovely reunion with one of the characters and his granddaughter, where he gets his memory of her back, and a reunion of two of the characters and their long-lost father... and then the crystal shatters anyway, because if the [[Big Bad]] ''stayed'' [[Sealed Evil in a Can|imprisoned by its power]] there'd be no other 2/3s of the game.

* ''[[TimeShift]]''. You've killed the [[Big Bad]], retrieved the only remaining temporal jump drive in your particular dimension, taken down a planet-wide fascist government, and even saved the girl. {{spoiler|Then you cause a paradox.}}

* Parodied in ''[[I Wanna Be the Guy]]''. At the end of it, you defeat The Guy, take his gun, and return home triumphantly as the credits roll. You also walk under a tree with one of the game's [[Everything Trying to Kill You|deadly]] <s> [[Everything Trying to Kill You|apples]] </s> [[Running Gag|giant cherries]] on it, which falls. If you're not expecting it and don't move, it lands on you, killing you and giving you the standard Game Over screen even though it's ''after the credits''. Fortunately the game still counts you as having beaten it.

** SOMETIMES!

** Remedied in the [[Expansion Pack]] that follows with you waking up afterward, albeit on the opposite side of Faerun, and you spend much of the game trying to figure out how the hell you got there. {{spoiler|Also you wake up with an entirely new Diabolus in the form of the Spirit Eater curse.}}

** The rocks falling is lampshaded later in ''Mask of the Betrayer'' by Ammon Jerro, in a rather hypocritical bit of humor.

{{quote|'''Player Character''': I remember being disappointed that the fortress's structure wasn't more architecturally sound.

'''Ammon Jerro''': Yes. That powerful and evil beings insist on causing destruction even as the die is an unfortunate habit. }}

*** {{spoiler|The game will still chastise you for being a coward, despite the fact that you found a way to accomplish your goal and get everyone out alive.}}

* At the end of ''[[Marathon Trilogy|Marathon]] 2'', the defeated Pfhor use their [[Earthshattering Kaboom|sun-shattering]] Trih Xeem on L'howon's sun, releasing the [[Omnicidal Maniac|omnicidal]] [[Eldritch Abomination]] known as the W'rkncacnter.

** It's put as a rumour, so you can basically decide whether your character would have done that or not.

* The ending to [[Infocom]]'s text adventure ''Infidel'' has always been somewhat controversial with fans because it's a good example of this trope being used to [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog]]. The protagonist (despite being selfish, greedy, and foolish) makes it to the pyramid's burial chamber to claim the riches ... {{spoiler|only for the walls to collapse and trap him there to die}}. And this, after solving a bunch of very difficult puzzles (including a few 'learn by dying' puzzles).

* Near the end of ''[[Fable II]]'' {{spoiler|Lucien tells you he killed your family. There's no reason for him to do this, other than to set up the neutral choice for the ending}}

** Private Jammy is a soldier stationed at Fort Mourningwood in ''[[Fable III]]'', named such for his good luck (he's been wounded a whopping total of 724 times). {{spoiler|However, once the Hollowmen arrive, he invariably meets his demise no matter what the player does. His ghost then comes back to continue serving as the Hero's loader in the mortar mini-game. What a trooper.}}

* ''[[Free Space]] 2'' does this with a flourish: at the end of an arduous, complicated and desperate campaign to destroy the Shivan dreadnought Sathanas which threatens the (known) galaxy, you learn that the Shivans have about a bazillion more such ships.

* ''[[Jak and Daxter|Jak X]]''. Non-fatal example, but after you've won the game, {{spoiler|Rayn is suddenly revealed to have been manipulating you all along, wasn't poisoned, and oh yeah, she's now the biggest crimelord in the world. [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|Well done, Jak]].}}

* You just wiped all the gangs out of Paragon City and finished ''[[Crackdown]]''. {{spoiler|Now it's a police state run by your employer, which is pretty much another gang.}}.

* In ''[[Saints Row]]'', under gang leader Julius, you destroy the three rival gangs in Stillwater and "unify" the city under the Third Street Saints. {{spoiler|Then, with the help of the undercover cop in the Saints, Julius is captured by the police. They use him to blackmail the Saints into helping an anti-gang mayor get elected. Afterwards, when you confront said mayor to negotiate Julius's release, the two of you are blown up in an assassination attempt.}}

* In the ''[[Diablo]]'' series, this basically explains the sequels, given the numerous ways in which the titular antagonist is apparently [[Killed Off for Real]]. But then, one must look at the [[Meaningful Name]] of the series...

** To be more exact, the first game ends with you killing the Big Bad, Diablo and ramming his soulstone into your own head so you can contain him with your mind. It did not work so well. In fact, Diablo possessed the hero and used his power to strengthen himself so he could escape the dungeon and revive the other Prime Evils. The second game ends with you killing the last of the three Prime Evils, Baal, just ''after'' he corrupted the Worldstone, the thing that keeps the demons out of the world (not that it was doing a good job). Archangel Tyrael goes for the lesser of two evils and destroys the corrupted Worldstone. The one you've fought so hard over to protect. And for ''Diablo 3'', Blizzard has revealed that the destruction of the Worldstone ''also'' blew up the entire mountain, destroyed the barbarian capital and turned the continent into a nuclear wasteland. By the way, the Worldstone not only kept the demons out but also the angels because some of them view humanity as a taint on creation and are quite eager to destroy it. Instead of just the Prime Evils raising an army, a full scale demonic AND angelic invasion involving pretty much every character from either side with a name is about to occur. But hey, congratulations, you won the game.

* ''[[The World Ends With You]]'': After surviving the Reaper's Game, Neku and Shiki discover that {{spoiler|Only Shiki can come back to life.}} Neku is fine with this, until the Conductor hits him with the whammy that {{spoiler|in order to play the next game, the entry fee he has to pay is Shiki herself.}}

** Not Quite! {{spoiler|It's later revealed that the guy responsible for reviving people was absent. In fact, the whole game was invalid because of that; only the GM knew the Composer was gone and would have been shafted if anybody, including his subordinates, knew. Thus, it was just a cheat to keep the two in limbo and prevent from being found out.}}

* ''[[Dragon Age]] II'': the Hawke family farm is gone, one of your new allies is dying of darkspawn taint, and just when you think it's safe to stop for a breather, an ogre comes out of nowhere to brutally smash one of your siblings into the dirt, reducing your party to you, your other sibling, and Aveline against the ogre and its hurlock buddies.

** No, those aren't dramatic spoilers; that is the ''prelude to the game, which mostly consists of the player trying to build his/herself and the family back up from less-than-nothing.

* ''[[Metroid]]: Zero Mission'' is a [[Video Game Remake|remake]] of the original ''Metroid'' that continues after the original ended. It accomplishes this by {{spoiler|having Samus shot down by Space Pirates while leaving Zebes, destroying her ship and suit}}.

** Which is followed up by {{spoiler|an inversion of sorts in the form of an ancient Chozo temple giving Samus an older yet far more advanced Power Suit (the one she's pictured with in most incarnations). It even is capable of recognizing the incompatible Upgrades she received earlier in the game.}}

* ''[[Mass Effect]] 3's'' ending. {{spoiler|The Catalyst gives Shepard a choice between a few different ways to [[Reset Button|hit the reset button]] on galactic civilization and end the violent Reaper cycle}}. However, no matter how the Crucible is used, {{spoiler|the dissemination of it's energy either shuts down or outright destroys the mass relay system}}.

** Slightly earlier in the ending, when the heroes' huge assault force are planning to assault {{spoiler|the teleportation beam leading to the orbiting Citadel/Catalyst}}, Harbinger shows up. No, not a [[Villain Override|mook possessed by Harbinger]] like in the previous game; the actual, kilometers-tall, leadership-caste Reaper himself, who proceeds to utterly massacre the entire assault force; {{spoiler|only Shepard and Anderson survive, with Shepard mortally wounded}}.

 

== Webcomics ==

* Din and Jin from ''[[Las Lindas]]'' seem to be this trope personified. Their latest "prank" rivals the [[Code Geass|Euphinator Incident]] in terms of everything going to hell in the worst way possible just when things were going good for the cast.

* In [[Homestuck]], {{spoiler|the Scratch}} and the resulting arrival of {{spoiler|Jack Noir in their universe}} just in time to stop them from winning SGRUB was this from the perspective of the Trolls.

* Maria's death in ''[[Anders Loves Maria]]''. Occurs in the second-to-last strip, wtih next to no foreshadowing, and Anders spends two splash panels just staring off into space before a [[Time Skip]] to his life as a single father.

* Season 5 of ''[[Survivor Fan Characters]]'' was full of these, given that the season was tagged "The Cursed Islands". Such "curses" involved having someone divvy up the tribes, but then get sent to Exile Island and have no control over which tribe they're sent to at the end of Day 3; a tribe being absorbed into the other tribes; someone having the choice to send themselves to Exile Island until the merge, but have absolutely no contact with their tribe mates until then; a random mutiny - one of the challenges was full of these; mainly, contestants would vote as to how many tribal councils they would be willing to go to with such debilitations as not being able to vote, having an extra vote against them, and not being applicable to win immunity. Miranda won the first, Brock won the second {{spoiler|and subsequently led to his elimination}}, and Marius won the last {{spoiler|although he managed to ''win'' because of this curse.}}

* In ''[[Our Little Adventure]]'', [http://danielscreations.com/ola/comics/ep0249.html the clone's escape is called this.]

 

== Web Original ==

** Diablous ex Machina struck once before. In ''Sims Big Brother 2'', there was a week in which 6 people were taken into the Solitary chamber, making themselves immune from the vote during Public Voting Week (in which ''everyone'' was up on the block, sans the 6 in the chamber). However, the person who lost all of the challenges was more or less screwed. They couldn't use any of the luxuries, couldn't compete for Head of household, were automatically nominated for three weeks in a row, had to eat an instant meal diet, and if any of those rules were broken, they'd be expelled. Dora unfortunately lost....meaning she had many of the worst weeks of her life in the house. Is it any wonder that after becoming the Unlucky Houseguest, she [[Suicide by Cop|asked everyone to nominate her and vote her out?]]

* [[Parodied]] in [[The Nostalgia Critic]]'s review of ''[[Moulin Rouge]]:'' he spent practically the entire review complaining about the movie before the [[The Nostalgia Chick]] and [[Brental Floss]] convinced him it was fine as a [[Guilty Pleasures|guilty pleasure]]. But this being a review of ''[[Moulin Rouge]],'' it needed to end tragically, so he randomly shot Brental Floss and mourned his loss.

 

 

** In another ''Simpsons'' episode, "Brother From Another Series", Sideshow Bob appears reformed and gets work release when his brother Cecil offers him a job for a dam project. Bart is convinced that Bob is up to no good, but in the end it turns out Bob really ''has'' reformed and Cecil was trying to embezzle millions from the dam project. Bob actually helps stop Cecil and saves Bart and Lisa's lives, but when the police arrive to arrest Cecil, Police Chief Wiggum insists on arresting Bob as well for no good reason.

{{quote|'''Bob''': (In the backseat of the police car with Cecil) But I ''saved'' the children!

'''Bob''': ''You'll live to regret this!'' ...Oh, great. Now ''I'' sound crazy. }}

* ''[[Hey Arnold!]]!'': The Devil sure loves stalking [[The Chew Toy|Eugene Horowitz]]...

* Pretty much the entire purpose of the Kanker Sisters in ''[[Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy]]''. They tend to show up anytime something's actually going ''right'' for the titular characters for a change (ex. "Over Your Ed", "Look Into My Eds").

* Happens on a regular basis in ''[[Invader Zim]]'', usually with [[Butt Monkey|Dib]].

* This trope is a recurring theme in ''[[G.I. Joe: Renegades]]'', where [[Failure Is the Only Option]]. Every time the Joes find something that will clear their names, it's a safe bet it will either get burned, blown up, smashed, stolen, or stabbed. {{spoiler|That is until the season one finale where the Joes returned to the Pentagon with all the evidence they needed to clear their names after destroying Cobra Mansion and defeating Cobra Commander, who survived and is ticked off by the way. The series is now on hiatus until the second live action movie is finished but it's doubtful the Joes will suddenly become wanted crinimals again when it resumes.}}

 

 

== Real Life ==

* There has been at least one real life occurrence of a person who just won the lottery being run over by a car. On a positive note, he ''was'' 73.

* General George S. Patton, after serving through [[World War I]] ''and'' [[World War II]], and was the sort of fighting man who should've died on the battlefield or in old age, gets killed in a car accident in Germany two months after the end of the war and a day before he was to return to America.

* A certain stuntman who rode a barrel over Niagara Falls later died from slipping on an orange peel.

* Jack Daniels died of a toe infection after kicking his combination safe in frustration.

* Similarly, Alan Pinkerton, a famed 19th century detective, died of infection after biting his tongue.

* A folktale about Zhao Yun's death (of ''[[Romance of the Three Kingdoms]]'' fame) begins with him getting undressed for a bath. His wife is impressed by how unscarred his skin is, despite decades of battle. He replies that he's never lost a fight and never even taken a wound. His wife, as a joke, pricks him with a needle. And he starts bleeding. And he doesn't stop. The story ends with him dead from loss of blood and her killing herself with his sword. This may be the reason Luo Guanzhong glosses over Zhao Yun's death in the book.

* "We knew a croc (or something) would get him". ''[[Crocodile Hunter]]'' Steve Irwin, after dodging death from crocs, snakes, sharks, etc. for years, was offed by one of the world's least aggressive toward humans creatures, a stingray.

** Moreover, contrary to popular assumption, Irwin was just swimming by it, rather than actively provoking it in any way. He was, in fact, there to save the stingrays.

** The stingrays, as a species, have tried their best to avert this by causing a statistically abnormal rash of deaths in the wake of Irwin.

*** Doesn't help people have been [[Too Dumb to Live|provoking them]] by trying to kill them in [[Completely Missing the Point|revenge for Steve's death.]]

* [[Blues]] musician [[Stevie Ray Vaughan]] recovered from a nearly deadly addiction to cocaine and alcohol, returned to form with his comeback album ''In Step'' in 1989, then died tragically in a helicopter crash a year later (along with the pilot and the rest of the crew) after playing a concert in Colorado.

* The great explorer and soldier T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) died in the most ignoble way after the life he had led, in a motorcycle accident as he was pulling out of his drive.

* In 1980, Kenny Waters was sentenced to life imprisonment for a crime he didn't commit. His sister Betty Anne spent the next 18 years trying to get him released, even going through law school to able to defend him, at the cost of her marriage. She finally managed to get him released in 2001... only for him to die 6 months later from head trauma after falling off a wall. The [[Hilary Swank]] movie [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1244754/ Conviction] is based off this story, though the producers omitted the detail about the brother dying [[Sudden Downer Ending|for obvious reasons]].

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Plot Device]]

[[Category:Rule of Drama]]

[[Category:Older Than Dirt]]

[[Category:Bad Writing Index]]

[[Category:Ind Ex Machina]]

[[Category:Sadness Tropes]]