Disney Villain Death: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

{{quote|"VILLAIN JOB: [[Take Over the World|Crave control of universe]], keep nose in air, be either [[Villainous Glutton|huge]] or [[Lean and Mean|emaciated]], collect mortal souls, perish by falling."|[http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,281838,00.html "Sum of Their Parts"], a fun little analysis of [[Disney Animated Canon]] character tropes.}}

 

 

It appears that villains in the [[Disney Animated Canon]] have an especially curious tendency to exit the film by falling off or out of things. Unfortunately for them, even though they ''are'' animated characters, [[Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress|they cannot defy gravity]].

Sometimes, a fatal wound will be inflicted upon the villain just before taking the plunge (whether caused by the hero or by [[Hoist by His Own Petard|the villain's own actions]]) just to ensure that he or she is definitely dead. Or, they could have [[Dropped a Bridge on Him|a boulder or similar heavy object falling down with them]], or fall into a deadly substance like lava, molten bronze, or even [[Technicolor Science|flesh-eating green acid]], as [[Soft Water|water alone won't always do it]].

 

 

This is usually invoked in order to dispatch the villain [[Gory Discretion Shot|without resorting to a messier and more visible end]] which might upset the kids (or the [[Moral Guardians]]). Please ignore the [[Fridge Logic|uncomfortable realization]] that having the villain meet his or her end as an unquestionably ghastly mess on the floor isn't any less violent than [[And I Must Scream|any]] [[Impaled with Extreme Prejudice|of the]] [[Family-Unfriendly Death|alternatives]].

Keep in mind that this can also apply to characters ''other than'' villains, although it's fair to say that most heroes [[Soft Water|have ways]] [[Disney Death|to survive falls]].

 

 

There is also the non-villainous, non-conflict related variation of the trope, where a character decides to jump off a high ledge due to some stupid idea they have (eg, thinking they'd fly).

 

{{examples}}

== Disney examples, in rough chronological order ==

* Though it did not happen in ''[[Pinocchio (Disney film)|Pinocchio]]'', [[Karma Houdini|The Coachman]] gets kicked down a cliff by Pinocchio in the SNES game.

* Subverted in ''[[Bambi]]'' where Ronno actually survives being pushed off a cliff and into a river by Bambi while they are both fighting over Faline.

** The third movie has the Stepmother and Drizella both get turned into frogs after a spell they try to cast on Cinderella, the Prince, and Anastasia is reflected back onto them. When they are turned back, it is implied that they will be servants in the castle. Anastasia does dodge punishment, but then she actually is a lot nicer and decides to help Cinderella in the sequels.

* At the end of ''Lambert the Sheepish Lion'', the wolf actually ends up being bumped off a cliff by the titular lion. However, it's then revealed that the wolf actually survived the fall since he immediately grabbed onto a nearby branch with berries growing on it.

* Maleficent in ''[[Sleeping Beauty (Disney film)|Sleeping Beauty]]'' pulls her [[One-Winged Angel]] act, is killed by Prince Philip with a [[Throwing Your Sword Always Works|thrown sword]] ([[What Measure Is a Non-Human?|but it's okay because she's a dragon]]), and falls off a cliff that also is burning at the bottom.

* At the end of ''[[The Jungle Book (Disney film)|The Jungle Book 2]]'', [[Knight of Cerebus|Shere Khan]] falls into a [[Convection, Schmonvection|volcanic crack]] below the entrance to an ancient temple, but lands on a small island. Then a giant stone tiger head falls directly on him, subverting this trope. {{spoiler|Seemingly subverting, that is. The stone head was hollow. And then the vultures show up to mock the inevitability of his doom ([[Fridge Horror|the rock was melting under his feet]]).}}

* A very cool variation happens to the Horned King in ''[[The Black Cauldron]]''. He was ''sucked into'' [[Karmic Death|the very same magical cauldron that he intended to use to conquer the world]]. Once inside, [[Everything Fades|he disappears forever]]. Hey, no fuss, no muss.Of course, in the book, he ''melted''.

** Paired with [[Karmic Death]], as what causes him to fall is the vibrations from the Big Ben bell striking the hour shaking him off the clock tower, whereas before he would sentence his mooks to death by ringing his bell to summon his cat.

** Also happens to his sidekick Fidget, who is ironically a bat (with a crippled wing, mind you). That didn't stop ''[[Disney Adventures]]'' from doing a comic story where he had apparently survived and also did a [[Heel Face Turn]], though.

* This is [[Impaled with Extreme Prejudice|averted]] in ''[[The Little Mermaid]]''. It's played straight in the sequel, though - Ursula's sister is frozen in a block of ice and sinks into a watery abyss.

* Played straight in ''[[DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp|Duck Tales the Movie Treasure of The Lost Lamp]]'' with Merlock as a result of him losing his talisman... while in [[Absurd Altitude|low earth orbit]]. Though he did wish to live forever and he would have hit the ground long before [[No Ontological Inertia|the genie was freed and all his wishes were undone]].

* Beast initially goes out of his way to spare Gaston from this in ''[[Beauty and the Beast]]''... then Gaston goes and brings it on himself anyway. Some fans [[He's Just Hiding|actually questioned whether he actually died]], citing how there was a river at the bottom of the ravine, and citing how [[Le Fou]] managed to survive much worse such as being stuck in the snow for what was implied to be several months and being crushed by a chair/bench, and even his voice actor expressed doubts about Gaston's death. It actually necessitated the Disney company to make it clear in the commentary that he died. It was [[What Could Have Been|originally intended in the earliest drafts]] to be subverted: Similar to Scar's death in [[The Lion King]],<ref>As a matter of fact, Scar's death was actually reused from that concept</ref> he was to have survived the fall from a cliff after being knocked off by Belle with a rock, albeit with a broken leg, only to encounter the wolves from earlier in the film, [[Family-Unfriendly Death|and is implied to have been finished off by them.]] Apparently it was revoked because it would have been far too gruesome even for a character like him.

** Forte, on the other hand, is smashed into bits in the midquel. And while he ''was'' a huge freaking organ at the time, he was also a transformed human. One shudders to think what he looked like when the curse was broken...

** The Captain and Hakon, in the Middle Ages part of "[[Five Episode Pilot|Awakening]]". Demona, at the end of "Awakening", though she turned out to have survived. The Archmage, in "Long Way to Morning", who also later turned out to be alive because David Warner is just ''that'' awesome. Subverted in "The Journey" with John Castaway, who had a helicopter ready.

** In the "City of Stone" arc: In part one, a villain killed the hero's father by falling off a castle. In part two, the villain ''himself'' was killed by falling off the same castle. That could be justified as poetic justice, but the creators didn't want to have to do it again in part three for the other villain. So, Macbeth gets a magical ball of... something that causes the villain to be electrocuted. And after he's burned through, his body... falls off a cliff. Oh, well.

** Zira in ''The Lion King: Simba's Pride'' falls off a cliff into rapids and drowns. Note that, in the original [[Darker and Edgier]] ending, she was intended to be seen ''letting go'' (Some argue that this is still the case in the release. It's a bit ambiguous), and laughing on the way down.

** Her son Nuka suffers a similar death, but it's [[Not the Fall That Kills You|not just the fall]] that kills him: the logs that fall after him are definitely a factor as well.

** An article in the ''[[Disney Adventures]]'' issue on the movie mentions some of the previous Disney Villain Deaths. When it comes to Frollo, they mention that would spoil the movie.

'''Panic:''' "If". (grins) "If" is good. }}

* In ''[[Mulan]]'', the writers shot Shan Yu with a rocket launcher (in a kid-friendly way) specifically because they didn't want to have ''another'' falling death in a Disney movie. (And yet, similar to what happens in "City of Stone", we still see his body fall off the roof). Ironically, ''[[Kingdom Hearts II]]'' does have Shan-Yu suffering this trope fully.

* [[Brian Blessed|Clayton]]'s death in ''[[Tarzan (Disney film)|Tarzan]]'' [[Family-Unfriendly Death|may be the most violent of all Disney Villain Deaths.]] Falling out of a tree and accidentally hanging oneself with jungle vines. We even get to hear his neck snap...The storm makes it possible to see the shadow of his dangling body for a second, just to drive the point home that [[Never Found the Body|yes, he died and the corpse is there if they want to check]].

** An alternate ending averts the trope, but is arguably ''less'' gruesome than the one that made it to theaters. In this ending, Tarzan confronts Clayton on Clayton's junk. A small fire breaks out when Tarzan frees all the gorillas that the hunter had captured. Tarzan then pins Clayton's shirt sleeve to an oil barrel with a knife (after choosing not to simply cut out his heart) and leaves him there as the oil from the barrel seeps towards the flames. The last shot is of the ship exploding. (This ending was cut as the filmmakers felt it went against Tarzan telling Clayton "I'm not a man like you").

* Apparently part of its effort [[Cliché Storm|to cover every trope overused by Disney]], ''[[Dinosaur]]'' has Aladar ram one of the [[Carnivore Confusion|Carnotaurs]] (specifically, the one that's the film's [[Big Bad]]) off a cliff. Under circumstances that are ''very'' similar to those in ''The Land Before Time'' (detailed below).

* '''BOING!'''* }}

* The Evil Jack-In-The-Box from the "Steadfast Tin Soldier" segment of ''[[Fantasia 2000]]'' is a half-example. He charges the soldier, and is flipped over by him off the table falling into a hot stove.

'''Cookie:''' Weeeeeell, we lost her after a flamin' zeppelin come down on her - * WHACK* Uh, missin'. }}

* A neat variation occurs in ''[[Treasure Planet]]'': the truly nasty Scroop dies by falling ''[[Gravity Sucks|upward]]'' when the ship's [[Artificial Gravity]] gets turned off. This is obvious [[Karmic Death|payoff]] for his murdering the [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold|kindly-though-gruff]] First Mate Mr. Arrow (one of the few ''heroes'' who dies by falling -- [[Dropped a Bridge on Him|into a black hole]], no less) through similar means.

* Subverted in ''[[Kim Possible]]: [[The Movie|So The Drama]]'', where Kim kicks Shego into a building, where she gets electrically shocked and the entire thing falls on top of her. She survives, and is perfectly fine, though.

* And fitting an [[Affectionate Parody]] of other Disney movies. In ''[[Enchanted]]'', Queen Narissa falls off New York City's Woolworth Building... after, yes, going [[One-Winged Angel]]. She explodes into glitter on impact.

* [[Anti-Villain|Sympathetic villain Davy Jones]] dies after his heart is stabbed, and he falls into the Maelstrom in ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]: At World's End''. Averted with Cutler Beckett, who is blown up with the ship, and has his remains on the water.

* In ''[[National Treasure]]'', Shaw gets the distinction of being the ''only'' character to die in the entire movie by plummeting through an ancient staircase.

** Averted with Rochefort's death; he is clearly stabbed and dies in full view of the audience.

** Cardinal Richelieu is only a partial example, as he could conceivably have survived falling into the waterway (and, indeed, must've if both history and the original story is taken into account).

* GO-4 gets a messy one (for a machine) in ''[[WALL-E]]''.

* Charles Muntz in ''[[Up (animation)|Up]]''. Those balloons tangled to his feet don't seem to have helped him any.

* ''[[Tangled]]'' gently plays with this trope. While Mother Gothel did fall from the tower, she was already dead and turned to dust by the time she (or rather, her cloak) hit the ground. She suffered death by [[Rapid Aging]] rather than death by falling. Also, she didn't just cause her own fall, she was actually intentionally tripped by ''[[Team Pet|Pascal]]'' of all things.

* Averted in ''[[Tron: Legacy]]''. [[Big Bad|Clu 2]] does not lose grip and fall to his deresolution. Rather, his creator Kevin Flynn reabsorbs his program and [[Heroic Sacrifice|blows up]] as [[The Hero|Sam]] and [[Action Girl|Quorra]] make it to Flynn's Arcade in the real world. A tragic inversion with Tron himself who falls into the abyss after remembering who he is and his purpose. His [[Heroic Sacrifice]] only managed to buy the party a little extra time.

* A blink-and-you'll-miss-it example actually happens during the first fight scene between Finn McMissile and the Lemons at the very beginning of ''[[Cars 2]]'': As McMissile is attempting to escape the Lemons' oil rig, a Gremlin can be seen being thrown off a balcony and into the ocean beneath.

 

== Non-Disney Examples ==

* ''[[Gundam Wing]]'' featured an awesome variant in an early episode when Lady Une [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrahCm7UIa4dumps dumps a failed underling out from the bottom of an airborne transport plane], then ''[[There Is No Kill Like Overkill|shoots him while he's falling]].''

* In ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'', Presea Testarossa falls off a crumbling floor into the extradimensional void. It's left ambiguous whether she survived and managed to teleport somewhere else with the Jewel Seeds that fell with her.

* In ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam]]'', [[Mook]] Crown gets this death by plummeting into Earth's gravity while piloting his Zaku. Ramba Ral also suffers this fate as he falls with a grenade in his hand onto the Gundam's hand.

* [[Averted]] in ''[[Life (manga)|Life]]''. One of the antagonists appears to die from falling from several stories however it's a [[Disney Death]], and he's just severely wounded and taken to a hospital.

* Naga in ''[[Monster Rancher]]'' is defeated by Mocchi, hanging onto the edge of his castle. Despite the Searchers' [[Save the Villain|attempt to save him]], he [[Self-Disposing Villain|lets go]] and falls to his death.

* This troper remembers [[Monster of the Week|Yokozuna Demon Beast Blocky]] carelessly breaking off a piece of the cliff that Stone Kirby is standing on to trick him and use his weight against him, causing them both to plunge into the sea in the second episode of ''[[Kirby Right Back At Ya]]''. Kirby, of course, swims back up to the surface and everybody other than Dedede and Escargoon cheers for him. Blocky, on the other hand, is too heavy to swim and thus is stuck sinking to the bottom of the sea.

 

 

* The first volume of ''[[The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen]]'' ends with this happening to the [[Big Bad]] Moriarty, who it had already happened to before. Hmmm. Like the ''Treasure Planet'' example, he fell ''up''. In addition, after the book proper is over, there's a small splash page featuring the silhouette of his corpse continually floating, presumably in space.

** In the ''Minions of the Moon'' text story in ''Century: 1910'', during a trip trough space Mina comes across his corpse, still clutching the cavorite.

* In ''[[Amulet]]'', Luger dies this way. Arguably so does Emily's dad, but a) he's not a villain, and b) he was in a car at the time, making it rather less likely that he's still alive.

* In the early Batman comics, the Joker did this at least four times, but always survived.

* Used in the beginning of ''[[Watchmen]]'', when The Comedian falls to his death, and we see the body wrecked and the blood spilled. The [[Watchmen (film)|movie]] in particular treats it with much spectacle.

* Nicodemus West in ''[[Doctor Strange]]: The Oath'' slips and falls from the roof of a New York skyscraper. If he hadn't suspended Strange's ability to use magic three minutes earlier, he would have lived.

** [[Fat Bastard|Allfather D'Aronique]]. Realizing that [[The Starscream|Starr]] had rigged the entire base of Masada with explosives, the human wrecking ball seeked to escape via his personal chopper. Sadly for him, Starr managed to intercept and hijack the helicopter midair. During the struggle, Starr pushed the massive leader of the Grail to his death.

* Issue 8 of Marvel's ''Tranformers'' comic had Ratchet and the Dinobots defeat Megatron in this style. Ratchet manages to knock Megatron over a cliffside their fighting on sending Megatron tumbleing down the cliff to his apparent demise. Subverted however as it later turns out he survived.

 

 

* ''No Holds Barred'', the 1989 movie starring [[Hulk Hogan]] that became better known for being parlayed into a "[[Kayfabe|real-life]]" feud between Hogan (as a wrestler named Rip) and his co-star Tiny Lister, in character as his movie character, Zeus, an [[Unstoppable Monster]]. In the movie's climatic scene, Rip and Zeus are brawling on a high balcony above the arena floor when Zeus shoves Rip down a stairwell, apparently defeating him. However, Rip recovers and finally wears down Zeus enough to knock him off the balcony; Zeus tumbles from the balcony, presumably falling to his death when he lands in the wrestling ring below with such force that the ring collapses.

* A particularly jarring example occurs in [[Michael Jackson]]'s short film "Ghosts". A transcript of the film (which, sadly, has since evaporated along with Geocities) even called the mayor's demise a "presumably very messy Disney Villain Death".

** This is a very popular move in the Batman films. In Burton's ''Batman'', a mook got thrown over the side, while in ''Returns'', Catwoman falls more than once, though she survives each fall ([[Cats Have Nine Lives|due to having nine lives]]). The Penguin also falls through a window during his final fight with Batman. In ''Forever'', Edward Nygma throws his boss to his death. Finally, in ''[[Batman and Robin (film)|Batman and Robin]]'', all three villains jump off the Arkham tower, yet miraculously survive.

** The entire climax of Burton's first ''Batman'' movie is a big [[Homage]] to ''[[Metropolis]]'', where Freder Frederson chases [[Mad Scientist|Dr. Rotwang]] up into the cathedral and knocks him off the roof.

** In ''[[Superman IV]]'', after Superman neutralises Nuclear Man's powers, he drops Nuclear Man, where he falls to his doom into the core of a power plant.

** In the ''[[The Phantom Menace]]'', Darth Maul is [[Half the Man He Used To Be|sliced in half]] and thrown down a handy pit and in '' [[Revenge of the Sith]]'', Mace Windu is [[Destination Defenestration|flung out a window]] to land somewhere in the city streets. (Windu isn't a villain by any means, but this trope can apply to other characters.)

*** Parodied in the ''[[Robot Chicken]]'' Star Wars special, which turns this trend into a [[Running Gag]].

**** Robot Chicken is also a subversion of the trope, in that we actually see the result of the fall (lets just say that it gets a janitor irritated at having to clean up)

* [[Alfred Hitchcock|Saboteur]] uses this.

* In ''[[Rambo|First Blood]]'', sadistic head deputy Art Galt, ignoring Chief Teasle's orders to capture Rambo alive, tried to shoot him from a helicopter. After being cornered in a cliff, Rambo threw a rock at it, causing the helicopter to pitch heavily and drop Gault to his death into the gorge. Unlike Disney, we are shown proof-positive that Galt ain't coming back when Rambo picks him up to steal his gear and sees his face turned to hamburger.

** This also happens to the equally sadistic torturer Sergeant Yushin in ''Rambo: First Blood Part 2''. Rambo throws him out of a helicopter.

* [[The Angry Video Game Nerd]] commented on this when discussing Walker's death in ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (film)|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]] III'':

** What makes this death even worse is that when he hits the water, [[Special Effect Failure|there is no splash effect]]; he just "implodes".

*** Actually, he just sort of "disappears" before ever actually hitting the water. Apparently he fell into the blue screen instead....

*** The holiday special opens with a dream sequence where a ''giant'' Tai Lung shows up, prompting Po to say "I thought you were d-" [[Never Say "Die"|before getting cut off]]. Of course, that only points to what Po ''thought'' was true...

* Several [[James Bond (film)|James Bond]] villains have fallen to their deaths.

** In ''[[The Spy Who Loved Me]]'', a mook is almost falling, if not for holding Bond's tie. After 007 gets useful info outta him, he lets the henchman fall to death.

*** Scratch "lets", substitute "actually cuts the tie the mook is holding onto and." Who'd have thought the Roger Moore era would have one of the nastiest bits of cold-blooded murder committed by Bond in the series?

** ''[[A View to a Kill]]'' has the main villain falling off the Golden Gate Bridge after fighting with 007.

* Happens to all three of the main villains in the ''[[Rush Hour]]'' series of movies, though usually with a bit more proof they didn't survive the impact than at Disney. [[Lampshaded]] during the blooper reel of ''Rush Hour 2''.

* Happens so much, to both heroes and villains, in the ''[[Star Wars]]'' films that ''[[Robot Chicken]]'' did a series of sketches spoofing it by showing a Janitor at the bottom of the shaft/ground/wherever that has to pick up the body and decides to take another job, right where the next person gets dropped.

** Particularly amusing, since the sketch repeatedly highlights the very image that the trope is designed to skirt around.

*** The two non-mook examples at least show what happens when they hit bottom.

* The first ''[[RoboCop]]'' film ends with the [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]] Dick Jones falling to his death -- ''after'' Robocop's shot him around half a dozen times. The edited for television version just has him getting blown out the window by Robocop with one burst after getting fired by the Old Man.

*** Though this doesn’t kill her; Picard snapping her spine afterward does.

* Henry Evans from ''[[The Good Son]]''. It's made chilling when you take into account that the character was a ''kid'' played by Macaulay Culkin. Additionally, his mother deliberately dropped him rather than just falling off. She could only keep hold of one of them though, and Henry honestly [[Karmic Death|had it coming]].

* In ''[[Die Hard]]'', Hans Gruber is shot in the chest and then falls out of 30 story building. The Disney Villain Death itself, NOT THE MOVIE AS A WHOLE, won an award for having the best special effects of its time.

** Also from the ''[[Die Hard]]'' series, John took out a [[Mook]] and [[The Dragon]] of ''Die Hard 4'' while fighting them in an elevator shaft.

* The villainess in ''[[Catwoman (film)|Catwoman]]'' not only falls (after a [[Take My Hand]] exhortation from the heroine), but lands upon a lit-up sign for her company and is apparently, though not graphically, electrocuted as well.

* In ''[[The Lovely Bones]]'' film, Harvey stumbles over a cliff to his death, possibly caused by the deceased protagonist.

* ''[[Wild Wild West (film)|Wild Wild West]]''. Dr. Loveless falls to his doom at the bottom of a cliff.

* In ''[[The Scorpion King]]'' the villain Memnon gets his Disney Villain Death only after getting shot in the chest with an arrow, falling backwards off a really high building, THEN getting engulfed in the flames of an explosion, and then finally crashing into the ground. Interesting to note that he's still alive and screaming up until he splats on the ground. [[There Is No Kill Like Overkill|Talk about overkill]].

* Imhotep gets this in ''[[The Mummy Trilogy|The Mummy Returns]]'' though he falls into the seemingly endless pit of Hell.

* Bailey's fate in ''[[The Avengers (1998 film)|The Avengers 1998]]''.

* Happens to Dr. Caldicott in ''[[Disturbing Behavior]]'', when Steve kicks him off a cliff.

* ''[[Top Secret]]''. Played for laughs when Chocolate Mousse throws a soldier off the top of a tower and he ''shatters'' like stone.

* Happens to the insane nun Sister Ruth at the end of ''[[Black Narcissus]]'' when she tries to push Sister Clodagh off the cliff. Martin Scorsese even calls it a "Disney Death" in his DVD commentary appreciation of the film.

* In ''[[Mystery Men]]'', the main villain, Casanova Frankenstein meets his end when Mr. Furious throws him off a ledge into his own Doomsdaydevice. {{spoiler|It's not the fall itself that kills him but the machine, and in a rather graphic way.}}

* In the beginning of the first ''[[Hellboy (film)|Hellboy]]'', Rasputin (Yes, [[Rasputinian Death|THAT]] Rasputin) is sucked through a portal into another dimension (so a sideways version of this), of course the collapsing portal happens to be smaller than his body... Ouch.

* ''[[Our Man Flint]]''. While fighting two Galaxy security guards, Flint knocks them off a catwalk to their deaths on the ground below.

* ''[[Tremors]]''. Graboids are sensitive to loud noise and stampede away from them. Valentine detonates a bomb and sends the last Graboid over the edge of a cliff to its death.

* Subverted in ''[[Dead Silence]]''. As screaming in the presence of Mary Shaw's ghost results in a painful, gruesome death, it isn't the ''fall'' that kills [[Bad Cop, Incompetent Cop|Detective James Lipton]] - just the fact that he can't help but scream on the way down, resulting in him dying before he hits the ground.

* In the latest version of ''[[Brighton Rock]]'', Pinkie suffers death by gravity from the Seven Sisters cliffs. He stumbles over the edge after acid is splashed onto his face and eyes, causing horrific burns. All this is true to the book - although the entirely [[Subverted Trope|un-Disney-death-detail]] of a shot of his broken body and mutilated face lying in the wash at the bottom of the cliff is a new addition.

* An assassin in ''Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol'' is kicked through a window of the Burj Khalifa. For those not in the know, [[No One Could Survive That|that's the tallest known building in the entire world.]]

 

* In ''[[The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle]]'', {{spoiler|Captain Jaggery falls to his death off of the bowsprit after cornering Charlotte up there in an attempt to kill her.}}

* Gollum falls to his death in ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]''. Justified because it is ''the'' essential part of the eucatastrophe, as this accident also takes the One Ring into the Cracks of Doom, destroying it.

* [[Older Than Radio]]: Magua dies this way at the end of ''[[The Last of the Mohicans|Last of the Mohicans]]''.

** Interestingly, in [[The Last of the Mohicans|the movie version]], Chingachgook will not dignify Magua's body with a Disney Villain Death, since the heroes are the ones who fall heroically off the cliff.

* In ''[[Groosham Grange]]'', a school inspector is tortured by Miss Windergast's black voodoo magic (namely a [[Voodoo Doll]]) in an attempt to [[These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know|prevent him from discovering the truth about the school]] and he ultimately falls off a cliff to his death. This example of the trope is a subvert as the school inspector was '''not''' a villain.

* ''[[Discworld]]'' examples:

* In ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'' Mat Cauthon kills off {{spoiler|the ''gholam''}} using a Skimming gateway and this tactic. Bonus points for the fact that the emptiness inside a Skimming gateway is believed to be infinite. The victim should starve to death, assuming it ''can'' starve to death.

** Since it ''has'' to feed on {{spoiler|the blood of its victim}}, we could assume it can starve to death

* In ''[[Chronicles of Amber]]'' {{spoiler|Brand}} falls into the Abyss. In the second series, several members of Chaos royalty also "fall" off the edge.

 

* ''[[The Dukes of Hazzard]]'': Averted several times:

** "Goodbye, General Lee": It almost is for the show's signature (and heroic) car, when Boss Hogg, tired of the Duke boys constantly foiling his schemes (and perceiving the General Lee's "sheer power" in always playing a key role), picks up on Luke's off-handed remark that the General Lee isn't what it used to be. At one point, the trope kicks into effect when Rosco – having earlier locked up the Dukes on a minor traffic charge, and having impounded the General Lee – has the car driven out to the country, places the car's transmission in neutral, and pushes it down the hill ... toward a cliff. Of course, Cooter is conveniently nearby, sees what's going on, and manages to stop the General Lee (by using his tow truck as a "brake") – but then Cooter has his own hands full when he has trouble stopping the truck. (Not to worry, Cooter got his tow truck to stop just at the very edge of the cliff!)

** "When You Wish Upon a Hogg" begins with Hughie tricking Boss into believing in the power of an oil lamp ... and ends with Bo and Luke having their hands full trying to save Hughie from tumbling (in his van) over a cliff; Hughie initially balks, afraid of what he thinks the Duke boys will do to him and wanting to save all his ill-gotten money. In the end – of course – Bo is able to pull Hughie from the van, just as it begins to topple from the cliff. (BTW, the beautiful "genie" that was "in the lamp" – the shockingly beautiful Trixie, was not harmed; she was already being held in jail as Hughie's accomplice.)

* ''[[Doctor Who]]'':

* On ''[[24]]'', Habib Marwan, main baddie on Day 4, decides to go out this way, plummeting off a parking garage.

* Lionel Luthor is taken out of the show this way in ''[[Smallville]]'', also an example of [[Klingon Promotion]] and [[Dying to Be Replaced]].

** Hell, technically, Buffy ''herself'' gets this treatment at the end of the episode, as her [[Disney Death]] doesn't take place until the following season.

* Also from [[Joss Whedon]], the torturer from the ''[[Firefly]]'' episode ''War Stories'' falls into the abyss after being shot to death.

** In the [[Series Finale]], {{spoiler|this is how The Man in Black goes out, when he is shot by Kate and kicked off the cliff by Jack.}}

** You know, we can't bring up ''Lost'' without mentioning [[Destination Defenestration|what Locke's father did to him]] can we? Although it doesn't qualify as "Death", it broke his spine.

** And in the season five premiere, Sam's kidnapper falls out of his airplane to his death.

* In ''[[Alias (TV series)|Alias]]'', Sydney faces off against her mother, Irina Derevko in the series finale. After a rather brutal showdown, the fight ends on a rooftop, where Irina ends up falling through a skylight to her death. Mmmm, closure.

** Colonel Zol in his [[One-Winged Angel|Gold Werewolf]] form is punched off a cliff by Kamen Rider 2 and explodes on impact.

* In ''[[CSI New York]]'', Mac is chasing a serial killer across a rooftop. The killer feigns surrender, then attacks Mac, steals his handcuffs, cuffs himself, and tosses himself off the building onto a police car below. Disney Villain Suicide?

* In ''[[Crossing Jordan]]'', the title character's half-brother threw himself from a third story window into the Charleston River when cornered by the police, taking all his secrets about their mother's murder with him. Though his body was never recovered, he never appeared on the show again, so it's a pretty safe assumption he's good and gone.

* In ''[[Justified (TV series)|Justified]]'', Raylan has to confront Coover in [[Growing the Beard|Brother's Keeper]], leading to Coover's plunge down the mine shaft.

* In the season 2 finale of ''[[Nikita (TV series)|Nikita]]'', {{spoiler|this is how Nikita and [[Big Bad|Percy's]] final confrontation ends. As Percy's about to make his grand escape, he attempts to kill Nikita, and in their struggle he falls over the edge of Division's missile silo. Nikita grabs him, but ultimately lets him drop. Ironically, when he hits the bottom he crashes into the glass prison cell he spent the first half of the season locked up in.}}

 

* A tragic non-villain example happened to [[Owen Hart]], who during his entrance when he rappeled in from the rafters, fell 78 feet to his death. It was only by luck that this didn't happen on national television, who saw only a backstage promo instead.

 

* Disney's own [[Toontown Online]] has a boss fight that ends with the Cog VP being pushed off the roof of his HQ building.

* At the end of ''[[Banjo-Kazooie]]'', Gruntilda falls from a great height and a large rock falls on her. The extent to which this counts as a "death" is unclear, though. She immediately starts talking and trying unsuccessfully to move the rock, and she's back in action as a [[Dem Bones|skeleton]] when it's removed in the sequel.

* Let's not forget that the easiest way to defeat Bowser in ''[[Super Mario Bros.]]'' involves a bridge, a lake of lava, some carefully-timed jumps, and a switch you can press to defeat your opponent. Same for SMB3, you have to resort to avoiding his stomps and fireballs long enough to make him stomp a hole all the way through the floor without taking you with him.

** Avoided in ''Super Mario 64'': Trying to just push Bowser of the cliff makes him jump back up and create a shockwave in the process. You need to throw him into a bomb or three to actually defeat him. You can't defeat King Bob-Omb by throwing him of the mountain, either, or he will react pretty similarly to Bowser.

** At the end of ''Super Mario 3D Land'', Mario breaks the bridge that Bowser is on and in a pretty awesome cutscene, he starts to fall towards a pit of boiling lava [[Slow Motion Fall|in slow-moton]]. Then a rock hits him and Bowser falls to his doom at regular speed. [[Unexplained Recovery|Bet you £1,000,000 he'll be back for the next Mario game, though]].

* In ''[[Age of Empires III]]: The War Chiefs'', Billy Holme falls to his doom after Chayton shoots him and he backs into a mine shaft. And he takes several barrels of TNT down with him.

* This trope nearly happened to Rouge in ''[[Sonic Adventure 2]]''. After a fight with Knuckles over the Master Emerald, she loses her footing and falls towards a pit of lava. Knuckles grabs her hand at the last minute, "saving her life", even though, as a bat, [[Acrophobic Bird|she could have just flown back up]]... She still could have used the updrafts to glide back up or glided to one of the girders. Most likely, she was exhausted from her fight with Knuckles. Another subversion occurs in ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball]]'', with Dr. Eggman himself. Sonic falls with him, but is saved by Tails. Eggman survives though.

* At the end of GBA RPG ''[[Golden Sun]]: The Lost Age'', primary villain Alex meets his end when he falls into the crack in the earth that destroyed Mt. Aleph. The main villains from the first game met a similar fate when they fell into the well of the Venus Lighthouse.

** ''[[Final Fight]] 3'''s last boss stubbonly stands next to a power switch on the roof of city hall. He is electrocuted when you land the final blow, and you character escapes off the roof as it explodes. But he doesn't fall.

* [[Fatal Fury|Geese Howard]] gets his at the end of ''Real Bout'', complete with a rejection of Terry's outstretched hand and evil laughter as he plummets toward the ground. Geese, of course, also gets this at the end of [[Fatal Fury]]. Assuming you beat him. Otherwise, he sends YOUR character to a Disney Villain Death.

** Alexei meanwhile...wasn't entirely killed by Yuri. ([[Faux Symbolism|His ambitions technically crushed him]]) And you'd assume that after ''four times'', that Duke would fall to his death or be crushed by his ambitions, right? Well...you wouldn't be further from the truth. He actually ''saves the day''.

* Averted and played straight in ''Dirge of Cerberus: [[Final Fantasy VII]]''; Rosso the Crimson cuts away the chunk of masonry she's standing on and falls to her death rather than admit defeat and Azul the Cerulean falls into an elevator shaft after having a double-barrelled cannon thrown through his stomach.

* Ridley, in ''[[Metroid Prime]]'', is pushed out of a balcony by statues with laser beams. Despite the shockwave of the explosion he creates when reaching the bottom, you know he will be back.

** The whole fight against Meta-Ridley at the start of Metroid Prime 3 is played entirely in free fall. As such, when you deliver the final blow, you're saved by a fellow bounty hunter, but Ridley isn't so lucky, plummeting to his death, though he eventually returns thanks to Phazon corruption.

* Two of the possible deaths for {{spoiler|Scott Shelby}} in ''[[Heavy Rain]]''.

* ''[[The Force Unleashed]]'' calls it "Long fall" and gives you extra forcepoints for throwing mooks into pits.

** Rahm Kota gets this honor but returns later on. Also, Starkiller throws Shaak Ti in the Sarlacc and thinks he is done but she back out very fast.

* ''[[Dragon Age]]'' has a rare heroic example: {{spoiler|Riordan, an Orlesian Grey Warden rescued by the heroes late in the game,}} falls to his death after {{spoiler|leaping from a tower onto the Archdemon's back to fight it in midair, then hanging onto nothing but his sword as he gouges its wing.}} It is, however, a [[Dying Moment of Awesome]].

** The ''[[Dragon Age II]]'' [[Downloadable Content|expansion]] "Mark of the Assassin" ends with this - except the bad guy bounces rather painfully off a rock on his way down. It also plays out slightly differently depending on the [[Dialogue Tree]] - diplomatic! Hawke tries to save him, but he takes a swing with a knife and looses his grip. Snarky! Hawke listens to him making threats while hanging by his fingers, points out begging for mercy might have been a better idea and and just walks away. Aggressive! Hawke? Stamps on his fingers.

'''Carver:''' Drop a sword on him! }}

* Scervo meets its end this way in ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword|The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword]]''. Averted with Dreadfuse, its equal from the final dungeon, as it explodes in midair during the fall.

** In ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'', an Eclipse mercenary can meet this fate on [[Hitman with a Heart|Thane's]] recruitment mission.

** In ''[[Mass Effect 3]]'', this is how {{spoiler|Tarquin Victus}} dies at the end of his mission. {{spoiler|Tali dies this way, too, if you fail to establish peace between the geth and quarians, and side with the geth in the resulting battle - [[Curb Stomp Battle|the quarian fleet is wiped out]] and Tali commits suicide by throwing herself from a nearby cliff.}}

 

* In ''[[Narbonic]]'', Helen Narbon ([[Cloning Blues|the original]]) winds up falling off a ledge into a [http://www.webcomicsnation.com/shaenongarrity/narbonic_plus/series.php?view=archive&chapter=50391 thousand-foot waterfall.] {{spoiler|Of course, she's not really dead - the other cast members [[Never Found the Body|never saw the body.]] }}

 

* In ''[[Homestar Runner]]'''s action movie parody ''Dangeresque'', the title character entertains this idea but fails to follow through on it. What happens to Perducci is actually kind of [[What Happened to the Mouse?|unclear]], but he survives to menace Dangeresque again in ''Dangeresque 3: The Criminal Projective''.

* Waclaw, from ''[[Water Human]]'', falls from a cliff while running from his [[Heel Face Turn|former partner]].

* After a long battle at the very end of [[Red vs. Blue|Red Vs. Blue: Revelations]], [[Big Bad|the Meta]] is dragged off a cliff by the Warthog's tow cable.

* Like in the original film, Gaston met his end in this manner in the Kingdom Hearts fangame. Unlike the original film, however, the fangame also makes it especially clear that he's dead by Sora, in a manner very similar to Darth Maul in ''[[The Phantom Menace]]'', [[Half the Man He Used To Be|cutting him in half]] before he fell.

 

* [[Don Bluth]] is fond of these. This isn't surprising, actually, given that he worked for Disney for a while and that classic Disney films had a ''huge'' influence on him:

** Jenner has a surprisingly violent one in ''[[The Secret of NIMH]]''.

*** Also subverted, repeatedly, in ''[[All Dogs Go to Heaven]]'', which features characters suffering several very precipitous falls, and though a few of the characters do die, it's never the direct result of a long fall.

** Happens to Ludmilla at the end of ''[[Bartok the Magnificent]]'' where as a result of her being tricked by the titular bat into becoming a dragon, actually goes on a rampage and is lured to the top of a water tower, which then collapses because of her weight, causing her to fall to her doom.

* In the cult animated feature ''[[Rock and Rule]]'', the [[Magnificent Bastard]] Mok, an aging rock star with dark magical power, summons a demon with an evil song sung by the captive [[Catgirl]] Angel (this is another very kind of movie). Angel's repentant boyfriend shows up just in the nick of time and they banish both the demon and Mok down an interdimensional pit with [[The Power of Rock|a good song]].

* Happens to Frog Lip at the end of The Princess And The Goblin.

* Happens to the psychotic hitchhiker at the end of the ''[[Tiny Toon Adventures]]'' movie "How I Spent My Summer Vacation". But being a [[Friday the 13th (film)|Jason Voorhees]] [[Expy]], it doesn't stop him from reappearing in the finale.

* In ''[[Ice Age]] 3'', Rudy is shoved off a cliff by Momma. Rudy survives to see the end credits, however.

* At the end of the fourth season of ''[[Winx Club]]'', the Winx fairies and the warrior fairy Nebula use coverage to freeze the three remaining fairy hunters in the Omega dimension. After being frozen, the three evil wizards fall into a hole as the cave starts collapsing.

* Double Subverted in the second season finale of ''[[Teen Titans (animation)|Teen Titans]]''. [[The Dog Bites Back|Terra]] throws [[Big Bad|Slade]] off a cliff and into a river of lava, but he catches himself on the rock, pulls himself back over the edge, and grabs her by the throat, at which point she ''blasts'' him over the edge with her full powers unleashed, and just so we know he's dead, we then see his mask dissolving in the lava. {{spoiler|Of course, he comes back from that too, courtesy of the show's [[Satan]]-[[Expy]], but that's not for another season. He outright said he would've been [[Killed Off for Real]] if Trigon hadn't intervened though.}}

* The Mouse King in ''[[The Nutcracker Prince]]'' fits the bill as he was struggling to almost kill Clara, he loses strength and falls from the balcony and falls downward into his watery doom in the waters below Gingerbread Castle. After a splash, his crown is seen floating before it sinks back into the waters.

* Played with in ''[[Chicken Run]]'', where the villainess is defeated by falling off an airplane. She survives the fall itself, but is (possibly) killed by the effects of it; the fall triggers a massive explosion, which destroys a barn, which causes the door of said barn to fall on top of her.

* In ''[[Regular Show]]'', this happens to {{spoiler|Susan}} in "Benson Be Gone". {{spoiler|After she goes [[One-Winged Angel]], a one shot character named Utopia performs a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] to send her falling into a pit back into Hell.}}

* In ''[[Blazing Dragons]]'', [[Big Bad|Count Geoffrey]] is accidentally knocked out the tallest window in Camelhot by Sir Loungelot. Although it is debatable whether the fall kills him, we never see him again for the rest of the series.

* In ''[[Arthur (animation)|Arthur]]'', a tyrannosaurus rex falls off a cliff while trying to eat another dinosaur.

 

* Cesare Borgia died this way during his siege on Viana. This was depicted in ''[[Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood]]''.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Death Tropes]]

[[Category:Evil Tropes]]

[[Category:Climbing the Cliffs of Insanity]]

[[Category:Older Than Television]]