Heroic Suicide: Difference between revisions

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.

 

 

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.

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]].

 

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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== [[Comic Books]] ==

* Hartigan from ''[[Sin City]]'' kills himself so that no one will hurt Nancy to get at him.

 

== [[Literature]] ==

 

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

* Al Gough on ''[[FlashForward]]'' learns that in the future an innocent woman will die due to his actions, so he jumps off a building so as to [[Screw Destiny]] so it can never happen.

* In ''[[Sherlock]]'' Moriarty invokes this by setting up Sherlock to be "exposed" as a fraud and telling him that if he doesn't commit suicide by jumping off a building, a group of assassins he's hired will kill his friends (Sherlock appears to jump, but he's revealed to still be alive at the very end). Also an inversion in that Moriarty shoots himself to prevent Sherlock from foiling his [[Evil Plan]] by forcing him to call the assassins off.

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

 

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