Died Standing Up: Difference between revisions
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But what's this? The bad guy flinches! Is he trying to take another step? Are his fingers making a grab for the sword that even now rests in his breastplate? Is he such a [[Determinator]] that he can [[My Name Is Inigo Montoya|endure so much damage and keep fighting]]?
No. He's dead. His body is just twitching a bit. And yet, he doesn't fall, his muscles so perfectly conditioned they can continue to function without any signals from his brain. So he just stands there like a morbid practice dummy. He's
This is a device used when a character is so utterly [[Badass]] that even in death they refuse to accept utter defeat. The body continues to strive for victory even when its driving will has been extinguished. This goes hand in hand with a [[Badass Normal]] or any other absurdly strong character, especially one with a [[Charles Atlas Superpower]]. It may be mixed with [[Taken for Granite]], when a villain's magical body has [[No Ontological Inertia]] and turns to stone at the moment of death. Despite the description above, this can happen to both heroic and villainous characters. In addition, this trope for some reason often tends to be paired with [[Off with His Head]], and scenes where the body waves its arms around looking for the head, or walks around for a while before collapsing are common.
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== Anime and Manga ==
* In ''[[Ginga Densetsu Weed]]'', a large fighting dog who has been fatally injured refuses to fall down and die. He was about to fall, but three other dogs who showed up at the last moment stood around him and propped him up until his body froze solid in a standing position, guaranteeing it would stay that way without support. The series, and it's precursor, had a few examples of this.
* Several times in ''[[Fist of the North Star]]'',
** {{spoiler|Raoh's}} corpse stays frozen, his fist gloriously clenched upwards, after he literally sends his soul to Heaven to bring Light and Hope to The World.
** As well, {{spoiler|Toki dies this way after Kenshiro's fight with Ryuga, through a combination of radiation poisoning and sacrificing himself so that Kenshiro will use the sorrow from his death to unlock the ability of [[Intangible Man|Muso Tensei]].}}
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* Munsu, the protagonist of ''[[Shin Angyo Onshi]]'', dies standing at the climatic final fight of the manga.
* In ''[[Lone Wolf and Cub]]'', {{spoiler|the hero dies this way, and apparently the [[Big Bad]] as well}}.
* In ''[[One Piece]]'' {{spoiler|Whitebeard}} dies standing, after going through a downright insane [[Rasputinian Death]] and proclaiming to the entire world that the One Piece exists (and thus giving a gigantic middle finger to the World Government). Considering how he was probably the most [[Badass]] character to ever ''exist'', he clearly could not have died any other way. As a kicker, his [[Badass Longcoat]] falls off immediately after, revealing that despite being shot, stabbed, slashed, and blown to hell pretty much everywhere else, his back didn't have so much as a scar;<ref>Minus one that was the result of a sword coming from the front THROUGH his back</ref>
** While not actually a death, {{spoiler|Zoro}} definitely tried to invoke this, and came damn near close to dying, when he let Kuma transfer all of the pain and fatigue Luffy suffered during his fights on Thriller Bark to him. Keep in mind that Luffy is a Rubber Man, able to withstand far more damage than a normal human can. The next morning, {{spoiler|Zoro}} is standing perfectly still, saying that "he's fine" [[Overdrawn At the Blood Bank|while both he and the ground around him are covered in his blood]].
* {{spoiler|Aldebaran Taurus}} in ''[[Saint Seiya]]''.
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* Happens in a ''[[Black Jack]]'' story. A young doctor who has lost his entire family to cancer and is now dying of it himself vows to treat one cancer patient before he dies. He completes the operation, but when the other doctors go to congratulate him, they find he has died on his feet. Weirder still, a post-mortem reveals that his heart had already stopped a few minutes into the operation. Just another example of determination overcoming the laws of biology.
* Diaz Ragu of ''[[Shadow Skill]]''.
* Tung Fu Rue in the ''[[Fatal Fury]]'' OAV dies after showing Terry his ultimate attack, still in his fighting stance.
* "unconscious" variation in the ''[[Street Fighter]] Alpha'' manga, ''Sakura Ganbaru!'' After a glorious two-on-one match against Cammy and Sakura, a defeated Zangief staggers on the edge of consciousness, but, having dedicated his skills and his body to proud Mother Russia, he ''cannot'' afford to let it fall, much less in view of his beloved comrades. So he wills himself back up, into his victory pose, and stays that way even after blacking out. Cammy, Sakura, and all spectators acknowledge his defeat, but they are awed by his devotion even more, making it a symbolic victory.
==
* ''[[The Punisher|Punisher MAX]]'' had a crazy mobster henchman who after having one of his eyes pulled out, getting cut, beaten, shot, impaled on an iron spiked fence and having Frank blow his head in half with a shotgun still took two more steps making even Frank panic a little.
* ''[[Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?]]'': Lex Luthor, controlled by Braniac's head on his cranium [[Fighting From the Inside|fights from inside]] when he begs a superpowered Lana Lang to kill him. It doesn't do his body much good: Braniac controls his corpse like a macabre puppet. The Braniac-cap himself exhibits this trait once rigor mortis sets in, detaching itself crawling "powered only by malice", swearing to kill Superman even as it dies.
* The ''[[Sandman]]'' story, "Facade", features Urania Blackwell, aka "Element Girl", who wants to die but can't. When she finally asks the sun god Ra to take away her "gift", her body is temporarily left as a standing, human-shaped figure of dust.
* In Larry Hama's recent{{when}} ''[[G.I. Joe]]'' continuation, Duke comes to Snake-Eyes' Mountain cabin to warn them about Cobra's reappearance, only to find Scarlett under attack by Red Ninjas. After helping her out, they enter the burning cabin to find three ninjas just standing there on fire. Scarlett remarks that it must have been recent, as they don't realize they're dead yet.
== Film ==
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== Literature ==
* The appendices to ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' include the story of Helm Hammerhand, an ancient King of Rohan who, being besieged in the Hornburg during a bad winter, took to going out alone at night and kill enemies with his bare hands. One day he didn't return, and in the morning was found outside standing upright, but dead and frozen.
* A non-badass verion in ''[[Let's Go Play at the Adams']]''. The only reason {{spoiler|Barbara does this is because of how she is tied up when she dies}}
* Enjolras in ''[[Les Misérables]]'', although he had a wall behind him.
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* Excluding'' Path of Radiance'' and ''Radiant Dawn'', every ''[[Fire Emblem]]'' uses this as the death animation.
* In ''[[Dawn of War]]'': some units, when killed, don't go into their "dead" animation, instead remaining standing. Especially annoying when you run into these and think you're about to be attacked.
** "[[Redshirt Army|...We die standing]]."
* In ''[[Soldier of Fortune]] II'', Mullins suddenly dies standing up [[Hostage Spirit Link|if an NPC is killed]] ([[What the Hell, Player?|or he disobeys orders on a certain mission]]).
* The Nue in ''[[Breath of Fire III]]''.
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** Also, in the anime this happens to Archer ([[Adaptation Expansion|you never see that scene in the Visual Novel]], so it's possible it happened offscreen there also). Very impressive as Berserker is perfectly capable of ripping apart buildings with the shockwave his [[Incredibly Lame Pun|insanely]] strong and fast attacks leave behind, and logically any single attack should have knocked Archer down, or at least backwards.
* Muneshige Tachibana, ''[[Sengoku Basara]]'''s resident [[Chainsaw Good|chainsaw]] [[Anachronism Stew|wielding]] [[Samurai]], has a defeat animation where he drops his chainsaws and slouches over while standing. He isn't actually dead unless you are playing as a character who outright kills their opponent instead of defeating them.
** Takeda Shingen's animation had him put down his weapon and do a [[Badass Arm-Fold]], standing proud before he keels over a moment later.
** Several characters have defeat animations in which they attempt to get back on their feet only to fall over.
* Much like ''[[Neverwinter Nights]]'' above, ''[[City of Heroes]]'' will occasionally forget to animate the "[[Never Say "Die"|defeat]]" of enemies who are beaten too quickly. Given the amount of damage
** A similar bug exists in ''[[The Old Republic]]''. It seems to happen when the NPC is already occupied with certain ongoing animations, such as [[Standard Status Effects]], and therefore doesn't process the cue to start its death animation properly.
* In ''[[Shadow of the Colossus]]'', {{spoiler|the last boss slumps over after its death, but is propped upright by its armor}}
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* A character from ''[[Universal Compass]]'' fades away (dies) while standing up.
* In ''[[Weapon Brown]]'' the expy of {{spoiler|The Phantom}} gets his head blown clean off. Not only does he die standing, he '' {{spoiler|becomes the corpse that walks}}''!
* In ''[[Drowtales]]'', Lulianne had a [[Hope Spot]] when she found the remnants of the Dutan'vir's [[Last Stand]] and found one person still standing... only he [https://web.archive.org/web/20161229040104/http://www.drowtales.com/mainarchive.php?sid=5944 wasn't actually alive] in a technical sense, having been taken over by [[Demonic Possession|a demon]], and the various blades in his body indicate that his fellow warriors had tried to kill him once he was possessed. Also a rather cruel twist on the Dutan'vir's sigil, which was a tower that represented stability.
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== Real Life ==
* [[wikipedia:Hillsborough disaster|The Hillsborough disaster]] saw the deaths of 96 fans of Liverpool Football Club in the stands of Hillsborough Stadium in 1989. Fans were packed so tightly into the stands that many people died standing up due to compressive asphyxia.
* According to apocryphal rumours, Branwell Brontë, brother of [[Anne Bronte|the]] [[Emily
* This is from a eulogy written almost two thousand years ago. "Amyntor, Philip's son...died holding his shield over a wounded friend." Wow.
* Rigor mortis is incredibly unlikely to cause these situations. Rigor mortis is caused by muscles not having the energy to come ''relax'', and while the person may die, their cells take quite a while to get the idea and use up all their energy stores. Muscles work by expending energy to separate two proteins which ''really'' want to associate and then cocking one like stretched spring. Then they reunite, the cocked protein pulls hard and the two proteins stick. The combined action of countless of these proteins causes the muscle to contract. When the cell is out of energy, the muscle locks up - it can't separate these proteins to continue the cycle and therefore can't move. Unless the body is propped up somehow, gravity wins. [[The Other Wiki]] has good discussions on [[wikipedia:Myosin|how this works]] and [[wikipedia:Rigor mortis|rigor mortis]]. The observant may notice a few links to some other post-death funny business; neither of these are anywhere near coordinated enough to keep someone standing. If a body could somehow just happen to be supported for many hours...well, maybe. Barring bizarre alien biology, handwaving this trope with rigor mortis is more likely to be an [[Ass Pull]] and is probably not better than letting it slide on [[Rule of Cool]].
* Because insects respire through openings in their sides rather than their heads, and their brains send out signals to ''stop'' reflexive limb movements rather than activate them, a decapitated insect can continue to walk, run, or even mate, possibly remaining mobile for ''days'' if the neck is plugged to prevent blood loss and dessication.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Death Tropes]]
[[Category:Example As a Thesis]]▼
[[Category:Badass]]
[[Category:
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