Disney Villain Death: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

[[File:gastondies-1.jpg|link=Beauty and the Beast|frame|No one falls off a ledge to his death [[Memetic Mutation|like Gaston!]]]]

 

{{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]].

 

{{examples}}

== Disney examples, in rough chronological order ==

* Here's an obscure early one. An old Sunday comic serial had a [http://disneycomics.free.fr/Mickey/show.php?num=9&loc=ZM004 giant] and his [http://disneycomics.free.fr/Mickey/show.php?num=4&loc=ZM004 vulture] get an early version of this!

* Subverted in ''[[Peter Pan (Disney film)|Peter Pan]]''; Captain Hook does fall, directly into the jaws of a crocodile, but he bursts out and [[Walking on Water|runs]] [[Villain Exit Stage Left|away]] [[Exit, Pursued by a Bear|yelling]]. He makes it into the sequel, too. Played straight with one of his henchmen, however, after he messes up Hook's song at one point.

* 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]].

{{quote|'''Frollo:''' And [[God|He]] shall smite the wicked and [[Karmic Death|plunge them into the fiery pit!]]}}

** 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.

{{quote|'''Panic:''' He's not gonna be happy when he gets outta there...

'''Pain:''' You mean ''"if"'' he gets outta there.

* Emperor Zurg falls down an elevator shaft in ''[[Toy Story (franchise)|Toy Story]] 2'', yet somehow survives to play catch with his son. [[It Makes Sense in Context|It's a long story...]]

* 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).

{{quote|'''Guard:''' For the last time, we did not order a giant trampoline!

'''Delivery Man:''' You know, pal, you could have told me that before I set it up!

* '''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.

{{quote|'''Whitmore:''' What happened to Helga?

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

* [[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).

* ''[[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.

** [[The Dragon|Eisenstein]]. The bureaucratic soul of the Grail knew that Starr had a hand - or rather a whole arm - at the demise of the Allfather. And Starr knew that as long as there was any kind of lead, [[The Determinator|Eisenstein would be able to track him to the ends of the Earth]]. After trying everything to dispose of him, from car bombs to snipers and even [[Instant Awesome, Just Add Ninja|ninjas]], Starr was able to corner Eisenstein in a building in San Francisco and successfully threw the little man off the rooftop.

 

 

* ''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]].

*** 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.

** The Reman Viceroy gets a similar death when he is kicked by Commander Riker in ''[[Star Trek: Nemesis]]''.

** As does the Borg Queen in ''[[Star Trek: First Contact]]'', although in her case, she falls into a cloud of corrosive gas that dissolves her organic flesh.

* 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.

* As the leader of Future Villain Band in ''[[Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band|Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band]]'' is choking Billy Shears, the latter's sweetheart Strawberry Fields manages to pull him off—resulting in the villain falling to his death from the multi-level stage. His body is seen on the ground. (Strawberry herself undergoes a [[Disney Death]] as a result of the struggle.)

* 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.

* 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!)

* 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.}}

 

* Muhammad Hassan fell victim to this trope after his match with [[The Undertaker]] at The Great American Bash. After the match, Undertaker tore off several of the panels covering the stage and giving him a [[Finishing Move|Last Ride]] through the hole, complete with a rather disturbing sounding crash a few seconds later. While other wrestlers have taken falls from high heights as part of their match, sometimes being put out of action, this was meant in storyline to kill off the character, as [[UPN]] [[Executive Meddling/Professional Wrestling|forced the]] [[WWE]] [[Executive Meddling/Professional Wrestling|to remove him from the air.]]

* 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.

* ''[[Kirby's Return to Dream Land]]'' has this happen to the fourth boss of the game, Goriath, after he is defeated by Kirby and his party. Goriath attempts to strike a pose, but then looks down and realizes he's not on solid ground anymore thanks to Kirby and friends having knocked him off the platform, then he gets an [[Oh Crap]] and plummets to his doom below in a cartoony style, and as soon as he hits the ground, he explodes into many stars just like many other KRTDL bosses do after the end of their death animations.

 

* 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''.

{{quote|'''Dangeresque:''' Once we get to the top of this high-scraper, we'll hopefully be able to throw some people off. Maybe even Perducci.}}

* 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]]''.

* Ineptly used for the villain of ''[[The Adventures of the American Rabbit]]'' ...who's a bird. They do show that he's gotten very tired and his wings are covered with snow, but he falls/glides ''very slowly'' about twenty feet, lands in snow, and the sound effect when he hits is a gentle "puff". Um... I guess he's dead?

* 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.

 

* Peter Nguyen's [http://www.doheth.co.uk/funny/exam-answers/Essay_-_Jimmy_McPerson "essay"] on Jimmy McPerson's role in World War II culminates in this happening to Hitler by way of a [[Heroic Sacrifice]]. No word on what happened to President Japan.

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