Fate Worse Than Death: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"Those who break the rules shall be subjected to a fate worse than death."''

|'''Freed Justine''' from ''[[Fairy Tail]]''}}

 

{{examples}}

* Another ironic punishment: the greedy, thoroughly evil and immortal Gemma from ''[[Ninja Scroll]]'' gets encased in gold and sunk to the bottom of the pacific ocean—where he'll presumably remain, conscious and immobile forever.

* The ultimate fate of {{spoiler|Father}} in ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' is heavily implied to be this. {{spoiler|Having been defeated and Truth freed, he is dragged into the Gate of Truth, begging that he not be sent back in there}}. He is last seen screaming in terror.

* The Weapon-X program that [[Wolverine]] was subjected to where admantium was bonded to his skeleton. How this procedure worked is not detailed much and is often subject to [[Retcon]], but whatever the case, he considers it to be this, and does not wish it upon any other, to the point where he made a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] to save three kids from experiencing it. (He got better later.)

** In fact, one could argue Wolverine’s ''entire life'' (which, incidentally, has been far longer than that of most humans due to his mutant genes; he is over a hundred years old in current continuity) has been a hellish Fate Worse than Death. [[Spider-Man]] has endured the deaths of many of his family and friends, Bruce Banner is cursed with [[The Hulk| a monstrous alter ego with uncontrollable rage]], and [[Batman]] has lived with survivor's guilt over his parents’ deaths, but all of them are living an endless birthday party compared to Wolverine. [[Amnesiac Hero| Losing his memory]] during the Weapon-X fiasco seemed like a blessing when he recovered those memories; when his mutant powers first manifested, he [[Self-Made Orphan|accidentally killed his father]], an act that [[Driven to Suicide|drove his mother to suicide]]. Shortly after, he accidentally killed Rose, the first woman he loved. The Weapon-X program turned him into a mindless, feral beast, and while his time with the X-Men helped him recover, it only got worse. He’s been crucified, nuked, had the adamantium ripped out of him by Magento, and ripped in half and had some of his flesh eaten by the Hulk. His enemies have tormented him by kidnapping his teammates, murdering his loved ones, brainwashing his son, turning his clone into a killing machine, and tricked him into slaughtering his teammates and his own family. (And ''that'' is all just in mainstream Marvel, never mind alternate reality versions.) All while being the target of bigotry and hatred all mutants are subject to. While some consider Wolvie to be a violent sociopath, one has to wonder just how [[Heroic Willpower|he managed to stay as sane as he has]].

 

== [[Fan Works]] ==

* By the end of ''[[Cube|Cube Zero]]'', staying in or around the cube becomes this to Wynn. He actually tries to get himself executed by making it clear that he chooses death over the cube, but he doesn't get a choice in the matter - he already waived this right a long time ago, which he simply doesn't remember. He's lobotomized by the villains and thrown back in.

* At the End of [[Coco]], Ernesto Del la Cruz is exposed as a fraud and a murderer and left hated in both the Land of the Living and the Land of the Dead. Even if he gets out of the bell, he won't be welcomed anywhere unless his mansion is still standing and even then he'll have nobody to admire or respect him. And because of his movies and his role in Hector's death, he'll be remembered for a long time in the Land of the Living so he won't even experience the [[Final Death]] to end his suffering for a very long time. And even when he does finally fade away, [[Word of God]] says there's a place souls go to after the Final Death so it's a good guess where he'll end up.

 

== [[Literature]] ==

* In ''[[The Malazan Book of the Fallen]]'', getting stuck in Anomander Rake's sword is the definition of this Trope. You spend eternity pulling a giant wagon while being pursued by a storm of pure chaos. No breaks, no mercy. Insanity is for the lucky. Until it gets broken, screwing with everything. That's how many people were trapped in it, some for more than 300 000 years.

* Dementors in ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'' have the power to steal a person's soul (via a sort-of [[Kiss of Death]]) without killing them, turning them into an empty shell forever. [[Word of God]] has it that they're an allegorical monster representing clinical depression.

{{quote|"I hope you're pleased with yourselves. We could all have been killed — or worse, expelled."}}

:: Considering that those expelled from Hogwarts have their wands broken and are forbidden to use magic in a world where magic-users rule and those without it (Squibs/Muggles) are treated as second-class ''at best'', and the best possible outcome is re-integrating into Muggle Society all the while *knowing* that there's a magic world that you can never access again...Hermione likely has the right of it.

** Aside from [[Cold-Blooded Torture|agonizing pain]], overuse of the Cruciatus curse can lead to ''severe'' psychological trauma. The Aurors Frank and Alice Longbottom, Neville's parents, were driven permanently and irretrievably insane by prolonged exposure to Cruciatus.

** Though he doesn't experience this trope directly, it's eventually learned that Voldemort's greatest weakness is that he cannot conceive of a worse fate than death, meaning his obsession with becoming immortal renders him vulnerable to other, equally or more unpleasant fates; {{spoiler|see the "King's Cross" chapter of ''Deathly Hallows'' for the one that he fell prey to after his death.}} At the end of the fifth book, Dumbledore fires a very powerful spell. It is blocked, and we never see what it does, but when Voldemort mocks Dumbledore for not seeking to kill him, Dumbledore merely responds, "We both know there are other ways of destroying a man, [[First-Name Basis|Tom]]." This is [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] by Harry Potter himself... [[Wise Beyond Their Years|in the first book.]] "If you're going to be cursed forever, death's better, isn't it?"

* ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'': When Jaime thinks a prisoner is lying to him, he mentions, "We have oubliettes beneath the Casterly Rock that fit a man as tight as a suit of armor. You can’t turn in them, or sit, or reach down to your feet when the rats start gnawing at your toes. Would you care to reconsider that answer?”

** What's become of {{spoiler|Theon Greyjoy}} in ''[[A Dance With Dragons]].'' Could also be a case of [[Be Careful What You Wish For]] for the fans: how many of them wanted to {{spoiler|see Theon suffer horribly after he sacked Winterfell and murdered two children to trick Westeros into thinking he's killed Bran and Rickon Stark}}.

* Jean-Paul Satre's ''[[No Exit]]'' sticks three unrelated individuals in a room without [[Title Drop|any means of escape.]] They are {{spoiler|not only dead, but each has a personality that psychologically leaves another feeling tortured while being capable of torturing another his/herself. Hence, they will drive each other mad for all eternity.}}

* In the ''[[Dragonlance]]'' novel 'Dragons of Spring Dawning' after [[Dark Action Girl]] Kitiara finally captures her romantic rival, Laurana, she decides to {{spoiler|torture Laurana to death and then have her soul given to the [[Black Knight|Death Knight]], Lord Soth, so the innocent Laurana will suffer in undeath for all eternity}}.

* Dematerialisation (the process of having your physical body destroyed while within the Twilight, either as a consequence of being killed within it or spending too long in it so that it drains all of your energy) in the ''[[Night Watch]]'' series is implied to be worse than regular death. Whereas the Others are unsure of what becomes of regular humans after death, they do know that dematerilised Others are forced to linger in the Twilight as impotent and possibly mindless shades, and meeting such a shade is traditionally accompanied by wishing that they may eventually find peace. The "worse than death" part comes from the fact that a sentence of being hanged is considered preferable to dematerialisation, implying that Others killed through regular means don't linger in the Twilight, and that this is considered better. [[Nightmare Fuel|And since it appears that all Others can live practically forever without succumbing to age or disease, and are virtually immune to natural weapons, that the ultimate fate of all of them is to dematerialise.]]

* Harlan Coben novel ''Gone For Good'' features an ex-pimp named Louis Castman; when hearing that one of his girls is going to run away and elope with a client she has fallen in love with, he brutally disfigures her (and as repeatedly mentioned, [[Squick|not just her face]]) so that her fiance won't want to be with her anymore. It works, but before the guy sees the poor girl he shoots Castman in the spine, rendering him unable to move anything below his neck. The girl, now broken and miserable, keeps Castman alive for as long as possible in a room sealed with cork, with nothing to do ''at all'', just stare at pictures of her when she was pretty. He comes to wait longingly for ex-girls of his to come over and humiliate him, because it's better than lying immobilized in a cot and soiling yourself, with no one to hear you scream.

* Or rather 'undeath' in [[The Witch Watch]]'s case. An abomination could have there head cut off and buried underground and you 'could dig his head up today and still find him screaming for release.'

** Also the people who crossed Lord Mordaunt were also threatened with a fate worse than death.

 

== [[Live-Action TV]] ==

** In "The Family of Blood", all four of the eponymous family are inflicted with a custom-made version of this trope, in the process learning why you never, ever, ''ever'' [[Beware the Nice Ones|make the Doctor mad]].

** "Planet of the Ood" has a ruthless CEO personally market the peaceful, squid-like Ood as slaves worldwide. The CEO's fate? {{spoiler|He gets turned into one of the very creatures he's been mistreating}}.

* In the ''[[Torchwood]]'' episode ''Children of Earth'', Jack got {{spoiler|trapped in cement}} until his boy toy came to the rescue. Then the show proceeds to painfully remind us why [[Who Wants to Live Forever?|being immortal sucks]]. Like {{spoiler|watching your love die in his arms, knowing he himself can never die permanently}}. Really, this show has worked hard to assure viewers that Jack's brand of immortality would be utterly ''agonizing''.

** Before his {{spoiler|entombment}}, Jack underwent the prolonged and (judging from the screams) extremely painful process of {{spoiler|regrowing his body}} after being {{spoiler|blown up by a bomb implanted in his lower torso}}. [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] when a witness to this resurrection comments that he'd have been better off staying dead.

* Discussed in ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'', as noted in the page quote. Wilson notes that a Fate Worse Than Death for House would be the loss of his rational faculties.

* On [[The Vampire Diaries]], vampires mummify when deprived of blood for an extended period of time, but until that happens they are in an extreme state of hunger and agony.

* In the movie ''[[Star Trek: Nemesis]]'', Data is believed to have been killed, [[Heroic Sacrifice| sacrificing himself to save the rest of the crew]], but in ''[[Star Trek: Picard]]'', it is revealed that, while his body was destroyed, his consciousness has been downloaded into a quantum simulation crafted by Maddox, meaning that for years, he's been completely alone and [[I Cannot Self-Terminate| unable to shut the program down]]. Eventually, when Picard himself dies (his mind transferred to a golem created by Dr. Altan Soong) he finally meets his old friend and the two have a brief time to talk and reminisce. Unfortunately, that's all they can do, and Data pleads with Picard to terminate the simulation on his way out. [[Mercy Kill| Which Picard sadly does.]]

* ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' zigzags this in the episode "Deja Q", where Q is punished by the Q-Continuum for his irresponsibility by having to live one day as a mortal. Q does not consider ''this'' to be "worse than death", but being mortal means he could actually die, something he is ''terrified'' of. In fact, they let him choose what form he had to spend the day as (so long as it was mortal) and he chose human because he felt he'd be safe on ''The Enterprise'' with humans he was familiar with.

* Oran's speech to the defeated scumbag Mars in Chapter 19 Act 3: "I have seen you scum--staked to the ground at night--belly and manhood split wide, wailing as jagged beaks tear and peck--as a million insect jaws carve the pulp. And when morning comes, I am standing over your seeping husk. You cannot turn from the horror. You cannot stop the rising sun that burns you into blindness. You cannot close your eyes... '''''for I am feasting on their lids.'''''

** The best part is that Raimi immediately chimes in afterward, saying that would be too kind. What does ''he'' have to say to Mars? See the ''[[Broken Saints]]'' entry in [[Prison Rape]].

* The [[SCP Foundation]] uses this quite a lot. For example: [http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-145 SCP-145].

** [http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-231 SCP-231-7] is ''legendary'' for its use of this trope, not only for the victim herself but for those ''forced to keep her alive'', as allowing her to die would probably lead to [[The End of the World as We Know It]]. Not to mention the operatives who have to administer the treatment; ''nobody'' who has done so has ''not'' wanted amnesiac treatment afterwards.

* ''[[Buzz Lightyear of Star Command]]'' has this trope parodied when Zurg tried to hit Buzz with a hyper death ray to give Buzz a fate "worse than death: hyper-death".

* Discord of ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic]]'', as punishment for [[The Dark Times]] he inflicted on Equestria, was turned into [[Taken for Granite|an immobile stone statue]] for more than one thousand years. [[Angst? What Angst?|He didn't seem to mind much]], but it is ''very'' telling that two of the literal handful of times he loses his cool was insulting Celestia for her part in his imprisonment ("It's quite lonely being imprisoned in stone, but you wouldn't know that, would you, because ''I don't turn ponies into stone''."), and then later {{spoiler|when he's turned back into stone and his facial expression is one of unrestrained horror.}}

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Index of Exact Trope Titles]]

[[Category:Undead Index]]

[[Category:Older Than Dirt]]