Died Standing Up: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''We die standing.''|'''General Sturm''', ''[[Dawn of War]]''}}

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 [[Died Standing Up]].

This is technically possible in [[Real Life]] (especially with the help of rigor mortis, but see Real Life, below), though absurdly unlikely, and in any case a corpse's lack of balance control will cause it to topple sooner or later. The realms of fiction simply contrive to end the scene before this happens.

* 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}}.

** 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]]''.

* When {{spoiler|Lordgenome}} was killed in ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]'', he was able to stay standing for a time, and even talk for a bit. Impressive, since the hole in his chest was big enough that he wouldn't have had lungs, let alone a functional spine. Meh [[Hand Wave|spiral energy]].

* Jashugan, the Emperor of Motorball, from ''[[Gunnm]]/Battle Angel Alita'' manages to defeat the title character after taking a fatal blow and stays standing. A couple other characters also die standing up. Gally/Alita herself does the "knocked out and still moving" variation at one point.

* {{spoiler|George H.W. Bush}} in ''[[The Legend of Koizumi]]''. Yes, you read that correctly.

* In ''[[Rurouni Kenshin]]'', [[The Big Guy]] of Shinomori Aoshi's first [[Quirky Miniboss Squad]] [[Taking the Bullet|takes a fusillade]] of [[Gatling Good|Gatling gun]] fire for his boss, falls to his knees, and dies balanced there, still shielding Aoshi in death.

* Parodied in ''[[Sora no Otoshimono]]'' during the [[Blatant Lies|Sumo Wrestling Tournament]]. Tomoki takes numerous [[Megaton Punch|Karate chops]] while being [[Shock and Awe|held against an electric fence]]. He stands back up, but the reffere holds up <s>Sohara</s> [[Paper-Thin Disguise|Masker Wrestler's]] hand in victory announcing that Tomoki [[Fist of the North Star|is already dead.]]

* Wolfwood barely managed a variant of this in the ''[[Trigun]]'' anime. He knelt in front of an altar to beg forgiveness and died in that position, propped up by his cross.

* 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.

== Comics ==

* ''[[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.

* 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 ''[[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 ==

* This is a staple of Shaw Brothers ''Wuxia'' films, in which a hero (or villain) is so determined to complete his final duty that he refuses to fall even in death. This ''invariably'' earns the respect, admiration and maybe even [[Manly Tears]] of the enemies who slew him.

* ''[[Hot Fuzz]]'': A man with the upper half of his torso smashed in by a chunk of stone takes a few steps towards Nick before falling to the ground.

* In the first ''[[Harry Potter]]'' movie, Professor Quirrell stumbles a few steps before finally crumbing to ash.

* "Old Wen" from ''[[Eat Drink Man Woman]]'', who gets winded after returning to his kitchen, sits down, and dies.

* A subversion in the comedy western ''[[City Slickers]]'': Curly the leather-tough cowboy dies upright.. while peacefully smoking a cigarette.

* The beginning of the film-noir parody ''[[The Cheap Detective]]'' has the detective inspecting several corpses that are frozen in upright positions, [[Insane Troll Logic|killed so fast that they didn't have time to react]].

* A [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|Furyan]] character in ''[[The Chronicles of Riddick]]'' commits suicide by walking into a storm of solar radiation, and is shown still walking even as his body gets incinerated.

== Literature ==

* Enjolras in ''[[Les Misérables]]'', although he had a wall behind him.

* In [[Irish Mythology|Irish legend]] Cúchulainn tied himself to a stone after being fatally wounded by a magical spear so as to appear to still be standing up, and it was only when a raven landed on his shoulder that his enemies knew he had died.

* In Islamic legend, it is said that Prophet Sulaiman (better known as King Solomon) died like this, propped against a staff, while overseeing the djinns under his command building a castle. He finally toppled down after termites ate his staff.

== Video Games ==

* 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.

* The Nue in ''[[Breath of Fire III]]''.

* A bug in ''[[Neverwinter Nights]]'' can cause enemies to stay standing up instead of falling over dead, though they still count as dead and you can't interact with them, they just stand their doing their idle animations.

** 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.

** 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}}

== Web Comics ==

* 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}}''!

== Western Animation ==

== 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.

* 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]].