Driven to Suicide: Difference between revisions
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* A recent{{when}} "Stop global warming" ad shows CGI animals committing suicide. A chimp hangs himself. A polar bear jumps off the last ice berg. A kangaroo jumps in front of a train.
* Hyundai was forced to pull a commercial for their hydrogen fuel cell cars depicting a man attempting to take his own life by routing the exhaust pipe of his SUV into the cabin, only for him to realise that all his truck emits is nothing than water. Unsurprisingly, people are none too pleased at the idea and [https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2013/04/25/hyundai-suicide-ad-commercial/2113461/ took umbrage] at its portrayal of a sensitive subject, and there were also concerns about copycat incidents involving the ad as well.
* [[Black Comedy]] version in [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeGNsoUjZZo this 1989 commercial], where a depressed peanut's only goal is to be in a 5th Avenue candy bar:
{{quote|'''Peanut:''' And if they won't have me, I'm going to throw myself to the elephants...}}
== Anime and Manga ==
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== Fairy Tales ==
* In ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20131207045438/http://surlalunefairytales.com/bearskin/index.html Bearskin]'', when the hero, appalling shaggy, filthy and ragged, but rich, rescues a man from financial distress, the man promises that he may marry one of his daughters. Only [[Youngest Child Wins|the youngest]] is willing. However, his appearance stemmed from a [[Deal with the Devil]], and that being over, [[She Cleans Up Nicely|he cleans up nicely]], and the older sisters are reduced to [[Green-Eyed Monster|envy]] and commit suicide. The Devil exults to the hero that he has got two souls instead of the one.
** Other variants of this type of tale include ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20140119234006/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/bearskin/stories/dongiovanni.html Don Giovanni de la Fortuna]'', ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20090319030931/http://www.gwu.edu/~folktale/GERM232/bearskin/web%20pages/SoldierandtheBadMan.html The Soldier and the Bad Man]'', ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20090319030926/http://www.gwu.edu/~folktale/GERM232/bearskin/web%20pages/RoadtoHell.html The Road to Hell]'', ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20140117195302/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/bearskin/stories/rewardkindness.html The Reward of Kindness]'', [http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0361.html#sutermeister ''The Devil As Partner'' and ''Never Wash''].
* In ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20131010000604/http://surlalunefairytales.com/sleepingbeauty/stories/youngslave.html The Young Slave]'', the heroine is so badly abused that she contemplates suicide. Fortunately, her uncle hears her lamenting her woes and saves her.
{{quote|''She began to weep, and wail, and lament, telling that inanimate piece of wood the story of her travails, speaking as she would have done to a living being; and perceiving that the doll answered not, she took up the knife and sharpening it on the pumice-stone, said, 'If thou wilt not answer me, I shall kill myself, and thus will end the feast;' and the doll swelled up as a bag-pipe, and at last answered, 'Yes, I did hear thee, I am not deaf.'''}}
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** Arguably, this happens in ''The Nine Tailors''.
* In [[Josephine Tey]]'s ''The Singing Sands'', the egocentric killer opts for a dramatic suicide and a long-winded suicide note to a Scotland Yard investigator, assuming that the murder has been a perfect murder that could not have been detected or proved and wanting to go out in a blaze of glory. Wrong on all counts, as it happened.
*
** Denethor attempts to burn himself and his son on a funeral pyre when he believes the battle against Sauron is hopeless, and that his son is dying through his own fault. {{spoiler|He succeeds in killing himself, but his son is saved just in time.}}
** Eowyn also [[Honor Before Reason|rides into battle wanting to die]] after being convinced that she'll spend the rest of her life taking care of her declining uncle as the House of Eorl becomes more and more dishonorable.
** Happens several times in ''[[The Silmarillion]]'':
*** {{spoiler|Fingolfin}} challenges {{spoiler|Morgoth}} to single combat (he [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|does pretty well]], but there was no way he was going to win, and he's smart enough that he must have known that);
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* In Gav Thorpe's ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'' novel ''Angels of Darkness'', the Dark Angels are trapped in a fortress because if they leave it, they will release a horrific virus on the planet and its population, but their suits can not last as long as the virus. They fear what desperation will make them do and think it better to die together, quickly, so they each hold a bomb and have Boreas push the denotator to kill them all.
* {{spoiler|Billy Bibbit}} in ''[[One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest]]'', thanks to a manipulative Nurse Ratched threatening him and bringing him back to reality.
* This trope applies to the story of {{spoiler|The Bloody Baron}} from ''[[Harry Potter and
** From the same book, Hermione points out that the wizard or witch who split his/her own soul to create a Horcrux must feel deep and genuine remorse in order to fix their soul fragments back into one whole piece. The drawback? Said wizard or witch may be overwhelmed by the pain of it to end up with this trope.
* Quentin Compson in ''The Sound and The Fury'' commits suicide because he's unable to cope with living in a world where he doesn't belong anymore. Quentin was born and raised on the values of the Old South, particularly about how women are suppose to be virtuous and upstanding. He begins to lose touch with reality when his older sister, Candace, begins to sleep around, destroying his aforementioned belief of women, his father preaches nihilism, and sees the Old South fading away.
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* At the end of ''Dreamspeaker'', Peter hangs himself, while the mute "He who would Sing" [[Ate His Gun|shoots himself in the mouth]] with a shotgun, in gruesome detail.
* A [[wikipedia:Werther effect|famous]] example: in Goethe's ''The Sorrows of Young Werther'', Werther shoots himself in the head to escape an unbearable love triangle (he is in love with a married woman). A semi-[[Bungled Suicide]], in that he does not die instantly, but suffers for twelve hours before finally dying.
* In ''[[
* In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s [[Conan the Barbarian]] story "[[Iron Shadows in the Moon|Shadows in The Moonlight]]", Olivia tries to escape by telling her pursuer that she will drown herself if he comes after; he tells her the waters are too shallow.
* In L. Jagi Lamplighter's ''[[Prospero's Daughter|Prospero Lost]]'', in the [[Backstory]], Miranda had thought of killing herself when she thought Ferdinard had jilted her.
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* In [[John C. Wright]]'s ''[[Hermetic Millenium|Count to a Trillion]]'', Captain Grimaldi {{spoiler|At least according to Blackie}}
* In ''[[Enchantress From the Stars]]'' Elana, a 14 years old girl from [[The Federation]], is captured by colonists from [[The Empire]]. The colonists intend to bring her to their home planet, where she will be dissected and interrogated (and thanks to their tech, [[The Empire]] can extract any information they want). Not wanting to end like this, Elana runs towards the imperial rock-chever, intent on being crushed by falling debris. {{spoiler|luckily, she is rescued [[Just in Time]]}}
* ''Possibly'' Bill Sikes in ''[[Oliver Twist]]'', who is strangled by a rope while fleeing the police after killing Nancy. The scene leaves it ambiguous whether he did so by accident or on purpose. If it was on purpose, it may have been he actually felt guilt over killing Nancy - whether that guilt was because he loved her or because he realized Fagin had lied about her betrayal is debatable - or out of fear of being arrested and ''then'' hanged, or both.
* The [[Villain Protagonist]] of the "penny dreadful" novel ''[[Varney the Vampire]]'' is full of self-loathing at the evils he commits, and unable to save himself, eventually decides to end his life. He [[Dying Moment of Awesome|sure does it in style]], however, leaping into the crater of Mt. Vesuvius in the finale.
* ''[[Frankenstein]]''; after killing his creator, the Monster vows to retreat to the "most northern recesses of the globe" where he will burn himself upon a pyre, hoping the world will forget his existence. Of course, [[Spared by the Adaptation|later authors and filmmakers]] felt (and still feel) [[Rule of Cool|he had far too much potential]] for the story to end that way.
== Live Action TV ==
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* In the Spanish series ''El Internado'', {{spoiler|Fernando}} tries to [[Bath Suicide|kill himself]], since {{spoiler|to get the medicine keeping him alive, his sister Amelia must work with [[Complete Monster|a group of Nazis]]}}; his death would let her stop working for them.
** {{spoiler|[[Jerkass Woobie|Elsa]]}} overdoses on pills after {{spoiler|she miscarries and Hector divorces her}}.
* Happened in two episodes of ''[[Gilligan's Island]]'', of all places:
*
** Mr. Howell nearly does this in another episode, an erroneous news report claiming he has lost his fortune
== Music ==
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== Newspaper Comics ==
* ''[[Beetle Bailey]]''
** [[Subverted]]/parodied: "Killer" Diller has threatened to kill himself after being told off by his girlfriend. The others find him "doing it slowly"
** Left hanging another time, in one variation of a reused gag where Beetle overhears the guys planning to pull a prank on him by calling in pretending to be Sarge. Of course, then the real Sarge calls in and buys it when Beetle pretends to be the General and tells him to do something absurd. In this one instance, Beetle says he's disappointed in him and he can just go tie a rock around his neck and jump into water. The last panel shows Sarge about to do so. Of course, it's entirely [[Played for Laughs]] and forgotten immediately afterwards; presumably he didn't do it.
* ''[[Garfield]]''; in an early arc, Jon wants to have Garfield declawed. Garfield can't bear the idea of "going through life unarmed" and tries to off himself by putting his head in the oven. Fortunately, it's electric-powered.
* The only time in ''[[Peanuts]]'' where a character might be said to have “died” involved the living school building that Charlie Brown and Sally attended. Right from the first arc where it was revealed to be living and sapient, it was very depressed. Naturally, all the students hated it (what child likes going to school?) the principal said there weren’t enough rooms, the teachers complained about air conditioning and heat, the building inspector criticized it, the PTA complained about ''everything'', the custodian hated his job, and [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking| it was really getting sick of the smell of peanut butter]]. (“I’d cry, but I hate to streak my windows!”) Its only true friend was Sally, who talked to it because it was the only one who ever listened, and eventually it saw in her a kindred spirit. Alas, it was not enough, and when it just “had all I could take” it fell apart, collapsed into a heap. The worst part of all, while Sally (who specifically said later that it was suicide) was very upset, it seemed she was the only one who mourned - or cared.
== Radio Drama ==
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== Tabletop Games ==
* In the [[Death by Origin Story|origin story]] for the ''[[Ravenloft]]'' setting, grieving bride Tatyana throws herself from the clifftop castle wall, rather than be turned into a vampire by her fiance's [[Cain and Abel|murderous brother]], Strahd von Zarovich. [[Never Found the Body|Her body is never found]], and to the present day (centuries later), Strahd refuses to believe she perished, still longing to possess her. In a way, he is right, as she can ''never'' truly die, as she is reincarnated every generation to eternally torment Strahd.
* One of the Deathlords in ''[[Exalted]]'', during his first life as a Solar Exalted, was inducted into a Circle (adventuring party) to replace their lost member, who had carried the same Shard. After enduring a decade of them demonstrating why the Solars ended up being overthrown, he killed himself. Then, after spending a fair while as a brooding ghost, the rest of them managed what he saw as a [[Karma Houdini]]...so now he wants to destroy all life.
== Theater ==
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My soul from sorrow? Better once to die
Than day by day to suffer. }}
* Ahem, ''[[William Shakespeare]]'', occurs in many of his Tragedies:
* In ''[[Hamlet]]'', the famous "To be, or not to be" line is from a soliloquy of the title character after he found that his uncle Claudius had killed his father Hamlet Sr. and had married his mother Gertrude, and comparing the shock to that of someone contemplating suicide. One interpretation is that Ophelia's death really is a suicide.▼
** ''[[Hamlet]]'' had three examples:
** Third example from ''Hamlet'' is Horatio, who attempts to die with Hamlet by drinking the remainder of the poisoned wine that killed Gertrude. Hamlet has to wrestle the chalice away from him and talk him into living. It's not the most inspiring speech, but it works.▼
▲***
** Also from [[Shakespeare]], in ''[[King Lear]]'', after Gloucester is blinded, he asks someone to take him to a cliff so he can jump off. The disguised Edgar takes him up on it, but tricks him into thinking he's at a cliff when really he's on a flat plain. It can be hard to direct; after all, if not pulled off correctly, the scene can just [[Incredibly Lame Pun|fall flat on its face]].▼
*** One interpretation is that Ophelia's death really is a suicide.
▲***
▲**
** ''[[Romeo and Juliet]]'' both kill themselves at the end, Romeo because he wanted to join Juliet in death (but tragically, he didn't know that Juliet was only [[Faking the Dead]] because the information that Friar Lawrence had intended for him never arrived), and Juliet because she wanted to join Romeo in death.
** Hell, most of Shakespeare's [[Tragic Hero]]es and villains qualify for this trope. Macbeth was one of the exceptions, as his death was in battle against Macduff rather than by his own hand. [[Lady Macbeth|His wife]], however, plays it straight after being driven mad by her own guilt.
* Four words: ''[[Death of a Salesman]]''.
* Happens a lot in opera too:
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* Ajax in ''[[The Golden Apple]]'' jumps out a window after squandering his friends' money by unwisely investing it in hemp.
* {{spoiler|Jason}} in bare: a pop opera. He's feeling so much angst about being gay, he got {{spoiler|Ivy}} pregnant, his friends have left him and when he asks Peter to run away with him, Peter refuses and says he can't hide anymore. The audience is left drowning in their own tears.
== Theme Parks ==
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* In ''[[Star Wars: The Clone Wars]]'', a Twi'lek slave, having failed to assassinate her master, leaps to her death rather than continue living as a slave.
* [[Evil Twin|Spider]]-[[Omnicidal Maniac|Carnage]] at the end of ''[[Spider-Man: The Animated Series]]''. Completely insane and aware that he cannot drive the symbiote off of him, he hurls himself into an unstable vortex and disintegrates. Horrifyingly, this was probably best for everyone involved, [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds|himself included]].
* Baby Doll from the ''[[Batman: The Animated Series]]'' episode of the same name. It isn't explicitly stated, but given the size of the blast caused by the explosive that she puts on the cake (which the disguised Robin fortunately manages to throw into the room behind them) it is clear her intent from the start was to kill every member of the cast of her old show, herself included. It makes perfect sense, [[Tragic Villain| as she saw her life as one big joke that she was the butt of]], not respected by anyone and full of self-loathing. It wouldn't be the last time either, she tries the same thing in her second appearance, "Love is a Croc", this time so far into the [[Despair Event Horizon]] that she wants to take ''all of Gotham'' with her. Fortunately, she does not succeed.
* In the bank "Bank Pranks" episode of ''[[Magilla Gorilla]]'' there was a [[Black Comedy]] joke where Mr. Peebles was so depressed, he tried to kill himself with his revolver. Fortunately for him, it had somehow been switched with Magilla's water pistol, and squirting himself in the face made him come to his senses. ''Unfortunately'', he wondered why that happened, and when Magilla looked in his toy chest, he found that he had the real gun... which ''naturally'' went off. He missed, but ''really'' made Peebles mad.
==
* Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side. Not too bad, until you realize that cars are on the road, and then you realize what the "other side" means.
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