Rasputinian Death: Difference between revisions

'''Ray''': He didn't die of old age, either. He was poisoned, stabbed, shot, hung, stretched, disemboweled, drawn and quartered.

'''Peter Venkman''': Ouch. }}

 

== Literature ==

* The movie version of ''[[The Lord of the Rings (film)|The Lord of the Rings]]'' was Boromir's ''less'' bad-ass [[The Last Dance|last dance]]. In [[The Lord of the Rings|the book]], Aragorn never arrived to "save" him: Boromir defeated ''dozens'' of Uruk-hai on his own before going down, with many of them shooting at him instead of just one. And there are none left standing by the time Aragorn and the others reach him. Of course, the actual scene isn't written; we just see the aftermath. Fits the trope even more in that Boromir's shield and sword were broken to pieces by the time the fight ended, indicating truly brutal melee combat amidst being shot full of arrows.

** The animated version is this trope plays it straight like the book,except we can see it happen. Four arrows land in his chest and he just pulls them out and hacks away until the exact same thing happens,by the end he is bleeding all over and pinned to the tree by the arrows

* Arhys in [[Lois McMaster Bujold]]'s ''Paladin of Souls'' is actually dead when the book starts, but doesn't realize it (he's being sustained by magic being done by his young wife). The climax involves him riding out on a suicidal mission sustained by an amped-up version of the same spell, over the course of which he suffers several more fatal wounds and is eventually chopped to pieces.

* One standard [[Our Vampires Are Different|version of vampire lore]] (dating back at least to ''[[Dracula (novel)|Dracula]]'') says that, to kill a vampire, you need to stake him through the heart ''and'' chop his head off (not to mention filling his mouth with garlic/holy wafers). And sometimes burn the body to ashes and toss said ashes into a fast-flowing river. And in at least one version of the lore, even when all the steps are taken it wasn't really dead. A drop of blood on the ashes would reform it—stopped only by the fact that the ashes are scattered too widely.

*** The [[All There in the Manual|Assassins' Guild Diary]] cites the case of Duke Harold of Pseudopolis, whose assassin resorted to a cudgel, length of chain, pistol crossbow, dagger, poison, and ultimately to attaching the man to an anchor, chopping a hole in a frozen river's ice, and pushing him in. The Duke ''did'' die, but three months later, of a chill he caught from the frigid dunking.

* In ''The Robber Bride'' by Margaret Atwood, it takes cancer, a heroin overdose, and falling six stories to finally kill Zenia. Even then it's debatable—Zenia's defining trait is her ability to convince people of things that aren't remotely true, and she'd already faked her own death once by the beginning of the book.

* [[Sven Hassel]]'s WW2 novels. Whenever Porta and his gang from the 27th Penal Regiment decide to murder someone, there inevitably follows an entire chapter of bungled attempts which end in the victim either dying by accident or just going insane.

* In the ''[[Kalevala]]'', Untamo tries to murder Kullervo, a young boy, without much success. First, Kullervo is put inside a barrel which is thrown into the ocean, but when Untamo returns three days later, he finds Kullervo alive, fishing. Next, Untamo orders the construction of a pyre and attempts to burn Kullervo - the pyre burns for several days without Kullervo getting hurt at all. Untamo attempts to hang Kullervo, but Kullervo survives this as well.

* English folklore states that a wizard must be killed three times before they die for good. Prescribed methods are generally stabbing, impaling, and then drowning.

** Likewise, Sauron and Gandalf are ''really'' hard to kill. Sauron got thrashed by a divine hound in ''The Silmarillion'', then later drowned in the Fall of Numenor, and even later was physically slain by Isildur. He didn't die for good until his Ring got dropped into Mount Doom 3,000 years later. Gandalf, for his part, survived a three-round duel with a Balrog, including a long fall, the Balrog's flames, and freezing deep water, and still wouldn't die until he chased the demon from the bottom of the earth to the highest mountain peak, and killed it. Then he collapsed of exhaustion ... but got sent back to finish his job.

* As with wizards above, some folklores have it that [[Our Vampires Are Different|vampires]] must be killed multiple times for it to stick. To start with, you behead the corpse and stake it to the coffin so that it can't rise. If you want to go the extra mile, you can bury it [[At the Crossroads|under a crossroads]] (the idea is that the traffic keeps the ground compacted, plus the bonus effect of being buried ''in'' a cross) or [[Kill It with Fire|burn it]].

** ''Attempted'' on [[Made of Iron|Joshua]] [[Implacable Man|Graham]], or as he's better known, [[Shrouded in Myth|the Burned Man]]. He survives (among other things) a hanging and at least five .308 rounds from NCR snipers on different occasions. Then, having [[You Have Failed Me...|failed Caesar and the Legion]] at the Battle of Hoover Dam, he's covered in pitch, lit on fire, and thrown into the Grand Canyon. ''It doesn't work''.

** Even Graham is absolutely nothing compared to Frank Horrigan, the Enclave's walking super weapon from Fallout 2. The only real way for the player to inflict decent damage on him is to repeatedly shoot him in the eyes with the [[Infinity+1 Sword|Gauss rifle]], while up to five of your companions also unload their weapons him. This will usually fail. However, you can also reprogram the seven minigun turrets in the room and convince a squad of four Enclave soldiers armed with the most powerful guns in the game to help you. Meaning Frank's death will almost certainly consist of nineteen targets firing on him simultaneously with the most powerful weapons in the entire game until ''finally'' he goes down, likely after being shot thousands of times. Apparently, ''this isn't enough''. So he gets shot more, torn apart, and finally ''nuked'', with whatever's left of him sinking to the bottom of the ocean.

* In ''[[Haunting Ground]]'', {{spoiler|Lorenzo}}, the game's final boss, is put through a rock crusher, thrown into a pit of lava, ''comes back as a flaming skeleton'', before finally disintegrating into dust. Not to mention all of the previous times you could have [[Kick the Son of a Bitch|kicked him]], laid traps for him, or [[Pet Interface|sicked the dog on him]].

* Ganondorf in ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess|Twilight Princess]]'': it takes four phases to take this guy down. First he [[Demonic Possession|possesses]] Zelda, gets [[Beat the Curse Out of Him|beaten out of her]], transforms into [[One-Winged Angel|Ganon]] recieves another beating from Link. Midna then uses the [[MacGuffin|Fused Shadows]] on him, after predictably surviving that, gets his [[Annoying Arrows|body filled with light arrows]], falls off his horse (which looked rather painful as well) gets in a rather [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|awesome sword fight with Link]] which ends with him getting stabbed through the chest with the Master Sword. Then he ''stands up'', gives his [[Famous Last Words|last]] [[As Long as There Is Evil|words]] gets the Triforce of Power taken from him (which had been keeping him alive through this) we then see (the dead) Zant break his own neck ([[Mind Screw|for no explained reason]]) After which Ganondorf eventually dies. {{spoiler|He is ''still'' standing.}}

* Really, just about every RPG end boss that goes through multiple forms before finally going down (read: almost all of them) qualifies for this trope.

 

== Web Comics ==