Heroic Suicide: Difference between revisions
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This trope is about situations where suicide becomes heroic. Say a character discovers that he is a [[Person of Mass Destruction]], a crucial part of an [[Evil Plan]], or the [[Big Bad]]'s [[Soul Jar]]. In such situations killing oneself may be the only way to save the day.
This is a specific sub-trope of [[Heroic Sacrifice]]. The difference is that in most [[Heroic Sacrifice]]s dying is merely an unfortunate by-product of a heroic act. In a Heroic Suicide, '''dying is the goal'''. Or, to put it another way, a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] engages in lethal activity even though it will get him killed. A '''
The clearest examples are when a character personally ''will become'' the threat that endangers others, and they have to kill themselves to prevent it. Any such situation ''definitely'' counts as a Heroic Suicide. Otherwise, it ''might'' count, but be careful.
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A good rule of thumb is that in most Heroic Suicides, the character's death is both ''necessary'' and ''sufficient'' to acomplising their immediate goal. That is to say, they can't accomplish their goal ''without'' dying, but ''how'' they die doesn't matter much. To elaborate:
* '''Necessity:''' Ask yourself if there's even a theoretical possibility that the character could accomplish their goal ''without'' dying. If there is, it's probably a regular [[Heroic Sacrifice]]. For example, say you [[Peter Pan|drink poison intended for someone else]], [[A Tale of Two Cities|trade places with a man on death row]], or [[Star Trek (film)|turn your spaceship into a guided missile]]. None of those qualify, because in each case your death is only a side-effect of what you are doing. The point is to prevent the other person from drinking the poison, buy time for the man to escape, or disable the enemy ship. You would still accomplish these goals even if you discovered you were miraculously immune to poison, received a last-minute pardon, or were beamed off your ship at the moment of impact. This trope only comes into play if the character ''has to'' die to accomplish their goal. Though [[Unexplained Recovery|that isn't to say their death will always be permanent]].
* '''Sufficiency:''' Ask yourself how important the ''circumstances'' are under which the person dies. Do they accomplish their goal just by dying, or does it matter what they were doing when they died? For example, say you get yourself killed diffusing a bomb. In that situation, it's stopping the bomb that makes your actions heroic, not the dying. You couldn't achieve the same goal just by, say, shooting yourself in the head. On the other hand, say you
Compare [[Thanatos Gambit]], [[My Death Is Just the Beginning]], [[Seppuku]], and [[Better to Die Than Be Killed]]. Often overlaps with [[Cyanide Pill]] which could be considered a sub-trope (examples go there, not here).
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{{examples}}
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* Hartigan from ''[[Sin City]]'' kills himself so that no one will hurt Nancy to get at him.
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== [[Literature]] ==
* In ''[[Harry Potter and
== [[Live
* Dawn tries to pull one of these in the fifth season finale of ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'', when she realises that [[It Makes Sense in Context|a gateway to hell can only be closed if her blood stops flowing]]. She is saved when Buffy realises [[Take a Third Option|she can achieve the same effect by killing herself in Dawn's place]]. Buffy's sacrifice could thus also be thought of as an example.
* ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]''
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* On ''[[Angel]]'' Darla (a vampire) stakes herself so that her and Angel's 100% human son can be born.
* In the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' episode "The Waters of Mars", the Doctor changes history to rescue someone doomed to die, which causes him to go totally [[A God Am I]] with megalomania. His rescuee kills herself in order to stop him, after which he snaps out of it.
*
* In ''[[Sherlock]]'' Moriarty invokes this
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* In [[DuckTales (2017)|the 2017 reboot of ''DuckTales'']], a bunch of L'il Bulbs were acting like radios. One of them was captured and the message continued to come out of it. It struggled to escape, and when that failed, it killed itself before any sensitive information was heard by its captor.
== [[Video Games]] ==
* In the ''[[Soul Series]]'', this is Ivy Valentine's end game. Her goal is to eradicate any and all traces of Soul Edge's evil influence, which means hunting down and slaying everyone with its taint - this means she herself will have to die eventually. Canon-wise, she's not yet close enough to her goal worry about it, and has not said how she plans to do so, although one can assume she'll save it for last.
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